[lbo-talk] RE: "Wahhabism" (was: Re: Beslan...)

[Chris Doss]

On reconsideration, you may be right about the
nationalism thing -- what I am suggesting is that
ideologies like "Wahabbism" serve to, perhaps, cement
a weak nationalism, weak because of internal societal
frictions, such as loyalty to the clan/tribe coming
before that of the "nation" or "people." Didn't some
of that take place in what is now Saudi Arabia -- I
mean, the use of religion as a mechanism to forge a
shared identity among the various tribes?

On Tajikistan and the condition it's in -- well, if
Tajik migrant workers are willing to live in the
hellish conditions they do in Moscow, it must be
pretty damn bad. A couple of years ago, a couple of
dozen migrant workers from Tajikistan (it may have
been Uzbekistan, I don't remember) burned to death in
Moscow. There were about 30 of them living in a single
bus. The oil cooker they were using to prepare food
set the place on fire, and whoever had hired them and
brought them to Moscow has wired the doors and windows
of the bus shut.

It's by far from just Tajikistan that these people are
coming from. Menial work in Moscow is mostly done by
immigrants (legal or illegal) from the stans, Moldova
and Ukraine. Not from Kazakhstan, though, since the
Kazakhs are relatively rich. 

	

		
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