Recently, Alexei Navalny, a contender for the role of leader of the Russian opposition, once again confirmed that he is not a fundamental alternative to Putin’s regime for the people of Russia, but only offers its cosmetic repair. He made these statements in response to a question about his attitude to the program of the so-called regionalists, who advocate the transformation of all the subjects of the Russian Federation into equal republics, which would have to enter into a new federal agreement and thus create a new federation.
As can be seen from Navalny’s ambiguous answer, he advocates economic federalism, which focuses only on material issues. In his understanding, real federalism means «real powers in the places where people live, so that these people can make decisions about their lives — tax, financial, legislative decisions — in the course of their normal lives. At the same time, he refuses to perceive the subjects of the federation as historically distinct lands that require corresponding treatment. «This whole Russian Federation is a completely invented construct… We talk about the regions. Now, is the Smolensk region an independent state? Or Kaluga or Arkhangelsk? There are republics — everything else is an artificial, strange, invented construct, just random lines on a map and there is nothing behind it,» he says.
On the one hand, it is encouraging for Muslims that he at least acknowledges the republics, unlike Zhirinovsky, who calls for their abolition, which the current regime is slowly but surely moving toward. On the other hand, let’s be realistic — how long will the national republics exist and what will be their position as islands in a sea where «Russian regions» are perceived as part of a monolith rather than historically established independent lands interested in the existence of a real federation?
The same Smolensk region is a land with a centuries-old history of the Smolensk Principality, the Arkhangelsk region is the land of the Pomors, an ancient people of Scandinavian origin who switched to the Slavic language, and the Kaluga region is an ancient land of the Finns (Karelians) and later the Slavic tribe of the Vyatichs. For Navalny, all this, like the history of other regions and territories with their roots, is «some artificial, strange, invented construct, just random lines on a map». Perhaps this is because he himself, who calls himself a Russian nationalist (now everyone, starting with Putin, has become one), does not have roots in these lands — after all, according to his own admission, his father’s roots are in Ukraine, while his mother’s are carefully hidden?
Anyone who does not have or value his own roots will never respect the roots of others, which is why Navalny’s recognition of non-Russian republics appears to be purely forced. This is especially true in light of his numerous previous attacks on the cultural characteristics and values of Russia’s Muslim peoples, his calls to «establish a real order» in the Caucasus instead of «feeding» it, or his statements on a Ukrainian television channel that Russians and Ukrainians are «one and the same people». In this regard, we would like to clarify that we absolutely do not support attacks on Navalny from pro-regime positions, especially in the style of Zolotov, and certainly do not support any repression against him. It is also impossible to deny that today he is doing a lot to fight against this regime. But unfortunately he is not a real alternative to it.