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Murder in Moscow
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Sergey Ponomarev / AP
Russia’s rapid economic decline is triggering a violent backlash—including gruesome killings by a group modeled on Hitler’s Third Reich.
Recently, workers removing garbage from a refuse bin behind a nondescript gray apartment building on Moscow’s western fringe made a horrific discovery: a plastic bag with a head in it. It took the police some time to link the head with the victim’s body, which turned up some twelve miles away, with six stab wounds. But the identity of the murderers and their motive is no mystery: they were quick to claim credit in emails sent to human rights organizations, and they attached photographic evidence of the execution style beheading.
The ambitious mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, is one of the few figures in Russian politics who has challenged Putin and survived.
The murderers call themselves “The Militant Group of Russian Nationalists” and borrow their imagery straight from Hitler’s Third Reich. Their agenda is simple enough: ridding the country of non-ethnic Russians, who count for more than 20 percent of the population, not taking resident foreigners into account. The photos revealed that the victim, Salekh Azizov, was one of two captives. A police probe concluded that he had been attacked by a gang of about ten youths firing pellet guns as he walked home with one of his fellow workers from a warehouse; the colleague freed himself and escaped, but Azizov was not so fortunate.
The brutal decapitation offers a glimpse into one of the grimmer aspects of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which until the recent financial crisis was awash in petro dollars but is now in severe decline. Prosperity created a situation familiar to Americans and Northern Europeans: some jobs became too menial for Russians. That includes low-paying construction jobs, housecleaning and apartment building maintenance, sanitation work—and even in the Moscow transit system. Zhana Zayonchkovskaya, the preeminent Russian scholar on labor migration, told me in a Moscow interview that between 80-90 percent of the transit system’s workforce are now “labor migrants.” “Russians don’t want these jobs,” she said. More than three million “labor migrants” now live and work in Russia, the great bulk of them from three Central Asian nations where times are hard: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
In the surreally warm December of 2008, however, Moscovite anxiety has been rising too. With the sudden, dramatic collapse in oil prices that started in the late summer, Russians recognize they are in for a rough ride. Economic fear is being fully exploited on Russia’s political stage, and not just by fringe groups like those involved in the gory decapitation.
Vladimir Putin has turned the reins of the presidency to a handpicked successor, Dmitri Medvedev, but he has stayed on as prime minister, and the focus of politics in Russia has moved to that office. While it is fashionable in the West to portray Putin as a monochrome relic of the KGB, intent on reviving an old style of autocratic rule and perhaps even a cold war, that perspective is simplistic. “On the migration issue, Putin is a liberal reformer,” says Zayonchkovskaya. “He humanized the system serving the needs of Russian entrepreneurs for cheap labor, and by legalizing the immigrants, he improved their lot and provided them at least a measure of protection against exploitation. His approach was a success.”
Zayonchkovskaya’s analysis was echoed in interviews with human rights groups, a labor union and officials at the Tajik embassy. All had plenty of concerns about the treatment of Tajiks in an increasingly menacing environment, and all were quick to see Putin as a natural ally in efforts to cope with a xenophobic backlash. But Human Rights Watch’s Rachel Denber, who has directed a soon-to-be-released study of the Russian labor migration issue, zeroed in on the most serious complaint. “Even in the best of economic times, migrant laborers in the construction sector were subjected to unconscionable exploitation--cheated on wages on a massive scale, unprotected from abusive and unsafe labor conditions. They had nowhere to go for redress.”
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NYCrex
Excellent article, Mr. Horton. I can't seem to think that President Obama is inheriting one hell of a mess. Economy and Iraq/Afghanistan are one thing, but now Israel and Russia as well! Just great.
sophia5
So as we in America, as imperfect as we are, are trying to evolve and "form a more perfect union" by electing a black man for president, some Europeans are returning to their roots by reinventing the hitler youth movement.
It's always amusing when Europeans lecture us "yahoo" Americans, as their Euro football (soccer) hooligans chant monkey noises at black players while throwing bananas, and waving nazi flags.
Thank goodness we have open minded Europeans to set us backwards Americans straight on how to act civilized.
Dimlah
Some things for you to consider Sophia5:
1. The Europeans commonly criticizing the American civil rights record were Western Europeans, not Eastern. Judging Europe by Russia is like judging the entire Western Hemisphere by Venezuela.
2. Judging the cultural tolerance of a society by what people yell during soccer games is absurd. No one suggests that the moron yelling 'GET UM OUT' at the ring-girls at a wrestling show represents an accurate barometer of American sexual relations.
3. You elected a black President and we're all very proud of you. Consider what had to happen:
- The worst Republican President in the history of the United States
- The worst Republican Presidential Campaign in decades
- The best, most disciplined Democratic Campaign in decades
- A half white, non-threatening, calm as a lake candidate that's about as far from the fears of white America as it's possible to be without renaming yourself 'Wayne Brady.'
- The worst Republican vice-presidential candidate... ever.
- A huge economic collapse that eclipsed issues of race, suspicion, past military service and Joe the Plumber.
All that, and President Elect Obama still only won by ~8% of the vote.
sophia5
Dimlah
While it's true America has an ugly racist past and still has race issues, Euros have no place lecturing us, including Brits and their history of colonization.
Just love those Hong Kong British accents.
Love the Wayne Brady comment.
Was that one of those he's not "black enough" references?
Why not just say he's "articulate?"
I get the point that it's not fair comparing soccer fans with an entire population, however it's a stretch comparing booger-eating American wrestling fans with European soccer fans, including those in Western Europe (Spain, England, Italy) waving nazi flags, making monkey sounds and throwing bananas at black players.
RussianHatGuy
sophia5, well played.
dimlah- checkmate friend. pick a new battle.
finderj
You know, Euros criticizing the US is like grandmaw criticizing the teenagers in the room for being young and making youthful mistakes. The US is only 232 years old. Some of these European countries are over a thousand years old. We've done pretty damn well as a nation. The nation with the highest percentage of charitable contributors is the US. The nation with the largest amounts of money going to help other countries is the US. The nation which is first to respond comprehensively to disasters in other countries is the US. Comparing American's immigration policies with those of Russia is inaccurate at best. Comparing America's issues with racism to those of Russia or other contries is laughable.
Dimlah
Sophia5:-
"So as we in America, as imperfect as we are, are trying to evolve and "form a more perfect union" by electing a black man for president, some Europeans are returning to their roots by reinventing the hitler youth movement."
That's a direct quote from your argument posted about this specific article.
My point is that:
- The election of a Black President under the circumstances I discussed should not be considered proof of a massive leap forward in American racial tolerance.
- Using this article as evidence of the 'reinvention of the hitler youth' in Europe is to superimpose Russia onto Europe.
"While it's true America has an ugly racist past and still has race issues, Euros have no place lecturing us, including Brits and their history of colonization.
Just love those Hong Kong British accents."
I personally don't agree with excessive dwelling on the past by either party. If Europeans are to criticize American race relations then they should do so based on the current, not the Elizabethan. After all, America itself was a European colony. With that said, I also don't feel that the colonization period forever disqualifies Europeans from criticizing race relations within the United States. Given the vast quantity of skeletons in the White-Christian closet, I think it's safest to just judge modern race relations against themselves and not against the acts of yesteryear.
"Love the Wayne Brady comment."
Thanks, I stole it shamelessly from Dave Chapelle (sp?).
"I get the point that it's not fair comparing soccer fans with an entire population, however it's a stretch comparing booger-eating American wrestling fans with European soccer fans, including those in Western Europe (Spain, England, Italy) waving nazi flags, making monkey sounds and throwing bananas at black players."
Alright. What about comparing them to someone in the running to be the next head of the RNC, one of America's two major political parties releasing a CD including the track "Barack the Magic Negro?" My point was, there are far, far better barometers of a societies treatment of minorities than the things idiots shout at sporting events.
chrismc
My view of Obama's victory is that it is a breakthrough akin to the election of JFK. When JFK was running, the great concern he had to overcome was the prejudice against Catholics in general and the Irish in particular. He was able to allay fears that he was beholden to a culture that many Americans viewed as foreign, even hostile, to their way of life.
Obama, by virtue of the characteristics cited above, similarly allayed those kinds of concerns for enough people that the color of his skin ceased to be an issue for them. True, his mother was white, but there is a lot of white in a lot of people of color. On election day, some people were voting for him because of the color of his skin, others were voting against him for the same reason. But most people were voting for the man or the image of the man on the substance of the matter as they saw it.
The factors cited by Dimlah as discounters above are not any such thing. An 8% victory for the office of President is substantial irrespective of the circumstances, given that only about 20% of the voting electorate is persuadable nationally; that is, 60 - 40 in the popular vote is pretty close to the limit of what is possible. We are a "purple" (not red, not blue) nation, politically speaking.
The accomplishment of Obama, who was an Illinois State Senator about five years ago, is difficult to overstate. Show me one majority white (or any other color) country where such an achievement is even conceivable.
You cannot.
Thank you.
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