* Smart move on Putin’s part though something of a gamble.
As Michael Corleone said, ‘keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.’
Build the main mosque in Moscow as the National Mosque. Forge close ties with establishment Muslims, and use that power to guide and direct Islam all across Russia. Such control from the center may counterbalance the more rogue forms of Islam that is sprouting everywhere.
One thing for sure, Putin cannot simply wish Muslims away. They are a reality in Russia. In some regions, they are the majority. Also, we know from ISIS and Alqaeda that Islam can easily go rogue and radical.
Also, US and Saudis may work with Turks to encourage the spread of crazy Islam in the peripheries of the Russia. Better to centralize Islam and keep it close to Kremlin. Saudis maintained power by centralizing Islam via connection with the Wasabi sect.
With Putin aiding Assad, he might be seen as the enemy of Islam by some Muslims. He has to counterbalance such perception with a show of support for the National Mosque.
Also, if establishment Muslims work with Putin in Moscow, the unity of Christianity and Islam will work as a bulwark against the globo-neo-faith of homo-worship(which really is a quasi-spiritual movement with homos as god-fairies over us all. I mean the pussy riot and such ilk won’t dare pull a stunt against the Mosque. Muslims will tear them limb from limb. So, play the Chrislam card. While US is spreading homo-faith all over the world, Putin opens a National Mosque in Moscow. That sends a message. If globalists try to spread homo filth in Moscow, it is an affront to Christians and Muslims. Notice that the Muslim world is one place where US never tries to spread homo filth-as-faith or failth).
Also, what did the greatest political philosopher of all time say? Merlin said to Uther, ‘he has given, now you must.’ Russia fought a bitter ruthless brutal war with Muslims in the Caucasus. Russians won but must try to appear magnanimous in victory.
Also, Putin has leaned heavily on Israel, but it hasn’t led to many dividends. It’s better for Moscow to lean toward not only Jews but Muslims, especially as globalist Jews are hellbent on destroying Russia. Putin has been very nice to Jews but has nothing to show for it.
Putin is protecting Christians in Syria, and some might see this as Russia vs Muslims. So, it makes good sense for Putin to support an establishment Islam that is respectable and not radical, one that is able to work peacefully with a Christian civilization.
Putin has been trying to revive Christianity, so it may seem counterintuitive for him to make this pro-Muslim move. After all, there have been many Christian vs Muslim wars.
But when we look at the EU, the main problem is Muslims vs secular decadent West. Muslims see weakness. It’s not Islam vs Christianity in the West. It is Islam pushing against the vacuum created by implosion of Christianity and its successor Marxism, which one time had confident militant power among the intellectual class and among the workers. (Also, there was powerful nationalist rightist movements in Western Europe well into the 70s). Western communists were not self-loathing idiots and they were anti-immigration in name of the native worker. They were anti-imperialist but also focused on the rights and needs of domestic workers. But Marxism is gone too as an ideology in the West. So, what creed is left in the West? Just pop culture, PC, jungle fever, Jew-worship, and homo-failth. When Islam pushes against that stuff, it smells blood.
But Putin has supported a confident National Church in Russia. He sent a strong message that faith and tradition matter in Russia. That is the kind of power that Muslims can respect.
When a Mosque goes up in the West, it is filling a vacuum. In Moscow, it is a way of Islam seeking a peaceful co-existence with Christianity with confidence and strength. It’s like Protestantism and Catholicism eventually found a way to co-exist in Germanic lands.
On a darker note, the problem is the Muslim population grows faster than Christian population in Russia as elsewhere. But this can only be countered by Christians having more kids.
When you see an enemy or rival, one way is to try to totally defeat them. The other way is to win them over or infiltrate them.
Chinese have done this with Tibetan Buddhism. At one time, they tried to destroy it. But they eventually decided to create their own version of it.
Jews have tried to destroy Christianity in the USSR under communism. In the US, Jews figured it’s better to turn Evangelicals to Zionism and turn Mainline into pro-homo failth. They succeeded.
Putin may have similar ideas about Islam. Develop ties with the community and come to an understanding where Christianity and Islam become partners.
It’s like the American Protestants made peace with Catholics even though at one time many were hostile to Catholicism.
Islam has deep roots in Russia. It is not so alien to them as it may be in other parts of white world.
* I don’t understand why Russia won’t get rid of her muslims areas. I realize there are natural resources in many areas, but I thought the lion’s share of her resource wealth was in Siberia, not the muslim Caucasus region.
Apparently there are nationalists in Russia who want to rid the Russian Federation of non-Russians, i.e. muslim areas.
The Saker blog has this article written by Putin in which he argues against Russian nationalists. It appears Putin is more interested in Russian cultural connections than in any ethnic or religious ones. I suppose that also explains why he is so concerned with Russian speakers in Israel.
“The core, the binding fabric of this unique civilization – is the Russian people, Russian culture. And it is this core that various instigators and our opponents will make every effort to tear out of Russia – with false assertions about Russians’ right to self-determination, “racial purity”, the need to “finish the job of 1991 and complete the destruction of the empire, sitting on the necks of the Russian people” – in order to ultimately force people to destroy their Motherland with their own hands.
I am deeply convinced that attempts to promote the idea of creating a Russian “national” mono-ethnic state contradict our thousand-year-old history. Moreover, it is the shortest path towards the destruction of the Russian nation and Russian statehood – as well as any viable sovereign statehood in our land.
When they start screaming: “Stop feeding the Caucasus,” just wait, as tomorrow a new call will inevitably follow: “Stop feeding Siberia, the Far East, the Ural, Volga, Moscow region…” This is the recipe followed by those who brought the Soviet Union to collapse. As for the infamous idea of national self-determination, which has been speculated on repeatedly by various politicians – from Vladimir Lenin to Woodrow Wilson – while fighting for power and political dividends, the Russian people have long self-determined themselves. Self-determination of the Russian people – a poly-ethnic civilization, held together by a Russian cultural core. This determination has been confirmed many times over by the Russian people – and not in plebiscites or referendums, but with blood. Throughout the entire 1,000 years of history.”
Does anyone with first hand knowledge of Russia know if the nationalist view or the Putin view is the dominant view among average Russians? Based upon how I’ve evolved the last 20 years in increasingly factious America, I’d tend to support the nationalist view if I were a Russian. But I’ve have never been there, don’t speak the language and have no clue about their beliefs on this topic. It seems crazy to make nice with muslims who enslaved your ancestors and sacked your cities. But what do I know?
* Putin’s problem is Russia isn’t strong enough to fend off the Washington globalists alone so he needs as many allies as possible. In the short term this protects Russia but not in the long term. If the globalists could be defeated the ethno-state argument would become easier.
Also a lot of the globalist’s comments about Putin are straw men. People like Putin not because he is this or that but because he seems to care about Russia – unlike the whore western politicians who are all either bought or blackmailed.
* Perhaps the whole Mosque complex was commissioned as a way for the Russian secret service to keep a close on eye on the Moslems they have (particularly given that Moscow would be the first target for any Moslem terrorist group)?
Whatever the motives, you can be sure that the place will be infiltrated by the Russian secret service inside out and almost everyone going in and out will be closely watched. Putin commissioned this back in 2005 when Chechen attacks were more common than they are now (which is also a success for Putin).
Putin is a realist – no one can simply “wish” away 25-30 million Muslims living in Russia (many of whom have been there for centuries).
I also think most Americans and Europeans don’t understand Islam as practised in the “STANS” very well – most of those populations that grew up under communist tyranny are nominally Muslim but their adherence is very “tenuous” at best. I have had numerous dealings with Kazakhs and Uzbeks etc. and their “Islam” is nothing like what we see among the Arabs.
* I’m in Eastern Europe now and by chance I met a tourist from Qatar. (Yes, my life is one endless i-Steve episode.) I asked him why he thinks Qatar is taking in zero Syrian refugees while Germany is Hoovering them up. He said, “We like our country the way it is now and the Germans are being stupid. Who needs to import beggars?”
* Putin sees himself at the head of a counter-empire to that of US global dominance. And part of his imperial catchment area most certainly contains plenty of Muslim states. So Putin’s relationship to Islam can be seen as a sort of Martin Luther — his tacit goal is to impose a Reformation on Islam by pushing it away from the Wahhabi-style medievalism. This sort of reform Islam will become the state religion of any Muslim zones under Putin’s influence.
While the root of the Islamic problem in Saudi Arabia.; the root of the current refugee crisis is in the neoconservative implementation of a sort of Oded Yinon Plan where socialist / nationalist Arab states are destroyed and Balkanized into tiny triblets. It is interesting to see Putin on the ground in Syria and leading the fight to destroy the ISIS (which can only be read as at the very least, a US-tolerated organization). If successful in Syria, will Putin be able to play Humpty-Dumpty and put those shattered Arab nation-states back together again? And will he be able to threaten Saudi Arabia. Donald Trump was asked directly a month ago if he would defend Saudi Arabia and the answer was not an unequivocal yes — he left just a little bit of doubt hanging in the air.
And the mass migration of the 3rd world into Europe will trigger a form of migrant-austerity that is going to further smoother an already wheezing European economy — not to mention the crimes and rapes that the media will attempt in vain to play down or cover up. This will obviously empower anti-EU nationalist movements throughout the continent, which are typically pro-Putin. So Putin is giving the future nationalist leaders of Europe an example of how to live in harmony with Islam — that you must dominate and tame it from above. Like a master to a dog.