Let Our Fame Be Great by Oliver Bullough Read Free Book Online Page B

here. My father died here, and I will die here too.’
    In other countries, too, Circassians had problems realizing the dream of moving to the Caucasus. Technically, as people whose ancestors originated in Russia, they have the right under Russian law to move back there. But, in fact, they struggle to do so, especially since the Chechen war has made Russian officials so suspicious of any foreigners in the southern provinces of their country.
    Omer Kurmel, aged forty-five, is one of the leaders of the Caucasus Cultural Federation in Turkey. His organization, which has members
throughout Turkey’s large Circassian community, aims to secure Circassian repatriation. He speaks perfect English, and has an American PhD, but even his diplomatic skills betrayed a slight frustration with the difficulties Circassians face in patching their people together.
    â€˜It is not easy to get a visa now, it can take weeks. The security clearances go on. I understand that Russia is concerned about terrorism in Chechnya, but this has hit us particularly,’ he said as we sat in his office in Istanbul a few days after I took the bus down from Kosovo.
    â€˜I would say not more than a hundred people from here have moved back to the Caucasus,’ he said.
    He said the Circassians needed to emulate the Jews and launch a movement to move back to the homeland, while accepting the fact that Russians now live there. ‘When I was a teenager, like all Circassians I used to think that the Russians were bad people who had persecuted my people. But when I went to the Caucasus I saw that the local people had developed a common way of life with the Russians. The problems are because of our weakness, rather than Russian strength.’
    But the Circassians face an uphill struggle. According to one report, 3,000 – 4,000 idealistic Circassians had immigrated to the Caucasus by 1993. It is hard to say now how many have joined them, but the number of foreign-born Circassians in the Caucasus would seem, if anything, to have shrunk since then.
    Chen Bram, an Israeli anthropologist who has studied the Circassian communities in the Middle East, summed up the disappointment felt by many Circassians. They had dreamt of an ancestral homeland running with milk and honey, but instead had found a land where people ‘reel under economic chaos, huge inflation and political insecurity. Moreover, the poor systems of transportation, communication and other features of modernity that affect the standard of living in the cities made an unfavourable comparison to their lives in Israel. If one adds the havoc at local airports and the horrible and useless bureaucracy in general, it is easy to understand why some of the Israeli visitors heaved a sigh of relief upon returning to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.’

    Indeed, one Israeli friend in Kfar-Kama joked to me that Israel now ‘imports Circassians’.
    The difference between the Circassians in the Caucasus and those in the diaspora are perhaps most marked in Jordan, where the Circassians have a privileged position. Circassians, more than the Bedouins and Palestinians who make up the rest of the population, have created a civil Jordanian identity and allied themselves closely with the ruling family. They act as a unit in the tribal law that regulates relations between communities, and hold high posts in government, the army and business.
    Amman, the capital of Jordan, was founded by Circassian refugees on the site of a ruined Roman city and Circassians still provide the bodyguards for the royal family. Their property in central Amman is home to Palestinians who fled what is now Israel in a series of waves starting in 1948. Although they were initially poor, the Circassians have made money from property deals and from their closeness to the royal family, and are now Westernized and secular.
    The Circassians I spoke to were fluent in English, and, despite being proud of their heritage, they came from