Members of Public Chamber of KBR offer to strengthen role of education and media in war on terror

On February 7, the House of Government of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), held a sitting of the Public Chamber of the KBR, which discussed the role of public in the fight against terrorism. The members of the Chamber shared their views on the reasons of the current socio-political situation and offered various measures on how to improve it.

Zhamal Attaev, editor-in-chief of the "Zaman", nationwide newspaper in the Balkar language, said that one of the reasons for aggravation of the situation in the republic is the fact that the country has been living without state ideology for twenty years already.

"The bacchanalia of the 1990s, archaization, criminalization and clericalization of public life, debunking of all and everything, profound disregard for human labour and other absurdities and stupidities" were a breeding ground, according to Mr Attaev, for bringing in the ideology of Islamic radicalism, alien for the nations of the KBR.

According to his version, it is wrong to assert that the root of all evil is in the economic turmoil. "Our people have lived through much more severe and tragic times, but nobody took up arms and went to kill his fellow countrymen," said Attaev.

He believes that in this case "we see a massive ideological attack on fragile brains, brainwashing, zombiing, geopolitical interests and materialistic and selfish plots."

According to Zhamal Attaev, "a negative impact is also made by the absence under feet of people of solid soil, and lack of confidence in the future." "It seems that there are forces interested to preserve confusion and tension as long as possible by setting one social group against the other and rocking the boat until it finally rolls over and drowns," he said.

He proposed to intensify the ideological work, to attack the MPs and members of the Government to particular dwelling settlements and "instruct them to visit their places as often as possible and to raise awareness about what we face and what it may lead to."

Entrepreneur Kanoshoubi Azhakhov believes that the fight against terrorism is the mission of special services. One of the components of success is in collection of intelligence data, analysis and setting restrictions of terrorists' financial resources.

Many speakers also stressed the need for a serious fight against corruption, which undermines the very foundation of the state.

According to some of them, the jobless rural and urban youth is still the feeding soil for terrorism. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Magomed Apshaev, deputy chairman of the public organization of the Balkar people named "Alan", believes that in order to solve the unemployment problem, it is necessary to launch big production facilities in Nalchik; while villagers should receive their land shares and set up large agricultural enterprises.

Nikolai Maslov, Executive Director of the Association of municipal formations of the KBR, also proposed to increase responsibility and role of municipal community and "its effective contribution to economic stability." In his opinion, innovative economic projects are a must to solve the problem of unemployment.

Barazbi Karamurzov, Rector of the KBSU (Kabardino-Balkarian State University), believes that it is necessary to revive and even strengthen the secondary vocational education, as well as extend the training duration. It is this level of education that was accessible to poor layers of population.

The problem of terrorism cannot be solved by force methods only. This was acknowledged by all the speakers.

The sitting of the Public Chamber was attended by KBR President Arsen Kanokov. In his opinion, one should not "exaggerate the significance of the bandit underground" in the country, since only a handful of youngsters who went to the forest are "ideological".

"Young people are drawn into gangs for money, taking advantage of their poor education. It's necessary to figure out who had ordered this situation, what forces are interested in wreaking havoc in the republic, which has confidently embarked the road of economic reforms," said President Kanokov.