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The activity of the new International Centre of Cultures and religions should work to address these issues, and new ideas and policy recommendations will be elaborated in the specific laboratory of the Congresses.
The growing interest in the Congress, reflected in the growing number of participants, and the actuality of the issues discussed facilitates its becoming an effective meeting place for dialogue, as a part of a much broader global process of building and maintaining cooperation among religions. The Congress addressed issues also being addressed through such mechanisms as the "Alliance of Civilizations", initiatives of Russia (International High Level Group of Religious Leaders, Consultative Council at UNO on Religions) and the Saudi Arabia Inter-religious Dialogue, which resulted in the adoption in 2008 of the Madrid Declaration on Inter-religious Dialogue.
One of the practical results of the work of the third Congress was the Address of the Congress participants disseminated in the United Nations as an official document of the UN General Assembly and Security Council. This document promotes the ideas and concepts of the forum in the international arena.
"World Religions in the context of the Contemporary Culture: New Perspectives of dialogue and mutual understanding", St. Petersburg, 2011, pp. 115, 123-129.
S. Sushchi,
Political analyst
THE CONTEMPORARY NORTH CAUCASUS -SYSTEMIC CRISIS OR DEVELOPMENT FROM FORCE OF INERTIA
For the last years, the situation in the South of Russia, primarily in the North Caucasus, was marked by sustainable deterioration, to the
view of a great part of the Russian experts' community. And this is a systemic process. The systemic crisis was discussed as the evidence, which needs no justification, by the mentioned below conference held by the RAS.
There are many definitions of the notion "crisis" in scientific studies, which define it as an overturn, a break, or as a fast rise of negative trends, as the exit of the organism/system from the zone of sustainable development to the sphere of unpredictable development. Given all possible differences in the definitions, all of them stress a great deterioration of the state of the studied phenomenon.
The year of 2008 was the last year, when the development of the North Caucasus according to scenario from force of inertia, realized since the beginning of the century, was able to lead this national macro-region to the constructive vector of development, thinks V.A. Aksentiev. Already since 2009 there has been realized the scenario of negative conflicting events demanding principally other governance's efforts and decisions. As an outcome there was proposed the quickest change in governance of the most complicated macro-region of the RF for systemic "management" (let us note that the complex application of the latter represents a vital need not only in the South of Russia, marked by its problems, but also in the rest of the RF -in all spheres of federal and regional governance's practice).
The analysis of the processes going on in the North Caucasus reveals a lot of negative trends. But it is not the exclusive content of the complicated macro-region. A rather superficial review of the local social dynamics for the last years reveals its multilateral feature, the complex of contradictory trends, local achievements and losses, marked by different correlation in separate republics and in each aspect of their social life.
In this connection, the question arises: to what extent the events in the contemporary North Caucasus may be defined as a systemic crisis. Given the limitation of the present publication, the review of above problem may be regarded only as an initial study. It is worth briefly mentioning the most urgent aspects of the social situation in the North Caucasus, which in principle let speak about the crisis over there.
The terrorist activities. The minimal level of the terror in the macro-region was marked in the middle of the 2000s, when it seemed that after the essential reduction of the number of terrorist bands in Chechnya for the years of 2003-2005 the situation gradually approached the time of almost complete liquidation of regional bandits' underground. But instead of this there followed its spread to terrorist activities to Dagestan and Ingushetia. The Chechen epicenter remained and was supplemented by the other two terrorist centers in the North Caucasus. Their total fighting potential was lesser than the Chechen capacity of fighters for 2001-2002.
For the last years the "replacement" of terror continued in the North Caucasus. The most evident change was marked by a rapid rise (since spring 2010) of bandits' activities in Kabarda-Balkaria and the parallel reduction of terrorist activities in Ingushetia for the period of 2008-2009, characterized by almost highest rate of terrorist activities in the North Caucasus. For 2010, the activities of underground bandits groups were kept at the level of two previous years, while in Chechnya a certain reduction of capacity of bandits groups was noted. For the period of two last years, the law enforcement bodies intensified their activities aimed at liquidation of leaders of bandits' groups, and in 2010 there were liquidated or neutralized the groups of 400 fighters, including 30 their leaders, while 400 terrorists were detained.
At present, the groups of bandits succeed to rectify the sustained defeats by recruitment of new bandits. However, taking into account the demographic factor (gradual reduction of youth generations being potential for recruitment of new fighters), it is possible from the period of 2014-2015 to foresee a certain reduction of the bandits' underground and of the infrastructure serving this underground. The successful work of the law enforcement bodies alone is not is not enough to achieve the radical turnover in the struggle against terrorism. The situation for 2010-2011 as a whole in the North Caucasus did not change for worse. The situation is rather marked by oscillatory changes in terrorist activities, by territorial transformation of their areas and epicenters, by changes in forms of subversive activities and in correlation of financing sources of these activities. For the last years, the terrorist "complex" in the North Caucasus lacked any growth but was going on through the process of transformation / adaptation, which is quite logical taking into account the scales of the anti-terrorist campaign.
The social-economic sphere. The characteristic and scale of economic problems of the republics in the North Caucasus are well known. The post-Soviet economic archaic system was characterized not only by the de-industrialization, the loss of a great part of capital assets but also by the "shadow" type of the most profitable segments of economy and by the loss of skills of industrial culture formerly possessed by the local population. In its turn, the latter is one of the reasons of high level of unemployment in a number of republics promoted inter alia by the large scale subsidies to the social sphere from the federal budget and by the related development in republican communities of "parasitical complex". As a result, a chain of negative social-economic correlations was formed for the period of the last 10-15 years.
However, the situation is marked by essential differences in separate republics. In this respect, the most complicated situation exists in Ingushetia and Chechnya, which are characterized by the lack of a real mechanism of exit from the state of chronic economic stagnation. And economy of these republics was not marked by any new phenomena for the last years. It is hardly correct to speak about "economic crisis" in these republics, since their communities are to a large extent adapted to the existing social-economic situation, while the stable large scale financial assistance from the federal center represents a significant additional factor of stabilization. The economy of other republics of the North Caucasus is characterized by greater dynamics. Each of them experienced significant difficulties but has achieved certain successes and potential of development and the directions of growth. Dagestan, the adjacent to Chechnya republic, for some years demonstrates rather fast tempos of economic (including industrial) growth and, side by side with Stavropol krai, is the region-leader of the NCFD (the economic upsurge of the republic is evident with all possible critical remarks). Evidently, "Strategy of Social-Economic Development of the NCFD till 2025", worked out and adopted in 2010, is not a panacea. It will not become the panacea even in case of its full realization (its realization is rather doubtful). The economic sphere of the macro-region will remain "highly problematic" for the visible perspective, and it will be very difficult to realize the existing growth potential, as demonstrates the practice. But the situation in this respect is not hopeless. The economic process in most republics of the North Caucasus seems to be qualified as a development from force of inertia and not as a systemic crisis.
The sphere of state governance and activities of law enforcement bodies. The low professional quality of the governance apparatus and of the law enforcement bodies, a high level of their corruption and their
ethnic-clannish feature represent another "Achilles heel" of republican societies. The total roster of "evils" of the local power was originated in the Soviet past, and in the contemporary "unfold" form is fixed in republican life since the middle of the 1990s (minimum 10-15 years). A rather negative response should be given to the question whether for the last years the efficiency of functioning of bureaucracy in the republics of the North Caucasus was worsened. But the other matter is the need to take into account the factor of public "patience": with due account of the past time even the fixed level of "fallaciousness/incompetence" is being received by society with growing irritation becoming one of the main reasons of the growth of protest potential in the republics.
For the last years, the North Caucasus demonstrated examples of positive changes in the above mentioned sphere. In Ingushetia the leadership made steps directed to "self-cleaning" of the authorities, reduction of corruption's scales and rise of the professional level of taken decisions. The ruling power extended the channels of the return ties with society letting passage from monologue to real reciprocal action (reduction of the terrorism's scale is a result of this work). The efficiency of the republican authorities will hardly be raised, but its worsening is hardly probable. With due account of increased attention of the federal center to this problem as well as the complex of processes in adjacent spheres of social life in the North Caucasus, the scenario of the very slow rise of efficiency of functioning of the republican authorities and law enforcement bodies is not excluded.
The sphere of inter-national relations and religious life. Given the evident complicated situation in the inter-national reciprocal action in the North Caucasus, the chronic ethnic-political tension in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia with further aggravation, the last years in the macro-region lack large scale inter-national conflicts analogous
to the conflicts of the period on the eve and in the first half of the 1990s. Evidently, the state of "friendship of peoples" characteristic for the period of Soviet stability in the macro-region for the 1960s-1970s will not come back in the visible perspective (let us recall that stability of inter-national mutual action of the Soviet period did not always mean its real optimal state). The tectonic changes of social life in the end of the XX century transformed ethnic policy in the North Caucasus into "stable instability". Probably, it is a long historic period.
The federal center and the republican authorities should keep under their control and regulate in good time the ethnic-political situation and prevent even its increased tension transforming into the critical point of social bifurcation fraught with unpredicted dynamics. To a certain extent the state power has already mastered to regulate the ethnic-conflicts situations, so much as principally new threats and risks in the sphere of inter-national mutual action did not appear in the North Caucasus for the last years.
"Islamization" of society and rapid rebirth of religion for the post-Soviet period is one of the main important factors of the contemporary social dynamics of the North Caucasus determining inter alia its ability for systemic modernization. The religious "zealousness" of a part of the population connected with social-ideological radicalism is one of the reasons of the wide spread in the North Caucasus of extremist practice and the significant condition of tenacity of the regional terrorist underground. Nevertheless, there are some reasons to suppose that the peak levels of religiousness of the youth in the republics with most problems in the macro-region have been already attained, and the share of the most "zealous" people in further young generations should be lower. At least, for the period following 2015 the reduction of the level of religious fanaticism seems to be more probable than preservation of its present level and all the more its further growth.
Thus, the social dynamics of the North Caucasus of the last years, as it seems, reveals as a whole not so much the sustainable trend, as the curve consisted from a number of "sinusoids", when each of them reflects the complicated dynamics of one of the segments of ethnic-political, ethnic-confessional, social-economic and social-cultural life of the given macro-region and its separate regional communities. The contours of these "branch" sinusoids do not coincide in time. It means that at the same period of time some indexes fix certain stabilization (or even amelioration) of the situation, while according to other indexes the dynamics turn out to be negative.
The total sum of data relating to diverse vectors turns out to be too complicated and multilateral to make the conclusion that the North Caucasus as a whole takes a sustainable way to the negative scenario of development. Taking into account the complicated character of this macro-region, such "integral" evaluation/statement is hardly possible at all. It is possible to speak rather about only fixing the main trends of separate republican societies.
Probably, more important is something else. It is possible to suppose that a separate problem of the North Caucasus does not exist at all for Russia, that there is one integral problem "Russia for itself" - the problem of its own systemic state: social-political sustainability and social-economic dynamics, ability / inability to solve the main problems of its development (from demographic to scientific-technical). The roster of the urgent tasks forming the common "super-task" includes as a component the problem of the North Caucasus.
The analysis of the dynamics of the RF for the first decade of the XXI century makes it possible to speak abut scenario of development from force of inertia, which will continue for the second decade with greater probability. This scenario may be called as a way of
conservative-bureaucratic evolution, which does not allow the country to make a leap in decision of the set strategic tasks but not to neglect the situation in any sphere of social life to such extent, when it would destabilize the RF to the state of a deep crisis and more so to result in a social revolution. This scenario of development from force of inertia is clearly seen in the social dynamics of the contemporary North Caucasus.
"Narody Kavkaza v prostranstve Rossiskoi tsivilizatsii: istoricheski opyt i sovremennye problemy ",
R-na-D, 2011, pp 80-84.
Aleksey Malashenko,
D.Sc. (Hist.)
TAJIKISTAN: CIVIL WAR'S LONG ECHO
In terms of internal and external security, Tajikistan has been among the most problematic countries in Central Asia. It is the only state in the region to have gone through a protracted civil war (1992-1997), which, according to various estimates, killed between 23,500 and 100,000 people (perhaps even more) and left the economy in ruins. The causes of this war were rooted not only in political confrontation, but also in confrontation between different regions, clans, and personalities, as well as confrontation within Islam between those who sought to build a secular state and those who wanted an Islamic state.
Tajikistan is an ethnic and linguistic exception in Central Asia. Unlike most of the region's population, which is of Turkic origin, the Tajiks belong to the Iranian group and, though they have many features in common with their neighbors, nonetheless maintain a unique ethnic and cultural identity of their own. The Tajiks are a settled people,
