Russia and Islam: State approaches, radicalisation and

the ‘War on Terror’ Roland Dannreuther and Luke March (with the

assistance of Katya Braginskaia) University of Edinburgh

Representing Islam: Comparative Perspectives University of Manchester

5-6 September 2008

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Aims of research

• Explore critical but often neglected dimensions:

– Russian academic/elite approaches to study of Islam– How these discourses relate to, or are translated into, state practice and policy– How these state-driven practices affect policies and attitudes on the ground– Engaging with the dominant paradigm: Evidence and concerns over Islamist

radicalisation within Russia - e.g. Hahn Russia’s Islamic Threat (2007), Yemelianova, Radical Islam in the Former Soviet Union (2009)

– Studying Russia’s Muslim communities outside North Caucasus (e.g. Moscow)– State-Muslim-Orthodox relations– Connections to and/or justifications for other developments in Russia under and

since Putin• Increasing repression of dissent • Centralisation of power• Social radicalisation (xenophobia, migrantophobia, nationalism)• Stability and projection of external power

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Case studies

• 3 case studies: • Tatarstan

• Dagestan

• Moscow city

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State discourses about Islam (1)• Schizophrenia

– Islam as ‘an inseparable, fully-fledged, and active part of the multiethnic and multi-denominational nation of Russia’

– Government consistently supports Russian Islam, and official Muslim institutions

– Russia as a ‘Muslim power’ (Putin, 2003) – BUT: Islam as religion is also linked to extremism and terrorism – ‘Foreign’ and ‘imported’ Islam (a ‘terrorist international’)

distinguished from traditional Russian moderate Islam in ‘war on terror’

– Such distinctions often lost in popular discourse

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State discourses about Islam (2)• ‘Securitization’ of domestic policy as part of ‘war on terror’

– Russia as a ‘besieged fortress’ prone to external existential security threats– Centralising measures often justified on an anti-terrorist or anti-extremist

basis– Legal definitions of ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ ambiguous– Tendency to designate all variants of non-official Islam as ‘Wahhabism’ – Attempt to ride the ‘nationalist tiger’– Concept of ‘sovereign democracy’ to consolidate the state against key

threats, above all against ‘international terrorism’

• Results:– Increased state powers and prerogatives fertile ground for radicalisation (?)– Increase in Caucasophobia and Islamophobia– Reassertion of Russian Orthodox identity and potentially problematic

consequences for Russian inter-confessional relationships

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Moscow• Muslims as sizeable and increasing minority (1-2 million)• ‘Religious’ versus ‘ethnic’ Muslims• Official inter-confessional harmony• Immigration and fears of ‘ghettoisation’ (e.g. Butovo)

– Assimilationism and not multiculturalism

• Moscow as key stage for ethnic Russian nationalism, racism

• Most problems arise from sins of omission not commission

• Greater cultural assertiveness does not equal radicalisation

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Tatarstan

• The exemplar of indigenous Russian Islamic moderation and tolerance?

• BUT: Increasing central control• Struggle for the appropriate locus and

interpretation of ‘official’ moderate Russian Islam– ‘Euro-Islam’ – ‘Russian Islam’

• Disillusionment with ‘official’ Islam increases the attraction of more unofficial and radical Islams

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Dagestan• Battle of ideas between ‘Wahhabism’, and local Islams (often but

not exclusively Sufism)• Dagestan as one of Russia’s most Islamic republics• ‘Wahhabist’ insurgency peaked in 1999, but low-level political

violence increasing since 2005• Causes of radicalisation:

– Socio-economic policies and youth unemployment – Unpopularity and corruption of elites – Radical anti-Sufi Islam as vehicle for anti-elite opposition

• State response– Increasing federal control over regions– Replacement of corrupt leaders– Federal funding– Militarization and campaigns against ‘Wahhabism’

• Result: Success in Chechnya (?), but spread of radicalisation across North Caucasus and beyond.

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General conclusions (1) • No one Russian Federation, no one Russian umma• ‘Islamic Threat’ greatly exaggerated (except in North

Caucasus)• Competing dynamics of Muslim alienation/radicalisation

and integration/de-radicalisation• Radicalisation:

– Governance issues, corruption, poor economic conditions– State repression and centralisation– Fracturing of Muslim hierarchy– Intergenerational conflict– Migrantophobia

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General conclusions (2)• Deradicalisation

– Improved economic situation and state largesse– Increase in Russian ‘patriotism’– State support for moderate Islam (but controversial)– Chechenisation (even more controversial)

– Key future question: what is the impact of the new Russia-West ‘cold peace?’