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What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
August 16, 2005, Tuesday
THEY WHO "DO NOT BELONG"
SOURCE: Vedomosti, August 16, 2005, pp. A1, A4
by editorial office
The Levada Center polling agency reports that over half of respondents
support the slogan "Russia for ethnic Russians" to some extent, and
that xenophobic trends in society have been worsening for years. The
poll data tallies with the opinion of human rights groups. According
to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau (MHRB), ethnic hate crimes have
been responsible for ten deaths and 200 injuries in the first half
of this year.
All these figures come from the report "Racism, Xenophobia, Ethnic
Discrimination, and Anti-Semitism in Russia," released by the MHRB
yesterday. It maintains that at least seven nationwide parties and
movements have ideologies based on bigotry and racism. All these
parties and movements total over 10,000 activists. More than 50,000
citizens belong to the skinhead movement divided into thousands of
small gangs. Radical nationalists set up so-called People's Volunteer
Detachments and urge their participants to obtain weapons. They
publish magazines and books with the titles like "It's Time the
Russians Took Over." Human rights activists asked to testify against
them in courtrooms are harassed. Ethnographer Nikolai Girenko, a
witness in the case against the Russian National Unity, was shot to
death in St. Petersburg on June 19, 2004. Threats to another human
rights activist and anti-fascist, Dmitri Krayukhin of the United
Europe Institute, drew the attention of law enforcement agencies only
when dozens of Russian and international human rights organizations
appealed directly to the Prosecutor General's Office.
Opinion polls cited by the MHRB indicate that antipathies are usually
focused on the Chechens (14.8%), Azerbaijanis (5.1%), Armenians
(4.1%), and people from the Caucasus in general (6%).
Along with everything else, almost 70% respondents are prepared to
welcome immigration of the Russians and Russian-speakers and restrict
immigration of other peoples. Pollsters point out that xenophobic
trends in Russia have risen noticeably since Vladimir Putin's
election as president. According to the Levada Center, 43.7% backed
the slogan "Russia for ethnic Russians" in 1999, while 58% support
it nowadays. That shows a 14% increase of ethnic prejudice, a figure
that must be alarming for any sane government. It doesn't, however,
seem to be worrying the Kremlin or politicians loyal to the regime.
Forget the red-brown danger. The true threat is posed by a different
color entirely. Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov sets up a special
channel aimed to fight "orange" trends among the youth. The Our Own
(Nashi) youth movement releases a brochure titled "Unusual Fascism"
- aimed against Irina Khakamada, the Free Choice 2008 Committee,
Youth Yabloko, Boris Berezovsky, and so on - rather than against
fascists as such. In other words, Our Own is much more concerned
about the orange threat than the red-brown threat. It follows that
numerous killings fuelled by ethnic hatred concern Our Own less than
the prospect of the opposition's rise to power.
In fact, chauvinism increases every now and then even in prosperous
countries of the West. French President Jacques Chirac personally
marched in an anti-fascist demonstration last year. Gerhard
Schroeder and his predecessor Helmut Kohl regularly appealed to their
compatriots with anti-Nazi slogans. Even Russian president condemns
xenophobia. "There should be neither xenophobia, chauvinism, or other
phenomena of ethnic hatred in the 21st century," he said in the wake
of negotiations with his Israeli counterpart.
But Putin's other statements may encourage chauvinists into new acts of
violence. When Russian teenagers were assaulted and battered in Warsaw,
three Poles (two embassy officials and a journalist) were beaten
in Moscow. Irked by episodes of chauvinism in foreign countries,
Putin doesn't pay attention to even crueller crimes committed by
racists in Russia itself. He is not concerned by the skinhead thugs
in Astrakhan who killed a whole Dagestani family in early May,
or by the murder of three Armenians near Sverdlovsk, by assault on
two rabbis in central Moscow, or by appalling attacks on foreigners
in his native St. Petersburg where skinheads assaulted 12 students
from African countries, China, South Korea, Palestine, Israel in the
first half of this year. Foreign students are similarly attacked
in Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Lipetsk, Krasnodar,
Perm. Had Putin followed the example of his French counterpart by
marching in an anti-nazi demonstration along with United Russia, Our
Own, and Walking Together, it would have saved a lot of lives. Which
is more important, after all, than a war on phantom color revolutions.
Translated by A. Ignatkin
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
August 16, 2005, Tuesday
THEY WHO "DO NOT BELONG"
SOURCE: Vedomosti, August 16, 2005, pp. A1, A4
by editorial office
The Levada Center polling agency reports that over half of respondents
support the slogan "Russia for ethnic Russians" to some extent, and
that xenophobic trends in society have been worsening for years. The
poll data tallies with the opinion of human rights groups. According
to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau (MHRB), ethnic hate crimes have
been responsible for ten deaths and 200 injuries in the first half
of this year.
All these figures come from the report "Racism, Xenophobia, Ethnic
Discrimination, and Anti-Semitism in Russia," released by the MHRB
yesterday. It maintains that at least seven nationwide parties and
movements have ideologies based on bigotry and racism. All these
parties and movements total over 10,000 activists. More than 50,000
citizens belong to the skinhead movement divided into thousands of
small gangs. Radical nationalists set up so-called People's Volunteer
Detachments and urge their participants to obtain weapons. They
publish magazines and books with the titles like "It's Time the
Russians Took Over." Human rights activists asked to testify against
them in courtrooms are harassed. Ethnographer Nikolai Girenko, a
witness in the case against the Russian National Unity, was shot to
death in St. Petersburg on June 19, 2004. Threats to another human
rights activist and anti-fascist, Dmitri Krayukhin of the United
Europe Institute, drew the attention of law enforcement agencies only
when dozens of Russian and international human rights organizations
appealed directly to the Prosecutor General's Office.
Opinion polls cited by the MHRB indicate that antipathies are usually
focused on the Chechens (14.8%), Azerbaijanis (5.1%), Armenians
(4.1%), and people from the Caucasus in general (6%).
Along with everything else, almost 70% respondents are prepared to
welcome immigration of the Russians and Russian-speakers and restrict
immigration of other peoples. Pollsters point out that xenophobic
trends in Russia have risen noticeably since Vladimir Putin's
election as president. According to the Levada Center, 43.7% backed
the slogan "Russia for ethnic Russians" in 1999, while 58% support
it nowadays. That shows a 14% increase of ethnic prejudice, a figure
that must be alarming for any sane government. It doesn't, however,
seem to be worrying the Kremlin or politicians loyal to the regime.
Forget the red-brown danger. The true threat is posed by a different
color entirely. Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov sets up a special
channel aimed to fight "orange" trends among the youth. The Our Own
(Nashi) youth movement releases a brochure titled "Unusual Fascism"
- aimed against Irina Khakamada, the Free Choice 2008 Committee,
Youth Yabloko, Boris Berezovsky, and so on - rather than against
fascists as such. In other words, Our Own is much more concerned
about the orange threat than the red-brown threat. It follows that
numerous killings fuelled by ethnic hatred concern Our Own less than
the prospect of the opposition's rise to power.
In fact, chauvinism increases every now and then even in prosperous
countries of the West. French President Jacques Chirac personally
marched in an anti-fascist demonstration last year. Gerhard
Schroeder and his predecessor Helmut Kohl regularly appealed to their
compatriots with anti-Nazi slogans. Even Russian president condemns
xenophobia. "There should be neither xenophobia, chauvinism, or other
phenomena of ethnic hatred in the 21st century," he said in the wake
of negotiations with his Israeli counterpart.
But Putin's other statements may encourage chauvinists into new acts of
violence. When Russian teenagers were assaulted and battered in Warsaw,
three Poles (two embassy officials and a journalist) were beaten
in Moscow. Irked by episodes of chauvinism in foreign countries,
Putin doesn't pay attention to even crueller crimes committed by
racists in Russia itself. He is not concerned by the skinhead thugs
in Astrakhan who killed a whole Dagestani family in early May,
or by the murder of three Armenians near Sverdlovsk, by assault on
two rabbis in central Moscow, or by appalling attacks on foreigners
in his native St. Petersburg where skinheads assaulted 12 students
from African countries, China, South Korea, Palestine, Israel in the
first half of this year. Foreign students are similarly attacked
in Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Lipetsk, Krasnodar,
Perm. Had Putin followed the example of his French counterpart by
marching in an anti-nazi demonstration along with United Russia, Our
Own, and Walking Together, it would have saved a lot of lives. Which
is more important, after all, than a war on phantom color revolutions.
Translated by A. Ignatkin