Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 30 – Neither Russian
officials in Moscow nor the Russian embassy in Dushanbe have reacted to the
latest efforts by Tajikistan to de-Russianize that country, although as Andrey
Serenko points out, if Ukraine were doing the same thing, there would be
widespread expressions of Russian outrage.
In part, this is a reflection of
“the cynical quality of the double standards of Russian policy in the
post-Soviet space,” the political analyst writes on the Fergana portal, with
Moscow always keeping track of the removal of Lenin statues in Ukraine but
ignoring far more radical de-Sovietization and de-Russification elsewhere (fergananews.com/articles/8956).
But
in part, it reflects something a much larger development: Moscow’s loss of
influence over the media in Central Asia, a loss that has occurred because
Russian officials have proved incapable of working effectively with journalists
there and thus have conceded defeat without much of a fight, according to the Regnum
news agency (regnum.ru/news/polit/2126337.html).
Serenko
notes that the Tajiks took down the last memorial to Lenin in their country
already eight years ago and that last December they dismantled the
24-meter-high monument to Soviet power. If Ukraine had done this, the Russian
media which have accused Kyiv of fascism, but “in the case with Tajikistan,
there has been the silence of the grave.”
Nor
was there any Russian official reaction to the renaming of streets in the
Tajikistan capital, to the elimination of all Russian-language signs and
memorials, to the reduction of the number of hours of Russian language in the
schools, to the requirement that Tajiks use their national language in contacts
with officials, and to de-Russianizing their names.
This
last step and the absence of Russian reaction is especially troubling, Serenko
says, because it means that ethnic Russians like the Ivanovs, Petrovs or
Sidorovs who are Tajikistan citizens must either give up their Russian names or
become “de facto second class people
orthographically.”
“The
pragmatism of Russian policy in the near abroad, which is built on corrupt ties
and personal accords with narrow ruling groups and which ignores real work with
public opinion in the republics of the former USSR has already led to its
collapse in Ukraine,” Serenko says. If Moscow continues this approach, it is
going to lose its influence elsewhere as well.
In
an article on the Regnum news portal, Yevgeny Kim quotes Mikhail Petrushkov,
the former representative of Central Asia in the World Coordinating Council of
Russian Compatriots says this reflects the inability or unwillingness of
Russian officials in the embassies in Central Asia to work with the media in
order to ensure that Russian themes reach a broad audience.
According
to Petrushkov, who lives in Tajikistan, the Russian embassy in Dushanbe has
been anything but helpful to the local Russian community there and at the same
time doesn’t take kindly to any criticism of its shortcomings which have
contributed to Russia’s “surrender of positions” to anti-Russian and
pro-Western outlets since 1991.
“In
Tajikistan now,” he continues, “there is not a single pro-Russian media outlet
which gives the audience Moscow’s positions.”
And even those that sometimes publish pro-Moscow information also carry
things like interviews with the Ukrainian ambassador who is anything but polite
about Russia.
This
has consequences for Russia’s standing in Tajikistan, Petrushkov says. The
older generation still has warm feelings for Russia and Russians, but the
younger one “already does not see Russia as a friend.” More needs to be done with television – there
is only one Russian channel – and with the Internet.
And
it has to be careful about how it presents things. When Russians talk about the
advantages of Eurasian integration, they also need to point up “the minuses” involved
because “the worst thing of all is when expectations are raised and later are
proved to be false,” Petrushkov continues.
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