Let me share a very brief background of my 12 days long trip to Russia in September 2019.
I have a vast history of travelling to the Western Europe and the US during the past 40 years. Russia had always been on the list but with remote possibility to be materialized. It happened in a short period of time. My nephew got a diplomatic posting in Pakistan Embassy Moscow in 2018. He shared his wonderful experience of living in Moscow and meeting all sorts of Russian people there. I planned my trip. Visa formalities were done smoothly. Though it was a family trip, I thought I should explore academic world in Russia too. Where to begin? Whom to contact? These questions emerged immediately. I was familiar with the online magazine of Islamic studies—Minbar being published from Moscow. With no hesitance, I wrote to one of the editors of the magazine, Dr. Olga Pavlova who was a professor at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (MSUPE) and showed my interest to visit the campus. I received a prompt reply from her with an invitation to deliver a lecture to the faculty and graduate students. (I am sharing a copy of my quick correspondence with Professor Olga).
On September 26th my lecture was scheduled in the early afternoon. A huge and beautiful campus of Moscow State University is located in the middle of the city. A very warm welcome was given by the Chair and the representatives of the department. A meeting was organized at the office of Ms. Nataliya Baykovskaya the director of the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research (ISCAR) at the Moscow State University.
She presented university souvenirs and showed department’s interest for collaboration of future research on Islam and Muslim women in South Asia.
Ms. Nataliya was good in English language but rest of the meeting with other faculty members was conducted through an interpreter. The department had already translated my lecture into Russian language and distributed to the audience. There was a warm welcome by the audience in the room.
It was my second time experience of speaking to the audience through an interpreter. (First time I spoke to the Danish audience in Copenhagen in 1997).
Since the audience had already read my lecture, it seemed slightly easy to maintain the continuity of my points. I delivered a short lecture to gain more time for a question/answer session.
Then started a Q&A session. To my surprise, it was very engaging and challenging session. Some of the typical issues regarding Islam and Muslim women also came up such as, hijab, dress code and segregation in the Muslim societies.
At one point, Professor Olga had to take lead to discuss some points in my lecture to those students who disagreed with my argument of historical materialism, class analysis and Marxist critique. Most of those students were born in the post-USSR period. They had been brought up with anti-socialist and pro-liberal democracy agenda. To my assessment, ideologically, they seemed anti-Marxist and anti-class analysis. They considered class analysis as part of the USSR’s political ideology. They seemed to consider these concepts and analytical tools stemming out of the state ideology of the brutal dictatorship period of the USSR history.
One young man argued in a loud tone that I was arguing with them to positively look at the USSR regime’s ideology and political system. To him, talking about class and Marx was to legitimize the USSR era. I remember his bitter tone when he said that “we are out of the cruel period of socialist regime, you want us to bring back the terms and language of that regime to analyze our present.” My answer was that I was misunderstood.
The brutalities of the USSR era did not stem from the academic terminology of historical materialism, Marx or class analysis. That, the academic value of those concepts should not be erased by attaching them with the painful experience of the USSR era. Further, my answer was, “don’t throw out baby with bath-water.” After this, a heated discussion started among the faculty members and students. It was all in Russian language and my interpreter could not maintain her pace. I could feel the generational difference of opinion too.
My concluding point was that I was not there to convince them that remember and praise the USSR past, my intention was to share the academic use-fulness of concept of class analysis in understanding socio-political and religious oppression in global politics. And further, I wanted to invite them to challenge the divisive and hegemonic terminology of the East-West, Underdeveloped-developed, last but not the least, Us vs. them.
After the lecture, some students approached me individually. Two young women were in Hijab. The individual interaction was a wonderful experience.
Although, it was a brief session, but it could give me a quick gist of academic disconnect among the younger generation from the progressive (in other words leftist) academic terminology to understand major ideologies in world politics. I could feel a generational gap in their approach towards understanding of history of the USSR and post USSR periods.
I quickly recalled the first day I arrived at Moscow airport and took taxi. My ride from the airport to home was more than an hour long. The taxi driver in his mid-60s knew English and we had a good conversation. He seemed used to talking to the non-Russian tourists and visitors. He remembered the USSR era very well. Now living in post USSR system for about 30 years, he was comparing the daily life then and now.
In simple words, he said that then they wanted to get rid of the system because it was dictatorship. Then they wanted to live in the American type of system because it was democracy. “During the dictatorship of the USSR, we didn’t have to worry about the food, health care and housing for our families. Now in this system neither we have democracy nor we have guarantee of food, health facilities and shelter. Then we didn’t have to worry about the next meal, now we don’t know if the next meal would be on the table.”
Just after 10 days visit to Moscow, I don’t want to make a sweeping statement regarding difference of opinion between two generations about the past and present system. I came back with lots of questions in my mind after talking to an older working-class Russian who was trying to remember good things about the USSR era and a younger Russian student in a classroom environment who reacting to even a quick reference related to socialist political ideology.
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