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.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Window on Eurasia: ‘Wild 1990s’ Simply a ‘Thaw’ in a Long ‘Russian Winter,’ Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 4 – To the usual charge that “enemies of Russia” are responsible for all the country’s problems, the current powers that be in Moscow routinely blame “the wild 1990s” with their “incorrect foreign and domestic policies” for temporary difficulties, even though they themselves emerged from precisely that period, according to a Russian analyst.
In an essay entitled “Why is the Lie about the 1990s Necessary?” Andrey Gusev surveys the direct relationship between the current tandem and that decade and important parallel between that latest “thaw” in Russian history and the cold “winters” which seem to invariably return there after any such warming (news.babr.ru/?IDE=93298).
Russia’s current leaders entered “big politics” in the 1990s and were shaped as political figures “in the second half” of that decade, a time when the country “having understood Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s revolution without much debate moved along the path of oligarchic capitalism.”
Moreover, those years were “the time when the first Chechen war ended, when society wanted stability after the default of 1998, but there still existed political competition,” and few Russians thought that being ruled by a single party of corrupted officials would be their lot anytime soon.
Today, Gusev continues, “the Russian political space has been cleansed down to the bottom,” with the media controlled by the state. But, the analyst says, “this does not eliminate the need to explain to the population the reasons for the largely unsuccessful rule of the St. Petersburg chekists.”
The current powers that be routinely invoke the traditional explanation for problems: “the enemies of Russia are guilty of everything.” But they have now added a second explanation: “our provisional failures are the result of the incorrect foreign and domestic policy” of those who ruled the country in the last decade of the 20th century.
That is why the 1990s are now called “wild.” Under Yeltsin, Gusev writes, “Chubais was guilty on all points. [Now] under the Petersburg tandem, the wild 90s are to blame.” Those who think and reflect can see this is an absurdity, but for the ordinary Russian who gets his information from state television and the politically ambitious, it all makes sense.
And now the tandem and its supporters are not afraid to declare openly in a Stalinist fashion that “life has become better; life has become more joyous” as long as everyone recognizes that “no one has the right to move forward without the United Russia party,” which has overcome “the wild 90s.”
Since 1991 enough time has passed, Gusev continues, to dispassionately assess the situation. “On the greater part of the post-Soviet space authoritarian regimes or even quasi-dictatorships have solidified their hold. The exceptions have become [only] the Baltic countries, Georgia, and in part Ukraine.”
It is also true that in the 1990s, Gusev says, there were “a mass of mistakes and crimes,” something no one should “close his eyes to.” The default happened, capital flight happened, the dishonest presidential elections of 1996 happened, and “the biggest mistake of the state” occurred – the Chechen war began which has drawn through its fires “a million Russian men.” All this “could not fail to leave a mark on the entire country.”
“Today’s authoritarian Russian regime is at a crossroads,” Gusev concludes. “Its bearers would like nothing to change but they understand that this is impossible for any lengthy period of time.” Moreover, they know that they have to modernize the economy, that that requires “modernization of political life,” and that that in turn leads to the competition they fear.
“The alternative is a dictatorship,” Gusev points out, but he suggests that the tandem “has still not decided” to go that route. But if they do or even if they continue their current way forward for some interval of time, it will be increasingly obvious that the 1990s were not “wild” but “only a law in the middle of a long Russian winter.”
Staunton, May 4 – To the usual charge that “enemies of Russia” are responsible for all the country’s problems, the current powers that be in Moscow routinely blame “the wild 1990s” with their “incorrect foreign and domestic policies” for temporary difficulties, even though they themselves emerged from precisely that period, according to a Russian analyst.
In an essay entitled “Why is the Lie about the 1990s Necessary?” Andrey Gusev surveys the direct relationship between the current tandem and that decade and important parallel between that latest “thaw” in Russian history and the cold “winters” which seem to invariably return there after any such warming (news.babr.ru/?IDE=93298).
Russia’s current leaders entered “big politics” in the 1990s and were shaped as political figures “in the second half” of that decade, a time when the country “having understood Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s revolution without much debate moved along the path of oligarchic capitalism.”
Moreover, those years were “the time when the first Chechen war ended, when society wanted stability after the default of 1998, but there still existed political competition,” and few Russians thought that being ruled by a single party of corrupted officials would be their lot anytime soon.
Today, Gusev continues, “the Russian political space has been cleansed down to the bottom,” with the media controlled by the state. But, the analyst says, “this does not eliminate the need to explain to the population the reasons for the largely unsuccessful rule of the St. Petersburg chekists.”
The current powers that be routinely invoke the traditional explanation for problems: “the enemies of Russia are guilty of everything.” But they have now added a second explanation: “our provisional failures are the result of the incorrect foreign and domestic policy” of those who ruled the country in the last decade of the 20th century.
That is why the 1990s are now called “wild.” Under Yeltsin, Gusev writes, “Chubais was guilty on all points. [Now] under the Petersburg tandem, the wild 90s are to blame.” Those who think and reflect can see this is an absurdity, but for the ordinary Russian who gets his information from state television and the politically ambitious, it all makes sense.
And now the tandem and its supporters are not afraid to declare openly in a Stalinist fashion that “life has become better; life has become more joyous” as long as everyone recognizes that “no one has the right to move forward without the United Russia party,” which has overcome “the wild 90s.”
Since 1991 enough time has passed, Gusev continues, to dispassionately assess the situation. “On the greater part of the post-Soviet space authoritarian regimes or even quasi-dictatorships have solidified their hold. The exceptions have become [only] the Baltic countries, Georgia, and in part Ukraine.”
It is also true that in the 1990s, Gusev says, there were “a mass of mistakes and crimes,” something no one should “close his eyes to.” The default happened, capital flight happened, the dishonest presidential elections of 1996 happened, and “the biggest mistake of the state” occurred – the Chechen war began which has drawn through its fires “a million Russian men.” All this “could not fail to leave a mark on the entire country.”
“Today’s authoritarian Russian regime is at a crossroads,” Gusev concludes. “Its bearers would like nothing to change but they understand that this is impossible for any lengthy period of time.” Moreover, they know that they have to modernize the economy, that that requires “modernization of political life,” and that that in turn leads to the competition they fear.
“The alternative is a dictatorship,” Gusev points out, but he suggests that the tandem “has still not decided” to go that route. But if they do or even if they continue their current way forward for some interval of time, it will be increasingly obvious that the 1990s were not “wild” but “only a law in the middle of a long Russian winter.”
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Hopes to Make the Next 100 Years ‘Century of the North’
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 4 – Moscow officials want to make the next 100 years “the century of the North,” a time when Russians and others will move north and east rather than south and west. But a Siberian commentator argues that a genuine “rebranding” of the region will have some profound consequences for Russian politics and society.
At the second Eurasian Economic Youth Forum in Yekaterinburg last week, Valery Yazev, the vice speaker of the Russian Duma, said that young people from Russian and around the world will be involved in the coming century in the development of the Arctic and the Far North (www.oilru.com/news/252471/).
That is especially true of and important for Russians, he continued, “Russia historically was established as a powerful state in the great civilizational advance for the mastery of the endless spaces of the Russian north, Siberia and the Far East.” This process, he said, “forged the Russian national character” and “showed the entire world our possibilities.”
As President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have stressed, Yazev continued, “the path to the north is possible only under conditions of fruitful international dialogue” because “the continental shelf must be ‘a zone of peace and cooperation’” rather than a place of conflict among nations.
That in turn means, the Duma leader said, that young people will have “not only to participate in the economic mastery of the North but also to develop a philosophy of a new movement to the North,” to draw on the successes of the past and use them to innovate in the future.
The conference reflected not only Yazev’s perspectives but also those of Aleksandr Dugin, a leading neo-Eurasianist. The meeting declared that “our Eurasianism is looking for models and concepts which promote a New Northern Oecumene, the cradle of the civilization which nurtured the Russian empire and its allies, the USSR, and the CIS” (www.barentsobserver.com/eurasian-youth-looks-towards-russian-north.4914333-116321.html).
In a related but perhaps even more indicative move, President Medvedev signed new legislation this week that makes it easier for foreign workers in the North and elsewhere to get visas and secure them for their families, an issue that had sometimes been a problem earlier (www.barentsobserver.com/russia-improves-conditions-for-foreign-specialists.4915952-116321.html).
If Yazev and Dugin viewed the past of Russia’s conquest of the North in a positive way and argued that Russia in the future should draw on what was done then to reinforce Russian national culture and identity in the future, another writer argues that the Northern “brand” needs to be modified, a change that will affect the Russian nation itself profoundly,.
In an essay on “Brand Arctic” published this week in Karelia, Siberian theorist and activist Dmitry Verkhoturov suggests that the Soviet-era “meta-brand” on the Arctic carried within it several dangerous and destructive messages, messages that must be changed if the future is to be better than the past (rk.karelia.ru/2011/05/daesh-novyiy-brend-arktiki/).
On the one hand, he says, the Soviet “Arctic brand” treated the region as “an empty land where no one lived until polar expeditions appeared which discovered everything and entered them on the map. And on the other, “this brand was the root of a sense that everything is permitted,” that Soviet people working there “can do what they liked.”
A simplification like all brands, “brand Arctic” ignored or papered over such things as “the bloody wars with local peoples which lasted for decades,” the spread of alcoholism, the deportation of peoples like the Nentsy, and the environmental contamination ranging from oil spills to the wholesale scrapping of nuclear fuel.
“For definite circles now,” Verkhoturov continues, “the most valuable thing in the Arctic brand is not the geographic discoveries and the polar researchers who have long ago gone to their graves.” Rather, it is “the ideological justification of the idea that everything is permitted and that there are no limits” on what those running the area can do.
In Siberia, such Soviet-era brands have had to interact with those from other sources, thus creating “an entire mosaic of meanings and signs,” with regard to the Arctic, “this is not the case.” Instead, it appears, Moscow hopes that it will be able to “replace one meta-brand with another” of the same type.
In Verkhoturov’s view, Russians “need a new Artic brand, a new understanding of this region, its history, its present and its future. Without a change in the brand it will hardly be possible to make any essential moves forward in the existing situation.” And he suggests that new brand should have four elements.
First of all, people must understand that “the Arctic unifies,” tying people from around the Arctic Ocean. Second, “the Arctic has its own laws and rules of behavior” learned by local people over thousands of years. Third, in the Arctic, the individual “is closer to the cosmos than anywhere else on earth” and stands “face to face with the forces of nature. And fourth, the people who live in the high north have a cultural knowledge which others must take into consideration.
Coming up with such a new “meta-brand” for the Arctic should not be all that difficult, Verkhoturov says. “What one needs is only to love and value it in all its multiplicity and manifestations and above all to respect it.” Simply exploiting it will not serve either the high North or Russia as a whole.
Staunton, May 4 – Moscow officials want to make the next 100 years “the century of the North,” a time when Russians and others will move north and east rather than south and west. But a Siberian commentator argues that a genuine “rebranding” of the region will have some profound consequences for Russian politics and society.
At the second Eurasian Economic Youth Forum in Yekaterinburg last week, Valery Yazev, the vice speaker of the Russian Duma, said that young people from Russian and around the world will be involved in the coming century in the development of the Arctic and the Far North (www.oilru.com/news/252471/).
That is especially true of and important for Russians, he continued, “Russia historically was established as a powerful state in the great civilizational advance for the mastery of the endless spaces of the Russian north, Siberia and the Far East.” This process, he said, “forged the Russian national character” and “showed the entire world our possibilities.”
As President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have stressed, Yazev continued, “the path to the north is possible only under conditions of fruitful international dialogue” because “the continental shelf must be ‘a zone of peace and cooperation’” rather than a place of conflict among nations.
That in turn means, the Duma leader said, that young people will have “not only to participate in the economic mastery of the North but also to develop a philosophy of a new movement to the North,” to draw on the successes of the past and use them to innovate in the future.
The conference reflected not only Yazev’s perspectives but also those of Aleksandr Dugin, a leading neo-Eurasianist. The meeting declared that “our Eurasianism is looking for models and concepts which promote a New Northern Oecumene, the cradle of the civilization which nurtured the Russian empire and its allies, the USSR, and the CIS” (www.barentsobserver.com/eurasian-youth-looks-towards-russian-north.4914333-116321.html).
In a related but perhaps even more indicative move, President Medvedev signed new legislation this week that makes it easier for foreign workers in the North and elsewhere to get visas and secure them for their families, an issue that had sometimes been a problem earlier (www.barentsobserver.com/russia-improves-conditions-for-foreign-specialists.4915952-116321.html).
If Yazev and Dugin viewed the past of Russia’s conquest of the North in a positive way and argued that Russia in the future should draw on what was done then to reinforce Russian national culture and identity in the future, another writer argues that the Northern “brand” needs to be modified, a change that will affect the Russian nation itself profoundly,.
In an essay on “Brand Arctic” published this week in Karelia, Siberian theorist and activist Dmitry Verkhoturov suggests that the Soviet-era “meta-brand” on the Arctic carried within it several dangerous and destructive messages, messages that must be changed if the future is to be better than the past (rk.karelia.ru/2011/05/daesh-novyiy-brend-arktiki/).
On the one hand, he says, the Soviet “Arctic brand” treated the region as “an empty land where no one lived until polar expeditions appeared which discovered everything and entered them on the map. And on the other, “this brand was the root of a sense that everything is permitted,” that Soviet people working there “can do what they liked.”
A simplification like all brands, “brand Arctic” ignored or papered over such things as “the bloody wars with local peoples which lasted for decades,” the spread of alcoholism, the deportation of peoples like the Nentsy, and the environmental contamination ranging from oil spills to the wholesale scrapping of nuclear fuel.
“For definite circles now,” Verkhoturov continues, “the most valuable thing in the Arctic brand is not the geographic discoveries and the polar researchers who have long ago gone to their graves.” Rather, it is “the ideological justification of the idea that everything is permitted and that there are no limits” on what those running the area can do.
In Siberia, such Soviet-era brands have had to interact with those from other sources, thus creating “an entire mosaic of meanings and signs,” with regard to the Arctic, “this is not the case.” Instead, it appears, Moscow hopes that it will be able to “replace one meta-brand with another” of the same type.
In Verkhoturov’s view, Russians “need a new Artic brand, a new understanding of this region, its history, its present and its future. Without a change in the brand it will hardly be possible to make any essential moves forward in the existing situation.” And he suggests that new brand should have four elements.
First of all, people must understand that “the Arctic unifies,” tying people from around the Arctic Ocean. Second, “the Arctic has its own laws and rules of behavior” learned by local people over thousands of years. Third, in the Arctic, the individual “is closer to the cosmos than anywhere else on earth” and stands “face to face with the forces of nature. And fourth, the people who live in the high north have a cultural knowledge which others must take into consideration.
Coming up with such a new “meta-brand” for the Arctic should not be all that difficult, Verkhoturov says. “What one needs is only to love and value it in all its multiplicity and manifestations and above all to respect it.” Simply exploiting it will not serve either the high North or Russia as a whole.
Window on Eurasia: Are the EU’s Roma about to Move to Russia?
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 4 – Rising tensions between the Roma and the titular nationalities of the European Union have sparked reports in Moscow that some of this often-despised community are about to be moved to the Russian Federation, either on their own or from a deal between the EU and Russian officials who believe that that country needs all the migrants it can get.
Yesterday, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” reported about this possibility (www.km.ru/v-rossii/2011/05/03/migratsionnaya-politika-v-rossii/evropa-zaselit-rossiyu-tsyganami-nashi-vlasti-v), picking up on a story that had run the day before on the Tolkovatel.ru portal (ttolk.ru/?p=3665).
According to Tolkovatel.ru, the possibility of an agreement by which Europe’s Roma will be dispatched to the Russian Federation and possibly Ukraine is to be the subject of upcoming discussions between the EU and the Russian Federation, a step France and several East European countries support but the Germany reportedly opposes.
The first public mention of this, Tolkovatel.ru said, was a “Komsomolskaya Pravda” radio program on April 12 when Roman Grokholsky, a leader of the Roma community in the Russian Federation, said that in his view, “Russia for economic reasons could accept [Europe’s Roma]. It is an enormous land” (kp.ru.daily/25667/828997/).
As Yuri Filatov put in yesterday’s “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” “Europe it seems has found a radical solution for the problems of its Roma [who number between nine and twelve million] – simply to take them and resettle them in Russia.”
European countries do not have a good record in their dealings with the Roma. Last year, for example, French President Nicolas Sarkozy expelled “several thousand” of them to Bulgaria and Romania, an action that was denounced by international human rights groups but generally supported by the French people and by residents of many other EU countries.
But despite this support, European governments have concluded, Filatov continues, that is “neither technically nor economically” feasible “to deport all the Roma to Romania or Bulgaria as was done in the past: the sizes of these countries do not allow that and local nationalists are protesting ever more loudly against” that idea.
As a result, Europeans have come up with the notion “why not resettle all the Roma in Russia (and also in Ukraine),” which have the space and the jobs to accommodate them and which, in the view of the Europeans, have a tradition of tolerance for the Roma, as reflected in Russian novels and music.
It is anticipated, the paper says, that “each Roma family would receive from the European Union money for travel and resettlement.” The exact amount hasn’t been determined but it would likely be in the range of 500 euros per person, the amount Roma deported from France received earlier.
“In this way,” Filatov says, “by counting on our accommodating spirit and hospitality, ‘tolerant’ Europe wants on our account to resolve the problem of its own intolerance. And it is worth noting that in the circles in and around the powers that be in Russia, there is actively being prepared the basis for such decisions.”
Indeed, the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” journalist says, the Russian elite is thinking about far more than just Europe’s Roma. Specifically, it is thinking about the Chinese and even Africans as a means of addressing the Russian Federation’s increasingly severe demographic decline.
Filatov cites the comments of Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, the head of the migration laboratory of the Institute of Economic Prognostication at the Russian Academy of Sciences, at a meeting last week devoted to the demographic dimensions of Moscow’s strategy paper for 2020 (slon.ru/articles/587652/).
Given Russia’s declines in its overall population and especially among working age cohorts, Zayonchkovskaya said, Russia will have to attract at least 20 million additional migrants over the next 15 years. Central Asian countries can supply no more than six million of these, and so most will have to come from China.
Chinese workers are already coming into Russia and they will only increase in number over the coming years, Zayonchkovskaya said, noting that “the longer we put our heads in the sand, the more unexpected this will be for us.” And there is going to be a big change: by mid-century, she said, there will be more ethnic Chinese in Russia than Tatars.
Such migration flows will only feed more xenophobic attitudes among Russians, such as those that the recently banned (the case is now on appeal) Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) reflect and seek to channel. And it is no surprise that the DPNI portal features these stories about Europe’s Roma.
But Zayonchkovskaya’s comments reflect the dilemma in which the Russian government finds itself: If it allows more immigration, increasingly from non-Slavic peoples, it will face an ever more antagonistic population. But if it doesn’t, the Russian economy will suffer, and the regime will face class rather than ethnic anger.
Staunton, May 4 – Rising tensions between the Roma and the titular nationalities of the European Union have sparked reports in Moscow that some of this often-despised community are about to be moved to the Russian Federation, either on their own or from a deal between the EU and Russian officials who believe that that country needs all the migrants it can get.
Yesterday, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” reported about this possibility (www.km.ru/v-rossii/2011/05/03/migratsionnaya-politika-v-rossii/evropa-zaselit-rossiyu-tsyganami-nashi-vlasti-v), picking up on a story that had run the day before on the Tolkovatel.ru portal (ttolk.ru/?p=3665).
According to Tolkovatel.ru, the possibility of an agreement by which Europe’s Roma will be dispatched to the Russian Federation and possibly Ukraine is to be the subject of upcoming discussions between the EU and the Russian Federation, a step France and several East European countries support but the Germany reportedly opposes.
The first public mention of this, Tolkovatel.ru said, was a “Komsomolskaya Pravda” radio program on April 12 when Roman Grokholsky, a leader of the Roma community in the Russian Federation, said that in his view, “Russia for economic reasons could accept [Europe’s Roma]. It is an enormous land” (kp.ru.daily/25667/828997/).
As Yuri Filatov put in yesterday’s “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” “Europe it seems has found a radical solution for the problems of its Roma [who number between nine and twelve million] – simply to take them and resettle them in Russia.”
European countries do not have a good record in their dealings with the Roma. Last year, for example, French President Nicolas Sarkozy expelled “several thousand” of them to Bulgaria and Romania, an action that was denounced by international human rights groups but generally supported by the French people and by residents of many other EU countries.
But despite this support, European governments have concluded, Filatov continues, that is “neither technically nor economically” feasible “to deport all the Roma to Romania or Bulgaria as was done in the past: the sizes of these countries do not allow that and local nationalists are protesting ever more loudly against” that idea.
As a result, Europeans have come up with the notion “why not resettle all the Roma in Russia (and also in Ukraine),” which have the space and the jobs to accommodate them and which, in the view of the Europeans, have a tradition of tolerance for the Roma, as reflected in Russian novels and music.
It is anticipated, the paper says, that “each Roma family would receive from the European Union money for travel and resettlement.” The exact amount hasn’t been determined but it would likely be in the range of 500 euros per person, the amount Roma deported from France received earlier.
“In this way,” Filatov says, “by counting on our accommodating spirit and hospitality, ‘tolerant’ Europe wants on our account to resolve the problem of its own intolerance. And it is worth noting that in the circles in and around the powers that be in Russia, there is actively being prepared the basis for such decisions.”
Indeed, the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” journalist says, the Russian elite is thinking about far more than just Europe’s Roma. Specifically, it is thinking about the Chinese and even Africans as a means of addressing the Russian Federation’s increasingly severe demographic decline.
Filatov cites the comments of Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, the head of the migration laboratory of the Institute of Economic Prognostication at the Russian Academy of Sciences, at a meeting last week devoted to the demographic dimensions of Moscow’s strategy paper for 2020 (slon.ru/articles/587652/).
Given Russia’s declines in its overall population and especially among working age cohorts, Zayonchkovskaya said, Russia will have to attract at least 20 million additional migrants over the next 15 years. Central Asian countries can supply no more than six million of these, and so most will have to come from China.
Chinese workers are already coming into Russia and they will only increase in number over the coming years, Zayonchkovskaya said, noting that “the longer we put our heads in the sand, the more unexpected this will be for us.” And there is going to be a big change: by mid-century, she said, there will be more ethnic Chinese in Russia than Tatars.
Such migration flows will only feed more xenophobic attitudes among Russians, such as those that the recently banned (the case is now on appeal) Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) reflect and seek to channel. And it is no surprise that the DPNI portal features these stories about Europe’s Roma.
But Zayonchkovskaya’s comments reflect the dilemma in which the Russian government finds itself: If it allows more immigration, increasingly from non-Slavic peoples, it will face an ever more antagonistic population. But if it doesn’t, the Russian economy will suffer, and the regime will face class rather than ethnic anger.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russian Nationalism is a Middle Class Phenomenon, Khomolgorov Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 3 – Most analysts have suggested that Russian nationalism is “a reaction of the poor to social problems” and even is “the path of failures,” but one Russian nationalist commentator argues that Russian nationalism is the ideology of “the middle stratum which wants to become a middle class” but is blocked in its efforts by “ethnic problems.”
Last Friday, at a roundtable at St. Petersburg State University’s political science faculty on “Youth and Nationalism in Russia,” speaker after speaker stressed that Russian nationalism is “the reaction of the poor to social problems, a primitive ideology, and the path of failures (www.rus-obr.ru/lj/10723).
But one of those in attendance, Igor Kholmogorov, a nationalist commentator, advanced an alternative thesis. He argued that “the path of failures in contemporary Russia is alcoholism not nationalism” and that the Russian “middle stratum” has adopted nationalism because ethnic problems stand on its path of self-realization as a class.
“The middle stratum,” he continues, consists of educated, employed and independent people who “would like to become a middle class, that is to achieve a table self-reproduction of themselves as a social stratum. But in contemporary Russia, this is impossible for it,” Kholmogorov argues.
The main reason for this, he says, is that “the representative of the middle stratum cannot put his child in a normal school because the school is filled up with children who do not know the Russian language and hold back the educational process, he cannot go on the street normally and drink beer with friends without encountering everywhere a criminal danger.”
The ability of the middle stratum to become a middle class, therefore, Kholmogorov says, argues depends on the development of “all-national social infrastructure which will appear at the same time with a national state.” The absence of this infrastructure, he says, has led the members of this stratum to turn to Russian nationalism.
But that is not the only reason they are doing so, Kholmogorov says. The members of this stratum are also doing so because of the impact they feel from “the de-industrialization of contemporary Russia and the degeneration of production both in central Russia and in the national borderlands.”
And they are upset, as are the young, by the imposition of special programs to promote tolerance, programs that Kholmogorov says are having exactly the opposite effect. That is because such programs have the effect of heightening attention to differences that many individuals do not even suspect.
“The ordinary Russian youth hardly distinguishes himself from a Mari or suspects the existence of the Yukagirs,” the Russian nationalist commentator says, “and even the Chukhi for him is a hero from anecdotes” rather than someone he doesn’t like. For most Russians, there are only two categories of ethnic groups, Russians and those who look different from the south.
“After having informed Russian young people about the existence of 150 peoples and nationalities and about their principle distinctions from the Russian,” Kholmogorov says, “wqe will obtain only one thing – a 150 times increase in negative reactions to other ethnic groups and the growth of the syndrome of a fortress under siege.”
“Therefore,” the Russian nationalist commentator argues, “if we really want to calm young people then we need to tell Russians not about the particular features of the Vaynakh lezginka but about what the distinction features of the Russians themselves are.” Then it will become obvious that we can tell others how to live and that “to argue with Russians is useless.”
Those who are confident of the power of their own nation will be peaceful in their relationships with others; those who are not won’t be, Kholmogorov argues. And if Moscow continues to promote the idea that Russians are surrounded on all sides by enemies, then there will be “a powerful response” in the form of aggression.
Staunton, May 3 – Most analysts have suggested that Russian nationalism is “a reaction of the poor to social problems” and even is “the path of failures,” but one Russian nationalist commentator argues that Russian nationalism is the ideology of “the middle stratum which wants to become a middle class” but is blocked in its efforts by “ethnic problems.”
Last Friday, at a roundtable at St. Petersburg State University’s political science faculty on “Youth and Nationalism in Russia,” speaker after speaker stressed that Russian nationalism is “the reaction of the poor to social problems, a primitive ideology, and the path of failures (www.rus-obr.ru/lj/10723).
But one of those in attendance, Igor Kholmogorov, a nationalist commentator, advanced an alternative thesis. He argued that “the path of failures in contemporary Russia is alcoholism not nationalism” and that the Russian “middle stratum” has adopted nationalism because ethnic problems stand on its path of self-realization as a class.
“The middle stratum,” he continues, consists of educated, employed and independent people who “would like to become a middle class, that is to achieve a table self-reproduction of themselves as a social stratum. But in contemporary Russia, this is impossible for it,” Kholmogorov argues.
The main reason for this, he says, is that “the representative of the middle stratum cannot put his child in a normal school because the school is filled up with children who do not know the Russian language and hold back the educational process, he cannot go on the street normally and drink beer with friends without encountering everywhere a criminal danger.”
The ability of the middle stratum to become a middle class, therefore, Kholmogorov says, argues depends on the development of “all-national social infrastructure which will appear at the same time with a national state.” The absence of this infrastructure, he says, has led the members of this stratum to turn to Russian nationalism.
But that is not the only reason they are doing so, Kholmogorov says. The members of this stratum are also doing so because of the impact they feel from “the de-industrialization of contemporary Russia and the degeneration of production both in central Russia and in the national borderlands.”
And they are upset, as are the young, by the imposition of special programs to promote tolerance, programs that Kholmogorov says are having exactly the opposite effect. That is because such programs have the effect of heightening attention to differences that many individuals do not even suspect.
“The ordinary Russian youth hardly distinguishes himself from a Mari or suspects the existence of the Yukagirs,” the Russian nationalist commentator says, “and even the Chukhi for him is a hero from anecdotes” rather than someone he doesn’t like. For most Russians, there are only two categories of ethnic groups, Russians and those who look different from the south.
“After having informed Russian young people about the existence of 150 peoples and nationalities and about their principle distinctions from the Russian,” Kholmogorov says, “wqe will obtain only one thing – a 150 times increase in negative reactions to other ethnic groups and the growth of the syndrome of a fortress under siege.”
“Therefore,” the Russian nationalist commentator argues, “if we really want to calm young people then we need to tell Russians not about the particular features of the Vaynakh lezginka but about what the distinction features of the Russians themselves are.” Then it will become obvious that we can tell others how to live and that “to argue with Russians is useless.”
Those who are confident of the power of their own nation will be peaceful in their relationships with others; those who are not won’t be, Kholmogorov argues. And if Moscow continues to promote the idea that Russians are surrounded on all sides by enemies, then there will be “a powerful response” in the form of aggression.
Window on Eurasia: Shapsugs, a Circassian Sub-Group, Seek Autonomy in Krasnodar Kray
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 3 – Representatives of the 12,000 Shapsugs, a subdivision of the Circassian nation, last week called for the formation of an autonomous district within Krasnodar kray, an event that takes on importance because the Shapsugs are the Circassians who had been living where the 2014 Sochi Olympics are scheduled to take place.
Indeed, speeches at this meeting suggest that Circassian groups, many of whom are outraged that Moscow would organize the Olympics on the site of the genocide of their people in 1864, are beginning to use their objections and the attention these have garnered to make demands on the Russian government to improve their situation.
On Saturday, a congress of the Circassian organization Adyge Khase took place in the village of Lazarevskoye in Sochi to discuss the provisions of the law protecting numerically small peoples like the Shapsugs and the possible impact of the conduct of the Olympics there on them (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/184658/).
Some 230 delegates from Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar and Armavit as well as guests from the International Circassian Association heard speakers call for the establishment of a Shapsug Autonomous District within Krasnodar Kray as a means of protecting that small community.
Most speakers stressed that the Russian law “on guarantees of the rights of numerically small peoples” is not being implemented and consequently the problems it was intended to address are only growing worse. Murdin Teshev, honorary president of Adyge Khase, said that officials in Krasnodar “are deaf to our requests and hopes.”
Several speakers said that because of this, the only hope for the Shapsugs, now living in the Tuaps and Lazarev districts of Sochi is the establishment of an autonomy within Krasnodar kray, an idea that was first put forward in the 1990s but has acquired new importance given the Sochi Olympics.
Adam Bogus, the deputy president of Adyge Khase in Adygeya said that “there is only one approach to the resolution of the problems – the restoration of this district, the restoration of corresponding structures and a budget on a state basis.” If this step is not taken, many of the auls where the Shapsugs now live will soon disappear as “there is no work.”
Another speaker said that things had reached the point that individuals have to ask for land to build a house or operate a farm. And still a third said that “in the auls, drunkenness rules, and narcotics have appeared. Many 30 to 40 year old men and women do not have families and children,” a pattern unprecedented in Shapsug history and a demographic disaster.
According to the delegates, “young people are fleeing from the auls, and pupils are deprived of the chance to study their native language. ‘For the past years, the number of school hours has been reduced several times, and today on the Black Sea coast, only about 20 percent of the Shapsug children are studying their native language,’” one said.
In addition, the Shapsugs asked for assistance in overcoming the problems of housing and infrastructure in their auls, the construction of roads and water mains. Some cultural facilities are operating but generally only on the basis of private contributions such as those which support the local newspaper, “Shapsugia.”
In a related development, the congress discussed the prospect of the 2014 Olympiad in Sochi. According to Kavkaz-Uzel, opinions were divided. Kanshobi Azhakhov, the president of the International Circassian Association, said that “for one people [the expulsion of the Circassians in 1864] was a tragic event; for all others, [the Olympiad is] a holiday.”
“The majority of Shapsugs, whom I represent,” he said, “support the Olympic games. “But this majority can shift to the side of the minority if existing problems are not resolved.” Among the steps Moscow must take to avoid that, he said, is to ensure that the law on numerically small peoples is observed and May 21 is declared a day of mourning.”
Staunton, May 3 – Representatives of the 12,000 Shapsugs, a subdivision of the Circassian nation, last week called for the formation of an autonomous district within Krasnodar kray, an event that takes on importance because the Shapsugs are the Circassians who had been living where the 2014 Sochi Olympics are scheduled to take place.
Indeed, speeches at this meeting suggest that Circassian groups, many of whom are outraged that Moscow would organize the Olympics on the site of the genocide of their people in 1864, are beginning to use their objections and the attention these have garnered to make demands on the Russian government to improve their situation.
On Saturday, a congress of the Circassian organization Adyge Khase took place in the village of Lazarevskoye in Sochi to discuss the provisions of the law protecting numerically small peoples like the Shapsugs and the possible impact of the conduct of the Olympics there on them (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/184658/).
Some 230 delegates from Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar and Armavit as well as guests from the International Circassian Association heard speakers call for the establishment of a Shapsug Autonomous District within Krasnodar Kray as a means of protecting that small community.
Most speakers stressed that the Russian law “on guarantees of the rights of numerically small peoples” is not being implemented and consequently the problems it was intended to address are only growing worse. Murdin Teshev, honorary president of Adyge Khase, said that officials in Krasnodar “are deaf to our requests and hopes.”
Several speakers said that because of this, the only hope for the Shapsugs, now living in the Tuaps and Lazarev districts of Sochi is the establishment of an autonomy within Krasnodar kray, an idea that was first put forward in the 1990s but has acquired new importance given the Sochi Olympics.
Adam Bogus, the deputy president of Adyge Khase in Adygeya said that “there is only one approach to the resolution of the problems – the restoration of this district, the restoration of corresponding structures and a budget on a state basis.” If this step is not taken, many of the auls where the Shapsugs now live will soon disappear as “there is no work.”
Another speaker said that things had reached the point that individuals have to ask for land to build a house or operate a farm. And still a third said that “in the auls, drunkenness rules, and narcotics have appeared. Many 30 to 40 year old men and women do not have families and children,” a pattern unprecedented in Shapsug history and a demographic disaster.
According to the delegates, “young people are fleeing from the auls, and pupils are deprived of the chance to study their native language. ‘For the past years, the number of school hours has been reduced several times, and today on the Black Sea coast, only about 20 percent of the Shapsug children are studying their native language,’” one said.
In addition, the Shapsugs asked for assistance in overcoming the problems of housing and infrastructure in their auls, the construction of roads and water mains. Some cultural facilities are operating but generally only on the basis of private contributions such as those which support the local newspaper, “Shapsugia.”
In a related development, the congress discussed the prospect of the 2014 Olympiad in Sochi. According to Kavkaz-Uzel, opinions were divided. Kanshobi Azhakhov, the president of the International Circassian Association, said that “for one people [the expulsion of the Circassians in 1864] was a tragic event; for all others, [the Olympiad is] a holiday.”
“The majority of Shapsugs, whom I represent,” he said, “support the Olympic games. “But this majority can shift to the side of the minority if existing problems are not resolved.” Among the steps Moscow must take to avoid that, he said, is to ensure that the law on numerically small peoples is observed and May 21 is declared a day of mourning.”
Window on Eurasia: Bin Laden’s Death Won’t Affect North Caucasus Militants, Russian Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 3 – Although Russian analysts divide on whether the death of Osama bin Laden will lead to a new spike in terrorist acts around the world, those who have expressed an opinion so far are nearly unanimous that the passing of the Al Qaeda leader will have little or no impact on the fighting in the North Caucasus.
That conclusion, almost certainly correct because of the relatively small involvement of Al Qaeda in that region, will nonetheless have an impact on Moscow’s ability to continue to present its actions there as part of a worldwide anti-terrorist campaign and thus raise more questions about the nature of the militants the Russian government is confronting.
Yesterday, the Regnum news agency, an outlet that has been among the most vocal in seeking to link the North Caucasus militants to Al Qaeda, featured an article entitled “Will the End of bin Laden be Noticed in the Caucasus?” which surveyed what it described as bin Laden’s involvement there (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1400597.html).
“Judging from everything,” Regnum begins its story, “bin Laden tried to demonstrate his active role in the Caucasus.” It gives the example of the statement by an Arab “military instructor,” Abu Daud, in 2000 during the second post-Soviet Chechen war that bin Laden “had sent 400” of his people to fight Russian forces.
After the conclusion of that war, the news agency continues, there have been scattered reports of Arab militants killed or captured in the North Caucasus. In March 2010, for instance, Abu Khaled, “who was considered close to the leader of the terrorist ‘Caucasus Emirate’ Doku Umarov was killed after having spent 13 years in Chechnya, Russian officials said.
And Chechen leaders have routinely talked about the existence of two “Arab instructors” named Mohannad [sic] and Yasir who supposedly help prepare suicide bombers. Meanwhile in Daghestan, in November 2006, “an Arab militant” named Abu Khavs, who the Russian interior ministry said was an Al Qaeda emissary, was liquidated.
But Regnum concedes, “at the same time, to speak about any dependence of the North Caucasus band formation underground on international terrorist structures including Al Qaeda today is not appropriate. Experts evfer more frequently conclude that the militants in the North Caucasus operate on a ‘self-financing’ basis, collecting ‘tribute’ from local business.”
Moreover, at a Makhachkala roundtable on this subject last week, Zaid Abdulagatov, a sociologist at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Daghestani Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Science, said that a poll showed that “the majority of young people” join the militants in search of employment.
According to Regnum, however, another link between Al Qaeda and the North Caucasus involves people from the North Caucasus who “fought in Afghanistan on the side of the Taliban.” The exact number of such people, the news agency says, is “unknown,” but at least two of them were at one time in the US prison in Guantanamo.
And implying that there may be more, Regnum concludes with the observation that “information about leaders of North Caucasus extremists directly making contact with the leaders of the terrorist community of Afghanistan and Pakistan have not been published” in the open media.
A decade ago, such contacts may have been probable, but “in recent years, such subjects have ever less actively been discussed by experts and journalists,” a likely indication that the numbers of those involved, if any, have fallen off or completely disappeared.
The lack of such ties gives even more credibility to those who point to the domestic sources of violence in the Caucasus. In an interview published in the current issue of the Daghestani weekly “Nastoyasheye vrema,” Federation Council member and former general Aslambek Aslakhanov provides a list of these (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/5973/109/).
Among the causes the general points to are “the extremist statements of Vladimir Zhirinovsky relative to the Caucasus, the Nazi pogrom on Manezh Square, the corrupt nature of Caucasus and Moscow bureaucrats, and the throwing of youth [in the region] to the arbitrariness of fate.”
Staunton, May 3 – Although Russian analysts divide on whether the death of Osama bin Laden will lead to a new spike in terrorist acts around the world, those who have expressed an opinion so far are nearly unanimous that the passing of the Al Qaeda leader will have little or no impact on the fighting in the North Caucasus.
That conclusion, almost certainly correct because of the relatively small involvement of Al Qaeda in that region, will nonetheless have an impact on Moscow’s ability to continue to present its actions there as part of a worldwide anti-terrorist campaign and thus raise more questions about the nature of the militants the Russian government is confronting.
Yesterday, the Regnum news agency, an outlet that has been among the most vocal in seeking to link the North Caucasus militants to Al Qaeda, featured an article entitled “Will the End of bin Laden be Noticed in the Caucasus?” which surveyed what it described as bin Laden’s involvement there (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1400597.html).
“Judging from everything,” Regnum begins its story, “bin Laden tried to demonstrate his active role in the Caucasus.” It gives the example of the statement by an Arab “military instructor,” Abu Daud, in 2000 during the second post-Soviet Chechen war that bin Laden “had sent 400” of his people to fight Russian forces.
After the conclusion of that war, the news agency continues, there have been scattered reports of Arab militants killed or captured in the North Caucasus. In March 2010, for instance, Abu Khaled, “who was considered close to the leader of the terrorist ‘Caucasus Emirate’ Doku Umarov was killed after having spent 13 years in Chechnya, Russian officials said.
And Chechen leaders have routinely talked about the existence of two “Arab instructors” named Mohannad [sic] and Yasir who supposedly help prepare suicide bombers. Meanwhile in Daghestan, in November 2006, “an Arab militant” named Abu Khavs, who the Russian interior ministry said was an Al Qaeda emissary, was liquidated.
But Regnum concedes, “at the same time, to speak about any dependence of the North Caucasus band formation underground on international terrorist structures including Al Qaeda today is not appropriate. Experts evfer more frequently conclude that the militants in the North Caucasus operate on a ‘self-financing’ basis, collecting ‘tribute’ from local business.”
Moreover, at a Makhachkala roundtable on this subject last week, Zaid Abdulagatov, a sociologist at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Daghestani Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Science, said that a poll showed that “the majority of young people” join the militants in search of employment.
According to Regnum, however, another link between Al Qaeda and the North Caucasus involves people from the North Caucasus who “fought in Afghanistan on the side of the Taliban.” The exact number of such people, the news agency says, is “unknown,” but at least two of them were at one time in the US prison in Guantanamo.
And implying that there may be more, Regnum concludes with the observation that “information about leaders of North Caucasus extremists directly making contact with the leaders of the terrorist community of Afghanistan and Pakistan have not been published” in the open media.
A decade ago, such contacts may have been probable, but “in recent years, such subjects have ever less actively been discussed by experts and journalists,” a likely indication that the numbers of those involved, if any, have fallen off or completely disappeared.
The lack of such ties gives even more credibility to those who point to the domestic sources of violence in the Caucasus. In an interview published in the current issue of the Daghestani weekly “Nastoyasheye vrema,” Federation Council member and former general Aslambek Aslakhanov provides a list of these (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/5973/109/).
Among the causes the general points to are “the extremist statements of Vladimir Zhirinovsky relative to the Caucasus, the Nazi pogrom on Manezh Square, the corrupt nature of Caucasus and Moscow bureaucrats, and the throwing of youth [in the region] to the arbitrariness of fate.”
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