There's Trouble in Them Thar Hills!
23/04/13 05:59
I doubt that there is any real connection between high mountains and radical politics. But as one who grew up in Montana and lived for another decade of my life in Idaho, I am aware that there are some people with passionate political beliefs who live in some very beautiful and remote mountain places. In the United States, the mountains attract people who want to live independently, some of whom are suspicious of any kind of outsider, including the government. I suspect that the number of libertarians as a percentage of the population is higher in remote mountain locations than in cities. Some of those mountain dwellers do like their guns and I suppose they pose some kind of a remote danger, but it is rare that they are a threat to others. There have been some isolated cases of militia members getting out of hand and it is widely known that the unibomber wrote his manifesto and mailed his bombs while living remotely and teaching himself survival skills in the Montana backcountry.
Most of those folks, however, are good people who mean no harm to others.
Still, there have been a lot of bloody battles fought in and around the mountainous regions of the world. The fact that the two brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings and the subsequent deaths of two police officers came to the United States from Chechnya got me to thinking about the connections between mountains and violence. It is pure speculation and I’m not sure that there is any connection between mountains and violence, but there certainly is a long history of violence associated with the Caucasus region.
The neck of land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, north of Turkey and Iran, is home to some of the highest mountains in Europe. Mt. Elbrus at 18,510 feet is the highest. The Caucasus Mountains will play host to the 2014 Winter Olympics. Nestled in the middle of the region with Dagestan to the east and Ingushetia to the west is Chechnya. It is a long way from Boston. And it is a stretch to imagine that Islamic militancy, born in the Caucasus could really provide an explanation of the motive for the Marathon bombings.
Chechnya is rich in oil, but it is mainly known in the west for its brutal wars. In the 1990’s separatists battled for independence from Russian and they were answered with brutal force from the Russian government. The capital, Grozny reduced to rubble. It has been reported that more than 100,000 people died in that conflict. One report claims that one fifth of the total population of Chechnya has died in conflict since 1994. That left behind an overwhelming load of grief and grief can turn to anger in the pressure cooker of world politics. A more radical form of Islam began to spread throughout the region and in the late 1990’s Chechen fighters joined Afghan fighters in the war against Russia. A second Chechen uprising in 1999 was brutally crushed by Russian troops. The government of Chechnya is pro-Moscow these days, but there is plenty of anti-Russian sentiment in those mountains and Chechens have been blamed for several different acts of terrorism in Russia. In 2002, a theater was seized with bloody results. In 2010, the Moscow metro bombs were blamed on Chechen rebels.
All of that violence produced refugees. Our country, as has been the place in other world conflicts, provided a haven for a few of the refugees. Among those was the family of the Boston bombers. The younger brother seemed to be adjusting well to life in his new country, but the older brother struggled to find where he fit in. Last year, he spent 6 months in Dagestan.
It is unlikely that we will ever fully know the reasons for the seemingly senseless violence that erupted at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The older brother, who seemed to be the ringleader, is dead. The younger brother will be interrogated, but the answers are elusive. About all one can say is that the violence has a connection, however slim, to a very bloody backstory. The Caucasus Mountains are seeped in the blood of generations of fighters and more than a few innocent victims.
It is a logical stretch and inaccurate to make a connection between violence and high altitudes. Mountains may have provided safe haven for rebels and fighters in the past, but the violence that has been perpetrated in mountainous regions is hardly the product of the geography itself. As has been proven time and time again, we humans are capable of great cruelty and dramatic violence against one another independent of the terrain in which we find ourselves.
There will be plenty of speculation and no small amount of serious attempt to understand the dynamics of violence. There are a few Russian commentators that would like to convince Americans that all Chechens are evil and that the US should back Russian actions of strict domination of the region. More likely, we will have to live with a degree of uncertainty. The actions of the Tsarnaev brothers defy logic. Like other crimes perpetrated against innocent victims, solving the puzzle of who did it doesn’t give a full explanation of the motive.
It will be interesting to see if the events have any impact on the strained relationships between the United States and Russia. Russian authorities have, for decades, blamed the United States for sympathy, if not outright involvement, in the attempts of Chechen rebels at independence. There are voices in Russia that are saying that now the US can at least see the terrorism that comes from the region. I doubt if the dynamics are that simple. The issues are complex and there is much that we do not understand.
For now we grieve with the families of the victims and we rest a bit more calmly knowing that our law enforcement officials were so quick to solve the crime and make sure that the criminals could not perpetrate further violence.