Window on Eurasia

Moscow’s Ties to Islamic World Could Make Russia a ‘Russistan,’ Chudinova Says

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 29, 2006 – The Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to form alliances with countries in the Islamic world might under certain conditions help Moscow to win a kind of victory over the United States, but such a
victory, however welcome, would be Pyrrhic because it would help
convert Russia into a “Russistan,” Elena Chudinova warned last week.

Chudinova, whose bestselling novel “The Mosque of Notre Dame de Paris” warns about the dangers of a Muslim take-over of Europe, said that such an outcome was the kind of “victory” that she “as a Russian writer” considers to be totally unacceptable
[http://i-r-p.ru/page/stream-document/index-6078].

In her article, she points to the recent comments of Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), that Russia is only “a conception” and to the existence of what she says is a Chechen “trace” in terrorist actions everywhere as evidence of the threats Russia now faces from the Islamic world at home and abroad.

The increasingly outspoken author of Orthodox children’s books then
advances the argument that Moscow’s recent decisions to expand its
broadcasts to the Arab world and to reach out to Muslim countries
rather than the West were not only misguided but would prove counterproductive from the point of view of Russia’s national interests.

On the one hand, she says, increasing Arabic language broadcasts to the
Muslim world was the equivalent of broadcasting to the Nazis “in
German sometime in 1940.” Some might think now as they did then that
such broadcasts could solidify an alliance, but in fact, both then and
now they only put off a final reckoning between the two.

Instead of wasting money on Arabic broadcasts which she insists will do
little to promote Moscow’s interests, the Russian government ought to
be increasing its broadcasts to Western countries and working to
develop “a propaganda machine” to help build up a common Christian front
where possible against the Islamist threat.

And on the other hand, she argues, while it is not wrong for Moscow to
seek to develop good ties with Asian countries, it is important that
they be the right countries – economic powerhouses like Japan, China
and India – rather than Muslim countries who simply are happy to line
up with Moscow when it opposes Washington.

She goes on to suggest that in her view, “the optimum model of foreign
policy of Russia ought to conform to the following model:” close ties
with the Asian tigers and cooperation with the West against Muslim
terrorism. Because Islamis the enemy, she suggests, Moscow in the end
will desert Muslim states for the West -- and they know it.

In her article, Chudinova makes three other extremely dramatic declarations. First, she says, Moscow should adopt an even tougher policy toward the Baltic countries because of their “mistreatment” of ethnic Russians living there, even as it encourages those Russians to return to their homeland, the Russian Federation.

Second, she argues, Russia should focus most of its foreign policy efforts on the many problems now looming along its periphery and should work quickly to include within its borders the so-called “unrecognized states” of Transdniestria, South Ossetia and Abkhasia.

And third, she says, Moscow should copy the approach of the European
Union and the United States in the former Yugoslavia and work to divide
Ukraine into two parts, in order that the Russian speakers in the one
would enjoy the protection that only Moscow could provide them.

Unfortunately, Chudinova concludes, from her perspective as a Russian
writer, “the present-day picture [as far as Moscow’s understanding
of the dangers it faces and of Russia’s national interests is
concerned] does not as yet provide many grounds for optimism.”