“The problem of inter-ethnic relations cannot be solved once and for all,” Gadzhimet Safaraliev, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Nationalities Affairs, stated while summing up the results of the year in the sphere. “Migration flows are changing all the time; the whole environment is changing. It leads to the fact that ethnic structure and economic situation are changing in various regions. The most sensitive issue is “our people are being beaten,” and there are always some response reactions. So it is impossible to say that we solved everything,” the MP stated.
He criticizes the American policy of a melting pot, calling the USA “a house of cards”, which is composed of many ethnic groups which will be destroyed at one point, but it still holds on because of the economy. Safaraliev thinks that the European multiculturalism policy is also ineffective: “They received migrants in vast numbers. And now they do not know what to do with them.”
According to the MP, the work of the Committee in 2015, in fact, was in line with the work that has been carried out since 2012, since the strategy of the national policy of the Russian Federation was developed and approved, and an action plan to implement this strategy was developed.
“One of the laws, which was introduced in the spring session by our Committee members and members of the Federation Council, touched on the establishment of advisory councils under the heads of municipal entities on ethnic and inter-ethnic issues. It was adopted during the spring session. Then we introduced laws which empower the cultural-national autonomies with the right to participate in adapting their national diasporas, migrants who come to our country, in terms of regional studies and training, and language training,” Safaraliev stated.
He mentioned that a series of laws is at work, particularly the law on the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation: ”In the educational sphere, the Russian language does not exist as a native, and basically, children can’t study the Russian language as a native in schools. It is the Russian state language, there are state languages of the republics of the Russian Federation and there are native languages of the peoples. But, unfortunately, I do not know what "great scientists" prescribed in the standards at the time "Russian native languages other than Russian." And now it is at work, we want to finish it during the spring session and everyone will have an opportunity, just like there is constitutional right, to study and to select the language that they want to study as their native language.”
The MP admits that it is difficult to carry out such intense legislative activity for the Committee, because it has no partners in the government. “In spring there was a decree on creation of the Federal Agency for Nationalities' Affairs, a partner in the executive authority appeared. Often they are the initiators of many legislative acts. We hope that our intense work with the agency will enable us to solve many issues more easily. We all talk about the vertical of power, and people are living in the countryside, in villages, settlements, cities. And we increased the responsibility of the heads of municipal formations for prevention of conflicts on an inter-ethnic or inter-religious basis, and on the other hand, through the same law, we defined people or some departments which should be in municipalities and deal with these issues.”
