The New York Times publishes this interesting piece on ethnic tensions in Russia:
The occasion is the Orthodox Christian tradition of commemorating the dead after 40 days. The victim to commemorate is Yegor Sviridov, a Spartak Moscow supporter killed during a mass brawl between football fans and internal migrants from the North Caucasus in north Moscow. Since that day ethnically motivated episodes of intolerance have conspicuously increased to the extent that the police had to intervene repeatedly to disperse football hooligans and nationalists protesting against the presence of the immigrant community in Russia. The worrying aspect is that, while those episodes of violence are often enacted by the most radical part of the population, many common citizens share their views. “Animals have taken over this neighbourhood,” one woman says. “Mourners complained that ethnic Caucasians, who flowed into the city after the collapse of the Soviet Union, had monopolized the job market and increased the crime rate,” the NYT reporter adds. This all too clearly reminds me of the ethnic campaign against the Roma community in Italy. It is always too easy to find a scapegoat when the situation is grim. And the outsiders are of course the preferred target.
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