Dagestan has recently become the main battleground in the cultural war within the Russian Federation. The recent scandal over an indecent play, before that the controversy over the installation of a monument to Ottoman soldiers, and before that an anime festival — this list is not exhaustive. Each of these scandals eventually returns to the discussion of the same fundamental questions: how should Dagestan live under which laws, how should these laws relate to the laws of modern Russia, and to what extent is Dagestan and should it be a part of Russia or should it have its own specificity.
We have already explained that in the specific realities of today’s Putin’s Russia, the Dagestani supporters of secular democracy and their Russian compatriots are essentially offering the Muslims of the republic to accept only the disadvantages of this system without its advantages.
Why? Because in an authoritarian country with signs of totalitarianism (or movement toward it) there are no guaranteed rights provided by the Russian constitution and laws that Muslims could enjoy, such as the right to freedom of assembly and demonstration, religious preaching, the opening of independent religious centers, and, finally, the creation and participation in elections of parties representing the interests of specific religious and national communities. None of this exists in modern Putin’s Russia, nor is there any real separation of religious organizations from the state and their equality before the law.
Do supporters of secular values and the observance of Russian laws throughout its territory propose to fight for them against all of the above? No, they are not (with the exception of a few who are consistent in their position). Yes, the majority of them simply don’t need it, let’s be honest. «Freedom», «secularity» and the «guarantee» of Russian laws, in the understanding of the majority of their supporters in Dagestan, are reduced exclusively to the possibility of openly and demonstratively holding events that challenge Islamic values. They believe that this right should exist despite the fact that Muslims are deprived of the right, except in strictly state-controlled forms (which they do not want for themselves!), to hold meetings or invite religious preachers who will freely demonstrate Islamic beliefs, just as the proponents of «secularity» want to demonstrate their own.
But what is interesting is that despite all the outcry about the violation of their rights, there is no known case in Dagestan of any of them being included in the so-called preventive lists filled with Muslims. Recently, however, it became known that the famous Dagestani comedian Eldar Iraziev, the leader of the «Mountain People are Smart» project, was included in these lists after making some public appeals to defend the moral values of Muslims and mountain people. Security officials rushed to refute Iraziev’s statement about being listed as an extremist through the media under their control. However, he had the foresight to record his conversation with a police officer who informed him of this news, and uploaded this video recording to social media.
In this regard, we would like to remind you that preventive lists of extremists are fundamentally illegal, as thousands of people are included in them arbitrarily, without a court decision, although extremism is considered a criminal offense in Russia and should be proven and condemned by a court decision. People included in these lists have their rights violated, including restrictions on movement within the country and abroad, and are subject to additional controls. These lists are secret, which allows security officials, as in this case, to deny that someone is on them.
So how many supporters of nightclubs or erotic theater performances, with whom Iraziev argued, have been put on such lists like him for expressing their opinions? We suspect none. What «Islamization» and «moral terror» are the advocates of militant secularism screaming about in their own direction? And who is really being subjected to such terror?