Paul Goble
Staunton, June 7 – A member of the Federation Council has called for the restoration of the tsarist-era system of katorga under which those guilty of especially serious crimes such a terrorism, drug dealing or child murders would be sentenced to harsh physical labor without the possibility of commutation of sentence, or the right of correspondence.
Aleksey Aleksandrov, chairman of the Federation Council’s committee on constitutional law, speaking at a congress of jurists at Moscow State University this past week called for the introduction of the legal category of “evil doer” and the use of the katorga system as punishment for such criminals (svpressa.ru/society/article/44173/).
But Russian legal specialists are appalled by this idea. Lyudmila Alpern, the deputy head of the Center for the Support of the Reform of Criminal Justice, for example, told Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” that “our senators do not have a good idea of what katorga involved” in tsarist times or how it might be applied now.
In tsarist times, Alpern pointed out, there were various categories of katorga, some of which involved servitude of up to 20 years and some less with individuals convicted of certain crimes able to earn their way out of katorga while others were not. Thus the notion of permanent katorga would be an innovation.
During the Soviet period, “katorga did not exist.” Instead, “we had corrective labor camps. Of course, they were connected with a form of punishment which existed in tsarist times. This was group punishment,” a form which Europe dispensed with in the middle of the nineteenth century.” Katorga punishment was and is “amoral,” Alpern said.
The Soviet-era GULAG was much worse than katorga as it did not make allowances for prisoners to have their families with them. “Of course, for families, [it] was a terrible test: children sometimes died and women had great difficulties. But a fact remains a fact: toward the katorga inmate, the authorities acted in a human way.”
The GULAG system “destroyed this, and that was why it was so different from katorga. In the Soviet GULAG, an individual was connected to no one, he was completely deprived of social possibilities and he was made into an absolute slave,” something that had not been true of those sentenced to katorga.
Alpern said that despite the call for the restoration of katorga, the Russian penitentiary system is very different now compared to tsarist times. The main reason is ideological. In tsarist times, the authorities did not try to reeducate or reform anyone, demanding only work and then leaving prisoners more or less on their own in the barracks.
In those barracks, the tsarist-era prisoners set their own rules, were visited and sent food and even clothes and money by Russians beyond the walls because people at that time “understood that everyone could become a katorga inmate and thus called those arrested ‘sufferers’ or ‘unfortunates.’
Today, Alpern continued, “other norms” govern the situation. Jails attempt to reeducate people, but those outside the prison walls are not so inclined to view them as people much like themselves, instead assuming that they are hardened criminals who deserve whatever punishment they are given.
Conditions in Russian prisons have improved since the 1990s when such institutions were inadequately funded, prisoners forced to wear their own clothes, and disease rampant, but Alpern said, Russia still has a long way to go to come up to the standards of the European penal model, although it has made progress.
Talk about restoring katorga does nothing to promote this process, but it may create another real problem for Moscow. Some Siberians are worried that their land could against be “the place for katorga,” something that will make their situation even more a “genuine” katorga than it already is (www.baikal24.ru/page.php?action=showItem&type=news&id=58783).
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Salafis Employ Flashmob Technique to Bring 5,000 Young Daghestanis into the Streets
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 7 – In a startling demonstration of the spread of new technologies to the North Caucasus, the leaders of the Salafi trend in Islam in Daghestan, one at odds with the dominant Sufi trend there and often associated with political radicalism, used the flashmob technique to bring 5,000 young people into the streets of Makhachaka last week.
In reporting on this event, which was staged in order to demonstrate to visitors from Moscow that people in that republic are not going to sit still for the current situation there much longer, the Islamic Civilization web portal said that this “Islamist flashmob can be called an historic event for Daghestan” (http://www.islamcivil.ru/article.php?aid=647).
“For the first time,” the portal said, “Muslim youth have expressed their unambiguous protest to that disorder which characterizes the republic regarding human rights and civic freedoms” and their support for the Salafis who stand against the dominant Sufi trend of Islam in Daghestan.
According to the organizers, the site continued, “they did not have any certainty that even 1,000 people would come” when they issued their flashmob call. “But no fewer than 5,000 did,” an outcome which shows the flashmob technique works even in relatively backward Daghestan and that Salafi Islam can assemble more than trade unions, United Russia or other groups.
This is such a breakthrough event that it is worth recounting in some detail. During the morning of June 1, young people began to assemble on Makhachkala’s Rodop boulevard. Many people were out because it was the Day of the Defense of Children. But “the Salafi youth decided,” the portal says, “to stage a certain flashmob.”
“Among the people were not evident followers of the other bloc, tariqat Islam,” an indication that this was a Salafi enterprise. When about 3,000 had assembled, the crowd moved up Gamzatov prospect toward the National Library where the Russian President’s Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights was meeting.
According to Daghestani officials, “the Salafis who had assembled at the National Library did not have the right to meet and hence to speak and display placards.” The crowd remained largely silent at the urging of their leader Abbas Kebedov, the leader of the Salafii organization Aklu-s-Sunna val-Jamaa, who asked that they not “give in to provocations.”
At that time, a column of interior ministry OMON troops from the Urals approached. Some in the Salafi crowd then shouted “Allah Akbar,” and the militia formed a defense line apparently fearful of what might happen. If anyone had shot at that moment, there could have been a disaster.
But what happened instead was this: the militia asked the crowd to move away from the National Library, and the Salafi leaders led the group to the Salafi mosque on Kotrov Street.” The crowd moved toward the mosque,” gathering others on the way with “some taking pictures of the march on their mobile telephones.”
After prayers at the mosque, Kebedov arrived along with other Salafi activists. He called on the young people to “preserve” their peaceful approach, “to remain in the mosque and not in any case to go to the forum at the library building,” given that the OMON had brought up armored vehicles.
The Daghestani authorities, Kebedov told the crowd, “do not want a resolution to the difficult situation which exists in the republic.” The only hope therefore is on “delegates from Moscow.” But he continued, “this is our victory; today we have been able to do this.” His speech was “accompanied by shouts of ‘Allah Akbar!’”
The visitors from Moscow “did not come to the mosque as had been decided earlier; insteadof this, five representatives of the Salafi community were delegated to meet with them.” The Salafi representatives were chosen and accompanied Kebedov and others to the forum. According to the Islamic Civilization report, there took place “a sharp and open conversation.”
“Today,” the Salafi representatives said, “five thousand people assembled. Today, they stood peacefully; tomorrow, if nothing is done to stop the situation in Daghestan with kidnappings and murders of innocent people, nothing will stop these young men.” According to the portal, “this monologue, it was clear, had an impact on the guests.”
Staunton, June 7 – In a startling demonstration of the spread of new technologies to the North Caucasus, the leaders of the Salafi trend in Islam in Daghestan, one at odds with the dominant Sufi trend there and often associated with political radicalism, used the flashmob technique to bring 5,000 young people into the streets of Makhachaka last week.
In reporting on this event, which was staged in order to demonstrate to visitors from Moscow that people in that republic are not going to sit still for the current situation there much longer, the Islamic Civilization web portal said that this “Islamist flashmob can be called an historic event for Daghestan” (http://www.islamcivil.ru/article.php?aid=647).
“For the first time,” the portal said, “Muslim youth have expressed their unambiguous protest to that disorder which characterizes the republic regarding human rights and civic freedoms” and their support for the Salafis who stand against the dominant Sufi trend of Islam in Daghestan.
According to the organizers, the site continued, “they did not have any certainty that even 1,000 people would come” when they issued their flashmob call. “But no fewer than 5,000 did,” an outcome which shows the flashmob technique works even in relatively backward Daghestan and that Salafi Islam can assemble more than trade unions, United Russia or other groups.
This is such a breakthrough event that it is worth recounting in some detail. During the morning of June 1, young people began to assemble on Makhachkala’s Rodop boulevard. Many people were out because it was the Day of the Defense of Children. But “the Salafi youth decided,” the portal says, “to stage a certain flashmob.”
“Among the people were not evident followers of the other bloc, tariqat Islam,” an indication that this was a Salafi enterprise. When about 3,000 had assembled, the crowd moved up Gamzatov prospect toward the National Library where the Russian President’s Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights was meeting.
According to Daghestani officials, “the Salafis who had assembled at the National Library did not have the right to meet and hence to speak and display placards.” The crowd remained largely silent at the urging of their leader Abbas Kebedov, the leader of the Salafii organization Aklu-s-Sunna val-Jamaa, who asked that they not “give in to provocations.”
At that time, a column of interior ministry OMON troops from the Urals approached. Some in the Salafi crowd then shouted “Allah Akbar,” and the militia formed a defense line apparently fearful of what might happen. If anyone had shot at that moment, there could have been a disaster.
But what happened instead was this: the militia asked the crowd to move away from the National Library, and the Salafi leaders led the group to the Salafi mosque on Kotrov Street.” The crowd moved toward the mosque,” gathering others on the way with “some taking pictures of the march on their mobile telephones.”
After prayers at the mosque, Kebedov arrived along with other Salafi activists. He called on the young people to “preserve” their peaceful approach, “to remain in the mosque and not in any case to go to the forum at the library building,” given that the OMON had brought up armored vehicles.
The Daghestani authorities, Kebedov told the crowd, “do not want a resolution to the difficult situation which exists in the republic.” The only hope therefore is on “delegates from Moscow.” But he continued, “this is our victory; today we have been able to do this.” His speech was “accompanied by shouts of ‘Allah Akbar!’”
The visitors from Moscow “did not come to the mosque as had been decided earlier; insteadof this, five representatives of the Salafi community were delegated to meet with them.” The Salafi representatives were chosen and accompanied Kebedov and others to the forum. According to the Islamic Civilization report, there took place “a sharp and open conversation.”
“Today,” the Salafi representatives said, “five thousand people assembled. Today, they stood peacefully; tomorrow, if nothing is done to stop the situation in Daghestan with kidnappings and murders of innocent people, nothing will stop these young men.” According to the portal, “this monologue, it was clear, had an impact on the guests.”
Window on Eurasia: Non-Russians Winning ‘Memory Wars’ while Russians Still Losing Theirs, Bordyugov Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 7 – The non-Russian countries in the post-Soviet space are more or less quickly “liberating themselves from the Soviet and Imperial past,” but the Russians have not found a way – or do not want to find one – to do the same thing, according to a leading Moscow specialist on contemporary history.
In yesterday’s “Novaya gazeta,” Gennady Bordyugov, a member of the RIA Novosti council of experts, sums up the findings of his latest book, “Memory Wars on the Post-Soviet Space” (in Russian, Moscow, 2011) by noting that “history is again playing a mean joke with Russia” in this regard (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2011/060/18.html).
Russia’s inability or unwillingness to make progress in this regard, he says, helps to explain why many Russians have reacted so angrily to what is taking place in the CIS countries and the Baltics in recent years, a reaction that many observers since 2005 have characterized as “wars” over memory.
Such observers, Bordyugov continues, in recent times have argued that these wars are calming down, pointing to the March 2008 appeal of Memorial for “peaceful dialogue about the common past” and to the decision of most but of course not all post-Soviet states to mark Victory Day, arguably the most important civic holiday in Russia.
But in fact, the historican says, Russia will continue to face “memory wars” for some time to come, perhaps less often in the realm of foreign relations than within the country itself. Deep disagreements over Stalin, the Lenin Mausoleum, the approaching 400th anniversary of the Romanovs, the centenary of World War I, and the revolution all guarantee that.
In each of these cases and in others as well, he points out, the essence of the divide will be over how to say “farewell” to the Soviet and Imperial pasts or face their “re-animation in new forms.” And all of those debates will be conditioned by the process of “re-Stalinization or de-Stalinization” now taking place.
The commission formed by the Kremlin to oppose “the falsification of history” will defend Soviet traditional assessments of most historical events, but that commission’s approach will be opposed by another Kremlin body, the Council of Human Rights, which has proposed a broad program of de-Stalinization.
Indeed, Bordyugov argues, the methods of these two groups regarding historical memory are remarkably similar. “Representatives of both sides presuppose the continued politicization of history, the suppression of those who think differently, “a unification of approaches to the past,” and so on, first in the schools and then more generally.
Another reason for that assumption, Bordyugov suggests, is that “de-Stalinization is a reflection of the new ideological course of Medvedev,” a course that ensures that Russians are “on the eve of a new outbreak of ‘memory wars,’” this time as so often in the past one “subordinate to the struggle for power.”
There is “a way out” of all this, the historian says. It requires an end to the politicization of the Soviet past and to the use of discussions about that past as part of electoral struggles. In fact, there should be “a temporary moratorium on themes that call forth a split in society,” as so many of these issues do.
“A wise policy on history could allow for filling the great and tragic Soviet epoch with a human context, in the contexts of which ‘memory wars’ would become senseless,” Bordyugov argues, something that must be approached with care because “the transition from ‘soviet’ to ‘russian’ is far from completion.
Another means of reducing the intensity of “memory wars,” he says, is “the inclusion of national histories within the broader space of the past.” That too will be hard because “our current political and simply human culture to put it mildly is far from perfection” and thus there will always be a temptation to fight about the past.
But while the obstacles to moving beyond “memory wars” are clear, Bordyugov says, their recollection should not become a reason for not trying to overcome them. Moving beyond them is a precondition for achieving “a humane view of the past,” a view which unlike many positions now on offer avoids both demonization and panegyrics.
Staunton, June 7 – The non-Russian countries in the post-Soviet space are more or less quickly “liberating themselves from the Soviet and Imperial past,” but the Russians have not found a way – or do not want to find one – to do the same thing, according to a leading Moscow specialist on contemporary history.
In yesterday’s “Novaya gazeta,” Gennady Bordyugov, a member of the RIA Novosti council of experts, sums up the findings of his latest book, “Memory Wars on the Post-Soviet Space” (in Russian, Moscow, 2011) by noting that “history is again playing a mean joke with Russia” in this regard (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2011/060/18.html).
Russia’s inability or unwillingness to make progress in this regard, he says, helps to explain why many Russians have reacted so angrily to what is taking place in the CIS countries and the Baltics in recent years, a reaction that many observers since 2005 have characterized as “wars” over memory.
Such observers, Bordyugov continues, in recent times have argued that these wars are calming down, pointing to the March 2008 appeal of Memorial for “peaceful dialogue about the common past” and to the decision of most but of course not all post-Soviet states to mark Victory Day, arguably the most important civic holiday in Russia.
But in fact, the historican says, Russia will continue to face “memory wars” for some time to come, perhaps less often in the realm of foreign relations than within the country itself. Deep disagreements over Stalin, the Lenin Mausoleum, the approaching 400th anniversary of the Romanovs, the centenary of World War I, and the revolution all guarantee that.
In each of these cases and in others as well, he points out, the essence of the divide will be over how to say “farewell” to the Soviet and Imperial pasts or face their “re-animation in new forms.” And all of those debates will be conditioned by the process of “re-Stalinization or de-Stalinization” now taking place.
The commission formed by the Kremlin to oppose “the falsification of history” will defend Soviet traditional assessments of most historical events, but that commission’s approach will be opposed by another Kremlin body, the Council of Human Rights, which has proposed a broad program of de-Stalinization.
Indeed, Bordyugov argues, the methods of these two groups regarding historical memory are remarkably similar. “Representatives of both sides presuppose the continued politicization of history, the suppression of those who think differently, “a unification of approaches to the past,” and so on, first in the schools and then more generally.
Another reason for that assumption, Bordyugov suggests, is that “de-Stalinization is a reflection of the new ideological course of Medvedev,” a course that ensures that Russians are “on the eve of a new outbreak of ‘memory wars,’” this time as so often in the past one “subordinate to the struggle for power.”
There is “a way out” of all this, the historian says. It requires an end to the politicization of the Soviet past and to the use of discussions about that past as part of electoral struggles. In fact, there should be “a temporary moratorium on themes that call forth a split in society,” as so many of these issues do.
“A wise policy on history could allow for filling the great and tragic Soviet epoch with a human context, in the contexts of which ‘memory wars’ would become senseless,” Bordyugov argues, something that must be approached with care because “the transition from ‘soviet’ to ‘russian’ is far from completion.
Another means of reducing the intensity of “memory wars,” he says, is “the inclusion of national histories within the broader space of the past.” That too will be hard because “our current political and simply human culture to put it mildly is far from perfection” and thus there will always be a temptation to fight about the past.
But while the obstacles to moving beyond “memory wars” are clear, Bordyugov says, their recollection should not become a reason for not trying to overcome them. Moving beyond them is a precondition for achieving “a humane view of the past,” a view which unlike many positions now on offer avoids both demonization and panegyrics.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
