A distinctive feature of Kadyrovism as against Putinism is religious sectarianism
There are three major components in the information war accompanying Russia’s aggression against Ukraine: the Russian armed forces, Belarusian troops, and the Kadyrovites, which means that the Kadyrovites are being seen as one of the aggressorsin this war. In the light of the fact that the Kadyrovites amount to only about one per cent of the total numbersin the Russian occupation forces, while mention of the Kadyrovites in the information flow is around twenty percent, it can be seen that the propagandists have succeeded in having themperceived as ‘stakeholders’, albeit minority stakeholders, in the war.
Today it is no longer important that the Kremlin initially planned only to create the illusion of independent involvement of Kadyrovite units by employing them in tactical tasks of a Russian occupation, mainly as an intimidatory force. These plans were not destined to succeed, and in the reality of the situation on the ground in Ukraine today they remain what they have in fact been all along: executioners and criminals. Moscow’s plan for the Kadyrovites could have been put into effect only if the Russians had succeeded in carrying out a lightning-fastcapture of Ukraine. Russia has failed not only in terms of its would-be blitzkrieg, but has failed — and will never now succeed —in winning the war itself. That is irrespective of the outcome of military hostilities.
For a long time, Putin dithered over the official ideology of the Russian state, leaning at one time in the direction of patriotism, at another towards conservatism. Recent events, however,show unambiguously that the real philosophy to which this man and,following him, the whole of the Russianstate, now adheres is Russianism, which draws on the darkest, most misanthropic instincts of the Russian soul. Nikolai Nekrasov has a poem about a peasant flogging a horse ‘across its meek and weeping eyes’. ‘Who has not seen the like of this? This is Russianism,’ Dostoevsky wrote. It is because of this thinly disguised‘Russian supremacism’ that Putin seeks to deny the Ukrainian people their right to sovereignty, insisting on the superiority of the civilization of the Russian people.
Putin’s ideology is being condemned by all free people. The crimes of the Putin regime are already boomeranging back against the Russian people and are likely to continue to do so for a long time to come.
But what about the Kadyrovites? Will the ideology of ‘Kadyrovism’also be condemned by other nations? And what,in any case, is Kadyrovite ideology?
During the twenty years of the Russian occupation of Chechnya, the Kadyrovites have morphed into a tool of Russia’s interior policy. But today, when Kadyrov’s units are committing crimes on the territory of Ukraine, it is essential that the international community should pay close attention to this phenomenon.
Let us seek to define the main features of Kadyrovism:
- Total deprivation of human freedom and rights
- Total control of the mass media
- Suppression of dissent in any form
- The personality cult of the Leader
- Belief that one has been chosen by Godand has a mission in history
- Electoral fraud
- Extreme nationalism
- Militaristic propaganda
- Manipulation of religious values
- Seeking an external enemy
- Contempt for intellectual activity and intellectuals
- Application of mass terror and the doctrine of collective responsibility to opponents
- Total corruption and illegal self-enrichment by the ruling elite.
It is very obvious that Kadyrovism shares these features with Putin’s fascism, but are there differences? A distinctive feature of Kadyrovism as against Putinism is religious sectarianism. The attempt over many years to turn the late Akhmat-Khadji Kadyrov into a spiritual teacher and founder of a new religious doctrinehave finally been crowned with success. As a result, a whole stratum of people has been created in Chechnya whose collective consciousness is based on a pseudo-religious understanding of the world. It is this circumstance that leads to the conclusion that Kadyrovism is not straightforward fascism, but a particular set of misanthropic ideas derived from religious obscurantism. It is important to define this phenomenon very precisely if we are to understand the essential nature of the problem, because the success of any subsequent therapy depends on accurate diagnosis. The toolsetneeded for combating Putinism is different from the toolset for combating Kadyrovism, because the forms of the disease and the ways it develops are different.
Who is qualified to provide the course of treatment? A doctor whose methods have led to massive spreading of the infection has neither the moral nor any professional right to prescribe treatment for those unfortunate enough to have succumbed to an illness he has caused. Accordingly, Russia has no more moral right to instruct Chechnya than, say, post-war Germany would have had a right to teach post-war Japan.
Kadyrovism and Putinite fascism must be brought to account by the world community. But in the trials which I believe will be held in the future, Kadyrovism will need to be tried separately from Putinism, just as the crimes of the Einsatzgruppen, the special punitive detachments of the Third Reich, were singled out to be tried separately at the Nuremberg Trials.
If the civilized world lacks the political will to condemn and destroy Kadyrovism as an ideology against humanity, it may disguise itself, lie dormant, and await a time to revive. There is fertile soil for that in the form of the large army of religious activists who provide ideological support for Kadyrovism. They have not gone away, and are unlikely to go away any time soon. If measures are not taken to counter their influence and they are not excluded from all public activity, they will continue to manipulate religious values and poison people’s minds. This category of servants of the regime is less high profile than Kadyrov’s paramilitary formations, but no less dangerous becausethe results of their corrupting influenceare not immediately evident.
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