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At present a state policy which does not take into account the religious factor is regarded near-sighted. In the conditions of globalization the preservation of the national and religious way of life traditional for a given country is absolutely necessary for its survival as a unified state.
In modern Russia mutual understanding between different confessions and creation of ways and means to establish respectful and tolerant relations between confessions is a task of great urgency.
"Etnos. Religiya. Politika", Krasnodar, 2012 pp. 50-63.
E. Baboshina,
D.Sc.(Law) - Kizlyar branch of DSU, Kizlyar THE CONFESSIONAL FACTOR IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN AS AN EXAMPLE)
Russia represents a striking instance of poly-ethnic and poly-confessional state, where internal confessional and inter-confessional relations acquired a great significance.
The contemporary model of state-confessional relations has been enriched by the diversity of regional models depending on specificity of confessional space of individual region. In particular, it is characteristic for the republics of the RF with higher political-legal status, where ethnic and confessional belonging had a great influence on formation of the national-regional identity. For instance, it concerns Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia.
In terms of ethnic-confessional relations, Dagestan was always regarded as one of the complicated republics, since representatives of 100 peoples living there, including 32 indigenous peoples, form almost
all confessions: Islamic, Christian and Judaic. The enormous confessional variety and multi-nationality of the republic is connected with history of Dagestan and with its geographic location.
It should be stressed that the notions "religious" and "national" are closely connected in consciousness of Muslims in Dagestan. The perception of unity of national and religious factors was consolidated in consciousness of peoples in Dagestan for a long historic period. Following adoption of Islam the peoples of Dagestan turned out being united by common religion. The process of confessional unity on the national basis was accompanied by specific features absorbing local national custom, traditions and rituals. The traditions and custom in the religious form were accepted as entities with religious content created by God, as was marked by K.G. Guseva. The lack of understanding and the incorrect appraisal of national specifics are often displayed by attitude to existing religious rites and traditions. For instance, arrangement of funerals and funeral repast, the rite of giving name (sunnat) are regarded in Dagestan both by believers and non-believers as a national custom.
This phenomenon is explained by the fact that for the Soviet period many people kept to Islamic custom and rites accepting them as a popular and not religious custom. This situation is characteristic not only for Dagestan but also for Muslims in the Volga Basin, the Ural Basin and the North Caucasus.
According to some sociological research, 64.1% of respondents consider themselves as believers, while 38.7% of them observe religious rites, and 25% of the respondents do not keep to any religious rites. About 200 thousand people are really deeply religious Muslims, according to E.F. Kisriev. The results of research demonstrate that the prevailing type of religiousness in Dagestan is marked by existence of believers, who do not practice regularly the rites.
The attitude to religion is different in various ethic groups: Avars - 38%, Dargins - 20%, Kumyks - 14%, Lezgins - 10%, Laks -4%, other nationalities - 14%. The share of wahhabies and Tarikatists among deeply religious Muslims is small (from 3% to 4%). The ethnic feature of re-Islamization process is as follows: it is characterized by its intensive process in the north-western districts, particularly among Avars, Dargins (excluding Kaitags), Kumyks, while it is displayed less among Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarants, Dargins-Kaitags.
The contemporary regional model of confessional policy in Dagestan to a large extent is determined by the social-economic and political-legal development of the region and by the confessional structure of the population as well as by psychological peculiarities and business quality of political and confessional leaders. The contemporary confessional situation in Dagestan is characterized by the following features: 1) the growth of religiousness not connected with the regular rites practice; 2) the high level of religiousness depending on the place of birth and ethnic belonging; 3) the developed form of religious (Islamic) education; 4) the politicization of traditional Islam in Dagestan (the branch "Nur" of the all-Russian Muslim movement - the Islamic Party of Dagestan); 5) the existence of various religious trends, including religious-extremist trend - wahhabism; 6) the poly-confessional situation. The factors, such as politicization of traditional Islam and religious extremism, represent a threat to security not only of Dagestan but also of the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation.
For Dagestan of great urgent significance is existence of the conflict potential in inter-ethnic, inter-confessional and internal confessional spheres. The Islamic confession is split into two trends: the adepts of traditional people's Islam and the supporters of the reactionary wing of Mazkhab of Khanbalits (wahabism and salafism). The spread of wahhabism is caused shortly by the external and internal
factors. According to Z. Abdulagatov, the external factors are as follows: Muslim education abroad, missionary activities, activities of foreign non-governmental organizations, economic interests of transnational companies and geopolitical interests of various states and other reasons.
The change of geopolitical role of the Republic of Dagestan is one of the most important factors of dissemination in Dagestan of extremist ideology of wahhabism. After emergence of independent trans-Caucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) and the political instability in Chechnya and other republics of the North-West Caucasus just Dagestan became the key subject of the geopolitical situation in the south of Russia. The dissemination of ideology of wahhabism was promoted by many internal reasons: the social-economic instability, the unemployment, the poverty of the population, the degradation of morality, the dominance of the clannish system in Muslim regions of the North Caucasus, the uncertain policy of Moscow relating to the region, the low level of authority of the clergy.
The main threat to public security on the part of wahhabism consists in its urge towards imposing to society of the model of "Islamic state", including armed forceful suppression of a different trend of thought. Its spread in society is marked by global extension. The challenge of wahhabism as a form of radical politicized Islam is displayed not so much in the religious as in the social-political sphere. In the North Caucasus wahhabism possesses certain mobilizing ideology and is based on the support of international Islamist organizations and other external forces, which render it rather great financial, material, cadre and propaganda assistance.
For the sake of keeping stability the state bodies, the public and religious organizations of the Republic of Dagestan should work out the program of complex measures directed to attainment of ethnic-
confessional tolerance, preservation and consolidation of ethnic-confessional space of the republic, peaceful coexistence and cooperation of various peoples and confessions within the framework of the united territorial and religious space of Dagestan, of Russia and also should create the foundations of the religious model of confessional policy taking into account of the region.
"Rossiya i ee regiony v poiskah grazhdanskogo edinstva i mezhnatsionalnogo soglasiya", Ufa, 2011, pp. 77-80.
I. Khubiyev,
Political analyst (Karachay-Cherkessian state university named after U. Aliyev) ETHNOPOLITICAL-PROCESSES IN POST-SOVIET KARACHAY-CHERKESSIA: LESSONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The ethnopolitical processes going on in the post-Soviet area during the past two decades draw close attention of Russian scholars (E. Stepanov, L. Polyakov, V. Tishkov, and others). Many of them note that one of the common features for all post-Soviet regions is that everywhere tension in the relations between various ethnoses and conflicts provoked by this tension hampers the implementation of economic and political transformations and retard the unification of the public around humanistic demographic ideals.
These problems are urgent to this day, including in the Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, and they call for thorough investigation.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union in August 1991 and the proclamation of independence of a number of former Union republics caused the rapid growth of separatist sentiments and determined the main development vector of the ethnopolitical processes in different
