“We are against the corruption»! This was the slogan that led the young Russian people to the protests that took place on the 26th of March, Valeria Kasamara believes. She is the head of the Political Research Laboratory at the Russian Higher School of Economics. This, and not the conscious political motivation, is the trend of today, she says.
In Kasamara’s opinion, few young people actually participated in the protests. “The young people, because of their very youthful look, arrested one’s attention immediately”, she says. However, it does not mean that the younger generation “had become a politically active, politically educated force of its own standing”.
Valeria Kasamara had been studying the younger generation’s problems for a long time. During our conversation, she spoke about the preferences of the Generation Next and the conditions that are necessary to awaken the younger people’s interest in politics.
— Valeria, there is a strong opinion that the young people in Russia are, in general, not interested in politics at all. However, there must have been something that led them to the streets on March, 26, mustn’t there?
— In my opinion, the young people went to the street for one reason. For them, it was a new social experience – nothing of this sort had ever happened in their lives before. Six years ago (when the repeated large-scale protests took place in Russia in 2011-2012 – KZ Expert) they were still too young and did not participate in the campaign. Now they are about 16-18 years of age so, for them, this protest action happened at the right moment so to speak.
For young people, it is more natural to be against the state line than to support it. Moreover, they were approached on the subject via the Internet where they also got the information on Navalny and watched the movie about “Dimon” (a disparaging abbreviation of Dmitry Medvedev’s first name – KZ Expert). The internet is the young generation’s natural habitat so, the information came to them via the channel they understand well.
However, apart from this, the information was also presented to them in the easily understandable language. All that had happened to Navalny prior to the protest action was emotionally understandable for the young people. All those things with “zelenka” (the Russian word for Solutio Viridis Nitentis Spirituosa; what happened was they poured zelenka over Navalny in Barnaul – KZ Expert) and all the rest that does not happen in the official public political practices. It was a kind of mischief – the younger generation can relate to it, it corresponds to their temperament, their energetics, their essence. Those who joined Navalny on the streets are those whose hearts and souls he had won by his method of working with them.
I strongly believe, however, that, if we would conduct a survey on Tverskaya street in Moscow, at the place where the protests happened, and if we asked why they came there, we would get very different answers.
— For example?
— We conducted such surveys in 2011-2012 asking the young people why they joined the protests. They said, it was the first event of this kind in their lives, when so many people gathered together. So, they wanted to come and see who these people were. I do not think todays’ answers would be very different from that.
Right now, three teams of my colleagues are working in different regions of Russia. Their research is not directly related to the protests but, since they had happened in the context of this research, we ask about it, too. In Siberia, for example, the young people when asked why people came to the streets said, “Because it was interesting to see who these oppositionists were”. So, some came out of curiosity, to gawk at it so to speak.
They also said that, for many, it was an opportunity to see what protest action looks like. Everyone knows what the Victory Parade on the 9th of May or the 4th of November demonstration is but a protest action is a novelty. It is a thing of interest, especially considering the prior Navalny’s scandalous tour over Russia that had been widely discussed on the Internet.
— Many believe that it was Navalny who brought the young people to the streets. What is your opinion on that?
— Of course, there were those who feel a fellow feeling for Navalny, who came because he is their political ideal. The majority of the young (and not only young) people, however, came because of the unifying slogan “We are against the corruption!”. This is a problem that unifies all the Russians from young to old regardless of their social status and the level of education.
— But why corruption in particular?
— Corruption is not a theoretical problem for Russia, it is happening here and now. Even teenagers come across it being forced to buy, for example, medical certificates. It is in the air. For instance, when we look at the surveys on what concerns the people today, we see that the corruption is always among the first on the list.
The people usually name the US as the enemy of Russia in the surveys. However, even if they constantly tell us about the NATO bases at the Russian borders, it is still not very real, still has nothing to do with our everyday life.
The corruption, however, exists here and now. This is why it is so easy to unite the people against it. If you look at the journalists’ interviews of the young people, I believe many say “I came because I am against the corruption and, if some other political activist organizes the protest, I will participate. I do not have fellow feeling for Navalny but I still want to fight the corruption”.
— At the same time, as you said in one you Lenta.ru interviews citing the surveys’ results, the Russian students are afraid of political storms and protests. They believe the oppositionists encourage instability. The students, however, “need no Maidans”. How do the latest events correlate to that? Had a part of the younger generation suddenly changed their priorities?
— I think there were two motivations. On the one hand, there is the problem that had gotten to everyone. On the other hand, there is the desire to try something new.
The second motivation is more characteristic of high-school students. We understand very well that the younger a person is the more adrenaline they need and the less boundaries they feel. Moreover, when they do step over the boundaries, they feel adrenaline and what to try more. This is why I am talking about receiving a new social experience. It was the drive, it was “cool” – to run away from their parents and participate in the protest action while the parents are unaware of that.
However, participating in the protest does not mean having a political position. I think there is something else at play here. The authorities today do not understand what the young people want and what they do offer does not meet the young people’s needs. This is happening because, as soon as an organization becomes an ally of the state, it immediately starts doing what it must, not what it wants, it is being forced to do certain things and must act within the limits. But, during the protests actions, they felt they could step out of those boundaries, overcome those limits. It is not politics, it is psychology if you will.
— What if the young people take a liking to protesting?
— The older a person becomes the more they deaccelerate. When we talked to the students, many said that they were afraid to participate in the protests of 2011-2012, especially in the provinces. They said that the college management monitored their participation in such events and the punishment could be quite severe, expulsion even. This, of course, is not what they want. They need to finish their education, receive their diploma, and continue living happily. There are few true oppositionists among the younger generation, those who are prepared to start a revolution. Really, there is only a handful of them.
— What do you think are the condition for making politics an important trend for the young people?
— Considering the current young people’s indifference toward politics, to change that, it must become a powerful social lift. The young people must know for sure that being involved in politics would bring them certain dividends.
The young people of today are pragmatics. This generation grew up in Putin’s time and is accustomed to stability. The do not know or understand that things may be different. They think parliamentary elections influence nothing and have nothing to do with their lives.
Why do they want to go to a good college? Because they want to earn a lot of money. Therefore, the answer to the question why they should spend time on politics must be as follows, “Because it will bring me certain benefits”. If the young people realize that politics can be good for their career, they will start getting involved in it.
However, today we understand that this lift is narrow, small, and associated with only one organization (Edinaya Rossia – KZ Expert). Therefore, the young people must choose – if they want to ride in this lift, they must be a loyal member of the party. There is no other way. The other political parties and movements cannot be regarded as social lifts.
— Is there an interconnection between the civic and political activity?
— I would separate the political and civic activities because the latter may manifest itself, for example, in volunteerism, working for non-for-profit organizations, etc. The person may state that he or she is not interested in politics and simply wants to do some good. This is why civic activity does not threaten anyone. However, when we talk about politics, many become alarmed and start thinking in clichés such as that politics is a dirty business.
— Does education received in Europe or the US influence the young people’s civic activity?
— Undoubtedly, so. If you look at the UK’s educational system, you will see that they even have civic activity as an obligatory subject in high-school. It implies volunteerism or helping someone. Students receive grades for that. So, from the beginning, they are taught that civic activity is the norm. And speaking of the leading US colleges, when the young people apply, they state in their admission papers what kind of civic activity they had participated in.
— Does education receive abroad influence the young people’s political activity?
— Well, today the low level of political activity is the trend not only in Russia and Kazakhstan. The Western Europe and the USA are going through the same. If you look at the statistics, you will see that many countries are experiencing a problem with elections participation. However, the people educated abroad have a different outlook on life.
The young professionals, having received education abroad, come home from a very different political climate. They have a very different evaluation system for everything around them, they are more sensitive to the things that, to us, unfortunately, are the norm. I am saying that what we consider the norm, to them, is an anomaly.
For instance, a professor of some provincial college was fired because he allowed himself to speak freely on some subject. In Russia, it is not a rare occasion. But the Western colleges are always free intellectually, therefore, for these young professionals the absence of this freedom in the Russian colleges is absurd.
— Do you share the opinion that education as such is losing its attractiveness for the young generation? According to the social survey conducted by the Ebert Foundation two years ago in Kazakhstan, 72.3% of the young people desire to receive a diploma that gives them more career opportunities, 30.5% are getting education to live up to their parents’ expectations, and only 37.5% aim to increase their intellectual abilities. Why is this happening?
— Here we have a problem of the human capital in general. As for Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the educational facilities, first, wanted to become colleges and then universities. Thus, when the young people chose their profession, everyone wanted to go to a college with a prettier name because they thought it would help them to find a job in the future. The problem is, of course, that knowledge and skills are so much more important than diplomas. Today we realize that the quality of the human capital in the country is very low. Employers from all the spheres of work are now dealing with this issue – in industries, business, everywhere. This is an enormous problem.
To motivate the students to want knowledge, and not the diploma, there must exist a powerful political will that ensures the development of the young people. If we set ambitious goals, talk about the necessity of the economic and social modernization, the professionals with the diplomas from the “zaborostroitelnyie” colleges (a disparaging Russian name for the colleges that give poor education) will not be a great help in this process. Even if these professionals are exclusively “A” students.
Striving for knowledge is hard work. The students attending good colleges have, of course, a different view of the world. They know from the start they are able to meet competition. Their horizons are different, they feel they are in demand not only in their own college. Essentially, they are citizens of the world. But the lesser rating a college has and the worse education a young person receives, the narrower the horizons are. This young person thinks, “I was born in the Kukushkino village and here I shall die”. So, it really does affect the young people’s career trajectories and takes away the country’s potential.
— Judging from the surveys’ results, do the elite college students have a mentality that is different from the mentality of those attending poor schools?
— We are finishing an extensive research during which we had conducted surveys of 6 thousand students from all the federal districts of Russia. When we will have analyzed the results, I will say something more concrete. All the previous research shows that the Russian society is very homogenous, including the young people, but we shall see…
— And the last, “killer” question as they say. If the young people of today are so politically indifferent, if they have no active standing on anything in life, what is going to happen to our future political leaders? How are we going to grow them?
— This is a big problem. There are few political and social lifts. Everyone grows in the same garden-bed. This is bad for the political system because it needs a normal political competition. It is a pre-requisite for the normal development. But other garden-beds are not created.
When we talk to the students, we say that they are the political elite, they are the people that must become it. But they do not associate themselves with it. They do not have any active position from the start, they do not understand that, when they join the grown-up life, it will be their task to change it. This is our younger generation. We have not nurtured a different one yet.
— Thank you for the interview.
The May 26 protest photos taken from here .
