Islamic factors in ex-USSR

Islamic factors in ex-USSR

By Riza Sihbudi

JAKARTA (JP): Chechnya, the lesser known mini-states in the Caucasus region in the former Soviet Union (USSR) "may seem an unimportant little place that few people in the West could find on a map even now", according to The Economist. However, Chechnya has grabbed media headlines since last month because of its involvement in an imbalanced war against the Russian forces.

One of the conflict sources is the struggle between "the obsession" and "the ambition". That is, "the obsession" of the Chechnya nation to maintain their "independence" -- proclaimed in 1991 -- from the Russia federation, vis-a-vis the ambition of the Russian President Boris Yeltsin who wants to maintain his country's image as one of the former superpowers of the world.

The Chechnya leadership took advantage of the 1991 Moscow's struggle for power, to proclaim their independence by the name of "Republic of Checheno-Ingushetia", in the form of a confederation with their neighbor and "cultural brother", Ingushetia -- which later integrated itself back into the Russia federation.

Russia did not want to see its breakdown and hence it did not recognize Chechnya independence. On the other hand, Chechnya saw it as a good opportunity to follow the steps of six other former Soviet Moslem republics which proclaimed their independence after the fall of the USSR.

Both Chechnya and Ingushetia were predominantly Moslem. In their history, the Moslems of Central Asia and the Caucasus have been very difficult to control by the Moscow regime, both during the Czardom and the Soviet communism periods. Their fighters, such as Ghazi Muhammad, Hamza Bek and Imam Shamil, have become legends. Shamil (1797-1871), for example, was the third and most famous and successful imam of the Moslem resistance--which was known as the Miuridzm Islamic movement against the Russian occupation of the North-eastern Caucasus. Some historians regarded him as "the greatest guerrilla leader in the history of warfare".

For many years the communist regimes repressed the Moslem people. Islamic religious activities were very limited by the regimes. There can be little doubt that communists were worried about the "Islamic problem". They realized that Islam was becoming increasingly difficult to control and that events in Afghanistan and Iran had made the situation worse and that the worsening situation could be exploited by foreign powers.

The fall of the USSR gave the chance to Islamic revivalism among the Turco-Iranian people of Central Asia and the Caucasus regions. It is quite natural for the Moslems to return to their cultural roots after more than 150 years of Russian colonialism. They are reverting to their Turkic and Persian languages and abandoning the Cyrillic alphabet imposed on both tongues by Moscow. The life-cycle rituals are being restored. In this context, it seems certain that Islam will become a major factor in shaping the future of this region.

However, the spirit of returning to their cultural roots after the fall of the communist regime have faced new problems and challenges, such as internal conflicts, both in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Meanwhile, the West has also taken a confrontational stand on Islam in the former USSR, especially in Central Asia. In 1991, Western officials, including former U.S. secretary of state toured the new Central Asian states in 1991 to urge them to emulate secular Turkey rather than neighboring Islamic Iran during the transition to post-Soviet era. Although the U.S. stressed human rights and pluralism in its talks with Central Asian leaders, according to Robin Wright (1992), the real message appears to be as much anti-Islam as pro-democracy.

Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979 had a strong impact on the Central Asian and the Caucasian Moslems. The (Soviet) Moslem soldiers sent by the Moscow regime to the Afghan war were instead influenced by the Afghan mujahidin (defenders of the faith), not vice versa. And since 1990, there have been strong indications of Islamic revivalism in the former USSR. Some estimates claim that up to ten new mosques have been set up daily in the region. The number of madrasah (Islamic schools) is also rising, as is the enrollment of new students.

In Central Asia, the ex-communists argue that they must stay in power to block the growth of Islamic political forces. Indeed, more important to the region's political evolution have been the births of various branches of the Islamic Renaissance Party. Although it finally managed to register as a legal party in 1991, its activities were banned in four of the five Central Asian states because of the ex-communist fear of Islam as a political force.

Unlike the inter-Sunni Moslems war in Afghanistan, political competition in Central Asia has been going on between the ex- communists, the Islamists and the nationalists. The Communist Party is still the ruling group in the region, although it no longer calls itself such. The nationalists and the ex-communists basically are also Moslems. As one cleric from Uzbekistan once put it, "Our communist leaders may have been nonbelievers, but no Uzbek was really a communist--a liar yes, but not a communist".

Most of the ex-Soviet Moslem activists wish to develop their own models of an Islamic democracy. The Islamic democracy, according to them, would allow the existence of other parties and free speech, but would impose strict penalties on un-Islamic practices such as alcohol, prostitution and drugs. In the political context, their Islamic versions vary widely. Some suggest borrowing democratic aspects from secular to Islamic government practices from Pakistan and Iran, although they say no country provides an ideal model.

The newly independent Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union, it was asserted, would choose either the Islamic secular Turkish or the Iranian fundamentalistic model as a political system. Turkey and Iran indeed increased their activities in the region. Language, religion and the economy are playing an important role in this process. However, the situation is more complex than what this suggests. Rather than compete for influence, Iran has so far preferred cooperation, even with the current Central Asian leadership. And there is in fact little evidence to support rumors that Iran is engaging itself in a massive clandestine effort to support Islamic fundamentalism in the region.

Central Asian Islamists are not interested in imitating Iran. Iran, in turn, does not have the resources or even the will to meddle too much in Central Asia. After two wars in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, its interests are very specifically focused on domestic economic development to prevent the whole region from becoming a backwater.

Therefore, Western outcry over Islamic activism in the former USSR also appears to be premature. As Robin Wright writes, the Western administrations are making the same mistakes in Central Asia and Algeria that the Carter administration made in Iran by backing away from the unknown Islamists before even trying to deal with them. It will only serve to justify the Huntington's thesis of "clashing civilizations" (between Islam and the West), even more so if the West fails to help put an end to the continuing conflict between Chechnya and Russia, as well as in the Balkan war.

The writer is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta.