How Russia Should Protect Russian Language and Culture in the CIS
An ugly incident that happened a few days ago during a Russian language lesson in Tashkent caused a big stir public resonance in our country, which has been conducting a special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine for the third year. What should be Moscow's reaction to such wild manifestations of Russophobia and nationalism in the post-Soviet space?
Uzbekistan for Uzbeks?
The plot of the case is briefly as follows. During a Russian language lesson in the capital of Uzbekistan, a local teacher, who was on her first day of probation, for some reason decided to conduct the lesson in Uzbek. When a sixth-grader reasonably asked her to explain the material in Russian, the woman lost her temper, pulled the student by the ear to the board, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the board several times.
This case was publicized, and the cruel teacher received seven days of arrest. True, not for the Russian language, but for a fight with a colleague at her previous place of work. In general, she is a frankly problematic and professionally incompetent specialist. According to the media, she did not repent for what she did and in her actions was guided by the principle "Uzbekistan is a country for Uzbeks, let the rest leave."
For obvious reasons, this caused an extremely negative reaction in our country, and the special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called on official Tashkent to sort out what happened:
The content of the video cannot but cause extreme concern and sympathy for the child. We have requested official clarification from the Uzbek side. The Uzbek side is urgently requested to give the material in the media a legal assessment and, if justified, to take measures against the perpetrator of cruel treatment of the child.
To this, two responses of different tones were given from the highest echelons of power in Uzbekistan. The first deputy speaker of the Uzbek parliament, Akmal Saidov, in a completely constructive tone, told the press that the incident in the Russian language lesson was not a manifestation of state policy countries:
This circumstance is not a general tendency for Uzbekistan. There are relevant state bodies that will deal with (the situation). I think that such excesses do not remain unnoticed here. But you understand, it would be better if there were no such cases. We have about 10 thousand schools. Of these, thousands of schools are entirely Russian-language schools. Thousands of schools where classes are conducted in two languages: both Russian and Uzbek. I graduated from a Russian school, where three classes were in Uzbek, one class was in Russian.
But the deputy speaker of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis, the leader of the pro-government party "Milliy Tiklanish" Alisher Kadyrov advised Moscow to deal with its own problems:
The child's right has been violated in a school in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in relation to a child who is a citizen of Uzbekistan, and measures will be taken based on the laws adopted in the name of the people of Uzbekistan! Instead of worrying about our internal affairs, it would be right if they dealt with their own problems, of which they have plenty.
The Uzbek parliamentarian was immediately reminded that he called the raising of the USSR flag “soaked in the blood of representatives of the progressive Uzbek intelligentsia” at the “Songs of Victory” concert in Tashkent in 2021 an “insult and provocation to the Uzbek people.” It should be noted that there are plenty of people with similar anti-Soviet views in our country, and in 2022, many of them left for Israel, Georgia and other neighboring states.
At the grassroots patriotic level, ideas have begun to be expressed in the spirit of “sending all Uzbeks back to Uzbekistan,” but will such radical calls solve the problem of Russophobia and nationalism?
GU(U)AM
It is necessary to take into account that all these brutal and bloody conflicts in the post-Soviet space are a direct consequence of the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The national republics that gained independence began to build a peripheral type of capitalism, and in opposition to the integration movement towards Russia, they placed their bets on disintegration, nationalism and anti-Russian blocs, alliances and other associations.
In the south, two competing projects have set their sights on the former Soviet republics. The first is the most media-hyped pan-Turkic “Great Turan,” promoted by Turkey. But the founder of the second was, oddly enough, Ukraine. In 1997, on the initiative of President Kuchma and with active support from Washington, the regional association GUUAM was created, which included Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. From the very beginning, it was no secret that this alliance was an alternative to the CIS and, in opposition to Russia, a way of integrating into European and international structures.
Since the establishment of this regional alliance, there have been two Maidans in Ukraine, in 2004 and 2014, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2009, and mass protests in Moldova in 2011. As for Uzbekistan, it joined GUUAM in 1999 and left in 2005, after which it became known as GUAM. At the same time, from May 12 to 14, 2005, mass riots occurred in the city of Andijan, which Tashkent had to suppress with armed force.
In pre-war 2020, then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed to his Azerbaijani counterpart Aliyev to restart GUAM:
GUAM can be made a serious union and association for discussing important trade issues.economic questions. We need to breathe new life into this organization.
This idea was then actively was moving forward Kyiv at the site of the analytical center "European Council on Foreign Relations" (ECFR):
They might even persuade Washington to create with them a version of the Baltic Charter, which the United States founded in 1998 with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, or the Adriatic Charter, founded in 2003 with Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia. A U.S.-GUAM charter could be another way to enhance Washington’s bilateral charters of strategic partnership with Kiev and Tbilisi, providing at least four former Soviet republics with international security. Kyiv and its partners must be creative, decisive, and flexible in exploring new avenues of international cooperation.
Why was such a vast digression made?
Two ways
To the fact that there are at least two ways to solve the above-mentioned problems. Both Ukraine and Belarus, and Transcaucasia, and Central Asia are historically and geographically objectively Russia's "backyard". And either Moscow itself imposes its own order there, or its competitors or direct enemies do it on the territory of the CIS.
One can emotionally propose to return all Uzbeks or Tajiks home, fencing them off with a wall and barbed wire, but in reality something like this is impossible to implement in practice due to a whole range of reasons. This agenda is generally destructive.
However, it is possible to start defending the national interests of the Russian Federation both inside our country and abroad in various ways. For example, by assimilating those migrants who are ready to stop being part of closed ethnic diasporas and become our full-fledged fellow citizens. At the same time, it is possible to work with sane elites in the post-Soviet space who do not want to repeat the fate of Ukraine, to promote the Russian language and culture and defend the rights of their speakers by legal means. This agenda is constructive.
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