The hatred parade
5/11/13 21:32![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsBack in 2004 a new holiday was introduced in Russia. Unity Day. November 4 was chosen for that great occasion, and the idea was to celebrate the victory of the Russian resistance against the Polish occupation of Moscow in 1612. Well, turns out most Russians remain completely indifferent to this holiday. What's more, for many Russians the introduction of this new holiday might be interpreted as an attempt to remove some emphasis away from the Day of the October Revolution, November 7 (the most revered holiday in Soviet times).
So it's no surprise that the far-right extremists in Russia have now usurped Unity Day for their own purposes. Granted, the authorities have had no clear concept about this holiday since day one, and the nationalists have eagerly seized that opportunity and practically appropriated the occasion.
Thus, cometh the so called "Russian parades", which are being held for several years on November 4, and which have become the central event in the calendar of the Russian nationalist. On this day the black-yellow-white imperial banners of the 19th century are paraded by various neo-Nazi groups. Some swastikas could be spotted on those marches as well, and the participants usually don't shy away from displaying the Nazi salute. And this is happening in the country that suffered immeasurable losses to the hands of those same Nazis that these youngsters are now worshiping. Wonders never cease indeed.
This year was no exception. The now traditional "Russian parade" of the far-right nationalists took place in Lyublino, a Moscow suburb, and there were the familiar angry faces (some behind masks), hateful slogans directed against immigrants, and calls for "protecting Russia's indigenous population" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and all that. It could all be read well in advance around the relevant Internet forums and social networks. No surprise there. In the past, such events always ended with violence, where drunken Russian extremists would organize street "witch hunts". There would often be injured people, even deaths. Most casualties tended to be migrants from Central Asia and Caucasus who've come to Russia looking for jobs. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new here.
It's a fact that Moscow is a magnet for lots of people from the former Soviet republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, or Georgia. They often work illegally at some construction site or a fast food restaurant or some such. Many Russians blame the immigrants for the rising crime rates in their country. There've been a series of police campaigns where scores of immigrants have been detained, all of these loudly heralded around the state-friendly media.
This year the moods among the extremist nationalists have been particularly inflammable. In October, the murder of a young Russian in the Muscovite suburb of Biryulevo (which was ascribed to an Azeri), resulted in mass riots. Hundreds of Russians stormed a bazaar where lots of migrants work, and the street clashes with the police lasted for hours. This, and the October suicide attack on a bus in the southern city of Volgograd where a female kamikaze from Dagestan blew herself up, only added more fuel to the fire.
Putin often claims that Russia is a multiethnic, multicultural and mulgireligious society, but at the same time he tolerates the Great Russian rhetoric of the Orthodox Church and some state institutions. In turn, the police has a great deal to do with the thriving xenophobic moods among the Russians, many human rights organizations accusing them of being too coy in their reaction to the manifestations of extreme xenophobia, and basically "mainly focusing on catching ultranationalists and racists expressing their views online, while ignoring violence against ethnic and sexual minorities on the streets".
There's a striking similarity between these pogroms and what used to happen some 100 years ago in Russia. They, in their large part, are just like a century ago, a consequence of the attempts of the rulers to solve their problems at the expense of foreigners and non-Christians. So they are directing people's anger toward them.
But in all fairness, lots of Muscovites are critical of the authorities as well. Initially, the police used force against the rampaging protesters in Biryulovo, but a day later they made mass arrests of immigrants, in order to find out if any of them were involved in crimes, any crimes. This was largely interpreted as a PR stunt, and an attempt for damage control that was too little, too late.
The thing is, in fact the Russian economy desperately needs the immigrants - they clean the streets in Moscow, they work in the thriving construction sector, and they do all sorts of menial jobs in a myriad of industries and services that Russians simply wouldn't do, either because they consider them to be "beneath" them, or because of the low pay. The Muscovites have this ironic name for their city, "Moskvabad", a pun related to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
There are about 11 million immigrants currently residing in Russia, according to data from the Federal migration services. Of which, 3.5 are illegals. Meanwhile, there's no official statistical breakdown to indicate how many are from North Caucasus (like Chechens and Dagestani), as all of these have actual Russian passports (these republics are autonomous regions within the Russian Federation). There's no clear idea of the actual number of immigrants within Moscow itself, either.
Nevertheless, it's evident that Russia has a dire need of migrant workers. The country's population has been dwindling for decades. Russia practically loses about a million of able workers every year, and these gaps simply cannot be filled solely with imported labor from abroad.
In other words, Russians may hate the guest workers in their guts, but they have to face the fact that they just couldn't cope without them. What's worse, there's still no trace of anything resembling an adequate immigration and integration policy. And until this is changed, the relations between the "indigenous" folks and the migrants would continue to deteriorate, and will remain marked by deep prejudices, distrust, hatred, and violence. And who would be happy from such an outcome? Most probably, those politicians who are able to skillfully exploit these processes to their benefit, especially during election time.
So it's no surprise that the far-right extremists in Russia have now usurped Unity Day for their own purposes. Granted, the authorities have had no clear concept about this holiday since day one, and the nationalists have eagerly seized that opportunity and practically appropriated the occasion.
Thus, cometh the so called "Russian parades", which are being held for several years on November 4, and which have become the central event in the calendar of the Russian nationalist. On this day the black-yellow-white imperial banners of the 19th century are paraded by various neo-Nazi groups. Some swastikas could be spotted on those marches as well, and the participants usually don't shy away from displaying the Nazi salute. And this is happening in the country that suffered immeasurable losses to the hands of those same Nazis that these youngsters are now worshiping. Wonders never cease indeed.
This year was no exception. The now traditional "Russian parade" of the far-right nationalists took place in Lyublino, a Moscow suburb, and there were the familiar angry faces (some behind masks), hateful slogans directed against immigrants, and calls for "protecting Russia's indigenous population" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and all that. It could all be read well in advance around the relevant Internet forums and social networks. No surprise there. In the past, such events always ended with violence, where drunken Russian extremists would organize street "witch hunts". There would often be injured people, even deaths. Most casualties tended to be migrants from Central Asia and Caucasus who've come to Russia looking for jobs. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new here.
It's a fact that Moscow is a magnet for lots of people from the former Soviet republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, or Georgia. They often work illegally at some construction site or a fast food restaurant or some such. Many Russians blame the immigrants for the rising crime rates in their country. There've been a series of police campaigns where scores of immigrants have been detained, all of these loudly heralded around the state-friendly media.
This year the moods among the extremist nationalists have been particularly inflammable. In October, the murder of a young Russian in the Muscovite suburb of Biryulevo (which was ascribed to an Azeri), resulted in mass riots. Hundreds of Russians stormed a bazaar where lots of migrants work, and the street clashes with the police lasted for hours. This, and the October suicide attack on a bus in the southern city of Volgograd where a female kamikaze from Dagestan blew herself up, only added more fuel to the fire.
Putin often claims that Russia is a multiethnic, multicultural and mulgireligious society, but at the same time he tolerates the Great Russian rhetoric of the Orthodox Church and some state institutions. In turn, the police has a great deal to do with the thriving xenophobic moods among the Russians, many human rights organizations accusing them of being too coy in their reaction to the manifestations of extreme xenophobia, and basically "mainly focusing on catching ultranationalists and racists expressing their views online, while ignoring violence against ethnic and sexual minorities on the streets".
There's a striking similarity between these pogroms and what used to happen some 100 years ago in Russia. They, in their large part, are just like a century ago, a consequence of the attempts of the rulers to solve their problems at the expense of foreigners and non-Christians. So they are directing people's anger toward them.
But in all fairness, lots of Muscovites are critical of the authorities as well. Initially, the police used force against the rampaging protesters in Biryulovo, but a day later they made mass arrests of immigrants, in order to find out if any of them were involved in crimes, any crimes. This was largely interpreted as a PR stunt, and an attempt for damage control that was too little, too late.
The thing is, in fact the Russian economy desperately needs the immigrants - they clean the streets in Moscow, they work in the thriving construction sector, and they do all sorts of menial jobs in a myriad of industries and services that Russians simply wouldn't do, either because they consider them to be "beneath" them, or because of the low pay. The Muscovites have this ironic name for their city, "Moskvabad", a pun related to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
There are about 11 million immigrants currently residing in Russia, according to data from the Federal migration services. Of which, 3.5 are illegals. Meanwhile, there's no official statistical breakdown to indicate how many are from North Caucasus (like Chechens and Dagestani), as all of these have actual Russian passports (these republics are autonomous regions within the Russian Federation). There's no clear idea of the actual number of immigrants within Moscow itself, either.
Nevertheless, it's evident that Russia has a dire need of migrant workers. The country's population has been dwindling for decades. Russia practically loses about a million of able workers every year, and these gaps simply cannot be filled solely with imported labor from abroad.
In other words, Russians may hate the guest workers in their guts, but they have to face the fact that they just couldn't cope without them. What's worse, there's still no trace of anything resembling an adequate immigration and integration policy. And until this is changed, the relations between the "indigenous" folks and the migrants would continue to deteriorate, and will remain marked by deep prejudices, distrust, hatred, and violence. And who would be happy from such an outcome? Most probably, those politicians who are able to skillfully exploit these processes to their benefit, especially during election time.
