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diverse resource potential in order to implement large-scale innovative (social and technological) projects which will help Russia become a more successful and influential political player.
The paradox of the situation is that the objective prerequisites of Russian subjectness are evident - diverse potential, vast territory (the Russian Federation is the largest state in the world), and different political mechanisms. There is only one, but crucial, political mechanism missing - it is the "prolonged" political will. Passionarity. Drive. Every era recruits its own heroes: empires are created by titans. However, heroic eras are a thing of the past. Passion wears people out...
However, the decrease in political subjectness can be sublimated into economic class in a different country: financier - titan - stoic". History might repeat itself.
(Originally written in English)
"Politicheskie elity v starykh i novykh demokratiakh ", Kaliningrad, 2012, pp. 283-292.
I. Dobayev, R. Gajibekov, N. Anisimova,
Political analysts
STAGES AND PROSPECTS OF RADICALIZATION OF ISLAM IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
The problems connected with the radicalization of Islam in different countries have been in the focus of attention of many foreign and Russian scholars in the past two decades. The Islamic factor in its political aspect has a serious influence on political processes in Russia
and its regions. Radicalization of Islam is fraught with various risks and threats to the country's security.
Islam in Russia is widespread mainly in its Sunni form in two areas: the Volga and Ural regions, and West Siberia, on the one hand, and in the North Caucasus, on the other.. In recent years religious-political extremism and terrorism have become widespread especially in the latter area.
The North Caucasus is dominated by Sunni Islam, however, a relatively small number of Shi'ites lives in the southern part of the region.
There are several ideological trends of Islam (traditionalism, fundamentalism, modernism), and each one of them wants to increase its influence on believers. The modernist trends are weak and contradictory and do not play any significant role in the region. Traditional Islam is mainly represented by the Muslim clergy, the administrative apparatus of religious organizations (spiritual boards of Muslims), as well as mosques, Islamic educational institutions, etc. These Islamic institutions are considered "official Islam."
During the post-Soviet period the steady process of politicization of "official Islam" has been observed. This process is characterized by the growing interaction of the authorities and official clergy. In the 1990s certain representatives of quite a few institutions of power in the North Caucasian republics believed that the "salvation" and "revival" of national republics lay in the exclusive orientation to Islam. In turn, Muslim leaders tried to draw closer to the authorities and power bodies declaring that it was only they that were able to oppose Islamic radicals.
Muslim associations of the North Caucasian republics, having a wide network of organizations and relying on traditional moral and ethical orientations of Islam and the authority of its spiritual leaders,
have taken active measures to increase their influence on the processes going on in republican societies.
The main opponent and antagonist of Muslim traditionalists in the region are fundamentalists (Salaphites or neo-Wahhabis), whose ideal is return to the realities of the "golden age" of Islam, or the period connected with the life and activity of Prophet Mohammed and the four "righteous" caliphs, the introduction of the Sharia law in everyday and public life, and the recreation of Caliphate. The confrontation between traditionalists and Salaphites has led to the greater Islamization of the republics in the eastern part of the North Caucasus.
Despite certain negative realities and trends in traditional Islam, the federal and republican authorities regarded it as "tolerant Islam" and supported it officially. However, this view was absolutely correct in the 1990s, but today it is wrong in many respects. In actual fact traditional Islam is now politicized in a large measure, it is sometimes radical, and even aggressive practically in all republics of the North Caucasus, especially in the Northeast Caucasus. Despite all efforts of the local authorities, politicization and radicalization of Islam is growing all the time spreading to new areas of the Russian Federation.
The religious-political processes of the past two-three years have resulted in serious qualitative changes in the structure and geography of spreading Islamism in its extreme forms. With due account of these changes it would be possible to offer the following version of the stages of radicalization of Russian Islam.
1. The 1970s - early 1990s is the first stage. Groups of young Salaphites appear in the Republic of Daghestan.
2. The early 1980s - 1994 is marked by the recreation and actual legalization of Daghestani Salaphite groupings of the Wahhabi trends. During that period "cultural centers" are organized in Russia with the help of certain Muslim foreign states, and Islamist literature is brought
to the country. Simultaneously, similar literature is published in big circulation on the spot. Missionaries, preachers and teachers of Muslim disciplines began to arrive from different Muslim countries. At the same time, young Muslims go abroad to study at foreign religious institutions. The Republic of Daghestan is in the forefront of Islamization.
3. December of 1994 - early 2000s is characterized by the domination of Chechnya in the radicalization process of North Caucasian Islam. The two Chechen wars, just as the three-year interval between them, were accompanied by the concentration of foreign "mojaheds," mainly Arabs, in that republic, and a serious ideological and financial assistance from foreign Islamic centers. Special training camps were opened on the territory of Chechnya, the most notorious one was headed by the well-known Arab terrorist Emir Khattab, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, then leader of "al Qaeda."
4. September 1999-2007, a stage characterized by the beginning of the second Chechen campaign, defeat of the military units of Islamic radicals, and their switchover to guerilla war. During that period Chechnya became the epicenter of the concentration of radical Islamists. The ideology of radical Islamism became more popular throughout the entire territory of the North Caucasus, the infrastructure of "jihad" was growing, subversive and terrorist activity spread throughout the North Caucasian region and beyond its borders.
In that period religious-political extremism and terrorism were growing, and more people from among moderate Islamists joined Islamic radicals.
5. 2007 - up to now, when the new leader, Doku Umarov, proclaimed the nationalist new geopolitical project - "Imarat Kavkaz." According to it, the new state "Imarat Kavkaz" based on Islamic principles has been created on the pattern of the previous Islamic states
of the past (Caliphates). In essence, this is a conglomerate of subversive-terrorist groupings.
6. End of the first decade of this century is distinguished by spreading influence of "Imarat Kavkaz" and its leaders on other Muslim territories - in the Volga and Ural territories, West Siberia, and primarily the Republic of Tatarstan.
7. The past two or three years are characterized by the emergence of Islamist groupings in "Islamic enclaves" in non-Muslim regions of the country, which exist and function around mosques opened there. This is a new trend in the radicalization process of Islam in Russia spreading throughout the country's territory. Similar processes have taken place in the United States and certain West European countries earlier.
Evidently, the last three stages of radicalization of Islam and the Islamic movement directly touch not only the North Caucasus, but also other regions of Russia. They form a qualitatively new structure of Islamic groupings and prepare ground for the elaboration of spectacular geopolitical plans of changing the political sphere of the country.
And so, on October 7, 2007, the new leader of Ichkeria (unrecognized new Chechnya) Doku Umarov proclaimed himself supreme leader - "amir of mojaheds of the Caucasus" and "leader of jihad" on all territories -- from the North Caucasus up to Tatarstan and even Buryatia in East Siberia. Thus, the idea of national independence was replaced with the doctrine of liberation from the "power of the infidels." It was declared that the aim of "Imarat Kavkaz" is the establishment of the Sharia governance in the entire territory of the North Caucasus.
The subversive-terrorist activity of "Imarat Kavkaz" and its units has sharply increased on the eve, in the course and after the "five-day war" between Russia and Georgia. The level of this activity is quite
high at present, too, especially in Daghestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya. During the years from 2010 to 2012 inclusive more than one thousand terrorist acts were committed in the North Caucasus. The Republic of Daghestan accounts for the greatest number of such acts.
Radicalization of Islam in the Volga area, primarily in Tatarstan, has begun under a strong influence from abroad. As emphasized by the Tatar expert on Islam R. Suleimanov, the latest history of terrorism in Tatarstan began with the first terrorist acts on gas pipelines in rural districts in 2003-2005.
In the view of experts, there are about three thousand Salaphites and their supporters in Tatarstan, and their number is growing steadily. One hundred and twenty Tatar young men studied in Saudi Arabia in 2010, and another twenty men were sent there a year later. In 2012 a laboratory producing high explosive devices was uncovered in one of the rural districts of Tatarstan. Tatar experts maintain that Wahhabi supporters implement the Ingush-Daghestani scenario in Tatarstan today: what happened in the North Caucasus some ten to fifteen years ago is now taking place in the Volga area. The first mufti of Daghestan was killed in 1998. After that, more than fifty muftis, their deputies and imams who adhered to traditional Islam were assassinated.
In the Republic of Tatarstan stable Salaphite groups have been formed, and experts predict that Salaphism will spread throughout the entire Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, just as was the case of the North Caucasus. In the Republic of Daghestan, for example, legal channels for supporting the activity of the armed extremist underground were formed in the first half of the 2000s. The most popular of such organizations was the "Mothers of Daghestan." Its leaders maintain contacts with extremists and come out against the activity of the law-enforcement agencies. Moreover, in the view of certain experts, a stable
and influential "Islamist lobby" has come into being in Russia. With its help mass meetings of supporters of radical Islam are organized. For instance, on February 8, 2013, more than two thousand Salaphites -supporters of radical Islam waging struggle against the Russian state arranged a mass meeting in the very center of Makhachkala. Similar meetings were held in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, in the summer of 2012.
The next stage of spreading Wahhabi trends of Islam, in our view, is the strengthening of their adepts in "Muslim enclaves" in certain big cities of Russia. True, such "enclaves" have already been formed in certain European states, for instance in France, and this is why their experience might prove useful for Russia. European realities show that ethnically and religiously homogeneous communities of migrants successfully form the "enclave" medium grouped around mosques or prayer houses. Simultaneously, one of the consequences of the emergence of such "enclaves" is criminalization and religious-political radicalization of certain part of migrants, which inevitable leads to the emergence of the latent seats of socio-political tension for quite some time and their inevitable confrontation with the local population. In our view, there can be no talk of tolerant "Euro-Islam", it is rather the Islamization of Europe in the most dangerous forms. The developments of the first years of the new millennium in Spain, Britain, France and other European countries only confirm this assertion. As a consequence, European politicians have begun to talk in unison of the failure of the ideology and practice of multiculturalism in Europe and incompatibility of Islamism and West European values.
Similar "enclaves" have appeared in Russian cities with ensuing consequences. For example, in a prayer house on one of the city markets in St. Petersburg, as well as in private homes, several persons were detained who were distributing extremist religious literature.
In all, 271 men were apprehended, most of whom were foreign migrants from Afghanistan and Egypt. The Islamic threat in the region of St. Petersburg could be compared with the situation in the North Caucasus. The people detained were against secular power and advocated the establishment of a caliphate.
Thus, a steady process of the politicization and radicalization of Islam and Islamic groupings has been observed in the country during the post-Soviet period due to the weakening of the institutions of state power and under a strong influence from abroad. This process was aggravated by the weakness and disunity of traditional and official Russian Islam and separatist projects in certain regions of the country, primarily in the North Caucasus. Due to a number of objective and subjective factors stable groupings of radical Salaphites have emerged and consolidated on the territory of Russia, particularly in the North Caucasian region. The ideas of jihad has spread throughout the North Caucasus, and recently this process has engulfed the Volga and Ural areas and West Siberia, as well as "Muslim "enclaves" in Russian big cities.
"Nauchnaya mysl Kavkaza," Rostov-on-Don,
2012, pp. 23-30.
M. Astvatsaturova,
Political analyst
INTERETHNIC CONTRADICTIONS AND CONFLICTS IN STAVROPOL TERRITORY
The essence of ethnopolitical and ethnocultural processes in Stavropol Territory is largely determined by the situation in the North Caucasian Federal Region (NCFR). Its formation in January 2010 in accordance with a decree of the President of the Russian Federation of
