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The Eurasian Politician - August 2003
Anssi Kullberg, 9th Aug. 2003
Some analysts suggest that the suicide attacks that have taken place in Chechnya, elsewhere in the North Caucasus, and in Russia signal a shift from the long tradition of pure guerrilla tactics in the independence movement, towards the Palestinian type of desperate terrorism. However, understanding the development demands a more advanced overall picture. The drift between nationalist independence movements and Islamist groups is a phenomenon that has occurred in the Eurasian conflict zones for a long time already.
The Eurasian conflict zones are situated as a belt from the Balkans through the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Kashmir, to Southeast Asia. This is not a coincidence, since these are borderlands between large "civilizations", and to be more exact, frontiers between powerful Eurasian empires, whether historical or modern. It is also not a coincidence that these borderlands and frontiers are located in areas, where the landscape and natural geography has been favorable for guerrilla tactics and efficient resistance by the weaker against a stronger aggressor. This has made mountain regions, and to some extent also densely forested areas and broken coastlines or archipelagoes, areas where various empires have faced the halt for their expansion. This has also caused that the mosaic of mountains and valleys along the Eurasian belt "of instability" has traditionally preserved larger multitude of various languages, ethnic groups, and religious beliefs than the steppes and plains in imperial heartlands, where the ruling empires have been able to wipe out resistant minorities.
Thus, another characteristic for the mountain regions of the Balkans, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kashmir has been constituted by Sufi traditions of Islam, which represent tolerant, moderate and localized forms of Islam, whereas radical forms of Islamic puritanism or modern political Islamism, which mainly derive from Arab countries, consider the Sufis as heretics. On the other hand, the local manner of Sufism, especially that of the Naqshbandi school, has often inspired nationalist feelings and freedom struggle, while the predominant Arab forms of Sunni Islamism call for internationalism and struggle against imagined internationalized enemies. Anti-Americanism is a typical phenomenon of modern internationalist radical Islamism, and something entirely alien for Sufi-based freedom struggles of the non-Arab Eurasian Muslims.
The Sufi brotherhoods, especially Naqshbandiyya, but in lengthened conflicts also the predominantly pacifist Qadiriyya, have acted as the initiators and core elements in almost all anti-colonial independence struggles of Muslim nations. They were leading the resistance in 1800s, against the French in North Africa, against the Russians in the Caucasus, against the Britons in India, against the Dutch in Indonesia, and against the Turks in the Arabian Peninsula. During the Cold War, and after it, they have been the crucial force behind the freedom struggles against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, against Indian occupation in Kashmir, against the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo, and against Russia in Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tajikistan.
It is also important to notice that in Chechnya, the position of women has been traditionally strong, in comparison with both the mainstream of Sunni Islam, and some other North Caucasian societies, like the traditionally hierarchic Circassians and the traditionally conservative Dagestan. Both Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya in Chechnya has accepted also women as members. Thus, it is not surprising to find women having participated in armed resistance ever since the Chechen War I (1994-1996). However, female suicide terrorism of the "black widows" is something new and previously unknown for Chechen tradition. It must be mentioned here, for example, that in Chechnya itself it is very unusual to see women wearing "Islamic" uniforms like full headscarves.
The strength of Sufism has lied in the capability of preserving the faith and tradition embedded in the social loyalty and kinship on the level of family, clan, and village. Such structure was much more resistant against the official Soviet atheism and authoritarian rule than, for example, the traditionally authoritarian and hierarchic Sunni Islam of Central Asia, where Czarist and Soviet central power was able to use the local conservative Muslim authority, ulama, to suppress the population under their rule. It was even an older czarist tradition that the Russian central power allied itself with the authoritarian conservative Muslim clergy, Qadimists, while it considered the reformist Dzhadidists (and Pan-Turkists) as its enemies.
The radicals who ended up supporting Wahhabism, on the contrary, often shared their background in the communist regime, and their cultural and religious roots had been cut by official atheism. It is therefore noteworthy to mention that a common factor in the background of Eurasian extremist Islamist movements is usually found in Marxist movements of the 1970s, and Soviet-sponsored Islamism of the 1980s. Former Marxists were more bound to prefer radical internationalist Islamism instead of conservative Islam or national independence movements.
While the national independence movements found their political models mostly in the nationalist movements of Eastern and Central Europe, their leaders resembling the nationalist intellectual politicians found in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Baltic countries, and Georgia, the radicals first chose the Soviet Islamist IRP (Islamic Renaissance Party) and called for the preservation of the Soviet Union, and later of the unity of the Russian Federation. From mid-1990s onwards, they became increasingly influenced by radical Islamism of the wealthy Arab countries, from where they absorbed ideas of Islamist internationalism and anti-Westernism, which were absurd values for the independence movements that shared the nationalist background with the East European liberation movements, and considered the West as their greatest hope and ally.
In addition to the post-Marxist tendencies of radicalism with old Soviet-born antipathies against America, but with a new color on the flag, there was a lot of opportunism involved, too. The Alcibiades pattern has been repeated by resistance and guerrilla chiefs of lengthened conflicts in the past, Mulla Mustafa Barzani of the Iraqi Kurds (founder of the KDP) being a good example, but while Barzani shifted from Stalin's communist camp to the pro-Western one, the Chechen Alcibiades, Shamil Basayev, followed an opposite kind of career. He used to be an officer in the Russian OMON, fought along with the Russian military intelligence in the Abkhaz War against Georgia (a country that was friendly towards the Chechens), joined the Chechen War I as a Chechen nationalist patriot, but after having been defeated by the moderate nationalist Aslan Maskhadov in the Chechen presidential election in 1997, Basayev increasingly came to describe himself as "an Islamic Che Guevara".
Same patterns can be seen in other Eurasian conflict areas, too. In the Afghan liberation struggle against the Soviet occupation, the role of the radical Islamists was marginal, while the anti-Soviet resistance was led by Sufis and conservative Muslims. More Islamist radicals were acting in the "false flag" groupings trained by Soviet intelligence, such as the ex-communist Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi's Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Movement), where such curious figures as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (a former communist) and Mullah Omar shared their early contacts. When the Afghan communist regime defeated by the conservative Jamiat-i Islami of Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Sufis and conservatives continued to fight the radical Islamist movement, Taliban, while numerous former communist generals joined the ranks of the Taliban.
Also in Kashmir, the core of the independence movement is constituted by moderate nationalists and Sufi movements. The All-Party Hurriyet Conference even chose a Shi'a, Abbas Ansari, to lead the Kashmiri separatist umbrella this summer. On the other hand, the Islamist jihad groups, with links to international terrorism, avoid supporting Kashmiri independence, but instead, speak about an international jihad.
In Indonesia, too, Aceh is a province with more conservative tradition of Islam than elsewhere in the island empire, but the Acehi separatists have nothing do with Islamist terrorism. Indonesia's Islamic terrorism is fledging in the secular state universities, while the Islamic universities seem to remain calm. Radical Islamism is also bound to Java, where people's bondage to religious fundaments is weakest in all the country. The Front Pembela Islam once became famous for the heavy drinking parties after its strikes, while the Laskar Jihad was known for mass-rapes in battle zones. Terrorists behind the bombings of Bali and Jakarta seem to repeat the pattern that modern Islamist terrorists have more in common with radical Marxists of the near past than with conservative Muslims, let alone Sufi-inspired national independence movements.
The Kosovar Liberation Army UÇK (KLA) was found by Sufi brotherhoods, and the radical Islamists' attempts to infiltrate the conflict were annulled as soon as the West got involved in Kosovo. Arab agents, who came to Bosnia, to the Albanian Civil War (1997), and to Kosovo (1998-1999), to market anti-Western internationalist Islamism, were quickly expelled from the Balkans as soon as moral and later also material support was received from the West.
In Chechnya the development was more unhappy, since the almost total absence of Western support and even moral understanding in the Chechen War II, gravely disappointed the Chechens who had so far embraced the idea of the West as a savior of Eastern European liberation, in which the Chechens consistently associated themselves. This was to boost the influence of so far marginal radical Islamists by the end of 1990s. The Islamists were further helped by the efforts of Russian propaganda to brand the secular nationalist independence movement as a part of international Islamic terrorism, which contributed to the monopolization of Chechen resistance information by Islamists residing outside of the Caucasus region. Still today, the actual independence movement, led by President Maskhadov and his allies, maintains the West as the main model of the Chechens, and rejects the Islamist propaganda.
What has happened in Chechnya is actually what happened in Afghanistan after the Cold War, when the West suddenly lost all its interest in the country. It was then that radical Islamism and international terrorism actually gained some support among Afghan mujahid groupings.
It can be concluded that isolation and dismissal of moderate and nationalist independence movements mainly serves the interests of international Islamists, for whom an isolated desperate conflict area offers best possible opportunities to use their financial, political and propaganda influence, and to recruit young men and women. In a conflict with at least moral and information contacts with the free West, the Islamists' chances to infiltrate resistance are very limited and their impact easily marginalized. Thus, the Western involvement in the conflicts of Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo have greatly contributed to the war against international terrorism, while the policies of Russia in Chechnya, of India in Kashmir, and of Indonesia in Aceh are evidently just feeding the monster of international terrorism.
Internal power struggle within an independence or resistance movement is often at least as big a motive behind hostage dramas and terrorist actions as is influencing the enemy. The Chechen Islamist leader Shamil Basayev has been in opposition against President Aslan Maskhadov since the presidential election in 1997, in which Maskhadov got 59 per cent of the votes, and Basayev got 23 per cent. The numbers indicate a more durable division of popular support to moderate nationalism vis-à-vis radicalism (Islamism) in Chechnya, although at the time Basayev was not yet so clearly an exponent of Islamism.
Also in the other conflict areas, like in Kashmir and in Kosovo, the moderate nationalists have usually triumphed in all free and democratic elections, and enjoyed majority support, while radical Islamists have had "minor voting power, moderate street power, and disproportionate fire-power". With marginal numbers of men, the radicals have easily managed to monopolize publicity, especially towards the West, largely helped by the Western media seeking to exaggerate every "exotic" phenomenon, and thus greatly contributing to the fame and attraction of radical Islamism throughout the Islamic world. This has also usually greatly benefited the propaganda of the occupying country, as it marginalizes the (legitimate) moderate independence movements, and instead equates separatism per se with terrorism and extremism.
In summer 1995, Basayev set off for a commando strike to Budyonnovsk, where the original targets included a military base, a police station, and a communications center, but when removing from the site, the group took hostages and fortified themselves to the hospital of Budyonnovsk. Although the official Chechen leadership condemned the operation, it in fact proved a success for Basayev, as it forced Moscow to start negotiations. Basayev managed in what the moderate initiatives of the Chechen leadership had not managed. Later in January 1996, Salman Raduyev imitated Basayev's operation by attacking against the airport of Kizliar, where Russian helicopters were destroyed. They, too, took hostages when removing, and the operation ended in a bloodbath in the village of Pervomaiskoye, and again showed to many that only extreme actions actually made an impact on Russia.
In summer 1999, a thousand men (mostly Dagestanis, but about 300 of them were Chechens), led by Basayev, invaded to Dagestan, in order to support the Wahhabi villages and Dagestani Islamists (led by Nadirshah Hachilayev, who was murdered this week in Mahachkala) against Russian aggression. The Russian security organs had, however, prepared for a new war against Chechnya for a good time before the Dagestan provocation. Basayev's operation therefore came as a most welcome present to Moscow's hawks. Russia transferred the war from Dagestan directly to Chechnya, attacking the very independence movement, who had condemned Basayev's adventurism, and just some time before, fought against Basayev and his Islamists. Russian security organs and Caucasian Islamists shared obvious common interests: they both benefited of the outbreak of a new war, and welcomed Maskhadov appearing weak and incapable to control the situation.
Moreover, also the hostage drama of the Dubrovka theatre in October 2002 had an evident connection to internal Chechen power struggle. At the same time, a peaceful Chechen Congress took place in Copenhagen, organized by the independence movement led by President Maskhadov, together with their European supporters. Basayev and the other Islamists were left out of the congress, and besides, the agenda of the congress was clearly aimed against the extremists.
For the pro-Western Chechen leaders, the main purpose of the congress was to adopt a manifest stand against terrorism and other unfavorable activities of the Islamists, and to clean the reputation of the independence movement in Western eyes. Russia, again, contributed greatly to the Islamist opposition's cause by concentrating its propaganda against the moderate Chechen leaders, and by demanding first Denmark and then Britain to hand over Maskhadov's special envoy, Ahmed Zakayev. Yet the pro-Western Zakayev has been one of the most devoted opponents of the Islamists in Chechnya, and during the inter-war peace (1996-1999) he even published a booklet against the Islamists, accusing the Wahhabis as enemies of Chechen independence.
The appearance of suicide terrorists in the Chechen conflicts does not mean that the Chechen independence movement has joined international terrorist cause. It shows, however, that the isolation of the legitimate Chechen leaders from all negotiations and most contacts with both Russia and the West has led to the strengthening of the Islamist opposition's influence. It also shows that the activities of Basayev's allies are not any more controlled by Maskhadov's government at all. In this sense it should not bother too much the legitimate Chechen leadership that Basayev was declared a terrorist by the US administration, although it is still understandable that the Chechen leadership has to keep on balancing with the Islamists as long as they fight the common enemy, the Russian occupation. Only Western support, at least moral, could release the national independence movement to adopt a more absolutely rejecting stand against the Islamists, in order to sideline them from power within Chechnya.
For the interests of the hawks of Moscow's Kremlin, however, it suits well that the anti-Western Islamism gains increasing influence among the armed resistance, as Russia in the Caucasus is not fighting terrorism, but separatism. For Russia, dividing the resistance, and equating it with terrorism provides continuous Western acceptance for continuing the war, which is mainly territorially motivated, and as long as this is the mode of understanding the conflict, Russia does not need to seek any kind of constructive or lasting political solution.
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For this article, I am specially indebted to the works of Professor Brian Glyn Williams of the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth (on Sufi-Wahhabi divide, Chechnya and Kosovo), Professor Shirin Akiner of the University of London (on czarist policies towards Muslims), Professor Moshe Gammer of the University of Tel Aviv (on the two Sufi brotherhoods, Chechnya and Dagestan), Dr. Antero Leitzinger of the Intelligence Unit of the Finnish Directorate of Immigration (on the Caucasus, and on Marxist background of Islamist radicalism), Dr. Timo Kivimäki of the Asian Studies Institute of Copenhagen (on Indonesia), and Dr. Kaj Öhrnberg of the University of Helsinki (on Sufi role behind anti-colonial resistance).
The author is a postgraduate student and researcher-journalist specialized in Eastern European and Western, Central and Southern Asian affairs. He has also served the Finnish Directorate of Immigration, and the Finnish Embassy in Islamabad.
E-mail: euraspol@suomi24.fi