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Russians ambivalent on paying cost of anti-terrorism efforts

By Wen Yi: 0 Comments Print E-mail Global Times, January 31, 2011

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Domodedovo is one of Moscow's main airports, acting as a bridge for Russian travelers to the North Caucasus and Central Asia. On January 25, it was the target of a suicide bombing, killing 35 people and wounding 180 others. I'd travelled through the airport twice a few years ago, once to the Russian province of Astrakhan and the second time to the disputed region of North Ossetia.

Both times, the plane was filled with non-Russians, reflecting the ethnic diversity of Russia's south. In 2001, my flight to Astrakhan ended up diverted to Ailisita, the capital of the minority region of Kalmykia. It was my first experience of the role ethnicity plays in Russia. As I recorded in my book Out of the North Caucasus, airport security was focused on those people, like me, who appeared ethnically Asian.

My flight to Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, was in the early October of 2004, which was just one month after Russia's worst terrorist incident, when over 300 people, including many children, were killed in the disastrous resolution of the Beslan school hostage crisis.

At that time, the whole of Russia was on guard. At the Moscow airport, the atmosphere was like facing a formidable enemy. Going through security, we were forced to strip down to our shirts.

While the Russian government paid great attention to terrorist activities at that time, the attitude of the public was mixed. Beslan wept bitterly for the murdered victims of the attack, and the memorial service attracted mourners from across the region.

But some of the perpetuators of the attack were from the same area, representing Ingush separatists, and sympathies for them were strong among some locals as well. Many villagers were unwilling to aid the security forces, because they knew that they would have to live alongside neighbors who might have ties to separatist groups.

Russian public enthusiasm for anti-terrorism efforts has never been strong, influenced perhaps by the uneasy relationship the authorities have traditionally had with the public. People will lay flowers in mourning, but they have little stomach for security measures that interfere with their daily lives. They believe that fighting against terrorism is the responsibility of national security forces, not of the ordinary public.

A few years ago, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successors to the KGB, put posters up throughout the Moscow streets. It listed a telephone number and implored people to "please report suspicious things in advance, rather than report them after reading about them in the newspapers." Admittedly, similar posters went up in both New York and London after terrorist attacks there. But it still represents the basic belief of Russian government and people that anti-terrorism is the responsibility of the authorities, not the public.

Even the security checks at Russian airports and other public sites became weak after a while. For instance, there is still no inspection equipment at the entrance of subway stations in Moscow, as there is in Beijing. Nothing is checked, and anyone can enter and leave freely.

Last year, when I was flying back from Moscow to China, the luggage of all passengers was given only a basic check before entry. It was only people flying to China who had to go through a strict inspection. The Chinese tourists at first thought this was a sign of anti-Chinese discrimination, and were very unhappy. But the officers smiled and said, "These measures are required by your government!" Perhaps this is a sign of the different attitudes Chinese and Russians hold toward security.

The author is a researcher on Russian history at the Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.