Woman – an object of love and special care (weekly review) By Dzhambulat Are
GROZNY, Chechnya – The festive occasions in Kadyrov’s Chechnya have become the starting-point for a new mythology that is evolving right before our eyes.
If one considers that the image of woman in Chechen culture and traditions has an almost godlike status, it becomes clear why it is possible for so many other meanings, political or otherwise, to be added to it.
This time the categories of women being celebrated are more varied than ever, ranging from those daughters of Eve who have suffered the unenviable fate of falling into the hands of a specifically Russian justice, to the first lady of the Republic.
On March 7, a special concert to mark International Women’s Day (March 8) was held in Dagestan’s Federal Penal Colony No. 8, where there are Chechen women among those serving time. Chechnya’s deputy prime minister for social affairs Lyoma Magomadov and Nurid Barkhadzhiyev, chairman of the Chechen Government Committee for Youth Issues, honoured the unhappy female inmates with their attention.
“Even though we’re all in prison because of the crimes we’ve committed, we’re still the weaker sex. Absolutely every woman in here would like at least a little of the attention a woman deserves on this day,” inmate Maryam Dzhabrailova commented.
On the same day, young male admirers of Ramzan Kadyrov who have formed a “Ramzan” fan club held a gathering in the House of the Press for young Chechen women who were to demonstrate their devotion to Chechen traditions and to the republic’s leadership which has revived them.
The high point of this event was a competition called “The True Female Patriot”. The girls had to describe how happy they were in the new era of national greatness and presidential policies. There were prizes for the best national dress and the best performance of a national dance, a recitation of Chechen poetry about women, a brief presentation on the themes of what it means to be a female patriot and to possess a knowledge of the culture of one’s people, and numerous other items which emphasized the qualities which the new generation of Chechen women must have.
Elsewhere, the complexity of the new world that has emerged in recent years was crowned by a phenomenon which undoubtedly recalls the institution of the Queen Mother.
The Chechen officials who came to Tsentoroy in order to congratulate Aymani Kadyrova, the woman who gave birth to the republic’s greatest man, were not some second-rate bureaucrats but the crème de la crème: Parliamentary Speaker Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, Prime Minister Odes Baysultanov, the top brass of ministries and departments, deputies of the Legislative Assembly, and the heads of the republic’s regional administrations and villages.
“You have merited the exalted title of Khalkan Nana (Mother of the People) which the Chechen nation has bestowed on you. You bear it by right,” Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov remarked.
An incredible fact, but a true one. If the presidential press service is to be believed (and it may simply have overdone things with regard to loyalty), in her reply the “Mother of the People” called her son “Ramzan Akhmatovich”. For a Chechen, the calling of one’s offspring by their name and patronymic is equivalent to the transposition of relations between loved ones to the format of official rank.
The republic’s traditions are the object of the Chechen President’s watchful concern. He knows the Chechen woman’s needs, what she should be like, and how to support her aspiration to live according to the law. Ramzan Kadyrov is convinced that if a woman does not comply with the mandatory standards of conduct, she should be punished. The AP news agency reports that two weeks ago, as he left the central mosque after prayers, the President decided to express his personal view of the brutal murder of seven women whose corpses had been discovered on the outskirts of Grozny earlier that same day. In the opinion of Ramzan Akhmatovich, the women had been about to embark on a path of sin, but their families rescued them from making a false choice.
Picture: sobiratelzvezd.ru.
Previous weekly reviews can be read at http://www.watchdog.cz/weekly. (Translation by DM) (P/T)
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