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directions: Russia-the USA-China, Russia-India-Pakistan; taking into account the activities of the anti-terrorist coalition - the USA-Russia-Iran-Iraq-Afghanistan with inclusion in this list of Japan, the leading Arabic oil producing countries and other Muslim states of the East. At the same time, while shaping the policy and practical steps in mutual relations with the CA states it is necessary to take into account that the influence of three prominent religions and of five great cultures remains significant: Islam, Buddhism, Orthodoxy and Islamic, Chinese, Slavonic, Mongolian and Iranian cultures. After disintegration of the USSR, the western culture and European values are presented in the region in a peculiar way by means of special etalons of democracy and human rights. At the same time, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia by many ways (and rather successfully) try to indoctrinate their ideas in the south and in the east of the Central Asia, particularly in Fergana Valley and in the Caspian Basin. The strategic aim of Russia should be subordinated to the most significant task to achieve preservation of the Central Asian countries in the zone of Slavonic culture, which, evidently, will promote stabilization of the whole region.
"Krah dugi nestabilnosti: Balkany-Tsentralnaya Aziya", M, 2010, p. 176-189.
Robert Landa,
doctor of historical sciences (the IOS of the RAS)
ISLAMISM IN THE CENTRAL ASIA AND RUSSIA
Some experts in religion regard Islamism of today as a simple pseudonym of nationalism. It is both correct in one sense and incorrect in the other sense. The contemporary Islamism is a definite stage of
development of Islam, which has a rather great influence also on nonMuslim peoples, and one may agree with this by observing the present situation in Russia and western countries. This influence covers not only the sphere of national consciousness but also shows aspiration to prove its historical-civilization identity and religious specificity, to protect its traditions and rituals, the originality of its social life and daily habits, threatened by expansion of adepts of other religious views, called in the past the Crusades and later the epoch of colonialism, while today it is known as the globalization.
This position, which is conservative-protective by its form and patriotic-ground by its essence, is called usually fundamentalism; but it would be quite groundlessly to equate it with extremism. The experts in Islam have proved and justified long time ago that fundamentalism is the ideological and cultural phenomenon, that it is an attempt to express the originality and inimitability of Islamic civilization and a peculiar form of self-assertion of Islam as a social-cultural system. It is worth citing the meaning of prominent expert in Islam academician E. Primakov, who in time, when he occupied the post of the foreign minister, said: "We do not equate Islamic fundamentalism with Islamic extremism".
Extremists represent within fundamentalists a flashy minority, propagated by its adepts. But the main force of fundamentalism is in taciturn majority of its followers. These "moderate" Islamists do not accept the extremes and are ready to advance their ideas by peaceful means. Jointly with those, who in general do not support fundamentalism, they occupy the dominant positions in Islam. But radicals try to win them to their side. It is impossible to isolate extremists in any Muslim community without comprehension of this fact.
One should take into account that Islam always was an alien to politics and considered theocracy as its ideal. The contemporary Islamic fundamentalism is already the third wave of the rise of Islam for the last 150 years. Its first wave was Pan-Islamism, which tried to unite Muslims, at least Sunni in the Ottoman Empire, against colonial expansion of Europe. The second wave after collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Pan-Islamism became nationalism, which attained for the 1920s-1960s the political liberation from the colonial yoke. Since other aspects of colonialism remained and even aggravated, the Islamic ideologists unleashed an offensive "against nationalism" in order to change it for Islamism. It became a kind of "phenomenon of the second half of the XX century". At present, politicization of Islam is caused by the whole burden of aggravated social-economic contradictions in the Muslim world and the difficulties of not always successful modernization, being often contradictory to dogmas of Islam, caused by the demographic pressure and technological backwardness, which deepen the gap between the West and the East, inherited from the past. This situation should be supplemented by the effect of the western flourishing, which irritates the rising in numbers and more active Muslim Diaspora in Europe and the USA.
The all mentioned processes had their features, specifics and tempos of development as well as their results. On the territory of the disintegrated Union Islam tried to fill by itself the vacuum of ideas appeared for the period of the 1990-1991. From lJanuary 1991 to 1 January 1993, for instance, the number of mosques and religious Muslim organizations in the Russian Federation increased from 870 to more than 4 thousands. The same process was going on in Muslim republics of the CIS, where for the same period the number of Islamic institutions and mosques increased in Azerbaijan - from 84 to 300, in Kazakhstan - from 136 to 150, in Kirghizstan - from 58 to 150, in
Tajikistan - from 75 to 300, in Turkmenistan - from 54 to 115, in Uzbekistan - from 300 to more than 1 thousand. Various institutions of traditional Islamic education - medreces, special higher education institutions and universities were founded, while many new Muslim newspapers and magazines were published and many new publishing houses were founded. The representatives of Muslim clergy started to take part in political activities, were elected to the parliaments and local official organs. All this was absolutely normal especially after the long period of violation of the believers' rights, persecution and repressions. At the same time, the beginning of the 1990s was marked by the expansion in the whole post-Soviet space of the leading circles of the Muslim clergy, of banks, private and states structures of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arabic Emirates, which used the new chances in all CIS republics, including Russia, and constructed mosques and Islamic centers, sent educators and preachers, financed implementation of different projects, accepted for training the youth from the countries of the former USSR, primarily, to the strictly religious higher and high education institutions.
The rise of protest feelings in Muslim regions of the former Union stimulated also the ideas of nationalism, separatism, mutual non-acceptance and alienation among ethnoses and confessions, suppressed for the previous time (or skillfully hidden for some time), while the accumulated experience of mutual action and cooperation was thrown away as an allegedly useless and doomed to oblivion phenomenon, jointly with the red banners and ideals of socialism and other values of "Soviet" civilization. All social-political forces urged towards usage of similar ideas in the post-Soviet space, including Muslim regions in the Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus, where the aggravation of "allUnion" economic and moral problems was supplemented by local specifics, determined by A. Malashenko as a restoration of the historic-
cultural essence of Soviet Islam and its re-integration in Islamic community. However, Islam seems not to abandon its historic-cultural essence either in Russia or especially in other regions of the USSR even in times of the most rigid restrictions, while its reintegration in the community was also rather conditional, as was shown by the last decade of the XX century.
The retrospective appraisal of the events, related to Islam in the whole space of the CIS, shows that Islam became less self-dependent and separated from the state and political power in the sovereign republics of the Central Asia and in Azerbaijan, where democratization of society confronted greater hindrances and was marked by much bigger losses than in Russia itself. The circumstance that Islam was the religion of the great majority of the population determined a special and delicate attention to it. Everywhere Islam filled (as it became evident later only partially) the vacuum of ideas after collapse of Communism and was a rather dangerous weapon in political struggle. For the beginning, the political elite of the Central Asia considered as a needed action the concessions, made to the prevailing views of the Muslim clergy and to some publicly declared rebellious demands of Islamists, but later the situation changed.
It should be admitted that the leaders of the CIS Muslim republics did not aspire for disintegration of the USSR, but they quickly reconciled with it, since they saw its causes and also did not want to be responsible for the great burden of mistakes, failures and somewhere of crimes committed in Soviet times. The new political elite, grown mainly within the CPSU, had to get rid as soon as possible of its Communist past and the corresponding image. The rapprochement with Islam was one of the steps in this direction. At the same time, already before the year of 1991 it was a common knowledge that impoverishment of many Muslims due to ecologic disasters (drying up
of the Aral river, the consequences of nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk, degradation of the soil in the cotton-growing districts), the forced migration to the zones of thoughtless industrialization, the weak adaptation of rural residents to the conditions of life in cities became a significant social condition of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and "anti-Moscow" feelings. Since the beginning of the 1990s, this ideological phenomenon played a greater and greater role in life of Muslims in the CIS countries, where Muslims represented the majority of the population.
The fundamentalists considered in the USSR as their enemies the state officials and everybody, who was connected with them, including the Muslim clergy. The Muslim clergy, educated in Soviet times, including the last decades, formed a peculiar category of preachers, who disseminated, according to western experts, the most conservative type of Muslim jurisdiction with the view of keeping the most archaic forms of Islamic culture. In this way they froze spiritual and religious-social life of Muslim communities in the USSR, neutralizing, on the one side, a potential opposition and, on the other side, ensuring stability of their position. The most numerous faction of the clergy was supported by most intellectuals in Muslim regions of the USSR, including its new cadres, educated after 1917. As a rule, they originated from the peasantry and the former "privileged" classes (the bourgeoisie, the nobles and the clergy), were actually depoliticized by purges and persecution of Communists and judids (liberals-renovators) for the 1920s-1930s; according to some western authors, they were closely connected with the generation of their parents and seemed to be conservative people, who respect habits and family traditions of the past, called "aksakal views"- exaggerated reverence to the elders. Owing to the connections with them the conservative part of the clergy was able during the crisis of the 1990s to keep its control over the
prevailing mass of believers, held in check (mainly) the impact of the young (not experienced) fundamentalists and (principally) prevented to use Islam as a banner and as a weapon of the mass struggle against the former local Soviet state apparatus. As a result, the state apparatus got time and chance to be renovated and to prepare better for the struggle to come to power.
The traditional Sufi leaders (hodjis, ishans) both officially and non-officially being preachers of Muslim cult in the Central Asia (like in the North Caucasus) and enjoying authority among many believers resolutely supported the conservatives in their opposition to fundamentalism. As a rule, they skillfully synthesized shariat with people's custom (adapt). The fundamentalists tried to use this circumstance against them and demanded to be guided only by Koran and Sunna. However, it is difficult to say how fortunately was the choice, made to support this argument: Islam actually does not function anywhere "in pure form", without addition of adapt. Besides, Sufism is rather influential and in many cases is perceived by believers as a usual and traditional form of "people's Islam". The fundamentalists succeeded a lot by criticism of the Soviet order, of Communism and of "bureaucrats in turbans" but were unable to undermine influence of Sufism .
And what is more, there failed the efforts, exerted by them, including the efforts within the framework of the Islamic Party of Revival (IPR), aimed at winning political power in the USSR by means of the parliament and the projected unification of Islamic republics in a peculiar confederation. Everywhere nationalism turned out to be more potent than Islamism, while the former state and party nomenclature was more cunning and realistic than fundamentalists, who lacked either political skill, or psychological persuasiveness, or breadth of views liberated from dogmatic blinkers, or comprehension of interests of the
main participants of the social-political struggle for the beginning of the 1990s.
It was shown by the failure of the Tajik branch of the IPR (IPRT), which existed for only several years. It was founded in October 1990, and one year later about 15-20 thousand people became members of this party. For the beginning, having participated in turbulent events for the period of the 1990s-1992s, the IPRT acted vacillatingly and even did not put the demand to establish "the Islamic state", came forward for founding "a legal secular democratic state". The attempt of the fighters of the IPRT to proclaim in Karategin (the zone of its greater influence) creation of the Garm Islamic Republic in autumn 1992 was suppressed by the coalition government of Tajikistan in February 1993; as a result, 60 thousand people fled from Tajikistan to Afghanistan, and up to 5 thousands of them became the fighters of the party Movement of Islamic Renaissance. In June 1993 the IPRT was forbidden, since it had joined the bloc of the opposition forces. It is significant that the IPRT, participating in the coalition government of the country, was unable either to make other fractions of the political elite listen to its proposals or to ensure the united tactic of its supporters. The behavior of the latter was determined even not so much by ideological considerations and non-acceptance of conjuncture evolutions of the ruling elite as by the clannish or regional belonging. At the same time, the opposing forces, primarily the People's Front of Tajikistan, which were also not alien to the influence of clans and regional considerations, however, were oriented to the all-national interests and took into account the disinclination of the majority of the population of the country (both Tajiks and ethnic minorities, which made 35%) to experience the destiny comparable with destiny of neighboring Iran and Afghanistan.
It was quite logical therefore that the authorities of the Muslim republics of the CIS, which for the 1991-1992 years had to reckon with the Islamists ("Adolat" Muslim organization, close to Muslim Brothers, in Uzbekistan, the Turkic-fundamentalist party "Alash" in Kazakhstan, the Islamic center, headed by S.Kamalov, in Kirghizstan), by the end of 1992 actually everywhere started to suppress the opposition like in Tajikistan. However, stability was attained not only by means of repressions against the opposition and by consolidation of new state apparatus (to a large extent by the old training) but also by systematic counter action of radical Islam against tolerant Islam, of fundamentalism against nationalism, and nationalism (if the opposition used it) against regionalism, personified by "enlightened authoritarian rule" and charisma of the national leader able to propose the exit from chaos in all republics of the former USSR for the beginning of the 1990s. The past events proved the impossibility of either solidarity of all CIS Muslims or even only Islamic fundamentalists in the circumstances when nationalist feelings got the upper hand almost in all Muslim republics of the former Union, while regionalism turned out to be stronger than nationalism in some of them. It was proved, particularly, in 1992 by the leader of democrats in Tajikistan Shodmon Yusuf , who said that "the tribal consciousness recognizes the right for survival only for the representatives of a given tribe". The evidence of this is preservation up to present of the problem of "dominance of northerners" and "rebellion mood of southerners" in Kirghizstan, where they usually make a thorough calculation of the share of representatives of different regions in all state institutions from top to bottom.
Regionalism, clanship and traditions (both of the pre-revolution and of the Soviet periods) actually everywhere plaid and play now the not lesser role than Islam and even nationalism. One should also take into account the growth of authoritarian trends practically in all Muslim
republics of the CIS, having made conclusions from events in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as well as from the explosions of the people's dissatisfaction in Kazahstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan for the last years of the Soviet period. The old elite of the state and party nomenclature rallied with officials of the state apparatus and with intellectuals and (which is especially important) with the majority of the Islamic priests, with army officers and officials of other law enforcement bodies. All of them wanted to prevent disturbances, provoked by aggravation of economic and ecological difficulties, to cope with the social and political crisis, to avoid ethnic-political chaos "in Afghan way" and domination of fanatics-clericals "in Iranian way".
By the beginning of 1993, the fundamentalists of the Middle Asia actually everywhere sustained defeat. Nevertheless, their organizations, which carried out underground and semi-underground activities, grew and consolidated regardless the will of the official clergy and new national bureaucracy. For the same time other local Islamic parties started to appear (for instance, the Islamic Party of Turkestan characterized also by Pan-Turkic orientation), and they tried to maintain contacts with external forces, which intensified their activities after the fall of Nadjibulla regime in 1992 and its replacement by the power of Islamists. The attempts of external interference (especially in internal affairs in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kirghizstan) took place also beforehand. However, since 1993 they became more and more persistent.
This process was facilitated by disintegration of the USSR and by the events in the Soviet space as a whole: the rapid aggravation of the economic situation due to disruption of inter-republican ties and the flight of the non-title (not only Russian) population, by the enormous rise of criminality, the uncontrolled dispersal and use of arms, by the wild outburst of arbitrariness and terrorist arbitrary rule in the street, in
offices, in enterprises. The people are tired of repeated fights, clashes, forced acts, robbery and the assassinations made to order, claims of numerous people full of lust for power and of inter-ethnic quarrels. Probably, all parts were to blame. However, most of them accused mainly Islamists and democrats of the going on events. They were confronted primarily by former officials of the law enforcement bodies, the poorest strata of the population, who saw the rescue in return to the former order and in general to cessation of chaos by all means, as well as, however paradoxical it is, the most propertied groups, connected mainly with those, who had ruled before the 1991. At the same time, the fear of the rising wave of Islamic extremism in neighboring countries, evidently, was of importance for all strata of the population in the Central Asia.
The new elite of the Muslim republics of the CIS, which came to power being at the head of ethnic-centrist and national-separatist movements, gradually comprehended that as long the numerous contradictions, caused by the deep crisis of the Soviet society on the boundary between the 1980s and the 1990s, would interlace into a tight knot, the danger of further spread of Islamism within various opposition forces will grow. It meant simultaneously their more clear orientation to external Islamism both of Iran and of more bellicose Afghanistan supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, not speaking of their sponsors in the West. Therefore both new rulers of the CA states and the modernized groups of the population (intellectuals, employers, state employees and qualified workers of modern enterprises) took all possible actions, under complicated conditions of the 1990s, for regulation of all (political, military and inter-ethnic) conflicts and for extenuation of the ideological, regional and personal contradictions, which stimulated the conflicts.
For all contemporary forces of these states, created in Soviet times mainly by successes of the USSR, the victory of Islamists might mean only the loss of cultural, spiritual, technological and intellectual ties with Russia, the Russian language and of education received in this language, the loss of chances to use their qualification with preservation of industrial-economic, technological, military, financial-credit, trade and other cooperation with Russia. To a great surprise, for a rather great part of the moderate fraction of Islamists, irrespective of their belonging to any clan or region, their compromise with their opponents and the agreement with Russia turned out to be more profitable than the absolute (and rather questionable) victory of radical Islamism. The latter option would have meant the inevitable social and economic degradation of the country having agreed to this variant, the push backwards for 60-70 years behind the present time, the transformation into a second-rate variant of the Afghan nest of narcotic business and Islamic extremism with different ties of dependence on the southern neighbors and rather rigid forms of enmity to those, who would in this case inevitably double their resistance against the aggressive terrorism covering themselves by religious banners.
The events in the Muslim regions of "near abroad" for the end of the XX century make it possible to show clearly the situation of Islam in the post-Soviet Russia. Evidently, for the first years of its existence as a sovereign state the Russian Federation confronted many other problems. But the situation of Islam and the role of Muslims in Russian society were quite important problems. At the same time, the political, ideological and social-economic crisis, which caused disintegration of the USSR, was a hard experience for Russia and conditioned a special attention of Russians to the events in the CIS republics, including Muslim republics, which had separated from it. One should not forget also about the hard conditions of life of the Russian and the Russian
speaking population outside the territory of the RF, suddenly having become a national minority with infringed and at least reduced rights. At that time of the 1980s-1990s, this population made up as follows: almost half - in Kazakhstan, one third - in Kirghizstan, 13% - in Turkmenistan, 11% - in Uzbekistan and 10% - in Tajikistan.
Further, the share of this population declined steadily, while its position became more complicated, since the new ruling elites of the post-Soviet states at first regarded it only as a undesirable "heritage of the Soviet period", which was subject to be get rid of as soon as possible. The representatives of this elite (sometimes intellectuals) in their public talks deprived Russians even of the right to have their own point of view on history of mutual relations between Russia and Muslims, asserting that "our history may be written only by our intellectuals", that Russians, including Russians, living in the CIS republics, "impose their imperial ambitions". In case of interpretation of the events, particularly of tragic events, in history of the peoples of the USSR, one might rarely hear that "the historic facts should be interpreted in the way, which does not separate the peoples but, on the contrary, promotes consolidation of friendship of the peoples".
All this not only stimulated polemics, formally - scientific and in essence - politicized, when all its participants usually displayed their subjective, intolerable and uncompromising views, explained by the tide of nationalistic passions, throughout the whole post-Soviet space since 1991 and sometimes earlier. The disputes covered a wide circle of subjects -from the numbers of losses suffered by the peoples in Soviet times to the type of the elites ready to enter "the colonial distant area of the imperialist empire". The hot disputes on problems of history, ethnology and cultural problems usually resulted in nothing, since their aim was not the settlement of scientific issues but exclusively the justification of the political rightness of the discussions' participants.
These discussions usually became more politicized, if representatives of foreign powers took part in them, striving in most cases for raising the level of nationalistic anti-Russian feelings.
Not less than 6-7 years should have passed after disintegration of the USSR, when its negative consequences were determined quite definitely to promote in mentality and scientific works of Muslims of the post-Soviet space, side by side with former dominant particular-separatist tends, the appearance of the aspiration for uniting with Russia and of comprehension of peculiarities of the centuries-long, particularly for the Soviet times, of "the society of common destiny" marked by "multilateral mutual action of two religious communities and not of their parallel co-existence". F. Mukhametshin noted in 1998 that " already in the XIX century on the territory of the Russian Empire there formed Eurasian civilization, a "special cultural-historic system", which was reflected both in mentality of peoples in Russia and in political culture of the Russian elite, in the main political institutions". Abroad they also wrote about "close relations" of ancestors of Muslims and Russians, "having influenced on historic evolution", simultaneously noting that "asymmetric" relations between Moscow and, for instance, Kazan were influenced after 1991 by the received by the latter of economic and political advantages, particularly much bigger allocations from the state budget of Russia to the budget of Tatarstan and the right to maintain direct trade relations with the world. This circumstance was not ignored in the Central Asia, which maintains with the coreligionists in the Volga Basin regular, particularly cultural-religious ties.
At the same time, given the influence and capacity of the social-political, historic and traditional local forces opposing in the Central Asia Islamism, especially radical Islamism, the danger on its part still remains. For the 1990s, only in Fergana valley not less than ten
extremist organizations exerted their pressure on parishioners of at least 800 mosques. For some time past, in various districts of the Central Asia the groups of fighters periodically intensified their activities; they were connected with the branches in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir of international Party of Islamic Liberation, established in Jordan in 1950, as well as with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which recently changed its name for the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT). All of them enjoy support of Islamists, who fled from the CA states, as well as of numerous foreign Muslim charitable foundations, cultural centers, various education institutions and other organizations propagating Islamism and often being a refuge for the fighters, who interrupted their activities for some time.
The social-political logic is broken sometimes by the complexity of contemporary life, which is displayed by activities of Islamists even in the places, where they lack the sustainable and evident influence. It occurs most of all due to the external influence and is connected either with reinforcement of flows of narcotics trade from Afghanistan via the Central Asia or with the contacts of some Afghan Islamists with their relative ethnic communities across the northern borders of the country, or with common corruption, including a part of the population indifferent to the ideas of Islamists but involved in smuggling and receiving good payment in hard currency for shelter and food given to the fighters. Of some importance are also the mistakes of the authorities, which either are lulled into complacency ("we lack wahhabism") or go too far in persecution of "wahhabism", suspecting quite often groundlessly thousands ordinary believers of wahhabism. In both cases Islamists get a chance to use the situation in their interests.
"Vostok: yzovyXXIveka", M., 2010, p. 9-22.
