by Vestnik Kavkaza
The number of terrorist attacks and murders in Dagestan has not dropped off since the election of the new authorities in Dagestan. A judge of the Supreme Court of Dagestan and his son were murdered on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the police announced the "neutralization" of two militants, one of which was the head of the Kadarskaya Gang.
Dagestani Head Ramazan Abdulatipov estimates that the republic has 150-250 militants left, adding that 2% of them are foreign mercenaries. Regarding the efficiency of counter-terrorism efforts, Abdulatipov notes: “We fight extremists, bandits in an old-fashioned manner, the way it was done during the times of Imam Shamil: they come out of the forest, we chase them, they go back in the forest and rest, and we rest. It should not go that way, we have modern vehicles, technologies. And thus, we have outstanding opportunities to fight bandits, terrorism.”
At the same time, according to the head of the republic, if there “trust in state structures earlier totaled only 10-12%, today we have managed to improve it to 70% in just 8 months. Trust should be encouraged by specific transformative initiatives.”
Writer Magomed Sultanov has described the success of of this process in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.
- What is your opinion about the efforts of Ramazan Abdulatipov as the Head of Dagestan?
- Extremely positively. With emergence of Abdulatipov, the republic has witnessed and started producing tendencies that can rightfully be described as positive and progressive. Discussions of the political, legal justice, economic justice, have started with such honesty and scale for the first time. Of course, there are nuances that provoke questions, including some critical ones, but even they, in my opinion, are an early subject. So it is too early to make round-ups.
- Do the authorities take enough measures to fight terrorism?
- The Dagestani police, FSB, state civil servants, municipal services do all they can to prevent these attacks. There is no country in the world that can secure itself for 100%. No such demands can be made for Dagestan either. This is all sad, this is dram, this is a dramatic epoch in our history. We fight this any was we can and we hope that victory will be achieved sooner or later. There will be time when Dagestan will be free from terrorist attacks.
- In your opinion, what could encourage the formation of an all-Russian identity and the involvement of Dagestan in it?
- What concerns the closer integration of Dagestan and the Dagestanis in the socio-cultural space of Russia and strengthening of Russian identity, it is impossible to succeed without philosophy, applied aspects of philosophy and mass philosophic work.
Regarding the instrument used so far, yes, there are very many applied sciences, applied methods of political and legal practice. It is all good. But the toolkit is no complete because it lacks philosophy. The range of instruments used by the authorities, both federal and republican, to improve the cultural and Russian supraethnical identity for this task, surprisingly as it may seem, does not exploit philosophy. Although, besides philosophy, nothing can give answers to the questions of conscience and improve consciences in general, in the aspect of rational, reflexive mechanism of people’s natures.
