State system for analyzing and monitoring interethnic situation is established in Bashkiria

UFA, 20 June 2017. /Bashinform News Agency/. In Bashkortostan, a complex multi-level state system for analyzing and monitoring the state of affairs in the interethnic and inter-confessional sphere has been created. This was stated by the director of the Centre for Humanitarian Studies of the Ministry of Culture RB Marat Mardanov at the round table "Interethnic Relations in the Republic of Bashkortostan and National Policy in Modern Russia". The forum is held within the framework of the International Festival of Arts "The Heart of Eurasia".

According to the Centre, 83% of respondents assess the interethnic relations as peaceful, while 49% of the participants confidently replied that interethnic relations were actually peaceful. Only three percent of respondents said they felt tension between different nationalities, and eight percent said that the relations were rather tense.

The assessment of the degree of tension in interethnic relations in Bashkortostan turned out to be somewhat dependent on the socio-demographic types of the respondents. The gender, age, education and place of residence of respondents were of some importance. Young people are more critical in their assessment than older respondents.

A positive trend is marked in the indicator characterizing the state of interethnic relations in the region over the past year. Compared to the results of studies conducted in December 2015, the share of respondents assessing the situation in the field of interethnic relations in the region as peaceful increased by 6.5% as a whole.

The respondents themselves also noted the positive changes in interethnic relations over the past five years. So, every fourth interrogated noted improvement of interaction between the peoples of the republic. The majority of the respondents indicated that the situation had not changed. 10% of respondents said about worsening of relations.

Experts note that respondents who indicated that the situation had worsened named socio-economic factors as the main reasons for its worsening: economic crisis, social instability, high unemployment, social inequality.

On the second place there were the factors associated with artificial escalation of the situation. This is, above all, incitement of ethnic hatred by some people, groups, activities of some public associations, organizations, media information policy.

The third reason is sociocultural in nature, connected with a personality, behavior, and character of some individuals.

The speaker drew particular attention to the problem of the artificial escalation of the problem by the mass media.

At the conference, experts noted that the population of the republic was distinguished by a special tolerant attitude towards the multinationalism of the region. These findings are confirmed by the results of the population census, which recorded a high proportion of inter-ethnic marriages.

Despite the harmonious interethnic relations in the republic, some part of the population is ready to support the tightening of the migration policy. One-third of respondents has positive attitude towards migrants. Approximately the same number is negative.