How can we achieve peace in Chechnya?

There was a remarkable decoration during the time, when Czar Alexander II was reigning in Russia: “For Conquering Chechnya and Dagestan in 1857,1858 and 1859.” It has been 150 years now, and President Putin has to face this question again: what should be done with intractable Chechnya? The military solution of the problem, as the Russian Army headquarters says, is characterized with the fact that “the mutiny of illegal armed groups was changed from the impetuously growing regional crisis (in August of 2000) to the local counter-guerrilla operation of the medium intensity (February 2002). However, no one rejoices about that, since the guerrilla warfare of the Chechens, united in the groups of 1500-2000 Allah’s warriors, can last forever in mountains and forests. There are three factors to prove that. First of all, the growing generations of young Chechens that live in the mountains and earn their living with the help of the “foray economy.” Secondly, the Chechen armed groups are sufficiently provided with money from “Russia’s economic globalization partners.” And thirdly, the Vakhabits are predominant morally and ideologically over the Russian troops.

The general situation in Chechnya is even more unattractive, if you read or listen to the Russian mass media outlets. This is something like that: Against the background of the conflict of civilizations, the sense of the global contradiction of the forces of light and progress, the society of consumption and comfort on the one hand, and the society that was brutally attacked by terrorists of the aggressive Islamic world, threatening to pull the world back into the darkness of the middle ages on the other hand, Russia does not have the energy to destroy all the intractable Chechens due to the lack of the funds and determination. This makes the society shun, leads to the wild mutual hatred, horrible corruption and moral degradation.

This way or other, the “counter-terrorist operation” in the Chechen republic has completely lost its popularity in the society and became very expensive for the authorities under the conditions of world crude price reduction. The well known Chechen commanders Khattab and Basayev are still elusive, like Mullah Omar and Bin Laden for Americans in Afghanistan. It is hard to announce the victory without their heads, and losing the internal war means that the authority of the supreme power will be lost in the hearts and minds of the people, who are called “the electorate” every four years.

Speculating over a way to extricate from such a crisis, we have to come to conclusion that the military victory of any price is not possible in the present situation, even if the government leaves the “democratic” military principles alone and uses the fascist ones. You can never replace the whole nation, it is not possible to hand over the entire power to the hands of the local Chechen administration either, for this will bury the Kremlin’s constitutional order very quickly. The peaceful regulation of the problem is not likely, there will be no compromise found for the reasons that we have already mentioned. Is it a dead end? What is the way out? The answer is evident: one should act in an asymmetrical way.

Asymmetrically means beyond the “enemy-friend” type of symmetry. There should be the third force found and apply it in a way to create the harmony in the conflict. The place to apply such force is the ideology of the intractable Chechens, since it is the ideology that makes them choose the way to go along, it is the ideology that deprives them of the fear to die for their faith. Even an A-bomb will not stop them, only the faith can. The struggle is supposed to move from the mind and money into the heart and faith.

It is known that the Chechens are guided by Vakhabism - the religious movement, which was imposed on them by the Saudis, which in their turn are controlled by the Americans. One may not hope that the Chechens will adopt Christianity. The Russian orthodox church can not cope with a huge number of the Russian atheists now. There is only Islam that can help, but not in the artificial form of Vakhabism – it should be Islam in its natural true form.

It should be stressed here that Islam as the religious community, which does not acknowledge the national and cultural difficulties, is deprived of the historical quality. Other forces tear Islam apart if it takes the form of Vakhabism – the American globalism at present moment. In Tatarstan, in Turkey, in Iraq, and in Indonesia, Malaysia Islam exists only as a book dogma and is not good for the struggle with Vakhabism. The true Islam exists only in Iran, that is why George Bush put Iran on the “axis of evil.”

The Russian authorities must work with the help of Islam in order to establish law and order in Chechnya. Russia should establish the spiritual links with Iran, and using the spiritual authority of the true-faith-bearers, using the faith, we must re-program the rational matrix of Vakhabism in the hearts and minds of the intractable Chechens. When the true faith comes into those hearts, then the struggle to fight with the “aliens” will be substituted with the feeling of consent, agreement with different religions of the one and only God. The harmony in the faith will bring peace and joy both to the Chechens and all other nations of Russia.

Andrey Devyatov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov