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Victor Avksentiev,
D.Sc. (Phil.), Director of the Institute for Social-Economic Research of the SSC of RUS Boris Aksyumov, D.Sc. (Phil.),
CONFLICT-RAISING SCENARIOS IN THE SOUTH OF RUSSIA IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL-CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGION
The South of Russia as usual remains one of the most problematic macro-regions of Russia.
The division in 2010 of the "Great" South Federal District into two entities and separation from its composition of "the district of concentrated problems" - the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) resulted in the following: the territories being the locomotives of development of the whole South - the Krasnodar krai and the Rostov region - remained in one district, while the territories marked by greater economic and political problems were defined to be in the new district. On the other side, given many negative consequences of this division, it had also its positive consequences.
First, the state sent to society the clear signal, which showed that the North Caucasus presents for it the matter of primary concern and that it is ready to take actions and incur needed losses for stabilization of the situation.
Second, by creating the new district and providing the political representative in the NCFD with the special status and the sphere of powers the federal center made it possible to intensify economic and social-political life of the region.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that at present the NCFD is the only "working" district in Russia. Nevertheless, it was impossible to change the situation for the better. The terrorist acts, firings, attacks
against officials and murders of religious and public figures take place every day in the district. All these events question the reality of the strategy of economic reconstruction of the North Caucasus and the feasibility of big investments in development of tourist-recreational sphere in the region of chronic instability.
"Theoretic key" to the prognosis
of the situation in the South of Russia"
In 2005, the scientists of the Southern Scientific Center of RAS started to work out the scenario's prognoses in the southern macro-region. The elaborated scenarios of conflicts for the first decade of the XXI century turned out to be proved partially. The scenarios were annually corrected and discussed at the meetings with representatives of authorities, and they were subject to discussion at other scientific arrangements (conferences and round tables etc.). Particularly, in 2009 the conclusion was made that at least in the eastern part of the North Caucasus the moderate-negative (from force of inertia) scenario was replaced by the negative scenario.
The prognosis on conflicts for the medium-term period was made on the basis of the expert poll in the South of Russia in 2009.
The experts made the prognosis on the peak of the tension's escalation in 2012, which was conditioned by the key event, the election of the President of Russia and the postponed consequences of election processes for the 2011. This prognosis was amended on the basis of factual analysis, and the conclusion was made on the next peak of the conflicting situation in 2014: as the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Sochi draw nearer, the conflicting and risky nature of this project becomes more evident.
This prognosis does not signify a de-escalation of regional conflicts and tension. For the second part of the second decade of the
XXI century, the new prognosticated today conflicting factors will come forward. A new election period will take place in some years: in 2016 the next elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation will be held, and in 2018 the election of the President of Russia will take place. The solution of many problems of modernization of the political system will be postponed for the time of these elections, and the elections of 2011-2012 clearly showed the need of solving these problems.
The election process is not the sole conflicting factor, which may be prognosticated for the second half of the current decade. The crisis of the power "drawn to the surface" by elections in 2011-2012 was a portent but still not a part of a probable systemic crisis in Russia. The crisis' processes in the political sphere were going on against the background of the favorable external economic conjuncture. The prices of oil and gas remained stable and high, however, for the past periods of time the fluctuations in prices of energy resources caused political turmoil.
For the second part of the period of the 2000s, the studies were often marked by predictions that a new extended crisis may turn out to be pernicious for the South of Russia. In 2006, an alarmist conflicting scenario was described by the authors. At the same time, it was said that there were no adequate conditions for such scenario and that under those conditions it was not in all likelihood. Further it was shown that the probability of this scenario might be conditioned by a large-scale crisis of the Russian statehood, an economic collapse and a full loss of geopolitical influence of Russia in the Trans-Caucasus. In the time of "rich years" these prognoses were considered rather abstract and hypothetic, almost unreal.
However, at present the situation is principally different. As A. Rubtsov mentioned, in 2011 the alarmist warnings became quite
ordinary, and the expert community enjoys itself at the fair of signals. The report of the Institute of Contemporary Development "Finding Future: Strategy of 2012" had great repercussions in the first half of 2011; the report contained dark perspectives for Russian society in case of failure of the modernization project. The present politicians in spite of modernization rhetoric failed to ensure consolidation of modernization's supporters. Meanwhile, the real and not verbal modernization is the last chance of Russia to keep its geopolitical influence for the coming decade.
As a known prognosis it is possible to cite the study of the Center for Macro-economic Analysis and Short-term Prognosis, which points out that the high level of deficit threatening a crisis (2%, 2.1% and 2.2%) will take place in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The year of 2018 may be regarded as problematic from the point of view of stability of Russian society: the coincidence of two mighty conflict-raising factors (the presidential elections and a probable economic crisis) may have a resonance effect.
With due account of likely economic crises in 2017, 2018 and 2019 it is possible to make the prognosis of a resonance effect as a destabilized situation in 2018-2019. Such purely preliminary prognosis is based on one of many economic prognoses. However, in this case as a rather great significance for the second half of the current decade is positioned "the decade of stability", but it will sooner be the unstable decade.
The prognoses of probable crises at the all-Russian scale represent the key factors for prognoses in the South. The current studies have led to the conclusion, that the long-term systemic crisis in the region is a specific regional embodiment of emerging and unsolved problems of the contemporary Russian statehood.
In the North Caucasus these problems are laid on the real and fictitious, the long-term emerging and artificially created problems in inter-ethnic and inter-confessional relation, on the particular geopolitical significance of the region. As a result of this process there appears a kind of resonance effect: the most problems in various degrees characterized for Russia as a whole are manifested in the North Caucasus as ethnic-political or confessional problems.
It does not mean that the daily work in the North-Caucasian region for the sake of de-escalation of conflicts, the ethnic-political and ethnic-confessional tensions is hopeless or even senseless, if the problems are not solved initially at the federal level. Quite contrary, only the daily work of all constructive forces in the region may prevent its falling away in large scale civil war and development of events according to the worst scenario.
The social-cultural factors of instability
in the South
More often they try to explain a great number of conflicts in the North-Caucasian region by economic reasons. However, the results of the existence of the NCFD for the first two years showed that the social-economic determinism is unable to be an explanatory model. Thus, the systemic bases for solving the North-Caucasian problems have been defined not quite correctly at least at the stage of creation of the district.
Having seen inefficiency of the taken measures, the federal power in the name of the plenipotentiary representative of the President of Russia in the NCFD A.G. Khloponin significantly changed the directions. At the meeting with members of the Council at the post of the governor of the Stavropol krai on the issues of inter-ethnic relations (19 January 2011) A.G. Khloponin said: "I will never agree with the
conclusion that economy is the key to solving national problems". Further, at the meeting in the Kabardino-Balkaria state university (11 February 2011), he again made the declaration about re-orientation of the policy carried out in the NCFD. The political representative definitely flatly disproved the version that the aggravation of the situation in the District was caused by high unemployment: "The situation in the Caucasus in this respect is not worse than in other regions".
In reality, all aspects of life are interconnected, and undoubtedly economic problems and disorder have negative impact on ethnic-political and ethnic-confessional processes. However, the latter are sufficiently autonomic and demand a self-dependent impact of government.
The economic problems in many regions of Russia are not less acute than in the North Caucasus; however, the people there do not take up arms and do not become fighters. The new federal district was created not due to aggravation of economic problems but due to the special concentration of social-political, ethnic-confessional risks for the Russian statehood. The reason of creation of the new district is connected with solving exactly social-political, ethnic-political and ethnic-confessional problems.
At the same time, it is necessary with more details to dwell upon and analyze the cultural-ideological preconditions of conflicts and tensions in the North Caucasus. It is necessary for this sake to use as a generalization the notion of "the Caucasian culture". The ethnic cultures of the peoples in the Caucasus differ from each other, but these differences are not big enough to exclude the vision of these cultures as a united area. The Caucasian culture comes forward at present as a part of the all-Russian culture, but as a low-integrated and non-organic part of it. And for the post-Soviet period the cultural distance is growing.
The peculiar combination of traditionalism and Islam makes up the basic ideology, values and world outlook, characterized by this culture. Variations of Islam spiritualize the contemporary (just contemporary) Caucasian culture, integrate it from within and at the same time separate from other cultural systems, for instance, from those, which are not based on religious idea.
It is possible to agree with E.M. Primakov, that the wave of Islamization is a global phenomenon. One should take into account the process of inclusion of the Caucasus in the Russian state, which was going on for two centuries under conditions of not the rise but of the abate of Islam. At present, the situation is different in principle. At present, Islam is on the rise, and it would be a mistake to ignore the influence of the rapid rise of Islam, going on in the world, on the situation in the North Caucasus. At present, the Islamic paradigm of values and world outlook transforms into the national idea of peoples in the Caucasus, fixing a special status of this region within the framework of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the ideological unity of all Muslims, their imperative participation in life of Islamic world makes it possible to speak about not only cultural-ideological but also about civilization's isolation of the Muslim North Caucasus. Therefore the difficulties of integration of the region in the all-Russian social-cultural space became understandable.
Just cultural-civilization's non-integration of the region is the most important basis of the systemic crisis in the North Caucasus.
Is the conflict of civilizations possible
on the scale of the South of Russia
At the present stage the North-Caucasian region does not blend well with trends of the social-cultural development characterized for other regions of Russia. The high level of conflicts shows the inner
characteristic of regional problems. It concerns primarily the value-ideological sphere, the attitude to religion, the world outlook and mentality. The cultural basis of conflicts and tensions in the North Caucasus makes it possible to question involvement of the region in the conflict of civilizations.
As it is known, S. Huntington, the founder of the conception "conflict of civilizations", fixing the termination of cold war with its ideological opposition of two super-systems, declared that in the future global and regional conflicts would be conditioned by cultural dependence and, first of all, connected with religion. Actually, the collapse of the be-polar system conditioned the grave conflict among the secular and the religious, the modern and the traditional systems of the world outlook and life.
The report "On Measures for Consolidation of Inter-National Consent in the Russian Society", prepared by experts for the sitting of the Presidium of the State Council in the beginning of 2011, stresses that the world trend consists of aggravation of inter-ethnic contradictions, rise of intolerance in the countries with high quality of life, against the background of growing migration flows, conflicts between religious and secular paradigms in the secular society, the search in democratic society for the lawful exit from the situation of absolute rights of minorities to the detriment of rights of the majority etc.
On the boundary between XX and XXI centuries, it turned out that some concepts and ideological schemes elaborated by the world's sociology failed not only to know beforehand but also to explain the inter-ethnic, ethnic-religious and social-cultural conflicts and contradictions of contemporary society.
The world trends have impact also on the situation in Russia, where one may surely fix aggravation of inter-ethnic, inter-confessional
and inter-civilization contradictions. In particular, the thesis of S. Huntington on the culture's conditionality of conflicting contradictions in the contemporary world finds its empirical justification in the North-Caucasian region. For the last 20 years, religious rebirth became the principal tendency of social-cultural development of the region.
While in the better modernized regions of Russia religious renaissance acquired moderate forms, in the traditional regions, particularly in the North Caucasus, the religious rebirth became the most significant factor of development of many processes, which not all may be considered as constructive. In some cases, radicalization of ethnic-confessional identification promoted aggravation of the situation in the region. The religiousness of the population in the republics of the North Caucasus, which had been suppressed for a long time, "suddenly" became the basis of self-definition and behavior both of separate subjects and the whole social groups.
This thesis is proved, in particular, by the results of the sociological research conducted with participation of the authors in autumn of 2009 in four "key" territories - Stavropol krai, Krasnodar krai, in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Chercessia, which belonged at that time to the South Federal District. As was proved by the research, the confessional belonging is very significant for the peoples of the Caucasus (67.4% of the respondents noted that it was very significant, 23.5% - significant, thus, in total 90.9%). At the same time, the share of respondents belonging to the Christian cultural area (Russians), who regarded the confessional factor as very important, made up 30.1% and as important - 34.2%, composing the total sum of 64.3%). Although the total result of the Russian respondents' views exceeds 50%, it is much lower than the share of peoples of Muslim culture (the peoples of the Caucasus).
The above results testify to the contradicting tendencies of resistance to clericalism and promotion of clerical influence in society. The essential differences in the respondents' views to a certain extent may be interpreted as the contradiction between secular and religious paradigms of the world outlook. The elements of "conflict of civilizations" are seen rather clearly in this contradiction, which is characteristic for the whole complex of social-cultural relations, the most important sphere of mentality.
From policy of tolerance to policy of integration
The social-cultural policy carried out for the post-Soviet period stressed the formation in the region of the all-Russian identity, and it is possible to regard this project as a whole quite successful. However, the civil identity is very important but relatively not complicated construction: the formal fact of citizenship makes its basis. It forms citizens but does not create the peoples.
The stable high level of ethnic-political tension in the North Caucasus shows insufficiency of civil identity as a basis of national unity and as a factor of overcoming inter-cultural and inter-ethnic conflicts in the region. The representatives of various ethnic-cultural areas as usual feel mutual estrangement and sometimes also alienation. This factor leads to separation of people, who as citizens of one state do not understand the content of their unity and do not see common social-cultural orientations.
The stake on formation of civil identity is correlated today with such strategies of harmonization of the political-cultural society as tolerance and multi-cultural policy.
The principal conception of tolerance consists in recognition of value of differences. In practice this direction often leads to absolute interpretation of differences by omitting and ignoring the common
consolidating factors, which represent the sole basis of forming the united civilization's identity and, consequently, of creating the united people. As far as multiculturalism is concerned, it recognizes firmness of the principle of cultural plurality and, mainly, regarding this plurality as the highest value, already right from the start denies a chance of integration based on distinctions of the unity. The policy of multiculturalism either in the U.S.A. or in the Western Europe always resulted in the priority of distinctions over unity and disintegration over integration.
At present it becomes evident that the stake on forming only civil identity with absolute meaning of sovereignty of civilization's self-definition, of cultural autonomy does not prove its value. The collapse of multicultural policy in many European countries urged on the search by leading Russian politicians for new possible ways of harmonization of inter-ethnical relations, inter-cultural relations and achievement of the true national unity of Russia. In particular, V.V. Putin in his article on the national question in Russia makes the main stress on exactly civilization's identity.
The civilization's identity, V.V. Putin says, is based on preservation of the Russian cultural dominant, and not only ethnic Russians but also people of other nationalities come forward as its carriers. This is the cultural code, which was put to a significant test for the recent years and which was and is subject to attempts to break it. Nevertheless, it was kept intact. At the same time, it is necessary to feed and strengthen it and to care for it.
In this sense, it is evident that the present situation in the North Caucasus shows only one real way out of the prolonged ethnic-political crisis - the passage from policy of tolerance and multi-culture to policy of integration, which supposes formation of the united social-political and cultural-civilization's space of Russia and the North Caucasus.
Integration is urged to promote significance of social-cultural (civilization's) identity, the type of identity, which is able to ensure national unity of the Russian Federation and to reduce the level of ethnic-political tension in the North-Caucasian region.
"Obozrevatel- Observer", Moscow, 2012, N 7, pp.5-18.
Alexei Malashenko,
D. Sc. (Hist.)
THE NEW PRESIDENT
AND THE "OLD" NORTH CAUCASUS
The problem of the North Caucasus remains a key problem in the policy of the new president of Russia and his administration. Quite often they speak about the need of a complex decision of "the Caucasian question", which supposes that the main question is overcoming of economic and social complications. This direction actually "postpones" the most conflicting political aspect. Meanwhile, the political crisis should be settled not only in parallel with solving economic problems but even slightly beforehand. The previous experience demonstrates that the quality changes in economy will need many years (as an example the constant gloomy indexes of unemployment), while improvement of the political situation theoretically is possible in the near future. Therefore in the text below the attention is devoted almost completely to politics. It is important to raise efficiency of all-Russian institutions in the region to formalize relations with the local republicans and to reduce the significance of the factor of personal relations among politicians at the federal level, including relations of the president with the heads of the republics. As a result, the local elites should gradually break themselves of the habit to think about the informal special status of the North Caucasus within the
