Euroasian Jewish News

National-Cultural Autonomies Meet State Authorities

On the 29th of November – 1st of December, in the capitol of Tatarstan the Forum on the interaction of national cultural autonomies and the authorities of the Russian Federation. The organizator of the Forum was the Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy (FJNCA), which received a grant from the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation.
Among those who took part in the plenary meetings and “round tables” of the Kazan' forum were leaders of most pan-Russian national cultural autonomies, representatives of federal and republican authorities, and ethnologists. One of the important topics discussed at the meeting was the uniqueness of autonomies as the natural partners of state power, as the main instrument created to ensure the legal relationship between the state leadership and the minorities.
The main speakers at the Forum were the Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan, Chairman of the Council of Assembly of Peoples of Tatarstan Farid Muhamethshin, the director of the Department of Inter-nationality Relations of the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation Alexander Zhuravsky, leader of the Committee of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on the question on nationalities Baaal Biguaa, deputy director of the N. Mikluho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Zorin, and the vice-president of the Federal Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy, Secretary General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC), professor Michael Chlenov.
As part of the forum, the joint meeting of the Consultative council on the questions of national-cultural autonomies of the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation, and the Cross Sectoral Committee on the interaction of national non-governmental organizations. The FJNCA President, member of the EAJC General Council Michael Skoblionok, took up the post of the Chairman of the Consultative council.
When commenting the results of the Forum, EAJC Secretary General Michael Chlenov noted that this was the “first and very important meeting of the state authorities and the autonomies face to face for recognizing priorities in their relations. It is important that exactly those few representatives of the state apparatus who actually form and enact national policy.” According to the EAJC Secretary General, the Forum gave hope that a channel for informing the state and the lobbying of interest of national communities will be built, as well as a mechanism to solve the problems which arise in this field.
EAJC President Alexander Mashkevich, who leads the Trustee Council of the FJNCA, also expressed satisfaction at the results of Kazan' Forum, and noted that it can serve as a model of relations between the powers and minorities on different levels.