Paul Goble
Staunton, December 22 – Russia currently has only “two real mass parties, the party of the television and the party of the Internet,” the editors of Gazeta.ru say, and declines in the influence of the former relative to the latter should be a matter of greater concern to Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin than the results of any poll about trust in the tandem.
That is because, the editors say, “it is not a secret for anyone” that the TV party overwhelmingly “votes for Putin and Medvedev and any United Russia” candidate, while “the second” has various and often “diametrically opposed positions” but relates to the powers that be in “a sharply critical way” (www.gazeta.ru/comments/2010/12/21_e_3473009.shtml#).
The occasion for these reflections, “Gazeta” continues, is the sharp decline in the number of television viewers who tuned in to Prime Minister Putin’s recent public press conference, declines that suggest that “the influence of the main instrument of administration of present-day Russia – television – is slowly but truly weakening.”
As the television party has declined, “the party of the Internet is rapidly growing.” According to the Public Opinion Foundation, almost 40 percent of the adult population of Russia now goes online, “and the number of active users of the Internet,” those who go online at least once a day, “is increasing still faster” and now amounts to “about 32 million” Russian residents.
To be sure, “every sixth active user of the Internet now lives in the capitals, and there the number of active users naturally is growing much more slowly than in the provinces,” but that pattern too points to a transformation: the Internet is not just a phenomenon of the major cities of Russia any more.
And the spread of the Internet means that the “television majority” to the development of which Putin devoted so much attention and which is the basis of his system is no longer the unchallenged and unbridgeable defense of the powers that be that it was until recently. It is still predominant but it is no longer beyond question.
That in turn means, the “Gazeta” editors say, that “in this sense, the question about the use of the Internet as an instrument of political influence … will become one of the key factors in the next presidential cycle,” with Medvedev showing himself interested in exploiting this technology but Putin still thinking that he can be the president of “the ‘off-line’ majority.”
Soviet leaders, the editors continued, thought that they could save themselves by using controlled television to put out an image at variance with reality. But as history has shown, they did not manage that. In that period, “the role of the Internet was played by samizdat and ‘enemy’ radio voices [from abroad]” which picked up on the reality the leaders hoped to hide.
“In the epoch of the Internet, the possibilities of prettying reality through televised state propaganda are becoming ever less, and the reduction of the tv audience, who listen to the first persons of the state testifies” to that and to the “weariness among even that public which up to now has been completely loyal.”
During the first decade of this century, “the people did not interfere in the internal affairs of the powers that be,” but if conditions do not improve for the majority of citizens in the near term, then the powers that be will face real challenges in keeping control from a newly energized population getting its information from sources the powers that be don’t control.
Indeed, the editors of “Gazeta” say, “when the people in general refuse to listen to the powers that be, [the powers that be] will find themselves in a lonely position: Part of [their] subjects, undoubtedly, a minority, will be ready to actively or passively protest against them; the rest will simply stop listening to them,” thereby setting the stage for potentially radical change.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Growing Turkish Influence among Gagauz Threatens Russian Interests, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 22 – Turkey’s use of “soft power” among the 250,000 Gagauz living in the former Soviet space – 140,000 in Moldova, 40,000 in Ukraine, and 12,000 in Russia itself – represents a growing threat to Russian interests not just in Moldova but across the entire Black Sea region, according to a Russian analyst.
In a commentary on the portal of the Center for Strategic Assessments and Predictions, Vladislav Gulyevich says that the Turkic-speaking but Orthodox Christian Gagauz have been a target of Turkish influence campaigns for almost 20 years, an effort that is bearing fruit and that threatens Moscow’s interests in major ways (www.csef.ru/studies/politics/materials/933/).
The first indication of Ankara’s success was the Gagauz decision to change the alphabet they used from one based on Cyrillic to the Latin script, a change that not only distanced them from the Russians but increased their ties with Turkey, the language of which is very similar to Gagauz.
In 1995, the first Turkish delegations arrived in Gagauzia in Moldova, and they included “not only politicians but also public activists and representatives of Turkish cultural and educational institutions.” As a result, the first Society of Turkish-Gagauz Friendship appeared, a group with links to numerous Turkish foundations.
And then in 2000, Gulyevich continues, the National Assembly of Gagauzia approved the opening of a representative office in Turkey and reached agreement with Ankara about the elimination of Turkish entry visas for residents of the autonomy, a step that mattered because of the increasing number of Gagauz studying in Turkey.
Komrat University, the main Gagauz higher educational institution, has partnerships with five Turkish universities and sends “about 60 students” a year to study there on Ankara-financed scholarships. According to Gulyevich, there are discussions about establishing similar programs for Gagauz students at Baku State University and in several Central Asian schools as well.
Perhaps even more important, there are as many as 50,000 Moldovan citizens in Turkey, “the majority of whom are Gagauz.” At the same time, there is now a Turkish Cultural Center in Komrat as well as a Turkish gymnasium, all organized by TIKA, the Turkish Administration for Cooperation and Development.
TIKA’s Moldovan office is in Chisinau, and certain members of its staff, Grigulyevich continues, are thought to be “activists of various Turkish radical organizations like the Gray Wolves who based themselves in Gagauzia even before the disintegration of the USSR.” Members of that group, he says, also fought for Chechen independence.
Russian analysts have devoted some attention to the Gagauz of Moldova, but Ankara has been interested in the Gagauz elsewhere as well. TIKA now has a special department for the Gagauz of Ukraine, and, again according to Grigulyevich, “the Turkish side constantly positions Gagauzia as a political-economic phenomenon separate from Moldova.”
Ankara not only includes Gagauz representatives from Ukraine in Turkish measures of various kinds but both broadcasts to them in their own language and provides school textbooks for the Gagauz of Ukraine, textbooks which promote the idea that the Gagauz are part of the Turkish world rather than the Slavic one.
All of this effort toward a small nationality many have not heard of is part of Ankara’s effort to transform the Black Sea into “an inner sea of the Turks,” an effort that might be countered by the rise of Greater Romania, something unlikely given Gagauz attitudes, or by expanded Russian efforts among the Gagauz, measures not now on the horizon.
Consequently, despite the historical sympathies of the Gagauz for Russia and Russians, the current leadership of Gagauzia in Moldova “does not hide its sympathies for Ankara.” That does not mean it is opposed to Russia, but over time, Turkey is certainly gaining the upper hand with its various “soft power” programs including highway building.
Indeed, “an entire generation of young people has grown up [in Gagauzia] who recognize perfectly well who is providing real help to the autonomy and its population,” Turkey but not Russia. And that sets the stage at a minimum for conflicts between Russia and Turkey and in the longer term for a fundamental shift in the geopolitical balance of the region.
Moreover, Grigulyevich continues, while Turkish efforts among the Gagauz are not yet explicitly anti-Russian, there is every chance that they will become so, just as they have already in Ankara’s outreach to the Crimean Tatars. At present, Grigulyevich says, Moscow could do something about this, but in the near future, it may be “already too late.”
“Russia must increase its economic and humanitarian presence in Gagaguzia,” he concludes. “The force of inertia has a tendency to dissipate, and then the vacuum will be filled by others. Whether then there will be a place for us is a rhetorical question,” especially if the Gagauz accept the Turkish slogan of “a united Turan, from Chukotka to the Balkans.”
Staunton, December 22 – Turkey’s use of “soft power” among the 250,000 Gagauz living in the former Soviet space – 140,000 in Moldova, 40,000 in Ukraine, and 12,000 in Russia itself – represents a growing threat to Russian interests not just in Moldova but across the entire Black Sea region, according to a Russian analyst.
In a commentary on the portal of the Center for Strategic Assessments and Predictions, Vladislav Gulyevich says that the Turkic-speaking but Orthodox Christian Gagauz have been a target of Turkish influence campaigns for almost 20 years, an effort that is bearing fruit and that threatens Moscow’s interests in major ways (www.csef.ru/studies/politics/materials/933/).
The first indication of Ankara’s success was the Gagauz decision to change the alphabet they used from one based on Cyrillic to the Latin script, a change that not only distanced them from the Russians but increased their ties with Turkey, the language of which is very similar to Gagauz.
In 1995, the first Turkish delegations arrived in Gagauzia in Moldova, and they included “not only politicians but also public activists and representatives of Turkish cultural and educational institutions.” As a result, the first Society of Turkish-Gagauz Friendship appeared, a group with links to numerous Turkish foundations.
And then in 2000, Gulyevich continues, the National Assembly of Gagauzia approved the opening of a representative office in Turkey and reached agreement with Ankara about the elimination of Turkish entry visas for residents of the autonomy, a step that mattered because of the increasing number of Gagauz studying in Turkey.
Komrat University, the main Gagauz higher educational institution, has partnerships with five Turkish universities and sends “about 60 students” a year to study there on Ankara-financed scholarships. According to Gulyevich, there are discussions about establishing similar programs for Gagauz students at Baku State University and in several Central Asian schools as well.
Perhaps even more important, there are as many as 50,000 Moldovan citizens in Turkey, “the majority of whom are Gagauz.” At the same time, there is now a Turkish Cultural Center in Komrat as well as a Turkish gymnasium, all organized by TIKA, the Turkish Administration for Cooperation and Development.
TIKA’s Moldovan office is in Chisinau, and certain members of its staff, Grigulyevich continues, are thought to be “activists of various Turkish radical organizations like the Gray Wolves who based themselves in Gagauzia even before the disintegration of the USSR.” Members of that group, he says, also fought for Chechen independence.
Russian analysts have devoted some attention to the Gagauz of Moldova, but Ankara has been interested in the Gagauz elsewhere as well. TIKA now has a special department for the Gagauz of Ukraine, and, again according to Grigulyevich, “the Turkish side constantly positions Gagauzia as a political-economic phenomenon separate from Moldova.”
Ankara not only includes Gagauz representatives from Ukraine in Turkish measures of various kinds but both broadcasts to them in their own language and provides school textbooks for the Gagauz of Ukraine, textbooks which promote the idea that the Gagauz are part of the Turkish world rather than the Slavic one.
All of this effort toward a small nationality many have not heard of is part of Ankara’s effort to transform the Black Sea into “an inner sea of the Turks,” an effort that might be countered by the rise of Greater Romania, something unlikely given Gagauz attitudes, or by expanded Russian efforts among the Gagauz, measures not now on the horizon.
Consequently, despite the historical sympathies of the Gagauz for Russia and Russians, the current leadership of Gagauzia in Moldova “does not hide its sympathies for Ankara.” That does not mean it is opposed to Russia, but over time, Turkey is certainly gaining the upper hand with its various “soft power” programs including highway building.
Indeed, “an entire generation of young people has grown up [in Gagauzia] who recognize perfectly well who is providing real help to the autonomy and its population,” Turkey but not Russia. And that sets the stage at a minimum for conflicts between Russia and Turkey and in the longer term for a fundamental shift in the geopolitical balance of the region.
Moreover, Grigulyevich continues, while Turkish efforts among the Gagauz are not yet explicitly anti-Russian, there is every chance that they will become so, just as they have already in Ankara’s outreach to the Crimean Tatars. At present, Grigulyevich says, Moscow could do something about this, but in the near future, it may be “already too late.”
“Russia must increase its economic and humanitarian presence in Gagaguzia,” he concludes. “The force of inertia has a tendency to dissipate, and then the vacuum will be filled by others. Whether then there will be a place for us is a rhetorical question,” especially if the Gagauz accept the Turkish slogan of “a united Turan, from Chukotka to the Balkans.”
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Liberals Must Reclaim the Nationality Issue from Radicals, Milov Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 22 – Russia’s liberals have ceded issues like migration and the violence in the North Caucasus to the nationalists by failing to address them openly and honestly and to offer programs for their resolution, a shortcoming that has helped to marginalize the liberals in Russia and give the nationalists an undeserved victory, a liberal commentator says
In a commentary in “Gazeta” this week, Vladimir Milov, the head of the Democratic Choice Movement and of the Institute of Energy Policy, argues that the Manezh Square violence must become “a serious occasion” for re-assessing “the influence and role of nationalism and the factor of inter-ethnic relations in Russian politics (www.gazeta.ru/column/milov/3470929.shtml).
Among those who need to address these issues most attentively are Russia’s liberals, a group that Milov argues has generally failed to do so up to now, especially because as “many have justly noted,” the recent events represent the bursting to the surface of problems that have been building up for some time.
Milov notes that the last decade of “stormy economic growth” has been accompanied by “an unprecedented flow of immigrants into the major cities” both from Central Asia and the Caucasus and the exploitation of these workers almost as “slave labor,” without “the necessary social guarantees” or even “the normal conditions of life.”
“It is clear to a child,” Milov continues, that such rapid developments mean not only that the new arrivals will poorly adapt themselves to “the traditional way of life” of longtime residents but also will behave in ways that will create “a direct path to major conflicts in society.”
The warning signs have all been there, “from the events in Kondopoga to surveys of public opinion which consistently showed that the issue of dissatisfaction with the new arrivals was one of the main problems agitating Russians. But now this problem has begun to break out in the form of open large-scale revolts in the heart of Moscow.”
It would thus be a mistake, Milov says, to think that these “revolts are exclusively the result of some sort of clever provocation.” They reflect “the consistently growing popularity of the actions of the nationalist opposition” which is gaining support precisely because it addresses the problems on the minds of Russians.
“It would also be the most profound mistake,” the liberal writer and activist continues, “to deny the presence of fundamental problems in migration and inter-ethnic sphere, laying all the responsibility on the primitive xenophobic instincts of the population and ‘the fascists’ who incited the disorders.”
“Yes, there were fascists at the Manezh. But the nationalist slogans would never have been so popular were there not real problems under them,” Milov adds. “And alas, the only political force which in a consistent manner raises questions about inter-ethnic relations and migrants has consisted of the nationalists.”
“Among representatives of the liberal camp and establishment, it is considered shameful to speak about them,” Milov continues. Russian liberals have limited themselves to comments like “crime does not have a nationality” – even when “frequently it has one,” he suggests – or insist that “any nationalist is by definition a fascist.”
Such attitudes help to explain why and how Russian liberals over the last 20 years “have lost the national order of the day” to the nationalists. And they help to explain why Russian developments have been so different than those in Eastern Europe of the end of the 1980s when liberalism and nationalism worked together rather than being at loggerheads.
Moreover, “the fact that the national component was completely lost in the Russian liberal movement and replaced by ‘an all human one’ and that liberals entirely ceded national discourse to the supporters of power and the nationalists has made an enormous contribution to the failures of the liberal project in Russia over the last 20 years.”
By failing to address ethnic issues and to understand that nationalism is not invariably an enemy of liberalism, Russia’s liberals’ have allowed their enemies to present them not as a reasonable part of the Russian political spectrum but rather as a kind of “fifth column” working against Russia as such.
The consequences of all this are becoming increasingly serious because many Russian nationalists now reject the idea that Russians are Europeans and instead want to pursue a Eurasian or even Asiatic course of development, turning the country away from its natural home in Europe and shutting off the kind of progress links with Europe make possible.
“In fact,” Milov says, “the denial by the derzhavniki of the European project of the development of Russia in favor of a ‘Eurasian’ one is nothing but a banal cover for surrendering Russian interests to China and to countries of the Islamic world,” something that the liberals should and must be talking about but have feared to do so up to now.
“As a result, a paradoxical situation has emerged [in Russia]: While liberal modernization in Easstern Europe has drawn on a powerful support of nationalist forces, [among Russians] these forces are sharply split,” to the point that they are fighting one another rather than helping to promote a common goal.
There are, of course, “objective causes” for this, Milov says. “Historically” Russian nationalists arose out of black hundreds elements who “had little in common with the liberals. But this history is ever more receding into the past.” And now, “the key question is cultural self-definition, are we Europeans or Asians.”
Russian liberals need to re-engage with the nationality issues of their country. They need to propose “effective solutions in the areas of migration policy and inter-ethnic relations and not deny these problems” by retreating into hysteria about how all statements in these areas are nothing but “xenophobia.”
Russia’s liberals need to come up with programs for “the social-cultural adaptation and socialization of migrants” and “the de-criminalization of the migrant milieu and the struggle with ethnic criminal groups.” And they need to come up with a serious policy of dealing with the North Caucasus, lest its problems become the problems of all of Russia.
In short, Milov concludes, Russia’s liberqals must come up with “a liberal national project for Russia directed at the strengthening of the cultural self-identificaiton of Russians as Europeans and not as anything else.” That means engaging the nationalists on their own grounds, a step liberals must take “if we do not want to have a Manezh the size of the entire country.”
Staunton, December 22 – Russia’s liberals have ceded issues like migration and the violence in the North Caucasus to the nationalists by failing to address them openly and honestly and to offer programs for their resolution, a shortcoming that has helped to marginalize the liberals in Russia and give the nationalists an undeserved victory, a liberal commentator says
In a commentary in “Gazeta” this week, Vladimir Milov, the head of the Democratic Choice Movement and of the Institute of Energy Policy, argues that the Manezh Square violence must become “a serious occasion” for re-assessing “the influence and role of nationalism and the factor of inter-ethnic relations in Russian politics (www.gazeta.ru/column/milov/3470929.shtml).
Among those who need to address these issues most attentively are Russia’s liberals, a group that Milov argues has generally failed to do so up to now, especially because as “many have justly noted,” the recent events represent the bursting to the surface of problems that have been building up for some time.
Milov notes that the last decade of “stormy economic growth” has been accompanied by “an unprecedented flow of immigrants into the major cities” both from Central Asia and the Caucasus and the exploitation of these workers almost as “slave labor,” without “the necessary social guarantees” or even “the normal conditions of life.”
“It is clear to a child,” Milov continues, that such rapid developments mean not only that the new arrivals will poorly adapt themselves to “the traditional way of life” of longtime residents but also will behave in ways that will create “a direct path to major conflicts in society.”
The warning signs have all been there, “from the events in Kondopoga to surveys of public opinion which consistently showed that the issue of dissatisfaction with the new arrivals was one of the main problems agitating Russians. But now this problem has begun to break out in the form of open large-scale revolts in the heart of Moscow.”
It would thus be a mistake, Milov says, to think that these “revolts are exclusively the result of some sort of clever provocation.” They reflect “the consistently growing popularity of the actions of the nationalist opposition” which is gaining support precisely because it addresses the problems on the minds of Russians.
“It would also be the most profound mistake,” the liberal writer and activist continues, “to deny the presence of fundamental problems in migration and inter-ethnic sphere, laying all the responsibility on the primitive xenophobic instincts of the population and ‘the fascists’ who incited the disorders.”
“Yes, there were fascists at the Manezh. But the nationalist slogans would never have been so popular were there not real problems under them,” Milov adds. “And alas, the only political force which in a consistent manner raises questions about inter-ethnic relations and migrants has consisted of the nationalists.”
“Among representatives of the liberal camp and establishment, it is considered shameful to speak about them,” Milov continues. Russian liberals have limited themselves to comments like “crime does not have a nationality” – even when “frequently it has one,” he suggests – or insist that “any nationalist is by definition a fascist.”
Such attitudes help to explain why and how Russian liberals over the last 20 years “have lost the national order of the day” to the nationalists. And they help to explain why Russian developments have been so different than those in Eastern Europe of the end of the 1980s when liberalism and nationalism worked together rather than being at loggerheads.
Moreover, “the fact that the national component was completely lost in the Russian liberal movement and replaced by ‘an all human one’ and that liberals entirely ceded national discourse to the supporters of power and the nationalists has made an enormous contribution to the failures of the liberal project in Russia over the last 20 years.”
By failing to address ethnic issues and to understand that nationalism is not invariably an enemy of liberalism, Russia’s liberals’ have allowed their enemies to present them not as a reasonable part of the Russian political spectrum but rather as a kind of “fifth column” working against Russia as such.
The consequences of all this are becoming increasingly serious because many Russian nationalists now reject the idea that Russians are Europeans and instead want to pursue a Eurasian or even Asiatic course of development, turning the country away from its natural home in Europe and shutting off the kind of progress links with Europe make possible.
“In fact,” Milov says, “the denial by the derzhavniki of the European project of the development of Russia in favor of a ‘Eurasian’ one is nothing but a banal cover for surrendering Russian interests to China and to countries of the Islamic world,” something that the liberals should and must be talking about but have feared to do so up to now.
“As a result, a paradoxical situation has emerged [in Russia]: While liberal modernization in Easstern Europe has drawn on a powerful support of nationalist forces, [among Russians] these forces are sharply split,” to the point that they are fighting one another rather than helping to promote a common goal.
There are, of course, “objective causes” for this, Milov says. “Historically” Russian nationalists arose out of black hundreds elements who “had little in common with the liberals. But this history is ever more receding into the past.” And now, “the key question is cultural self-definition, are we Europeans or Asians.”
Russian liberals need to re-engage with the nationality issues of their country. They need to propose “effective solutions in the areas of migration policy and inter-ethnic relations and not deny these problems” by retreating into hysteria about how all statements in these areas are nothing but “xenophobia.”
Russia’s liberals need to come up with programs for “the social-cultural adaptation and socialization of migrants” and “the de-criminalization of the migrant milieu and the struggle with ethnic criminal groups.” And they need to come up with a serious policy of dealing with the North Caucasus, lest its problems become the problems of all of Russia.
In short, Milov concludes, Russia’s liberqals must come up with “a liberal national project for Russia directed at the strengthening of the cultural self-identificaiton of Russians as Europeans and not as anything else.” That means engaging the nationalists on their own grounds, a step liberals must take “if we do not want to have a Manezh the size of the entire country.”
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