Paul Goble
Staunton, April 10 – Vladimir Bukovsky’s call to bring Mikhail Gorbachev to trial for the crimes he committed as Soviet leader has met with “almost universal condemnation,” Aleksandr Podrabinek says, when the appeal of the former Soviet dissident should have been met with understanding and support.
In an essay on the Grani.ru portal, Podrabinek, himself a former dissident and longtime human rights activist argues that “the most intellectual and socially conscious part” of Russian society has failed by not helping Bukovsky in his “efforts to cleanse our history of myths and lies” (grani.ru/opinion/m.187520.html).
Among the actions for which the last Soviet leader would appear to bear responsibility, the human rights activist says, are the various applications of military force against peaceful civilian populations in Tbilisi in April 1989, Baku in January 1990, and Vilnius and Riga in January 1991 which left many dead and wounded in their wake.
“Behind all these operations of the Soviet army, the MVD and the KGB stood the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and (after March 1990) USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev,” Podravinek points out. “He was the supreme commander and first person” of that “still totalitarian state.”
Consequently, Podrabinek continues with the rhetorical question, “who if not he must in the first instance answer for the concrete crimes of the Soviet regime” during that period? That is the basis of Bukovsky’s argument, he says, but Bukovsky’s critics “from that most intellectual and conscious part” of society won’t face up to that.
“Their basic argument,” he continues, “is the absence of arguments! They do not argue with Bukovsky;” they simply condemn him. “They do not speak about those who died, about the responsibilities of the criminals whom it is necessary to find and judge. They forgive Gorbachev these victims,” and instead attack Bukovsky for raising the issue.
Among those doing so, Podrabinek says, is Leonid Radzikhovsky, who observed that the issue of trying Gorbachev does not arise because “no one has arrested [the former Soviet leader]” Consequently, in the view of that liberal commentator, “Bukovsky simply is engaging in PR for himself” (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/762216-echo/).
Another liberal, Vasily Utkin, has taken the same position, Podrabinek observes, calling Bukovsky’s call for Gorbachev to be tried “a step … dictated exclusively either by some absolutely absurd motives or by a desire simply to advertise himself” to the Russian public (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot-evening/762220-echo/).
Two more, Vladislav Bykov and Olga Derkach, simply “laugh[ed]” over Bukovsky’s idea by asking a series of “rhetorical questions [like] Has Bukovsky begun with Gorbachev only because in contrast to Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Yeltsin he is still alive? [or] what about the leaders of the more than 200 other countries? (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/187470.html).
“It is extremely easy” to answer such queries, Podrabinek observes. Only living people can be brought to trial, Bukovsky “lacks the time and strength” to deal with all the world’s leaders. And Gorbachev should answer “not for all Soviet history but for military actions against the civilian population” while he was in office.
Aleksandr Skobov even suggests that he is “grateful to Gorbachev for liberating political prisoners, an action that counts for a lot” (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/187498.html). But Podrabinek says, Skobov, himself a political prisoner, ought to remember those who died in Soviet jails while Gorbachev was ruler, including Vasil Stus’ and Anatoly Marchenko.
Moreover, if anyone tries to insist as Skobov and others have that Gorbachev didn’t “kill” these people, Podrabinek argues, then he says he will respond that “it was not he personally who liberated the political prisoners either.”
Nor does it suffice to argue as Valeriya Novodvorskaya and Konstantin Borovoy have that Gorbachev should not be held accountable because “in August 1991 he did not control the situation” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjqg-FRifA0). Are they prepared to say the Soviet leader “didn’t control the situation in 1989/”
And finally Viktor Shenderovich attacks Bukovsky for showing a lack of good taste (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/761960-echo/). But Podrabinek asks what does taste have to do with the issue? “This isn’t a restaurant or a theater or a game or even politics. This is a question of justice and of the duty of those who have survived before those who have died.”
The inability to bring Gorbachev to trial, something Podrabinek admits is “almost impossible,” is “not a curiosity but a misforture for our country and a shame for our jurisprudence.” It is an indictment on a society “which is prepared so easily to forget and forgive” what was done to it – and thus makes a repetition of such things more likely.
Some people like Bukovsky are prepared to stand up and make this demand, but “alas” such people are relatively few. “The majority experiences toward Gorbachev a feeling of devoted gratitude for the fact that he did not drown the country in blood,” with many thinking that “on the conscience of every leader of a country are such sins.”
But that is not the case. In Europe, what countries “except the socialist and the fascist have put down civil protests with tanks?” Podrabinek asks, pointing out that “this is not an all-human misfortune.” Instead, “it is a characteristic sign of totalitarian regimes” like the one Gorbachev ruled over.
Many Russians live by myths because they “do not want to know the truth. One of these myths is about Gorbachev as a reformer, a peacemaker and the author of democratic transformations.” But in fact, forces were at work beyond his control that led to the destruction of the totalitarian system, even as Gorbachev sought to defend it.
“Without doubt,” Podrabinek says, Gorbachev had “a first-class apparatchik nose” for events. Even during the August coup, he “said in Foros “in order then to come to victory, it was unimportant whose.” He would have remained in office had these larger forces not made it impossible for him to do so.
When Gorbachev finally “understood that it was impossible to save [the CPSU and the Soviet Empire], he successfully saved his own reputation,” but nothing more, Podrabinek argues. And thus he did not behave at the very last as Ceaucescu or Milosevich did, allowing many to conclude that he gets credit for avoiding a civil war.
But “whether one should be grateful to a tyrant for the fact that he did not tear to death all his subjects is a personal issue,” Podrabinek insists. Tragically, the West has not behaved any better than the Russian people in its assessment of Gorbachev and the role he played at the end of the Cold War and the end of the USSR.
“Europe is grateful [to Gorbachev] for the destruction of the Berlin Wall,” but “I have watched these remarkable pictures,” Podrabinek says. “Gorbachev was not there. The youth of Berlin destroyed the wall. Gorbachev took this as a given and di not begin to send in tanks,” undoubtedly a correct response but one any sensible politician would have adopted.
Where in this is “the heroism for which the West loves him?” Podrabinek asks, and he suggests that what has been taking place is evidence of “’the Stockholm syndrome’ of Western civilization,” of a situation in which hostages display positive feelings towards those who have taken or held them hostage.
“Communist collapsed not thanks to Gorbachev or even not in spite of him,” Podrabinek concludes. “He was too unremarkable a figure despite what would seem to be great opportunities. The tyranny was fated to be destroyed, and Gorbachev couldn’t do anything about that,” despite all his efforts and his willingness to sacrifice “hundreds of human lives.”
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Ainu Community Makes Its Existence Known
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 10 – In addition to the Siberians, another indigenous nationality has surfaced in the Russian Federation east of the Urals in the 2010 census – the Ainu – one whose small number – approximately 100 -- bely the potential political and geopolitical significance of an ethnic community most of whose members are in Japan.
On the one hand, the recent earthquake and tsunami have focused attention on Japan, increasing the importance of all things that connect that country with others, including Russia. And on the other, because the Ainu live among other places in the Kurile Islands, the Ainu of Russia are likely to come to play a role in that dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.
Indeed, Russian scholars say, the very name Kurile derives from the Ainu word “Kuru” which simply means “people,” an origin that Russian officials are certain to point to in order to bolster Russian claims to these islands, especially now that Moscow is acknowledging that there are Ainu in Russia itself.
During preparations for the census, the Inforos.ru portal notes, the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology noted that “despite the absence [of this group] in the official enumeration of Russian peoples, part of our fellow citizens firmly continue to consider themselves Ainus” (inforos.ru/ru/?module=news&action=view&id=27280%20).
In Russian investigations beginning in the 18th century, the Ainu of the Russian Far East were often called Kamchadal Kurilites rather than Ainu because the term Ainu itself derives from the Ainu word “man” or “worthy man” and typically was connected with “military actions” and achievements.
Although the Ainu people have been indigenous to the area of the Far East and Japan for at least 7,000 years, Russian scholars say, “in Japan, the Ainus are considered ‘barbarians’ … and social marginals,” because they speak a language different from and look entirely different than the Japanese.
These same scholars report that “at the end of the 19th century,about 1500 Ainu lived in Russia,” but “after World War II, they were in part expelled and in part left on their own with the Japanese population.” Many of the others assimilated to the ethnic Russian population of the Russian Far East.
“According to the assertions of the Kamchadal Kurilites”—or Ainu of Russia – “all the names of the islands of the southern area were given by the tribes of the Ainu which at one point in the past occupied these territories.” Thus, Russian commentators say, “it is very change to say” that the Ainu were never there as some Japanese writers do.
That matters, these Russian commentators say, because “there are Ainus in Russia, an indigenous people which also has the right to consider these islands their own immemorial lands.”
One of these commentators, P. Alekseyev, argues that the Ainu should play a role in the resolution of the dispute over the Kurile Islands. “For this,” he says, “it is necessary to permit the Ainu (who were expelled by the Soviet government to Japan in 1945) to return from Japan to the land of their ancestors,” land that includes the Kuriles and much of the Russian Far East.
Russia “has neither people nor means fo rhte development of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but the Ainu do,” Alekseyev says. Consequently, their return would “give a push to the economy of the Russian Far East” especially if there were formed for them “a national autonmy” within Russia that would embrace the Kurile Islands as well.
At the very least, Alekseyev argues, the Ainus now in Japan, precisely because they used to be “our citizens” and because “they were never allies of Japan and never will be” could become “the allies of Russia” as far as the Kuriles are concerned and held “liquidate” the present focus on the southern Kuriles in the Russian-Japanese relationship.
The Ainu of Russia have been pressing for official recognition as a nationality for some time. There were a spate of articles about them in the early 1990s, and after the Japanese recognized the Ainu as a distinct nationality in 2008, the Ainu of Kamchatka pressed for local recognition there (www.rg.ru/2008/04/03/reg-dvostok/ainu.html).
Now, especially in the wake of the natural disasters in Japan, the Ainus of Russia are pressing for greater recognition. There is now a Russian Association of the Far-Eastern Ainu (RADA as its Russian acronym) headed by Rechkabo Kakukhoningen (Boris Yaravoy), which is pressing the Ainu case.
For more details on this movement, its goals and its prospects, see among other sources, see among other articles, rusk.ru/st.php?idar=44728, tron.ru/ainu/rada/, tron.ru/ainu/kuril/dom.htm, and zvezdolettv.blogspot.com/2009/01/10.html?zx=b017943a71c2ad03,)
Staunton, April 10 – In addition to the Siberians, another indigenous nationality has surfaced in the Russian Federation east of the Urals in the 2010 census – the Ainu – one whose small number – approximately 100 -- bely the potential political and geopolitical significance of an ethnic community most of whose members are in Japan.
On the one hand, the recent earthquake and tsunami have focused attention on Japan, increasing the importance of all things that connect that country with others, including Russia. And on the other, because the Ainu live among other places in the Kurile Islands, the Ainu of Russia are likely to come to play a role in that dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.
Indeed, Russian scholars say, the very name Kurile derives from the Ainu word “Kuru” which simply means “people,” an origin that Russian officials are certain to point to in order to bolster Russian claims to these islands, especially now that Moscow is acknowledging that there are Ainu in Russia itself.
During preparations for the census, the Inforos.ru portal notes, the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology noted that “despite the absence [of this group] in the official enumeration of Russian peoples, part of our fellow citizens firmly continue to consider themselves Ainus” (inforos.ru/ru/?module=news&action=view&id=27280%20).
In Russian investigations beginning in the 18th century, the Ainu of the Russian Far East were often called Kamchadal Kurilites rather than Ainu because the term Ainu itself derives from the Ainu word “man” or “worthy man” and typically was connected with “military actions” and achievements.
Although the Ainu people have been indigenous to the area of the Far East and Japan for at least 7,000 years, Russian scholars say, “in Japan, the Ainus are considered ‘barbarians’ … and social marginals,” because they speak a language different from and look entirely different than the Japanese.
These same scholars report that “at the end of the 19th century,about 1500 Ainu lived in Russia,” but “after World War II, they were in part expelled and in part left on their own with the Japanese population.” Many of the others assimilated to the ethnic Russian population of the Russian Far East.
“According to the assertions of the Kamchadal Kurilites”—or Ainu of Russia – “all the names of the islands of the southern area were given by the tribes of the Ainu which at one point in the past occupied these territories.” Thus, Russian commentators say, “it is very change to say” that the Ainu were never there as some Japanese writers do.
That matters, these Russian commentators say, because “there are Ainus in Russia, an indigenous people which also has the right to consider these islands their own immemorial lands.”
One of these commentators, P. Alekseyev, argues that the Ainu should play a role in the resolution of the dispute over the Kurile Islands. “For this,” he says, “it is necessary to permit the Ainu (who were expelled by the Soviet government to Japan in 1945) to return from Japan to the land of their ancestors,” land that includes the Kuriles and much of the Russian Far East.
Russia “has neither people nor means fo rhte development of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but the Ainu do,” Alekseyev says. Consequently, their return would “give a push to the economy of the Russian Far East” especially if there were formed for them “a national autonmy” within Russia that would embrace the Kurile Islands as well.
At the very least, Alekseyev argues, the Ainus now in Japan, precisely because they used to be “our citizens” and because “they were never allies of Japan and never will be” could become “the allies of Russia” as far as the Kuriles are concerned and held “liquidate” the present focus on the southern Kuriles in the Russian-Japanese relationship.
The Ainu of Russia have been pressing for official recognition as a nationality for some time. There were a spate of articles about them in the early 1990s, and after the Japanese recognized the Ainu as a distinct nationality in 2008, the Ainu of Kamchatka pressed for local recognition there (www.rg.ru/2008/04/03/reg-dvostok/ainu.html).
Now, especially in the wake of the natural disasters in Japan, the Ainus of Russia are pressing for greater recognition. There is now a Russian Association of the Far-Eastern Ainu (RADA as its Russian acronym) headed by Rechkabo Kakukhoningen (Boris Yaravoy), which is pressing the Ainu case.
For more details on this movement, its goals and its prospects, see among other sources, see among other articles, rusk.ru/st.php?idar=44728, tron.ru/ainu/rada/, tron.ru/ainu/kuril/dom.htm, and zvezdolettv.blogspot.com/2009/01/10.html?zx=b017943a71c2ad03,)
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russian Reform “Paradoxically” Depends on Rising Oil Prices, Moscow Paper Says
Staunton, April 5 -- Because Russia’s ruling elite views reform as a luxury rather than a necessity, declines in oil prices have a paradoxical impact on Moscow, the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” say, pushing reform off the table rather than making it a matter of survival as is the case in other oil-exporting countries.
In a leading article today, the editors of this independent Moscow paper write, the dependence Russia’s rulers have on the price of oil is “abnormal and paradoxical” because a fall in oil revenues forces them to drop plans for reform while an increase in prices can give them a chance to take reformist steps (www.ng.ru/editorial/2011-04-05/2_red.html).
This Russian pattern, very different than in other such countries “in which a decline in prices for raw materials stimulates the transformation of a raw materials,” the editors say reflects the peculiarities of the Russian political system and in particular the calculations of the current Russian elite.
The editors begin by noting that according to the latest Levada Center poll, “51 percent of Russians consider that a growth in prices for oil harms the economy of the country,” although it appears that few of them understand precisely how “oil superprofits freeze reforms and the reconstruction of the economy.”
Moreover, the editors say, “in public” at least, Russian leaders from “the modernizer” Dmitry Medvedev to “the conservative” Vladimir Putin “recognize that the raw materials economy has exhausted its possibilities, that a favorable situationmust not be allowed to weaken us, and that modernization is necessary.”
Even as they say this, however, the paper continues, “the powers that be are sitting on two stools. On the one hand, they … recognize the need for change.” But “on the other, the mandate for the administration of the country has been given to the current ruling elite by a paternalist and not reformist electorate.”
That second stool, the “Nezavisimaya” editors emphasize, thus rests on “a voter who is accustomed to populism and the transfer of responsibility ‘upwards’ with the fulfillment of the social obligations of the state. Without [that voter], the existing powers would not be the powers.”
Thus, “when the Russian budget is not receiving oil superprofits,” the paper’s editors say, “the powers are forced to choose one of the two stools; and they choose populism rather than economic reforms” which are certain to be unpopular at least as concerns their short-term consequences.
“The nature and character of the preferences of the existing powers are such that the question of social obligations is for them a matter of self-preservation,” “Nezavisimaya”argues. And from this it follows, that “as soon as additional oil revenues again become to arrive in support of the budget, the powers have the chance” to take steps toward reform.
“In this way,” the paper continues, “an increase in the price of oil gives the Russian ruling elite the opportunity to realize the liberal order of the day,” a pattern just the reverse of what would be the case in most countries where “a fall in prices for raw materials stimulates the transformation of a raw materials economy.
In a leading article today, the editors of this independent Moscow paper write, the dependence Russia’s rulers have on the price of oil is “abnormal and paradoxical” because a fall in oil revenues forces them to drop plans for reform while an increase in prices can give them a chance to take reformist steps (www.ng.ru/editorial/2011-04-05/2_red.html).
This Russian pattern, very different than in other such countries “in which a decline in prices for raw materials stimulates the transformation of a raw materials,” the editors say reflects the peculiarities of the Russian political system and in particular the calculations of the current Russian elite.
The editors begin by noting that according to the latest Levada Center poll, “51 percent of Russians consider that a growth in prices for oil harms the economy of the country,” although it appears that few of them understand precisely how “oil superprofits freeze reforms and the reconstruction of the economy.”
Moreover, the editors say, “in public” at least, Russian leaders from “the modernizer” Dmitry Medvedev to “the conservative” Vladimir Putin “recognize that the raw materials economy has exhausted its possibilities, that a favorable situationmust not be allowed to weaken us, and that modernization is necessary.”
Even as they say this, however, the paper continues, “the powers that be are sitting on two stools. On the one hand, they … recognize the need for change.” But “on the other, the mandate for the administration of the country has been given to the current ruling elite by a paternalist and not reformist electorate.”
That second stool, the “Nezavisimaya” editors emphasize, thus rests on “a voter who is accustomed to populism and the transfer of responsibility ‘upwards’ with the fulfillment of the social obligations of the state. Without [that voter], the existing powers would not be the powers.”
Thus, “when the Russian budget is not receiving oil superprofits,” the paper’s editors say, “the powers are forced to choose one of the two stools; and they choose populism rather than economic reforms” which are certain to be unpopular at least as concerns their short-term consequences.
“The nature and character of the preferences of the existing powers are such that the question of social obligations is for them a matter of self-preservation,” “Nezavisimaya”argues. And from this it follows, that “as soon as additional oil revenues again become to arrive in support of the budget, the powers have the chance” to take steps toward reform.
“In this way,” the paper continues, “an increase in the price of oil gives the Russian ruling elite the opportunity to realize the liberal order of the day,” a pattern just the reverse of what would be the case in most countries where “a fall in prices for raw materials stimulates the transformation of a raw materials economy.
Window on Eurasia: National Self-Determination and Integrity of States Need Not Be in Conflict, Tatar Historian Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 5 – The right of nations to self-determination and the principle of the territorial integrity of states need not be contradictory,a leading Tatar historian says, but if this right is ignored by untrammeled majoritarian democracy or if states try to suppress it by force, many invoking this right will decide that they have no alternative but to seek independence.
In an essay posted on the Tatar-Tribun.ru portal this week, Rafael Khakimov, director of the Kazan Institute of History and at one time a political advisor to former Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev, argues that states with ethnic minorities must recognize this reality and its risks (tatar-tribun.ru/tribuna/nacionalnye-konflikty-i-mezhdunarodnoe-pravo.html#more-2316).
But even though Khakimov focuses on various situations elsewhere and says that “Tatarstan never raised the question about leaving Russia” but rather worked with Moscow to broaden the rights of the Tatars, his argument is likely to strike many as provocatory in the current Russian political environment.
Khakimov begins his essay by noting that “the world consists not only of states but also of peoples who are seeking to increase the level of [their] freedom,” adding that “this collision” can produce conflicts” and also that either ignoring the rights of nations or seeking to suppress them will only make the situation more difficult.
In recent times, the Kazan historian continues, many Russian media outlets have “criticized the right of self-determination of peoples as an invention of the Bolsheviks, which apparently led to the destruction of the USSR and has created a threat to the integrity of Russia, as if a legal document creates the pursuit of freedom by peoples and not the other way around.”
“Many peoples do not suspect that there is exists a right to self-determination written down on paper,” Khakimov continues. “Nevertheless, they strive to achieve it, sometimes with arms in their hands. And this pursuit of the broadening of freedom is the main vector of history. It cannot be stopped.”
Consequently, “any limitation of the existing status of a people is fraught with conflicts,” he notes, pointing the process that was set in train when Serbia “at the end of the 1990s liquidated the autonomy of Kosovo.” That made “a conflict inevitable, and it [was] ended by the separation of the Kosovars.”
Using force against those seeking greater freedom makes such conflicts all the more intense, Khakimov says, arguing that “sometimes by means of negotiations it is possible to preserve the integrity of states by offering guarantees to the people.” But these outcomes, which require pragmatism on all sides, are “political” rather than “legal.”
Unfortunately, he continues, “in public opinion and however strange this may b e even among lawyers and politicians, the principle of equality and self-determination of peoples is treated as separate from the state, as the destruction of its integrity and as a striving toward complete independence.”
“In fact,” Khakimov says, “there can be various forms of self-determination,” many of which are compatible with the territorial integrity of the states within which the peoples seeking to implement this right find themselves. It can take the form of “a confederation or federation, associated status, autonomy or even complete dissolution in the structure of the state.”
At the very least, “self-determination and complete independence are not equivalent terms. Separation from the state is only one of the forms of self-determination, albeit the most radical,” and “not all peoples” seek this, preferring instead “broad autonomy within the framework of a single state.”
“For example,” Khakimov points out, “Tatarstan never raised the question of leaving Russia but demanded and with complete justification a broadening of its rights, with which the Russian side agreed.”
Those who say that Tatarstan put pressure on Russia are “naïve,” Khakimov says. “Little Tatarstan could not impose its will on an enormous country.” Moreover, “Tatarstan is one of the most disciplined tax payers.” And consequently, the accord delimiting the rights and powers of each satisfied the interests of both sides.
“The self-proclaimed republics of the post-Soviet space have attempted to repeat [the Tatarstan Model] but unsuccessfully,” Khakimov says. “Broad autonomy … would have been profitable for all,” both in the case of Georgia with respect to Abkhazia and South Ossetia and “much more” in that of Moldova regarding Transdniestria.
“The mistake Georgia or Moldova made regarding the self-proclaimed republics,” the Kazan scholar and political commentator says, “consisted in the fact that instead of negotiations, they attempted to resolve the conflict by force, intensifying it to the point where people are not listening to one another.”
“At a certain point,” he continues, when Eduard Shevardnadze was Georgian president, there was a chance to “build a federation” there “with a guarantee of the rights of the relatively small Abkhaz and Osetian populations. [But] this did not happen,” and Georgia has been torn apart.
“Unfortunately,” Khakimov continues, there is another problem besides an inclination to use force. “Democracy in the post-Soviet space is treated as the will of the mechanical majority alone. Whoever has the most votes is right.” But this is “a faulty principle,” as even the briefest reflection will show.
“Yes, the number of Tatars in Russia is an order smaller than that of ethnic Russians. By means of a vote in the Stae Duma it [would be] possible to liquidate the Repulbic of Tatarstan, to declare the Tatars a non-existing nation, to limit the use of the national language, and to close schools and television broadcasts” in Tatar.
But “this does not mean” that the Tatars will “disappear.” And if Russians themselves think this way, then they should remember that the ethnic Russians “are a minority in comparison with the Chinese.” “False principles” of this kind simply “drive the conflict deeper” on both sides.
From this it follows that “democracy is not a panacea for the resolution of such problems but only an instrument in politics. For the harmonization of inter-ethnic relations, it must be liberalized by taking into account the interests of numerically smaller peoples.” Otherwise, Khakimov implies, disaster awaits them and the state.
Negotiations are needed to resolve these problems, and in them, “procedures themselves” are critically important. Shevardnadze failed in his talks because “they were conducted by a narrow circle of trusted people” rather than more broadly. And that meant some on each side felt too much had been given away without their consent.
“Tatarstan used a different method,” Khakimov, one of the participants in this process, recalls. “The negotiations were open, they took place on three levels, and they involved a large circle of participants” and state institutions over a period of three years. And there was a great deal of trust between Yeltsin and Shaimiyev
Khakimov concludes with this observation: “Conflict studies is a special discipline at the border of science and practice.” In talks, “the habits of the negotiators are no less important than the positions of the sides which as a rule are extremely tough at the start of contacts.” He adds that “international law unfortunately more often divides the sides than brings them together.”
Staunton, April 5 – The right of nations to self-determination and the principle of the territorial integrity of states need not be contradictory,a leading Tatar historian says, but if this right is ignored by untrammeled majoritarian democracy or if states try to suppress it by force, many invoking this right will decide that they have no alternative but to seek independence.
In an essay posted on the Tatar-Tribun.ru portal this week, Rafael Khakimov, director of the Kazan Institute of History and at one time a political advisor to former Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev, argues that states with ethnic minorities must recognize this reality and its risks (tatar-tribun.ru/tribuna/nacionalnye-konflikty-i-mezhdunarodnoe-pravo.html#more-2316).
But even though Khakimov focuses on various situations elsewhere and says that “Tatarstan never raised the question about leaving Russia” but rather worked with Moscow to broaden the rights of the Tatars, his argument is likely to strike many as provocatory in the current Russian political environment.
Khakimov begins his essay by noting that “the world consists not only of states but also of peoples who are seeking to increase the level of [their] freedom,” adding that “this collision” can produce conflicts” and also that either ignoring the rights of nations or seeking to suppress them will only make the situation more difficult.
In recent times, the Kazan historian continues, many Russian media outlets have “criticized the right of self-determination of peoples as an invention of the Bolsheviks, which apparently led to the destruction of the USSR and has created a threat to the integrity of Russia, as if a legal document creates the pursuit of freedom by peoples and not the other way around.”
“Many peoples do not suspect that there is exists a right to self-determination written down on paper,” Khakimov continues. “Nevertheless, they strive to achieve it, sometimes with arms in their hands. And this pursuit of the broadening of freedom is the main vector of history. It cannot be stopped.”
Consequently, “any limitation of the existing status of a people is fraught with conflicts,” he notes, pointing the process that was set in train when Serbia “at the end of the 1990s liquidated the autonomy of Kosovo.” That made “a conflict inevitable, and it [was] ended by the separation of the Kosovars.”
Using force against those seeking greater freedom makes such conflicts all the more intense, Khakimov says, arguing that “sometimes by means of negotiations it is possible to preserve the integrity of states by offering guarantees to the people.” But these outcomes, which require pragmatism on all sides, are “political” rather than “legal.”
Unfortunately, he continues, “in public opinion and however strange this may b e even among lawyers and politicians, the principle of equality and self-determination of peoples is treated as separate from the state, as the destruction of its integrity and as a striving toward complete independence.”
“In fact,” Khakimov says, “there can be various forms of self-determination,” many of which are compatible with the territorial integrity of the states within which the peoples seeking to implement this right find themselves. It can take the form of “a confederation or federation, associated status, autonomy or even complete dissolution in the structure of the state.”
At the very least, “self-determination and complete independence are not equivalent terms. Separation from the state is only one of the forms of self-determination, albeit the most radical,” and “not all peoples” seek this, preferring instead “broad autonomy within the framework of a single state.”
“For example,” Khakimov points out, “Tatarstan never raised the question of leaving Russia but demanded and with complete justification a broadening of its rights, with which the Russian side agreed.”
Those who say that Tatarstan put pressure on Russia are “naïve,” Khakimov says. “Little Tatarstan could not impose its will on an enormous country.” Moreover, “Tatarstan is one of the most disciplined tax payers.” And consequently, the accord delimiting the rights and powers of each satisfied the interests of both sides.
“The self-proclaimed republics of the post-Soviet space have attempted to repeat [the Tatarstan Model] but unsuccessfully,” Khakimov says. “Broad autonomy … would have been profitable for all,” both in the case of Georgia with respect to Abkhazia and South Ossetia and “much more” in that of Moldova regarding Transdniestria.
“The mistake Georgia or Moldova made regarding the self-proclaimed republics,” the Kazan scholar and political commentator says, “consisted in the fact that instead of negotiations, they attempted to resolve the conflict by force, intensifying it to the point where people are not listening to one another.”
“At a certain point,” he continues, when Eduard Shevardnadze was Georgian president, there was a chance to “build a federation” there “with a guarantee of the rights of the relatively small Abkhaz and Osetian populations. [But] this did not happen,” and Georgia has been torn apart.
“Unfortunately,” Khakimov continues, there is another problem besides an inclination to use force. “Democracy in the post-Soviet space is treated as the will of the mechanical majority alone. Whoever has the most votes is right.” But this is “a faulty principle,” as even the briefest reflection will show.
“Yes, the number of Tatars in Russia is an order smaller than that of ethnic Russians. By means of a vote in the Stae Duma it [would be] possible to liquidate the Repulbic of Tatarstan, to declare the Tatars a non-existing nation, to limit the use of the national language, and to close schools and television broadcasts” in Tatar.
But “this does not mean” that the Tatars will “disappear.” And if Russians themselves think this way, then they should remember that the ethnic Russians “are a minority in comparison with the Chinese.” “False principles” of this kind simply “drive the conflict deeper” on both sides.
From this it follows that “democracy is not a panacea for the resolution of such problems but only an instrument in politics. For the harmonization of inter-ethnic relations, it must be liberalized by taking into account the interests of numerically smaller peoples.” Otherwise, Khakimov implies, disaster awaits them and the state.
Negotiations are needed to resolve these problems, and in them, “procedures themselves” are critically important. Shevardnadze failed in his talks because “they were conducted by a narrow circle of trusted people” rather than more broadly. And that meant some on each side felt too much had been given away without their consent.
“Tatarstan used a different method,” Khakimov, one of the participants in this process, recalls. “The negotiations were open, they took place on three levels, and they involved a large circle of participants” and state institutions over a period of three years. And there was a great deal of trust between Yeltsin and Shaimiyev
Khakimov concludes with this observation: “Conflict studies is a special discipline at the border of science and practice.” In talks, “the habits of the negotiators are no less important than the positions of the sides which as a rule are extremely tough at the start of contacts.” He adds that “international law unfortunately more often divides the sides than brings them together.”
Monday, April 4, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Have ‘More than a Million Slavs in Ukraine’ Become Muslims Since 1991?
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 4 – A Russian news agency reports that “more than one million Slavs” in Ukraine have converted to Islam since 1991, a figure that almost certainly is an exaggeration but one that reflects both Kyiv’s relatively tolerant approach to Islamic activism and Russian and Ukrainian fears of the possible appearance of Slavic-appearing suicide bombers.
In her report on Rosbalt.ru about a recent Kyiv conference on the problems and prospects of Islam in Ukraine, journalist Anna Steshenko comes up with that number on the basis of a statement by Gennady Udovenko of Narodna Rukh that there are now some 1.5 milllion “Islamic neophytes” in Ukraine (www.rosbalt.ru/ukraina/2011/03/31/834517.html).
Because there are no more than 300,000 Crimean Tatars and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia could not be counted as neophytes, Steshenko suggests that these figures means that “more than one million” of Ukraine’s Muslims must be either ethnic Russians or ethnic Ukrainians.
Her calculation is likely incorrect for two reasons. On the one hand, Udovenko likely was referring to almost all Muslims in Ukraine rather than only newly-minted ones. In that case, the number of Slavic converts would be perhaps only 500,000 or even less. And on the other, Steshenko’s article is clearly intended to spark fears, thus making an exaggeration here likely.
Nonetheless, even if the smaller figure for Muslim converts among Slavs is used, the overall number of 1.5 Muslims in Ukraine means that today approximately one in 30 Ukrainian residents is a follower of Islam, a share much smaller than the more than one in five Muslims in Russia but one far larger than at any time in recent history.
As Steshenko notes, the Ukrainian government has followed a very different and more permissive approach to Islamic institutions than has Moscow. The radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement, which is banned in Russia, operates freely in Ukraine, thereby contributing to “the Islamization of the Slavic population and the radicalization of the Crimean Tatars.
At the recent conference, Ismail Kadi, the head of the all-Ukrainian Muslim organization Alraid, said that “Ukraine is an example for neighboring countries.” And other participants, including the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Kuwait agreed, noting that “unlike Russia,” in Ukraine “conditions for the development of Islam have been put in place.
Yury Kochubey, a specialist at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, said Kyiv was pursuing “the correct policy toward Islamic organizations.” In the same speech, he sharply criticized Moscow’s approach of what he called “forced assimilation which has led to radicalization and extremism.
“In reality,” Steshenko continues, “at first glance, harmony rules in the relaztions of the [Ukrainian] state and all-possible Islamic organizations.” Alraid, for example, has seven centers in the largest cities, distributes a full-color twelve-page newspaper, and “teaches all who want the foundations of Islam.”
But she says, some of the Islamic propaganda in Ukraine bears an openly anti-Slavic and by implication anti-Russian character. According to Crimean media, she says, Muslims groups have distributed broadsides against smoking and drinking showing Slavs who are smoking or drunk and contrasting them with Muslims who are clearly flourishing and in good health.
Alraid itself, Steshenko says, which has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood abroad and the Party of Muslims of Ukraine, has special courses for young women who are paid 250 to 300 US dollars monthly to attend, money they lose if they do not wear the hijab and go to mosque regularly, an arrangement that the Rosbalt.ru journalist says is “the classic method of sects.”
The money for such activities, the journalist suggests, comes from religious ministries in Kuwait and Qatar. She says that “only government jurists and religious specialists are in a position to assert officially that the actions of Alraid are a threat to the state.” But Streshenko says that “Kyiv is behaving strangely.”
“Official Kyiv has never reacted” to statements by Tatar leaders that “their co-nationals are fighting against Russians in Chechnya,” she says, and the Ukrainian government “not once by word or deed has prevented Chechen militants from curing their wounds in Crimean and Odessa sanatoria” – despite a Russian-Ukrainian treaty banning this.
“Why does official Kyiv relate to Islamists” in this way, Steshenko asks rhetorically before suggesting that the answer “in general is simple.” Earlier Kyiv feared that Crimea might become part of Russia and so supported Islamic groups to block that, but now, with “the genie out of the bottle,” Ukraine has little choice but to continue to be deferential.
In Ukraine, Steshenko says, it is already widely recognized that “the influence of the Mejlis on the Tatar population is falling and that young people sympathize with the beared ones from Hizb-ut-Tahrir and other sects.” As a result, “radicals are driving the moderates out of Crimea’s mosques” – mosques that were build with “Saudi and Turkish money.”
Steshenko clearly shows her intentions when she concludes her article by quoting the message to the Kyiv conference of Deputy Culture Minsiter Yury Bogutsky to the effect that “Ukraine is creating all conditions necessary for the equality of ethnoses and religions” and then by asking “But what about the ethnic Russians, Mr. Minister?”
Staunton, April 4 – A Russian news agency reports that “more than one million Slavs” in Ukraine have converted to Islam since 1991, a figure that almost certainly is an exaggeration but one that reflects both Kyiv’s relatively tolerant approach to Islamic activism and Russian and Ukrainian fears of the possible appearance of Slavic-appearing suicide bombers.
In her report on Rosbalt.ru about a recent Kyiv conference on the problems and prospects of Islam in Ukraine, journalist Anna Steshenko comes up with that number on the basis of a statement by Gennady Udovenko of Narodna Rukh that there are now some 1.5 milllion “Islamic neophytes” in Ukraine (www.rosbalt.ru/ukraina/2011/03/31/834517.html).
Because there are no more than 300,000 Crimean Tatars and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia could not be counted as neophytes, Steshenko suggests that these figures means that “more than one million” of Ukraine’s Muslims must be either ethnic Russians or ethnic Ukrainians.
Her calculation is likely incorrect for two reasons. On the one hand, Udovenko likely was referring to almost all Muslims in Ukraine rather than only newly-minted ones. In that case, the number of Slavic converts would be perhaps only 500,000 or even less. And on the other, Steshenko’s article is clearly intended to spark fears, thus making an exaggeration here likely.
Nonetheless, even if the smaller figure for Muslim converts among Slavs is used, the overall number of 1.5 Muslims in Ukraine means that today approximately one in 30 Ukrainian residents is a follower of Islam, a share much smaller than the more than one in five Muslims in Russia but one far larger than at any time in recent history.
As Steshenko notes, the Ukrainian government has followed a very different and more permissive approach to Islamic institutions than has Moscow. The radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement, which is banned in Russia, operates freely in Ukraine, thereby contributing to “the Islamization of the Slavic population and the radicalization of the Crimean Tatars.
At the recent conference, Ismail Kadi, the head of the all-Ukrainian Muslim organization Alraid, said that “Ukraine is an example for neighboring countries.” And other participants, including the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Kuwait agreed, noting that “unlike Russia,” in Ukraine “conditions for the development of Islam have been put in place.
Yury Kochubey, a specialist at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, said Kyiv was pursuing “the correct policy toward Islamic organizations.” In the same speech, he sharply criticized Moscow’s approach of what he called “forced assimilation which has led to radicalization and extremism.
“In reality,” Steshenko continues, “at first glance, harmony rules in the relaztions of the [Ukrainian] state and all-possible Islamic organizations.” Alraid, for example, has seven centers in the largest cities, distributes a full-color twelve-page newspaper, and “teaches all who want the foundations of Islam.”
But she says, some of the Islamic propaganda in Ukraine bears an openly anti-Slavic and by implication anti-Russian character. According to Crimean media, she says, Muslims groups have distributed broadsides against smoking and drinking showing Slavs who are smoking or drunk and contrasting them with Muslims who are clearly flourishing and in good health.
Alraid itself, Steshenko says, which has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood abroad and the Party of Muslims of Ukraine, has special courses for young women who are paid 250 to 300 US dollars monthly to attend, money they lose if they do not wear the hijab and go to mosque regularly, an arrangement that the Rosbalt.ru journalist says is “the classic method of sects.”
The money for such activities, the journalist suggests, comes from religious ministries in Kuwait and Qatar. She says that “only government jurists and religious specialists are in a position to assert officially that the actions of Alraid are a threat to the state.” But Streshenko says that “Kyiv is behaving strangely.”
“Official Kyiv has never reacted” to statements by Tatar leaders that “their co-nationals are fighting against Russians in Chechnya,” she says, and the Ukrainian government “not once by word or deed has prevented Chechen militants from curing their wounds in Crimean and Odessa sanatoria” – despite a Russian-Ukrainian treaty banning this.
“Why does official Kyiv relate to Islamists” in this way, Steshenko asks rhetorically before suggesting that the answer “in general is simple.” Earlier Kyiv feared that Crimea might become part of Russia and so supported Islamic groups to block that, but now, with “the genie out of the bottle,” Ukraine has little choice but to continue to be deferential.
In Ukraine, Steshenko says, it is already widely recognized that “the influence of the Mejlis on the Tatar population is falling and that young people sympathize with the beared ones from Hizb-ut-Tahrir and other sects.” As a result, “radicals are driving the moderates out of Crimea’s mosques” – mosques that were build with “Saudi and Turkish money.”
Steshenko clearly shows her intentions when she concludes her article by quoting the message to the Kyiv conference of Deputy Culture Minsiter Yury Bogutsky to the effect that “Ukraine is creating all conditions necessary for the equality of ethnoses and religions” and then by asking “But what about the ethnic Russians, Mr. Minister?”
Window on Eurasia: Sibirians Leading Revival of ‘Geographic Separatism’ in Russian Federation
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 4 – The “Sibiryak’ movement, in one sense “an ordinary social protest which has taken geographic form,” is now “the most noteworthy part of a general process which people had forgotten about since the middle 1990s, geographic separatism,” according to a Russian political analyst.
Vyacheslav Igrunov, however, told Rimma Akhmirova of “Sobesednik” that it is far from the only one. Among the most important of the others are Rus Zalesskaya, Ingermanlandiya, Novgorodskoye Russkoye Veche, Mat-Zemlya in the Gorno-Altay, all of which “find supporters on their territories” (www.sobesednik.ru/incident/zemlya-rossiiskaya-budet-ubyvat-sibiryu).
And Igrunov suggested that the reason they are re-emerging now is that “in the country there is no common ideology, no political life, and no single set of ideals. And in the absence of political and intellectual freedom,” there is an entirely natural tendency to the splitting apart of any “single consciousness.”
This lack of a firm common identity, Akhmirova argues, helps to explain the declarations of some residents of the Russian Federation that they are “elfs,” “jedai,” and “residents of Middle Earth,” but more significantly, it explains why an increasing number prefer to identify themselves “on the basis of their geographic membership.”
And although the 2010 census results have not been yet published in full, the “Sobesednik” journalist continues, evidence already in hand suggests “a greater number of such people turn out to be not in the Caucasus, but in Siberia from which no one had expected a separatist threat.”
According to Marina Mitrenina, a Siberian activist in Tomsk, “the first powerful unifying action of people who consider themselves a special category was the flashmob ‘I am a Siberian’ which called on people to identify themselves as Siberians in the census forms.” She said that she is convinced that “thousands” of people “sympathized.”
“There could have been more, but the information was disseminated largely only through the Internet,” Mitrenina said. “Siberians have their own character and self-consciousness,” something Moscow has recognized when it needed their support as during World War II and Soviet construction projects.
Although Siberian activists like Nitrenina do not say so directly, Akhmirova says, one can sense that they believe that “during peaceful times, the powers that be [in Moscow] consider Siberia a colony, a source of valuable resources” whose people are important only to the extent that they can extract and export those resources for Moscow’s profit.
That attitude has always been present in Russian territories beyond the Urals, but now it has been strengthened, Siberian activists like Mikhail Kulekhov says, by the appearance of a new generation of people who have never travelled outside Siberia and “for whom Moscow is just as far away as the backside of the moon.”
In Soviet times, Kulekhov notes, the cost of an airline ticket to Moscow was less than a quarter of a worker’s monthly pay. Now, it is “much more” than the average salary. Consequently, people don’t go to the Russian capital. To travel to China,” he continues, “is simpler and less expensive.”
These high prices and low wages infuriate many Siberians, Kulekhov says. Irkutsk oblast alone provides from “a quarter to a third of Russian exports” of aluminum, wood, cellulose, and arms. “But the standard of living in this ‘rich region’ is approximately equal to that of Egypt. Who are we then if now a colony?”
Kulekhov adds that he and his friends initially wanted to call their movement “The Liberation Army of Siberia,” but “the Chekists” then asked if we did not intend to fight. “We told them no,” pointedly adding that “we simply couldn’t tolerate such a relationship to us and to our land.”
“For me,” Kulekhov continues, “Siberia is my land; my ancestors settled here several hundred years ago,” but the officials and businessmen in Moscow are more interested in foreign resorts than in this part of Russia. “Here they have only business.” And they would be willing to see the population of Siberia decline to “50-100,000” to service their needs.
According to Nitrenina, “Siberians do not even want money from the state. They can take care of themselves if they are given the opportunity to conduct free economic activity” and are “liberated from major corporations which are harming the environment” because Muscovites owners do not care what happens there.
Akhmirova concludes that “life beyond the Urals in fact is proceeding according to its own laws. They have their own heroes, idols, views, principles, even sayings, jokes and manners.” Indeed, she suggests, “Russia beyond the Urals is much more distinguished from Central Russia than even from the Caucasus.” And that more people there think “autonomously.”
“The main thing that unites [Siberia] from the point of simple people,” the “Sobesednik” journalist observes, “are taxes which the center collects the greater part of” while “leaving the people with their own problems.” But the Siberian movement is not just a tax revolt, however powerful that may be.
There is a powerful sense among the residents of this enormous territory of being very different than the European Russians and Muscovites, Akhmirova says, and Siberian activists are actively promoting this, by celebrating not only Orthodox holidays but Muslim ones and even reaching out to Siberian shamans.
Staunton, April 4 – The “Sibiryak’ movement, in one sense “an ordinary social protest which has taken geographic form,” is now “the most noteworthy part of a general process which people had forgotten about since the middle 1990s, geographic separatism,” according to a Russian political analyst.
Vyacheslav Igrunov, however, told Rimma Akhmirova of “Sobesednik” that it is far from the only one. Among the most important of the others are Rus Zalesskaya, Ingermanlandiya, Novgorodskoye Russkoye Veche, Mat-Zemlya in the Gorno-Altay, all of which “find supporters on their territories” (www.sobesednik.ru/incident/zemlya-rossiiskaya-budet-ubyvat-sibiryu).
And Igrunov suggested that the reason they are re-emerging now is that “in the country there is no common ideology, no political life, and no single set of ideals. And in the absence of political and intellectual freedom,” there is an entirely natural tendency to the splitting apart of any “single consciousness.”
This lack of a firm common identity, Akhmirova argues, helps to explain the declarations of some residents of the Russian Federation that they are “elfs,” “jedai,” and “residents of Middle Earth,” but more significantly, it explains why an increasing number prefer to identify themselves “on the basis of their geographic membership.”
And although the 2010 census results have not been yet published in full, the “Sobesednik” journalist continues, evidence already in hand suggests “a greater number of such people turn out to be not in the Caucasus, but in Siberia from which no one had expected a separatist threat.”
According to Marina Mitrenina, a Siberian activist in Tomsk, “the first powerful unifying action of people who consider themselves a special category was the flashmob ‘I am a Siberian’ which called on people to identify themselves as Siberians in the census forms.” She said that she is convinced that “thousands” of people “sympathized.”
“There could have been more, but the information was disseminated largely only through the Internet,” Mitrenina said. “Siberians have their own character and self-consciousness,” something Moscow has recognized when it needed their support as during World War II and Soviet construction projects.
Although Siberian activists like Nitrenina do not say so directly, Akhmirova says, one can sense that they believe that “during peaceful times, the powers that be [in Moscow] consider Siberia a colony, a source of valuable resources” whose people are important only to the extent that they can extract and export those resources for Moscow’s profit.
That attitude has always been present in Russian territories beyond the Urals, but now it has been strengthened, Siberian activists like Mikhail Kulekhov says, by the appearance of a new generation of people who have never travelled outside Siberia and “for whom Moscow is just as far away as the backside of the moon.”
In Soviet times, Kulekhov notes, the cost of an airline ticket to Moscow was less than a quarter of a worker’s monthly pay. Now, it is “much more” than the average salary. Consequently, people don’t go to the Russian capital. To travel to China,” he continues, “is simpler and less expensive.”
These high prices and low wages infuriate many Siberians, Kulekhov says. Irkutsk oblast alone provides from “a quarter to a third of Russian exports” of aluminum, wood, cellulose, and arms. “But the standard of living in this ‘rich region’ is approximately equal to that of Egypt. Who are we then if now a colony?”
Kulekhov adds that he and his friends initially wanted to call their movement “The Liberation Army of Siberia,” but “the Chekists” then asked if we did not intend to fight. “We told them no,” pointedly adding that “we simply couldn’t tolerate such a relationship to us and to our land.”
“For me,” Kulekhov continues, “Siberia is my land; my ancestors settled here several hundred years ago,” but the officials and businessmen in Moscow are more interested in foreign resorts than in this part of Russia. “Here they have only business.” And they would be willing to see the population of Siberia decline to “50-100,000” to service their needs.
According to Nitrenina, “Siberians do not even want money from the state. They can take care of themselves if they are given the opportunity to conduct free economic activity” and are “liberated from major corporations which are harming the environment” because Muscovites owners do not care what happens there.
Akhmirova concludes that “life beyond the Urals in fact is proceeding according to its own laws. They have their own heroes, idols, views, principles, even sayings, jokes and manners.” Indeed, she suggests, “Russia beyond the Urals is much more distinguished from Central Russia than even from the Caucasus.” And that more people there think “autonomously.”
“The main thing that unites [Siberia] from the point of simple people,” the “Sobesednik” journalist observes, “are taxes which the center collects the greater part of” while “leaving the people with their own problems.” But the Siberian movement is not just a tax revolt, however powerful that may be.
There is a powerful sense among the residents of this enormous territory of being very different than the European Russians and Muscovites, Akhmirova says, and Siberian activists are actively promoting this, by celebrating not only Orthodox holidays but Muslim ones and even reaching out to Siberian shamans.
Window on Eurasia: Injustice More than Islam Behind North Caucasus Terrorism, Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 4 – Ninety percent of people in the North Caucasus who go into the forests to fight the Russian regime and its representatives are doing so because they or their families are seeking revenge for injustice rather than because they are motivated by any of the precepts of Islam, according to a close observer of that area.
“If [what is taking place]were only religious terrorism,” Aliy Totorkulov, the leader of the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus, says, Moscow “would be able to cope with it.” But “in the Caucasus, ethnic and religious terrorism constitute at most 10 percent” of the total. “Ninety percent is social.” (www.izvestia.ru/politic/article3153508/).
Sometimes this protest against arbitrariness and injustice on the part of officials is masked by Islamic slogans, Totorkulov acknowledges in an interview with Moscow’s “Izvestiya.” But in fact, in almost all cases, it reflects a deeper set of cultural attitudes among the peoples of that region, attitudes that Russian officials have violated.
It is important to understand that such protests are not driven by poverty but by a sense that officials are violating the proper organization of society, Totorkulov continues. “Caucasians are prepared to live in poverty,” but they are not willing to stand for injustice. And they have a tradition that tells them how to behave when they are confronted by that.
“In the Caucasus there were always abreks, people who took revenge” for violations of what most people there consider just. Now, most of those going into the mountains are abreks rather than terrorists. And that explains a major part of the support they receive: When a man goes into the forests to fight injustice, “his relatives always support him.”
Unlike residents of other parts of the Russian Federation, he continues, people in the North Caucasus do not feel they can seek redress for injustice any other way. “The North Caucasus republics are ruled by little princes who are given power from above.” As a result, they show little concern about those below.
Moreover, Totorkulov continues, there is “the Caucasus mentality.” While 86 percent of Russians say that “slavery still lives in [their] sub-consciousness” 150 years after the end of serfdom, the peoples in the Caucasus never knew serfdom and consequently in that region “live free people,” something Moscow has not yet been prepared to take into account.
Mixed among these abreks, he says, are “an insignificant minority” of fanatics and mercenaries, but Moscow will never succeed in overcoming the resistance until it understands that most of those who are engaged in this form of protest are doing so because of the injustice of the powers that be.
A major reason why some of the abreks misuse Islamic slogans, Totorkulov continues, is that they are fundamentally ignorant of the tenets of their religion, a situation which itself is a product of the complicated Soviet and Russian periods of North Caucasus history and the current “problem of fathers and sons” among religious leaders there.
“The religious leaders who now are in power [there] are elderly people. Their education, they received already in Soviet times having studied only the ABCs of Islam. The young religious leaders are a new generation,” products of Islamic universities abroad and offended by much that they see among the followers of the faith in the North Caucasus.
When the young leaders criticize their elders, the latter view them as a threat to their power, “as dangerous elements and [they] hand over this information to the force structures.” The center supports them because they are “the moderates” with whom Moscow has become “comfortable.”
But in fact, it is the younger Muslim leaders who could ultimately be part of the solution to the problems of the North Caucasus. Indeed, they could be its “salvation” because their knowledge of Islam will help their followers make progress toward a just and more democratic society.
Unfortunately, Moscow officials often do not understand this. They are sent reports by local officials who try to portray themselves in the best possible light and use language that makes their opponents, however justified, look like “Martians” with whom there is no basis for cooperation.
As a result, many at the center think they can “pacify the Caucasus” like General Yermolov did 150 years ago through force alone. That won’t work, Totorkulov argues, nor will the clumsy approach of Moscow which often changes leaderships in relatively peaceful republics and leaves in place the heads of more violent ones.
Moreover, the efforts of some Russian officials to rely on elders’ councils are misplaced. While such institutions were traditionally important, Soviet policies undermined their influence. Now, even if Moscow wants to revive them, many of the local officials don’t because such councils would naturally oppose them.
Totorkulov concludes that because “force will hardly solve all problems,” Moscow should seek to “disarm” the North Caucasus with friendship because the North Caucasian “will never behave badly toward someone who respects him.” And thatcan best be achieved by creating a genuine “civil society” which will eliminate excesses by the powers and the militants.
Staunton, April 4 – Ninety percent of people in the North Caucasus who go into the forests to fight the Russian regime and its representatives are doing so because they or their families are seeking revenge for injustice rather than because they are motivated by any of the precepts of Islam, according to a close observer of that area.
“If [what is taking place]were only religious terrorism,” Aliy Totorkulov, the leader of the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus, says, Moscow “would be able to cope with it.” But “in the Caucasus, ethnic and religious terrorism constitute at most 10 percent” of the total. “Ninety percent is social.” (www.izvestia.ru/politic/article3153508/).
Sometimes this protest against arbitrariness and injustice on the part of officials is masked by Islamic slogans, Totorkulov acknowledges in an interview with Moscow’s “Izvestiya.” But in fact, in almost all cases, it reflects a deeper set of cultural attitudes among the peoples of that region, attitudes that Russian officials have violated.
It is important to understand that such protests are not driven by poverty but by a sense that officials are violating the proper organization of society, Totorkulov continues. “Caucasians are prepared to live in poverty,” but they are not willing to stand for injustice. And they have a tradition that tells them how to behave when they are confronted by that.
“In the Caucasus there were always abreks, people who took revenge” for violations of what most people there consider just. Now, most of those going into the mountains are abreks rather than terrorists. And that explains a major part of the support they receive: When a man goes into the forests to fight injustice, “his relatives always support him.”
Unlike residents of other parts of the Russian Federation, he continues, people in the North Caucasus do not feel they can seek redress for injustice any other way. “The North Caucasus republics are ruled by little princes who are given power from above.” As a result, they show little concern about those below.
Moreover, Totorkulov continues, there is “the Caucasus mentality.” While 86 percent of Russians say that “slavery still lives in [their] sub-consciousness” 150 years after the end of serfdom, the peoples in the Caucasus never knew serfdom and consequently in that region “live free people,” something Moscow has not yet been prepared to take into account.
Mixed among these abreks, he says, are “an insignificant minority” of fanatics and mercenaries, but Moscow will never succeed in overcoming the resistance until it understands that most of those who are engaged in this form of protest are doing so because of the injustice of the powers that be.
A major reason why some of the abreks misuse Islamic slogans, Totorkulov continues, is that they are fundamentally ignorant of the tenets of their religion, a situation which itself is a product of the complicated Soviet and Russian periods of North Caucasus history and the current “problem of fathers and sons” among religious leaders there.
“The religious leaders who now are in power [there] are elderly people. Their education, they received already in Soviet times having studied only the ABCs of Islam. The young religious leaders are a new generation,” products of Islamic universities abroad and offended by much that they see among the followers of the faith in the North Caucasus.
When the young leaders criticize their elders, the latter view them as a threat to their power, “as dangerous elements and [they] hand over this information to the force structures.” The center supports them because they are “the moderates” with whom Moscow has become “comfortable.”
But in fact, it is the younger Muslim leaders who could ultimately be part of the solution to the problems of the North Caucasus. Indeed, they could be its “salvation” because their knowledge of Islam will help their followers make progress toward a just and more democratic society.
Unfortunately, Moscow officials often do not understand this. They are sent reports by local officials who try to portray themselves in the best possible light and use language that makes their opponents, however justified, look like “Martians” with whom there is no basis for cooperation.
As a result, many at the center think they can “pacify the Caucasus” like General Yermolov did 150 years ago through force alone. That won’t work, Totorkulov argues, nor will the clumsy approach of Moscow which often changes leaderships in relatively peaceful republics and leaves in place the heads of more violent ones.
Moreover, the efforts of some Russian officials to rely on elders’ councils are misplaced. While such institutions were traditionally important, Soviet policies undermined their influence. Now, even if Moscow wants to revive them, many of the local officials don’t because such councils would naturally oppose them.
Totorkulov concludes that because “force will hardly solve all problems,” Moscow should seek to “disarm” the North Caucasus with friendship because the North Caucasian “will never behave badly toward someone who respects him.” And thatcan best be achieved by creating a genuine “civil society” which will eliminate excesses by the powers and the militants.
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