У шести стран есть общая проблема - их колонизация Россией. The six nations share a common problem - their colonisation by Russia.

Free Idel-Ural

BP experimenting with AR

"They carry the heads back to the Assyrian camp to be identified"

This chilling inscription, a subtitle to one of the numerous Assyrian artifacts belonging to the British Museum, and shown in its exhibition "I Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria", strangely reminds me of the photo I took the previous evening, Sunday, 20 January 2019, at a solemn event that took place in South Wimbledon. In my photo one can see heads floating among flags.

The solemn event in question was the constituent assembly of the civic movement "Free Idel-Ural". A movement aiming to unite six republics with predominantly Turkic and Finno-Ugric population, currently within the borders of Russia, in a major Idel-Ural State. Needless to say, it is a separatist movement.

Idel-Ural, as it was first thought in the beginning of the 20th century, consists of; Mordovia, Chuvashia, Mari El, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Bashkortostan, all of which are situated along the basin of the river Volga. The six nations share a common problem - their colonisation by Russia. The indigenous population of these republics are Muslims and have longtime suffered under a Russian boot.

This well established practice in the times of the Tzars (like the destruction of Kazan in 1552) went uninterrupted in Communist and Putin’s times. It's your usual life under a colonial rule - the invaders persecute and kill local nobles, destroy buildings of cultural importance, impose their religion, impose their language, generally treat the indigenous individuals as second class citizens. This means limiting the basic rights of indigenes and the possibility for social progress, or displacing them to hostile lands. At other times this means depriving them of the means of survival, for example, Stalin’s Famine in Ukraine, etc.

Nothing new, nothing unusual, especially not for an English ear (English society is an advanced society, it has had its religious wars centuries ago, it has had its colonial wars decades ago, and is now subcontracting its public sector to private companies, so that they may “privately” introduce modern slavery back, but in a way that the government remains unaccountable for the practice, and all taxpayers share responsibility - how avant-garde! And at this point I feel properly schizophrenic as I am about to complain to the leaders of twisted practices of their principal competitor in the discipline, but here we are) then what is the problem now, after all this time passed under the Russiano-Sovieto-FSB/Oligarchy yoke?

Rafis Kashapov presenting the Free Idel-Ural map

Well, it seems that all the problems are precisely time, and timing-related ones:

a) It's the 21st century. A century in which it is very hard to keep intelligent and educated people in a submissive position

b) The aeons of genocide, displacement, and assimilation didn't make the indigenous peoples lose their identity; on the contrary, it just made the suffering more unbearable

c) Crimea. Obviously Crimea. The wake-up call amidst the fumes of dolour and the mists of misery.

The annexation of Crimea has been a wake-up call for nearly everybody to the East of the ghost-spirit of the fallen Berlin Wall.

Just as it has been a wake-up call for nearly nobody in the West of the ghost of the aforementioned Wall.

My personal bother is that on the subject of the annexation of Crimea, both Western Rightists and Leftists are on the same jellyfishly- meh, lacking human-rights-spine position. Before going on with my personal bothers (especially with the local leftists), I have to mention the brave personalities behind the Free Idel-Ural movement.

The founder of the movement is Rafis Kashapov, Crimea-annexation objector from the Republic of Tatarstan, accused and found guilty of incitement to hatred and sentenced to three years in a correctional colony in the Komi Republic. Has now been granted political asylum in the UK.

At his sides are wo/men originating from the six republic forming the Idel-Ural territory, currently living around the world. They have also supporters from beyond the Idel-Ural borders, for example an Iraqi Turcoman, a Russian journalist, a Turk etc.

The company establishes a skype-conference with activist who will present the Free Idel-Ural movement internationally in Ukraine, Turkey, Poland and Canada. They are Crimean-Tatars, Uzbeks, Chuvashes, Chechens etc.

I am contaminated by their solemnity, by their conviction of the importance of the moment. Their optimism takes me back to my youth, to a better me, to the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and immediately after. They take me back to the years when I had no knowledge of the world nor cynicism. Because of this, I suddenly feel at home among them, people with unfamiliar features and language.

“Every century witnesses an attempt to establish an Idel-Ural State. We are the ones to succeed in the 21st century”, tells me Melek Maksudodly, a Crimean-Tatar living in the UK. She is a young, beautiful woman with short hair coloured in multiple bright colours. I look at her and suddenly I hear Azar Nafisi in her book “Reading Lolita in Tahran" sying: “In the name of change we (the women of Iran) gave up so easily on our liberties. I can’t forgive our (Iranian) men, who so easily gave up on our liberties” (quoted from memory). I look to the bright colours in Melek’s hair and wonder will she still sport them in a Free Idel-Ural State? Or will they be covered and forever gone from the public’s eyes, like the hairs of so many women in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan etc?

Apart of this one, other reality-check questions appear a bit later, at the time of the group photo. People have brought with them the flags of their ethnic or national groups. Thus I see for a first time the flag of Iraqi Turcomans. It is a white crescent and a white star on a light blue background with two white stripes. All but the Turkish flag are unfamiliar to me. The idea is that each participant pose with their flag. But lo, at the picture there are more flags than heads.

While I am taking the picture, I suddenly have a flashback of myself and what I felt, when my beloved cousin fell into coma years back. Near the terrible shadow of the death of the beloved one, fear crashed my soul. Yes, this is what I witness now. The crashing fear of death. Or the crashing fear of the long hand of Moscow. This fear that hounds them as far as the UK and made them hide their heads behind the flags of their identity.

And while I will not support a new religion-based state (like Iran or Israel), I am inclined to support the Free Idel-Ural movement as I haven’t heard from its activists that their state will be any other but a secular state. Yet, here hides my initial worry - who would support a new, predominantly Muslim population state in the North Hemisphere? From here, another question follows. Is it possible that the West did nothing to Ukraine on Crimea because its indigenous population is of Crimean-Tatars aka Muslims? I hope not. I hope the West didn’t do anything only out of fear from FSBia (KGBia old fashion).

The worst argument regarding Western passivity in the Crimea that I have heard in this country (England), came from a local leftist who said “We didn’t do and we won’t do anything about Crimea because Russia shouldn’t have let it go at the first place.” (!?!)

The second worst argument on the subject, also from a local leftist, a different one is “Are you supporting America then?”(!?!)

Here I should probably finish by saying I don’t support Russia. I don’t support USA. I don’t support Religious States, new, old, or virtual (Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, ISIS/DAESH). I don’t support Secular States with non democratic attitude towards religious and ethnic groups (China, Russia). Funny that! Only FSBia gets into two groups.

So here abides my big personal drama, now with my British Passport in the pipeline, how should I vote at the General Election? I know they are some way away, but still… Don’t support Conservatives. Don’t support Labour, that stupidly supports FSBia…

Hmm hmm…

…Isn’t there an Enlightened Party of Humanists?

Free Idel-Ural civil movement on 20 January 2019, London