Paul Goble
Staunton, September 27 – Militants in the North Caucasus republics want to create a situation in which residents there will decide that they would be better off outside of the Russian Federation, but even more, the head of the Republic of North Ossetia says, they seek by their actions to get Russians to want precisely that.
To that end, Taymuraz Mamsurov says in an interview published in today’s “Kommersant,” the militants try to do everything so that Russians will view North Caucasians as “wild men whom it is impossible to education but only possible to destroy” so that eventually Russians will say enough (kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1511641&NodesID=6).
And in pursuit of that goal, he continues, they are prepared to engage in the most horrific act of terrorism like the September 9th explosion in Vladikavkaz and to fight on for perhaps as many as ten years more, something they hope to be able to achieve by keeping the population of the region in a condition of constant fear.
To defeat them, Mamsurov argues, “we must learn to live in conditions of war. Now, we must quickly learn from our mistakes. In blood, unfortunately. But the most terrible thing is if our people will live in horror and fear.” People cannot and must not live that way. “Therefore one must learn how to counter these threats and wait until all this will end.”
After the Vladikavkaz attack, Mamsurov acknowledges that many Ossetians and especially the young were inclined to blame the Ingush, not only because an entire generation has grown up among the Ossetians blaming the Ingush and vice versa but because young people tend to be especially emotional on such subjects. If they were otherwise, it would be “strange.”
The North Ossetian leader said that Ingush President Yevkurov had called him immediately after the events to express his sympathies but that it was very difficult for him to say anything publically, given the passions in both republics. That is something, Mamsurov says he fully understands.
In other comments, Mamsurov says that he made contacts with the Israelis after the Beslan terrorist act because “one must teach people” not only that “each day is a gift but also to be able to live with the threat of terrorism, and not become immobilized by fear of that possibility even as one minimizes the threat. That is something the Israelis have done.
The North Ossetian leader also says that his relations with the law enforcement organs in his republic are good, even though “by federal law, [he] does not have the right to appoint or remove them and they have the right not to tell me all that I want to know.” But he suggests that he gets information “about everything.”
Mamsurov argues that Islam is not to blame for all the problems in the North Caucasus as many seem to think – even those responsible for Beslan were from other faiths. And he adds that despite his own ethnic heritage, he had “never in [his] life” gone to a mosque, and believed that “faith without knowledge is fanaticism.
But Mamsurov’s most important comments concern how he would conduct the struggle against the militants. On the one hand, he stresses that it is an ideological fight, one in which current leaders like himself must make sure that another generation does not grow up hating people of other groups and blaming them for all their own problems.
And on the other, he calls for draconian punishments. Those who engage in the killing of innocents must be killed. There is no other “medicine” for them. Moreover, the families of the militants and those who stand behind the one and the other must bear full responsibility for what the terrorists do.
Mamsurov dismisses as impossible the idea suicide bombers do not care about their lives. Such an individual is simply specially prepared, just like some dogs are in the military. Such an individual “does not sacrifice himself. He is not alive. [Instead,] this is an individual who does not know religion or the value of life or the mother who bore and nursed him.”
In fact, such an individual is simply “a thing in human form that is chosen because of his psychological problems.” No ideas are behind his action, Mamsurov continues, and certainly no religion supports this kind of behavior. That is a hard lesson to learn, but it is a necessary one if such phenomena are to be defeated.
What the peoples of the North Caucasus are involved in is “a war. This is not some kind of petty banditism. And when one is involved in a war one must act accordingly. If I take you prisoner, I read out law. If I am required to keep you in prison and feed you and so on, I must do that. If I am required in military time to shoot you, then I must do so.”
More to the point, “you must know about this. When you leave your home, you must know what you are getting involved in. And if you go along this path, then you must know that even if you die, this is what will happen with your family and close friends. This is not some kind of Caucasian wildness; it must be based on law and on the decision of a court.”
If the peoples of the North Caucasus are to defeat the militants, Mamsurov concludes, everyone must understand that, both the militants and those they seek to destroy or enslave.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Kamchatka Draftees Can’t Show Up for Military Service Because of Costly Air Fares
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 27 – For four years, a Kamchatka journalist says, draftees from Koryak district have not been able to show up for military service because there has been no money from the government to pay for the air fares needed to bring them to central dispatch places, one measure of the difficulties involved in connecting parts of Russia not linked by roads.
But as Vyacheslav Skalatsky shows, the combination of cutbacks in air service to distant locations within the Russian Federation and rapidly increasing prices for air fares has broader consequences, both preventing young men from getting better jobs that military experience can open for them and meaning that people who are ill cannot get medical attention.
When he first reported this, the Kamchatka journalist says, he and his colleagues “understood that the bureaucrats might have not been able to deal with this problem just as with others. But we were not prepared to plumb the depths of their unprofessionalism. Now that has happened (www.raipon.info/index.php/component/content/article/1-novosti/1196-im-ne-doehat),
Skalatsky notes that “the task of bringing draftees to the kray center is only part of a large social problem of the entire Koryak district. Young people [from there] cannot be called to military service as is guaranteed by the Constitution. And then they cannot find more or less attractive work because of the lack of such service.”
But instead of addressing this problem, regional officials have sought to shift responsibility for and place blame on anyone but themselves. And when Koryak residents have complained, the bureaucrats have often routed their letters to the wrong officials who in turn have either ignored them or answered with “empty” promises.
One appeal, he said, complained that the situation had deteriorated since the Koryak district was amalgamated into the Kamchatka kray as part of then-President Vladimir Putin’s push to reduce the number of federal subjects by combining in the first instance, small, so-called “matryoshka” non-Russian districts with larger and predominantly Russian ones.
And another letter that Skalatsky read out on television pointed out to officials that many young men can’t find jobs because of this situation. Those “without a military ticket,” she pointed out, “are not hired on a permanent basis,” something that leaves them with few prospects and little hope for the future.
One official told her that the military commissar of Kamchatka kray says that the kray government cannot pay for the flights because Moscow has not provided the necessary funds “to the full extent.” He promised to see what could be done, but since that time, the people and draftees of Koryakia have not received any help.
What they and others have received are proud and entirely “empty” boasts by kray officials. Oskana Gerasimova, the kray development minister, told a session of the Russian-American Pacific Ocean Partnership Group that Kamchatka has all that it needs to be a leader in the development of trade ties between Russia and Pacific Rim and European countries.
Skalatsky says that it would be “interesting” to learn how Gerasimova squares this claim with the situation of “those draftees who FOR YEARS have not been able to reach the draft assembly point because of the absence of money and air communications” and feels comfortable in asserting that Kamchatka is able to respond “adequately to ‘the challenges of the times.’”
Some might be tempted to view this situation as exceptional, but another report today, this time in “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” suggests that similar problems are intensifying in the roughly one-third of the Russian Federation that lies in the north and whose residents are not linked to the rest of the country by any roads, let alone good ones.
According to the Moscow paper’s Krasnoyarsk correspondent, Aleksandr Chernyavsky, 11 days ago, officials closed the civilian airport in Dixon, the northernmost such facility in the Russian Federation, ending regular air service between that location and the south and stranding some 60 passengers waiting on the tarmac(www.ng.ru/regions/2010-09-27/100_dixon.html).
“The air bridge for residents of Dixon” – more than 600 people – “is vitally necessary, Chernyavsky continues. By plane are delivered not only the residents of the local settlement but also doctors, mail, and fresh products like milk and vegetables.” Official promises to establish “helicopter communication” do not appear likely to make up for the loss of plane service.
Vasily Nechayev, the head of the education commission of the regional legislature, says that this failure of the industry and energy ministry and the Taymyr district authorities is generating “serious concerns among the kray parliamentarians. But the local executive responds that that the closure was not his fault but that of aviation safety officials.
To bring the airport up to Russian safety standards will require 250 million rubles (8 million US dollars), an amount local legislatures promise to try to find in next year’s budget. In the meantime, residents of that northern settlement will have to make do without fresh milk and vegetables and perhaps, like the Koryaks, won’t be able to send their sons south to the army.
Staunton, September 27 – For four years, a Kamchatka journalist says, draftees from Koryak district have not been able to show up for military service because there has been no money from the government to pay for the air fares needed to bring them to central dispatch places, one measure of the difficulties involved in connecting parts of Russia not linked by roads.
But as Vyacheslav Skalatsky shows, the combination of cutbacks in air service to distant locations within the Russian Federation and rapidly increasing prices for air fares has broader consequences, both preventing young men from getting better jobs that military experience can open for them and meaning that people who are ill cannot get medical attention.
When he first reported this, the Kamchatka journalist says, he and his colleagues “understood that the bureaucrats might have not been able to deal with this problem just as with others. But we were not prepared to plumb the depths of their unprofessionalism. Now that has happened (www.raipon.info/index.php/component/content/article/1-novosti/1196-im-ne-doehat),
Skalatsky notes that “the task of bringing draftees to the kray center is only part of a large social problem of the entire Koryak district. Young people [from there] cannot be called to military service as is guaranteed by the Constitution. And then they cannot find more or less attractive work because of the lack of such service.”
But instead of addressing this problem, regional officials have sought to shift responsibility for and place blame on anyone but themselves. And when Koryak residents have complained, the bureaucrats have often routed their letters to the wrong officials who in turn have either ignored them or answered with “empty” promises.
One appeal, he said, complained that the situation had deteriorated since the Koryak district was amalgamated into the Kamchatka kray as part of then-President Vladimir Putin’s push to reduce the number of federal subjects by combining in the first instance, small, so-called “matryoshka” non-Russian districts with larger and predominantly Russian ones.
And another letter that Skalatsky read out on television pointed out to officials that many young men can’t find jobs because of this situation. Those “without a military ticket,” she pointed out, “are not hired on a permanent basis,” something that leaves them with few prospects and little hope for the future.
One official told her that the military commissar of Kamchatka kray says that the kray government cannot pay for the flights because Moscow has not provided the necessary funds “to the full extent.” He promised to see what could be done, but since that time, the people and draftees of Koryakia have not received any help.
What they and others have received are proud and entirely “empty” boasts by kray officials. Oskana Gerasimova, the kray development minister, told a session of the Russian-American Pacific Ocean Partnership Group that Kamchatka has all that it needs to be a leader in the development of trade ties between Russia and Pacific Rim and European countries.
Skalatsky says that it would be “interesting” to learn how Gerasimova squares this claim with the situation of “those draftees who FOR YEARS have not been able to reach the draft assembly point because of the absence of money and air communications” and feels comfortable in asserting that Kamchatka is able to respond “adequately to ‘the challenges of the times.’”
Some might be tempted to view this situation as exceptional, but another report today, this time in “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” suggests that similar problems are intensifying in the roughly one-third of the Russian Federation that lies in the north and whose residents are not linked to the rest of the country by any roads, let alone good ones.
According to the Moscow paper’s Krasnoyarsk correspondent, Aleksandr Chernyavsky, 11 days ago, officials closed the civilian airport in Dixon, the northernmost such facility in the Russian Federation, ending regular air service between that location and the south and stranding some 60 passengers waiting on the tarmac(www.ng.ru/regions/2010-09-27/100_dixon.html).
“The air bridge for residents of Dixon” – more than 600 people – “is vitally necessary, Chernyavsky continues. By plane are delivered not only the residents of the local settlement but also doctors, mail, and fresh products like milk and vegetables.” Official promises to establish “helicopter communication” do not appear likely to make up for the loss of plane service.
Vasily Nechayev, the head of the education commission of the regional legislature, says that this failure of the industry and energy ministry and the Taymyr district authorities is generating “serious concerns among the kray parliamentarians. But the local executive responds that that the closure was not his fault but that of aviation safety officials.
To bring the airport up to Russian safety standards will require 250 million rubles (8 million US dollars), an amount local legislatures promise to try to find in next year’s budget. In the meantime, residents of that northern settlement will have to make do without fresh milk and vegetables and perhaps, like the Koryaks, won’t be able to send their sons south to the army.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Patriarchate Backs Novel by Widow of Martyred Orthodox Missionary about Islamist Extremists
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 26 – The widow of Father Daniel Sysoyev, a young Russian Orthodox pastor missionary who in the view of the Moscow Patriarchate, was “martyred” in November 2009 by Islamist extremists, has written a novel about a young woman who out of her love for her husband finds herself in a camp where Islamists prepare suicide bombers.
The subject is explosive enough in today’s Russia, but the impact of this novel is certain to be far greater than would otherwise be the case because the book is to be published with the imprimatur of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and thus will be seen by many as a statement of its views (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=37507).
At the very least, the appearance of this book by Yulia Sysoyeva will again focus attention not only on her late husband’s murder and the fate of the many suspected of killing him but also and far more importantly on his push for missionary work by the Russian Orthodox Church not only about the non-traditional faiths but also and especially among Muslims.
Sysoyev, born in 1974, was at the time of his death the pastor of Moscow’s Church of the Apostle Thomas. But more important, he had attracted attention both for his active missionary work among Muslims and Protestants and his willingness to debate the leaders of these faiths and the opponents among the Orthodox of such missionary activity.
(Most Orthodox hierarchs have no objection to missionary work among those they call the non-traditional faiths in that country, but these leaders generally follow the line laid down a decade ago by the churchman who is now patriarch that the Orthodox should not proselytize among the other “traditional” faiths – Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.)
Sysoyev argued that the Orthodox faith requires its adherents to spread the Good News of
Christianity to others. And during the last decade of his life, he gained the reputation of being an active missionary among the rapidly growing Muslim community of the Russian capital, a reputation that may have cost him his life.
On November 19, 2009, he was shot in his own church. Officials moved quickly and arrested a Kyrgyz national on suspicion. That individual, however, died while in detention, an outcome that led some to believe there was a cover up and others, including radical Islamists in the North Caucasus, to declare that they rather than the man arrested had killed Sysoyev.
At the time of his death, Patriarch Kirill called Father Daniel Sysoyev “a martyr” for the cause of missionary work, and many Orthodox priests and hierarchs have routinely invoked his name and his ideas since then, arguing that the Church must not be afraid, as Sysoyev was not afraid, of seeking to convert Muslims now living in Moscow and other Russian cities.
By giving its support to the novel Sysoyev’s widow has written, one that judging by the brief Interfax account will portray Muslims in a negative way by suggesting they want to recruit Russians as suicide bombers, the Moscow Patriarchate is encouraging anti-Muslim attitudes among the Orthodox, thus exacerbating inter-religious and inter-ethnic tensions in Russia.
Staunton, September 26 – The widow of Father Daniel Sysoyev, a young Russian Orthodox pastor missionary who in the view of the Moscow Patriarchate, was “martyred” in November 2009 by Islamist extremists, has written a novel about a young woman who out of her love for her husband finds herself in a camp where Islamists prepare suicide bombers.
The subject is explosive enough in today’s Russia, but the impact of this novel is certain to be far greater than would otherwise be the case because the book is to be published with the imprimatur of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and thus will be seen by many as a statement of its views (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=37507).
At the very least, the appearance of this book by Yulia Sysoyeva will again focus attention not only on her late husband’s murder and the fate of the many suspected of killing him but also and far more importantly on his push for missionary work by the Russian Orthodox Church not only about the non-traditional faiths but also and especially among Muslims.
Sysoyev, born in 1974, was at the time of his death the pastor of Moscow’s Church of the Apostle Thomas. But more important, he had attracted attention both for his active missionary work among Muslims and Protestants and his willingness to debate the leaders of these faiths and the opponents among the Orthodox of such missionary activity.
(Most Orthodox hierarchs have no objection to missionary work among those they call the non-traditional faiths in that country, but these leaders generally follow the line laid down a decade ago by the churchman who is now patriarch that the Orthodox should not proselytize among the other “traditional” faiths – Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.)
Sysoyev argued that the Orthodox faith requires its adherents to spread the Good News of
Christianity to others. And during the last decade of his life, he gained the reputation of being an active missionary among the rapidly growing Muslim community of the Russian capital, a reputation that may have cost him his life.
On November 19, 2009, he was shot in his own church. Officials moved quickly and arrested a Kyrgyz national on suspicion. That individual, however, died while in detention, an outcome that led some to believe there was a cover up and others, including radical Islamists in the North Caucasus, to declare that they rather than the man arrested had killed Sysoyev.
At the time of his death, Patriarch Kirill called Father Daniel Sysoyev “a martyr” for the cause of missionary work, and many Orthodox priests and hierarchs have routinely invoked his name and his ideas since then, arguing that the Church must not be afraid, as Sysoyev was not afraid, of seeking to convert Muslims now living in Moscow and other Russian cities.
By giving its support to the novel Sysoyev’s widow has written, one that judging by the brief Interfax account will portray Muslims in a negative way by suggesting they want to recruit Russians as suicide bombers, the Moscow Patriarchate is encouraging anti-Muslim attitudes among the Orthodox, thus exacerbating inter-religious and inter-ethnic tensions in Russia.
Window on Eurasia: To Cut Costs, Irkutsk Governor Wants to Move All 6500 Residents of One District Out of Their Homes
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 26 – Irkutsk Governor Dmitry Mezentsev has directed officials there to come up with plans to resettle the 6500 residents of his region’s Mamsko-Chuisk district because it costs so much to heat their homes in the winter, a step that he says would save the region’s budget 130 million rubles (4 million US dollars) a year.
Mezentsev says that “if this sum were divided among the residents, each would receive 21,000 rubles (700 US dollars) a piece,” an amount that means “it is impossible to speak about the effective expenditure of budgetary funds.” Moreover, he said, once these people moved, they would have better housing and a better way of life (www.nts-tv.ru/?q=node/28942).
But it is unlikely that many of those whom Irkutsk would like to shift will believe him or that the money saved from not providing heating in the winter to this district would actually go to the people involved. Indeed, if the past is any guide, many of those the powers that be want to move are likely to refuse.
However, this effort not only highlights the extraordinary difficulties that both officials and the population face in areas of Russia beyond the Urals, difficulties rooted in the enormous distances and absence of key infrastructure, but it appears likely to attract even more attention to a disturbing portrait of life in Siberia and the Russian Far East circulating on the blogosphere.
In contrast to the up-beat and prettified picture of life in the region that accompanied Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent road trip there, journalist Yuri Pankov provides a Muscovite’s view of what he describes as a dying society in a 6000-word diary entitled “The Brotherhood of the End” (news.babr.ru/?IDE=88485 and news.babr.ru/?IDE=88486).
Like most diaries – and Pankov spent several weeks in various cities and villages of Siberia this summer – this one features more specific facts than generalizations. But the journalist is more interested than many in moving from the one to the other, and that is perhaps why so many Siberians have paid attention, despite their anger at his words (www.news.babr.ru/?IDE=88569).
According to Pankov, his visit this time – he was last there in the 1980s when conditions were better or at least people were more optimistic – forced him to conclude that “THE COUNTRY HAD DIED. [Emphasis in the original.] Without exaggeration. But no one has taken note of this. They have simply forgotten it for a long, long time.”
In many ways, Siberian cities like Bratsk recall the situation that existed in Moscow “at the beginning of the 1990s.” An “unbelievable” number of drunks, “no churches in principle” because the Soviets had closed them, and “the improbable popularity of taxis” which “simple people use even to go for bread because they are so fearful of thieves and murderers.”
Moreover, Pankov continues, “Siberia and the Far East are lost already. Everyone [there] curses the Chinese but they understand that without them nothing good can be expected. It is better if one’s husband is a Chinese, there is work in Chinese companies, there are Chinese fruits, Chinese restaurants, and vacations in China.”
Environmental degradation is extreme. In Bratsk, people often hear sirens from the factories, just as in Soviet times, to announce that the firms are putting wastes into the air or water. And the water in the lakes and rivers is so polluted that doctors say no one should eat the fish from them, although local people in their poverty do so anyway.
In many Siberian villages and even cities, there are three times as many women as men, a situation that often leads to irregular living arrangements. Women are afraid to get abortions lest they be left unable to have more children, and in some places, they have to give birth in emergency service vehicles because hospitals are so far away.
In some villages, he writes, the number of people actually living is much smaller than the number officials think are there. Local people conceal the deaths and departures in order to continue to receive the pensions of the departed, the only way such residents have to survive given low incomes and the high cost of food from other parts of Russia.
Moreover, Pankov says, his visit proved to him that Siberia has not been “electrified” as many believe. That is a myth. Many places do not have any electricity at all, and even in tourist centers on Lake Baikal, there is power from local diesel generators only for “three or four hours in the evening and one hour in the morning.”
Conditions are now so bad, he continues, that many young people, even though they fear what may happen to them, view service in the military as “salvation,” a way out of their difficulties and one that resembles what many Soviet citizens felt as a result of collectivization in the 1920s and 1930s.
That is what Siberian villages and towns are like now, he says. “All Siberia is one big de-kulakized village.”
Siberians, he writes, view political parties as “commercial enterprises” rather than expressions of the views of one or another part of the population. They see elections are completely fraudulent, and because television exposes them to the better life that Russians elsewhere have, many of them are increasingly angry at Moscow.
For the people he met, “a national leader in Russia would be only someone who builds roads. Nothing more than that is necessary. That is, in general, no rights, no elections, land, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, or conscience – here in one settlement of 1400 residents there are no believers at all.”
The only ones who have even been baptized are those who came to Siberia to earn money in the 1960s or who are the descendents of exiled kulaks. Indeed, Pankov says, people in the villages, “live like animals. They throw trash directly out the door.” Even the youngest curse rather than speak. “The people here are degenerating.”
Only roads will save the situation, he continues, but he provides the interesting detail that as in Soviet times, there are no local maps. He asked various officials to provide him one and even after more than a week, no one could find even a single map of the district. Given that people had nowhere to go, that ultimately was no surprise.
“One of the leading intellectuals of Bratsk,” Pankov said, is a veterinarian who is able to speak freely because he is subordinate not to local officials but to people in Irkutsk. He was the one who said no one should eat fish from the local reservoir, lest the poisons in the water make people ill.
And the veterinarian summed up his feelings about the situation in his Siberian city with words that Pankov might have been able to agree with, at least in part. “A fish rots from the head,” as the saying goes, the vet said, but at the present time, “the country is rotting from Moscow.”
Staunton, September 26 – Irkutsk Governor Dmitry Mezentsev has directed officials there to come up with plans to resettle the 6500 residents of his region’s Mamsko-Chuisk district because it costs so much to heat their homes in the winter, a step that he says would save the region’s budget 130 million rubles (4 million US dollars) a year.
Mezentsev says that “if this sum were divided among the residents, each would receive 21,000 rubles (700 US dollars) a piece,” an amount that means “it is impossible to speak about the effective expenditure of budgetary funds.” Moreover, he said, once these people moved, they would have better housing and a better way of life (www.nts-tv.ru/?q=node/28942).
But it is unlikely that many of those whom Irkutsk would like to shift will believe him or that the money saved from not providing heating in the winter to this district would actually go to the people involved. Indeed, if the past is any guide, many of those the powers that be want to move are likely to refuse.
However, this effort not only highlights the extraordinary difficulties that both officials and the population face in areas of Russia beyond the Urals, difficulties rooted in the enormous distances and absence of key infrastructure, but it appears likely to attract even more attention to a disturbing portrait of life in Siberia and the Russian Far East circulating on the blogosphere.
In contrast to the up-beat and prettified picture of life in the region that accompanied Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent road trip there, journalist Yuri Pankov provides a Muscovite’s view of what he describes as a dying society in a 6000-word diary entitled “The Brotherhood of the End” (news.babr.ru/?IDE=88485 and news.babr.ru/?IDE=88486).
Like most diaries – and Pankov spent several weeks in various cities and villages of Siberia this summer – this one features more specific facts than generalizations. But the journalist is more interested than many in moving from the one to the other, and that is perhaps why so many Siberians have paid attention, despite their anger at his words (www.news.babr.ru/?IDE=88569).
According to Pankov, his visit this time – he was last there in the 1980s when conditions were better or at least people were more optimistic – forced him to conclude that “THE COUNTRY HAD DIED. [Emphasis in the original.] Without exaggeration. But no one has taken note of this. They have simply forgotten it for a long, long time.”
In many ways, Siberian cities like Bratsk recall the situation that existed in Moscow “at the beginning of the 1990s.” An “unbelievable” number of drunks, “no churches in principle” because the Soviets had closed them, and “the improbable popularity of taxis” which “simple people use even to go for bread because they are so fearful of thieves and murderers.”
Moreover, Pankov continues, “Siberia and the Far East are lost already. Everyone [there] curses the Chinese but they understand that without them nothing good can be expected. It is better if one’s husband is a Chinese, there is work in Chinese companies, there are Chinese fruits, Chinese restaurants, and vacations in China.”
Environmental degradation is extreme. In Bratsk, people often hear sirens from the factories, just as in Soviet times, to announce that the firms are putting wastes into the air or water. And the water in the lakes and rivers is so polluted that doctors say no one should eat the fish from them, although local people in their poverty do so anyway.
In many Siberian villages and even cities, there are three times as many women as men, a situation that often leads to irregular living arrangements. Women are afraid to get abortions lest they be left unable to have more children, and in some places, they have to give birth in emergency service vehicles because hospitals are so far away.
In some villages, he writes, the number of people actually living is much smaller than the number officials think are there. Local people conceal the deaths and departures in order to continue to receive the pensions of the departed, the only way such residents have to survive given low incomes and the high cost of food from other parts of Russia.
Moreover, Pankov says, his visit proved to him that Siberia has not been “electrified” as many believe. That is a myth. Many places do not have any electricity at all, and even in tourist centers on Lake Baikal, there is power from local diesel generators only for “three or four hours in the evening and one hour in the morning.”
Conditions are now so bad, he continues, that many young people, even though they fear what may happen to them, view service in the military as “salvation,” a way out of their difficulties and one that resembles what many Soviet citizens felt as a result of collectivization in the 1920s and 1930s.
That is what Siberian villages and towns are like now, he says. “All Siberia is one big de-kulakized village.”
Siberians, he writes, view political parties as “commercial enterprises” rather than expressions of the views of one or another part of the population. They see elections are completely fraudulent, and because television exposes them to the better life that Russians elsewhere have, many of them are increasingly angry at Moscow.
For the people he met, “a national leader in Russia would be only someone who builds roads. Nothing more than that is necessary. That is, in general, no rights, no elections, land, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, or conscience – here in one settlement of 1400 residents there are no believers at all.”
The only ones who have even been baptized are those who came to Siberia to earn money in the 1960s or who are the descendents of exiled kulaks. Indeed, Pankov says, people in the villages, “live like animals. They throw trash directly out the door.” Even the youngest curse rather than speak. “The people here are degenerating.”
Only roads will save the situation, he continues, but he provides the interesting detail that as in Soviet times, there are no local maps. He asked various officials to provide him one and even after more than a week, no one could find even a single map of the district. Given that people had nowhere to go, that ultimately was no surprise.
“One of the leading intellectuals of Bratsk,” Pankov said, is a veterinarian who is able to speak freely because he is subordinate not to local officials but to people in Irkutsk. He was the one who said no one should eat fish from the local reservoir, lest the poisons in the water make people ill.
And the veterinarian summed up his feelings about the situation in his Siberian city with words that Pankov might have been able to agree with, at least in part. “A fish rots from the head,” as the saying goes, the vet said, but at the present time, “the country is rotting from Moscow.”
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Failure to Stem Flight of Ethnic Russians from North Caucasus Blamed for Continuing Violence There
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 25 – Moscow has failed to stabilize the North Caucasus or even reduce the threats to Russian sovereignty and control there, a “Segodnya” commentator says, because it has failed to stem the flight of ethnic Russians from the region, the very people who he argues provide the glue that holds the country together.
Instead, Petr Ivanchenko argues in yesterday’s paper, the central powers that be have sought to buy friends from within the local elites, either through massive spending which quickly disappears into corrupt pockets or through the offer of more or less unrestricted autonomy in exchange for declarations of loyalty. Neither tactic has worked.
And consequently, he suggests, Moscow should again rely, as the tsarist and to a lesser extent the Soviet authorities did, on ethnic Russian and Cossack communities there, protecting those that remain and encouraging others to return in order to ensure that the center will in fact control the North Caucasus (www.segodnia.ru/index.php?pgid=2&partid=10&newsid=12565).
But while Ivanchenko acknowledges in his essay that many non-Russians blame all their problems on “the Russians,” largely because of what he calls “Wahhabi propaganda,” he fails to consider whether a Moscow policy which relied on the ethnic Russians might provoke even more resistance from non-Russians in that unstable region.
Although the Russian leadership has not been shy about using force – in fact, it appears to have launched major operations in Daghestan and Chechnya this weekend – Moscow currently is placing its bets on providing more jobs for people there, self-confidently believing that “unemployment is the root of all evils” in the North Caucasus.
That is the thrust of the new Strategy of Development of the North Caucasus Federal District Up to 2025 that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Presidential Plenipotentiary Aleksandr Khloponin have been pushing, Ivanchenko continues, but there is no reason to think that such an approach will work any better than the ones Moscow has tried before.
Not only is it “unclear how such programs can be achieved under conditions of terror and general fear” – Ivanchenko notes that as far as tourism is concerned, “militants in Kabardino-Balkaria have already begun the intentional murder of vacationers” – but the enormous sums of money Moscow plans to spend will simply disappear.
(What is truly perverse, he notes, is that in the preamble to the Strategy, its authors acknowledge that the money Moscow has spent up to now has not had a positive effect.” But then, “as we see, the new strategic concept proposes practically the same thing … to be carried out by “the very same people” who up to now have not used the money as intended.)
What should be obvious to everyone, the “Segodnya” commentator says, is that the ground has not been prepared in the North Caucasus for such projects. Instead, Moscow will spend money, officials in the North Caucasus will pocket it, and the Russian Federation will still face threats to its sovereign control of that region.
Ivanchenko notes that the Americans are beginning to learn that in Afghanistan. They thought they had been able to “purchase the loyalty” of their opponents. But that hasn’t worked, just as it did not work for the Russian Federation after the Khasavyurt peace accord with Chechnya signed by then Security Council deputy head Boris Berezovsky.
“Money from the Russian budget will find its way into the pockets of the local political elite which does not have any influence on the terrorists and cannot improve the situation,” Ivanchenko says. And thus it will do nothing to dissuade “many Caucasians” from blaming Moscow and the ethnic Russians for their problems.
The continuing thievery and corruption of regional leaders whom Stalin would have called at best “’our sons of bitches’” had been pushing ever more people in Moscow to accept the idea that the only way out is to allow local leaders to do whatever they want as long as they keep the peace and constantly declare their loyalty to Moscow.
That is what Moscow has done in Chechnya, but while the declarations of loyalty continue, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has not been able to maintain order even in his home village. Moreover, the militants can attack his capital at any time, and Chechen criminals can operate far beyond “the borders of this ‘reservation.’”
Given that reality, Ivanchenko continues, it is time to look for another solution to the problem, and he offers his: increasing reliance on and the reinforcement of the ethnic Russian community still in the North Caucasus in the ways that both the tsarist regime and the Soviet authorities did in the past.
Ethnic Russians and Cossacks, he suggests, are precisely the people who can cope with the situation in the North Caucasus if they are supported. And he quotes with approval Soviet Marshal Ivan Bagramyan’s observation that “if in a military unit, there are fewer than 50 percent ethnic Russians, then it should be reformed because it would not be militarily capable.”
That “formulation,” Ivanchenko suggests, “must be applied not only in the military sphere.”
What is instructive, he continues, is that “even the authors” of the North Caucasus strategy document point out that “one of the causes of the existing problems is the outflow of the Christian population from the Caucasus,” a view that has its roots in Putin’s 1999 declarations about “the genocide of Russians” in Chechnya.
His remarks gave some Russians hope a decade ago, but then “the Kremlin decided to promote ‘the Chechenization’ of the conflict, and about the genocide none of the leaders of the country spoke anymore.” But it is time, the Russian commentator says, to remember precisely this, instead of throwing good money after bad and relying on purchased “friends.”
Staunton, September 25 – Moscow has failed to stabilize the North Caucasus or even reduce the threats to Russian sovereignty and control there, a “Segodnya” commentator says, because it has failed to stem the flight of ethnic Russians from the region, the very people who he argues provide the glue that holds the country together.
Instead, Petr Ivanchenko argues in yesterday’s paper, the central powers that be have sought to buy friends from within the local elites, either through massive spending which quickly disappears into corrupt pockets or through the offer of more or less unrestricted autonomy in exchange for declarations of loyalty. Neither tactic has worked.
And consequently, he suggests, Moscow should again rely, as the tsarist and to a lesser extent the Soviet authorities did, on ethnic Russian and Cossack communities there, protecting those that remain and encouraging others to return in order to ensure that the center will in fact control the North Caucasus (www.segodnia.ru/index.php?pgid=2&partid=10&newsid=12565).
But while Ivanchenko acknowledges in his essay that many non-Russians blame all their problems on “the Russians,” largely because of what he calls “Wahhabi propaganda,” he fails to consider whether a Moscow policy which relied on the ethnic Russians might provoke even more resistance from non-Russians in that unstable region.
Although the Russian leadership has not been shy about using force – in fact, it appears to have launched major operations in Daghestan and Chechnya this weekend – Moscow currently is placing its bets on providing more jobs for people there, self-confidently believing that “unemployment is the root of all evils” in the North Caucasus.
That is the thrust of the new Strategy of Development of the North Caucasus Federal District Up to 2025 that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Presidential Plenipotentiary Aleksandr Khloponin have been pushing, Ivanchenko continues, but there is no reason to think that such an approach will work any better than the ones Moscow has tried before.
Not only is it “unclear how such programs can be achieved under conditions of terror and general fear” – Ivanchenko notes that as far as tourism is concerned, “militants in Kabardino-Balkaria have already begun the intentional murder of vacationers” – but the enormous sums of money Moscow plans to spend will simply disappear.
(What is truly perverse, he notes, is that in the preamble to the Strategy, its authors acknowledge that the money Moscow has spent up to now has not had a positive effect.” But then, “as we see, the new strategic concept proposes practically the same thing … to be carried out by “the very same people” who up to now have not used the money as intended.)
What should be obvious to everyone, the “Segodnya” commentator says, is that the ground has not been prepared in the North Caucasus for such projects. Instead, Moscow will spend money, officials in the North Caucasus will pocket it, and the Russian Federation will still face threats to its sovereign control of that region.
Ivanchenko notes that the Americans are beginning to learn that in Afghanistan. They thought they had been able to “purchase the loyalty” of their opponents. But that hasn’t worked, just as it did not work for the Russian Federation after the Khasavyurt peace accord with Chechnya signed by then Security Council deputy head Boris Berezovsky.
“Money from the Russian budget will find its way into the pockets of the local political elite which does not have any influence on the terrorists and cannot improve the situation,” Ivanchenko says. And thus it will do nothing to dissuade “many Caucasians” from blaming Moscow and the ethnic Russians for their problems.
The continuing thievery and corruption of regional leaders whom Stalin would have called at best “’our sons of bitches’” had been pushing ever more people in Moscow to accept the idea that the only way out is to allow local leaders to do whatever they want as long as they keep the peace and constantly declare their loyalty to Moscow.
That is what Moscow has done in Chechnya, but while the declarations of loyalty continue, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has not been able to maintain order even in his home village. Moreover, the militants can attack his capital at any time, and Chechen criminals can operate far beyond “the borders of this ‘reservation.’”
Given that reality, Ivanchenko continues, it is time to look for another solution to the problem, and he offers his: increasing reliance on and the reinforcement of the ethnic Russian community still in the North Caucasus in the ways that both the tsarist regime and the Soviet authorities did in the past.
Ethnic Russians and Cossacks, he suggests, are precisely the people who can cope with the situation in the North Caucasus if they are supported. And he quotes with approval Soviet Marshal Ivan Bagramyan’s observation that “if in a military unit, there are fewer than 50 percent ethnic Russians, then it should be reformed because it would not be militarily capable.”
That “formulation,” Ivanchenko suggests, “must be applied not only in the military sphere.”
What is instructive, he continues, is that “even the authors” of the North Caucasus strategy document point out that “one of the causes of the existing problems is the outflow of the Christian population from the Caucasus,” a view that has its roots in Putin’s 1999 declarations about “the genocide of Russians” in Chechnya.
His remarks gave some Russians hope a decade ago, but then “the Kremlin decided to promote ‘the Chechenization’ of the conflict, and about the genocide none of the leaders of the country spoke anymore.” But it is time, the Russian commentator says, to remember precisely this, instead of throwing good money after bad and relying on purchased “friends.”
Window on Eurasia: Daghestanis Outraged by Moscow’s Decision to Shift Border with Azerbaijan
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 25 – Daghestanis, who as one commentator noted angrily this week “in 1999 stood up in defense of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” when they opposed a Chechen invasion have now been forced to watch “the violation of this [very same] territorial integrity by the government itself.”
In an article published yesterday, Ruslan Kurbanov, a scholar who serves on the working group of the Social Chamber for the Caucasus, said he was specifically referring to the agreement between Moscow and Baku over the flow of the Samur River which forms the border of the two countries (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/4821/109/).
That accord, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made the centerpiece of his visit to Baku, shifted the line from the Azerbaijani shore of the river as it had been in Soviet times to the middle of the river, thus “allowing control of the Samur hydro-system to remain in the hands of the Azerbaijani side.”
Since the signing of that accord earlier this month, Kurbanov says, Daghestani journalists and bloggers have advanced numerous arguments as to “why for the peoples of Daghestan this agreement is a misfortune and why Russia’s inability to defend the interests of its own population, even of Caucasus nationality, is a humiliation.”
What makes their arguments particularly compelling, the Makhachkala writer says, is that “this is not a unique case.” Russia has been yielding territory for some time. And this process has involved “small units” of territory “now in the South and now in the East,” inevitably raising the question as to when this might stop.
In 2005, Kurbanov continues, Moscow and Beijing reached agreement on the partial demarcation of the Sino-Russian border. As a result of this accord, Russia handed over a total of 337 square kilometers to China, something that sparked “hot discussions” in Moscow and the Russian Far East about whether this had been the right thing to do.
At that time, he recalls, “opponents of that transfer of territory pointed out that these were strategically important lands for Russia because they were rich in natural resources. But defenders of this decision of the government asserted that the loss in land was not very big for Russia and that the improvement of strategic relations with China was much more important.”
But only three years later, however, Moscow agreed to hand over still more territory to China so that it could “solemnly claim” that territorial issues between the countries, “negotiations about which had lasted more than 40 years,” had all been resolved, something many Russians had assumed had already taken place in 2005.
That is worrisome, Kurbanov says, because “if in this way Moscow will resolve all territorial problems, then nothing will remain from the Great Russia [of today] in the very near future. “ What guarantees does anyone have that Moscow won’t resolve the Kuriles dispute with Japan in Tokyo’s favor to “improve relations” with Tokyo?
Or what about Kaliningrad oblast, Kurbanov asks rhetorically, “which before World War II was [Germany’s] East Prussia and whose capital Kaliningrad was Konigsberg? Or how can one “not recall about Azerbaijani pretensions not only to the Samur but also to the [southern Daghestani] city of Derbent and the land adjoining it?
And all these things raise the larger and potentially far more fateful question, Kurbanov suggests: “Does the current Russian elite have any point at which it is prepared to stop making territorial concessions to its neighbors if the interests of simple people do not agitate anyone [among that elite]?”
The anger Daghestanis now feel is important for two reasons. On the one hand, it suggests that many of them now view Moscow as incapable of defending existing borders, a conclusion that is especially dangerous in a region where any appearance of weakness can lead people to conclude that it is time to shift allegiances.
And on the other, and more immediately, Moscow’s failure to recall the time when Daghestanis stood up and defended the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation only 11 years ago almost certainly means that fewer of them will be prepared to do so again and that more will be prepared to accept border changes that Moscow won’t like at all.
UPDATE on September 27. The anger of Daghestanis about Moscow's concessions to Azerbaijan on the border river is now being echoed by some Russian commentators in Moscow. See, for example, www.apn.ru/publications/article23198.htm
Staunton, September 25 – Daghestanis, who as one commentator noted angrily this week “in 1999 stood up in defense of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” when they opposed a Chechen invasion have now been forced to watch “the violation of this [very same] territorial integrity by the government itself.”
In an article published yesterday, Ruslan Kurbanov, a scholar who serves on the working group of the Social Chamber for the Caucasus, said he was specifically referring to the agreement between Moscow and Baku over the flow of the Samur River which forms the border of the two countries (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/4821/109/).
That accord, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made the centerpiece of his visit to Baku, shifted the line from the Azerbaijani shore of the river as it had been in Soviet times to the middle of the river, thus “allowing control of the Samur hydro-system to remain in the hands of the Azerbaijani side.”
Since the signing of that accord earlier this month, Kurbanov says, Daghestani journalists and bloggers have advanced numerous arguments as to “why for the peoples of Daghestan this agreement is a misfortune and why Russia’s inability to defend the interests of its own population, even of Caucasus nationality, is a humiliation.”
What makes their arguments particularly compelling, the Makhachkala writer says, is that “this is not a unique case.” Russia has been yielding territory for some time. And this process has involved “small units” of territory “now in the South and now in the East,” inevitably raising the question as to when this might stop.
In 2005, Kurbanov continues, Moscow and Beijing reached agreement on the partial demarcation of the Sino-Russian border. As a result of this accord, Russia handed over a total of 337 square kilometers to China, something that sparked “hot discussions” in Moscow and the Russian Far East about whether this had been the right thing to do.
At that time, he recalls, “opponents of that transfer of territory pointed out that these were strategically important lands for Russia because they were rich in natural resources. But defenders of this decision of the government asserted that the loss in land was not very big for Russia and that the improvement of strategic relations with China was much more important.”
But only three years later, however, Moscow agreed to hand over still more territory to China so that it could “solemnly claim” that territorial issues between the countries, “negotiations about which had lasted more than 40 years,” had all been resolved, something many Russians had assumed had already taken place in 2005.
That is worrisome, Kurbanov says, because “if in this way Moscow will resolve all territorial problems, then nothing will remain from the Great Russia [of today] in the very near future. “ What guarantees does anyone have that Moscow won’t resolve the Kuriles dispute with Japan in Tokyo’s favor to “improve relations” with Tokyo?
Or what about Kaliningrad oblast, Kurbanov asks rhetorically, “which before World War II was [Germany’s] East Prussia and whose capital Kaliningrad was Konigsberg? Or how can one “not recall about Azerbaijani pretensions not only to the Samur but also to the [southern Daghestani] city of Derbent and the land adjoining it?
And all these things raise the larger and potentially far more fateful question, Kurbanov suggests: “Does the current Russian elite have any point at which it is prepared to stop making territorial concessions to its neighbors if the interests of simple people do not agitate anyone [among that elite]?”
The anger Daghestanis now feel is important for two reasons. On the one hand, it suggests that many of them now view Moscow as incapable of defending existing borders, a conclusion that is especially dangerous in a region where any appearance of weakness can lead people to conclude that it is time to shift allegiances.
And on the other, and more immediately, Moscow’s failure to recall the time when Daghestanis stood up and defended the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation only 11 years ago almost certainly means that fewer of them will be prepared to do so again and that more will be prepared to accept border changes that Moscow won’t like at all.
UPDATE on September 27. The anger of Daghestanis about Moscow's concessions to Azerbaijan on the border river is now being echoed by some Russian commentators in Moscow. See, for example, www.apn.ru/publications/article23198.htm
Window on Eurasia: A Tajik Muslim, Trained by Turks, Arabs and Malaysians, Now Teaches Koran Recitation to Kazan Tatars
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 25 – The complex ways in which Muslims from various former Soviet republics have interacted with the Islamic world outside is reflected in the career of Ibrahim Sabirov, a Tajik trained by Turks, Yemenis and Saudis, who now heads training center for the recitation of the Koran Recitation in Tatarstan.
On Thursday, the new Islamsng.com portal published an interview with him conducted by Dzhannat Sergey Markus, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam who is active in both the print and electronic media as a commentator on developments in the Muslim community in the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics (islamsng.com/tjk/tradition/171).
And while Sabirov’s career is certainly not typical, it is instructive both in highlighting the role Central Asian and especially foreign Muslims have played in the restoration of Islam in Russia and in showing the way very conservative forms of Islam, such as memorization of the Koran (“hafiz”), are gaining ground even in Kazan, a center of Jadidist reforms.
In 2003, Sabirov founded the Center for the Preparation of Hafizes of the Koran at the Russian Islamic University in the Tatarstan capital. Asked why such a center was set up only then and not immediately after “freedom of conscience became a reality in Russia with the start of perestroika” in the late 1980s, Sabirov blamed it on “the tragic history of our country.”
“More precisely,” he said, it happened because of those repressive acts which seriously undermined Islamic traditions in the Russian Empire and especially in the Middle Volga region and then almost completely destroyed them during the period of the Soviet regime” with its anti-religious program.
Given that, he continued, “restoring such a precise art as the reading of the Koran and in particular the experience of the hafiz, who know the Koranic text by heart and are masters of repeating it is extraordinarily difficult because in this case what is especially important are living people” who have that skill and can pass it on directly to their pupils.
Such people represent a chain extending back to Mohammed who learned the Koran by heart from the Archangel Gabriel and then passed it on to others. Consequently, “when listening to the Koran today from a real reader, we approach this chain.” And that is why the oppressors of Islam always try not only to destroy mosques and burn books but to break this chain.”
Markus said that helped to explain why a Tajik would have to come to Tatarstan from Central Asia where there are many more such schools to restore this tie. Sabirov agreed, noting that “being further from the imperial and soviet centers, our traditions were preserved in a more vital way. Now,” he said, “we are called to help other brothers.”
As for himself, Sabirov said, he began to learn the Koran at home in Tajikistan but only fully mastered it and became a hafiz when he “received the tradition from Aduljalil Kasim from Yemen,” a scholar who now also works at his center. Others acquired that skill abroad or from those who had been abroad.
When Islam was reborn in Russia in the 1990s, Sabirov continued, it happened when “the first hafizes appeared from abroad, and certain young people studied the Koran in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The first Tatarstan hafizes were students of Karaers Muqerrem from Turkey.” Sabirov said he was among their number but noted that he also studied in Malaysia.
Like other traditional Muslims, Sabirov argued that “every letter of the Koran, read in the Arabic languages at times even without an understanding of its meaning, enriches the spirit of an individual and is counted for him as a good deed,” a view that many Jadid modernists have challenged, arguing instead that gaining knowledge rather than rote learning is key.
But if he is a traditionalist in some respects, Sabirov has proved a modernizer in others, albeit explaining his innovation, the training of young women as hafizes as a restoration of “a most ancient tradition.” And he has taken the lead in training young people in camps and in using the Internet for distance learning with Muslim experts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
. Moreover, Sabirov said that he ensures that the students at his Center not only memorize the Koran but also gain knowledge in the Arabic language, calligraphy, Islamic law and traditions, and even physical fitness.
When asked about the impact of Tatar language and culture on what he is doing, Sabirov pointed out that “the culture of Islam presupposes diversity and does not reject national uniqueness,” adding that “Tatar musicality (and this literally is in the sub-consciousness even of babes) is based on the five tone scale.”
“The child begins to think (including musically) in the spirit of his ancestors,” Sabirov said. “Our task is to develop his abilities in general, then to teach him to teach in Arabic (that is, according to the Koran) in order that he will then return to his roots,” ones deeper than the nationality that he may already have come to know.
Staunton, September 25 – The complex ways in which Muslims from various former Soviet republics have interacted with the Islamic world outside is reflected in the career of Ibrahim Sabirov, a Tajik trained by Turks, Yemenis and Saudis, who now heads training center for the recitation of the Koran Recitation in Tatarstan.
On Thursday, the new Islamsng.com portal published an interview with him conducted by Dzhannat Sergey Markus, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam who is active in both the print and electronic media as a commentator on developments in the Muslim community in the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics (islamsng.com/tjk/tradition/171).
And while Sabirov’s career is certainly not typical, it is instructive both in highlighting the role Central Asian and especially foreign Muslims have played in the restoration of Islam in Russia and in showing the way very conservative forms of Islam, such as memorization of the Koran (“hafiz”), are gaining ground even in Kazan, a center of Jadidist reforms.
In 2003, Sabirov founded the Center for the Preparation of Hafizes of the Koran at the Russian Islamic University in the Tatarstan capital. Asked why such a center was set up only then and not immediately after “freedom of conscience became a reality in Russia with the start of perestroika” in the late 1980s, Sabirov blamed it on “the tragic history of our country.”
“More precisely,” he said, it happened because of those repressive acts which seriously undermined Islamic traditions in the Russian Empire and especially in the Middle Volga region and then almost completely destroyed them during the period of the Soviet regime” with its anti-religious program.
Given that, he continued, “restoring such a precise art as the reading of the Koran and in particular the experience of the hafiz, who know the Koranic text by heart and are masters of repeating it is extraordinarily difficult because in this case what is especially important are living people” who have that skill and can pass it on directly to their pupils.
Such people represent a chain extending back to Mohammed who learned the Koran by heart from the Archangel Gabriel and then passed it on to others. Consequently, “when listening to the Koran today from a real reader, we approach this chain.” And that is why the oppressors of Islam always try not only to destroy mosques and burn books but to break this chain.”
Markus said that helped to explain why a Tajik would have to come to Tatarstan from Central Asia where there are many more such schools to restore this tie. Sabirov agreed, noting that “being further from the imperial and soviet centers, our traditions were preserved in a more vital way. Now,” he said, “we are called to help other brothers.”
As for himself, Sabirov said, he began to learn the Koran at home in Tajikistan but only fully mastered it and became a hafiz when he “received the tradition from Aduljalil Kasim from Yemen,” a scholar who now also works at his center. Others acquired that skill abroad or from those who had been abroad.
When Islam was reborn in Russia in the 1990s, Sabirov continued, it happened when “the first hafizes appeared from abroad, and certain young people studied the Koran in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The first Tatarstan hafizes were students of Karaers Muqerrem from Turkey.” Sabirov said he was among their number but noted that he also studied in Malaysia.
Like other traditional Muslims, Sabirov argued that “every letter of the Koran, read in the Arabic languages at times even without an understanding of its meaning, enriches the spirit of an individual and is counted for him as a good deed,” a view that many Jadid modernists have challenged, arguing instead that gaining knowledge rather than rote learning is key.
But if he is a traditionalist in some respects, Sabirov has proved a modernizer in others, albeit explaining his innovation, the training of young women as hafizes as a restoration of “a most ancient tradition.” And he has taken the lead in training young people in camps and in using the Internet for distance learning with Muslim experts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
. Moreover, Sabirov said that he ensures that the students at his Center not only memorize the Koran but also gain knowledge in the Arabic language, calligraphy, Islamic law and traditions, and even physical fitness.
When asked about the impact of Tatar language and culture on what he is doing, Sabirov pointed out that “the culture of Islam presupposes diversity and does not reject national uniqueness,” adding that “Tatar musicality (and this literally is in the sub-consciousness even of babes) is based on the five tone scale.”
“The child begins to think (including musically) in the spirit of his ancestors,” Sabirov said. “Our task is to develop his abilities in general, then to teach him to teach in Arabic (that is, according to the Koran) in order that he will then return to his roots,” ones deeper than the nationality that he may already have come to know.
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