Program on the “national question”: first reaction

On January 23, 2012, presidential candidate Vladimir Putin delivered a policy article on the “national question,” which he had recently promised at a meeting with St. Petersburg football fans.

What does it essentially say and propose?

Firstly, Putin returned to the theses that he and Dmitry Medvedev promoted from December 2010 to February 2011 , in the wake of the events on Manezhnaya Square, but then practically stopped mentioning. This is the formation of a general civic identity as a priority over ethnic (in our terminology - national), religious and generally cultural. Such an identity should be formed in the idea of ​​Russia as a nation-civilization - as opposed to the essentially separatist projects of Russian and other ethno-nationalisms. At the same time, it is again not said on the basis of what values ​​or practices such a general civic identity could be formed, in addition to general patriotic emotions. Perhaps it is assumed that such emotions may be enough to outweigh other emotions - ethnocultural and religious. However, there are no grounds for such a hypothesis yet.

Despite all the sympathy for the idea of ​​common civic identity, we have to admit that in this form it is unlikely to take root successfully.

Perhaps the federal authorities need to think more seriously about what exactly they are proposing. Unless, of course, we are talking about a purely pre-election propaganda move, in which the details are not so important. Otherwise, for example, the judgments about European experience in the article look, let’s say, superficial and inaccurate.

Secondly, it is proposed to form a common identity on the basis of the Russian cultural core. On the one hand, this is natural and inevitable, but on the other hand, it is presented as a legacy of imperial history (in the terminology of the article, our “historical state”). However, for some reason, this process previously caused resistance. And will continue to do so in the future.

It would be worth thinking about how to correct the imperial line, and not just the costs of regional ethno-nationalisms. Which, of course, also need to be adjusted.

For example, this applies to school history education, which still presents the history of the country as a straight line from Kievan Rus to the Russian Federation. This is also important for determining which historical concept of Russia new immigrants must “swear allegiance” to by passing the proposed exam.

Thirdly, Vladimir Putin’s article is still dominated by the post-Soviet concept of “interethnic conflict,” which is considered to be any ethnically colored event in someone’s perception. Is Manezhka an “interethnic conflict”? If we assume, as wild as it may be from the official point of view, that the far-right activists and football hooligans raging there were precisely representatives of the Russian people, then where was the other side of the “interethnic conflict”? And the conflict in Sagra is generally a canonical case of media construction of the image of an “interethnic conflict”: in the very clash between the bandits protecting the drug dealer and the villagers, there was no ethnic motive. But if the task is not to suppress riots and other violations of the law, not to mention crimes motivated by hatred or discrimination (and there are no such words in the article), but to resolve conflicts, then from here there is a direct path to negotiation procedures. But negotiations presuppose “parties” and therefore always work to construct and/or strengthen ethnopolitical structures and corresponding identities, which, in theory, the proclaimed policy should counter. It seems that the proposed “collegial body” “responsible for issues of national development, interethnic well-being, interaction of ethnic groups” will be formed, at least to a large extent, from representatives of ethnic and religious elites. Well, what kind of general civic identity can there be if the government does not talk about the rights of citizens, but about “objective arbitration of the interests of various communities”?

Fourthly, the topic of migration regulation is not presented very constructively. This section contains a number of indisputable provisions, for example, on strengthening the judicial system, the attractiveness of education, the inadmissibility of creating closed enclaves, etc. There are provisions that are incomprehensible - about exams in Russian history and culture. For example: such an exam can be arranged for those applying for citizenship, but it is technically impossible to organize it for temporary labor migrants. Finally, for the third time since Manezhka, Putin is returning to the topic of criminal liability for violating the registration regime. Not only is this measure obviously repressive, it is also presented as a way to combat “inappropriate, aggressive, defiant, disrespectful” behavior of foreign cultural visitors who are Russian citizens. It seems obvious that registration issues have nothing to do with it.

In conclusion, it remains to say: it’s good that such an article was published. Of course, it is pre-election, and many of its shortcomings can be attributed to propaganda purposes. The very fact of discussing issues of general civic identity at the highest government level is encouraging. But, again, the article is pre-election, but when the elections take place, will it not be forgotten in the same way that the program speeches of Putin and Medvedev a year ago, also provoked by special circumstances, were forgotten...

Sources

• Verkhovsky A. Program on the “national question”: the first reaction // Polit.ru. 2012. January 23.
• Vladimir Putin. Russia: a national question. “Self-determination of the Russian people is a multi-ethnic civilization, held together by a Russian cultural core” // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 2012. January 23.