Jihad Territory - here and now
The military-industrial complex weekly (No. 23, 2013) has already published a number of iconic speeches at the Mayor’s Scientific and Practical Conference “Islamism and National Security of the Russian Federation” held at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. We offer our readers the continuation of the main report, which reveals the social and political aspects of the spread of Islamism in Russia.
Immigration has a great influence on the growth of the number of Muslims. This is largely facilitated by our “leaky” and passive migration policy, which actually stimulates the influx of foreigners, mostly Muslims.
The overpopulation of immigrants in many regions of modern Russia is a fact that does not require proof, which creates enough socio-economic, religious and domestic political problems.
Migrants do not need museums
Changing not only the national composition, but also the cultural code of a secular state. Residents of Russian cities are traditionally multinational. But not everyone is ready to accept the specific features of the Muslim rites, such as prayers in the squares, ritual sacrifices, invocations of the muezzins, hijabs, niqabs, etc.
Attempts by the Moscow authorities to familiarize migrants with Russian culture failed. Created in 2012, the “Museums for Migrants” program, under which visitors were to be introduced to history and the culture of Moscow, was not claimed: the migrants did not go to museums. Moreover, they understood this proposal as a workload and demanded an appropriate remuneration - from 300 to 500 rubles per visit.
Educational institutions of megacities are overwhelmed with representatives of other states and ethnic groups, for which study is simply impossible. This reduces the overall level of education provided by the school, since study time for other students is used irrationally.
The inability of immigrants to reckon with the local way of life, their unwillingness to respect Russian culture and language, the burden on the social sphere at the expense of Russian taxpayers - all this causes a quite understandable rejection by the indigenous population. The government instead of searching for specific solutions to the problem is limited to a ban on its public discussion. From this, the threat of interethnic tension does not become less, as the interests of representatives of all social and national strata — indigenous and immigrants — remain disadvantaged.
This situation contributes to the growth of nationalist sentiment among the indigenous population (which is no better than Islamist extremism), arousing fear of the intervention of someone else’s unfriendly culture, which differs sharply from the culture of Muslims who are part of the indigenous population. A critical look at the behavior of the "aliens" is mechanically transferred to the "friends".
As for the political aspect of the problem, its essence lies in seizing state-power functions, provoking disobedience of the population to legitimate power through intimidation and physical elimination of recalcitrant, striving to deprive the people who consider themselves to be citizens of Russia, sowing conflicts in territorial disputes, etc. n. Moslems of Russia are inspired by the idea that their religious duty is the struggle for independence, the creation of an Islamic state on part of the territory of Russia.
It seems that the shadow Islamist power was established in a wider area than before a certain time. Experts believe that the roots of Islamism have sprouted in 55 regions of Russia. The traditionally Slavic territories are Islamized intensively. Thus, the Samara region on the ethnic component was recently considered Russian (85,6 percent according to the 2010 census). However, the influx of foreigners dramatically changes the ethnic balance of the population. Excluding migrants from the republics of the North Caucasus, only for 2011 – 2012 years and only about half a million immigrants from neighboring states arrived at the permanent residence of the local FMS. And this is not at all compatriots on the state program of resettlement to their homeland.
"New" Muslims
Islamic preachers are actively engaging youth in new religious centers. Spiritual and ideological mentors trained in Islamic universities abroad, are extremely politicized. They incline the believers not to be considered the authorities of the local imams, as they are not sufficiently theologically educated, tolerant of the political situation in Russia and cooperate with the Kafer (unfaithful) authorities.
Among the "new" Muslims, many have been combat training, for example in Syria. Obvious political damage that this kind of "volunteers" inflict on Russia. Not only does their actions go against Russia's foreign policy efforts to resolve the conflict in the Arab East, there is a real threat that the radicals baptized in battle will cooperate with the already existing extremist thugs of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the North Caucasus. Then the radical Islamists will substantively engage in the same "democratization" of Russia, which is carried out in Syria and Libya. After the victory, the territory of Russia will become the foundation for the further construction of a world caliphate.
In the Stavropol region, under the auspices of the confederation of Turkish businessmen and industrialists, TUSKON openly operates groups of followers of the Gulen sect, which, from 2007 onwards, the FSB and Interior Ministry periodically expose and fail to neutralize in one place, as soon as their cells are found in another, where they continue to carry out extremist work, they create and finance anti-Russian educational centers in the Southern, North Caucasus, Volga Federal Districts. Over the past decade and a half, through the front structures only in the Southern Federal District they have opened 24 special schools, a university, a university department and three language institutes.
Organized by the Gülen sect of Turkish national schools in the Rostov region, young Muslims were exposed to the “truth” that the lands of the south of Russia were illegally taken away from Turkey and it was time to return them. Adherents of the Turkish idea conduct similar “educational” work with adults, mainly in safe houses. Similar educational work is going on in Ukraine, Turkish interests have long been concentrated on the Crimean peninsula.
Southern Urals, Southern and Northern Siberia, Vladivostok, the oil-bearing areas of the country are tightly “covered” by the Tajik Shiite community. Experts say that the last two or three years have poured radical Islam from Central Asia and the Caucasus into these regions. In some cases they are at war with each other, and in others they are friends, especially against the Tatar imamate.
We sometimes learn about the situation in Tatarstan from news stories about past special operations against either criminal or extremist groups. Many do not realize how deeply the Islamist-terrorist underground has dug in in the very center of Russia. Even in Kazan, there are frequent cases of hostilities directly in residential areas. The Islamist extremist front has deployed flanks against the law enforcement agencies, against the muftis, whom they call puppet, if they do not go into open confrontation with the authorities.
Before the collapse of the USSR, in the mass consciousness of the Soviet people, Tatarstan was an example of the harmonious coexistence of different ethnic groups and different religions on the same territory. With the beginning of sovereignty in the Asian countries, the co-religionists awoke nationalist forces in Islam of the Russian autonomies. In an economically rich, self-sufficient republic with a numerical preponderance of the titular nation (53%), nationalism very quickly merged with radical Islam and crime. The fervor of the most violent carriers of extremist ideas was restrained for some time by representatives of the old bureaucracy, but it is time for a change of generations. The social base of extremists in the North Caucasus is predominantly impoverished people and unemployed youth. But why has this become possible in a highly developed industrial and scientific region, such as Tatarstan, with a well-educated population, record low unemployment and centuries-old traditions of peaceful coexistence of Muslim and other ethnic groups?
“Nationalism is a thirst for power, seasoned with self-deception,” wrote George Orwell.
Undisturbed extremism
The politically tinged speeches of representatives of radical Islam, previously oriented to separatism, today represent a new religious and ideological platform, almost the vanguard of the champions of the world caliphate. The expert community has long pointed to the merging of Islamic radicalism with crime. There is no difference of opinion that the Caucasian scenario is likely to be possible in Central Russia as well. A good half of our Volga region becomes the territory of jihad. Despite the ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, already recognized as a terrorist organization in 2003, its supporters freely organize open motor rallies under Islamic flags and build mosques in Tatarstan.
The given examples are scanned from the realities of life in the usual Russian hinterland. What happens in the regions where the population professes mainly Islam? The armed extremist underground exists not only in the Caucasus, but also in the Volga region. Experienced emissaries from Middle Eastern states have already trained and put on the wing several generations of radical young followers of Allah.
An American journalist who studied the history of the family of Boston terrorists Tsarnaev, interviewed in Muslim cafes in Makhachkala. She noted that guys and young men spend most of the day in these institutions, they watch satellite television reports from the Syrian front and lament: “Our brothers who are fighting against Bashar al-Assad are dying there.” At the same time, the Russian government was developing an initiative project to resolve the Syrian conflict in the interests of regional and international security.
And in Muslim society there are forces and structures that want to understand the causes and find ways to reduce the conflict potential of Islamism and ethnoreligious xenophobia. They need help from the state. National confessional misfortune is fraught with consequences that can neither be poured with money nor suppressed by force.
Today the country is close to the materialization of the most pessimistic forecasts. In many regions of the Federation, a network of underground Islamist structures is deployed, in which homegrown and visiting radicals are in charge of business. The centers of Islamist ideology and the headquarters of extremist organizations are becoming jamaats. In its primary meaning, the Jamaat is a community of faithful, grouped for the joint administration of religious customs. In the modern version, the jamaat is also a community, but not of a religious orientation, but a politicized Islamic one competing with traditional Islam in the region and traditional communities. Their existence, way of life is destructive, directed against the legitimate government and population, including fellow tribesmen, loyal to the established in the state order.
In Dagestan, where a rare day passes without shots, murders, terrorist attacks, jamaats are recognized as the most extensive and active Islamist structure in Russia. Muslims in the republic make up 90 percent, of which 97 percent practice the Sunni trend (recognition of caliphs). Supporters of radical Islam are uniting and arming themselves to fight for the creation of a Shariah state, signs of which are already evident in everyday life. The system of waqfs is being restored - a type of Islamic law that implies the management of property withdrawn from circulation and intended to support Islam. Islamic banking is developing, that is, the banking system is based on Islamic principles (a ban on loan interest and receiving “dirty” money from speculation, gambling, alcohol, drugs, porn, etc.). We also include Islamic insurance (rules for the distribution of profits and losses that correspond to the principles of Sharia), and exclusively Islamic women's clothing, and medicine with perinatal departments only for Muslim women, and a polygamous family, and Muslim shops, public catering, youth cafes.
Despite the formal prohibition of the activities of certain jamaats recognized as terrorist, their positions have not weakened, while supporters and followers defiantly and defiantly carry out their actions, make motor rallies in columns under Islamist flags, hold extremist websites in direct access, from time to time make statements. The Internet is full of links to publications of various Caucasian and other jamaats with video materials, they are available to the user even in cases when a notification appears in the opened window: “The material has been deleted by a court decision”. In the copy it is available in the very form in which it is recognized as extremist.
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