Paul Goble
Staunton, April 15 – Religious leaders, heraldry experts, and other commentators have rejected Mufti Talgat Tajuddin’s call for putting a cresent on the coat of arms of Russia, but a senior official in the Moscow Patriarchate has opened the way for more controversy by suggesting a Muslim crescent could be put on the coats of arms of Muslim republics and regions.
That is because the suggestion of Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Patriarchate’s Department for Relations between Church and Society, could open the floodgates by demands from Muslims in various parts of Russia for just such representation and create a checkerboard of Muslim regions as opposed to non-Muslim ones.
And the symbolism of such an obvious division – and it would certainly change over time – would undercut efforts by Moscow to overcome inter-religious hostility and promote a common national identity and could reignite calls by some Muslim leaders to create Muslim political parties, something not now allowed by Russian law, to press for crescents.
In a statement to the media today, Chaplin, who is a close protégé of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, spoke out against Tajuddin’s proposal to put a Muslim crescent on on of the equals on the coast of arms of Russia, arguing that such a change was unnecessary given the tradition the current shield with crosses reflects (www.nr2.ru/society/328369.html).
“That historical form of the Russian coat of arms,” Chaplin said, “which has existed already for many centuries is historically justified. Islam is a local phenomenon for Russia [as] it is distributed as the dominating religion in particular regions. On the coats of arms of these regions may be both crescents and other Islamic symbols.”
“But on the Russian coat of arms, a cross has been present on the crowns over many centuries,” the Patriarchate official continued, adding that in his view “it is not necessary to change anything” at least for this symbol of the Russian Federation and its centuries-old traditions.
Chaplin’s remarks came in reaction to a proposal Talgat Tajuddin, who has occasionally styled himself as the “Mufti of Holy Russia” and head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), made in the course of an interview published in “Moskovskiye novosti” earlier today (mn.ru/newspaper_freetime/20110415/301066658.html).
Tajuddin, who has a reputation for flamboyance, told the paper’s Elena Suponina that he had sent his proposal to replkace on of the crosses on the Russian coat of arms with a Muslim crescent moon to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and had discussed it with President Dmitry Medvedev.
As the mufti pointed out, “the Russian coat of arms is a two-headed equal. All three crowns of this eagle – two on the head and one inbetween above them are marked with crosses. But in Russia there live 20 million Muslims. This is 18 percent of the population, and we are Russian Muslims, not from Saudi Arabia … Africa or the moon.”
“Our ancestors have lived here for millennia. By the will of the Most High we are united in a state. And a neighbor is equal to a brother. We are a constituent part of a single state. But then, where must a Muslim carry his passport on which the coat of arms is reproduced? In his left pocket, of course, near the heart!”
Prior to 1917, Tajuddin continued, “Muslims in the army gave their oath on the Koran. There were regimental mullahs andimams. They were assigned by spiritual administrations. During the war with Turkey, our ancestors did nto consider they were fighting against Muslims: they were defending their motherland, great Russia.”
“Recall the heroism of the Bashkir cavalry in 1812,” Tajuddin said; “they went into attack first. And in 1945, for example, my grandfather advanced to Berlin.”
“In Russia has been achieved a synthesis of a kind that never was in Europe or America,” the mufti continued. Here met East and West. In order that this patriotism not disappear among our children and grandchildren, we humbly ask to introduce certain changes in the coat o farms of our common land.”
Specially, he said, “we ask that one head of the eagle be crowned with a crescent moon and the other with an Orthodox cross. And that crown which is in the middle be both. Then not one enemy will be able to use the religious factor to harm the unity and integrity of our fatherland.”
In response, Russia’s master of heralds rejected this idea (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40352) as did many Muslims (echo.msk.ru/news/766358-echo.html), Jews (www.argumenti.ru/society/2011/04/102414), and representatives of the human rights community (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40350).
That united front of rejection makes Chaplin’s remark all the more curious – and at least potentially all the more dangerous, even though it may be walked back by other Orthodox hierarchs or used by them to suggest that the Moscow Patriarchate is, on this issue at least, more liberal and tolerant than many suspect.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Absent Modernization, Russia Faces Massive Brain Drain and Exodus of Business, Kremlin Advisor Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 15 – If modernization does not take place over the next few years, a senior Kremlin advisor says, Russia will suffer a massive “brain drain” and the departure of much of its businesses, the largest to the West and the small and mid-sized to Kazakhstan, leaving it an “uninteresting” bridge between China and Europe.
But despite that prospect, Aleksandr Auzan, a member of the Presidential commission on modernization and technological development of the economy of Russia, concludes sadly, the possibility that Russia will choose to modernize is relatively small, a reflection of short-term thinking and confusion between inertia and stability (www.nr2.ru/chel/328413.html).
Auzan, a professor at Moscow State University, says that this brain drain is already starting: “half of his students, elite specialists, are leaving to work abroad and not even thinking about returning.” In their wake “business is departing, big business toward the West and small and mid-sized toward Kazakhstan.”
In this case, the economist says, Russia will have a future like the one described in Vladimir Sorokin’s novels: It will be a country “across which will pass a 15-lane highway between China and Europe.” That won’t be a complete tragedy, he adds, but Russia will “simply be a country of little interest,” one from which all talented people will leave.”
Moreover, in the absence of modernization, “if Russia begins to improve the quality of education, then even more specialists will leave.” If they are to be retained, then there need to be places of interest for them. “The oil pipeline doesn’t need smart and qualified people,” or at least “it needs few of them. And this is the tragedy of the country.”
“Who must change the country?” Auzan asks rhetorically. “The majority of citizens,” he points out, “do not want any modernization; a minority wants it but doesn’t believe in it,” with “all pointing to stability as the achievement of the Putin era.” But economists like himself, Auzan continues, don’t see this stability as firm or long-lasting.
“There are undoubted results,” he concedes. In the first five years of this century, Auzan notes, Russians experienced a 11-12 percent growth in their incomes. “But now they aren’t: inflation is eating everything quite quickly.” As a result, “the economy of the country is becoming ever worse.”
“It is worse than at the start of the 2000s,” Auzan says, “because it is still more completely based on raw materials exports … We are ever weaker in an international sense [and] we are slowly-slowly sinking.” Indeed, World Bank experts now say that “Russia is the weakest of the developing countries.”
What success Moscow has had in maintaining stability, the economic advisor says, is based on “a miracle of not very divine origin.” Indeed, he says, “for this [stabilitiy] it was necessary to conclude a pact with the devil.” Such a pact can by inertia work for five to 20 years, but then “problems will begin and very rapidly.”
Auzan says that countries which have successfully passed through the process of modernization have had several specific characteristics. They have seen “a growth in the values of self-realization over the values of survival, an orientation to results rather than process, a growth in individualism, that is, a willingness to act despite what others say.”
“But the chief one,” he says, “in countries which have successfully passed through modernization, the distance of the powers [from the population] has fallen. That is, people begin to relate to the state as something not distant from themselves but toward which they have a relationship and in which they can get involved.”
Auzan suggests that “the chances for modernization in Russia in generally are not very high at present.” Because of high oil prices, “we are condemned to stagnation” because modernization does not begin when people feel they are doing well but rather when they conclude that they are not.
Moreover, he says, “Russia is not ready for modernization and for technological leaps and a storm of innovations.” For that to be the case, there would need to be what “already exists in a number of developed countries: effective laws, judges, patents and the like. Everything which does not exist in Russia.”
For Russia to modernize, even when a commitment to doing so finally emerges as a result of a recognition of the threats ahead, Auzan says will require “not less than 20 years” because as many forget, “modernization is a process that is economic in its outcome but socio-cultural in its content. Therefore, it is a lengthy one.”
Staunton, April 15 – If modernization does not take place over the next few years, a senior Kremlin advisor says, Russia will suffer a massive “brain drain” and the departure of much of its businesses, the largest to the West and the small and mid-sized to Kazakhstan, leaving it an “uninteresting” bridge between China and Europe.
But despite that prospect, Aleksandr Auzan, a member of the Presidential commission on modernization and technological development of the economy of Russia, concludes sadly, the possibility that Russia will choose to modernize is relatively small, a reflection of short-term thinking and confusion between inertia and stability (www.nr2.ru/chel/328413.html).
Auzan, a professor at Moscow State University, says that this brain drain is already starting: “half of his students, elite specialists, are leaving to work abroad and not even thinking about returning.” In their wake “business is departing, big business toward the West and small and mid-sized toward Kazakhstan.”
In this case, the economist says, Russia will have a future like the one described in Vladimir Sorokin’s novels: It will be a country “across which will pass a 15-lane highway between China and Europe.” That won’t be a complete tragedy, he adds, but Russia will “simply be a country of little interest,” one from which all talented people will leave.”
Moreover, in the absence of modernization, “if Russia begins to improve the quality of education, then even more specialists will leave.” If they are to be retained, then there need to be places of interest for them. “The oil pipeline doesn’t need smart and qualified people,” or at least “it needs few of them. And this is the tragedy of the country.”
“Who must change the country?” Auzan asks rhetorically. “The majority of citizens,” he points out, “do not want any modernization; a minority wants it but doesn’t believe in it,” with “all pointing to stability as the achievement of the Putin era.” But economists like himself, Auzan continues, don’t see this stability as firm or long-lasting.
“There are undoubted results,” he concedes. In the first five years of this century, Auzan notes, Russians experienced a 11-12 percent growth in their incomes. “But now they aren’t: inflation is eating everything quite quickly.” As a result, “the economy of the country is becoming ever worse.”
“It is worse than at the start of the 2000s,” Auzan says, “because it is still more completely based on raw materials exports … We are ever weaker in an international sense [and] we are slowly-slowly sinking.” Indeed, World Bank experts now say that “Russia is the weakest of the developing countries.”
What success Moscow has had in maintaining stability, the economic advisor says, is based on “a miracle of not very divine origin.” Indeed, he says, “for this [stabilitiy] it was necessary to conclude a pact with the devil.” Such a pact can by inertia work for five to 20 years, but then “problems will begin and very rapidly.”
Auzan says that countries which have successfully passed through the process of modernization have had several specific characteristics. They have seen “a growth in the values of self-realization over the values of survival, an orientation to results rather than process, a growth in individualism, that is, a willingness to act despite what others say.”
“But the chief one,” he says, “in countries which have successfully passed through modernization, the distance of the powers [from the population] has fallen. That is, people begin to relate to the state as something not distant from themselves but toward which they have a relationship and in which they can get involved.”
Auzan suggests that “the chances for modernization in Russia in generally are not very high at present.” Because of high oil prices, “we are condemned to stagnation” because modernization does not begin when people feel they are doing well but rather when they conclude that they are not.
Moreover, he says, “Russia is not ready for modernization and for technological leaps and a storm of innovations.” For that to be the case, there would need to be what “already exists in a number of developed countries: effective laws, judges, patents and the like. Everything which does not exist in Russia.”
For Russia to modernize, even when a commitment to doing so finally emerges as a result of a recognition of the threats ahead, Auzan says will require “not less than 20 years” because as many forget, “modernization is a process that is economic in its outcome but socio-cultural in its content. Therefore, it is a lengthy one.”
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