Religion, migration and the dreams of Dagestani youth

Smaller numbers of the youth are oriented towards a more secular way of life and see their future outside the republic. When there were protests against corruption, organised by Alexei Navalny, not many people took to the streets in Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan Republic. But it also shows that Makhachkala has a chance to become a normal large city, instead of a conglomerate of rural communities communicating with one another through a network of cafés, streets and mosques.

Among the youth, there are also people who dream about creating start-ups. In fact, there is a programme organised by the Moscow-based Summa Capital Company owned by the Magomedov brothers – Dagestani oligarchs from the Oboda settlement in Khunzakhskiy. They finance projects are related to intellectual innovation. It is not exactly Silicon Valley or the IT city of Lviv, but nonetheless there is a group of people who are focused on developing technology. Thus, some young people dream of having their own business. Of course, for those who see no opportunity, they dream of their futures elsewhere.

If we talk about migration, where do most young people from Dagestan go?

Most leave for large Russian cities – Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don or Stavropol – where they can find work. At some point, many Dagestanis were working in construction. From valley areas in Dagestan, many left for north western Siberia, where the oil and gas companies are located, although this has slowed down a little. There was a time when up to 20,000 people would leave Dagestan every year. This figure is now a little smaller, but with birth rates dropping the number of youths is also shrinking. Still, about 10,000 people leave the republic every year – and that is based on official statistics.

Besides the bigger cities in Russia, there is also a migration flow to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Many go to Islamic countries in order for their children to receive an Islamic education. Some also migrate to Europe, especially those who are repressed as religious dissidents – and it turns out that it is better to go to Europe than to try and survive in Turkey, Egypt or elsewhere. Still, the numbers travelling to Turkey and Egypt are significant – there are around 50,000 Dagestanis in Turkey alone.  And, moreover, several thousand people went to fight in the war in Syria.

Do we know how many?

Between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters, according to estimates. But what is interesting is that Dagestanis went there before ISIS showed up, at the beginning of the civil war. Some of them were studying in Syria at the time and many considered it a fair war against Bashar al-Assad, the oppressor of Muslims. In general, it is typical for the youth to make such radical decisions, especially when there are few opportunities at home. Thus, at first, Syria had attracted fighters who wanted to participate in the civil war and several units of Dagestanis fought there on the side of the Free Syrian Army – in opposition to Bashar al-Assad. When the ISIS leader, Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed the Caliphate, many of the fighters left the war or continued fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army.

At the same time, other Dagestanis came to fight on the side of ISIS. They were mostly from urban areas. This is the second urban generation from north-western Siberia, Moscow, St Petersburg, Makhachkala, Khasavyurt and Yuzhno-Sukhokumsk. This is because technology – smartphones, WhatsApp, have changed people’s lives and made them part of a global online community. Before, village youths were concerned about issues in the local community, looking for a place within the village hierarchy and tribal structure. Now they stay in their villages, they are connected to the wider Islamic world, and they live online. Most of those who went to Syria passed through Turkey or Egypt.  

We also have to acknowledge that this is not the best time for Muslims in Russia or other post-Soviet states. The pressure on their communities is rather strong and authorities are cracking down on extremism. And since extremism and dissent are criminalised in Russia, many young people, especially those who are religious, are at risk of becoming viewed as “extremist”.

Another direction that has become popular in the last couple of years is Ukraine. Members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (an international Islamic movement) moved to Ukraine because the party is not banned there. And there is a large group of people providing legal and organisational support to the members as well as  helping them seek employment. Lastly, there are the so-called Salafis. However, I do not like this word because it is just a label. When it comes to radical ideas or a readiness to use violence, it does not matter which branch of the faith the person follows. Imam Shamil, who spent 30 years fighting the Russian Empire, was a Sufi. There are Salafi sheikhs who still live in Makhachkala and Dagestan in Saudi Arabia and Syria who do not accept violence. There are representatives of Islamic groups who would be considered traditional in Russia, but are in fact oriented towards violence. Nonetheless, their criminalisation in Russia is a fact and young people often have to leave.

How does migration impact relations between the generations?

There is always a conflict between the generations. Our world has been changing so quickly that our children live in a different reality than we did. Dagestanis who finished school in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s were the ones who Islamised Dagestan. They rejected the Soviet ideology, communist ideas and, in a way, also Russia. They built a new Islam-based life as best as they could, but they lacked knowledge. Some went abroad to study and their children, who are the new youth, grew up in Islam.

The new generation does not remember Soviet times. Their parents, who are now in their 40s or 50s, do not understand their children, and the children do not listen to their parents. For the youth, the local Islamic ulamas and scholars, who were educated in the 1990s and early 2000s in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, are not the authority. They rather look up to the online Islamic advice, referred to as “Sheikh Google”.

We have a very slow, latent civil war in Russia. It is a war of secret services against Islam and a war inside Dagestan, between those who represent Russia and those who want to get rid of its rule. This does not mean entirely driving Russia away, but rather taking over power and resources from those who have traditionally ruled the republic – the post-Soviet elite: bandits, chekists and government officials. It is the elite that emerged in the late 1990s and developed and consolidated throughout the 2000s. Those people who are left out of it have turned against it. This group includes people of different generations, but also large numbers of youths.

How has globalisation affected the local structures?

It has totally destroyed them. Here, it is important to look at the villages and the concept of jamaat. Jamaat is a word with several meanings: first, it is used to represent all the people who live in the village – in other words, the community. Second, it is used to refer to representatives of the informal community governance – representatives of tukkhums, for instance, which is a family and a clan unit. They unite in a representative body that governs the community and is called jamaat. And jamaat also means the religious community, the people who go to mosque or prayer house together. Finally it is a term used for a purely religious community. They have some kind of obligation to one another, to protect and help one another. These village jamaats that survived the Soviet authorities and kolkhozes are unlikely to survive globalisation as their political and economic role has diminished.

It is also interesting how the first and second rural generation has built transnational and trans-local migration networks. From a mountain village to Makhachkala, north-western Siberia, Moscow, Istanbul and Syria. This is a network of migrants from the same villages who are connected to each other, who remain in touch, come from the same place and are usually relatives. However, I think that globalisation will destroy these communities. People who come from jamaats will end up in the US, living an entirely different life. They already do not follow the traditional rules. Back home, if someone comes from the lower social strata, he does not even have the chance to become part of the jamaat, or an imam. In different communities it works differently, because religious modernisation sometimes cancels these preconditions. But in many villages, strict rules still remain. The person cannot reach a higher position. Then they go to Moscow, work their way up and achieve more than the people who considered them representatives of the lower classes. Thus, their identity changes entirely.

So how do Dagestani migrants integrate into the receiving societies?

In cities like Berlin, London, New York or Moscow, some just blend in and become part of the urban society. But there are two types of limitations faced by the first generation and some elements of the second generation of Dagestani migrants. First is something called reputation capital – in other words, collective reputation. Let us say, for instance, that I am an ethnic Avar (one of the native ethnic groups in the North Caucasus – editor’s note) and I move to Surgut in Siberia. Everybody knows that I am an Avar and everybody knows that if I am appointed to a high position, I will only employ other Avars. I will bring my entire clan to work here and they will protect me in times of trouble. Yet, if I decide that I will act not as an Avar, if I behave like an urban person, I will lose the support of my clan. As a result, it turns out that this collective reputation, on the one hand, does not let me advance socially and, on the other, even if I try to break into the structures by denying my ethnicity, I will lose more than I will gain. I will lose the support of my family, my clan and my home village. Hence, this collective reputation stimulates the preserving of community relations. It also reinforces the impermeability of the village communities, even outside the republic.

The second limitation is softer and resembles a glass ceiling. Although formally nobody is stopping me from pursuing education, I have to be part of the network of people who are built into this system to receive support and access to social mobility. This is an invisible ceiling. It is also strengthened by the fact that people who come from Dagestan have worse education. The second generation is particularly affected by this process. They went to school in Russia, they speak pure Russian, but they do not have these connections that would allow them to have a quickly developing career. When al-Baghdadi offers them to bust this glass ceiling into a million pieces, the young Dagestani man accepts it. He does not need anything else. He wants to take a gun and solve all his problems with violence. And this is a problem that is not easily solved.

We are talking about young people, but it seems to me that the whole time we have been talking about men. What about the women in these stories…?

Women are also there, of course. In a way, Islam became an instrument for young men to preserve their domination over a woman in urban environments. Village communities support this relative domination of men over women. It is a men’s world there and  women seemingly have no rights. If you are a mother of grown-up sons, you are a very influential person. But younger women have no rights. You are subordinate to your husband and your mother-in-law, who will oppress you until you raise your own children.

But in large urban areas, things have changed. Women often end up becoming more successful than men, they can be the breadwinner. In Dagestan, there is a movement of women who do not get married. Why would they, if they can earn a living themselves? But I should also say that some young women go along with the old Islamic ways. Sometimes there is serious social pressure put on them.

There is also the issue of maintaining stability and security within society. Women are afraid to question the authority of men who provide physical security, and those who do not want this protection, often leave. In a traditional village society losing your virginity before marriage is awful, it is the end. And even a suspicion that a young woman had any kind of relations with somebody, even without sex, is enough for her to be stigmatised. In essence, girls and young women are commodities in the village community. It is like a market. Every year, families that have boys make a rating of future brides.

To some extent, boys are also commodities. When people do not like that they are being commodified, they simply leave. Sometimes they choose Islam, because it allows them to detach from this village reputation. Hence, Islam can be both a modernising and a hindering instrument for the new generations.

Denis Sokolov is an expert on North Caucasus, focusing on the informal economy of the region, land disputes, and institutional foundations of military conflicts. He is a senior research fellow at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and research director at the Center for Social and Economic Research of Regions (RAMCOM).

Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska is an editor with New Eastern Europe.

Dagestan, Denis Sokolov, interview, Youth