If it still remains a secret for anyone, Russian people are deeply racist and grossly intolerant. A recent survey showed that while Russians are largely tolerant toward migrants from Ukraine and Moldova, they dislike migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Basically, it is not so much the problem of "taking away" their jobs but a problem of racial aversion that is an integral part of modern Russian culture. Ten per cent of respondents in this survey said they support the actions of skinheads, which are routine attacks, brutal harassment and sometimes even killings of Asian migrants (both Asian Russian and foreigners). In any civilized country, such findings would ring alarm about a moral decay or, as the French like to say, identity crisis. In ours, no. It's a matter of quotidian practice that minorities are harassed and intimidated and the silently aggressive majority backs them.
Just last weekend, scores protested in Moscow against decorated Chechen martial artist Rasul Mirzaev. Mirzaev last summer killed a Russian guy in a nightclub fight. While killing in a fight is of course a crime that can never go unpunished, in the Russian collective consciousness, it takes on profoundly racist undertones. "It is a CHECHEN man who attacked our RUSSIAN guy, it's an attack on our culture, values, existence... Soon they, aggressive and culturally alien minorities, will take over this country and eliminate us..." In their collective psyche, we will always be this alien "other", a threat by definition. We will never be recognized as part of the country, no matter how we try. The only idea that effectively galvanizes Russian people nowadays is that of ethnic Russian nationalism, aversion to minorities and a dangerously misleading sentiment that their existence is under threat. Government response? Putin's increasingly populist tenor. In one of his six election platform papers, he specifically elaborated on the "national issue" in Russia (read "ethnic" because in the Russian language, "national" is closer in meaning to "ethnic" but nation-state). Instead of unequivocally condemning these acts of hatred, he speaks about toughening laws against "internal migrants" (a euphemism that signifies any Russian person who is not white - read the North Caucasus and Kalmykia). He reiterates a million times throughout the article that "Russian ethnos" is the core of the state and needs to be preserved. He warns against the threat of regional separatism and parochial ethnic nationalism, which he doesn't hesitate to say contradicts the spirit of the constitution (let's remind the former and future president that our constitution starts with Russia as a multi-ethnic state and any calls for "racial purity" that resounded in recent and last year's protests are equally anti-constitutional).
More disturbingly, in his dangerously vague language, he gives a license to kill minorities by justifying this surge in racial hatred. Putin says that "when in Russia, some people talk about violating the rights of ethnic Russian people in historically Russian land, it means that state structures are not able to fulfill their primary task - to protect the life, rights and security of its citizens". So the government has failed to protect ethnic Russians, and that is the root of the ever-growing racial aversion. Is it legitimate, justified and simply morally permissible to harass or kill a person just because of his/her color? Putin does not give an answer. Instead, he prefers to evoke the contentious and empty concepts of "cultural and behaviorial incompatibility" of "some internal migrants" who come to Moscow. Way to go Mr President, the guarantor of the constitution.....
Just last weekend, scores protested in Moscow against decorated Chechen martial artist Rasul Mirzaev. Mirzaev last summer killed a Russian guy in a nightclub fight. While killing in a fight is of course a crime that can never go unpunished, in the Russian collective consciousness, it takes on profoundly racist undertones. "It is a CHECHEN man who attacked our RUSSIAN guy, it's an attack on our culture, values, existence... Soon they, aggressive and culturally alien minorities, will take over this country and eliminate us..." In their collective psyche, we will always be this alien "other", a threat by definition. We will never be recognized as part of the country, no matter how we try. The only idea that effectively galvanizes Russian people nowadays is that of ethnic Russian nationalism, aversion to minorities and a dangerously misleading sentiment that their existence is under threat. Government response? Putin's increasingly populist tenor. In one of his six election platform papers, he specifically elaborated on the "national issue" in Russia (read "ethnic" because in the Russian language, "national" is closer in meaning to "ethnic" but nation-state). Instead of unequivocally condemning these acts of hatred, he speaks about toughening laws against "internal migrants" (a euphemism that signifies any Russian person who is not white - read the North Caucasus and Kalmykia). He reiterates a million times throughout the article that "Russian ethnos" is the core of the state and needs to be preserved. He warns against the threat of regional separatism and parochial ethnic nationalism, which he doesn't hesitate to say contradicts the spirit of the constitution (let's remind the former and future president that our constitution starts with Russia as a multi-ethnic state and any calls for "racial purity" that resounded in recent and last year's protests are equally anti-constitutional).
More disturbingly, in his dangerously vague language, he gives a license to kill minorities by justifying this surge in racial hatred. Putin says that "when in Russia, some people talk about violating the rights of ethnic Russian people in historically Russian land, it means that state structures are not able to fulfill their primary task - to protect the life, rights and security of its citizens". So the government has failed to protect ethnic Russians, and that is the root of the ever-growing racial aversion. Is it legitimate, justified and simply morally permissible to harass or kill a person just because of his/her color? Putin does not give an answer. Instead, he prefers to evoke the contentious and empty concepts of "cultural and behaviorial incompatibility" of "some internal migrants" who come to Moscow. Way to go Mr President, the guarantor of the constitution.....
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