Window on Eurasia: Moscow Recasts Nationality Question as Ethno-Confessional Issue

21.09.05

Tartu, September 21 - At the direction of President Vladimir Putin, senior Russian officials are now working to recast the country's nine-year-old Concept on State Nationality Policy in terms of current ethno-confessional and ethno-cultural issues, according to a former Russian Federation nationalities minister. 

In an interview published in "Novaya Politika" last week, Vladimir Zorin who earlier served as nationalities minister and has been involved with crafting ethnic and religious policies over the last decade, said that the changes being concerned were necessary for three reasons ( http://www.novopol.ru/opinion3222.html).

First, the 1996 document which was directed against ethnic separatism failed to pay sufficient attention to the increasing importance of religion and the rise of religious extremism or to anticipate the rise of international terrorism, something that recasting nationality questions as ethno-confessional and ethno-cultural issues will help do. 

Second, a revision is needed not only to provide guidance to and improve supervision of local officials who inevitably now make most of the decisions in this area but also to provide the basis for the creation of a central government office to which religious and cultural groups could go for guidance and help with conflict resolution. 

And third, and in marked contrast to 1996, the Russian Federation needs a document and the creations of institutions supporting it to be in a position to counter charges by Western governments and human rights activists of discrimination against non-Russian and non-Orthodox groups as the upsurge of Western comment about the situation in Mari-El shows. 

To be effective, Zorin continued, the new conceptual framework must clearly define what makes for successful policies in this newly-defined area, discuss the kind of institutional arrangements needed to conduct them, and ensure that there will be adequate funding to carry them out. 

According to the former nationalities minister, any policy here will only be effective if it protects the collective and individual rights of the representatives of various ethnic and religious groups, allows the state to prevent or resolve inter-confessional and inter-ethnic conflicts, and gives Moscow the ability to respond to criticism from abroad.

All levels of Russian government and all of the institutions of civil society have to become involved in inter-confessional and inter-cultural questions. Indeed, Zorin describes the relationship among the state, civil society, and ethnic and religious groups as "a triangle" in which each plays a role in stabilizing the country. 

Zorin insists that some new central office or official is needed to ensure that individuals and groups will feel confidence that there is someone to whom they can turn whenever they have a problem.   Exactly what this position might be and to what institution it might be subordinated is less important than that it be established. 

Vladimir Lukin, the government's plenipotentiary for human rights, Zorin says, is "a very active and authoritative individual" but "unfortunately, he is not actively involved" in inter-confessional and inter-cultural issues, possibly a reflection of his involvement with Yabloko and the Western understanding of human rights. 

The former nationalities minister makes another argument for the creation of an independent post to deal with religious and ethnic issues: Other countries have them and the creation of a Russian equivalent, he says, will thus not only help resolve problems at home but also "to represent the interests of the country in international organizations." 

Zorin, of course, is far from an entirely disinterested commentator on this point: he would be a logical contender for such an independent post on religious and ethnic issues were the Kremlin to create it as a result of the drafting and promulgation of the new conceptual framework. 

At the end of this interview, Zorin said that he was especially worried by two issues in the area of inter-religious and inter-cultural life in the Russian Federation.  Perhaps significantly both of them directly concern Islam and the role that Muslims should play both as citizens and as believers.

On the one hand, Zorin said, he was disturbed by all the discussion about exactly how many Muslims there are in the Russian Federation.  Some of those involved act as if should there be more Muslims, then they will have to be taken into account and should there be fewer, they can be safely ignored. 

Such an approach, he said, not only violates the Russian Constitution and the principles of a free society but almost certainly also would threaten the stability of the country in the future. 

On the other hand, he said he was disturbed by the tendency of the leaders of the major religions to proselytize beyond the limits of their historical cultural communities. And he expressed particular concern about the increasing number of ethnic Russians who have converted to Islam. 

In the event, Zorin's expression of those concerns may say far more about what the Moscow officials drawing up this concept paper are thinking than any of his other reflections about how the Russian authorities should deal with the newly re-christened area of inter-confessional and inter-cultural issues

Paul Goble