By Vestnik Kavkaza
Today radical Islamism is being spread in the Volga Region where the situation resembles the North Caucasus 15 years ago, but its development is speeded up. Rais Suleimanov, head of the Volga Region Center of Regional and Ethnic Regional Studies of the Russian Institute of Startegic Studies, said: “the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s caused the Parade of Sovereignties; and local separatists have found a support by the regional authorities which saw a force for threatening Moscow in them. The federal center was weak and the country experienced decentralization of internal policy that is why such radical activists enabled local regional elites to maintain Soviet property, industry in their hands and privatize it in interests of their clans.”
According to Suleimanov, it led to the fact that radicals started to demand independence in several Russian republics, including Tatarstan and Bashkiria. “Fortunately, later the federal center adopted a strict method of suppressing such separatist projects, like in Chechnya, and decided to separate from separatists who appeared to be useless for regional authorities. Agreements with Moscow were signed under Boris Yeltsin, and it made them feel independent states de facto – it was written in the constitution of Tatarstan, for instance, till 2001 that the Republic of Tatarstan is an independent state associated with Russia,” the experts says.
Parallel to this, another process took place – the process of a religious revival which covered the whole country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of state atheism. “However, this process was used by foreign religious centers which tried to present their own version of Islam and politically redirect Muslims of the North Caucasus, the Volga Region to foreign religious centers. The established religious education system which was raw, but fruitful unveiled the negative processes which became obvious during the second Chechen war when Tatars were found among militants. It appeared that along with Chechen militants Tatars came to fight against Russia. At that period, 1999, the authorities didn’t pay attention to it and let things slide. It led to the fact that after returning from abroad, these Wahhabis took positions of imams in major mosques, key positions in the system of the spiritual administration of Muslims and began to prepare a flock, i.e. the second generation of their followers. A whole system of Wahhabism began to form when not only common residents, but also representatives of business and official power were involved in it. By 2010 some heads of districts, mayors of cities and towns began to sympathize and even share jihadists’ ideas. Joining of bureaucracy, business, and Wahhabist clergy took place. It was called “Wahhabist Holding”, i.e. these problems often led to a vicious circle.”
Suleimanov says that in 2010 in Tatarstan a gang of militants appeared, which established a stationary military camp: “They prepared hubs for the organization of bombing local gas pipelines. Last year terrorist attacks were committed in the center of Kazan, and military operations were launched in the city. In this situation local separatists and Islamic fundamentalists joined and the mechanism “let’s join everybody who against Russia!” worked. The North Caucasus scenario of development is now taking place in the Volga Region. There is a unified front from the North Caucasus to the Volga Region and then it will spread to Siberia where flash-points appear and the authorities have to take measures to limit an inflow of migrants from the North Caucasus, for example. These are citizens of Russia, who are not allowed to resettle to a certain territory, explaining it by the security issues.”
Roman Silantiev, sociologist and religious scholar, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “we have a very acute problem of extremism today. There is a stable growth of extremist crimes; and extremism becomes a stage of terrorism. There is extremism which hangs at a poise – its urges to kill somebody are almost never fulfilled. Only a couple of cases in a year, and those people are crazy. This type of extremism is not so dangerous. However, there is extremism which is a preparation for terrorism. I.e. people at first become extremists and then are involved into a terrorist war. And this is much dangerous extremism, and of course we have to fight against it.
Preventive measures are necessary, but we shouldn’t exaggerate their importance. We must explain people that if they begin extremist activities, they will be sent behind bars for a very long term – this is the main preventive task. If they commit terrorist activities, they will most probably be killed and nobody would be sad about this. Unfortunately, in our country they try to speak kindly with people, but people shouldn’t be asked to follow the law, they should be made follow the law. Many of us forget about this and try to speak softly with people who do not care about it. So, we must explain people that if they commit such crimes, they will be either imprisoned or dead. That is a fundamental for preventive measures.”
