Comment

Sochi 2014 and the Oppression of Muslims

On Friday 7th February 2014 the 22nd winter Olympics commenced in Sochi, Russia. Controversy began well before the games started. The west has been in overdrive ever since Russia won the bid to host the Olympics. Weather it is British politicians or US human rights groups they are all highlighting one issue to the exclusion of all other issues- “gay rights.”

On the day of the opening ceremony Google changed its doodle on its home page in support of gay rights, the UK’s Independent and the Huffington Post also changed their logo. President Obama went further by sending openly gay athletes as a delegation to Sochi to promote this cause and in an interview with the American network NBC Obama said: “There is no doubt we wanted to make it very clear that we do not abide by discrimination in anything, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”[1]

Russia whether it has been under Putin, the Soviet Union or the Tsar’s, has consistently oppressed the Ummah not homosexuals. Whilst culturally Russia views Homosexuality very different to the west it is the Muslims of Russia that need the world to take up their cause rather than gays. The whole region including where Sochi is situated once housed millions of Muslims, they flourished and lived in this region. The Muslims of the region were known as Circassians, as the region they lived in was called Circassia with Sochi as its capital, they embraced Islam in the 15th century.

During the 16th to the 19th centuries when tsarist Russia was competing with the Uthmani Khilafah and colonising parts of the world it faced a valiant and fearless Ummah in Circassia who resisted every attempt to subdue them. The Uthmani Khilafah was in decline and Russia was able to impose a number of treaties on it where it gave up much of its lands which included Circassia.

With the region under Russian control the tsar set his sights on erasing any Muslim influence in the region. Oliver Bullough, author of Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus wrote in 1864, Russian forces defeated the last resisting armies of the Circassians and carried out: “the first modern genocide on European soil.”[2]

Thousands of Muslims were killed, massacred, starved, and many died due to disease. It is estimated by academics and historians over 600,000 perished and over 1 million were forced to, many of them were accepted as refugees in the Uthmani Khilafah. Today you will find their ancestors in faraway places like Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan.

Walter Richmond, in his book The Circassian Genocide said: “Circassia was a small independent nation on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. For no reason other than ethnic hatred, over the course of hundreds of raids the Russians drove the Circassians from their homeland and deported them to the Ottoman Empire. At least 600,000 people lost their lives to massacre, starvation, and the elements while hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homeland. By 1864, three-fourths of the population was annihilated, and the Circassians had become one of the first stateless peoples in modern history.”[3]

Despite the cultural history of the Muslims in this region even today Russia’s oppression against the Ummah continues unabated in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and within Russia itself. Oppression includes kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, summary executions. Russia even oppresses the Muslims in cahoots with the leaders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Many thousands of Hizb ut-Tahrir members languish and have died die in the prisons cells as they worked to bring Islam back to this region.

For the west when they look at Russia they only see the discrimination of gays ignoring the abuse of Muslims. The Ummah in Russia have suffered hundreds of times in Russia then homosexuals; it is as if Muslim blood is cheap. The irony is our rulers in the Muslim lands are silent as well, even Turkey with its links to the Circassians has turned its back on the Ummah in Russia.

It is only through the return of the Islamic Khilafah will thousands of ancestors of the Muslims be able to return to their homeland. The Muslims of this region are courageous, fearless, and valiant and they will continue to resist the occupiers like their forefathers.

Naqshbandi Sheikh, Uzun Haji, one of the leaders of the brotherhood said: “If so God wills, we shall construct a Shari’ah government, for in a Muslim land there can be no republic. Were we to accept a republic, we would thereby renounce the Khilafah, which would be paramount of renouncing the Prophet and finally God himself.” [Excerpts from: “Mystics and Commmissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union” X, Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, C. Hurst and Company, London, 1985]

Amad Uddin

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/sport/winter-olympics/obama-picks-gay-athletes-for-sochi-opening-ceremony-20140207-32686.html

[2] http://www.oliverbullough.com/letourfamebegreatreviews.html

[3] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Circassian-Genocide-Political-ViolenceRights/dp/0813560675/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391862711&sr=1-1&keywords=the+circassian+genocide