Grigory Pasko: Rascism in Russia
About the national pride of the Great Russians… Grigory Pasko, journalist Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. I have already written an article with such a name in our blog. The previous time I was talking about the ability of Russians, who have such a rich and in many ways heroic past, to easily and wordlessly agree to being governed by thieves, crooks, enviers, cowards, liars, etc. This time, let’s talk about the attitude of Russians towards non-Russians – those entrants of whom in Russia there are – millions (in Moscow – hundreds of thousands). For the year 2009, Moscow has requested of the Federal Migrational Service to allow it to increase the quota of admission of foreign workers (in the main from the republics of Central Asia and Moldavia) from 300 to 500 thousand persons. Now, closer to the start of the new year, what is already being spoken of is to increase even this number, say, to 800 thousand. A Central Asian migrant in Moscow (photo by Grigory Pasko)
Makes perfect sense – Moscow is building itself, expanding itself, it needs more hands to work. Moreover, not only at construction sites, but also in the sphere of services. For a long time already the street sweepers in my district – are Tadjiks; the salespersons in neighborhood stores – people of different nationalities; the repair of watches and small household things – this too is not for native Muscovites… Such a picture is observed not for the first year already, however to this day normal civilized migrational legislation in the country does not exist. Hence, by the way, such a large number of illegal migrants. Although it has been known for a long time – the best method of collective struggle with illegal immigration is – its legalization.I often see on the doors to apartment buildings and in newspapers announcement of such a kind: financially solvent decent RUSSIAN family will rent an apartment; decent family of RUSSIANS will rent a room; a 1-room apartment will be rented by a family couple, RUSSIANS…(see photo below).If that’s not nationalism, what is it?
Apartment ads in the newspaper «Moy rayon» (photo by Grigory Pasko)
The powers of Russia pretend that problems on nationality grounds in the country do not exist. Through the lips of the police and procuratorial workers they assert: yes, there are individual groups of skinkhedy [skinheads] that occasionally do kill someone or other of those entrants. But such groups of nationalists-chauvinists exist in other countries as well. And they kill people there too.Yes, this is so. But in other countries they talk and write loudly about this; they conduct court trials openly; they toughen up the laws, not trying to smooth over and conceal the problem.In Russia, nationalism exists on common everyday grounds. My son told me that in his class they call a non-Russian boy (my apologies…) “black-ass.” And everybody thinks it’s funny. In my family, we teach the child that this is horrible – to talk like that and to act like that in relation to a person whose skin is of a different color. Aren’t there many parents like that?And the leadership of the country too knows well how to prepare the ground for nationalism at the common everyday level. According to the surveys of sociologists, after the Georgian-Russian conflict the hostile attitude of Russians towards Georgians increased nearly twofold. And recently, after the murder of the oppositioneer Yevloyev in Ingushetia, Moscow policemen started gathering the data of just about every Ingush living in the capital. No doubt the same thing will start now after the murder in Moscow of former State Duma deputy Ruslan Yamadayev in relation to Chechens as well.I recall with what creativity and rapture Soviet propaganda wrote and spoke about nationalism in the USA. There were talents of a sort on this front. Where are they now, when nationalism has arrived and burst into full bloom in Russia?How not to recall here the words of Andrei Sakharov, written by him in the year 1972: “Our society is infected by apathy, hypocrisy, philistine egoism, latent cruelty. The majority of the representatives of its top layer – of the party-state apparat of administration, of the higher prosperous strata of the intelligentsia – cling tenaciously to their open and secret privileges and are deeply apathetic towards violations of human rights…“
