Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 25 – In a review of
the literature on the attitudes of young people toward members of other ethnic
groups, Aleksandr Skorik, a professor at the South Russian State Technical
University, says that research suggests that “Russian nationalism is far more
terrible than non-Russian extremism” as a source of problems.
In the latest issue of “Vlast,” a
journal of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Skorik stresses that the work of V. Markin and A. Rogovaya as well as his own
shows that “the dissemination of the ideology of extremism and terrorism has
touched not only national regions … but also places located far from sites of
inter-ethnic conflicts and open terrorism” (isras.ru/files/File/Vlast/2013/03/Skorik.pdf).
In
this research, he reports, investigators found that “the active nationalists”
among school-age children numbered five or six percent, but those often made
extremely harsh comments about North Caucasians. But of perhaps greater
concern, they found that more than four out of five pupils had latent negative
feelings about other nationalities.
As
a result, Skorik writes, “traditionally [ethnic] Russian districts and
provincial centers not infrequently are becoming dangerous for national
minorities who live there.” And that in turn means that the educational authorities
even in places where there have been no open conflicts must encourage tolerance
and the development of inter-ethnic communication early on.
That
message is especially important to send to educators and officials in places
that appear to be “stable” because such latent attitudes if unchecked can break
out into real conflicts, not only along religious and ethnic lines but also
between those who view themselves as “native” to the place against “arrivals”
from outside.
In his own work in Novocherkassk,
Skorik says he found that in the absence of such special training, “part of the
youth who are just beginning to enter the adult world already have prejudices
and are inclined not to establish positive contacts with representatives of
certain peoples.” If they are not prepared to do so while young, they are less
likely to do so later.
The existence of such attitudes
among young people, as Markin and Rogova point out, Skorik continues, can have
the effect of “drawing young people into the activities of extremist
organizations of a religious or political type and intensify the likelihood of
criminal activities” in the places where they live.
Moreover, he notes, “the growth of
protest attitudes” among young people may push them with all their “built-up
energy” to displace their anger at members of other nationalities and religion
and to attack “individual entrepreneurs and [other] innocent” residents of
their cities and villages.
It is time to recognize as his
fellow researchers do that “the existing system of educating young people in
the spirit of tolerance is insufficiently effective and to a large degree
purely formal” because it is limited to “declarations of the importance of
tolerance” rather than to giving content to that term.
There are psychological experts who
know how to promote tolerance, Skorik adds, noting that his own research showed
that after the psychologists worked in the schools, the students were far more
likely to view with understanding the customs and traditions of other
nationalities and thus to make friends across ethnic lines.
Consequently, Skorik adds, he “supports
the conclusions of [his] colleagues about the need to consolidate the efforts
of the Russian society and state in opposing ‘the dissemination of the ideology
of extremism and terrorism in various groups of the population [but] above all
among young people.’”
That is because “the formation of
positive inter-ethnic relations in an urban community must begin from an early
age in order to ensure in the future a reduction of the level of inter-ethnic
tension.” And it must continue with older groups so that the positive lessons
of childhood are reinforced rather than undermined.
No comments:
Post a Comment