Some time ago, the world was surprised by unprecedented demonstrations in Bashkortostan, where indigenous people had come to support an activist sent to prison for four years, who had defended Bashkir culture and thwarted the authorities’ plan to start mining on the sacred mountain. . Although Russia does not have a united and viable opposition, one may wonder whether the ferment could not begin in some regions where a non-Russian community lives, such as Bashkortostan.
Fail Alsõnov, 37, who remained in the hands of the authorities, eloquently defended the language, culture and rights of the Bashkirs. He also spoke about the war in Ukraine, not against the war, but stressing that the Bashkirs should be kept out of it, because they are only used as cannon fodder there.
“Thank you very much to everyone who came to support me. I will never forget this. I will not plead guilty. I have always fought for justice, my people and my republic. So, Allah willing, we will meet again,” Alsınov said to his supporters in court.
The support of thousands of people for Alsyonov was somewhat unexpected considering the current state of Russia.
“Every person has a constitutional right, the fifth point of the Constitution says that he has the right to express his opinion. I’m not inciting armed rebellion here, am I? Are we living here under a fascist regime or what?” said a resident of Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan. “Of course we are proud of our roots. We sing our Bashkir folk songs. We also sing Russian songs and all other songs. We are a multi-ethnic nation. One for all and all for one.”
Anthropologist Aimar Ventsel points out that the vast majority of minorities in Russia still believe in Putin.
“Here we must also take into account that our clichéd view of non-Russians in Russia is that they are all some kind of separatists. They are not, most of them are respectable Russian citizens, they keep their fingers crossed for the president, they argue Russia’s activities in Ukraine,” Ventsel said.
This is also confirmed by Ruslan Valiev, a Bashkir journalist currently living in Berlin, former head of the Ekho Moscow radio station in Ufa: “I think the idea (of independence) has not been very popular until today. That’s for sure. Very few people they shared. Even the activists who are ‘plugged in,’ as we say, who understand things. Only a handful of them shared radical views.”
That is why they took to the streets with peaceful thoughts and, as always in Russia, an appeal was made to the good Tsar, who was informed that a terrible misunderstanding had occurred.
“People came out without waving global political slogans. People were, at least initially, quite satisfied with the central government and Putin personally. They even recorded a video speech addressed to him,” Valiyev said.
More tin coffins have returned to Bashkortostan from the Ukrainian front than from the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. They went to Ukraine for money, because there is no work in Bashkortostan.
“When the police start beating (protesters) … as one soldier (from the Ukrainian front) said in a video: ‘You are beating our mothers and fathers in the streets. They are unarmed and we have weapons anyway. They say that we can go home,” Valiyev said.
Couldn’t something like this ignite from such a tremor that would also set the Russian opposition in motion? Ventsel doesn’t really believe it: “There is a small group of exiles, the Asians of Russia, and they do nothing but be on social media. But there was such an interesting thought flowing through their page that where all the naysayers Russians when there were protests in Bashkortostan? Right now it seems that not even those Russian opponents are particularly supportive of non-Russians.”
But perhaps some other troubled region will catch fire?
“All these events are unpredictable and it may well happen that some kind of rebellion in one region sets in motion some processes, but here we must take into account the fact that the regions of Russia are very different. They have very different problems. And for this reason, a merger on such a general platform, where everyone is for or against something, is very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve,” Ventsel explained. “Separatism in Russia began to be fought around 2007, and very effectively. Since then, every slightly more active separatist was forced to leave Russia or went to prison for a long time,” he added.
2024-01-29 20:03:00
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