Are coalition partners in the Russian protest movement. Link
For more than two decades, Russian liberals have been warning of the dangers posed by nationalism, often portraying it as a greater threat to freedom and stability in this multiethnic country than the soft authoritarianism of Mr. Putin, Russia’s once and probably future president. In recent years, the nationalist movement has become large and increasingly malignant, responsible for a pattern of racist violence against non-Slavs that includes kidnapping, torture and murder. Nationalists have taken responsibility for several beheadings.
But in the effort to drive out Mr. Putin, the opposition, driven by liberal and middle-class Russians, has nonetheless reached out to nationalists, seeing them as a vital bulwark at a critical moment.
“Without cooperation with the nationalists, this movement would not be possible,” said Anatoli Baranov, a longtime leftist activist and a leading voice in the new protest movement. He credited the nationalists’ long experience in opposition politics, adding that cooperation with groups of all political stripes was paramount at this early stage.
When I was in Russia, one could buy cassette tapes of SS marches and every kind of nationalist newspaper in Red Square. The people are very sincere and independent. They know the score, and they don’t want to be ruled by Soros. Soros would be a new (multi-racial) serfdom. They see what happened in the USA and want no part of it.
When I was there in 1995 I spoke and understood the language well enough to have long conversations with people. The young Russian men hate America the way we hate liberals. Had I been a liberal or a neocon type I would have gotten beat up or killed there. Fortunately, I sympathized with nationalism on a gut level.
My violin teacher was the grand-daughter of a famous Russian plant scientist. Her husband died of alcoholism and she was raising two sons as a single mom. The older one (21) was a junkie, but she had hope for the younger one, and she was raising him like a tiger mom. She told me about eugenics, and she believed in it strongly. I was only 25, she was 46 and hot. Guaranteed she was a 10 when she was in her 20′s. I didn’t figure out at the time that she would have gone for me. When I first met her, she had dressed and used body language to hide herself from me, the American. She had some pride and Islamic style modesty. I only figured out after having returned to the US, and wrote her letters and talked to her on the phone. But she told me that it didn’t matter, I should go have lots of children with a smart wife, because not enough smart people are breeding and too many dumb people.
I was so focused on learning violin that I thought hitting on her would risk me losing the best violin teacher I ever had. Teachers previously had taught me indifferently, a few times barely at all. Tanya taught me passionately, and she was harsh, but I relished it and encouraged it more, and tried that much harder. It seemed I was on my way to really learning to play the thing.
Having to leave Moscow after six months, having to give up my violin training, was a “being turned away from art school moment.” I spent the next years trying to find a way to go back, but I hadn’t learned good solid business skills. Had I known IT and/or accounting skills I could have had a job there, and become a violinist.
I loved beauty. Particularly Hungarian tanchaz music and Romanian violin.
But I learned that power is more important. We live in an age where the chutzpahcracy will have it’s way with everyone unless it is stopped.
There’s a synonym for neocons for you — chutzpahcrats. It’s the chutzpahcrats versus the Russian Bogatiri. May the latter prevail.
