| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Nationalism sparks ethnic violence in Russia |
| 2004-03-29 |
| She died face up in the snow, with her arms outstretched, as if she had been making angels. Beneath her, the fresh snow in the courtyard was dark and slushy with her blood. She was in the second grade, and her name, Khursheda, meant "sunbeam." Khursheda Sultanova, born in Tajikistan, died in St. Petersburg last month in a grisly attack, another sad episode in what has become a violent onslaught against ethnic peoples in Russia. The dozen or so young men who killed Khursheda — stabbing her 11 times, shredding her blue-and-yellow parka — screamed "Russia for Russians!" as they swooped down on her. A surge of nationalism in Russia, a kind of demented patriotism run amok, has led to a new wave of xenophobia, intolerance and violence, especially among young people. Nationalities Minister Vladimir Zorin, blaming overheated campaign rhetoric, said Russian youth had become "ethnically phobic." A law against hate crimes passed two years ago, but it's had little effect. Harassment, beatings and slayings of ethnic minorities and dark-skinned foreigners still occur so often that most Russian news media pay scant attention. African students and diplomats are assaulted so regularly that a Russian Web site, www.africana.ru, keeps a running log. Adults and children have been killed by ultranationalist gangs: a crew of Tajik laborers locked in a boxcar and burned alive; an Azeri watermelon vendor beaten to death by marauding skinheads who videotaped the killing; a Syrian college student pushed in front of a passing train, a 6-year-old Tajik girl killed in St. Petersburg. The extremist violence almost always is directed against "the blacks," a term whose everyday usage includes anyone who's not a Slavic Russian or white-skinned. Indians, Africans, Chinese, Central and Southeast Asians, Gypsies, darker-skinned Russian citizens from Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus region are all vulnerable to skinhead gangs, ultranationalist youths and the lunatic fringe of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's notorious Liberal Democratic Party, a party that's stridently anti-Western, anti-Semitic and ultranationalist. The police either can't keep up or won't. "The police haven't told me anything," said Khursheda's father, Yunus, 35, a slightly built, sad-eyed man who works as a porter in St. Petersburg's Haymarket. "At first they tried, but they're not interested now." "The police hate us," said Nazar Mirzada, a leader of the Tajik community in St. Petersburg. "They say, "Why are you here? Go back home.' They use vulgar words. They call us 'black ass.' They insult us, demand bribes and take our money." Several months ago, Yuri Vdovin, a prominent human-rights lawyer, asked the local authorities to stop the gang that was painting Nazi symbols on buildings in his neighborhood in downtown St. Petersburg. "No one has ever been caught," Vdovin said. "But when somebody painted the slogan 'Russia Without Putin' on a building, they caught that guy the very same day!" A string of Chechen suicide bombings in Moscow and last month's subway blast, which killed 40 commuters, have contributed to the growing fear and suspicion of ethnic minorities, particularly of Chechens and other Muslims from the Caucasus. "Chechens have it the worst; it's pure hatred for them," Mirzada said. "But I get calls every day telling me about murders and beatings of Tajiks, Uzbeks, other people from Central Asia. Anyone is vulnerable. Jews are beaten, too, if they're seen to have unruly hair." Khursheda's father had been a tractor driver in Dushanbe, but jobs were scarce and the pay was low. So five months ago, he and his wife brought their daughters — 8-year-old Khursheda and her 18-month-old sister, Mahira, or "new moon" — to St. Petersburg. Work was easier to find in Russia, and he was determined to save enough money to buy an apartment in Dushanbe. On that awful night, Feb. 9, Yunus and Khursheda were walking home after an evening of sledding in a nearby park. The snow was deep and new, and they had slid down the hills on their bottoms. An 11-year-old cousin, Alabir, had tagged along. They had just turned into the darkened courtyard of their apartment block when the men struck them from behind. Yunus was slashed three times, clubbed on the head and left for dead. Alabir managed to save himself by crawling under a nearby car. The attack took only a few minutes, but Khursheda had bled to death by the time they got her home. Later, at the morgue, her mother, Sharifa, arrived to prepare her daughter's body for a Muslim burial. She and several other Tajik women washed the body, wrapped it head to toe in white cloth, then placed it in an adult-sized zinc coffin. Khursheda's face was unmarked, and they left it uncovered so Yunus could see his daughter one last time. When he arrived, even the hardened morgue attendants burst into tears. "She was lying there so beautifully," said Yunus' sister, Khalima, tears rolling down her face. "It was like she had fallen asleep after a nice bath." Then a welder arrived and sealed up the coffin for the flight back to Tajikistan. Sharifa went along and saw to the burial; Yunus stayed behind to work and to testify if the killers are caught. "We had been hurrying home that night to have a party — it was my birthday," he said, eyes brimming as he recalled the attack. Then he paused and said, "I'll never celebrate my birthday again." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #6 Anyone seen a fat Mexican Sargeant around here, long name, typical, I prefer to deal with Omar. |
| Posted by: Col Flagg 2004-03-29 5:25:57 PM |
| #5 Yet, another gang of 11 who secretly find Halle Berry attractive. You would think that that large a gang could step up to the plate and knock the books away from the high school geek. Skinheads a f$%king pitiful. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-03-29 1:09:13 PM |
| #4 Well, Anon 3964, it's obvious you're John Kerry (a/k/a Lurch). American soldiers don't commit atrocities! As for an enraged Putin and his Russian Army, ah, c'est une autre chose.., |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-03-29 12:41:22 PM |
| #3 All these atrocities happening right now in Russia and the useful idiots of the world are only concerned about Iraq. Oh, wait....Americans are not committing these atrocities therefore there are of not use to the idiots...move along, nothing to see here. |
| Posted by: Anonymous3964 2004-03-29 12:34:25 PM |
| #2 Azeris, Syrians, Chechens, and Jeeks. Can you spot the common thread? |
| Posted by: BH 2004-03-29 10:32:18 AM |
| #1 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted] |
| Posted by: John Doe TROLL 2004-03-29 12:25:45 AM |