This summer at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, President Putin underlined the need to intensify efforts to strengthen interethnic peace in the country. He urged authorities to "work on strengthening a well-balanced migration policy, take strict actions in cases of inactivity of officials or crimes that may be triggered by conflicts on ethnic grounds." "It is up to civil society to provide effective aid in the improvement of the system of state management in the sphere of ethnic policy. And most importantly - in the education of young people in the spirit of patriotism and responsibility for the fate of the motherland," the president said.
Chairman of the Public Chamber for Interethnic and Interfaith Relations Iosif Diskin also considers ethnic and religious conflicts to be a strategic threat and believes that the reasons for them are both internal and external.
The latter is the position of the United States. According to Diskin, the US believes that it is necessary to divide what can be divided. "The goal is to split the sculpture of the country along religious lines. "Clash of Civilizations" (a historical and philosophical treatise by Samuel Huntington, dedicated to the world after the Cold War - Vestnik Kavkaza) is not very appropriate in scientific terms, but in terms of a base for special operations it is quite valid. The injection of interethnic and interreligious relations, their transformation into invincible barriers between people who yesterday were good neighbours, who shared their culture, who were not afraid of mixed marriages, is indeed a great strategy," Diskin said.
The internal causes for worsening of interethnic and interfaith relations is, according to Diskin, the fact that Russia has experienced a half-century-long process of social transformation, which changed the very foundation of the Russian society, but which is now coming to an end. "The place of a common ideology and traditional Russian values, such as reverence for parents, reverence for teachers, professors and seniors, is being taken by new mechanisms of social regulation. During their socialization, people are starting to choose values which correspond to them personally," the expert said.
Diskin said that 20 years ago it was Russian writers and academics such as Solzhenitsyn and Likhachev who served as authority figures for Russians, but now the situation is changing and people are beginning to look for what is the most approximate - for religion and ethnicity. "Russia is experiencing a great religious revival. This has been a real support for many people. However, neophytes always tend to exaggerate the role of their national and religious affiliation. This issue is easy to manipulate. This war should be fought not only by law enforcement, this war should be fought for the hearts and minds of young people," Diskin said.
