Sergei Medvedev presents part of the Russian burden and problem the lack of “Russianness,” or the internal glue of nationalism to hold the state together. He argues that since its inception Russia has been controlled from above, it’s borders defended by expensive and difficult military campaigns, trying to hold the enormous state together.
Russia is a state, not a nation. If a nation is “local and exclusive, based on mythologies and rituals of collectivity,” a state is a project from above, with a “strategic, developmental and civilizing mission” (Medvedev, “Rethinking the National Interest: Putin’s Turn in Russian Foreign Policy,” 2004: 3).
It seems that Medvedev is presenting the lack of nationalism and the unformed Anderson’s “imagined community” (organically by press, radio and other mass media) in Russia as the source of Russia’s modern economic and political problems.
If the lack of nationalism is truly as problematic as Medvedev believes, then it is possible that states with a large population of immigrants will be affected by similar problems in the future. This is a giant leap to make and I’m not yet very clear as to the direct implications of a lack of nationalism for a country, but it seems that migrants are the ones with the most undeveloped sense of nationalism.
Paradoxically, migrants are often very aware of the country they left and the country they entered and may identify with one or the other more strongly as a result of the unique perspective they get by moving. Therefore, it seems nationalism is sharpened, but at the same time it is blurred since having settled individuals may no longer feel the same pull/allegiance to their home country and yet never feel themselves completely assimilated into their new country and culture.
One of the most conservative arguments against immigrants is that they do not bother to assimilate into the culture of their host country. Often, the claim is made, that immigrants don’t learn the host country’s language and settle in neighborhoods together where they are kept separate from the local population (this is both the tendency of people of the same kind to stick together, especially in difficult or new circumstances, and the fault of urban planners and local politicians who for various reasons – crime, “cultural contamination” – encourage separate neighborhoods for different groups). This is one of the arguments used by many “older” Moscow families who view the incoming migrant workers from the former Soviet republics and Central Asian states as a big problem. “They don’t even learn Russian!” the exclaim. “They don’t like Russia,” they also say. Well that’s not difficult to believe since the conditions that such workers live in are probably very miserable since Moscow is extremely expensive even to a westerner coming from the US or Europe.
Today Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world where a square meter of living or office space throughout most of the city costs between $3,000 and $5,000. Despite the high prices, people from many poorer countries and also from all over Russia are all coming to Moscow to work – this is the only place where one can earn money. Most of the money earned in Moscow is probably, like in the United States with Mexican migrant workers, is sent back to families living in the workers’ home countries. The workers themselves most likely live in very poor conditions and work difficult jobs during most of the day, selling fruits and vegetables, inexpensive clothing, and working in construction – the typical low wage immigrant jobs not requiring a lot of skills and easily replaceable.
Many families of Moscow and St. Petersburg Russians who have lived in the capital cities for many generations complain about the large amount of immigrants, usually of darker complexion than Russians, with different cultures and often a different (non-Eastern Orthodox) religion. Encouraged by government sponsored television programs, some believe that these immigrants are responsible for the increased crime and corruption in the city. Like the Mexicans in the US, the Turks in Germany, Romanians in Spain, etc., the Central Asians are doing the dirty work in Russia – work that not many native Russians (what is a “native Russian”? I mean old-time residents of the capital) would not do. One reporter on “Echo Moskvy” asked her listeners to consider how Russian grandmothers would fare on the food markets if all of the immigrants who today sell Kishmish grapes and potatoes suddenly stopped bringing their produce to Moscow.
Migrant workers that predominate in Russia often do not move with their families (is this true? I’m curious how many people more to Moscow with their whole families and how many only come to work). Their main purpose of coming to Moscow is to earn money they can then send back home. Naturally, it is not necessary for them to become integrated into the Russian culture (nor can they afford it) or learn the language more than necessary to write something like “trusy” (Russian for “underwear”) that they spell “tursi,” when they are understood with either spelling.
It is the function of the government to encourage the assimilation of immigrants into local culture by providing access to language classes or cultural programs instead of persecuting illegal immigrants. Those illegal immigrants that do bring their families find themselves an easy target. The recent events between Georgia and Russia have revealed a very brutal side of Russian policy towards immigrants, the direct target of which became children. The government issued an order to find Georgian families staying in Russian illegally by isolating Georgian-sounding last names of children in school and checking their parents’ registration. Political games of a few government individuals is trickling down into the population as the beginnings of a genocide. What is frightening is that many reasonable and educated people, in fact 30% of Moscovites,* believe that such policies should be pursued. Some even outright call for “deportation” of all Georgians from Russia.
“They don’t even like Russia, so why do they come?” many ask. Well it’s not easy to like a country where you are not made feel welcome in either the practical living or social situation, but one cannot help coming here since it is one of the only places where it is possible to earn any kind of money to survive.
PS. This is an interesting turn in the discussion, which brings me back to the role of the city in controlling and organizing migration flows. Moscow, for example, as a city with a particular urban layout and infrastructure must handle all of its millions of people some of which stay for generations and others which come and go. I think that the layout of a city can determine the immigrant experience (think for example of the construction of Paris, where poor immigrants lived isolated on the periphery, the result of which was the violence of the end of 2005, beginning of 2006 years). Of course, without a national consensus on immigration policy in general, nothing can be changed in the city to guide the immigrant experience. The city will itself adapt to the changes in population, but it predetermines a certain type of organization, and maybe this organization needs to be changed in order to meet the changing demands of the population and to ease the enactment of certain policies.
Also discuss: Pushkin’s “Tsygany” and Paperny’s “Culture One and Culture Two”
A basic question to ask in order to understand the role of nationalism in the formation of a state, its economy, politics, and society is: What function does nationalism play?
*check this statistic, from what Tetja Inna heard on Echo Moskvy.
