Paul Goble
Staunton, November 7 – The imam of Moscow’s Memorial Mosque says that those attending his religious center are increasingly diverse in ethnic terms but that particularly in the case of indigenous Muslims, religious identity is far more important than nationality, something that largely eliminates any ethnic tensions among them.
That is a summation of the many observations Shamil Alyautdinov made during an extended and highly unusual interview he gave to S.V. Ryzhkova, an expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Center of Ethnic Sociology (www.umma.ru/interviews/5036-intervyu-sh-alyautdinova-dlya-czentra-etnicheskoj-socziologii-ran).
According to the imam, “for the indigenous Muslim population of Russia, the religious factor is much more a rallying identity than it was,” while nationality in contrast “over the last 15 years has experienced a declining influence.” Those new arrivals identify with nationality and Islam “at approximately the same level.”
At the present time, Alyautdinov said, “parishioners at the Memorial Mosque on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow [include] Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Chechens, Ingush, Koreans, Avars, Dargins, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Jews, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and others” as well.
During his 13 years at the mosque, however, the imam said that he “never divided people into the categories of Russian and non-Russian. For me,” he continued, “there are Muscovites and guests of the capital, citizens of Russia and those who have come from abroad.” And he has maintained that approach despite the influx of people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The imam said that “despite this ethnic diversity, the probability of tense relations in the Muslim milieu of Moscow is extremely low, in contrast to the situation of the city more generall where under the influence of the mass media, the probability of conflicts on an inter-ethnic basis is somewhat higher.”
But because Muslims are also members of different ethnic groups, he continued, there is the possibility that there could be ethnic clashes among them, something that can be avoided if the Muslims from abroad are integrated into the umma of Russian believers rather than treated, as the Russian media often do as “not ours.”
One of the reasons why the Moscow umma can be so multi-ethnic, the imam said, is that “95 percent of the services in the capital’s mosques are [now] conducted in Russia, the language which the majority speak and understand.” That is a major change from Soviet times when services were held “only in Tatar.”
Given the positive integrative role that such mosques can play, Alyautdinov said, it is important that more be build, “whither people can come and listen to sermons in Russian.” In that way, the arrivals, both Russian Federation citizens from the North Caucasus and Muslims from Central Asia and the South Caucasus, will feel more at home.
Asked about the presence of Shiite Azerbaijanis in Moscow, the imam responded that “not all Azerbaijanis follow the Shiite tradition.” Moreover, he said, “the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is not large. In [his] mosque, there are Shiite Muslims” and “they feel themselves quite comfortable and fulfill the rituals together with us.”
Unfortunately, Alyautdinov said, the positive message of the mosque is often overwhelmed by the anti-Muslim and anti-non-Russian approach of the Moscow media, which appear to believe that if these groups are criticized enough, “they will russify themselves and accept Christianity, a utopian view and an extremely short-sighted policy.”
At the same time, the imam acknowledged that some of the arrivals who come from abroad do keep to themselves “in order in the first instance to preserve their culture, language, and customs.” But it is important to remember that most of them “do not intend to remain in Moscow for long.”
“There is not particular necessity to enlighten non-Muslims about Islam,” he said. But “there is a great need at the state level to declare more often that Russia is not an Orthodox but a multi-confessional state and that Russia is not for the ethnic Russians but for all the peoples who have been living hundreds and thousands of years in its current borders.”
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Governors Ignoring Numerically Small Peoples, Medvedev Told
Paul Goble
Staunton, November 7 – The Russian Federation Social Chamber has sent an appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev detailing violations of the rights of numerically small peoples in the regions and seeking a meeting to talk about the neglect some but not all governors show toward these indigenous nationalities.
Pavel Sulyandziga, a member of the Chamber and head of its working group for the development of Siberia and the Far East, noted in this message to Medvedev that “in the Russian state there exists a kind of present-day serfdom in relation to the indigenous peoples when there hunting and fishing areas are handed over to commercial companies.”
In addition the appeal to the Russian president specified that “bureaucrats from the Ministry of Regional Affairs are not able to influence this [process of destroying the livelihoods of these traditional peoples’ because they are un-professional” and often do not understand what is at stake.
Sulyandziga told the Regions Club that he intends to ask the president to focus his attention “on the relations of the heads of Russian Federation subjects to the problems of indigenous peoples,” especially in Buryatia, the Transbaikal kray and Primorsky kray (club-rf.ru/r41/news/17195/).
Although Sulyandziga did not say so, he clearly hopes that Medvedev will add treatment of ethnic minorities to the list of policy areas on which governors are evaluated before they are re-nominated. And if he succeeds in doing so, that will have an impact far beyond the areas where the numerically small peoples of the North live.
The Social Chamber’s efforts in this direction, however, appear unlikely to be successful because the economic forces that governors are typically beholden to are far more influential. But in taking this high-profile step, Sulyandziga may also hope to link his concerns with those of environmental activists who also would like to see their issue be added to the evaluation list.
Staunton, November 7 – The Russian Federation Social Chamber has sent an appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev detailing violations of the rights of numerically small peoples in the regions and seeking a meeting to talk about the neglect some but not all governors show toward these indigenous nationalities.
Pavel Sulyandziga, a member of the Chamber and head of its working group for the development of Siberia and the Far East, noted in this message to Medvedev that “in the Russian state there exists a kind of present-day serfdom in relation to the indigenous peoples when there hunting and fishing areas are handed over to commercial companies.”
In addition the appeal to the Russian president specified that “bureaucrats from the Ministry of Regional Affairs are not able to influence this [process of destroying the livelihoods of these traditional peoples’ because they are un-professional” and often do not understand what is at stake.
Sulyandziga told the Regions Club that he intends to ask the president to focus his attention “on the relations of the heads of Russian Federation subjects to the problems of indigenous peoples,” especially in Buryatia, the Transbaikal kray and Primorsky kray (club-rf.ru/r41/news/17195/).
Although Sulyandziga did not say so, he clearly hopes that Medvedev will add treatment of ethnic minorities to the list of policy areas on which governors are evaluated before they are re-nominated. And if he succeeds in doing so, that will have an impact far beyond the areas where the numerically small peoples of the North live.
The Social Chamber’s efforts in this direction, however, appear unlikely to be successful because the economic forces that governors are typically beholden to are far more influential. But in taking this high-profile step, Sulyandziga may also hope to link his concerns with those of environmental activists who also would like to see their issue be added to the evaluation list.
Window on Eurasia: Daghestan Commission to Help Ex-Militants Re-Enter Peaceful Life
Paul Goble
Staunton, November 7 – Daghestani President Magomedsalam Magomedov has ordered the creation of a special commission to help support “the adaptation to peaceful life” by individuals who have “decided to end their terrorist and extremist activity on the territory” of his republic.
Given reports that more Daghestanis are joining the militants than leaving them in recent months, Magomedov’s proposals appears to have been offered more in the hopes of attracting positive attention from Moscow than of meeting a genuine need in that most unsettled North Caucasus republic (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=3692).
But however that may be, the commission has already been formed. It includes, the secretary of the Daghestani Security Council, the chief federal inspector for Daghestan from the apparatus of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Russian president to the North Caucasus federal district, the ombudsman, heads of ministries and force structures, and religious leaders.
So far, however, the mechanisms that this commission will use “are still not clear.” The republic ombudsman, Ummupazil Omarova said that a special commission is working on this right now because it is so important to “begin dialogue with those who remain in the ranks of the extremists but have not yet been able to commit crimes.”
For such people, she said, “the state must give corresponding guarantees,” and these guarantees must be made a matter of law. Some steps in this direction were taken in 2003-2006 when the Russian Duma declared an amnesty for militants in Daghestan which was then part of the Southern Federal District.
According to Abdurashid Magomedov, the republic interior minister, “the creation of such a commission is a timely and correct decision of the leadership of the republic in the existing situation,” and he said that the force structures will do everything they can to provide “technical support” for its work.
But Makhachkala commentators have already noted that there are only two religious leaders on the commission – Imam Magomedrasul Saaduyev of Makhachkala’s Central Mosque and Abas Kebedov, a representative of the Akhlsunna-va-Dzhamma, who is “considered one of the ideologues of Wahhabism in Daghestan.”
But if Kebedov was chosen for his expertise, he still has not had a chance to give it. He told the media, that “he still had no recommendations on the question of adaptation because there had not been a single working meeting and therefore to say something [about what this commission could or should do] is premature and complicated.”
Kebedov’s concerns that this latest proposal will result in much of anything positive were echoed by Ziyautdin Uvaysov, a prominent Daghestani lawyer and member of the Akhlyu-s-sunna Daghestan organization, in an extensive interview posted on line this weekend (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=3672).
Uvaysov who has dealt with the regime and with the various parts of the Muslim community in Daghestan acknowledges that “the relationship of the powers that be to Islam is changing” and that the latter “are seeking to find a common language with those Muslims who identify themselves as Salafi,” the trend that is often associated with radicalism.
But despite this desire to find “a common language,” the lawyer continues, the impression exists that “the bureaucracy has not gone very far into the essence of the problem, that it still is a capture of definite stereotypes, misconceptions and the opinions of not very competent experts.”
That explains why the regime seems to move from one extreme to another in its dealings with Muslims, a pattern that does not inspire either confidence or trust and one that makes it likely that few of those among the militants are likely to heed the call of the new commission, however much hope the Daghestani powers that be invest in it.
Staunton, November 7 – Daghestani President Magomedsalam Magomedov has ordered the creation of a special commission to help support “the adaptation to peaceful life” by individuals who have “decided to end their terrorist and extremist activity on the territory” of his republic.
Given reports that more Daghestanis are joining the militants than leaving them in recent months, Magomedov’s proposals appears to have been offered more in the hopes of attracting positive attention from Moscow than of meeting a genuine need in that most unsettled North Caucasus republic (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=3692).
But however that may be, the commission has already been formed. It includes, the secretary of the Daghestani Security Council, the chief federal inspector for Daghestan from the apparatus of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Russian president to the North Caucasus federal district, the ombudsman, heads of ministries and force structures, and religious leaders.
So far, however, the mechanisms that this commission will use “are still not clear.” The republic ombudsman, Ummupazil Omarova said that a special commission is working on this right now because it is so important to “begin dialogue with those who remain in the ranks of the extremists but have not yet been able to commit crimes.”
For such people, she said, “the state must give corresponding guarantees,” and these guarantees must be made a matter of law. Some steps in this direction were taken in 2003-2006 when the Russian Duma declared an amnesty for militants in Daghestan which was then part of the Southern Federal District.
According to Abdurashid Magomedov, the republic interior minister, “the creation of such a commission is a timely and correct decision of the leadership of the republic in the existing situation,” and he said that the force structures will do everything they can to provide “technical support” for its work.
But Makhachkala commentators have already noted that there are only two religious leaders on the commission – Imam Magomedrasul Saaduyev of Makhachkala’s Central Mosque and Abas Kebedov, a representative of the Akhlsunna-va-Dzhamma, who is “considered one of the ideologues of Wahhabism in Daghestan.”
But if Kebedov was chosen for his expertise, he still has not had a chance to give it. He told the media, that “he still had no recommendations on the question of adaptation because there had not been a single working meeting and therefore to say something [about what this commission could or should do] is premature and complicated.”
Kebedov’s concerns that this latest proposal will result in much of anything positive were echoed by Ziyautdin Uvaysov, a prominent Daghestani lawyer and member of the Akhlyu-s-sunna Daghestan organization, in an extensive interview posted on line this weekend (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=3672).
Uvaysov who has dealt with the regime and with the various parts of the Muslim community in Daghestan acknowledges that “the relationship of the powers that be to Islam is changing” and that the latter “are seeking to find a common language with those Muslims who identify themselves as Salafi,” the trend that is often associated with radicalism.
But despite this desire to find “a common language,” the lawyer continues, the impression exists that “the bureaucracy has not gone very far into the essence of the problem, that it still is a capture of definite stereotypes, misconceptions and the opinions of not very competent experts.”
That explains why the regime seems to move from one extreme to another in its dealings with Muslims, a pattern that does not inspire either confidence or trust and one that makes it likely that few of those among the militants are likely to heed the call of the new commission, however much hope the Daghestani powers that be invest in it.
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