Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 10 – In many
respects, the most consequential and dangerous proposals for changing the
Russian Constitution are not those Vladimir Putin has made and that will certainly
be adopted but those made by others that are unlikely to be but that signal
where important elements in Russia stand and what they want in the future.
Among the latter, Gevorg Mirzayan
says, are calls to change the preamble, dropping the reference to “the multi-national
people” and inserting instead the words “ethnic Russians in union with other
fraternal peoples who are united into the multi-national people of the Russian
Federation by a common fate on their land” (snob.ru/entry/188623/).
Besides
the clumsiness and grammatically problematic quality of this formulation, as offered
by Konstantin Zatulin, the Snob commentator says, there are real
problems and even dangers. Not only does the deputy choose to use the word for
ethnic rather than non-ethnic Russians, but he thereby creates two classes of
people, the Russians and “the Untermenschen.”
The
grammar might be corrected, Mirzayan says, but the message can’t be, especially
as many of Zatulin’s supporters want exactly what his words entail, the
division of the population of the Russian Federation into two classes, the
first, which includes only the ethnic Russians, and the second, which includes
everyone else.
Moreover,
the problem is that Zatulin is not some marginal figure but “an extremely influential
federal politician and Duma deputy. And now he must take responsibility for his
poorly thought out amendment which as a result of Zatulin’s status has received
support from a number of government media outlets” and encouraged Russian
nationalists.
A
large part of the latter is “certain that the rights of ‘racially poor ethnic Russians’
on the territory of the Russian Federation are not only not respected but are
under attack. As a result, they absolutely support Zatulin’s amendment
precisely in the form in which he offered it, as a sign of the priority of
Russians over other ‘lesser peoples.’”
Numerous
commentators have come out in support of Zatulin’s words and condemned any criticism
of them as Russophobia. And that represents a problem and a threat even if as
seems certain there is absolutely no chance that his formulation will in fact
be adopted and included.
The
only positive aspect of Zatulin’s initiative, he continues, is that it may
attract the attention of the authorities to the dangers of “aggressive
nationalism,” Russian and non-Russian alike. If the authorities continue to
shut their eyes to this threat, they will soon see clashes like those now in
Kazakhstan (jamestown.org/program/threat-of-inter-ethnic-violence-emerges-in-kazakhstan/).
And in the Russian context, those “could
lead to the disintegration of the country.”
To prevent that, Mirzayan says, the
powers that be need to take four steps: First, they must block those with
radical views on ethnic questions from access to the federal media and remove
such people from institutions involved with inter-ethnic relations, including
Zatulin’s Institute for the CIS Countries.
Second, they must continue to press
for the adoption by all residents of Russia of the super-national identity of Rossiyane
while not forcing anyone to give up their own ethnic identities at the same
time. Third, they must involve religious groups like the Orthodox Church and
the Muslim leadership in this effort.
And fourth, “in the struggle with
aggressive nationalists must be included the Rossiyane themselves, the
masters of the multi-national country of Russia where any aggressive
nationalists mentally (not by passport but precisely in their minds) are only
guests” rather than full-fledged members of the community.
That is because “if we allow the
guests to impose their order in our house, then we will lose our home just as
we did as a result of the actions of these very same guests 30 years ago.”
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