Let's combat tolerance and mutual understanding - with a motor cavalcade! By German Sadulayev, special to Prague Watchdog
St. Petersburg
Why? I wondered, after reading several reports in the press about a “Vainakh motor cavalcade” in Moscow, and its natural finale at a police station.
The organizers are complaining that a few unruly participants staged a race and a shooting match, disrupting the event and ruining a good idea. I'm puzzled: so why was the idea a good one? Why was it needed at all, this cavalcade?
Whose bright idea was it to bring a procession of cars into the centre of Moscow? Judging by the photographs, the cars were elegant and pretentious, as if to announce to the public: here come the Chechens and the Ingush!
Mere wealth makes no man either famous (apart from a bit of glamour and popularity) or devout. True glory and commendation come from the putting to good use of the riches that have been given to us by the Almighty, and from good deeds. If there are really that many wealthy Vainakhs in Moscow, they would do better not to brag about their cars, but instead collect money for an orphanage, or make a donation to a hospital – indeed, there is no shortage of causes that require funding.
And the remainder of the money that was collected for the filming of the event should have been put towards medical treatment for a child. One single child. There were nearly a hundred owners of expensive cars. Surely they could have sponsored the treatment of one child? A bit of a stretch for them, of course. But in principle they could have spent less on tuning their engines, and helped a sick child instead.
Now that the people of Russia are starting to forget the false stereotypes about the Chechens and Ingush that have been drummed into them by vicious propaganda, we ourselves are hurrying to remind them: this is what we’re like! And the Russian man in the street looks at the columns of shiny cars and thinks: yes, that’s what they’re like, they’re rich, all of them, they’re growing fat at our expense, they’re stealing Russia's money! I mean, what media smear would be able to produce such a result?
But it isn’t true! In Moscow itself there are young male and female students from Chechnya and Ingushetia who are scarcely able to find money for food. I agree that there aren’t many of them. In Moscow, at any rate..Because thousands and thousands of the young people of our republic aren’t able to get to Voronezh, let alone Moscow. They have no money. Much of the population lives on pensions and benefits.
And then this Vainakh “glamour”, this exhibition of vainglory.
It would be interesting to know if any car could be entered for the cavalcade, or whether only those were selected which were more “acceptable”? I somehow missed the smaller makes of car, and even the white jeep with tinted windows that is favoured by Chechnya’s president.
There is one other little dimension to all this: that of respect for the traditions of the city where one lives. Among us Chechens the lovzar (wedding, dance, delight) is a normal custom. So is the driving of fast cars, and the firing of guns in the air. They always have been. In the days when there weren’t any cars, we galloped around on horseback and also fired in the air. Not out of malice, but because of our feelings, a sort of salute. Now, after two wars, any firing of guns frightens people. But in the old days it was routine: if you heard firing it meant that someone had got married. Or that a son had been born to them.
When my father was presented with a son, in other words my unworthy self, he and the chief of the local police rode around the village all night, firing in the air out of joy. Well, a few streetlamps suffered as a result. But nobody minded. That was what having a son meant! People thought – we can always get new bulbs for the lamps.
But in Moscow it isn’t done to fire in the air. If people shoot guns, they do so at the White House. Or wherever. And so Muscovites are worried.
If you live in Moscow, you must behave with understanding.
What were we trying to prove? That the Vainakhs are a privileged ethnic group, even in Moscow, and that they’re allowed to do things that are forbidden to others?
Apparently they’re not.
In Russia there is only one such privileged group – the modern version of the Tsar’s “oprichniki”, the OMON.
P.S.: It seems that the participants in the motor cavalcade never did collect the money for the sick child ... Though they wanted to...
Photo: forex.uaportal.com. (Translation by DM) (P, DM)
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