Jamil Sadyhbekov: "Vestnik Kavkaza engage in dialogue with national associations"

On 4 November, Russia celebrates National Unity Day. On the eve of this day, chairman of the Commission on Information Policy of the Council for Nationalities under the Moscow Government Jamil Sadykhbekov told Vestnik Kavkaza about the work of national communities and their relations with the media.

- What does the Commission on information policy do?

- The Commission on information policy implements projects offered by national public associations. They are completely different, affecting all areas. The biggest problem is the dialogue between the federal media and national public associations. Journalists do not come to cover their events. Therefore, we offer educational projects - inviting journalists and telling interesting facts about the life of national associations, which, by the way, can be done at any media site.

Degree of tension in the media, covering international reduced a little, but it can be in a sort of a sleep mode. Therefore, we need to be ahead of all these events occurring on the Internet. Anything is possible online - insulting any nation, transforming any household conflict into interethnic one. We must resist it by common efforts. Vestnik Kavkaza cooperates with national associations, enters into a dialogue with them, while many federal media, unfortunately, ignore any invitation, any joint project.

- Maybe that's up to national associations, why is the media not interested in the format of their events?

- Maybe. Many events are held as corporate events - they hold them themselves, choosing guests. This applies to many ethnic media that write only about 'their' people. It is necessary to expand the boundaries and write about other nations. This is the only way to learn more about each other. However, more attention should be paid to educational work. Now many festivals and concerts are held, but I believe that education and enlightenment should come first. Therefore, we are implementing the project titled 'Multinational Moscow". We want national public associations to take part in large educational projects. One of them is the export of Russian education, when foreign students come to us. I think that it is precisely national public associations, including diasporas, that should be more actively engaged in their integration into our society.

- How many national cultural associations are in Moscow today?

- There are 19 federal organisations, and Moscow has about 40 of them. We have both local national-cultural autonomies and Moscow one in here. But we do not have a single electronic base of mass media. Sometimes an event takes place, and we don’t even know about it. Many do not have sites or other Internet resources. We must help them with it, then it will be easier to start a dialogue. If it works out, next week we together with Russia Today will start to conduct training for national non-governmental organizations, for journalists who are members of national non-governmental organizations.

- Work with national associations is also complicated by the fact that sometimes one nationality is represented by several associations...

- This is our biggest concern. I offered to perform an audit at national public associations through educational programs. When we will start inviting national public associations to study, the situation will become more transparent.