Window on Eurasia
Vienna, March
8 – The Circassians need the kind of ethnic lobby other groups have to
set priorities, work with other nations when possible and put pressure
on the Russian government when necessary not only to achieve their
goals but also to allow the numerous Circassian public organizations to
recover their influence rather than continue to fight among themselves.
That argument is advanced today by Osman Mazukabzov, the
director general of KavkazWeb.net and Adyga.org, who says that the
Circassians must take this step in order to combat "the lack of
respect” that the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian government
more generally have shown their nation (www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=5109).
According to Mazukabzov, the
Circassians "are experiencing extremely significant changes in [their]
social and political life” because of Moscow’s decision to "exclude”
the Circassians, "the indigenous residents of the Western part of the
North Caucasus,” from any part of the Sochi Olympic Games currently
scheduled to take place in 2014.
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If the Russian Olympic Committee
has its way, "instead of Circassians, the international community will
be met by Cossacks, who are Russian by nationality, dressed up in
Circassian national costumes,” an act of disrespect so serious that it
has forced "all Circassians to reflect” about not just the Games but
about their future as a people.
The KavkazWeb.net director says that
"even the most thorough-going defenders of the Kremlin’s policy in the
Caucasus cannot find an explanation for this bestial injustice.” And
consequently, if now the Circassian national movement takes off, Moscow
will have only itself to blame.
The Olympics and Circassian
representation in them is far from the only problem that the nation
faces, Mazukabzov says, but just as is the case with that issue, "the
dissatisfaction of the Circassians is based on the unwillingness of the
federal center to solve the fundamental problems of the ethnos.”
The Circassians’ "main problem,” he
continues, is the question of the recognition of the genocide, which
the tsarist forces committed 150 years ago and which "led to the
complete disappearance of certain Circassians tribes” and "the
dispersal” of a majority of the other parts of the nation beyond the
borders of its traditional homeland.
As a result of this action, "tsarist
Russia obtained the Black Sea coast and the Kuban, the most fruitful
and strategically important regions in the empire,” a conquest that has
prompted Russian historians to play down "the fact of the destruction
of almost a million Circassians” to "fabricate” stories about "the
voluntary re-joining of Kabarda with Russia.”
Now, 150 years later, the Circassian
nation remains dispersed, with most living in Turkey and the Middle
East. But despite their exile, "the mountaineers cannot live in the
desert. They dream about the mountains, about pure air, about their
native land. But Circassians do not have the right to return to
Russia.”
Those Circassians who remain in the
North Caucasus have other problems, and because they are so numerous,
they have divided the community, something that is causing more and
more Circassians to raise questions about "prioritizing” their goals so
that the pursuit of one does not harm moves to achieve another.
Officials in the Circassian republics,
he writes, "in the first instance are occupied with the survival of the
people,” with "the restoration of the economy being for them the more
important question.” That is entirely understandable, Mazukabzov
writes, because "the majority of Circassians in Russia live in poverty
and in debt.”
"The birthrate [among them] is falling,
since young couples cannot feed either themselves or their future
children,” he says, and "marriages are not held since bridegrooms lack
the resources to have a dignified marriage ceremony.” As a result, the
entire fabric of the nation is being torn, and the possibility of its
future flourishing is at risk
In this situation, many Circassians
have organized groups to address one or another issue, but as difficult
as it is for them to acknowledge, these "Circassian social
organizations in Russia have lost their influence among the ordinary
population” because they lack "clear, understandable and achievable
goals.”
According to Mazukabzov, there is only
"one way out – the creation of an organized Circassian lobby,” which
will allow the nation to apply "a balanced approach to the resolution
of all tasks. It must not be too aggressive and it must not be too
passive. It must be able to make friends with all and when necessary to
bring pressure to bear.”
That requires, he points out, that the
lobby "consider the interests of all sides, including the diaspora, the
federal center and local politicians.” And as utopian as such an
institution may sound to some, Mazukabzov argues that "the first
elements of a people’s lobby already are in place.”
As evidence of that, he points to the
campaign Adyga.org launched to gather signatures on a petition calling
on the International Olympic Committee to insist that the Circassians
be involved in "the process of the planning and conduct” of the Sochi
Games. According to Mazukabzov, the positive response of Circassians
to that "exceeded all expectations.”
The reason for that – and he suggests
that this is the reason for creating a lobby – is that the Circassian
people is "tired of the unfulfilled promises of our social leaders” and
that "instead of calls for the overthrow of the powers that be,
separation from Russia and other extremist declarations,” the
Circassian nation is interested in what it can achieve in the near term.
Some Circassians both in the North
Caucasus and the diaspora are likely to view Mazukabzov’s call as an
effort to divide the Circassian movement or even to demobilize it on
Moscow’s behalf, but they may be missing the point that the
KavkazWeb.net director is trying to make.
Winning some small victories won’t
demobilize the Circassians: that will have just the opposite effect,
all the more so because Moscow has been so clumsy in its handling of
the Sochi Games to date that, as Mazukabzov points out, even the
Russian government’s defenders can’t defend its indefensible show of
disrespect for the people whose homeland Sochi is.
Source: Window on Eurasia
