Battlefield- Caucasus
The cycle of civil war in Ukraine ousted the topic of Dagestan from the Russian media. Before the “Ukrainian Spring”, Dagestan was the most popular region in terms of citation and commenting. The general context of the statements was reduced to straightforward phrases: "there is a war", "everything is bad there" and "there live gangsters who rape our girls in Moscow". Hooray - the patriots called for the fact that Dagestan should be separated from Russia by a concrete wall with barbed wire, and the liberals - to give Dagestan "free" and separate from Russia forever. Both those and others agreed that Dagestan is a region that is better to keep on a chain and in general “enough to feed him”.
And how much does an ordinary Russian understand the problems of Dagestan? Why did this republic suddenly become for the Russian people an enemy territory? The Dagestan political scientist Muhammad Avari talked about this with "Tomorrow"
"TOMORROW". In today's Russia, when they talk about the Caucasus, they certainly add the verb "to feed." Once again, the notorious "Caucasian issue" is being discussed, and once again in a negative light. They say: Caucasians are bad because they are wild, others ... Tell me, why did the Caucasian question arise in the Russian public consciousness, which is always interpreted in a negative light?
Muhammad Awara. Once again, a crisis of confidence has arisen between central Russia and the Caucasus. Russia, like during the years of the Caucasian war, treats the Highlanders as a forcibly attached alien element. Some Dagestanis began to perceive Russia as a predatory imperial metropolis, and this attitude is transferred to the Russians. As a Dagestan and a citizen of Russia, I urge that Dagestanis and Russians be historical allies. Russians are a people of respect. The way, customs and moral standards of the Russian years 100 - 150 ago were no different from the way and customs of my native people, Avars. The radical Westerners had the goal of liberalizing the Russian people, tearing them away from their native soil. Having begun the liberalization of the morals of Russian people, the Westerners launched the process of moral decomposition of the Russian way of life. The liberalization of the state-forming people, the Russians, entailed another process - the creeping disintegration of the peoples of Russia and the mental collapse of our country. As soon as liberals got the upper hand in Russian public consciousness, the Caucasians for the Russians became “chocks” and “chuchmeks”.
"TOMORROW". And what promoted the appearance of the slogan "Stop feeding the Caucasus!"
Muhammad Awara. It is necessary to decide who exactly “feeds” Russia. It feeds not the Caucasus, but our elites. Since 1991, the elites of Dagestan have only one purposeful policy - a course towards deconstruction of the economic resources remaining from the USSR. The Soviet Union collapsed - everything collapsed, which means that there was room for redistribution. Magomedali Magomedov, who ruled Dagestan from 1994 to 2006 years, least of all thought about what will happen tomorrow. He multiplied the capital and influence of his clan, placed the right people where necessary and cleaned those who interfered. He is credited with the fact that in the 90s the republic avoided major conflicts and was not involved in the Chechen war. I tend to another option: we were able to keep the peace only thanks to the wisdom of our peoples. Magomedali had nothing to do with it. The sick problems of our republic with him remained intact. Production, collective farms, science under Magomedali collapsed and remained lying. Magomedali adhered to the principle: let nothing happen. He pressed any independent initiative from below: Kumyk, Avar, Lak, Dargin. But to replace one "crushed" came several others. That's right: when the government does nothing, the people begin to act, and you cannot stop it with one force.
The so-called titular people of Russia are in a state of white genocide. You are Russian, you know better than me what I am talking about. In the Caucasus, there is no such drunkenness, such a moral decline, as in the Russian regions of Russia. Back in the 90s, resistance among Russians was overwhelming against those who carried out this white genocide policy. The architects of this policy, the celestial beings of the Russian Olympus, were frightened of this, and therefore set about inciting the titular people to non-title ones. The slogan "Enough to feed the Caucasus" was not born in a shabby Khrushchovka, but in the laboratory of a highly paid political strategist.
The average Russian is a TV viewer. On the TV about the Caucasus say only the worst. While the template is alive, everything will be calm in the country. Everyone who comes to us, to Dagestan, at first wonders: did they come to the Caucasus? Where is the dense Middle Ages, wild manners, which they broadcast television and the Internet? Where is this wild hatred of the Dagestanis for the Russians, ostensibly inherent in them since the times of the Caucasian War? Russian guests of Dagestan instead of self-hatred see the respect of Caucasians for the Russian people. This respect is captured in the monument to the Russian teacher, who stands in the best park of Makhachkala.
"TOMORROW". And what is the reason for the claim that Caucasians are supposedly "wild"?
Muhammad Awara. We are just different. The fact that Caucasians are different is natural. For us, the Russians are different too, and the English are different for us, and the French. As for wildness, many Russian customs for the same Chechens are immorality. For example, in Russian youth with might and main walks by the hand with each other, kisses. A Chechen takes a girl by the hand only when he makes her an offer to marry. Kissing the bride before the wedding of the Chechens is a disgrace. Meetings between the bride and groom at the Vainakhs occur only in the presence of the bride's relatives. Caucasians are different because they are passionate. Historical conditions and mountainous terrain, where land is of little habitable, have taught us to be active. The reforms of Gaidar and Chubais plunged the Caucasus into conditions much worse than the medieval ones, so we are forced to live to the limit. Due to the fact that we live at the limit, we have competed with some representatives of the people, which in Russia is called the titular nation.
I have already said: any Russian, when he comes to us, at first suffers from cognitive dissonance caused by the rupture of the pattern. Not only Russians drive to us, but also the French, the Americans. I knew one such Frenchman. Man has long been interested in Russia. He wondered what kind of Republic of Dagestan is this? I flew to Moscow, took a ticket to Makhachkala and rushed to us. Here he had never been before, did not know anyone. Flying away a month ago, he knew that he had good friends in Dagestan who were waiting for him to visit.
This Frenchman told me: “Guys, what kind of mess is going on in your country? A beautiful republic is represented on TV as a fiend of hell. We in France have our own“ Dagestanis ”- Gascons, but nowhere in the French media will you read about the Gascons that they write in the Russian media about Dagestanis. " And indeed so. Scots and Irish - our brothers in Britain - do not enjoy special respect from ethnic English. The British, and some Scots, and the history of Great Britain itself are to blame. You will not read in any British media that only bandits and savages live in Scotland.
"TOMORROW". Sorry, but a typical idea of Dagestan is not built on an empty foundation. In Dagestan, every day, the attacks, kidnapping, contract killings.
Muhammad Awara. Is it not in Europe? In Spain, there is the region of the Basque Country. There, too, and shoot, and take hostages. No country in the world is immune from this. The world map consists mainly of multi-ethnic states. In every multiethnic state there will necessarily be a passionate national minority, which will be distinguished by something. In any country of the world there are interethnic problems and contradictions. For example, in prim Germany, Bavarians have recently demanded sovereignty and are ready to fight for this sovereignty. And the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria? Tamils in Sri Lanka?
Lev Gumilyov has the term "passionary." I divide passionaries into four parts. The first - passionaries who have achieved power. The second is passionaries who want power. The third is the gray mass of the people, which gives these passionaries a lot, and which the drive people use for their own purposes. The fourth are units like the artist Gauguin, who spat on everything and went to Tahiti to draw a native.
The nations of the North Caucasus in present-day Russia are nations — passionaries. Within each Caucasian people, I see all four types of passionaries who I told you about. Our difficult life in present-day Russia does not reassure our drive, but rather warms it up. We ourselves are not thrilled with this. Constantly living on the limit is extremely difficult. Very easy to break.
We are exposed in a negative light due to our problems. But not only we are to blame for these problems.
"TOMORROW". What problems would you point out?
Muhammad Awara. First of all, the problems of divided peoples and inter-ethnic conflicts, which escalated immediately after the collapse of the USSR. I will start with the closest point to me - Dagestan. The largest ethnic groups of Dagestan are Avars and Lezgins. Lezgins are the largest ethnic group in the east of the North Caucasus and the northeast of the South Caucasus. By the roughest estimates, more than 2 million Lezgins live in these regions. A lot of Lezgins live in Azerbaijan. But the cunning guys from Baku from the end of the 40-s have been bringing all their “own” non-Turks under the sequestration. For example, by hook or by crook, they are recorded by Azerbaijanis. Nobody can say for sure how many Lezghins, Avars and Talyshs are among the current Azerbaijanis. But even after the Baku additions, the number of Azerbaijani Lezgins is impressive — more than 300 thousand people. According to Soviet data, 680 thousand Lezgins lived in the AzSSR. Question: where did Baku “lose” the rest of Lezghins? Not to the moon, they flew away ...
There is an opinion that about one and a half million Lezgins actually live in Azerbaijan. A million 200 thousand Lezgins are recorded as Turks - Azerbaijanis and they are forbidden to call themselves Lezgins. The children of these Lezgins will no longer know the Lezgin language. We see the ethnocide of the Lezgin people in a country that is supposedly friendly to Russia. Baku does the same with Azerbaijani Avars. Baku took away not only the original Dagestani lands in the Zakatala zone, but also our brothers. He deprived Lezgins and Avars of their national identity, turned them into mankurts, and repressed those who resisted.
Russia is obliged to pay close attention to the situation of those Azerbaijani citizens who are not ethnic Azerbaijanis. In independent Azerbaijan, they are not so good as it is Baku. If everything was good there, there would not have been the tragedy of the Lezgin villages of Khrakh-Uba and Uryan-Uba, transferred by Russia to Azerbaijan under the agreement of 3 of September of 2010 concluded in Baku between Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev.
The problem of our brothers in Azerbaijan can be resolved in two ways. The first is people's diplomacy. Citizens of Azerbaijan and citizens of Russia could, by joint efforts, raise the issue of non-titular peoples of Azerbaijan and thereby contribute to solving this problem. But, in my opinion, with the current ruling regime in Baku, this cannot be done.
There is a second way, but it is highly undesirable. If Azerbaijan continues to bend its assimilation line, it can lead to conflict. Now information for consideration. 50 is a concentrated contingent of Russian troops in Dagestan. If this contingent is pulled to the Russian-Azerbaijani border, will the Russian soldiers shoot Dagestanis in the back or support them? The Russian liberals in the White House and on Old Square are lobbyists for the regime of Ilham Aliyev. Where is the guarantee that the power lobbyists of Azerbaijan will not turn the peacekeeping initiative of Russia into the mainstream of destabilization of the situation?
Avars have a lot of problems in Georgia. The Kvareli and Lagadekh districts of Georgia are the Dagestan, Avar lands. For Tbilisi, the Avars, like any non-Georgians, are an alien element. During the periods of nationalist frenzy, Tbilisi tried to violently rob the Avars. After Saakashvili’s departure, the Avars of Georgia sighed with relief, but their existence is still far from stability. A lot of problems. There are no qualified Avar language teachers in the schools of Kvareli district.
The present Caucasus is generally one large complex of interethnic friction. In Dagestan, there is a lot of friction between Chechens - Akkins and Laks, between Avars and Kumyks, Lezgins and Avars. Ossetian - Ingush problems, Chechen - Ingush problems between Chechnya and Dagestan. I come from Tsumadinsky district of Dagestan. Several of our villages are now in Chechnya. What is not a reason for friction?
Inter-ethnic tensions are born when national elites begin to redistribute economic spheres. In Dagestan, the ground for such conflicts is the land. In January, 2013, when Ramazan Abdulatipov was appointed president of Dagestan, Kumyk organizations began to demand the redistribution of land ownership in the territory of the historic Kumyk Plain. Some Kumyks shouted that the Avar, the Lak, and anyone else would be killed for their native land. I said at one such rally: “The problem is not in a specific people, but in the traitors of the people who came to power. The problems of Avars and Lezgins are completely similar to those of Kumyk. friend. "
"TOMORROW". Are there truly independent national leaders among the representatives of the elite of Dagestan?
Muhammad Awara. There are no such elites. Who among the same Lezgins independent? Is the mayor of Derbent Imam Yaraliyev, perhaps, who calls himself "the father of Lezghins"? In 2010, then-President Medvedev presented Ilkham Aliyev with original Lezgin lands - Yaraliyev was silent. In 2011, Baku arranged for the deportation of the indigenous people of these lands - Yaraliyev was silent again. In October, 2012, aul Khrah - Uba left the last Lezgin - Yaraliyev did something? Moreover, the criminal transfer of the Lezgin lands in 2010 took place with the consent of Lezgin Yaraliev. When the then President of Dagestan, Mukhu Aliyev, refused to give the land, Yaraliyev expressed his displeasure. Think about it: Avar Aliyev defended the Lezghin lands, and Lezghins Yaraliyev was unhappy about this. In May 2013, Yaraliyev, spitting on Lezghins' protests, presented Azerbaijan with one of the Derbent streets, calling her the name of Heydar Aliyev. In June of the same year Yaraliyev ordered to disperse protest rallies against Heydar Aliyev Street in Derbent. Yaraliyev is the regional prince of Dagestan, and Lezgins are only on a Soviet passport.
"TOMORROW". You say that Caucasians are a passionate people. Any drive needs to exit. Is there such a way out of Dagestan passionarity?
Muhammad Awara. There is. It was not for nothing that at the beginning of the conversation I started talking about Alexander II. I believe that he was the wisest ruler of Russia. He made his fierce enemies, made his true friends, entrusted his life to Caucasians. The younger son of Imam Shamil became an officer of the personal guard of Alexander. The king did not execute the most rebellious imam, but surrounded him with honor and respect.
Shamil was captured on August 25 of the year 1859. 3 March 1861, incomplete two years later, Alexander abolished serfdom in Russia. Many scholars believe that this decision was influenced by the conversation between the king and the imam, who soon took place in Gunib. The Imam then told the king: "It is better to be the ruler of free people than the emperor of slaves." The Caucasus in the person of Shamil was directly related to the most important event in the history of Russia. Do not connect Russia Caucasus, everything would be different.
What is the conclusion? Russia, represented by the tsar-reformer, placed trust in former enemies, Caucasians. Seeing this trust, Chechens, Dagestanis, Circassians began to show their heroism in the service of the king. Another example is the 1917 events of the year in Petrograd. When no one could cope with the raging garrisons of Petrograd, General Lavr Kornilov set in motion the Wild Division, and the Bolsheviks were dispersed in horror. Then the Soviets made a cunning knight of the Caucasians: they sent Stalin, Ordzhonikidze and Kirov to the Caucasus, and they inspired the mountaineers that the Soviet power brings freedom, equality and social justice to the peoples of the Caucasus. Highlanders believed it. The Bolsheviks really did not encroach upon the customs and religion of the highlanders. Moreover, in many areas of the Caucasus, primary party cells were created in mosque communities. In the mosques up to the 30-s, zakat was collected for the needs of the Soviet authorities and the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples of the East. Islam was positioned as an ideology of the national liberation struggle. In the local party committees, portraits of Kazi-Magomed and Shamil hung next to portraits of Marx and Lenin. The leader of the Bolshevik movement in Dagestan, Makhach Dakhadayev, was married to the granddaughter of Imam Shamil. Caucasians have contributed to the establishment of Soviet power in Russia. During the Great Patriotic War, the descendants of Shamil and Haji Murad saved the world from Nazism in the ranks of the Red Army. Every historian of the Great Patriotic War remembers the cavalry division of Dargin Kara Karayev.
Caucasians are very passionate. Precisely because they are passionate, they are no less patriotic citizens of Russia than Russians. If a Caucasian feels Russia as his Motherland - Mother, then he will willingly give his life for her. But if he sees that the Motherland - Mother turns into a stepmother, then he will just as easily die for the cause of the collapse of this "stepmother." A Caucasian thinks: if Russia has become a stepmother for him, then she is an enemy and other peoples who inhabit it.
The wider the artificially created gulf between Russia and the Caucasus, the more those Caucasians who are disappointed in Russia. A young Dagestan young public figure, a Kumyk by nationality, once declared: "Russians! If you are Chinese, Americans or Israel closer than the North Caucasus, let Caucasians go free, do not hold us. We will, of course, chop ourselves up we'll shoot, but sooner or later we will make peace and create our own powerful state. " Unfortunately, his words are not a rush of personal emotions, but the firm intention of many. If everything continues as it is, then the North Caucasus Emirates will arise on the site of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia. The core of the new state will be Islam. Islamization of the Caucasus is taking leaps and bounds. It is also observed in Russian society.
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