Chechens, Vaynakh, and the National Question

Chechens, Vaynakh, and the national question

By Wayne H. Noxchi

If you’re going through hell, keep going

• Winston Churchill

Where are we? Who are we, as a people? Chechen. Vaynakh. What do these words mean and who decides? The world is in a state of change today with conflicts burning their marks around the globe, and with reports of Chechens involved in many of them. Why are they fighting, and how is world opinion of us taking shape? More importantly: what consequences will this hold for our future? We are, today, not in control of our own destiny – that much any sober Vaynakh can agree on. Some of us cling to old flames, others abandoning everything to find meaning in scripture, the vast majority of us are lost for the time being: waiting for a worthwhile spark, waiting for a chance to redefine in front of the world the words Chechen and Vaynakh.

That moment will not come on its own; it is up to us to make that spark on our own and seize it. The question of Chechen Nationhood, of Vaynakh Nationhood, is one that affects not only us, but the whole of the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Europe. It is different from the issue of statehood. Statehood is the formalization of an informal state of affairs; in other words once the work of nation building is complete, the issue of statehood becomes nothing more than a stroke of the pen. Building ourselves into a viable nation capable of withstanding all the world may throw at it is vital to our continued existence, and the failure to accomplish that task was the direct cause for the demise of Ichkeria. We won the war, but we lost the peace.

If we expect to safeguard the future of our children and our way of life, we need to answer a set of very difficult questions and put our answers into practice. It may be a short process of a decade, or it may take a hundred years, but defining and building ourselves as a nation is our responsibility alone and no one else’s.

We need first to take a long hard look at ourselves. Pain is no excuse to close one’s eyes, it should be used as motivation to learn from what went wrong. Two wars of virtual extermination left over a quarter of the country dead. The original independence movement was shattered: the Chechen national identity and ideology could not cope with such an apocalypse and was already severely weakened by years of parasitic infighting between the wars. From the remains of this dream emerged a two-headed nightmare taking the shape of collaboration or jihad. Either choice was and is a form of condemning one’s self in mind or body. Without a strong enough understanding of our own national identity, and without the large-enough corps of leaders needed to articulate that understanding to the public and to the world, we hit a dead-end of ideas. This explains the rise of Islam as a political instrument: religion was exploited to fill the vacuum in our own consciousness.

If we intend to commit ourselves fully to political-Islam, then it is not hard to imagine we will be forced to erase our identity as Chechens and Vaynakh, as our culture will be assimilated and eventually made one with the wider Arab world. Is this what we want? Or do we believe there is something inherently special about us as Vaynakh that is worth building to see what it can become? Also what of religious freedom and freedom of thought? If we combine religion with politics are we prepared for the deadening effect that will have on our ability to innovate and be creative? This essay is not advocating in one direction or another, the point is a greater one: that these are questions we will have to answer as we go forward. These are the types of questions we will face and execute as we travel down the road of becoming a nation.

Despite everything we’ve been through until now, now is the greatest chance we have ever had to complete that journey. Up to a third of all Chechens live today in Europe. Most of them in states like France, Germany, and Austria. In the history of our people, we’ve always shown remarkable resilience and heroism in times of war. Peace is where we’ve traditionally fallen flat. We are now in the greatest period of peace we have ever known: great for the sole reason that for the first time ever our youth have unparalleled access to the finest educations on Earth and for virtually free. The only barrier to entry is ability and desire. There’s a line from Arnold Schwarzenegger: “You can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets. You never want to fail because you didn’t work hard enough.” If we fail in this turning point in history because we decided educating ourselves was too hard or that discipline was too much and we didn’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to move forward then we will deserve full-heartedly to disappear from the face of human existence as one of the millions of forgotten tribes assimilated by their betters. We are not a people doomed to failure. We are a people holding our destiny in our very own hands. Whether we succeed or fail is completely up to us. What is needed now is for us to decide on a future we want, and to begin working towards it.

The first step in moving forward is to throw off completely any feeling of victimhood and any idea that the world owes ‘us’ something, and never look back. There are no excuses or escapes. This means throwing away conspiracy theories that do nothing other than provide comfort and accepting the world and our current position as it is. There is no conspiracy by ‘the West’ to ‘keep Chechens down’. We have done an excellent job keeping ourselves ‘down’ until now. Likewise there is no conspiracy among European politicians to prevent Chechens from rising in politics. It is shameful that of the third-of-a-million Chechens living in Europe now, none have succeeded in rising into the ranks of the European Union Parliament. How do we expect to make our voices heard if we do not have representation? And even if there exists a conspiracy against Chechens in Europe: so be it. Think of it as nothing other than a challenge. There is no challenge that a Vaynakh person can’t overcome.

On the question of Chechens and Vaynakh: we constitute a single nation. Any attempt to draw divisions undermines not only our sense of unity, but our long-term survival and makes it easier for us to lose direction or be coopted by hostile foreign interests.

To truly move forward in a rational and legitimate way we need to make our voices heard. To make our voices heard we need to do just that: speak. Speak to each other, speak to others. Of course many have good reasons to fear speaking out, but good reasons will not ensure our future prosperity: determination and action will. There are many who fear reprisals, even assassination for speaking out. To that the answer is this: the present regime in Grozny will not and cannot murder the whole Vaynakh nation. Again this is where our presence in Europe becomes a blessing in disguise: we need to integrate with and take advantage of the legal and wider social systems of the European Union.

And the best way to do that is to use the opportunities provided by Europe to start the conversation amongst ourselves. Where are the Vaynakh student associations in universities? Where are the youth culture clubs? They already exist: in Norway, the UK, Belgium, etc. This is not a call for all groups to be political, although political groups will emerge. This is a call for us to get talking to one another again. This is the one and only chance we will see and it is the moment for this generation of children born in times of war to determine the destiny of a nation and win the peace.

Whatever nation we build, it will be a result of our decisions. Whether we remain stateless or independent, whether we fade away and become assimilated or become the greatest story of hope for humanity in the 21stcentury, it is all up to us.

http://waynakhfoundation.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/chechen-vaynakh-national-question/