A lesson in stifling violent extremism

Crimea’s Tatars have created a promising model to lessen ethnoreligious conflict.
By Waleed Ziad and Laryssa Chomiak
WASHINGTON, February 20, 2007 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

The effort to help Muslim moderates and democratic reformers, President Bush
insists, is a primary bulwark against ethnoreligious conflict and the terrorism it
breeds. Yet, five years into the war on terror, real-world examples to support that
contention are scarce. There is, however, a conflict zone that has developed a
strong model of stifling violent extremism, one that could be replicated in hot
spots around the world: Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Last month in picturesque Crimea, minority Muslim Tatars clashed violently with
ethnic Russians who make up the majority of the region’s population. This was the
worst in a string of incendiary events that began in August 2006: pro-Moscow
paramilitary gangs assaulted Tatars at their holiest site, a building housing their
parliament was bombed, and a Tatar journalist was assassinated.

Meanwhile, foreign-sponsored Wahhabi Muslim extremist groups appeared on the scene,
urging violent retaliation. Most anywhere else in the world, this would have been
the trigger for a major ethnoreligious war. But thanks to the Tatars’ locally
developed democracy, their leadership was able to avert full-scale hostilities.

The Tatars of Crimea were victims of ethnic cleansing and deportation policies under
Russian czars and later under Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1944, Stalin
deported all Tatars to Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia. Throughout their
exile, Tatars maintained a strong national identity, and, post-Stalin, they formed a
celebrated nonviolent resistance movement.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea became an autonomous republic in Ukraine,
and the resistance movement collaborated with the newly independent Ukrainian
government to secure Tatars’ right of return. However, Crimea continues to be
dominated by its Russian majority and a pro-Moscow party.

The new repatriates faced oppression as ethnic Russian authorities in Crimea
prevented the restitution of land and job opportunities. Rather than be
marginalized, the Tatar leadership’s unique solution was the 1991 creation of the
Mejlis, or “assembly” system, to establish their legitimacy in the Ukrainian
political milieu.

Leaders adopted the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as their political
model, with democracy and nonviolence as guiding doctrines. Early on, Mejlis members
appealed to the UN and the international community for recognition of their rights,
which has resulted in close working ties between the Mejlis and various
international aid organizations. The Mejlis was eventually recognized as a
legitimate political player by Ukraine’s government. Mustafa Jemilev, the father of
the resistance movement, now holds a seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Indeed, he is
part of the Orange bloc coalition, which has been a symbol for democracy in the
region and worldwide.

An elected religious institution, the Muftiyat, was established alongside the Mejlis
system to prevent the inpouring of religious extremism and preserve Tatar Islamic
folk traditions. Amid the ethnic tensions, small-scale Wahhabist groups sponsored by
Arab Gulf states have emerged, including the banned Hizb-i-Tehrir, which castigated
the Mejlis for its “soft” policies. But the Muftiyat, allied with the Mejlis,
denounced these ideologies as “false teachings and objectives rejected by Islam,”
and swiftly silenced the radicals with popular tolerance and education campaigns at
local mosques.

The overwhelming success of the Mejlis in preventing the spread of violence rests on
its exclusive reliance on negotiations, international support, and nonviolent public
protests. When Tatar rights are denied or provocation occurs, Mejlis leaders step in
to mediate. And the Mejlis actively prevents the formation of independent militias,
recognizing their detriment to any negotiation process.

Despite many roadblocks, peaceful Tatar activism has achieved what was previously
inconceivable: repatriation and citizenship for 250,000 Tatars, quasi- recognition
of the Mejlis by the central government, and seats within Ukrainian and Crimean
legislatures.

The Crimean Tatar experience proves that there is indeed a nonviolent prophylactic
for ethnoreligious conflict. Giving official recognition to the political
aspirations of indigenous minorities helps address popular grievances through
peaceful negotiation instead of street violence. That’s the lesson of the Mejlis and
Muftiyat in Crimea. And it’s the lesson that should be applied to other conflict
zones, from Muslim minority populations across the former Soviet Union, to the Kurds
in Syria and the Moros in the Philippines.

Fostering local participatory movements isn’t just about keeping democracy healthy.
In the global war on terror, it’s one of the best defenses against transnational
fundamentalism.

Waleed Ziad, an economic consultant and a principal at the Truman National
Security Project, writes extensively on Islamic fundamentalist movements. Laryssa
Chomiak, a Department of Homeland Security fellow, covered the Crimean Tatar
minority for the University of Maryland’s Minorities at Risk Project. They recently
returned from Crimea, where they interviewed Tatar leaders.