Press Digest 19.12.2013
Generation gap in the Pankisi Gorge – Vahhabism sets fathers and sons against each other
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Generation gap in the Pankisi Gorge – Vahhabism sets fathers and sons against each other
On entering the Pankisi gorge the first village we pass through is the village Dusisi. At the gate of the village, a little Kist boy - with a gun on his shoulder - is meeting us. A gun slung on a little boys shoulder does not surprise us in the slightest; on the contrary, it fully corresponds with the atmosphere of the village; however, at this point unusual peace and tranquility reigns throughout the Pankisi gorge; one will not even think that the village Duisi was once an immensely dangerous place. The imposing police building stands in the middle of the village and a police pickup permanently patrols the area. We were in the village all day long and have not noticed anything particularly alarming or worrisome there; if not for the multitude of sulky and gloomy men with long beards, the village Dusisi, Jikolo, Omalo or Birkiani, to cut it short, the villages of the Pankisi gorge, at first glance was not a far cry from other villages of Kakheti” repots the Rezonansi gazette.
“Infants are sleighing and cheerfully playing in the snow, young men with long beards and angry faces and women with kerchiefs on their heads are passing us by; the elderly have relatively small beards and more outgoing personality then the young people here; they are more prone to speak than the young men; the elderly tell us that they are arduously trying to preserve their long-cherished traditions; regarding the young people, the older generation say that they do not like their inclination to vahhabism due to the fact that this practice contradicts with their customs and rites. All this triggers uproar in the village and incites a gap between the two generations; the young and the old Kists do not even pray together – the elderly worship in an old minaret and the young people – in newly-built huge mosque. We wanted to exchange a few words with young people too; but they refused point-blank to be involved in conversations with us. As the young men maintain, they are merely pious people and not vahhabists; they do not consume alcoholic drinks, do not smoke and obviously do not take drugs”, the article says.
“In Duisi, Mayvala Margoshvili’s family hosted us; they cordially received us, spread the table and told us everything regarding the village. The head of the family is deeply concerned because of the fact that the village Duisi came to prominence on the international scene because of narcotics and an extremely high crime rate; as she states, the Kists are peaceful people and the situation here was shuffled by Russia which was at that time supported by the Georgian government.
“Nothing on earth could have obscured the traditions of Kists; and now the Vahhabist brothers of ours, with their contradictory views, want to wash their hands of our long-cherished customs and rites; pardon us but they can spit at our religion only over our dead bodies; for instance, in Arabia, they can join their relatives in wedlock; but in the Caucasus we are dead set against this corrupt practice” declares Tamaz Baghakashvili, one of the residents of the Pankisi gorge.
“Chechens pushed our sons from the way of the truth; during the war, 12 thousand Chechen entered our village; each Kist family sheltered one Chechen refugee; and these people having passed through the grim war, became our young people’s role models; they instilled a radical Islam among us; and our wayward sons accepted Vahhabism and became staunch followers; To protect vahhabism, they do not even shrink from fighting against us – their fathers” announces Mr. Baghakashvili.
“The elderly in the Pankisi Gorge are raising concerns over the younger generation’s determination to fight the battle of other people; as they say, very often their sons go to Syria without telling them anything regarding their intention beforehand; when they ask them for what they put their head on the chopping block voluntarily, they respond without hesitation that they are Sunnis and In Syria they go to back their Sunni brothers who are permanently oppressed and humiliated”, our host and the head of the NGO “ Peace to the Caucasus”, Mayvala Margoshvii says.
“We know nothing regarding those who go to Syria; they are Kists but, as a rule, they spend a long time in Grozno or Europe from where they go to Syria. The family of Tarkhan Batirashvili, who lately has enjoyed immense popularity among the foreign media outlets, for instance, lives in the village Birkiani; the residents of this village also leave their homeland for Syria, but their families, as a rule, keep this secret under wraps till they learn of their offspring’s death”, states Nata Borcholashvili, Tamaz Baghakashvili’s spouse.
“The boys killed in the Lapankhuri special operation has remained a sore point and an unhealed wound of the Pankisi gorge. All the residents of the village are boldly certain of the fact that the former government brought these guys together, trained and provided them with guns and rifles; but later some kind of disagreement occurred among the young men and the authorities that, because of this, they did away with the boys”, concludes the author of the article.
