Feeling of supremacy over enemy

Feeling of your ethnic or other supremacy over other people is a negative phenomenon. And it is even unacceptable when talking about supremacy over your enemy, if it is expressed in nothing but disdain for your enemy.

While recognizing this phenomenon as being negative, I would still like to say that the Chechen people have all grounds to have the feeling of supremacy over their enemies. And the actions of our enemies are systematically multiplying that feeling. When you are at the scene of the events and when you are a part of them, you get convinced that your cause is rightful, when you hear streams of lies about the ongoing events coming from the enemy.

Many can still remember how during the first years of independence of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria people were getting confused to hear the stories told by the Russian media. When watching that nonsense on Russian TV the people would gather around Moscow journalists, who were coming to Grozny, and try to explain to them what was really going on. They naively believed that Moscow TV and newspapers were lying due to the lack of unbiased information.

Graphic example happened in 1993, when Moscow sent the 'opposition' from among former communist functionaries and journalists with the mission to imitate a protest rally of 'starving' population at the Theater Square in Grozny against the 'Dudayev regime'.

At first the people were ironically laughing at that protest rally of the 'opposition', since most of the 'protesters' were pretty heavyset, and at that period of time there were really good opportunities to work and make an honest living, better than ever before. Not everybody understood what Moscow was up to.

The next moment of truth happened November 26, 1994, when Russian soldiers from the Taman Tank Division were dragged out of their 'oppositional' tanks when they came to Grozny from Upper Terek District. Russian TV channels were saying that it wasn’t true, but the local channel was showing the captive Russian tank crews telling their biographies.

The impudence, lies and cynicism culminated in the statement made by the Russian leadership when bombings of Chechen cities and villages started: «Russian warplanes are not bombing anybody. Chechens are the ones blowing up their own houses. They wait until the moment when Russian planes fly over them… to discredit Russia».

Soon it will be ten years since the Russian-Chechen war started, and any propagandistic attempts that Russia has been making to convince Chechens to bind up their future with Russia are looking laughable. It sounds just like Chinese propaganda of the times of Mao, when Soviet border guards were being offered to take advantage of living in China and join the Communism, where daily bowl of rice was guaranteed.

Our enemy is not only brutal and mendacious, but he is also weak and cowardly. First Chechen President Jokhar Dudayev will always remain in people’s memories as steadfast, courageous and wise leader, who could foresee the enemy’s treacherous plans and who managed to deliver his people from the inferiority complex within three incomplete years of independence, to suggest the faith in their own power and to prepare the people for the hard fight. Today President Aslan Maskhadov is following this course in spite of the hardest conditions and unbelievable difficulties that he has to encounter.

Commander Hattab will always remain in people’s memories as an invincible warrior who did not lose a single battle. And the way he was killed by poisoning only strengthens that opinion.

Ex-President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was underhandedly assassinated in a vile way too. He was killed because his word was stronger than a bullet.

However much they tried to discredit Commander Shamil Basayev, the time has shown that he is a real warrior and today any attempts to link his name to criminals, to kidnappings or to drug trafficking are looking merely absurd.

The time has put everything back into its places and shown that kidnappers and drug traffickers, whose activities Russians declared as the reason to start the war, are feeling secure under the wing of the invaders. Today it is evident to everybody that national traitors were the ones doing it all under the auspices of Russian secret services.

Weakness and cowardice of Russians showed in the murders of captive Chechen commanders in Russian prisons. But it is even hard to call it 'captivity', since none of them was captured in battle. Russians had to resort to an ordinary vile trick to capture Commander Atgeriyev: they invited him for negotiations, he came and was captured, and then killed in prison. Chairman of Parliament Alihajiyev was taken away from his home, and then killed in prison too.

Lechi Islamov was poisoned in the same despicable way, even though he was known for his excellent health. Commander Salman Raduyev was killed as well.

We and our enemy are on different moral poles. It’s no use of telling them that by doing such acts they are only showing their cowardice. They are proud of it, and they don’t know what you are talking about. And so it is no use to try to see their compassion towards the children that they killed in bombings.

It makes no sense to be surprised at such a moral state the enemy is in. You have to know the environment that Russians are living in. Right in Moscow before their own eyes there are starving children in ragged clothes, who were thrown out on the street by Russians just like they are. People see them each day and they don’t give a damn about them. They pass by them and go buy 'elite' food for their cats and dogs.

How would they ever have compassion for Chechen children killed by their pilots in faraway mountains of Chechnya?

All that generals can say is that warplanes were not up in the air on that day. And there will not be a single pilot out of dozens who would deny it or even say that the planes did fly but the pilot just made a blunder. It wouldn’t have been justifiable, but it at least would have been understandable.

You shouldn’t be expecting it from the people who consider it quite worthwhile to poison a convict in prison and then rejoice over it like they won a victory.

This is the same way they rejoice at murders of Chechen children. Patriots are rejoicing loudly and openly, and so-called democrats and intelligentsia are rejoicing quietly.

Russians know that schoolgirl Elsa Kungayeva, the victim of maniac Budanov (Russian colonel standing trial for murder and rape), was not a sniper, but they are denying it as if they believe in that sharpshooter story. And that’s because deep inside their hearts they are happy with Budanov’s act.

Feeling of your supremacy over others is not a good feeling. But Chechens still have all grounds to have this feeling of supremacy over their enemies. By such actions consisting of lies, vile acts, cowardice and brutality, -- the enemy is thus strengthening this feeling in us and there is nothing we can do about it.

Aset Ismailova,