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Topic: Migrants: Down and out in Moscow

Jay Williams
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11367

posted 01 January 2006 07:20 AM

Over the years, certain ethnic groups have come to dominate certain jobs: Azerbaijanis run the fruit and vegetable markets; Ukrainians, Belarussians and Moldovans work as builders, renovators and house cleaners; Tajiks and Uzbeks do the toughest and dirtiest jobs that no one else, not even Chechens, will do.

The Star

The paragraph above reminds me of when Pres. Fox said Mexicans do the work that not even Blacks will do.

From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2005 | IP: Logged

Left Turn
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8662

posted 01 January 2006 09:02 AM

The Russian authorities could almost certainly crack down on the illegal immigrants if they wanted to; or they could allow them to beocme legal immigrants,and eventually Russian citizens. Unfortunately, that won't happen. The Russian economy, like those in other capitalist countries, functions because of illegal immigration and the fact that it allows employers to circumvent employment standards. The same problem exists in virtually every capitalist country, but the pro-capitalist governments never want to do anything about it.

[ 01 January 2006: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

From: Burnaby, BC | Registered: Mar 2005 | IP: Logged

Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 01 January 2006 01:28 PM

I think the situation in the former satellite countries is similar. I spoke with a woman from Kyrghyzstan a couple of years ago, and she described how Russian emigres in the satellite countries were being discriminated against wrt to job opportunities. She had lost her job in Bishkek where she worked as a professional and blamed the situation on nepotism/ethno-centrism and bad economy in general. She says there are thousands of well-educated professional Russian's caught in the same situation across the former republics. It could be reverse discrimination occurring in those countries since the breakup, tit for tat extended to uppity Russian's, but I think the problem is structural and that the economic reforms just aren't doing what they were promised to have done. I think those people will wait a long time and then some for the free market economic longrun to kick-in.

The first step in introducing neo-liberalism to these former socialist enclaves is to inject loading doses of widespread poverty as shock therapy. Resistance should be made to appear futile. Their newfound faith shall be "the economic long run", or death, whichever comes first. Their collective spirtits should be broken with loading doses of widespread poverty until imperialism made new again as neo-liberal democracy finally seems unavoidable and all windows of political choices blackened out in paving the way for oligarchs to rein supreme over their new plutocracies.

From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004 | IP: Logged

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