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View Point: Russian Attitudes Toward Immigrants

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  • View Point: Russian Attitudes Toward Immigrants

    VIEW POINT: RUSSIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANTS
    Vladislav Inozemtsev

    Central Chronicle, India
    Nov 2 2006

    Today, most Russians are beginning to think in a way that has almost
    nothing to do with reality. They tend to view the world as full of
    confrontation, hostility, rivalry and potential conflicts. This
    ideology of conflict is a major characteristic of the Russian
    political culture.

    In their statements and policies, the majority of contemporary Russian
    politicians mention certain external and internal forces that they
    view as threats to the country and as obstacles to its progress.

    These forces, however, have no names and no addresses. Though oblique
    references to the US can sometimes be discerned in some speeches and
    media reports, no one specifies exactly who these enemies or opponents
    are, confining themselves instead to making general statements. They
    hint that Russia's failure to succeed is due to its foreign enemies,
    or some unnamed, internal destructive forces.

    The government has recently been debating a proposal to ban references
    to a criminal's nationality in media reports about his crimes,
    which actually means the fewer details, the better. We do not want
    to understand the roots of a problem. All we want is to emphasize
    that certain problems do exist in Russian politics and that they have
    been implanted in the Russian community by hostile forces to prevent
    Russian politicians from doing their job. This is sad, I think,
    because confrontational thinking at the grassroots level leads to
    conflicts between ethnic groups. Meanwhile, a lot of the nation's
    problems, including xenophobia, could be solved if the government
    were more transparent and receptive to criticism.

    The events in Kondopoga (North-West Russia) were not just the
    result of an escalation of hostility toward local Chechens and
    other immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia; they were more
    likely caused by the fact that some local Russians were aware of the
    impotence of the local government and the police to protect them from
    criminal groups. Although the law enforcement system is evolving in
    Russia, its fundamental way of thinking is not. At the same time,
    it is becoming increasingly corrupt and detached from society. This
    provokes desperate measures on the part of ordinary people, some of
    which transform into inter-ethnic clashes.

    The idea that migrants from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova
    and Ukraine account for a significant part of the nation's economy
    and that today they work for less money in sectors where Russians
    themselves do not want to work is rarely made clear to the community.

    More often broadcast are stories about criminal activity among guest
    workers, while the press prefers to write about how much money they
    send to their families back home. This disinformation, or at least
    selective reporting, distorts Russians' perceptions of these issues.

    Little information can be obtained about developments in the majority
    of Caucasian republics, especially Azerbaijan and Armenia. This
    is perhaps mostly due to the fact that these countries have been
    developing dynamically and that no bad news is coming out of Karabakh,
    so there are few sensational items to report. Georgia, though, remains
    in the media spotlight, which is wrong. An emphasis on disputes
    makes one believe that the entire region is mired in conflict. The
    escalation of tension makes the majority of Russians believe that the
    Caucasus is a zone of perpetual wars that have forced Caucasians to
    flee to Russia. The notion that these migrants are all refugees does
    not cast them in a very favourable light and provokes hostility and
    tension on both sides. Today, Russia fails to see the consequences
    its policy may have. Russians constitute the bulk of the population
    of Abkhazia, though how they obtained Russian passports remains
    unknown. I think if a war breaks out between Georgia and Abkhazia,
    residents of central Russia will not be happy to receive a million
    Russians from the self-proclaimed republic carrying Russian passports,
    nor would the latter be treated like compatriots. There is a dangerous
    gap between political moves and the views of ordinary people.
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