Paul Goble
Staunton, May 17 – Less constrained than their counterparts in Moscow, police officials in Russia’s regions are currently putting so much pressure on those they identify as “extremists” that many of these people in many cases feel compelled to move to Moscow and St. Petersburg where they hope there is “still a chance to be heard.”
On the one hand, this situation means that the state of repression in the Russian Federation is much worse than it may appear to those who judge it on the basis of the situation in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And on the other, it suggests that the amount of opposition to the regime in the capitals may overstate the level of such opposition in the country as a whole.
Those are just some of the disturbing conclusions suggested by commentator Aleksander Litoy in an article the current issue of Moscow’s “New Times” weekly, an article that compares how interior ministry officers treat people in Moscow and the provinces and examines how opposition figures have adapted to this difference (www.newtimes.ru/articles/detail/38797).
Litoy notes that the E Centers have existed in the interior ministry since the end of 2008, when they replaced the subdivisions for the struggle with organized crime and when the majority of the staff of the latter passed into the former. But already then, after anti-extremist legislation was passed, “rights activists expressed concern” that these units would be used against dissent.
That is exactly what has happened. Litoy says. And as a result, “the “clients” of the centers” had only one option left to defend themselves if they were operating in the regions: “they could flee to the capitals where there are still media prepared to speak out on behalf of the repressed and where organizations defending rights are still active.”
Those who were in the regions had no such defense, and the operatives of the E section of the local interior ministry offices acted against them without much ceremony. Anna Polikova, the editor of the extremizma.net site, says that this reflects the anti-organized crime background of the officers involved.
Most of these officers, she suggests, view their new “charges” as no different than the organized criminal groups they had earlier been deployed against. Consequently, they “are not able to work any differently” toward political dissidents than they did toward real criminal groups.
Indeed, Polikova points out, “the regional ‘E-men’ consider the ideal situation to be when on their territory there are in general no political organizations or initiatives other than the official ones.” And consequently, given their past, they seek to suppress any independent action, viewing it through the prism of official definitions of “extremism.”
As a result, outside of the capitals, Litoy says, “the possibilities of those who struggle with extremism have only increased despite the continuing criticism by the media and human rights activists.” And that has led many political activists there either to cease their activities or, quite often, to flee to Moscow or St. Petersburg where their chances are greater.
Appended to Litovoy’s article are quotations from the late Galina Kozhevnikova or SOVA, Mikhail Maglov of Solidarity, who himself came to Moscow from Omsk, and Olga Ivanova of the Left Front who moved from Krasnodar to Moscow, all of whom support Litoy’s basic conclusions.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Window on Eurasia: For the Price of the Sochi Games, Russia Could Provide Kindergartens for All Preschoolers, Activists Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 17 – For what Moscow plans to spend on the 2014 Sochi Olympics, activists say, the central government could open and support the operations of kindergartens for all preschoolers in Russia, the latest indication of the way in which in straightened economic times, Russians are registering their objections to government policies.
And because all Russians are paying the price for these games just as they are paying for the continuing war in the North Caucasus, such objections are likely to increase the number of opponents to these policies, even if as seems likely the powers that be in Moscow will do everything they can to ignore or downplay them.
But even if Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev are able to continue to pursue such policies, anger about spending on one set of projects, especially if it is shown to be taking money out of the mouths of children and others who need it, will have an impact on the rhetoric of Russian politics especially during the upcoming parliamentary campaign.
The Accessible Pre-School Education for Russian Children Movement has pointed out that Russia is spending 1.5 trillion rubles (50 billion US dollars) to prepare for the Sochi Games, an amount that the group say would provide kindergartens for three million Russian children, many of whom must now do without (globalsib.com/10501/).
The movement adds that Moscow plans to spend “not less” than that on the World Soccer Championship in 2018, yet another high profile publicity event that will do little or nothing to help ordinary Russians. And it offers other examples where money Moscow is currently spending could be put to better use.
To attract attention to this cause, the movement is organizing a three-day hunger strike for next weekend, the seventh such effort over the past several years but the one that already has attracted more support from more regions and cities than any of the earlier ones which Moscow studiously ignored (rdddo.ru/golodovka).
A major reason why the movement appears to be gaining support is that tough economic times and Moscow’s decision to solve its budgetary problems largely by cutting services to the poorer elements of the society is infuriating an increasing number of people and leading them to question the gigantist Soviet-style projects Vladimir Putin in particular appears to favor.
Last week, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” reported that because of budgetary problems, “in this year, the majority of rural hospitals are closing,” a forced measure he points out that Moscow had not taken “since the times of the German occupation” during World War II (svpressa.ru/society/article/42957/).
Cutbacks in schools and hospitals, of course, will do more than anger many Russians. They will worsen the country’s demographic situation because many will decide not to have children if they cannot be sure there will be pre-school facilities to take them and because many others will suffer and die because they cannot gain access to medical treatment.
Staunton, May 17 – For what Moscow plans to spend on the 2014 Sochi Olympics, activists say, the central government could open and support the operations of kindergartens for all preschoolers in Russia, the latest indication of the way in which in straightened economic times, Russians are registering their objections to government policies.
And because all Russians are paying the price for these games just as they are paying for the continuing war in the North Caucasus, such objections are likely to increase the number of opponents to these policies, even if as seems likely the powers that be in Moscow will do everything they can to ignore or downplay them.
But even if Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev are able to continue to pursue such policies, anger about spending on one set of projects, especially if it is shown to be taking money out of the mouths of children and others who need it, will have an impact on the rhetoric of Russian politics especially during the upcoming parliamentary campaign.
The Accessible Pre-School Education for Russian Children Movement has pointed out that Russia is spending 1.5 trillion rubles (50 billion US dollars) to prepare for the Sochi Games, an amount that the group say would provide kindergartens for three million Russian children, many of whom must now do without (globalsib.com/10501/).
The movement adds that Moscow plans to spend “not less” than that on the World Soccer Championship in 2018, yet another high profile publicity event that will do little or nothing to help ordinary Russians. And it offers other examples where money Moscow is currently spending could be put to better use.
To attract attention to this cause, the movement is organizing a three-day hunger strike for next weekend, the seventh such effort over the past several years but the one that already has attracted more support from more regions and cities than any of the earlier ones which Moscow studiously ignored (rdddo.ru/golodovka).
A major reason why the movement appears to be gaining support is that tough economic times and Moscow’s decision to solve its budgetary problems largely by cutting services to the poorer elements of the society is infuriating an increasing number of people and leading them to question the gigantist Soviet-style projects Vladimir Putin in particular appears to favor.
Last week, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” reported that because of budgetary problems, “in this year, the majority of rural hospitals are closing,” a forced measure he points out that Moscow had not taken “since the times of the German occupation” during World War II (svpressa.ru/society/article/42957/).
Cutbacks in schools and hospitals, of course, will do more than anger many Russians. They will worsen the country’s demographic situation because many will decide not to have children if they cannot be sure there will be pre-school facilities to take them and because many others will suffer and die because they cannot gain access to medical treatment.
Window on Eurasia: Russians Worried Siberians Could Follow the Path of Ukrainians
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 17 – Siberians may follow the path of the Ukrainians and seek independent statehood, some Moscow commentators believe, but whether they do is still an open question, the answer to which depends as much as on the Russians themselves as on those who are now identifying themselves as “Sibiryaki.”
In the latest broadcast of the “Nationality Question” program of “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” the two hosts, Elena Khanga and Dmitry Steshin note that according to some in Siberia, as many as a third of the residents of that region now identify as Siberians and see their future as separate from or even independent of Russia’s (www.kp.ru/daily/25686/890769/).
The two then discuss with their guest, Egor Kholmogorov, the editor of the “Russky obozrevatel” internet journal, whether the growth in Siberian identity represents a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and who is to blame for the apparent increase in such an identity over the last few years.
As Khanga points out, “a segment of the Siberians assert that they are distinctive people and, by distinguishing themselves from other nations, can resolve many social, ecological and other problems. And they themselves can define the future of their region and over time cease to be [only] a source of raw materials for Russia.”
Steshin adds that “Siberia always was set apart from the rest of Russia,” at least at the level of “social consciousness.” Because of the way the region was settled, a unique “Siberian mentality” has emerged -- to which Khanga adds that almost 14 percent of the population of the country could identify as Siberians, “an enormous figure.”
Kholmogorov concedes that there is such a possibility, but he says that he “hope that the greater part of them will never write down this nationality or even find out about such an idea,” lest having taken this first step in nation building they take others much as some of the nations of the former Soviet Union did.
To Khanga’s objection that “nationality is not citizenship” and that if people identify in one way rather than another, there is no harm in that, the “Russky obozrevatel” editor replies that everyone must understand that “in today’s world, there is no other territory” which outsiders view with such greedy aspirations.
He then recalls the statement of one former US secretary of state that “Siberia is too large a country to belong to a single state,” a clear indication in his mind of what the West intends and of the West’s role in promoting this particular national “identity” as a first step to taking Siberia away from Russia.
Steshin then suggests another approach to the problem of Siberian identity. In his view, Russians themselves are to blame both by forcing Siberians to pay excessive prices for tickets to travel to European Russia and by depriving them of the assistance they need both in normal times and during natural disasters like the forest fires of last year.
He adds that the appearance of a Siberian language is “a very serious provocation which touches the depths of the sub-consciousness,” although appended to the article is a comment by the language’s developer that he came up with the idea of such a language as a lark and has been surprised by the interest in it.
According to Kholmogorov, Ukrainian was once invented in much the same way by Mihailo Hurushevsky, and consequently, the Russian commentator argues, the appearance of such a language, however artificial, has the potential to create real problems for the state down the road.
That is especially likely in the Siberian case, Kholmogorov suggests, because Russian identity is no longer highly values and the asymmetric nature of Russian Federalism means that non-Russians have many benefits and powers that ethnic Russians do not, even in places where they are the overwhelming majority.
Consequently, he concludes, what some may now dismiss as a bad joke may prove to be something more and more disturbing if Russians do not wake up to the danger that such an identity represents for their country and for their nation, one that could cost their country even more than did the departure of Ukraine.
Staunton, May 17 – Siberians may follow the path of the Ukrainians and seek independent statehood, some Moscow commentators believe, but whether they do is still an open question, the answer to which depends as much as on the Russians themselves as on those who are now identifying themselves as “Sibiryaki.”
In the latest broadcast of the “Nationality Question” program of “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” the two hosts, Elena Khanga and Dmitry Steshin note that according to some in Siberia, as many as a third of the residents of that region now identify as Siberians and see their future as separate from or even independent of Russia’s (www.kp.ru/daily/25686/890769/).
The two then discuss with their guest, Egor Kholmogorov, the editor of the “Russky obozrevatel” internet journal, whether the growth in Siberian identity represents a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and who is to blame for the apparent increase in such an identity over the last few years.
As Khanga points out, “a segment of the Siberians assert that they are distinctive people and, by distinguishing themselves from other nations, can resolve many social, ecological and other problems. And they themselves can define the future of their region and over time cease to be [only] a source of raw materials for Russia.”
Steshin adds that “Siberia always was set apart from the rest of Russia,” at least at the level of “social consciousness.” Because of the way the region was settled, a unique “Siberian mentality” has emerged -- to which Khanga adds that almost 14 percent of the population of the country could identify as Siberians, “an enormous figure.”
Kholmogorov concedes that there is such a possibility, but he says that he “hope that the greater part of them will never write down this nationality or even find out about such an idea,” lest having taken this first step in nation building they take others much as some of the nations of the former Soviet Union did.
To Khanga’s objection that “nationality is not citizenship” and that if people identify in one way rather than another, there is no harm in that, the “Russky obozrevatel” editor replies that everyone must understand that “in today’s world, there is no other territory” which outsiders view with such greedy aspirations.
He then recalls the statement of one former US secretary of state that “Siberia is too large a country to belong to a single state,” a clear indication in his mind of what the West intends and of the West’s role in promoting this particular national “identity” as a first step to taking Siberia away from Russia.
Steshin then suggests another approach to the problem of Siberian identity. In his view, Russians themselves are to blame both by forcing Siberians to pay excessive prices for tickets to travel to European Russia and by depriving them of the assistance they need both in normal times and during natural disasters like the forest fires of last year.
He adds that the appearance of a Siberian language is “a very serious provocation which touches the depths of the sub-consciousness,” although appended to the article is a comment by the language’s developer that he came up with the idea of such a language as a lark and has been surprised by the interest in it.
According to Kholmogorov, Ukrainian was once invented in much the same way by Mihailo Hurushevsky, and consequently, the Russian commentator argues, the appearance of such a language, however artificial, has the potential to create real problems for the state down the road.
That is especially likely in the Siberian case, Kholmogorov suggests, because Russian identity is no longer highly values and the asymmetric nature of Russian Federalism means that non-Russians have many benefits and powers that ethnic Russians do not, even in places where they are the overwhelming majority.
Consequently, he concludes, what some may now dismiss as a bad joke may prove to be something more and more disturbing if Russians do not wake up to the danger that such an identity represents for their country and for their nation, one that could cost their country even more than did the departure of Ukraine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
