Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 18 – The continuing
clashes among ethnic groups in Daghestan and the intervention of Chechen officials
offer three disturbing lessons for the future of that region, according to a
new analysis for the OnKavkaz portal by commentator Shamil Dhamaludinov (onkavkaz.com/news/1778-slabost-mahachkaly-pozvolila-groznomu-nadolgo-legalizovat-svoe-vmeshatelstvo-v-dela-dagestana.html).
The three are: first, “ethnic
conflicts will attract ever more protesting young” who earlier had turned to
the Islamist underground; second, the ethnic quota system for officials
Daghestan has used ignores the population and is ceasing to be effective; and third,
powerful regional leaders are increasingly prepared to intervene on behalf of
their co-ethnics in other republics.
Each of these will reorder the social
and political situation in the region and challenge the ability of Moscow and
the regional authorities to keep the situation under control. They thus merit
the close attention the OnKavkaz analyst provides.
First of all, Dzhamaludinov says, young
people in the North Caucasus who had earlier gone into the Islamist underground
are now expressing their anger at social and economic injustices in the region “via
ethnic mobilization.” The two are linked: where Islamist extremism was strongest,
now ethnic protest is.
At one point, he continues, “specialists
on the Caucasus proposed in place of the expression ‘the radicalization of
Islam’ to use the term ‘the Islamization of radicalism’” in order to capture
the reality that many people angry about conditions locally became radicalized
and then turned to Islamist groups. Now, these same people are shifting back to
ethnic groups.
“Non-traditional Islam,” the analyst
argues, legitimated protest “against the existing system of relations” and thus
drew in those who were angry about it. “Today,” however, “one can speak about
the beginning of ‘the ethnicization’ of protest,” with nationality movements
attracting and being affected by the same people.
The Islamic protest movement “both
radical and civic” has now entered a period of crisis and can no longer attract
as many young people as it did. “The last massive protests of Islamist youth
took place 18 months ago in Khasavyurt and Derbet.” Now, the same people are involved in ethnic
mobilization or in protests like those of the long-haul truckers.
Second, Dzhamaludinov continues,
these new protests mean that the ethnic quota system that the Daghestani
authorities have used to try to keep the peace is rapidly collapsing, primarily
because they may work with some elites but they do not address the concerns of
members of these ethnic communities.
Unfortunately, he says, the current
head of Daghestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov does not appear to understand this,
routinely using ethnic quotas as a substitute for rather than a policy that
addresses the needs of communities. That is severing the ties between the population
and those in power and opening the way for radicalization in the population.
The OnKavkaz analyst then describes
in detail a series of actions Abdulatipov has taken in this regard since being
named to lead the republic and the ways in which each of them has exacerbated
ethnic and also religious tensions rather than ameliorating the situation.
And third, the commentator
continues, the events in Daghestan where the leadership is weak have encouraged
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to intervene on behalf of Chechens in the
neighboring republic, effectively taking power there and challenging the
existing territorial divisions.
This situation is not so critical
and has a long history, but if what Kadyrov is doing spreads to other republic
heads, it is possible that full-scale conflicts will break out not just between
various titular nationalities but also between republic leaderships. That will
challenge existing ethno-territorial divisions and may lead to the collapse of
one or more republics.
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