Paul Goble
Staunton, May 5 – Russia’s demographic decline means not only that the total population of the counry will decline but that ethnic Russians who now form about three-quarters of that country’s population will lose their majority within the population sometime in the middle of this century, according to a Russian scholar.
Not only are fertility rates lower and mortality rates higher among ethnic Russians than among most non-Russian groups, researchers at the Russian Academy of Economic Sciences say, but the influx of non-Russian immigrants is accelerating this Russian decline (www.za-nauku.ru//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4137&Itemid=29 ).
And while many may be inclined to dismiss this essay because it is so obviously informed by animosity toward those involved with the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the rule of the Russian Federation since 1991, its arguments deserve attention both on their own terms and because of what they suggest about the thinking of some scholars in Moscow.
In a 5,000-word article posted online this week, B.I. Iskakov, a professor and member of both that academy and the International Slavic Academy, provides one of the most detailed descriptions of this process, one he describes as the result of the policies of the post-Soviet Russian government and “the demo-genocide of the [ethnic] Russian nation in Russia.”
According to “optimistic predictions,” Iskakov says, Russians are at risk of losing their majority status in the Russian Federation “in the 2060s [or] 2070s.” But “unfortunately,” he continues, because Russian statistics are so problematic even now, that loss of majority status is in fact likely to occur even sooner unless Moscow changes its policies.
Indeed, given migration and ethnic Russian fertility and mortality rates, “the Russian people could loseits predominant position in the structure of the population of the Russian Federation “much earlier, already in the first half of the 21st century,” which Iskakov says will lead to the division and demise of Russia.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Some Russians Don’t Want North Caucasians in the Army -- But North Caucasians Want to Serve
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 5 – Some Russians have suggested that dedovshchina and other problems in the Russian armed forces could be eliminated by an end to drafting soldiers from the non-Russian nationalities of the North Caucasus, but officials there say that people from the Caucasus very much want to serve, thus potentially setting the stage for new and broader conflicts.
The argument of those like Nikolay Zakharov, the military commissar of Chelyabinsk oblast, that the army should not draft “residents of the Caucasus or people from the Caucasian republics who live in other regions of Russia” is gaining support even though Moscow has disowned it (folksland.net/m/articles/view/Rossijskaya-armiya-prevrashaetsya-v-dzhamaat).
Some writers are simply supporting the idea of not drafting any Caucasians. Others are suggesting that there should be a return to tsarist practice in which Muslims were allowed to serve only on an exceptional basis or to the Soviet one in which they were largely confined to construction battalions.
And till others want to increase the powers of officers to send anyone from the Caucasus who violates the rules to special disciplinary battalions from which they will not be released until they demonstrate not only that they have learned what is appropriate behavior but also that they want to fit in to military units.
The most immediately serious result of this comment by the Chelyabinsk official has been to give new prominence to incidents of inter-ethnic conflict in military units over the last two decades and to promote more generally anti-Caucasian attitudes, with the Folksland.net article cited above entitled “The Russian Army is Being Transformed into a Jamaat.”
Now, the North Caucasians are responding. Vladimir Telnov, the military commissar of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, says that “those born in the Caucasus are also citizens of Russia, just like all others and therefore must fulfill their holy obligation before the motherland” (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/184668/).
“Residents of the Caucasus have always served, and in the tsarist, Soviet and Russian army, they have served well. Among them have been many gifted military men,” and as far as men from his republic are concerned, Telnov reports, “there have not been any problems in this regard.”
“For example, in the past year from Karachayevo-Cherkessia,” he continues, representatives of 27 nationalities were called into the army, and there was not a singl negative report about any of them,” a reflection of good preparation and not of any ethnic specificity or diversity.
Arsen Dzhashakkuyev, a resident of Cherkessk, added that in his view, “the declaration that residents of the Caucasus will not be drafted is the latest example of the enflaming of inter-ethnic relations. They have served in all times and distinguished themselves by the qualities needed for this.”
What possible sense, he asks rhetorically, is there any reason to discuss this in ethnic terms?
Another Cherkessk resident, Oleg Gordienko, points out that “dedovshchina and disorders will flourish wherever there is inappropriate ctions by the officers. If the officers fulfill their responsibilities as they should, then as a reul there will not be a basis for violations of the military code of behavior,” including ethnically based dedovshchina.
In short, the statement by the Chelyabinsk officer, even though it almost certainly was a trial balloon or based on a misunderstanding of a Moscow order, has had the effect of worsening rather than improving inter-ethnic relations within the military and indeed within Russian society as a whole.
Staunton, May 5 – Some Russians have suggested that dedovshchina and other problems in the Russian armed forces could be eliminated by an end to drafting soldiers from the non-Russian nationalities of the North Caucasus, but officials there say that people from the Caucasus very much want to serve, thus potentially setting the stage for new and broader conflicts.
The argument of those like Nikolay Zakharov, the military commissar of Chelyabinsk oblast, that the army should not draft “residents of the Caucasus or people from the Caucasian republics who live in other regions of Russia” is gaining support even though Moscow has disowned it (folksland.net/m/articles/view/Rossijskaya-armiya-prevrashaetsya-v-dzhamaat).
Some writers are simply supporting the idea of not drafting any Caucasians. Others are suggesting that there should be a return to tsarist practice in which Muslims were allowed to serve only on an exceptional basis or to the Soviet one in which they were largely confined to construction battalions.
And till others want to increase the powers of officers to send anyone from the Caucasus who violates the rules to special disciplinary battalions from which they will not be released until they demonstrate not only that they have learned what is appropriate behavior but also that they want to fit in to military units.
The most immediately serious result of this comment by the Chelyabinsk official has been to give new prominence to incidents of inter-ethnic conflict in military units over the last two decades and to promote more generally anti-Caucasian attitudes, with the Folksland.net article cited above entitled “The Russian Army is Being Transformed into a Jamaat.”
Now, the North Caucasians are responding. Vladimir Telnov, the military commissar of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, says that “those born in the Caucasus are also citizens of Russia, just like all others and therefore must fulfill their holy obligation before the motherland” (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/184668/).
“Residents of the Caucasus have always served, and in the tsarist, Soviet and Russian army, they have served well. Among them have been many gifted military men,” and as far as men from his republic are concerned, Telnov reports, “there have not been any problems in this regard.”
“For example, in the past year from Karachayevo-Cherkessia,” he continues, representatives of 27 nationalities were called into the army, and there was not a singl negative report about any of them,” a reflection of good preparation and not of any ethnic specificity or diversity.
Arsen Dzhashakkuyev, a resident of Cherkessk, added that in his view, “the declaration that residents of the Caucasus will not be drafted is the latest example of the enflaming of inter-ethnic relations. They have served in all times and distinguished themselves by the qualities needed for this.”
What possible sense, he asks rhetorically, is there any reason to discuss this in ethnic terms?
Another Cherkessk resident, Oleg Gordienko, points out that “dedovshchina and disorders will flourish wherever there is inappropriate ctions by the officers. If the officers fulfill their responsibilities as they should, then as a reul there will not be a basis for violations of the military code of behavior,” including ethnically based dedovshchina.
In short, the statement by the Chelyabinsk officer, even though it almost certainly was a trial balloon or based on a misunderstanding of a Moscow order, has had the effect of worsening rather than improving inter-ethnic relations within the military and indeed within Russian society as a whole.
Window on Eurasia: Russian Nationalist Attitudes Product of Corruption, Absence of Democracy and Stagnation, Ethnographer Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 5 – Widespread corruption, the lack of democracy, and a decline in social mobility are behind the rise of Russian nationalist attitudes rather than any hostility to immigrants on ethnic grounds, according to a Russian ethnographer, who adds Russians are especially angry because they feel non-Russians currently have more resources than they do.
In an interview to the Fergananews.com portal, Igor Savin, an ethnographer at the Center fo rhte Study of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Ural-Volga Region of the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies, lays out his arguments in detail on each of these points (www.fergananews.com/article.php?id=6952).
Challenged to explain survey findings that suggest younger Russians are sympathetic to the anti-immigrant attitudes of the participants at the Manezh Square protest in December, Savin argues that “these statistics do not speak aobut a growth of xenophobia” among Russians toward all groups but rather “only about the growth of dissatisfaction with ‘Caucasians.’”
On the one hand, he argues, the survey involved not just ethnic Russians but “representatives of other nationalities as well,” including the Tatars. And on the other, it found that people were not put off by the Caucasians because of the way they look or their culture, the two most usual causes of xenophobia.
Instead, the ethnographer said, “it turned out that [residents of the Russian Federation] did not like precisely the behavior of ‘the Caucasians,’ the way in which they conducted themselves during the time they spend earning money and during their off hours,” a response that he suggested was “a natural reaction which arises given the lack of a serious integration policy.”
“This is [thus] not a question of dislike, which has suddenly arisen among the Caucasians, ethnic Russians, Tatars and whomever else. This is an issue of the lack of agreement on a straqtegy of social survival,” where the indigenous people choose one and the arrivals choose another.
In the recent past, Savin points out, “those who traditionally lived in the central part of Russia, the national majority had their own ‘working’ models of social success based either on personal entrepreneurialism or on the obtaining of good educaziton or on the inclusion in various structures.”
Ethnic Russians therefore “did not play ‘the national card’” because “this was considered a marginal measures which was used [only] by representatives of national minorities,” who it was assumed “would use such means because they did not have equal access to others. But now the situation has changed.
“As before the national minorities use these mechanisms, but the government institutions which earlier secured the socialization of the majority (the Russians) have ceased to work. Nothing depends on the level of your education, competence or on your individualisty today. Today the mechanisms that matter are ‘personal ties,’ clientalism, and tribalism.”
Because those are the only reliable resources at the present time, Savin says, ethnic Russians simply want to use them as well, and it is that desire which explains the growth in support for the idea of “’Russia for the Russians’” rather than hostility to other ethnic or religious groups.
“For representatives of national minorities, the use of [such] ethnic resources is an every day affair. But for ethnic Russians, it is a manifesto. Rephrasing the well-known expression, it is possible to say that ‘the nation is like health; if one is talking about it, then that means that it doesn’t exist.’”
Many people assumed that “the market would put everyone in his place,” Savin continues, “but this is a simplification.” More is needed, and “everything that is taking place now – the growth of hatred to migrants, degradation, and the destruction of social institutions – is the result of corruption and the exclusion of civic organizations from decision making.”
Some people say, the ethnographer insists, that Russia needs migrants, “but illegal migrants do not pay social taxes – or more precisely their employers do not pay them.” How useful are migrants to ordinary Russians, who also suffer because migrants push down wages even as they benefit from social services they aren’t paying for.
Corruption explains all this because the problem is not with the migrants but with the people who employ them, Savin says, and with the failure of the powers that be to integrate people and “force their integration” by coming up with “adaptation mechanisms” and trying to make “from the migrants ‘people just like us.’”
Russians need to understand this, to recognize with whom the problems lie, the oligarchs and the powers rather than with the immigrants, and to understand that “corruption, the absence of social escalators, and the inequality of citizens before the law in Russia” is holding everyone back, pointing toward a disaster unless more Russians understand and act on this reality.
Staunton, May 5 – Widespread corruption, the lack of democracy, and a decline in social mobility are behind the rise of Russian nationalist attitudes rather than any hostility to immigrants on ethnic grounds, according to a Russian ethnographer, who adds Russians are especially angry because they feel non-Russians currently have more resources than they do.
In an interview to the Fergananews.com portal, Igor Savin, an ethnographer at the Center fo rhte Study of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Ural-Volga Region of the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies, lays out his arguments in detail on each of these points (www.fergananews.com/article.php?id=6952).
Challenged to explain survey findings that suggest younger Russians are sympathetic to the anti-immigrant attitudes of the participants at the Manezh Square protest in December, Savin argues that “these statistics do not speak aobut a growth of xenophobia” among Russians toward all groups but rather “only about the growth of dissatisfaction with ‘Caucasians.’”
On the one hand, he argues, the survey involved not just ethnic Russians but “representatives of other nationalities as well,” including the Tatars. And on the other, it found that people were not put off by the Caucasians because of the way they look or their culture, the two most usual causes of xenophobia.
Instead, the ethnographer said, “it turned out that [residents of the Russian Federation] did not like precisely the behavior of ‘the Caucasians,’ the way in which they conducted themselves during the time they spend earning money and during their off hours,” a response that he suggested was “a natural reaction which arises given the lack of a serious integration policy.”
“This is [thus] not a question of dislike, which has suddenly arisen among the Caucasians, ethnic Russians, Tatars and whomever else. This is an issue of the lack of agreement on a straqtegy of social survival,” where the indigenous people choose one and the arrivals choose another.
In the recent past, Savin points out, “those who traditionally lived in the central part of Russia, the national majority had their own ‘working’ models of social success based either on personal entrepreneurialism or on the obtaining of good educaziton or on the inclusion in various structures.”
Ethnic Russians therefore “did not play ‘the national card’” because “this was considered a marginal measures which was used [only] by representatives of national minorities,” who it was assumed “would use such means because they did not have equal access to others. But now the situation has changed.
“As before the national minorities use these mechanisms, but the government institutions which earlier secured the socialization of the majority (the Russians) have ceased to work. Nothing depends on the level of your education, competence or on your individualisty today. Today the mechanisms that matter are ‘personal ties,’ clientalism, and tribalism.”
Because those are the only reliable resources at the present time, Savin says, ethnic Russians simply want to use them as well, and it is that desire which explains the growth in support for the idea of “’Russia for the Russians’” rather than hostility to other ethnic or religious groups.
“For representatives of national minorities, the use of [such] ethnic resources is an every day affair. But for ethnic Russians, it is a manifesto. Rephrasing the well-known expression, it is possible to say that ‘the nation is like health; if one is talking about it, then that means that it doesn’t exist.’”
Many people assumed that “the market would put everyone in his place,” Savin continues, “but this is a simplification.” More is needed, and “everything that is taking place now – the growth of hatred to migrants, degradation, and the destruction of social institutions – is the result of corruption and the exclusion of civic organizations from decision making.”
Some people say, the ethnographer insists, that Russia needs migrants, “but illegal migrants do not pay social taxes – or more precisely their employers do not pay them.” How useful are migrants to ordinary Russians, who also suffer because migrants push down wages even as they benefit from social services they aren’t paying for.
Corruption explains all this because the problem is not with the migrants but with the people who employ them, Savin says, and with the failure of the powers that be to integrate people and “force their integration” by coming up with “adaptation mechanisms” and trying to make “from the migrants ‘people just like us.’”
Russians need to understand this, to recognize with whom the problems lie, the oligarchs and the powers rather than with the immigrants, and to understand that “corruption, the absence of social escalators, and the inequality of citizens before the law in Russia” is holding everyone back, pointing toward a disaster unless more Russians understand and act on this reality.
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