The first protests of Russians in 2021 have taken place, and it is possible to evaluate both their indicators and the participation of Muslims in them. In general, the protests are still too small in number to bring about a change of power, but this time, for the first time in many years, a significant number of participants have shown that they are ready to fight for it seriously. It is unclear, however, whether their leaders are ready. In Vladivostok, Ufa, and St. Petersburg, Navalny’s headquarters urged protesters not to confront the police and to disperse. And overall, on the evening of January 23, Navalny’s team effectively urged protesters to go home and not come back to the next rally in a week. But how many of the most desperate people who showed up this time will be arrested in the meantime? And what can be achieved if we give the enemy a week to neutralize the most aggressive?
Now to the Muslim participation in the protests. Their symbol, of course, was the desperate young Caucasian who fought a whole formation of police officers with a barrage of baton blows. But this is indeed a symbol, and it shows what could have happened if Navalny and his team had attracted such people to their cause instead of alienating them with their previous anti-Islamic attacks, as they did. It could have happened, but it has not happened yet. And the republics of the Caucasus have generally ignored these actions, except for a small protest in Makhachkala. There are many reasons for this, the main one being the special situation in the Caucasus, where confronting the authorities has long been associated with paying a much higher price than in the rest of the country. And so far, Muslims in the Caucasus do not see much point in paying such a price for these protests.
The main protest activity in historically Muslim regions took place in the Volga region — Kazan and Ufa. In Kazan, however, neither an Islamic nor a national Tatar factor was expressed in the protests. But in Ufa, Bashkir activists, including conscious Muslims who had previously shown themselves in protests in Kushnarenkovo, became the main driving force behind these protests. They joined the civil protests and demands, but filled them with their own content, and as a result, critics write, «Navalny’s protests in Bashkiria were taken over by Wahhabis and Bashkir nationalists.
In general, this is exactly the model we wrote about as the most promising for possible Muslim participation in such protests. However, this advice of ours has been criticized by people who, although they see it quite differently, have written much the same thing — that the «regionalization» of Muslim participation in Russian politics is wrong, and we should not fight for «autonomy of minorities» but strive for «strong consolidated representation at the federal level» or even «take control of the territory and political processes in the Russian Federation». As for the second position, we would support it ourselves, but unlike the newcomers to Islamic politics, we understand the potential of its use on an all-Russian scale. To put it mildly, it is still insignificant, so one cannot talk about Muslims taking control of all-Russian territories and political processes in the foreseeable future, if they get involved in these processes without creating the corresponding footholds in the form of real autonomies, they simply propose to burn out the limited Muslim political potential in favor of those who will have the opportunities to control political processes. Such tactical short-sightedness is forgivable for newcomers, but there is no point in discussing it seriously.
As for the representatives of the first position, who call themselves «experienced Islamic politicians,» they probably know what they want. These are the people who have been trying for decades to achieve «strong consolidated representation at the federal level» within the existing regime, but have never understood why this is fundamentally impossible. This is not least because the task is of a revolutionary magnitude, while these «federal Muslim representatives» are not revolutionaries at all, but opportunists who think they can negotiate or beg for what they should fight for. And because they will never fight and will always bend and give in at the first pressure, as they did before and will not be considered in the future. And if Muslims continue to have such «consolidated representatives at the federal level,» they will not be taken into account as a whole.
Another misconception of these claimants to the role of «representatives» and «spiritual leaders» of Muslims in Russia, who want to make Moscow their center instead of the regions of historical Muslim predominance, we have already written about in detail. Interested parties are advised to reread that article, but we will briefly repeat its main points.
First of all, however much one may dream of it, Moscow is not a Muslim city in terms of Muslim dominance and is unlikely to become one. Even if we ignore the fact that the majority of its Muslim population consists of foreigners or new Russians belonging to foreign diasporas, together they will still be a minority in the overall population structure of this city. This does not mean that Muslims in Moscow should not be represented or fight for their rights — of course they should. But we have to be realistic — Moscow as a city, as a region, will not represent and defend the interests of Muslims in Russia simply because it is not a Muslim region, unlike the Muslim regions of the Volga and the Caucasus.
Secondly, if we are talking about a revolutionary scenario of political change, it will automatically lead to a weakening of the central power, which is currently represented by Moscow, and an increase in the weight of the regions — all the regions, not just the Muslim ones. And it is in such conditions that the possibility of representing Muslim interests at the federal level will arise, but only if Muslims first regain control over their regions and, based on them, delegate their representatives to federal politics. And this representation should be at the federal level in the full sense of the word, not in the capital and not in the «center» as those who talk about the «federal level» now mean.
Finally, these new Muslim representatives in federal politics should be nominated through protests and political struggle to ensure that this time they are fighters and not compromisers. Then we will have a real «strong consolidated representation at the federal level», elected through struggle and based on its regional base. And then it will be able, if not to «take control of political processes» on an all-Russian scale, at least to influence them and be a significant factor. (Photo: Protest in Ufa on January 23, 2021)