>>Why shouldn't Russia cooperate on information sharing
with Israel? Israel has a lot of data. So does Saudi
Arabia, with which Russia concluded an anti-terrorist
agreement a couple of weeks ago.<<
What data would Israel share? The details of its operations in Iraq or S. Lebanon or Washington DC? There's info. and there's garbage. I think it's most likely to be a garbage exchange. Thinking of some good examples, the Israeli 'lowdown' on WMD in Iraq, the Israeli 'discovery' of a ricin factory among Ansar al Islam Kurds--oh, and Ansar al Islam's Al-Qaeada (no wait Saddam, no wait Iranian, no wait Saddam, no wait Zarqawi) ties.
>>I don't know Tajik history very well at all, so I have
no comment. "More stable" should I think definitely be
understood in terms of "stable only against an
alternative of civil war." Tajikistan is in bad, bad
shape. 1/7 of Tajik citizens are in Russia working as
Gastarbeiters.>>
It's interesting that not only did so many of the Russians leave, but a huge number of the Tajiks as well. Hmmmm....indicating....a bad economy, that's for sure.
>>"Wahhabi," as the study I sent illustrates, is not
understood in a sophisticated sense but the people who
use it in the fSU. It is a blanket term for "those
foreign-influenced Muslims who barge in and tell us
how we, supposedly fake Muslims, should live our
lives.">>
Which is pretty much what my spectrum of Islam, however schematic, pointed out. I didn't emphasize it enough, so it's worth saying here, Salafi Muslims (which populate a lot of the regions we are talking about here) who feel they are in trouble might naturally enough waver between conservative and fundamentalist, with or with out the intrusive Wahhabis.
>>In fact I believe that one of the main reasons for the
growth of "Wahabbism" in Chechnya from 1996-1999 was
to quell tribal conflicts by providing a unifying
ideology that transcended clan ties. Chechnya,
especially in the mountains, is a tribal society
(actually kinship-based, but I'm not going to split
hairs).>>
The major point in the argument being how to show it as a coherent ideology. I keep hearing about emerging caliphates and clerical fascism from W. Africa the whole way to the Philippines, but what I see, instead, include, for example, US-funded Zionists on a rampage in Palestine, US hegemonic occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Sudan in a western-sponsored civil war, heavily armed Thai police and military murdering kids in mosques in the south, and a pro-American Indonesian ruling class and their politicized military and police forces rampaging in Aceh (while they also use terrorism in Bali to justify the army keepings its seats in the egislature).
Nationalism is a term we could use to describe the way a particular self-delimiting group could get clans and tribes and factions to unite to fight an outside force.
>> There are about 160 different Chechen "tribes"
(teips), who historically have been fighting each
other whenever they haven't been more-or-less united
against an external force. I think that this is
probably a significant factor that caused Chechen
society (what was left of it), which had been sort-of
united against the Russian Army from 1994-1996, to
immediately collapse into inter-clan bloodshed after
Chechnya achieved de facto independence.>>
In this case could we not draw parallels to what happened in Afghanistan, though that was also a wide open inter-ethnic conflict more than just an intra-Pashtun one. Another concern to raise here, though, is the equally loose term of 'tribal' to go along with the loose use of 'Wahabbi'. Western pundits jump on such terms to otherize and explain away still yet another unpeople in a failed state. It's so easy that way.
>>I deny the Huntington thesis as well. I do not believe
(in contradistinction to the article) that "Wahabbism"
in the sense I'm talking about is usually similar or
supplemental to nationalism. I think that, in many or
most cases, it serves as a _substitute_ for
nationalism. It served to some extent, for instance,
to unite the various Chechen clans, which have very
little concept of being part of a single "nation" at
all.>>
I believe history says otherwise. I guess it depends on what you mean by 'nation'. Perhaps we really shouldn't stick with 19th century and Wilsonian concepts if we want to appear enlightened and culturally aware. Your assertion is something like saying the Sioux of the plains weren't a single nation. By modern definitions, one of the oldest nations in the world is the USA.
Also, a body of Chechen literature would say otherwise (a national literature, afterall, is a mark of 'nationhood'). But that is only one thing on which we might say the Chechens are a 'nation'. They don't until recently seem to qualify for that post-19th still-romantic, quasi-religious sense of a nation. Just because a group or group of groups of people lack this doesn't mean they do not qualify for some form of self-determination and autonomy. You see, the danger of the extremists is not that they are Chechen, or tribal, or Wahhabi, but rather, they seem to be embracing a rather western form of irrational nationalism.
>>Moreover, nationalism in the fSU, execpt perhaps in
its Russian form, is pretty much a spent force, and
has always been largely an ideology of the
intelligentsia. "Wahabbism," on the other hand, has
attracted, not the intelligentsia, but rural, poorly
educated, and very very poor people. In Uzbeksistan,
for instance, it is not (mainly) people in Tashkent --
which is educated, cosmopolitan, and affluent by the
standards of Central Asia -- but the people who live
in villages.>>
Is this surprising? However, see my point above.
>>Let's use Chechnya, as it is the quintessential
example. Who supported the nationalists and, later,
the "Wahabbis"? It was not the Chechen intelligentsia,
who fled en masse from 1991-1996 and no live mostly in
Moscow and St. Petersburg. Nor was it the plains
Chechens, who are more urbanized and de-tribalized,
had more access to education and income from the oil
industry, and are historically more-or-less
pro-Russian. The people who supported them were mostly
mountain Chechens, who live by farming, are largely
uneducated (especially today, given 10 years of
conflict), base their lives around their teip
membership, and are very poor. They were the ones to
whom the ideas of "Chechen exceptionalism" and later
"Wahabbism" appealed. >>
I think it supports my point about breakaway, extremist nationalism. Religiosity has long played a part in nationalism (emotional, religious fervour fusing the people, the holy mother tongue, the traditional religion, the racial distinctiveness, the cultural uniqueness, the moral superiority, and all this at stake, under seige of 'evil' forces or internal decay, etc). It's interesting how completely mixed--religious fervour, nationalist fervour, a religion of the state replacing a state religion--it is in the US such that many people fail to notice it for what it is.
>>(By "Chechen exceptionalism" I mean the idea,
expressed by Nukhayev and others, that Chechens,
uniquely out of all the Caucasian peoples, have the
capability to form an independent state without
Russia. This is because, so the ideology goes, the
Chechens are historically alien to civilization and
therefore can do without the blandishments of cities,
electricity and so forth that are only possible with
the assistance that Moscow can provide. Later this
became transformed into the idea that the Chechens --
as the numerically largest Caucasian people and the
only ones who have remained true to their roots -- are
destined to lead the Caucasus, by force if need be,
back to the premodern ways of their ancestors.)>>
There you have it. The thinking goes: The Chechens are a uniquely unique culture that have lost something 'holy', and must now find their own way. Away from the corrupt West. Away from the corrupting Russians and Russified people. Where have we heard it all before?
>>>On
> the other hand, I also tend to theorize and hope for
> some supergroupings that can reconcile differences,
> find commonalities. If, for example, western
> Trinitarian Christianity, its proponents and
> believers, could come to recognize Islam as the
> major line of evolution of NON-TRINITARIAN branch of
> CHRISTIANITY, might they come to see that there is
> more in common than in conflict?>>>
>>I agree with you.>>
Thanks.
>>Uzbek is a Turkish language. Tajik is Persian,
although yes they were Turkified because of the
invasion of the Khans. Tajikistan, unless I am wrong,
has only had one experience of statehood before 1991
-- the 10th-century Perso-Arabic Samanid empire.
Uzbekistan experienced statehood from the 1500s until
the fell to Russia around 1850.>>
Yes, my mistake. A linguist (whom I cc'd my post to when I first sent it) informs me that Tajik is so close to Persian as to be considered a 'dialect'. I was thinking of another Turkic language of C. Asia, Kazakh. Considering that there are so many Tajik speakers in Uzbekistan, there must be a considerable amount of multi-lingual 'code-switching'.
>> The people who are now
the Uzbeks subjugated many of the Tajiks in the 1500s
and created vassal states, if I am not mistaken. So
the Uzbek-Tajik dichotomy precedes their assimilation
into the Russian Empire. >>
Certainly the linguistic distinctiveness precedes that assimilation, you are quite right. The Uzbek subjugation seems somewhat homogenizing, like the Norman French in Anglo-Saxon-Danish Britain. I should have said the idea of splitting Tajik and Uzbek up into two separate republics with distinct nationalities seems more like a relic of the Soviet Union than the pre-Soviet history of the place(s).
>>Tajikistan is also largely
rural and tribal -- the tribes can't even decide on a
single anthem they all like -- and is almost a classic
example of a failed state. Uzbekistan has a large
educated, urban population and is a nominally
functioning state. So there are big differences
between them.>>
Yes, in fact, this is where a lot of urban, educated Tajik speakers live (Sarmarkand, Bukhara).
>>I have heard a great deal of speculation about
Turkey's role in the region, but little hard data. Do
you have anything handy?>>
It would seem internal troubles, contradictions over secularism vs. religion, disagreement over priorities (the lure of the EU), and a weak economy throughout the late 80s and 90s have prevented Turkey from asserting any major role. Turkey is one of those countries I'll never 'figure out' most likely. Too much history, too much change, too much diversity, too much ignorance on my part, too much too much.
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