Abstract
Sociologists, across every subfield, should be made aware of this remarkable monograph by the political scientist Debra Javeline. She offers a virtuoso example of using ethnographic methods in a theoretically disciplined framework for interpreting the political behavior of victims in the wake of a terrorist attack. But that is perhaps not the main reason to read this book.
In After Violence: Russia’s Beslan School Massacre and the Peace that Followed, we are reminded of a very different Russian Federation, which existed not that long ago. At the same time, we see how President Vladimir Putin was building his infamous “vertical of power.” In September 2004, on the traditionally festive first day of the new school year, three dozen ethnic Chechen and Ingush men, styled as Islamist rebels, took hostage a whole schoolhouse full of teachers, children, and parents. Hundreds were murdered and over a thousand remained physically and morally scathed in what appeared a botched counterterrorism operation. The reaction of Vladimir Putin? To eliminate democratic elections and claim emergency powers. Today, this book gives us a much-needed reminder of how some Russian citizens courageously opposed police violence and official lies. Still, even that is not the main reason to read it.
Javeline found, studied while it was still possible, and carefully interpreted for the whole troubled world to see an improbable instance when the small town of Beslan (population 36,000) in the wake of a horrific atrocity chose political protest and legal action over much-feared revenge and ethnic retribution. The prevalent nationality in Beslan are the Ossetians who trace their lineage back to the medieval Alans, the knightly warriors of the Steppe. (Yes, the English name Alan derives from them.) The cultural norms in the Caucasus do more than just permit vendettas—they prescribe them. Revenge is considered the ultimate deterrent, like atomic war once was among the superpowers. In a stateless warrior society, the precarious guarantee of one’s life was the collective clan reputation for generous hospitality and, its obverse, an implacable revenge. Similar traditions of hospitality/revenge could be found in many and very diverse mountaineer societies, from old Scotland to Albania and to the uplands of Southeast Asia described by James Scott.
Revenge on the scale of wholesale massacres and ethnic cleansing was a widely expected reaction of the Ossetians to the horrific atrocity perpetuated by their Chechen and Ingush neighbors, the Muslim peoples with their own bitter histories and grievances. At the time, many observers (journalists, experts, diplomats, spies, the proverbial taxi-drivers) suggested that provoking such a revenge was in fact the main calculation behind the school attack in Beslan. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but the first two decades of the twenty-first century were marked by waves of Islamist terrorism and brutal counter-plots pursued by western military and intelligence agencies. As a reminder, the political popularity of Putin, himself a KGB/FSB colonel, rose during 1999 and 2000—amid the scary and mysterious wave of terrorist bombings—from near zero to credibly winning his first presidency from a coalition of the once formidable and suddenly badly disoriented Russian provincial governors. We may never know what stood behind the Fall 1999 wave of night bombings targeting the apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities.
But in Beslan the worst predictions failed. Javeline documents in over 1,000 interviews and focus-group conversations how the citizens of Beslan, acting largely on their own, talked each other out of the immediate urge to avenge their incredible loss. Instead, they created an informal, yet very active network bound by exceptionally strong emotional attachments. What kind of organization do you expect to emerge in a small town from the simultaneous funerals of so many children? In this self-organizing to press their demands, the women (“Mothers of Beslan") played a leading part.
The causation, however, seems more ambiguous than might be optimistically assumed from the familiar narratives of women as peacemakers or the collective overcoming of ethnic prejudice. The prejudice stayed strong, as shown in the common preference to avoid any social interaction with the enemy group such as a shared meal, let alone marriage. The idea of improving interethnic communications through “civil society” initiatives was not considered serious in the wake of the terrorist attack. Here is a paradox to consider in other studies. Politically alienated victims were significantly less likely to support retaliatory violence (p. 28, italics in original). The loss of pride in one’s country may actually open the way to peaceful political action.
The citizens of Beslan demanded to know what happened. They did not believe the official investigators and courts. Two years later, in 2006, the Beslan activists filed charges of criminal negligence against the police, government officials, and, next, against President Putin himself. From the Russian courts, they went all the way to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In 2017, the citizens of Beslan won a monetary settlement from the Russian Federation: the most that ECHR could grant. Moscow appealed but eventually accepted the verdict. How different was Russia only a few years ago . . .
Javeline has achieved a highest-grade combination of rigorous social science methodology and the ethics of humane and purposeful research for peace. Her book memorializes the Beslan tragedy. Above all, the facts and theoretical arguments presented in this book remind us that the world could still become a better place.