The attack on Crocus City Hall shocked Russia, and the regime is using the terror for its own purposes. The effects can already be felt now, says Wladimir Kaminer.
After the attack near Moscow, which killed more than 140 people, the security forces of the Russian Federation presented eleven suspects to the public. All those arrested are citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan. The attack appears to have caught the leadership in the Kremlin off guard.
After turning away from Europe, Russia is increasingly looking for new friends in the Islamic world. Hamas officials were received in the Kremlin, Iran was praised as a close ally and the Afghan Taliban, which is still officially classified as an extremist organization in Russia, was invited to the “Russia – Islamic World” economic forum, which is planned for mid-May in Kazan.
(Quelle: Frank May)
To person
Vladimir Kaminer is a writer and columnist. He was born in Moscow in 1967 and has lived in Germany for more than 30 years. His best-known works include “Russian disco“. His current book “Instructions for use for Neighbors” (with Martin Hyun) has just been released.
“We are in the same boat as the world of Islam; we are rowing against American imperialism,” said President Putin. That’s why he believes that the terrorists were sent to Moscow by NATO, Ukrainian fascists and their henchmen in Washington. It is sad and bizarre at the same time to comment on Russian politics these days: like a blind man, the great country is walking through a swamp of irritations and believes that it is in the same boat as the Muslims. Does the Russian president really not know how divided the Islamic world is?
The radical wing of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS), which claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow, is not friends with the Taliban and considers Iran to be an even greater enemy than the USA. And while the Russian leadership fights with its ideal enemy, the West, it is being defeated by a real enemy. For the IS fighters, Russia is not a friend of Islam, but rather a part of the “white world” that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and oppresses the republics of Central Asia.
Uncertainty everywhere
From ISIS’s perspective, the Russians are to blame for the fact that in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan women are not allowed to wear headscarves and men are not allowed to own harems. And why do people in these countries have to use Cyrillic instead of Arabic script? Russia was not chosen at random as the victim of the terrorist attack. The country has been weakened by the war and its crazy political leadership, the people are becoming more and more unsettled – and that will have major consequences. Three of them can already be noted.
The first consequence of the assassination was a wave of xenophobia. Russia, an aging country, has long been dependent on migrant workers from Central Asia; according to government-produced statistics, there are between seven and twelve million people from the Central Asian republics in Russia. They sweep and build roads, care for the elderly and sit at the supermarket checkouts.
Changes take place every now and then in the countries of origin. During the years of high oil prices, when the ruble was somewhat more stable, people mainly came to Russia from Uzbekistan. Today they are Tajiks. Many of them work illegally and live with twenty people to a room. This is an advantage for their employers: these people without rights are not protected by the law, but as outlaws they do not have to obey the law.
The locals need the migrants and at the same time are afraid of them. If the migrants go for their throats, the police won’t even look for them. This feeds the xenophobia of Russians, who still don’t want to sweep their streets themselves. Immediately after the attack, many Tajiks went home for fear of pogroms. For a short time, the country sank into garbage, no one swept anymore and the construction sites remained silent. After two weeks, the Tajiks realized that the situation was not so bad after all and returned.
