By Vestnik Kavkaza
The problem of an attitude toward migrants in Russia, which is a headache for the society, the authorities, and migrants themselves, are thought to be a part of the general problem of nationalism by experts.
“We face the problem and see that neither society nor the elite nor the state has a clear strategy. It is absolutely obvious that if it goes on like that, we will move toward an anti-Russian trend which is disastrous for our country,” Sergei Karaganov, the representative of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, thinks. “I would declare any nationalism of minor nations – Tatar, Ingush, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian – a crime against the people. And I would launch a punishment for propaganda of nationalism. It is a real crime against native values, root, basic things which Russia has been built on. Russia has been formed as a bouquet and a melting pot of nations. It is a millennium history. That’s why we have survived. If we destroy this, we are dead.”
According to Karaganov, “the problem is that we lost our way in broad daylight and try to build patriotism in the situation when a big part and elite of population are non-patriotic, nationalistic. I tell you in this case we can say goodbye to our country for the second time in recent 25 years. We got the country with a lower level of nationalism, but due to the criminal policy of the communist regime which ethnically divided the country, it was vicious for the Russian state, and we came to 1991. But the level of nationalism was much lower in 1991. If we get it today, we will see the dissolution of the country in all directions.”
Leokadia Drobijeva, the head of the Center for the Study of International Relations of the Sociology Institute of the RAS, tried to explain the reasons for the developments: “Russia takes second place after the U.S. for the number of migrants and inter-cultural contacts. The inflow was quick and the population hasn’t always been happy about it; and now we have very unfavorable data that people feel annoyance when they communicate with people of different nationalities. The figure is awful, but it is declared not only by the Sociology Institute, but also by the Levada Center – more than 60% of people say they are annoyed by this, and it is a real problem.”
Drobijeva stated that “this issue is becoming a security problem of the country; and “the Russian March” of this year confirmed this. It is not just a problem of the approach to other people, people of a different nationality and culture, but a problem of the self-identity of the majority and how people will react to new challenges – it is a security issue, an issue of the state structure of the country. Those who deal with these problems see how people’s attitude toward these principles of the state structure are changing. According to our constitution, Russia is a home to various nations, a multinational country. And we ask people whether they believe that Russia is a multinational country and all people of different nations have equal rights, and in 1994 65% responded positively; today only 41-42% people think so. Today they say that the Russians should have special rights. In the republics, the trends are different. 80-90% of not only Tatars, Bashkirs, Yakuts, but also Russians in the republics say: “No, all nations are equal, and Russia is our common home.”
According to Drobijeva, “the older generation still lives in a situation of Soviet ideas, and they don’t say that Russia is not for everyone, that people are unequal; but those who underwent the tragic situation of the late 1990s represent the most worrying generation. However, they also don’t want to say that people are unequal, as it is rude. But young people do say this.”
According to Professor of RSUH, Lyudmila Adilova, “there is a gap between a theoretic level of perceiving the idea of tolerance and its practical fulfillment in Russia, Europe, the U.S.A., wherever. The model of projective tolerance which had been purposefully implemented in Russia didn’t catch up because it was alien to us. We have an absolutely different cultural tradition, absolutely different political and social practices; and so the projective tolerance model didn’t catch up in Russia. It caught up in Kazakhstan for two reasons – it was implemented purposefully either at theoretical or practical level. Kazakhstan used to be a lab of people’s friendship in the Soviet Union.”
According to Adilova, the Kazakhstan model “was implemented in practice purposefully and steadily, considering the Soviet positive experience of establishing a common social and national area. To consolidate the Kazakhstan nation, structures of forming Kazakhstan identity were well-thought, not Kazakh, but Kazakhstan identity where Cossacks, Russians, Ukrainians, Uigurs, and so on gathered in a community of Kazakhstan citizens.
Meanwhile, we were not offered practical mechanisms of implementation of tolerance by the West. So, today we see a huge gap between theory and practice of the idea.”
