Andrey Petrov on Vesti.FM: it is necessary to work to soften domestic nationalism

Despite the polls, showing a high percentage of hostility between nationalities in Russia, they do not at all indicate a difficult national situation in the country, since the most of the respondents are not going to behave aggressively towards others, as they are only domestic nationalists, the leading analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza, Andrey Petrov, said during a live broadcast of the National Question program on Vesti.FM.

National Question is a weekly program on Vesti.FM, during which various aspects of the national relations, primarily in Russia, are discussed. Today's broadcast theme was domestic nationalism.

First of all Andrey Petrov noted, that domestic nationalism as a moderate manifestation of xenophobia is ineradicable, but it is necessary to work on its mitigation. "It is important to prevent it from degenerating into more dangerous forms, when a person due to a simple fear of unknown realizes a need to eliminate the external causes of his fears. Of course, it is necessary to fight with the internal causes of fears - ignorance and misunderstanding of other people,’’ he said.

The expert drew attention to the fact that in Russia, the number of potential aggressors among domestic nationalists is not high. "Shortly before the establishment of the Federal Agency for Nationalities, which also deals with this task, a poll conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center showed a twofold increase of those, who believe in the national unity of Russian citizens - from 23% in 2012 to 44% at the end of 2014. It is important to note, that only 6% then called the national problems a cause of the lack of national unity, while 46% recognized the national differences between people as significant, 48% as insignificant. That is, of these 46% only 6% blamed  the national factor in Russia's problems, the rest were domestic nationalists, " Andrey Petrov emphasized.

A comparison of recent polls by VTsIOM and FAN make clear the actual state of affairs in this matter. "The latest poll conducted by VTsIOM shows that 60% of respondents feel dislike between Russians and people of other nationalities, only 32% do not feel it. At the same time, the data from the April FAN monitoring indicate that 93% of Russians do not dislike citizens due to their nationality, only 5% have problem with it - this, by the way, is the lowest indicator during all the post-Soviet time, " the leading analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza said.

"Here we see 60% of domestic nationalists and 93% of citizens, who do not suffer from nationalism in practice, that is, the internal relation does not transform into action against the others. This means that the work of the state bodies, public associations and the media to stabilize the national situation is paying off. By the way, your program National Question, as well as the broadcasts of Peoples of Russia on Vesti.FM, also contributes to this issue through the education of the radio listeners,’’ he said.

"Of course, these figures, like any others, do not tell us that people have stopped, for example, fighting  against the football teams because of their regional affiliation, or  renting apartments, as they say in ads, only to the Slavs. But society begins to understand that all the peoples of Russia should have equal rights, since we all constitute a single Russian nation. And this is understandable: the better we know each other, the less we are afraid, " concluded Andrei Petrov, adding that a high percentage of the national dislike among young people - 73% - indicates the need for enlightenment of the younger generation in this matter.