From: Sorokin@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at (Sorokin Zhenya)
Subject: Re: Stereotypes of Soviet Peoples
Organization: Technical University of Vienna
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:13:22 GMT

In article <Jan.3.15.34.06.1993.27250@pilot.njin.net> hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) writes:
>In article <Sorokin.40.726067397@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at> Sorokin@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at (Sorokin Zhenya) writes:
>
>> Still, I can imagine peaceful coexistence of estonians and russians in 
>> _democratic_ Russia as well as in democratic Estonia. 
>
>I can envision peaceful coexistence among peoples and nations
>of all types. War is a continuation of diplomacy by other means
>and is not the natural state of humans. It is an aberration.
>

It seems like I used a bad word. 
Under "peaceful coexistence" I meant living within one (maybe 
federative) country _without permanent attempts to desintegrate it_. To 
achieve this, both peoples should be ready to obey to the same law, maybe 
with just minor local differences. My claim is, that this is definitely 
achievable (now, in the last decade of XXth century!) between peoples with 
close religions and traditions. If traditions and/or religions are too 
different, such coexistence becomes impossible, and some of the people have 
to be overwhelmimngly dominant, i.e. define the life order. 
My statement doesn't mean, that such willingness to coexistence is always 
present, because there are a lot of other factors : historical, economical, 
political. For example, I am afraid of a strong desintegration of different 
regions of Russia, even populated by russians themselves because of current 
political and economic situation.
However, I cannot imagine open border of islamic Chechnya with democratic 
Russia (of western type, as I hope) even if everything goes to its best.
Can you imagine Turkey participating in after-Maastricht EC?

Actually, I can see no reasons to reject independency of Chechnya. 
Moreover, russian policy must be quick: if Russia gives up to restore 
previuos status-quo, then why not Russia itself (with its 4-million 
unemployed army!) define economic and personal border?
Current situation, where any region can gain profits because Russia reacts 
enormously slow, only strengthens trend to desintegration. All through the 
history of USSR falling apart, Russia always tried to preserve the (already 
non-existent) status-quo by rejecting to impose border regulations, while 
all other countries *began* with it, naturally gaining profits and growing 
mafias within Russia.

>
>And it usually turns out that one culture is dominant in almost
>every country. Religion is only one aspect of culture. The really
>operative word here is nationalism. Kurds in Iraq and Turkey
>are also Muslim, and it hasn't stopped them from trying to
>form their own state. The Muslims in Afghanistan are now
>fighting among themselves. Being Christian did not stop
>the Slovaks, Croations, Slovenes, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians,
>Georgians, Armenians from trying to be completely independent.
>Being Christian and Slavic does not seem to matter much to
>the Ukranians either. And if we look to history, the plight
>of the Jews in Europe over centuries was not exactly 
>heartening either. Complete multi-cultural, multi-lingual,
>multi-religious, and multi-ethnic societies where complete
>equality reigns still seems to be some way off but to
>see the Chechen desire for independence as purely religious
>is trivializing the matter. They have a rather long history
>of fighting desperately for their independence.
>

Yes, and I began the discussion with "asiatic" life order, not with islamic 
religion. Maybe it is only pure historic coincidence, that Islam is mostly 
in Asia (and Africa). So, calling Chchnya "islamic" makes it implicitly 
asian, and for Russia I always have to add word "democratic".

>
>> So, current situation of Chechnya having *open boreders* with Russia cann't 
>> last for long. Either Chechnya will lose its independency and adopt life 
>> order of democratic Russia, or it will turn out to be a completely 
>> independent state with normal borders. In current situation only mafiosy 
>> from both countries make their profits. 
>
>Yes. What happens depends mostly on Russia since the chances of
>Chechens really fighting a war and winning is probably zero.
>

Democratic Russia will not conduct a war, so the decision will be made by 
Chechens (it has been made already). Totalitarian Russia will, and Chechens 
will lose, but it is not even interesting (for me, it is frightening) to 
discuss such opportunity.  

Yours,