Chechens learn about tribe's nation-within-nation relations

A group of the indigenous people from war-torn Chechnya, a republic in Russia, met recently with Passamaquoddy tribal officials to find out how tribes in the U.S. have worked out their nation-within-nation relationship with the state and federal governments. They also were interested in how the tribe is preserving its language, as the Chechens have been working to maintain their language while surrounded by a dominant culture.
Six members of the Chechen Republic Parliament visited from December 10 through 17 with different groups around Maine as part of a program to give Eurasian political and civic leaders a chance to work with their U.S. counterparts and experience American-style democracy at the local level. "We chose to meet with the Passamaquoddy because they've spent years working out a relationship with the U.S. and Maine governments," says Barry Rodrigue, one of the organizers of the visit and a professor at the University of Southern Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College. Also, the Chechens are an indigenous society like the Passamaquoddy, and their language is unrelated to any other language in the world, Rodrigue points out.

Two brutal wars
Chechnya has survived two brutal wars with Russia and has been called Russia's Iraq, Rodrigue notes. When the Soviet Union fell apart, Chechnya didn't receive independence, unlike other republics, since it had oil and gas production and infrastructure. For 15 years a violent war raged, and as much as a quarter of the Chechen population was killed, with tens of thousands wounded, most of them civilians. Thousands of families were dislocated as refugees, up to half of Chechnya's people. With the ending of the Second Chechen War in 2009, there is now a stable government trying to establish the rule of law and democratic structures.
The Chechens' visit to Maine was part of a nonpartisan initiative of the U.S. Congress and is designed to build mutual understanding between the U.S. and Eurasia. Maine was selected for the visit because of the work of Rodrigue and his students, who founded the American-Caucasus Work Group to raise awareness of the impact of years of warfare in Chechnya and to provide humanitarian aid.
Rodrigue points out that there are many similarities between Maine and Chechnya. The republic is about the size of Washington County with a population of about one million. Both Maine and Chechnya have good agricultural land, with rivers heading to the sea. "Driving through Chechnya on a back road feels like driving through Washington County," he notes. The state and the Russian republic also have similar industries, with Chechnya having ones centered on the building trades and producing construction materials. "There's a real entrepreneurial way of making do with home industries," he adds.

Spheres of influence
In meeting with the Passamaquoddy governor and council of Indian Township and other tribal representatives on December 13, the Chechens were able to learn about how self-determination of indigenous peoples works within Maine and the U.S. "There are shared spheres of influence and distinct spheres of influence," Rodrigue notes. "They have language preservation and cultural traditions that are distinct."
Wayne Newell, the director of the Passamaquoddy bilingual program, points out, "They want to create a nation within a nation," as the Passamaquoddy and other tribes have done in the U.S. "They think they would be stronger. They spoke about our tribal court and our ties with the state and federal governments. We still have issues, which they were interested in."
Donald Soctomah, the tribe's historic preservation officer, notes that they were very interested in the tribe's culture and how the tribe interacts with the state and federal governments. "They were really positive and felt, 'We should look at this type of relationship also.'"
One of the Chechen visitors, Adlan Arbiyevich Sagaipov, a member of the Community Outreach Commission, says, "We hoped to see the Passamaquoddy nation and see the lifestyle ( the way they live and what it's like to live as a Passamaquoddy in the United States." He says that the tribal government, with its own court system and chief, is similar to how the government is set up in Chechnya.
"We have no other option but not to be separate," Sagaipov says, concerning the republic's relationship with Russia. "We must coexist with our neighbors and other nations. My goal is to preserve cultural values, the language and traditions."

Maintaining a language
Sagaipov says the Chechen government is trying its best to preserve and foster the Chechen language and literature, as the Passamaquoddy are trying to maintain their language. "The Chechen language is not disappearing. We're trying to build it stronger. The federal government has taken good care of the Chechen Republic. There are no barriers for our language to develop. The only challenge is all the mass media is in Russian, and we'd like more in the native language." He adds that there are newspapers published in the Chechen language, and half of the television programs are in Chechen.
Newell gave the visitors "a 20-minute history of 40 years of work" on revitalizing the Passamaquoddy language. The language, he notes, "is a road map to our culture. It's so important to keep it." He adds, "When I started working in the 1970s, all the children were speaking the language."
"They're showing signs of the children being monolingual," speaking only Russian, Newell says of the challenges in Chechnya. There's also pressure to learn English. "They're seeing pockets where the children understand but don't speak the language," he says. "It's the same with us." Newell notes that his bilingual program recently changed its teaching methods so that children are being taught to speak in the native language with each other and with adults who speak Passamaquoddy.

A continuing dialogue
Soctomah comments that the Chechens "want to continue a dialogue with the tribe. They were fascinated that the tribe still has its own structure while surrounded by a dominant culture. It gives them hope that their culture can survive in Russia."
"They're having a lot of the same struggles as we're having, being dominated by surrounding cultures," Soctomah says. "They want to bring back more traditional ways, like the tribe has done."
Along with speaking with members of the tribe's language preservation project, the Chechens watched the film entitled N'tolonapemk, Our Ancestors' Place that tells the story of how the Passamaquoddy have survived. Soctomah notes that the Chechens said it was the best film they had seen and that they would like to have it translated into Chechen. The film already has been translated into Spanish for showing in Central and South American countries. The Chechen group was given a copy of the film, and Rodrigue will work with the Russian Academy of Sciences to have it subtitled and be included in the Russian school curriculum that teaches about indigenous societies.
According to Soctomah, cultural exchanges may be considered, along with some economic opportunities, with the tribe selling crafts, blueberries or wood products.
S agaipov agrees that cultural exchanges with the Passamaquoddy may be a possibility for the future. He adds, "The first step is to communicate more."