Official: Enemies Target Civil Identity at Ufa Forum
A forum titled «Small Homeland – Russia»s Strength« is taking place in Ufa. Participants are discussing the development of the country»s cities and villages. Among the speakers are representatives of government, business, public organizations, and so on. Today, January 29, Alexey Zharich, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration«s department for public projects, gave a lecture on historical settlements.
According to him, historical settlements in a political context are places that have special value for the country«s history.
«We are talking about this in terms of preserving our civil identity. It answers the question »Who are you?«. And if a person, especially a young one, answers: »I am a citizen of the Russian Federation, I am Russian,« then we are doing everything right. If they answer that they are a citizen of the world, a cosmopolitan, or »Homeland is where you feel good, not where you were born,« then we are doing something wrong,» said Zharich.
He said that some countries in the 1990s tried to «change our identity» and people«s thinking. However, Alexey Zharich says, the country withstood this and did not allow its identity to be changed.
He also touched on the topic of technological (digital) sovereignty. According to him, there are only three countries that have their own search engines, social networks, and messengers (apparently referring to the USA, China, and Russia).
«A search engine is when you ask something about your country»s history, and it gives you either what is actually related to reality, or what its owners throw at you,« Zharich said.
According to him, preserving civil identity is the most important task, because it is the target that enemies strike at.
«Historical settlements are our history, precisely the foundation through which our values can be traced. Strong family, creative labor, mercy, mutual aid, unity of peoples. These are also our values – in diversity, culture, multi-religiousness,» he added.
