Paul Goble
Staunton,
Oct. 18 – For years, Vladimir Putin and his supporters have insisted that
Russians and Ukrainians are one nation and that because that is the case the
Ukrainian state should be disbanded and the two peoples should live together in
a single one as they in fact did under the tsars and Soviets.
Few
have noticed, however, that this argument about the relationship between nations
and republics is being reproduced within the Russian Federation, where some are
suggesting that the Ingush and Chechen nations, which share many cultural
features and were part of a single republic, should follow the same course the
Kremlin advocates for Ukrainians and Russians.
Because
such a position could help power the kind of amalgamation of federal subjects
within the Russian Federation not just in the North Caucasus but elsewhere, it
merits attention as a bellwether of Moscow’s policies and as an indication of
the way in which foreign policy positions can bleed back into domestic ones.
Prague-based
commentator Vadim Sidorov says that problems in Ingushetia have led some
figures there to suggest that these could be overcome if Ingushetia were to
unite with Chechnya where they believe the situation is being dealt with more
effectively. These suggestions have generated more opposition than support (region.expert/republic/).
Ayup
Gagiyev, head of the republic’s Constitutional Court Moscow has disbanded, is
among the opponents. He says that “those who speak out against the statehood of
Ingushetia may freedly use their constitutional right to choose their place of
residence in any other region of Russia.”
But
“the statehood of Ingushetia,” he continues, “is the most important condition
for the preservation by the Ingush people of their national identity. On the
basis of this fundamental principle, the best representatives of our people
have proceeded in their decades-long effort to achieve legal status for the
Ingush people within Russia.”
Sidorov
argues that “for Russian federalists what is interesting is not so much the
ethno-national than the political dimension.” Many have failed to see that
Ingush protests over the last three years have not been only about the change
in the border with Chechnya but in the loss of the Ingush of the right to
choose their own leaders and to insist they represent the people.
It is
certainly true, he says, that the sultanate Ramzan Kadyrov has created in
Chechnya resembles what Putin has done for Russia as a whole and that one
result of this is that Kadyrov gets more help from Moscow than Ingushetia does.
But Ingushetia seeks democracy and genuine federalism and talk about anything
else is a potentially dangerous distraction.
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