Russia must tackle militant nationalism-Tatar leader

reuters/alertnet ^ | 10/19/06 | Sujata Rao

[MarMema]

Russia is failing to tackle a resurgence of militant nationalism that has caused a wave of violence against ethnic and religious minorities, the president of Tatarstan, a mostly Muslim Russian region, said on Thursday.

Mintimer Shaimiyev, president of Tatarstan, an autonomous oil-rich republic located along the Volga river, said violent crimes by nationalists were going unpunished and could undermine Russian democracy in coming years. "Unfortunately Russia is facing this problem. Extreme forms of nationalism are manifesting themselves. Russian chauvinism is very dangerous in a multinational, multicultural country like ours," he told a news conference in London.

"Even the tiniest manifestation of chauvinism should be severely punished under law. Unfortunately this was not done from the start," Shaimiyev said, speaking in Russian.

Racially-motivated attacks against dark-skinned foreigners, Jews and nationals from poorer ex-Soviet states have become common in recent years. Human rights groups say Russia is failing to punish those responsible.

A bomb killed 10 people in a multi-ethnic Moscow market in August, marking a dramatic escalation in the violence by far-right militants against immigrants. Attacks on synagogues have also increased across the country.

President Vladimir Putin has urged law-enforcement agencies to step up the fight against racism but rights groups say his latest campaign to purge ethnic criminal gangs from markets and expulsions of illegal immigrants may deepen racist sentiment.

Shaimiyev urged courts to punish those responsible for violent nationalistic crimes.

"To attribute such crimes to hooliganism sets a very dangerous precedent. In recent days again some young extremist groups have been acquitted...the main reason in my view is trial by jury. I think such crimes should not be decided by juries," Shaimiyev said.

This week, a jury in St Petersburg acquitted 17 young men charged with killing a Vietnamese student.

"If this trend is not tackled, it will undermine our democracy," Shaimiyev said "Russia will pay a very high price." Tatarstan's population is more than half ethnic Tatar, most of whom are Muslim. Ethnic Russians comprise about 39 percent.

[RusIvan]

Tatarstan's population is more than half ethnic Tatar, most of whom are Muslim. Ethnic Russians comprise about 39 percent.==

Not true. In Tatarstan the tatar population is about less then half. They just for statistics forcedly included into Tatars the Kriashens (which is not Tatars) and half-bloods. Most half-bloods choose themselves as Russians.

[vargan]

Tatars are well-known for their own nationalizm, especially in Tatarstan where they are majority.

[RusIvan]

This week, a jury in St Petersburg acquitted 17 young men charged with killing a Vietnamese student. ==

Jury accquited them. So they arenot guilty and not suspects anymore.

[MarMema]

Swastika vigilantes kill foreign students to keep their city 'clean'

Sept 2003 Tajik girl, 5, beaten in St Petersburg

Feb 2004 Tajik girl, 9, stabbed

Mar 2004 Syrian student pushed in front of train

June 2004 Anti-Nazi campaigner shot dead

Oct 2004 Vietnamese student stabbed

Sept 2005 Congolese student beaten

Dec 2005 Cameroonian student stabbed

Feb 2006 Malian medical graduate stabbed

Apr 2006 Senegalese student shot

"I am outraged by the policy of our leaders, by the fact that they are doing nothing to fight fascist acts," Yury said. "I am outraged and I will demonstrate here against fascism. There should be a leadership of all democratic forces to make the whole nation rise and take part in such demonstrations; we need massive engagement and courage. There are no courageous people here, no responsible politicians."

A Timeline Of Recent Racial Incidents

March 25, 2006: A 9-year-old mixed-race girl beaten and stabbed in the face and neck in St Petersburg.

March 24, 2006: A 34-year-old Ghanaian man beaten up in the Kolpino suburb of St. Petersburg.

March 22, 2006: A Russian court finds eight defendants guilty of "hooliganism" in connection with the 2004 stabbing death of a 9-year-old Tajik girl in St. Petersburg. A ninth defendant is acquitted. The verdicts are described by activists as "a moral catastrophe."

February 5, 2006: A man from Mali was stabbed to death in St. Petersburg.

January 11, 2006: A 20-year-old skinhead burst into Moscow's main synagogue and stabbed eight people with a hunting knife before he was wrestled to the floor and disarmed. Twenty-one-year-old Moscow resident Aleksandr Koptsev was sentenced to 13 years in prison on March 27.

January 9, 2006: Several Sudanese citizens, graduates of the Voronezh Medical Academy, attacked. Voronezh has seen numerous racially motivated attacks in recent years, including the deaths of two foreign students. In 2005, citizens of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, China, Peru, and Rwanda reported attacks.

December 25, 2005: Kanhem Leon, a student from Cameroon, is stabbed to death by skinheads in St Petersburg.

November 13, 2005: Timur Kacharava, an antifascist philosophy student and musician, is stabbed to death by skinheads in St Petersburg.

October 9, 2005: A student from Peru is killed in Voronezh on October 9, 2005. A group of about 20 youngsters attacked the 18-year-old student and his friends.

March 28, 2005: Assailants in St. Petersburg attack Angolan, Bangladeshi, and Chinese students in three separate weekend incidents.

January 14, 2005: Two rabbis attacked and beaten in downtown Moscow.

October 14, 2004: A 20-year-old Vietnamese student is stabbed to death by skinheads in St Petersburg.

June 21, 2004: Nikolai Girenko, one of Russia’s leading experts on racism and xenophobia, is shot dead through the door of his apartment.

February 9, 2004: A gang of teenaged skinheads stabs to death a 9-year-old Tajik girl, Khursheda Sultonova, in St Petersburg.

[MarMema]

Nationalism and hatred of foreigners, he said, is the only ideology the current government is able to offer to Russians.

"In February 2004, a group of teenagers armed with chains, metal rods, and knives attacked 9-year-old Khursheda Sultonova near her home in St. Petersburg.

They stabbed her to death and savagely battered her father and her 11-year-old cousin. Yesterday, eight teenagers are on trial for the beating and stabbing of Khursheda Sultonova.

The hearings, which are expected to last until December, are closed to the public since half the defendants are minors.

[MarMema]

Twenty-year-old Vu Anh Tuan, a Vietnamese student at the St Petersburg Polytechnic University, was stabbed to death on 13 October 2004 as he was walking to a metro station in the city. His attackers were reportedly a group of about 18 youths with shaved heads, wearing black boots and black clothes. A criminal case was opened under Article 105 part 2 of the Criminal Code (murder carried out by a group). Students in St Petersburg organized demonstrations and meetings to protest against the authorities’ failure adequately to address the wave of racist violence in the city. Preliminary court proceedings in the murder of Vu Anh Tuan started on 1 February 2006 in St Petersburg. Fourteen of the defendants were charged with the murder of Vu Anh Tuan. The defendants were also charged with another six separate racist attacks in which four foreigners and two Russian citizens had been injured. However the proceedings were suspended on 28 March due to difficulties in appointing 18 members of the jury – while 64 potential candidates had been selected, the vast majority of them declined to participate, citing various reasons.

[MarMema]

Putin’s address shows that Russia has chosen a course towards militarization and sends out a clear signal to restore Soviet-era values and prepare for confrontation with the West.

In Russian intelligence circles, the United States is no longer called the glavny protivnik, or “main adversary,” as in Soviet days, said Oleg D. Kalugin, a former KGB general who worked as a spy in New York and Washington in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “Now, it is ’Priority No. 1.’

[T.L.Sink]

Scratch a Social Democrat and you'll see a Great Russian chauvinist - Lenin.

This has alway been a constant problem for Russia before and after the October Bolshevik Revolution. Prior to the Revolution Russian Marxists like Lenin were for national self-determination. Stalin was appointed Commissar of Nationalities.

Once in power they became more czarist than the czars in suppressing any nationalist aspirstions. They found it useful to use the pretext of Marxist "internationalism" to justify this ruthless and autocratic consolidation of their power.

The Russian Communist ideology proved to the world that when you claim that the end justifies the means -- the means soon becomes the end.

[RusIvan]

you'll see a Great Russian chauvinist - Lenin. ==

Lenin is "Russian chauvinist"?:)) Nothing is farther form truth. Did you read his book "About national pride of vilikorosses(Russians)". In this book he stated that for sake of Great Socialist Revolution the national pride of Russians should be CRUSHED. He established the theoretical base for destroying Russianry in Russia and build on it the hios new creation: Soviet Union the state which is not even carry word "Russia" in its name.

Lenin then his successor Stalin were the Great Anti-Russians.

Today Russia came to her the national identity very slow bit by bit. And as before those who fears it cry out loud about it.

[RusIvan]

There wre court trials about those 2 cases before jury. The suspects were accquitted. The court is adjourned.
The "jury court" is the new invention took from US judicial system.

You post only one anti-russian side. You are very biased.

[MarMema]

You are very biased.

Where is the other side? Even Russian media is writing a lot about racism and neo nazi violence.

[T.L.Sink]

You misunderstand this famous remark by Lenin. He was not referring to himself but the fact that many Social Democrats (Russian Marxists) were, despite their professions to the contrary, influenced by Russian nationalism.

This is not my interpretation but that of many historians and Soviet specialists. Bertram Wolfe, Robt. Conquest, and Robt. Service, to cite just a few.

[RusIvan]

Where is the other side? Even Russian media is writing a lot about racism and neo nazi violence.==

I walk streets of Moscow and do not see no neo-nazists. It is just the myth created with only one purpose to slow down the process of nathional self-consciousness of Russians.

Yes Russia moves from internationalism when she allowed the hostile foreigners (like Georgians) to "flourish on her fields", to national egocentrism when Russians help only Russians. Anyone else we accept only if it profits us. I see now how those who parasited on Russia suddently became very concerned with russian nationalism:).

You know Marmema that during 1990th about 200 thousands of Russians fled from Georgia. It is teh subborn fact. I know personally 2 families here in Moscow who fled form regime of Ghumsokhurdia (Do you know who he is? You should kno wif you claim tah you know even modern history of Georgia). No one no human rights watchers or no journalists said the word about it!

Now Russia expells only few thousands of Georgian illegals, the aliens from country which openly do the war-like hostile acts toward Russia, but see how much shit starts flying around. That is I call the anti-russian bias.

[RusIvan]

He was not referring to himself but the fact that many Social Democrats (Russian Marxists) were, despite their professions to the contrary, influenced by Russian nationalism. ==

The fact?:) Those who demolished Russian churches and killed priests were "influenced by Russian nationalism"? It is very funny:)).

They were influenced by SOVIET gegemonism, I won't disagree with it. But Russian nationalism was the sworn enemy of soviet communists. So they tried to destroy it all teh history of USSR.

[Thunder90]

Nationalism has to be coupled with Marxism-Leninism to reach the largest popluation. That is why I feel that NBP has the largest chance of success. Limonov's party has seen growth lately, because both nationalists and communists see common ground with the NBP and Limonov.

[Thunder90]

Even though the Russian state pretends to really hate the NBP, Limonov gets off very easy when it comes time for sentencing by Russian prosecutors.

[asd145]

Not quite so. NBP underwent several splits recently. Limonov himself drifted very close to pro-US "liberal" opposition - Kasparov, Kasyanov, Sattarov, etc.

[asd145]

February 9, 2004: A gang of teenaged skinheads stabs to death a 9-year-old Tajik girl, Khursheda Sultonova, in St Petersburg. Lie. She was basically a victim of a Tajik drug dealer, who hired a few criminals (none of them a skinhead) to beat up the family of his competitor Tajik drug dealer. Most of other news are similar crap.

[vargan]

Take a look at this: http://www.exile.ru/2006-September-08/get_the_hell_outta_here.html

quote:
The rising tide of nationalism and ethnic tension is a popular political subject today. When it comes to ethnic tension in Russia, the western and liberal media have only one version applicable to all such cases, without any exception: Russians are always to blame, period. In every conflict involving ethnic relations, no matter who started or who was the victim, it's "xenophobic attitudes" by Russians, "mobs of skinheads" allegedly manipulated by authorities, that are behind it all. One can hardly find any mention of criminal violence perpetrated by Tajik, Azeri, or Chechen immigrants (of which there is plenty), but whenever a dark-skinned immigrant is knifed or beaten on Russian streets, the story gets flogged and replayed over and over as proof of evil Russian chauvinism.

[MarMema]

And the Georgian who was beaten and his art gallery destroyed in Moscow was just a coincidence?

[vargan]

>And the Georgian who was beaten
Marat Guelman is hardly Georgian

>and his art gallery destroyed in Moscow was just a coincidence?
There are groups that can do such things. Some of them are christian extremists: http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1521
From my perspective, this could be done by the same S.P.A.S. people. They are trying to get attention on their group, probably.

[vargan]

Speaking of nationalism, i would like to see it in peaceful way. Kind of "You don't like these people? Don't buy their goods, don't hire them, don't work for them, refuse to do business with them. Don't use force."

[Clemenza]

"Scratch a Russian, find a Tatar."

[vargan]

BTW, Guelman just stated that it would take just five days to repair everything. Hardly this could be called "destroyed". Nevertheless, what has been done is barbaic act.

[vargan]

There is simple explanation to our different views on immigration:
While you live in country established by immigrants who partially exterminated, and partially put into reservations native population,
I am living in country where nations live where they belong, and don't like when aliens come and try to change lifestyle, or push natives out. If you travel Russia, from west to east, by car, you'd see that Russian names and words somewhere are used together with kalmyk, tatar, udmurt, bashkir and others. Sometimes even only local names are used, and people speak mostly local languages of turk or finn-ugr ancestry, having nothing common with slavic tonques.