In Russia, Islamophobia is never far from the surface, but it is worse than at any point since the fall of communism — and the government is doing nothing to stop it. It resurfaced with the war in Chechnya, and has increased with every new attack attributed to Chechen terrorists — the 1999 Moscow apartment block bombings, last years’ theater siege in the capital, and most recently last month’s suicide attack by two female bombers at a rock concert which left at least 15 dead — except that it is not just Chechens who are blamed. All the country’s Muslims have become the target of Russian hate and fear.
Russian Islamophobia is now rampant; even the press join in, with pictures of local Muslim leaders deliberately positioned next to ones of Osama Bin Laden. Russian Muslim leaders talk of a “wave of reprisals” sweeping over the community since the rock concert bombing, with police seeing every Muslim female in religious attire as a “shahid terrorist”. That certainly was the case two weeks ago when a Muslim woman from London, wearing a head scarf, was thrown out of a cafe in central Moscow; her complaints to the police only resulted in being detained herself.
Far from doing anything about it, the Russian government is as guilty — all the way up to President Putin. While at times he has said Islam has no links with terrorism and is a peaceful religion, there have been occasions when he has been blatantly anti-Muslim, linking the war in Chechnya to a wider one between Islam and Christianity. Last year he told a French reporter that “if you are a Christian, you are in danger,” and suggested the reporter be circumcised.
Those who try to counter the anti-Muslim trend are themselves in danger. A journalist in the Orenburg region, Farid Nugumanov, found himself under investigation as a possible terrorist and lost his job when he wrote an article criticizing a decision to build an Orthodox church next to the Muslim cemetery in his Muslim village. The situation is now so bad that a week ago the co-chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis demanded action from the Russian authorities to end to the harassment and incitement of ethnic hatred. We echo that demand. But other than that there is almost nothing people here can do. We cannot help Russia’s Muslims materially; to do so would result in them being accused of being in the pay of foreign organizations.
There are some 20 million Muslims in the Russian federation; seven of its states have Muslim majorities. It does not take a great deal of intelligence to realize that if the system continues to demonize them, they will become alienated. Far from solving Russia’s separatist problems, it is going to make matters much worse.
