From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 3/10/2007 11:56 PM
Opinion: “Xenophobia undermines Russia”

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A Russian governmental initiative to raise tolerance that was popular before is now losing its pace, Chair of the Council General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress Joseph Zissels told a REGNUM correspondent today. Zissels is participating in “Tolerance – lessons of the Holocaust” panel in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan).

“For the last ten years, Russia has changed substantially from the point of view of civilization values and vectors of its further development. It is searching for its own way. Maybe, the values they popularized ten years ago officially have become not so important for them on this way,” he stressed. Being a Ukrainian resident, while conducting “Tolerance – lessons of the Holocaust” panels in the post-Soviet territory, including Russia, where the program has been elaborated since late 1990s, Joseph Zissels said that from his point of view, “development of groups and parties in Russia, whose essence and aim is connected with re-orientating the country towards new, pro-Russian, more nationalist directions.” “One can treat it as excesses of the way taken by Russia, but in practice, it is hard to draw the line between excesses and the basic trend. But I think that, as it usually, happens, at the same time, civil society is awakening in Russia, which is trying to regulate such relations on its own,” he stressed.

According to Zissels, Russia, contrary to some other countries, is a big country and it needs much more time to make civil society work against the increasing xenophobia. As Joseph Zissels believes, with all the successes Russia achieved in economy and military, trends of increasing xenophobia cannot but stir concern. “Because, in their time, they undermined the Soviet Union and now they are undermining Russia,” he stressed.
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15:10 03/09/2007