Aida Abdrakhmanova is the deputy prime minister of the Government of Tatarstan in exile.
She was forced to leave Russia with her husband due to persecution. She currently lives in Sweden, where her family is under threat of deportation.
Ms. Abdrakhmanova told QIRIM Media about the current situation of the Volga Tatars, the largest nation enslaved by Russia, as well as how this situation can be corrected to avoid the final destruction of these people by the empire.
QIRIM Media: A Muslim woman in a hijab and in politics… This is unusual, in general, and for the post-Soviet period in particular. How do your colleagues in the government of Tatarstan in exile perceive your hijab?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: In the developed countries of the world, more and more Muslim women in hijab are appearing in politics. Both in the executive, legislative and judicial branches. In this regard, the post-Soviet space differs from the Russian space, which cannot escape from communist narratives and Islamophobia, in general. Wearing a hijab in my native land, in Tatarstan, in the city of Kazan, I, an ethnic Tatar, felt the horror of state and public Islamophobia, racism and intolerance. These were humiliations, insults in everyday life and much more.
Although I have a higher level of state economic education and meet all the criteria of both private and public employers, I have always been rejected when trying to get a job. And the reason was my hijab. I was even offered a job on the condition that I remove it. Today, analyzing my life in Russia, in Tatarstan, which was absolute oppression and oppression, I realize that I am a strong woman.
Prime Minister Rafis Kashapov and I have known each other for a long time. When he invited me to the government, he saw perfectly well and knew that I was a Muslim woman who covered herself.
He does not have any objections or doubts about this. But during the incomplete year when our government structure was functioning, there were moments of repeated gender discrimination against me by some people. They do not agree with the fact that there is a woman minister in the government.
I think that a woman who was not afraid to openly speak out against the terrorist regime of the Kremlin and is actively working for the de-occupation of her republic deserves support and help or at least understanding. She does not deserve any other means of pressure.
QIRIM Media: What areas of work are you responsible for in the migration government of Tatarstan?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: The official position offered to me by Rafis Kashapov and approved by all members of the government is Deputy Prime Minister for National and Religious Affairs. But at this stage, we all do a little more than the official position implies. There are many reasons for this. In particular, regarding security and privacy issues.
QIRIM Media: Is it important to be able to travel the world in order to participate in the work of the government and be involved in politics? Do your life circumstances allow you to travel around Europe, to other countries?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: In our political activity, the opportunity to move around the world is very important. Because I have restrictions on movement in different countries, my political activity cannot reach a qualitatively new level. After all, live communication always involves direct contact, and therefore more fruitful work with our allies and international politicians.
I hope that soon this issue will be resolved positively for me. But since we live in the age of technology, online meetings and international online conferences are commonplace. I would like to add that for participation in the work of the government, political understanding and the adequacy of certain decisions are also important. Also courage, responsibility in making decisions and the desire to spend your personal, free and unpaid time on it. These are also important points.
QIRIM Media: How does your mahram (guardian) feel about your involvement in politics? This is your husband, right?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: Whether the Tatar nation will exist on planet Earth or whether it will be assimilated by the “Russian world” depends on the results of our national liberation struggle for the independence of Tatarstan. Therefore, it is important for our whole family.
QIRIM Media: Is your politics Sharia-based? How would you define it?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: The policy of our government is aimed at building an inclusive democratic society, where the rights of every citizen of Tatarstan will be respected, in which there will be no place for repression and terror, both political, physical and economic. The programme of our government for the future of independent Tatarstan takes into account the interests of all citizens of Tatarstan, regardless of national, religious or other social group and affiliation.
QIRIM Media: What can you personally and the government in exile do for the Tatars and Tatarstan while in exile?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: In the 1990s, the Republic of Tatarstan went through all the legal stages to be recognized as a subject of international law, which was enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan. But Tatarstan never received international support in the matter of recognizing its political subjectivity from Russia. One of our main tasks today is to raise the issue of the Tatar people’s right to self-determination and independence from Russia to a new high-quality international level. This issue has gained special importance in connection with the radical changes in the geopolitical situation in the world after the full-scale invasion of Russia into sovereign Ukraine.
We are working on denuclearization, demilitarization, decolonization and de-imperialization of Russia. At the centre of our attention is the violation of the rights of the Tatar people in Russia and working in the field of recognition of the independence of the Republic of Tatarstan. We plan to conduct joint work of the government of independent Tatarstan in exile as a legitimate representative body of the Tatar people with the Temporary Special Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on work with the enslaved nations of Russia. Also, with such organizations as the UN, OSCE, the European Commission, the European Committee for Human Rights, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Helsinki Commission.
In the long term, we intend to jointly organize the creation of an international Tatar human rights organization. Many Tatars, both in Tatarstan and abroad, are in rather difficult life situations. But these issues should be dealt with by the human rights organization, not the government-in-exile.
QIRIM Media: What can mobilize the Tatars to confront Moscow, the federal centre?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: For almost 500 years of being under the occupation of Moscow, many Tatars were assimilated, forcibly Christianized, repeatedly, literally, the intelligentsia was destroyed, and there were many exiles. But the idea of independence and sovereignty of Tatarstan is still alive.
In our homeland, we have many supporters of the idea of independence of Tatarstan and opponents of Russia’s criminal-imperial war in Ukraine, but they are forced to take a wait-and-see position. The federal centre, with its anti-constitutional laws, strengthening of the repressive regime against the Tatars, and failure to keep its political promises to the people, is itself creating the ground for dissatisfaction with the federal centre.
Our task is to show an alternative to the existing imperial, bloodthirsty Moscow-centric regime and the collaborating government of the republic. We have to convey to the people all the beauty of life in a free, democratic and civilized Tatarstan so that the Tatar people see how unhappy they really are. If we can do that, it will be quite easy to mobilize people. It is necessary to show people that this cannot continue.
QIRIM Media: How do you and your colleagues feel about the ideology of pan-Turkism? How relevant is the idea today? Are there supporters of pan-Turkism in Turkey, the most developed country in the Turkic world? How influential are they in their country?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: I think that the idea of pan-Turkism is still relevant today. Some leaders and activists are working in this direction. The government of Tatarstan in exile generally supports the creation of the Turan project and the unification of the Turkic states and nations in the fight against our common enemy – imperial Russia. The politically active public and intelligentsia in the Turkic countries, I mean the post-Soviet countries, understand that having actually gained independence in the 1990s, they remained Moscow’s colonies.
Why are citizens from Turkic countries, rich in natural resources, forced to come to Moscow to earn money, while enduring Russian great-power chauvinism, racism, discrimination, xenophobia, Islamophobia, various kinds of humiliation and insults? The policy of suppressing Moscow is one of the reasons that inhibit the development of the Turkic countries and their people.
The idea of pan-Turkism is more than 100 years old, during which time the world has changed. In the future, we see Tatarstan as a technologically advanced, industrially developed, innovative, environmentally sustainable, democratic state that protects and defends the rights of all population groups. If other Turkic states aspire to such values and are ready to share them with us, then we are on our way.
I personally can imagine “Turan” not as a single state, but as a union of Turkic countries, like the European Union, ASEAN, and the League of Arab States. It should support the cultural and linguistic community, as well as the interaction in the economic, political and military spheres to strengthen the Turkic influence and protect the Turkic nations in the world. This Union can also be a strong anti-Chinese project in the future, supported, in particular, by the collective West.
QIRIM Media: You have mastered the Ukrainian language quite well in a short time. What motivated you to learn Ukrainian? And do you learn Crimean Tatar?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: I like to learn different languages, and I’m pretty good at it. I found out about this recently, when I studied Swedish on my own, passed the exam and received a state certificate of the highest level D. I have not yet become very familiar with the English language.
If we talk about the Ukrainian language, I have a lot of Ukrainian associates and friends. Talking to them in Ukrainian is something that I can personally do for them today. The support of my Ukrainian friends became a great motivation for me. When we together defeat the Evil Empire – Russia – and live in peaceful times, in a free Tatarstan, then maybe I will learn the Crimean Tatar language. Even now, if we speak slowly, we can understand each other.
QIRIM Media: How do you see the future of Tatarstan in the next 5-10-20 years?
Aida Abdrakhmanova: The future of Tatarstan as part of the Russian Federation seems catastrophic to me: the transition from the status of a republic to a de facto province, the policy of the Moscow Kremlin to destroy national languages will lead to the complete disappearance of the Tatar language in Tatarstan, and therefore to the disappearance of the Tatar nation, to the destruction of industry, the impoverishment of the population and increasing crime.
The hidden genocide of the Tatar people continues under the guise of mobilization for Moscow’s criminal imperial war against sovereign Ukraine. The only way, which, in my opinion, seems correct for the salvation of the Tatar people is to realize their catastrophic, slave position as part of the current imperial Russia and to do everything to get out of this situation.
Tatars can have a future only in a free, independent Tatarstan with a democratic form of government. We must strive and achieve this result together with Ukraine, with other nations and regions colonized by Moscow, as well as with the countries of the free, democratic, civilized and open world.
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