Paul Goble
Staunton, June 6 – Anecdotes about leaders and policies have long been an important part of Russian life, but the Internet is transforming its form and content because falling prices for connectivity are increasing the number of users and rising download speeds are making video clips more widely accessible, according to a Moscow commentator.
On the “Russky zhurnal” portal, Aleksandr Chausov argues that at present Russians are “observing an evolution of the form of jokes about politicians and politics as a whole,” with “the transition from television to the Web and the development of Internet technology being decisive events in this process (www.russ.ru/pole/O-politike-s-yumorom).
As a result of the spread of the Internet, he says, Russians can now watch video clips and look at thousands of images rather than relying primarily on text alone, and “the video clip is understood by an individual much easier than the typical text, however brilliantly it may be written.” As a result, Chausov continues, humor is increasingly taking a visual form.
In addition, the sense of “anonymity and security” that the Web appears to allow “gives rise to the illusion that everything is possible,” and the increasing use of the Internet and especially video in political campaigns invites those who want to make jokes about the politicians who use this format to do the same.
This has led, Chausov says, to the appearance of “a new and unexpected phenomenon” as far as Russian mass culture is concerned: the appearance of “political comics on the Net.” In the West, “so called video comics or computer comics” are not a new phenomenon, And in Russia, they are no full-blown, with most including written texts instead of only oral presentations.
But these are instructive as far as political humor is concerned, Chausov argues. “The most well-known [of these] are the super hero comics.” Russian society “unconsciously is waiting for a hero, someone who will come and save everyone.” That is because, however much they joke about it, Russians view the powers as “a sacral phenomenon.”
That in turn means that “the bearers of power are a little super human. They can be ‘evil doers’ or ‘heroes,’ but all the same they are of a different order than ‘the ordinary man.’” That was true of the “Puppets” series on television, and it is even more clearly manifested on Internet video clips about the current leadership.
However, there is one interesting detail, Chausov says. Vladimir Putin in most of these clips is presented not only as a super hero but also as “’a man like everyone else,’” a unique case in Russian humor. While it is unclear how this combination will play itself out – whether the sacred will conquer the ordinary or the other way around – it likely will affect Russian culture.
In the most hopeful outcome, one likely to become more possible as the Internet grows, this will “take out of the mentality of our society the genetic sense of the sacred nature of power,” something that will open the way for a different relationship between those in power and those in society than has ever existed in Russia up to now.
And that possibility becomes clearer if one understands that “in the Russian segment of the Net, there is a somewhat different approach to politics and politicians than in the United States. There, “politics has already for a long time been to a certain degree a show” and politicians as a result “not only administrators and government managers but showmen.”
Monday, June 6, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russians Now Feel They are Second Class Citizens in their Own Country, Moscow Writer Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 6 – Six months after the clashes in Manezh Square, radical Russian nationalists groups are increasing their activity, supported by the increasing number of ethnic Russians who feel that they are second class citizens in their own country because the powers that be are giving more support to North Caucasians and Central Asian immigrants.
In an article in Friday’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta” entitled “Russians Feel a Sense of National Inequality in Their Own Country,” Maksim Glukharev provides a wealth of detail on the activities of radical Russian nationalist groups, pointing out that Moscow has banned only three of “about 30” and allowed the banned groups to operate under different names.
But the most intriguing portion of his article concerns the attitudes among ordinary Russians as opposed to members of elite groups that help explain why an increasing number of the former are supporting the nationalists and why few of the latter are willing to talk about this increasingly dangerous trend (www.ng.ru/politics/2011-06-03/1_nacionalizm.html).
Glukharev suggests that the answers to both questions are to be found in the very different life experiences of the two groups. “It is well known,” he points out, that members of the powers that be in contrast to the population “never personally encounter manifestations of nationalism” by outside groups.
Travelling about in official cars, these elites “do not risk finding themselves” in places where there are “spontaneous” clashes between “extremists and gastarbeiters.” Therefore, they do not risk being accused of being part of disorders simply when they turn out to be witnesses of such events.”
Moreover, while the elites “send their children abroad to study,” other Russians have to send their children to schools which increasingly, albeit informally “are divided into two camps, those for the Russians and those for the Caucasians,” with ever more Russians asking why they are supporting those who are shooting at them.
Glukharev points out that “the activity of the [Russian nationalist radicals] frequently has mass support from the side of ordinary people who observe the complete escape from punishment of representatives of diaspora communities. People,” he says, “feel sharply the injustice of the existing situation.”
Ordinary Russians “do not understand why arrivals from the Caucasus and countries of the near abroad frequently act so boldly, driving about in expensive foreign cards and while ignoring Russian laws engage in firefights in public places?” Where are the law enforcement agencies when these things are happening – and why do they so often let these miscreants go?
When leaders, including Vladimir Putin, deny the obvious, claiming that there is no ethnic dimension to this or that crime, Russians become even angrier because from their point of view it is obvious that there is just such a dimension. “This situation gives rise to that objective component of dissatisfaction which was displayed in the Manezh Square” last December.
That component can be described as the sense that many Russians have that they are being treated less well than members of other ethnic groups and that officialdom is protecting the minorities rather than the ethnic Russians. And not surprisingly, such feelings are being used by “various extremist organizations.”
According to Glukharev, what happened in Manezh Square is “an indicator of deep problems in the attitudes of society -- based, in particular, on a lack of acceptance of the corrupt ties between people from the Caucasus and Asian regions and members of the Russian organs of power.
If this situation is going to change, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” writer suggests, there must be “at a minimum a discussion in society because in order to resolve such complicated problems, the powers must base themselves on society. But how can they do so when society doesn’t trust them – and has serious reasons for not trusting them?”
After talking about nationalism in Russian society in the wake of Manezh six months ago, the country’s leadership “has not returned to the theme.” The powers that be have an explanation: “any incautious word could provoke new inter-ethnic conflicts. But keeping quiet about these problems is to put one’s head in the sand – and to await the next Manezh.”
Staunton, June 6 – Six months after the clashes in Manezh Square, radical Russian nationalists groups are increasing their activity, supported by the increasing number of ethnic Russians who feel that they are second class citizens in their own country because the powers that be are giving more support to North Caucasians and Central Asian immigrants.
In an article in Friday’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta” entitled “Russians Feel a Sense of National Inequality in Their Own Country,” Maksim Glukharev provides a wealth of detail on the activities of radical Russian nationalist groups, pointing out that Moscow has banned only three of “about 30” and allowed the banned groups to operate under different names.
But the most intriguing portion of his article concerns the attitudes among ordinary Russians as opposed to members of elite groups that help explain why an increasing number of the former are supporting the nationalists and why few of the latter are willing to talk about this increasingly dangerous trend (www.ng.ru/politics/2011-06-03/1_nacionalizm.html).
Glukharev suggests that the answers to both questions are to be found in the very different life experiences of the two groups. “It is well known,” he points out, that members of the powers that be in contrast to the population “never personally encounter manifestations of nationalism” by outside groups.
Travelling about in official cars, these elites “do not risk finding themselves” in places where there are “spontaneous” clashes between “extremists and gastarbeiters.” Therefore, they do not risk being accused of being part of disorders simply when they turn out to be witnesses of such events.”
Moreover, while the elites “send their children abroad to study,” other Russians have to send their children to schools which increasingly, albeit informally “are divided into two camps, those for the Russians and those for the Caucasians,” with ever more Russians asking why they are supporting those who are shooting at them.
Glukharev points out that “the activity of the [Russian nationalist radicals] frequently has mass support from the side of ordinary people who observe the complete escape from punishment of representatives of diaspora communities. People,” he says, “feel sharply the injustice of the existing situation.”
Ordinary Russians “do not understand why arrivals from the Caucasus and countries of the near abroad frequently act so boldly, driving about in expensive foreign cards and while ignoring Russian laws engage in firefights in public places?” Where are the law enforcement agencies when these things are happening – and why do they so often let these miscreants go?
When leaders, including Vladimir Putin, deny the obvious, claiming that there is no ethnic dimension to this or that crime, Russians become even angrier because from their point of view it is obvious that there is just such a dimension. “This situation gives rise to that objective component of dissatisfaction which was displayed in the Manezh Square” last December.
That component can be described as the sense that many Russians have that they are being treated less well than members of other ethnic groups and that officialdom is protecting the minorities rather than the ethnic Russians. And not surprisingly, such feelings are being used by “various extremist organizations.”
According to Glukharev, what happened in Manezh Square is “an indicator of deep problems in the attitudes of society -- based, in particular, on a lack of acceptance of the corrupt ties between people from the Caucasus and Asian regions and members of the Russian organs of power.
If this situation is going to change, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” writer suggests, there must be “at a minimum a discussion in society because in order to resolve such complicated problems, the powers must base themselves on society. But how can they do so when society doesn’t trust them – and has serious reasons for not trusting them?”
After talking about nationalism in Russian society in the wake of Manezh six months ago, the country’s leadership “has not returned to the theme.” The powers that be have an explanation: “any incautious word could provoke new inter-ethnic conflicts. But keeping quiet about these problems is to put one’s head in the sand – and to await the next Manezh.”
Window on Eurasia: Politicians Exploit, Exacerbate ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in Moldova
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 6 – In the run-up to local elections in Moldova yesterday, some politicians sought to exploit Chisinau’s March 14th decision to register a Muslim group thereby making it appear that Moldova is riven by “a clash of civilizations” -- even though Moldova has only 300 Muslims and even though few objected when the registration decision was originally made.
In an essay on Win.ru, Irina Katanina sorts out this discussion which has attracted some attention abroad both in its own right and because of what it says about the way in which electoral politics can divide societies along ethno-religious lines when the minority constitutes a larger share of the population (www.win.ru/topic/7383.phtml).
As she points out, the appearance of “the Islamic factor” in these local elections was “unexpected” given that there are so few Muslims there and that “in the majority of districts of Moldova” – the major exception being Turkic Gagauzia – “the construction of Muslim religious facilities would take place relatively peacefully.
In March, the Moldovan justice ministry registered the first Muslim organization in that country, the Islamic League of Moldova. That body, its leader Timur Turdugulov said, is to “protect and defend the rights of Muslims of Moldova. Earlier efforts in 1995 and 2005 to register Muslim groups there had been rejected.
As Katanina points out, “Moldova is an Orthodox country,” with sociological surveys showing that “not less than 96 percent” of its citizens profess Orthodoxy. And she notes as well that even during the 300 years of Ottoman rule, “not a single mosque was built” in what is now Moldova.
Sociologists report that there are “no more than 2000” Muslims in Moldova, and most of these are entrepreneurs from Turkey or Arab countries. Among Moldovan citizens, the scholars suggests, there are only “about 300” Muslims, a large fraction of whom are “new converts,” who have accepted Islam since 1991.
Within Moldova on this issue, the Gagauz occupy a special place. Speaking Turkish and at one point in the past themselves Muslim, the Gagauz “always particularly stress their attachment to Orthodoxy, and it was a Gagauz community organization, the Union of Orthodox Christians of Bujak who was “one of the first” to protest the March registration.
Consequently, while Moldovans elsewhere in the country would probably react quite peacefully to the appearance of a mosque or other Muslim institution, “it is possible to predict,” Katanina says, that “in Gagauzia there would be “stormy even violent action against such construction.”
That pattern makes the protests that have emerged during the electoral campaign elsewhere particularly instructive. Aleksandr Tenase, the former justice minister who signed the registration before his resignation, says that he had no legal basis to refuse given that “the Islamic League is not an extremist organization.”
And he suggested that “the crusade declared by religious leaders was organized by politicians with a single goal” – to attract attention by attacking anything their opponents had done. His view, Katanina says, is shared by “many observers” who point out that “the protests began not in March when the league was registered and not in April when people learned of it.”
Instead it began when the electoral campaign began. “Opposition communists who during the period of their ruloe did not allow Muslims to legalize themselves supported the priests,” with Igor Dodon, a candidate for mayor of Chisinau even declaring that “if he wins the elections, ‘there won’t be a mosque in the capital.’”
Representatives of “the majority of opposition figures, Katanina says, “also spoke out against” registration, ostensibly because “all responsibility for the possible explosive development of the interreligious situation in Moldova should be placed on the actions of the government of Vladimir Filat.”
“In any case,” Katanina concludes, “politicians of all masks who have been drawn into inter-confessional relations in the context of an electoral struggle well recognized the so-called ‘electoral profitability’ of this factor. “ But “apparently,” she continues, they haven’t reflected on how what they are doing may make the solution of real problems even more difficult later.
Staunton, June 6 – In the run-up to local elections in Moldova yesterday, some politicians sought to exploit Chisinau’s March 14th decision to register a Muslim group thereby making it appear that Moldova is riven by “a clash of civilizations” -- even though Moldova has only 300 Muslims and even though few objected when the registration decision was originally made.
In an essay on Win.ru, Irina Katanina sorts out this discussion which has attracted some attention abroad both in its own right and because of what it says about the way in which electoral politics can divide societies along ethno-religious lines when the minority constitutes a larger share of the population (www.win.ru/topic/7383.phtml).
As she points out, the appearance of “the Islamic factor” in these local elections was “unexpected” given that there are so few Muslims there and that “in the majority of districts of Moldova” – the major exception being Turkic Gagauzia – “the construction of Muslim religious facilities would take place relatively peacefully.
In March, the Moldovan justice ministry registered the first Muslim organization in that country, the Islamic League of Moldova. That body, its leader Timur Turdugulov said, is to “protect and defend the rights of Muslims of Moldova. Earlier efforts in 1995 and 2005 to register Muslim groups there had been rejected.
As Katanina points out, “Moldova is an Orthodox country,” with sociological surveys showing that “not less than 96 percent” of its citizens profess Orthodoxy. And she notes as well that even during the 300 years of Ottoman rule, “not a single mosque was built” in what is now Moldova.
Sociologists report that there are “no more than 2000” Muslims in Moldova, and most of these are entrepreneurs from Turkey or Arab countries. Among Moldovan citizens, the scholars suggests, there are only “about 300” Muslims, a large fraction of whom are “new converts,” who have accepted Islam since 1991.
Within Moldova on this issue, the Gagauz occupy a special place. Speaking Turkish and at one point in the past themselves Muslim, the Gagauz “always particularly stress their attachment to Orthodoxy, and it was a Gagauz community organization, the Union of Orthodox Christians of Bujak who was “one of the first” to protest the March registration.
Consequently, while Moldovans elsewhere in the country would probably react quite peacefully to the appearance of a mosque or other Muslim institution, “it is possible to predict,” Katanina says, that “in Gagauzia there would be “stormy even violent action against such construction.”
That pattern makes the protests that have emerged during the electoral campaign elsewhere particularly instructive. Aleksandr Tenase, the former justice minister who signed the registration before his resignation, says that he had no legal basis to refuse given that “the Islamic League is not an extremist organization.”
And he suggested that “the crusade declared by religious leaders was organized by politicians with a single goal” – to attract attention by attacking anything their opponents had done. His view, Katanina says, is shared by “many observers” who point out that “the protests began not in March when the league was registered and not in April when people learned of it.”
Instead it began when the electoral campaign began. “Opposition communists who during the period of their ruloe did not allow Muslims to legalize themselves supported the priests,” with Igor Dodon, a candidate for mayor of Chisinau even declaring that “if he wins the elections, ‘there won’t be a mosque in the capital.’”
Representatives of “the majority of opposition figures, Katanina says, “also spoke out against” registration, ostensibly because “all responsibility for the possible explosive development of the interreligious situation in Moldova should be placed on the actions of the government of Vladimir Filat.”
“In any case,” Katanina concludes, “politicians of all masks who have been drawn into inter-confessional relations in the context of an electoral struggle well recognized the so-called ‘electoral profitability’ of this factor. “ But “apparently,” she continues, they haven’t reflected on how what they are doing may make the solution of real problems even more difficult later.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Nations Far Beyond the North Caucasus May Seek Recognition of Genocides Conducted Against Them, Middle Volga Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 4 – In the wake of Georgia’s recognition of the Circassian genocide, the head of the Volga Center of Regional and Ethno-Religious Research says, “it cannot be excluded” that there will soon be similar “campaigns” seeking similar international recognition of Russian-conducted genocides against the peoples of the Middle Volga and Siberia.
In an essay on the “Novoye Vostochnoye Obozreniye” portal yesterday, Rais Suleymanov whose center is part of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research argues that there is no reason to believe that the efforts to secure international recognition of genocide in Russia will be limited to the peoples of the North Caucasus (journal-neo.com/?q=ru/node/6876).
Indeed, he argues, both the purposes of the Circassian “campaign” and the way it was carried out make it likely that enemies of the Russian state will soon seek to repeat the Circassian model elsewhere in the Russian Federation, in the first instance in the Middle Volga and then among the peoples of Siberia.
According to Suleymanov, the use of the charge of genocide by Georgia and especially its President Mikhail Saakashvili is “directed at the intensification of anti-Russian attitudes in the Caucasus and more broadly in the future, in all national republics of Russia, including those in the Urals-Volga region and Siberia.”
Georgia’s action, he says, is intended to change the attitudes of “the current generation of North Caucasus peoples of Russia … toward their own country and citizens of which they are” and make them view it as “a state criminal which did not simply include the Caucasus in its own territory but wiped out their ancestors, driving htem from their historical lands.”
Putting it blluntly, Suleymanov says, this effort is intended to “insert into the consciousness an dhistorical memory of young Caucasians the idea that the presence of Russia in the Caucasus is illegitimate,” a view Russians with the exception of “part of the liberal intelligentsia” overwhelmingly reject.
Yana Amelina, the head of the Sector of Caucasus Research of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research, told Suleymanov that she fully agreed that Georgia’s sstep was political and “directed at the further complication of Russian-Georgian relations.” Tbilisi clearly hopes to destabilize the Caucaus and to embarrass Moscow concerning the Sochi Olympics.
Vladimir Belyayev, a professor of political science, sociology and management at the Kazan Technical University, agrees with this analysis as well. And Suleymanov reports that Irina Shebotnev, a member of the Jewish community in the Tatar capital, is angry that anyone would seek to extent the concept of the Holocaust to the Caucasus.
However, there are some supporters of Georgia’s action in the Middle Volga, Suleymanov continues. Rafiz Kashapov, the president of the Naberezhny Chelny section of the Tatar Social Center (TOTs) and a leading Tatar nationalist, says he has backed the Circassian effort since 2005.
Given that others now think the same way or can be made to think that way, Suleymanov argues, “one should not think that the campaign initiated from abroad for the recognition of genocides supposedly committed by Russia (read the Russian people) over the course of its history will be limited to the Circassians only.”
According to him, there is a well-developed political technology that may be applied to other parts of the Russian Federaiton. “Everything will begin,” the Circassian effort shows, with “the foreign and Russian liberal press” writing stories about “mass murders supposedly committed by Russia against the civilian non-Russian population.”
Of course, in the case of the Middle Volga, this will focus on events in the mid-16th century rather than the 19th as in the case of the Circassians, Suleymanov says.
“Then there will be organized in foreign countries inte3rnational scholarly conferences and various ‘round tables’ at which with a wise view will be reported on numerous ‘Holocausts’ committed by Russia agains the Tatars, Bashkirs, and the peoples of Siberia.” There may even be documentary films “about ‘the bloody policy of Russia’ and several ‘scholarly’ books.”
“The goal of the entire ideological campaign will be to change the historical memory and worldview of non-Russian peoples in which their own Russian state, the citizens of which they are will be viewed as an enslaver, a criminal and finally simply as the source of evil,” against which a struggle will be viewed as “liberating and noble.”
The strategy of the foreign world is “obvious,” Suleymanov says. “If part of the population will conceive their own state as illegitimate than this will only make possible the development of internal disintegrating consequences.”
And thus it is “possible that we will soon hear declarations by local separatists of Tatarstan about how horrible it is” that Moscow wants to “hold in Kazan the Universiad 2013 or the world football championship in 2018 – in this case ‘on the bones of the Tatar people,’” rather than the Circassian one.
Staunton, June 4 – In the wake of Georgia’s recognition of the Circassian genocide, the head of the Volga Center of Regional and Ethno-Religious Research says, “it cannot be excluded” that there will soon be similar “campaigns” seeking similar international recognition of Russian-conducted genocides against the peoples of the Middle Volga and Siberia.
In an essay on the “Novoye Vostochnoye Obozreniye” portal yesterday, Rais Suleymanov whose center is part of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research argues that there is no reason to believe that the efforts to secure international recognition of genocide in Russia will be limited to the peoples of the North Caucasus (journal-neo.com/?q=ru/node/6876).
Indeed, he argues, both the purposes of the Circassian “campaign” and the way it was carried out make it likely that enemies of the Russian state will soon seek to repeat the Circassian model elsewhere in the Russian Federation, in the first instance in the Middle Volga and then among the peoples of Siberia.
According to Suleymanov, the use of the charge of genocide by Georgia and especially its President Mikhail Saakashvili is “directed at the intensification of anti-Russian attitudes in the Caucasus and more broadly in the future, in all national republics of Russia, including those in the Urals-Volga region and Siberia.”
Georgia’s action, he says, is intended to change the attitudes of “the current generation of North Caucasus peoples of Russia … toward their own country and citizens of which they are” and make them view it as “a state criminal which did not simply include the Caucasus in its own territory but wiped out their ancestors, driving htem from their historical lands.”
Putting it blluntly, Suleymanov says, this effort is intended to “insert into the consciousness an dhistorical memory of young Caucasians the idea that the presence of Russia in the Caucasus is illegitimate,” a view Russians with the exception of “part of the liberal intelligentsia” overwhelmingly reject.
Yana Amelina, the head of the Sector of Caucasus Research of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research, told Suleymanov that she fully agreed that Georgia’s sstep was political and “directed at the further complication of Russian-Georgian relations.” Tbilisi clearly hopes to destabilize the Caucaus and to embarrass Moscow concerning the Sochi Olympics.
Vladimir Belyayev, a professor of political science, sociology and management at the Kazan Technical University, agrees with this analysis as well. And Suleymanov reports that Irina Shebotnev, a member of the Jewish community in the Tatar capital, is angry that anyone would seek to extent the concept of the Holocaust to the Caucasus.
However, there are some supporters of Georgia’s action in the Middle Volga, Suleymanov continues. Rafiz Kashapov, the president of the Naberezhny Chelny section of the Tatar Social Center (TOTs) and a leading Tatar nationalist, says he has backed the Circassian effort since 2005.
Given that others now think the same way or can be made to think that way, Suleymanov argues, “one should not think that the campaign initiated from abroad for the recognition of genocides supposedly committed by Russia (read the Russian people) over the course of its history will be limited to the Circassians only.”
According to him, there is a well-developed political technology that may be applied to other parts of the Russian Federaiton. “Everything will begin,” the Circassian effort shows, with “the foreign and Russian liberal press” writing stories about “mass murders supposedly committed by Russia against the civilian non-Russian population.”
Of course, in the case of the Middle Volga, this will focus on events in the mid-16th century rather than the 19th as in the case of the Circassians, Suleymanov says.
“Then there will be organized in foreign countries inte3rnational scholarly conferences and various ‘round tables’ at which with a wise view will be reported on numerous ‘Holocausts’ committed by Russia agains the Tatars, Bashkirs, and the peoples of Siberia.” There may even be documentary films “about ‘the bloody policy of Russia’ and several ‘scholarly’ books.”
“The goal of the entire ideological campaign will be to change the historical memory and worldview of non-Russian peoples in which their own Russian state, the citizens of which they are will be viewed as an enslaver, a criminal and finally simply as the source of evil,” against which a struggle will be viewed as “liberating and noble.”
The strategy of the foreign world is “obvious,” Suleymanov says. “If part of the population will conceive their own state as illegitimate than this will only make possible the development of internal disintegrating consequences.”
And thus it is “possible that we will soon hear declarations by local separatists of Tatarstan about how horrible it is” that Moscow wants to “hold in Kazan the Universiad 2013 or the world football championship in 2018 – in this case ‘on the bones of the Tatar people,’” rather than the Circassian one.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Window on Eurasia: ‘Nostalgia’ for Stalin among Young Reflects Moscow’s Failure to Offer a Concrete Alternative Vision, Scholars Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 3 – Young Russians increasingly deify Stalin not only because he represents a system radically different from that of Russia today but also because the contemporary Russian state has failed to offer a specific ideological alternative that is not mired in abstraction, accord to two Russian scholars.
In the course of a St. Petersburg conference last week on “Russian Self-Consciousness and the Space of Russia,” which concluded that this consciousness today is “under the power of destructive myths,” two participants addressed the increasing popularity of Stalin among Russian youth who never lived under the dictator (www.rosbalt.ru/piter/2011/05/28/853135.html).
Dmitry Astashkin, a professor of journalism at Novgorod State University, noted that “alongside attempts to borrow elements of foreign cultures, in contemporary Russian society there is a tendency to return to the Soviet model,” often among those and in places where few might expect it, especially in its extreme forms.
“Stalinist types and the personality of Stalin himself are viewed as the symbol of this model,” Astashkin said, in large measure because of their “radical difference from the present situation of the Russian Federation.” And this is expressed “among the most passionate part of society,” the young.
For Russian youth, he suggested, “Stalin and his activity are being mythologized, and [the dictator himself] is becoming a symbol of non-conformism, set in opposition [by younger Russians] to contemporary culture and the state arrangements” of the Russian Federation at the present time.
“A positive attitude toward Stalin is [thus] step by step ceasing to be found only among pensioners and veterans and is becoming part of the subculture of the youth.” The dictator is now referred to in popular songs, computer games, and in internet forums, a trend that was especially marked in the run-up to the May 9 Victory Day celebrations.
Astashkin suggested that it is “interesting” that “when talking about Stalin, young people are not in a position to operate on their own emotions and recollections,” since they were born after he died. “And that means that young Russians are borrowing ideas about Stalin from their own families.”
In short, “the real Stalin has been transformed into a myth about the Soviet empire, thus having ceased to be a dictator and having become a unique embodiment of a harsh style of administration and a symbol of order and social justice,” values that many young people are attracted to.
Consequently, Astashkin concluded, “until the state offers another path of development, Stalin will remain a resource for national identification” among Russians, something that may keep them in the sway of the past rather than allowing them to move forward into a different future.
A second speaker, Petr Smirnov, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, explored efforts by post-Soviet Russian governments to offer such an alternative basis for identity and pointed to the reasons why they have failed to take, especially among members of the younger generation.
The 1993 Constitution, Smirnov points out, represented “an attempt to offer another platform for national self-identification,” but it failed because it was too abstract. Instead of talking about specifically Russian values, it used language that could apply to any country on earth, thus limiting its utility and impact.
“The abstracted quality” and “all-human” nature of the provisions of the 1993 Constitution thus failed to find resonance among many Russians. According to Smirnov, it would have been better if the Russian Constitution had been formulated in a more distinctively Russian way.
For example, he suggests that instead of talking about human beings in general, the Constitution should have specified that “the highest value in the Russian Federation is recognized as the citizen of Russia, his life, dignity, rights and freedoms. The state is obligated to observe and defend conditions to allow each citizen to realize himself” fully.
Such a formulation, the St. Petersburg professor continues, “would have helped not only to limit the arbitrariness of all branches of state power and to serve as a reliable guide for conducting domestic and foreign policy but would have become the basis for the formation of a single Russian national identity of all ethnic groups within Russia.”
Staunton, June 3 – Young Russians increasingly deify Stalin not only because he represents a system radically different from that of Russia today but also because the contemporary Russian state has failed to offer a specific ideological alternative that is not mired in abstraction, accord to two Russian scholars.
In the course of a St. Petersburg conference last week on “Russian Self-Consciousness and the Space of Russia,” which concluded that this consciousness today is “under the power of destructive myths,” two participants addressed the increasing popularity of Stalin among Russian youth who never lived under the dictator (www.rosbalt.ru/piter/2011/05/28/853135.html).
Dmitry Astashkin, a professor of journalism at Novgorod State University, noted that “alongside attempts to borrow elements of foreign cultures, in contemporary Russian society there is a tendency to return to the Soviet model,” often among those and in places where few might expect it, especially in its extreme forms.
“Stalinist types and the personality of Stalin himself are viewed as the symbol of this model,” Astashkin said, in large measure because of their “radical difference from the present situation of the Russian Federation.” And this is expressed “among the most passionate part of society,” the young.
For Russian youth, he suggested, “Stalin and his activity are being mythologized, and [the dictator himself] is becoming a symbol of non-conformism, set in opposition [by younger Russians] to contemporary culture and the state arrangements” of the Russian Federation at the present time.
“A positive attitude toward Stalin is [thus] step by step ceasing to be found only among pensioners and veterans and is becoming part of the subculture of the youth.” The dictator is now referred to in popular songs, computer games, and in internet forums, a trend that was especially marked in the run-up to the May 9 Victory Day celebrations.
Astashkin suggested that it is “interesting” that “when talking about Stalin, young people are not in a position to operate on their own emotions and recollections,” since they were born after he died. “And that means that young Russians are borrowing ideas about Stalin from their own families.”
In short, “the real Stalin has been transformed into a myth about the Soviet empire, thus having ceased to be a dictator and having become a unique embodiment of a harsh style of administration and a symbol of order and social justice,” values that many young people are attracted to.
Consequently, Astashkin concluded, “until the state offers another path of development, Stalin will remain a resource for national identification” among Russians, something that may keep them in the sway of the past rather than allowing them to move forward into a different future.
A second speaker, Petr Smirnov, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, explored efforts by post-Soviet Russian governments to offer such an alternative basis for identity and pointed to the reasons why they have failed to take, especially among members of the younger generation.
The 1993 Constitution, Smirnov points out, represented “an attempt to offer another platform for national self-identification,” but it failed because it was too abstract. Instead of talking about specifically Russian values, it used language that could apply to any country on earth, thus limiting its utility and impact.
“The abstracted quality” and “all-human” nature of the provisions of the 1993 Constitution thus failed to find resonance among many Russians. According to Smirnov, it would have been better if the Russian Constitution had been formulated in a more distinctively Russian way.
For example, he suggests that instead of talking about human beings in general, the Constitution should have specified that “the highest value in the Russian Federation is recognized as the citizen of Russia, his life, dignity, rights and freedoms. The state is obligated to observe and defend conditions to allow each citizen to realize himself” fully.
Such a formulation, the St. Petersburg professor continues, “would have helped not only to limit the arbitrariness of all branches of state power and to serve as a reliable guide for conducting domestic and foreign policy but would have become the basis for the formation of a single Russian national identity of all ethnic groups within Russia.”
Window on Eurasia: Russia Needs a Centralized Nationalities Policy and a Ministry to Carry It Out, Deputies Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 3 – The Russian government needs to adopt a nationalities policy for the country as a whole and to establish a special ministry to implement it, several Duma deputies say, pointing not only to the increasing number of ethnic conflicts around the country but also to the increasing and potentially dangerous tendency of the regions to go their own way in this area.
According to the Regions.ru portal, “local officials are hostages to a situation [in which ethnic conflicts are on the rise] and are forced to balance between the danger of accusations of xenophobia and support of nationalities on the one hand, and the danger of a new Kondopoga or Manezh, on the other (www.regions.ru/news/2357902/).
And their situation is becoming ever more problematic, the portal observes, because “the federal center as before is limiting itself to declarative language about the impermissibility of allowing the growth of xenophobic attitudes without offering any concrete decisions.” As a result, “local officials are trying to independently find ways of resolving this problem.”
As it often does on key issues, the portal has surveyed Russian parliamentarians concerning what should be done, and the ones with whom Regions.ru spoke, unanimously backed the idea of “creating in Russia a state organ which would occupy itself with the resolution of questions of nationality policy” rather than ceding power on this to the regions.
Vladimir Gusev, who represents Saratov oblast in the Federation Council, said that the time has come for the government to take up the question of inter-ethnic relations seriously and to create what does not now exist, a clearly defined nationality policy and a central bureaucracy to implement it.
In his view, “a multi-national country without a ministry for nationalities is nonsense.” He said that it was not important what this “organ” should be called, “a ministry, a committee, or a commission.” Rather, “the main thing, Gusev continued, “as is well known is not the form but its content.”
Amir Gallyamov, who represents the Amur oblast in the Federation Council, agreed. “Russia simply needs such an organization.” Without it, youth movements of a radical direction are growing stronger, some of which act against Muslims, others against Orthodox, a third against Russians, a fourth against Jews and so on.”
Gadzhimet Safaraliyev, a United Russia Duma deputy, also supported the idea of creating “a special government organ for nationality policy.” “Such a structure,” he said, existed in Soviet times and was headed in the early years by Joseph Stalin. A new Narkomnats is needed, he said, because the regional development ministry isn’t capable of resolving” all these issues.
Yury Afonin, a KPRF Duma deputy, added his support for such an agency, pointedly noting that “in questions of nationality policy, there is no place for independent activity at the regional level.” These questions “must be dealt with by a corresponding agency in the system of state power” and at the direction of the chief of state.
And Viktor Shudegov, a Just Russia Duma deputy, seconded that view. He said that the time had come to decide on a Russia-wide nationality policy and to set up an institution to ensure it is carried out. “Such agencies already exist at the regional level in a number of Russian Federation subjects, including in Udmurtiya which [he] represents.”
“Somehow or other,” he continued, “certain representatives of our power consider that if there is no federal ministry on nationality questions, then this means that there is no problem in this sphere.” But problems obviously do exist, Shudegov said, and they will continue until a policy is defined and an agency in Moscow set up.
Since Vladimir Putin disbanded the post-Soviet Russian ministry of nationalities a decade ago, there have been period calls for restoring it, but most of them have come now from politicians at the center worried about controlling the periphery but rather from non-Russians who believe such an institution would help them.
That makes this shift potentially significant, although there is a major hurtle to setting up such a ministry that none of these parliamentarians addressed: If such a body is given enough power to implement a nationalities policy, it will be a super-ministry and a threat to all others, but if it is not given such powers, it will simply become yet another bureaucratic structure.
Staunton, June 3 – The Russian government needs to adopt a nationalities policy for the country as a whole and to establish a special ministry to implement it, several Duma deputies say, pointing not only to the increasing number of ethnic conflicts around the country but also to the increasing and potentially dangerous tendency of the regions to go their own way in this area.
According to the Regions.ru portal, “local officials are hostages to a situation [in which ethnic conflicts are on the rise] and are forced to balance between the danger of accusations of xenophobia and support of nationalities on the one hand, and the danger of a new Kondopoga or Manezh, on the other (www.regions.ru/news/2357902/).
And their situation is becoming ever more problematic, the portal observes, because “the federal center as before is limiting itself to declarative language about the impermissibility of allowing the growth of xenophobic attitudes without offering any concrete decisions.” As a result, “local officials are trying to independently find ways of resolving this problem.”
As it often does on key issues, the portal has surveyed Russian parliamentarians concerning what should be done, and the ones with whom Regions.ru spoke, unanimously backed the idea of “creating in Russia a state organ which would occupy itself with the resolution of questions of nationality policy” rather than ceding power on this to the regions.
Vladimir Gusev, who represents Saratov oblast in the Federation Council, said that the time has come for the government to take up the question of inter-ethnic relations seriously and to create what does not now exist, a clearly defined nationality policy and a central bureaucracy to implement it.
In his view, “a multi-national country without a ministry for nationalities is nonsense.” He said that it was not important what this “organ” should be called, “a ministry, a committee, or a commission.” Rather, “the main thing, Gusev continued, “as is well known is not the form but its content.”
Amir Gallyamov, who represents the Amur oblast in the Federation Council, agreed. “Russia simply needs such an organization.” Without it, youth movements of a radical direction are growing stronger, some of which act against Muslims, others against Orthodox, a third against Russians, a fourth against Jews and so on.”
Gadzhimet Safaraliyev, a United Russia Duma deputy, also supported the idea of creating “a special government organ for nationality policy.” “Such a structure,” he said, existed in Soviet times and was headed in the early years by Joseph Stalin. A new Narkomnats is needed, he said, because the regional development ministry isn’t capable of resolving” all these issues.
Yury Afonin, a KPRF Duma deputy, added his support for such an agency, pointedly noting that “in questions of nationality policy, there is no place for independent activity at the regional level.” These questions “must be dealt with by a corresponding agency in the system of state power” and at the direction of the chief of state.
And Viktor Shudegov, a Just Russia Duma deputy, seconded that view. He said that the time had come to decide on a Russia-wide nationality policy and to set up an institution to ensure it is carried out. “Such agencies already exist at the regional level in a number of Russian Federation subjects, including in Udmurtiya which [he] represents.”
“Somehow or other,” he continued, “certain representatives of our power consider that if there is no federal ministry on nationality questions, then this means that there is no problem in this sphere.” But problems obviously do exist, Shudegov said, and they will continue until a policy is defined and an agency in Moscow set up.
Since Vladimir Putin disbanded the post-Soviet Russian ministry of nationalities a decade ago, there have been period calls for restoring it, but most of them have come now from politicians at the center worried about controlling the periphery but rather from non-Russians who believe such an institution would help them.
That makes this shift potentially significant, although there is a major hurtle to setting up such a ministry that none of these parliamentarians addressed: If such a body is given enough power to implement a nationalities policy, it will be a super-ministry and a threat to all others, but if it is not given such powers, it will simply become yet another bureaucratic structure.
Window on Eurasia: Radical Islam Again on the Upswing in Russia, Satanovsky Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, June 3 – The liquidation of Osama bin Laden and Moscow’s military successes in the North Caucasus have inflicted “a serious defeat” to radical Islam in Russia, Yevgeny Satanovsky says, but despite these victories, Islamist radicals are regrouping themselves and present an ever greater threat to the Russian Federation.
In an interview published in the current issue of Lechaim.ru,” the president of the Moscow Institute of the Near East says that this development within Russia parallels but is not the product of the successes he says Islamists have been having across the Middle East in recent months (www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/230/interview1.htm).
Satanovsky says that he looks with concern “at the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria and in Daghestan, in the republics of the Middle Volga and in major Russian cities,” particularly because it appears the Russia is falling “into lethargy” regarding Islamic extremism and appears to be forgetting that “dragons are reborn,” even if there are only a few teeth left.
Given what he sees and given the threat that comes from Muslims of the Russian Federation who have studied abroad, the Russian specialist on the Middle East, said that it would be a good idea to think about building “a kind of ‘iron curtain’ … for particular groups of people returning to Russian from those Arab and Islamic countries” where there is turbulence.
In addition, he argues, the Russian authorities need to conduct “a serious filtration of the muftiats and begin systematic work with the Muslim population in order that there will appear a certain alternative view to those attitudes which are being introduced into Russia from the outside” at the present time.
Satanovsky suggests that it would be a particular mistake to conclude that there is any link between the destruction of Islamist radicals in the North Caucasus and the death of bin Laden. “No connection exists,” he says, adding that “this is simply a war, a war for years and decades, a war on many fronts.”
“And when on one of the fronts a breakthrough takes place, one should not expect that this will immediately have an impact on another front.” Moreover and perhaps most disturbingly, Satanovsky continues, the movements inspired or affected by the Islamists may take a variety of forms, some very different from what one might expect.
“The ‘golden youth’ from the republics of the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga, living on the territory of Russia, studying at the Institute of Oriental Studies, and appearing on television openly say that ‘the Russian project’ is finished. That is, today here is still Russia but tomorrow will be some kind of jamaar, emirate or separate state.”
Other commentators such as Roman Silantyev, the outspoken specialist on Islam in Russia who has close ties to the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian government, share Satanovsky’s view, but other specialists warn against taking such an apocalyptic view on this issue.
Aleksey Malashenko, a Carnegie Moscow Center scholar, for example, calls such suggestions, especially with regard to the Middle Volga an invitation to “a witch hunt.” In his view, there is no extremism of the kind Satanovsky describes. Indeed, he says, “it is silly to talk about a Salafite threat” (www.ansar.ru/analytics/2011/06/01/16407).
Staunton, June 3 – The liquidation of Osama bin Laden and Moscow’s military successes in the North Caucasus have inflicted “a serious defeat” to radical Islam in Russia, Yevgeny Satanovsky says, but despite these victories, Islamist radicals are regrouping themselves and present an ever greater threat to the Russian Federation.
In an interview published in the current issue of Lechaim.ru,” the president of the Moscow Institute of the Near East says that this development within Russia parallels but is not the product of the successes he says Islamists have been having across the Middle East in recent months (www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/230/interview1.htm).
Satanovsky says that he looks with concern “at the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria and in Daghestan, in the republics of the Middle Volga and in major Russian cities,” particularly because it appears the Russia is falling “into lethargy” regarding Islamic extremism and appears to be forgetting that “dragons are reborn,” even if there are only a few teeth left.
Given what he sees and given the threat that comes from Muslims of the Russian Federation who have studied abroad, the Russian specialist on the Middle East, said that it would be a good idea to think about building “a kind of ‘iron curtain’ … for particular groups of people returning to Russian from those Arab and Islamic countries” where there is turbulence.
In addition, he argues, the Russian authorities need to conduct “a serious filtration of the muftiats and begin systematic work with the Muslim population in order that there will appear a certain alternative view to those attitudes which are being introduced into Russia from the outside” at the present time.
Satanovsky suggests that it would be a particular mistake to conclude that there is any link between the destruction of Islamist radicals in the North Caucasus and the death of bin Laden. “No connection exists,” he says, adding that “this is simply a war, a war for years and decades, a war on many fronts.”
“And when on one of the fronts a breakthrough takes place, one should not expect that this will immediately have an impact on another front.” Moreover and perhaps most disturbingly, Satanovsky continues, the movements inspired or affected by the Islamists may take a variety of forms, some very different from what one might expect.
“The ‘golden youth’ from the republics of the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga, living on the territory of Russia, studying at the Institute of Oriental Studies, and appearing on television openly say that ‘the Russian project’ is finished. That is, today here is still Russia but tomorrow will be some kind of jamaar, emirate or separate state.”
Other commentators such as Roman Silantyev, the outspoken specialist on Islam in Russia who has close ties to the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian government, share Satanovsky’s view, but other specialists warn against taking such an apocalyptic view on this issue.
Aleksey Malashenko, a Carnegie Moscow Center scholar, for example, calls such suggestions, especially with regard to the Middle Volga an invitation to “a witch hunt.” In his view, there is no extremism of the kind Satanovsky describes. Indeed, he says, “it is silly to talk about a Salafite threat” (www.ansar.ru/analytics/2011/06/01/16407).
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