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In the light of the theories of the ethno-genetic and civilisational development of mankind.
Vakhi Surkho for the CHECHENPRESS, 07/04/08
Europe is living out its remaining days and similar to any old person, hopes to preserve and to pass on its traditions to its heir. It is obvious, however, that it does not have an heir of its own. Only, perhaps, the transatlantic America. But Islam is the only real contender to the heritage of Western Christian civilisation. The latter has long been experiencing its ‘Indian summer’ charming representatives of young passionary nations with its splendour. But this mirage is not to last forever. Over five hundred years ago the same thing happened to the Eastern Christian world whose material heritage became the property of Islamic civilisation when the Ottoman sultanate became the successor of the Byzantine Empire.
The American ethnos as the youngest member of the Western Christian civilisation is trying to save it from this tangible process. But in my view, much as they might try the Americans could only preserve it in the New World in the same way as the Orthodox religion survived only on the northern periphery of the civilised world – in Russia. Europe, attempting to resist the neighbouring Islamic world which waking up ones again, has tried to compensate for the absence of biological energy with other (technological and cultural) means. This is where G.Pomerants is right, of course: within the future global processes the Mediterranean will represent one whole, the question is – what civilisational contents it is going to have.
Here we once again see the degree of dependence of a civilisation in its development on the degree of ethno-energetic intensity of its bearers. Old nations cannot manipulate ideas. And if a dominant people which has been consolidating a nation but has grown old and has not succeeded in bearing its successor and follower - a new sub-ethnos - in its midst, the whole civilisation of such a nation (in the sense of a civilised nation such as Islamic, Christian etc) faces the risk of collapse and disintegration.
Religions as the guides to conducting one’s life have been sent to inspire people, and only energetic people are capable of promoting them. This is the reason why some energetic individuals from the ranks of the aged and slumberous nations in order not to fall into a state of slumber themselves find self-realisation among young and energetic peoples. Only the latter are capable of manipulating ideas and changing the established world order. I must stress that I am not talking about ‘teenage peoples’ (who are not sufficiently experienced or organised, despite the excessive levels of energy), but peoples at the achmatic stage of the ethno-genesis.
Until recently it has been thought that religion and nationalism are two incompatible things and that religion eliminates ethnic distinctions and modifies peoples into a monolithic nation. Yet look at what has happened to the Arabs, how this nation had expanded with lightning speed and then quickly broken down. What has happened? The Arabs had mainly absorbed the Hamitic peoples close to them culturally and in their way of life, and going through the ‘obscuration stage’. But they had failed to break the resistance of the passionary Central Asian peoples or the passionary peoples of the Caucasus. Both had voluntarily converted to Islam as a truth which touched even the heart of the enemies only when the military attack by the Arabs had been crushed.
As soon as the ethno-genesis phase of the Magrib peoples who had been absorbed by the Arabs some time ago, had changed, it became obvious that they were not Arabs at all despite the fact that they had long forgotten their own Hamitic languages and spoken Arabic. It turned out that they were in fact the Berbers, the Tuaregs, the Moroccans, the Àlgerians, the Libyans, the Tunisians etc. Nevertheless, these peoples who have regained their ethnic identity culturally consider themselves part of the Islamic nation.
No, civilisation is not capable of melting down healthy viable peoples. It is not Islam’s mission to turn all Muslims into Arabs although such a process did take place in history. Islam and nations are not antipodes. On the contrary, Islam as a unique divine religion is capable of adapting to any ethnic environment. As a truth it simply strengthens ethnic groups and unites them in the lap of a united civilisation following the principles of equality of all people moulded by Allah the Creator.
Neither is this the end. Civilisations themselves have their own subculture regions. For instance, in Islamic civilisation these are : 1) countries of the Arab Peninsula; 2) countries of the Middle East and Egypt; 3) North African countries; 4) countries of Central Africa; 5) Indo-Iranian countries and peoples; 6) Central Asia; 7) countries of the India Pacific region. It is important to distinguish another two subculture regions of the Islamic civilisation – the Caucasus and the Volga regions, although politically these are not autonomous. In fact, there are local ethnic features of a dominant people or of a synthesis of local cultures underlying each of the above mentioned regional Islamic subcultures.
The world strives for unity and this is a natural aspiration. But tyrants have to understand that the world would never be whole. Unity does not mean integrity which is unnatural. An integral whole always consists of constituent parts, whose idiosyncrasy is invincible. All ethnic groups are connected to the varied environment which houses them and this determines their different development and their uniqueness.
As long as natural laws created by Allah are at work on Earth it cannot have a single climate or landscape, which means that no single people, either Christian or Muslim or any other kind, could emerge on the planet, however much this is desired by various cosmopolitans. The world is unequivocally moving toward globalisation, yet its division into nations and subcultures as parts of a possible future global world civilisation is invincible. If at some stage it becomes possible in some way to create a single human people with a single culture without any hiccups, this would simply mean the proximity of the end for mankind.
If subcultures as ethno-regional cultures are inevitable in the globalising world and inside world civilisations (global cultures) a question is bound to arise: which nations form them and why? The already mentioned Russian culture expert Grigorii Pomerants has this to say about it: ‘ Such peoples as the Afghans, the Chechens, the Vietnamese, irrespective of the religion they are converted to, remain in fact somewhat of a tribe which could die but which would always defend its uniqueness’. Therefore it is the passionary peoples first and foremost, because they are not satisfied with the status quo and they are determined to stand their ground. Because passionarity also means dissatisfaction, which in turn means an intention to act, to transform things. This is a very quality of passionary people important which is useful for mankind. If it were not for it, mankind would be plunged into the lowest form of degradation.
Take, for example, the Catholic Church, the Vatican, who had monopolized the spiritual sphere of life in the Christian world and taken the position of an intermediary between God and man. The people of the Western civilization tired of many centuries of conflicts at that time simply and humbly accepted other people, usurpers of spirituality, as intermediaries between them and God. They had naively entrusted the secrets of their own sins to them in the hope of absolving themselves of those sins when it was obvious that all they needed was repentance and cleansing themselves by actions which were better than their sins. Some time later the reappearing Germanic world, which was part of the Christian civilisation did not, however, accept such a state of affairs. Followers of Martin Luther who had rebelled against the Catholic Church founded a new movement called Protestantism. Yet the Romance peoples remained attached to Catholicism as an ethnic tradition and zealously defended it.
(To be continued) |
