Boston - the Russian angle

[flintlock]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

It's not their "Chechen-ness" that spurred their violence but their "Islam-ness."

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/...thon-Suspects/

Yes. This likely has nothing to do with Chechen nationalism. Are people also claiming Chechens fighting in afghanistan are doing it for Chechnya? The only possible connection to Chechen nationalism is perhaps they hope foreign jihadists will repay the debt someday. We shouldnt read too much into this.

[c1ue]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

I recall reading recently somewhere that the Chechens did often not distinguish between the Cossacks and the Russians, lumping them together.
Of course the reason the Cossacks were put there in the first place was as border guards for the Russian empire, to keep order along the borders, thus encroaching on the Chechens land.
The Cossack descendents still live in their stanitsas, as opposed to the auls of the Cherkess, and are to all intents and purposes "Russian" these days, at least in Adygeya.

Any source that cannot distinguish between Cossack and Russian has thus clearly demonstrated its own lack of credibility.

The various Cossack hosts did contain Russians, but also Turks and various other ethnicities. They were largely colonist tribal affiliations much like the Hunnish horde I note above.

Here is the omnipresent oil angle, which I was aware of but did not know any details.
Indeed it seems there may be a possible motive for hatred of also the US here, but the US was never involved with on-the-ground repression in Chechnya, so it seems weak.

There is no question that Russia spent so much time and effort crushing the latest Chechen attempt at independence due to energy pipeline considerations. Chechnya, Dagestan, and Georgia are at a crucial geographic location in terms of bringing Central Asian natural gas and oil to Europe.

As you note above, however, the US angle in terms of enmity is quite weak.

If, on the other hand, evidence were to turn up that the US/NATO/Turkey had made promises to Chechens which kicked off the aforementioned rebellion, and Chechens were pissed that they didn't even get the amount of support Saakashvili received - that might be more believable.

As Russian Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted his is three-volume study, The GuLAG Archipelago, "There was one nation which would not give in, would not acquire the mental habits of submission - and not just individual rebels among them, but the whole nation to a man. These were the Chechens...

It is pretty amusing - if the Soviet Union was so repressive, when then did they allow Solzhenitsyn to write and publish the Gulag Archipelago? Why wasn't Solzhenitsyn killed like so many were by Stalin?

The reality is that Solzhenitsyn was a puppet used by Krushchev against the political heirs of Stalin. Once his usefulness for that purpose was gone (and he was booted out), he then changed into a useful puppet for the West against the Soviet Union. If you actually follow his life work, there are so many instances of outright lies and fabrications which he made up, that it raises a lot of questions over what truths he did enunciate.

It's not their "Chechen-ness" that spurred their violence but their "Islam-ness."

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/...thon-Suspects/

The ongoing Idiocracy of the US media continues...

Motived? Really?

[Master Shake]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

You don't think their faith has anything to do with their actions? Really?

[c1ue]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

You don't think their faith has anything to do with their actions? Really?

I was specifically referring to the use of a typo in a headline. Given word processing is literally free, this is ridiculous.

As for Islam being the motivation - I prefer to leave it to the investigation to reveal.

[cobben]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle


This an agnostic free daily (more or less daily) news service - just collects news items, generally no attempts at interpretation are made.



Johnson's Russia List
2013-#77
24 April 2013

Your source for news and analysis since 1996

"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

In this issue

TSARNAEV

1. New York Times: Unraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link by Link.

2. AP: Bomb Suspect Influenced By Mysterious Radical.

3. Reuters: Chechen relative of Boston suspects alleges Russian plot.

4. Boston Globe: Russia contacted US government 'multiple' times.

5. Moscow Times: Andrei Soldatov, Both Sides Dropped the Ball on Tsarnaev.

6. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, Why Didn't Tsarnaev Attack Dagestan?

7. RIA Novosti: Boston Suspects' Russian Parents to Visit US.

8. Boseman Daily Chronicle (Montana): Chechnya: 'Crucible of pain, anger and frustration.' Montanan sees link to Boston bombing in Chechnya's history of bloody war, revenge. (Thomas Goltz)

9. The Economist: Islam, the Caucasus and Boston. Disasters and their side-effects.

10. RFE/RL: Daghestani Insurgency Denies Any Role In Boston Bombings.

11. Wall Street Journal: Glen Howard, The Terrorist's Sojourn in a Most Dangerous Place. Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent seven months in Dagestan, where the capital sees violent attacks weekly, if not daily.

12. Christian Science Monitor: Janusz Bugajski, After Boston bombings: Beware Russia-US cooperation on counter-terrorism.

13. CNBC.com: Dina Gusovsky, Marathon Bombings: Russia's 'I told You So' Moment?

14. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: Daghestan a Failed State and Must Be 'Built Anew,' Abdulatipov Says.

15. Reuters: In Boston's wake, Sochi eyes Olympics, Chechens.

POLITICS

. . .

[c1ue]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

As it turns out, the brothers are only slightly more Chechen than I am.

Not only are they not full blooded, they've never even lived in Chechnya. Born in Kirgizstan (1500 miles away), parents are in fact 'mixed' in Slavic terms (Dagestani with a Chechen), and the younger brother came to the US as a 2nd grader.

This makes it seem even less likely that this has anything to do with Chechnya.

[cobben]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

[QUOTE=cobben;256807
The traditional Chechen saying goes that the members of Chechen society, like its teips, are (ideally) "free and equal like wolves".
[/QUOTE]

How To Spot A Chechen
By Aslanbek Dadaev

This article was first published in The eXile on August 10, 2007.

I am one of 100,000 Chechens in Moscow. There are another 30,000 Ingush living here. Together, we belong to the “Vainakh” ethnolinguistic group and make up roughly one per cent of Moscow’s population.

Yet very few Muscovites have any idea what we look like, or what makes us different from other “chernozhopye” (“black-asses,” a pejorative used by Russians when referring to peoples from the Northern and Southern Caucasus, as well as those from Central Asia).

With a total population of 1.5 million, Vainakhs form one percent of Russia’s total population of 145 million, and so would seem a natural presence in the capital. Still, a lot of people think, “What the fuck are they doing here! Let them go back to their Chechnya and die under our bombs!”

Who is that average, one-in-a-hundred Vainakh lurking among you, and how can you spot him or her? I will help you answer that question. Because it’s important that you should be able to spot in a crowd the very species that’s survived a grinding 15-year war.

The truth is there is no average when we talk about Chechens. Not that I mean each Chechen is so unique, or that the very word “average” grates on our ears. It’s just that Chechens are, well, “different.” Different from each other and different from you. And long live different. Fuck average.

. . .


Ours is not a haughty pride, not the pride of a medieval Spanish Baron. It’s the pride of a free man, of one who has earned that pride and is continuing to earn it. And every generation of our ancestors has done so by their blood and sweat. It’s not easy to describe, but once you spot and study the outward manifestations of Chechen pride, you will be able to spot us without doing headcounts or asking for passports. It’s the kind of pride that only dies with its bearer. It’s not paraded about arrogantly, but you always feel it. It’s totally different from the display of pride you find in peoples from other southern nations, including the Caucasus. The Vainakhs’ pride is cold, not boastful and full of vanity. It’s not for show; it’s kept inside.

What are we proud of? Chechens are one of the most culturally self-sufficient nations in the world. Some may get closer to other peoples’ cultures and even enjoy it, but the complex Chechen system of moral codes doesn’t really allow for any alien ideas and values. The Chechen perception of the world is dominated by a philosophical category of beauty known as hozal. Everything we do is judged according to this standard. If you record even a very casual conversation between Vainakhs (any Vainakhs) in their language, do a word-for-word translation, and put it on paper, you will be shocked at the number of words which have “beauty” as the root-word. Being morally subdued or broken is the ugliest thing a Vainakh can think of. And pride in oneself is the most beautiful thing that any Vainakh can ever achieve.

. . .

[astonas]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

A fascinating snapshot of a very distinct culture.

It almost makes it sound like merely being a displaced Chechen, in and of itself, is enough to foster a sense of resentment.

It also seems like a culture essentially at odds with an increasingly globalized and multicultural world. "The complex system of moral codes doesn't really allow for any alien ideals or values" kind of implies that some Chechens wouldn't exactly do well when entirely immersed in a culture radically different from their own.

When I heard, during the buildup to recent wars, the phrase "they hate us because we're free," I dismissed it easily, and I still think, correctly. But on this one, I'm now less certain. Freedom certainly wouldn't be the dividing line for the Boston bombing, but perhaps "multicultural"? Or "insufficiently respectful" of Chechen culture, compared to others?

Could it really just be as simple as "Pride goeth before the fall?"

[cobben]

Re: Boston - the Russian angle

A fascinating snapshot of a very distinct culture.

It almost makes it sound like merely being a displaced Chechen, in and of itself, is enough to foster a sense of resentment.

Thank you, I did try.

Remembering that blood feuds are a central part of the Chechen culture, harboring "a sense of resentment" is not.

In the beginning I was always trying to understand the Chechens using the plains Indians (Sioux et al) as a pattern, perhaps because I was familiar with them - big mistake. The Chechen culture seems to be still intact, albeit severely repressed currently. What might happen there on the next sign of weakness from the Russian Federation?