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Volume 6 Issue 3 2012
Davud KAKHRIMANOV
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Coordinator of International Contacts at the Department
for International Contacts, Russian State University of Trade and Economics (Moscow, the Russian Federation).
PROLIFERATION OF RELIGIOUS-POLITICAL EXTREMISM
IN DAGHESTAN: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ASPECTS
Abstract
T
he author probes deep into the factors conducive to religious-political extremism in Daghestan and looks at the
geopolitical, socioeconomic, ethnopolitical, and sociocultural aspects of this phenomenon.
Introduction
Many latent problems surfaced when the Soviet Union, a large ethno-federal power, fell apart; the new social and political reality across the post-Soviet expanse created even more problems. Daghestan has had its share of negative developments: the social and political crisis in the republic has not yet passed the point of no return, although today its scope has become unacceptable.
This has made Daghestan one of the most troublesome regions in the South of Russia; together with its North Caucasian neighbors, it belongs to the zone from which direct threats to the state's national security are spreading far and wide. The constitutional foundations of Russia's statehood, its
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territorial integrity, and the security of its population figure prominently on the agenda. The threats to the country's national security are posed by terrorist groups driven into more frenzied activity by the ideology of religious-political extremism.
At the turn of the 1990s, Daghestan became a seat of fundamentalist religious ideas that engulfed the Northern Caucasus; this was partly explained by the post-Communist Islamic renaissance in the republic and throughout the entire region.
This process has been unfolding under a dual impact: external pressure from Islamist ideological centers and radicalization of social and political processes inside the republic. Combined, the two factors have produced a social outburst among a considerable part of the republic's population. Here I intend to take a closer look at the factors which are accelerating the spread of radical Islamism in Daghestan.
The Geopolitical Aspect of Radical Islamism
Geopolitically, Daghestan is extremely vulnerable to external impacts: its geographic location at the crossroads of world civilizations can be described as one of the most important factors shaping the republic's ethnoconfessional and sociocultural makeup; it is part of the fairly complicated system of spatial models in the Caucasus. Its borders are quite conventional and mobile: its administrative and even state borders do not coincide in all places with its ethnic, confessional, and cultural-civiliza-tional borders.1
Indeed, a large number of Lezghians and Avars live in the north of Azerbaijan, while in the south of Daghestan there is a fairly large Azeri community. There are Kumyks and Nogais living beyond the territorial-administrative limits of Daghestan; in Turkey there are considerable diasporas of the peoples of Daghestan.2
The ethnicities of Daghestan are traditionally related to the co-religionists in the Muslim East, while the republic belongs to the "religious geopolitical crescent" that stretches from North Africa to the Middle East and Southeast Asia and separates the Muslim South from the Christian North.
The "gateway regions" conception formulated by American geographer Saul Cohen, who wrote that gateway regions "play a novel role in linking different parts of the world by facilitating the exchange of peoples, goods and ideas,"3 perfectly fits the Daghestani context. The republic is frequently described as the "gates" of the Caucasus.
This explains why the republic is very involved in the geopolitical processes now underway in the Caucasus, the Caspian area, and the Islamic world as a whole. Open to the geopolitical "winds" blowing in the Caucasus because of its geographic location, Daghestan is vulnerable to all more or less significant geopolitical perturbations in the Caucasus (which is closely involved in what is going on in the world).4
1 See: I.M. Hasanov, "Vliianie prirodnykh usloviy na rasselenie korennogo naseleniya (na primere Tatarstana," in:
Narody Evrazii. Istoria, kultura i problemy vzaimodeystvia. Materialy mezhdunarodnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konfer-entsii 5-6 aprelia 2011, Nauchno-izdatelskiy tsentr "Sotsiosfera," Penza, Baku, 2011, pp. 20-21.
2 See: K.S. Hajiev, Kavkazskiy uzel v geopoliticheskikh prioritetakh Rossii, Logos, Moscow, 2010, pp. 31-35.
3 S.B. Cohen, Geopolitics of the World System, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Boston, 2003, p. 49.
4 See: Z.S. Arukhov, "Nekotorye parametry novogo geopoliticheskogo izmereniia Rossii i Daghestana v Kavka-zskom regione," in: Severny Kavkaz i Daghestan: sovremennaia etnopoliticheskaia situatsia i puti ee stabilizatsii. Materi-aly nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, posvyashchennoy 10-letiyu RTsEI DNTs RAN (1-3 okryabria 2002 g.), DNTs RAN Press, Makhachkala, 2004, pp. 157-160.
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We all know that in the past, too, the Caucasus was one of the hubs of international contradictions.5 Today, the confrontation that gained momentum in the late 1980s and has become much more complicated has brought together more sides. It is going on amid all sorts of international and regional processes and multisided political interests of great importance for the region's countries.
This is a place where the geopolitical interests of Russia, the new independent countries of the Central Caucasus, the Middle East, America, and Europe intertwine and clash. Transnational companies are interested in the region's natural resources and the strategic communication capabilities of the Caspian.6
It should be said that Daghestan is developing into a vitally important geo-economic and military-strategic area of Russia's South and its "soft underbelly."7 The geopolitical situation around Daghestan is strongly affected by all sorts of vectors and trends. They reflect the geopolitical dynamics in the Caucasus and the rivalry between countries over access to the republic's strategic natural resources; in this way, Daghestan has already become the Caucasian geopolitical hub.8 It has been pointed out more than once in academic writings that the Islamic card played in the region to undermine Russia's position was the most logical of instruments.9 This factor is developing into a real force in the context of the current division of the spheres of influence in the Caspian-Caucasian region.
It should be said that Islamism and its most radical forms have already arrived in Daghestan: because of its geopolitical specifics described above and with no "iron curtain" to isolate them from the Islamic world, the republic's Muslims have been demonstrating a lot of interest in the Islamic trends formulating in other countries.10 The foreign ministries of the Muslim states and their religious circles, prominent religious figures, and theologians of the Muslim East have never let the developments in the Islamic communities of Russia and elsewhere in the post-Soviet expanse out of their sight: they, too, wanted to spread their influence to the post-Soviet Muslim communities.11
Numerous international organizations (Al Igasa (Islamic Relief), Benevolence International Foundation, Jamiat Ihya ul Turath, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al Hayriyya, Al-Haramain Foundation, Qatar Foundation, Iqraa, etc.) have spared neither effort nor money to spread Islamist ideology across the Caucasus.12 They have been openly promoting the pan-Islamic idea of unification of the Caucasian Muslims into a single Islamic state in the Caucasus.13
It should be said that the interests of not only the Muslim states, but also some of the Western powers can be discerned in what foreign Islamist organizations and radical Islamic structures are doing in the Northern Caucasus. The special services of Muslim and Western states and NGOs are tilling the soil to pursue their political, economic, and religious interests in the region.14 Kaflan
5 See: V.V. Degoev, Bolshaia igra na Kavkaze: istoria i sovremennost, Moscow, 2003, pp. 72-79; Sovremennye problemy geopolitiki Kavkaza, Rostov-on-Don, 2001, pp. 32-36; K.S. Hajiev, Geopolitika Kavkaza, Moscow, 2001.
6 See: K.S. Hajiev, Bolshaia igra na Kavkaze: vchera, segodnia, zavtra, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia Publishers, Moscow, 2010, pp. 45-50.
7 See: Z.S. Arukhov, "Respublika Daghestan v usloviiakh transformatsii geopoliticheskikh koalitsiy v Kavkazskom regione," in: Vzaimodeystvie gosudarstv i religioznykh obyedineniy: sostoianie i perspektivy. Materialy Severokavkazskoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, Makhachkala, 2004.
8 See: Z.A. Makhulova, Daghestan v sovremennoy kavkazskoy geopolitike Rossii (na materialakh Respubliki Daghestan), ed. by I.P. Dobaev, YuNTs RAN Publishers, Rostov-on-Don, 2006, p. 105.
9 See: A.A. Magomedov, Evraziyskiy Daghestan k itogam XX veka, Makhachkala, 2000, pp. 45-56; Z.A. Makhulo-va, Daghestan v kavkazskoy geopolitike Rossii, Makhachkala, 2005, pp. 54-60.
10 See: K.M. Khanbabaev, "Islamskiy radikalizm na Severnom Kavkaze," Svobodnaia mysl, No. 3, 2007, pp. 105116.
11 See: "Zarubezhnye sponsory islamskikh ekstremistov," Problemy natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Series, Analit-icheskiy vestnik Soveta Federatsii FS RF, No. 11 (263), 2005, p. 36.
12 See: M.R. Aliev, "Vliianie zarubezhnykh religioznykh organizatsiy na radikalizatsiiu islama v Daghestane," Go-sudarstvo i religia v Daghestane, Information-analytical Bulletin (Makhachkala), No. 3, 2002, p. 34.
13 See: K.M. Khanbabaev, M.G. Yakobov, Religiozno-politicheskiy ekstremizm i opyt protivodeystviia, Respub-likanskaya gazetno-zhurnalnaia tipografia, Makhachkala, 2008, pp. 7-12.
14 See: A. Litoy, "Malaia politika. Kto ukhodit v radikaly," Novoe vremya, No. 25, 2006, pp. 23-25.
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Khanbabaev, an expert in religious-political extremism in the Caucasus, is convinced that the religious-political, extremist, and terrorist organizations in the Northern Caucasus live on the money they receive from abroad and earn inside Russia by setting up an infrastructure of financial sources. It has been established that about 60 international Islamist organizations, over 100 foreign companies, and dozens of bank groups fund Caucasian extremists and terrorists.15
It seems, however, that the phenomenon of religious-political extremism and terrorism in Daghestan and the republic's Islamization cannot be completely explained by the geopolitical "games" in the Caucasus and the Caspian; other no less important factors should not be forgotten either. Indeed, it is hardly correct to heap the guilt on international Islamist organizations to account for the wide popularity of fundamentalism and religious-political extremism in the republic, especially in regions where there have been practically no extremist activities. Nor can the rising number of extremists be explained by the tightening of conditions relating to the activity of international religious organizations in Russia (many of which have been closed down).
Today subversive and terrorist groups can support themselves and are less dependent on funding from abroad. According to S. Chenchik, Head of the Main Administration of the RF Ministry of the Interior for the North Caucasian Federal District, "the sums which arrive from abroad are several times lower than what bandit groups can get from local businesses."16
It has become obvious that stemming money flows from abroad (from international terrorist structures and their cells in the post-Soviet expanse) is not enough. V. Galitsky and Ya. Starshinov have rightly pointed out that the present ideology of religious-political extremists in the Caucasus "is much more dangerous than the Wahhabi underground of the previous period. Today, extremists are driven by ideology rather than by money or fear."17 At the same time, an analysis of the processes underway in Daghestan reveals that the phenomenon of religious-political extremism and terrorism is not homogenous and is fairly complicated, while the fact that extremist activity is spreading across the republic to different social groups shows that the internal political situation in Daghestan is far from simple.
It is not enough to analyze the threat of the region's Islamization and militarization created by international Islamist structures to explain the negative developments in the republic: we need to probe the social and political spheres in search of an answer. The Sub-Program for the South of Russia formulated by the Central Mathematical-Economic Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, states the following: "Today, endogenous factors are more important in the Northern Caucasus than exogenous factors: the latter merely invigorate the former. Politicization and radicalization of Islam, which turn it into what is called the 'Islamic factor,' are determined not so much by geopolitical but by socioeconomic and political circumstances."18
This means that at the early stages external factors were instrumental in planting and encouraging radical Islamic ideas in the republic; however they first struck root in the crisis zones. There is no shortage of works saying that grave economic problems, protracted ethnopolitical conflicts, rapid social and cultural change, or all of the above create a breeding ground for widespread violence.19 Their frustrating impact cannot be overestimated—they interfere with satisfying people's vital basic requirements. It is a commonly recognized fact that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism appears and comes to the fore mainly in the economically and socially vulnerable regions. Sergey Markedonov, a
15 See: K.M. Khanbabaev, op. cit.
16 "Zarubezhnye sponsory lishili finansirovaniia boevikov na Severnom Kavkaze," 15 March, 2011, available at [http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2011/04/15/focus/562949980070751].
17 V. Galistky, Ya. Starshinov, "Religiozny ekstremizm v molodezhnoy srede Rossii," Obozrevatel, No. 6, 2010,
p. 16.
18 "Podprogramma po Yugu Rossii. Analiz i modelirovanie geopoliticheskikh, sotsialnykh i ekonomicheskikh prot-sessov v polietnicheskom makroregione," available at [http://adaptation.iea.ras.ru/reports/2006/subprogramme.pdf].
19 V.V. Lunev, "Politicheskaia, sotsialnaia i ekonomicheskaia nespravedlivost v mire i terrorizm," Obshchestven-nye nauki i sovremennost, No. 3, 2004, p. 81.
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Russian expert in the Caucasus, has rightly pointed out the following: "Any penetration from the outside can be effective only if it strikes well-tilled soil."20
Socioeconomic Factors of Extremist Activities
Religious-political extremism in Daghestan and the Northern Caucasus is spreading because Daghestani society is become more and more radically-minded under the pressure of the social and political crisis caused by the far from simple political situation in the republic, the still unresolved ethnic and national problems and unprecedented corruption, the clan system, and criminalization of social and political life.21 Confirmed by many experts,22 this means that social and economic factors should be carefully studied.
The social and economic situation, the living standards of the absolute majority of the local people, and many other parameters place Daghestan among Russia's depressed regions.23 Early in the 1990s, the republic, together with the rest of Russia, plunged into social, political, and economic reforms in order to move ahead to a market economy. It soon became clear that the republic was not ready to adjust to the economic and political changes brought about by the ruined economic system of the R.S.F.S.R. and political reforms; this bared numerous contradictions responsible for the republic's inconsistent economic reality.24
According to official sources, Daghestan is trailing far behind the average Russian indices of social and economic development. Over 60% of the money handled by the republic's lending structures arrives as budget transfers, financial aid from federal non-budget funds, as well as from the amounts used to finance the territorial branches of federal structures.25 Today, industrial enterprises burdened with financial problems, persistent shortage of liquidity, inaccessible loans, and high and growing production costs are responsible for the low share of capacity utilization. Daghestan is a region with a depressed agricultural sector and very weak industry.26
Hypertrophied corruption has criminalized the socioeconomic sphere and made the situation in the republic hardly tolerable. "It is impossible to find a job in a state structure without connections or a large bribe. Enrollment in higher educational establishments and official posts, including those in the law-enforcement structures, are openly sold and bought. In the last decade corruption and essentially shameless trade in official positions have become common or even 'natural' to an extent that exhausts popular indignation."27 It can be said that this is not isolated manifestations of a phenomenon that can be surgically corrected, rather it is a systemic merging of state bureaucrats and even law enforcers with semi-legal criminal structures.28
20 S. Markedonov, Turbulentnaia Evrazia: mezhetnicheskie, grazhdanskie konflikty, ksenofobia v novykh ne-zavisimykh gosudarstvakh postsovetskogo prostranstva, Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Academia, Moscow, 2010, p. 23.
21 See: R. Gereev, "Krizis profilaktiki ekstremizma v Daghestane," Nastoiashchee vremia, 23 July, 2010.
22 See: V.V. Lunev, op. cit., pp. 79-85.
23 See: K.S. Hajiev, Kavkazskiy uzel..., p. 135.
24 See: D.M. Kakhrimanov, "Natsionalnaia bezopasnost Rossiiskoy Federatsii: sotsialno-ekonomicheskie aspekty," Vetsnik RGTEU, No. 7-8 (56), 2011, pp. 180-187.
25 See: Severny Kavkaz: problemy ekonomiki i politiki, ed. by A.A. Yaz'kova, LKI Publishers, Moscow, 2008,
p. 69.
26 See: A.Sh. Akhmeduev, Z.Z. Abdulaeva, "Uzlovye problemy i kontseptualnye osnovy sotsialno-ekonomichesko-go razvitiia Respubliki Daghestan," Vestnik Daghestanskogo nauchnogo tsentra, No. 18, 2004, pp. 100-106.
27 K.S. Hajiev, Kavkazsky uzel..., p. 140.
28 See: A. Muraev, A. Savelyev, "Geopoliticheskiy status novoy Rossii," Svobodnaia mysl, No. 12, 2009, pp. 5-16.
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Corruption, which has criminalized society and caused its degradation, is itself a product of the flourishing shadow economy. As President of the Republic of Daghestan Mukhu Aliev wrote: "The share of our republic's shadow economy is assessed at over 50% (the Russian average being 20-25%). About 40% of the republic's population works in the non-formal sector; this means that the high level of the shadow economy produces large-scale money laundering, including criminal profits."29
The republic's ethnic clans are locked in a struggle for control over the money flows; this, and clan rivalry for control over power in the republic, has further criminalized a large part of society. Svetlana Lipina has rightly pointed out that "the clan and corporate communities now in power have monopolized all the political and economic resources and created non-formal mechanisms of political and administrative decision-making. Not infrequently, ethnic and clan conflicts are superimposed on the desire of these communities (represented by the local administrative structures) to maintain 'manageable instability' in order to preserve or even increase the volume of transfers from the Federal Center."30
Macroeconomic disproportions, the most dangerous of them being the wide gap between the republic's economic potential and its population size, can be described as a serious threat and a factor of social tension.31 Its economy is not self-sustainable, while its economic potential cannot catch up with the fast growing population, especially its gainfully occupied population. The capital-labor ratio per able-bodied person in Daghestan is twice as low as Russia's average. This is responsible for a very serious disproportion between the number of jobs and the number of people of employable age.32
Unemployment and poverty of the greater part of population together with the high level of corruption in all spheres of life negatively affect social and political development. According to Sergey Ryazantsev, the group of hidden unemployed is more prone to conflicts than others and is responsible for a great share of the social tension; they account for 18% of the gainfully occupied population.33 The share of jobless is especially high in the countryside: as of 1 January, 2010, it accounted for 50-56% of the republic's total population.34
This factor is best illustrated by the rates and deepness of social polarization which drives the bulk of the republic's population to one side and the propertied groups and holders of lucrative posts to the other. The social stratification pattern has changed considerably in the post-Soviet period: over 70% of the population has found itself among the poor members of society.35 Property stratification, which has assumed large proportions in Daghestan, is another destructive factor, raising social and political tension in the republic, radicalizing its society, and escalating violence.
In the absence of adequate responses from the federal structures these factors, together with the corrupt economy and politics and clan rivalry for control over power structures in the republic, have radicalized a large part of the republic's population.
29 "Tenevaia ekonomika—bich Daghestanskoy ekonomiki," Daghestanskaia pravda, 13 July, 2006.
30 Razvitie situatsii na Severnom Kavakaze, Interview given by S.A. Lipina, Scientific head of FORMIKA R&D to the editorial office of electronic edition of VIPERSON information-analytical portal, 27 November, 2008, available at [www.viperson.ru].
31 See: Kh.G. Bashirov, "Ekonomicheskie problemy regionov i otraslevykh kompleksov," Problemy sovremennoy ekonomiki, No. 3 (23), 2007, p. 61.
32 Ibid., p. 58.
33 See: S.V. Ryazantsev, "Sovremennye tendentsii razvitiia rynka truda Severnogo Kavkaza," available at [http:// www.kavkaz—uzel.ru/articles/120828].
34 See: "Sotsialno-ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Severo-Kavkazskogo federalnogo okruga v ianvare-sentiabre 2010 goda," in: Regiony Rossii. Sotsialno-ekonomicheskie pokazateli. Statisticheskiy sbornik, Moscow, 2010, p. 365.
35 See: G.I. Yusupova, "Globalizatsiia i etnopoliticheskaia bezopasnost Yuga Rossii," Regional Center of Ethno-political Studies, Daghestani Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sobranie Publishers, Moscow, 2009, p. 255.
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Ethnopolitical Factors of Religious-Political Extremism
The far from simple ethnopolitical situation in Daghestan created by ethnocracy, ethnic clans in the corridors of power, and numerous ethnonational problems adds to the social and political tension and is leading to further radicalization and the spread of extremism.
Daghestan has the largest number of ethnic groups in its territory compared with all the other regions of the Russian Federation; over 30 autochthonous groups have their specific social and political interests; not infrequently Daghestan is referred to as the "smaller Caucasus." This means that cooperation among ethnic groups, just as power relations, are all-important when it comes to social and political stabilization. Much depends on how the problems of the repressed, deported, and divided peoples are resolved.
It should be said that the Soviet Union's disintegration and transformations in the political and economic spheres in Russia went hand in hand with the awakening of national self-awareness of the ethnic minorities, while their ethnic self-identification became more or less clearly political.36 In Daghestan, these processes developed into so-called national movements.
From the very beginning they were shaped and developed by the ethnic intelligentsia; its members fought bravely in the government for the interests of their respective ethnicities.37 Very soon, however, practically all the representatives of the ethnic elites were pushed aside by the government structures, including by sharing power and money with them. In this way, the ethnic elites were made to fit into a political system in which clan and ethnic affiliations dominated.38
This is also testified by the fact that throughout the post-Soviet period members of the three largest ethnoses (the Avars, Darghins, and Kumyks) appropriated the top three posts in the republic, those of the president, chairman of the Popular Assembly, and chairman of the Cabinet. It seems that those who believe that the lucrative posts in the lower echelons of power also go to members of the same ethnoses are right.39
Sergey Arutyunov has pointed out that throughout many centuries (prior to Russia's conquest of the Northern Caucasus) there was no ethnocratic centralization or vertical or pyramidal power structures in these parts. Small feudal possessions were based on ethnic principles but never embraced ethnicities as a whole. While part of the communities (jamaats) were vassals of the feudal lords (khans, shamkhals, emirs, and utsmies), the other, and fairly large, part of the communities were so-called free societies—small independent republics of the polis type ruled by elders on the basis of consensus.40 This means that the present clan-ethnocratic model of relations at the top has nothing in common with the traditional polyethnic model of Daghestan; it contradicts it in many respects, in the same way as it contradicts the very nature of polyethnic communities with their varied interests.
36 See: V.D. Dzidzoev, Kavkaz kontsa XX veka: tendentsii etnopoliticheskogo razvitiia (istoriko-politologicheskoe issledovanie), 2nd edition, Vladikavkaz, 2004, p. 25.
37 See: Kh.A. Kadiev, "Etnopoliticheskie protsessy v Daghestane v nachale 1990-kh godov," in: Severny Kavkaz i Daghestan: sovremennaia etnopoliticheskaia situatsia i puti ee stabilizatsii. Materialy Regionalnoy nauchno-prak-ticheskoy konferentsii, posviashchennoy 10-letiyu RTsEIDNTs RAN (1-3 oktiabria 2002 g.), DNTs RAN Publishers, Makhachkala, 2004, pp. 503-505.
38 See: M. Falkowski, North Caucasus: The Russian Gordian Knot; J. Rogoza, Putin After Re-Election, Center for Eastern Studies (OSW), Warsaw, Poland, 2004, pp. 43-49.
39 See: A. Sadyki, Federalizm—vnutrennee kredo demokratii, Logos, Moscow, 2001, p. 115.
40 See: S.S. Arutyunov, "Etnokratiia ili demokratiia? Traditsii Severnogo Kavakaza," in: Traditsii razreshenia kon-fliktov na Kavkaze i metody institutov grazhdanskogo obshchestva, Collection of articles (based on the papers presented at the conference "Traditsii narodnoy diplomatii i normy povedeniia vo vremia voyny i konfliktov na Kavkaze" organized by the Caucasian Forum of NGOs, Tsakhkadzor (Armenia), 31 May-2 June, 2001), available at [http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/system/attachments/0000/3106/].
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Having monopolized the top posts, members of the largest ethnicities acquired the necessary regulatory, administrative, and power resources to push aside many of the urgent ethnic and national problems. Arend Lijphart wrote that ethnocracy blocks the horizontal ties of consociational democracy both of grass-roots monoethnic and, especially, of polyethnic cells of plural societies.41 In Daghestan, the ethnocratic model made it much harder to achieve proportional representation of all the ethnic groups in the legislative and executive structures; not infrequently this pattern repeated itself at the municipal level.42 This made it next to impossible to legally change the course of the political processes in the republic.
It should be said that the clan elites with a firm grip on power do nothing to promote the interests of their own clans and ethnicities. Academician Arutyunov pointed out that in the fall of 1999 the discrepancies between the political regime and the ethnopolitical and ethnosocial realities caused a spontaneous outburst of protests against the ethnocratic vertical of power in the Kadar zone. Significantly, it was the Darghins (who were represented along with the Avars at the very top of the pyramid of power) that protested, or rather their "community core," which was not merely excluded from privileges but was also "vulnerable to the arbitrary rule of the powers that be. In these specific conditions their protest acquired a radical religious 'Wahhabi' form."43
In these conditions, the social-state ideology frequently serves as an ideological-moral screen behind which narrow groups that monopolize power conceal their interests.44 Fully aware of this, the ethnic minorities cannot respect the republic's leaders, while the majority does not regard the power structures as representative. Kaflan Khanbabaev has righty noted that "in Russian society protest sentiments are fanned by the lack of institutional and consistent feedback between society and the government. In the absence of a dialog, social protest spreads beyond the limits of the law."45
The fact that the majority of the republic's ethnic groups have no right of decision-making on vitally important issues pushes them to alternative means: in the last twenty years this has developed into an extremist threat. The gaps and defects of the present system of ethnocratic hierarchy and the fairly criminalized clan and patronage structure are responsible for the present scope and effects of the systemic crisis not only in the power structures, but also in Daghestani society as a whole. This eth-nocratic model does nothing to satisfy the numerous ethnonational interests and resolve the ethnic contradictions; this means that they are pushed out into the illegal sphere, where they acquire extremist forms.
The Social and Cultural Factors of Religious-Political Extremism
The spiritual and civilizational deformities are also conducive to the spread of religious-political extremism in the republic. It comes as no surprise that all those who study extremism invariably point out that macro social factors responsible for people's sentiments and for the transfer from a
41 See: A. Lijphart, "Mnogosostavnye obshchestva i demokraticheskie rezhimy," Polis (Political Studies), No. 1, 1992, p. 34.
42 See: Kh.Kh. Vaykhanov, Natsionalnaia bezopasnost Rossii na regionalnom urovne, ed. by I.P. Dobaev, SKNTs VSh YuFU Publishers, Rostov-on-Don, 2010, p. 64.
43 S.S. Arutyunov, op. cit.
44 See: M.P. Khripkov, Vnutrennie ugrozy natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossii: sushchnost, struktura, sotsialnye pos-ledstvia (Sotsiologicheskiy analiz), Doctoral thesis, 22.00.08, Moscow, 2004, 406 pp.
45 K.M. Khanbabaev, Religiozno-politicheskiy ekstremizm v Rossii: sostoianie i problemy, Lotos Publishers, Makhachkala, 2010, p. 138.
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traditional to a modern society (the sum-total of these processes is described as modernization) play an important role.46 An analysis of the processes underway in the Republic of Daghestan shows that radical fundamentalism is largely a response to the moral and axiological deformations caused by cultural globalization.
Prof. Sergey Murtazaliev has pointed out that in the sociocultural context globalization affects inter-cultural communication, interaction, and mutual influence of cultures, which leads to modernization of the local societies, ethnopolitical integration, the ever increasing impact of mass culture, and standardization, which dilutes national traditions and ethnic identity.47 It should be said that today the ideological and axiological paradigm of liberal West European civilization (cultural values, way of life, and behavior which fit Europeanism in its contemporary interpretation) has been accepted as the only "correct" model of modernization and integration into the "developed world." This means that ultraliberalism, viz. individualism, pragmatism, purposeful behavior and thinking, leisure time, attitude toward the family, and the individual's place in society are accepted as preferential. More often than not traditional societies regard this as ideological-civilizational expansion.48
In Daghestan, the cultural-globalizational processes proceeded in several directions. On the one hand, they destroyed the traditional values, which sent the traditional social institutions into a deep crisis and caused an outburst of individualism, egoism, and the primacy of the material over the spiritual and personal over the communal (phenomena unheard of in these parts and absolutely alien to the local people) and stirred up all sorts of social pathologies and massive degradation of the younger generation.49 A crisis of the traditional spiritual and philosophical landmarks of Daghestani society could not be avoided. On the other hand, part of the local society turned to Islamic values, which caused a large-scale Islamic revival; in a very short period of time the republic acquired thousands of mosques, religious educational establishments, and social religious organizations.50
These mutually contradictory and intertwining processes created a sociocultural chimera of sorts. Prof. M.-R. Ibrahimov has written that an obvious quantitative revival of Islam failed to produce a higher quality of moral and spiritual life for the Muslims.51 The trends toward the stronger position of Islam, the republic's traditional religion, retreated under the pressure of ideological expansion of ultra-liberal West European values superimposed on the highly complicated regional eth-nosocial and ethnopolitical context and of moral degradation which produced ethnic and clan crimes, prostitution, drug addiction, etc.52
Daghestani society came face to face with an internal crisis of mutual understanding and cooperation and was divided into numerous parts, which not infrequently occupied opposite positions. "Those who moved away from traditions and the determined 'followers of traditions'," writes Israpil Sampiev, "existed side by side. The former lacked the moral stamina to triumph over the traditionalists, while the latter could not fight their opponents supported by the state and official ideology."53
46 See: V. Galitsky, Ya. Starshinov, op. cit.
47 See: S.I. Murtazaliev, Problemy identichnosti kavkaztsev i rossiian, 2nd revised edition, Format Publishers, Makhachkala, 2010, p. 7.
48 See: V.A. Sosin, Psikhologiia sovremennogo terrorizma, Forum Publishers, Moscow, 2010, pp. 39-42.
49 See: A.A. Saidov, "Problemy protivodeystviia molodezhnomu ekstremizmu i terrorizmu v Daghestane," available at [http://scenceport.ru/].
50 See: O.M. Tsvetkov, "Ideologiia i praktika 'politicheskogo Islama' na Severnom Kavkaze," Kavkazskie nauch-nye zapiski, No. 1, 2009, pp. 52-53.
51 See: M.-R. Ibrahimov, "Etnosy i konfessii Daghestana v kontse XX-nachale XXI veka," in: Etnopoliticheskie issledovaniia na Severnom Kavkaze: sostoyanie, problemy, perspektivy, Makhachkala, 2005, p. 215.
52 See: M.-R. Ibrahimov, K. Matsuzato, "Alien but Loyal: Reasons for the 'Unstable Stability' of Daghestan, an Outpost of Slavic Eurasia," in: Emerging Meso-Areas in the Former Socialist Countries: Histories Revived or Improvised? ed. by K. Matsuzato, Slavic Research Center, Sapporo, 2005, pp. 221-244.
53 I.M. Sampiev, "Etnopoliticheskie aspekty religiozno-politicheskogo ekstremizma na Severnom Kavkaze: k postanovke problemy," in: Aktualnye problemy protivodeystviia religiozno-politicheskomu ekstremizmu. Materialy Vse-rossiiskoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, Lotos Publishers, Makhachkala, 2007, p. 182.
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Transformations were accompanied by a crisis of spiritual and ideological identity; they triggered a quest for values to oppose moral degradation and civilizational expansion of alien values. Part of society was inclined to embrace the fundamental religious ideas; under the pressure of the accelerating disintegration of the traditional moral and ethical foundations, fundamental ideas assumed radical forms promoted and approved by extremists. Prof. Kurbanov has rightly pointed out that "there was an obvious conflict between the democratic secular consciousness and sacralized traditional thinking. The extreme forms of this confrontation became radical or even extremist."54
It should be said that the use of ideologies is one of the collective responses to the provoking conditions of life. In such cases ideology frequently serves as a cornerstone; religion is regarded as an ideology, a sum-total of ideas about a better world created through organizing a way of life compatible with the norms and prescriptions of the given religion.55 This explains why the ideology of ultra-conservative Islamism (known in Russia as Wahhabism) promptly spread among those who not only disagreed with the situation in the republic, but were prepared to oppose it.
The ideology of "pure Islam" is attractive because of the highly topical nature of its program provisions. Wahhabism rejects many of the cumbersome traditions of non-Islamic origin; its followers resolutely opposed the "Western culture of individualism and liberalism" and the arbitrary rule of the regional elites.56 In this context, the protest against cultural expansion took the form of so-called pure Islam in its extremely radical forms.
The above is amply confirmed by the fact that the younger generation, which grew up in an ideological vacuum and spiritual-political crisis, tends toward radical ideas. Prof. Yuri Volkov has written that "the youth, which still has to identify its social-psychological and philosophical landmarks, is much more susceptible than other age groups to all sorts of social-psychological and subcultural ideological impacts; it responds to them much more openly and much more actively. This is conducive to a high degree of uncertainty, unpredictability of its social behavior, and high mobility of its axio-logical landmarks."57
In this way, the Republic of Daghestan has acquired a community of people from different walks of life who do not only dissociate themselves from the currently accepted axiological and philosophical model, but also stand opposed to it. It was moral and axiological deformation that fed the fanatic rejection by the radical Muslim communities of the order which struck root in the republic.
Conclusion
The above analysis showed that factors conducive to religious-political extremism and terrorism are found both inside and outside the republic and are directly connected with the current globalization processes. It seems that the internal factors which feed radicalization and criminalization in the republic have played a decisive role in the spread of religious-political extremism and terrorism and are responsible for the wide scope of the military-political crisis in the Northern Caucasus.
The present social imbalance and the fact that society is divided into several hostile groups, as well as corruption, the clan system, and ethnocracy, have deepened the sociopolitical crisis in Daghestan. If the crisis zones spread far and wide, tragic repercussions might hit Daghestan and echo across the Northern Caucasus. The phenomenon is fairly complicated, which means that the measures
54 G.M. Kurbanov, "Religia i politika terrora," in: Makhachkala: narody Daghestana, Makhachkala, 2002, p. 47.
55 See: V.A. Sosin, op. cit., pp. 16-22.
56 See: R.B. Ware, E. Kisriev, W.J. Patzelt, U. Roericht, "Political Islam in Dagestan," Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55, Issue 2, March 2003, pp. 287-302.
57 Yu.G. Volkov, Sotsiologiya. Uchebnik dlia studentov vuzov, ed. by V.I. Dobrenkov, 2nd edition, Sotsialno-gu-manitarnoe izdanie, Moscow, 2005, p. 231.
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designed to stem religious-political extremism should likewise be integral and related to all aspects of social, economic, political, and spiritual life.
It seems that those public, political, and religious figures who, contrary to common sense, insist that only "traditional Islam" should be confessed in Russia are wrong. Today, there is any number of fairly large enclaves of followers of moderate Wahhabi and Salafi, which means that if they are declared hostile ideological movements to be suppressed, thousands of people prepared to defend their interests and rights will be driven outside Russia's legal system.
The ethnopolitical aspects of radicalization should be addressed in the context of the federal program of stabilization of the North Caucasian Federal District. It seems that radical administrative and territorial reforms designed to unite Daghestan with the other North Caucasian federation subjects under a single center with broad rights to elaborate and realize large-scale social, economic, and political programs look like a logical solution; there are also plans to decentralize the lowest administrative structures, which should be endowed with the broadest possible administrative powers in order to successfully address the vitally important problems of municipal and/or ethno-national units.
This can be effective only if there is an understanding that there are many different ethnicities with their own history, language, culture, traditions, and ethnopolitical interests.
