I find it utterly shameful that our politicians felt it appropriate to turn a blind eye to the Russian ethnic cleansing of Chechnya. This most brutal of suppressions was given the approval of silence while the Russian government was courted with smiles and handshakes. Yet by ignoring the plight of yet another muslim population facing wholesale elimination we surely added to the cumulative sense of injustice felt by muslims around the world (and now at home), against the west. All too soon, the cries for justice and peaceful co-existence that we refused to hear would come back to bite us with a vengeance.

Today in Chechnya yet another group of muslims is facing elimination. Of course, the conflict goes back centuries, to when the Tsars first spread their empire across the Caucasus, but the Russian government would stress that the current war is nothing at all to do with history, or oil or presidential politics, merely a policing operation to eliminate ‘terrorists’.

So hundreds of thousands of Chechen muslims flee their homes as Russian generals try to reduce them to dust. Clearly the generals are not too concerned about endearing themselves and the Russian Federation to the people of Chechnya, but I do feel I should give them a warning.

It’s just a week since the anniversary of Uhud, the second great battle of muslim history, and the second in which the muslims beat overwhelming odds. At Badr, the year before, 300 muslims had overcome a force of 1000 Makkan tribesmen intent on eliminating them. At Uhud, the Makkans returned with an army of 3000 but again turned tail before a tiny group of ill-equipped but determined muslims.

As the British learned comparatively recently, empire is extremely difficult to sustain by force of weaponry alone, and in a world where technology can put enormous destructive power into the hands of an individual, it’s hard to see how whole populations can so easily be subdued indefinitely by force. Nowadays, governance requires at least a measure of persuasion, and the agreement of the majority of a people.

Of course, within these islands we also have a long standing conflict grown out of bitter power struggles dating back to colonial roots, and fed by religious difference. Fortunately, it seems that the majority of both sides have decided that all-inclusive systems of justice and power are the only way to achieve a stable and peaceful society. If it’s not too late, perhaps the Russians should look to the Northern Ireland example.

And yet Northern Ireland itself teeters once more upon the brink, so perhaps they themselves might look for guidance in a muslim tradition. Muhammad said "Whoever believes in God and the Last Day should do no harm to his neighbour".