Michel

Hey there Zac,

I understand what you say.

When I first read about that, I was thinking about this a lot and I was feeling bad thinking about this during some days.

There is no words to explain all this.

And at the same time, nothing is really black or white. There's no all good guys and all bad guys.

What I mean is when you say:

''It's wrong to treat people this way, and while what you've described is horrible, it just makes it worse that they think what they're doing now is ok.''

I don't know who are 'they', I assume you talk about military attacking Chechnyans. But from what I read, it's that even between those military who were doing the purges in the villages or neighborhood, there was so much pressure. When one military who didn't agree to do such extreme violence, he was killed or tortured along with the Chechnyan civilians. Those military get became quickly insane, it's a serious mental illness that is going on. So violence escalades terribly, and their whole becomes an insane life. I heard that sometimes it is even called ' Chechnyan syndrome' or so.

That is an extreme problem and it goes from a lot of years of colonialism and violence.

Remember that Russia was an immense empire with a broad territory.

Since we are really far from there (I assume you are a 'westerner' like me who lives on America continent or West Europe), we feel also helpless in a way that it becomes frustrating. Our information access about there is filtered and very little. Try to imagine how people out there are feeling in the everyday life.

Hate generates hate and this a vicious cycle.

A person wastes a lot of vital and psychological energy while being frustrated very often.

When I feel very frustrated, I believe it's important to set free that frustration and this energy can used in another way where it can become a good help around (helping a friend in a chore, creative energy for example).

It's also very benefic to talk about our helplessness to friends who wants to share.

Writing is very good and it's good to get outside to walk or work on something else we like to give time on.

Look on the internet about alternative medias of Chechnya. Some Chechnyans are abroad and there is some organisations spreaded a little bit everywhere in the world. Maybe you could know better the situation by reading their writings of their organisations.

We should also remember that here in America and the west world, we have a lot of blood on our hands.

Colonisation is a major part of our history.

And a common example: buying a brand-new modern cell phone is an example:

"We have Canada mines in Romania, rare minerals mines in Africa continent that cost lives, exploitation of Asian manufactures with underpaid and underaged personnel, etc..."

It costs the lives of people too, but we don't see it at all. It is also a torture.

We live on the couch of the world.

I don't like to be in that position.

We can act to make life better, starting for ourselves and doing our best for around us and beyond...

It seems heavy to be said like that, but it can give better clues from the choices of life we do.

I know we have good intentions all the time.

Taking time to think can help to make a better decision and hoping it will have better impacts.

Don't lose hope.

I just stumbled on this forum and I saw this thread.

Chechnya is in a complicated situation, really.
There's a lack of news from there. There's some journalists who were covering Chechnya (Anna Politkovskaïa for example), but there's a gap between these news (4-5 years ago) and today.

I read briefly the article you mentionned, but the source is half-real I guess.
There is such prisons, more or less hidden, where they hold captive people and torture a lot. I would not label them 'concentration camps' even if
surviving in there is almost impossible.

I forgot mostly what I read, but I remember reading a book about a young Chechnya woman who went studying in France. (Milana Terloeva)
In France, she wrote this book about her life as a child and how war tensions and everyday was. It was very immersive and sensitive.

There is racism toward Chechnya people from Russia.
Like Europeans to America in 1492 until today, there is also modern colonialism in Chechnya from the Russians.

I think people of Chechnya is very proud and they do what they can to resist to keep their homeplace.
It's a long history of resistance.

Grozny, the capital has been almost completely destroyed twice since 1991 by the Russians.
In 2003, a chechen commando took in hostage a russian theater and the people in it to put pressure on authorities to release the russian military troops off Chechnya territory.

I know that repression from military russian troops towards Chechnyan people is random and very violent.
Also, there's a lot of pressure between the russian troops to act that way too.
After 2003, testimonials can be read that say that people, especially young adults tended to disappear and being help captive in horrible prisons. Especially those who are far or near resistance movements, or simply because they could be militia. The captives can be tortured to death or become totally invalid when they are set free. Families needed to pay a lot to get the captive back or the corpse. It's completely inimagiable, really.
We cannot put words on this.

There's a comic book, that I read in french, I don't know if there's an english translation, you can check out.
http://www.futuropol..._article=790213
The author is Igort.
Some drawings are shocking and it took some days to make them leave my mind. Along with the texts, it can be very depressing.

It talks about Anna Politkovskaïa, a woman who was writing a lot of articles about Chechnya and her work has been taken seriously worldwide. Her life was often compromised, and one day she's been murdered.

There's some websites that gives some news from Chechnya, but it's mainly associations of Chechnyan abroad.
Those Chechnyan people who talk usually keep anonimity because their freedom or situation can become compromised.
It gives an idea of the press freedom out there...


As I could understand too, Chechnya territory is very rich in gas and petrol and Russia wants to keep it in a feriocious way.
It's insane. So Russia sends soldiers on territories like these to give them playgrounds?

The current leader in Chechnya is keeping a constant climate of fear against any resistance of his regime.

I do not understand the 'religion side' , but it seems conservative, repressive and extemist on sides.

I do not know much about Chechnya, so I suggest you too continue reading, especially history if you can and various sources as possible to get a better idea of the actual situation. There's sometimes russian propaganda too that we should be aware of. I remember seeing a modern russian 'documentary' about Chechnya and it seemed twisted, I was angry.

It's geographically far and we need to read and inform ourselves a lot to understand a little bit more what happened and why it's like this today.

And yes, it can be emotional and frustrating.
I share the feeling of helplessness.

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On a side note...

After all these readings on Chechnya, it reminded me about:

Even here in Quebec and Canada, authorities did so many things to all the native people.
From 1820, there was residential schools to make natives become 'like white people'. Children were took from families and placed in these schools led by religious catholic authorities.
They could not speak their own language and they were obliged to forget everything from the past and to learn english or french, to become catholic, etc.
There's a big wikipedia article on this:
https://en.wikipedia...l_school_system

The last 'school' like this was closed in 1996. It's very recent in our history..! That is strange, really.
There's action of reconciliation going on with actual government and thousands of testimonials were collected.

A center or reconciliation is being recently built:
http://www.trc.ca/we.../index.php?p=26
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