INTERETHNIC RELATIONS AND THE ISLAMIC FACTOR IN CRIMEA

Ukraine is known to be home to some 130 nationalities in addition to the title people. This fact cannot but cause certain problems and tensions in interethnic relationships, particularly under the transition period from totalitarianism to democracy and the conditions of a systemic social-economic crisis, when fight is acerbated among various clans for control over the national budget’s scarce resources and distribution levers toward benefiting particular ethnic groups, clans, political groupings, and so on.

Parallel with this, in the modern world polycultural, multiethnic political nations enjoy certain advantages, compared with ethnically homogenous states, as being more dynamic in relations with other countries, more open to the outer world and better adapted to accept new trends through establishing most comprehensive and multifaceted contacts, thus making their spiritual life richer and more diversified. A notion which is widespread in everyday life is disproved about ethnic homogeneity allegedly facilitating a state’s internal stability. To find enough proof of this notion’s fallacy it might be worth while to look at the situation in Armenia, which, following the well-known developments, turned to be the most ethnically homogenous nation among the post-Union republics.

Interethnic problems exist in a number of Ukraine’s regions, e.g. in Transcarpathia and Bukovina. However, if we leave apart the highly controversial Rusin problem, the interethnic situation there has been evolving within the framework of what is more or less typical of the Central European Region, a certain system of relationships between the title ethnic entities and ethnic or religious minorities, which became such not as a result of migration processes, but just because of changes in state borderlines in the course of empires collapsing and disintegrating, wars, and Europe’s peoples materializing their right to self-determination.

In Crimea a far more complex situation has developed, as interethnic problems per se, particularly after Ukraine attained its independent statehood, have been aggravated by new factors, including those of internal and external politics, which significantly brakes finding solutions to problems that tend to mount. One of these factors is connected with a decade-long history of Crimean separatism, which has been significantly influencing not only interactions between Ukrainians and Russians, both making up Crimea’s majority, but also relations between Ukraine and Russia on the international level. A second, extremely important, factor is the problem of the Crimean Tatars’ successful repatriation and integration following the genocidal deportation act of 1944 and almost five decades in exile, which interrupted and almost totally destroyed opportunities for this ethnic entity’s normal development. The difficulties in solving the Crimean Tatar problems are connected not only and, may be, not so much with shortages of material resources and lacking political will on the part of Ukraine’s and Crimea’s leaderships, but also with lacking profound awareness of this problem on the part of the society.

Thus, the echelons of power, same as before, tend to view the Crimean Tatar situation solely from the angle of the problem of the once deported persons and their descendants, who were subjected to repressions by virtue of their ethnic origin and who are coming in from the cold. All attempts to solve this problem proceeding from the said premise appear to be doomed to failure. On the other hand, spokespersons for other ethnic minorities, who were deported from Crimea, such as Germans, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, unseldom try to reduce the problem of social accommodation and integration to just quantitative estimates, and, hence, to needs of repatriates, belonging to different ethnic groups, while insisting that there should not be any differences in approaches to solving problems of the Crimean Tatars and those of other ethnic entities which suffered from repressions. Though much has been said at countless seminars, round-tables, conferences and other public gatherings and fora about the Crimean Tatars’ very peculiar situation, which is different from what can be seen with regard to other ethnic groups of the once deported persons, there has been achieved neither clear nor full awareness of the difference as such that objectively exists.

Proceeding from this, I will allow myself to briefly reiterate one of the Crimean Tatar’s major demands, which consists in recognizing them as not just one of Ukraine’s multitudinous ethnic minorities, which basically resides in Crimea, but as an autochthonous people, with all the ensuing consequences, including the right to so-called internal self-determination, to establishment and legalization of special institutes and mechanisms, allowing them to really influence their people’s destiny. Over the past few years, particularly since the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine in 1996, the public’s awareness has been growing of the Crimean Tatars being not just an ethnic minority, or an ethnic group, but really an integral people. Behold the rhetoric of public speeches at every level over several past years in which precisely the formula “Crimean Tatar people” prevails. Sure, this would not be enough because without a solid legal base, fixing all the rights and duties of the Crimean Tatars as a people, harmonious interethnic relations in Crimea cannot be attained. On the contrary, mounting disillusionment and dissatisfaction with regard to the existent approaches to this problems and the pace of its solution, may only lead to the Crimean Tatar movement’s radicalization toward the full restitution of the Crimean Tatars’ rights in their ancestral land, and that might be fraught with serious aggravation of interethnic tensions in Crimea and the emergence of a serious ethnic-political conflict in Ukraine. It should also be noted that, in this respect, the endorsement by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the latest version of the Crimean Autonomous Republican Constitution was a definite step backwards because, though many of its precarious provisions which contradict Ukraine’s Constitution and laws were deleted, the rights and interest of the Crimean autochthonous people are in no way taken into account, which has had and will continue to have its adverse effect on Crimea’s developments.

Yet, what is the gist of the Crimean Tatar problem’s specificity ? Rather, it might be marked as the people now going through the most critical period of its history, when the issue is at stake of whether it will be able to materialize a chance for its resurrection as a historically evolved specific ethnic-cultural commoness, that is precisely as a people, or as a minority which possesses no adequate levers of political and economic influence and which is doomed to gradual assimilation and extinction through dissolving among the peninsular population’s majority. Such an outcome would be the greatest tragedy not only for the Crimean Tatars themselves, not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire human race. And it should be noted here that the very probability of such a pessimistic forecast evokes a sharp response and rejection from the people of such manifestly expressed ethnic-cultural self-identification, whose existence has been placed in jeopardy. It might be said that under such circumstances the collective instinct for self-survival is sharply alerted, as attested by the developments in various regions of the globe over past few decades, which is applicable not only to individuals, but also to groups, united by common historical destiny, traditions, languages, religions and other factors, which influence their identity. The widespread phenomenon of large and particularly small peoples seeking to re-establish and secure their own self-identity and its development warrants viewing it as a determined trend, rather than a combination of chance coincidences, which, probably, emerges as a response to the challenges of the rapid globalization process, which may, among other things, result in excessive homogenization and unification, and that harbors a really menacing potential for the entire human race as a biological species. The menace lies not only in the loss of the entire rich diversity of cultural heritage, but also in the gradual extinction of genetically fixed differences, inherent in various races and ethnic groups, that have evolved in certain geographical regions, under strikingly different climatic conditions, since those times immemorial when factors of natural selection were causing their effects.

Incidentally, it might be noted that, proceeding from this operational hypothesis, tolerance in interethnic relations should be extended not only to individuals who wish to integrate with the established majority and accept their lifestyles and hence are willing to enter into interethnic marriages, but also to those who oppose such mixed marriages, viewing these, and not without certain grounds, as a means toward gradual assimilation, which eventually leads to a people’s extinction as an individual ethnic-cultural commonness. Such apprehensions are particularly typical of small ethnic entities, who are minorities in their historical habitats, in view of which fact similar sentiments on the part of some Crimean Tatars should in no way be interpreted as a manifestation of interethnic intolerance. This is worth thinking it over because sociological surveys to this effect are based, as a general rule, on sundry variations of the so-called Bohgardus Scale, which places readiness to accept interethnic marriages in the topmost position to appraise the degree of tolerance. If we take into account the fact that works by Bohgardus date back to 1924/1925, the time when “integration” implied non-violent assimilation of aboriginal peoples and some other peculiar ethnic groups as the most acceptable tool for adapting these peoples and groups to conditions of “modern civilization” (that is, the Western, Euro Atlantic civilization model), we must admit that the thus obtained sociological survey returns should be treated with a certain degree of caution and necessary adjustments should be made, proceeding from the real situation, peculiar of a definite ethnic group and that group’s chances for survival and further development.

Kyiv’s Crimean Tatars community may provide a graphic example of elderly and old people who feel permanent anguish and bitterness because their descendents take no interest in their own ethnic-cultural roots and actually have low, if any, awareness of them belonging to this ethnic entity. On the level of individuals, such a course of events appears normal and natural, and the individual’s right to choose his/her own road of development, world outlook and place in the contemporary society raises no doubts whatsoever, as a major component of liberal values. However, at the level of the entire people as a historically evolved commonness, actions should be viewed as just as natural which are aimed at its self-preservation as a particular ethnic entity, including its desire to form compact settlements, where ethnic environments prevail, let alone its strife for ethnic schools, restoration of an integral educational system based on the mother tongue, etc.

Comparing the situation in which the Crimean Tatars have found themselves with the conditions in which Crimea’s other ethnic minorities live, which are not integral peoples, but just fractions of these, whose full-blooded existence is secured by the existence of national State of their own, such as Armenia, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Israel, Russia, and so on, we inevitably arrive at a conclusion that the Crimean Tatars’ problems, which are fraught with the danger of ethnic-political conflicts, cannot be solved solely within the framework of programs for the ex-deportees’ social accommodation and integration, nor can they be solved through Ukraine’s laws and legislative acts, and international agreements, designed to protect ethnic minorities’ rights. As a rule, ethnic minorities, including those from among Crimea’s deportees, on the whole are not given to frustration, fear and desperation, which arise with the emerging awareness of the particular ethnic entity facing the challenge to its very existence; besides they have far better developed mechanisms, including those fixed by the International Law, and real opportunities for maintaining and conserving their ethnic-cultural identities.

Proceeding from those premises, which might be elaborated on and presented in greater detail, the gist of the Crimean Tatar problem and its purport can be better comprehended as primarily the problems of safeguarding that people’s further existence precisely as a people. It should also be noted that the thus outlined problem cannot be solved, either, within the framework of purely liberal notions and views of human rights, which are based on absoluteness of the individual’s rights. A package of legislative acts and decisions at the State’s level must proceed from a different approach, the so-called “positive discrimination,” which might be more aptly put as an “affirmative action,” the rather widespread and more correct term, which is difficult to be rendered in Russian, but may be tantamount to “steps of resolute support.”

As far as the so-called “Islamic factor” is concerned, and what its role is in forming, molding interethnic relations in Crimea, it should be noted that this factor has been creating additional predicaments for the Crimean Tatars’ integration processes as being often used as an instrument of anti-Crimean Tatar propaganda, particularly by the mass communication media in Crimea, which has been stepped up of late, in view of the hostilities in Kosovo and particularly in connection with the second Chechen war. It should be admitted that neither Crimea nor Ukraine are exceptions in this respect, because this factor has played a major role in the entire modern world, including foreign and domestic political strategies pursued by various countries, with them forming sundry alliances, both formal and informal, thus influencing stability and developmental vectors of entire regions.

So, instead of speaking about the Islamic factor in Crimea proper and largely because of the repatriation problem and the Crimean Tatars' integration with their immediate environments with alien culture, alien languages and alien religion, and into the Ukrainian society as a whole, it appears more pertinent to view the problem in a broader way. Since no modern nation exists in isolation, apart from external regional and global influence, non-Moslems tend to perceive what is erroneously called the “Moslem world” (meaning by that some consolidated, integral commonness), relations between Moslem and Christian confessions and nations, as well as relations between Moslem minorities and non-Moslem majorities within individual nations, significantly influence the public opinion, political elites’ stands and different authority bodies’ attitudes, as well as the societal atmosphere as a whole. It might be briefly stated that in the modern world the “image of foe” has been effectively built in the form of the grave Moslem menace looming on the horizon to threaten the Christian-Judaic civilization.

Samuel Huntington’s renowned article “Clash of Civilizations,” which the Foreign Affairs magazine published in summer of 1993, played a major and highly controversial role in appraising the Islamic factor in the “new world order” the end of Cold War ushered in. The said article formulated an idea according to which the “civilizations,” practically identical with religions, are doomed to global wars among them, with Islam, as the old-standing enemy of the Christian, Western civilization playing the role of the aggressor and formidable menace, along with the “Yellow threat” to the Caucasian race, or in the form of the two threats’ combination. According to Huntington, it is precisely such “civilization clashes,” which have replaced the unmaterialized global catastrophe as a result of the two ideological system’s confrontation that will be the sources for impending global turmoils.

Among those scholars who challenge the Huntingenton concept’s basic postulates and capital points Christian Scherrer, a researcher with the Copenhagen Institute for Studies of World Problems, should be mentioned. He took the trouble to thoroughly scrutinize all the conflicts which Huntington’s article had relied upon to portray the dismal picture of Islamic aggressiveness, which scrutiny resulted in a diametrically opposite conclusion. As it turned out, in the bulk of the stated 33 conflicts the Moslems were on the defensive, rather than on the offensive, and, as a matter of fact, they were the victims, rather than the aggressors. There were only six of the stated number of instances, which would allow to admit the role of the religious factor which Hungtington had attributed to it.

To dispel persistent stereotypes of this kind, regrettably, deep-rooted in popular consciousness, it might be pertinent to address history of the past, for example, the Crusades. As is known, during just one of those, the First Crusade in the late 11^th Century lots of virtually unarmed Moslems, Arabs and Turks, were killed by the armor-clad Christian knights, and about half a million had to flee. At the same time, the Moslem States’ interethnic tolerance may be attested by the fact that Turkey, under the Ottoman Empire, accepted all Christians as its citizens, who were members of some sects, banned and persecuted in their countries. In particular Turkey gave shelter to the Russian Molokans, Baptists and followers of the Old Orthodox Rite, who settled there.

Regrettably, many WWII episodes remain largely unknown by the public, which are commensurate with the Danes’ effort to save Jewish compatriots, such as the story of the Bosnian town of Tusla, whose Moslem majority successfully defended the town’s Serbian and Jewish residents against the threat of extermination.

If one takes a look at today’s major global developments from the angle of that deep-rooted Christian-Moslem confrontation, it could be worth-while to pay close attention to the history of a small Christian people gaining independence in East Timor, the former Portuguese colony, seized by Indonesia, which for several decades was struggling toward realizing its right to political self-determination. It became possible only after on October 20, 1999 Abdurrahman Vakhid, the Democratic Islamic Party leader, who had received religious education in the Middle East and headed the Islamic political movement since 1984, was elected President of Indonesia. It should also be remembered that Indonesia is the biggest Moslem nation, populated by 210 million people, of whom about 90 percent are Moslems. Unlike the ex-dictator Sukharto, whose totalitarian regime had an iron grip on the nation, the new Islamic leader adheres to democracy, non-violence and maximal confessional tolerance. His words have been supported by his deeds; he has positioned the leader of the secular opposition, the daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia’s First President, as his deputy, Vice President; instead of punitive raids on the separatists, he met with the leader of the East Timorese Catholics, gave his consent to an independence referendum and agreed to recognize its returns. And all this was accomplished under the leadership of the gravely ill, almost blind, but profoundly authoritative Islamic leader, who has had to overcome the stubborn resistance on the part of champions of “integral and indivisible Indonesia,” including the military brass hats. Bloody skirmishes and terrorist attacks against the proponents of independence were bridled through the intervention of UN troops, invited to Indonesia. Could modern history provide any example of some so-called Christian nation giving its consent to granting independence to a little Moslem people who had been conquered as a result of an imperial expansion? There is no such example, I am afraid.

We might continue dwelling on the topic longer, citing specific multitudinous examples of ethnic injustice and the threat of spreading and/or fanning old and new anti-Moslem myths and stereotypes, deeply rooted in the public’s consciousness. To find ways toward overcoming this widespread phenomenon, based on some concrete example, it might be possible to attempt at rethinking, or at least altering the customary view of the problem which arouses concern on the part of the West’s liberal intellectuals. The issue in question is the world public’s unanimous condemnation of the death verdict on charges of blasphemy on the initiative of the Iranian ruler Ayatollah Homeini, to Salman Rushdi, the author of the “Satanic Verses,” which was published in the UK in 1988. And though the call for murdering a human being who made public his views and convictions in an artistic form, really reflects the degree of fundamentalism, not acceptable to any modern civilization, it would be proper to think twice about the “progressive mankind” raising its voice to defend the potential victim, while making Salman Rushdi sort of a hero and a symbol of fight not against Islamic extremism, or terrorism, or bellicose fundamentalism, but virtually against Islam per se, though formally it is recognized as one of the great, equal, monotheistic religions. And few from among his defenders pay attention to the real contents of the author’s works and to the underlying philosophical concept.

With a view of getting better familiarized with Rushdi’s system of world outlook, I will venture a quotation from Mr. Rushdi’s more recent essay of 1990, which he wrote to defend his Satanic Verses and which mirrors his stance of a person who views the outer world through a migrant’s eyes. The essay was written, proceeding on the author’s experience of having to abandon the roots, rupture customary bonds, of continuous changing (slowly or rapidly, painfully or in a pleasing way), which all is so typical of migrants and which, as I believe, are essentially metaphoric for the entire human race… The Satanic Verses glorify hybridism, non-cleanliness, ubiquitous mixing and those transformations which result from novel and unexpected combinations of individuals, cultures, ideas, politics, films, songs. The book glorifies unthoroughbredness, mongrelization and expresses fear of purity absoluteness… A mix, mess, a piece of that and a bit of this-only in this way novelty can emerge. And massive migration provides this golden opportunity. Born and bread in Bombay, India’s most cosmopolitan city, Rushdi, as he confesses, has always viewed himself as a mongrel, bastard of history, and London has added to this feeling.

As the above excerpt may attest, the author’s aim was not so much to ridicule Islam and its devotees, as to champion cosmopolitism as a crede, and such an approach is fully entitled to existence. True enough, in pursuing the task the author deemed it possible to speak profanely about those religious principles which are holy to any Moslem. So, may we so surely enthrone Salman Rushdi as a hero, while condemning his persecutors ? What would the Western societies’ approach have been, if Cristianity had been the object of such insults? And though last year the new Iranian Government of liberal President. Mohammed Hatami formally refused to support the death sentence and called for refraining from this form of retaliation, the West still views Hatami as obeying the clergy’s orders, just because the Iranian president has repeatedly stated Rushdi’s guilt of blaspheming Islam... And it looks like nobody outside the Moslem communities ever bothers to thinks about the real moral responsibility of the person who has thus insulted the religious feelings of hundreds of millions of believers.

As to the attractiveness of cosmopolitan ideas in general, and particularly in the form they are worded in the above citation, it might be noted that their popularity, at least in Europe, has not been on the rise, rather it has been declining since the publication, same as hopes have been dwindling away for using non-violent assimilation, integration of minorities into ambient majorities as the main means of solving interethnic problems. Contrary to this, belonging to a definite ethnic-cultural and/or ethnic-religious community continues to be perceived as an essential component of the individual’s self-identification, in no way contradicting various individuals’ low or high self-awareness levels, such as individual awareness of being a "European" or even a “cosmopolitan.” It looks as though the course of most recent history tends to prove, rather than disprove, the idea put forth by German historian Johann Gottfried von Herder and formulated like this,” among man’s essential needs, such as food, shelter, rest and recreation, communication, etc., there is also a need to belong to a definite group, which is united by some common ties, particularly the language, collective memory, permanent residence on the same land, and maybe also race, blood, religion, feelings of common destiny, and so on.”

By way of conclusion, I would like to mention the necessity of not only tactical decisions and actions, which can facilitate the process of developing and establishing interethnic tolerance, but also of designing strategic approaches to interethnic and interconfessional relations in the upcoming millenium. As it appears in perspective in rearing the younger generation in the spirit of sole “tolerance,” with regard to individuals and groups of various ethnic origins, cultures, religions, may be not enough. As tolerance merely means the individual’s consent to tolerate the presence of some aliens as an undesirable phenomenon, which cannot be avoided. Instead, it would be better to seek to evolve such a culture of interethnic relations, which would view the presence of individuals, possessing different cultural qualities in the broadest sense, as undisputed and indisputable bliss, a precious gift, which makes every individual’s life richer, more meaningful and interesting.