Ombudsman of the Perm Territory: People are not ready to accept “otherness”

On September 2, 2008, an interview was published with the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Perm Region, Tatyana Margolina, in which she expressed her assessment of the situation in the Karagai region .

The main thing the Ombudsman insists on is this. That it is necessary to clearly separate the fight that took place and the complex conflict situation that has developed in the region as a whole.

She notes that in rural areas where the population is small and everyone is close to each other, the arrival of a new person is in itself an alarming factor, and if this new person is assessed as "alien" (different from most local residents, even in a positive way), it causes general irritation. As an example, she cited the situation in 2007 in the Okhansk region of the region: “A group of people of Chinese nationality arrived in the region, who were determined to work, differ in their behavior in everyday life. The people who arrived caused irritation with their positive way of life and the fact that they did not speak Russian” .

T. Margolina emphasizes that the residents of Karagai, that the tension is connected with the different social behavior of those who are assessed as "strangers", they associate the tension with the legality of their stay in the region. She also notes how selectively xenophobic attitudes work, when absolutely identical behavior is evaluated diametrically opposite for “us” and “them”: “For example, I hear that people who have arrived do not pay for an apartment. apartment? Of course not, they say. But the reproach goes only towards those who have arrived."

T. Margolina notes that in fact the main problem (moreover, a problem that concerns everyone) is the unpreparedness to perceive the "otherness" of another person. And we cannot wait for the latent rejection of "otherness" to develop into an open conflict, which - as in the case of Karagay - the punitive authorities are forced to deal with. We need sociologists, public conflict commissions that would help bring people out of tension without pushing them towards an "ethnic" interpretation of emerging personal claims.

Undoubtedly, the socialization and acculturation of foreign-speaking migrants is necessary. Many visitors do not speak Russian, while sociological surveys recently conducted among students of Perm universities show that about a third of respondents " aggressively (highlighted by us - * ed. ) treat non-Russian speech in public places * ".

And employer abuse is a huge problem. This problem, which is interpreted by many in ethnic terms, in reality affects completely different people, regardless of their ethnic origin. Since in Karagay this issue is designated as one of the factors of tension, a public reception office of the Ombudsman begins to work in the district to clarify the real situation and provide assistance on specific requests.

Sources

• Tatyana Margolina: "There is no intentional incitement of hostility in Karagay" // Perm on the Internet. 2008. September 2.