Paul Goble
Staunton, October 5 – Contemporary “Russian nationalism,” according to a Moscow commentator who clearly wishes it were otherwise, is in many respects “just the opposite of what its name suggests,” with its self-identified supporters displaying “a nihilistic” attitude toward “the real Russian nation, its historical memory, its mentality, its saints and its statehood.”
In an essay on the “Russky zhurnal” portal, Andrey Tarasenko says that “there is hardly any other milieu besides that of the Russian nationalists (for brevity, [he says he] will not use quotation marks around [that term]) in which hostility to the Russian nation is manifested so sharply” (www.russ.ru/pole/Portret-russkogo-nacionalista).
This characteristic of Russian “nationalists,” he continues, is displayed in the attitudes of those calling themselves that toward Russian Orthodoxy, Russia as great power, and Russia’s victory in the Great Fatherland War. It isn’t necessary for a Russian nationalist to agree on all of these, but if he disagrees on most, there is a problem.
With regard to Orthodoxy, few “nationalists” declare themselves atheists. Most consider themselves “believers.” But many of these do not have anything to do with the Moscow Patriarchate, preferring instead to be part of the émigré church, which despite its communion with Moscow remains a very different thing.
“The softest form of non-acceptance of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Tarasenko says, “is a rejection of its existing leadership.” But some Russian nationalists reject Christianity altogether, preferring paganism, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism or some other religious faith.
Such people often “consider Orthodoxy as the chief cause of all the misfortunes of the Russian nation.” One consequence of this is that increasingly “Russian nationalists who support Orthodoxy have begun to call themselves nationalists more rarely,” thus leading to a situation in which Russian nationalism and “anti-Orthodoxy” are conflated.
As far as the second factor – support of Russian statehood as it has existed – many Russian “nationalists” believe that the misfortunes of the Russian nation have arisen from the pre-1917 empire and the post-1917 Soviet Union and call for disassembling “what still remains from Russian statehood” or creating “Russian republics” on the country’s current territory.
According to Tarasenko, “a small group of Russian nationalists” who do believe in empire want to make it an empire of a new type. Instead, of it being “a prison house of peoples” as Lenin described it, they want to make it a real “’prison’ for the non-Russian peoples” so that the Russians could become “a nation of rulers.”
And Russian “nationalists” also divide on the third element, Russia’s victory in the Great Fatherland War. “For some this was a victory of ‘the godless communist regime’ with some not forgetting to add ‘Jewish-communist.’” For others, it was purchased at too high a cost. And for still others, the wrong side won.
Obviously, Tarasenko says, “one nationalist can respect the victory of the Russian people in the Great Fatherland War but be a pagan and strive for the separation of ‘a Russian Republic.’ Another can confess Orthodoxy and be a supporter of Russia as a great power but nonetheless be a follower of General Vlasov, Krasnov, Shkuro and von Pannwitz.”
“And a third cannot conceal his sympathies to Hitler and Nazism, burn icons at ‘pagan holidays’ and dream about a 100 percent racially pure ‘Nordic’ Rus in the forests of the Northern Dvina River valley,” Tarasenko says, adding that “the level of real Russophobia among these people can be different but the common trend is obvious.”
The commentator says that his use of Russophobia to describe such Russian nationalists is no accident. “How else could you call” such ideas? He asks rhetorically, because it is all too obvious that “Russian nationalists serve not the Russian people as it is but the one that it must become in their imaginations.”
And that is “the root” of the problem, he argues. “Russian nationalists do not like their own people, its history, customs and culture.” Consequently, even though they “angrily deny their Russophobia,” that is exactly the problem with them, and that attitude not only limits their ability to cooperate with others but to win support from Russians.
“Of course,” Tarasenko concedes, “there are some bright spots” in this picture, but given the dominance of these negative trends, one has to ask whether the real nationalists will adapt and be corrupted or whether they will decide that they should not be nationalists at all given what “Russian nationalists” now are.
“The orders of one of these ‘bright spots’ are just,” Tarasenko concludes, noting that that individual gave thanks regularly that the Lord God has “preserved” Russia from what would be worse than its past and current situation: “from the coming to power of the current Russian nationalists!”
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Institute Pushes Recognition of ‘Newest States’ in ‘Near Abroad’
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 5 – The director of an independent Moscow institute established just before the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war and which has promoted the diplomatic recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since that time now says that international recognition of the independence of Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh is “inevitable.”
In a comment to the Regnum news agency yesterday, Aleksey Martynov not only made this declaration but elaborated an original legal theory on post-Soviet state construction, one that is clearly at odds with Moscow’s declared position but one that likely has supporters in the Russian capital (www.regnum.ru/news/1332158.html).
The director of the Institute of the Newest States, as his organization styles itself, argues that “the recognition by Russia of the statehood of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in June 2008 and the upcoming recognition of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic and Nagorno-Karabakh put the final period in the history of the USSR.”
That is because, Martynov said, “Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh like Abkhazia and South Ossetia politically and legally need only recognition by Russia as the legal successor of the USSR. Subsequently, the entire world will simply be obligated to recognize these countries just as it recognizes the Russian Federation.”
If the members of the international community do not follow Russia’s lead in this, he continued, the director of this institute which has offices in Moscow and many other cities and maintains its own website in Russian and English (www.iines.org/), that would mean their “non-recognition of Russia itself with all the consequences that would flow from that.”
The reason for that, he argued, is that “not one of these newest recognized countries [the former union republics of the USSR] has taken upon itself responsibility for the common Soviet past” preferring instead “to condemn and curse it. Only Russia [which has done so] can as the metropolitan country decide the fate of the newest states in the zone of its strategic interests.”
“After the establishment of the Kosovo precedent” by the Western powers, Martynov continued, “any references to the priority of territorial integrity” need not be recognized. “Borders of states in the contemporary world” are defined by their capacity to prevent their further change, something that can of course be tested at any time.
Elsewhere in his interview, the director pointed to what he clearly viewed as his institute’s latest success, and he did so in a way that highlighted its connections with the Russian powers that be. Martynov noted that last week, a representative of South Ossetia had visited Algeria at the same time as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
“Such coincidences in the time of the visits,” he argued, “are far from being accidental.” But to the extent that is the case, his institute might appear to fall into the category of a GONGO, that is “a government organized non-governmental organization,” one capable of promoting the government’s goals without the government having to take responsibility.
And if that is true, then the argument Martynov put forth yesterday may represent something more than the views of a single independent activist. Instead, it perhaps should be read as one part of a debate behind the scenes in Moscow as to how the Russian Federation should proceed in the future in its “near abroad.”
According to its website, “the International Institute of the Newest States is an international non-governmental organization that was created in June 2008 by a group of scholars, political scientists and international experts in the areas of conflict studies and international law” (www.iines.org/node/1).
The institute’s headquarters is in Moscow, but it has representational offices in “Kyiv, Warsaw, Simferopol, Tskhinval, Sukhum, Yerevan, Tiraspol, Western Sahara, Bucharest, Belgrad, Stepanakert and other places.” And it styles itself as “the largest expert discussion space for consideration and study of the phenomenon of the appearance of the newest states.”
The institute, the site continues, organizes “scientific conferences, symposia, and roundtables, the monitoring of social-political development of the newest states and monitoring of the media.” And it supports “the publication of materials and books of [Institute] experts” on these states and “the formation of democratic institutions and civil societies” in them.
Staunton, October 5 – The director of an independent Moscow institute established just before the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war and which has promoted the diplomatic recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since that time now says that international recognition of the independence of Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh is “inevitable.”
In a comment to the Regnum news agency yesterday, Aleksey Martynov not only made this declaration but elaborated an original legal theory on post-Soviet state construction, one that is clearly at odds with Moscow’s declared position but one that likely has supporters in the Russian capital (www.regnum.ru/news/1332158.html).
The director of the Institute of the Newest States, as his organization styles itself, argues that “the recognition by Russia of the statehood of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in June 2008 and the upcoming recognition of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic and Nagorno-Karabakh put the final period in the history of the USSR.”
That is because, Martynov said, “Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh like Abkhazia and South Ossetia politically and legally need only recognition by Russia as the legal successor of the USSR. Subsequently, the entire world will simply be obligated to recognize these countries just as it recognizes the Russian Federation.”
If the members of the international community do not follow Russia’s lead in this, he continued, the director of this institute which has offices in Moscow and many other cities and maintains its own website in Russian and English (www.iines.org/), that would mean their “non-recognition of Russia itself with all the consequences that would flow from that.”
The reason for that, he argued, is that “not one of these newest recognized countries [the former union republics of the USSR] has taken upon itself responsibility for the common Soviet past” preferring instead “to condemn and curse it. Only Russia [which has done so] can as the metropolitan country decide the fate of the newest states in the zone of its strategic interests.”
“After the establishment of the Kosovo precedent” by the Western powers, Martynov continued, “any references to the priority of territorial integrity” need not be recognized. “Borders of states in the contemporary world” are defined by their capacity to prevent their further change, something that can of course be tested at any time.
Elsewhere in his interview, the director pointed to what he clearly viewed as his institute’s latest success, and he did so in a way that highlighted its connections with the Russian powers that be. Martynov noted that last week, a representative of South Ossetia had visited Algeria at the same time as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
“Such coincidences in the time of the visits,” he argued, “are far from being accidental.” But to the extent that is the case, his institute might appear to fall into the category of a GONGO, that is “a government organized non-governmental organization,” one capable of promoting the government’s goals without the government having to take responsibility.
And if that is true, then the argument Martynov put forth yesterday may represent something more than the views of a single independent activist. Instead, it perhaps should be read as one part of a debate behind the scenes in Moscow as to how the Russian Federation should proceed in the future in its “near abroad.”
According to its website, “the International Institute of the Newest States is an international non-governmental organization that was created in June 2008 by a group of scholars, political scientists and international experts in the areas of conflict studies and international law” (www.iines.org/node/1).
The institute’s headquarters is in Moscow, but it has representational offices in “Kyiv, Warsaw, Simferopol, Tskhinval, Sukhum, Yerevan, Tiraspol, Western Sahara, Bucharest, Belgrad, Stepanakert and other places.” And it styles itself as “the largest expert discussion space for consideration and study of the phenomenon of the appearance of the newest states.”
The institute, the site continues, organizes “scientific conferences, symposia, and roundtables, the monitoring of social-political development of the newest states and monitoring of the media.” And it supports “the publication of materials and books of [Institute] experts” on these states and “the formation of democratic institutions and civil societies” in them.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow is Alienating More than Minsk, Russian Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 5 – The war of words between Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka is more than just the product of tensions between Moscow and Minsk, Russian analysts say. Instead, it is part of a broader and growing alienation between the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics, one that has its roots in clashing visions of the future.
But both because of the West’s hostility to Lukashenka and his regime, one usually labeled “the last dictatorship in Europe,” and because of the West’s desire to curry favor with Moscow in pursuit of one or another goal, this general trend, widely noted by commentators in the region, has been largely ignored, let alone exploited, by Europe or the United States.
The clearest expression of this argument can be found in a commentary on Grani.ru yesterday. In it, Dmitry Shusharin, a regular writer for that portal, points out that the exchange of angry words between Medvedev and Lukashenka is part Moscow’s current propensity to be angry with all leaders of the post-Soviet states (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/182276.html).
Russia’s “tandemocracy,” he says,m had placed “great hopes” on new Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but exactly what these would in fact look like is something that Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, along with the rest of the Russian powers that be, clearly “did not themselves know” at least in any specific detail.
“In an ideal outcome,” the Russian leaders “see relations with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and the other nearby neighbors if not as they were before in the USSR then as like those which the Soviet Union had with the countries of the Warsaw Pact,” a vision that they and others should have understood was not going to be realized.
For Medvedev and Putin, the orientation of the leaders of these states “toward Western values and norms of politics” is completely “unacceptable,” Shusharin says. That is why they placed such hopes on Lukashenka, whose ideology is a Russophile form of Belarusian identity, and on Yanukovich who “does not have any ideology” at all.
But now the Moscow leaders have been rejected by the first, and soon, they are likely to be rejected by the second as well, the commentator continues, an outcome Medvedev and Putin would have anticipated if they had remembered the real basis of the Warsaw Pact rather than the idealized version of it in which they apparently believe.
That military organization, led by Moscow, “was tank socialism” -- that is, Shusharin continues, “the single source, reserve and guarantee of the communist regimes in these countries was the Soviet Union and its military presence.” When that disappeared so too did the Warsaw Pact.
But even before the events of the late 1980s, Shusharin points out, those leaders who had alternative sources of power like Yugoslavia’s Tito and China’s Mao Zedong could act independently. The only difference was that the first broke with Moscow early on while the second “for a long time led the Soviet Union by the nose and used its assistance.”
Those experiences, Shusharin suggests, should serve as a lesson to Moscow but Russian leaders have not assimilated them. Moscow doesn’t understand that “for the politicians in the former Soviet republics -- even if they are oriented toward Moscow and make use of its support -- relations with Russia are not as critical as relations with their own populations,” “the source of their power within [their] countries.”
Just as Western Europe and the United States dealt with the problems of the former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Tito Yugoslavia “without the particularly active participation of Russia, Shusharin says, so now “the authoritarian regimes in Ukraine and Belarus” will eventually ask for help from “Western Europe and the US, not Russia.”
The reason that is so, he argues, is that Russia “does not guarantee [their] national sovereignty.” Instead, its leaders act as if the former Soviet republics are not full-fledged independent countries but rather something less than that, places where Russia must enjoy greater deference and influence than any of them want to offer.
The current leaders of these countries “do not intend to divide power with Moscow,” and they are very much aware that is what the Russian powers that be want. Consequently, sooner than many may expect, they will turn to Western countries, something that “again will be something completely unexpected” for the latter.
Staunton, October 5 – The war of words between Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka is more than just the product of tensions between Moscow and Minsk, Russian analysts say. Instead, it is part of a broader and growing alienation between the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics, one that has its roots in clashing visions of the future.
But both because of the West’s hostility to Lukashenka and his regime, one usually labeled “the last dictatorship in Europe,” and because of the West’s desire to curry favor with Moscow in pursuit of one or another goal, this general trend, widely noted by commentators in the region, has been largely ignored, let alone exploited, by Europe or the United States.
The clearest expression of this argument can be found in a commentary on Grani.ru yesterday. In it, Dmitry Shusharin, a regular writer for that portal, points out that the exchange of angry words between Medvedev and Lukashenka is part Moscow’s current propensity to be angry with all leaders of the post-Soviet states (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/182276.html).
Russia’s “tandemocracy,” he says,m had placed “great hopes” on new Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but exactly what these would in fact look like is something that Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, along with the rest of the Russian powers that be, clearly “did not themselves know” at least in any specific detail.
“In an ideal outcome,” the Russian leaders “see relations with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and the other nearby neighbors if not as they were before in the USSR then as like those which the Soviet Union had with the countries of the Warsaw Pact,” a vision that they and others should have understood was not going to be realized.
For Medvedev and Putin, the orientation of the leaders of these states “toward Western values and norms of politics” is completely “unacceptable,” Shusharin says. That is why they placed such hopes on Lukashenka, whose ideology is a Russophile form of Belarusian identity, and on Yanukovich who “does not have any ideology” at all.
But now the Moscow leaders have been rejected by the first, and soon, they are likely to be rejected by the second as well, the commentator continues, an outcome Medvedev and Putin would have anticipated if they had remembered the real basis of the Warsaw Pact rather than the idealized version of it in which they apparently believe.
That military organization, led by Moscow, “was tank socialism” -- that is, Shusharin continues, “the single source, reserve and guarantee of the communist regimes in these countries was the Soviet Union and its military presence.” When that disappeared so too did the Warsaw Pact.
But even before the events of the late 1980s, Shusharin points out, those leaders who had alternative sources of power like Yugoslavia’s Tito and China’s Mao Zedong could act independently. The only difference was that the first broke with Moscow early on while the second “for a long time led the Soviet Union by the nose and used its assistance.”
Those experiences, Shusharin suggests, should serve as a lesson to Moscow but Russian leaders have not assimilated them. Moscow doesn’t understand that “for the politicians in the former Soviet republics -- even if they are oriented toward Moscow and make use of its support -- relations with Russia are not as critical as relations with their own populations,” “the source of their power within [their] countries.”
Just as Western Europe and the United States dealt with the problems of the former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Tito Yugoslavia “without the particularly active participation of Russia, Shusharin says, so now “the authoritarian regimes in Ukraine and Belarus” will eventually ask for help from “Western Europe and the US, not Russia.”
The reason that is so, he argues, is that Russia “does not guarantee [their] national sovereignty.” Instead, its leaders act as if the former Soviet republics are not full-fledged independent countries but rather something less than that, places where Russia must enjoy greater deference and influence than any of them want to offer.
The current leaders of these countries “do not intend to divide power with Moscow,” and they are very much aware that is what the Russian powers that be want. Consequently, sooner than many may expect, they will turn to Western countries, something that “again will be something completely unexpected” for the latter.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Four ‘Traditional’ Faiths Pledge to Help Siloviki Catch Criminals and Protect Public Order
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 4 – The leaders of Russia’s four “traditional” religions – Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism – today jointly pledged to work directly with law enforcement agencies to catch criminals and preserve public order, an outwardly benign commitment with potentially far-reaching and negative consequences.
Among the most serious of the latter are two. On the one hand, this represents a further tightening of links between the four “traditional” faiths and the state, a move Patriarch Kirill has long urged, and a further setting them apart from other religions, thus making repression of the latter more rather than less likely, even though Russian law nowhere defines the difference.
And on the other, the close involvement of religious leaders with the siloviki will not only discredit those leaders in the eyes of many of their followers but lead many, as such links did in Soviet times, to turn to underground religious communities, such as the “catacomb” churches and “parallel Islam,” putting them beyond legal and social control.
But these twin dangers were glossed over earlier today when, in the words of Interfax, “the leading religious organizations of Russian offered the force structures assistance in catching criminals and protecting public order” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=37639 and www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=documents&div=1047).
In the joint declaration of the Inter-Religious Council, the leaders said that they “greet the initiatives of the leadership of the country directed at the more effective defense of citizens” and thus are prepared to “offer the support of believers in the effort to guarantee legal order and the prevention of crime.”
They added that as religious communities, they can play a special role in helping to prevent young people from falling into a life of crime, and the leaders asked that television channels offer more time for programs offering both “secular and religious anti-narcotics propaganda.”
“Today,” they said in their declaration, “many know where and who is trafficking in drugs. We are ready to offer the information possibilities of our religious communities in order that people will overcome this evil, by naming the names of those guilty of being involved in it and publishing corresponding testimony.”
To achieve this end, the religious leaders said, they would seek agreements “both at the central and regional level.” And they suggested that their efforts would make a major contribution to fighting crime because criminality in their words “is not only the result of someone’s evil intentions” but rather also of “the inaction and estrangement of good people.”
Obviously, no one can be against religious leaders seeking to fight crime by promoting morality and ethics among their followers, but what this declaration suggests is that some of the “traditional” religions of Russia may now be engaging in an equally “traditional” Russian form of behavior – informing.
And unless the religious groups involved set clear rules on what they will and will not do for the powers that be, they will find themselves in a position that will recalls the one they were at the end of the Soviet period, a situation that may win them plaudits from the powers that be but only at the cost of the moral authority that they as religious leaders should seek.
Staunton, October 4 – The leaders of Russia’s four “traditional” religions – Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism – today jointly pledged to work directly with law enforcement agencies to catch criminals and preserve public order, an outwardly benign commitment with potentially far-reaching and negative consequences.
Among the most serious of the latter are two. On the one hand, this represents a further tightening of links between the four “traditional” faiths and the state, a move Patriarch Kirill has long urged, and a further setting them apart from other religions, thus making repression of the latter more rather than less likely, even though Russian law nowhere defines the difference.
And on the other, the close involvement of religious leaders with the siloviki will not only discredit those leaders in the eyes of many of their followers but lead many, as such links did in Soviet times, to turn to underground religious communities, such as the “catacomb” churches and “parallel Islam,” putting them beyond legal and social control.
But these twin dangers were glossed over earlier today when, in the words of Interfax, “the leading religious organizations of Russian offered the force structures assistance in catching criminals and protecting public order” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=37639 and www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=documents&div=1047).
In the joint declaration of the Inter-Religious Council, the leaders said that they “greet the initiatives of the leadership of the country directed at the more effective defense of citizens” and thus are prepared to “offer the support of believers in the effort to guarantee legal order and the prevention of crime.”
They added that as religious communities, they can play a special role in helping to prevent young people from falling into a life of crime, and the leaders asked that television channels offer more time for programs offering both “secular and religious anti-narcotics propaganda.”
“Today,” they said in their declaration, “many know where and who is trafficking in drugs. We are ready to offer the information possibilities of our religious communities in order that people will overcome this evil, by naming the names of those guilty of being involved in it and publishing corresponding testimony.”
To achieve this end, the religious leaders said, they would seek agreements “both at the central and regional level.” And they suggested that their efforts would make a major contribution to fighting crime because criminality in their words “is not only the result of someone’s evil intentions” but rather also of “the inaction and estrangement of good people.”
Obviously, no one can be against religious leaders seeking to fight crime by promoting morality and ethics among their followers, but what this declaration suggests is that some of the “traditional” religions of Russia may now be engaging in an equally “traditional” Russian form of behavior – informing.
And unless the religious groups involved set clear rules on what they will and will not do for the powers that be, they will find themselves in a position that will recalls the one they were at the end of the Soviet period, a situation that may win them plaudits from the powers that be but only at the cost of the moral authority that they as religious leaders should seek.
Window on Eurasia: Luzhkov’s Ouster a ‘Crushing Defeat’ for Russian Opposition, Pavlova Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 4 – Most analysts have suggested that President Dmitry Medvedev’s ouster of longtime Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov represents a clear opening for the opposition either by reshuffling the cards, providing a new leader for that opposition, or by provoking Muscovites into demonstrating over a partial loss of their city’s unique status.
But Grani commentator Irina Pavlova argues that the Kremlin-orchestrated campaign that resulted in the ouster of Luzhkov represents “a crushing defeat” for “the coalition of democratic forces” whose leades have just united under the slogan “For a Russia without Arbitrariness and Corruption” (http://grani.ru/opinion/m.182296.html
On the one hand, she writes today, “by initiating a campaign against Luzhkov involving charges of corruption and arbitrariness, the Kremlin seized the main slogans of the opposition,” almost as if the powers that be had taken them more or less unchanged from Nemtsov and Milov’s pamphlet, “Luzhkov. Results.”
And on the other, by so doing and by thus attracting the support of the opposition for what it was doing, the Putin-Medvedev tandem not only transformed its harshest critics into co-conspirators but strengthened the powers that be far beyond what it will gain by appointing a replacement for Luzhkov.
By attacking Luzhkov, she continues, “the Kremlin concealed its own corruption and arbitrariness and showed that it can no worse than any opposition struggle with these ‘weaknesses’ of local chiefs,” thereby winning support for itself from the public and the West without necessarily changing course or liberalizing the country.
All this has certainly worked to the benefit of Medvedev, with even the Moscow organization of the ruling United Russia Party turning to him “with a request that ‘the selected’ (not elected!) candidates for the post of mayor of Moscow” become “information for reflection” by the Russian president.
“Entirely forgotten,” Pavlova points out, “are Medvedev’s previous actions – counter-extremism centers in the interior ministry and the law broadening the powers of the FSB which are intended to strengthen political control in the country, the lengthening of the term of president, the rejection of elections of the chairman of the Constitutional Court and so on.”
Moreover, “having yet again lost to the Kremlin, the liberal opposition has clearly demonstrated that besides general calls for observing the constitution and struggling with corruption and arbitrariness, it does not have a strategy for consistent opposition to the supreme power.”
It lacks, the Grani commentator says, “a program for the defense” of small and mid-size business. It lacks “a strategy for working with other political forces.” It lacks a program for revising the privatization programs of the 1990s. And it lacks any concrete ideas for reducing the gap between the country’s rich and poor.
Pavlova says that it is “striking” that those involved do not seem to be drawing “any lessons from the past,” even though in so many ways Russia seems to be displaying in Merab Mamardashvili’s phrase, “a genius of repetition,” that would appear to suggest that a glance back at the way Russian rulers have behaved earlier would be useful.
Until the recent campaign against Luzhkov began, Pavlova says, she herself did not reflect about the show trials of 1937 against local chieftains, a process that “certain historians have also called ‘democratization’” and one that she suggests she now cannot get out of her head.
“The Stalin-Molotov tandem of that time by several classified telegrams calls for the organization ‘in each oblast by district two to three show trials over the enemies of the people” and to use the local press to mobilize the population for “the struggle with wrecking and those responsible for it.”
When these trials occurred, Pavlova continues, the population was not simply permitted but required to show up and then to declare its complete support for the guilty verdicts that the Stalinist courts handed down, thereby implicating the population in what the powers that be at that time were doing.
But far more serious, she argues, was the reality that “by such open trials, the Stalinist powers that be were covering a more massive terror” against a wide variety of opponents, a terror that also “strengthened the system still further.” And because it had made the people “co-conspirators,” it could present its crimes as reflecting “the moral-political” unity of the country.
And as far as the situation in the country after the local leaders were shot, Pavlova notes, “it did not improve.” Instead, “the participants of these trials – the judges, the witnesses and the invited public, soon themselves fell into the cycle of terror,” with victors on one day becoming the victims on the next.
Under current conditions, “the liberal opposition, which has supported with enthusiasm the campaign against the major of Moscow in the hopes that this will help shake the regime to its foundations and open the way to democratization, should remember the lessons of history,” even if this time around the victims of the process are unlikely to suffer as much.
Staunton, October 4 – Most analysts have suggested that President Dmitry Medvedev’s ouster of longtime Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov represents a clear opening for the opposition either by reshuffling the cards, providing a new leader for that opposition, or by provoking Muscovites into demonstrating over a partial loss of their city’s unique status.
But Grani commentator Irina Pavlova argues that the Kremlin-orchestrated campaign that resulted in the ouster of Luzhkov represents “a crushing defeat” for “the coalition of democratic forces” whose leades have just united under the slogan “For a Russia without Arbitrariness and Corruption” (http://grani.ru/opinion/m.182296.html
On the one hand, she writes today, “by initiating a campaign against Luzhkov involving charges of corruption and arbitrariness, the Kremlin seized the main slogans of the opposition,” almost as if the powers that be had taken them more or less unchanged from Nemtsov and Milov’s pamphlet, “Luzhkov. Results.”
And on the other, by so doing and by thus attracting the support of the opposition for what it was doing, the Putin-Medvedev tandem not only transformed its harshest critics into co-conspirators but strengthened the powers that be far beyond what it will gain by appointing a replacement for Luzhkov.
By attacking Luzhkov, she continues, “the Kremlin concealed its own corruption and arbitrariness and showed that it can no worse than any opposition struggle with these ‘weaknesses’ of local chiefs,” thereby winning support for itself from the public and the West without necessarily changing course or liberalizing the country.
All this has certainly worked to the benefit of Medvedev, with even the Moscow organization of the ruling United Russia Party turning to him “with a request that ‘the selected’ (not elected!) candidates for the post of mayor of Moscow” become “information for reflection” by the Russian president.
“Entirely forgotten,” Pavlova points out, “are Medvedev’s previous actions – counter-extremism centers in the interior ministry and the law broadening the powers of the FSB which are intended to strengthen political control in the country, the lengthening of the term of president, the rejection of elections of the chairman of the Constitutional Court and so on.”
Moreover, “having yet again lost to the Kremlin, the liberal opposition has clearly demonstrated that besides general calls for observing the constitution and struggling with corruption and arbitrariness, it does not have a strategy for consistent opposition to the supreme power.”
It lacks, the Grani commentator says, “a program for the defense” of small and mid-size business. It lacks “a strategy for working with other political forces.” It lacks a program for revising the privatization programs of the 1990s. And it lacks any concrete ideas for reducing the gap between the country’s rich and poor.
Pavlova says that it is “striking” that those involved do not seem to be drawing “any lessons from the past,” even though in so many ways Russia seems to be displaying in Merab Mamardashvili’s phrase, “a genius of repetition,” that would appear to suggest that a glance back at the way Russian rulers have behaved earlier would be useful.
Until the recent campaign against Luzhkov began, Pavlova says, she herself did not reflect about the show trials of 1937 against local chieftains, a process that “certain historians have also called ‘democratization’” and one that she suggests she now cannot get out of her head.
“The Stalin-Molotov tandem of that time by several classified telegrams calls for the organization ‘in each oblast by district two to three show trials over the enemies of the people” and to use the local press to mobilize the population for “the struggle with wrecking and those responsible for it.”
When these trials occurred, Pavlova continues, the population was not simply permitted but required to show up and then to declare its complete support for the guilty verdicts that the Stalinist courts handed down, thereby implicating the population in what the powers that be at that time were doing.
But far more serious, she argues, was the reality that “by such open trials, the Stalinist powers that be were covering a more massive terror” against a wide variety of opponents, a terror that also “strengthened the system still further.” And because it had made the people “co-conspirators,” it could present its crimes as reflecting “the moral-political” unity of the country.
And as far as the situation in the country after the local leaders were shot, Pavlova notes, “it did not improve.” Instead, “the participants of these trials – the judges, the witnesses and the invited public, soon themselves fell into the cycle of terror,” with victors on one day becoming the victims on the next.
Under current conditions, “the liberal opposition, which has supported with enthusiasm the campaign against the major of Moscow in the hopes that this will help shake the regime to its foundations and open the way to democratization, should remember the lessons of history,” even if this time around the victims of the process are unlikely to suffer as much.
Window on Eurasia: Al Qaeda has Failed to Redirect Chechen Movement away from Nationalism, Moscow Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 4 – Recent events in the North Caucasus show, a Moscow expert says, that attempts by Al Qaeda to subordinate the Chechen national movement to a radical Islamist agenda have failed but that the influence of its representatives in Daghestan and Ingushetia remains strong, suggesting that even more violent terrorist attacks will emanate from there.
Yu. B. Shcheglovin of the Moscow Near East Institute argues that the recent criticism by the Caucasus Emirate’s head Doku Umarov of the Saudi representative Moganned “in fact marks the end of attempts of the worldwide ‘green international to subordinate the national separatist movement in Chechnya” (www.iimes.ru/rus/stat/2010/01-10-10b.htm).
As many observers have pointed out, the tensions within the Caucasus Emirate have their roots in money problems, but Shcheglovin says that it is important to understand why the Emirate has these problems. If one considers that issue, he suggests, it becomes obvious that Al Qaeda and its financial backers have shifted their focus.
That requires an understanding both of events in the North Caucasus and of changes in the agenda of the “green” international. Moganned, the object of Umarov’s wrath, is Al Qaeda’s representative in the region. He replaced the late Abu Haf, one of the Arabs who came to Chechnya earlier.
Such “emissaries” of the radical Islamist group, Shcheglovin continues, first came there “with the concrete goal of ‘taking control’ of the separatist movement as a whole and giving it a religious-ideological character and not in any case a purely nationalistic one,” as had been the case with the Chechen movement since the early 1990s.
To that end, the Arab representatives pushed for terrorist attacks outside of the region and the organization of suicide bomber units, but they also served as “political commissars” of the movement, seeking to direct the anti-Moscow movements in an Islamist direction, as those in Saudi Arabia providing the money wanted.
Shcheglovin says that the same thing is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, an indication that the world has to do with “a system set up by far from poor or stupid people,” one that operates on its own without the need so many Russian and other commentators feel to refer to the CIA and Wall Street.
In the early 2000s, this system focused on the North Caucasus because Al Qaeda and its backers thought that was a place for a breakthrough in their conflict with the non-Muslim world. “But with the rise of rise of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Shcheglovin continues, “the situation changed in a cardinal way.”
Al Qaeda and the Saudis “redirected their financial flows and recruits,” and that in turn “immediately had an impact on the situation in the North Caucasus,” a region that in the view of these people was now of only “peripheral” importance.” Given the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, “weakening Russia” was no longer a task of first importance.
That shift in the views of the Islamists, the Moscow analyst says, was first highlighted in the statements of the Saudis about “a multi-polar world” and the end of fetwas like the ones that its religious scholars had issued. Indeed, the more recent fetwas from there became “acceptable for Moscow in tone and meaning.”
Not surprisingly, Umarov continued to hope for getting such funding back, and his recent statements and actions, including his brief “resignation” and his attacks on Moganned, are all about that. But they reflect the deeper division between the Chechens who have nationalist goals and the Arab emissaries who reject such projects.
Arab influence among the Chechens began to fall and “the purely national began to win” with the deaths of Yandarbiyev and Basayev, on the one hand, and the appearance of Kadyrov and Maskhadov on the other. And that trend was reinforced by Chechen antagonism to the Arab “outsiders” who viewed the Chechens in many cases as little more than “pagans.”
As Arab financing declined, the Chechen militants sought to organize their own financing just as they had done earlier, not only compelling “contributions” domestically but also seeking money from abroad. Neither of these sources included many who backed the ideas of jihad and universal war.
But if that is the situation in Chechnya and among the Chechen militants now, Shcheglovin argues, “unfortunately, one cannot say the same about Ingushetia and Daghestan.” There, the influence of the Islamists remains strong as shown by the terrorist attack on the Moscow metro which Daghestanis conducted without the knowledge of Umarov.
And in Chechnya itself, “in our opinion,” Shcheglovin says, “the recent suicidal raid on Tsentoroy [Kadyrov’s home village] also was carried out by supporters of Moganned or under his direct influence” rather than by the Chechen militants. That is because, the Moscow analyst suggest, “he needs actions” in order to get financing.
This shift within the anti-Moscow forces, he says, is important because, unlike what many analysts argue, it points to a change in the kind of attacks the militants are likely to launch. Moganned is certain to push for even “bloodier” attacks, something he may increasingly organize from Daghestan or Ingushetia rather than Chechnya itself.
What Shcheglovin doesn’t say but what many of his readers in Moscow may conclude is that this shift in the pattern of Al Qaeda funding and influence may have more to do with the relative stability in Chechnya compared to other North Caucasus republics than the actions of Ramzan Kadyrov.
And if officials in Moscow reach that conclusion, one of the major reasons why the powers that be in the Russian Federation have felt that they cannot dispense with him, however many problems he causes, will disappear or at least decline in significance, something that could lead some at the center to consider more actively his replacement.
Staunton, October 4 – Recent events in the North Caucasus show, a Moscow expert says, that attempts by Al Qaeda to subordinate the Chechen national movement to a radical Islamist agenda have failed but that the influence of its representatives in Daghestan and Ingushetia remains strong, suggesting that even more violent terrorist attacks will emanate from there.
Yu. B. Shcheglovin of the Moscow Near East Institute argues that the recent criticism by the Caucasus Emirate’s head Doku Umarov of the Saudi representative Moganned “in fact marks the end of attempts of the worldwide ‘green international to subordinate the national separatist movement in Chechnya” (www.iimes.ru/rus/stat/2010/01-10-10b.htm).
As many observers have pointed out, the tensions within the Caucasus Emirate have their roots in money problems, but Shcheglovin says that it is important to understand why the Emirate has these problems. If one considers that issue, he suggests, it becomes obvious that Al Qaeda and its financial backers have shifted their focus.
That requires an understanding both of events in the North Caucasus and of changes in the agenda of the “green” international. Moganned, the object of Umarov’s wrath, is Al Qaeda’s representative in the region. He replaced the late Abu Haf, one of the Arabs who came to Chechnya earlier.
Such “emissaries” of the radical Islamist group, Shcheglovin continues, first came there “with the concrete goal of ‘taking control’ of the separatist movement as a whole and giving it a religious-ideological character and not in any case a purely nationalistic one,” as had been the case with the Chechen movement since the early 1990s.
To that end, the Arab representatives pushed for terrorist attacks outside of the region and the organization of suicide bomber units, but they also served as “political commissars” of the movement, seeking to direct the anti-Moscow movements in an Islamist direction, as those in Saudi Arabia providing the money wanted.
Shcheglovin says that the same thing is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, an indication that the world has to do with “a system set up by far from poor or stupid people,” one that operates on its own without the need so many Russian and other commentators feel to refer to the CIA and Wall Street.
In the early 2000s, this system focused on the North Caucasus because Al Qaeda and its backers thought that was a place for a breakthrough in their conflict with the non-Muslim world. “But with the rise of rise of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Shcheglovin continues, “the situation changed in a cardinal way.”
Al Qaeda and the Saudis “redirected their financial flows and recruits,” and that in turn “immediately had an impact on the situation in the North Caucasus,” a region that in the view of these people was now of only “peripheral” importance.” Given the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, “weakening Russia” was no longer a task of first importance.
That shift in the views of the Islamists, the Moscow analyst says, was first highlighted in the statements of the Saudis about “a multi-polar world” and the end of fetwas like the ones that its religious scholars had issued. Indeed, the more recent fetwas from there became “acceptable for Moscow in tone and meaning.”
Not surprisingly, Umarov continued to hope for getting such funding back, and his recent statements and actions, including his brief “resignation” and his attacks on Moganned, are all about that. But they reflect the deeper division between the Chechens who have nationalist goals and the Arab emissaries who reject such projects.
Arab influence among the Chechens began to fall and “the purely national began to win” with the deaths of Yandarbiyev and Basayev, on the one hand, and the appearance of Kadyrov and Maskhadov on the other. And that trend was reinforced by Chechen antagonism to the Arab “outsiders” who viewed the Chechens in many cases as little more than “pagans.”
As Arab financing declined, the Chechen militants sought to organize their own financing just as they had done earlier, not only compelling “contributions” domestically but also seeking money from abroad. Neither of these sources included many who backed the ideas of jihad and universal war.
But if that is the situation in Chechnya and among the Chechen militants now, Shcheglovin argues, “unfortunately, one cannot say the same about Ingushetia and Daghestan.” There, the influence of the Islamists remains strong as shown by the terrorist attack on the Moscow metro which Daghestanis conducted without the knowledge of Umarov.
And in Chechnya itself, “in our opinion,” Shcheglovin says, “the recent suicidal raid on Tsentoroy [Kadyrov’s home village] also was carried out by supporters of Moganned or under his direct influence” rather than by the Chechen militants. That is because, the Moscow analyst suggest, “he needs actions” in order to get financing.
This shift within the anti-Moscow forces, he says, is important because, unlike what many analysts argue, it points to a change in the kind of attacks the militants are likely to launch. Moganned is certain to push for even “bloodier” attacks, something he may increasingly organize from Daghestan or Ingushetia rather than Chechnya itself.
What Shcheglovin doesn’t say but what many of his readers in Moscow may conclude is that this shift in the pattern of Al Qaeda funding and influence may have more to do with the relative stability in Chechnya compared to other North Caucasus republics than the actions of Ramzan Kadyrov.
And if officials in Moscow reach that conclusion, one of the major reasons why the powers that be in the Russian Federation have felt that they cannot dispense with him, however many problems he causes, will disappear or at least decline in significance, something that could lead some at the center to consider more actively his replacement.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Window on Eurasia: New Bashkir Head Takes Direct Control of Religious Affairs Agency
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 3 – Reflecting the deterioration in relations between Ufa and the Muslims of Bashkortostan, the new republic head has renamed and taken direct control of the agency responsible for supervising religious affairs there, a move that could presage similar changes in other Muslim republics of the Russian Federation.
Like most of these republics, Bashkortostan has had a Council for Religious Affairs attached for the republic government since the end of Soviet times, but now the new republic president, Rustem Khamitov, has renamed it the Council for Government-Inter-Confessional Relations and attached it to his own office (www.bashinform.ru/podrob/305279/).
Vyacheslav Pyatkov, the head of the council, told the Bashinform.ru news agency that Khamitov was devoting particular attention to religious affairs because “a constructive dialogue between the state and the representatives of various confessions is important in our days as never before.”
On the one hand, he said, “the reorganized Council has been dealing with the resolution of a large number of problems” left over from the previous regime. But on the other, the Council chairman suggested, “Russia has encountered a global confessional problem. And this problem is Islam.”
“Of course,” Pyatkov quickly added, “the issue here is not in the religion itself.” But “unfortunately, there are people are trying to distort this religion and force it to serve their criminal goals,” with evidence coming in each day about “acts of force and terrorism which are carried out supposedly under the banner of Islam.”
Some of the responsibility for this development, he said, lies with the government “which not always and everywhere turns out to be capable” of dealing with the problems of young people. But “no less responsibility” for this trend is born by “spiritual leaders” who have failed to act in ways that assure them of “the necessary authority” among young people.
Such problems have been frequent in the Caucasus “for the last two decades,” Pyatkov continued, “but in recent times such organizations under the cover of Islam have sought to develop their activity also on the territory of our republic, a region where the followers of Islam and Christianity have lived in peace and harmony already more than 450 years.”
Indeed, the Council head said, “the events of last summer show that attempts at the explosion of gas pipelines and the murders of imams are completely possible also with us,” in Bashkortostan, a danger that the state and the spiritual leaders must oppose lest “such pseudo-religions survive in our society.”
“Our task,” he continued, “is to introduce ideological order in the republic. Although on the whole we have such order.” Among the most problematic areas, he said, are those far from the capital of the republic in which there is now “a far from simple economic and spiritual situation.”
Pyatkov added that “of course, the struggle with bandits which plant explosive devices on gas pipelines will be conducted by law enforcement organs and the special services.” The Council on State-Inter-Confessional Relations will use “more peaceful” means and conduct “an ideological struggle” through meetings and the media.
Pyatkov suggested that his agency would focus on the young so that those entering on adulthood would reflect before entering a path of extremism that could lead them to “nothing except punishment and shame.” And he stressed that “a believer is a patriot,” who will “never turn arms on his fellow citizens.”
But even as Pyatkov was giving his interview, some 120 Muslims, most of them young, were assembling in Ufa to protest what they said were “an increasing number of arrests” and also “illegal actions toward them from the side of the state organs,” including the arrest of publishers and editors (www.rslt.ru/ru/news/.view/id/625/).
And while most of the protesters were restrained in their criticism, some shouted “Allah is Great,” carried the flag of Saudi Arabia (the homeland of Wahhabism), and called for an end to “falsification of criminal cases against Muslims.” Not unimportantly, no representatives of the official Muslim establishment were present.
This combination of greater official attention to Muslims and greater activism among Muslims in opposition to the actions of the state suggest that Bashkortostan, long noted for the relative peace among its historically moderate Muslim community, may be changing in ways that point to more clashes ahead.
Staunton, October 3 – Reflecting the deterioration in relations between Ufa and the Muslims of Bashkortostan, the new republic head has renamed and taken direct control of the agency responsible for supervising religious affairs there, a move that could presage similar changes in other Muslim republics of the Russian Federation.
Like most of these republics, Bashkortostan has had a Council for Religious Affairs attached for the republic government since the end of Soviet times, but now the new republic president, Rustem Khamitov, has renamed it the Council for Government-Inter-Confessional Relations and attached it to his own office (www.bashinform.ru/podrob/305279/).
Vyacheslav Pyatkov, the head of the council, told the Bashinform.ru news agency that Khamitov was devoting particular attention to religious affairs because “a constructive dialogue between the state and the representatives of various confessions is important in our days as never before.”
On the one hand, he said, “the reorganized Council has been dealing with the resolution of a large number of problems” left over from the previous regime. But on the other, the Council chairman suggested, “Russia has encountered a global confessional problem. And this problem is Islam.”
“Of course,” Pyatkov quickly added, “the issue here is not in the religion itself.” But “unfortunately, there are people are trying to distort this religion and force it to serve their criminal goals,” with evidence coming in each day about “acts of force and terrorism which are carried out supposedly under the banner of Islam.”
Some of the responsibility for this development, he said, lies with the government “which not always and everywhere turns out to be capable” of dealing with the problems of young people. But “no less responsibility” for this trend is born by “spiritual leaders” who have failed to act in ways that assure them of “the necessary authority” among young people.
Such problems have been frequent in the Caucasus “for the last two decades,” Pyatkov continued, “but in recent times such organizations under the cover of Islam have sought to develop their activity also on the territory of our republic, a region where the followers of Islam and Christianity have lived in peace and harmony already more than 450 years.”
Indeed, the Council head said, “the events of last summer show that attempts at the explosion of gas pipelines and the murders of imams are completely possible also with us,” in Bashkortostan, a danger that the state and the spiritual leaders must oppose lest “such pseudo-religions survive in our society.”
“Our task,” he continued, “is to introduce ideological order in the republic. Although on the whole we have such order.” Among the most problematic areas, he said, are those far from the capital of the republic in which there is now “a far from simple economic and spiritual situation.”
Pyatkov added that “of course, the struggle with bandits which plant explosive devices on gas pipelines will be conducted by law enforcement organs and the special services.” The Council on State-Inter-Confessional Relations will use “more peaceful” means and conduct “an ideological struggle” through meetings and the media.
Pyatkov suggested that his agency would focus on the young so that those entering on adulthood would reflect before entering a path of extremism that could lead them to “nothing except punishment and shame.” And he stressed that “a believer is a patriot,” who will “never turn arms on his fellow citizens.”
But even as Pyatkov was giving his interview, some 120 Muslims, most of them young, were assembling in Ufa to protest what they said were “an increasing number of arrests” and also “illegal actions toward them from the side of the state organs,” including the arrest of publishers and editors (www.rslt.ru/ru/news/.view/id/625/).
And while most of the protesters were restrained in their criticism, some shouted “Allah is Great,” carried the flag of Saudi Arabia (the homeland of Wahhabism), and called for an end to “falsification of criminal cases against Muslims.” Not unimportantly, no representatives of the official Muslim establishment were present.
This combination of greater official attention to Muslims and greater activism among Muslims in opposition to the actions of the state suggest that Bashkortostan, long noted for the relative peace among its historically moderate Muslim community, may be changing in ways that point to more clashes ahead.
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