By Vestnik Kavkaza
Growing tension in relations in Russia between the local population and migrants, both internal and external, became a tendency of recent years. Numerous inter-ethnic incidents in Russia made experts say that the authorities inspired such conflicts to deflect public attention away from urgent socio-economic problems. Russian top officials tried to prove that it wasn’t so at the session of the Inter-Ethnic Problem Council, which took place on October 22 in Ufa.
The chairman of the Public Chamber Commission on Inter-Ethnic Relations and Freedom of Conscience, Nikolai Svanidze, expressed his view on the problem: “Considering the events in Biryulyovo, I got a feeling that anti-migrant hysteria has begun in the country.”
Svanidze is sure that “the ethnic problem is not about migrants, but about relations between citizens of our country, who belong to different ethnic and religious groups. In this context radical nationalists and terrorists who, for instance, stand behind the explosion in Volgograd have similar goals – they want to ruin ethnic people in our country, to make inter-ethnic relations tense.”
According to Svanidze, the country has “a very difficult social atmosphere, especially in commuter areas of big cities. There is a very high level of social indignation, especially among young people. The level is skillfully and cynically controlled by professionals who spread radical nationalist ideology. In other words, social aggression is transformed into ethnic aggression which is established artificially. I think it is very dangerous and can have awful consequences.”
Svanidze is sure that the visa regime with the CIS countries “will only worsen the inter-ethnic situation, improve corruption background and bring no positive results. We need various measures. First of all, we need improvement of influence of local administrations.”
As for responsibility of the mass media for the developments, Svanidze thinks that “we have mass imperial propaganda which takes place in our country for long years. Imperial propaganda can be perceived as patriotic, propaganda of the great past of our country, but it encourages nationalistic attitudes, rather than patriotism. We have to change the course of our state policy, our state propaganda toward ethnic tolerance, readiness of people who belong to different ethnic and religious groups, speak different languages and have different cultures to live together in one country called Russia.”
“We can have different views on the United States and their foreign policy. As for their internal policy, less than 5o years ago there were signs “For the white only” in southern states – in public transport, in parks. Today they have a black president. It is a steady policy, a strict state policy which has been being provided for decades. It is movies, I mean Hollywood, popular films where two policemen are pictured – one is white and another is black, the black is good. If the black is bad, there are dozens of good black people. The law doesn’t accept any express of nationalism, including jokes and folklore.
In our media and films we don’t see propaganda of living together of representatives of different ethnic groups, different cultures. Actually we have no propaganda of normal, tolerant inter-ethnic relations,” Svanidze says.
Speaking about the problem of migrants, he asks: “Do we have shows or movies which say that migrants are not absolute evil? We understand that we won’t do without them, that our economy won’t do without them. They are not guilty in the situation which has appeared, we should blame huge corruption, they are victims of corruption in our country as well. We have no positive views on migrants. We raise the negative attitude to them. We raise nationalism and think that radical nationalists reflect public opinion. But people are not idiots. If you explain them what good is and what bad it, they will understand this.”
