Chechnya and the North Caucasus region bear the brunt of Russia’s terrorism problems. Over time, Caucasus suicide bombings changed from Chechen women wanting to avenge their killed relatives to ideologically motivated jihadists led by Islamic extremists. Many believe this change was fueled by the Russian government’s counter-terrorism response.
Chechnya’s original struggle against Russia was not related to Islam in any way. It originated from the Russian empire’s colonial expansion into Chechnya roughly 200 years ago. The Chechens attempted to resist this colonization, but were greatly outnumbered, and after several decades of warfare they were unwillingly incorporated into the Russian empire. Once the Czar’s rule ended in Moscow, the Chechens began to cry out for independence, and they were granted it in 1918, but by 1920, Lenin invaded the region and attempted to savagely stomp out the independence movement and all of its following revolts. When this did not completely eliminate the problem, Josef Stalin deported most of the Chechen population to central Asia and burned their villages to the ground.
After many years the Chechens hadn’t given up their identities and desire to return to their homeland, and in the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev allowed them to return. However, the happiness did not last. In 1990, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Chechen political groups united in a request for immediate independence from Moscow. The Russian government invaded Chechnya when they heard this. For two decades, they waged two brutal wars, killing tens of thousands of Chechen civilians and flattening its capital in the process. Moscow then suppressed Chechnya by making a malleable local warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, President. Chechnya, desperate for liberation from the new leader, began taking help anywhere it could find it, including from Islamic extremists.
As Russia destroyed Chechnya’s civil society, the place became known all around as a wasteland characterized by anarchy and gang warfare, which attracted Muslim warriors searching for jihad to fight nonbelievers.Muslim fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia and other countries have provided funds to some of these groups. Today, although Chechnya appears calm, Russia maintains a brutal reign of terror there and in its surrounding regions. Any signs of religious behavior are viewed with hostility. Today, describing the Chechen rebellion as dominated and defined by Islamic extremism is accurate, but it was clearly not always this way, and perhaps a change of government reaction could have changed the outlook.
I believe a change in governmental communication (and Cronin’s ending of Negotiation) would help alleviate the problem of terrorism in Russia. In the past Russia has met Chechen groups with violence and intolerance, and these days it continues, fueled by ignorance. Russian security services have clamped down on even legal forms of activity by Salafists, who follow a fundamentalist form of Islam. There were weak attempts made to establish a dialogue with moderate Salafists in Dagestan a while back, but have since been discarded. Mosques and schools have been closed down and spiritual leaders harassed, all because they are falsely associated with the terrorist movement.
Russian officials now claim that the Islamic terrorist movement is bent on jihad, unwilling to compromise, and only want to inflict pain on Russians. While this statement is clearly false, many have no other source of information and have no cause for disbelief. An honest portrayal of the situation in the media and an open conversation between Russian officials and Chechen officials would help shed light on a possible nonviolent solution. Had Russia taken away Chechnya’s freedom, it would not have become a nesting ground for Islamic extremists. A positive relationship between the Chechen people and Russia would help build trust, making outside help from violent groups unnecessary and unwanted.