Muslims of the Samara region criticize the vice-governor for supporting the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture”

Representatives of the Samara regional Tatar society "Tugan tel" ("Mother tongue") and the Tatar national-cultural autonomy of Samara are outraged by the support of the idea of ​​teaching the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in schools by the chairman of the Samara regional branch of the "United Russia" party, vice-governor of the region C .A.Sychev. According to Muslims, the introduction of the course "reminiscent of the policy of forcible Christianization of Ivan the Terrible and cannot in any way correspond to the principle of the country's unity."

During a meeting with representatives of the Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish communities of the Samara region, Sychev said that the majority of Russian citizens are Orthodox, and followers of other religions are a minority. Tugan tel director Shamil Bagautdinov and Samara TNKA chairman Jamil Valiullin signed a statement stating that the official's statement grossly violates the provisions of the Constitution, establishing one religion as the state religion.

"Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" is not a culturological course, the authors of the document believe, since it involves the study of church hymns and the memorization of prayers. "And └Memorizing the prayer of an Orthodox soldier before the battle: should be considered in fact the ideological training of future soldiers against the "enemies of Orthodoxy", that is, in the modern context, part of the system of instilling intransigence on national and religious grounds," the statement says.

Leaders of national organizations are against teaching the basics of any religion in schools, even in an optional form.

Representatives of the Orthodox community responded to Tugan Tel's statement. The leadership of the regional public movement "Pravoslavnaya Samara", headed by the deputy of the regional Duma Dmitry Svirkin, sent to the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Volga Federal District A.V. to Konovalov An open letter , copies of which were sent to "Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation S. M. Mironov, Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation B. V. Gryzlov, Governor of the Samara Region K. A. Titov and Chairman of the Samara Provincial Duma V. F. Sazonov."

The authors of the letter accuse "Tugan tel" of "inciting the most real inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatred in our prosperous and friendly region." “The subject is cultural, as follows from the name,” say representatives of Orthodox Samara, “patriotic, because it teaches children to be proud of their Fatherland, ethical, because it helps the child navigate in terms of good and evil, honor parents, respect authorities, be responsible for their actions , listen to representatives of other nationalities, love them as their brothers in a single family of peoples."

"The authors hypocritically take care of "representatives of a hundred nationalities and twenty-three religious confessions," although no one thinks to offend them, and they forget to stand up for the rights of only one people. The Russian, to which about 90 percent of the population of the Samara region belongs, this figure is given by the signatories themselves Moreover, they refuse the Russians the slightest indulgence: they want to deprive them of even optional teaching in the Osnovy schools of their own culture.Meanwhile, Russia is an Orthodox country, the guardian of Orthodox civilization, as our president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, declared on Mount Athos. "We have the right to study our traditional culture, just as in Pakistan. Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia have the right to study theirs. And yet it is difficult to imagine the appearance of such an "open letter" from, say, a Russian cultural center demanding a ban on teaching the basics of Islamic culture in Islamabad" , the letter says.

Sources

• Muslims criticize Samara governor for supporting "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" // Islam.ru. 2006. March 6.
• The Orthodox community of Samara defends the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" // Pravoslavie.ru. 2006. March 9.