Medvedev appeals for ethnic tolerance - FT.com
September 8, 2011 4:28 pm
Medvedev appeals for ethnic tolerance
By Charles Clover in Yaroslavl
Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, has appealed for ethnic tolerance as nationalist sentiment grows ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections in December.
In a speech on Thursday in Yaroslavl, close to the scene of this week’s fatal air crash, Mr Medvedev warned that Russia could follow Europe down the path of rising xenophobia. “Reactionary and ultraconservative ideas are taking hold, and there are now semi-fascist parties represented in many parliaments,” he said, adding that in some countries there were calls to expel immigrants and repress various minorities.
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“I’m talking about some of the most advanced, developed and democratic countries in the world.”
Political debate in Russia is often conducted through the prism of criticising the west, but it is clear that Mr Medvedev’s comments on Thursday were focused on a domestic issue. Opinion polls show that 55-60 per cent of Russians support the slogan “Russia for the Russians”, and nationalism threatens to become the new centre of gravity in domestic politics ahead of the December 4 elections.
Ethnic riots last December were sparked by the murder in Moscow of an ethnic Russian football fan by a gang from the north Caucasus. Dozens were injured in Moscow and St Petersburg during weeks of sporadic violence.
Since then, mainstream political parties have been flirting with nationalist messages. Boris Gryzlov, chairman of the state Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, and a leading member of the ruling United Russia party, said in an interview on Russian TV on Thursday that he favoured a visa regime with the former Soviet states of central Asia as well as a Russian language test for migrants. The central Asian states are a large source of migrants moving to Russia.
In a further sign that mainstream political parties are feeling pressure to lean to the far right, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Nato ambassador and a former nationalist party leader, has been in talks to join an amorphous political grouping led by Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, known as the Popular Front. This could supply candidates to United Russia.
Mr Rogozin joined Mr Medvedev and dozens of other Russian political figures for the World Political Forum, held every year in the city of Yaroslavl, where the president usually floats political ideas likely to be included in his State of the Union speech delivered in November. This year’s conference was overshadowed by the air disaster, which killed nearly every member of a Russian hockey team.
Mr Rogozin was one of a number of speakers predicting the death of multi-culturalism in Europe and Russia in the wake of the London riots and the rise of far-right parties. “Immigration of huge numbers of unqualified workers has created immense pressures on our cities,” he said in a speech at the conference. “Multi-culturalism has not led to integration of minorities but to a creation of a fifth column from the south.”
Mr Rogozin was the leader of the nationalist Motherland party until he was excluded from politics and sent abroad as Nato ambassador in 2006 after the party aired a racist TV advertisement.
Analysts say that, as Russia’s political culture moves to the right, Mr Rogozin’s views are increasingly embraced by the establishment. “Rogozin does not lie outside the [Russian] political mainstream,” Sergei Markov, a parliamentary deputy, told Izvestia newspaper on Thursday. “His formulations may be tougher, but in general he reflects the concerns of many people.”
In an interview after his speech Mr Rogozin said he was considered extreme when he was sent abroad five years ago, but now “I feel like I am more moderate than most of the people I’m talking to here”.
He said, for instance, that 50-75 per cent of Russians favoured isolation or separation of the north Caucasus from Russia, a proposal that some politicians have labelled a “Russian Gaza Strip”. However, he said he opposed such a step.
“They took me away but the problem has remained,” he added.
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