What happened in Chechnya, where the host of an opposition Telegram channel was stripped naked and forced to sit on a bottle while it was videotaped and posted online, really became a turning point for Chechen society. Before that, everyone knew about numerous cases of cruelty in Chechnya, but firstly, such acts were never done on camera and were always denied, and secondly, such cruelty was explained by its supporters as necessary in the fight against the Kharijites, who want to destroy traditional Islam, customs, the notion of national honor, and so on. But what happened completely destroys even these arguments. Let’s assume that you can beat or kill an enemy of all the things listed, but to commit sexual abuse against him is an insult not only to him, but also to the proclaimed customs, his relatives, and the honor of the entire nation.
Moreover, the possible justification that he did it himself is completely unacceptable. Even if we imagine such a scenario, which is absurd, Ramzan Kadyrov and his subordinates, who claim to be fighters for traditions and honor of the Chechens, should have investigated, condemned and stopped it, as they did in much less significant cases, such as violation of wedding traditions, which in no way can be compared with what happened.
Moreover, in the last few days we have seen that what happened is not just a problem in Chechnya, a society that has reacted to this news with outrage. Hundreds of people have been subjected to physical violence and torture, while dozens have reported sexual violence by the Lukashenko regime’s security forces against protesters.
And here is the interesting thing. All of these regimes present themselves as defenders of traditional values, scaring their people with the idea that the West will bring dishonor, the destruction of notions of masculinity and femininity, and so on. And indeed, such encroachments are actively taking place and pose a serious problem for practicing Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people with conservative attitudes in general. But all this is happening in the ideological and cultural sphere, where believers and conservatives try to resist it.
But the difference is that in the notorious «Geyrope», for criticizing the authorities, the police will not make you sit on a bottle or rape you with a rubber baton. If you cross the line, you can be fined or even imprisoned.
Moreover, under both Sharia law and traditional European norms, nothing like this could ever happen. Yes, a person could be publicly flogged, yes, they could be executed for blasphemy, but not «degraded,» raped, or forced to call their mother a prostitute on camera.
If in traditional societies the honor and rights of God were protected first, sometimes at the expense of human rights as they are understood today, and if in modern societies human rights are protected first, sometimes at the expense of faith and honor, then the post-Soviet dictatorships demonstrate a combination not of the best but of the worst qualities of these systems. In these societies, neither modern human rights nor, as we can see, traditional values like honor are protected, but rather an ugly hybrid of them prevails, the vivid manifestation of which is «sitting on a bottle».
And while this is literally happening to a few at the moment, it is safe to say that societies that find this acceptable are also «sitting on a bottle» in the moral sense.