Европа, «точечный халифат», мультикультурализм, мигранты, межконфессиональные отношения.

Исламская проблема – это не проблема цивилизационного, политического или иного плана. Речь идет о будущем существовании российского государства и общества.

Ключевые слова: ислам, исламизация, Россия, нация, автономия, христианская цивилизация.

21^st  Century:  Islamic  Challenge – the  Russian  Dimension.

“21^st Century: Islamic Challenge – the Russian Dimension” is an essay written by written by Robert Yengibaryan, a well-known legal scholar and a doctor of law co-authored with Julia Karaulova in which he focuses on the history and current state of the relationship existing between Russia and Islamic states and territories both in and outside the Russian Federation.
The authors claim that the principal reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union was, in addition to its economic and political deadlocks, the civilizational incompatibility of its constituent parts. The westernized cities of Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Kiev, Kharkov, Lvov, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Tbilisi and Yerevan contrasted with Central Asia, Azerbaijan and the Muslim areas in North Caucasus and the Volga region which had assumed Soviet makeup but continued to live according to the medieval-type Sharia rules. The 20th and 15th centuries were combined by force into a single state which declared total atheism, overthrew the old gods and worshipped its communist leaders as the new ones.
In the authors’ opinion, a crucial moment had come for the country when in Sumgait, a suburb of Baku, Muslim street mobs started violence against Christian, primarily Armenians, in February 1988. The weak and poorly educated Soviet leaders failed to understand that aggressive Islam, having revived after the weakening of Soviet rule, was launching a full-scale offensive on the Christian civilization.
After the Soviet Union broke up, the ex-Soviet and now Islamic republics promptly entered into close relationships with the Turkic and Muslim world triggering massive escape of non-Muslim ethnic groups from these areas. The local nationalist-minded intellectuals, the political elite and the huge uneducated mass of Muslims made a surprisingly rapid turn to the Islamic path of development and to life according the Sharia rules. Turkey, in its turn, immediately started an active dialog with the ex-Soviet republics and the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation which belonged to Islamic culture.
The authors place special emphasis on another crucial ethnic problem involving the dominant nation of the former USSR. A great number of ethnic Russians, at least 25 to 30 million, found themselves living in the former Soviet republics and facing hard choices to make. Those Russians who lived in the territories belonging to Christian civilization (e.g. Armenia, Belorussia, the Baltic states, etc.) mainly continued to live where they had lived. In contrast, the Russians and other ethnic minorities who used to live in the republics belonging to Islamic culture left those countries in a few years due to the rapid Islamization of all public and political life and the lack of any prospects for living there. Discrimination against Russian and other Christian population has also affected all Muslim republics of the Russian Federation, from Tatarstan and Bashkortostan to Ingushetia. As a result, more than three million square kilometers of the former USSR territory was almost totally cleared of Christian presence.
The authors conclude that the processes going on in the Islamic world and in Europe and resembling a new resettlement of peoples have directly affected Russia as well. A giant mass of about 15 to 18 million people differing from the locals in all aspects have settled in Russia, from the south to the northern capital. This is a new stage in the life of the great country.
Analyzing the current political situation, the authors describe the federal structure of the RF as a specific feature of a multiethnic and multiconfessional country with a gigantic territory and a developing economy. Russia has inherited its federal structure from the Soviet regime which, in order to calm down some turbulent provinces, transformed them into states according to the ethnic principle and even granted them the right of unilateral secession, or withdrawal, from the federation. In a softer form, centralization of this kind is still in place in the relations between the Russian federal center and the Russian regions. The original version of the Constitution authorized the republics to elect their governors by popular vote. But having realized that such a procedure for election increased the autonomy of Russian regions in a manner unwanted by the federal government, the latter canceled this procedure, running contrary to the federal principle declared by the Russian Federation.
Of note, where the ethnic factor forms the basis for a federal state, any ethnic minority in a given republic, say, Russians in Tatarstan, will find themselves in a less advantageous position than the titular ethnic group. However, the status of the Russian ethnic autonomous republics, seven of which have a Muslim majority, cannot be frozen. Ethnic autonomy supposes either gradual assimilation into the majority of population while retaining some specific features in everyday life and culture, or an upgrade to the level of independence. During the post-Soviet period, Russian ethnic republics have largely cleared themselves from the Russian and Christian component by various means… The author reminds that all of those republics have not, without assistance from abroad, primarily from Turkey, returned to their Islamic roots. The authors urge that any separatism begins with cultural estrangement, especially where the parties are represented by different civilizations or confessions.
In the authors’ view, the problem of migration may have material adverse effect on Russia’s future development. The authors inform the readers that the bulk of the migrants from the ex-Soviet Muslim republics went to the central regions and large cities of Russia, primarily to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They amounted to at least 12 to 15 million poorly educated people differing from the locals in terms of mentality and culture of everyday life who could in no way replace the people of a typically higher cultural, educational and professional level who had left Russia. They have exerted a strong pressure upon the country’s social services, health care, education and transport. The level of crime, especially in the field of drug trafficking and consumption, has sharply risen. And, finally, Islam in Russia is being radicalized due to the inflow of such a great number of people belonging to Islamic culture into Russia.
In conclusion, the authors propose a number of methods to remedy and abate the existing problems. Firstly, a well-balanced and well-conceived social policy is required. Secondly, the standards and procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship should be made more burdensome. And, finally, the author claims that the processes that now are taking place in the world and in Russia should not stop the steady development of a single political nation in Russia – an objective repeatedly declared by the top leadership of the country, - the democratization of Russia and its transformation into a civil law-driven society.

Keywords: Islam, Islamization, Russia, nation, autonomy, Christian civilization.