Moscow treads softly with its Muslims
By Yevgeny Bendersky
As last
week's terror campaign against the Russian Federation
reached a bloody crescendo with the deaths of hundreds
of children in its southern city of Beslan, the world
was once again reminded of the vulnerability of Russia
to Muslim-sponsored terrorism. Within a space of one
week, two passenger liners went down within minutes from
each other, a suicide explosion killed innocent
bystanders near Moscow's subway, and a group of
militants took hostage - and eventually killed -
hundreds of young innocent lives.
The Russian
government pointed to the possible al-Qaeda link in all
these events, once again promising tough measures in its
own fight against terrorism and Islamic fundamentalist
fighters in the restive Republic of Chechnya. The
aftermath of these attacks in the name of Chechen
independence now poses a difficult set of questions in
Russia's relationship with its large Muslim population.
Russia's Muslim population Officially,
Russia's Muslims number about 20 million people out of a
population of almost 150 million. Incorporated first
into the Russian Empire, and later into the Soviet Union
by force, their religion was largely under the control
of the state for centuries. This was especially poignant
under Soviet rule, when overall religious freedoms were
greatly curtailed. The majority of mosques and
madrassas (seminaries) were closed or destroyed,
with few outlets remaining for the expression of Islam
as a religion in the country.
While nearly 50
million people identified themselves as Muslims in the
USSR, they could not fully practice their religion and
its laws. The staunchly secular nature of the Soviet
Union largely stripped its people of the need for
religion, and only a few customs or major holidays could
be practiced or passed onto the young generations. Thus,
when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, the
overwhelming majority of the USSR's Muslims had only a
limited understanding of, and access to, their religion.
This changed drastically after 1991, when
freedom of religion became one of the main tenets in the
newly democratic Russian Federation. The government
actively promoted the freedom of its main religions -
Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Islam
experienced a revival, with hundreds of mosques and
religious schools opening across the country, helped in
no small part by Saudi Arabian, Turkish and Iranian
efforts. This also meant that the population at large
came into direct contact with a religion that has been
regarded with distrust and suspicion for hundreds of
years.
Russian history points to the rise of the
country as a major player in world events by conquering
powerful Muslim khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan
in the 16th century, Central Asian territories in the
17th and 18th centuries, and the largely Muslim Caucasus
in the 19th century. The image of a Muslim fighter as
the freedom-loving enemy of the Russian state has been
ingrained in the public mind in books, folklore and even
movies.
The last time the state had to deal with
a Muslim threat prior to 1991 was during the start of
World War II, when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
forcefully deported hundreds of thousands of Chechens
and Crimean Tatars to their death for their alleged
collaboration and sympathy with Nazi Germany. Thus, the
Russian population's suspicion of Muslims went side by
side with tolerance and normal relations as a result of
coexistence within the same state for hundreds of years.
Russia's Muslims have historically lived in two
broad geographical areas of the country. One part lives
in the Volga river basin, and is made up of Tatars,
Bashkir and Chuvash peoples. They have been part of the
Russian state since the 16th century, and their
autonomous regions and republics lie in the heart of the
Russian Federation. They are Russian citizens and have
been an integral and inseparable part of the state - be
it the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union.
The
second large Muslim population lives in the region
between the Black and the Caspian Seas, in the Caucasus
area. These populations were finally incorporated into
the state much later, in the 19th century, and
small-scale resistance to state rule existed all the way
up to 1991. This resistance quickly escalated into
full-scale war as the Republic of Chechnya sought to
break away from the Russian state as an independent
Islamic republic.
Still, the majority of Muslims
in that region owe their allegiance to the Russian
state, and have resisted attempts by Chechen separatists
and their backers to drag them into full-scale
confrontation with Moscow. Currently, Russian forces are
fighting a bloody war in Chechnya, with no end in sight
to this conflagration. The cycle of violence has
attracted powerful Islamic fundamentalist forces, such
as al-Qaeda, to the region, culminating in last week's
hostage drama.
Delicate balancing act Therefore, the Russian government has been
performing a balancing act in its relations with its
Muslim population. On the one hand, it has expended
considerable forces and criticism on the branches of
Islam and the Islamic fighters, many of whom are foreign
and of Arab descent, that are behind numerous and
large-scale bloody attacks on the Russian military and
citizens in Chechnya and surrounding areas. On the
other, it seeks to constantly reassure its Muslim
population of their freedom to practice the religion and
of their full inclusion into all facets of life in the
Russian Federation.
This is a new area of work
for the Russian state, since its actions prior to 1991
towards its own Muslims have neither been scrutinized by
worldwide opinion, nor by Muslim countries around the
world. Nor can Moscow ignore the fact that its large
Muslim population, starved for Islamic teachings and
practices for decades, is now eager to catch up on lost
time. The attraction of Islam is growing among the young
Muslim generation, and with it the possibility that more
radical Islamic teachings, made possible by post-1991
religious freedoms, can take hold on the population.
In 2000, President Vladimir Putin warned that if
Islamic extremism can take hold among the Muslim
population in the Caucasus, it can then spread to the
Volga region, resulting in the Islamization of Russia or
in the country's division into several independent
states. Both scenarios are unacceptable to Moscow, and
it moved, in conjunction with local Muslim authorities,
to close certain mosques and schools that were suspected
of more radical teachings of Islam. While the state has
actively promoted a more moderate form of Islam and has
even incorporated Islamic parties into the ruling
governments, the possibility of dissension between the
Muslim population and the state remains.
This
possibility came to light in 2003, and has highlighted
just how careful Moscow's balancing act towards its
Muslim population is. Russia's war in Chechnya has been
characterized and described by Moscow as the fight of
the state against a small, separatist-minded Islamic
group adhering to the more puritanical Wahhabi sect of
Islam. To that end, it was important to get the support
of the rest of the country's Muslims for its actions in
the breakaway republic. This support came when the
Supreme Mufti Talgat Tajuddin - one of the highest
Muslim leaders in the country - told his worshippers in
2001 that the war in Chechnya was necessary, since it
was the fight against terrorists and not
"brothers-in-faith".
The same Mufti, however,
was later removed from his position and stripped of his
rank in 2003, after he announced jihad - or holy war -
against the United States for its actions in Afghanistan
and Iraq. The Russian Council of Muftis, who called his
actions "a colossal blow to the authority of Russian
Muslim organizations and damaging to the country's
foreign policy", highlighted the brevity of this event.
Clearly, statements similar to Tajuddin's are an
anathema to Putin, who needs the support of a large
portion of his country in his domestic and foreign
policy.
To that end, in August 2003 Russia went
a step further in reassuring its Muslim population by
becoming a member in the Organization of Islamic
Conferences (OIC), the most influential Muslim
organization in the world. This meant that Putin offered
effective measures for development of Islam in Russia,
raising the spiritual, economic and political
cooperation between the country and members of the
organization. Greater tolerance of Islam and Muslims in
Russia also effectively means good relations with all
Islamic states from Algiers to Indonesia.
Russia
has now achieved a more important union with Islamic
states than it had during the Cold War, when it was one
of the principle weapons suppliers to the Middle Eastern
countries. In addition, its membership in the OIC serves
its own geopolitical purposes by also checking growing
American presence in the Muslim states following the
terrorist attacks of September 11. Thus, it is all the
more important for the Russian government to encourage
peaceful and fruitful relations with its Muslim
population.
But the war in Chechnya has gone to
great lengths to antagonize the general population -
and, in some cases, the government itself - against
Russian Muslims. Many of them complain of harassment and
intimidation by police and federal forces in Chechnya,
the surrounding areas and even Moscow, home to a
million-strong Muslim community. The atmosphere of the
Chechen war and the government's emphasis on Islam as
the inspiration for the separatists are fueling negative
attitudes, stereotypes and public suspicion.
The
government's tolerance for Islam also has limits, as was
shown in 2002 in several highly publicized Russian court
cases. In situations calling to mind recent developments
in France, where Muslims have entered a new chapter of
relations with the government following the recently
enforced ban on headscarves in schools, several Russian
women lost their cases against the ban on headscarves on
pictures in Russian passports. While these court rulings
have not received as much publicity as similar cases in
France and other European countries, they highlight the
tension between the secular nature of the Russian state
and new freedoms and opportunities the government is now
obligated to protect.
Conclusion This
tension now has the opportunity to lead to undesirable
consequences, as Russia faces the possible dangers of
sectarian violence often associated with India and its
large Muslim population. Previous acts by Chechen
Islamic separatists have not been as frequent nor did
they target innocent children with impunity. They also
did not include many Arab fighters. Russian sources have
repeatedly stated that as many as 10 attackers in Beslan
were of Arab descent.
The Russian public,
horrified by the week of terror, may grow less patient
and bolder in its dislike of Chechens in Moscow or of
Muslims in other areas of the country, perceiving their
adherence to Islam as the support for the actions of the
few men and women acting in the name of their Islamic
beliefs. Perhaps sensing this danger, the worldwide Arab
media was recently critical of the Muslim-sponsored
terror in a capacity not seen since September 11, 2001.
It is not clear how - through military and
political means - the Russian government and Putin will
respond to last week's terror attacks. But one point is
clear - whatever its response, Moscow will have to
strike a careful balance between going after a few
Islamic terrorists and providing safety, security and
reassurance to its large Muslim population.
Published with permission of thePower and
Interest News Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into various
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