Russian Discourses and Approaches to Nationalism, Religion and Extremism

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1 Alexander Verkhovsky SOVA Center for Information and Analysis Russian Discourses and Approaches to Nationalism, Religion and Extremism This brief report is certainly incapable of covering the diversity of approaches to the three topics mentioned in the title. My objective is less ambitious namely, to indicate with a dotted line some key approaches to the issue of extremism. The concept of extremism in Russia is linked to "nationalism and involves a vague concern about certain religious movements - therefore, these links will be briefly discussed here as well. Understandably, the main focus will be on the Islamic aspect (if any) of the issues described. The Emergence of Approaches to Defining Extremism in the 90-ies In the first post-soviet years, the political vocabulary in Russia was extremely vague. Even today the concept of extremism has not been fully established yet, but the early 90-ies were a period of total confusion in this respect. At that time, politicians would readily accuse each other of extremism and even of fascism making any substantive political discussion of the issues impossible before the end of the decade. Public debates evolved separately in each political sector. We know now that back in 1996, the democrats - i. e. the political forces which rallied around President Yeltsin and their liberal opponents - won over their key competitors described in early 90-ies as "the red-brown." The latter term collectively described a diverse and volatile coalition of those opposed to the country s modernization and relying more or less on hopes for a restoration of the old regime. This coalition lost and soon disintegrated, so we can only discuss the winners' perspective. On the other hand, the power of the former coalition was such that the democrats strongly associated the term extremism with the threat of Soviet restoration. Of course, in addition to advocates of the USSR restoration, like CPRF, the association included their explicit and implicit allies, like RNE. In 1993, the "democrats" survived a serious attack of the "red-brown" forces, and counteraction to extremism remained high on their agenda for years afterwards. Things had to be kept under control, and "the democratic community" urged the government to suppress the threat using the repressive machinery available. Since then, extremism has been discussed mainly from the legal perspective with an emphasis on repression. The rapid shift of CPRF and related organizations towards the Russian nationalism, sometimes of explicitly racist nature, focused the attention of the democratic camp on the brown, as opposed to the red component of the anti-modernization coalition. In those years fascism, rather than extremism, was the buzzword commonly used to describe any and all (even fairly moderate) manifestations of ethnic

2 Russian nationalism. Those sentiments brought about Yeltsin s anti-fascist decree of 23 March 1995 known for requiring the Academy of Science to provide an official definition of fascism. In (in fact, until 2001) the Duma discussed various drafts of special anti-fascist laws. Of course, this rather strange focus had also been influenced by the fact that the slogan of anti-fascism was doomed to popularity, whereas anti-communism, in addition to being far less popular, contravened the government s gradual shift towards reconciliation with the weakening communist opposition. The popularity of anti-fascist rhetoric had another important consequence - it allowed the democraticallyoriented public" to avoid thinking about the downside of repression as long as it was used to counteract the dangerous opponent. In the late 1990-ies, even the human rights community, let alone the "democratically-oriented public" at large, rarely considered the problem of potential abuse associated with such counteraction (they had certainly been aware since at least 1993 that the fight against enemies involved potential abuse, but they never raised this concern in the context of fighting "fascists"). When finally the debates about fascism dwindled, the pro-governmental part of the democraticallyoriented public came to think about a broader and more productive concept, which led to the establishment of a Presidential Commission against Political Extremism and a relevant analytical report of the INDEM Foundation. The authors of the report finally identified the target of suppression - namely, any forces seeking to eliminate the liberal democracy and likely to use violence. Examples of such forces included fascism, bolshevism and certain varieties of religious fundamentalism ; the authors referred to "the totalitarian ideology" as an overarching term. However, the authors of the report cautioned against excessive use of repression urging to improve enforcement practices carefully and gradually, and opposed the introduction of political terms, such as extremism and totalitarianism, into the legal language. The authors emphasized the difference between violent extremist practices and abstract theoretical pronouncements and urged the authorities to punish the perpetrators of violence and also to keep an eye on those who waged extremist (i.e. pro-totalitarian) propaganda. The report only tentatively mentioned the problem of public tolerance of inappropriate statements, but as I mentioned, this line of thought was taking too long to develop. The INDEM report published in late 1998 happened to be the highest peak reached since then by the theoretical discourse about extremism in circles close to government. However, the recommendations expressed in the report were hardly ever applied due to the political turmoil. It was only in the early 2000 that attempts were made to define different "degrees of extremism." Thus, Alexander Zhuravsky (currently the director of international relations department in the Ministry of Regional Development) proposed a typology whereby terrorists were defined as those who practice violence, extremists were described as those who promote, but do not practice physical violence (then, for example, Hizb ut-tahrir are extremists), and radicals were those who denied certain constitutional foundations, but only engaged in peaceful propaganda. The Panorama Center defined extremists as anyone who practiced violence, promoted it, justified it, or promoted racial, ethnic or religious hatred in a gross and persistent manner. Panorama shared Zhuravsky s definition of radicals.

3 Nationalism and Extremism As I mentioned, the notion of extremism used to be associated primarily with the ethnic Russian nationalism and with the nationalisms of title nations of former constituent republics of the Soviet Union and the current constituent republics of the Russian Federation. However, starting in the second half of the 90-ies, minority nationalisms have been progressively less manifest and receding to the background, while the Russian nationalism soared after a period of decline at the turn of the decade. Notably, by the Soviet tradition the term nationalism has carried (and still largely carries) a negative meaning. If anything illegal is perpetrated in the name of nationalism, most members of all social groups will perceive it more negatively than the same illegal act committed for some other purposes. (Besides, a certain informal hierarchy has existed and continues to exist, ranking different types of ethno-phobia based on how inacceptable they are in public perception). In any event, nationalism has been (and continues to be) interpreted only in terms of ethnicity and often involved biologization. It was not just a characteristic of nationalists, but also their perception. This situation evolved in the post-soviet Russian mentality due to a highly ethnocentric perception of social problems, very often relying on biologization. Apparently, as time elapses since the Soviet era, ethnocentrism is growing stronger. In the 90-ies, "the fight against extremism was virtually the same as the fight against the dominant trends of the Russian nationalism: the imitation neo-nazism (a la Russian National Unity, RNE), the revived "Black Hundred" followers, nationalist versions of the communist nostalgia, radical neo-eurasianism, and Limonov s National Bolshevism. At the turn of the century, however, these movements either entered a state of decline or transformed into something new. In fact, they had long lost any ability to capture the attention of the broader public. They were replaced by the virtually idealess i.e. devoid of any concrete ideology national populism of the Movement against Illegal Immigration and the Rodina Party, and by the real neo-nazism of skinhead groups (incidentally, even the relatively respectable national-populists often rely on the skinhead activists for support). One would think that national populists focused on ethno-phobia (in the form of hatred against the socalled migrants) and particularly the neo-nazi were a convenient target for anti-extremism. However, it was in those years that the fight against extremism dwindled. Admittedly, the authorities still take some measures to control neo-nazi street violence and to curb their aggressive propaganda. However, fighting against national populists is increasingly difficult, for since the beginning of this decade a major part of the Russian public consistently share strong ethno-xenophobic prejudices, therefore the national populists, while they are not particularly strong in political organizing, clearly represent the opinion of many, if not the majority of, Russians. In fact, the government tries to compete with national populists, rather than suppress them. Accordingly, they are no longer seen as extremists either by the government or by the public at large. On the other hand, national populist leaders rarely engage in gross racist rhetoric and hardly ever encourage violence, therefore it would be unfair to consider them extremist, particularly in comparison with the growing neo-nazi movement.

4 It is worth saying a few words about the attitude of Russian nationalists, both grassroots and establishmentbased, to Islam and Muslims. Of course, the overall attitude is negative, but it is just a very simplistic observation. For example, we know of very few violent attacks against individuals motivated specifically by hatred against Muslims. Members of "Muslim ethnicities are targeted more often than others, but these are clearly racist attacks. Vandalism against Islamic buildings is more common, but again, it is not particularly widespread. Neo-Nazi and many other ethno-nationalists are fairly indifferent and insensitive to religious identities, and these indifferent and insensitive individuals form a majority of the Russian nationalist movement. In contrast, the so-called civilizational nationalism gradually promoted by intellectuals who claim proximity to the ruling elites is largely based on the priority of the Orthodox Christianity. Besides, the civilizational approach per se invariably questions the attitude towards the "Islamic civilization" - and one can easily guess that this attitude happens to be more or less confrontational in most cases. The Russian civilizational nationalism is concerned about the "Islamic threat" and it sees extremism primarily as Islamist extremism (they also label their competitors from radical nationalist groups as extremists, but less significant ones). We find that a shared understanding of this matter has been reached among the government, many intellectual groups, and the majority of the public. Eurasianism was a buzz-word back in the 90-es; many people believed in reconciliation between the Russian majority and the political Islam around this concept. In fact, this version of Eurasianism was fairly remote from the views of historical Eurasianists and from those of the best known and maybe the most influential neo-eurasianist Alexander Dugin. Rather, it was a kind of quasi Eurasianism based on a banal conception that Russia had a special destiny predetermined by its dual Slavic/Turkish and Christian Orthodox/Muslim nature. The proportions of religious and ethnic components may vary in this quasi- Eurasianism and certain undertones may apply, but all these distinctions do not really matter. These vague views are readily shared by those people who are not likely to look deeper into such matters. It explains why Dugin s International Eurasian Movement had such an extremely representative leadership, which even included mufti Talgat Tadjuddin with his theory of immanent proximity between the Russian Orthodoxy and the Tatar Islam, but did not include other muftis, who preferred to emphasize their separate identity. However, this movement was virtual more than real, and now it is practically non-existent. Generally speaking, the only form of proximity to Islam accepted now by the Russian nationalism is an alliance against the West. From this perspective even the radical political Islam may be viewed as an ally rather than a threat. At the same time, the neo-eurasian legitimized radicalism, a new and unusual phenomenon for the Russian nationalism, has emerged as fairly sustainable trend. Alexander Dugin has assumed the role of a respectable expert loyal to the Kremlin, while the radical Eurasian Youth Union a group under Dugin s patronage and also highly loyal to the government - can get away not only with explicitly violent actions, but explicitly supports much more radical ethno-nationalists who had split from Limonov s National Bolshevik Party. At some point, Limonov and Dugin had aspired to bring under their banners everyone prepared to fight radically against the System" - irrespective of their views and lifestyle, not to mention religion. Limonov

5 continues along the same lines, having modified the ideology which was not really important to him, and his party is currently banned as extremist. In contrast, Dugin seeks to attract anyone who is prepared, also irrespective of differences, to fight radically FOR the System, even in the name of some future changes. Dugin has certainly been less successful in mobilization, but instead he has managed to fit in the progovernmental circles. Religious Extremism This phrase was hardly ever used in the early and mid 90-ies. However, with radical political Islam playing an increasingly important role in the Chechen separatism, the situation began to change - but the change was surprisingly slow. The tables did not turn after the 1999 explosions in residential buildings in Moscow or after the introduction of the term Wahhabi into the official propaganda, but they did after the 9/11. In fact, the success of the term religious extremism was borrowed alongside the term itself. Eventually the concept came under criticism from different perspectives for essentially the same reason: for being open to diverse interpretations. However, the concept survived the criticism - apparently, because it was so inclusive. The public mentality, including that of legal scholars and politicians, in the past century understood the term extremism only in its political aspect. At the same time concerns over new religious movements were widespread; the worried public described them as totalitarian sects and accused of radical religious practices. A regular Orthodox monastery was familiar and cozy as compared to the Great White Brotherhood or the Unification Church. The massive concerns of the 90-ies gradually subsided as the expansion of the new religious movements became less aggressive and their practices began to appear more normal - although, of course, negative attitudes towards new religious movements persist. Remarkably, they have hardly ever been accused of political radicalism (with the only exception of highly politicized neo-pagan groups). Instead, political accusations against them were based on the assumption that all new - or, more precisely, all unfamiliar - religions acted as transmitters of the western influence. The 1997 Law on the Freedom of Conscience brought under one umbrella - and we may even say intentionally mixed up - various concerns about the religious groups' anti-constitutional political activity and their radical religious practices. The law provides in art. 14 a list of offences warranting liquidation of a religious organization; they include attempts to undermine national security and forceful disruption of families, creation of armed formations and the use of hypnosis, etc. Any extremes, behavioral as well as political, were prohibited to religious organizations and groups. It is also important to note that the list of grounds for liquidation set out in the 1997 Law was innovative for its time. Neither the previous law on freedom of expression, nor the 1995 Law on Public Associations contained this type of list. Before 1997, laws had only made general warnings against illegal activity, whereas the 1997 Law clearly reflected the debates in the Duma and the Government about political extremism. The detailed text of the 1997 Law, article 14, was a direct predecessor of similar articles in many subsequent laws, including the current legal definition of extremism. However, the 1997 Law did not refer to extremism yet.

6 The term extremism in association with religions came into the focus of debates in 1999, when Sergey Stepashin s Government launched a bill on Counteraction to Political Extremism in the State Duma. The drafters led by Pavel Krasheninnikov provided a definition of extremism which was fairly reasonable, even though somewhat vague: it included attempted mutiny or secession, establishment of illegal armed formations, ethoreligious provocation, and public appeals to illegal conduct for political purposes. The communist majority in the State Duma, concerned that the label of extremism may be used against them (just as they had earlier been concerned about anti-fascist bills), argued, inter alia, that the bill failed to address the specifics of religious extremism - which, in their interpretation, included both the Wahhabism and the religious sects. Between 2000 and 2001, the parliament of Dagestan attempted to take its law banning Wahhabism to the federal level. The local law adopted in Dagestan did not provide any definition of Wahhabism, so it would have introduced a system of religious surveillance in Islam. Of course, the bill fell through at the federal level; however, many experts, including the mentioned Krasheninnikov, admitted that some sort of legislation against Wahhabi, i.e. radical Islamists, was, indeed, necessary. And then there was 9/11, which made the arguments in favor of such a law much stronger. Perhaps the only reason why the law was never adopted was a coincidence: at around the same time Putin's Administration drafted a broader anti-extremist law which, incidentally, avoided any specific political or ideological characteristics of extremism. The 2002 Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity was adopted promptly, but did not become effective until after about four years. At the same time, the problem of radical Islamism was increasingly urgent due to high-profile terrorist attacks. Besides, many bureaucrats and experts who often encountered what they described as religious extremism in the course of their work continued to insist that this poorly defined sphere should be better regulated. Among them, we should specifically mention Vladimir Zorin appointed in late 2001 Federal Minister for Nationality (i.e. ethnic) Policies. Fairly soon after his appointment - in the summer of his efforts resulted in a paper against "religious extremism. The paper drafted by a working group led by the former militant mufti of the Chechen separatists Akhmad Kadyrov emerged so militant that the drafting had to be stopped following a media scandal. The concept, however, gained strong presence in the official and public discourse if not in the law for the years to come. This concept, just like the Law on the Freedom of Conscience, addressed both political and other threats, such as crime, espionage, and even demography and mental health of the public. Did it contribute, as might have been expected, to official pressure against religious minorities? Indeed, the umbrella of religious extremism potentially placed Krishna worshippers on the same footing as Wahhabi (in fact, Russian representatives have been reported to make such statements literally even at intergovernmental conferences). It is difficult to measure the amount of additional pressure, but it does not appear to have increased substantially with regard to minorities in general. Whatever additional pressure they experience corresponds to the overall administrative pressure against all independent organizations and groups felt particularly during Putin's second presidential term. Apparently, the repressive sentiments in society were not fully exploited by the authorities worried mainly about radical Islamism and focusing all their efforts in this direction. While before 2003 excessive

7 repression against Muslim activists was rare outside Dagestan, it has been increasingly common since, culminating in the beginning of this year into a powerful repressive campaign targeting more and more groups of "unusual" Muslims. (Interestingly, in Dagestan and some other ethnic republics the trend has reversed in the past couple of years, and pressure against such groups has progressively relaxed). The prosecutor s office and the FSB refer to the Criminal Code to explain the repression, but such explanations are not sufficient without some kind of conceptualization, which cannot be replaced by repeated mention of religious extremism a term yet to be clarified. Therefore, explanations offered by the leaders of major religious organizations the Russian Orthodox Church and main Muslim communities have readily been accepted. The faith leaders insisted that the reason why minorities are dangerous is their deviation from the mainstream. This argument referred to the vision of a society as an organic plant which may suffer if inoculated with alien sprouts. This type of conservative rhetoric was very popular early in this decade, when Putin s presidency was interpreted as a conservative revision of the tumultuous 90-ies. Of course, this rhetoric also appealed to isolationist sentiments. However, intellectual members of the conservative public had to admit that Pentecostals in the U.S. or Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia were very traditional and quite conservative. Therefore yet another argument explained that these otherwise traditional faiths would automatically become innovative when transported to a different soil, which rendered them at least risky and conductive to religious extremism. Eventually, even Vladimir Putin learned to repeat a simplified version of this statement. The Russian government at large gradually absorbed the conservative ideas offered to it (the concept of "traditional religions" per se is a vivid example) and found a common language with the conservatives. The results manifested in the recent years: the authorities now directly support educational programs offered by ROC and major muftiats and they are quite open about the fact that this support is provided for the purpose of fighting the religious extremism. The authorities use this term in a broader sense, but primarily they mean, of course, the radical political Islam. This practice in and of itself is a reasonable alternative to repression, but unfortunately, repression also continues at an increasing pace. The Inertia of Repression The above-mentioned bill on Counteraction to Political Extremism gave rise to another bill with a different title - on Combating Extremist Activity - promptly adopted in the summer of This bill differed from its predecessor in two substantial ways. Firstly, it provided for tougher sanctions. Secondly, and more importantly, it avoided giving a general definition of extremism (the terms political and religious were also omitted) replacing it by a heterogeneous, loosely worded list of various activities, ranging from terrorism to lack of political correctness; the list was designed to be easily modifiable, and it has been modified twice since its adoption. The initial suspicion that the new law was perfectly suited for arbitrary interpretation has been proven beyond doubt over the two recent years of its enforcement.

8 Not surprisingly, the anti-extremist enforcement targets primarily independent Muslim groups, radical and virtually apolitical alike. The list of banned Islamic literature has bulged up within a short period, and now includes, in addition to leaflets of banned groups, the books of prominent Islamic preachers and theologians. A ban on all books by Said Nursi is just one example. Even the official list of banned organizations raises questions. The most important of such groups in Russia - Hizb ut-tahrir was banned as a terrorist organization, even though it does not engage in terrorism. Recently the authorities have unleashed a campaign of closing all Tatar-Turkish lyceums as part of criminal prosecution against Said Nursi s followers - even though the lyceums are not even religious schools. Official repression of potentially dangerous groups such as Hizb ut-tahrir or some Jamaats in the North Caucasus - has been clearly excessive (not to mention the investigative methods, which are a general problem in Russia, not limited to cases of extremism). It appears however that repressive measures tend to spill over affecting less dangerous or harmless groups. The repression brings the above-mentioned theory of traditional religions as opposed to dangerous innovations into the legal sphere, even though it is not easy to do in a country as secular as Russia today. The arguments used in courts concerning religious cases openly defend traditional religious practices (as understood by the judge and the prosecutor) from various innovations the "pure Islam," Jehovah s Witnesses or, as in case of the Beware: Religion! exhibition from modern art. Recently in Samara a website was closed for publishing an article which said that Muslims should not celebrate No Ruz, as it was allegedly a pagan holiday. The court found it appropriate to defend the religious custom from salafit criticism, even though the article in question did not otherwise say anything suspicious. Muslim groups which are not content to stay under the wing of officially recognized muftis face increasing threat. The anti-extremist campaign continues to marginalize them, and this policy may cause serious problems to the entire Muslim community, while it is unlikely to reduce the risk of really dangerous Islamic movements emerging in the future. On the other hand, since liberal human rights activists advocate for the rights of unfairly persecuted Muslims, some Muslim activists have been softening towards liberalism. They also share the status of persecuted groups. Now we see the prominent Islamist Geidar Djemal join the left-wing opposition and become one of the leaders of the National Assembly, a coalition of radical opposition created this May. His presence there is tolerated even by the most liberal coalition members. (In fact, they have also agreed to share the coalition with some radical nationalists and Stalinists). Muslim groups are not alone in being the target of unlawful, excessively tough anti-extremist enforcement. Similarly, the political opposition is not the only target, even though one gets this impression from the media reports. This legislation penetrated the entire life of the country in 2006 and 2007 and has served not only the political elites or the law enforcement agencies, but has increasingly been exploited as a universal instrument of repression by local authorities seeking to suppress their opponents, by different groups of bureaucracy as a weapon in disputes and, apparently, by some individuals trying to advance their personal agendas. But, of course, this legislation has also been enforced against violent Islamist or neo-nazi groups.

9 Apparently, the official approach to anti-extremism has attained a certain degree of universality, involving a major part of the Russian public into consistent efforts to reduce the space of liberty in the country. The debates about specific anti-extremist measures targeting, for example, the left-wing radicals or Islamic radicals are far less noticeable, and only the theme of ethnic xenophobia stands apart due to the current explosion of ethic Russian nationalism. Understandably, the "universal anti-extremism has already produced a visible intellectual resistance. Debates about appropriate boundaries of the freedom of expression are increasingly substantial or at least inclusive. It is difficult to say how far the anti-extremist campaign may go. It is equally difficult to predict how the authoritarian regime established during Putin s presidency will evolve in the future - and an answer to this question would largely predetermine the rest of answers. However, the current negative experience may take the future discussion of extremism, nationalism and religion to a higher level.