Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 20 – With the active
support of the Federal Migration Service, Moscow’s mosques are going to start
free courses in the Russian language for immigrants from Central Asia and the
Caucasus as part of a broader program to help them adapt and to raise their
general educational level.
Tatyana Dmitriyeva, the head of the
FMS Moscow office for work with ethnic communities, told “Izvestiya” that she
and her staff are “actively working with the Muslim spiritual directorate [MSD]
of Moscow,” which she said was “also concerned about the issues of the
adaptation of migrants in the city” (izvestia.ru/news/570865).
But if both the
Russian authorities and the city’s Muslim leadership back this idea, there are
good reasons to think that such a program, if it is launched, will have
consequences that one side or both could come to regret.
On the other hand, the MSD is
certain to invoke its service in this regard to press for the opening of more
than the six mosques now officially registered. But on the other, both it and
the Russian government are likely to face the possibility that some Muslims
will attend underground and more radical mosques given this rapprochement
between religious and political functions.
(That this is a real risk was
suggested by Farid Asadullin, the deputy head of the MSD for the European Part
of Russia, at a St. Petersburg conference on adaptation and inter-religious cooperation
held last week (islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusopinions/32395/).)
And behind both of these
possibilities is a larger issue: the Russianization of the Muslim
community. Until a decade or so ago, Kazan
Tatars were the most numerous ethnic group among the mullahs and imams of
Moscow, and they used their national language rather than Russian in services,
something that reduced the interest of other groups to attend mosques there.
More recently, the mosques of Moscow
have shifted to the use of Russian, something that has allowed them to attract
more Muslims who do not speak Tatar. The
offering of Russian-language courses almost certainly will further expand this
practice, and that in turn means that even more Muslims will attend the few
mosques they have in the city and do so more regularly.
On the most important religious
holidays, the existing mosques in Moscow have not been able to hold all those
attending, and the spillover into the surrounding squares and streets has
sparked complaints both from Russian nationalists who see such events as
evidence of the Islamization of Russia and from local residents who have NIMBY
attitudes.
For the moment, however, as “Izvestiya”
reports, officials like Dmitriyeva, Moscow Muslim leaders like Bair Ibratov, a
senior official of the Moscow MSD, and rights activists like Aleksandr
Verkhovsky of SOVA, are emphasizing the positive nature of this step rather
than considering these potential problems.
Ibratov for his part said that the
preparation of instructors for Russian language courses in the four Moscow
mosques under his MSD would begin next month at the Russian University of
Friendship of the Peoples. He said the
first courses would be offered at the Moscow Islamic College and then be
extended. The MSD official said he favored charging a nominal fee for such
instruction because “often people are not serious” about something they don’t
have to pay for.
Verkhovsky told the paper that he believes the courses
will be a success because immigrants recognize that they need to learn Russian,
and mosques, unlike Orthodox churches, are viewed as acceptable places for various
activities. “Therefore,” he said, “studying Russian also can be carried out
there without problems or the violation of the cannon and traditions.”
“Izvestiya”
noted that the Russian Orthodox Church had launched last summer special courses
at specially organized centers to help immigrants adapt by teaching Russian as
well as Russian history and culture. Some 150 immigrants took part, the paper
said.
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