Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), says that “today, a much greater threat to the unity of [Russia] comes not from the Caucasus but out of Moscow where at the walls of the Kremlin, at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, thousands of young people under Nazi symbols shout ‘Down with the Caucasus!’”
Gainutdin’s charge, made in a speech to the All-Russian Muslim Conference on Thursday and in an interview with “Novyye izvestiya,” not only over overwhelmed his hopes to use this meeting to promote Muslim unity but also sparked a sharp rejoinder from Kremlin officials, thereby highlighting both divisions within Islam and between Muslims and Moscow.
In his speech, the SMRhead said that he wanted “with the help of Allah to develop a consolidated position of the Muslim community of Russia on the most serious problems of the development of our country,” problems that he said could only be solved by clearly facing up to them (www.muslim.ru/1/cont/33/35/2324.htm).
“The first and most essential threat for all the citizens of our country, not excluding the Muslims” Gainutdin began, “must be acknowledged to be the sharp intensification of xenophobia and chauvinism in Russian society,” and in particular, “the rapid growth of Islamophobia” among Russians.
This “ugly manifestion of intolerance,” the Muslim leader continued, has a long history and specific sources. To a large extent, he said, “the mass media” have played and are playing a negative role, “disseminating false information about Isdlam” and spreading “distrust and hatred among Russians of various nationalities and faiths.”
“Today, when we turn to many Russian media outlets,” Gainutdin said, “we are forced to cite the words of the Most High who said in the Koran ‘Why do you tell lies and conceal the truth when you have already known it?”
Related to this problem, the SMR leader argued, is the “unceasing” banning of “the best models of Muslim spiritual literature by provincial Russian courts.” Recently one of them banned the hadith of the Prophet, an action that shows the way in which anti-extremism legislation is now being used by Russian officials to attack Islam as such.
Other problems connected with this include “the proposals of a number of experts and religious activists” to prevent any graduate of foreign universities fromworking in Russia. This “absurd” idea is directed in the first instance against Muslims receiving training abroad but it will affect everyone – and to Russia’s detriment, Gainutdin said.
Many Russians want to blame Muslims and Islam for the rise in xenophobia, the Moscow mufti said, but this is completely wrong as recent events have shown. “After the bloody terrorist acts in Moscow and the events in the Manezh Square, our society has found itself between two fires,” which threaten to engulf it.
“On the one hand, terrorism and extremism, and on the other, neo-Nazism and chauvinism,” Gainutdin argued. And he concluded: “Today a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow,” all the more so because “Muslims are the first target of the terrorists both in the Caucasus and in Russian cities.”
To counter this situation, Gainutdin proposed improving ties with other faiths, ensuring the secular nature of the Russian state and preventing Islam from being politicized, and improving the management of and cooperation among Russia’s Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs),
Gainutdin expanded upon these arguments in an interview with Aleksandr Kolesnichenko of “Novyye izvestiya” (http://www.newizv.ru/razdel/2011-03-25/3/), an interview published to coincide with the Muslim Conference that the Moscow newspaper headlined “The Threat to the Unity of the Country Comes from Moscow.”
Asked why it is that “precisely in the Muslim republics of war a war is going on, one in which [some] are fighting for the creation of an Islamic khalifate,” the SMR leader said that it is not the case that “all who go into the mountains and conduct their anti-government activity under [this slogan].” Many, he said, do so because of the failings of the government itself.
“I was in the North Caucasus, I met with ordinary Muslims and Muslim leaders and I received a clear answer: none of them wants the distintegration of Russia. Russia is out common country, which grew not only from Kievan Rus but also fromt eh Golden Horde and the Imamate of Shamil, the free communities of the Caucasus and the Volga-Siberia khanates,” he said.
“Today,” Gainutdin said, “in the North Caucasus, our brothers and sisters want to live in a great strong sstate where the rights and freedoms of every citizen are respected.” Unfortunately, today that is threatened, not so much by the actions of the few who engage in terrorist acts but from the attitudes of Russians about Muslims.
Consequently, Gainutdin concluded, “a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow” itself.
Typically, when a Muslim leader in Russia makes a statement with which the authorities disagree, the latter leave it to people like Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam whose opposition to most Muslim leaders and close ties to the Moscow Patriarchate have made him notorious in some quarters, to answer.
But this time, the Kremlin clearly decided more was needed,and Aleksey Grishin, the chief advisor of the Presidential Administration, weighed in with a sharp attack on the argument Gainutdin had made, dismissing it as an effort to explain away the problems of Russia’s Muslim community (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=374).
According to Grishin, “very often, particularly recently, individual Muslim leadcers try to justify their inactive and inability to solve basic problems of the umma by references to the supposed existence of Islamophobia” in Russian society and particularly among Russian officials.
“This theme is very convenient as well to the enemies of Russia beyond the borders of the Russian Federation,” the Presidential aide continued.
Grishin then pointed out that “the term ‘Islamophobia’ means not opposition to Islam, as many mistakenly use it, but rather fear before Islam.” But whatever “fear” Russians feel about Islam is the result of “bloody terrorist acts which “unfortunately [have taken place] under the green banners of Islam.”
The people who commimt them, of course, Grishin continued, “are not Muslims because they are criminally using Islam for their own purposes,” and it is against that misuse of religion that “we must direct the basic strike in the struggle with Islamophobia. People are afraid of Islam because of [that].”
It is completely inappropriate to charge the Russian state with Islamophobia, the Kremlin official said. “In what other country can one see a 70 times growth in the number of mosques over the last 20 years!” Or seen the growth in the number of Islamic educational institutions from zero to 95?
And much of this growth has taken place with the active support, including financial assistance, of the Russian state, Grishin said. But “how hav e Muslim religious public organizations responded? With legal nihilism. Despite numerous warnings, they are systematically failing to obey the laws of the Russian Federation.”
Moreover, “when the state begins to struggle for the observation of law, the theme of persecution of Muslims again arises, Grishin said (www.regions.ru/news/2347224/). What should be happening instead, he argued, is that Muslims should focus on their own problems rather than blaming everyone else.
Various nominally Muslim structures have been created with false documentation, Grishin said, including media outlets “which openly stir up national and religious hostility.” Muslims should focus on struggling with them. “There was a portal called Islam.ru which among the people everyone called Islam.vru [Islam Lies].”
Fortunately, after having been closed, it will reopen under new leadership and with new ideas, the Kremlin aide continued.
But in his most widely cited comment, Grishin noted that much of the money given by the state to Muslim organizations is being used “ineffectively” or even criminally. “We have reports about mosques purchasing toilets for 42,000 rubles (1400 US dollars).” The Kremlin aide said he would like to have a look at such facilities.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Colonial Rule of the North Caucasus Approaching Its End, Israeli Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Russia’s “system of administration and organization of life in the North Caucasus has completely exhausted itself,” an Israeli analyst says, and as a result, “the 200-year colonial presence of the Russian Empire [in that region] is moving toward its logical end.” The only remaining quesiton is how much more blood will be shed.
In an analysis postred on APN.ru at the end of last week, Avraam Shmulyevich, an independent scholar, developed this idea, one that is attracting particular attention in Russia because it coincided with a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(www.apn.ru/publications/article23896.htm).
Shmulyevich begins his essay with a discussion of a report in a Stavropol newspaper concerning a discussion earlier in the week of Moscow’s continuing financial support of the various republics of that region by the collegiums of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation (http://www.opengaz.ru/issues/10-451/vne_zoni_deistviya.html).
According to the Accounting Chamber, Moscow is providing “about 90 percent” of the budgets of Chechnya and Ingushetia, 75 percent of the budget of Kabardino-Balkaria, and 55 percent of the budgets of North Osetia-Alaniya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Moreover, the Chamber said, “the share of inter-budget transfers per capita in the North Caucasus (with the ex caption of Stavropol) is almost twice that of the all-Russian average. Last year, the federal center allocated 41,000 rubles per person in Chechnya, 20,000 in Ingushetia, 17,000 in Daghestan, and 13,000 to Kabardino-Balkaria.
This means, the Chamber continued, that last year, Moscow allocated 129 billion rubles (4.2 billion US dollars) to the region, with more than 40 percent of that going to Chechnya and the rest divided among the other five republics of the North Caucasus Federal District.
This enormous investment, the Chamber concluded, has not paid off. Unemployment, even as officially calculated, is more than twice the all-Russian percentqage, and those without work are younger by more than a decade (22 to 25) than their counterparts elsewhere in the Russian Federation. Moreover, productivity is lower and the state structure larger.
“It would be incorrect,” Shmulyevich argues, “to say that the abovefigures give us a portrait of a sick society.” No, “this is a dead society, a dead economy,” one that can continue to limp on only by the introduction of massive outside funds in much the same way that an oxygen machine can keep an individual alive when his organs are failing.
Russia’s arrangements in the North Caucasus have thus “completely exhausted themselves,” the Israeli analyst says, “and the 200-year-long colonial presence of the Russian Empire in the North Caucasus is approaching its logical end,” however much many in Moscow and elsewhere want to deny that fact.
“A colony is a territory which is sharply disgtringuished from the metropolitan center by the national and/or religious composition of the population, which belongs to a different culture, and which is politically administered from the metropolitan center and is economically dependent on it,” Shmulyevich says.
That is precisely what the North Caucasus has become over the last two decades, a contrast from the Soviet period when it “was not a colony in the full sense of the word.” All colonial powers, “except the Russian Federation,” he continues, have recognized that such a system no longer works and have dispensed with their empires.
“Soviet power,” Shmulyevich points out, “within the framework of the bolsheviks’ forced modernization program tried to put an end to the colonial inheritaqnced of the Russian Empire, to change the colonial status of the borderlands, including the Caucasus, and to include them in on an equal basis within a single state organism.”
“This goal was realized only partially,” he notes, and then, as a result of “the primitization and archaization which came after the collapse of the USSR, the North Caucasus over the last two decades was again converted into a colony” in the sense of the term that Shmulyevich uses.
Theoretically, he writes, there are two ways out of this situation for Russia. On the one hand, Moscow could adopt “a complete change of the situation of administration and the relationships between ‘the center and periphery’ throughout [Russia], the complete modernization of the Russian economy … [and] real democratization of the political system.”
If all those things were to happen, Shmulyevich says, “then the North Caucasus would have the chance to be included on an equal basis in this new life.” But for obvious reasons, there is no reason to expect “such changes” either in the North Caucasus or in the Russian Federation as a whole.
And on the other hand, there is “the second possible variant,” the one that European countries have followed, and that is “decolonization, that is, the separation ofr the North Caucasus from Russia.” According to Shmulyevich, “this process is inevitable” because “it is dictated by objective historical and economic laws.”
“No decisions of the conference of the United Russia Party, no directives of the Russian government and – it is terrible to say – even no personal declarations of Mr. Vladimir Putin personally are in a position to overturn these laws.” Consequently, the only question remaining is how long this process will take.
Will it occur “quickly, in a centralized fashion and voluntarily as the British Empire departed from the greater part of its colonies,” Shmulyevich asks, “or will it occur slowly, bloodily and painfully as was the case of France’s departure from Algeria and Indochina?” In sum, the Israeli analyst suggests, the real question is “at what price in blood” will it happen.
Staunton, March 28 – Russia’s “system of administration and organization of life in the North Caucasus has completely exhausted itself,” an Israeli analyst says, and as a result, “the 200-year colonial presence of the Russian Empire [in that region] is moving toward its logical end.” The only remaining quesiton is how much more blood will be shed.
In an analysis postred on APN.ru at the end of last week, Avraam Shmulyevich, an independent scholar, developed this idea, one that is attracting particular attention in Russia because it coincided with a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(www.apn.ru/publications/article23896.htm).
Shmulyevich begins his essay with a discussion of a report in a Stavropol newspaper concerning a discussion earlier in the week of Moscow’s continuing financial support of the various republics of that region by the collegiums of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation (http://www.opengaz.ru/issues/10-451/vne_zoni_deistviya.html).
According to the Accounting Chamber, Moscow is providing “about 90 percent” of the budgets of Chechnya and Ingushetia, 75 percent of the budget of Kabardino-Balkaria, and 55 percent of the budgets of North Osetia-Alaniya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Moreover, the Chamber said, “the share of inter-budget transfers per capita in the North Caucasus (with the ex caption of Stavropol) is almost twice that of the all-Russian average. Last year, the federal center allocated 41,000 rubles per person in Chechnya, 20,000 in Ingushetia, 17,000 in Daghestan, and 13,000 to Kabardino-Balkaria.
This means, the Chamber continued, that last year, Moscow allocated 129 billion rubles (4.2 billion US dollars) to the region, with more than 40 percent of that going to Chechnya and the rest divided among the other five republics of the North Caucasus Federal District.
This enormous investment, the Chamber concluded, has not paid off. Unemployment, even as officially calculated, is more than twice the all-Russian percentqage, and those without work are younger by more than a decade (22 to 25) than their counterparts elsewhere in the Russian Federation. Moreover, productivity is lower and the state structure larger.
“It would be incorrect,” Shmulyevich argues, “to say that the abovefigures give us a portrait of a sick society.” No, “this is a dead society, a dead economy,” one that can continue to limp on only by the introduction of massive outside funds in much the same way that an oxygen machine can keep an individual alive when his organs are failing.
Russia’s arrangements in the North Caucasus have thus “completely exhausted themselves,” the Israeli analyst says, “and the 200-year-long colonial presence of the Russian Empire in the North Caucasus is approaching its logical end,” however much many in Moscow and elsewhere want to deny that fact.
“A colony is a territory which is sharply disgtringuished from the metropolitan center by the national and/or religious composition of the population, which belongs to a different culture, and which is politically administered from the metropolitan center and is economically dependent on it,” Shmulyevich says.
That is precisely what the North Caucasus has become over the last two decades, a contrast from the Soviet period when it “was not a colony in the full sense of the word.” All colonial powers, “except the Russian Federation,” he continues, have recognized that such a system no longer works and have dispensed with their empires.
“Soviet power,” Shmulyevich points out, “within the framework of the bolsheviks’ forced modernization program tried to put an end to the colonial inheritaqnced of the Russian Empire, to change the colonial status of the borderlands, including the Caucasus, and to include them in on an equal basis within a single state organism.”
“This goal was realized only partially,” he notes, and then, as a result of “the primitization and archaization which came after the collapse of the USSR, the North Caucasus over the last two decades was again converted into a colony” in the sense of the term that Shmulyevich uses.
Theoretically, he writes, there are two ways out of this situation for Russia. On the one hand, Moscow could adopt “a complete change of the situation of administration and the relationships between ‘the center and periphery’ throughout [Russia], the complete modernization of the Russian economy … [and] real democratization of the political system.”
If all those things were to happen, Shmulyevich says, “then the North Caucasus would have the chance to be included on an equal basis in this new life.” But for obvious reasons, there is no reason to expect “such changes” either in the North Caucasus or in the Russian Federation as a whole.
And on the other hand, there is “the second possible variant,” the one that European countries have followed, and that is “decolonization, that is, the separation ofr the North Caucasus from Russia.” According to Shmulyevich, “this process is inevitable” because “it is dictated by objective historical and economic laws.”
“No decisions of the conference of the United Russia Party, no directives of the Russian government and – it is terrible to say – even no personal declarations of Mr. Vladimir Putin personally are in a position to overturn these laws.” Consequently, the only question remaining is how long this process will take.
Will it occur “quickly, in a centralized fashion and voluntarily as the British Empire departed from the greater part of its colonies,” Shmulyevich asks, “or will it occur slowly, bloodily and painfully as was the case of France’s departure from Algeria and Indochina?” In sum, the Israeli analyst suggests, the real question is “at what price in blood” will it happen.
Window on Eurasia: MGIMO Meeting Highlights Russian Worries about Circassian Campaign against Sochi Games
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Although a Carnegie Moscow Center seminar three weeks ago concluded the Circassians “do not pose a serious threat to the Olympics in Sochi,” a conference at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s training academy held last week on the very same subject suggests that many in Moscow remain extremely nervous on this score.
A majority of participants at a March 3rd conference at Carnegie’s Moscow Center entitled “The Circassian Question and the Olympics at Sochi” concluded that “at the present moment ‘the Circassian question’ does not represent a serious threat to the Olympic Games in Sochi,” although some said it could become one (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182443/).
That meeting was held because of the increasing efforts by Circassian activists and their supporters in the United States, Georgia and other countries over the past several years to shift the venue of the 2014 games because the competition would take place on the site of the Russian genocide of the Circassians in 1864.
Like the Carnegie Center conference, most analysts have dismissed this Circassian effort as an irritating distraction given Putin’s commitment to the games and the money and time that Moscow has already invested in transforming the southern Russian city of Sochi into the site of a winter Olympiad.
But some in Moscow are now clearly worried that the Circassian campaign, along with the danger that militants from nearby regions of the North Caucasus, could in fact disrupt the games or at least cause some potential participants and attendees to decide not to come to Sochi in 2014.
Last Thursday, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the prestigious training academy of the Russian foreign ministry, held a conference on “’The Circassian Question’: Historical Memory, Historiographic Discourse and Political Strategies” to examine this issue yet again (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182789/).
Most of the participants who included leading scholars from around the Russian Federation focused on the events of the 19th century, but as Kavkaz-Uzel.ru noted, “particular interest” was generated by the presentation of Aleksandr Cherevishnikov, an MGIMO scholar, who talked about current Circassian political strategies.
He argued that “hardly anyone” thinks that the Circassians will be able to block the games – “although Russia has many weakspots,” including the decision to hold the games on the 150th anniversary of the Circassian tragedy—the Circassians won’t be able to achieve even that level of resistance that there was in Beijing because “Russia is not China.”
According to Cherevishnikov, too much has been made of the Circassian effort against the Sochi games. Relatively few people are involved, and Turkey, in which many of them have placed such hope because of its large Circassian population, is unlike to put pressure on Moscow in this regard.
And he concluded that “if the [Circassians] abroad cannot do anything, then local activists will not be able to create serious problems.”
A second speaker, Naima Neflyasheva, a senior scholar at the Academy of Sciences Center for Civilizational and Regional Research, said that one of the major reasons that political groups were able to exploit the Circassian quesiton was because “information about the tragedy of the Adygs [Circassians] has been limited.”
While Soviet guidebooks noted that Circassians once lived in these regions and created a great culture, she continued, “today however it is said that the territory is rich in archaeological monuments which belonged to some people or other,” without any clear designation that it was precisely the Circassians who were involved.
And a third speaker, Samir Khotko, a senior scholar at the Adygey Republic Institute of Humanitarian Research, touched on another theme Circassian activists have raised. He noted that the Russian authorities have not done anything to help those Circassians who would like to return from the diaspora.
“Undoubtedly, there are not so many who want to come back,” he said, “but people nonetheless must be offered this opportunity.”
The conference participants adopted a declaration calling for further academic research on what it called “the tragedy of the autochthonian Circassian population of the North Western Caucasus” in the 1860s which was “ended by the forced mass exodus of the Circassians” (www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2320&Itemid=1).
“Forgetting this tragedy is impermissible,” the declaration continued. “What is required is its careful and what is extremely important professional study and assessment. In this, it is necessary to isolate the work of professional scholars and experts from current politics. This will enrich both science and political practice.”
The declaration also noted that the participants had agreed to form a working group of Caucasus specialists “which will consider all approaches” to the Circassian issue and offer “paths of its resolution” by “formulating concrete proposals which will make possible the reduction of the sharpness of the political conflict around the Circassian question.”
“Without pre-deciding the results of this activity,” the participants concluded, “we note thatwe consider its final result as part of a large work directed at the strengthening of the [non-ethnic] Russian civic nation and the resolution of the contradictions which inevitably arise in a spirit of solidarity, responsibility, constructive cooperation, and dialogue.”
This MGIMO conference would never have taken place and its declaration would never have been issued if the Circassians in the diaspora had not launched their drive to shift the venue of the 2014 Olympics away from the site of the 1864 genocide, and consequently, this event represents a breakthrough victory for those activists, even if it does not yet pre-ordain a final one.
Staunton, March 28 – Although a Carnegie Moscow Center seminar three weeks ago concluded the Circassians “do not pose a serious threat to the Olympics in Sochi,” a conference at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s training academy held last week on the very same subject suggests that many in Moscow remain extremely nervous on this score.
A majority of participants at a March 3rd conference at Carnegie’s Moscow Center entitled “The Circassian Question and the Olympics at Sochi” concluded that “at the present moment ‘the Circassian question’ does not represent a serious threat to the Olympic Games in Sochi,” although some said it could become one (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182443/).
That meeting was held because of the increasing efforts by Circassian activists and their supporters in the United States, Georgia and other countries over the past several years to shift the venue of the 2014 games because the competition would take place on the site of the Russian genocide of the Circassians in 1864.
Like the Carnegie Center conference, most analysts have dismissed this Circassian effort as an irritating distraction given Putin’s commitment to the games and the money and time that Moscow has already invested in transforming the southern Russian city of Sochi into the site of a winter Olympiad.
But some in Moscow are now clearly worried that the Circassian campaign, along with the danger that militants from nearby regions of the North Caucasus, could in fact disrupt the games or at least cause some potential participants and attendees to decide not to come to Sochi in 2014.
Last Thursday, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the prestigious training academy of the Russian foreign ministry, held a conference on “’The Circassian Question’: Historical Memory, Historiographic Discourse and Political Strategies” to examine this issue yet again (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182789/).
Most of the participants who included leading scholars from around the Russian Federation focused on the events of the 19th century, but as Kavkaz-Uzel.ru noted, “particular interest” was generated by the presentation of Aleksandr Cherevishnikov, an MGIMO scholar, who talked about current Circassian political strategies.
He argued that “hardly anyone” thinks that the Circassians will be able to block the games – “although Russia has many weakspots,” including the decision to hold the games on the 150th anniversary of the Circassian tragedy—the Circassians won’t be able to achieve even that level of resistance that there was in Beijing because “Russia is not China.”
According to Cherevishnikov, too much has been made of the Circassian effort against the Sochi games. Relatively few people are involved, and Turkey, in which many of them have placed such hope because of its large Circassian population, is unlike to put pressure on Moscow in this regard.
And he concluded that “if the [Circassians] abroad cannot do anything, then local activists will not be able to create serious problems.”
A second speaker, Naima Neflyasheva, a senior scholar at the Academy of Sciences Center for Civilizational and Regional Research, said that one of the major reasons that political groups were able to exploit the Circassian quesiton was because “information about the tragedy of the Adygs [Circassians] has been limited.”
While Soviet guidebooks noted that Circassians once lived in these regions and created a great culture, she continued, “today however it is said that the territory is rich in archaeological monuments which belonged to some people or other,” without any clear designation that it was precisely the Circassians who were involved.
And a third speaker, Samir Khotko, a senior scholar at the Adygey Republic Institute of Humanitarian Research, touched on another theme Circassian activists have raised. He noted that the Russian authorities have not done anything to help those Circassians who would like to return from the diaspora.
“Undoubtedly, there are not so many who want to come back,” he said, “but people nonetheless must be offered this opportunity.”
The conference participants adopted a declaration calling for further academic research on what it called “the tragedy of the autochthonian Circassian population of the North Western Caucasus” in the 1860s which was “ended by the forced mass exodus of the Circassians” (www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2320&Itemid=1).
“Forgetting this tragedy is impermissible,” the declaration continued. “What is required is its careful and what is extremely important professional study and assessment. In this, it is necessary to isolate the work of professional scholars and experts from current politics. This will enrich both science and political practice.”
The declaration also noted that the participants had agreed to form a working group of Caucasus specialists “which will consider all approaches” to the Circassian issue and offer “paths of its resolution” by “formulating concrete proposals which will make possible the reduction of the sharpness of the political conflict around the Circassian question.”
“Without pre-deciding the results of this activity,” the participants concluded, “we note thatwe consider its final result as part of a large work directed at the strengthening of the [non-ethnic] Russian civic nation and the resolution of the contradictions which inevitably arise in a spirit of solidarity, responsibility, constructive cooperation, and dialogue.”
This MGIMO conference would never have taken place and its declaration would never have been issued if the Circassians in the diaspora had not launched their drive to shift the venue of the 2014 Olympics away from the site of the 1864 genocide, and consequently, this event represents a breakthrough victory for those activists, even if it does not yet pre-ordain a final one.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Patriarch Kirill Moves to Expand His Role in the North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 27 – Just as he has done in so many other spheres of Russian life, Patriarch Kirill last week moved to expand the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the North Caucasus through the use of the two tools at his disposal: the reorganization of the church’s structure there and meeting with senior Russian officials.
But at least one commentator notes that in taking these steps, Kirill is walking a fine line between satisfying the needs of his own institution and those of the Russian state, a reflection of what that writer suggests is “the systematic crisis” in the Russian Federation with the increasing tensions among various parts of the bureaucracy, secular and religious.
At a meeting last Tuesday, the Holy Synod disbanded the former Stavropol and Vladikavkas archbishopric which had overseen Stavropol kray and the North Caucasus republics of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Osetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya and sent its head Archbishop Feofan to Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1434630.html).
In place of the disbanded archbishopric, the Synod created three new sees with three new leaders:
• the Pyatigorsk and Cherkess bishopric which will be headed by Smolensk and Vyazemsk Bishop Feofilak and will include the parishes of Mineralovod, Predgorny and Kirov districts and also the respublics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia;
• the Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala archbishopric which will led by Elista and Kymyk Archbishop Zosima and include Orthodox congregations in North Osetia-Alania, Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya; and
• the Stavropol and Nevinomyssky archbishopric which will include the remainder of the previous Stavropol and Vladikavkaz archbishopric and will be headed by Bishop Kirill of Pavlovo-Posadsky, who will retain his position as head of the Synod Committee on Relations with the Cossacks.
At the same session, the Synod expressed its “gratitude” to Baku and Caspian Bishop Aleksandr for his supervision of the Orthodox parishes in Daghestan and his “support of Orthodox-Muslim cooperation.” But it eliminated his role there, reducing his sphere of activity to Azerbaijan and changing his title to the bishop of Baku and Azerbaijan.
Also at that meeting, the Holy Synod thanked Feofan “for his many efforts to strengthen church life in the North Caucasus” and his “conduct of dialogue with Muslim communities directed at the establishment of peace and concord in the multi-national society” of that part of the Russian Federation.
Feofan, who earlier served as patriarchal representative to Africa and the East and who who has been viewed as a rising star in the Church, will now seek to promote Orthodoxy in the much-troubled see of Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/31190.html and ura.ru/content/chel/24-03-2011/articles/1036256292.html).
In a related development, Patriarch Kirill on Friday received Aleksandr Khloponin, the Presidential plenipotentiary representative for the North Caucasus, a meeting at which the Church leader explained these administrative changes and the political one expressed the hope that they would help fill “the spiritual vacuum” there (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=47448).
Three aspects of these moves are worth noting: First, they reflect Kirill’s effort to create a power vertical within the church. Second, they reflect his desire to bring religious and political borders into correspondence. And third, they suggest he will pursue a more differentiated policy in the North Caucasus, with more attention to the Cossacks.
But as the editors of Religiopolis.org note, this combination of “bureaucracy and politics” may not work as any of its participants hope. Both the Church and the government are pursuing their own bureaucratic interests, and this combination may end by harming both of them and the interests of believers as well (www.religiopolis.org/news/2275-bjurokratija-i-politika.html).
Staunton, March 27 – Just as he has done in so many other spheres of Russian life, Patriarch Kirill last week moved to expand the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the North Caucasus through the use of the two tools at his disposal: the reorganization of the church’s structure there and meeting with senior Russian officials.
But at least one commentator notes that in taking these steps, Kirill is walking a fine line between satisfying the needs of his own institution and those of the Russian state, a reflection of what that writer suggests is “the systematic crisis” in the Russian Federation with the increasing tensions among various parts of the bureaucracy, secular and religious.
At a meeting last Tuesday, the Holy Synod disbanded the former Stavropol and Vladikavkas archbishopric which had overseen Stavropol kray and the North Caucasus republics of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Osetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya and sent its head Archbishop Feofan to Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1434630.html).
In place of the disbanded archbishopric, the Synod created three new sees with three new leaders:
• the Pyatigorsk and Cherkess bishopric which will be headed by Smolensk and Vyazemsk Bishop Feofilak and will include the parishes of Mineralovod, Predgorny and Kirov districts and also the respublics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia;
• the Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala archbishopric which will led by Elista and Kymyk Archbishop Zosima and include Orthodox congregations in North Osetia-Alania, Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya; and
• the Stavropol and Nevinomyssky archbishopric which will include the remainder of the previous Stavropol and Vladikavkaz archbishopric and will be headed by Bishop Kirill of Pavlovo-Posadsky, who will retain his position as head of the Synod Committee on Relations with the Cossacks.
At the same session, the Synod expressed its “gratitude” to Baku and Caspian Bishop Aleksandr for his supervision of the Orthodox parishes in Daghestan and his “support of Orthodox-Muslim cooperation.” But it eliminated his role there, reducing his sphere of activity to Azerbaijan and changing his title to the bishop of Baku and Azerbaijan.
Also at that meeting, the Holy Synod thanked Feofan “for his many efforts to strengthen church life in the North Caucasus” and his “conduct of dialogue with Muslim communities directed at the establishment of peace and concord in the multi-national society” of that part of the Russian Federation.
Feofan, who earlier served as patriarchal representative to Africa and the East and who who has been viewed as a rising star in the Church, will now seek to promote Orthodoxy in the much-troubled see of Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/31190.html and ura.ru/content/chel/24-03-2011/articles/1036256292.html).
In a related development, Patriarch Kirill on Friday received Aleksandr Khloponin, the Presidential plenipotentiary representative for the North Caucasus, a meeting at which the Church leader explained these administrative changes and the political one expressed the hope that they would help fill “the spiritual vacuum” there (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=47448).
Three aspects of these moves are worth noting: First, they reflect Kirill’s effort to create a power vertical within the church. Second, they reflect his desire to bring religious and political borders into correspondence. And third, they suggest he will pursue a more differentiated policy in the North Caucasus, with more attention to the Cossacks.
But as the editors of Religiopolis.org note, this combination of “bureaucracy and politics” may not work as any of its participants hope. Both the Church and the government are pursuing their own bureaucratic interests, and this combination may end by harming both of them and the interests of believers as well (www.religiopolis.org/news/2275-bjurokratija-i-politika.html).
Window on Eurasia: Influx of Ethnic Chinese Worries Kyrgyz
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 27 – Having watched Beijing dominate the indigenous Turkic population of Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan) by means of the dispatch of Han Chinese to that region, many people in Kyrgyzstan fear that the same fate could await their country, given what some of them see as the massive and uncontrolled influx of Han Chinese.
In an article in the Kyrgyz newspaper “Sayat press” a week ago, Turdugul Karimova says that “according to unofficial data, there now live in Kyrgyzstan more than 100,000 Chinese,” most of whom are engaged in trade in the marks of Bishkek and other major Kyrgyz cities (www.gezitter.org/society/1901/).
Nearly all of them have arrived over the past 20 years, the Kyrgyz journalist writes, with some 150 to 200 ethnic Chinese arriving in Kyrgyzstan every month, only some of whom then return to their own country. As a result, “Chinatowns” are being formed in that Central Asian state, and its residents are asking “how is the spread of Chinese influence to be stopped?”
Relations between the Turkic Kyrgyz and the Han Chinese have a long history. At one point, according to Kyrgyz historians, “the Kyrgyz seized China and established a khanate there for 300 years,” Karimova writes, and in the Manas, the national epic, there are accounts of various wars between the two peoples.
In the past, the Kyrgyz journalist says, the Kyrgyz were deeply suspicious of the Chinese and “did not allow” them to come onto Kyrgyz lands because of the fear that the enormous difference in the size of the two peoples would mean that the Kyrgyz would soon drown in a Chinese sea.
Such attitudes continue. Kuseyn Isayev, a Kyrgyz sociologist, for example, observes that “if into the country arrives one Chinese, after ten days there will be 100 chinese and after 100 days, a 1000 and thus, having increased so rapidly in numbers, they will quickly conquer the entire country.”
After 1991, however, the Kyrgyz not only opened the border with China but “gave away to China the very valuable land of Uzengy-Kuush, where there should have been constructed three electrical stations and where there is valuable agricultural land.” This territory, Isayev says, has now been “lost forever.”
The Kyrgyz interior ministry is responsible for regulating the flow of immigrants into the country, but it is clearly failing to do so, Karimova writes. Many Chinese come on short-term visas and then remain in violation of the terms of their entrance. As a result, the number of Chinese in Kyrgyzstan is constantly growing.
According to specialists, she continues, “if this phenomenon is not stopped at the state border, then several years from now, the Chinese may completely ‘drown’ Kyrgyzstan.” But “unfortunately, now from the side of the official powers, there are no measures being planned or carried out to limit the number of Chinese coming into the country.”
One of the consequences of the influx of ethnic Chinese, Karimova says, is a dramatic increase in intermarriage between Han Chinese men and Kyrgyz women. A few years ago, such unions were a rarity, but now “they have become an ordinary thing,” further breaking down Kyrgyz defenses.
Isayev notes, Karimova reports, that “thanks to such a policy, China signified all of Eastern Turkestan.” And he argues that “the time has come for the Kyrgyz to think about their own honor and worth.” The residents of Kyrgyzstan “must not sell their holy land which they received from their ancestors.”
First of all, the Kyrgyz journalist says, “it is necessary to limit” the presence of Chinese traders in the bazaars. The Chinese there are becoming rich “by working in the largest bazaars,” benefitting from the willingness of the Kyrgyz to allow them to do so, something neighboring Central Asian countries do not.
Karimov notes that except for Kyrgyzstan, “not in a single post-Soviet country are Chinese citizens permitted to freely trade in bazaars. This is controlled by special laws.” Kyrgyzstan adopted such a law in 2007, she says, but “unfortunately a little later, a moratorium was declared on this law.”
According to Karimova, “specialists consider that the time has come” to restore this law. Otherwise, they say, the consequences will be disastrous. But tragically in their view, the current leaders in Bishkek are occupied with their own “personal interests, and no one is focusing on this circumstance which threatens the future of our country.”
Staunton, March 27 – Having watched Beijing dominate the indigenous Turkic population of Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan) by means of the dispatch of Han Chinese to that region, many people in Kyrgyzstan fear that the same fate could await their country, given what some of them see as the massive and uncontrolled influx of Han Chinese.
In an article in the Kyrgyz newspaper “Sayat press” a week ago, Turdugul Karimova says that “according to unofficial data, there now live in Kyrgyzstan more than 100,000 Chinese,” most of whom are engaged in trade in the marks of Bishkek and other major Kyrgyz cities (www.gezitter.org/society/1901/).
Nearly all of them have arrived over the past 20 years, the Kyrgyz journalist writes, with some 150 to 200 ethnic Chinese arriving in Kyrgyzstan every month, only some of whom then return to their own country. As a result, “Chinatowns” are being formed in that Central Asian state, and its residents are asking “how is the spread of Chinese influence to be stopped?”
Relations between the Turkic Kyrgyz and the Han Chinese have a long history. At one point, according to Kyrgyz historians, “the Kyrgyz seized China and established a khanate there for 300 years,” Karimova writes, and in the Manas, the national epic, there are accounts of various wars between the two peoples.
In the past, the Kyrgyz journalist says, the Kyrgyz were deeply suspicious of the Chinese and “did not allow” them to come onto Kyrgyz lands because of the fear that the enormous difference in the size of the two peoples would mean that the Kyrgyz would soon drown in a Chinese sea.
Such attitudes continue. Kuseyn Isayev, a Kyrgyz sociologist, for example, observes that “if into the country arrives one Chinese, after ten days there will be 100 chinese and after 100 days, a 1000 and thus, having increased so rapidly in numbers, they will quickly conquer the entire country.”
After 1991, however, the Kyrgyz not only opened the border with China but “gave away to China the very valuable land of Uzengy-Kuush, where there should have been constructed three electrical stations and where there is valuable agricultural land.” This territory, Isayev says, has now been “lost forever.”
The Kyrgyz interior ministry is responsible for regulating the flow of immigrants into the country, but it is clearly failing to do so, Karimova writes. Many Chinese come on short-term visas and then remain in violation of the terms of their entrance. As a result, the number of Chinese in Kyrgyzstan is constantly growing.
According to specialists, she continues, “if this phenomenon is not stopped at the state border, then several years from now, the Chinese may completely ‘drown’ Kyrgyzstan.” But “unfortunately, now from the side of the official powers, there are no measures being planned or carried out to limit the number of Chinese coming into the country.”
One of the consequences of the influx of ethnic Chinese, Karimova says, is a dramatic increase in intermarriage between Han Chinese men and Kyrgyz women. A few years ago, such unions were a rarity, but now “they have become an ordinary thing,” further breaking down Kyrgyz defenses.
Isayev notes, Karimova reports, that “thanks to such a policy, China signified all of Eastern Turkestan.” And he argues that “the time has come for the Kyrgyz to think about their own honor and worth.” The residents of Kyrgyzstan “must not sell their holy land which they received from their ancestors.”
First of all, the Kyrgyz journalist says, “it is necessary to limit” the presence of Chinese traders in the bazaars. The Chinese there are becoming rich “by working in the largest bazaars,” benefitting from the willingness of the Kyrgyz to allow them to do so, something neighboring Central Asian countries do not.
Karimov notes that except for Kyrgyzstan, “not in a single post-Soviet country are Chinese citizens permitted to freely trade in bazaars. This is controlled by special laws.” Kyrgyzstan adopted such a law in 2007, she says, but “unfortunately a little later, a moratorium was declared on this law.”
According to Karimova, “specialists consider that the time has come” to restore this law. Otherwise, they say, the consequences will be disastrous. But tragically in their view, the current leaders in Bishkek are occupied with their own “personal interests, and no one is focusing on this circumstance which threatens the future of our country.”
Window on Eurasia: Russia Now Suffering a Legitimacy Crisis, Moscow Commentator Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 27 – Ever fewer Russians view the political system in their country as lawful and legitimate, according to a Moscow commentator, a situation which is not “pre-revolutionary” as some think but rather “pre-collapse” because of the absence of any opposition parties or forces which could take power and restore public confidence in the regime.
In an essay on APN.ru last week, Igor Boykov argues that “the real ratings of trust in practically all power institutions in [the Russian Federation] at present are not simply low but catastrophically low” and that the gap between “the ruling hierarchy” and everyone else is increasing more rapidly than even in the 1990s (www.apn.ru/publications/article23883.htm).
This was obscured during much of the last decade, he continues, by the “anomalously” high personal rating of Vladimir Putin, “anomalous” because it was in stark contrast to “the low level of public trust in the institutions of power in general, the existence of which even representatives of the powers did not and do not deny.”
Given the various methods the regime used to boost these figures, the real level of trust even in Putin was undoubtedly much lower than the Kremlin claimed, but now, the level of trust in him and his tandem partner Dmitry Medvedev has fallen even by these measures, suggesting that the actual level of trust in the country’s leadership is very much lower indeed.
But this collapse in trust is not limited to the two top leaders. It extends to the members of the Duma, regional and republic officials, and the entire bureaucracy. And this “alienation is often leading to total nihilism and to a general anger and hatred” by the population for those who rule over it.
Such underlying attitudes, Boykov argues, help to explain “the expression of mass support” for the five Primorsky youths who became known as the partisans and for the support around the country for those who took part in the Manezh Square demonstrations at the end of last year.
“I do not doubt,” the Moscow commentator continues, “that in thousands and thousands of young Russian heads after this still more strongy became rooted the idea that to achieve from the existing powers the fulfillment of their obligations … is possible only by means of public and massive street pressure on them.”
Ever more Russians, he suggests, are asking themselves “the logical question: What kind of a state is this and what kind of ‘power vertical’ are we talking about which can be forced to fulfill its obligations … only by means of mass marches on the Kremlin and clashes with the OMON?”
“In practice, the state cannot even defend its own citizens. Throughout the entire country exist organized criminal groups linked with the powers which kill people and keep in fear entire regions,” as “the tragic events in the stanitsa of Kushchevskaya” showed the world “this dark side of contemporary Russian life.”
“And yet no one is really thinking about struggling with this,” Boykov says, arguing that this raises the question “about the legitimacy of the existing social-political system in the eyes of our fellow citizens … about the agreement of the people with the powers that it, the people, voluntarily recognizes the right of the powers” to fulfill its obligations.
The recent round of municipal elections only confirms this. Participation was way down even officially, Boykov says, and the actual levels of participation were much lower than that, with only “one quarter to one fifth” of the country’s population bothering to go to the polls and vote.
In these citcumstances, had voters the right to cast their ballots “against all,” the ruling party of United Russia would have suffered “a crushing fiasco” and not won the victory that its leaders have insisted on calling the outcome. Indeed, Boykov argues, it is clear that this vote was more about “legitimizing” Russia’s rulers in the eyes of foreigners than in those of Russians.
“Tbe decline in trust to the powers and to everything connected with them has reached threatening proportions,” Boykov says. “In Russian the people does not trust anyone or anything: the government, the deputies, the bureaucrats, the police, the army, the courts, the system of education and health” and so one.
At the same time, no one trusts those who are called the opposition because no one would “seriously call Vladimir Zhirinovsky an opposition figure or Gennady Zyuganov the hope for all the insulted and injured, even at a time when there are millions of such people in Russia” who might hope for such a defense.
“In the 1990s and even at the start of the 2000s, many people had illusions about the possibility of successful conduct of a parliamentary struggle,” but now, Boykov insists, “there does not remain a trace of that.” Instead, all political battles look like some kind of play orchestrated by “bureaucrats … at the command of the Presidential Administration.”
The state machine continues by a kind of inertia, and the people expect nothing from it. “For many of them, the contemporary powers that be are the embodinment of all the most low, shameful and unjust, and this relationship, as long as the exiswting social-political system is preserved is impossible to change.”
Consequently, as the legitimacy of the powers become less, “the more strongly the powers are forced to operate on the instruments of force and repression,” something that weakens the legitimacy of the powers still further because it is obvious to all that only “crude force” is keeping the regime in power.
“Some might call this situation pre-revolutionary,” Boykov says, but he argues that it is “now not pre-revolutionary, but pre-collapse – and this is something much worse.” That is because in a revolutionary situation one can perceive some individual or group that might take power, but at present in Russia, “we do not observe” even that.
And thus there is a “paradoxical” but “tragic” situation, Boykov says. “In the state machine of the Russian Federation, everything has rotted from top to bottom … but there is not on view any real social-political force which could seize power and stop this terrible process of destruction and unraveling.”
As a result, the Moscow commentator argues, the existing system will fall at some point in the future only as the result of the acitons of “catacomb” groups, but they will be able to succeed only when those in power suffer “a complete loss” of the ability to deploy coercion in defense of themselves, if not of the country over which they rule.
Staunton, March 27 – Ever fewer Russians view the political system in their country as lawful and legitimate, according to a Moscow commentator, a situation which is not “pre-revolutionary” as some think but rather “pre-collapse” because of the absence of any opposition parties or forces which could take power and restore public confidence in the regime.
In an essay on APN.ru last week, Igor Boykov argues that “the real ratings of trust in practically all power institutions in [the Russian Federation] at present are not simply low but catastrophically low” and that the gap between “the ruling hierarchy” and everyone else is increasing more rapidly than even in the 1990s (www.apn.ru/publications/article23883.htm).
This was obscured during much of the last decade, he continues, by the “anomalously” high personal rating of Vladimir Putin, “anomalous” because it was in stark contrast to “the low level of public trust in the institutions of power in general, the existence of which even representatives of the powers did not and do not deny.”
Given the various methods the regime used to boost these figures, the real level of trust even in Putin was undoubtedly much lower than the Kremlin claimed, but now, the level of trust in him and his tandem partner Dmitry Medvedev has fallen even by these measures, suggesting that the actual level of trust in the country’s leadership is very much lower indeed.
But this collapse in trust is not limited to the two top leaders. It extends to the members of the Duma, regional and republic officials, and the entire bureaucracy. And this “alienation is often leading to total nihilism and to a general anger and hatred” by the population for those who rule over it.
Such underlying attitudes, Boykov argues, help to explain “the expression of mass support” for the five Primorsky youths who became known as the partisans and for the support around the country for those who took part in the Manezh Square demonstrations at the end of last year.
“I do not doubt,” the Moscow commentator continues, “that in thousands and thousands of young Russian heads after this still more strongy became rooted the idea that to achieve from the existing powers the fulfillment of their obligations … is possible only by means of public and massive street pressure on them.”
Ever more Russians, he suggests, are asking themselves “the logical question: What kind of a state is this and what kind of ‘power vertical’ are we talking about which can be forced to fulfill its obligations … only by means of mass marches on the Kremlin and clashes with the OMON?”
“In practice, the state cannot even defend its own citizens. Throughout the entire country exist organized criminal groups linked with the powers which kill people and keep in fear entire regions,” as “the tragic events in the stanitsa of Kushchevskaya” showed the world “this dark side of contemporary Russian life.”
“And yet no one is really thinking about struggling with this,” Boykov says, arguing that this raises the question “about the legitimacy of the existing social-political system in the eyes of our fellow citizens … about the agreement of the people with the powers that it, the people, voluntarily recognizes the right of the powers” to fulfill its obligations.
The recent round of municipal elections only confirms this. Participation was way down even officially, Boykov says, and the actual levels of participation were much lower than that, with only “one quarter to one fifth” of the country’s population bothering to go to the polls and vote.
In these citcumstances, had voters the right to cast their ballots “against all,” the ruling party of United Russia would have suffered “a crushing fiasco” and not won the victory that its leaders have insisted on calling the outcome. Indeed, Boykov argues, it is clear that this vote was more about “legitimizing” Russia’s rulers in the eyes of foreigners than in those of Russians.
“Tbe decline in trust to the powers and to everything connected with them has reached threatening proportions,” Boykov says. “In Russian the people does not trust anyone or anything: the government, the deputies, the bureaucrats, the police, the army, the courts, the system of education and health” and so one.
At the same time, no one trusts those who are called the opposition because no one would “seriously call Vladimir Zhirinovsky an opposition figure or Gennady Zyuganov the hope for all the insulted and injured, even at a time when there are millions of such people in Russia” who might hope for such a defense.
“In the 1990s and even at the start of the 2000s, many people had illusions about the possibility of successful conduct of a parliamentary struggle,” but now, Boykov insists, “there does not remain a trace of that.” Instead, all political battles look like some kind of play orchestrated by “bureaucrats … at the command of the Presidential Administration.”
The state machine continues by a kind of inertia, and the people expect nothing from it. “For many of them, the contemporary powers that be are the embodinment of all the most low, shameful and unjust, and this relationship, as long as the exiswting social-political system is preserved is impossible to change.”
Consequently, as the legitimacy of the powers become less, “the more strongly the powers are forced to operate on the instruments of force and repression,” something that weakens the legitimacy of the powers still further because it is obvious to all that only “crude force” is keeping the regime in power.
“Some might call this situation pre-revolutionary,” Boykov says, but he argues that it is “now not pre-revolutionary, but pre-collapse – and this is something much worse.” That is because in a revolutionary situation one can perceive some individual or group that might take power, but at present in Russia, “we do not observe” even that.
And thus there is a “paradoxical” but “tragic” situation, Boykov says. “In the state machine of the Russian Federation, everything has rotted from top to bottom … but there is not on view any real social-political force which could seize power and stop this terrible process of destruction and unraveling.”
As a result, the Moscow commentator argues, the existing system will fall at some point in the future only as the result of the acitons of “catacomb” groups, but they will be able to succeed only when those in power suffer “a complete loss” of the ability to deploy coercion in defense of themselves, if not of the country over which they rule.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Tatarstan’s Shaimiyev Again Challenges the Kremlin
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 22 – Mintimir Shaimiyev, the longtime president of Tatarstan, has laid down a broad challenge to Moscow not only by announcing his decision to resign from the leadership of the United Russia Party which he helped to found but also by reaffirming his belief that Russia must remain a federation in which all its indigenous nations have a voice.
Not surprisingly, Shaimiyev’s resignation from the leadership of United Russia has attracted the greater attention from Moscow analysts who have speculated about the possible impact of that step on the upcoming elections, but in reality, Shaimiyev’s views on federalism and support for the nations within Russia may have a greater impact.
That is because Shaimiyev and the republic he long headed and whose current leadership he formed has often served as the bellwether of attitudes and policies in the other non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation and also and perhaps equally importantly on the position of the heads of predominantly ethnic Russian regions as well.
On Friday, Shaimiyev announced his resignation from the leadership of United Russia and laid out his ideas in a major interview with the Tatar-language newspaper “Tatar gazite” (www.tatargazeta.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:-q-q&catid=4:2010-11-04-15-26-09&Itemid=11. A Russian translation has now appeared (etatar.ru/20/39572).
Asked to evaluate his time in politics, the Tatarstan leader said that “our greatest success was raising the authority of our nation” because “we were able to radically change relations toward the Tatars,” often during periods of extraordinary political and economic changes and challenges.
Shaimiyev said that he did not have any major regrets about his time in office, although he conceded it was sometimes difficult to work when other Tatars demanded “freedom” and “independence” and suggested that he was “a weakling” in comparison with Chechnya’s Dzhokhar Dudayev.
He explained his relationship with United Russia in the following way: “I am the co-president of the Supreme Council of United Russia because I was one of the organizers of the party” rather than because he joined something that others had created. But now, Shaimiyev suggested, circumstances have changed.
“Unfortunately,” he said, neither United Russia nor any other party in the country supports “a multi-national and federative state system in Russia.” And consequently, “I do not intend to remain a co-president.” Others, who are in the presidium of that party can continue to work, “but I am in retirement.”
But Shaimiyev said he was disappointed that the party he helped found “cannot exert sufficient influence on the economic and political situation in the country.” Despite its dominance, it has not acted as “the center-right” party he backed. Instead, it has played with certain “leftist” ideas.
But Shaimiyev rejected the idea that Russia was facing the kind of political challenges now shaking the Arab world. “The situation with us is not like their situation. It is not surprising that peoples who have nothing to lose have begun” to act in this way. “In Russia the situation is different … In our history, there have been a sufficient number of revolutions.”
The Tatar leader then turned his attention to nationality problems and policies. Arguing that “the roots of this problem are deep,” Shaimiyev noted that he has “always said that … Russia needs a nationality policy more than other countries,” something that many in Moscow do not appear to understand.
Moscow must focus on these issues because “under conditions of democratic development,” it and the rest of Russia have no choice. “And one should not compare us with the United States,” “an entirely different world” whose residents called themselves Americans whatever their ethnic background.
“In our situation,” he said, it is “an absurdity” to declare that Tatars are “[non-ethnic] Russians of Tatar origin.” “If we want to live in a democracy, there must be a federation in the true sense … There cannot be democracy in a unitary Russia. My native language and my nationality are my right, given from birth, and no one can take them away from me.”
And Shaimiyev concluded with two further observations that challenge Moscow. On the one hand, he said that the law directing heads of republics to be called presidents is not indisputable. And on the other, he said that Moscow leaders have failed to consult with regional leaders the way Boris Yeltsin did in the early 1990s. The issue is not just “elections.”
This interview has sparked numerous commentaries in Moscow. Writing for Polit.ru yesterday, forexample, Mikhail Zakharov suggested that Shaimiyev’s declaration was an unwelcome “signal” to the leadership in the Russian capital, one that represents a threat of “sabotage” of the upcoming elections (www.polit.ru/event/2011/03/21/6aimiev.html).
Zakharov noted that the way in which Shaimiyev delivered his message is instructive of the Tatar leader’s political skills: in a Tatar language newspaper rather than in a Russian one in Kazan or in a central news agency. Nonetheless, he said, “in the center such signals are noted” if with a certain delay.
And Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” today offered a survey of reaction. Yevgeny Minchenko, the director of the International Instituteof Political Expertise, said that Shaimiyev’s remarks showed that “there is a chance that Shaimiyev will try again to play a role in [Russian Federation] politics” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/40766/).
“It is obvious,” Minchenko noted, “that today there is dissatisfaction on the part of regional elites with the politicies of the federal center,” given Moscow’s ongoing centralization drive and its discounting of the role of national minorities, other than those in the North Caucasus.
Members of the Tatar diaspora in Moscow have told him, Minchenko continued, that “we do not understand, given that there are far more of us than representatives of other nationalities and that we made an enormous constribution to the establishment of Russian statehood why the Chechens have such a disproportionate influence.”
Aleksey Mukhin, the director general of the Center of Political Information, focused on another aspect of Shaimiyev’s critique. He noted that Shaimiyev’s “accusationthat the party has noface is a seirous thing which can be interpreted as an attack on the leader of the party and its senior functionaries.”
Vladimir Pribalovsky, the president of the Panorama Research Center, in turn said that Shaimiyev’s remarks only reinforced the Tatar leader’s reputation for political sophistication and care. Shaimiyev isn’t going into opposition; instead, he is seeking to preserve his power in the Kazan “tandem” of which he is a part together with Rustam Minnikhanov.
But Dmitry Orlov, the director generalof the Agency of Political and Economic Communications, suggested that no one should make too much of Shaimiyev’s remarks because his decision to leave the leadership of United Russia had obviously been agreed upon in advance with Moscow and reflected his lower status as a former republic head.
Staunton, March 22 – Mintimir Shaimiyev, the longtime president of Tatarstan, has laid down a broad challenge to Moscow not only by announcing his decision to resign from the leadership of the United Russia Party which he helped to found but also by reaffirming his belief that Russia must remain a federation in which all its indigenous nations have a voice.
Not surprisingly, Shaimiyev’s resignation from the leadership of United Russia has attracted the greater attention from Moscow analysts who have speculated about the possible impact of that step on the upcoming elections, but in reality, Shaimiyev’s views on federalism and support for the nations within Russia may have a greater impact.
That is because Shaimiyev and the republic he long headed and whose current leadership he formed has often served as the bellwether of attitudes and policies in the other non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation and also and perhaps equally importantly on the position of the heads of predominantly ethnic Russian regions as well.
On Friday, Shaimiyev announced his resignation from the leadership of United Russia and laid out his ideas in a major interview with the Tatar-language newspaper “Tatar gazite” (www.tatargazeta.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:-q-q&catid=4:2010-11-04-15-26-09&Itemid=11. A Russian translation has now appeared (etatar.ru/20/39572).
Asked to evaluate his time in politics, the Tatarstan leader said that “our greatest success was raising the authority of our nation” because “we were able to radically change relations toward the Tatars,” often during periods of extraordinary political and economic changes and challenges.
Shaimiyev said that he did not have any major regrets about his time in office, although he conceded it was sometimes difficult to work when other Tatars demanded “freedom” and “independence” and suggested that he was “a weakling” in comparison with Chechnya’s Dzhokhar Dudayev.
He explained his relationship with United Russia in the following way: “I am the co-president of the Supreme Council of United Russia because I was one of the organizers of the party” rather than because he joined something that others had created. But now, Shaimiyev suggested, circumstances have changed.
“Unfortunately,” he said, neither United Russia nor any other party in the country supports “a multi-national and federative state system in Russia.” And consequently, “I do not intend to remain a co-president.” Others, who are in the presidium of that party can continue to work, “but I am in retirement.”
But Shaimiyev said he was disappointed that the party he helped found “cannot exert sufficient influence on the economic and political situation in the country.” Despite its dominance, it has not acted as “the center-right” party he backed. Instead, it has played with certain “leftist” ideas.
But Shaimiyev rejected the idea that Russia was facing the kind of political challenges now shaking the Arab world. “The situation with us is not like their situation. It is not surprising that peoples who have nothing to lose have begun” to act in this way. “In Russia the situation is different … In our history, there have been a sufficient number of revolutions.”
The Tatar leader then turned his attention to nationality problems and policies. Arguing that “the roots of this problem are deep,” Shaimiyev noted that he has “always said that … Russia needs a nationality policy more than other countries,” something that many in Moscow do not appear to understand.
Moscow must focus on these issues because “under conditions of democratic development,” it and the rest of Russia have no choice. “And one should not compare us with the United States,” “an entirely different world” whose residents called themselves Americans whatever their ethnic background.
“In our situation,” he said, it is “an absurdity” to declare that Tatars are “[non-ethnic] Russians of Tatar origin.” “If we want to live in a democracy, there must be a federation in the true sense … There cannot be democracy in a unitary Russia. My native language and my nationality are my right, given from birth, and no one can take them away from me.”
And Shaimiyev concluded with two further observations that challenge Moscow. On the one hand, he said that the law directing heads of republics to be called presidents is not indisputable. And on the other, he said that Moscow leaders have failed to consult with regional leaders the way Boris Yeltsin did in the early 1990s. The issue is not just “elections.”
This interview has sparked numerous commentaries in Moscow. Writing for Polit.ru yesterday, forexample, Mikhail Zakharov suggested that Shaimiyev’s declaration was an unwelcome “signal” to the leadership in the Russian capital, one that represents a threat of “sabotage” of the upcoming elections (www.polit.ru/event/2011/03/21/6aimiev.html).
Zakharov noted that the way in which Shaimiyev delivered his message is instructive of the Tatar leader’s political skills: in a Tatar language newspaper rather than in a Russian one in Kazan or in a central news agency. Nonetheless, he said, “in the center such signals are noted” if with a certain delay.
And Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” today offered a survey of reaction. Yevgeny Minchenko, the director of the International Instituteof Political Expertise, said that Shaimiyev’s remarks showed that “there is a chance that Shaimiyev will try again to play a role in [Russian Federation] politics” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/40766/).
“It is obvious,” Minchenko noted, “that today there is dissatisfaction on the part of regional elites with the politicies of the federal center,” given Moscow’s ongoing centralization drive and its discounting of the role of national minorities, other than those in the North Caucasus.
Members of the Tatar diaspora in Moscow have told him, Minchenko continued, that “we do not understand, given that there are far more of us than representatives of other nationalities and that we made an enormous constribution to the establishment of Russian statehood why the Chechens have such a disproportionate influence.”
Aleksey Mukhin, the director general of the Center of Political Information, focused on another aspect of Shaimiyev’s critique. He noted that Shaimiyev’s “accusationthat the party has noface is a seirous thing which can be interpreted as an attack on the leader of the party and its senior functionaries.”
Vladimir Pribalovsky, the president of the Panorama Research Center, in turn said that Shaimiyev’s remarks only reinforced the Tatar leader’s reputation for political sophistication and care. Shaimiyev isn’t going into opposition; instead, he is seeking to preserve his power in the Kazan “tandem” of which he is a part together with Rustam Minnikhanov.
But Dmitry Orlov, the director generalof the Agency of Political and Economic Communications, suggested that no one should make too much of Shaimiyev’s remarks because his decision to leave the leadership of United Russia had obviously been agreed upon in advance with Moscow and reflected his lower status as a former republic head.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
