#8
From: "Robert Bruce Ware" <...@brick.net>
Subject: Kinship in the Caucasus ( re. Mereu JRL 6006)
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 1
Francesca Mereu and RFE/RL deserve credit for the two part series on religion and social structure in Chechnya ("War Destroyed Chechnya's Clan Structure", " Islam Plays Fundamental Role In North Caucasus Life", JRL 6006). The articles are rare in that they place the conflict in Chechnya into broader cultural and historical contexts. The failure of most reports to do the same has led to much confusion during the last few years. However, in the first article, on Chechen social structure, the author seems to have missed the point.
After describing Chechen teips and tukums, two of the seven layers of Chechen kinship structure, Mereu observes the disruption of these structures as a consequence of demographic shifts occurring during the present conflict. Certainly the war has had an effect upon Chechen kinship structure. But we will not understand the situation in Chechnya until we also consider the effect that Chechen kinship structure has had upon the war.
The traditional fragmentation of Chechen society among kinship structures, such as teips and tukums, has prevented the consolidation of an overarching and authoritative political structure requisite for the rule of law and the development of a legitimate economy. Due to its failure to organize a modern state, Chechnya's three years of de facto independence (August 1996 to September 1999) were a catastrophe for the people of Chechnya and for the people of the region, who were terrorized by the chaos and criminality that characterized Chechen society and spilled across its borders on a daily basis.
Had Chechnya been able to avoid this failure then it is probable that today Chechnya would be consolidating its independence in peace and growing prosperity. But the fact of this failure made Russian intervention not only inevitable but morally mandatory. Russia had a responsibility to protect its citizens in the region, including its Muslim citizens, and many of those with experience in the region spent most of 1998 and 1999 wondering when Moscow would accept that responsibility.
Nothing could make this point more clearly than Mereu's own account of Chechen President Maskhadovs failure to punish Chechen warlord Salman Raduev for his 1996 raid on the Dagestani city of Kizlyar. Raduev and his gang held 3,000 Dagestanis hostage in a hospital, culminating (with Russian military assistance) in the deaths of 78 people. Mereu observes that Chechen kinship structures prevented Maskhadov from acting against Raduev, and thereby serving justice at the same time he preserved relations with Dagestan. It seems that both Raduev and Maskhadovs wife are members of the Gordaloy teip. Hence, Raduev could not be brought to justice until he was apprehended by Russian troops and sentenced, in December, by a court in Dagestan. Russian institutions were required to do what Chechens failed to do for themselves.
By contrast, in neighboring Dagestan, traditional political structures, known as djamaats, have transcended kinship structures, known as tuhums, for the last 500 years. A djamaat is a village, or an historically connected group of villages, which typically encompasses several tuhums. The traditional preeminence of political structures over kinship structures is one of the reasons that Dagestan remains stable despite its 34 ethno-linguistic groups. It is also one of the reasons that Dagestan has settled relatively comfortably into the Russia Federation.
Within Dagestani kinship structures, the tradition of "maslat" (or "reconciliation", also know to Kumyks as "kimbeldy") has also been helpful in preserving peace. According to this tradition, it is the responsibility of clan members to discourage or discipline one of their kin who engages in antisocial behavior. This is important because of the traditional system of vendetta that remains a persuasive force in Dagestan. A clan member who engages in serious or sustained misbehavior may endanger his own life and the lives of other members of his clan, when relatives of the injured party take their vengeance. Hence, it is crucial that the clan should take preventative measures. Several Dagestanis have remarked to me that if it had been Dagestanis who invaded a neighboring republic, as Salman Raduev and Shamil Basayev invaded Dagestan, their families would have killed them when they returned home. The moral responsibilities of Dagestani kinship stand in stark contrast to Maskhadovs failures to accept responsibility for, and to take action against, Raduev and Basayev.
Other comparisons of Chechnya with Dagestan are also helpful in understanding causes and consequences of conflict in Chechnya. Some observers have argued that the devastation of Chechen infrastructure during the first war, combined with Moscow's failure to make reparations, contributed to the disintegration of Chechen society that precipitated the second war. Certainly, there is truth to this, and it is deeply unfortunate that errors on both sides deprived Chechnya of a peaceful opportunity at independence. But during the same years, Dagestan suffered unemployment and deprivation on a scale that was comparable to that in Chechnya without suffering the same social and political consequences. In any case, economic collapse is not justification for the hostage industry and the slave trade that were based in Chechnya between 1996 and 1999, and that made the second war inevitable.
Other observers have argued that the devastation of the first war in Chechnya contributed to the subsequent spread of political Islam, which then contributed to the second war. There is truth to this as well, but political Islam existed first in Dagestan, from which it later spread to Chechnya. If war is the cause of political Islam then it should not have existed in Dagestan, which did not fight a prior war. Rather it appears that political Islam results from other conditions that are common to Dagestan and Chechnya, and that were exacerbated in both republics by the first Chechen war.
While infrastructural and economic devastation in Chechnya contributed to the spread of political Islam, which contributed to the second war, neither cause is sufficient to account for events that precipitated that war. For that it is necessary to refer to Chechen social structure. Indeed, it is possible to understand the radical nationalist appeals of President Dudayev, which preceded the first Chechen war, as an attempt to overcome the fragmentation of Chechen society that results from the preeminence of its kinship structures.
The preeminence of Chechnya's ancient kinship structures has inhibited the development of a modern society. Wars occur when societies fail to recognize a need for internal change. Wars between Chechnya and Russia are changing both societies, and are likely to last until the inhabitants of both societies recognize their own responsibility for making those changes. Russians too must take responsibility for their failure to guarantee the rights, and ensure the autonomy, of the people of Chechnya and the other peoples of the Caucasus.
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