Kumyk Activist Wants Non-Russians to Launch a ‘Black Lives Matter’-Style Movement against Liberals and Putin Regime

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 11 – Not only have Russian liberals reacted more negatively than the Kremlin to the meeting of the Forum of the Free Peoples of Post-Russia in Brussels, Kharun Sidorov says; but their negative comments have provoked responses from the non-Russian and regional activists that show just how deep the divide between the two camps now is.

            The Prague commentator points out that the comments of Russian liberals were so hostile and dismissive – they labeled those at the Brussels meetings “freaks” and denounced them for helping Putin by raising the specter Russia is about to fall apart make it entirely understandable that regionalists and non-Russians have reacted so strongly (idelreal.org/a/32266000.html).

            Just how angry many non-Russians are about these liberal attacks is reflected in comments by the Free Kumykia telegram channel (t.me/freeQMQ/651) and by the words of Oyrat-Kalmyk activist Daavr Dorzhin both on his telegram channel and in an article posted on Kasparov.ru (t.me/daavrta/595 and kasparovru.com/material.php?id=63E28EC7A8162).

            The Free Kumykia telegram channels says in response to liberal criticism that “we must not miss the chance to finally shut up the Russian opposition on the issue of the indigenous peoples. They have gotten used to the idea that if they oppose the regime, then they can do anything they like.”

            “Any attack on us must end with the literal cancellation of such politicians: we must have our own BLM because Non-Russian lives matter! Those who think otherwise and spew racism against us must be forced to fall to their knees, and non-Russians must convince the West that the Russian opposition only wants to get rid of Putin rather than change the system.”

            Russian liberals, the telegram channel says, “want to continue to hold their racism views on us with impunity.” We must react and do so vigorously … Just imagine for a second what Jewish communities would do if anything similar were said against them. They would do the right thing. And we should do the same.”

            In his article, “They Want to Return to February 23” but not change the system, Dorzhin makes similar points. He says that both Russian liberals believe that “Russia is a single entity and that the people living in Bryansk, Petrozavodsk, Elisa and Kyzyl are one people. How this differs from the conception of late Putinism regarding Ukraine and Belarus isn’t clear.”

            Such people seem to think that only “the wisdom” of Russians in the capital is capable of saving “us non-Russian uncivilized savages from a war of all against all, as if we were incapable of agreements or incapable of creating our own states.” That is nonsense, and those who hold such views must be denounced.