Protesting Russia in Dagestan

Robert sits down with Dr. Karena Avedissian to discuss anti draft protests in Dagestan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things
falling apart. I am Robert Evans, and today we're going
to talk about a specific part of Eurasia where I
don't know, things are kind of on the edge of
of of falling apart and maybe becoming something else. As
I'm sure most people are aware, Russia expanded its invasion
of Ukraine earlier this year. UM. It has not gone well,

(00:27):
and the government has recently announced that they are doing
a general mobilization and bringing another three thousand soldiers into
their armed forces. UH. The significant chunk, if not the bulk,
of these recruitments are coming from areas away from the
on the periphery of Russian power, you might say, UM,
particularly different chunks of the Russian state, UM, where there

(00:50):
are minority populations who have been UH dissident to the
to the Federation of Russia in the past. UM. Probably
the most active of the is a place called Dagistan UM.
Most Americans probably are not super well versed on this area.
It is the furthest southern point in the Russian State.
It borders Azerbaijan. UM. It's pretty close to Turkey and UH.

(01:13):
This is a region that has a massive Muslim population
and has been the side a whole lot of resistance
to the Russian state in the recent past. And today
we're going to be talking about what that looks like
now as the government is attempting to draft men from
this part of the state and and as sort of

(01:33):
resistance has risen up significantly within Dagistan UM. I'm going
to be talking with Karina Avidisition. Karina is a PhD
studying social movements in particularly in Russia. UM. Karina, welcome
to the show. Thanks for having me. UM. So, first off,
I'm not an expert on on Dagistan UM. What do

(01:54):
you think is important for people to know about the
relationship between this region and the Russian state. UM. It's
the biggest republic in the North Caucasus UM, and it
has actually independent media still depe despite the really intense
repression UM and the dozens of disappeared or murdered journalists

(02:18):
from from the republic. UM. Kinship ties are strong Indugistan.
So the announcement of mobilization and the kind of you know,
the start of the mobilization process UM really affects people
because extended families are closed. So when someone has taken
away affects a lot of people. UM. So that um,
in large part kind of explains the level of mobilization.

(02:42):
The other thing I want to mention is that the
North Caucasus region in general, but especially Dugistan and Chechnia UM,
just kind of don't see themselves as part of Russia. UM.
To be honest, Russians don't really care about what happens
there either. I mean, you know, it's as if it's
another country and there's this huge disconnect um. So there

(03:05):
doesn't really exist this kind of civic Russian identity um.
And the concept of Russia as a country is to
a large extent held together by sheer oppression and propagania. UM. Yeah,
that's kind of kind of way I try to focus on,
like this is a part of the Russian state rather
than like these areas are Russian, because that's certainly not
the way it feels on the ground or the people

(03:26):
feel about themselves. Yeah, exactly. UM. And you can kind
of see differences in the way police respond to these
protests in Russian regions versus places like Dagistan. Um. In
Russian regions and by Russian region, I mean, you know,
places where you know, Russian ethnic Russians are a majority. Um,

(03:47):
you have people or you have police kind of arresting
or detaining interesting protesters, whereas in Dakistan, UM, you know,
the tactics of the arrest sing people. You know, her
being kind of carted off is really significant because of
the history of violence in the republic. UM, So abductions, UM,

(04:09):
disappearances and murder is very common. UM. And this is
something that I've heard Dakistani protest participants kind of expressed
to fear about. Like, you know, people know that that
might happen. You might get identified among the protesters, and
you might not get detained interested like you would you
know in Moscow for example, but you might get you know,
identified and then kind of targeted later, which is yeah,

(04:33):
I mean obviously very frightening. UM. One of the things
that I had read kind of about part some of
the origins of the conflict in the region right now
is that it had been common for some time because
the the economy in Dagistan. Dakistan is in the Caucusus,
which is a mountainous region in southern Russia, and it's
where a great deal of the country's fuel comes from. UM.

(04:56):
There are kind of folks who will say that the
government of the Federation has like avoided utilizing that infrastructure
to the most that it can to avoid providing jobs,
and it's made a lot of young men joined the
military to become contract soldiers. In the past, that was
a good way to provide for if you had a
large family, you do a military contract, you're not going

(05:17):
to get sent outside of the region. It's pretty safe.
But then of course Putin invades Ukraine and suddenly a
lot of these people who had been doing this not
because they wanted to support the Russian Federation because it
was a job, are suddenly being sent to go fight
and die in outside of Kharkiv or wherever. Yeah, the
other thing is that's why there's so many security personnel

(05:38):
kind of internally in the Republic as well. So the
republic experience it's high unemployment UM. That's mentioned poverty UM,
and it's almost by design rights so many people just
relying on the state for jobs and security UM services
as one of the main UM sources of employment. But
that also kind of has that double effect of UM
you know, being used as a tool for repression. So

(06:00):
any time kind of descent comes up, even you know,
when a large part of the grievances are about poverty
and unemployment and just kind of having a future, you
have UM a kind of excess of people who are
ready to kind of suppress UM any expression of kind
of descent that might lead to problems later. And it

(06:20):
seems like a great deal of discent right now is
coming from UM, the Muslim pop in particularly like the
Muslim religious community within Dagastan. The reason that you and
I are talking right now is you you shared and
commented on a post um without someone was sharing a
piece of protest art um that was referencing a recent

(06:41):
comment by the Deputy Mufti of Dagastan Um and it's
a stylized drawing of several mountains on a green background
that says the invader doesn't become a martyr. And if
I'm interpreting that correctly, what what that's saying is, it's
it's a statement of protests from within the Islamic community
of Dagastan saying if you go to someone else's homeland

(07:01):
to take part in an invasion and you die, you're
not being martyred, You're not dying in a way that
is that is, you know, uh, respected by a law essentially.
Is that am I? Am I interpreting that correctly? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah,
that's exactly what it's saying. I found that remarkable, UM
for a couple of reasons. UM. The first is that

(07:22):
descend in the region originally, so you know, after the
colops of the Soviet Union and then the First Church
in War, there was descent, but it was mostly limited
to ethno nationalist movements who were very narrow in their messaging.
So their grievances were you know, just about their one
ethnic group and you know, whatever repression that they experienced.
So UM, they kind of missed out on broader support,

(07:44):
and political Islam became a channel for UM kind of
representing oppositional identity. UM. And because of that cutting across
the ethnic lines through selfism, which is UM kind of
a stricter interpretation of Islam, which is prone to radicalization. UM,

(08:05):
that had much broader support and posed a significant threat
to Moscow. And I want to kind of make a
parallel here because mosques and religious communities across the world
are actually really UM interesting spaces for social movement mobilization. UM.
Some of the earliest works on social movement mobilization talked

(08:26):
about black churches in the US as being you know,
key to the civil rights movement because you know, these
spaces that are kind of away from the state, away
from surveillance. Although in Legistan and lots of parts of
Russian Muslim spaces are are up totally unfiltrated by the
state or they're actually you know, state most these or

(08:47):
the state's eyes and ears are kind of there. But
still there's these spaces, and I think that's a big,
kind of, um significant key factor in how this movement
has been able to mobilize and interested in because obviously
Chechnia is another part of Russia that has a large
Muslim population. There was a horrible war, they're not all

(09:08):
that long ago. That is really a prelude in a
lot of waste, the kinds of violence and the kinds
of repressive tactics that are being used right now by
the Russian state. Um, what what sort of separates like
why didn't Dagastan kind of go the same way as
czech Nia? Like how I'm kind of interested in in
and that because it seems as if the muftis there

(09:31):
are much more willing to kind of act in resistance
to the States. Still, is it just a factor of
the violence that was unleashed on Chechnya earlier? Is there
more to it? Um? I think in large part it's yeah.
I mean, that's the legacy of violence and war um
in Chechnia. But I think it's partly because of how
this kind of historical view of touching as being um,

(09:52):
you know, a threat a problem for the Russian Empire previously,
and then Soviet Union and then you know independent Russia,
you know, um. And it's really the rule of Ramzan Kadetto,
which plays a really suppressing role in the republic and
his security services. Chechnia has experienced post war. I would

(10:16):
argue it's it's calmer and in a in a strange way.
I mean, I was when I was doing my field
work in the North Cooxus, I visited Czechnia. I was
in Cambard Noble Karia, which is you know, a couple
of republics over um it didn't experience war, but I
remember at the time there were counter terrorists operations and
carver Do No Bulkaria where the security services would kind
of lock down whole neighborhoods and kind of storm impartment

(10:38):
buildings to go after someone who had been you know,
identified as a problem and just kind of, you know,
neutralize that person. They were rarely detained, they were just
kind of killed, no questions us. Then going to Chechnia
from that kind of context, that stuff doesn't happen, just
because the security apparatus is so strong and so intense
that that kind of thing doesn't happen. At the same time,

(11:01):
you feel that tension, that kind of fear. Um. So
I think that's the main reason why, um, you're not
seeing these sort of protests in Chechnya when we talk
about like what is it reasonable to hope for here?

(11:25):
I wonder if you have any thoughts on that from
Dagastan like in in terms of resistance to both this
kind of general conscription order and resistance in general to
the to the increasing imperial aims of the Russian state. Yeah,
I think it's revealing those tracks that I mentioned in
the beginning about identity and then kind of this this
region not feeling like a part of Russia. And I think, um,

(11:48):
the other thing is that it it it's unprecedented in
many ways just in terms of its messaging, and you
protest movements in general are seemed to kind of when
you participate it in a movement, UM, it's it's sort
of transforming. On an individual level. You feel like you're
part of something. You see all these other people on

(12:08):
the street, who are you agreeing with you in a
context that's so authoritarian where and you don't you know,
have that freedom to speak out there's no free media. UM.
In general. UM it's it's it's transformative. And I think
that's probably for me, at least as a social movement scholar,
the most interesting aspects. I mean, we can't predict, we

(12:29):
don't know what's going to happen. There might be in
a new wave of repression. UM, but it's it's revealing
these cracks and UM kind of almost providing this proof
of the the lie of this you know, unified Russian
state that that is being kept together by a repression
and propaganda. UM. I think the messaging also reflects a

(12:54):
change in identity, in oppositional identity in the region. UM.
Previously protests in the region were directed at the local leadership,
so at the republican level, right, so these are usually
co ethnics who are installed by Moscow. Not so much
to govern, but more to manage UM and check and leader.

(13:16):
Ransankado is an extreme case of this, and it was
a practice common in Imperial Russia. Right, you install your
own guy, but he's local, so it sits better with
the population, even if they're only there to carry out
policies that are decided and UM. So those protest movements
were normally against the Republican authorities, um, their excesses, their corruption,

(13:39):
um you know. And again the exception to that is philotism,
which was targeting both Moscow and the local leadership. But
here in this new wave of protest movement, the sentiment
the grievances against Putin and that's totally now. And I
one of the things that is kind of remarkable is

(14:00):
as you've gotten in the wave of and these are
not just in Dagistan, but Dagastan had a lot of
the protest against this general mobilization order, you actually have
what what looks to me and you're you're certainly certainly
no more than I do. So tell me if you
think my analysis, if this is wrong, but looks to
me like the regime blinking a little bit. Because in
the wake of the protests you had both Putin and

(14:21):
a number of different local leaders come out and say
we because one of the things that was happening as
soon as the mobilization started, as you saw a lot
of these people, including like doctors, healthcare workers, other kinds
of professionals and industries that are generally protected from this
sort of thing getting pulled in by state forces and
effectively drafted on the spot along with protesters and um.

(14:42):
The in the wake of the outcry against that, Putin
himself and a number of other local leaders have come
out and been like, this was a mistake. We're releasing
a number of these people, these these certain certain you know,
we're not supposed to be drafting people from these certain
professions and whatnot. And to me that looked like, well,
maybe that's a little bit of a blink, um, But
I don't know if perhaps I'm being overly optimistic there No,

(15:04):
I agree, um. And it speaks to the level of mobilization,
that kind of unprecedented um um levels of mobilization on
the street, and also speaks to the fact that you know,
previously Moscow, I mean they didn't care as much when
the protests were directed at the local authorities. I mean
they did, but not like this, this is this is

(15:26):
threatening UM. And I was listening to an interview of
a protest organizer from Augustan. He's exiled, like he's kind
of you know, in touch with the people on the
ground and he and he was talking about how he
felt that the reason mobilization orders have been UM commissioned
kind of to the Republican regional authorities is on purpose

(15:49):
so that grievances UM aren't directed towards Moscow, because it's
the regional authorities deciding on who's being mobilized UM. And
it's a kind of deflection of aim that he thought
was by design. And the interviewer asked him a couple
of other questions. He was saying, oh, you know, we're
hearing reports about the police being really brutal UM. And

(16:10):
again he was like, no, not really, or that's not
the point, that's not the question to be asking. It's
actually deflecting because again, the grievance is not to the
local police, it's actually towards Moscow. Who is you know,
the origin of this whole problem. And I think that's
that's a threat. Do you have any kind of advice

(16:39):
for people if they're looking as kind of things continue
to develop in Dagistan, as there are more protests, which
I'm sure there will be, are there actually like organizations
over there that can be supported by people, um, including
you mentioned independent media there. UM. I'm just wondering if
you have any kind of particular advice for folks who
might either want to learn more about the region what's

(16:59):
going on, um, or who might want to try and
help the people who are protesting right now. UM. Unfortunately,
there's um not much for our siders to do a
lot of the news, and I think it was kind
of expecting that. An. Yeah, yeah, it's like it's kind
of a denied context. So where I get the news
is a couple of telegram channels that are only in Russian. UM,

(17:23):
so that probably doesn't help your audience if they don't
speak Russian. There's a couple of Twitter accounts that I
would recommend people follow, you know, UM there's UM, I
don't know, I can mention that or yeah please no, absolutely,
let me quickly find the guide personally. When it comes
to like where I'm able to get English language news
about the region, MEDUSA is generally kind of like one

(17:46):
of the places where I've gotten some MEDUSA is a
Russian news site that's or news organization that's banned in Russia.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken, a MEDUSA journalist just
got arrested in Dagastan by the State Security Services. UM.
But you can go to to Dousa dot io and
that's one place where I've come across news that's English language. UM.

(18:06):
It's not the most detailed coverage, but it's kind of
hard to find that in English about stuff going on
in Dagistan. It is, it is hard to find, and
I would echo that sentiment of MEDUSA being a good
source for that. UM. There's a researcher on Twitter named
Harold Chambers. His handle is Chambers Harold eight, the number eight,
and he is an analyst and he is posting kind

(18:28):
of more detailed, you know, in the weeds, up to
you know, up to date, day to day developments from
from the region. UM. And is there anything like as
as we I'm kind of closing out here, UM, that
you wanted to particularly get into about what's happening over
there about kind of, um, the development of social movements

(18:49):
in Dagistan right now that you you find particularly fascinating
that you'd like to kind of talk about to the audience. Yeah,
I think, um, the context of the Russian war on
terrorism in the North, because this praised a huge role
here UM. And I mentioned, you know, the counter terrorists
operations that that Marcia used to use in the region
as a repression tool UM, so they didn't have to

(19:10):
be seal office or kind of you know, seeing this
extremists to be targeted and stuff like that, like secular
Dukistani's and Chechens were absolutely targeted, and and that kind
of in those UM in in those UM in that
context of counter terrorism. And it's really the fact that
your Dugist studies are really tired of the repression. People

(19:31):
leave the Republic and move abroad UM because they've been
labeled a terrorist and they don't want to die UM.
And when their family send them money UM to support
them abroad, they get um labeled as terrorists because they're helping,
you know, support a terrorists. So it's it's why it's
also why the movement is leaderless UM, because there's really
no intelligencia or leaders left in the republic um anymore.

(19:55):
Anyone who had any kind of critical standpoint UM has
either been killed or exile, so we have to see
the mobilization in Augusta is kind of you know, with
that backdrop. People are tired of the repression. Um and
and yeah, the protests are spontaneous, and the fact that
it's horizontal is also unprecedented, and it obviously means that

(20:17):
it's much harder to repress the movement and suppress it
because there's no individuals to kind of target. That's interesting
because that's obviously a global trend that we've seen in
protest movements, not just against the Russian state, but around
the world. Governments have gotten much better at not finding
leaders in protest movements, compromising them, going after them, targeting them,

(20:40):
arresting them. Um. It's and I think this has been
a part of why all over the world you've seen
so many more horizontal movements leading street protests against different
kinds of oppression, because it's really the only thing that
can't be compromised easily by the security forces. Yeah, especially
in an authoritarian contexts. Yeah. Well, um, Karina, is there

(21:04):
anything else you wanted to say before we close out? No, No,
that's it all right. Well, why don't we talk a
little bit about your plugs here? Because you have a
podcast that you're about to be starting. Yeah, I'm starting
a podcast. It is called Obscure ston Podcasts, where we'll
talk about the bizarre and fucked up nature of the

(21:25):
region of eur Asia. Um, but also more importantly how
it got that way. Yeah, so that's what we're doing.
I can think a few more topics, more important topics
for people, particularly people just where I live. To understand,
so many people have been affected in in You know,
we're looking at the energy crisis hitting the UK and
and to a slightly lesser extent, continental Europe. Right now,

(21:46):
we're looking at rising food prices in the United States,
all of it tied to this conflict, which people wouldn't
have been surprised by if they'd been paying attention to
Eurasian history and politics a little bit more. Um. So
I I think that's a commendable effort and I'm excited
to start listening. UM. Thank you so much. Yes, can
I mentioned one last thing? So I'm I'm sitting in

(22:09):
Armenia and speaking to you from Armenia. So, UM, I
would just encourage your listeners to find out about what's happening.
We were recently attacked bios preson and um, we have
some four d Ande score kilometers that are currently occupied
by us by Janni soldiers. So I would encourage people
to learn about the conflict and kind of pay attention
to what's happening here. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, we continue to

(22:31):
be big advocates for folks paying attention to that. Um.
And uh yeah, it's it's I don't know, you know,
I had this brief period of like optimism when the
White House started making statements and Pelosi visited that, like
and we'll see maybe that. I know there's like there's
a vote coming up right now in Congress to stop

(22:54):
selling weapons to these aries, which would be at least
a start. Um. But I mean, you know, it's the
what's I think is necessary is for our media to
have access to the kind of weapons that have been
so successful at stopping for an aggression in other countries.
Shall we say? Yeah, yeah, Well all right, Coriina, thank

(23:15):
you so much for your time. That's gonna be our
show for the day. Have a good one. Everybody keep
paying attention to stuff it could happen here. As a
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(23:38):
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