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Nizhegorodskaya hierarchy of ROC states that Nizhegorodskaya oblast was always characterized with tolerance, inter-religious peace and mutual respect for the traditional religious communities of our country. Such irresponsible actions of the representatives of Spiritual Governance for Moslems of Nizhegorodskoy oblast are provocative and are aimed at fomentation of international and inter-religious antagonism. Nizhegorodskaya hierarchy is seriously worried about the above-mentioned and appeals everybody to confront to the attempts having become more frequent to loosen the stable political and religious situation in the region" and after that it broke all the relations with Spiritual Governance for Moslems of Nizhegorodskoy oblast.
This official rupture of the relations between the Orthodox believers and the Moslems happened for the first time in the modern history of Russia. The inter-religious dialogue culture is quickly dropping as it was informed by the Inter-religious council of Russia with the concern in spring of 2008. The bitter moments in the Orthodox-Moslem relations in Russia will be only more with the lapse of time so one of the Moslem diplomacy tasks in this field will be new forms of dialogue developing and elimination of outright Christianophobov from the participation there.
"Natsional'nye interesy", M., 2011, N1, p. 36-39.
G. Ovrutskaya, Yu. Sinyavskaya,
political scientists
CONFLICT POTENTIAL OF THE MODERN DIASPORAS IN THE RECEIVING SOCIETIES (by the example of Rostovskoy oblasti)
One had to begin speaking about "the world diasporization" as one of the scenarios for the mankind development because of rapid
increase of immigrant communities and their institutionalization. Diasporas seriously influence on the receiving countries. They change their demographic structure, ethnic and confessional composition. As for determining a term "diaspora" the situation in the scientific world is complex. We imagine diaspora as the part of ethnos dispersed over the territories occupied by the other ethnic communities; the activity of this part is to preserve and recreate its ethno-cultural makeup and to consolidate its members according on the ethnic basis. The diaspora is mainly characterized with "historical homeland" presence; maintaining the collective memory about geographic location, history, cultural achievements; establishing economic ties with a new place; natural reproduction of a group quantity at the given territory.
Trans-nationality is one more important feature of diasporas. Diaspora transformation ("trans-national communities", according to V.A. Tishkov is the result of spatial relocation changing, the new carriers and communicative possibilities and new types of activity. Some member relocation to a new territory for living is organized and supported owing to a communicative space of ethnos. The cultural and confessional distinctions from the receiving society promote to diaspora unity. These distinctions, on one hand, bring to a greater alienation with respect to indigenous population but on the other hand, stimulate the initiation of ties with compatriots, its culture renewal and diaspora structure strengthening as a whole. However, diasporas aren't similar and not all their members are equally ethnocentric. Here two obvious situations are possible depending on diaspora culture' and diaspora' stability to assimilation or acculturation: the integration in the receiving society is planned when there is a low stability but a cultural conflict is planned being to our mind the basic in this situation with respect to possible ethno-political conflicts when there is a high stability. The second variant is typical for those groups preferring to settle compactly.
They establish original enclaves where one lives not only according to their own cultural norms but they try to put the laws of the origin country into effect what is more serious and dangerous; "trans-nationalization of the place" is happening. It concerns such communities as Chinese, Turkish, Arabian and some others. Just such Diasporas carry the most conflict potential. The people can live isolated in these enclaves during the years not having learned the language of the country of residence not to speak of its culture and the laws.
Russia taking into consideration a permanent growth of migration flow density and a numerical growth of Diasporas isn't exclusion here. Diasporas became the most important factor of social, cultural, political and economical spheres of the region so it allows optimizing a management in the sphere of inter-cultural and also ethno-social relations when studying them. However, the role and the place of diaspora communities in the social life of the Russian regions are specific. Especially, the Northern-Caucasus region is distinguished by. The modern ethno-cultural ethno-confessional map forming in Rostovskoy oblast took place in two stages.
The first stage: a great number of the representatives of the Caucasus people began coming to Rostovskaya oblast approximately from the middle of 60-ss of XX century. They settled mainly in the south-eastern and then in the eastern areas of the oblast. The majority of the newly arrived were the Chechens returning little by little from the Central Asia after the Stalin deportation (the main kind of activity is agriculture and sheep breeding). In 1970 the Chechen quantity doesn't exceed 2527 but by 1979 there were 9183 people. By 1989 the majority of the Chechen diasporas live in Dubovskom (more than 2 thousand); in Zavetinskom (about 4 thousand); in Zimovnikovskom (more than 2 thousand), in Proletarskom (more than 1 thousand) and Remontnenskom (more than 2 thousand) areas.
Except the Chechens in Rostovskoy oblast one notes a proliferation of the representatives of the Dagestani people - the Dargins, the Avars, the Lezghins, the Kumuks, the Tabasarans and also the immigrants from the South Caucasus - the Azerbaijanians. The Caucasus diaspora expansion was mainly caused by a seasonal work system - the exit of manhood being capable for working from the North-Caucasian and trans-Caucasian in more economically developed regions of the USSR including Rostovskaya oblast.
The last wave of the Moslem population migration to the Don was associated with the USSR dissolution. The main factors of migration, firstly, were the blazed up conflicts over the post-soviet area having entailed a wave of forced migrants, secondly, economic crisis. The distinctive feature of the last migration wave was that the majority of newly arrived were expatriates from the Caucasus and the Middle Asia. According to census figures of 2002 the number of ethnos representatives traditionally professing Islam was about 110 thousands of people in Rostovskoy oblast (approximately 2.5% of the population).
So, two independent types of diasporas were formed at the territory of Rostovskoy oblast being notable for a completeness of a social adaptation process: traditional and new. The traditional diasporas of the oblast (the Armenian, the Greek, the German) are characterized with a long-term tradition of residence in the region. It determines on settlement specificity, settlement type, employment trend, a high degree of socio-cultural adaptation and feebly marked proneness to conflict and a domination of a cultural orientation the organization activity.
The second stage (the new diaspore communities) - were formed in Rostovskoy oblast during the post-soviet period. The key conditions for diaspora forming were both stress (the Chechens, the Meskhetian Turks) and economic (the Dargins, the Avars and etc.) reasons. The migration wasn't under control. The representatives of the young
diasporas live in the countryside in overwhelming majority; Their residence is very compact in the limited number of the region. The new diasporas are characterized with a relatively high level of migration and natural increase so the youth rate is very high there. This type is specialized in the concrete kind of activity, in particular, sheep breeding. The new diaspora adaptation depends on culture of the local society being also explained by cultural-religious differences.
Ethno-confessional balance change in Rostovskoy oblast was followed by the conflict situations, for example, the conflicts with a participation of the representatives of the ethnic Moslems: the Meskhetian Turks, the Chechen and the representatives of the Dagestani people (in Bagaevskom, Remontnenskom, Sal'skom regions). The representatives of the Cossack movement of the Don took part in all these conflicts. However, the most of the interethnic conflicts were mainly either economic or criminal but there was no religious confrontation. On the other hand one can not but admits the ethno-cultural basis of such conflicts as the similar situations draw a very wide response in the society of the native population trying to separate the participants of the conflict just on the basis of ethno-culture but not of a personal economic success or belonging to the criminal communities.
The conflict trends in Rostovskoy oblast urge the representatives of ethno-organizations on cooperation with the representatives of the native population. The Cossacks as one of the agents is of the special importance to govern the given conflicts. Some endorsed agreements on peaceful coexistence between the Cossacks and the representatives of diasporas are evidence of it. One tries to understand the necessity of good-neighborly relations; the spiritual adviser forces are united with to control emerging contradictions: religious-cultural communication becomes one of the leading on the way to agreement.
We suppose that not socio-economic (unemployment, living conditions, ethnic crimes) but socio-cultural and cultural-psychological factors (cultural distance, negative ethnic stereotypes) determine the conflictogenity of the new diasporas. So, it's supposed to initiate a policy to change a strategy of the new diaspora communities with respect to socio-cultural norms of the majority and also to prepare the local population for a positive understanding of the other cultural groups and possible conflicts with them in order to prevent cultural conflicts between diasporas and the receiving population. From this point of view the diasporas are recommended to adopt a strategy of a cultural adaptation creating conditions for conflict eliminating in the sphere of the cultural and interpersonal communications.
We think that logic of consensus ethno-cultural paradigm is a methodological background where diasporas are considered to be not only as conflictogenic but also as a positive resource in the poly-ethnic societies. The ethnicity as a factor of everyday reflection determining a scope of engagement both at interpersonal and inter-group levels is positive under the given approach. The use of a constructive resource of the national-cultural autonomy institute is of great importance. It's also necessary to combine the national-cultural activity with the activity on integration, inclusion in the institutions of the civil society, coordination of diasporas public association activity from the party of state power. The goal of the above-mentioned administrative strategies is a prevention of ethno-political conflict personality in the receiving society.
Sovremennoe razvitie regionov Rossii: politico-transformatsionnye I kurturnye aspekty ", Ufa, 2010, p. 228-232.
