CC BY
10
Thus, counteraction against propaganda of ethnic separatism and religious extremism in the global network is connected with the legal, technical, ideological and social-economic significant difficulties. As the efficient measures of struggle against "information jihad" may become the exposure of false rhetoric of extremists, the active national state policy directed to leveling of social-economic indexes of the republic in the North Caucasus, At the same time, a more active use and wise combination of legislative and technical means acquires a special urgency.
"Vlast", M., 2010, N9, p. 116-120.
Georgy Rudov,
candidate of political sciences RUSSIA - CENTRAL ASIA AND REDICAL ISLAM
Many scientists consider Russia as a significant Eurasian state, adducing adequate evidence and substantiation. Given 143 million people of the whole population of Russia, its Muslim part accounts for the amount of 15-20 million people. Islam is professed by almost 40 indigenous peoples of Russia, and the Muslim population is characterized by its poly-ethnic and multi-cultural composition. According to Ravil Gainutdin, the Chairman of Council of Muftis of Russia, there are three groups of Muslims with due account of the region of settlement: Siberia and the Far East, the central regions of the RF (Volga Basin, Ural, Moscow, Black Earth Zone and others) and the North Caucasus. One should not ignore the fact that five states of the Central Asia, professing mainly Islam, are located along the borders of the RF.
Over 30 million people out of 50 million people in the Central Asian republics profess Islam. For the years of the Soviet period, Islam in the CA was infringed and isolated from the rest Islamic world; the disintegration of the USSR promoted creation of more active relations with neighboring states with Muslim population. Exactly independence of the CA states and abolition of the state control over the religious sphere determined a special interest of peoples to their national religion and to history of Islam. Therefore the period of the 1990s is named the epoch of "Islamic rebirth" in these countries. The leadership of the CA countries does not simply pays a particular attention to spiritual enlightenment of the peoples, but is also interested in the atmosphere when they regard themselves as Muslims. However, this readership in any case does not want and is not ready to share power with religious organizations and their different trends aspiring for a high rank in public and political life of the country.
In Soviet times, over 40 various officially recognized religious trends and sects performed their functions. Orthodox Christianity with due account of the number of its adepts was regarded as the most significant confession, while Islam occupied the second place. For the 1940s, for the sake of coordination of religious life of Muslims there were organized four spiritual departments of Muslims: the Middle Asia and Kazakhstan with the center in Tashkent, the European part of the USSR and Siberia with the center in Ufa, the North Caucasus with the center in Buinaksk and the Trans-Caucasus with the center in Baku. The Spiritual Department of Muslims of the Middle Asia and Kazakhstan had its representative offices in all five republics of the region, headed by muftis nominated by the Center. Certainly, at that time many mullas performed their functions outside the competence of Spiritual Departments; as a sign of protest against the official position of these religious centers they often took self-dependent actions aimed
at dissemination of Islamic views. One may say that just they carried out the main work in order to protect religious self-consciousness of believers. In Soviet times, in Kazakstan, for example, there existed 63 mosques, while at preset their number surpassed 5 thousand; in Kirghizstan the number of mosques increased from 200 to more than 2 thousand; in Uzbekistan the number of mosques was raised enormously.
At the same time, the Central Asia should not be regarded as a homogeneous political and social-cultural common entity. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the Fergana valley represent one group of territories, Kazakhstan without southern regions and the northern part of Kirghizstan - the other group, Turkmenistan is the different entity. But they have much in common.
One should not overestimate and at the same time underestimate certain noted changes in terms of popularization and dissemination of Islam in the CA. Islam and its role in the contemporary world attained global significance. Some attempts were and are made to connect Islam with world terrorism, to declare Islam to be the main source of this evil. At the same time, it should not be ignored that in epoch of globalization in contemporary Islamic communities there take place two different but mutually connected processes. In the course of elaboration of ways of struggle against religious extremism and actual terrorism one should always take into account some founding directions, projecting them to the situation in terms of Muslim factor's influence in Russia itself. Reviewing approaches of different researchers, it is necessary to take into account the following factors: political Islam, i.e. use of Islam for political purposes with the aim of the statehood's restructure; radical Islam, i.e. hostility to deviations from Islamic norms in public life; Islamic extremism - militant hostility to deviations from these norms;
terrorism itself as criminal activities against foundations of the secular state and the constitutional order in the country.
A. Malashenko makes the following comment: "Islamists are not visible so much in Russian Volga Basin, Ural and Siberia, The territory of their activities is restricted and their popularity is much less noticeable than in the North Caucasus. Russian cities, which, unlike Europe, lack "Muslim quarters", even by appearance do not fit to dissemination of Islamic radicalism. For the end of the 1990s, the Islamists seemed to have no chances for consolidation among Russian Tatars and Bashkirs. However, in the beginning of the XXI century it turned out that Islamic radicals had reserves. The graduates from Arabic education institutions, having come back to their Motherland, were able to settle and to consolidate several dozens mosques with groups of the radical youth. They succeeded to arrange ties with Caucasian adepts and to establish contacts with groups from the Central Asia, first of all with "Hizb ut-Tahrir"...Further, Islamists split traditional Islam, having opposed to the habitual for Russian Muslims mashabs - Khanafism and Shafiism, as well as to Tarikatism in the North Caucasus, the other, close to Khanbalist type "wahhaby Islam". The opposition between traditional Islam and Islamists took place everywhere. Apart from the North Caucasus, where it acquired extreme forms, including armed clashes, this opposition was marked in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Astrakhan, Volgograd and other regions".
In this connection, the declaration, made by D. Medvedev in December 2007 during his visit to Tatarstan at the meeting with professors of higher educational institutions and of representatives of Islamic communities, seems to be significant: "In such multi-confessional and multi-national country like Russia the closest attention should be paid to spiritual education. It is evident that the dialogue between religion and culture is the indispensable condition of unity of
the Russian nation, of public consent, sovereignty... All world religions are based on fundamental values of justice and clemency, and no world religion has anything common with attempts to present people for religious or national reasons".
The two different but interconnected processes go on in contemporary Islamic communities. The first process is marked by formation of global Islamic political system, the second one presents the cultural (civilization) challenge of Islam to westbound movement and consumerism, caused by globalization and the accompanied factors. Actually, globalization results in conflicting development of cultures and civilizations. The human societies always confronted alien cultures; however, exactly the epoch of globalization engenders a previously unknown level of multicultural and heterogeneous structure of society, which turns out to be a new challenge to traditional societies. The rapid process of renaissance of Islam and return to traditional foundations accompanies the pressure of the West not only in the CA countries but also in the whole Islamic world and is manifested in conversion to the fundamental bases of religion, to "pure Islam", to the search for an answer to the challenges of the present time in the past knowledge, based on Islam, about the world. These two directions do not contradict each other and proceed from one significant principle - firmness and immutability of Holy Koran and of foundations of religion. There exist only different methods of achievement of the main task - to preserve and to consolidate the situation of the Muslim community both in the region and in the whole world.
"Kraya dugi nestabilnosti: Balkany-TsentralnayaAziya",
M., 2010, p. 214-218.
