Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 6 – The editors of
Moscow’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta” warn in a lead article today that “injustice
toward [Muslim] believers could lead to violence” in Moscow and other Russian
cities as well, a conclusion that new research on the state of inter-ethnic
relations in Russia’s regions confirms.
“Almost two million” people have
viewed a YouTube video showing the clash between Muslims in Moscow and the OMON
on September 26, an indication of the attention that such events now receive
and of the way in which unjust actions in one place can trigger them in others
as well, the paper says (ng.ru/editorial/2014-10-06/2_red.html).
The video shows a Muslim being
arrested and then beaten by OMON officers, the paper notes. But what is shown
next is more disturbing. Another Muslim shouted in response: “They’re beating
it, and next time they will beat me [because] they will say that all Muslims
are bad and terrorists.”
A crowd of Muslims then surrounded
the OMON bus and shouted that if the first Muslim was not released, they would
not allow the bus to go anywhere. Shouting “Allah Akbar!” they then said, “Brothers,
let’s get him out!” They beat on the bus
and passions grew, as “Nezavisimaya” put it, “with each minute.”
One
of those taking part said “This is a revolution, brothers! This was a
revolution!”
That certainly overstated the case,
the paper suggests, but the reaction of officials and others to these events
point to real trouble ahead. Last week, Anton Tsvetkov, a member of the Russian
Social Chamber, said that the clash between Muslims and the OMON was equivalent
to the Manezh Square demonstrations in 2002 and 2010 and the Biryulevo violence
of 2013.
He added that his group and the
all-Russian organization, Officers of Russia, are “now actively studying the
experience of racial disorders in Ferguson” in the US this past August to get
ideas on what to do.
Muslims in Russia are already
angry. Ali Charinsky, an Islamic
activist, said on “Govorit Moskva” that “the government and the force
structures have declared war on Muslims,” thus presenting himself as a
representative of what he said were “angry Muslims.”
Over the last year, he continued,
young Muslims have been “very strongly radicalized,” viewing what the
authorities have done against Hizb ut-Tahrir for example as evidence that
Russia is discriminating against all Muslims and concluding that they must be
willing to fight for their rights, even against OMON forces.
Tsvetkov for his part said that he
and the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus “are inviting observers to
follow events and ensure that the rights of residents are not violated and that
the rights of the police are not violated either.” Maksim Shevchenko, who is
also a member of the Social Chamber, proposed something even more radical.
He suggested that what needs to
happen is to form public militias (“druzhinniki”) numbering from 100 to 300 who
will blend in with the crowds of Muslims and provide support for the OMON in
the event of trouble.
As “Nezavisimaya gazeta” notes, “the
creation of such ‘parallel’ organs of law enforcement, especially along
ethno-confessional lines, is a challenge to the monopoly of the state on
violence which exists in a civilized society.” Moreover, it said, a situation
in which the forces of order “need their rights defended” by such forces seems
very “strange” indeed.
But it
is certainly an indication of a radical deterioration of relations between the Russian
police and Russia’s Muslims, and that is suggested as well by a new report on
inter-ethnic tensions in the Russian Federation prepared by the Moscow Center
for the Study of National Conflicts (http://www.club-rf.ru/thegrapesofwrath/02/ and nazaccent.ru/content/13412-cink-opublikoval-vtoroj-rejting-mezhetnicheskoj-napryazhennosti.html).
All ten of the regions were tensions
are either “very high” or “high” according to the report are where there are
either a large number of Muslims as a result of the influx of gastarbeiters
(like Moscow and St. Petersburg) or which are historically Muslim (Daghestan
and Tatarstan).
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