Research in Russia

My research in Russia has been so similar to the rest of the world but I have also had several personal breakthroughs. In Russia, I found strong Muslim organizations all centering around the mosques and the Muslim administrative boards for each area. The administrative boards are the next generation after boards from the Soviet Union. During communist time, the boards were used to control the Muslim communities by focusing authority at the top and close to the party. After the end of communism, the administrative boards were separated from the government but are still very strong and very much in control. I spoke with both the administrative boards in Moscow and Kazan to give me the general picture of the Muslim community in both cities. At each meeting it felt like I was talking with government officials and it was very obvious I was getting the official tagline about the communities. These ‘rosy’ pictures are similar across boarders and within each country I’ve visited. In Russia, it was interesting that I found individuals who told of their frustration with the strong administration. They complained about the difficulty small groups had in maintaining their operations and the pressures put on them by higher authorities. Although, this was clearly not government pressure, it was probably a result of the climate created under the Soviet Union and the structure of administration still in place.

Because of these restrictions, I did not find as many groups in Moscow that were willing to talk with me. It is important to note that there is a lot of literature on how underdeveloped civil society is in Russia. This assumes that there was no civil society under the Soviet Union or that the traditions established before Soviet times have no activities that resemble civil society. I am suspicious of both assumptions and have found evidence to the contrary. In 1917, there was the First All-Russian Congress of Muslims held in Moscow that debated social issues of the time (this was pre-Revolution) both within Islam and in society. The Soviet Union definitely left its mark on civil society in Russia—either by repressing or reshaping it—but it did not kill it.

The main concern for Muslims in Moscow was articulated to me again and again that they needed more mosques for the large Muslim population in the city. For over two million Muslims just in Moscow there are only five mosques. It is thus impossible for all Muslims to gather for prayer at mosques every Friday and many requests to build new mosques have been turned down by the government. When I visited the main mosque in Moscow, they had just begun construction of a new mosque right next to the older building. They were happy to tell me about the new project but said it was not nearly enough to solve the problem.

The strong administration may not be as good at allowing smaller organizations to grow but they were very good at international conferences and bilateral relations. Because there is just one umbrella group for all Muslims in Russia, it can claim to speak for Russian Muslims. It works in collaboration with many groups in Europe and the rest of the world to take stances on international issues. They also work closely with the Russian government to address issues they identify as important to Russian Muslims. While the benefits for a strong administration are clear, I’m not sure they out weight the work that can be done by smaller, grassroots organizations. Smaller organizations do not have the financial resources or political might of official boards but they can see solutions to community problems more clearly and can be mobilized quickly.

I spoke with several very active, very exciting organizations in Kazan that do just this. One of the organizations I spoke with worked to address Muslim women’s issues in Russia. They used their organization’s newsletter, knocked on people’s doors, and spoke with the mayor to get obscene billboards removed from their highway. This is the type of action that would be difficult to get out of a large administration. Bureaucracy is useful only in the power it may yield but it is not match for the agility of individuals working together on issues that affect them most.

Another organization I visited claimed to have almost every Muslim woman in Tatarstan as its member. I don’t know how active every woman is but with a constituency that large a lot of work can be done. The list of activities and services offered goes on and on but some of the interesting ones include summer camps, radio programs, a matchmaking service, and ‘Miss Muslim’ pageants (think Miss Universe contests without the materialism). I was so impressed with the organization that the interview lasted for over two hours.

Near the end of the interview I asked the president’s opinion on feminism and her answer surprised but confirmed something for me. The organization’s goal was to do work for the causes the Muslim women of Tatarstan cared about. She did not agree with, in fact, was turned off by, feminism. Her role, she said, was as the mother of her children and wife of her husband. She needed to be good at both and then help her community. But she did not want her husband’s job or another man’s job—that was not what she wanted. This is the difference between feminism and the global women’s movement. I thought after the Women and Power class I took last semester that I understood the difference. It wasn’t until I was sitting in front of this woman, who was adamantly denying the tenets of feminism I believe in, that it was obvious that these were my tenets, not hers.

The Global women’s movement does not attempt to transplant Western concepts in the hearts of women everywhere. It seeks to build solidarity, find commonality, and help everyone move towards their own goals. For me to ask this woman to deny her goals and her chosen life would be to impose my standard of values and my lifestyle on her.

Traveling has allowed me to step out of my Western perspective but speaking with this woman put a human face to the issue. It’s easy to fall into the trap of imagining a helpless woman in a hut somewhere that needs empowerment from the West but it’s more difficult to maintain this stance when the woman is sitting in front of you speaking very eloquently and frankly disagreeing. It was not a matter of education; she had two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree. It was not poverty; her family was obviously comfortable. When you advocate for empowerment and the right to make your own choices, you have to accept the choices people make—a lesson traveling half way around the world could only teach me.


Photos:




Anna (my translator), Dr. Shvedona (a colleage of one of my professors, Dr. O'Sullivan See, at MSU), and me in Moscow