Страница: 2/7
Perhaps because of Russia's friendship with certain parts of the Muslim world, Mr Putin has firmly rejected the view that the "bandits" Russia is now fighting could properly be described as Islamic. "They are international terrorists, most of them mercenaries, who cover themselves in religious slogans," he insists.
But ordinary Muslims in the Moscow street — whether they are of Caucasian origin, or from the Tatar or Bashkir nations based in central Russia — fear a general backlash. "Politicians and the mass media are equating us, the Muslim faithful, with armed groups," complains Ravil Gainutdin, Russia's senior mufti. Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox church, has been urging his flock not to blame their i8m Muslim compatriots for the recent violence. "Russian Christians and Muslims traditionally live in peace," he has reminded them.
Chapter 2. Clash, or conspiracy?
But even if Russia's southern war is not yet a "clash of civilisations", might it soon become one? And if so, would that bring Russia closer to the West, or push it farther away?
Islam is certainly one element in the crisis looming on Russia's southern rim, but it is by no means the only one. The latest flare-up began in August in the wild border country between Chechnya — which has been virtually independent since Russian troops were forced out, after two years of brutal war, in 1996 — and Dagestan, a ramshackle, multiethnic republic where a pro-Russian government has been steadily losing control.
Many people in Russia did not need any evidence; the government's allegations simply confirmed the anti-Chechen, and generally anti-Caucasian, prejudice they already harboured. Other Russians take a more cynical view. They believe the bomb attacks are somehow related to the power struggle raging in Moscow as the "courtiers" of Ex-President Yeltsin try to cling to their power and privilege in the face of looming electoral defeat.
Such incidents are grist to the mill of Moscow's conspiracy theorists. Some believe that the bombs were indeed the work of Chechen extremists, but insist that the fighting in the south is mainly the result of Russian provocation; some say it is the other way round. Whatever the truth, the crisis has certainly played into the hands of the most hardline elements in Russia's leadership. But there are also signs that people from outside Russia have been stirring the pot.
Mark Galeotti, a British lecturer on Russia's armed forces, says there is evidence that Mr bin Laden, while not the instigator of the urban bombing campaign, has offered financial help to its perpetrators. And fighters under the influence of Mr bin Laden have certainly been active in Chechnya and Dagestan — though their presence is probably not the main reason why war is raging now.
With or without some mischief-making by dark forces in Moscow, Russia would have a problem in the northern Caucasus. Hostility between Russians and Chechens goes back to the north Caucasian wars of the i9th century, when the tsar's forces took more than 50 years to bring the Chechens under control. As well as strong family loyal-ries, part of the glue that held the Chechens and other north Caucasian people together was Sufism, the mystical strand of Islam.
The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 promised to liberate all the subject peoples of the sariat empire. As civil war loomed, Lenin and Stalin made a cynical bid for Muslim support by promising the creation of semi-independent Islamic states in Russia and central Asia, saying: "All you whose mosques and houses of prayer have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been flouted by the tsars and the oppressors of Russia — from now on your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions are free and inviolable."
Реферат опубликован: 24/05/2008