The events of the past week in a small and remote town in an otherwise unheard of Russian district demonstrate once more that the stenographers of the powerful, otherwise known as journalists, have fully lost their ability to inform and educate us about the context in which tragedies like this unfold.
The hypocrisy of the media and our own leadership are revealed in what is not said and what is not reported. We too play a role in the tragedy that unfolded in School Number One and we cannot ignore that role simply because it is central to why this event happened as it did and when it did. My argument is that just because we allow our governments to get away with murder is no reason to think that we can take the moral high ground.
Speaking on US television in 1998, the then US Secretary of State during the Clinton Presidency, Madeleine Albright, gave the following response when asked about the terrorism caused by the international sanctions on Iraq at that time. When asked if the price of the sanctions, the death of half a million children who had died of easily preventable diseases, untreated due to the banning of such basics as aspirin, penicillin and other antibiotics, was worth it, Ms. Albright replied, "Do we think the price is worth it? Yes we do".
The fact that we allowed our governments of the day to support these sanctions places us on exactly the same level as the desperate men who invaded School Number One last Thursday and killed other innocents without remorse. We cannot attempt to pretend that the freedoms we enjoy though the facsimile of democracy relieve us of the responsibilities of ensuring that those we allow to rule in our name do so justly, humanely and with full disclosure. Why is it that even though we knew of ˝ million deaths caused by the sanctions we failed to hear outcries of ‘terrorists’, ‘ruthless barbarians’, ‘murderous thugs’? Why? Because it is "they" that are the barbarians while "we" are ‘righteous’, democratic societies.
I found it interesting, if somewhat predictable, that the media reported that ‘Arabs’ were among the dead hostage takers and that soon after that claim was made a ‘confession’ was broadcast in which an obviously terrified man told his captors that indeed Arab men were part of the group. During all this, the Russian government, unchallenged by most governments (except a few in Europe, notably the Dutch) ran the line that the Chechen ‘terrorists’ had to be eliminated. What was not spoken of was the fact that Chechnya along with a number of other Caucasan states have been subject to Russian atrocities for decades. I mention this not to excuse the actions of those involved in the killings at School Number One, but in order to try and understand what it is that would drive people to such desperation.
Firstly you have the fact that the states in the south of Russia were created, or recreated, in the carving up of what has proved to be very rich oil, mineral and agricultural land by successive occupying powers over hundreds of years. Many of these state boundaries saw the grouping together of rival ethnic clans and villages. While they fought among each other, often over what seems to us petty issues, they posed no real threat to Russian central governments. No real threat that is, until the wealth that lay beneath their feet was uncovered. Once that happened the Central government, as is the want of all colonial powers, the battle began to expropriate the wealth at the expense of the locals.
Muslim was pitted against Christian. Dark skinned against light skinned. Rich against poor. Neighbours were promised wealth if they would assist in getting rid of neighbours. And on and on it went. Each small act of treachery adding to create a climate of escalating barbarity. Add to that the siding of some groups with the occupiers and it is not too difficult to understand the deep-rooted fears and hatreds that have been exploited in order to steal the wealth from its rightful owners. The last 100 years of Russian rule has been particularly brutal and the last 20 has seen more tens of thousands of Chechens ‘relocated’ or exterminated. But why is Chechnya the seeming flash point of so much retributive killing?
Since the energy crisis of the early 70’s national governments have been attempting to secure access to the resources they believe they need to prosper. The region that surrounds the Caspian Sea in the South of Russia and which forms the bridge to North Eastern Europe and the Middle East is rich in oil, gas, precious metals, fertile soils and water resources. Although rugged and not easily accessible, the wealth that lay on and under the soil has been lusted after by the mining and energy companies in both the East and the West. The imposition of Russian Christianity and the desecration of many of the Sunni Muslim mosques in this region have added to their feelings of isolation and shame.
The Chechen people have fought for years to return to self-rule and self-determination. The break away and successful push by the Ingushetians to form their own republic in the early 90’s toughened the resolve of the Chechens to break away from Russian suppression. Ingushetia’s independence was seen as a slap in the face for the Russian Empire and the ruling classes were determined to ensure it would not happen again. Yeltsin upped the ante against Chechnya in 1991 and as a way of attempting to demonstrate his authority sent in the Red Army. The Chechens resisted and the Russian army suffered a humiliating defeat and withdrawal in 1996 as the Russian people became fed up with their young men being slaughtered for what they saw as a no good cause. They demanded and attained the pull out of the troops. However the Chechens continued to attack Russian outposts and began to target civilian sites.
In 2000 Putin came to power in Russia partly on the promise to ‘subdue’ the Chechen ‘rebellion’ and once in power resumed the carpet bombing of Chechen towns and cities. The reason being that the Russian ruling class want to send a message to the rest of the Caucus states that they too will suffer the same fate if the try and regain self-control. What the Russians didn’t count on was the fierce independence streak that permeated and united once fractious groups of Chechnya into the feared fighting force they now are.
How many innocent men, women and children died we will never know. The TV cameras were not there to record the atrocities including rapes and extrajudicial killings carried out by Russian troops. Numerous human rights groups attempted to get their reports of these atrocities heard and while they did go mostly unreported, they did surface from time to time. But when they did the predictable reaction from our leaders were that is was someone else’s problem and that the reports were probably exaggerated.
This has been a very brief backgrounder; short on detail but focused enough to alert us that what occurred at School Number One was not a random act of fate. It was committed in the context of desperation brought about by our failure to respond to the terrorism that is carried out by our governments in our name. How does this occur? Simply because we allow it to. There are no excuses. The blood of the innocents is just as much on the hands of we in the ‘civilised’ west as it is on the hands of those who pulled the triggers. There are no excuses and if our only response is to bury our heads further in the sand and say "its someone else’s problem" to whom will we call when it becomes our problem? I submit no one will come simply because they too are fighting for their own survival in their own corner of the earth. In the meantime the stenographers of the powerful will report the ‘facts’ but not the history or context of the conflicts their camera’s film. And for that we are all rendered ignorant observers rather than engaged citizens in an active and vibrant ‘democracy’.