Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T10:08:04.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Look Who's Talking! Islamic Discourse in the Chechen Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Scott Radnitz
Scott Radnitz*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A. sradnitz@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In any contemporary conflict, the war of ideas may be just as important as the war on the battlefield. Throughout history, propaganda has been used as a tool of psychological warfare. The prevalence of technology makes the mass media an ever more vital tool in spreading one's message, both to combatants and throughout the world. The case of the Chechen wars demonstrates the importance both sides placed on publicity in the course of fighting. In addition to the use of print journalism, the Chechen wars witnessed the employment of television news broadcasts, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Internet as a means to spread messages. Given the importance of the media, the public and private discourse by the combatants has been seen as crucial to their cause. The language of Islam carries a set of widely shared symbols, many related to war, that can be used to manipulate public opinion. This article will analyze how Islamic language was used in the two Russian invasions of Chechnya in the 1990s (1994–1996, 1999–2002). It analyzes three pairs of variables: Russian and Chechen public discourse, especially regarding the language of Islam; Chechen public and Chechen private discourse; and the discourse of both sides in the first war compared to the second war.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 237 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. See, among others, William H. Sewell, Jr, “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in: Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, eds, Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 35–61; John J. Gumperz and Jenny Cook Gumperz, “Introduction: Language and the Communication of Social Identity,” in: John J. Gumperz, ed., Language and Social Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 1–21; John C. Turner, et al., Rediscovering the Social Group (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987).Google Scholar

2. Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review , Vol.51, 1986, p. 273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Talcott Parsons, Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (New York: Macmillan, 1977), p. 164.Google Scholar

4. Joseph Schull, “What is Ideology? Theoretical Problems and Lessons from Soviet-Type Societies,” Political Studies , Vol. XL, 1992, p. 731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo (New York: New York Uuniversity Press, 1998), p. 341.Google Scholar

6. Random House College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 1981).Google Scholar

7. Philo C. Wasburn, Broadcasting Propaganda (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 5.Google Scholar

8. Fitzhugh Green, American Propaganda Abroad (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1988), p. 80.Google Scholar

9. Gary D. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda (New York: St. Martin's press, 1996), 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. 342, 350.Google Scholar

11. Jean Edward Smith, George Bush's War (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1992), p. 99. In 2002, his son, President George W. Bush, made the same comparison. Anne E. Kornblut and Charles M. Sennott, “Bush Seeks NATO Solidarity,” Boston Globe, 21 November, 2002.Google Scholar

12. Smith, George Bush's War , p. 250.Google Scholar

13. See Reuven Firestone, Jihad: The Origin of the Holy War in Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

14. Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), p. 32.Google Scholar

15. Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 181.Google Scholar

16. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).Google Scholar

17. Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 73.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., p. 77.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

20. Nazih N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 60.Google Scholar

21. Hamid Enayat, “Iran: Khumayni's Concept of the ‘Guardianship of the Jurisconcult”‘, in: James P. Piscatori, ed., Islam in the Political Process , quoted in Ayubi, Political Islam, p. 146.Google Scholar

22. Ruhollah Khomeini, Islamic Government (New York: Manor Books, Inc., 1979), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., p. 66Google Scholar

24. Chubin and Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War , p. 38Google Scholar

25. Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 142.Google Scholar

26. Chubin and Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War , p. 96.Google Scholar

27. Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 187.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 187.Google Scholar

29. “Timeline: Chechnya,” BBC News, accessed May 4, 2006, <http://news.bbc.co.uk>..>Google Scholar

30. John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Richard Boudreaux, “Faith Fuels Chechen Fighters”, Los Angeles Times , February 9, 1995.Google Scholar

32. Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power , (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 361Google Scholar

33. Chechnya was technically part of the Chechen–Ingush Autonomous Republic until a local referendum in December 1991 brought about the division into Chechnya and Ingushetia.Google Scholar

34. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya , p. 98Google Scholar

35. Lieven, p. 75.Google Scholar

36. Theories include: the problems in Chechnya becoming too intolerable politically for Yeltsin, then president, to endure; Russia was losing too much of the proceeds from energy reserves in Chechnya; Yeltsin felt a personal affront from the insults of Dudayev and had to save face; hijackings and banditry from Chechnya posed a real threat to Russia's national security and territorial integrity. Sebastian Smith, Allah's Mountains (New York: LB. Tarius, 1998); Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya; Lieven; Stasys Knezys and Romanas Sedlickas, The War in Chechnya (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998); Georgi M. Derluguian, “Grudge Match In Grozny”, Newsday January 8, 1995.Google Scholar

37. Smith, Allah's Mountains , p. 260.Google Scholar

38. “Islam Influences Life, Politics in Postwar Chechnya”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch , January 26, 1997.Google Scholar

39. Ibid.Google Scholar

40. Richard Beeston, “Public Executions for Grozny”, The Times , September 10, 1997. Maskhadov and Shamil, heroes in the First Chechen War, had a falling out during the inter-war period over the radicalization and Islamic nature of the republic, a division which, after Maskhadov was dragged into another war (into which and Basayev, it seems, also dragged Russia), was reflected in the ways they described the war, as will be seen.Google Scholar

41. “Maskhadov on Current Chechnya Situation,” Moscow Obshchaya Gazeta , February 19–25, 1998 No 7.Google Scholar

42. David Filipov, “Russian Nemesis Rises Again: Chechen Rebel Hero is a Leader in Dagestan Uprising”, The Boston Globe , August 12, 1999.Google Scholar

43. For two opposing views, see Masha Lipman, “Chechenization is Failing,” Washington Post , May 11, 2004 and C.J. Chivers, “Signs of Renewal Emerge from Chechnya's Ruins,” New York Times, May 4, 2006.Google Scholar

44. Data was obtained from a search of all articles pertaining to Chechnya on Lexis-Nexis and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service from 1994 to 2002.Google Scholar

45. “Chechens Urged to Fight to Death against Russians”, USA Today , December 15, 1994.Google Scholar

46. Matt Bivens, “From Hideout, Top Chechen Vows Rebel Raids on Russia,” Los Angeles Times , February 18, 1995.Google Scholar

47. “Dudayev Spurns Peace Talks, Elections,” Moskovskoye Novosti (80), November 19–26, 1995.Google Scholar

48. Bivens.Google Scholar

49. Tony Barber, “Muslim Ire Raised by Russian Tactics”, The Irish Times , December 21, 1994.Google Scholar

50. Richard Boudreaux, “Faith Fuels Chechen Fighters; Islam has Inspired Young Soldiers and Elderly Villagers,” Los Angeles Times , February 9, 1995.Google Scholar

51. Ibid.Google Scholar

52. “Khattab on Russia, Islam, Chechnya,” Prague Lidove Noviny , September 6, 1999.Google Scholar

53. David Filipov, “Russian Nemesis Rises Again; Chechen Rebel Hero Is a Leader in Dagestan Uprising,” The Boston Globe , August 12, 1999.Google Scholar

54. “Chechen Leader on War, Solution, Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), October 7, 1999.Google Scholar

55. Olivia Ward, “Rebels Resigned to Play More Russian Roulette”, The Toronto Star , September 25, 1999.Google Scholar

56. “Interview with Chechen President Asian Maskhadov,” Le Monde , May 4, 2000.Google Scholar

57. Marcus Warren, “Chechens Beam their Defiance from the Hills”, Daily Telegraph (London), February 1, 2000.Google Scholar

58. “Basayev Calls for Struggle against Russian Aggressors in Funding Squabbles,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta , May 26, 2001.Google Scholar

59. Ali Merjo , “The Struggle Going on,” September 8, 2001 <http://kavkaz.org>..>Google Scholar

60. Scott Peterson, “Defiance of Russia only Deepens in Chechnya”, The Christian Science Monitor , May 22, 2001.Google Scholar

61. David Filipov, “Moscow Warns Muslim States off Dagestan”, The Boston Globe , August 15, 1999.Google Scholar

62. David Hoffman, “Yeltsin Assails Army ‘Sloppiness’; Chechen Guerrillas Press Offensive in Dagestan,” Washington Post , September 8, 1999.Google Scholar

63. “Russia to Wipe Out ‘Terrorists‘—Even in Toilet,” Reuters, September 24, 1999.Google Scholar

64. Marcus Warren, “Putin Sacks General as Battle for Grozny Rages Frustration Over Failure to Seize Capital Results in Shake-up of the High Command,” Daily Telegraph (London) , January 23, 2000.Google Scholar

65. As it happened, Russian special forces killed Maskhadov in 2005. The Kavkaz Center website posted a defiant message in response: “For those who fight for Allah, the jihad continues.” “Russian MPs Hail Maskhadov's Death,” March 9, 2005 <http://news.bbc.co.uk>..>Google Scholar

66. Kathleen Knox, “How Western Attitudes toward Wars Have Shifted,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 3, 2003 <http://rferl.org>..>Google Scholar

67. “Shamil Basayev Made an Announcement”, September 22, 1999 <http://kavkaz.org>..>Google Scholar

68. Putin was quoted as saying, “If you want to become a complete Islamic radical and are ready to undergo circumcision, then I invite you to Moscow. We are a multidenominational country. We have specialists in this question as well. I will recommend that he carry out the operation in such a way that after it nothing else will grow.” Thomas Fuller, “Putin's Words Spark Confusion at EU,” International Herald Tribune , November 13, 2002.Google Scholar

69. “Russia, Country Reports and Human Rights Practices 2003,” US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 25, 2004.Google Scholar

70. “Bin Laden Rails against Crusaders and UN,” March 11, 2001 <http://news.bbc.co.uk>..>Google Scholar

71. “Jihad against Jews and Crusaders,” February 23, 1998 <http://www.fas.org>..>Google Scholar