Russia has a very large Muslim population, especially in the regions of Siberia. One of the most Islamic areas, an autonomous region known as "Tartarstan," is attempting to assert itself by demanding that the Tartar language is taught and promoted alongside Russian, and that anybody who wants to hold an office of power must not be able to speak Russian per se, but must be fluent in Tartar as well as demanding more "power sharing" that is akin less to life within a state and rather attempting to create a separate state according to a recent report:
Protesters have rallied in the capital of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan, demanding that Tatar-language classes be mandatory at schools in the region.
Prominent Tatar intellectuals were among some 150 people at the gathering in downtown Kazan on November 6, which was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the region's constitution and organized by the Tatar Public Center NGO.
They called on the national government in Moscow and the regional government in Kazan to respect the Constitution of Tatarstan, according to which Tatar — along with Russian — is a state language and must be taught in all schools across Tatarstan.
The demonstrators also demanded the renewal of a pact between Kazan and Moscow on power sharing.
Demonstrators held signs with slogans such as "All officials in Tatarstan must be fluent in Tatar" and "The Republic of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation are equal partners, according to the Tatar and Russian constitutions."
Police detained one activist, Airat Shakirov, at the rally.
The power-sharing treaty between Moscow and Kazan that was signed in 2007 expired in August, and Moscow has been hesitating to prolong it despite Tatar lawmakers' calls for it to do so. (source)
For centuries, Muslims exercised significant control over a large part of Russia. Many of these Muslims were known as Tartars, or who were the descendants of the Mongolian and Turkic people that ruled Russia for centuries and of whom many converted to Islam. The Tartar nation, known as Tartarstan, was not conquered until 1550 under Ivan the Terrible, after which Russian Orthodox missionaries were sent and began to evangelize the people. The capitol of Tartarstan, Kazan is also associated with the miraculous icon of the Theotokos, which was burned in a fire and hidden after the Muslim tartars attempted to destroy it but was found owing to the miraculous apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a young Russian girl named Matrona.
The Tartars have always been a challenge to Russia throughout the centuries because, owing to the adherence of many to Islam, they have continually attempted to rebel and set up their own Islamic state. For this reason, the Russian government has historically responded by giving the Tartars considerable autonomy but also intervening greatly in their economy and life, thus giving them a degree of greater freedom while at the same time keeping them more closely tied down so to stifle the chances of a rebellion. One could say this is analogous to the situation of the American southeast, where as sentiment for secession still runs very high among many of the states, and in response the US government has build up a considerable network of military bases and military-related industries in the south as well as promoted the national military culture there much more so than in the northern regions.
Russia and the USA are historical rivals owing to their diverse geographic locations and related political interests. Russia is in a particularly difficult state because owing to a century of Communist-style socialism, the nation's economy and people have collapsed on themselves and never recovered. Russia's economy is based off of raw materials processing and military arms exports, with the rest of the economy being inconsistent and disorganized. The people are for the most part economically poor, and the family unit is broken. Drugs and alcohol are rampant and with that Russia has high rates of HIV/AIDS, drug resistant TB, and abortion.
All these and more factors have been carefully noted by the US, and as we have discussed on Shoebat.com, are being used as part of the Decline of Russia project, in which the US is attempting to identify and exacerbate the already existing problems in Russia so to accelerate the decline and break up of the nation. We have identified this as a particular area of concern with the most recent "terrorist attack" in New York City by an Uzbekistani national, for there are many signs that the attack potentially a "false flag," especially owing to how there have been public calls for further American "intervention" in Uzbekistan, which was a part of the Soviet Union and has very close economic and military ties to Russia.
This report almost immediately appeared on Radio Free Europe before spreading to other outlets. The fact that such a story veritably made its debut on Radio Free Europe is an immediate sign that it is coming from the CIA. How do we know this? Because the CIA itself admits that Radio Free Europe has been one of its many personal projects dating from at least 1949:
On June 1, 1949, a group of prominent American businessmen, lawyers, and philanthropists – including Allen Dulles, who would become Director of Central Intelligence in 1953 – launched the National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE) at a press release in New York. Only a handful of people knew that NCFE was actually the public face of an innovative "psychological warfare" project undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That operation – which soon gave rise to Radio Free Europe – would become one of the longest running and successful covert action campaigns ever mounted by the United States. (source)
Note that this operation was initiated in 1949. This will become important later.
In the meantime, note that the organization which organized the protest was called the Tatar Public Center. According to the Wikipedia about the Tatar Public Center, the group was founded by Tatar nationalists at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall and breakup of the soviet Union and have taken a progressively growing anti-Russia stance, and one of the ways they have conveyed their message is through public music events, such as rock concerts:
The first congress (qorıltay) of Tatar nationalists was held in February, 1989. The newly formed organization was named the Tatar Public Center (Tatar İctimağí Üzäge). The charter and the program of the ATPC were adopted at the second congress (February, 1991). At this congress, the name of the organization was changed to the All-Union Tatar Public Center and the 35-member presidium was elected. Subsequently, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the name was changed once again to what it is now (1992).[1]
The ATPC was established by M. Mölekev (the first chairman), İ Ämixanov, Fäwziä Bäyrämeva, Z. Zäynulin, R. Safin, F. Safiullin and some others. Most of them were intellectuals from Kazan State University. The current chairman is Rafis Kashapov.
In late 1980s- early 1990s, the ATPC organized many demonstrations and public meetings demanding that the government of Tatarstan proclaims the republic independent of Russia. The only time when these manifestations resulted in clashes and street fighting was on October 15, 1991 when Russian nationalists arranged a counter-demonstration which provoked a violent confrontation.
In the following years, Tatarstan's government led by Mintimer Shaymiev has assumed a more adversarial position towards Moscow, which significantly weakened the ATPC's unique role as the defender of ethnic Tatars. As a result, the ATPC's popularity went down among the majority of the population while the popularity of president Shaymiev grew. Tatarstan's special status within the Russian Federation and economic concessions from Moscow achieved by Shaymiev made many demands of Tatar nationalists superfluous.
In the last few years, the ATPC has not been as active as in the past. The majority of the participants in its most recent demonstrations are pensioners. The only exception is the Memorial Day (Xäter Köne) held in October of each year to commemorate the fall of Kazan. This event attracts many participants, both young and old, from all parts of Idel-Ural and is accompanied by a funeral march and Tatar rock music concerts.
Fall of the Berlin Wall/Breakup of the USSR
Ethnic Nationalists
Public Demonstrations
Rock Concerts
Not only all of this, but the Tartar Center has connections to Islamic militants, specifically the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the rebels of the Caucasus mountains, and Central Asian Muslim revivalist groups:
According to the ATPC charter, the organization pursues its goals in an exclusively democratic way. However, some sources state that in the 1990s some ATPC leaders had contacts with the Wahhabis in Ichkeria and with the Taliban in Afghanistan. There are rumors and unsubstantiated reports about some ATPC volunteers joining the ranks of the militants in the Caucasus and Central Asia. These allegations, however, have not yet been proven. The same sources also state that the ATPC includes militarized wings İdel and Altınzan.
If this not enough, consider that Euromaidan Press, another outfit that looks remarkably similar to the CIA promoted "publication" units of its past, outright talks about Tartarstan being a starting place of 'internal rebellion' against Russia and specifically cites nationalism as the vehicle by which this will be accomplished:
The transition to modernity and the rise of the bourgeoisie spread from Holland to the rest of western Europe four and five centuries ago, and the same thing happened further east but still only in part. In a similar way, “the precursor of the transition to the bourgeois model of society and nationalism in Turkey … was the Tatar bourgeois model of development.”
This Tatar model, the historian says, was a new form of nationalism which combined via jadidism Islamic culture and a commitment to national development and was most importantly promoted by Yusuf Akchura who insisted that religion must shift from a societal regulator to an individual one for a modern industrial nation and economy to emerge.
In the decades preceding the 1917 revolution in Russia, Mukhametdinov points out, “Tatar society from the point of view of the development of bourgeois style of life and modernization was the leader of the Muslim world and its leading intellectuals – men like Musa Bigiyev, Zyya Kamali, Rizaetdin Fakhretdinov and Galimdzhan Barudi – set the pace for Turkey and for many in the Arab world.
...
“If a bourgeois revolution is to begin in Russia, then it will start in Tatarstan, just as in Europe, a similar revolution began with little Holland,” Mukhametdinov argues. “We Tatars desperately need an influx of new intellectual forces in the sphere of Islam.” Rereading the classics will help; applying them will make all the difference. (source)
Remember the year that Radio Free Europe started: 1949- right after World War II, which was the time when Operation Gladio began., which was the promotion of National Socialism as a means to create a "wall" against then Soviet Russia.
Let's ask some basic questions based on established contemporary historical fact:
-Q: What nation funded and armed the Taliban?
-A: The USA with Israel and Saudi Arabian partnership (for a great film on this, see Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks)
-Q: What nation funded nationalism as a part of formal foreign policy as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, including the funding of National Socialist groups in Germany, beginning immediately after the defeat of National Socialist Germany immediately after World War II?
-A: The USA, with assistance from other Western nations as a part of what came to be known as Operation Gladio?
-Q: How did Operation Gladio administer public outreach/operations to influence public perception?
-A: Through a concerted propaganda campaign, much of which included the promotion of ultra-nationalist music and in particular, "nationalist" rock-and-roll as well as public demonstrations in support of "freedom" and "democracy" to younger generations of people, and has been a subject of discussion here on Shoebat.com.
-Q: Why did the US fund not just the Taliban, but other Islamic groups such as ISIS that caused terrible damage and other persons that we later destroyed such as Saddam Hussein?
-A: Because the Muslims were being used today as they have consistently been in the past, as a lever by which to the disorder, violence, and continual threat that Islam poses in order to call for more power and intervention directed towards another enemy for private gain, which is our main criticism of the counter-jihad movement, as it is being used as a lever to push for nationalism.
-Q: Is this new, and what is the end purpose of all of this?
-A: As we at Shoebat.com have noted, there is nothing new about this, and it is simply a continuation of the conflicts in World War II, for the West, having rejected Christendom and attempting to shape God in her own image, is inviting the Islamic threat into Europe in order to restart the conflicts of old.
This conflict does not just include the USA, but other nations as well, and in particular those of Germany and Japan, which we have written about extensively and showed how right now they are working aggressively to prepare for a future, expected, planned conflict in which the next great super weapon will be the emergence of advanced cyborg-type robots similar to Arnold Schwartzenegger in the Terminator series, and will have as massive an impact on the future of war as did the machine gun for World War I and the atom bomb for World War II.
What is happening here in Tartarstan is not a simple "demonstration" for "Tartar rights." Indeed, for as many problems as Russia has had with the Tartars, they have given them considerable autonomy over the years and extensively built up their economy so much that it is one of the most economically developed areas in Russia with an extensive oil and gas sector, industrial materials processing, military equipment construction and even food processing sectors. Kazan State University, located in the capitol, is one of the top universities in Russia and draws students from all over the world. Indeed, one can say that even in spite of the historical problems with the Tartars in Russia, more has been done for their benefit than has ever been done for the American Indians in the USA.
But all of this must be understood in the context of the struggle for power between the USA and Russia as well as the Decline of Russia project. As the project itself warns, one of Russia's biggest challenges will be to suppress "separatism" from within especially from its Muslim populations, who not only have larger families but also are historically inclined to secede, and even mentions Tartarstan and the Caucasus rebels as specific examples of this problem:
Right at the start of the 1990s, the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan showed the way of “paradiplomacy” as part of an attempt to develop its own international branding. Tatarstan played the card of its Islamic and Turkic identity by participating in numerous regional fora, such as Turksoy, which aims to promote the world’s Turkic cultures, and by developing specific links with foreign Islamic institutions. Tatarstan also hopes to play a lead role in implementing Islamic finance in Russia, all the while remaining cautious about “foreign” Islamic influences. For some years, Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov has replicated this practice, this time aiming at the most conservative countries, in particular the Gulf countries, as well as the universe of Salafist movements. The Russian government promoted Chechnya to Middle Eastern countries to showcase its Islamophile policies. The Russian Foreign Affairs Minister fought, for example, in 2011 to have some holy relics brought to Grozny in order to give the Republic greater legitimacy in the Islamic world.
...
Russia will therefore no longer have to manage only the dilemma of majority versus ethnic minorities, such as it existed in the 1990s. The majority has become more distinctly ethno-nationalist than it was previously, as the success of political figures such as Alexei Navalny demonstrates. The minorities no longer exist as a united block but rather in a three-way split: the North Caucasus, which above all remains a political and security problem linked to the Putin regime; migrants, which constitute the main form of ethnic identity at the present time; and Islam, which is gradually becoming the new cultural identity to be fought. This situation will profoundly alter the terms of the identity debate in Russia. (source)
What you are seeing here with these groups, all of which have particular ties to American influence and are operating on the same philosophies that Operation Gladio was rooted in, is the extension of this same project. The USA is not so much attempting to "interfere" in a direct way as it is to exacerbate the already existing conditions to worsen them to their natural ends, which is to cause the failure of Russia as a nation itself.
Now make no mistake, we are not advocating for the failure of Russia or America. The fact is that both nations are rivals and have similar and competing interests, and will always probably be so. But as Christians, the first priority is to look after the individual and spiritual good of all people, both at home and abroad. This means ensuring that people honor God and their fellow man, for as Christ himself says, the law is in summation to love the Lord with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind, and to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:37). This does not mean putting oneself in a situation where one commits suicide or opens oneself up to destruction, as this is equally a sin, but it likewise does not mean abusing another man for the sake of personal gain at his expense.
Ask yourself, would it be right for Russians to come to American and exacerbate economic, social, or cultural problems in order that Russia might gain power at the expense of the American people? It certainly would not be, and one would have to rightly stand against that because it would be evil. As such, it is right for Ameriacns to exacerbate economic, social, or cultural problems in order that American might gain power at the expense of the Russian people? It most certainly is not.
At the end of our lives, all that one can take with him are the deeds he has done to others and the memories of one's life. We are born naked and to God we return with the record of our deeds. While it is good and important to look out for one's own interests, one must not do so at the destructive expense of another, for all men are created in the image and likeness of God and we are all equally accountable to God for our actions.
Our Lady of Kazan
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