Paul Goble
Staunton, April 22 – Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov’s “suppression of religious and political disagreements, together with extreme authoritarianism, total corruption, ineffective economics and the absence of social justice is contributing to the spread of the conviction there that positive changes in society can be achieved only by force.”
And that growing conviction, according to a 143-page study of conditions in that most populous Central Asian country, its author Vladimir Ponomarev of Memorial says, is creating the basis for the strengthening of the positions of jihadist groups” rather than weakening them as Karimov and his backers claim (www.agentura.ru/experts/vponomarev/).
Ponomarev’s report, entitled “Political Repressions in Uzbekistan in 2009-2010, was financed by the Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy and provides a wealth of detail about conditions in Karimov’s Uzbekistan. But each of his 11 conclusions deserves particular attention.
First of all, the Memorial expert says, “Uzbekistan, which has been ruled for 22 years by the former Communist leader Islam Karimov remains one of the most repressive states of the world,” a country in which there is no legal opposition or an independent media and in which “political repression is an indivisible part of state policy.”
Second, “the use of mass repression,” which Karimov began in the 1990s, “continues to this day.” There are now “several thousand political prisoners” and more than 1200 others who are being sought on the basis of such charges. Moreover, over the last two years, “the extent of repressions rose significantly and now appear to exceed even the high level of 2004-2006.”
Third, to this day, Uzbekistan’s criminal code contains various provisions that limit fundamental freedoms, including those which “criminalize any religious activity not sanctioned by the state” and others which define “terrorism” so broadly that almost anyone can be charged with that crime by Uzbek officials.
Fourth, Ponomarev writes, “a large number of [Uzbekistan’s] Muslims, whose actions do not represent a threat to public order and security as before are being condemned on the basis of fabricated accusations of terrorism and extremism.” And most of their convictions are based on confessions obtained by torture.
Fifth, according to the Memorial study, “the main enemy of the state in 2009-2010 were declared to be the Jihadists,” a term which Uzbek official employ to describe “not only the memb ers of the few terrorist groups but also members of various informal Islamic communities which supposedly express ‘radical views.’”
Sixth, despite Tashkent’s claims of a massive upsurge in terrorist activity as justification for the crackdowns, “there is no data” about any terrorist act except for three incidents in May 2009, and “there is no information [at all] about links between the local ‘Jihadists’ with such organizations as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the Union of ‘Islamic Jihad.’”
Seventh, because Tashkent’s repressive actions touch “not only marginal groups but have become part of the daily life of Uzbekistan,” they have become themselves “an important source of social-political tension” because they appear to justify the arguments of those who say that “positive changes in society can be achieved only by means of force.”
Eighth, just as was the case after the Andijan events of 2005, the Tashkent authorities appear to be using repression against independent human rights activists and journalists because they fear that such people will be the source of “alternative” and independent information and that that in turn “can stimulate protest attitudes in society.
Ninth, given the tight lid that Karimov’s regime has put on any information about the use of force by militants in 2009, it appears, Memorial’s Ponomarev says, that “the powers are afraid also that in the case of even limited success by Jihadist actions, the latter may serve as a model for emulation by others and give an impulse to the rise of new anti-government groups.”
Tenth, Ponomarev argues, “the West (like the partners of Uzbekistan inside the CIS as well) are underestimating the seriousness and extent of the problems connected with political repressions in Uzbekistan and their possible dramatic influence on regional stability” across Central Asia.
In contrast to the situation in 2002-2003, he continues, Western representatives have focused only “about 30” cases involving civil society activists and the democratic opposition, the freeingof which is assessed by some of them as evidence of ‘positive changes’” by the Tashkent leadership.
But in fact and just like in Soviet times, Tashkent is using these people “as hostages for political trade with the West” and is arresting new groups for every one individual it may choose to free. Indeed, the Memorial expert writes, “many are convinced” that the West is “not taking sufficient steps to change the situation.”
And finally, eleventh, Ponomarev aregues, “the current Realpolitik of the US and the European Union toward Uzbekistan needs to be reviewed, especially in the context of the latest events in the Middle East which can be repeated in Central Asia as well,” with Uzbekistan being a candidate for a Libyan rather than Egyptian scenario.
“It should be remembered,” the Memorial expert writes, “that during the period of active cooperation with the United States in 2001-2003, Uzbekistan annually freed up to 1000 political prisoners which not only did not create any problems regarding the stability of the domestic political situation but on the contrary made possible a reduction in the level of tensions” there.
And it is also necessary to remember, Ponomarev says, that Karimov’s “’war with Islam’ under the cover of the struggle with terrorism … can have catastrophic consequences for Central Asia. The use of mass repressions not only represents a clear violation of Uzbekistan’s international obligations but represents a threat to the security and stability of the region.”
Friday, April 22, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Crimean Tatars Press to Go Back to Latin Script by End of 2011
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 22 – The Crimean Tatars are stepping up the campaign they launched in 1991 to return to the Latin-based script in which their language was written between 1928 and 1938 and thus end the use of the Cyrillic-based script Stalin imposed on them, a step that will further set them apart from Slavic groups and bring them closer to Turkey.
On Monday, Eduard Dudakov, the chairman of the Republic Committee of Crimea for Inter-National Relations and the Affairs of Deported Citizens, told journalists that “the process of shifting the Crimean Tatar language from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to the Latin script is to be completed before the end of the year.
Discussion of this measure has gone on long enough, he continued, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine needs to adopt modifications in the country’s law on language that can “become the basis for the introduction of changes in the corresponding legal act, regulating the use of various writing systems.”
Dudakov’s comments follow proposals by Mustafa Cemilev, the president of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people who has long sought “a single alphabet for all Crimean Tatars in the world” and the publication last month of “Nenkecan,” a Crimean journal in the Latin script (e-crimea.info/2011/04/18/49428/Kryimskotatarskiy_yazyik_pereydet_na_latinitsu_do_kontsa_goda_.shtml).
Following an overwhelming vote in favor, the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea on Wednesday called on the country’s parliament to adopt “in as short a time as possible” draft legislation that would regulate the languages of all minority nationalities in Ukraine, including not just Crimean Tatar but also Russian and other groups (www.interfax.com.ua/rus/pol/66910/).
Because such legislation touches on the sensitive issue of Russian-Ukrainian relations and on the policies of the incumbent Ukrainian president who earlier promised to boost the status of Russian, that aspect of debates about a new language law is likely to attract the most attention in the coming weeks.
But in fact, the effort of the Crimean Tatars to go back to the Latin script may prove more important, not only because it will set them even more apart from the others on the peninsula but also because it will serve as a model for other Turkic groups in the post-Soviet world, in the first instance the Kazan Tatars, and tighten relations between these communities and Turkey.
The impact on the Kazan Tatars is likely to be especially great given Moscow’s increasing efforts to Russianize Tatarstan and especially the Russian government’s use of an appeal by a group of Kazan parents to reduce the amount of Tatar used in the schools of that Middle Volga republic.
Those Russian efforts have prompted some Tatar and Muslim commentators to ask, in this Year of Gabdulla Tukay, a leader of the Tatar renaissance of a century ago, “whether the language of Tukay [Tatar] will survive until the end of the 21st century?” -- or whether it is fated to be overwhelmed by Russian (www.islam.ru/content/kultura/1240).
Given the historic ties between the Kazan Tatars and the Crimean Tatars, a successful move to return to Latin script among the latter will likely spark calls for a similar step among the former, the largest ethnic minority in the Russian Federation and often a bellwether for the actions of other nations inside that country.
There are three reasons this Crimean Tatar effort is important in addition of course to its impact on the future of that nation. First, it highlights the way in which over the last year the Crimean Tatars and other nations of Eurasia have reasserted their efforts in the early 1990s to recover their own histories and set themselves apart from the hitherto dominant Russians.
Second, it underscores the ways in which Turkey is gaining influence among these peoples, positioning itself as a regional leader in direct competition with Moscow, Kyiv and other capitals and giving new content to the idea of Turkic world led intellectually at least from Ankara and Istanbul.
And third, it could trigger demands among other nations in Eurasia to shift away from the Soviet-imposed Cyrillic alphabets, including for at least some of the Finno-Ugric and North Caucasian languages and thus increase still further the centrifugal forces on the territory of the former Soviet space.
Staunton, April 22 – The Crimean Tatars are stepping up the campaign they launched in 1991 to return to the Latin-based script in which their language was written between 1928 and 1938 and thus end the use of the Cyrillic-based script Stalin imposed on them, a step that will further set them apart from Slavic groups and bring them closer to Turkey.
On Monday, Eduard Dudakov, the chairman of the Republic Committee of Crimea for Inter-National Relations and the Affairs of Deported Citizens, told journalists that “the process of shifting the Crimean Tatar language from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to the Latin script is to be completed before the end of the year.
Discussion of this measure has gone on long enough, he continued, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine needs to adopt modifications in the country’s law on language that can “become the basis for the introduction of changes in the corresponding legal act, regulating the use of various writing systems.”
Dudakov’s comments follow proposals by Mustafa Cemilev, the president of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people who has long sought “a single alphabet for all Crimean Tatars in the world” and the publication last month of “Nenkecan,” a Crimean journal in the Latin script (e-crimea.info/2011/04/18/49428/Kryimskotatarskiy_yazyik_pereydet_na_latinitsu_do_kontsa_goda_.shtml).
Following an overwhelming vote in favor, the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea on Wednesday called on the country’s parliament to adopt “in as short a time as possible” draft legislation that would regulate the languages of all minority nationalities in Ukraine, including not just Crimean Tatar but also Russian and other groups (www.interfax.com.ua/rus/pol/66910/).
Because such legislation touches on the sensitive issue of Russian-Ukrainian relations and on the policies of the incumbent Ukrainian president who earlier promised to boost the status of Russian, that aspect of debates about a new language law is likely to attract the most attention in the coming weeks.
But in fact, the effort of the Crimean Tatars to go back to the Latin script may prove more important, not only because it will set them even more apart from the others on the peninsula but also because it will serve as a model for other Turkic groups in the post-Soviet world, in the first instance the Kazan Tatars, and tighten relations between these communities and Turkey.
The impact on the Kazan Tatars is likely to be especially great given Moscow’s increasing efforts to Russianize Tatarstan and especially the Russian government’s use of an appeal by a group of Kazan parents to reduce the amount of Tatar used in the schools of that Middle Volga republic.
Those Russian efforts have prompted some Tatar and Muslim commentators to ask, in this Year of Gabdulla Tukay, a leader of the Tatar renaissance of a century ago, “whether the language of Tukay [Tatar] will survive until the end of the 21st century?” -- or whether it is fated to be overwhelmed by Russian (www.islam.ru/content/kultura/1240).
Given the historic ties between the Kazan Tatars and the Crimean Tatars, a successful move to return to Latin script among the latter will likely spark calls for a similar step among the former, the largest ethnic minority in the Russian Federation and often a bellwether for the actions of other nations inside that country.
There are three reasons this Crimean Tatar effort is important in addition of course to its impact on the future of that nation. First, it highlights the way in which over the last year the Crimean Tatars and other nations of Eurasia have reasserted their efforts in the early 1990s to recover their own histories and set themselves apart from the hitherto dominant Russians.
Second, it underscores the ways in which Turkey is gaining influence among these peoples, positioning itself as a regional leader in direct competition with Moscow, Kyiv and other capitals and giving new content to the idea of Turkic world led intellectually at least from Ankara and Istanbul.
And third, it could trigger demands among other nations in Eurasia to shift away from the Soviet-imposed Cyrillic alphabets, including for at least some of the Finno-Ugric and North Caucasian languages and thus increase still further the centrifugal forces on the territory of the former Soviet space.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Chechen Internet ‘Developing Not Badly,’ Insider Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 17 – Given the role of the Internet and social media in the spread of popular revolts in many countries, there has been a great deal of speculation about how these new media are developing in places like Chechnya, but most of the commentary on such issues has come from outsiders rather than direct participants.
The current issue of the Daghestani online newspaper, “Nastoyashcheye vremya,” provides a welcome exception with its publication of information supplied anonymously by a Chechen blogger about how the Internet with its blogs and social media is developing in his republic (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/5875/109/).
The paper’s Bagdat Tumalayev who writes frequently about new media in the Caucasus but relatively seldom about developments in that sector in Chechnya reports that “a Chechen blogger who wishes to remain anonymous has decided to talk about the state of affairs with regard to the Internet in his native region.”
The Chechen blogger’s desire for anonymity, Tumalayev says, “is understandable even though today this region has become stable” because “it isn’t especially comfortable for anyone living in Chechnya itself to write about this openly.” But the Daghestani journalist continues, “judging [from his text], the Internet in Chechnya is developing in a not bad way!”
Moreover, he continues, conditions are being created for its future growth. Vaynakh-Telecon, the leading Internet provide in Grozny, has recently “significantly lowered [its] prices.” Now, Chechens who want to go online can do so at a speed of 1mb/second for only 1200 rubles (40 US dollars) a month.
Among the most popular sites in Chechnya are Chechen-republic.com, Checheninfor.ru, and Chechnyafree.ru, a project of the Golos Rossii radio station. A social network for Vaynakhs, waynahi.ru, has arisen and offers itself as “a national social network for Chechnya and Ingushetia,” although the paper says “it is difficult to speak about how well known it is.”
But social networks are growing. There are already 211,000 Chechen residents registerd on the Russian social network, Odnoklassniki.ru, and there are 26,000 Grozny residents who use the Vkontakte.ru service. Also important in this regard, the Chechen blogger relates, is the Internet forum, vchechne.ru, where there are discussions about all kinds of issues.
The Grozni.org site carries photographs of the Chechen capital today, while Grozny.vrcal.com has photos from before the first Chechen campaign. Current news about the city is available on grozny-inform.ru, the Chechen blogger says, without indicating what he thinks of the content of that outlet.
Other interesting cites the blogger refers to include moct.org, the site of the graduates of the Grozny Oil Institute, fc-terek.ru, terek-grozny.ru,and Chechen sport.com which follow sports clubs. Also important are chechenasso.ru, which features news on Chechen communities outside of Chechnya, garikish.com and gakish.livejournal.com, which discuss social issues.
Ratings of these and other Chechen sites is available at chechentop.ru. There are also “several dozen” Chechen bloggers. The most widely read of these sites are the blog of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, ya_kadyrov.livejournal.com and that of Chechen journalist Timur Aliyev, timur_aliyev.livejournal.com.
Other blogs of note include the diary of Murat Mamirgov, the editor of Islamtv.ru, at mamirgov.livejournal.com, the blog of Arslan Khasavov, a Chechen writer of Daghestani origin, ubl.livejournal.com, and the blog of Leko Gudayev, the webmaster of the Checheninfor site, leko007.livejournal.com.
According to the anonymous Chechen blogger, the Chechen government is actively supporting these bloggers by giving them gifts and prizes as part of what it calls “The Golden Site of CHENET.” He does not say whether such arrangements are intended to ensure that the government knows what is going on, but that possibility cannot be excluded.
Staunton, April 17 – Given the role of the Internet and social media in the spread of popular revolts in many countries, there has been a great deal of speculation about how these new media are developing in places like Chechnya, but most of the commentary on such issues has come from outsiders rather than direct participants.
The current issue of the Daghestani online newspaper, “Nastoyashcheye vremya,” provides a welcome exception with its publication of information supplied anonymously by a Chechen blogger about how the Internet with its blogs and social media is developing in his republic (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/5875/109/).
The paper’s Bagdat Tumalayev who writes frequently about new media in the Caucasus but relatively seldom about developments in that sector in Chechnya reports that “a Chechen blogger who wishes to remain anonymous has decided to talk about the state of affairs with regard to the Internet in his native region.”
The Chechen blogger’s desire for anonymity, Tumalayev says, “is understandable even though today this region has become stable” because “it isn’t especially comfortable for anyone living in Chechnya itself to write about this openly.” But the Daghestani journalist continues, “judging [from his text], the Internet in Chechnya is developing in a not bad way!”
Moreover, he continues, conditions are being created for its future growth. Vaynakh-Telecon, the leading Internet provide in Grozny, has recently “significantly lowered [its] prices.” Now, Chechens who want to go online can do so at a speed of 1mb/second for only 1200 rubles (40 US dollars) a month.
Among the most popular sites in Chechnya are Chechen-republic.com, Checheninfor.ru, and Chechnyafree.ru, a project of the Golos Rossii radio station. A social network for Vaynakhs, waynahi.ru, has arisen and offers itself as “a national social network for Chechnya and Ingushetia,” although the paper says “it is difficult to speak about how well known it is.”
But social networks are growing. There are already 211,000 Chechen residents registerd on the Russian social network, Odnoklassniki.ru, and there are 26,000 Grozny residents who use the Vkontakte.ru service. Also important in this regard, the Chechen blogger relates, is the Internet forum, vchechne.ru, where there are discussions about all kinds of issues.
The Grozni.org site carries photographs of the Chechen capital today, while Grozny.vrcal.com has photos from before the first Chechen campaign. Current news about the city is available on grozny-inform.ru, the Chechen blogger says, without indicating what he thinks of the content of that outlet.
Other interesting cites the blogger refers to include moct.org, the site of the graduates of the Grozny Oil Institute, fc-terek.ru, terek-grozny.ru,and Chechen sport.com which follow sports clubs. Also important are chechenasso.ru, which features news on Chechen communities outside of Chechnya, garikish.com and gakish.livejournal.com, which discuss social issues.
Ratings of these and other Chechen sites is available at chechentop.ru. There are also “several dozen” Chechen bloggers. The most widely read of these sites are the blog of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, ya_kadyrov.livejournal.com and that of Chechen journalist Timur Aliyev, timur_aliyev.livejournal.com.
Other blogs of note include the diary of Murat Mamirgov, the editor of Islamtv.ru, at mamirgov.livejournal.com, the blog of Arslan Khasavov, a Chechen writer of Daghestani origin, ubl.livejournal.com, and the blog of Leko Gudayev, the webmaster of the Checheninfor site, leko007.livejournal.com.
According to the anonymous Chechen blogger, the Chechen government is actively supporting these bloggers by giving them gifts and prizes as part of what it calls “The Golden Site of CHENET.” He does not say whether such arrangements are intended to ensure that the government knows what is going on, but that possibility cannot be excluded.
Window on Eurasia: Russian Campaign against Muslim Moderates Strengthens Islamist Extremists, Commentators Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 18 – Those Russians who oppose the modernization and integration of Russia’s Muslims into the political and social life of their country are unwittingly providing support to the Islamist radicals who argue that “there is no chance for normal legal work for the development of Islam” in Russia, two Muslim commentators say.
Indeed, Ruslan Kurbanov and Rinat Mukhametov argue in a lengthy article on the “Russky zhurnal” portal, this ongoing campaign against those within the Russian umma who want to modernize Islam represents “a serious threat to the common state interests of security and development” (www.russ.ru/pole/Islamskaya-modernizaciya-i-ee-vragi).
The occasion for their article, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, is “the unceasing media-administrative campaign against the Union of Muftis of Russia [SMR]and its leader [Ravil Gainutdin]” and the fact that this campaign is “a clear testimony to the sharpening of the situation in the social-religious life of the country.”
They say that there are now “serious concerns that influential forces would like to exclude even the potential possibility of the enlivening and even more productive activity of domestic Muslims not to speak about some sort of more serious steps such as attempts at the unification” of the Russian umma.
“No one is obligated to love Islam and Muslims,” they continue, but such efforts, “which are trying to tie down the Russian umma hand and foot represent a serious threat” to Russia, and it is not surprising, they point out that “all this is being carefully observed by the imamate ‘forest,’” a reference to the militants in the North Caucasus and elsewhere.
Unlike Talgat Tajuddin of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), Ismail Berdiyevof the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, and Mukhammad Rakhimov of the Russian Association of Islamic Accord (RAIS), Gainutdin and his SMR have attracted negative comment precisely because of their support for Muslim modernization.
The SMR, in contrast to the three other umbrella MSDs, “has been attempting to lead young people along the path of what is called ‘constructive Jihad,’ of legal Islamic social, cultural, media, intellectual and other types of activity,” Kurbanov and Mukkhametov say, “and this for various reasons does not please a large number of people.”
Much of Gainutdin’s program remains “the level of declaration,” they note, “but this positive example of the possibility of the normal peaceful development of Islam, the modernization and integration of the Muslim intelligentsia and young people” is attracting the interest “of all Muslim Russia.”
That is because Gainutdin and his SMR represent the possibility that Muslims in Russia will be able to “establish real and effective mechanisms and models of adaptation of Islam within the framework of contemporary Russian statehood,” something “without which, the solution of the problem of extremism is impossible.”
“Islamophobes” – and these are “completely definite forces with political and financial interests,” the two writers continue, “do not see a future for Islam in Russia.” Some of them believe that Islam should not be part of a Russian nation state, and others argue that Islam should be reduced in influence so that Russian can become “part of the Western world.”
But both the one and the other, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “however suprising this may appear, are in agreement with the so-called ‘forest brothers’ in the Caucasus and with all those who sympathize with them [because] they too do not see Islam and Muslims as an inalienable part of Russia and Russian identity.”
The attacks on Gainutdin and the SMR, the two Muslim writers say, reflects a faulty logic, one that if applied to the Russian Orthodox Church would require everyone to blame Patriarch Kirill for the actions of the skinheads and serial murders of non-Russians. “We do not think that a discussion at this level is useful for the Russian state.”
Kurbanov and Mukhametov devote most of their article to a discussion of the history of Russian attitudes toward Islam and Muslim organizations, and they demonstrate that both in the pre-1917 period and now, Islamophobes opposed any modernization of Islam and promoted both the spread of Orthodox Christianity and Russification.
But in contrast to the sophistication of the pre-revolutionary leaders of this approach, the current Islamophobes are destroying their own case by promoting discredited leaders within Islam, leader who, Kurbanov and Mukhametov says, are “not cable of influencing Muslims the muftis of which they consider themselves to be,” in the hopes of destroying the umma.
The government-assisted rise of such leaders, they say, represents “a big gift to ‘the forest,’” one that the Caucasus Emirate “could not have imagined on its own.” The propagandists of that group treat what the Islamophobes are doing in Russia as evidence of the rightness of the struggle against Moscow.
“In ‘kafir’ Russia,” the Emirate’s propagandists say, “Leaders are imposed on Muslims who have lost any authority as a result of their declarations and activity; consequently, the development of Islam is blocked; and that in turn means that ‘our task is right’ and that ‘we will win.’”
In this way, and despite the failure of many to understand what is going on, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “the attack on the modernization of Muslim institutions is an attack on the security” of the country as a whole, all the more so because “without modernization [of the country],” Russia will not be able to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.
Those who oppose modernization generally and in the Muslim umma “are only playing into the hands of those who want that Russian Muslims do not feel themselves masters in their own land and of those … would like to remove the ‘Muslim’ bricks from the building of the single state and thus make possible the destruction of our entire common home.”
Russia’s Islamophobes oppose the consolidation of the umma on a platform of modernization, the two writers argue, and believe that the difficulties within the Islamic community there are not “problems of growth” but systemic and that “Islam always will be a factor of destabilization and a headache” for Russia.
These opponents of Muslims “advise the bureaucrats that it is necessary to continue the course on the step by step elimination of Islam – not ‘Islamism’ and ‘Wahhabism’ but Islam as such.” And to that end, they urge that “the official Islamic institutions in Russia remain at the level of Soviet times.”
But such an approach entails some really tragic consequences, Kurbanov and Mukhametov argue. It means that those really interested in Islam will be forced to go into “semi-legal or even illegal” places, that the official leaders will remain “illiterate and reactionary,” and that Islam n Russia will again be reduced to “rituals” rather than “faith.”
“In fact,” they say, what Islamophobes like Roman Silantyev are calling for would represent “a return to the pre-Catherine policy toward Islam, the core idea of which was Christianization by any means, including the use of force,” an approach that will in the present circumstances lead to an explosion.
That is because “the formation of the umma and the Islamic awakening in Russia are an irreversible process,” the two Muslim writers say. “The point of no-return has been passed.” The modernizers understand this and want to ensure that the rebirth of Islam takes place within Russia, while “the Islamophobes and ‘the forest brothers’ want this not to happen.”
“For different reasons, the one and the other do not want to see Islam within Russia.” But “sooner or later, a normal working system of interrelationships with Muslims will have to be developed. Those who have any doubts about this should carefully study the results of the last census of the population.”
“In order to avoid problems,” Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “it would be better to do this sooner rather than later. The state, the Russian people, the Union of Muftis and ‘the modernizers’ have an interest in doing it sooner. The Islamophobes and ‘the forest’ want it to happen as late as possible or better still not at all.”
Staunton, April 18 – Those Russians who oppose the modernization and integration of Russia’s Muslims into the political and social life of their country are unwittingly providing support to the Islamist radicals who argue that “there is no chance for normal legal work for the development of Islam” in Russia, two Muslim commentators say.
Indeed, Ruslan Kurbanov and Rinat Mukhametov argue in a lengthy article on the “Russky zhurnal” portal, this ongoing campaign against those within the Russian umma who want to modernize Islam represents “a serious threat to the common state interests of security and development” (www.russ.ru/pole/Islamskaya-modernizaciya-i-ee-vragi).
The occasion for their article, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, is “the unceasing media-administrative campaign against the Union of Muftis of Russia [SMR]and its leader [Ravil Gainutdin]” and the fact that this campaign is “a clear testimony to the sharpening of the situation in the social-religious life of the country.”
They say that there are now “serious concerns that influential forces would like to exclude even the potential possibility of the enlivening and even more productive activity of domestic Muslims not to speak about some sort of more serious steps such as attempts at the unification” of the Russian umma.
“No one is obligated to love Islam and Muslims,” they continue, but such efforts, “which are trying to tie down the Russian umma hand and foot represent a serious threat” to Russia, and it is not surprising, they point out that “all this is being carefully observed by the imamate ‘forest,’” a reference to the militants in the North Caucasus and elsewhere.
Unlike Talgat Tajuddin of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), Ismail Berdiyevof the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, and Mukhammad Rakhimov of the Russian Association of Islamic Accord (RAIS), Gainutdin and his SMR have attracted negative comment precisely because of their support for Muslim modernization.
The SMR, in contrast to the three other umbrella MSDs, “has been attempting to lead young people along the path of what is called ‘constructive Jihad,’ of legal Islamic social, cultural, media, intellectual and other types of activity,” Kurbanov and Mukkhametov say, “and this for various reasons does not please a large number of people.”
Much of Gainutdin’s program remains “the level of declaration,” they note, “but this positive example of the possibility of the normal peaceful development of Islam, the modernization and integration of the Muslim intelligentsia and young people” is attracting the interest “of all Muslim Russia.”
That is because Gainutdin and his SMR represent the possibility that Muslims in Russia will be able to “establish real and effective mechanisms and models of adaptation of Islam within the framework of contemporary Russian statehood,” something “without which, the solution of the problem of extremism is impossible.”
“Islamophobes” – and these are “completely definite forces with political and financial interests,” the two writers continue, “do not see a future for Islam in Russia.” Some of them believe that Islam should not be part of a Russian nation state, and others argue that Islam should be reduced in influence so that Russian can become “part of the Western world.”
But both the one and the other, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “however suprising this may appear, are in agreement with the so-called ‘forest brothers’ in the Caucasus and with all those who sympathize with them [because] they too do not see Islam and Muslims as an inalienable part of Russia and Russian identity.”
The attacks on Gainutdin and the SMR, the two Muslim writers say, reflects a faulty logic, one that if applied to the Russian Orthodox Church would require everyone to blame Patriarch Kirill for the actions of the skinheads and serial murders of non-Russians. “We do not think that a discussion at this level is useful for the Russian state.”
Kurbanov and Mukhametov devote most of their article to a discussion of the history of Russian attitudes toward Islam and Muslim organizations, and they demonstrate that both in the pre-1917 period and now, Islamophobes opposed any modernization of Islam and promoted both the spread of Orthodox Christianity and Russification.
But in contrast to the sophistication of the pre-revolutionary leaders of this approach, the current Islamophobes are destroying their own case by promoting discredited leaders within Islam, leader who, Kurbanov and Mukhametov says, are “not cable of influencing Muslims the muftis of which they consider themselves to be,” in the hopes of destroying the umma.
The government-assisted rise of such leaders, they say, represents “a big gift to ‘the forest,’” one that the Caucasus Emirate “could not have imagined on its own.” The propagandists of that group treat what the Islamophobes are doing in Russia as evidence of the rightness of the struggle against Moscow.
“In ‘kafir’ Russia,” the Emirate’s propagandists say, “Leaders are imposed on Muslims who have lost any authority as a result of their declarations and activity; consequently, the development of Islam is blocked; and that in turn means that ‘our task is right’ and that ‘we will win.’”
In this way, and despite the failure of many to understand what is going on, Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “the attack on the modernization of Muslim institutions is an attack on the security” of the country as a whole, all the more so because “without modernization [of the country],” Russia will not be able to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.
Those who oppose modernization generally and in the Muslim umma “are only playing into the hands of those who want that Russian Muslims do not feel themselves masters in their own land and of those … would like to remove the ‘Muslim’ bricks from the building of the single state and thus make possible the destruction of our entire common home.”
Russia’s Islamophobes oppose the consolidation of the umma on a platform of modernization, the two writers argue, and believe that the difficulties within the Islamic community there are not “problems of growth” but systemic and that “Islam always will be a factor of destabilization and a headache” for Russia.
These opponents of Muslims “advise the bureaucrats that it is necessary to continue the course on the step by step elimination of Islam – not ‘Islamism’ and ‘Wahhabism’ but Islam as such.” And to that end, they urge that “the official Islamic institutions in Russia remain at the level of Soviet times.”
But such an approach entails some really tragic consequences, Kurbanov and Mukhametov argue. It means that those really interested in Islam will be forced to go into “semi-legal or even illegal” places, that the official leaders will remain “illiterate and reactionary,” and that Islam n Russia will again be reduced to “rituals” rather than “faith.”
“In fact,” they say, what Islamophobes like Roman Silantyev are calling for would represent “a return to the pre-Catherine policy toward Islam, the core idea of which was Christianization by any means, including the use of force,” an approach that will in the present circumstances lead to an explosion.
That is because “the formation of the umma and the Islamic awakening in Russia are an irreversible process,” the two Muslim writers say. “The point of no-return has been passed.” The modernizers understand this and want to ensure that the rebirth of Islam takes place within Russia, while “the Islamophobes and ‘the forest brothers’ want this not to happen.”
“For different reasons, the one and the other do not want to see Islam within Russia.” But “sooner or later, a normal working system of interrelationships with Muslims will have to be developed. Those who have any doubts about this should carefully study the results of the last census of the population.”
“In order to avoid problems,” Kurbanov and Mukhametov say, “it would be better to do this sooner rather than later. The state, the Russian people, the Union of Muftis and ‘the modernizers’ have an interest in doing it sooner. The Islamophobes and ‘the forest’ want it to happen as late as possible or better still not at all.”
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Seeks to Reduce Concentrations of Muslim Soldiers in Military Units
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 18 – Concerned about the impact on draft resistance and military readiness of clashes between ethnic Russians and soldiers from the North Caucasus, the Russian defense ministry has cut the size of the draft quota for at least some North Caucasus republics and is working to prevent the concentration of North Caucasian soldiers in any military unit.
A meeting of the defense ministry’s public council last Thursday concluded that problems between soldiers from the North Caucasus and those from elsewhere reflect broader problems in the society, including the failure of the educational system to promote tolerance (www.trud.ru/article/15-04-2011/261742_prizyvnikam_iz_dagestana_objavili_dembel.html).
And as a long term solution, participants at that session, “Trud” reported, believe that the solution to such problems in the military will be the creation of a cadre of professional sergeants. But because the Russian military needs approximately 100,000 of them and is producing only about 500 a year, that solution will not be available anytime soon.
Consequently, as the Moscow paper reported, “the generals without advertising this have already found a solution to the problems by reducing the size of the draft from the Caucasus by an order of magnitude” and by working to ensure that draftees from that region will not be concentrated in particular units.
At the meeting, Nikita Mikhalkov, the well-known film director, sharply critized “not the defense ministry but the education ministry for the fact that it was not involved in the moral training of the younger generation and even, in his words had eliminated the use of the term moral training.”
He and other participants agreed that the military thus must rely on its own resources to address inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions and that “the main figure in the harmonization of inter-ethnic relations must be the sergeant who will spend all the time in the barracks and will know all the nuances in the behavior of his subordinates.”
But as Anatoly Tsyganok, the head of the Moscow Center of Military Prognostication, pointed out, the Russian military is producing too few sergeants to make a difference. At the current rate, he told the paper, it will be more than 200 years before there will be the number needed to make a difference.
Consequently, Russian commanders are seeking to reduce the presence of North Caucasians in the ranks. As Andrey Doroniin, the former deputy commander of the Moscow Military District noted, there exist “simpler means” of preventing such conflicts: North Caucasian soldiers “must not be concentrated in one place.”
And yet another means, “Trud” reported, is to reduce draft calls in the North Caucasus. “According to the information of the military commissariat of Daghetan, this year only 400 people will be called to service, compared to 4,000” who were drafted from the republic in the recent past.
This short-term “solution” entails at least two serious problems, however. On the one hand, it will make it more difficult for the military to fill the ranks because an ever-growing share of the draft-age cohort consists of people from the Muslim republics in general and the North Caucasus in particular.
Military commissariats in predominantly ethnic Russian regions will have to use ever more force to meet their quotas, and Russian parents and potential draftees will see themselves as paying a higher “tax” than those in non-Russian areas, exacerbating Russian nationalist attitudes toward non-Russians in Russian cities and toward non-Russian regions as a whole.
And on the other, any reduction in draft quotas in the North Caucasus will increase the rate of unemployment there, complicating Moscow’s efforts to overcome the problems that have contributed to a seemingly unending flow of young men into the forests to fight against the Russian regime.
Moreover, and this may be the most serious consequence of this unannounced policy, the decision to draft fewer non-Russians because of the problems they supposedly cause will lead ever more of them to view both the Russian military and Russia itself as being just as much an alien occupier as the Islamist militants insist that the two are.
Staunton, April 18 – Concerned about the impact on draft resistance and military readiness of clashes between ethnic Russians and soldiers from the North Caucasus, the Russian defense ministry has cut the size of the draft quota for at least some North Caucasus republics and is working to prevent the concentration of North Caucasian soldiers in any military unit.
A meeting of the defense ministry’s public council last Thursday concluded that problems between soldiers from the North Caucasus and those from elsewhere reflect broader problems in the society, including the failure of the educational system to promote tolerance (www.trud.ru/article/15-04-2011/261742_prizyvnikam_iz_dagestana_objavili_dembel.html).
And as a long term solution, participants at that session, “Trud” reported, believe that the solution to such problems in the military will be the creation of a cadre of professional sergeants. But because the Russian military needs approximately 100,000 of them and is producing only about 500 a year, that solution will not be available anytime soon.
Consequently, as the Moscow paper reported, “the generals without advertising this have already found a solution to the problems by reducing the size of the draft from the Caucasus by an order of magnitude” and by working to ensure that draftees from that region will not be concentrated in particular units.
At the meeting, Nikita Mikhalkov, the well-known film director, sharply critized “not the defense ministry but the education ministry for the fact that it was not involved in the moral training of the younger generation and even, in his words had eliminated the use of the term moral training.”
He and other participants agreed that the military thus must rely on its own resources to address inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions and that “the main figure in the harmonization of inter-ethnic relations must be the sergeant who will spend all the time in the barracks and will know all the nuances in the behavior of his subordinates.”
But as Anatoly Tsyganok, the head of the Moscow Center of Military Prognostication, pointed out, the Russian military is producing too few sergeants to make a difference. At the current rate, he told the paper, it will be more than 200 years before there will be the number needed to make a difference.
Consequently, Russian commanders are seeking to reduce the presence of North Caucasians in the ranks. As Andrey Doroniin, the former deputy commander of the Moscow Military District noted, there exist “simpler means” of preventing such conflicts: North Caucasian soldiers “must not be concentrated in one place.”
And yet another means, “Trud” reported, is to reduce draft calls in the North Caucasus. “According to the information of the military commissariat of Daghetan, this year only 400 people will be called to service, compared to 4,000” who were drafted from the republic in the recent past.
This short-term “solution” entails at least two serious problems, however. On the one hand, it will make it more difficult for the military to fill the ranks because an ever-growing share of the draft-age cohort consists of people from the Muslim republics in general and the North Caucasus in particular.
Military commissariats in predominantly ethnic Russian regions will have to use ever more force to meet their quotas, and Russian parents and potential draftees will see themselves as paying a higher “tax” than those in non-Russian areas, exacerbating Russian nationalist attitudes toward non-Russians in Russian cities and toward non-Russian regions as a whole.
And on the other, any reduction in draft quotas in the North Caucasus will increase the rate of unemployment there, complicating Moscow’s efforts to overcome the problems that have contributed to a seemingly unending flow of young men into the forests to fight against the Russian regime.
Moreover, and this may be the most serious consequence of this unannounced policy, the decision to draft fewer non-Russians because of the problems they supposedly cause will lead ever more of them to view both the Russian military and Russia itself as being just as much an alien occupier as the Islamist militants insist that the two are.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Patriarchate Official Says Muslim Crescents Could be Put on Coats of Arms of Russia’s Muslim Regions and Republics
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 15 – Religious leaders, heraldry experts, and other commentators have rejected Mufti Talgat Tajuddin’s call for putting a cresent on the coat of arms of Russia, but a senior official in the Moscow Patriarchate has opened the way for more controversy by suggesting a Muslim crescent could be put on the coats of arms of Muslim republics and regions.
That is because the suggestion of Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Patriarchate’s Department for Relations between Church and Society, could open the floodgates by demands from Muslims in various parts of Russia for just such representation and create a checkerboard of Muslim regions as opposed to non-Muslim ones.
And the symbolism of such an obvious division – and it would certainly change over time – would undercut efforts by Moscow to overcome inter-religious hostility and promote a common national identity and could reignite calls by some Muslim leaders to create Muslim political parties, something not now allowed by Russian law, to press for crescents.
In a statement to the media today, Chaplin, who is a close protégé of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, spoke out against Tajuddin’s proposal to put a Muslim crescent on on of the equals on the coast of arms of Russia, arguing that such a change was unnecessary given the tradition the current shield with crosses reflects (www.nr2.ru/society/328369.html).
“That historical form of the Russian coat of arms,” Chaplin said, “which has existed already for many centuries is historically justified. Islam is a local phenomenon for Russia [as] it is distributed as the dominating religion in particular regions. On the coats of arms of these regions may be both crescents and other Islamic symbols.”
“But on the Russian coat of arms, a cross has been present on the crowns over many centuries,” the Patriarchate official continued, adding that in his view “it is not necessary to change anything” at least for this symbol of the Russian Federation and its centuries-old traditions.
Chaplin’s remarks came in reaction to a proposal Talgat Tajuddin, who has occasionally styled himself as the “Mufti of Holy Russia” and head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), made in the course of an interview published in “Moskovskiye novosti” earlier today (mn.ru/newspaper_freetime/20110415/301066658.html).
Tajuddin, who has a reputation for flamboyance, told the paper’s Elena Suponina that he had sent his proposal to replkace on of the crosses on the Russian coat of arms with a Muslim crescent moon to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and had discussed it with President Dmitry Medvedev.
As the mufti pointed out, “the Russian coat of arms is a two-headed equal. All three crowns of this eagle – two on the head and one inbetween above them are marked with crosses. But in Russia there live 20 million Muslims. This is 18 percent of the population, and we are Russian Muslims, not from Saudi Arabia … Africa or the moon.”
“Our ancestors have lived here for millennia. By the will of the Most High we are united in a state. And a neighbor is equal to a brother. We are a constituent part of a single state. But then, where must a Muslim carry his passport on which the coat of arms is reproduced? In his left pocket, of course, near the heart!”
Prior to 1917, Tajuddin continued, “Muslims in the army gave their oath on the Koran. There were regimental mullahs andimams. They were assigned by spiritual administrations. During the war with Turkey, our ancestors did nto consider they were fighting against Muslims: they were defending their motherland, great Russia.”
“Recall the heroism of the Bashkir cavalry in 1812,” Tajuddin said; “they went into attack first. And in 1945, for example, my grandfather advanced to Berlin.”
“In Russia has been achieved a synthesis of a kind that never was in Europe or America,” the mufti continued. Here met East and West. In order that this patriotism not disappear among our children and grandchildren, we humbly ask to introduce certain changes in the coat o farms of our common land.”
Specially, he said, “we ask that one head of the eagle be crowned with a crescent moon and the other with an Orthodox cross. And that crown which is in the middle be both. Then not one enemy will be able to use the religious factor to harm the unity and integrity of our fatherland.”
In response, Russia’s master of heralds rejected this idea (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40352) as did many Muslims (echo.msk.ru/news/766358-echo.html), Jews (www.argumenti.ru/society/2011/04/102414), and representatives of the human rights community (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40350).
That united front of rejection makes Chaplin’s remark all the more curious – and at least potentially all the more dangerous, even though it may be walked back by other Orthodox hierarchs or used by them to suggest that the Moscow Patriarchate is, on this issue at least, more liberal and tolerant than many suspect.
Staunton, April 15 – Religious leaders, heraldry experts, and other commentators have rejected Mufti Talgat Tajuddin’s call for putting a cresent on the coat of arms of Russia, but a senior official in the Moscow Patriarchate has opened the way for more controversy by suggesting a Muslim crescent could be put on the coats of arms of Muslim republics and regions.
That is because the suggestion of Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Patriarchate’s Department for Relations between Church and Society, could open the floodgates by demands from Muslims in various parts of Russia for just such representation and create a checkerboard of Muslim regions as opposed to non-Muslim ones.
And the symbolism of such an obvious division – and it would certainly change over time – would undercut efforts by Moscow to overcome inter-religious hostility and promote a common national identity and could reignite calls by some Muslim leaders to create Muslim political parties, something not now allowed by Russian law, to press for crescents.
In a statement to the media today, Chaplin, who is a close protégé of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, spoke out against Tajuddin’s proposal to put a Muslim crescent on on of the equals on the coast of arms of Russia, arguing that such a change was unnecessary given the tradition the current shield with crosses reflects (www.nr2.ru/society/328369.html).
“That historical form of the Russian coat of arms,” Chaplin said, “which has existed already for many centuries is historically justified. Islam is a local phenomenon for Russia [as] it is distributed as the dominating religion in particular regions. On the coats of arms of these regions may be both crescents and other Islamic symbols.”
“But on the Russian coat of arms, a cross has been present on the crowns over many centuries,” the Patriarchate official continued, adding that in his view “it is not necessary to change anything” at least for this symbol of the Russian Federation and its centuries-old traditions.
Chaplin’s remarks came in reaction to a proposal Talgat Tajuddin, who has occasionally styled himself as the “Mufti of Holy Russia” and head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), made in the course of an interview published in “Moskovskiye novosti” earlier today (mn.ru/newspaper_freetime/20110415/301066658.html).
Tajuddin, who has a reputation for flamboyance, told the paper’s Elena Suponina that he had sent his proposal to replkace on of the crosses on the Russian coat of arms with a Muslim crescent moon to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and had discussed it with President Dmitry Medvedev.
As the mufti pointed out, “the Russian coat of arms is a two-headed equal. All three crowns of this eagle – two on the head and one inbetween above them are marked with crosses. But in Russia there live 20 million Muslims. This is 18 percent of the population, and we are Russian Muslims, not from Saudi Arabia … Africa or the moon.”
“Our ancestors have lived here for millennia. By the will of the Most High we are united in a state. And a neighbor is equal to a brother. We are a constituent part of a single state. But then, where must a Muslim carry his passport on which the coat of arms is reproduced? In his left pocket, of course, near the heart!”
Prior to 1917, Tajuddin continued, “Muslims in the army gave their oath on the Koran. There were regimental mullahs andimams. They were assigned by spiritual administrations. During the war with Turkey, our ancestors did nto consider they were fighting against Muslims: they were defending their motherland, great Russia.”
“Recall the heroism of the Bashkir cavalry in 1812,” Tajuddin said; “they went into attack first. And in 1945, for example, my grandfather advanced to Berlin.”
“In Russia has been achieved a synthesis of a kind that never was in Europe or America,” the mufti continued. Here met East and West. In order that this patriotism not disappear among our children and grandchildren, we humbly ask to introduce certain changes in the coat o farms of our common land.”
Specially, he said, “we ask that one head of the eagle be crowned with a crescent moon and the other with an Orthodox cross. And that crown which is in the middle be both. Then not one enemy will be able to use the religious factor to harm the unity and integrity of our fatherland.”
In response, Russia’s master of heralds rejected this idea (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40352) as did many Muslims (echo.msk.ru/news/766358-echo.html), Jews (www.argumenti.ru/society/2011/04/102414), and representatives of the human rights community (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=40350).
That united front of rejection makes Chaplin’s remark all the more curious – and at least potentially all the more dangerous, even though it may be walked back by other Orthodox hierarchs or used by them to suggest that the Moscow Patriarchate is, on this issue at least, more liberal and tolerant than many suspect.
Window on Eurasia: Absent Modernization, Russia Faces Massive Brain Drain and Exodus of Business, Kremlin Advisor Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 15 – If modernization does not take place over the next few years, a senior Kremlin advisor says, Russia will suffer a massive “brain drain” and the departure of much of its businesses, the largest to the West and the small and mid-sized to Kazakhstan, leaving it an “uninteresting” bridge between China and Europe.
But despite that prospect, Aleksandr Auzan, a member of the Presidential commission on modernization and technological development of the economy of Russia, concludes sadly, the possibility that Russia will choose to modernize is relatively small, a reflection of short-term thinking and confusion between inertia and stability (www.nr2.ru/chel/328413.html).
Auzan, a professor at Moscow State University, says that this brain drain is already starting: “half of his students, elite specialists, are leaving to work abroad and not even thinking about returning.” In their wake “business is departing, big business toward the West and small and mid-sized toward Kazakhstan.”
In this case, the economist says, Russia will have a future like the one described in Vladimir Sorokin’s novels: It will be a country “across which will pass a 15-lane highway between China and Europe.” That won’t be a complete tragedy, he adds, but Russia will “simply be a country of little interest,” one from which all talented people will leave.”
Moreover, in the absence of modernization, “if Russia begins to improve the quality of education, then even more specialists will leave.” If they are to be retained, then there need to be places of interest for them. “The oil pipeline doesn’t need smart and qualified people,” or at least “it needs few of them. And this is the tragedy of the country.”
“Who must change the country?” Auzan asks rhetorically. “The majority of citizens,” he points out, “do not want any modernization; a minority wants it but doesn’t believe in it,” with “all pointing to stability as the achievement of the Putin era.” But economists like himself, Auzan continues, don’t see this stability as firm or long-lasting.
“There are undoubted results,” he concedes. In the first five years of this century, Auzan notes, Russians experienced a 11-12 percent growth in their incomes. “But now they aren’t: inflation is eating everything quite quickly.” As a result, “the economy of the country is becoming ever worse.”
“It is worse than at the start of the 2000s,” Auzan says, “because it is still more completely based on raw materials exports … We are ever weaker in an international sense [and] we are slowly-slowly sinking.” Indeed, World Bank experts now say that “Russia is the weakest of the developing countries.”
What success Moscow has had in maintaining stability, the economic advisor says, is based on “a miracle of not very divine origin.” Indeed, he says, “for this [stabilitiy] it was necessary to conclude a pact with the devil.” Such a pact can by inertia work for five to 20 years, but then “problems will begin and very rapidly.”
Auzan says that countries which have successfully passed through the process of modernization have had several specific characteristics. They have seen “a growth in the values of self-realization over the values of survival, an orientation to results rather than process, a growth in individualism, that is, a willingness to act despite what others say.”
“But the chief one,” he says, “in countries which have successfully passed through modernization, the distance of the powers [from the population] has fallen. That is, people begin to relate to the state as something not distant from themselves but toward which they have a relationship and in which they can get involved.”
Auzan suggests that “the chances for modernization in Russia in generally are not very high at present.” Because of high oil prices, “we are condemned to stagnation” because modernization does not begin when people feel they are doing well but rather when they conclude that they are not.
Moreover, he says, “Russia is not ready for modernization and for technological leaps and a storm of innovations.” For that to be the case, there would need to be what “already exists in a number of developed countries: effective laws, judges, patents and the like. Everything which does not exist in Russia.”
For Russia to modernize, even when a commitment to doing so finally emerges as a result of a recognition of the threats ahead, Auzan says will require “not less than 20 years” because as many forget, “modernization is a process that is economic in its outcome but socio-cultural in its content. Therefore, it is a lengthy one.”
Staunton, April 15 – If modernization does not take place over the next few years, a senior Kremlin advisor says, Russia will suffer a massive “brain drain” and the departure of much of its businesses, the largest to the West and the small and mid-sized to Kazakhstan, leaving it an “uninteresting” bridge between China and Europe.
But despite that prospect, Aleksandr Auzan, a member of the Presidential commission on modernization and technological development of the economy of Russia, concludes sadly, the possibility that Russia will choose to modernize is relatively small, a reflection of short-term thinking and confusion between inertia and stability (www.nr2.ru/chel/328413.html).
Auzan, a professor at Moscow State University, says that this brain drain is already starting: “half of his students, elite specialists, are leaving to work abroad and not even thinking about returning.” In their wake “business is departing, big business toward the West and small and mid-sized toward Kazakhstan.”
In this case, the economist says, Russia will have a future like the one described in Vladimir Sorokin’s novels: It will be a country “across which will pass a 15-lane highway between China and Europe.” That won’t be a complete tragedy, he adds, but Russia will “simply be a country of little interest,” one from which all talented people will leave.”
Moreover, in the absence of modernization, “if Russia begins to improve the quality of education, then even more specialists will leave.” If they are to be retained, then there need to be places of interest for them. “The oil pipeline doesn’t need smart and qualified people,” or at least “it needs few of them. And this is the tragedy of the country.”
“Who must change the country?” Auzan asks rhetorically. “The majority of citizens,” he points out, “do not want any modernization; a minority wants it but doesn’t believe in it,” with “all pointing to stability as the achievement of the Putin era.” But economists like himself, Auzan continues, don’t see this stability as firm or long-lasting.
“There are undoubted results,” he concedes. In the first five years of this century, Auzan notes, Russians experienced a 11-12 percent growth in their incomes. “But now they aren’t: inflation is eating everything quite quickly.” As a result, “the economy of the country is becoming ever worse.”
“It is worse than at the start of the 2000s,” Auzan says, “because it is still more completely based on raw materials exports … We are ever weaker in an international sense [and] we are slowly-slowly sinking.” Indeed, World Bank experts now say that “Russia is the weakest of the developing countries.”
What success Moscow has had in maintaining stability, the economic advisor says, is based on “a miracle of not very divine origin.” Indeed, he says, “for this [stabilitiy] it was necessary to conclude a pact with the devil.” Such a pact can by inertia work for five to 20 years, but then “problems will begin and very rapidly.”
Auzan says that countries which have successfully passed through the process of modernization have had several specific characteristics. They have seen “a growth in the values of self-realization over the values of survival, an orientation to results rather than process, a growth in individualism, that is, a willingness to act despite what others say.”
“But the chief one,” he says, “in countries which have successfully passed through modernization, the distance of the powers [from the population] has fallen. That is, people begin to relate to the state as something not distant from themselves but toward which they have a relationship and in which they can get involved.”
Auzan suggests that “the chances for modernization in Russia in generally are not very high at present.” Because of high oil prices, “we are condemned to stagnation” because modernization does not begin when people feel they are doing well but rather when they conclude that they are not.
Moreover, he says, “Russia is not ready for modernization and for technological leaps and a storm of innovations.” For that to be the case, there would need to be what “already exists in a number of developed countries: effective laws, judges, patents and the like. Everything which does not exist in Russia.”
For Russia to modernize, even when a commitment to doing so finally emerges as a result of a recognition of the threats ahead, Auzan says will require “not less than 20 years” because as many forget, “modernization is a process that is economic in its outcome but socio-cultural in its content. Therefore, it is a lengthy one.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
