Francoise Daussais

University of Sorbonne, Paris, France

Islam and protest movements against Russian authorities

The movements of protest and the multi-sidedness of political space.

In post-Soviet Russia, the structuring of the political sphere clearly does not lead to the appearance of religious-based political movements. That is why during the investigation of the connections between Islam and politics it is appropriate to examine the “administrative” or “social” sphere more than the “political” realm. We should study the sociology of collective protests at the base of conflicts, as public orders are issued from the government authorities, rather that the moment elections are conducted. In fact, the appearance of collective protests against Russian authorities has become an element of liberalization of the political regime. Thus, the first movements of public associations arose during the perestroika era. Yet in our opinion there is a relative neglect of these movements, in the view of dominating interests either to transformation of political structure or to studying of informal relations in the society.

Religion and movements of public associations.

In the post-Soviet space, religious liberalization accompanied political liberalization. Today both in Western Europe and in post-Soviet Russia mobilizing protest movements utilize religious resources in their struggles. Religious membership can be the basis of collective action (for instance, the wearing distinctive religious signs or the demand to be exempted from certain social orders). We assume that the investigation of protest movements, which are based on religious factors, would force authorities to solve of serious problems and as a result would provide a practical basis to study the growing multitude of Russian public space.

Demonstrations of individual protest against the requirements of Russian administration are numerous. It could be the question of tax payment, registration, military draft or population census. The refusal to obey the requirements of the authorities is wide-spread (for example, the deviation from tax payment, illegal activity within the country, insubordination). In which aspect can these protests assume a public dimension, and in which aspect to they assume religious dimension?

Attempting to answer these questions, we investigate different forms of insubordination to military draft, which are argued by religious factors and actions of the authorities undertaken against protests.