Paul Goble
Staunton, December 3 -- In his state of the nation speech, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that regional administrations should not retain ownership of anything, including the media, that is not “necessary for the fulfillment of their responsibilities,” a proposal that has already led to the submission of a draft bill to the Duma.
But regional leaders say that government ownership of at least some of the media is absolutely essential to do their jobs, be it to promote patriotic education, support for the ruling party, develop a common media space for large regions or maintain bilingualism in the non-Russian republics. And some analysts suggest that dispensing with such control is very risky.
As a result, many heads of the federal subjects have come out against this proposal. But given the Kremlin’s dominance of the Duma, the new measure is likely to pass. And observers are already speculating about how regional officials will keep control of the media by selling it to loyal companies, something that will do little besides increasing corruption at the local level.
The Moscow press today is full of articles and commentaries on this subject. “Kommersant,” for example, notes the governors are correct in asserting that federal law allows the regional governments to own the media. If that changes, one official said, the regions will go along, but without enthusiasm (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1549696).
(For a discussion of these various articles and the anger that they are provoking among many regional officials, see the commentary offered by Aleksandr Ivakhnik, the head of the political analysis department of the Moscow Center for Political Technologies at www.politcom.ru/11128.html).)
But perhaps the most thoughtful discussion of this issue so far is offered by Tatyana Stanovaya on Politcom.ru. She points to the fundamental contradiction between Medvedev’s desire to get the government out of more sectors of the economy and the dangers that will arise if the regional media are privatized too quickly (www.politcom.ru/11127.html).
“The media,” Stanovaya notes, “in the current political situation fulfill some most important functions including ‘therapeutic’ and propagandistic. [Its outlets] guarantee a favorable information background for both participants in the tandem and support the ratings of the party of power,” United Russia.
Given that, she writes, “it is difficult to imagine that a political decision about the privatization of the media which today guarantees the stability of the political regime will be adopted.” Moreover, many of the regions and republics have special needs which can only be met by controlling the media either by ownership or other means.
Indeed, “considering how on them lies today responsibility for the results of the party of power [in elections, such regional heads] are quite obviously not prepared to deprive themselves of the most important instrument of influence on public opinion.” If they have to give up ownership because of Moscow’s fiat, they will find other ways, including corrupt ones.
And that will not be hard, Stoyanova writes, because “the place of the regional owner can be occupied by companies close to the structures of power there, as a result of which there will be a reduction in competition in the media markets of the regions, something that in turn means [a reduction in] access to objective information.”
Thus, she concludes, as so often happens in post-Soviet Russia, “once again a liberal idea can be turned to the benefit of the state” rather than to the society for whom it is ostensibly intended.” Medvedev may get his new law, but he won’t thereby achieve the ends many who look to him for change expect.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russian Language Skills of Immigrant Workers from CIS Countries Falling Every Year, Moscow Experts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 3 – Every year since the end of the Soviet Union, the share of migrant workers coming to the Russian Federation from CIS countries who have a minimal competence in the Russian language has declined, according to surveys conducted by the Moscow Center for Migration Research.
Part of the reason behind this reflects a shift in the source of such migrants – in the 1990s, most gastarbeiters in the Russian Federation came from Ukraine and Belarus while now the overwhelming majority comes from Central Asian states – but another part is the general decline in Russian language competence in these countries.
That in turn has two major consequences for Moscow. On the one hand, it means that Russia is likely to face ever greater difficulties in integrating gastarbeiters because it will have to deal with a situation more like that which the countries of Western Europe now have to deal rather than with the earlier Soviet model.
And on the other, the broader decline in the use of Russian in the former Soviet republics further reduces the sense of commonality among these now independent countries that Moscow has sought to promote and thus means that ever more often, Moscow will have to promote its interests in these countries as it does elsewhere rather than relying on the receding Soviet past.
The Rosbalt news agency reports today that “only 50 percent of the respondents [to a poll] are in a position to fill out official documents” in Russian. “And some 15 to 20 percent do not even speak the state language of the country [Russia] which is giving them the chance to earn money (www.rosbalt.ru/2010/12/03/796657.html).
Elena Tyuryukanova, the director of the Center of Migration Research and a researcher at the Institute of Social-Economic Problems of the Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the news agency that “we regularly conduct monitoring polls” on this subject and that the findings are increasingly a matter of concern.
“Five years ago,” she said, “the group of respondents who did not know Russian formed three percent” of all those coming from CIS countries. Now, that figure has risen to 15 to 20 percent,” not to mention the almost complete lack of Russian language competence among migrants from China, Vietnam and Korea.
This trend, Tyurykanova continued, is “typical both for Russia as a whole and for Moscow in particular to the extent that it attracts a large part of the in-migration flow.” Indeed, she said, “almost half of the respondents” in the current survey were living in the Russian capital rather than in the provinces.”
She suggested that there was only one positive aspect to her findings. “When we conduct local surveys in Moscow, the level of [Russian] language knowledge seems a little higher,” although it is not beyond the range of statistical error, a pattern that suggests that “those who do not speak Russian often remain closer to the border, as for example in Astrakhan.”
With the shift in im-migration flows from Ukraine and Belarusian where Russian language knowledge was and is more widespread to Central Asia where “the reserve of polyglot workers has run out,” because “in the schools of the independent countries they have ceased to teach Russian” and the generation which knew Russian from Soviet times is rapidly aging.
In Moscow, the powers that be have set up special schools and courses to promote Russian language knowledge among immigrant workers, but the success of these institutions has been mixed. Those gastarbeiters who work long hours have little time or interest in them, and given the current economic crisis, they have little incentive to study.
As a result, many of these schools and even more of these special evening and weekend clashes find it hard to fill their classrooms. And funding for these institutions has been cut back over the last two years, reducing the possibilities even for those migrant workers who are interested.
But, as the experts told Regnum.ru, “the problems [of the adaptation of migrants to the Russian milieu] will not be solved by schools of Russian.” Those gastarbeiters who come for only a short time in order to earn money before going home have little incentive to learn Russian, and those who plan to stay need to learn more than just the language to fit in.
Since 2002, competence in Russian has been required for those who want to become Russian citizens, but there is no law that requires immigrant workers who don’t to know the state language. And any effort to require Russian, the expert community says, almost certainly would drive such gastarbeiters underground, with all the problems that would entail.
Meanwhile, another indication of the declining status of Russian in the post-Soviet states comes from the behavior of people at the top of the political pyramids there. On Tuesday, Kazakhstan news services reported that the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan chose to speak their national languages to each other rather than shift to Russian, a language both know.
Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva spoke Kyrgyz, and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke Kazakh, two languages that are sufficiently similar that speakers of the two tongues can understand each other most of the time. Media reports about this exchange did not say whether translators were used (ferghana-blog.livejournal.com/122202.html).
Outside of the Baltic countries whose leaders increasingly have used English as the language of international communication, the heads of the former Soviet republics have tended to use Russian when speaking to each other. Thus, what happened in Astana this week marks a a shift that may worry the Kremlin even more than the changes on the streets of Moscow.
Staunton, December 3 – Every year since the end of the Soviet Union, the share of migrant workers coming to the Russian Federation from CIS countries who have a minimal competence in the Russian language has declined, according to surveys conducted by the Moscow Center for Migration Research.
Part of the reason behind this reflects a shift in the source of such migrants – in the 1990s, most gastarbeiters in the Russian Federation came from Ukraine and Belarus while now the overwhelming majority comes from Central Asian states – but another part is the general decline in Russian language competence in these countries.
That in turn has two major consequences for Moscow. On the one hand, it means that Russia is likely to face ever greater difficulties in integrating gastarbeiters because it will have to deal with a situation more like that which the countries of Western Europe now have to deal rather than with the earlier Soviet model.
And on the other, the broader decline in the use of Russian in the former Soviet republics further reduces the sense of commonality among these now independent countries that Moscow has sought to promote and thus means that ever more often, Moscow will have to promote its interests in these countries as it does elsewhere rather than relying on the receding Soviet past.
The Rosbalt news agency reports today that “only 50 percent of the respondents [to a poll] are in a position to fill out official documents” in Russian. “And some 15 to 20 percent do not even speak the state language of the country [Russia] which is giving them the chance to earn money (www.rosbalt.ru/2010/12/03/796657.html).
Elena Tyuryukanova, the director of the Center of Migration Research and a researcher at the Institute of Social-Economic Problems of the Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the news agency that “we regularly conduct monitoring polls” on this subject and that the findings are increasingly a matter of concern.
“Five years ago,” she said, “the group of respondents who did not know Russian formed three percent” of all those coming from CIS countries. Now, that figure has risen to 15 to 20 percent,” not to mention the almost complete lack of Russian language competence among migrants from China, Vietnam and Korea.
This trend, Tyurykanova continued, is “typical both for Russia as a whole and for Moscow in particular to the extent that it attracts a large part of the in-migration flow.” Indeed, she said, “almost half of the respondents” in the current survey were living in the Russian capital rather than in the provinces.”
She suggested that there was only one positive aspect to her findings. “When we conduct local surveys in Moscow, the level of [Russian] language knowledge seems a little higher,” although it is not beyond the range of statistical error, a pattern that suggests that “those who do not speak Russian often remain closer to the border, as for example in Astrakhan.”
With the shift in im-migration flows from Ukraine and Belarusian where Russian language knowledge was and is more widespread to Central Asia where “the reserve of polyglot workers has run out,” because “in the schools of the independent countries they have ceased to teach Russian” and the generation which knew Russian from Soviet times is rapidly aging.
In Moscow, the powers that be have set up special schools and courses to promote Russian language knowledge among immigrant workers, but the success of these institutions has been mixed. Those gastarbeiters who work long hours have little time or interest in them, and given the current economic crisis, they have little incentive to study.
As a result, many of these schools and even more of these special evening and weekend clashes find it hard to fill their classrooms. And funding for these institutions has been cut back over the last two years, reducing the possibilities even for those migrant workers who are interested.
But, as the experts told Regnum.ru, “the problems [of the adaptation of migrants to the Russian milieu] will not be solved by schools of Russian.” Those gastarbeiters who come for only a short time in order to earn money before going home have little incentive to learn Russian, and those who plan to stay need to learn more than just the language to fit in.
Since 2002, competence in Russian has been required for those who want to become Russian citizens, but there is no law that requires immigrant workers who don’t to know the state language. And any effort to require Russian, the expert community says, almost certainly would drive such gastarbeiters underground, with all the problems that would entail.
Meanwhile, another indication of the declining status of Russian in the post-Soviet states comes from the behavior of people at the top of the political pyramids there. On Tuesday, Kazakhstan news services reported that the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan chose to speak their national languages to each other rather than shift to Russian, a language both know.
Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva spoke Kyrgyz, and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke Kazakh, two languages that are sufficiently similar that speakers of the two tongues can understand each other most of the time. Media reports about this exchange did not say whether translators were used (ferghana-blog.livejournal.com/122202.html).
Outside of the Baltic countries whose leaders increasingly have used English as the language of international communication, the heads of the former Soviet republics have tended to use Russian when speaking to each other. Thus, what happened in Astana this week marks a a shift that may worry the Kremlin even more than the changes on the streets of Moscow.
Window on Eurasia: Ethnicity a Basis for Rather than Threat to Democracy and Freedom, Tartu Conference Concludes
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 3 – Many analysts routinely assume that ethnic identity and the individual rights that are the foundation of a free society are competitive or even contradictory, but a conference at the University of Tartu in Estonia this week argued the reverse and suggested that “ethnic identity [itself] is the main precondition for democracy and freedom.”
Without a strong sense of ethnic identification, its participants argued, a society will often lack the social cohesion democracy and individual freedom require. Moreover, when one nation ignores the claims of ethnic communities within its population, that undermines the chances for democracy and individual rights.
Hosted this week by the Institute of the Rights of Peoples and the Oriental Studies Center at the Tartu, the conference featured reports by Estonian researchers Eiki Berg, Mart Rannut and Mart Laanemets as well as speeches by Estonian political figures Mart Laar, Mart Nutt and Andres Herkel. And besides Estonians, it drew guests from Udmurtia, Chechnya and Buryatia.
Sven Grunberg, the director of the Institute of the Rights of Peoples, argued that “it is the suppression of ethnic mentality that creates problems and not ethnic mentality or nationalism in and of itself as some tend to assert,” a view that all other speakers echoed in one way or another.
Andres Herkel, an Estonian MP who is vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said that Tallinn will continue to support peoples without statehood. He and other speakers said that the situation in the Russian Federation has fundamentally changed and that this change requires a new approach to such peoples there.
At the end of the 20th century, speakers said according to a press release, “peoples in the Russian empire felt optimistic” about their prospects for retaining their national identities and even achieving statehood, “today [these nations] are in considerably harder conditions,” something that requires new approaches.
According to Herkel, Estonian political figures can and will serve as “effective intermediaries” for these peoples to inform the Council of Europe an dother international organizations about the situation of these nations. “We have always done this before, and our contacts and meetings allow it to do it better still,” Herkel said.
The meeting was dedicated to the memory of Linnart Mall, an Estonian scholar who was the founder of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, a group that since 1991 has been an advocate for “indigenous peoples, minorities and unrecognized or occupied territories” in national and international forums.
Mall, who died this past February from cancer, was trained at Tartu State University and the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies in Soviet times. Between 1969 and 1973, he taught history at Tartu but was dismissed for his anti-Soviet and anti-communist views. Only in 1983 was Mall partially bilitated and allowed to teach again.
An internationally recognized expert on Buddhism, Mall himself converted to that faith, But he was also an activist not only for Buddhism – he helped to organize both of the Dalai Lama’s visits to Estonia (1991 and 2001) – but for his own nationality, the Estonians, and other numerically small peoples.
Staunton, December 3 – Many analysts routinely assume that ethnic identity and the individual rights that are the foundation of a free society are competitive or even contradictory, but a conference at the University of Tartu in Estonia this week argued the reverse and suggested that “ethnic identity [itself] is the main precondition for democracy and freedom.”
Without a strong sense of ethnic identification, its participants argued, a society will often lack the social cohesion democracy and individual freedom require. Moreover, when one nation ignores the claims of ethnic communities within its population, that undermines the chances for democracy and individual rights.
Hosted this week by the Institute of the Rights of Peoples and the Oriental Studies Center at the Tartu, the conference featured reports by Estonian researchers Eiki Berg, Mart Rannut and Mart Laanemets as well as speeches by Estonian political figures Mart Laar, Mart Nutt and Andres Herkel. And besides Estonians, it drew guests from Udmurtia, Chechnya and Buryatia.
Sven Grunberg, the director of the Institute of the Rights of Peoples, argued that “it is the suppression of ethnic mentality that creates problems and not ethnic mentality or nationalism in and of itself as some tend to assert,” a view that all other speakers echoed in one way or another.
Andres Herkel, an Estonian MP who is vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said that Tallinn will continue to support peoples without statehood. He and other speakers said that the situation in the Russian Federation has fundamentally changed and that this change requires a new approach to such peoples there.
At the end of the 20th century, speakers said according to a press release, “peoples in the Russian empire felt optimistic” about their prospects for retaining their national identities and even achieving statehood, “today [these nations] are in considerably harder conditions,” something that requires new approaches.
According to Herkel, Estonian political figures can and will serve as “effective intermediaries” for these peoples to inform the Council of Europe an dother international organizations about the situation of these nations. “We have always done this before, and our contacts and meetings allow it to do it better still,” Herkel said.
The meeting was dedicated to the memory of Linnart Mall, an Estonian scholar who was the founder of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, a group that since 1991 has been an advocate for “indigenous peoples, minorities and unrecognized or occupied territories” in national and international forums.
Mall, who died this past February from cancer, was trained at Tartu State University and the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies in Soviet times. Between 1969 and 1973, he taught history at Tartu but was dismissed for his anti-Soviet and anti-communist views. Only in 1983 was Mall partially bilitated and allowed to teach again.
An internationally recognized expert on Buddhism, Mall himself converted to that faith, But he was also an activist not only for Buddhism – he helped to organize both of the Dalai Lama’s visits to Estonia (1991 and 2001) – but for his own nationality, the Estonians, and other numerically small peoples.
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