Alexei Navalny’s interview with Grani TV

Unfortunately, in our minds, including

the minds of many human rights activists,

there are still clichés dating back to

1993. For them, Russian

nationalists are people in military uniforms

running around with assault rifles and trying

to restore the Soviet Union. Modern

Russian nationalists, I may even

say something controversial here, are not very

interested in restoring the Soviet

Union, let alone fighting some kind of

We now need to respond adequately to

the challenges that

modern Russia and modern Europe are facing.

If you like, across Europe the new

nationalists are operating quite successfully

in the political arena and are even

winning quite successfully in Europe. Yet

no one considers countries like Switzerland or

Italy fascist in any way.

The mistake, the mistake is that

the people who used to support you

as genuinely

the voice of the dissenters in St. Petersburg, so

well, Gulyaev is actually one of the very

popular

figures. In reality, the political situation

is such that a simple

declaration of the need for political

freedoms, democratic

freedoms, under

nationalist slogans. Besides, well,

DPNI and all these radical organizations simply

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they tend

to devour their comrades, the weaker ones,

the more vulnerable ones. So it seems to me that

they will simply swallow you up.

Belov is perfectly aware of how marginal his

organization is politically. Belov has long

wanted to take advantage of this. This is about

the fact

that somehow

more

popular in non-nationalist circles,

so to speak, for the sake of a coalition, to get out of

this marginal situation. But it seems to me

that you are simply being

used, and

that's all. First of all, I urge you to cast aside what

really hinders us most of all, namely

a conspiratorial mindset. It is

generally characteristic of our political

culture, and three times more so of our domestic elites.

Who is behind whom, who is using whom, how—

but in fact, it is enough

to come and talk to these people

to understand that most of this

is really based simply on

fabrication. Naturally, organizations differ.

By the way, DPNI, for all its flaws,

for all the difficulties it has,

could not be otherwise. It is an organization

that truly emerged from below, an organization

that arose spontaneously.

Various people there, fairly

radical groups, came together in

small towns after genuinely

serious interethnic conflicts.

They united among themselves. Could

this organization have been different? No, it could not,

because they were uniting under

semi-underground conditions, because our police

are corrupt. They want to keep all these

radical groups either under

their control—

they want to manage all ethnic

conflicts. They want both

diasporas and everyone else to pay them, so

naturally, a movement that arises

from below in modern Russia, well,

of course it will be a very mixed and chaotic thing.

There will be radicals there and everything else; it

cannot arise any other way, because there is no

legal way right now for people to unite

who hold

nationalist views. There is no such

opportunity, and yet that

ideology was supported by some 70% of the population.

And naturally, in these conditions, in this

murky water, the leading role goes to

the marginals—that is, people who are, well,

the most aggressive, in other words,

the most aggressive segment comes to

the forefront. You look at them and

say: what is this? These are fascists,

these are murderers, and so on. We do not want

to look into the past; we are saying that

we sign, and we demand that people

observe the declarations

that have been signed and adhere to the

agreements that were signed, rather than

digging up something that someone

wrote 30 years ago. No, we have not the slightest

desire to do that. Why, 30 years ago—look,

a book came out last year by

Saveliev, and Saveliev's speech at our

conference was, well, one of the most

sensible.

He is a well-known politician who effectively relied

on

the support of a fairly large number of people.

The fact that someone disagrees with

the opposition on some points—I do not share its views—does

not mean that Saveliev has any less

right

to participate in the political process than

someone else. And you understand, we cannot

say: well, these

marginals, something is unclear with them, it is

all very dangerous, so let's...

So if they get squeezed out somewhere further down the line, and then—

we start looking at someone else because

we like them better—that's

impossible. Either this is a natural

political process, or some part of it

is being suppressed, and then on one side

marginals emerge, and on the other side

simply provocateurs who work for

the police. You know that perfectly well yourself. I

think that 90% of all these groups

that are directly involved in

violence are all working for our

security services one way or another, because our

security services are known for how they fight

everything, whether it's organized crime

or right-wing extremism—they

believe the best way to fight it is simply

to take everyone under their control. That is

exactly why all those skinheads out there—

the real ones—are all tied to the police.

That is also precisely why our coalition

is fighting all of this. It's a mistake—it will not

go away on its own.

Provocations of conflicts that will

be interpreted in ethnic terms with the help of

the same DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Immigration). I don't want to once again be

any kind of lawyer for DPNI, but DPNI is not

engaged in any provocations. DPNI is a

very heterogeneous movement. And by the way,

it is an emphatically decentralized movement.

There are all kinds of people there. All right, then how do you ex-

plain Kondopoga? Did it arise as a result

of Belov going there? It all began there

initially, among other things, because of

the authorities' inaction. There really were

pogroms there because

the police couldn't do anything.

The enraged local population simply began

driving out those who had wronged them, and only

after that. The problem is not that

a conflict happened in Kondopoga, but that

DPNI specifically contributed to it being

interpreted as an ethnic conflict. And

what else was it, tell me, if not

ethnic? Shall we just close our eyes and

say it was a criminal showdown, and that's all?

Basically everyone acknowledges it. I don't know—fine, it

was a criminal showdown between

Chechen gangsters who came there and

the first Russians they happened to see

beat up—two people were killed, and I think

three others had their ears cut off. Naturally, that is

ethnic. It's pointless to claim otherwise.

Please don't spread

myths about cut-off ears. It has long been

known that this is a myth invented by Belov.

Well, of course—the person who said this

on camera on DPNI TV, that two were killed—

that's a myth too? No, excuse me, please don't confuse things.

Yes, I would simply like to

warn you: before spreading

certain myths that shift a conflict—

a criminal conflict, in reality—into the sphere of

interethnic relations, you should first

find out what actually happened there. There were no cut-off ears.

So, wait. Yes, that's one

point. But even if

we—by the way—

I have few personal complaints against you,

but the fact that at one time you publicly

stated that you did not

condemn a single slogan of the Russian

March—one of the official slogans of the

Russian March was 'Kondopoga, Hero City'—

that is, in fact, one of the main complaints

against you personally. In that way, you were essentially

not condemning the approval of violence and the call

to violence. You can go to

Kondopoga a million times and say, 'Guys, don't worry,

this is a criminal showdown,' but in response

20,000 people will tell you, 'What are you

talking nonsense for? This was absolutely a Rus-

sians versus Chechens confrontation,' and

vice versa.

So yes, there is a problem of interpretation.

Interethnic conflicts are when groups—

several groups—enter into

some kind of conflict with each other, when someone beats someone else,

chases them down in the street, or burns

a shop and so on, choosing it on the basis of

ethnicity. That is not an

interethnic conflict because

the injured side, whatever it may be, is not entering

into a conflict with anyone—it is a victim.

That is a hate-motivated attack; that is

a different term. There are radical

groups that espouse Russian nationalism.

Right now they are the most

active in the criminal sphere, in the sphere of

violence, in the sphere of hate

crimes, specifically.

That is so compared with those

same radical nationalists among the minorities. I

maintain that the main skinheads,

Nazis, and in general the main perpetrators of

ethnically motivated crimes are the official ad-

ministrative and law-enforcement bodies, and partly

the communities of, for example, the Caucasian republics,

because there is some kind of blatant

xenophobia there—xenophobia on the march—

which leads to the fact that

people really do leave, they are killed

every day. That's where the skinheads are—don't

look elsewhere. Look in Ramzan

Kadyrov's administration for the skinheads—they are there. That is,

they are here too, but the social...

the danger of these phenomena is simply not

comparable. I do not understand

the term "ethnic crime," I do not

understand it. Not a single person has yet

explained this term to me. You know,

the paradox is that 140 million people

who encounter this

crime somehow understand what

please explain to me what

ethnic crime is. Please.

It is very simple: when people arriving here,

representatives of a particular

ethnicity, form a group among themselves

that is bound by family ties, by

certain territories where they used to live, and

first and foremost it is held together by

their language uniting them; they come

from the same ethnicity. This

is the basis and the core of organized

criminal groups, and relying on

this unity of theirs, they commit their

crimes and terrorize the local population.

That is called not ethnic crime,

it is called an ethnic criminal

group. All right, then the activity,

the activity, the activity of ethnic

criminal groups is ethnic

crime. It is ethnic crime.

Yes, when we, among other things—perhaps you

consider this term vulgar, and

understand it this way—when in Moscow

citizens of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) commit such a

number of crimes—yes, a huge

number of crimes, a large number, 20%. I

have an official reply from the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate

and that is exactly the point: no one is

studying this problem. Indeed,

according to official data from the Directorate, up to 20% are committed

by CIS citizens alone. You know, 90% of these

crimes—what are they? What are they?

Violations of passport registration rules? No.

Absolutely not. These are serious crimes. I

will show you the letter. By the way, according to

the official statistics on the website, the figures are higher. You

are manipulating the numbers.

Once again, yes, in this

case, once again: if a robbery

is committed, it does not matter who committed it,

a Tajik or a Russian, it is robbery. No, but this

is, of course, robbery. But when we

talk about the fact that people come here,

special—well, everyone knows—there come

special Georgian gangs that

commit apartment burglaries. Yes, that is

still burglary, but

the social danger of this phenomenon is greater

because they come here specifically for that purpose,

itinerant criminals.

They come here; that is, if a Russian

is an itinerant criminal and the standard of living here is very high,

that is a lesser social

danger. It is terrible, but excuse me,

in addition to our own criminals, crooks,

bandits, and murderers, we absolutely should not

be inviting additional

criminals here. I will tell you, it is terrible. Yes, I

will tell you that most likely itinerant criminals, in

the main, are still Russian citizens. It

is known, and the head of the...

[applause]

admitted—or I do not remember what percentage exactly—that

of crimes in Moscow are committed not by CIS citizens

but by arrivals from nearby

troubled regions. You are confusing

xenophobia as a phenomenon and

as an ideological current. Let us distinguish

the everyday, practical approach. That is exactly what

in fact most, the greater part

of our discussion comes down precisely to

this terminological misunderstanding. I

am separating these concepts; you are not

making that distinction, accordingly.

In fact, Russian nationalism consists

in the fact that, alongside broad and strong

xenophobic

umbrella slogans that create the illusion

of mass support for Russian

nationalism, when people say that

55% of Russians say that they

support the slogan "Russia for Russians,"

that is not the social base of Russian nationalists;

that is everyday xenophobia. And I am absolutely not

against the research being conducted by

the SOVA Center, and I consider it very

appropriate. Indeed, such

research should exist. I am simply

proposing that it be done a little more broadly and that we not

assume that just because we sit in an office

we are therefore ten times smarter than everyone else.

There must be a connection between real

life and research work, and

when we find some reasonable

compromise and

are able to study these phenomena

critically and comprehensively, I

think that

we will move much further ahead than we are now.

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