Monday, July 9, 2018
No One Asked North Caucasians about Possible Resettlement of South African Boers in Their Land
Paul Goble
Staunton, July 8 – Moscow’s plans to resettle some or all of approximately 15,000 Boers from South Africa in the North Caucasus has infuriated residents of that region for three reasons, experts say. First of all, the Christian Boers have no links to the region and would not fit into the predominantly Muslim communities there. Read more
Sochi 2018 FIFA World Cup — Humanity and Justice are Among Top Losers
By: Adel Bashqawi
28 June, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
Circassians, Balkars Denounce Language Bill, Say It Opens the Way to the End of Non-Russian Republics and Ethnocide
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 29 – A meeting of 200 leading intellectuals and officials in Kabardino-Balkaria unanimously denounced the Kremlin’s proposed language bill, saying that it is another step toward Moscow’s demolishing of the non-Russian republics and toward the launch of a new Russian wave of ethnocide against the Circassians and other non-Russian nations. Read more
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 26 – Despite its role in the Syrian conflict, Moscow has granted refugee status to only two Circassians from Syria of the roughly 3,000 who’ve applied for that status, Alisa Shishkina says, the result of Russian fears that such people are or will become Islamist radicals or that they will disturb the shaky ethnic balance in the North Caucasus. Read more
Monday, May 28, 2018
Languages Play Very Different Role in North Caucasus than in Middle Volga, Experts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 28 – In the debate about Vladimir Putin’s proposed law making the study of non-Russian languages voluntary, officials in the Middle Volga republics have lined up with their populations in opposing the measure, while officials in the North Caucasus have backed the Kremlin measure even though many in their populations object.
This reflects the very different status and meaning of languages in the two regions, according to two experts, Amil Sarkarov of the Derbent news agency and Ruslan Aysin of the Poistine portal, who were interviewed by OnKavkaz journalist Amina Suleymanova (onkavkaz.com/news/2264-pochemu-vlasti-respublik-kavkaza-ne-zaschischayut-svoi-jazyki-pered-moskvoi-tak-jarostno-kak-ta.html). Read more
May 21 memorial ceremony, Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria (Source: circassianworld.com)
This year as every year for more than a century, the nearly 500,000 Circassians in their North Caucasus homeland and the more than five million Circassians in the diaspora paused, on May 21, to remember the losses they suffered during their 101-year-long resistance to Russian imperial expansion and their forcible expulsion from their homeland in 1864. Indeed, according to Zaurbek Kozhev of the Kabardino-Balkar Institute of Humanitarian Research, this memorial day is “an inalienable part of contemporary Circassian identity” and thus the basis for the mobilization of the community to pursue its collective goals, a point other speakers at memorial meetings made as well (Kavkazsky Uzel, May 23). Read more
