Author: Abdurazzak Makri,
Chairman of the party
‘Movement of the Society for Peace’
The world is changing rapidly and dramatically. One has to wonder what the new world balance will be based on. On the eve of the pandemic in America, there was popular unrest in some European countries (most notably France), provoked by the savage nature of Western capitalism. Then the coronavirus emerged, revealing the weakness of capitalist health systems in the most developed countries and showing how deeply intertwined human destinies are. Then the Ukrainian crisis came, which had a negative impact on the standard of living of people in various parts of the world.
Our position on these problems was clear. We believe that all these misfortunes are caused by Western-American hegemony and their attempts to subject the entire globe to the dictates of America and its lobby of transnational corporations. In our speeches and publications, we stressed that the real culprit of the Ukrainian crisis was the West, led by the United States. We explained this logically and lucidly, drawing on historical and geopolitical facts.
The Russian leadership followed our position. The Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Algeria paid a visit to us, offering to share such considerations at a conference in Russia. This invitation helped to deepen Russian-Islamic ties in line with the respect for Islam outlined by President Putin. Our religion appeared in Russia more than a thousand years ago. Now it is practiced by more than 20 million citizens of this country. We responded to the initiative, with a view to supporting the powers of the East, including Russia, in their aspiration to create a new multipolar world which would rid us of the hegemony of the West, which imposes its culture on all peoples of the world, exploiting their wealth and causing injustice against Muslims and our holy places in Palestine.
The place where we were invited to was the Republic of Tatarstan, which has centuries-long links with the Islamic world. Our participation in the conference consisted of the three parts:
1)Discussion of halal economy in the food sector as well as in many other areas. We also participated in a workshop on this topic where the three halal pillars of a healthy lifestyle – healthy eating, sport and stress management – were covered from a medical perspective.
2)Participation in a meeting of the Strategic Vision Group ‘Russia – Islamic World’ (about 100 people from more than 60 Islamic countries, not including representatives of the federal authorities of Russia and its Muslim republics). The Strategic Vision Group was established by President Vladimir Putin after Russia was granted the observer status in the OIC in 2005. The Group studies the ways to develop long-term cooperation between Russia and the Islamic world. Its previous meeting was held in Jeddah in 2021, and the next one is expected to take place in Malaysia in 2023.
3)Celebration of the 1100th anniversary of the adoption of Islam by Volga Bulgaria, visiting ancient Muslim monuments on the Volga River.
Maybe I will talk again about these three aspects in separate articles.
Meetings with the host country were held throughout the visit. We met with the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, R. Minnikhanov. We put forward to him the idea of holding a session of the Strategic Vision Group in Algeria in the event that the leadership of our countries agrees to it, taking into account the historical friendship between the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria and Russia. We got acquainted with a thinker, prominent politician, former President of Tatarstan M. Shaimiev, who led the Republic for nineteen years. They say it was him who proposed to Vladimir Putin the idea of creating the Strategic Vision Group ‘Russia – Islamic World’. M.Shaimiev is a symbol of economic and cultural renaissance in Tatarstan, a Muslim leader who has great authority among Muslims both in his country and abroad for his great services to Islam and efforts to revive this religion in the Republic of Tatarstan. We also got acquainted with many other Tatar politicians and intellectuals. We had an interesting with diplomat and historian E. Fazelyanov, the author of the book ‘Dialogue of Civilizations: Russia and the Islamic World’. We were invited to participate in the Atlas of Islamic Civilizations, a joint project of the Strategic Vision Group, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Shigabutdin Marjani Institute of History. On the sidelines of the conference, we had a short talk with M. Bogdanov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa and Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, on the special operation in Ukraine. According to him, Russia is destined for victory and is helped in this by the support of its friends.
Communicating with regular Muslims was equally important. They turned out to be real brothers; they were very kind and polite, and treated us with love and generosity. Among them there was Marsel Miftakhov, who was active and solved all problems, and Vinat Ganiev, a young Arabist student. It was also a pleasure to meet Kamil Sadreev, Deputy of the Tatar Parliament, a man of high moral character and an observant Muslim (as soon as the time of namaz came, he immediately began to pray). He saved us from the bitter cold (from time to time the temperature dropped to 6 degrees above zero and it rained), which we had not expected in May, by giving us his coat. Although Kamil can speak only Russian and Tatar, and we had to communicate with him with the help of gestures when there was nobody to translate, it was pleasant and useful.
During the visit, we managed to meet many members of Muslim delegations from republics of the Russian Federation and various Arab and Muslim countries. They are people I used to know and those who have had links with our party since late M. Nakhnakh, as well as a number of representatives of the diplomatic corps in Russia. The widespread presence of Muslim delegates testifies to the transformation of international relations: even the alliance of some Arab and Muslim countries with the United States did not affect the representative nature of the conference organized with the support of the Russian leadership. The same is demonstrated by the refusal of these states to support the West and the US on the issue of the special operation in Ukraine, which was reflected in their official positions and speeches by their representatives in international organizations, such as the UN Human Right Council.
We were also interviewed by a number of local mass media, as well as Russia Today TV channel, commenting on the international situation and on the conference held by the Strategic Vision Group.
It was a pleasure to meet S. Benamara, the newly appointed Ambassador of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria to Russia, who displayed a high level of culture, a seasoned diplomat who had worked in a number of key countries. He invited me and B. Gulamulla to dinner. We also attended the meeting held by S.Benamara with Algerian community in Kazan and witnessed his kind attitude towards fellow citizens living in Kazan, especially students. The Ambassador gave valuable advice to his compatriots and assured them of his readiness to support them in solving various consular problems. At the end of the meeting he presented the guests with mementos. Some of them were handmade by his wife. He kindly allowed B. Gulamulla (Chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. –Editor’s note) and me to address them a few words. This was an opportunity to learn about the needs of Algerian youth. Some of them are subscribed to our Facebook page; some are children of our friends.
Accompanied by such a good man as B. Gulamulla, we ended our visit with a pleasant and informative tourist tour of the city’s sights in Kazan. We saw some wonderful cultural monuments that our guide, Rezida, told us about in the Arabic language. It would take a separate article to depict the beauty and order that we saw, and the information about Kazan and Tatarstan that we heard. God willing, we will come back to it.
In conclusion, I would like to say that this trip stirred up many emotions and changed the way of our thinking a lot. It consolidated our awareness of Algeria as a predominately Eastern country. We are encouraged to develop relations with Russia in view of its new orientation towards the Islamic world and the fact that it is home to our brothers in faith. We are grateful to His Excellency the Ambassador of Russia, who has given us a wonderful opportunity of such a visit. We would indeed like to be an active party in building up Russia and the Islamic world’s joint approach to challenges in the future. This is facilitated by the proximity of views of our movement and other Algerian parties, as well as the leadership of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.
Annotated translation from Arabic
Translated: Secretary Representative I.V. Larchenko
Source: ‘Facebook’ (banned in Russia), 23 May 2022