In Crimea, the date of deportation of 1944 was discussed in the light of recent historical events
In Crimea, mourning events were held the day before, dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the deportation of Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Crimean Tatars and Germans from Crimea.
This date, May 18, has been used for many years by the Crimean Tatar Majlis (banned in the Russian Federation) for political actions and making demands on the authorities, which remained on the posters, but increased the significance of the Majlis itself, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
With the approach of the next mourning date, the leaders of the Majlis, located far beyond the borders of Crimea, began on social networks to call on the Crimean Tatars not to participate in mourning events, but to organize “storms” on social networks with stickers equating the events of 1944 with the year 2022.
Russian Islamic scholar, political scientist, specialist on modern problems of the Caucasus and Crimea Yana Amelina, in a comment to the Millet TV channel, explained that we are talking about demonstrating their influence among the Crimean Tatars, despite their physical absence from the peninsula for 9 years.
“They need to show their customers that they are working, that there are some forces behind them, that they can count on them and use the Crimean Tatars in the “liberation of Crimea” - what Ukraine plans to do, which it has already repeatedly stated . If they do not do this, then there will be neither funding nor support from the Ukrainian government agencies, as well as, probably, from the Turkish ones. It is quite logical that they will continue to provoke people to some illegal actions and destabilize the situation in Crimea,” Amelina believes.
Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Nationalities of Crimea Ruslan Yakubov added that the main goal of those events that took place under the leadership of the Mejlis until 2014 was to contrast the Crimean Tatar people with all other residents of Crimea.
“It was also beneficial for the then current Ukrainian government that the Crimean Tatar people were a constant oppositional mass of people with negative electorality, and it was convenient,” he noted. – And today we see how memorable days pass, like all mournful dates in general - all the peoples of Crimea live them together. And on May 18th, for the last 9 years, it has been taking place in a completely different way - all people, regardless of nationality, simply gather, representatives of peoples who survived deportation, representatives of all faiths, and together we pay tribute to the memory of our parents, grandparents, who are already with us no, which remained in places of deportation.
We remember history, but at the same time, we are creating today, and we are setting up our youth, our new generation to create this together for the benefit of everyone living in Crimea.
It is clear that those people who left the territory of Crimea are very annoyed by this. In addition, they continue to carry out orders from the West aimed at all sorts of stuffing that, in their opinion, would allow us to somehow be divided here. But we see that these falsehoods do not happen in Crimea, our people have long learned to distinguish good from evil and truth from falsehood and have developed an immunity that does not allow these falsehoods to cause discord in our society.”
The ex-chairman of the Bakhchisaray district council, adviser to the head of Crimea, Refat Derdarov, recalled that the Crimean Tatars began to gather on the anniversary of the deportation long before the advent of the Mejlis.
“We held rallies on May 18 when we still lived in Central Asia, in Uzbekistan. People really went to them with such patriotism, and although we were young guys, we clearly heard what they said there. “I also went, not so much for political reasons, but to gather there and say something,” he pointed out.
“My family suffered greatly. My grandmother had seven children, two were blown up by a grenade here during the war, and with five children she got into a carriage, and they were driven to Central Asia. I have already arrived with only my mother. And when we were offered to make a homeland there so that no one would go anywhere, my grandmother stood up and said: Crimea and that’s it. And then we were really friendly and gathered very actively at rallies.
Already, when we arrived here, in our homeland, the first rallies were still under the Soviet Union, also active, something was accepted, carried out, and the people really came.
At some point, they began to gather more to meet with those with whom they lived in Uzbekistan, or in other places. Everyone is in the same crowd, acquaintances, but we should have heard now that right now we must demolish this monument to Lenin, they will give us 2-3 weeks for this, and that’s all. I think that this was done more to show the Ukrainian authorities at that time that the Majlis can, the Majlis rules, and whatever it says, so it will be.
Already at the end of the 90s there was no such unity; people were fragmented as much as possible. And it’s not just about the rallies on May 18. There were rallies of Hizb ut-Tahrir (the banned terrorist organization Islamic Liberation Party). They came out with black flags, we, Muslims, did not understand - why is this necessary? These are not our values, that’s how they all went belligerently.”
Deputy Mufti of Crimea and Sevastopol Raim Gafarov also recalled that the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement appeared in the 90s, when it was possible to register any public organization without any problems and calmly engage in propaganda activities, which, with the accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation, began to be equated with extremist and terrorist.
“In 2014, the Mufti of Crimea asked that they not be touched, because for 15 years this was allowed, and in 2014 none of them were touched. In 2015, he also asked that for the period while all our imams, all our employees of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims travel, gather believers, explain that these ideas are alien and in the Russian Federation this organization is considered prohibited, terrorist since 2003, they should not be touched . A lot of time has passed, everyone is responsible for themselves, but we must always remember that we should not put our political goals above people, above the people. Unfortunately, that's what they do. And at the same time, the control center of Hizb ut-Tahrir is located in Great Britain,” Gafarov emphasized.
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