Paul Goble
Vienna, June 25 – The Eurasian Union of Youth, a group that seeks the restoration of a Russian empire, last week accused Valeriy Tishkov, the director of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology, of being an American spy and organized a demonstration outside the Academy of Sciences building to demand his removal and arrest for treason.
This absurd accusation and the willingness of some at the extremes to believe it reflect the increasing sensitivity of ethnic issues in the Russian Federation, the incautious remarks of senior Moscow officials about links between Western foundations and Russian scholars, and the continuing decline in civility in Russian political discourse.
Last Wednesday, Valeriy Korovin, the leader of Eurasian Union of Youth, said that Tishkov has used the EAWARN network he created 15 years ago with American assistance to monitor conflicts in the Russian Federation not only to spy for Washington but also to destabilize Russia (http://www.km.ru/magazin/view.asp?id={64BA18F0-740C-4C5F-A25A-30D608DBE7A5).
EAWARN, as ethnic specialists around the world know, consists of a network of scholars who track ethnic relations in various parts of the Russian Federation, provide early warning of dangers and provide advice on how local officials and leaders of ethnic communities might cooperate in order to avoid explosions.
Not surprisingly, these researchers have been most involved in and reported most publicly precisely on hotspots in the North Caucasus, Kondopoga and elsewhere – the primary basis for Korovin’s suggestion that EAWARN was behind events there or was “spying” for the Americans.
In addition, the Eurasian leader said EAWARN researchers include some who have advocated independence for some regions and Tishkov who himself has proposed dividing the northern Caucasus into Russian- and non-Russian speaking regions (http://kavkaz.geopolitika.ru/nation/tishkov?PHPSESSID=362d8ffde14995e37c098017d8f6cf84).
Not surprisingly, Tishkov reacted angrily, denouncing the charges as false and defamatory and suggesting that he was thinking about taking the Eurasian Union of Youth and its parent organization, which is headed by commentator and activist Aleksandr Dugin, to court for damages (http://dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/2632/).
The institute director, former nationalities minister under Yeltsin, and current chairman of the Social Chamber’s commission on tolerance gave more details about these absurd charges in an interview with “Novyye izvestiya” that was published on Thursday (http://www.newizv.ru/print/?1360).
Tishkov said that the Eurasian charges were the product of Dugin’s anger about Tishkov’s criticism of his works on geopolitics, and he noted that many in other countries, including Estonia and Georgia, viewed EAWARN as a agency of Russian espionage, suggestions that are equally false.
Asked whether any of the materials his group collected might be useful for foreign intelligence services, Tishkov responded that “I am not a spy and I do not know what spies can use. You should ask them this.” And he noted that “all the texts of the reports” prepared by EAWARN are publicly available on that group’s website.
But even before his interview could appear, the Eurasian youth group organized a picket outside the Academy of Sciences building where Tishkov’s institute is housed. Its approximately 20 participants carried placards carrying a wide variety of slogans representing the views of this nationalist-extremist group.
Among those reported by Kavkaz.geopolitika.ru were “Glory to the Russian Project! Glory to United Russia!” “Gumilyov Against Tishkov!” “Glory to Putin! Glory to Munich! Down with Tishkov” “Tishkov Threatens the Russian People” and “Tishkov is a Spy?!”
And some of the placards, the Russian site reported, hyperbolically warned that Tishkov will be arrested and “convicted” for his supposed betrayal of the Russian people: “Tishkov, They Are Coming for You!” warned one, with another adding that he could expect “From 10 to 20 Years” in prison.
Tishkov, who is certainly no spy but rather an internationally respected scholar, is clearly angry, but equally clearly he has no intention of backing down from his arguments in support of civic nationalism and against a political role for ethnicity in the future of the Russian Federation.
Indeed, the day before all these charges against him were made, Tishkov published a long article in “Izvestiya” entitled “The Russian [non-ethnic] People and National Identity” in which he criticized ethno-nationalism among both majority and minority groups (http://www.izvestia.ru/obshestvo/article3105272/index.html).
Not surprisingly, that article too infuriated his opponents. And one of them, Maksim Kalashnikov, a nationalist who has engaged in both journalism and fiction, lashed out at him, claiming that Tishkov “does not leave a place for [ethnic] Russians” (http://www.km.ru/magazin/view_print.asp?id={5E74D8E2-2C45-4E3B-A79B-6561AC881430}).
Unfortunately, this kind of attack against scholars, one more typical of Stalin’s times than of even the late Soviet period, is increasingly frequent in the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Many are likely to dismiss its reappearance as an unfortunate byproduct of the Internet, three deeper causes make such a dismissal a mistake.
First, precisely because the Russian authorities have been unwilling to adopt a clear position on many ethnic and national issues, all sides are encouraged to stake out often-radical positions, including totally false and irresponsible ones like those adopted by the Eurasians.
Second, Russian officials from Putin on down have incautiously suggested that scholars and others who have received money from Western foundations are little more than “hirelings” of foreign intelligence agencies and thus a threat to Russia and the Russian people.
And third, as the electoral cycle in Russia heats up, ever more organizations in that country seem prepared to engage in the worst and cheapest form of political attack, putting out charges for which they have no evidence and watching these charges circulate through not only the Internet but the public media as well.
One can only hope that at least a few of the more responsible Russian officials and politicians will speak up on behalf of Tishkov and others like him, lest such vicious attacks send a dangerous chill throughout the intellectual life of the Russian Federation and make it that more difficult for Moscow to meet the difficult challenges it faces.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Own Policies Costing It Influence in Neighboring States, Russian Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 25 – Moscow is itself to blame for its declining influence in the former Soviet republics, a Russian commentator argues, because it has failed to articulate a well-thought-out policy for the region, to develop sufficient expertise on these countries, or even to decide what would constitute “success” for Russia there.
In an essay posted online on Friday, Oleg Nemenskiy says Moscow is currently missing what may be its last good chance to regain the influence it has lost over the last 15 years. Moreover, he says, it is engaging in counterproductive policies that strengthen its opponents and weaken its friends (http://www.russ.ru/politics/docs/politika_slona).
As evidence of that, Nemenskiy points to the recent Russian attacks on Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip. Instead of further weakening the unpopular politician, Moscow’s actions had the effect of leading Estonians to form ranks around him lest it appear they were kowtowing to the Kremlin.
But that mistake, the Moscow analyst argues, is itself the product of three much larger problems – the Russian government’s inability to come up with a useful definition of compatriot, its commitment to the stability of existing governments above all, and its inability to move beyond Soviet-era ideological shibboleths on World War II.
First of all, he argues, Moscow’s long-standing problems with defining “compatriots abroad” in a consistent way have had the effect of “interfering” with the Russian government’s ability to pursue a more sensible policy across the post-Soviet space.
At present, he says, the official definition of this category of people is so broad that Moscow cannot help the ethnic Russians of Estonia because they are no more “compatriots” of the Russian Federation than the Estonians because the latter also lived within what Moscow saw as Soviet borders.
“Nowhere in the legal code of the Russian Federation is its statehood connected with the Russian people,” Nemenskiy says, adding that “the term ‘Russian people’ [in the ethno-national sense] is absent” in the country’s constitution as well. The 1996 Nationality Policy Concept was an exception, but it was never adopted as a law.
Currently, the analyst notes, officials and experts are fighting over a new edition of that concept paper. If some earlier drafts of that document gave hope, the Kremlin appears to have backed away from a clear statement, something that Nemenskiy argues is necessary for working with ethnic Russians in the former Soviet space.
Second, Nemenskiy continues, Moscow’s commitment to being a stabilizing influence in the post-Soviet space and a guarantor of the power of post-Soviet elites, while not necessarily a bad thing in all respects, has meant that unlike the U.S., Russia has not worked with opposition groups there.
Not only does that mean the Moscow loses influence whenever the opposition comes to power, Nemenskiy says, but it means that the opposition almost inevitably defines itself as more anti-Russian than would need to be the case, something that does not augur well for the future.
And third – and this is the most potentially explosive of Nemenskiy’s charges – Moscow remains locked in Soviet-era ideological “cliches” about World War II, a situation that is indefensible because the building of “the Soviet people” is no longer the task before Moscow. Consequently, Russia needs to change course.
Nemenskiy suggests that Russians must recognize that a number of peoples whom Moscow had viewed “as part of the Soviet community in fact are not representatives of the victorious side” in the Great Fatherland War. Instead, these nations, including the Estonians among others, view the Soviet army not as a liberator but as an occupier.
In trying to devise a strategy to gain influence with such people, he continues, Moscow does not need to sacrifice its view that the Red Army was “a holy force.” Instead, it needs to find formulae that allow both sides to put this issue into their past rather than serve as a continuing reason for division.
Nemenskiy suggests that Polish writer E. Pomianowski’s notion that one should speak “not about liberation but about the salvation of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe by Soviet forces” may be precisely the kind of language that would not sacrifice Russia’s position but would allow it to have a positive influence with others.
Unfortunately, he continues, there are two reasons for pessimism that Moscow will in fact change its course on these questions anytime soon. On the one hand, because foreign policy is inevitably an extension of domestic politics, nationalist passions in the upcoming elections will make it difficult for Moscow to shift.
And on the other, Moscow today simply does not know enough or pay enough attention to its neighbors, Nemenskiy insists. Instead, it is like an elephant surrounded by mosquitoes. For the latter, the elephant is something they cannot avoid, but for the former, the latter are things it routinely ignores as it seeks to interact with other elephants.
At present, the Moscow commentator continues, there are no university programs on these countries. No one in Russia studies them. And as a result, “instead of being the leading specialists in the world on the peoples of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, we are almost the least informed about them.”
That will have to change along with the current defective policy framework, Nemenskiy concludes, if Russia is going to recoup its losses in these countries and transform the current situation in which Russians view five post-Soviet states among the six countries most antagonistic to their own.
Vienna, June 25 – Moscow is itself to blame for its declining influence in the former Soviet republics, a Russian commentator argues, because it has failed to articulate a well-thought-out policy for the region, to develop sufficient expertise on these countries, or even to decide what would constitute “success” for Russia there.
In an essay posted online on Friday, Oleg Nemenskiy says Moscow is currently missing what may be its last good chance to regain the influence it has lost over the last 15 years. Moreover, he says, it is engaging in counterproductive policies that strengthen its opponents and weaken its friends (http://www.russ.ru/politics/docs/politika_slona).
As evidence of that, Nemenskiy points to the recent Russian attacks on Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip. Instead of further weakening the unpopular politician, Moscow’s actions had the effect of leading Estonians to form ranks around him lest it appear they were kowtowing to the Kremlin.
But that mistake, the Moscow analyst argues, is itself the product of three much larger problems – the Russian government’s inability to come up with a useful definition of compatriot, its commitment to the stability of existing governments above all, and its inability to move beyond Soviet-era ideological shibboleths on World War II.
First of all, he argues, Moscow’s long-standing problems with defining “compatriots abroad” in a consistent way have had the effect of “interfering” with the Russian government’s ability to pursue a more sensible policy across the post-Soviet space.
At present, he says, the official definition of this category of people is so broad that Moscow cannot help the ethnic Russians of Estonia because they are no more “compatriots” of the Russian Federation than the Estonians because the latter also lived within what Moscow saw as Soviet borders.
“Nowhere in the legal code of the Russian Federation is its statehood connected with the Russian people,” Nemenskiy says, adding that “the term ‘Russian people’ [in the ethno-national sense] is absent” in the country’s constitution as well. The 1996 Nationality Policy Concept was an exception, but it was never adopted as a law.
Currently, the analyst notes, officials and experts are fighting over a new edition of that concept paper. If some earlier drafts of that document gave hope, the Kremlin appears to have backed away from a clear statement, something that Nemenskiy argues is necessary for working with ethnic Russians in the former Soviet space.
Second, Nemenskiy continues, Moscow’s commitment to being a stabilizing influence in the post-Soviet space and a guarantor of the power of post-Soviet elites, while not necessarily a bad thing in all respects, has meant that unlike the U.S., Russia has not worked with opposition groups there.
Not only does that mean the Moscow loses influence whenever the opposition comes to power, Nemenskiy says, but it means that the opposition almost inevitably defines itself as more anti-Russian than would need to be the case, something that does not augur well for the future.
And third – and this is the most potentially explosive of Nemenskiy’s charges – Moscow remains locked in Soviet-era ideological “cliches” about World War II, a situation that is indefensible because the building of “the Soviet people” is no longer the task before Moscow. Consequently, Russia needs to change course.
Nemenskiy suggests that Russians must recognize that a number of peoples whom Moscow had viewed “as part of the Soviet community in fact are not representatives of the victorious side” in the Great Fatherland War. Instead, these nations, including the Estonians among others, view the Soviet army not as a liberator but as an occupier.
In trying to devise a strategy to gain influence with such people, he continues, Moscow does not need to sacrifice its view that the Red Army was “a holy force.” Instead, it needs to find formulae that allow both sides to put this issue into their past rather than serve as a continuing reason for division.
Nemenskiy suggests that Polish writer E. Pomianowski’s notion that one should speak “not about liberation but about the salvation of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe by Soviet forces” may be precisely the kind of language that would not sacrifice Russia’s position but would allow it to have a positive influence with others.
Unfortunately, he continues, there are two reasons for pessimism that Moscow will in fact change its course on these questions anytime soon. On the one hand, because foreign policy is inevitably an extension of domestic politics, nationalist passions in the upcoming elections will make it difficult for Moscow to shift.
And on the other, Moscow today simply does not know enough or pay enough attention to its neighbors, Nemenskiy insists. Instead, it is like an elephant surrounded by mosquitoes. For the latter, the elephant is something they cannot avoid, but for the former, the latter are things it routinely ignores as it seeks to interact with other elephants.
At present, the Moscow commentator continues, there are no university programs on these countries. No one in Russia studies them. And as a result, “instead of being the leading specialists in the world on the peoples of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, we are almost the least informed about them.”
That will have to change along with the current defective policy framework, Nemenskiy concludes, if Russia is going to recoup its losses in these countries and transform the current situation in which Russians view five post-Soviet states among the six countries most antagonistic to their own.
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