Paul Goble
Vienna, October 11 – Until recently, Russian officials and most systemic politicians have played down the risk of massive street clashes and the need to prepare for them, but in the course of the last week, a “Novaya Versiya” commentator notes, members of both groups have expressed concern about this possibility and outlined steps to counter it.
In recent months, Mikhail Sukhodolsky, the first deputy minister of internal affairs, said last week, the number of crimes connected with popular clashes and disorders “has markedly increased, and for objective reasons, [such crimes and the milieu from which they spring] are generating a serious social response (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/11/massovie_besporyadki)
In the past, “Novaya Versiya” analyst Ruslan Gorevoy says, officials had been restrained in making any such assessment, but “now they are speaking about [this problem] openly,” apparently because “it is becoming ever more complicated to rein in protest attitudes by bloodless means” and law enforcement bodies want to justify in advance the use of force
The powers that be, Gorevoy says, have been preparing for just such a possibility. On the one hand, both the central and regional offices of the MVD have set up special “rapid reaction” forces to disperse street demonstrations, and perhaps more important, the Duma has passed a law denying those charged in such cases of the right to a jury trial
Moreover, he continues, the belief that “in the near future mass disorders are inevitable” appears to be shared “not only by representatives of ‘the extra systemic opposition [who may have a vested interest in making such predictions] … but also by those whose responsibilities include not allowing such excesses to occur and in the worst case to suppress them.”
“Militia officers, court officials, and legislators as one firmly declare about the inevitability of force actions,” Gorevoy notes, although their explanations for this possibility vary. Militia officers blame the failure of the courts to punish those who have taken part, judges blame shortcomings in legislation and politicians blame “irresponsible opposition figures.”
For example, Sergey Markov, a political scientist and Duma member, says that “disorders like those which we observed not long ago in Riga and Sofia today can occur in all countries of the world except those where there is a socially oriented economy. They can even break out in Russia.”
Indeed, Markov said, “there are already elements of a pre-revolutionary situation in Russia” but “there are only elements” and they are more social-economic than political because of the resources of the existing regime and the absence of credible alternative political leaders who could exploit such “elements.”
One measure of the spread of such concerns is the increasing popularity of insurance policies against the consequences of mass violence, Gorevoy says. When such policies were offered two years ago, only five firms bought them. Now, they are far more popular, with one in every four firms insuring itself against such problems
More significant, however, the “Novaya versiya” analyst continues, is that the formation of the MVD special units was completed in August, a development that prompted the deputy minister of internal affairs to talk about the ability of his institution to cope with anything that might happen.
Sukhodolsky said that “the crime-generating situation can deepen with the growth of protest attitudes called forth by dissatisfaction of the labor capable population of the country as a result of the non-payment of wages, threats of firings, and also unpopular measures taken in the framework of the anti-crisis program.”
Because of that risk, he continued, MVD units must give “heightened attention” to the risks of street violence and be ready to counter it before it spreads.
More junior MVD officials speaking on condition of anonymity told Gorevoy that the organs knew how to disperse street actions even in Soviet times, “and after the Moscow events of 2002 … our people developed detailed instructions literally minute by minute on how to effectively and quickly disperse any group, even one numbering in the thousands.”
Not long ago, these officials said, they had received from MVD officers in Moscow and Moscow oblast a special “circular” in which “were enumerated ‘the structures destabilizing the social structure’ which could be involved in the initiation of massive street clashes” – including nationalists and extreme right groups especially in certain regions.
That document and other officials and analysts stressed that all these clashes are local and have not yet come together in any country-wide fashion. Consequently, they believe, Gorevoy continues, that there is no basis for particular concern. But he asks rhetorically, is that in fact the case?
If it is, then why did Sukhodolsky feel compelled to talk about “the heightened aggression of certain citizens of Russia toward the militia” and take note of “the growing aggression and wildness in behavior of certain groups of citizens”? Perhaps he wants a change in the rules of engagement or to prepare the leadership for harsher actions.
But if that is the case, then the increasing frequency and size of such clashes does represent a real threat, perhaps not of a revolution but certainly of a problem that the powers that be are now far more worried about than they were only a few months ago and are thus getting ready to defend themselves.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Window on Eurasia: North Caucasus Militants Every Day Inflict ‘Five to Six’ Casualties among MVD Troops, Bastrykin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 10 – Aleksandr Bastrykin, the acting head of the newly-independent Russian investigative service, says that militants in the North Caucasus at the present time are inflicting up to “five to six” losses among MVD troops every day, a situation that is “almost a war” and that requires military and ideological responses more than economic ones.
On Ekho Moskvy’s “Dura Lex” program Friday night, Bastrykin said that “the organs of internal affairs in the North Caucasus republics … are daily bearing losses of up to five to six people,” “big losses” which alongside the special operations of other Russian forces merit calling the conflict there “almost a war” (echo.msk.ru/programs/lex/716493-echo/).
He added that in his view, the causes of the conflict remain “the same” as they were; and while he said that Moscow’s new “strategy of social-economic development” is “correct,” Bastrykin said his own experience in the Caucasus and that of his agency “demonstrates” that economic measures are insufficient.
What is critical, he suggested, is that Moscow must “think up a system of ideological (and I am expressing this in a soft way [he added]) influence on this problem,” given that Russian forces are now dealing with people who on the basis of their own beliefs are prepared to sacrifice their lives to kill ordinary people and the forces sent against them.
Some of these young militants, he pointed out, make videos for their relatives and friends and tell them that “’I am going to commit a heroic act in the name of Allah, and I will end in paradise, but my sacrifice is not meaningless, and I will carry off with me dozens of the bodies and souls of my enemies in the name of Allah’ and so on.”
Unfortunately, at the present time, Bastrykin continued, “no one is working on this theme” in order to come up with ways to counter it.
His Ekho Moskvy interviewer recalled that on September 12, 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States, he had remarked that “the Third World War had begun” and that it was “an ideological war,” views which Bastrykin’s comments this week suggest he shares.
At the present time, Bastrykin said, his agency is working together with the interior ministry and FSB “in the framework of the joint operational group which was created by the decree of the president of the Russian Federation,” even though this group is not involved in the investigation of crimes but in preventing terrorist acts.
Bastrykin’s comments are important for at least two reasons. On the one hand, his view that Moscow should develop an ideological message to counter the militants rather than relying on economic development represents at least in part a dissent from the position now being pushed by President Dmitry Medvedev and his representative Aleksandr Khloponin.
And on the other, his suggestion that Russian forces are currently losing five or six soldiers a day in this campaign underscores that the conflict – in Bastrykin’s words, “the war” – continues at a higher level of violence than Russian officials and the Moscow media currently tend to acknowledge.
Consequently, while colder weather and the loss of vegetation in the mountains that follows will almost certainly reduce the intensity of the conflicts in that region in the coming weeks, the war in the North Caucasus, even if it is more often labeled “the counter-terrorist struggle,” is likely to remain at the center of Russian concerns for a long time to come.
And that in turn means, as the Russian Federation heads into the parliamentary and presidential elections, ever more Russian politicians and commentators are going to be forced to take a position on it and on the ways Moscow has so far unsuccessfully prosecuted its effort in the North Caucasus.
Staunton, October 10 – Aleksandr Bastrykin, the acting head of the newly-independent Russian investigative service, says that militants in the North Caucasus at the present time are inflicting up to “five to six” losses among MVD troops every day, a situation that is “almost a war” and that requires military and ideological responses more than economic ones.
On Ekho Moskvy’s “Dura Lex” program Friday night, Bastrykin said that “the organs of internal affairs in the North Caucasus republics … are daily bearing losses of up to five to six people,” “big losses” which alongside the special operations of other Russian forces merit calling the conflict there “almost a war” (echo.msk.ru/programs/lex/716493-echo/).
He added that in his view, the causes of the conflict remain “the same” as they were; and while he said that Moscow’s new “strategy of social-economic development” is “correct,” Bastrykin said his own experience in the Caucasus and that of his agency “demonstrates” that economic measures are insufficient.
What is critical, he suggested, is that Moscow must “think up a system of ideological (and I am expressing this in a soft way [he added]) influence on this problem,” given that Russian forces are now dealing with people who on the basis of their own beliefs are prepared to sacrifice their lives to kill ordinary people and the forces sent against them.
Some of these young militants, he pointed out, make videos for their relatives and friends and tell them that “’I am going to commit a heroic act in the name of Allah, and I will end in paradise, but my sacrifice is not meaningless, and I will carry off with me dozens of the bodies and souls of my enemies in the name of Allah’ and so on.”
Unfortunately, at the present time, Bastrykin continued, “no one is working on this theme” in order to come up with ways to counter it.
His Ekho Moskvy interviewer recalled that on September 12, 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States, he had remarked that “the Third World War had begun” and that it was “an ideological war,” views which Bastrykin’s comments this week suggest he shares.
At the present time, Bastrykin said, his agency is working together with the interior ministry and FSB “in the framework of the joint operational group which was created by the decree of the president of the Russian Federation,” even though this group is not involved in the investigation of crimes but in preventing terrorist acts.
Bastrykin’s comments are important for at least two reasons. On the one hand, his view that Moscow should develop an ideological message to counter the militants rather than relying on economic development represents at least in part a dissent from the position now being pushed by President Dmitry Medvedev and his representative Aleksandr Khloponin.
And on the other, his suggestion that Russian forces are currently losing five or six soldiers a day in this campaign underscores that the conflict – in Bastrykin’s words, “the war” – continues at a higher level of violence than Russian officials and the Moscow media currently tend to acknowledge.
Consequently, while colder weather and the loss of vegetation in the mountains that follows will almost certainly reduce the intensity of the conflicts in that region in the coming weeks, the war in the North Caucasus, even if it is more often labeled “the counter-terrorist struggle,” is likely to remain at the center of Russian concerns for a long time to come.
And that in turn means, as the Russian Federation heads into the parliamentary and presidential elections, ever more Russian politicians and commentators are going to be forced to take a position on it and on the ways Moscow has so far unsuccessfully prosecuted its effort in the North Caucasus.
Window on Eurasia: Pipelines Not Personalities behind Moscow-Minsk Spat, Russian Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 10 – The clash between the Russian Federation and Belarus has its roots less in the personalities of the presidents of those two countries, however much that may account for the atmospherics, than in pipeline routes and other economic considerations, according to a leading Moscow specialist on Belarusian foreign policy.
Kirill Koktysh, who teaches in the political theory department of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), argues that one must look beyond the charges and countercharges of the two leaders and the suggestion by Dmitry Medvedev that relations with Alyaksandr Lukashenka are now irrevocably destroyed.
If one does that, the MGIMO scholar said on a Finam.FM talk show at the end of last week, one can see that what is happening now is the playing out of Moscow’s decision in 2006 to build pipelines bypassing Belarus, pipelines that will come online over the next two years, and thus depriving Minsk of much-needed income (finam.fm/archive-view/3131/).
Up to now, Koktysh pointed out, Belarus had been able to pay for “up to a third” of its state budget from the transit fees it has been receiving for the 80 percent of Russian oil exports that cross its territory on the way to European markets. (The other 20 percent of Russian oil exports in that direction has been passing through Ukraine.)
But in 2011 and especially in 2012, Russia’s planned bypass pipelines should “begin to work,” Koktysh says, thereby “minimizing” Moscow’s dependence on the willingness of Belarus, Ukraine and other East European countries to serve as transit routes. This may be “good or bad,” he says, but that is what is happening.
The impact of this shift on Belarus will be devastating, and Minsk is worried about it. At present, “up to a third” of its state budget comes from oil transit fees, money that some in Moscow see as a form of assistance but that in fact, given the size of Russia’s earnings from the export of oil via this route, is within the normal range of the cost of doing business.
. Not surprisingly, the MGIMO scholar says, Belarus is not happy with this situation and is trying to find alternative sources of financing. That does not mean that Minsk is about to denounce the union state accord. That has always been more a virtual “PR project” than something real.
Those in Moscow who are now angry at Lukashenka need to remember this and recognize that doing something like not recognizing the results of the upcoming presidential election in Belarus would be to play into the incumbent Belarusian president’s hands because it would allow him to gain support from the West by presenting Russia as a threat.
Moreover, Koktysh continues, those Russian officials who think this way are showing that they do not realize that “the union state was denounced by [Moscow’s] construction of the bypass oil and gas pipelines” and that today the Russian and Belarusian economies are competitors rather than complementary players in the international marketplace.
Still worse, the MGIMO scholar says, it reflects the mistaken view that “Belarusians and Russians are a single people.” That is simply not the case. “They are two different peoples. More than that,” he adds, “attempts to make them one people” will have negative consequences for both, leaving Russians and Belarusians less well off than they are now.
Consequently, while “personal relations” between Medvedev and Lukashenka may have been destroyed as the Russian president and his supporters insist, the underlying geopolitical relationship of the two countries is far different than officials and experts in the Russian capital and elsewhere appear to assume.
Belarus is not going to denounce the “virtual” Union state, nor is it likely to leave the Customs Union or the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty, however much Minsk may criticize this or that aspect of these bodies and however much it like other members will constantly redefine what membership means.
A major reason for that conclusion, he continues, is that Lukashenka is not a fool but rather “a competent politician who knows very well what he is doing.” The Belarusian president like “all of Eastern Europe and all of Central Asia” is “a limitrophe state, that is a state located between big neighbors which earns its way” as a transit bridge between them.
Like any such state, Belarus “is interested in supporting a sufficient level of distrust between the major and interacting figures and in cultivating the truth in the extreme case with one of these two figures in order to win the chance to serve” as such a bridge.
Such an approach is both “understandable and simple,” and “in this regard, if Lukashenka started when Russia funded his anti-Western confrontation and pro-Russian orientation, now, he must receive the same sum from the West, a sum which Russia in fact refuses to pay because of the construction of its new pipelines.”
The only change is that now this sum will be sought “for the defense of sovereign Belarus from insolent Russian imperialism which is attempting to russify, divide and swallow it up in its imperial embraces.” And everyone must recognize that “in this case, Belarus was not pro-Russian in the early 1990s just as it is not pro-Western today.”
Instead, the MGIMO scholar insists, “Belarus always has been pro-Belarus.”
Staunton, October 10 – The clash between the Russian Federation and Belarus has its roots less in the personalities of the presidents of those two countries, however much that may account for the atmospherics, than in pipeline routes and other economic considerations, according to a leading Moscow specialist on Belarusian foreign policy.
Kirill Koktysh, who teaches in the political theory department of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), argues that one must look beyond the charges and countercharges of the two leaders and the suggestion by Dmitry Medvedev that relations with Alyaksandr Lukashenka are now irrevocably destroyed.
If one does that, the MGIMO scholar said on a Finam.FM talk show at the end of last week, one can see that what is happening now is the playing out of Moscow’s decision in 2006 to build pipelines bypassing Belarus, pipelines that will come online over the next two years, and thus depriving Minsk of much-needed income (finam.fm/archive-view/3131/).
Up to now, Koktysh pointed out, Belarus had been able to pay for “up to a third” of its state budget from the transit fees it has been receiving for the 80 percent of Russian oil exports that cross its territory on the way to European markets. (The other 20 percent of Russian oil exports in that direction has been passing through Ukraine.)
But in 2011 and especially in 2012, Russia’s planned bypass pipelines should “begin to work,” Koktysh says, thereby “minimizing” Moscow’s dependence on the willingness of Belarus, Ukraine and other East European countries to serve as transit routes. This may be “good or bad,” he says, but that is what is happening.
The impact of this shift on Belarus will be devastating, and Minsk is worried about it. At present, “up to a third” of its state budget comes from oil transit fees, money that some in Moscow see as a form of assistance but that in fact, given the size of Russia’s earnings from the export of oil via this route, is within the normal range of the cost of doing business.
. Not surprisingly, the MGIMO scholar says, Belarus is not happy with this situation and is trying to find alternative sources of financing. That does not mean that Minsk is about to denounce the union state accord. That has always been more a virtual “PR project” than something real.
Those in Moscow who are now angry at Lukashenka need to remember this and recognize that doing something like not recognizing the results of the upcoming presidential election in Belarus would be to play into the incumbent Belarusian president’s hands because it would allow him to gain support from the West by presenting Russia as a threat.
Moreover, Koktysh continues, those Russian officials who think this way are showing that they do not realize that “the union state was denounced by [Moscow’s] construction of the bypass oil and gas pipelines” and that today the Russian and Belarusian economies are competitors rather than complementary players in the international marketplace.
Still worse, the MGIMO scholar says, it reflects the mistaken view that “Belarusians and Russians are a single people.” That is simply not the case. “They are two different peoples. More than that,” he adds, “attempts to make them one people” will have negative consequences for both, leaving Russians and Belarusians less well off than they are now.
Consequently, while “personal relations” between Medvedev and Lukashenka may have been destroyed as the Russian president and his supporters insist, the underlying geopolitical relationship of the two countries is far different than officials and experts in the Russian capital and elsewhere appear to assume.
Belarus is not going to denounce the “virtual” Union state, nor is it likely to leave the Customs Union or the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty, however much Minsk may criticize this or that aspect of these bodies and however much it like other members will constantly redefine what membership means.
A major reason for that conclusion, he continues, is that Lukashenka is not a fool but rather “a competent politician who knows very well what he is doing.” The Belarusian president like “all of Eastern Europe and all of Central Asia” is “a limitrophe state, that is a state located between big neighbors which earns its way” as a transit bridge between them.
Like any such state, Belarus “is interested in supporting a sufficient level of distrust between the major and interacting figures and in cultivating the truth in the extreme case with one of these two figures in order to win the chance to serve” as such a bridge.
Such an approach is both “understandable and simple,” and “in this regard, if Lukashenka started when Russia funded his anti-Western confrontation and pro-Russian orientation, now, he must receive the same sum from the West, a sum which Russia in fact refuses to pay because of the construction of its new pipelines.”
The only change is that now this sum will be sought “for the defense of sovereign Belarus from insolent Russian imperialism which is attempting to russify, divide and swallow it up in its imperial embraces.” And everyone must recognize that “in this case, Belarus was not pro-Russian in the early 1990s just as it is not pro-Western today.”
Instead, the MGIMO scholar insists, “Belarus always has been pro-Belarus.”
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russian Parents Overwhelmingly Choose Secular Ethics Courses for
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 9 – Despite campaign by the Moscow Patriarchate, Russian parents have selected for their children courses in secular ethics or the history of religions twice as often as they have chosen to have their offspring study Orthodox culture, according to preliminary figures from the experimental introduction of such courses in 19 federal subjects.
Yesterday, the Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy published on its website “Statistical Reports from the 19 Subjects of the Russian Federation Taking Part in the Trial of [Such] Modules] for the 2009/2010 academic year,” findings that are likely to spark debate in the coming weeks (www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/716694-echo/).
While the results cannot simply be extrapolated to the country as a whole, they do suggest that Russian parents, who make these choices, are far less interested in having their children study Russian Orthodoxy than the Moscow Patriarchate has claims, somewhat more interested in studying Islam relative to population, and mostly interested in more secular courses.
Of the 237,939 students taking part, 27.84 percent studied “Foundations of Orthodox Culture” and 10.3 percent “Foundations of Islamic Culture, but 17.09 percent took classes in “Foundations of World Religious Cultures” and 43.97 percent in “Foundations of Secular Ethics.” Those studying Buddhism and Judaism made up the other 0.8 percent.
Those figures suggest that more than 60 percent of the pupils taking part were in classes without a specifically religious profile, more than twice as many as the share – slightly fewer than 28 percent – taking the course on Orthodoxy, a pattern that reflects the secularization of Russian society in Soviet times and since.
And this pattern not only calls into question the routine claims of the Russian Orthodox Church that the share of Orthodox in Russia is the same as the share of ethnic Russians but also indicates that some of the fears of secular or even atheist groups about the impact of religious courses in the schools may be overstated.
Not surprisingly, figures from the 19 regions varied widely. In many predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, a far higher share of the pupils studied the Orthodox course, although in Penza, students were offered courses only in world religions and “Foundations of Secular Ethics.
Meanwhile, in Chechnya, 99.5 percent of the pupils were enrolled in the “Foundations of Islamic Culture,” a share greater than the percentage of Muslims in the population. In Karachay-Cherkessia, nearly 40 percent of the students were studying Muslim culture. And in Kalmykia, a Buddhist republic, slightly more than half were studying their traditional national faith.
Staunton, October 9 – Despite campaign by the Moscow Patriarchate, Russian parents have selected for their children courses in secular ethics or the history of religions twice as often as they have chosen to have their offspring study Orthodox culture, according to preliminary figures from the experimental introduction of such courses in 19 federal subjects.
Yesterday, the Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy published on its website “Statistical Reports from the 19 Subjects of the Russian Federation Taking Part in the Trial of [Such] Modules] for the 2009/2010 academic year,” findings that are likely to spark debate in the coming weeks (www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/716694-echo/).
While the results cannot simply be extrapolated to the country as a whole, they do suggest that Russian parents, who make these choices, are far less interested in having their children study Russian Orthodoxy than the Moscow Patriarchate has claims, somewhat more interested in studying Islam relative to population, and mostly interested in more secular courses.
Of the 237,939 students taking part, 27.84 percent studied “Foundations of Orthodox Culture” and 10.3 percent “Foundations of Islamic Culture, but 17.09 percent took classes in “Foundations of World Religious Cultures” and 43.97 percent in “Foundations of Secular Ethics.” Those studying Buddhism and Judaism made up the other 0.8 percent.
Those figures suggest that more than 60 percent of the pupils taking part were in classes without a specifically religious profile, more than twice as many as the share – slightly fewer than 28 percent – taking the course on Orthodoxy, a pattern that reflects the secularization of Russian society in Soviet times and since.
And this pattern not only calls into question the routine claims of the Russian Orthodox Church that the share of Orthodox in Russia is the same as the share of ethnic Russians but also indicates that some of the fears of secular or even atheist groups about the impact of religious courses in the schools may be overstated.
Not surprisingly, figures from the 19 regions varied widely. In many predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, a far higher share of the pupils studied the Orthodox course, although in Penza, students were offered courses only in world religions and “Foundations of Secular Ethics.
Meanwhile, in Chechnya, 99.5 percent of the pupils were enrolled in the “Foundations of Islamic Culture,” a share greater than the percentage of Muslims in the population. In Karachay-Cherkessia, nearly 40 percent of the students were studying Muslim culture. And in Kalmykia, a Buddhist republic, slightly more than half were studying their traditional national faith.
Window on Eurasia: Arab ‘Islamic’ Names Displacing Persian Ones in Tajikistan
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 9 – Nearly one out of every five newborns in Tajikistan is now being given an Arabic rather than a Persian name and an increasing number of older people are choosing to change their names in the same direction, the result of the growing influence of Islam in that Central Asian republic.
According to a report by Radio Liberty’s Tajik service as translated into Russian by Zpress.kg, Dushanbe officials at the office where births, marriages and deaths are recorded say that this represents a major change over just the last five years. Earlier they said, “we did not know such [Arabic] names” (www.zpress.kg/news/news_only/7/23613/403.py).
The major drivers for this change, which represents not only a break with the national past but also one with Persian culture where the use of Arabic names traditionally has been limited, are the mullahs and imams who enjoy enormous authority and “advise people to choose Islamic names for [their] children,” RL reported.
“I tell people,” Khodzhi Mirzo Ibronov, the mullah of a mosque in Kulob, says, “that Allah prefers such names as Abdulla and Abdurrakhmon,” which have Arabic roots and connections rather than Persian or Tajik ones. At the very least, he suggests, parents should choose names with the “Abd” syllable which in Arabic means “servant.”
This trend is part of a general increase in the influence of Islam in Tajikistan, not only among adults but also among young men who, the service continues, “typically visit evening prayers in nearby mosques after the sermons of the imams” or purchase “compact disks in local markets with the sermons of religious leaders who explain Islamic values.”
Dilshod Rakhimov, a Tajik specialist on culture and art, says that “young men who change their names for Islamic ones are putting their religious attachment above the national one. Each has the right to choose for himself and his children an Islamic name which pleases him but [he added] I think that this is somewhat unserious.”
After all, Rakhimov pointed out, “you do not need to have an Islamic name in order to be a true Muslim. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, people follow their own religion but are not required to have Arabic and religious names.” Instead, in that country, most prefer national ones.
That is what makes the situation in Tajikistan so intriguing. Several years ago, Arabic names were “unknown,” but now they are common, reflecting not only the choices of parents but also of young people who seek to change their names. Two decades ago, the most common names came from Firdousi’s epic poem, “Shahname” or after 1991 from Iranian history.
But today, RL reports, some Tajiks are dropping those Iranian names because it turns out that that some of them, like Jamsid, refer back to a Persian monarch who was not a Muslim but rather a follower of Zoroastrianism. In increasingly Islamicized Tajik society, such references are no longer acceptable.
One 19-year-old Tajik with whom the RL Tajik Service spoke said that recently he had decided to change the name his parents had given him, Shokhrukh, to Muhammed because his increasing familiarity with Islam had convinced him that he should bear a Muslim rather than a Tajik name.
Many of his age cohort are doing the same, but neither he nor they have “officially registered” such changes. That is because the process the Tajikistan government has for changing names is “lengthy, complicated and expensive,” involving not only the collection of numerous documents but quite often the giving of bribes.
As for the newly named Muhammed, he said his lack of registration of this change has no importance for him: “My friends and family call me by my new name, and this is quite sufficient.”
Staunton, October 9 – Nearly one out of every five newborns in Tajikistan is now being given an Arabic rather than a Persian name and an increasing number of older people are choosing to change their names in the same direction, the result of the growing influence of Islam in that Central Asian republic.
According to a report by Radio Liberty’s Tajik service as translated into Russian by Zpress.kg, Dushanbe officials at the office where births, marriages and deaths are recorded say that this represents a major change over just the last five years. Earlier they said, “we did not know such [Arabic] names” (www.zpress.kg/news/news_only/7/23613/403.py).
The major drivers for this change, which represents not only a break with the national past but also one with Persian culture where the use of Arabic names traditionally has been limited, are the mullahs and imams who enjoy enormous authority and “advise people to choose Islamic names for [their] children,” RL reported.
“I tell people,” Khodzhi Mirzo Ibronov, the mullah of a mosque in Kulob, says, “that Allah prefers such names as Abdulla and Abdurrakhmon,” which have Arabic roots and connections rather than Persian or Tajik ones. At the very least, he suggests, parents should choose names with the “Abd” syllable which in Arabic means “servant.”
This trend is part of a general increase in the influence of Islam in Tajikistan, not only among adults but also among young men who, the service continues, “typically visit evening prayers in nearby mosques after the sermons of the imams” or purchase “compact disks in local markets with the sermons of religious leaders who explain Islamic values.”
Dilshod Rakhimov, a Tajik specialist on culture and art, says that “young men who change their names for Islamic ones are putting their religious attachment above the national one. Each has the right to choose for himself and his children an Islamic name which pleases him but [he added] I think that this is somewhat unserious.”
After all, Rakhimov pointed out, “you do not need to have an Islamic name in order to be a true Muslim. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, people follow their own religion but are not required to have Arabic and religious names.” Instead, in that country, most prefer national ones.
That is what makes the situation in Tajikistan so intriguing. Several years ago, Arabic names were “unknown,” but now they are common, reflecting not only the choices of parents but also of young people who seek to change their names. Two decades ago, the most common names came from Firdousi’s epic poem, “Shahname” or after 1991 from Iranian history.
But today, RL reports, some Tajiks are dropping those Iranian names because it turns out that that some of them, like Jamsid, refer back to a Persian monarch who was not a Muslim but rather a follower of Zoroastrianism. In increasingly Islamicized Tajik society, such references are no longer acceptable.
One 19-year-old Tajik with whom the RL Tajik Service spoke said that recently he had decided to change the name his parents had given him, Shokhrukh, to Muhammed because his increasing familiarity with Islam had convinced him that he should bear a Muslim rather than a Tajik name.
Many of his age cohort are doing the same, but neither he nor they have “officially registered” such changes. That is because the process the Tajikistan government has for changing names is “lengthy, complicated and expensive,” involving not only the collection of numerous documents but quite often the giving of bribes.
As for the newly named Muhammed, he said his lack of registration of this change has no importance for him: “My friends and family call me by my new name, and this is quite sufficient.”
Friday, October 8, 2010
Window on Eurasia: ‘Multitude of Problems’ Ahead for Upcoming Russian Census, Experts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 8 – The 2010 Russian Census which will take place October 14-25 in most places – a few distant locations have already been surveyed – is going to suffer from “a multitude of problems,” experts say, some of which are likely to undercut public confidence in its results and possibly, as happened after the last count, force officials to issue corrections later.
In “Novaya politika” today, Mikhail Diunov recalls what happened during the last census (in 2002) in order to highlight some but far from all of the problems that the current census seems certain to encounter, including official interference, corruption, and both bureaucratic and practical shortcomings (novopol.ru/-vseh-poschitayut-text90949.html).
The 2002 count, he reports, found that “the size of the population did not correspond with the officially declared numbers.” In the Far East and North, officials had overstated the numbers, while in Moscow and Chechnya, they had understated them, differences that led many to conclude that officials had played with the figures.
That some regional officials may have overstated the numbers in order to get more assistance from Moscow, however, was not the only problem. In some places, such as Bashkortostan, the republic leaders actively worked to boost the number of ethnic Bashkirs relative to Tatars for their own nationalistic reasons.
Such divergences generated enormous distrust in the 2002 census results, distrust so deep and widespread that four years later, the Russian statistical agency, Rosstat, was forced to issue corrected data, although in the view of many people the changes were insufficient to overcome “the contradictions between census data and current reporting information.”
Russian statistical officials began planning for the 2010 enumeration in 2007, at least in part out of the hope that such lengthy preparations would allow them to conduct a better and more authoritative enumeration than they had been able to carry out the last time around and thus avoid the embarrassment of having to issue corrections.
As part of this process, Diunov continues, they conducted a preliminary mini-census in the fall of 2008, trying out various survey methodologies on some 300,000 people in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha, the Petrograd district of St. Petersburg, and Khabarovsk, a major city in the Russian Far East.
Then, he notes, the financial crisis hit, and many officials wanted to delay the census until 2013, a move that appeared likely as the government cut back on funding for the enumeration and one that led some to conclude that the upcoming count would show such a decline in the country’s population that Vladimir Putin did not want it to happen before the elections.
But then, either to silence such suggestions or out of a belief that going ahead would ultimately same money, Moscow decided to retain the original schedule, even though it cut financing from its own budget and shifted much of the burden for the count to regional and city governments, whom the center will reimburse only over the course of several years.
“In addition,” Diunov notes, “the central government placed on the organizers of the census limitations which have a perfectly anecdotal character.” It has prohibited local officials from hiring guards for census offices unless those guards are specially certified even though in most parts of the country, there are no such people available.
As a result, many offices where census data are assembled will not be guarded, a situation that almost certainly guarantees that many will suspect that the data on numbers or nationality composition or something else will be falsified by officials or others who have a vested interest in the outcome.
Moscow officials have acknowledged these and other problems and are trying to deal with them and with the problems censuses encounter in every country, and consequently, there is some hope that the results this time around will be accepted more readily than were those from the 2002 enumeration.
But however that may be, there is already a rising tide of complaints about two aspects of the census: its failure to ask about religious affiliation, something that has been done only in two previous censuses (1897 and 1937), and its list of national self-identifications which many see as a form of manipulation as well (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/13844/).
With regard to the former issue, Experts like Vladimir Zorin of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology argue that it would be a mistake to ask about religion because that would lead to “an excessive politicization” of the question, but others argue that not asking does the same thing, albeit in a different direction.
And with regard to the latter, many non-Russians complain that the Moscow list of more than 1800 ethnic self-designators is designed to divide their communities and thus reduce their power, although increasingly it appears that such multiple listings may affect the ethnic Russian community at least as much, with Cossacks, Siberians and others insisting on their identities.
Russian officials counter that the list of 1800 names is not a list of nationalities, but their arguments on that point trouble many who thus feel that some unknown bureaucrat will group the answers and thus be in a position to determine the size of the various nationalities of the Russian Federation with all the consequences that would have on budgets and politics.
Staunton, October 8 – The 2010 Russian Census which will take place October 14-25 in most places – a few distant locations have already been surveyed – is going to suffer from “a multitude of problems,” experts say, some of which are likely to undercut public confidence in its results and possibly, as happened after the last count, force officials to issue corrections later.
In “Novaya politika” today, Mikhail Diunov recalls what happened during the last census (in 2002) in order to highlight some but far from all of the problems that the current census seems certain to encounter, including official interference, corruption, and both bureaucratic and practical shortcomings (novopol.ru/-vseh-poschitayut-text90949.html).
The 2002 count, he reports, found that “the size of the population did not correspond with the officially declared numbers.” In the Far East and North, officials had overstated the numbers, while in Moscow and Chechnya, they had understated them, differences that led many to conclude that officials had played with the figures.
That some regional officials may have overstated the numbers in order to get more assistance from Moscow, however, was not the only problem. In some places, such as Bashkortostan, the republic leaders actively worked to boost the number of ethnic Bashkirs relative to Tatars for their own nationalistic reasons.
Such divergences generated enormous distrust in the 2002 census results, distrust so deep and widespread that four years later, the Russian statistical agency, Rosstat, was forced to issue corrected data, although in the view of many people the changes were insufficient to overcome “the contradictions between census data and current reporting information.”
Russian statistical officials began planning for the 2010 enumeration in 2007, at least in part out of the hope that such lengthy preparations would allow them to conduct a better and more authoritative enumeration than they had been able to carry out the last time around and thus avoid the embarrassment of having to issue corrections.
As part of this process, Diunov continues, they conducted a preliminary mini-census in the fall of 2008, trying out various survey methodologies on some 300,000 people in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha, the Petrograd district of St. Petersburg, and Khabarovsk, a major city in the Russian Far East.
Then, he notes, the financial crisis hit, and many officials wanted to delay the census until 2013, a move that appeared likely as the government cut back on funding for the enumeration and one that led some to conclude that the upcoming count would show such a decline in the country’s population that Vladimir Putin did not want it to happen before the elections.
But then, either to silence such suggestions or out of a belief that going ahead would ultimately same money, Moscow decided to retain the original schedule, even though it cut financing from its own budget and shifted much of the burden for the count to regional and city governments, whom the center will reimburse only over the course of several years.
“In addition,” Diunov notes, “the central government placed on the organizers of the census limitations which have a perfectly anecdotal character.” It has prohibited local officials from hiring guards for census offices unless those guards are specially certified even though in most parts of the country, there are no such people available.
As a result, many offices where census data are assembled will not be guarded, a situation that almost certainly guarantees that many will suspect that the data on numbers or nationality composition or something else will be falsified by officials or others who have a vested interest in the outcome.
Moscow officials have acknowledged these and other problems and are trying to deal with them and with the problems censuses encounter in every country, and consequently, there is some hope that the results this time around will be accepted more readily than were those from the 2002 enumeration.
But however that may be, there is already a rising tide of complaints about two aspects of the census: its failure to ask about religious affiliation, something that has been done only in two previous censuses (1897 and 1937), and its list of national self-identifications which many see as a form of manipulation as well (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/13844/).
With regard to the former issue, Experts like Vladimir Zorin of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology argue that it would be a mistake to ask about religion because that would lead to “an excessive politicization” of the question, but others argue that not asking does the same thing, albeit in a different direction.
And with regard to the latter, many non-Russians complain that the Moscow list of more than 1800 ethnic self-designators is designed to divide their communities and thus reduce their power, although increasingly it appears that such multiple listings may affect the ethnic Russian community at least as much, with Cossacks, Siberians and others insisting on their identities.
Russian officials counter that the list of 1800 names is not a list of nationalities, but their arguments on that point trouble many who thus feel that some unknown bureaucrat will group the answers and thus be in a position to determine the size of the various nationalities of the Russian Federation with all the consequences that would have on budgets and politics.
Window on Eurasia: Turkey -- Far More than Iran -- Promoting Growth of Islam in Post-Soviet States
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 8 – One of the most widely and deeply held convictions among Western leaders and specialists in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union was that Iran would promote the spread of Islam and especially its more radical forms into the post-Soviet states while Turkey could be counted on to promote the growth of secular societies there.
That assumption reinforced the commitment of Western governments to seek to isolate Iran from contacts in the region, such as by the use of the OSCE, of which Iran is not a member, in dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and to promote Turkey in the post-Soviet states as a surrogate for the West more generally.
But as some analysts pointed out from the very beginning, there were serious reasons to question this assumption and its utility as a guide to policy. On the one hand, Iran’s brand of Islam had relatively few adherents in the post-Soviet states (only Azerbaijan had a Shiite majority) and Iran’s radicalism put off far more people there than it attracted.
And on the other, Turkey was never as secular as many in the West had assumed and has become less so with each passing year, and Turks because of their linguistic and cultural ties with five of the six Muslim majority former Soviet republics have enjoyed an influence there, on religion as well as on other matters, far greater than Iran.
In the 1990s, for example, Muslims in the post-Soviet states, including the Russian Federation, often travelled to Turkey either to study in medrassahs there or a way station on their route to Muslim educational institutions in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost none of these people went to or through Iran.
And both the Turkish government and Turkish Muslim groups not only provided scholarship assistance to these people and religious literature for those back in the former Soviet republics but also provided enormous funds for the construction of mosques and religious schools in these countries, far more than Iran did.
One result of this difference is that the largest and most prominent mosque in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku was built by the Turks and one of the largest commercial facilities was the Bank of Iran, precisely the opposite of what Western governments and experts had expected and predicted.
Today brought two new reports which suggest that Turkey continue to play a far greater role in the rebirth of Islam in the former Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation. In the first, Gidayat Orudzhev, the chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee on Work with Religious Structures, presented a report on foreign financing of mosques in that country.
According to Orudzhev, Kuwait has built the most, 71, but Turkey is in second place with 21, while Saudi Arabia has financed only one. He did not mention Iran’s role in this regard, but in the last decade at least, it has certainly been significantly smaller of that of Turkey and Turkish groups however much Iran has tried (www.islamnews.ru/news-27083.html).
The second report highlights Turkey’s role among Muslims in the unstable North Caucasus republics of the Russian Federation. This week, a group of Turkish Muslim leaders and businessmen visited Ingushetia along with Bekir Gerek, the counselor for religious affairs of the Turkish embassy in Moscow (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/13837/).
The Turkish group was received by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the head of the republic, who discussed with them the building of a new mosque in the republic capital, Magas, something that the Muslims of that republic have long sought. The Turks promised to fund the construction of the mosque as “a gift” to the Ingush Muslims.
The two sides also discussed the possibility of young Ingush receiving Muslim higher education in Turkey, something Gerek and his Turkish colleagues said they backed and would be happy to take full responsibility for funding, something that will make such training especially attractive given the high level of unemployment in Ingushetia.
Staunton, October 8 – One of the most widely and deeply held convictions among Western leaders and specialists in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union was that Iran would promote the spread of Islam and especially its more radical forms into the post-Soviet states while Turkey could be counted on to promote the growth of secular societies there.
That assumption reinforced the commitment of Western governments to seek to isolate Iran from contacts in the region, such as by the use of the OSCE, of which Iran is not a member, in dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and to promote Turkey in the post-Soviet states as a surrogate for the West more generally.
But as some analysts pointed out from the very beginning, there were serious reasons to question this assumption and its utility as a guide to policy. On the one hand, Iran’s brand of Islam had relatively few adherents in the post-Soviet states (only Azerbaijan had a Shiite majority) and Iran’s radicalism put off far more people there than it attracted.
And on the other, Turkey was never as secular as many in the West had assumed and has become less so with each passing year, and Turks because of their linguistic and cultural ties with five of the six Muslim majority former Soviet republics have enjoyed an influence there, on religion as well as on other matters, far greater than Iran.
In the 1990s, for example, Muslims in the post-Soviet states, including the Russian Federation, often travelled to Turkey either to study in medrassahs there or a way station on their route to Muslim educational institutions in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost none of these people went to or through Iran.
And both the Turkish government and Turkish Muslim groups not only provided scholarship assistance to these people and religious literature for those back in the former Soviet republics but also provided enormous funds for the construction of mosques and religious schools in these countries, far more than Iran did.
One result of this difference is that the largest and most prominent mosque in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku was built by the Turks and one of the largest commercial facilities was the Bank of Iran, precisely the opposite of what Western governments and experts had expected and predicted.
Today brought two new reports which suggest that Turkey continue to play a far greater role in the rebirth of Islam in the former Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation. In the first, Gidayat Orudzhev, the chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee on Work with Religious Structures, presented a report on foreign financing of mosques in that country.
According to Orudzhev, Kuwait has built the most, 71, but Turkey is in second place with 21, while Saudi Arabia has financed only one. He did not mention Iran’s role in this regard, but in the last decade at least, it has certainly been significantly smaller of that of Turkey and Turkish groups however much Iran has tried (www.islamnews.ru/news-27083.html).
The second report highlights Turkey’s role among Muslims in the unstable North Caucasus republics of the Russian Federation. This week, a group of Turkish Muslim leaders and businessmen visited Ingushetia along with Bekir Gerek, the counselor for religious affairs of the Turkish embassy in Moscow (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/13837/).
The Turkish group was received by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the head of the republic, who discussed with them the building of a new mosque in the republic capital, Magas, something that the Muslims of that republic have long sought. The Turks promised to fund the construction of the mosque as “a gift” to the Ingush Muslims.
The two sides also discussed the possibility of young Ingush receiving Muslim higher education in Turkey, something Gerek and his Turkish colleagues said they backed and would be happy to take full responsibility for funding, something that will make such training especially attractive given the high level of unemployment in Ingushetia.
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