Teips Support Rather than Restrict Rise of Ingush Civil Society, Moscow Ethnographer Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 22 – Most analysts view religious or ethnic groups as limiting the rise of a civil society, but in, the teips, the extended family groupings with which all Ingush identify, continue to play a positive role in the rise of civil society there because they are united on issues defined as an attack on the survival of the Ingush nation, Taizila Chabiyeva says.

            The Caucasus specialist at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology says this was demonstrated over the last several years when “the teip structure completely harmoniously coexisted with the understanding of civil society” (gazetaingush.ru/obshchestvo/intervyu-islama-ahcieva-dlya-gazety-ingushetiya-s-tanziloy-chabievoy-o-grazhdanskom).

            Indeed, Chabiyeva says, the teips “can fill that function which civil society itself in fact does” as long as the society “takes into account  those traditional norms and principles which have existed in the teips historically,” and can do so especially in circumstances where the existence of the Ingush nation or the Ingush republic are threatened.

            She adds that the same can be said of Islam. “Despite the fact that all Ingush characterize themselves and identify as Muslims, nonetheless, ethnic identity predominates over all other forms.” That means that the preservation of the nation and its republic are core issues for the entire people.

            For a nation as small as the Ingush, “no more than 500,000,” the defense of the community is paramount, including territory, language and culture.  The Ingush are “conservative,” and their civil society, closely connected with groups like the teips, reinforces that reality.

            “The Ingush would not be Ingush,” the ethnographer says, “if they did not follow the main characteristics of their culture which are extremely specific and sharply distinguished from all the remaining cultures in the North Caucasus.” Because of that reality, groups that might limit the rise of civil society elsewhere in fact are promoting its rise in Ingushetia.

            Meanwhile, today there were two developments in Ingushetia worth noting. First, an Ingush suspected of affiliation with the Islamic State was extradited to Moscow at the request of the FSB rather than facing trial in the republic (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/325329/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/349837/).

            And second, while the number of coronavirus infections continued to rise in Ingushetia, the number of deaths did not; and as a result, Ingushetia no longer has the most of any federal subject in the region. Daghestan does (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/349886/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/349881/).