On Thursday, 9th July 2009, Dr Anna Zelkina, Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, SOAS and Dr Galina Yemelianova, Senior Research Fellow, Centre of Russia and East European Studies, University of Birmingham will speak on “Islamic Radicalisation in the North Caucasus”from 12.30-2pm.
Since the collapse of communism, the Muslim North Caucasus has been among the most volatile and dynamic zones of Islamic radicalisation in the Islamic East. Islamic radicalisation, which occurred in theological and political forms, has been particularly intensive in the north-eastern Caucasus (Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia). Since the late 1990s onwards Islamists of the north-eastern Caucasus, and since the early 2000s in the north-western Caucasus (Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia), have widely embraced jihadist ideology and merged with various pro-violence and terrorist organisations and groupings. An important contributing factor to this phenomenon has been the diffusion of Chechen jihadists in the region, which, as a result, strengthened the authoritarian rule of President Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.
Dr Yemelianova will analyse the factors and patterns of Islamic radicalisation and will examine the organisation, ideology and tactics of Islamists in the region. She will position the phenomenon of radical Islam in the North Caucasus within the wider Islamic revivalist, as well as jihadist, movement and will assess its implications for the region and the wider international community.
Dr Zelkina will then give a general presentation on the trends of development of mainstream Islam, take Dagestani, Chechen and Ingush, and 'official' i.e. accepted Islam in the region and trace the trajectories of religious developments in local societies and the religious policies of the political elite.
Dr Galina M. Yemelianova is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies of the University of Birmingham. Since 2008, she has headed the University of Birmingham Research Group on the Caucasus and Central Asia. She has been researching history and contemporary politics in the Middle East and Muslim Eurasia for more than two decades.
Dr Anna Zelkina is a Research Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She is the author of “In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi response to the Russia Advance in the North Caucasus.”
The seminar will be chaired by Oksana Antonenko, Senior Fellow and Programme Director of Russia and Eurasia programme and will be held on the fifth floor of Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3D.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP Clara Lane-Spollen at iisscurrentevents@iiss.org or tel: 0207 395 9156.
