Anti-War Activism by Women of the Caucasus has Deep Roots and isn’t about to Disappear, Sirazhdinova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – Many have been surprised by the prominent role women in Daghestan and other North Caucasian republics have assumed in protests there against the war in Ukraine and the mobilization of their sons and husbands to serve in it, Saida Sirazhdinova says. But they should not be.

            Not only is there the recent precedent of the Women of Beslan and the Women of Daghestan, the head of the Center for Research on Global Problems of the Contemporary World and Regional Problems of the Caucasus says, but there are deep reasons why such activism not only was no surprise but will continue (daptar.ru/2022/10/28/zhenskij-aktivizm-na-kavkaze/).

            Like animals in nature, Sirazhdinova says, “women come out first of all to protect their children, their sons, and their offspring.” There have been “dozens even hundreds” of such actions in the history of the North Caucasus. Women engage in public protests “when they feel they have been left with no other choice.”

            This is true to some degree in all patriarchal societies, even the Russian, where the image of the motherland calls is invariably female. But in the North Caucasus, this tendency has been strengthened both by the experience of resisting Russian expansion and, not unimportantly, by the teachings of Islam, the researcher says.

            Many observers ignore the fact that in the Islamic tradition, there are numerous fetwas and traditions that “allow women to be active, within the framework of Islam, of course, but still; and these are especially applicable “when there is a threat to Muslims and to Muslim societies,” Sirazhdinova continues.

            “This was present at the very foundation of Islam. The most striking example, of course, is Aisha, the third and youngest wife of Muhammed, who transmitted hadiths to the faithful. She was listened to and often called ‘the mother of believers.” She was active and encouraged women to be in defense of the family and the faith.

            Any attempt to limit such activity when children are at risk will fail. “Nothing can extinguish this,” the researcher says. “It is inherent primordially in Daghestani and Caucasian women, something written in the cultural code, legends, the educational system, historial examples, even in the blood.”

            A half century ago, US scholar Gregory Massell described the way in which the Bolsheviks used women in Central Asia to transform social relations there. (See his The Surrogate Proletariat (Princeton, 1974). It will be one of the true ironies of history if Muslim women in the Caucasus during this historical cycle manage to defeat Moscow’s plans.