The rector of a theology institute Professor Maksud Sadikov in Russia’s mainly-Muslim Dagestan republic was shot on Tuesday by unknown assailants near his house when he was getting out of a car. Sadikov was one of the founders of the first academic institutions in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region to offer both secular and religious teachings. Our guest today is Dmitry Babich, political observer for the RIA news agency in Moscow.
The rector of a theology institute Professor Maksud Sadikov and his nephew were shot in Dagestan by an unknown assailant. Some experts think this murder could be committed by religious extremists. What is your opinion?
It looks like it was ordered and probably committed by religious extremists, because most of them murders of traditional mullahs in North Caucasus are committed by the so called Wahhabists, the Islamist extremists who despise not only the Russian authorities but primarily the traditional Muslim clerics in their area.
Investigators are working at the scene of the incident, so what results do you expect of this investigation?
Obviously they wanted not only to kill a cleric, but they also wanted to intimidate the relatives, because they killed both Mr. Sadikov and his nephew, who happened to be next to him during the moment of the attack. That is very typical - in North Caucasus the extremists usually kill not only the victims that they choose, but also try to kill the relatives sometimes. So obviously this affair is political, because if you just want to liquidate a person in order to get the money or to resolve a problem, you do not kill their relatives, so obviously this is a political murder. It is very unfortunate that in the west they pay little attention to this kind of murders, in the west they usually concentrate only on the murders of human rights activists and journalists. But we should remember that there are 90 times more policemen, Muslim clerics and simple civilians killed in North Caucasus than human rights activists and journalists, and these murders are somehow overlooked in the west, these people are not deemed to be – how should I put it – democratic enough to be mourned by the western press.
Terrorist attacks and shootings are common in the North Caucasus, where the Islamist insurgency led to two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s. So what concrete decisions should be made to stop this religious extremism and what steps should be taken to protect people?
I think, like anywhere in the world, there is no military solution to this kind of Islamist insurgency, only enlightenment, education, dialogue and reestablishment of some forms of the European culture, these are the ways out. Unfortunately people in Europe are now very often ashamed for some reason of their own religion, Christianity, and they are ashamed to conduct a meaningful religious dialogue with Muslims. I think we need such a dialogue in Russia, just like in other parts of Europe, and I hope that in some time this disease will just pass, because the roots of this disease, this is just a new kind of ignorance, that we are now facing in the world, that you can be ignorant while using Internet; you can have access to all sorts of Twitter and Facebook and not to have read a single book in your life. A barbarian with Twitter is even more dangerous than a barbarian without Twitter.
So you see the possibility of improving the situation in North Caucasus?
I think, yes. Especially if the authorities pay more attention to the spiritual side of the affair and do not just limit themselves by police measures.
Professor Sadikov had been rector of the Institute of Theology and International Relations in Makhachkala since 2003 and tried to promote education as the greatest weapon in the fight against religious extremism. So can we hope that education can be the greatest weapon in the fight against religious extremism?
I think, it is certainly true. When I traveled in North Caucasus I noticed that the religious extremists viewed traditional mullahs and educated people in general as their worst enemies because basically if you just read the Koran attentively, maybe even a few pages of it, you will see that this book does not justify violence, it doesn’t urge you to attack other people; it urges patience and respect for other people, just like any of the great religions of the Middle East, such as Buddhism and Christianity. So basically the worst enemy of religious extremism is education, but unfortunately now that people basically stopped reading, this weapon is becoming more and more difficult to use.
And how do you estimate the Russian authorities working in the struggle against terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus, were there any positive steps taken in this direction?
I think that there is certainly some success in Chechnya, which was a war zone until the year 2003-2002, definitely some violence spilt over to Ingushetia and Dagestan, and definitely there were some successes, but in general unfortunately that is a complex situation, like in many Muslim areas in the world, education is in decline in this area, and the birth rate is up, and of course this leads to more and more problems, because you may be surprised, but the main ground for the religious extremists are the poorest people, especially the refugees from the zones of conflict, who had no opportunity to go to school.
What can you say about the current Russian-US cooperation in the fight against religious extremism, how do you see it developing?
So far we have seen mostly just formal signs of solidarity, such as Doku Umarov, the leader of Chechen Wahhabis on the US most wanted list. I think this gesture has a largely symbolic character, because it is pretty tough for me to imagine Mr. Umarov to pop up somewhere in Washington, although there are some Chechen extremists who found a very good safe haven in the United States, and so far it was largely symbolic, but I think in some time sooner or later it will get to real cooperation, because actually for the Islamic extremists both America and Russia are part of the western civilization. The United States may not consider Russia a part of the western civilization, but Islamist extremists do not care, for them we are part of the west.
Thank you very much for your commentary!
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