Paul Goble
Staunton, May 6 – The population of the Russian Federation is “categorically against” the de-Stalinization and de-Sovietization that the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights says are preconditions for the modernization of the country, according to the results of a massive poll.
On the Rosbalt.ru portal today, sociologist Yuliya Krizhanskaya syas that the poll makes clear that “despite all ‘the dark places’ of the Soviet past, [residents of the Russian Federation] do not want to disown it” at least in part because “everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unites us” now (www.rosbalt.ru/main/2011/05/06/846408.html).
Krizhanskaya says the poll was taken because the Presidential Council’s call for “de-Stalinization” and “de-Sovietization” includes numerous controversial ideas such as equating the USSR with Hitler’s Germany, accusing the Soviet government of genocide against Russians, and declaring “the entire Soviet period” a criminal one.
The Council, she continues, declared that such steps are needed because it is view, “the modernization of the country” would be “impossible without ‘the modernization of the consciousness of its citizens’ in a ‘de-Sovietized direction and also because of the necessity of uniting society” in the process.
Such an assertion, Krizhanskaya says, means that “they want to modernize the consciousness of the citizens of Russia, that is, all of us, supposedly in our own interests but without asking us” if that is something Russians in fact want.
The Essence of Time Public Movement, she says, decided “to find out” what the public thinks about this idea. Some 1500 of its activists during April queried more than 36,000 adults, in some 1700 population centers in 77 “oblasts, krays, and republics.” The “main” finding, she says is that “Russia said a decisive ‘No’ to the program of ‘de-sovietization.”
Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said they would vote against any referendum on the conducting of a program “which would presuppose the recognition of the Soviet Union as a criminal state, which conducted genocide against its own people, and was guilty of unleashing World War II.
As far as backing for a program of de-Stalinization, “only ten percent” backed that as “correct and useful,” while 20 percent said they were “indifferent,” and “70 percent” were completely opposed. “But even among those who reacted ‘positively,’ 40 percent ‘voted’ against its realization in the country.”
This pattern held for all social, regional, ethnic and age groups, Krizhanskaya continues, and that permits only one conclusion: “Everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unifies us. And correspondingly, everything that is directed against it divides us” and won’t be supported, if people in fact have a choice, as Krizhanskaya says, they should.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Daghestanis Seek to Overcome Muslim Divisions to Oppose Militants
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 6 – Daghestan banned Wahhabism more than a decade ago both to defend traditional Islam and counter militant groups, but officials and Muslim leaders in that North Caucasus republic have now concluded that this step was counterproductive and have opened a process to bridge the divide between these two trends – and for exactly the same reasons.
The Daghestani law banning extremism, the traditional Muslim leaders of Daghestan have concluded, has had the effect of dividing the umma, not only creating a situation in which entireliy innocent people are attacked for their faith but also allowing the militants to pose as the defenders of what is a widely respected trend in Islam and thus gain support from that alone.
As Islamnews.ru pointed out yesterday, “one o fht emost discusses themes of recent times in Daghestan has been the issue connected with the start of dialogue between representative es of the two conflicting religious tendencies of Islam,” between “so-called official Islam” which is based on Sufism and Salafites, including Wahhabis (www.islamnews.ru/news-53521.html).
The news service points out that “all negative events in the republic are being connected with the presence of a certain destructive force by the name of ‘Wahhabism,” thus automatically equating all the followers of this trend to the militants who in turn cover their illegal activity with islam or more precisely with one of its trends.”
Government officials, both Daghestani and federal, have made the situation worse, the portal suggests, by their insistence of the need to “struggle ideologically with the radicalization of young people” even as they acknowledge without doing anything that the reasons most young people are going into the forests is because of “social problems and corruption.”
Neither the officials nor the Muslim establishment were inclined to make any change, however, until Daghestani society “began to raise the alarm” about the growing departure of young people “‘into the forest’” and to insist that “by force alone, problems will not be solved: force will give rise only to force.”
The first effort to have the leaders of the various trends of Islam within Daghestan’s umma to talk with one another was a Makhachkala roundtable organized at the end of April Sulayman Uladiyev, the vice president of the public organization, “A Land of Peace and Accord” (www.chernovik.net/news/438/MONOTHEOS/2011/04/29/11917).
The primary goal of the roundtable was “to put a stop” to the charges and countercharges that the two trends have been exchanging for more than a deacde. Among those taking part were representatives of the traditional jamaat, the imam of the Makhachkala central mosque, the head of the Daghestani institute of theology, and all the deputies of the republic’s mufti.
During the discussion, “it was noted,” Islamnews.ru reports, “that representatives of the force or ‘the third provocative side’ about whose presence experts and observers have spoken are seeking to use religious principles in order to justify and even more to support the carrying out of criminal actions.”
One representative of traditional Sufi Islam, Kayakent Imam Kamil Sultanakhmedov suggested that “if today we are not prepared to be united then we ought to at least stop that which divides us,” a step that if taken should allow for others to follow. His position was supported by several other speakers.
Another participant, Mukhammadrasul Saaduyev, the imam of Makhchakala’s central mosque, argued that officials must allow more Islamic activities in civil structures in order to counter the arguments of those who say that the regimes in the republic and the Federation are not just secular but hostile to Islam.
One participant, the poet Adalo Aliyev, went further. He suggested that “certain bureaucrats” are promoting the conflict within the umma and urged that the Daghestani law banning Wahhabism be repealed, not ony because it isn’t working but because it “does not any any analogues” elsewhere in the world.
The rountable declared that “the single possible form for the restoration on Daghestani land of a peaceful life and the well-being of the population is the strengthening of the unity of the Daghestani peoples, the development of dialogue among constructive forces of civil society, an end to inter-religious arguments, the strick observation of law and the defense of rights and interests of citizens, independent of their nationality and faith.”
Staunton, May 6 – Daghestan banned Wahhabism more than a decade ago both to defend traditional Islam and counter militant groups, but officials and Muslim leaders in that North Caucasus republic have now concluded that this step was counterproductive and have opened a process to bridge the divide between these two trends – and for exactly the same reasons.
The Daghestani law banning extremism, the traditional Muslim leaders of Daghestan have concluded, has had the effect of dividing the umma, not only creating a situation in which entireliy innocent people are attacked for their faith but also allowing the militants to pose as the defenders of what is a widely respected trend in Islam and thus gain support from that alone.
As Islamnews.ru pointed out yesterday, “one o fht emost discusses themes of recent times in Daghestan has been the issue connected with the start of dialogue between representative es of the two conflicting religious tendencies of Islam,” between “so-called official Islam” which is based on Sufism and Salafites, including Wahhabis (www.islamnews.ru/news-53521.html).
The news service points out that “all negative events in the republic are being connected with the presence of a certain destructive force by the name of ‘Wahhabism,” thus automatically equating all the followers of this trend to the militants who in turn cover their illegal activity with islam or more precisely with one of its trends.”
Government officials, both Daghestani and federal, have made the situation worse, the portal suggests, by their insistence of the need to “struggle ideologically with the radicalization of young people” even as they acknowledge without doing anything that the reasons most young people are going into the forests is because of “social problems and corruption.”
Neither the officials nor the Muslim establishment were inclined to make any change, however, until Daghestani society “began to raise the alarm” about the growing departure of young people “‘into the forest’” and to insist that “by force alone, problems will not be solved: force will give rise only to force.”
The first effort to have the leaders of the various trends of Islam within Daghestan’s umma to talk with one another was a Makhachkala roundtable organized at the end of April Sulayman Uladiyev, the vice president of the public organization, “A Land of Peace and Accord” (www.chernovik.net/news/438/MONOTHEOS/2011/04/29/11917).
The primary goal of the roundtable was “to put a stop” to the charges and countercharges that the two trends have been exchanging for more than a deacde. Among those taking part were representatives of the traditional jamaat, the imam of the Makhachkala central mosque, the head of the Daghestani institute of theology, and all the deputies of the republic’s mufti.
During the discussion, “it was noted,” Islamnews.ru reports, “that representatives of the force or ‘the third provocative side’ about whose presence experts and observers have spoken are seeking to use religious principles in order to justify and even more to support the carrying out of criminal actions.”
One representative of traditional Sufi Islam, Kayakent Imam Kamil Sultanakhmedov suggested that “if today we are not prepared to be united then we ought to at least stop that which divides us,” a step that if taken should allow for others to follow. His position was supported by several other speakers.
Another participant, Mukhammadrasul Saaduyev, the imam of Makhchakala’s central mosque, argued that officials must allow more Islamic activities in civil structures in order to counter the arguments of those who say that the regimes in the republic and the Federation are not just secular but hostile to Islam.
One participant, the poet Adalo Aliyev, went further. He suggested that “certain bureaucrats” are promoting the conflict within the umma and urged that the Daghestani law banning Wahhabism be repealed, not ony because it isn’t working but because it “does not any any analogues” elsewhere in the world.
The rountable declared that “the single possible form for the restoration on Daghestani land of a peaceful life and the well-being of the population is the strengthening of the unity of the Daghestani peoples, the development of dialogue among constructive forces of civil society, an end to inter-religious arguments, the strick observation of law and the defense of rights and interests of citizens, independent of their nationality and faith.”
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Ethnic Russians to Lose Majority in RF Population by Mid-Century, Scholar Says
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.
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.
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.
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.
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