Press release, 04.11.2013
The roots of ethnic tensions lie in extracting excess profits through the use of slave labour of migrants and the refusal of the country leaders to recognise equality of all before the law in Russia, said founder of the YABLOKO party Grigory Yavlinsky speaking at the Forum Against Xenophobia and Nationalism in Moscow. Only new democratic opposition which has to change the political and economic system can resist this.
“A social and political crisis has been steadily growing in the country. One of the manifestations of the crisis are xenophobia, aggression, ethnic tensions and conflicts constantly provoked by the authorities,” Grigory Yavlinsky said.
Yavlinsky gave an example of the recent clashes in Biryulyovo, Moscow, “Even when 80 per cent of the population are dissatisfied with something, the political system of the country can not solve any problem. So the only way to express disagreement with what is happening in Russia in the 21st century is to make a pogrom in the wholesale fruit and vegetable warehouse and then hear from all the TV screens that the solution of the problem lies in closing of all the fruit and vegetable warehouses”.
The authorities have been trying to conceal their destructive and self-serving policies with the help of pseudo-patriotism, isolation of the country and stirring up of hatred towards Russian citizens who look “non-Slavic”, Yavlinsky said.
Those who call themselves liberals and the opposition profit from this situation for “their PR personal PR and because of political foolishness,” Yavlinsky noted.
“For their justification they invented the myth of “moderate” nationalism, which is not really the case, since there is no distinction between “moderate” nationalism and outright fascism, between “moderate” nationalism and antihumanism,” he stressed.
All of these problems can not be solved without changing the political and economic system in the country. This can only be implemented by a new democratic opposition, which “will draw a line under the dark years and will really create a modern evolutionary bloodless transition to a civilized European political system,” Yavlinsky concluded.