Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 25 – Khabarovsk has
become a kind of screen on which many Russians are projecting their own
expectations and fantasies, frequently assuming that everyone in the streets of
that Far Eastern city is there for the same reason and has the same convictions
Russians elsewhere want to see or fear, Ilya Latypov says.
But in reality, the Khabarovsk
psychologist points out, “people of a wide range of views” have joined the
protests. Many oppose Putin but some support him, and there are some who are
ready to get rid of both liberals and conservatives alike. When Russians
elsewhere see this, they are inclined to turn away from the Khabarovsk
protesters (sibreal.org/a/30746653.html).
Many Russians elsewhere want the
Khabarovsk action to be the precursor of a revolution or pogroms, especially if
the Khabarovsk people can bring about the changes without those who project
that image on them doing anything. Others fear what is happening in the city as
a harbinger of a return to the 1990s.
Perhaps the largest group of
Russians elsewhere, “formally support the residents of the city and kray who
have gone into the streets but in essence are projecting with all possible
force on us their own impotence.” They
sympathize but think that the people of Khabarovsk are being played by someone
outside and will ultimately be suppressed.
That view, of course, justifies the
inaction of other Russians, Latypov points out.
The powers that be in Moscow and
their media are promoting such dismissive attitudes because they do not want to
try to understand the underlying causes for the protests, causes much deeper
and more widely held than they can admit.
In this, the regime and its media display “a total lack of respect to
people who have decided to actively protest.”
“I don’t know how all this will end,”
the psychologist says. It may be that none of the protesters’ demands will be
met. Even with the support the city has had from elsewhere in the Russian Far
East, it is still isolated. However,
Khabarovsk residents are experiencing what it is to think for themselves and
organize their own actions, and that won’t be easily lost.
And in the process, they are
learning something else, to divide the world between “their own” and “the alien”
in new ways. ”Their own” are those who are furious about the arrest of Furgal
and welcome any protest, “the larger the better,” and they don’t care what
political views those willing to come into the street have.
“The alien,” on the other hand, are
those who oppose the meetings, including Moscow and local officials. “This polarization is intensifying, and now, it
is my sense,” Latypov continues, “the alien” includes anything connected with
Moscow, while the regional identity of Khabarovsk residents is becoming ever more
strongly held.
Ever more demonstrators are carrying
the Khabarovsk regional flag, although many continue to fly the Russian flag,
not because as some imagine, residents are identifying with the country as a
whole, but rather because people understand that “the roof of their problems is
in the federal center and Khabarovsk by itself can’t solve them.”
The arrival of the new governor
infuriated people not because of his own sometimes “extravagant” statements but
simply because he is “an outsider” and was appointed by “alien Moscow,” the
psychologist continues.
Several days ago protesters began
talking about the need for a regional party, only to find out that in Russia, the
formation of such parties is illegal; and that led many to recognize that today
“Russia is not a federation but a unitary country,” where governors can be
fired if they lose the trust of a single individual in the Moscow Kremlin.
But one thing is certain, Latypov
suggests by way of conclusion, the demands of people in Khabarovsk for
democracy and respect for regions “is not separatism but rather an effort to
promote the real federalization of the country.” Moscow doesn’t want that, they see; and so
they will remain in the streets.
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