Translated material
Anti -Semitism or protest against Israel? And what about Islamophobia in Russia?
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On October 29, the crowd burst into the airport of Makhachkala in search of refugees: OK from Israel. Photos of the Dagestan, looking into the engine of the aircraft, was pulled out on Islamofobic carications . Over the past time, many polar assessments were heard: someone calls what happened to the anti-Semitic pogrom , someone- with a protest against Israel and its citizens: approx.
We realized that most of all this conversation lacked a dialogue in which the parties would have heard each other. Therefore, Doxa invited George Livshits , Judaica expert, ethnographer, and Jamal , a journalist from Makhachkala (names at the request of the speakers).
Editor
Editor
Ivan RazgulovEditor
Editor
Kirill ShalimovIllustrator
Illustrator
WindowPublication
December 22, 2023
You both wrote about the situation at the airport of Makhachkala. Can you present your position for our reader: NIC?
George. There is one point of view on events at the airport of Makhachkala, which seems to me unacceptable. This is a conversation that the participants in this performance acted under the control of a certain external power. It doesn’t matter how this power is called: the State Department, the Russian opposition, provocateurs from the Russian special services, Martians, reptilians, Islamic underground and so on.
This point of view is clearly colonial . It is understood that in Dagestan there are unconscious people in whom emotions prevail over the mind. Each person is endowed with free will and decides where to express his views, including abruptly enough, and bear personal responsibility for this.
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Jamal. I am glad that Georgy Natanovich did not say that the events at the airport were a manifestation of anti -Semitism. People went out to express their position. But there was a trace of provocation. The power of social networks, the power of media cannot be denied. Otherwise, many historical events that we observed and study in textbooks would be impossible. Everyone considers themselves intelligent people.
The causes of events at the airport are, firstly, the inability to express a protest in some other way, [secondly], a provocative situation and, [third], conspiracy theories that hide in the Russian information space.
On the seventh of October, Dagestan was shocked after Hamas surgery. But moods aimed at supporting the ordinary population of Israel, sharply gave way to the support of the Palestinians. The special operation that Israel began leads to colossal victims among the civilian population. In Dagestan and other Islamic regions of Russia, social networks are full of videos and photographs that testify to this. People cannot indifferently look at how women, old people, children, how they storm hospitals, how they destroy mosques, educational institutions.
Of course, the population of Dagestan wanted to protest. Previously, in Dagestan, rallies were held regarding the conflict of Palestine and Israel, people expressed their position. This time everything was categorically forbidden. The whole discussion, all energy was closed on social networks. At the same time, in the United States, in Europe, in Turkey, people calmly go to the station, to the airport and they protest there. Dagestanis saw this news. Why can they not?
When a provocative opportunity appeared, people came out. In Dagestan, this took, of course, an aggressive form.
A rally in support of Palestine in Istanbul, October 28, 2023
Anadolu ajansı
George. I would like a war in Israel, which began on October 7 (Israel calls it a war, I see no reason to call it differently), take out the brackets. If we start discussing who is right, who is to blame for these 70 years, we will spend a lot of time in vain.
We are in Russia and discuss Russian events.
Jamal. Agree. I cited this only in connection with the motives of what happened.
Georgy Natanovich, in an interview with the new newspaper you said that events at the Makhachkala airport cannot be called pogrom. How is it better then to call it?
George. Unrest, violence on ethnic grounds. Evil is many -sided. A pogrom is a type of violence, when one part of the population carries out rape, murders, robberies, and so on, in relation to another part of the population inside the streets, residential quarters. Airport is a public space. From which the situation does not become better or more pleasant, it is simply called differently.
I do not agree that in the incident in Makhachkala and, wider, in the North Caucasus (because it is both Khasavyurt and Nalchik ) there are no certain anti -Semitic tones. They are there
A political rally against the actions of the Israeli government can cause our sympathy or our disagreement. But this is a legal, reasonable form of political behavior. However, between the rally and the attempt to catch and, in general, the lynch - it went to this - people in the fact of their nationality and citizenship are an impassable abyss.
Why, say, you need to set fire to the Jewish Cultural Center in Nalchik in a sign against the events in Gaza? It is also difficult to understand, except that this is a manifestation of absolutely specific ethnic or confessional That is, on the principle of religious affiliation. phobia. And do not close your eyes to it, but you should call a spade a spade.
Announcement at the Flamingo Hotel in Khasavyurt
Telegram channel "PE Caucasus"
Jamal. I did not talk about Karachay-Cherkessia , about other subjects, about the arson of cultural objects, because I understood that we were conducting a discussion about Dagestan. As for Dagestan, we are talking about Khasavyurt, where there were searches of Jews On October 28, a crowd near the Flamingo Hotel gathered in Khasavyurt. People demanded to give them refugees from Israel, who allegedly settled in the hotel. The police allowed several people to go to the hotel to make sure that there are no Jews in it. Then the protesters also examined the Kiev hotel. After the incident near the Flamingo hotel, an announcement was hung that Jews did not live there and they are prohibited there. and so on. Of course, this is an unpleasant fact and he needs to give a clear assessment. But if we do not talk about the context, it will be half and even distorted information.
From year to year in the Russian information space , some conspiracy theories are almost supported at the state level , which firing at a certain moment. They are that the “world Jewry” is about to move to the North Caucasus, to the territory of ancient Khazaria Medieval state that existed since the mid -VII century A.D. Until 969. It included part of modern Dagestan, there was the center of Khazaria. Jewish communities also lived on the Caspian lands. The question of the role and prevalence of Judaism in Khazaria remains discussion. , Jews, and [Caucasian] peoples will be in the Palestinian situation.
Why did people go to the airport? They saw targeted advertising on social networks, where it was written that the Dagestan authorities invite the inhabitants of Israel to move back to Dagestan. Advertising caused bewilderment, which then resulted in anger that was quite controlled by someone.
As for the issue of anti -Semitism, we find ourselves here in unequal situations. Today, the concept of “anti -Semitism” is very widely understood: from anti -Sionism, ending in the wrong context of the said word. If, for example, a Caucasian is in a similar situation, then this is just a household conflict, interethnic, which does not oblige us to anything. We saw this in situations in Kondopoga , Biryulev , on the arena On December 11, 2010, from 5 to 50 thousand people for a rally in memory of the Spartak fan Yegor Sviridov gathered in Moscow on Manezhnaya Square. He died from a shot from a traumatic pistol after a fight with Aslan Cherkesov from Kabardino-Balkaria. The protesters were unhappy with the course of the investigation. The rally ended with clashes with the police. This was one of the largest speeches by Russian nationalist: K in the history of modern Russia. After a rally in the cities of Russia, several attacks occurred on representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia. . And here I would still like a deeper analysis so as not to scatter the accusations. Because the accusation of anti -Semitism is in fact an accusation of fascism.
George. Several clarifications. First: anti -Semitism is just one of xenophobia marked with a special term. She is as pretty or disgusting as everyone else.
Second:
Anti -Semitism is not directly related to fascism. We know that many fascist dictators of Europe were more than loyal to Jews
Kaudillo Franco in Spain saved Jews who were able to cross the Pyrenees and escape from the Nazis. From which Franco does not become less than a fascist or more pretty. Just different genres.
Third: relative to conspiracy theories. To believe or not to believe in this kind of nonsense is a matter of elementary education. But, God sees, on a long list of claims that we can make Russian power, the planting of this kind of views cannot be included. The idea that conspirological folklore is a folklore, I tell you as a folklorist-there is a result of someone's targeted efforts is also a conspiracyology. This is a conspiracy one about conspiracyology.
Jamal, riots at the airport can be correlated with other protests in Dagestan: against mobilization, due to problems with housing and communal services?
Jamal. I would not correlate with mobilization, because this is an event of the distant September 2022. The situation with housing and communal services , of course, has become a nutritious basis. People sit without light, without water, without gas, without normal roads. They already have a reason for protest.
People regularly go out, overlapping the road, regarding social conditions. When you come home and, excuse me, you can’t go to the toilet, wash your hands, turn on the light, warm the food when you see that children are sick in your room, your old parents cannot do anything, then, of course, everything is in full swing. And here the already inflated population receives new introductory ones associated with an international agenda.
George. I certainly agree with a respected interlocutor. I would add that modern Dagestan, unlike other Russian regions, is characterized by a specific political culture that implies a direct protest action . When part of the population wants to speak out collectively, she does it on the street.
Georgy Natanovich, please tell us about the position of mountain Jews. How did it change in recent years?
George. From what time to count?
Take the period since 2014.
George. Has not changed in any way.
Jamal. Not that historical period, in fact.
Sinagoga Kele-numaz in Derbent. Opened in 1914
Wikimedia
And if you compare with the late Soviet years?
George. There was a difficult situation. Most of the mountain Jews left Dagestan. They left for other Russian regions, including in the North Caucasus, and in Israel, approximately in half. This happened in 1992–94 as a result of hard, rude violence and pressure, which had a criminal background of redistribution. But at the same time, this kind of criminal violence was often turned into national forms. But since the late 1990s, the situation has been stabilized.
Jamal. In the 1990s, yesterday's crime took national-patriotic slogans, tried to legalize his criminal violence.
Jews, and Russians, and the Germans who lived in Dagestan, and the Greeks, and other nationalities fell under the blow.
How many Dagestanis, not mountain Jews, but ordinary highlanders - Avars, Dargins, Lezgin, Kumykov - how many of them were destroyed by the same criminal structures? No one calculated this, unfortunately.
In parallel, there was a severe socio -economic situation. Many have left. Not only because of criminal violence in a relationship, but also because, roughly speaking, there was no work.
Georgy Natanovich knows very well that in Dagestan in the cities, there probably was not a school or an enterprise where there would be no Jewish teacher or manufacturer. I had Jewish teachers, I had classmates Jews, I had Jews-teachers at the university. They are still actively conducting socio-political activities and business.
The late Dibia, the former head of the Council of the Jewish communities of Dagestan, at one time headed the collective farm in one of the Avar regions. [There he] perfectly learned the Avar language, which later helped him. When he was abducted with the purpose of buying out two Avars, he spoke to them in pure Avar. They were surprised, thought that they were mistaken, calmly released him, and he was able to run away. True, then I went with a gun.
If not for the situation around the gas sector, the flights between Dagestan and Israel would continue to run. There is a mutual exchange of tourists and relatives who go to visit.
Now the situation has been relatively stabilized. An irritating factor in the gas sector continues to remain. But political decisions, for example, the resettlement of part of the Palestinian refugees in Dagestan, played a cooling role.
Jamal, a month after the events at the Makhachkala airport, has the attitude of the Russian authorities and society to Muslims changed?
Jamal. Islamophobia is, of course, not today a question. Since 1999, all this has been supported and sometimes even cultivated. It is enough to look at the movement " 40 magpies Orthodox fundamentalist movement, created in 2013. It fights for the construction of Orthodox churches, against the law on domestic violence and "propaganda of homosexuality." "To see how gentlemen with noble faces are called to beat not on the passport, but in the face, as they say.
But you cannot assess the level of Islamophobia in general. Russia lives in information bubbles. There is an information bubble that envelops every Republic of the North Caucasus separately. There is an information bubble that covered the European part of Russia. The news from the Caucasus is very difficult to go there. There is an information bubble that covered Russia behind the Urals. There is its own life.
Georgy Natanovich, how has the level of anti -Semitism in Russia changed?
George. I think nothing. This judgment is quite philistine, not based on any serious analysis. In modern Russia, so many problems (we will not list them, they are obvious) that the problem of Jews, a small minority, in such a 25th place, which, in general, does not bother anyone.
As for the events at the Makhachkala airport, due to the isolation of Dagestan, I do not think that these events as a whole made a strong impression on the Russian population as a whole. By golly, now people have something to think about, except for the scandal in Makhachkala.
Let's move on to the final words. Jamal, let's start with you.
Jamal. I am grateful to you for organizing such a meeting. I think that they should be carried out more often so that people meet not only on Facebook fields. Problem issues [need] to say. The more often we discuss them, the faster there are exits.
George. For most residents of Russia, the North Caucasus, Dagestan is a territory of cultural myths . Moreover, these cultural myths can be both purely positive and purely negative.
Positive: people with unheard of tolerance, hospitality are the joyful impressions of a tourist and a resort, who came to the beach of the Caspian Sea, ate barbecue, bought fruits, smiled at the bazaar and went home. And, perhaps, a negative myth: evil, aggressive Muslims, since Lermontov, “evil Chechen (it doesn’t matter, there can be a minced one) crawls to the shore, sharpening his dagger.”
Both bring us little closer to understanding the problems of this region and the possibility of dialogue with its inhabitants. The case of publicists, journalists and people of science - how much this manage (badly manages), fight with these stereotypes and thereby make the situation more sane and more open to the dialogue.
We talk about Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, protests and repression. We believe that now, when dozens of media have closed or ceased to cover the war, access to independent information is more important than ever.