Paul Goble
Staunton, May 31 – Neither repression by Moscow and Ufa or a massive propaganda effort by companies that want to mine the natural resources of the Urals has been able to stop or even seriously reduce the size of environmental protests in Bashkortostan, the Middle Volga republic which has been the site of the largest demonstrations inside Russia in recent years.
Bashkortostan’s environmental movement has not gotten the attention it deserves not only because it is about something that the Russian government and many analysts call “non-political” because it is not directed in the first instance against Russia’s current leaders but also because the Bashkirs have long attracted less attention that the neighboring Tatars.
But the longer the protests continue – and they have been taking place since the last decade – the more important and more political they are becoming, something that has forced Moscow and the companies allied with it to change tactics but without achieving any of the successes they hoped for.
Initially, Moscow and Ufa sought to end the protests through the use of police power, arresting those who took part and imposing draconian sentences. But that effort has backfired, leading many Bashkirs to look at the victims of injustice as not just environmental but national heroes.
So as a result, the government and the companies which want to despoil the land of Bashkortostan to get at the mineral wealth of the Urals have launched a major propaganda effort, trying to wean away the least committed activists and thus reduce the challenge these protests represent.
But as IdelReal journalists report, this effort is backfiring as well. While some may be listening to the propagandists, far more are standing up online and in the streets against them and their efforts to suppress this movement, something that almost certainly will make it even more political in the future (idelreal.org/a/33427450.html).
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