Tim Wall

The crackdown against the Cherkizovsky market in northeast Moscow is another example of heavy-handed tactics towards migrant workers and traders in the city, and raises the prospect of a further rise in racism and ultranationalism.
 
The market's closure late last month has been justified on the grounds that goods were improperly stored. It came after a scandal erupted over the investigation into last year's seizure of $2 billion in "contraband" Chinese goods.

 
While it's true that such street markets have for a long time been a part of the grey economy, and are often controlled or influenced by murky mafia-like structures, they are not the sole province of non-Russian business groups.
 
The closure of the market, controlled by Azeri-born multi-millionaire Telman Ismailov, and the police crackdown on migrants who worked there, appear to be aimed at ousting non-ethnic Russians.
 
These measures provoked an angry response from hundreds of market workers, who last week staged protests aimed at blocking highways - a tactic borrowed from the successful workers' protests in Pikalyovo.
 
Mayor Yury Luzhkov has explicitly called for Russian workers and traders to be given priority at the market when it reopens. Other nationalities should "take a holiday", while city authorities would only help Russian businesses to get going again, he said.
 
The market's closure came after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed frustration in May that the Chinese goods investigation had dragged on for months without yielding any arrests.
 
Luzhkov, who in the past has enjoyed a good working relationship with Ismailov and was a guest at the recent lavish opening of the tycoon's new hotel complex in Turkey, appears to have taken the hint, backing the swift closure of the market.
 
The problem is that this has thrown some 45,000 people out of work, and theatened the livelihood of many hundreds of thousands more - in Russia and elsewhere.
 
This comes at a time when unemployment across the country has soared to over 10 per cent, and many more workers have suffered big pay cuts.
 
While the short-term effect may be to allow Russian workers and traders to take the place of migrants in the market, the real result will be to play into the hands of ultra-nationalist and neo-fascist groups who call for "Russia for the Russians" and seek to scapegoat non-Russian migrants for "taking Russian jobs".
 
Historically, such divide-and-rule policies have been shown to worsen living standards for ordinary people, whatever their nationality or ethnic background, by pitting one group of workers against another.
 
This leads to a "race to the bottom" - a typical feature of neo-liberal globalisation - where wage cuts are forced through by threatening to shift jobs from one country or region to another on a CEO's whim.
 
Looking for ethnic scapegoats also diverts attention from the real reason for rising unemployment - the collapse of investment and trade globally amid the deepening financial and economic crisis.
 
So if you're looking for someone to blame, try the financial markets, not the street markets.