“La fortresse” by Fernand Melgar is a Swiss documentary about those refugees, seeking for asylum in calm and prosperous Switzerland. The movie is about a camp or “registration center”, it’s residents – social workers who teach, treat, interview the refugees. And, of course, about hundreds of people from different continents. People whose motherland became incompatible with what we call “life”. Or people who just pretend to had been insulted, offended, hurt by their motherlands?
This movie, shown on central Russian TV, was discussed then by “specialists” and “critics” (the name of the program is “watch and discuss” – weekly TV show where they show different non-mainstream movies and then discuss it).
I was amazed by the naïve and, on the other hand, fierce criticism. On the whole, people from TV screen estimated the movie as “how the rich Europe humbles those poor people from third world”.
Crap! The film director, Mr. Melgar 9a fragment of interview with him was also shown in TV program) said himself that he wanted to show how social workers try to help people, how difficult it is to understand these people, who sometimes don’t speak French or English, to educate them, to help them to overcome the pain which they feel. Because many of them saw violence, killing. How difficult it is for every social worker to hear dozens of such terrible stories in a day, and to be calm and gather himself up to find some encouraging words for all these people.
Moreover, it is an open secret that many people just cheat to get European passport.
Anyway, that’s also out of topic today. I must say that 4 month of staying in Russia, my motherland, gave me the strange inspiration. Inspiration to open my eyes to the delusions and fears of my country, my nation and my nearest and dearest.
Russia is at war. Sunday, 27th February, the anti-terror operation regime was announced in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria region. Several killings of innocent people, tourists, and other attacks were happening there for last one week. A month had not yet passed since explosion of a bomb in largest international airport.
Nalchik
But nobody says this word “WAR”. Neither Mr President nor Mr Premier, neither my mother or any friend of mine. The Chechnya war was successfully terminated by Mr Putin, wasn’t it? And those explosions in Moscow metro and airport, those killings of journalists and fights of “Russians” and “blacks” in the capital of Russia – it’s just a bad sign of the whole world’s enemy - terror. Right, Barack?
Nobody thinks about war. But everybody is scared. The Middle East and north Africa developments scare Russian people when they watch TV. Why? Because they see “those wild black Muslims” from the screen. And our “wild black Muslims” are very near, not only in Nalchik but in every multistory.
All I’m going to highlight in this blog - and I already started doing it in previous posts - is devoted to this fear, raised by media manipulation, historical experience and society development in whole.
p.s. jokes and inoffensive post are promised as well =) Peace!
This year Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" was celebrated in Russia 1 day before Bangladesh, on 16th November (which is, I suppose, because of time and probably moon calendar difference. I might be mistaken)
This Eid reminds us the story of Abraham (Ibrahim) who was supposed to sacrifice his son Ismail to Allah according to God's command, sent to Abraham in a dream. Abraham shared the dream and its intent with his son and Ismail showed his love and commitment for Allah, as well as his own father and obeyed to sacrifice his own life for the sake of Allah… That was the test by Allah. When the God saw both Abraham and Ismail ready for a cruel demonstration of their faith (Ismail was already lying under his father’s knife), Allah told Abraham to replace his son with a ram.
The tradition of Eif is followed by all Muslims in the world more or less in the same way. Prayer, then gathering together with the whole family, killing an Eid ram, cooking. Meat is divided in three parts, one remains with the family, second goes to the relatives, friends and neighbors, and the last third is given to the poor.
In Russia (as in Turkey and some other Central and East Asian countries) it is called Kurban Bairam. There are around 15 million Muslims in Russia according to official statistics (Rosstat), other sources mention 20-25 millions. The Muslim population increased 40% in last 15 years.
Below you can see a video by 1st TV channel (“Pervij kanal”) from celebration in Moscow (language is Russian, so just see the video)
(Unfortunately I can’t find the author of the photos)
The main mosque (very beautiful one, by the way) is situated in the centre of St-Petersburg. Muslim’s gathering caused jams and definitely gave rise to condemning comments from townspeople…
1-day Barbarian
As you can understand, for those people who are not aware about Eid and its traditions, killing of animals becomes a cruel act of “those Muslim barbarians”. However, an honest person will admit that the same had been happening in each and every Russian village for ages and still happening, of course. And at last, meat factories all over the world do not look better at all.
Anyway, here we are in Moscow, witnessing Russian style of sacrifice…
Photos were taken by Sergey Muhhamedov, the source is “Eho Moskvi” FM station webpage.
And here we see the trace of Eid celebration in Kazan, traditionally Muslim place in Russia. Animals’ remains on the backyard of the mosque scare both non-muslim and muslim people, especially kids on their way to school.
As one of the locals tells the author of the article (“Komsomolskya pravda” newspaper), the remains used to appear here every year after Eid and stay until local people would not through them out or bury them
Not only animals’ killing is discussed regarding Eid in Russia. One of the most commented videos in the net was taken at Gorkovskaya Metro station in St-Petersburg (just opposite the mosque).
After praying hundreds of people had taken the metro entrance by storm, jumping over the turnstiles…..
I would say, even if these Muslims are “newcomers” in our city, the intellectual capital of Russia, even if they are less educated or not educated at all (as many of “Slovenian” Russians coming from other parts of Russia by the way!), NORMALLY they would not do like this. They would by a ticket and go as all other people do...Who doubts?
At the end of the day, why shall not we recall those huge events taking place in the city fro tie to time, like New Year or 9 May (Victory Day in Russia) or Paratrooper’s day or ZENITH (St-Petersburg’s football team) games, for example.
I bet, same video with very white Slovenian faces, doing same bloody things one could have taken on these days, couldn’t he?
The use of tolerance
This Eid celebration got me back to one of the most complicated topics in my journalistic practice. It’s tolerance and how it works, or I must say, doesn’t work in Russia. (Does it work anywhere in general?)
This time our society divided into several groups. The majority is definitely condemns the open celebration of Eid. The minority suggests authorities to arrange celebrations such a way that nobody would feel insulted, neither muslim society, nor non-muslim citizens.
What do I mean by “open” celebration? Open means thousands muslims’ crowd in the center of largest cities, open means selling animals and killings just in the middle of the street (last year the killing was seen in Apraskin Dvor, the biggest center city market in St-Petersburg, this time they did it somewhere out of the city). All this frightens people and pours oil on the flames of the popular in Russia and most of all other “white” countries idea that a Muslim is a terrorist. Unfortunately, I would repeat, unfortunately, it happens.
Though, I would say, while reading forums and blogs, I picked up a lot of reasonable comments from those who follows the idea of humanity and respect for a human being (which comes before respect to any religion). However, these people are in minority and would stay a minority. In my opinion.
Here in Russia we’d been speaking about tolerance for last 10-15 years, right after the ruin of Soviet Union. Naturally, Russia in times of Soviet Union or earlier, in times of Russian Empire, was always a multinational country (due to its size of course). Then, after the collapse, when all the former soviet republics, donated from the center, became independent and poor, the huge wave of migration started… It sees like since then Russians forgot about recent fraternity.
So what do we have today? Injuring and killings of both classes – migrants or just “persons of Caucasian origin” (this is how all people with dark skin and slanting eyes are called in Russia) and, on the other hand, those Russians who fights for human rights and against fascism.
We still have those celebrated cases in our memories…9-years old girl from Tajikistan family, cruelly killed by a group of 11 youngsters in St-Petersburg (later they were sentenced under “hooliganism” article…). On 13th November 5 years ago a 20-years old student of Faculty of Philosophy, State University, an anti-fascist activist and “Food not Bombs” movement member Timur Kacharava was killed in the central street of the city – Nevsky prospect. He was Georgian by origin. Then lawyer Stanislav Markelov and a journalist Anastasia Baburova, killed in Moscow in connection of the “antifascist” views and activities…
But this is a new story which I will definitely tell you in future.
And for know, I wish happy Eid vacation for those who celebrate it.
Especially for those who is doing it in St-Martins’ :P
