Paul Goble
Vienna, April 13 – The Kremlin appears to be planning to step up its contacts with those it calls “compatriots” abroad in the hopes of attracting some of them to come to the Russian Federation to help solve that country’s demographic problems and of developing an expanded “pool of friends” to influence the countries in which they live.
Not only are there rumors swirling in Moscow this week that Modest Kolerov, the Kremlin official who has overseen compatriot issues in recent years may be about to be replaced, but three online articles suggest that Moscow is again actively thinking about compatriots and how to reach them.
Two of these articles – one by commentator Andrei Areshev available at http://www.narodru.ru/article8819.html and a second by analyst Eduard Popov at http://www.narodru.ru/article 8914.html -- specifically wrestle with what may be the most difficult problem of all, defining who is a Russian compatriot and who is not.
All other countries legally define as “compatriots” only those people living abroad who are their citizens. Indeed, even states like Hungary or China that have significant co-ethnic communities beyond their borders do so lest an alternative definition threaten diplomatic comity and even international stability.
But since 1991, Moscow has insisted that the 25 million ethnic Russians and 15 million others culturally tied to them who now find themselves living abroad in the “newly independent” states are in fact Russian compatriots -- even though more than 90 percent of these 40 million people are citizens of other countries.
Despite being at variance with principles of international law, the Russian government has regularly used that term in its own legislation and more recently expanded this category to include within this category everyone abroad culturally, linguistically or ethnically tied to the population of the Russian Federation.
Not surprisingly, this has created problems not only for the states in which these countries live but also for the Russian government itself, something Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Moscow officials increasingly have been willing to acknowledge..
Indeed, as Areshev points out, Moscow’s “position, according to which are considered as Russian compatriots all persons who identify themselves as such complicates the work of diplomatic representatives of the [Russian] Ministry of Foreign Affairs with compatriots.”
Despite that, Russian officials have pressed ahead, viewing “compatriots” as a useful tool to pressure other states all the more especially since many Western governments have been unwilling to challenge Moscow on its expanded definition lest such challenges inflame Russian opinion.
As long as Moscow’s use of this term was more rhetorical than practical, this situation was sustainable: Moscow could talk about these people, and the West could respond or ignore such statements. And not surprisingly, Areshev and Popov report, most Russian institutions created to deal with them were either stillborn or relatively inactive.
In more recent times, however, declines in Russian influence abroad and the demographic crisis at home have led some in Moscow to think about how better to approach and make use of all the people it calls its compatriots.
To those ends, the Russian authorities have not only provided more resources to the institutions charged with developing contacts with compatriots but also have sought to develop an intellectual and policy framework that will guide Moscow’s efforts in this area in the future.
Tat’yana Poloskova, the head the Administration for Work with Compatriots and Countries of the CIS and Baltic of the Russian Center for International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, gave an interview this week outlining what is being done (http://www.narodru.ru/article8777.html).
Noting that her organization is “the successor to the Soviet-era Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Ties” – a body she said had recently marked its “80th anniversary” – she used this interview to describe its declining fortunes for most of the post-Soviet period as well as its current resurgence.
Prior to the collapse of the USSR, Poloskova said, Moscow maintained 105 Soviet centers for science and culture abroad. But that number declined precipitously in the 1990s even though the independence of the Soviet republics and Baltic states presented new challenges.
Now, she continued, her administration operates such centers in 77 countries including within the CIS states. And she noted that much of the effort of this operation is directed at “the Russian diaspora” which Moscow no longer divides “into white, red or rose-colored.”
As far as the definition of “compatriot” goes, Poloskova argues that it reflects Moscow’s specific “know how” in this area of activities, one “broader than diaspora” and including people who can be “a pool of [Russia’s] friends” linked not just to ethnic Russian culture but to all the cultures of the Russian Federation.
(In her remarks, Poloskova concedes that she and her colleagues currently face one serious problem: “professional compatriots” who are more interested in extracting funds and other resources from Moscow for themselves than in promoting ties between themselves and the countries they live in with the Russian Federation.)
But in making these remarks, Poloskova provides relatively little insight on Moscow’s thinking beyond committing itself to doing more of what it has been doing in the past. Eduard Popov in his article fill that gap, arguing that the Russian authorities must meet five challenges in working with compatriots:
First, the Moscow analyst argues, the Russian government must create what he calls “an intellectual staff and controlling organ” to design and regulate policy in this area. Second, he argues, Moscow must make it easier for its compatriots to obtain Russian Federation citizenship.
Third, Russia’s embassies in the CIS countries and Baltic states in particular should expand their propaganda efforts to get Russia’s compatriots to return home. Fourth, all Russian government agencies must work to create conditions for the resettlement of these returning compatriots.
And fifth, and perhaps most significant of all, Moscow must carefully manage this process so that those coming back to Russia will contribute to that country’s economy and not disturb its precarious ethnic balance rather than becoming burdens on the society and a danger to its stability.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Russian Hockey Fans -- Dangerous Nationalists or Simple Hooligans?
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 13 – The loutish behavior of ethnic Russian hockey fans at a match between a Russian team and a Tatar one has stirred debate between those who see such anti-Tatar outbursts as simply an excess of emotion and those who are convinced that such actions threaten ethnic peace in the Russian Federation.
On April 11, Kazan’s Ak Bars ice hockey squad traveled to Magnitogorsk to play that city’s Metallurg team in a championship match. Russian fans held up banners with slogans like “Beat Up the Tatars!” “Don’t Shame the Memory of Ivan the Terrible!” and “Drown the Tatars—Save Russia!” (http://www.regions.ru/news/2068753/)
The federal Sports television channel carried the match, broadcasting pictures of these fans and their banners to a wide audience and provoking outrage among the authorities in Tatarstan, concern by Orthodox and Islamic leaders, and dismissive comments by some Russian politicians.
Immediately after the match, Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev denounced the behavior of the Russian fans and said that such actions must not be allowed to go unpunished lest they exert an unhealthy influence on relations between Russians and Tatars.
Tatarstan youth affairs minister Marat Bariyev dispatched telegrams of complaint to the Metallurg hockey team, to the Russian Hockey Federation and to the Russian Sports organization expressing Kazan’s outrage at the Russian fans’ “impermissible” actions.
The Regions.ru news agency took the lead in investigating the case and determining the reaction of political and religious leaders to it. In a summary of its findings, the agency said that these banners were the latest in a series of outrageous actions by fans in the Russian Federation.
The news service said that “in recent times,” some Russian sports fans have carried flags “with Nazi symbols” on them and have changed “corresponding slogans.” And it noted that in such gatherings, activities of this kind can prove “difficult to control and have tragic consequences.”
Yuri Sharandin, who heads the Federation Council’s committee on constitutional law, told Regions.ru that in the case of the Magnitogorsk match, there was every basis for bringing charges against those who prepared and held up these signs. And he suggested that the Metallurg club itself should be heavily fined or even disqualified.
His fellow senator, Nikolai Tulayev, who heads the upper house committee on parliamentary activity, agreed: All this is “dangerous,” he said, because it can quickly spread from sports arenas to every day life. Consequently, the authorities must “react to this in the harshest way possible.”
Senator Issa Kostoyev, a member of the Federation Council’s security committee, took a similar position. He told Regions.ru that the use of such slogans must be nipped in the bud. Otherwise, he suggested, calls for “’Beating Up the Tatars’” will be followed by calls to “beat up” Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Chechens, Negroes, Jews, and so on.”
But not all of the members of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament agreed. Anatoliy Lyskov, who chairs that body’s committee on legal and judicial questions, said “only people of Tatar nationality could conceive such slogans as nationalistic.”
Instead, he said, these slogans were a kind of “sports humor.” He noted that earlier fans had changed “Beat Up the Georgians” when that republic’s team was in Moscow or urged that “Let Us Remind the Swedes of Poltava” when a Russian team played Sweden.
But despite his general conclusion, Lyskov acknowledged that “it is possible” that such slogans could have unfortunate consequences.
Members of the Duma were also divided on the banners displayed in Magnitogorsk. Aleksandr Chuyev, the deputy head of the committee on social groups and religious organizations, said what had happened at the Ak Bars-Metallurg game was “a purely hooligan-like situation,” reflecting “an absence of culture.”
Gennadiy Gudkov, a member of the Duma security committee, agreed that the slogans of the Magnitogorsk fans were insulting, but given that those who held them up were mostly young people, “it is not worth speaking about extremism in this case.” “Making a tragedy out of it” by bringing serious charges is thus a mistake, he said.
And Yevgeniy Roizman, another member of the Duma security committee, was similarly inclined. The slogans the fans held up at the Magnitogorsk match were indeed “swinish,” he said. But “it is not necessary to turn one’s attention on the behavior of the fans.”
Two religious leaders also weighed in on this issue in comments to the news service. Father Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the External Affairs Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, denounced the appearance of these slogans: “Russia is unthinkable without the Tatars,” a community that supports inter-religious peace.
And Gusman-khazrat Iskhakov, the head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Tatarstan, said that what struck him most about this case was “the very strange behavior of the militiamen of the Urals city.” Had they been doing their jobs, those responsible would have been at least detained, but that did not happen.
“The reaction from the procuracy and the Ministry of Internal Affairs toward extremists ‘showing themselves’ at hockey matches must be quick,” Iskhakov said. If not, bystanders are likely to conclude that officials have given a kind of permission for actions of this kind.
Should that happen, the situation in the multi-national Russian Federation might quickly get out of hand.
UPDATE ON APRIL 17: The Tatar Social Center (TOTs) published an open letter to Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev calling on him to block hockey matches between the Tatar squad and Russian teams whose fans adopt openly anti-Tatar positions. The letter was published in the current issue of "Zvezda Povol'zhya" and is available at http://www.anticompromat.ru/shaimiev/xenosport.html,
Vienna, April 13 – The loutish behavior of ethnic Russian hockey fans at a match between a Russian team and a Tatar one has stirred debate between those who see such anti-Tatar outbursts as simply an excess of emotion and those who are convinced that such actions threaten ethnic peace in the Russian Federation.
On April 11, Kazan’s Ak Bars ice hockey squad traveled to Magnitogorsk to play that city’s Metallurg team in a championship match. Russian fans held up banners with slogans like “Beat Up the Tatars!” “Don’t Shame the Memory of Ivan the Terrible!” and “Drown the Tatars—Save Russia!” (http://www.regions.ru/news/2068753/)
The federal Sports television channel carried the match, broadcasting pictures of these fans and their banners to a wide audience and provoking outrage among the authorities in Tatarstan, concern by Orthodox and Islamic leaders, and dismissive comments by some Russian politicians.
Immediately after the match, Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev denounced the behavior of the Russian fans and said that such actions must not be allowed to go unpunished lest they exert an unhealthy influence on relations between Russians and Tatars.
Tatarstan youth affairs minister Marat Bariyev dispatched telegrams of complaint to the Metallurg hockey team, to the Russian Hockey Federation and to the Russian Sports organization expressing Kazan’s outrage at the Russian fans’ “impermissible” actions.
The Regions.ru news agency took the lead in investigating the case and determining the reaction of political and religious leaders to it. In a summary of its findings, the agency said that these banners were the latest in a series of outrageous actions by fans in the Russian Federation.
The news service said that “in recent times,” some Russian sports fans have carried flags “with Nazi symbols” on them and have changed “corresponding slogans.” And it noted that in such gatherings, activities of this kind can prove “difficult to control and have tragic consequences.”
Yuri Sharandin, who heads the Federation Council’s committee on constitutional law, told Regions.ru that in the case of the Magnitogorsk match, there was every basis for bringing charges against those who prepared and held up these signs. And he suggested that the Metallurg club itself should be heavily fined or even disqualified.
His fellow senator, Nikolai Tulayev, who heads the upper house committee on parliamentary activity, agreed: All this is “dangerous,” he said, because it can quickly spread from sports arenas to every day life. Consequently, the authorities must “react to this in the harshest way possible.”
Senator Issa Kostoyev, a member of the Federation Council’s security committee, took a similar position. He told Regions.ru that the use of such slogans must be nipped in the bud. Otherwise, he suggested, calls for “’Beating Up the Tatars’” will be followed by calls to “beat up” Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Chechens, Negroes, Jews, and so on.”
But not all of the members of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament agreed. Anatoliy Lyskov, who chairs that body’s committee on legal and judicial questions, said “only people of Tatar nationality could conceive such slogans as nationalistic.”
Instead, he said, these slogans were a kind of “sports humor.” He noted that earlier fans had changed “Beat Up the Georgians” when that republic’s team was in Moscow or urged that “Let Us Remind the Swedes of Poltava” when a Russian team played Sweden.
But despite his general conclusion, Lyskov acknowledged that “it is possible” that such slogans could have unfortunate consequences.
Members of the Duma were also divided on the banners displayed in Magnitogorsk. Aleksandr Chuyev, the deputy head of the committee on social groups and religious organizations, said what had happened at the Ak Bars-Metallurg game was “a purely hooligan-like situation,” reflecting “an absence of culture.”
Gennadiy Gudkov, a member of the Duma security committee, agreed that the slogans of the Magnitogorsk fans were insulting, but given that those who held them up were mostly young people, “it is not worth speaking about extremism in this case.” “Making a tragedy out of it” by bringing serious charges is thus a mistake, he said.
And Yevgeniy Roizman, another member of the Duma security committee, was similarly inclined. The slogans the fans held up at the Magnitogorsk match were indeed “swinish,” he said. But “it is not necessary to turn one’s attention on the behavior of the fans.”
Two religious leaders also weighed in on this issue in comments to the news service. Father Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the External Affairs Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, denounced the appearance of these slogans: “Russia is unthinkable without the Tatars,” a community that supports inter-religious peace.
And Gusman-khazrat Iskhakov, the head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Tatarstan, said that what struck him most about this case was “the very strange behavior of the militiamen of the Urals city.” Had they been doing their jobs, those responsible would have been at least detained, but that did not happen.
“The reaction from the procuracy and the Ministry of Internal Affairs toward extremists ‘showing themselves’ at hockey matches must be quick,” Iskhakov said. If not, bystanders are likely to conclude that officials have given a kind of permission for actions of this kind.
Should that happen, the situation in the multi-national Russian Federation might quickly get out of hand.
UPDATE ON APRIL 17: The Tatar Social Center (TOTs) published an open letter to Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev calling on him to block hockey matches between the Tatar squad and Russian teams whose fans adopt openly anti-Tatar positions. The letter was published in the current issue of "Zvezda Povol'zhya" and is available at http://www.anticompromat.ru/shaimiev/xenosport.html,
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