Paul Goble
Vienna, April 1 – “Muscovites relate to Muslims and Caucasians with a level of suspiciousness which [even in the wake of the Moscow subway bombings] has not exceeded the norm and has not taken the form of hysteria,” according to a source at the Serbsky Institute, a place still notorious for its role in using psychiatry against political dissidents in Soviet times.
According to a report on the Islamrf.ru news service, the Serbsky Institute source said that “over the course of the first two days after the terrorist acts in the Moscow metro, there were more than 800 telephone calls to the Serbsky Institute, to which people were turning for advice on how to cope (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/12190/).
Most of those calling the institute, the source said, reported that they were afraid to go into the metro or were afraid for their relatives to do so. “There were [also] calls from Muslims and Armenians who were subjected to insult from the side of those around them.” But suspiciousness toward Muslims “has not exceeded the norm or acquired the form of hysteria.”
Irina Gurenkova, a psychotherapist with the Serbsky, said in another comment that the terrorist attacks naturally represented “a most severe emotional trauma” but she suggested that Muscovites “should not be afraid to go into the metro” or begin to hate any ethnic or religious group (www.stoletie.ru/fakty_i_kommentarii/kak_my_reagirujem_na_terakty_2010-03-30.htm).
According to Gurenkova, “people begin to hate those whom others ‘point out to them,’” noting that “reports have already appeared in the Internet suggesting that a passenger on the metro had attacked two Muslim women,” the kind of inflammatory reporting that she clearly believes must be avoided.
But the Serbsky psychotherapist placed the blame for such attitudes and actions not only on Internet reporting but also on what she described as the imposition on Russians of “the American idea that money is more important than anything else,” something that, she says, has reduced the number of Russians who are prepared to assist those in need.
However psychologists at the Serbsky feel, many Russians acknowledge that there has been an explosion of xenophobia against “people from the Caucasus” and Muslims in general since the explosions and, what is especially worrisome is that this anger appears to be addressed particularly at Muslim women who may be wearing the hijab.
In an article on Chaskor.ru yesterday, Zinaida Troitskaya bluntly stated that “the explosions in the Moscow metro added fire to the xenophobes” in the Russian capital, with radical nationalists calling for Russians to “beat” them, humanists urging restraint, and Muslim women increasingly living in fear (www.chaskor.ru/article/kultivatsiya_straha_16402).
Meanwhile, Muslim sites report that Muslim women in Moscow are afraid and that more than one Muslim leader in the Russian Federation has now said that they are free to dispense with wearing the hijab (veil) if they feel that keeping it on will put them at risk of being attacked (www.islamrf.ru/news/umma/events/12163/).
Unless the most senior members of the Russian powers that be take a far clearer and more public stance against such attacks, they almost certainly will increase given both the behavior of local interior ministry officials and statements by relatively senior Russian government officials that can only be described as inflammatory.
As one would expect in the wake of a terrorist act, Moscow interior ministry officers are stepping up their checks of identification and residence permits of all people who appear to be other than of Slavic nationality. That is dangerous enough, given that the militia appear likely to stop people they feel “look different” even if there is no probable cause for suspicion.
But that danger has been radically increased in the last day or so because the MVD has decided to work with the openly xenophobic Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) to find and identify such outsiders (www.regnum.ru/news/1268762.htm, evrazia.org/news/12509, and www.dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/15303/).
Not only will that heighten fears among Muslims that the Russian government is now aligned with some of the most anti-Muslim and anti-Caucasian groups in the country, leading some to fear and others to anger, but it will likely send a signal to many Russians that the government will be on their side if they attack such people.
And that danger is even greater when officials suggest that there is reason to engage in such a witch hunt. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s representative to NATO, said yesterday that he is “convinced that there exists an extremist underground in Moscow.” If that were not the case, he said, terrorism would not occur (news.km.ru/rogozin_uveren_v_moskve_est_ekst).
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russian Interior Ministry Wants to Register All Copiers; Opposition Fears This is Directed Against Them
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 1 – In what one wishes were only an April Fools’ joke, the Russian interior ministry is reportedly preparing legislation that would require the registration of all copiers, a step sources there say is needed to combat counterfeiting but one that opposition groups fear is designed to limit their ability to communicate with the population.
Yesterday, “Rossiiskaya gazeta” reported that the MVD plans to seek approval for a plan to require the licensing and registration of all copying machines imported from abroad, to enter that information in a data base, and thus be in a position to combat a rising tide of counterfeiting, most often of 1,000 ruble notes (www.rg.ru/2010/03/31/mvd.html).
Last year alone, sources at the interior ministry said, the Bank of Russia seized and took out of circulation 155,200 counterfeit bills. Fighting such counterfeiting is increasingly expensive, the sources said, and the MVD has decided that it is “logical to establish tight control over the use” of copiers of various kinds.
But, as several rights groups have already noted, this step almost certainly will be used to create “new obstacles” for those opposed to the regime, pointing out that this measure recalls Soviet-era practice when the MVD and KGB maintained tight control over copiers to restrict samizdat (www.specletter.com/svoboda-slova/2010-04-01/samizdat-vozvracshaetsja.html).
If the MVD goes forward with its ideas, they point out, “the special services will control the production of opposition printing of lists, booklets, brochures and papers,” because they will be able to track down and thus stop either by intimidation or confiscation those whose copiers are being used to produce them.
Anna Kuprina, an activist for the United Civic Front (OGF), tells Osobaya Bukha today that the MVD suggestion that this idea is directed against counterfeiters is entirely specious: Anyone who tries to copy currency will quickly see that the result is instantly recognizable as fraudulent.
Thus, the MVD claim, she said, “is only a pretext which conceals several different goals” of the powers that be. And it is “not a very successful pretext” at that, Kuprina adds. It would be much better and attract more popular support if the officers of the interior ministry were spending their time trying to solve the case of the Moscow metro attacks.
There cannot be “any doubt,” the OGF activist says, that “by introducing a system of registration of copying machines, the special services are attempting to limit the field of information influence on social structures that are not under their control, above all, human rights and political ones.”
As recent electoral campaigns have shown, Kuprina says, “publishing houses [regularly] refuse their services to opposition candidates seeking the printing of agitation materials.” The owners and operators of such houses are “simply afraid” of falling into the ill graces of the powers that be.
“Therefore,” she continues, “very often the opposition has to turn to small firms which prefer to remain unnamed.” But this new MVD measure would make such arrangements more difficult if not impossible because the militia would have the means to track down who copied what where.
“This is not so terrible for Moscow and St. Petersburg,” Kuprina says, because there the Internet is highly developed. Indeed, “the Internet has long become the chief political arm” of those opposed to the regime. But the situation outside of the two capitals is very different in that regard.
“In the regions,” the OGF activist says, “people get information basically from print and television media, access to which is closed to the opposition. The single way out for us is to distribute leaflets, to put up placards, to issue small print run newspapers, booklets, and so on. “But soon,” she concludes sadly, the opposition may lose even this “opportunity.”
Vienna, April 1 – In what one wishes were only an April Fools’ joke, the Russian interior ministry is reportedly preparing legislation that would require the registration of all copiers, a step sources there say is needed to combat counterfeiting but one that opposition groups fear is designed to limit their ability to communicate with the population.
Yesterday, “Rossiiskaya gazeta” reported that the MVD plans to seek approval for a plan to require the licensing and registration of all copying machines imported from abroad, to enter that information in a data base, and thus be in a position to combat a rising tide of counterfeiting, most often of 1,000 ruble notes (www.rg.ru/2010/03/31/mvd.html).
Last year alone, sources at the interior ministry said, the Bank of Russia seized and took out of circulation 155,200 counterfeit bills. Fighting such counterfeiting is increasingly expensive, the sources said, and the MVD has decided that it is “logical to establish tight control over the use” of copiers of various kinds.
But, as several rights groups have already noted, this step almost certainly will be used to create “new obstacles” for those opposed to the regime, pointing out that this measure recalls Soviet-era practice when the MVD and KGB maintained tight control over copiers to restrict samizdat (www.specletter.com/svoboda-slova/2010-04-01/samizdat-vozvracshaetsja.html).
If the MVD goes forward with its ideas, they point out, “the special services will control the production of opposition printing of lists, booklets, brochures and papers,” because they will be able to track down and thus stop either by intimidation or confiscation those whose copiers are being used to produce them.
Anna Kuprina, an activist for the United Civic Front (OGF), tells Osobaya Bukha today that the MVD suggestion that this idea is directed against counterfeiters is entirely specious: Anyone who tries to copy currency will quickly see that the result is instantly recognizable as fraudulent.
Thus, the MVD claim, she said, “is only a pretext which conceals several different goals” of the powers that be. And it is “not a very successful pretext” at that, Kuprina adds. It would be much better and attract more popular support if the officers of the interior ministry were spending their time trying to solve the case of the Moscow metro attacks.
There cannot be “any doubt,” the OGF activist says, that “by introducing a system of registration of copying machines, the special services are attempting to limit the field of information influence on social structures that are not under their control, above all, human rights and political ones.”
As recent electoral campaigns have shown, Kuprina says, “publishing houses [regularly] refuse their services to opposition candidates seeking the printing of agitation materials.” The owners and operators of such houses are “simply afraid” of falling into the ill graces of the powers that be.
“Therefore,” she continues, “very often the opposition has to turn to small firms which prefer to remain unnamed.” But this new MVD measure would make such arrangements more difficult if not impossible because the militia would have the means to track down who copied what where.
“This is not so terrible for Moscow and St. Petersburg,” Kuprina says, because there the Internet is highly developed. Indeed, “the Internet has long become the chief political arm” of those opposed to the regime. But the situation outside of the two capitals is very different in that regard.
“In the regions,” the OGF activist says, “people get information basically from print and television media, access to which is closed to the opposition. The single way out for us is to distribute leaflets, to put up placards, to issue small print run newspapers, booklets, and so on. “But soon,” she concludes sadly, the opposition may lose even this “opportunity.”
Window on Eurasia: ‘Obama is a Chechen Terrorist’ and Other ‘Curious Things’ Russians Have Told Moscow Pollsters
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 1 – The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) has chosen to mark this April Fools’ Day not by inventing anything, despite the suspicions of some that it may have done so on occasion, but rather by offering a selection of some of the curious things Russians have told that survey firm over the past year.
In a press release yesterday entitled “NATO is a Curse Word, Obama is a Terrorist, the USSR is Without Sex and Other Curiosities of Sociological Surveys,” VTsIOM offered up what its pollsters say are some of the funniest, most unexpected, and “at times absurd” responses to their open-ended queries (wciom.ru/novosti/press-vypuski/press-vypusk/single/13368.html).
When asked whether they knew anything about Barak Obama, the release said, “certain respondents indicated that he is “the happy president of the US” and “someone who runs on at the mouth,” but others said that they believe that Obama is “the well-known leader of Chechen [terrorist] groups.”
With regard to the Western Alliance, some Russians told VTsIOM that NATO consists of “bandits” and that it was “a two-headed evil eagle.” Others said that it was in general “a bad word,” and still others said that they considered the Western alliance to be “a block of our friends.”
Asked about the Roma (“tsygane” or as some refer to them, “gypsies”), Russians said that they knew that members of this group “took out the trash,” while others were certain that “this people were extraterrestrials.” And when asked about their country’s political system, some Russians said it was “given by God” while others were certain that it was simply “a nightmare.”
Asked what they knew about the Soviet past, some Russians suggested that it was “entirely secret,” while others divided between assertions that it was a happy time when people were always paid and there were few drunks, while others said it was “a stupid thing” altogether and that “there was no sex.”
When VTsIOM asked Russians how the government should fight corruption, some Russians proposed introducing “human rights courses in kindergartens,” while others responded with suggestions that the government’s anti-corruption slogan ought to be “less drunkenness and fewer drugs!’”
Some Russians told the pollsters that happiness consists of having food and clothing, while others said that they were unhappy because they were members of “fan groups and the rights of such groups are restricted.” And a few said that they kept pets because they preferred them “instead of people.”
And asked their views about fast food restaurants, some Russians said that eating their offerings was “harmful” and that it could “even change one’s nationality” possibly transforming Russians “into Americans.”
As anyone who is familiar with surveys knows, there are always such curiosities offered by small groups of people to any poll in any country. But it is worth noting that VTsIOM in presenting these selected gems nonetheless attached its standard statement that its polls had a margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percent.
Today, this polling agency offered the results of a survey on how Russians intend to celebrate Easter (www.wciom.ru/novosti/press-vypuski/press-vypusk/single/13377.html). And as one quick analysis of VTsIOM’s findings showed, most Russian Christians as well as every third atheist intends to do something to mark that holy day (http://www.kp.ru/online/news/643064/).
Vienna, April 1 – The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) has chosen to mark this April Fools’ Day not by inventing anything, despite the suspicions of some that it may have done so on occasion, but rather by offering a selection of some of the curious things Russians have told that survey firm over the past year.
In a press release yesterday entitled “NATO is a Curse Word, Obama is a Terrorist, the USSR is Without Sex and Other Curiosities of Sociological Surveys,” VTsIOM offered up what its pollsters say are some of the funniest, most unexpected, and “at times absurd” responses to their open-ended queries (wciom.ru/novosti/press-vypuski/press-vypusk/single/13368.html).
When asked whether they knew anything about Barak Obama, the release said, “certain respondents indicated that he is “the happy president of the US” and “someone who runs on at the mouth,” but others said that they believe that Obama is “the well-known leader of Chechen [terrorist] groups.”
With regard to the Western Alliance, some Russians told VTsIOM that NATO consists of “bandits” and that it was “a two-headed evil eagle.” Others said that it was in general “a bad word,” and still others said that they considered the Western alliance to be “a block of our friends.”
Asked about the Roma (“tsygane” or as some refer to them, “gypsies”), Russians said that they knew that members of this group “took out the trash,” while others were certain that “this people were extraterrestrials.” And when asked about their country’s political system, some Russians said it was “given by God” while others were certain that it was simply “a nightmare.”
Asked what they knew about the Soviet past, some Russians suggested that it was “entirely secret,” while others divided between assertions that it was a happy time when people were always paid and there were few drunks, while others said it was “a stupid thing” altogether and that “there was no sex.”
When VTsIOM asked Russians how the government should fight corruption, some Russians proposed introducing “human rights courses in kindergartens,” while others responded with suggestions that the government’s anti-corruption slogan ought to be “less drunkenness and fewer drugs!’”
Some Russians told the pollsters that happiness consists of having food and clothing, while others said that they were unhappy because they were members of “fan groups and the rights of such groups are restricted.” And a few said that they kept pets because they preferred them “instead of people.”
And asked their views about fast food restaurants, some Russians said that eating their offerings was “harmful” and that it could “even change one’s nationality” possibly transforming Russians “into Americans.”
As anyone who is familiar with surveys knows, there are always such curiosities offered by small groups of people to any poll in any country. But it is worth noting that VTsIOM in presenting these selected gems nonetheless attached its standard statement that its polls had a margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percent.
Today, this polling agency offered the results of a survey on how Russians intend to celebrate Easter (www.wciom.ru/novosti/press-vypuski/press-vypusk/single/13377.html). And as one quick analysis of VTsIOM’s findings showed, most Russian Christians as well as every third atheist intends to do something to mark that holy day (http://www.kp.ru/online/news/643064/).
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