MASS TURMOIL IN MOSCOW: "WEST M.D." IS WRONG WITH HIS DIAGNOSIS
Public unrest in Moscow caused great repercussions in the world media, in expert and political circles. General description of the situation may be brought down to the commonplace set of opinions and estimates. Here are the most principal of them. The first thesis states that Russia is at the verge of collapse; ethnic and national conflicts are insuperable and soon complete chaos is to reign in the country. Essence of the second concept is that it is Russian authorities who are to be blamed for everything - they’ve allegedly "promoted the nationalistic sentiments and cultivated xenophobia".
The third thesis - usually spoken in an undertone and mostly via the expert circles - stipulates that Russia is not "secular" enough and traditional religions have way too big influence on the public life. This allegedly contributes to the inter-confessional strife - in particular, to the conflicts between Christians and Muslims.
According to these stereotypes, Russia is offered a certain plan of actions, which can come to several points. First of all, Russia is suggested to follow the decentralization path and refuse the idea of national minorities’ integration. Moscow events are presented as something completely unique, deprived of any analogues in other countries. Meanwhile mass riots on the national strife basis or at the grounds of conflicts between youth movements and police took place in France in 2005 ("War of suburbs") and in Greece in 2008-2009. As for Greek turmoil - initiated with the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropulos by the police enforcement officers - at first it actually started just like the events in Moscow
In September of this year, mass unrest took place in Los-Angeles (the USA) - they were caused by the police actions against the Guatemala immigrants. Let alone the 3-day-long Los-Angeles inter-ethnic massacre in 1992 that resulted in 55 people dead while damage to the city was counted in billions of dollars.
Speaking of such tragedies, any comparisons would be inappropriate - but we have to state that Russia with its quite tangible inter-ethnic issues is still far from Paris and Los-Angeles in that sense. However, it seems that someone desperately wants Russian Federation to close the gap and overtake the West by these indices.
Foreign observers unanimously reproach police for the "softness" to the participants of Manege Square conflict. It’s curious that after the incidents, following the unauthorized protest marches of liberal opposition and other "dissenters", Western TV-channels are the first ones to report on the number of detained, having though, forgotten to inform its auditory that the most part of protesters is usually released soon after that. This time it’s vice versa: reporting from Moscow, TV-channels emphasize the fact that most part of detained participants was released soon after the arrest and they blame Moscow police for that.
Judging by the intonation of majority of comments, Western observers precaution Russian authorities from having any kind of dialogue and demand for repressions against the nationalistic youth. Any attempts to establish communication with the latter are being strictly condemned and dubbed as the "intolerable flirting" and "connivance".
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The third thesis - usually spoken in an undertone and mostly via the expert circles - stipulates that Russia is not "secular" enough and traditional religions have way too big influence on the public life. This allegedly contributes to the inter-confessional strife - in particular, to the conflicts between Christians and Muslims.
According to these stereotypes, Russia is offered a certain plan of actions, which can come to several points. First of all, Russia is suggested to follow the decentralization path and refuse the idea of national minorities’ integration. Moscow events are presented as something completely unique, deprived of any analogues in other countries. Meanwhile mass riots on the national strife basis or at the grounds of conflicts between youth movements and police took place in France in 2005 ("War of suburbs") and in Greece in 2008-2009. As for Greek turmoil - initiated with the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropulos by the police enforcement officers - at first it actually started just like the events in Moscow
In September of this year, mass unrest took place in Los-Angeles (the USA) - they were caused by the police actions against the Guatemala immigrants. Let alone the 3-day-long Los-Angeles inter-ethnic massacre in 1992 that resulted in 55 people dead while damage to the city was counted in billions of dollars.
Speaking of such tragedies, any comparisons would be inappropriate - but we have to state that Russia with its quite tangible inter-ethnic issues is still far from Paris and Los-Angeles in that sense. However, it seems that someone desperately wants Russian Federation to close the gap and overtake the West by these indices.
Foreign observers unanimously reproach police for the "softness" to the participants of Manege Square conflict. It’s curious that after the incidents, following the unauthorized protest marches of liberal opposition and other "dissenters", Western TV-channels are the first ones to report on the number of detained, having though, forgotten to inform its auditory that the most part of protesters is usually released soon after that. This time it’s vice versa: reporting from Moscow, TV-channels emphasize the fact that most part of detained participants was released soon after the arrest and they blame Moscow police for that.
Judging by the intonation of majority of comments, Western observers precaution Russian authorities from having any kind of dialogue and demand for repressions against the nationalistic youth. Any attempts to establish communication with the latter are being strictly condemned and dubbed as the "intolerable flirting" and "connivance".
Read further