Paul Goble
Baku, January 15 – Twenty years ago, practicing Muslims in the Russian Federation were generally confined to the lowest strata of the workforce, but today, the number who are getting advanced degrees and moving into the professions is doubling every three to four years, according to a new study.
In 1993 when he began his observations, Dmitriy Makarov writes in a study published in the yearbook, Islam in the Contemporary World, no. 7 (Moscow, 2007, in Russian), one could count the practicing Muslims among the Russian intellectual class on the fingers of one hands (http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/analitika/nenirom/).
And that reality contributed to the image of Muslims that not only ordinary Russians but also many academic specialists on Islam continue to have of the community, as a backward community with little evidence of genuine educational achievement, Makarov says. But that stereotype, if perhaps justified earlier, is no longer true.
He argues that alongside the growth in the number of mosques and registered Islamic communities, there has been and continues to be an extraordinarily “growth in the intellectual potential of Islam in Russia,” however few data about this have been collected in the past.
Makarov, who identifies himself as a publicist, said that when he began his research on this question, he quickly learned that the government had not collected any data on the number of Muslims with advanced degrees or in the professions and that Muslims themselves had not carried out any large-scale sociological studies in this area.
Consequently, he had to make use of personal contacts and chance observation as he sought to determine how many Muslims had received advanced degrees or entered the professions, an approach that almost certainly means that his reported numbers are less, possibly significantly less, than the actual figures.
When he started his research, the number of Muslims in these two categories was extremely small but the situation in both changed dramatically beginning in the mid-1990s with this upward trend continuing and possibly accelerating since the end of that decade.
Moreover, Makarov said, the nature of the Muslim community in the Russian Federation meant that both at the beginning of his research and later, practicing Muslims not only knew about which Muslims were getting degrees and entering the professions but were proud to tell him about it.
Unlike non-Muslim Russian society which was atomized during the 1990s by the shocks of social and political change, Muslim society there – and here Makarov is talking about those who practice their faith on a regular basis and not “ethnic” Muslims – was virtually “a big village” whose members communicated with one another frequently.
By 1998, he reports, the number of practicing Muslims in teaching positions in major universities and Academy of Science institutions was as follows: five historians, two biologists, two philosophers, as well as a medical researcher, economist, political scientist, art specialist and philologist.
Ethnically nine of thee practicing Muslims were Tatars or Bashkirs, three were new converts to the faith (Russians and Ukrainians, and two were Daghestanis, Makarov says. In addition to those, there were many others in the state-accredited Muslim universities of Kazan, Moscow and Makhachkala whom Makarov chose not to include.
He says he also decided not to include in his count Muslims of foreign origin who received their training in the USSR or Russia and continue to live in the Russian Federation and Muslim academics who are citizens of other former Soviet republics who live there.
Neither of these groups is the product of Russia’s Muslim community at least in the narrow sense, he continues, although each of them has played a role in helping the indigenous Muslims to develop their intellectual capacity either by direct assistance or as a model of what can be done.
Since that time, practicing Muslims on the teaching staff of the major universities of Moscow and other Russian cities have further increased in number and now include in addition specialists on ecology, psychology, Arabic language, management, administration, economics, jurisprudent and philosophy.
“Over the past 15 years,” Makarov concludes, “the Muslim community of Russia has traversed a colossal path in the direction of intellectual development.” Moreover, it will continue to grow “in geometrical progression,” transforming the community from a marginal and low status one to a group at the center of Russia’s intellectual life.
And what is more, he says, the new Muslim intelligentsia in Russia is “distinguished by a heightened level of social activity and responsibility,” qualities that should but not always are being exploited by either the Muslim community itself or the Russian state. Indeed, he says, sometimes neither appears to appreciate this new group.
But Makarov’s study, however incomplete as he himself acknowledges, should help to change that not only by attracting the attention of both to the rise of a Muslim intelligentsia in Russia but also by encouraging other scholars to focus on this trend and drop the stereotypes that so many of them employ about the faithful there.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Window on Eurasia: United Russia in Daghestan Increasingly Resembles the CPSU
Paul Goble
Baku, January 15 – Daghestan, the most multi-national republic in the Russian Federation, no longer has any ethno-parties which express the interests and will of particular ethnic groups. Instead, the major all-Russian parties there increasingly include representatives of a wide variety of nationalities.
On one hand, Aslanbek Adiyev writes in an analysis of the situation there, this outcome reflects the reality that none of the existing ethnic groups is sufficiently large to take power on its own and thus must form alliances with others if it is to continue to have an impact on the government (http://www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1149).
And on the other, he says, the overwhelming dominance of United Russia means that every ethnic group wants to be represented within it and that this pro-Kremlin party thus increasingly resembles the Communist Party of the Soviet (CPSU) in that real politics takes place not at the ballot box among the voters but behind close among elites.
Specialists on ethno-politics and sociology, he notes, have often written about the existence of ethno-parties in Daghestan. But if their arguments on this point may have been true in the 1990s when there were numerous parties competing in elections, they are no longer true when there are few parties and when United Russia dominates the scene.
Instead, the Daghestani sections of the major all-Russian parties include representatives of various ethnic groups, including many whose leaders are very much at odds. They join these parties to have a chance at power and in the hope that they will be able to influence policy on behalf of their groups rather than being shut out entirely.
The situation in United Russia in this regard is especially instructive, Adiyev suggests. Its representatives include the president of the republic, the mayor of Makhachkala, the representatives of former opposition figures from the Northern Alliance, and members of various ethnic groups and clans.
The reason this is possible, the Daghestani political analyst suggests, is because United Russia is “not a party in the classical (European) sense of the word. In Daghestan in fact, United Russia completely identifies itself with the republic authorities and does not have a specific social base.”
And thus, like the CPSU in Soviet times, United Russia pretends to represent the interests of all strata of society.” But that in turn means that the Daghestani section of the party is “split into segments according to the clan interests of the competing groups” within it.
In short, the rise of United Russia has not meant the end of inter-ethnic tensions and competition in Daghestani political life but rather its shift from the public arena to elite meetings behind closed doors.
And that tendency has been compounded by the inherent conservatism of Daghestani politicians, a set of attitudes and inclinations highlighted when they failed to respond positively to Moscow’s effort to create a second and competing political party in the form of Just Russia.
Had some Daghestani politicians been willing to take part in that part, Adiyev argues, this could have represented “a unique opportunity” for the competing political groups of that republic “to play by the rules of a formal multi-party system,” with real competition among parties that actually represented particular sets of interests.
But Daghestani politicians did not rise to the occasion, Adiyev says, noting that not a single influential politician or businessman was willing to run on the United Russia slate or even work for its election. Instead, their innate conservatism drove them to support the party o power, United Russia.
Consequently and despite the suggestions by many outside observers to the contrary, Adiyev writes, “all the fundamental political struggle in Daghestan both was conducted and will continue to be conducted not between parties but within one party – United Russia.”
Like the CPSU, most of its members, however much they may dislike one another or differ in their positions on issues or their relations to ethnic groups, are people with positions in the local establishment and they thus have something to lose. Consequently, and to retain office and stay in the political game, they are prepared to compromise.
Because this arrangement means that most of its members will not make ethnic appeals to the population, many outside the republic will be inclined to think that this shift has reduced ethnic problems there. But that is not the case: Instead, these problems will just be fought over in new and hidden venues.
Given that reality, one that neither the Kremlin nor most Russian analysts appear to understand, Adiyev says, one must ask the question: “Does the country need the kind of democracy that does not take regional differences and the asymmetrical nature of federal arrangements of Russia into account?”
Baku, January 15 – Daghestan, the most multi-national republic in the Russian Federation, no longer has any ethno-parties which express the interests and will of particular ethnic groups. Instead, the major all-Russian parties there increasingly include representatives of a wide variety of nationalities.
On one hand, Aslanbek Adiyev writes in an analysis of the situation there, this outcome reflects the reality that none of the existing ethnic groups is sufficiently large to take power on its own and thus must form alliances with others if it is to continue to have an impact on the government (http://www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1149).
And on the other, he says, the overwhelming dominance of United Russia means that every ethnic group wants to be represented within it and that this pro-Kremlin party thus increasingly resembles the Communist Party of the Soviet (CPSU) in that real politics takes place not at the ballot box among the voters but behind close among elites.
Specialists on ethno-politics and sociology, he notes, have often written about the existence of ethno-parties in Daghestan. But if their arguments on this point may have been true in the 1990s when there were numerous parties competing in elections, they are no longer true when there are few parties and when United Russia dominates the scene.
Instead, the Daghestani sections of the major all-Russian parties include representatives of various ethnic groups, including many whose leaders are very much at odds. They join these parties to have a chance at power and in the hope that they will be able to influence policy on behalf of their groups rather than being shut out entirely.
The situation in United Russia in this regard is especially instructive, Adiyev suggests. Its representatives include the president of the republic, the mayor of Makhachkala, the representatives of former opposition figures from the Northern Alliance, and members of various ethnic groups and clans.
The reason this is possible, the Daghestani political analyst suggests, is because United Russia is “not a party in the classical (European) sense of the word. In Daghestan in fact, United Russia completely identifies itself with the republic authorities and does not have a specific social base.”
And thus, like the CPSU in Soviet times, United Russia pretends to represent the interests of all strata of society.” But that in turn means that the Daghestani section of the party is “split into segments according to the clan interests of the competing groups” within it.
In short, the rise of United Russia has not meant the end of inter-ethnic tensions and competition in Daghestani political life but rather its shift from the public arena to elite meetings behind closed doors.
And that tendency has been compounded by the inherent conservatism of Daghestani politicians, a set of attitudes and inclinations highlighted when they failed to respond positively to Moscow’s effort to create a second and competing political party in the form of Just Russia.
Had some Daghestani politicians been willing to take part in that part, Adiyev argues, this could have represented “a unique opportunity” for the competing political groups of that republic “to play by the rules of a formal multi-party system,” with real competition among parties that actually represented particular sets of interests.
But Daghestani politicians did not rise to the occasion, Adiyev says, noting that not a single influential politician or businessman was willing to run on the United Russia slate or even work for its election. Instead, their innate conservatism drove them to support the party o power, United Russia.
Consequently and despite the suggestions by many outside observers to the contrary, Adiyev writes, “all the fundamental political struggle in Daghestan both was conducted and will continue to be conducted not between parties but within one party – United Russia.”
Like the CPSU, most of its members, however much they may dislike one another or differ in their positions on issues or their relations to ethnic groups, are people with positions in the local establishment and they thus have something to lose. Consequently, and to retain office and stay in the political game, they are prepared to compromise.
Because this arrangement means that most of its members will not make ethnic appeals to the population, many outside the republic will be inclined to think that this shift has reduced ethnic problems there. But that is not the case: Instead, these problems will just be fought over in new and hidden venues.
Given that reality, one that neither the Kremlin nor most Russian analysts appear to understand, Adiyev says, one must ask the question: “Does the country need the kind of democracy that does not take regional differences and the asymmetrical nature of federal arrangements of Russia into account?”
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Military PR Now and Then
Paul Goble
Baku, January 14 – Three news reports on Saturday – one about an FSB landing on Mount Elbrus, another about movements in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and a third about the death of the solider who raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in 1945 – highlight the central role of public relations in the work of Moscow’s force structures.
First, according to various Russian news agencies, a source in the force structures of the North Caucasus reported that a week ago, the FSB’s aviation arm had landed that agency’s director on the top of Mount Elbrus to demonstrate Moscow’s growing ability to put forces anywhere in that region to counter terrorism.
Second, the same day, the press service of the Black Sea Fleet announced that the rocket cruiser “Moskva” had left Sevastopol for the Straits of the Bosphorous and Dardanelles in order to join up with other Russian ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean and thus underscore the recovery of Russia’s blue water navy.
And finally, on Saturday as well, in Pskov, was laid to rest the first or at least one of the first Soviet soldiers to raise the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945, an action that as a result of a much-duplicated photograph still symbolizes for many in Russia and the end of World War II in Europe.
Commenting on the first two of these events, Anatoliy Baranov, the chief editor of the Communist-oriented Forum.MSK portal, said that both of these events reflected the Putin regime’s increasing tendency to substitute clever public relations gambits for real actions (http://forum.msk.ru/material/news/425910.html).
Although media coverage of the FSB action stressed that “there were no analogues of such an operation in the world,” Baranov said he could think of one: the planting of the Nazi flag on precisely the same place during World War II and the subsequent replacement of that flag with the banner of the Soviet Union.
Such “symbolic and propagandistic actions” have their place, he continued, but they must not be a substitute for genuine efforts. Unfortunately, the current Russian government neither understands that nor has “an ideology adequate” to the job of helping point it in the right direction.
As a result, Baranov continued, some in Moscow “are beginning to talk about the Straits [of the Bosphorous and Dardanelles] with the tonality of the times of [nineteenth century tsar] Aleksandr III” rather than think about the real challenges that the Russian Federation and its force structures face in the 21st century.
That observation leads him to reflect on the announcement of naval activity in the Black Sea region. “We all understand that the single task of the Russian fleet today is to remind the world that it still exists,” despite the fact that Moscow had done nothing to help it survive, let alone modernize.
The only thing Moscow can offer to those who care about Russia’s navy is “government PR,” but this latest announcement, Baranov continues, calls attention to the fact that unless something is done, Russia will lose its base in Sevastopol in less than a decade.
Russia must do whatever it takes to keep that base because it does not have time to build a substitute or to be a significant power in the region if it loses Sevastopol. “Let Putin marry Timoshenko or even Yushchenko,” Baranov says, “but relations of “Russia and Ukraine must be such” that Moscow will retain that naval base.
The third event, one that Baranov does not comment upon but that reflects an earlier example of Moscow’s use of public relations in the military sphere, took place in the northwest Russian region of Pskov: 86-year-old Hero of the Soviet Union Mikhail Minin was laid to rest after a long illness. (http://skavkaz.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=117851).
According to Russian news agencies, he was the first or at least one of the first Soviet soldiers to raise the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin. Soviet sources at the time introduced a certain confusion on this point that has no historian has ever completely resolved to the satisfaction of everyone.
On the one hand, as the nine Soviet armies converged on Berlin, each of them had a special unit with a Soviet flag prepared to raise it over the Reichstag whichever one got there first. Minin was in one of these groups, but senior commanders insisted that men in their unts get credit as well (http://skavkaz.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=117851).
And on the other, the famous photograph of this historic moment in fact “does not show Minin but a Georgian soldier,” “Pravda” reported, and in any case, the paper said, “was not taken at the actual event.” Instead, it was staged later for propaganda purposes (http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/11-01-2008/103368-soviet_union-0).
But Pravda does not add what various Western historians have noted: even this PR picture had to be taken carefully airbrushed so that no one would see the many wristwatches the Soviet soldier had stolen in his march through Germany and was wearing on his outstretched arm.
Baku, January 14 – Three news reports on Saturday – one about an FSB landing on Mount Elbrus, another about movements in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and a third about the death of the solider who raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in 1945 – highlight the central role of public relations in the work of Moscow’s force structures.
First, according to various Russian news agencies, a source in the force structures of the North Caucasus reported that a week ago, the FSB’s aviation arm had landed that agency’s director on the top of Mount Elbrus to demonstrate Moscow’s growing ability to put forces anywhere in that region to counter terrorism.
Second, the same day, the press service of the Black Sea Fleet announced that the rocket cruiser “Moskva” had left Sevastopol for the Straits of the Bosphorous and Dardanelles in order to join up with other Russian ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean and thus underscore the recovery of Russia’s blue water navy.
And finally, on Saturday as well, in Pskov, was laid to rest the first or at least one of the first Soviet soldiers to raise the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945, an action that as a result of a much-duplicated photograph still symbolizes for many in Russia and the end of World War II in Europe.
Commenting on the first two of these events, Anatoliy Baranov, the chief editor of the Communist-oriented Forum.MSK portal, said that both of these events reflected the Putin regime’s increasing tendency to substitute clever public relations gambits for real actions (http://forum.msk.ru/material/news/425910.html).
Although media coverage of the FSB action stressed that “there were no analogues of such an operation in the world,” Baranov said he could think of one: the planting of the Nazi flag on precisely the same place during World War II and the subsequent replacement of that flag with the banner of the Soviet Union.
Such “symbolic and propagandistic actions” have their place, he continued, but they must not be a substitute for genuine efforts. Unfortunately, the current Russian government neither understands that nor has “an ideology adequate” to the job of helping point it in the right direction.
As a result, Baranov continued, some in Moscow “are beginning to talk about the Straits [of the Bosphorous and Dardanelles] with the tonality of the times of [nineteenth century tsar] Aleksandr III” rather than think about the real challenges that the Russian Federation and its force structures face in the 21st century.
That observation leads him to reflect on the announcement of naval activity in the Black Sea region. “We all understand that the single task of the Russian fleet today is to remind the world that it still exists,” despite the fact that Moscow had done nothing to help it survive, let alone modernize.
The only thing Moscow can offer to those who care about Russia’s navy is “government PR,” but this latest announcement, Baranov continues, calls attention to the fact that unless something is done, Russia will lose its base in Sevastopol in less than a decade.
Russia must do whatever it takes to keep that base because it does not have time to build a substitute or to be a significant power in the region if it loses Sevastopol. “Let Putin marry Timoshenko or even Yushchenko,” Baranov says, “but relations of “Russia and Ukraine must be such” that Moscow will retain that naval base.
The third event, one that Baranov does not comment upon but that reflects an earlier example of Moscow’s use of public relations in the military sphere, took place in the northwest Russian region of Pskov: 86-year-old Hero of the Soviet Union Mikhail Minin was laid to rest after a long illness. (http://skavkaz.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=117851).
According to Russian news agencies, he was the first or at least one of the first Soviet soldiers to raise the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin. Soviet sources at the time introduced a certain confusion on this point that has no historian has ever completely resolved to the satisfaction of everyone.
On the one hand, as the nine Soviet armies converged on Berlin, each of them had a special unit with a Soviet flag prepared to raise it over the Reichstag whichever one got there first. Minin was in one of these groups, but senior commanders insisted that men in their unts get credit as well (http://skavkaz.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=117851).
And on the other, the famous photograph of this historic moment in fact “does not show Minin but a Georgian soldier,” “Pravda” reported, and in any case, the paper said, “was not taken at the actual event.” Instead, it was staged later for propaganda purposes (http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/11-01-2008/103368-soviet_union-0).
But Pravda does not add what various Western historians have noted: even this PR picture had to be taken carefully airbrushed so that no one would see the many wristwatches the Soviet soldier had stolen in his march through Germany and was wearing on his outstretched arm.
Window on Eurasia: Roads, Not a Lack of Them, Destroying Russia, Geographer Says
Paul Goble
Baku, January 14 – Russia’s lack of an extensive network of good all-weather roads has long cited as among the greatest obstacles to that country’s development or even survival, but now one of the founding fathers of contemporary Russian geography is arguing that road construction itself constitutes a threat to the future of the country.
In a presentation to the Bilingua Club last month, a transcript of which has now been posted online, Boris Rodoman argued that the construction of roads has had a negative impact on Russian life during virtually all periods of the country’s history (http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2008/01/10/transport.html).
Initially, he said, the construction of roads led to the depopulation and demise of the many villages and towns that were not linked to the highway system. Those without such connections simply could not compete. Then, the Soviet system built roads that reinforced the political divisions of the country rather than tying it together.
And the current expansion of the highway system, one simultaneously powered by and promoting the rapid growth in the number of cars, Rodoman argued, is harming the country’s ecology, undermining other forms of transportation, and intensifying the divide between the haves and the have not’s.
Rodoman, who has been writing and teaching about Russia’s unique geography for more than 30 years, began with the present and works backward. He said that if an extraterrestrial were to look at earth now, he would assume “the main living things” on it were automobiles rather than people, given how cars have transformed the landscape.
That humans should allow for such an impression is a tragedy, the geographer said, because the “automobilization” of the world has polluted the environment, destroyed natural features to allow for the construction of roads and highways, and created what he calls “an eco-phobic structure” of human settlement.
Nowhere have these negative consequences between greater than in Russia. “Before the appearance of motor transport,” Rodoman insisted, “Russia suffered from roadlessness less than it does in our days.” Peasants walked where they had to go, and what roads there were had a military-administrative rather than economic significance.
Thanks to its cold, snowy winters, Russia was able to extend “its area from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, but there were not enough people to settle and organize it in a European way.” But because population density was so low, new forms of transportation did not fill the country up even though all entailed some negative consequences.
“With the appearance of a small but powerful network of railroads,” the geographer noted, “the majority of Russian downs went into decline” because they lost their former trade and transportation functions” because they were not attached to the rail network.
And their decline in turn hastened the disappearance of villages in many areas that are not located on or near a rail line, a development that not only pushed more people into the cities faster than would have otherwise been the case but also led to the decline of much of the country outside the capitals.
That was a very different outcome than occurred in northern European countries with climatic conditions similar to Russia’s, Rodoman continued. “In Finland and Sweden, on the eve of mass automobilization there was a thick net of well-paved roads and the horse never disappeared from the peasant farmstead.”
Consequently, the car brought the city and countryside closer together in those countries. But in Russia, automobilization had just the opposite effect. It did not bring town and village together, “it did not raise the village up but finally destroyed it altogether.”
Indeed, Rodoman argued, “automobilization was the main cause of roadlessness and the decline of rural areas.” In be part, he continued, that is because motorized transport meant that “the great friends of Russia – snow and ice – became its enemies.” And thus began a self-destructive “struggle with nature.”
Trains had been less affected by snow and ice, but they did undermine river transport, a process that automobiles finished. And that meant that the rivers which had been the arteries of the country became “barriers, especially in those places where borders of ‘subjects of the Federation’ coincided with them.”
That is so, he pointed out, because “the network of automobile roads was subordinate to the administrative-territorial division” of the USSR and because their pattern was dictated by the routes the bureaucrats wanted to use themselves and thus insisted that others use as well.
Under communism, such attitudes were compounded by the notion that “the construction of roads and the improvement of transport” are “one and the same thing,” something that is simply not true. Building roads may generate more traffic even as it undermines other means of public transportation.
And this Soviet-era attitude, Rodoman said, was intensified yet again by the values of the post-Soviet market economy which typically raised “individual freedoms above collective responsibilities” to the community and the environment, thus reducing the chances that Russians can have decent environment within which to live and work.
In other countries, this is a problem too but a less serious one. There, Rodoman said, most people do some driving, some walking, and some use of public transportation. But in Russia, people tend to be locked into only one of these means, with cars becoming “the most important means of social isolation and segregation.”
Elite Russians sit in their automobiles while poorer ones are forced to walk or use public transport, and not surprisingly, the former have the ability to make sure that they are taken care of even if that leads to their own physical degeneration because of a lack of exercise or to the further suffering of the others.
Throughout Russia, Rodoman said, “service spheres the bosses don’t use are dying away. Sidewalks are decaying along with the population.” And because of the interests of the latter, the Russian government hasn’t faced up to the problems that building ever more roads are causing.
Unless public and government attitudes are changed and changed soon, the construction of highways near the central cities will continue to destroy Russia, while roads elsewhere will be allowed to decay because the current powers-that-be do not appear to care about any throughways that “do not lead to Moscow.”
Not surprisingly, Rodoman’s remarks sparked a lively debate, with many of his audience accusing him of attacking one of the most important “liberal values” – freedom of movement – and others saying that he appeared to be willing to tolerate an enlightened despotism if the rulers would only take his advice.
Bud Rodoman defended himself by making three points: First, he pointed out, in no area are property rights absolute – that is why zoning is so important -- and in many areas such as national parks and reserves the concept of private property is subversive of the interests of the nation and its future survival.
Second, he noted, no one seems to be angry that Russian television can shape mass opinion rather easily in advance of parliamentary and presidential elections. Why shouldn’t its power be harnessed to the more important task of changing minds about the role of the car?
And third, he said, radical arguments like his own are necessary to force senior officials to think about the long-term consequences of what their actions in building ever more roads will mean, reflections that he said his experience showed few if any of them are now engaged in.
Obviously, many reading Rodoman’s remarks, especially members of the Russian elite, will dismiss them as nothing more than the rant of a left-wing environmentalist. But even if there is something to that, Rodoman has performed an important service by challenging one of the most widely and tightly held views about Russian development.
Baku, January 14 – Russia’s lack of an extensive network of good all-weather roads has long cited as among the greatest obstacles to that country’s development or even survival, but now one of the founding fathers of contemporary Russian geography is arguing that road construction itself constitutes a threat to the future of the country.
In a presentation to the Bilingua Club last month, a transcript of which has now been posted online, Boris Rodoman argued that the construction of roads has had a negative impact on Russian life during virtually all periods of the country’s history (http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2008/01/10/transport.html).
Initially, he said, the construction of roads led to the depopulation and demise of the many villages and towns that were not linked to the highway system. Those without such connections simply could not compete. Then, the Soviet system built roads that reinforced the political divisions of the country rather than tying it together.
And the current expansion of the highway system, one simultaneously powered by and promoting the rapid growth in the number of cars, Rodoman argued, is harming the country’s ecology, undermining other forms of transportation, and intensifying the divide between the haves and the have not’s.
Rodoman, who has been writing and teaching about Russia’s unique geography for more than 30 years, began with the present and works backward. He said that if an extraterrestrial were to look at earth now, he would assume “the main living things” on it were automobiles rather than people, given how cars have transformed the landscape.
That humans should allow for such an impression is a tragedy, the geographer said, because the “automobilization” of the world has polluted the environment, destroyed natural features to allow for the construction of roads and highways, and created what he calls “an eco-phobic structure” of human settlement.
Nowhere have these negative consequences between greater than in Russia. “Before the appearance of motor transport,” Rodoman insisted, “Russia suffered from roadlessness less than it does in our days.” Peasants walked where they had to go, and what roads there were had a military-administrative rather than economic significance.
Thanks to its cold, snowy winters, Russia was able to extend “its area from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, but there were not enough people to settle and organize it in a European way.” But because population density was so low, new forms of transportation did not fill the country up even though all entailed some negative consequences.
“With the appearance of a small but powerful network of railroads,” the geographer noted, “the majority of Russian downs went into decline” because they lost their former trade and transportation functions” because they were not attached to the rail network.
And their decline in turn hastened the disappearance of villages in many areas that are not located on or near a rail line, a development that not only pushed more people into the cities faster than would have otherwise been the case but also led to the decline of much of the country outside the capitals.
That was a very different outcome than occurred in northern European countries with climatic conditions similar to Russia’s, Rodoman continued. “In Finland and Sweden, on the eve of mass automobilization there was a thick net of well-paved roads and the horse never disappeared from the peasant farmstead.”
Consequently, the car brought the city and countryside closer together in those countries. But in Russia, automobilization had just the opposite effect. It did not bring town and village together, “it did not raise the village up but finally destroyed it altogether.”
Indeed, Rodoman argued, “automobilization was the main cause of roadlessness and the decline of rural areas.” In be part, he continued, that is because motorized transport meant that “the great friends of Russia – snow and ice – became its enemies.” And thus began a self-destructive “struggle with nature.”
Trains had been less affected by snow and ice, but they did undermine river transport, a process that automobiles finished. And that meant that the rivers which had been the arteries of the country became “barriers, especially in those places where borders of ‘subjects of the Federation’ coincided with them.”
That is so, he pointed out, because “the network of automobile roads was subordinate to the administrative-territorial division” of the USSR and because their pattern was dictated by the routes the bureaucrats wanted to use themselves and thus insisted that others use as well.
Under communism, such attitudes were compounded by the notion that “the construction of roads and the improvement of transport” are “one and the same thing,” something that is simply not true. Building roads may generate more traffic even as it undermines other means of public transportation.
And this Soviet-era attitude, Rodoman said, was intensified yet again by the values of the post-Soviet market economy which typically raised “individual freedoms above collective responsibilities” to the community and the environment, thus reducing the chances that Russians can have decent environment within which to live and work.
In other countries, this is a problem too but a less serious one. There, Rodoman said, most people do some driving, some walking, and some use of public transportation. But in Russia, people tend to be locked into only one of these means, with cars becoming “the most important means of social isolation and segregation.”
Elite Russians sit in their automobiles while poorer ones are forced to walk or use public transport, and not surprisingly, the former have the ability to make sure that they are taken care of even if that leads to their own physical degeneration because of a lack of exercise or to the further suffering of the others.
Throughout Russia, Rodoman said, “service spheres the bosses don’t use are dying away. Sidewalks are decaying along with the population.” And because of the interests of the latter, the Russian government hasn’t faced up to the problems that building ever more roads are causing.
Unless public and government attitudes are changed and changed soon, the construction of highways near the central cities will continue to destroy Russia, while roads elsewhere will be allowed to decay because the current powers-that-be do not appear to care about any throughways that “do not lead to Moscow.”
Not surprisingly, Rodoman’s remarks sparked a lively debate, with many of his audience accusing him of attacking one of the most important “liberal values” – freedom of movement – and others saying that he appeared to be willing to tolerate an enlightened despotism if the rulers would only take his advice.
Bud Rodoman defended himself by making three points: First, he pointed out, in no area are property rights absolute – that is why zoning is so important -- and in many areas such as national parks and reserves the concept of private property is subversive of the interests of the nation and its future survival.
Second, he noted, no one seems to be angry that Russian television can shape mass opinion rather easily in advance of parliamentary and presidential elections. Why shouldn’t its power be harnessed to the more important task of changing minds about the role of the car?
And third, he said, radical arguments like his own are necessary to force senior officials to think about the long-term consequences of what their actions in building ever more roads will mean, reflections that he said his experience showed few if any of them are now engaged in.
Obviously, many reading Rodoman’s remarks, especially members of the Russian elite, will dismiss them as nothing more than the rant of a left-wing environmentalist. But even if there is something to that, Rodoman has performed an important service by challenging one of the most widely and tightly held views about Russian development.
Window on Eurasia: ‘Fartsovshchiki’ Were Not the Proto-Capitalists Some Decried and Others Celebrate
Paul Goble
Baku, January 14 – The “fartsovshchiki” of the late Soviet period, a slang term for people who engaged in one of the most notorious aspects of the shadow economy at that time, were neither the misguided pawns of the West denounced by the communist authorities then nor proto-capitalist heroes celebrated by some Russian writers today.
Instead, according to a new oral history, they represented a unique combination of certain earlier Russian economic traditions with the opening up of the USSR near its end presented and should not be seen as the advance guard of contemporary Russian capitalism.
That is the conclusion offered by investigative journalist Dmitriy Vasil’yev in his new book Fartsovshchiki (St. Petersburg: Vektor, 2007, in Russian) and whose arguments are laid out in an extensive review essay of his investigations that is now available online (http://contrtv.ru/common/2576/).
Vasil’yev interviewed people in the northern capital who had engaged in “fartsovka” activities between the 1960s and the1980s and was thus able to show, in the words of the review, “the principle distinctions of ‘fartsovka’ from trade of the bourgeois type and its similarities to forms of trade in traditional [Russian] society.”
According to the book’s author, there are two etymologies for the word “fortsovka” and its derivative “fortsovshchiki.” The first derives the term from the English “for sale,” while the second traces it back to a slang term from Odessa referring to someone who “talks down” the price of he wants to buy and then resells it for more.
The second of these explanations is probably the more likely, but however thtmay be, the term was first applied to those young people who hung about hotels in major Soviet cities where visitors from abroad were staying and offered to exchange Soviet goods of various kinds for all sorts of things “from the West.”
Vasil’yev suggests that this phenomenon passed through three phses, a “romantic” beginning inth 1960s, a flowering in the 1970s, and a rapid decline and finally disappearance “together with the Soviet Union” at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.
In its romantic phase, the “fartsovshchiki” consisted mainly of the so-called “stilyagi,” part of the “golden youth” of the Soviet elite and its hangers on who celebrated everything from the West, however cheap or silly it might be and engaged in “fartsovka” in order to get it however expensive the Soviet goods they had to offer in exchange.
This first group, Vasil’yev makes clear on the basis of his interviews, was thus less interested in making money off the deals, although some of its members did, than in acquiring for themselves and their friends the latest Western fashions or what they believed were such.
As this Western-oriented subculture spread, the St. Petersburg journalist says, more people were drawn in to “fartsovka,” more money was made through the resale of goods acquired from Western visitors, and that in turn lead to a division of labor between those who bought the goods and those who sold them.
In the 1970s and 1980s, “fartsovka” grew so large that Vasil’yev suggests there were six different groups involved in acquiring goods -- hotel workers, sailors on Soviet cargo ships, long-distance truckers, participants in Interclubs, guides, and those who continued to deal “outside hotels” as well as those who sold these goods to others.
Vasil’yev describes each of these in great detail, and his online reviewer helpfully summarizes Vasil’yev’s findings on each of them. But as interesting as those findings are sociologically, the conclusions about the nature of “fartsovka” that Vasil’yev’s research suggests about this movement is more significant politically at least now.
First of all, as his findings make clear, “fartsovka” was never “simply a business” but rather “a subculture with its own ideology, its own slang and its own division of people into ‘our own’ and ‘others.’” And for most who participated in it, acquisition of a Western style rather than profit was the primary motivating force.
Second, its members routinely practiced “mutual assistance” and did not seek to make all the money off the exchanges that they might have, something more typical, Vasil’yev’s reviewer suggests, of classical trade than of its capitalist variant as usually understood.
And third, the “fartsovshchiki” behaved in some ways very differently than did their traditional predecessors because they were less concerned with satisfying their real needs either directly through the goods they obtained or indirectly through their sale than in acquiring status.
Unfortunately, as Vakhirov notes in his review, “the Marxists in the USSR defined ‘fartsovka” as a rebirth of bourgeois trade [because they could not imagine any other kind], and then the liberals, mostly graduates of [Soviet-era] departments of historical materialism [simply] repeated this,” albeit with a different sign in front.
Vasil’yev’s book offers a correction to this, the reviewer concludes, and should force today’s liberals to reflect upon the fact that “even those Soviet people who sincerely copied everything Western were not able to escape from the framework of the communal model of trade characteristic of Russia.”
If yesterday’s Marxists and today’s liberals were able to recognize this reality about which Vasil’yev has written so cleverly, they would be able to understand that there are many forms of economic activity which are not captured by the “socialism-capitalism” dichotomy favored by both groups.
Baku, January 14 – The “fartsovshchiki” of the late Soviet period, a slang term for people who engaged in one of the most notorious aspects of the shadow economy at that time, were neither the misguided pawns of the West denounced by the communist authorities then nor proto-capitalist heroes celebrated by some Russian writers today.
Instead, according to a new oral history, they represented a unique combination of certain earlier Russian economic traditions with the opening up of the USSR near its end presented and should not be seen as the advance guard of contemporary Russian capitalism.
That is the conclusion offered by investigative journalist Dmitriy Vasil’yev in his new book Fartsovshchiki (St. Petersburg: Vektor, 2007, in Russian) and whose arguments are laid out in an extensive review essay of his investigations that is now available online (http://contrtv.ru/common/2576/).
Vasil’yev interviewed people in the northern capital who had engaged in “fartsovka” activities between the 1960s and the1980s and was thus able to show, in the words of the review, “the principle distinctions of ‘fartsovka’ from trade of the bourgeois type and its similarities to forms of trade in traditional [Russian] society.”
According to the book’s author, there are two etymologies for the word “fortsovka” and its derivative “fortsovshchiki.” The first derives the term from the English “for sale,” while the second traces it back to a slang term from Odessa referring to someone who “talks down” the price of he wants to buy and then resells it for more.
The second of these explanations is probably the more likely, but however thtmay be, the term was first applied to those young people who hung about hotels in major Soviet cities where visitors from abroad were staying and offered to exchange Soviet goods of various kinds for all sorts of things “from the West.”
Vasil’yev suggests that this phenomenon passed through three phses, a “romantic” beginning inth 1960s, a flowering in the 1970s, and a rapid decline and finally disappearance “together with the Soviet Union” at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.
In its romantic phase, the “fartsovshchiki” consisted mainly of the so-called “stilyagi,” part of the “golden youth” of the Soviet elite and its hangers on who celebrated everything from the West, however cheap or silly it might be and engaged in “fartsovka” in order to get it however expensive the Soviet goods they had to offer in exchange.
This first group, Vasil’yev makes clear on the basis of his interviews, was thus less interested in making money off the deals, although some of its members did, than in acquiring for themselves and their friends the latest Western fashions or what they believed were such.
As this Western-oriented subculture spread, the St. Petersburg journalist says, more people were drawn in to “fartsovka,” more money was made through the resale of goods acquired from Western visitors, and that in turn lead to a division of labor between those who bought the goods and those who sold them.
In the 1970s and 1980s, “fartsovka” grew so large that Vasil’yev suggests there were six different groups involved in acquiring goods -- hotel workers, sailors on Soviet cargo ships, long-distance truckers, participants in Interclubs, guides, and those who continued to deal “outside hotels” as well as those who sold these goods to others.
Vasil’yev describes each of these in great detail, and his online reviewer helpfully summarizes Vasil’yev’s findings on each of them. But as interesting as those findings are sociologically, the conclusions about the nature of “fartsovka” that Vasil’yev’s research suggests about this movement is more significant politically at least now.
First of all, as his findings make clear, “fartsovka” was never “simply a business” but rather “a subculture with its own ideology, its own slang and its own division of people into ‘our own’ and ‘others.’” And for most who participated in it, acquisition of a Western style rather than profit was the primary motivating force.
Second, its members routinely practiced “mutual assistance” and did not seek to make all the money off the exchanges that they might have, something more typical, Vasil’yev’s reviewer suggests, of classical trade than of its capitalist variant as usually understood.
And third, the “fartsovshchiki” behaved in some ways very differently than did their traditional predecessors because they were less concerned with satisfying their real needs either directly through the goods they obtained or indirectly through their sale than in acquiring status.
Unfortunately, as Vakhirov notes in his review, “the Marxists in the USSR defined ‘fartsovka” as a rebirth of bourgeois trade [because they could not imagine any other kind], and then the liberals, mostly graduates of [Soviet-era] departments of historical materialism [simply] repeated this,” albeit with a different sign in front.
Vasil’yev’s book offers a correction to this, the reviewer concludes, and should force today’s liberals to reflect upon the fact that “even those Soviet people who sincerely copied everything Western were not able to escape from the framework of the communal model of trade characteristic of Russia.”
If yesterday’s Marxists and today’s liberals were able to recognize this reality about which Vasil’yev has written so cleverly, they would be able to understand that there are many forms of economic activity which are not captured by the “socialism-capitalism” dichotomy favored by both groups.
Window on Eurasia: Putin’s New Man at NATO Urges Russian Nationalists to Infiltrate Moscow Regime
Paul Goble
Baku, January 13 – Several years ago, President Vladimir Putin jokingly said that he and a group of security officers had successfully carried out a penetration operation inside the Russian government. Now, even more disturbingly, his choice for Moscow’s representative at NATO has urged extreme Russian nationalists to do the same thing.
In a statement on the portal of the racist Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) yesterday, Dmitriy Rogozin, to whose appointment NATO has given agrement, called on his fellow radical nationalists to infiltrate the Russian government and seek to influence its “evolution from the inside” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/7230/).
Here is an informal translation of Rogozin’s brief open letter:
Dear Friends! The president of the Russian Federation V.V.Putin by his Decree has appointed me head of the Permanent Representation of the Russian Federation at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). I consider this decision of the Chief of the government as a chance for interesting and responsible work, important for my country.
I recognize that for many this degree was something unexpected. For in recent times, our relations with the party of power have not been without difficulties. But the fact that our political views and professional skills are required corresponds to my desire to work for the Motherland and to serve Russia.
I call on my comrades, comrades-in-arms and supporters to boldly integrate themselves in the power structures, including and above all the executive branch of power and influence its evolution from the inside. At this turning point for our Fatherland, when is being decided which path Russia will follow and whether our country will recover its status as a great power, patriots cannot stand aside.”
-- Dmitriy Rogozin
Given Rogozin’s own views and the even more extremist positions of DPNI, it is hard to say which is the most appalling: Putin’s decision to send the Rodina leader to Brussels, NATO’s willingness to grant him agrement, or Rogozin’s view here that radical Russian nationalists can now secure places at the highest levels of the Russian state.
Baku, January 13 – Several years ago, President Vladimir Putin jokingly said that he and a group of security officers had successfully carried out a penetration operation inside the Russian government. Now, even more disturbingly, his choice for Moscow’s representative at NATO has urged extreme Russian nationalists to do the same thing.
In a statement on the portal of the racist Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) yesterday, Dmitriy Rogozin, to whose appointment NATO has given agrement, called on his fellow radical nationalists to infiltrate the Russian government and seek to influence its “evolution from the inside” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/7230/).
Here is an informal translation of Rogozin’s brief open letter:
Dear Friends! The president of the Russian Federation V.V.Putin by his Decree has appointed me head of the Permanent Representation of the Russian Federation at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). I consider this decision of the Chief of the government as a chance for interesting and responsible work, important for my country.
I recognize that for many this degree was something unexpected. For in recent times, our relations with the party of power have not been without difficulties. But the fact that our political views and professional skills are required corresponds to my desire to work for the Motherland and to serve Russia.
I call on my comrades, comrades-in-arms and supporters to boldly integrate themselves in the power structures, including and above all the executive branch of power and influence its evolution from the inside. At this turning point for our Fatherland, when is being decided which path Russia will follow and whether our country will recover its status as a great power, patriots cannot stand aside.”
-- Dmitriy Rogozin
Given Rogozin’s own views and the even more extremist positions of DPNI, it is hard to say which is the most appalling: Putin’s decision to send the Rodina leader to Brussels, NATO’s willingness to grant him agrement, or Rogozin’s view here that radical Russian nationalists can now secure places at the highest levels of the Russian state.
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s ‘Cyber-Muslims’ Challenge Moscow, Islamic Leaders
Paul Goble
Baku, January 13 – Muslims who turn to the Internet as part of their religious thought and practice – a group some call “Cyber-Muslims” – are playing an increasingly significant role in the life of the Russian Federation’s Islamic community, according to a leading Tatar specialist on the web.
In an online interview posted on the “Islam in the Russian Federation” portal last week, Aynur Sibgatullin, a computer specialist who has helped to develop many sites and is the author of the forthcoming book, Tatarskiy Internet, describes how and why this has happened (http://www.islamrf.ru/articles.php?razdel=1&sid=1228).
While Muslim websites on the Runet still have a long way to go to come up to current Internet standards, the Tatar expert says, they nonetheless are attracting an increasing number of Russia’s Muslims who have made them into an essential part of their own religious life and hence of the life of the community as a whole.
Four years ago, he notes, American professor Robert A. Saunders published an article in the Moscow journal “Russia in Global Affairs” entitled “Nationality: Cyber-Russian” (available in English at http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/9/716.html and in Russian at http://www.inosmi.ru/translation/214142.html).
In that article, Saunders suggested that ever more Russians – both within the Russian Federation and especially among ethnic Russians living in the other former Soviet republics -- are both defining who they are and participating in the larger ethno-political community by making use of the Internet.
Muslims within Russia are doing the same thing, for the same reason, and in much the same way, Sibgatullin argues. Those “Cyber-Muslims,” who are “’consumers’” of the Muslim Internet, may in fact now constitute “’the silent majority’” of Russia’s faithful.
But increasingly, as they and the web grow in sophisticated, the activity of the Cyber-Muslims is rising to “a qualitatively new level.” Not only do they turn to the Internet for information they may not be able to get locally or for a sense of community, but they actually use Muslim lights as part of their personal religious practice.
In a few places – Voronezh, for example -- Muslims have begun to create their own “virtual mosques” online “where they will assemble [online] for regular prayers five times a day.” Muslims in some other countries are already doing that on a small scale, but Sibgatullin argues that conditions in Russia will make such efforts especially popular.
That judgment reflects his appreciation of both the country’s enormous size, throughout which Muslims are scattered in small communities, as well as the difficulties even many larger groups of Muslims have had in getting state approval for the building of a mosque or finding a mullah to lead them in prayers.
And it also reflects some dramatic improvements in Internet technology. Not only can Cyber-Muslims interact via e-mail and chat rooms, they can also use web cameras to view others who are taking part in the same prayers or meetings, a possibility that allows this virtual space to approach a real one.
While this technology contributes to the growth of the country’s Islamic community, not all members of the “traditional” Muslim hierarchies are happy about it. On the one hand, it threatens their ability to control the situation in their areas. After all, Cyber-Muslims can link up with mullahs and imams thousands of miles away.
And on the other, it means that Cyber-Muslims can use the Internet to expand their ties with the worldwide umma, something that guarantees they will be exposed to ideas and approaches that the leaders of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates have tried to prevent.
Such international linkages perhaps an even greater concern for the Russian government, which over the last decade has worked hard to limit both the number of Muslims studying abroad and the number of Muslim missionaries coming in from abroad and bringing with them versions of the faith very different from those Moscow prefers.
The Internet reduces the impact of those efforts almost to nothing, and that in turn helps to explain why the Russian authorities, sometimes with the help of traditional Muslim leaders like the Central MSD head, Talgat Tajuddin, are doing what they can to block this channel.
Efforts of that kind are likely to be successful in the particular but to fail over all, and consequently, the number and even influence of Russia’s Cyber-Muslims is likely to continue to grow, with consequences for their community and country that are as yet difficult to predict.
Baku, January 13 – Muslims who turn to the Internet as part of their religious thought and practice – a group some call “Cyber-Muslims” – are playing an increasingly significant role in the life of the Russian Federation’s Islamic community, according to a leading Tatar specialist on the web.
In an online interview posted on the “Islam in the Russian Federation” portal last week, Aynur Sibgatullin, a computer specialist who has helped to develop many sites and is the author of the forthcoming book, Tatarskiy Internet, describes how and why this has happened (http://www.islamrf.ru/articles.php?razdel=1&sid=1228).
While Muslim websites on the Runet still have a long way to go to come up to current Internet standards, the Tatar expert says, they nonetheless are attracting an increasing number of Russia’s Muslims who have made them into an essential part of their own religious life and hence of the life of the community as a whole.
Four years ago, he notes, American professor Robert A. Saunders published an article in the Moscow journal “Russia in Global Affairs” entitled “Nationality: Cyber-Russian” (available in English at http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/9/716.html and in Russian at http://www.inosmi.ru/translation/214142.html).
In that article, Saunders suggested that ever more Russians – both within the Russian Federation and especially among ethnic Russians living in the other former Soviet republics -- are both defining who they are and participating in the larger ethno-political community by making use of the Internet.
Muslims within Russia are doing the same thing, for the same reason, and in much the same way, Sibgatullin argues. Those “Cyber-Muslims,” who are “’consumers’” of the Muslim Internet, may in fact now constitute “’the silent majority’” of Russia’s faithful.
But increasingly, as they and the web grow in sophisticated, the activity of the Cyber-Muslims is rising to “a qualitatively new level.” Not only do they turn to the Internet for information they may not be able to get locally or for a sense of community, but they actually use Muslim lights as part of their personal religious practice.
In a few places – Voronezh, for example -- Muslims have begun to create their own “virtual mosques” online “where they will assemble [online] for regular prayers five times a day.” Muslims in some other countries are already doing that on a small scale, but Sibgatullin argues that conditions in Russia will make such efforts especially popular.
That judgment reflects his appreciation of both the country’s enormous size, throughout which Muslims are scattered in small communities, as well as the difficulties even many larger groups of Muslims have had in getting state approval for the building of a mosque or finding a mullah to lead them in prayers.
And it also reflects some dramatic improvements in Internet technology. Not only can Cyber-Muslims interact via e-mail and chat rooms, they can also use web cameras to view others who are taking part in the same prayers or meetings, a possibility that allows this virtual space to approach a real one.
While this technology contributes to the growth of the country’s Islamic community, not all members of the “traditional” Muslim hierarchies are happy about it. On the one hand, it threatens their ability to control the situation in their areas. After all, Cyber-Muslims can link up with mullahs and imams thousands of miles away.
And on the other, it means that Cyber-Muslims can use the Internet to expand their ties with the worldwide umma, something that guarantees they will be exposed to ideas and approaches that the leaders of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates have tried to prevent.
Such international linkages perhaps an even greater concern for the Russian government, which over the last decade has worked hard to limit both the number of Muslims studying abroad and the number of Muslim missionaries coming in from abroad and bringing with them versions of the faith very different from those Moscow prefers.
The Internet reduces the impact of those efforts almost to nothing, and that in turn helps to explain why the Russian authorities, sometimes with the help of traditional Muslim leaders like the Central MSD head, Talgat Tajuddin, are doing what they can to block this channel.
Efforts of that kind are likely to be successful in the particular but to fail over all, and consequently, the number and even influence of Russia’s Cyber-Muslims is likely to continue to grow, with consequences for their community and country that are as yet difficult to predict.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
