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The above-said calls for greater respect of the national sovereignty of independent states, some of which live through a crisis of statehood under the pressure of challenges of hyper-globalization and the need to make identification choice. Inter-civilizating dialogues is an indisputably important instrument of preventing hostility between ethnic and confessional groups, peoples and states to turn into bloody wars.
"Rossiya v globalnoi politike," Moscow, 2014, vol. 12, N1, January-February, pp. 41-58.
Sh. Kashaf,
Leading expert at Russian Academy of State Service, Moscow D. Mukhetdinov, Ph. D. (Political sciences), Rector of Nizhny Novgorod Islamic University RECOGNITION OF IDENTITY: DISCOURSE OF THE ELITE AND POLITICAL CLASS OF MUSLIM COMMUNITY OF RUSSIA
Debates on the problems of identity are going on in most countries of the modern world. As Samuel Huntington said, they are now an inalienable feature of our time. Who are we? What community do we belong to? The need to understand socio-political changes in all their variety and search for new development resources of society adequate to historical challenges prompts political sciences to turn to the category of identity more and more often. However, as many contemporary authors and researchers emphasize, the question of
the correlation between individual and collective identity will be one of the most complex.
In modern society the formation of collective identities takes place under the influence of a whole range of factors They are determined by the activity of the state and the political elite, the conscious policy of identity, and also as a result of spontaneous changes in mass consciousness under the impact of socio-economic and socio-cultural deformations capable to activate such "traditional" forms of collective self-identification as religious, national and civilizating ones. Collective identity is closely connected with political identity and is formed in direct interaction with it.
Another important methodological aspect, which should be taken into account, is the need to use a communicative approach in examining collective identities. Erroneous interpretation can lead to the danger of manipulating whole collectives, ignoring differences between individuals, and, as a consequence, to their forcible homogenezation.
The Russian political elite tended to take the concept of cultural ethno-nationalism evolved in 1999-2000 with the help of the Russian Orthodox Church.
According to the Russian political analyst S. Kaspe, who took part in working out and implementing the program of the Russian nation-building, the Russian Orthodox Church, along with the state, should be regarded one of the necessary participants in nation-building1.
Political analysts A. Verkhovsky and E. Pain have a critical attitude to the concept of cultural ethno-nationalism of the Russian Orthodox Church, assessing a "special path" of civilizating nationalism as one leading to an impasse, contradicting the global tendencies of world development, retarding the modernization of social institutions, and thereby undermining Russia's hope for a worthy place in the future
world order2. Besides, these researchers note that the concept of the Russian Orthodox Church offers representatives of Islam, Buddhism and Judaism the role of junior partners, which they may not like.
It is noted in abundant literature about Islamic revival in modern Russia that along with the growing Islamic infrastructure in the country the "awakening of Muslim identity" is taking place. Identifying themselves with the Russian state and Russian civilizating community, Russian Muslims have preserved their Islamic identification and cultural-religious individuality for centuries.
In the years of "Islamic revival" against the background of ideological vacuum, which has emerged with the coming of the new political elite to power after the collapse of the communist system of the U.S.S.R. and the state's inability to formulate the national idea and world outlook, Muslim identity has strengthened its positions in the general socio-cultural identification3.
Millions of citizens of Russia have internationalized many standards, values and political orientations current in the Russian Muslim umma4.
Under the Constitution of Russia, Orthodox Christianity and Islam are legally equal. However, reality is sometimes different, unfortunately. According to a statement of the Chairman of the Council of muftis of Russia, R. Gainuddin, many Orthodox believers consider that they are in a majority, and therefore Russia is an Orthodox Christian country. "We say No, Russia is both Orthodox Christian and Muslim country. Islam came to this land before Russia had been baptized: the first mosque had been built in Derbent in Daghestan in the 8th century. Islam is not religion of newcomers or migrants, but religion of indigenous Russians," R. Gainuddin said. Muslim peoples had helped Russian princes to unite into a Russian state. This is why the twenty million Muslims living in the country today have the right to
demand complete equality. The painful subject of confessional inequality continues to exist in Russia. Along with pluralism of views and positions represented in Russian society, the key actors of the Muslim community in their statements and deeds proceed from the annual address of the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin to the Federal Assembly of the country. In his address of 2012 he said that "Russia should be a sovereign and influential country. We must not only continue to develop, but also preserve our national and spiritual identity..."5. In his statement at the 2nd All-Russia Muslim conference in 2013 R. Gainuddin said: "Russia has for centuries been developing as a multinational and poly-confessional state in which ethnic or religious discrimination is impermissible. Russia is the beloved Motherland for the many-million Muslim umma..."
The factor of Islamic identity in domestic policy of Russia will continue to grow in importance. According to the results of the All-Russia population census of 2010, most ethnic groups which historically belong to the Muslim tradition have increased in number. The number of adherents of Islam who fulfill all precepts and rules has grown, too.
At present, most experts studying the political activity of Muslims speak of the two historically organized development centers of the Russian umma - the Volga area and the North Caucasus where the vast majority of the population is Muslim. In the Volga area Islam has organically become part of the Russian political and socio-cultural model, The North Caucasus is a region where Muslim religion fulfills the ideological function of uniting opposition circles both in the elite and in the popular masses.
Researchers now center attention on the third Muslim area situated beyond the Ural Mountains, in West Siberia. This region is now becoming a sample of "immigrant Islam," where the backbone of the
Muslim community is formed by migrants of the first and second generations.
Such big cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizny Novgorod, Saratov, and others, which have big Turkic-Muslim enclaves, have not been considered ethnic-confessional political centers exerting profound influence on the basic development tendencies of the Islamic umma due to their considerable multicultural social media and its urbanized character. However, one can see a considerable growth of adherents of Islam in these cities in recent years. In the Moscow region, for example, there are more Muslims now than before, and their religiousness, adherence to traditions, and greater participation in the life and activity of their community have noticeably grown. This was largely due to the greater number of settlers from among the Central Asian and North Caucasian peoples, as well as Tatars whose number in Moscow has increased by 17,400, that is, 7.9 percent. According to R. Gainuddin, there are now about two million Muslims living in Moscow, and their number is growing which is also due to economic problems. The general tendency is not only the growth of the Muslim population in the Moscow region, but also the gradual loss of the periphery status of Islam which was characteristic of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
One of the most important qualitative features in describing the state and position of the Muslim umma is the number of believers taking part in feast's prayers. According to observers, their number has been steadily growing, and it is especially impressive in Moscow. By some of the data of the Ministry for the Interior, each of two major Muslim religious feasts in 2009 was attended by 70,000, and in 2010 -over 100,000. The number of Muslims taking part in Kurban-bairam in 2011 was 170,000. According to the data of the Council of Muftis of
Russia, on August 8, 2013, the total number of Muslims praying on Uraza-bairam in Moscow was over 180,000.
Official estimates show that common feast's prayers of Muslims in Moscow gather five to six times more participants than the protest meetings of people dissatisfied with the actions of the Russian authorities. The number of Muslims who gather at the Moscow Cathedral mosque to hear the sermon and perform collective namaz can be compared to the number of participants in political functions in support of the authorities6.
Thus, we see how Islam is changing its periphery status in Russia. Islamic identity, by most characteristics, has gone beyond the limits of national outskirts of the country and become a serious socio-cultural factor not only in such cities as Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also in big federal and regional centers of the Russian Federation. Evidently, Islam has become one of the mobilizing factors, which can be compared to Orthodox Christianity dominating in the country.
The dynamic character of the strengthening positions of Muslim identity in Russian society is acknowledged even by high-ranking clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church. For one, the Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the department on relations between the Church and society, admitted that "it looks likely that we really have only three real 'parties' - Orthodox Christian, Muslim and non-believers. And they will determine the future of Russian politics."7
Chaplin's conclusions are based on recognition of the two basic communities - Orthodox Christian and Muslim, which have many active members and quite a few largely common ethical and social values. The third social group, by his classification, is formed by tens of millions of citizens, "non-established so far," but this group has more resources and is backed by big money, show business, part of the
bureaucratic, expert and mass media elites, and certain part of young people dependent on these elites.
The existence of these three groups presupposes struggle between them on the basis of the models of the family, law, the state and society differing from one another. In any case, not a single rivaling forces fighting for tens of thousands of citizens, "non-established so far" and for their version of the social system in Russia will be able to destroy or oust others8. On the contrary, their common task is the process of harmonizing Russian values and social models.
One should agree with the Professor at the Center of Slavonic Studies of Hokkaido University K. Matsuzato that "modern Russian Islam cannot be studied exclusively through the prism of religious research."8
The President of the Autonomous republic of Tatarstan R. Minnikhanov maintains that Islam is one of the leading factors in "the formation of common human values, ideas of humanism and tolerant interaction of various peoples on the territory of his republic." The head of the Chechen Republic R. Kadyrov constantly emphasizes in his public statements Chechnya's adherence to traditional Islamic values. At present Islamic religion becomes one of the legitimate factors of social and political life of Chechnya, influencing the value and identification dominants of the population. State power turns to the basic principles and values of Islam, thereby emphasizing its confessional identity. This fact was specially noted by participants in the 5th International Peacemaking Forum "Islam - Religion of Peace and Creation" which took place in Grozny on May 25-36, 2013.
Practically within the past twenty-five years the Muslim community was able to join actively the revival processes which were expressed in the awakening of national and religious self-consciousness. During the following period of strengthening the Islamic
infrastructure the construction was going on of religious and educational institutions, and production of food permitted in Muslim society, which was recognized as an important task of a state level in certain regions of the country.
Nothing surprising that Islamic identity of the political class of Muslim republics has become an object of "elitological" analysis of Arab and American research centers. In all four international reports on the "500 Most Influential Muslims of the World" published in 20092012 there were representatives of the Russian umma who had made hajj in different years. The list of the key figures is compiled by the data of their influence in their respective states and region and a degree of participation in global processes. In the Russian segment of the list of Muslim politicians are the presidents of Tatarstan M. Shaimiyev and R. Minnikhanov, and President of the Chechen Republic R. Kadyrov.
M. Shaimiyev was the first of the Russian political figures to be included in the Top-500 influential Muslims of the world in 2009. The first President of Tatarstan, a Muslim Republic of Russia, has been awarded the International Prize of King Faisal for his services to the Muslim population10. The world Islamic rating for 2010 included the new President of Tatarstan who came to replace Shaimiyev, R. Minnikhanov. His name was listed twice, in 2011 and 2012. The report described Tatarstan as an influential Russian region in the center of the country with a religious model combining Islam with European culture11. Islamic experts maintain that the model can be regarded exemplary12. Tatarstan has taken serious steps for drawing investments of the Islamic world in its bank and financial system. The Tatarstan political and business elites demonstrate their effectiveness and low risks and base their activity on the Sharia laws. They harshly criticize western capitalism which places its financial interests above the interests of society. The leaders of Tatarstan rely on the republican
industrial, scientific and financial elites and cooperate with the member-countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Notes
S. Kaspe. Politicheskaya teologiya i nation-building: obshchiye polozheniya, rossiisky sluchai. [Political Theology and Nation-building: General Premises, Russian Case]. Moscow, 2012, p. 102.
A.Verkhovsky, E. Pain. Tsivilizatsionny natsionalism:rossiiskaya versiya "osobogo puti" [Civilizating Nationalism: Russian Version of "a Special Path"]. Moscow, 2010, p. 200.
A. Verskhovsky, E. Pain. Op. cit., p. 206. "Islam - religiya korennykh rossiyan" ["Islam - Religion of Indigenous People of Russia] // Head of Council of Muftis of Russia about Unique Position of Muslims in the Russian Federation. (Kommersant, 2011, February 18). Message of President V. Putin of the Russian Federation to the RF Federal Assembly in 2012.
The number of Muslims in Moscow region is growing, as shown by the data of the population census for 2012.
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin. Obshchestvo: svetskoye ili religioznoye? [Society: Secular or Religious?] URL.: http://www.interfaxreligion.ru/kaz/?act=analysis& div=177http://www.interfax-religion.ru/kaz/?act=analysis&div= 177 Ibid.
K. Matsuzato. Discourses and Behavior of Muslim Leaders of Volga-Ural Region. Influence of Regional Images of Self-perception and Strategies of Regional Administrations // Islam from the Caspian Sea to the Urals: Macroregional Approach. Moscow, 2007, p. 156. 5 The Muslim 500: The 500 Most Influential Muslims, 2009, URL.: http:// themuslim500.com/downloadhttp://themuslim500.com/download Ibid. Ibid.
"Elitologiya Rossii: sovremennoye sostoyaniye i perspektivy razvitiya," Rostov-on-Don, 2013, pp. 162-178. (To be concluded in the next issue)
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