Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 18 – “Civil society”
is usually thought to include only groups formed on the basis of common secular
interests thus excluding religious or clan structures, viewing them as “primordial”
and therefore not properly part of civil society. But in Ingushetia, with the NGOs
under siege, one set of primordial groups – the teips – have become key actors
in civil society.
In part, this is because the teips
themselves had collectively articulated an NGO, the Council of Teips of Ingushetia,
that acted as a combination of civil and primordial ties and that has now been
banned by Moscow and Magas as an NGO. The individual teips, the clan structures
all members of Ingush society are members of by birth, has taken up the slack.
But in part, such primordial groups
have always had the capacity to play a role in civil society; and it is the
definitions of social scientists that have often failed to recognize that
reality. In many countries, primordial groups including both ethnic and
religious play the role of NGO civil society activists,
It is just that in Ingushetia, where
the local society had moved furthest in the North Caucasus region toward the formation
of a civil society, people clearly view these groups as a worthy or at least
necessary substitute if the Russian government and its representatives in
Ingushetia block the operation of NGOs, classically defined.
And that adaptability underscores
why the broad attack on non-governmental organizations there may fail because
Ingush activists inside primordial groups are more than ready to act in ways
that many social scientists suggest only NGOs properly can, a testament to the
vitality of civil society among the Ingush even when that society is under
attack.
That vitality is shown today in a
statement released by the Bekov teip concerning the republic’s Popular Assembly
(fortanga.org/2020/07/tejp-bekovyh-prizyvaet-deputatov-prinimat-zakony-dlya-naroda-i-ne-pozoritsya/).
In it, the teip calls on deputies to
take the initiative in promoting and passing laws not only for the return to
residents of the republic of popular voting for the head of the republic, long part
of the agenda of Ingush activiss but also for the elaboration of a mixed system
of voting for deputies of the Popular Assembly of Ingushetia.
“The adoption of such laws is the holy
responsibility of deputies of the Popular Assembly since this assembly much
respond to demands which the people present and not to those from the powers
which go against their own people, powers which falsify the results of voting
and participation both on the constitutional amendments and in elections.”
The teip continues by arguing that “only
by democratic means can the republic overcome the difficulties which have piled
up.” And it reminds the deputies that “society knows how you received your
mandates.” You must respond to the people and not to the powers, this
primordial clan group says.
Once you have become deputies, the Bekov
teip concludes, you must “defend the interests of the people and not shame such
a high assembly by putting out laws which do not correspond to the demands of the
people.”
That statement was paired by an Ingush
commentary that if anything is even more remarkable as an indication of the
evolution of Ingush society away from its traditional patterns or Soviet and
Russian-imposed arrangements.
Fatima Albakova says that the world
has changed and made the people and the institutions they articulate more
important and the efforts of the powers to impose post-truth ideas or tradition
left-right divisions increasingly irrelevant to the concerns of the population
(fortanga.org/2019/03/fatima-albakova-zavtra-nastupit-segodnya/).
The model which so many have
accepted for so long that there is a tiny elite which makes decisions and a
larger populace that goes along is wrong. “Today we are all an elite, responsible
for our present, past and future, for the rising generations and the people as
a whole,” she says.
On the basis of Ingush experience
over the last two years, “we know that the protests have had several positive
effects – intergenerational divides have been overcome and stereotypes that
democratic civil institutions are possible only on the basis of historically
evolved ideologies, conservative, liberal, socialist or their variations.”
Now, “traditional (ethno-cultural,
religious and other) social organizations in fact are showing they are a unique
and effective resource of self-organization, promoting and speaking out on
behalf of socially significant problems.” These “traditional social
institutions have shown their capacity to fit themselves into the contemporary context
and function.”
The Ingush people, recognizing that
they can’t count on Moscow to support them against Magas, recognize that they can
count on no one but themselves, Albakova says. Neither Moscow nor Magas will
enter a dialogue with us. Instead, we must act on our own to defend our interests
using the organizations we have.
“Tomorrow has arrived today!” she
continues. “Today we all can influence the anti-people decisions of people who ‘by
a strange misconception’ have decided that the people will always be quiescent,
that the Ingush are indifferent to their fate, and that they will all ‘swallow’
whatever the powers dish out and forget their own concerns.”
Those in power who think that way
must be disabused of such notions. The people using both new institutions and
old ones must act to defend what is most important so that the Ingush people
and the Ingush republic will not only survive but flourish.
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