When will the Moscow tolerance program be adopted?

On May 17, 2005, a meeting of the Moscow government was held, at which the program for 2005-2007 on “the formation of civil solidarity, a culture of peace and harmony in the city” was discussed.

The draft program was presented by the Chairman of the Committee on Interregional Relations and National Policy of the city, Mikhail Burov. He drew the attention of those present to the fact that the excesses on ethnic grounds that occur from time to time in the capital are alarming and, alas, have not yet shown a tendency to disappear. Moreover, in recent years, social tension (hereinafter it is emphasized by us - ed. ), which has always existed between the native residents of Moscow and visitors, has begun to change to interethnic - “embarrassed people are no longer interested in how long a person has been in the city, but only his ethnicity. Sociologists record such a shift in public consciousness." (Compare with the rhetoric in the report dedicated to this meeting of the Moscow government).

The authors of the program believe that it is necessary to move away from viewing diasporas as certain communities and focus efforts on individual people. In their opinion, in Moscow, as in Russia as a whole, the approach of “assimilation”, widespread in the West, in which representatives of guest ethnic groups dissolve into the host ethnic group, is unacceptable: such a method of solving interethnic problems can lead to negative consequences (?! - ed. . ). Therefore, we can only talk about integration—bringing together the value systems of different nationalities while preserving their originality.

As M. Burov stated, the main goal of the program should be the social adaptation of visitors “to Moscow living conditions.” At the same time, in his opinion, educational work should be carried out among Moscow youth, since “nationalist slogans are most popular among young people with low educational and property qualifications.” To develop tolerant attitudes among Moscow teenagers, M. Burov proposed sending them to summer camps for children of different nationalities.

The program provides for the organization of constant monitoring of the interethnic situation in the city and the creation of a Coordination Council for the implementation of the program. The state customer-coordinator of the program is the Moscow Committee of Interregional Relations and National Policy; control over implementation should be entrusted to Valery Shantsev.

As the Vremya Novostey newspaper notes, the presented project was characterized by amazing vagueness and vagueness in almost all of its sections. The developers limited themselves to general formulations such as “intensify work with organizations”, “strengthen interaction with confessions”, “promote the development of national cultures”, etc., while significantly increasing the amount of funding compared to previous years (the amount of funding for the program should be more than 500 million rubles).

This caused sharp criticism from the mayor of Moscow Yu. Luzhkov, especially when it was discovered that for certain items, literally transferred from last year’s program, funding was increased 16 times : “I will not allow you to spend money for a high purpose!” , said the mayor.

In his speech, Yuri Luzhkov stated the need to maintain interethnic and interfaith peace in the capital, declared his intention to fight manifestations of xenophobia and emphasized that this fight is possible only in close cooperation with public organizations, representatives of ethnic and religious communities.

In conclusion, the mayor noted that the city authorities are “ready to invest serious resources in this program,” but it requires refinement and discussion.

Concluding his criticism of the program, Yu. Luzhkov stated: “The national question is a question of the greatest importance. The only thing that can destroy Russia is interethnic conflicts! This question requires decisions, programs, events! What do you have? But nothing!” After such a speech, the document was again sent for revision.

After the meeting, one of the program developers, the head of the Institute of Regional Economic Research, Petr Burak, explained that the figure of 500 million rubles announced at the meeting. not true. “Currently the program is estimated at 350 million, and after finalizing the document in accordance with the wishes of the mayor, funding will be reduced to 280 million rubles.”

It is significant that this program was supposed to come into force on January 1, 2005. It was previously reported that it was planned to be completed in the first quarter of 2005. However, by mid-May 2005, the program had not been adopted.

Yuri Luzhkov will not allow ethnic hatred in Moscow // RIA Novosti. 2005. May 17 .

Sources

• Gudkov Alexander. Millions for solidarity: Moscow refused to allocate funds for a program to prevent interethnic conflicts // Vremya Novostey. 2005. May 18.
• Minaev Sergey. Cleaner and more tolerant // Evening Moscow. 2005. May 18.