That map claims that about 1% of the population of Greece is Muslim. This may be what the official statistics say, but I can tell you that there are a lot of illegal immigrants from Albania in Greece and they are almost all Muslim. I would put the true figure at about 5% conservatively, though I feel it is probably close to 10%.

I was surprised to learn just how many Muslims there are in Russia ... you sure don't hear about them too often. Russia's no-nonsense approach might be the solution to Islamic terrorism in Western Europe a few decades from now.

I was surprised to learn just how many Muslims there are in Russia ... you sure don't hear about them too often.

The Chechyans are Muslims. One sure hears a lot about them, or did, until recently.

The map seems to me to do a lot of lowballing of estimates. The percentages for France for example.

Razib: Quit posting these numbers. Do you want the children of Mark Steyn to starve? Accept Eurabia as a reality.

On a more serious note, Peewee can you cite some numbers on Muslim Albanians in Greece being closer to 10%? This report seems to suggest that the illegal population of Albanians in Greece is closer to 300,000 and that includes Muslims and non-Muslims.

Of interest are the Tatar Muslims around the Baltic and Russia. Small in population and pretty well integrated

Russia's no-nonsense approach might be the solution to Islamic terrorism

Just where the fuck have you been for the past 10 years? Russia's "no-nonsense" approach produces news like this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/1...e/ 15russia.html

So, Russian far-right terrorists take Muslim hostages and videotape a beheading, demanding... independence for Russia's southern Muslim republics! Does this happen in countries which have anything resembling "no-nonsense" ideas on terrorism? This sort of stuff is now regular news from Russia, even though the English-language press is curiously eager to ignore it (if stuff like race riots, far-right terror and random murders of Muslims and dark-skinned people happened in any Western country, you'd be hearing about it for weeks, but when it's in Russia, it's hard to find more than a mention of it in English-language news).

The Russian elite cares nothing about terrorism and does little about it, because they're only interested in chasing imperial fantasies and the casualties in terrorism are just some ignorably few low/middle class people (and easily countered by the propaganda benefits of showing Russians as terror victims). Chechnya is a perfect example. It had a tiny Russian colonist minority, the native population doesn't want to be Russian, the Russian claim to the territory is crap (not even the Russians pretend that it's more than "we took it a short while ago") and holding on to it does Russia no good - it being a part of Russia means that it's sending hordes of Chechens who breed very fast as refugees/migrants into the Russian heartland while Russia is bleeding money into a hopeless place. It's like if the Americans were to hand a green card to every Iraqi who'd ask.

Keeping Chechnya makes no sense at all if you're trying to fight terrorism - they're not just not trying to keep the terrorists out, they're trying to keep the terrorists in! But losing the Soviet republics was so insulting to imperial pride that "sense" is out of the picture once you're discussing losing even more territory with Russians. A Russian has to be a neo-Nazi with enough hatred to override pride to suggest the only no-nonsense solution - a new border and a strong fence.

The percentages for France for example.

what do you base that on? i hope it isn't your mentalistic ability to extract numbers from the aether?

a recent public opinion show that 4% of french identify as muslims. since i blogged it you must have had objections then, what were they?

(as you can tell, i'm really getting fucking tired of readers objecting to numbers because of their psychic powers. i don't believe in such things)

but I can tell you that there are a lot of illegal immigrants from Albania in Greece and they are almost all Muslim.

1) if they are almost all muslims, that means there aren't any catholic or orthodox albanians emigrating?

2) all almost all albanian "muslims" are as "catholic" as the french. so some qualification is necessary (yes, there are genuine practicing non-cultural pietistic muslims, but one can say that about french catholics and swedish lutherans too).

jaakkeli:

It's true that Russia's leaders don't want Russia to lose any more territory, and I don't think that's really all that surprising of a position for them to take. If I was a Russian living in Chechnya or even near it, I could think of nothing worse than to find myself suddenly living in an independent Muslim-dominated country which would in all likelihood be hostile to Russia and Russians in general. And so Russia is doing all it can to hold on to the territory it does still have. I agree, though, if you're saying that the welfare of the Russian people in the southern republics is not their only motivation, because I know that those same southern states have much of Russia's oil, and other natural resources such as a warmer climate and better farmland than Russia proper. If Russia were forced to shrink even further then it would likely become very poor.

All I was really saying is that apart from the occupied territory of Chechnya, Russia's Muslims seem surprisingly content with their existence, in contrast to the aggressive politics of Muslims in Western Europe. Given how much more guilty Russia is than other European nations of aggression against Muslims, one would expect al-Qaeda to have recruits all over Russia, and be constantly pulling off train bombings and other terrorist attacks and demanding the Russians leave Chechnya. But that is not happening. Al-Qaeda does not seem to have much of a following in Russia, and all of the Muslim terrorist attacks I'm aware of have been instigated by Chechens living in Chechnya itself, not Chechens or any other nationality living in Russia proper. I suspect this is due to the Russian police doing a better job than Western nations of shutting down terrorist plans before they start.

I did hear about that particular video, though it's news to me if you say such things (native Russian Christians killing Muslims) are regular occurrences there.

russian muslims are diverse. mostly turks conquered during the romanov expansion i think. they aren't immigrants subject to dislocation and anomie, they're natives. aside from those who feel the brunt of russian imperialism too strongly (chechens), most are OK cuz they are given cultural autonomy as they have always been given (even under the tsars islam was a protected and promoted religion, even if far less so than the official orthodoxy).

You yourself in the same post, speaking of France, said:

I'm assuming this excludes the non-religious of ethnicities traditionally Muslim (since they form around 10% of the population).

Numerous posts on this board have discussed the percentage of ethnic Muslim's as being up to 10% of France's population.

Speaking primarily of Britain, Dalrymple has said many times that Muslim young men who end up joining terrorist or terrorist supporting groups often weren't very religious until they turned in that direction, and that even after they did, the characteristics of their belief were far more politically / ideologically radical Muslim than they were deeply devout.

So I think it's a mistake to suppose that all or most of the Muslim origin peoples in France who didn't call themselves Muslim in one particular instance are becoming well integrated into liberal democratic Western society. No doubt some are, but I'd like to see some studies that go into these issues in depth.

As well was that the fairly recent opinion poll that tended to make identifying as French or a Muslim questions in the alternative?

It's true that Russia's leaders don't want Russia to lose any more territory, and I don't think that's really all that surprising of a position for them to take. If I was a Russian living in Chechnya or even near it, I could think of nothing worse than to find myself suddenly living in an independent Muslim-dominated country

Uh, I can think of worse things. Like, for example, suddenly finding myself in a war zone and after that finding myself in an uncontrolled anarchy. Anyone sensible would rather live in an Islamic theocracy rather than in stateless anarchy - especially since that anarchy means that the worst Islamist loonies can do whatever they want even more freely than in a functioning theocracy. The Russians who chose to stay in Chechnya have been far, far worse off than those Russians who've stayed anywhere else in the ex-empire outside Russia. It was just obvious that a war would make things worse for the local Russian population. When has an invasion ever made things happier for local coethnics/coreligionists/cowhatevers of the invader? (Invasion only makes things happier if you're actually going to eradicate enough of the native population to replace it with colonists.)

Yeltsin isn't an idiot, he surely knew he was sacrificing the Russian population when he moved.

And most importantly: Chechnya was de facto independent before the first war and it wasn't dominated by Muslims, it was dominated by a (would-be-)pro-Western nationalists. The constitution they adopted does not even mention Islam and it explicitly included separation of state and religion! The Muslim fanatics were *fuming* at this secular independence stuff and Muslim militias allied with the Russians to defeat the independence movement. Claiming that the war was started as a Russian attempt against Muslim fanatics is either impressive historical revisionism or ignorance, it was closer to the opposite!

And BTW - during Chechen "independence", the Russians were obviously persecuted. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam but rather the fact that most neighbours of Russians, Muslim or not, hate them more than anything.

which would in all likelihood be hostile to Russia

If you were the president of Russia, how scared of Chechen imperialism would you really be?

because I know that those same southern states have much of Russia's oil, and other natural resources such as a warmer climate and better farmland than Russia proper.

No, they don't. Chechnya is so utterly tiny compared to Russia that the land doesn't matter - and Chechnya isn't exactly pleasant compared to, say, the Black Sea coast. It has oil, but, again, Russia is just gigantic, it's just a tiny drip of Russian oil. (Russia is also well-known for not making full use of it's agricultural potential, so it's not like they need to hoard any more of it.) And war is expensive - there's no way it's worth it if you're only thinking of economics and not considering the added "value" in having more territory and ruling over subject peoples.

The reason Chechnya is a part of Russia now while, say, Kazakhstan isn't is that the communists arbitrarily made it a part of Russia instead of an "independent" SSR and Yeltsin again rather arbitrarily decided to end the break-up at that border (since he could).

If Russia were forced to shrink even further then it would likely become very poor.

Become??? (Besides, I live in a country which doesn't have even a drop of oil, a hint of coal or a whiff of gas, which doesn't have any territory south of *60N* and which was mocked as a ridiculously poor place by Russians just a century ago. There's nothing to stop Russia from becoming a normal country, if they would only quit trying to build an empire and start building wealth... but they're not going to do that.)

and all of the Muslim terrorist attacks I'm aware of have been instigated by Chechens living in Chechnya itself, not Chechens or any other nationality living in Russia proper.

Huh? The most well-known attack in Russia must be the Beslan massacre and those attackers even included ethnic Ukrainians and Russians who had converted to Islam! It's strange how often the guilty in these "Chechen terrorist attacks" are not even Chechens...

I suspect this is due to the Russian police doing a better job than Western nations of shutting down terrorist plans before they start.

Yeah, well, want to guess how many policemen were bribed before this week's train bombing, before the news on it arrives? (*If* it arrives, since the Russian authorities being bribed before terrorist attacks is hardly news.)

(I'm sorry, but I've actually been to Russia and the idea of the Russian police doing any job better than the police in any Western country is only worth uncontrollable laughter to me.)

jaa: Wow. okay. You sound like you know your stuff.

As for the Greece thing, I remember reading a report on the BBC once which stated that there were over a million illegal immigrants and refugees in Greece, and people in Greece that I talked to agreed that it was probably true and that most of them were Muslims. Now theyre not really citizens, true, but they are in Greece and that's what I had in mind.

No doubt some are, but I'd like to see some studies that go into these issues in depth.

please look at marc sagemen's analayst of salafist terrorists and you'll see the patterns of french of north african origin in detail. in any case, the french data were 6-10%. i'm a little confused as to why that qualified range doesn't indicate that they aren't taking into account different classifications.

So I think it's a mistake to suppose that all or most of the Muslim origin peoples in France who didn't call themselves Muslim in one particular instance are becoming well integrated into liberal democratic Western society.

you should back to exegesis class and learn when to apply your hermeneutics where it is wanted or needed. the data are simply a baseline, they aren't judgments about assimilation. before we can have those discussions we actually need a numerical baseline, which many readers of this weblog seem to think is optional. you may recall my history of stern words with you started when you seemed totally unconcerned that you had only a vague conceptions of the number of east asians in the world, but felt comfortable speaking about that proportion anyhow. a disproportionate number of the radicals in sagemen's survey of salafists are converts. are we know going to wonder about the assimilibility of native populations? the first step in discussion is to be clear and assign p-values to the numbers we have with some clarity, not run ahead of ourselves and smear multiple issues together.

There's nothing like some real data to show up Mark Steyn and others about the reality (or lack there of) of Eurabia.

6-10%. i'm a little confused as to why that qualified range doesn't indicate that they aren't taking into account different classifications.

Right, same percentages I have seen many places, including the Economist. It does seem clear to me that different methods of assessing, or different poll questions, are likely a large part of the estimation differences. That doesn't give detail to how it falls out.

had only a vague conceptions of the number of east asians in the world

What horse plop Razib.

How many East Asians there are depends on how one defines "East Asian". If one restricts the definition to Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, I'll do a top of my head (without looking it up) estimate of 1.3b .15b and .8b (N&S), respectively.

I'd long have said somewhere around 1.5 billion.

Just looked it up on Wikipedia as a quick and dirty, and I'm pretty close, though I under E'd China a little and over E'd Japan slightly and the Koreas a fair bit.

There have been a few, not many but a few, occasions when I've posted tipsy. Perhaps you've seized on one.

My overall point being that ETHNIC Muslims in France seem to be at about 10% of the population, whereas more restrictive definitions of being religiously Muslim come in lower, down to 4%.

If one measured the number of Jews in the US by the number who attend synagogue at least twice a month, we'd get a lot less than the usually accepted numbers and percentages.

The city in Connecticut where I used to live has a big Albanian population, in fact some have been there for at least two generations, and while nominally Muslim most of them are about as familiar with the inside of a mosque as I am - in other words, not at all. Are those in Greece any more devout?

Peter--

I don't care about Muslim relegiosity per se.

What I care about is political Islam, terrorist Islam, and to a lesser degree, any greatly elevated tendency for any particular Islamic community to be criminal.

WHat I care about is a cost/benefit analysis as to how wise it is to let Muslims into any particular Western country on a mass, not elite selected, basis.

The city in Connecticut where I used to live has a big Albanian population, in fact some have been there for at least two generations, and while nominally Muslim most of them are about as familiar with the inside of a mosque as I am - in other words, not at all. Are those in Greece any more devout?

No. In fact many of them convert to Christianity short after they arrive.

LK

I wonder why that is.

How much of it has to do with feeling like an isolated and tiny community within the American sea, with little hope of ethnic political power brokering?

How much has to do with the substrata of Albanians than came to the US, on average or however else they can be summarized?

How much has to do with not having any proximate homeland, nor any easy overland routes by which to facilitate the criminal smuggling of heroin and ex communist ex Soviet girls?

dougjnn -

LK was referring to the ethnic Albanians in Greece, not those in America.

If one measured the number of Jews in the US by the number who attend synagogue at least twice a month, we'd get a lot less than the usually accepted numbers and percentages.

this is a false analogy. if you ask many secular jews if they are "jewish" even if they only go to syn. on high holy days they will assert they are, and most jews will be totally fine with that (though orthodox jews will say they are not "religious" jews). there are many people who consider themselves jews, catholics and muslims who don't attend services. that's different from people who disavow the self-identification of a particular religion. so you shouldn't be so dismissive of those who refuse to say they are religion x, to be of jewish ethnic origin and not call yourself a jew indicates a strong level of distancing which extends beyond non-practice.

(this varies for religions, fundamentalist protestants demand a level of constant participation to be considered members or identified)

dougjnn, I was talking about Albanians in Greece. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that most Albanians are nationalistic atheists. Converting to Christianity and adopting a Christian name is an easy way for them to become more accepted, or at least less conspicuous in Greek society.

btw wasn't there a U.S government report a few years back saying that the Albanian mafia had become a serious competitor of the Italian mafia?

Thanks for that map Razib. I sometimes hear about the high rates of incarceration for European Muslims, but couldn't find good data.

If 70% of the prisoners in France genuinely are Muslims this could really be a problem after all. If the population reaches 20% Muslim, they will account for 140% of the prisoners.

Allow a group to enter a country,then divide and rule ?

Interestingly, No European nation is showing more awareness of its demographic weakness than Russia:

Russians urged to have babies, win prizes in annual contest to fight demographic decline
Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp

jaakkeli is both right and wrong (mainly wrong) in his posts about Russia. Although he sounds a bit too opinionated to argue with.

1) Chechnya did not have a "tiny" Russian colonist minority. Until mid-1990s almost half of its urban population was non-Chechen. After the de-facto independence the Russians were expelled (losing their property) or killed. This genocide is of course not discussed anywhere.
2) Most of the Russia's immediate neighbors do hate Russians with passion, especially Baltic states, Finland, West Ukraine, and Chechnya. That said, all of the above fought on the Nazi side and there is no love for them in Russia as well. I do not think one can designate the right and wrong sides with absolute clarity.
3) The solution of building the fence around the North Caucus is appealing to almost all Russians as long as it includes expelling the Chechens and
Armenians living in Russia. Since Chechnya has no economy to speak of, this will never be accepted by Chechens.
4) Russia is a pretty fucked up country, with elites not giving a rat's ass about the regular folks (here jaa is right). However, it is interesting to note there is a PC wave in Russian media with hate crime laws being strongly considered. E.g. it has been proposed not to publish the names of criminals, since there are disproportionately non-Russian sounding. That said Russia is too screwed to become livable in any near future, and then it will be overrun by China.
5) Almost every ethnicity in Russia is de facto atheist so that religion has nothing to do with the ethnic friction.
PS The video of Russian neonazis executing two non-Russians is probably a hoax done by Chechens et al. to feed the MSM hysteria.

2) Most of the Russia's immediate neighbors do hate Russians with passion, especially Baltic states, Finland, West Ukraine, and Chechnya. That said, all of the above fought on the Nazi side and there is no love for them in Russia as well.

Russia did the "Nazi side" thing first, remember? It's especially clear with Finland, as Germany at first, in 1939-1940, acted against Finland as a Russian ally. (Note BTW that Russia even had a formal treaty with Germany while Finland never did.) Of course, this is hardly known at all in Russia, most Russians I've spoken to aren't even aware of the treaty with Germany, because in Russian history books Russia has never done anything shady. History is taught to them as one big "evil Nazis and their Western collabolators attacking poor completely innocent Russia" story.

Russians are completely nuts about this, on the level of Muhammed cartoon riots. You barely hear about this in the English-language media, but riots, ethnic attacks, silly boycotts and attacks on embassies are a regular thing in Russia whenever someone in Eastern Europe dares mention that Stalin wasn't a good guy and Russia isn't a hero of WWII. Eg. Russia still refuses to sign treaties with the Baltic states unless they also agree to sign a statement that they joined the Soviet Union voluntarily, that Russia was simply invited to rule over them - anything else is supposedly Nazi propaganda. Of course, to everyone who knows one bit of history this demand appears totally crazy - it's like Germany were to demand that Poland signs a statement declaring that they invited Nazi rule and start whining about how everyone else seems to believe in Soviet and Zionist propaganda - but to Russians this is completely normal. Every time they refuse there's a burst of attacks, boycotts and all sorts of ultranationalist nuttiness in Russia.

So, it's perfectly accurate to say that there's no love for those peoples in Russia for that reason - but for someone eager to brand me as "opinionated", you're curiously eager to forget mentioning how utterly nonsensical the Russian attitude is.

Oh and...

1) Chechnya did not have a "tiny" Russian colonist minority. Until mid-1990s almost half of its urban population was non-Chechen.

*Urban* population. Chechnya is mostly rural and the rural population has almost no Russians at all. The Russian minority was a small fraction of the total population. In any vote the Chechens' opinion would've trumped the Russians' (many of which who would not even have objected to independence anyway, as many didn't in the ex-SSRs). Note also that ethnic Russians are moving away from all the fringe areas towards the central parts in Europe and I don't see why Chechnya would have been an exception, so the population would've declined anyway.

The video of Russian neonazis executing two non-Russians is probably a hoax done by Chechens et al. to feed the MSM hysteria.

Russia has a big problem with White Supremacist groups. A cursory search on Google will establish that.

edward lucas, who wrote that supposedly objective, but manifestly value laden piece, is anti-russian propaganist in chief for the anti-russian economist magazine, which supports wooly, effeminite, cosmopolitan internationalism and detests any form of patriotism.

Today, the Kremlin's ideology chief Vladislav Surkov is trying to explain why questioning the crooks and spooks who run Russia is not just mistaken, but treacherous.

objective journalism there ed! pretty much what id expect from these clowns.

Al_whatever: Russia has a much bigger problem with organized Chechen and Georgian crime gangs. Also, there has been dozens of Daniel Pearl style beheading videos of Russian soldiers being killed by Chechens. This particular video has Chechen fingerprints all over it, starting with the accent of the speaker.

Jaa:
2) Let us not blindly equate Russia to Soviets. A very significant fraction of the early communist leaders was non-Russian. It is true that SU invaded Finland first. On the other hand, it was clear that Finland was going to align with Germans before the first Soviet-Finland war. You also cannot deny the mistreatment of the Russian civilian population by Finns during the WW2. I do not care if Finland never formalized its alliance with nazis, it still invaded Russia,
What a lot of Russians are pissed off about is that the West does not seem to realize how big was the Russian sacrifice in defeating the Germans. No, it was not done by "private Ryans". Fun fact: over 25% of the Belorussian population was killed
by Germans.
Another factual mistake: the Soviet-German pact was all over the news in Russia about 10-15 years ago. Thus, it is of common knowledge to any Russian older than 25.
Also, would you care to explicitly mention any riot in Russia that happened, say, during the last 10 years ?

1) Probably true. Then again, the war in Chechnya makes slightly more sense then the war in Iraq, if only to revenge for the Russian men and women tortured by Chechens after they first obtained their de facto independence. Again, as long that no Chechens are left in Russia, 99% of the Russians would be happy to leave Chechnya alone. Try explaining that to Putin.

cuchulkhan,

Yes, I agree, it is rather slanted politically. My apologies, I should have warned. I thought it was an interesting story all the same and worth linking because of its relevance. Just read through the self-righteous lefty-preachiness.

2) Let us not blindly equate Russia to Soviets.

No, let's just be honest and fully equate Russia to the Soviets in 1939.

A very significant fraction of the early communist leaders was non-Russian.

Whenever has Russia's elite ever not been significantly non-Russian? How Russian were the Tsars? How Russian is Russia's elite? Lately, I've been hearing from Russians who hate Putin that he's supposedly disturbingly Finnic in ancestry and that explains his crimes. Will this excusing ever end? If the Russians don't want non-Russians giving Russia a bad name, maybe they should just do something to stop the evil non-Russians who somehow always manage to rule over the Russians who are orders of magnitude greater in number...

It is true that SU invaded Finland first. On the other hand, it was clear that Finland was going to align with Germans before the first Soviet-Finland war.

And exactly what evidence do you have of this?

What actually happened was that Germany was completely cool towards any Finnish appeals for help and blocked unofficial attempts while nearly every other country from Italy to Sweden to the United States either gave some official aid or allowed volunteer aid. Finland would've of course been perfectly happy to accept German aid, but there was none to be had. As for which country Finland would've aligned with if given free choice, the friends of Germany in the elite were outnumbered by even those who would've been friendly towards a restored imperial Russia! (Until independence, the first part of the century Finland spent under Russia was by far the most pleasant time in Finnish history; Russian rule was much lighter than Swedish rule and much more civilized than the rule of any of the other Great Powers' in their colonies.)

You also cannot deny the mistreatment of the Russian civilian population by Finns during the WW2.

No, but you can't deny that the mistreatment of Finnish civilians by Russians wasn't orders of magnitude worse. Finns didn't send out partisans to slaughter women and children for the terror alone, the Russians did - and Finnish war criminals who are caught are punished while Russian war criminals are still given new commendations.

What a lot of Russians are pissed off about is that the West does not seem to realize how big was the Russian sacrifice in defeating the Germans. No, it was not done by "private Ryans".

Don't mistake Hollywood for "the West". This is well realized in Finland and the belief of certain nationals in private Ryans is an endlessly ridiculed subject. (If we're talking about movies, I'd say most people consider the usual American stuff about as accurate as a worse than average Soviet propaganda film.) In fact, if you learn your history in Finnish schools, you'll get used to thinking that a certain country which seems to believe that it was all about them wasn't that important at all in WWII - the real intense theater was Eastern Europe, everything else was a lesser sideshow.

What the Russians don't get is that this doesn't translate to sympathy, because a) the Russians are seen as (at least almost as) guilty to starting the war as the Germans are and b) the Russians are completely unapologetic about their wartime atrocities, the unprovoked territory-grabbing and the oppression of Eastern Europe. Similarily, it's well known how much the Germans suffered in the end, but there still isn't that much sympathy - if there's any, it's because they're now very apologetic. There just won't be sympathy for Russian suffering, no matter how great and no matter how well-known it is, as long as the Russians do not admit their own brutality.

Another factual mistake: the Soviet-German pact was all over the news in Russia about 10-15 years ago. Thus, it is of common knowledge to any Russian older than 25.

Yet you wonder bizarre things like why there is so little sympathy for Russian suffering in WWII - a war started by the Russians and the Germans.

If you want to play "innocent victim" in a war, don't start it! It's that simple.

Also, would you care to explicitly mention any riot in Russia that happened, say, during the last 10 years ?

This has to be my favourite and it's relevant because we were talking about ethnic violence:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europ...ope/ 5312078.stm

So, a place has been Finnic for eons before the Russians even existed, then the Russians come over to replace the natives with all sorts of people from all over the empire that they simply had to build and then finally the *Russians* riot to throw away the evil strangers. Great.

jaa:
1) It is clear that you were brainwashed in a Finnish school, and I was brainwashed in a Russian school and no amount of arguing is going to change this. The Finns did fight on the German side. The WW2 is known in Russia as the "great Patriotic War" and pretty much every family lost a member or two in this war. Thus, a cool discussion on this subject is not possible. Oh, and the great ancient Finns were always ruled either by Swedes or Russians. However, I do admire Finland for standing up to Soviet Union during the first war.


2) This riot in Kondopoga is basically a continuation of the Russian/Chechen conflict. There were no "Gangs of skinheads" there, just the local population not happy by the lack of police response to armed Chechen gangs. Also, please quit quoting BBC, it is notoriously leftist and anti-Russian.
To illustrate that Chechens cannot peacefully coexist with others, read these e.g.:
http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newste...id/ 1182056.html
http://jamestown.org/ chechnya_we...ticleid=2372624
I can hardly imagine say Russian-Karelian riot.

Finland has been blessed by not having a large non-assimilating immigrant community. But your time is gonna come.

The Finns did fight on the German side.

Yes and I never claimed anything else. There is no shame at all in it and the majority of Finns consider it to have been the right choice in the circumstances.

Any Russian pointing it out as if it's a meaningful attack on Finns is naturally a hypocrite, since the Russians got in bed with the Germans first.

Also, please quit quoting BBC, it is notoriously leftist and anti-Russian.

I actually linked to the BBC because it's notoriously left-wing and in the West the left is generally the pro-Russian side. :-p Although the bias is lesser in the UK, you can still trust the BBC to faithfully downplay Russian nastiness - although I'm never really sure when they're apologetic and when they're just clueless. (This would make a fun drinking game. Whenever the BBC is talking about some kind of "activists" demonstrating against Putin or whatever and implying that this is somehow evidence of growing grassroots democracy and oncoming "orange revolution" in Russia, take a drop of vodka for every National Bolshevik flag in the crowd. No wait, you'll drink yourself to death!)

Finland has been blessed by not having a large non-assimilating immigrant community.

We had a bad one, but getting conquered by Russia helped with that problem. :-)

you can still trust the BBC to faithfully downplay Russian nastiness

yeah right, the bbc decided long ago that putin was the devil incarnate.

the finnish decision to side with the germans was the correct one, nations need to look out for themselves not some higher morality. from their perspective the russians were worse.