Examples of ethnic hatred in the former USSR
Speaking of interethnic disunity, it is worth paying attention to the roots of its manifestation. Does it arise on economic grounds or is it a tool for raising some politicians over others? The national question today determines the maturity of society. If grain of racial, national, confessional discord appears on the territory of the state, then sooner or later it will, at best, lead to a change in the country's leadership, at worst - to its fragmentation, accompanied by bloody strife. On the territory of the former Soviet Union, a sufficient number of states emerged in which the national question surfaced. Let us try to figure out what the growth of interethnic tension in the life of modern society depends on. There are several judgments on this score, the main one of which tells us that the higher the level of welfare of the state and the higher the level of education, the less chance there is to cultivate interethnic and interfaith strife. We can partly agree with this opinion, but, apparently, as in any rule, there are some exceptions. Continuing to consider the countries formed after the collapse of the USSR, it suffices to look at the Baltic states, where, with a relatively high standard of living and social culture, national issues remain unresolved. In this case, the promise of forcing disunity comes not from the Baltic people themselves, but is sent from above. In other words, the state authorities are trying to do everything to sow discord forever between Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians on the one hand, and Russians, who live in Latvia alone up to 27% of the total population, on the other. The only thing that needs to be acknowledged is: inter-ethnic conflicts in the Baltic states rarely enter the “hot” phase. The matter is either in the national mentality of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, or that the “values of the European Union” still stand above national interests, and therefore the Baltic authorities simply and skillfully designed the violation of the rights and freedoms of national minorities at the legislative level. The notorious concept of "non-citizen" today is the main "achievement" of the Baltic democracy, which can be called ethnocracy, when all laws are adopted only by the so-called titular nation and for the titular nation. Is this not one of the theses of the ideology of fascism, when the titular nation defines, as they say, both being and consciousness.
The thesis of the manifestation of ethnic hostility, based on the economic foundation, falls, for example, Kyrgyzstan. It would seem that the new president, who received the majority of votes already in the first round of 1 elections in December 2011, should first of all begin to consolidate society and resolve interethnic conflicts that excite the republic for a long period of time. However, Atambaev is somehow not getting along either inside the country or outside its borders. For three and a half months of Almazbek Atambayev’s staying at the helm of the Kyrgyz state, the clashes between individual national groups did not only cease, but even intensified. Only at the end of December, local law enforcement officers had to fix 2011 with a dozen clashes between representatives of different nationalities living in Kyrgyzstan. Among other conflicts, we can mention the clash between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the Osh region, when local police officers could not calm down the raging crowd. Another case of large-scale clashes occurred in the now well-known village of Mayevka, located near Bishkek. First, “fighting without rules” broke out between the Kyrgyz and people from the Caucasus, and then Russian residents of the village were involved in the conflict.
The conflict has spread to other parts of Kyrgyzstan. Incidents arising on a national basis began to manifest themselves throughout Kyrgyzstan: a massacre between Kyrgyz and Tajiks in the village of Andarak, a major fight with the use of "tools of the proletariat" between the Kyrgyz and Darghins in the village of Zhany-Zher. Kyrgyzstan was overwhelmed by a wave of ethnic clashes in 2012, too. The Kyrgyz Security Committee announced the shocking evidence that there are about a hundred and half hotbeds of ethnic conflicts on the country's territory on an almost constant basis, and this number, the saddest thing, is not decreasing. Shamil Atakhanov, the head of the State Clinical Hospital of Kyrgyzstan, singled out 29 particularly dangerous conflict zones from the indicated number, most of which are located in the Batken region, where clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz do not cease (each 7 is an Uzbek resident). In connection with the actual accusations against him, the head of the administration (governor) of the Batken region, Arzybek Burkhanov, hastened to state that it is foolish to look for those guilty of unleashing conflicts in Kyrgyzstan, when the majority of citizens live below the poverty line. Indeed, the standard of living in Kyrgyzstan today is extremely low. The annual GDP per capita of Kyrgyzstan is no more than 1000 dollars according to estimates by the IMF and the World Bank. Local counting authorities give a figure slightly different from this indicator. The economy of Kyrgyzstan today is on the 135 place in the world, “losing” even to the economy of a state like Papua New Guinea. And despite the fact that in Kyrgyzstan only the tourism sector can bring huge revenues to the local treasury.
Today, the interethnic problems of Kyrgyzstan can and should be solved by purely economic methods. When about 60% of the population, according to sociological forecasts, do not believe that life will soon turn for the better, it is difficult to resolve interethnic disputes. But Atambayev cannot continue to look at the intrastate discord, otherwise the fate of Bakiev’s predecessor will be waiting for him.
This is not to say that ethnic conflicts do not appear in Russia. It is enough to recall the example of the murder of a football fan, as it becomes clear that Russian society is also in a painful state in terms of attempts to radically resolve interethnic disputes. The worst thing is that we have recently become accustomed to identifying criminals by their nationality. The notorious phrase “Chechen terrorists” for civilians in the Chechen Republic sounds as frightening as “Russian barbarians” or “Russian invaders” for us. Sometimes it’s very difficult to separate flies from cutlets. It is difficult to realize that every nation has its own killers, rapists, war criminals and corrupt officials. And it is absolutely counterproductive to believe that all the problems of a city or town are in migration flows. Of course, the problem of large-scale resettlement has a place to be, and it is pointless to abandon it, but the resettlement of peoples is historical a process that has been observed at all times. The free movement of peoples is one of the signs of civilization. You can, of course, use the new concrete walls and barbed-wire fences to separate national minorities and ethnic groups, but is this really a way out for the modern state.
There is a way out, in fact, and it consists not only in increasing the well-being of citizens of our countries and raising the level of education, but also in preventing attempts to search for new anti-heroes among other nations. Of course, it is much more difficult to build than to destroy and edify, but it is in the joint creation that lies the main cure for interethnic hostility.
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