Islam poses some problems for Moscow

Press, 30 January 1982, Page 12

Islam poses some problems for Moscow

By

MARK FRANKLAND

Few countries, conduct such a delicate and complicated policy in the Islamic world as the Soviet Union. In the Middle East, the Soviet Union is the necessary ally of Muslim Arabs in their quarrel with an American-supported Israel. In Afghanistan, the Soviet army is fighting against . guerrilla groups which afe united, if they are united by anything, by a passionate belief in Islam. And at home, the Soviet leadership has to cope with a large Muslim minority whose religion the country’s education policy is officially committed to weaken.

The world-wide revival of Islam has made the treatment of Soviet Muslims a matter of growing interest throughout the world. The Soviet Government has reacted by stressing the freedom of Soviet Muslims to practise their faith and the facilities that are granted them. But at the same time official Soviet publications continue to express alarm at the persistence of Islamic beliefs and practices inside its territory.

The Soviet census of 1979 shows that there are over 43 million people in traditionally Muslim ethnic groups. This is more than 16 per cent of the total Soviet population. Most live in the Caucasus and the

republics oi Central Asia and it is from these regions that most of the signals of alarm about the durability and possibly even the spread of Islam have been coming.

One of the latest is from the Central Asian republic of Kirgizia. which has a common border with China. An article in “Sovietskaya Kirgizia” links the persistence of Islamic practices directly to the world Islamic revival: “Imperialism and foreign Muslim reaction are making great efforts to introduce ‘the flame of Islamic rebirth’ into the Soviet Union and thus destabilise the situation in the republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and in the Caucasus, to inflame nationalist prejudices in those regions, and arouse among believers dissatisfaction with the policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet State.”

What seems most to worry the author is that the education and control mechanisms that have been designed to wean people away from Islam are not being used properly. He writes of unregistered Muslim associations and mullahs operating illegally in various parts of the republic. He also points out that attempts are being made to open new mosques or enlarge existing ones without official approval. (All religious

communities and ministers of religion must, by Soviet law, be registered with the State authorities and no religious building may be put up without their permission.)

Muslim ceremonies persist, the' article continues, although alternative “Soviet” ceremonies have been designed specifically to replace them. What is more. Communist Party and Komsomol (Young Communists) members have taken part in Muslim ceremonies and services and this is a cause for “serious concern.” In general, “religious rites are only slowly on the decrease." Pilgrimages are still being made to holy places and in Frunze, the republic’s capital, and some other towns the erection of expensive Muslim tombs is even on the increase.

Just what percentage of Soviet citizens belonging to traditionally Muslim ethnic groups are active believers is impossible to say. But experts have pointed out that Islam’s existence as a way of life, with its many customs important for family and community living, give it a peculiarly enduring quality. A Soviet Muslim may not go to a mosque, but he is very likely nevertheless to observe some Muslim practices concerning weddings, burial, circumcision and the non-use of pork and alcohol.

The majority of the Muslim population of Soviet Central Asia live in villages where Islamic customs are far easier to keep than in the Russianised cities, it is not surprising that Soviet writers complain that the process by which religious belief is handed on from generation to generation still survives more or less intact in Central Asia. The answer, accordin to “Sovietskaya Kirgizia,” is to improve atheist education. At the

moment this seems to be in a quite unsatisfactory f state. There are not enough trained propagandists of atheism and schools often don’t take atheist studies seriously. The writer ends, though, with a warning: “All atheistic work should be carried out thoughtfully and extremely carefully. In the struggle against religious prejudices, crudeness, administrative measures and hurting the feelings of believers must not be allowed.”

Islam has caught the Soviet authorities in a dilemma. On the one hand, Moscow likes to display its Soviet Muslims as a sort of visiting card’ to the Islamic world. On the other, it would like to see most of those Soviet Muslims turned by the touch of atheist propaganda into non-believers. The two aims are not easy to combine, especially under the gaze of an increasingly self-confident Islam.—Copyright, London Observer Service. «