An Iranian future for the North Caucasus?  By Sergei Davydov, special to Prague Watchdog
St. Petersburg
At the height of the recent developments in Iran, the website of the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Chechen Republic published an article which tried to analyze what was going on in the neighbouring country. The interest shown by North Caucasian analysts in the Iranian events is revealing. Despite the superficial nature of the analysis, which drew ill-judged comparisons with the "colour" revolutions in the post-Soviet space, this desire to write those events into the context of the political life of post-Soviet societies suggests that the changes in Iran are not seen in isolation from political processes in the former Soviet Union, including the North Caucasus region. One has the impression, though, that the similarities are not being sought in the right place. What happened on the streets of Tehran and other cities in Iran during recent weeks is presented as a possible scenario for the North Caucasus in a few decades’ time. However, the probability of such a scenario is unlikely to deviate much from zero.
So, what significance might the Iranian developments have for the North Caucasus?
As in Iran, the falsification of election results is a long-established tradition in the North Caucasian republics, but in contrast to Iran it does not provoke massive popular protests there. The ruling class in the Russian Federation (including the North Caucasus) is essentially a postcolonial one – the former Soviet bureaucracy-bourgeoisie. Unlike their colleagues, not only in Western Europe but also in the Iranian bazaar, this post-Soviet bourgeoisie has no history of any struggle for their rights. This class acquired its wealth and position as a result of the division of the collective assets of the former Soviet nomenklatura. Since these people acquired their status “appropriately” and now connect their survival with loyalty to the new Kremlin grouping, but not with an observance of the laws of the bourgeois state, it would be odd to expect that they would produce enough active leaders to head public protests.
It would seem that there exists in the North Caucasus a movement whose leaders, like the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1960s and 70s, talk about the establishment of an Islamic state. Perhaps, if they are victorious, some of the members of this movement may pass through an evolution similar to the one experienced by Khomeini in Iran, and will express ideas that resemble those of Iranian reformist intellectuals like Zahra Eshraghi and Hassan Khomeini?
While such a possibility cannot be ruled out, at present there are few grounds for drawing even superficial analogies between the ideas of the supporters of the Caucasus Emirate and those of Khomeinism.
Political leaders who call themselves Muslims and who seek to meet the demands of the times in which they live need to have a fundamental knowledge of their religion, and an acquaintance with all the interpretations of the Koran, including those that are relevant and popular today. Of course, anyone who plans to make conclusions from the Koranic text must read it in the original. While it may well be that there are some members of the North Caucasus resistance who know Arabic, it is no secret that ninety percent of people for whom Arabic is their native language are unable to understand the language of the Koran without special schooling. Such schooling requires many years of hard work, the mastering of the language of the era and a fundamental knowledge of the etymology of each Koranic term. Only a person who is armed with such knowledge can hope that in the distant future he may be deemed competent to make theological judgments based on Koranic quotations. It will be recalled that Ayatollah Khamenei began his study of Arabic and theology when he was still a child.
Thus, the prospect of an Iranian future for the North Caucasus is a misty one. On the one hand, the North Caucasus has no social groups which are bearers of an ideology or values that might encourage people to participate in a mass movement similar to the one which prompted the unrest in Iran after June 12. On the other, the narrow vision of the leaders of the resistance movement, the absence from their ranks of people who know the sacred texts and the basic doctrines of their religion, are an obstacle to the movement’s further evolution, and significantly reduce its chances of success. Any possibility that the North Caucasus resistance movement might evolve along the "Iranian path" will only be a real one if its leadership acquires people with a broader outlook on the world and a more thorough knowledge of Muslim theology.
Photo: nnm.ru. (Translation by DM) (P, DM)
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