The height of the armed conflict in Karabakh last week turned into a flare-up of an information war in the Russian media space. The «Armenian lobby» and the «Azerbaijani lobby» fought each other. However, before discussing this, let’s start with the domestic news from the end of last week directly related to this issue.
For the first time in the post-Soviet history of Tatarstan, the executive committee of Kazan, on the basis of the order of the city prosecutor’s office, completely banned the holding of commemorative events in honor of the defenders of Kazan in 1552 (Khäter köne). Previously, the All-Tatar Public Center (ATPC) had been granted permission to hold these events. At the same time, almost simultaneously with the ban on honoring the Tatar defenders of Kazan, the chauvinists of the so-called «Society of Russian Culture», who openly advocate the liquidation of the Republic of Tatarstan and its transformation into the province of Kazan, held events in honor of the captors of Kazan.
It is also worth noting that shortly before this, Rustam Minnikhanov, the re-elected president of Tatarstan, proposed Irina Volynets for the post of human rights ombudsman in the republic. She is the person who previously initiated the Kremlin’s cancellation of mandatory Tatar language instruction in Tatarstan’s public schools.
All this happened after many Tatars decided to support Minnikhanov in the elections, especially after Alexei Navalny’s film, which was perceived as an attack on the republic. However, while Navalny associates corruption with the independence of the Republic of Tatarstan, it turns out that its leadership is betraying its own remnants and lowering the political status of the republic’s indigenous Tatar nation below the pedestal in their own republic.
Things are not much better in neighboring Bashkortostan, where yesterday the 30th anniversary of the declaration of the republic’s sovereignty was celebrated. The celebration turned out to be bittersweet — in many publications and speeches of Bashkir public figures on that day it was shown that after two decades of Vladimir Putin’s rule only the appearance and decoration of the republic and its sovereignty remained.
Radiy Khabirov, Moscow’s deputy in the republic and its nominal leader, who is also the godfather of baptized children (there is evidence that he himself attended church services when he lived in the Moscow region), did not come up with anything better on that day than to organize a grand concert in Ufa, attended by thousands of spectators. And all this at the height of the second wave of the coronavirus in the republic, when, according to doctors, its hospitals and morgues are filled with its victims!
And now let’s talk about how this is connected with the war in Karabakh. It does, because in the Russian media it is discussed as if millions of representatives of Muslim and Turkic peoples did not live in Russia, including the indigenous peoples who have their republics as a part of it.
It is discussed only in the spirit that «Christian Russia» should help «Christian Armenia». Moreover, when the voices of representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora and individual experts appeared in the media, either in defense of Azerbaijan or simply calling on Russia to wisely maintain neutrality and not to pull chestnuts out of the fire for an ungrateful ally, a hysteria about the «Azerbaijani lobby» and the «Turkish fifth column» in Russia immediately began.
At best, it was presented as a situation in which the «Armenian lobby» and the «Azerbaijani lobby» were sorting out their relations. But why did the Azerbaijanis have to oppose the Armenian lobby in Russia, exposing themselves as representatives of a foreign diaspora? Yes, because Russia completely deprives its indigenous Muslims and Turks of a voice, who, as co-founders of the Russian Federation, could elevate themselves as republic-forming nations within its borders (yes, for those who do not know, even in the Russian Constitution these republics are called states).
Has anyone heard the voices of representatives of Russia’s indigenous Muslim and Turkic peoples in Russia’s media space, in discussions about its foreign and domestic policies? Islamophobes exclude them completely and try to equate Muslims with the «diaspora».
No, dear readers, the diasporas in Russia are peoples, especially from the Middle East, who have their motherlands beyond its borders. Meanwhile, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Karachay-Balkars, Kabardins, Circassians, indigenous peoples of Dagestan, Chechens, and Ingush are indigenous peoples for Russia, who are part of it with their own lands and republics.
However, all these republics are currently as «real» as the cases described above. And that is why the voice of their peoples means nothing in the Federation, which has also long since become a fiction.
We must strive to change this situation and ensure that the indigenous Muslim peoples have a significant voice in their own state.