VIEW POINT: RUSSIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANTS
Vladislav Inozemtsev
Central Chronicle, India
Nov 2 2006
Today, most Russians are beginning to think in a way that has almost
nothing to do with reality. They tend to view the world as full of
confrontation, hostility, rivalry and potential conflicts. This
ideology of conflict is a major characteristic of the Russian
political culture.
In their statements and policies, the majority of contemporary Russian
politicians mention certain external and internal forces that they
view as threats to the country and as obstacles to its progress.
These forces, however, have no names and no addresses. Though oblique
references to the US can sometimes be discerned in some speeches and
media reports, no one specifies exactly who these enemies or opponents
are, confining themselves instead to making general statements. They
hint that Russia’s failure to succeed is due to its foreign enemies,
or some unnamed, internal destructive forces.
The government has recently been debating a proposal to ban references
to a criminal’s nationality in media reports about his crimes,
which actually means the fewer details, the better. We do not want
to understand the roots of a problem. All we want is to emphasize
that certain problems do exist in Russian politics and that they have
been implanted in the Russian community by hostile forces to prevent
Russian politicians from doing their job. This is sad, I think,
because confrontational thinking at the grassroots level leads to
conflicts between ethnic groups. Meanwhile, a lot of the nation’s
problems, including xenophobia, could be solved if the government
were more transparent and receptive to criticism.
The events in Kondopoga (North-West Russia) were not just the
result of an escalation of hostility toward local Chechens and
other immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia; they were more
likely caused by the fact that some local Russians were aware of the
impotence of the local government and the police to protect them from
criminal groups. Although the law enforcement system is evolving in
Russia, its fundamental way of thinking is not. At the same time,
it is becoming increasingly corrupt and detached from society. This
provokes desperate measures on the part of ordinary people, some of
which transform into inter-ethnic clashes.
The idea that migrants from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova
and Ukraine account for a significant part of the nation’s economy
and that today they work for less money in sectors where Russians
themselves do not want to work is rarely made clear to the community.
More often broadcast are stories about criminal activity among guest
workers, while the press prefers to write about how much money they
send to their families back home. This disinformation, or at least
selective reporting, distorts Russians’ perceptions of these issues.
Little information can be obtained about developments in the majority
of Caucasian republics, especially Azerbaijan and Armenia. This
is perhaps mostly due to the fact that these countries have been
developing dynamically and that no bad news is coming out of Karabakh,
so there are few sensational items to report. Georgia, though, remains
in the media spotlight, which is wrong. An emphasis on disputes
makes one believe that the entire region is mired in conflict. The
escalation of tension makes the majority of Russians believe that the
Caucasus is a zone of perpetual wars that have forced Caucasians to
flee to Russia. The notion that these migrants are all refugees does
not cast them in a very favourable light and provokes hostility and
tension on both sides. Today, Russia fails to see the consequences
its policy may have. Russians constitute the bulk of the population
of Abkhazia, though how they obtained Russian passports remains
unknown. I think if a war breaks out between Georgia and Abkhazia,
residents of central Russia will not be happy to receive a million
Russians from the self-proclaimed republic carrying Russian passports,
nor would the latter be treated like compatriots. There is a dangerous
gap between political moves and the views of ordinary people.
