DISHEARTENED WITH THE WEST

REPRINTS 

By Alexey Pankin

Moscow Times, August 11, 2009

Back in January 2003, I read the following opinion on the Kreml.org web site, an analytical forum that had just been created: “We will never be accepted in [the West’s] world or recognized as equal partners in their innumerable communities. Russia may have many allies in the West, but from our Western partners’ standpoint we will always be viewed as different, strange, somehow improper and eternally guilty of something.” 

When I published that quote in my Moscow Times column on Jan. 28, 2003, I used a bit of irony in referring to that Russian mindset as an “anti-Western inferiority complex.” 

A few days ago, I read an interview on Slon.ru with Vladimir Sungorkin, editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the country’s most popular and influential newspapers. “If you do not support this country,” he said, “this regime and this president, then you automatically support outside forces that have an interest in weakening and destroying the state.” Rather than offering a rebuttal, I now accept those words as a simple fact. 

The West’s attitude toward Georgia’s war against Russia a year ago became a moment of truth for me and for many of my colleagues. The immediate response to the war by Western media and officials, as well as by the overwhelming majority of post-Communist European nations, could by summed up as follows, “Out of the blue, an aggressive Russia attacked Georgia without cause to suffocate the budding democracy.” 

This bias underscores the West’s presumption of Russia’s guilt, regardless of circumstances. That is probably why U.S. President Barack Obama received a rather cool reception during his recent visit to Moscow, while in other capitals he has been met with rousing applause. 

It was, of course, disheartening for me to have to give up my pro-Western illusions. Yet it was even more disappointing that many of my friends and colleagues ­ who, like me, had joined the bandwagon of perestroika reforms in the late 1980s in the hopes of rebuilding Russia along Western lines ­ were smart enough to lose faith in the West much earlier than I had. 

On the other hand, it made me closer to the Russian people. After the Russia-Georgia war, the stance taken by the intelligentsia coincided with mainstream public opinion ­ a rare event in Russian history. 

Some might say such an evolution in thinking is similar to the changes U.S. neoconservative writers such as Norman Podhoretz or Irving Kristol underwent in the 1970s and 1980s. After initially defining themselves as firm leftists in their writings, they later became apologists for U.S. dogma and provided powerful ideological support for the administration of former President Ronald Reagan. For a Western intellectual and former Trotskyist such as Kristol, this radical switch is tantamount to a psychiatric disorder.  

Maybe, having cast off their illusions, they displayed the same fanaticism in joining the global ideological struggle against their former idols. As Adolf Hitler once said, “Social democrats don’t make good fascists, but Communists do.” It is natural for Russian intellectuals who had been enamored of Western values to experience a similar reaction and for our disaffection not to have been especially heart wrenching. We respect the West’s values, but in our country we will live according to our own traditions, values and world outlook. 

P.S. I’m off now to reread Vladimir Putin’s 2007 Munich speech.   

Alexei Pankin is a leading Russian political and media analyst and journalist based in Moscow. He is the editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.  

photo source: www.alexeipankin.com

Comments

[Patrick Armstrong]

Something I wrote a while back that has been preserved here
http://konstantin2005.blogspot.com/2006/05/demonizing-russia.html

There's always a standing bill of indictment against Russia, although the details continually change. In 2001 the Washington Post warned that Russia would default on debt repayments; the Kursk sinking prompted reflections on the "callous disregard for human life" of Russia's leadership (Knight 2000); in 1997 Kissinger was complaining about Russia's "refusal" to demarcate its borders; no Russian leader had ever left power voluntarily and neither would Yeltsin, warned Stephen Cohen in 1994. Most charges prove ephemeral or false - nuclear tests in Nova Zemlya, the Security Council as the "new Politburo", war over the Black Sea Fleet - but others come up again and again. Some charges have validity. The war in Chechnya was certainly very brutal. Putin has centralized power and tightened control over the media. But, when these charges appear on the bill of indictment, they appear without context. The Russian army is brutal in Chechnya not necessarily because it wants to be, but because bad armies are brutal. And, despite "fabricated rumors of a Chechen-al Qaeda nexus" (Washington Times, 2002), we know better. Nor do we hear as much about "unresolved" (Guardian, 2000) apartment bombings when there have been so many jihadist bombings of nightclubs, railway stations, tourist resorts and mosques. Putin is centralising because he (and, be it clear, most Russians) agree that the 1990s were frighteningly chaotic. A centralised media is not desirable but neither was the media of the oligarch wars. Too many governors were the pawns of local hoods. Putin does have reasons, good or bad, for what he does: saying "tight-lipped 47-year-old KGB staffer" (Guardian, 2000) or "Andropov redux" (Gaffney, 2000) is not an explanation. When Brzezinski last year stormed that Moscow refused to repudiate the Hitler-Stalin pact, it wasn't just "nostalgic efforts by Vladimir Putin to restore Moscow's control": no country will assume responsibility for historical malfeasance when it knows the next step will be reparations claims.

While charging Putin with bringing back the "Soviet anthem" (Wall Street Journal, 2000), the fact that all the other state symbols were lifted straight from the Tsars was not mentioned. This is not argument, it is advocacy. The essence of the charge sheet style is that the conclusion determines the evidence. Take the everlasting assertion that Russia is naturally imperialist: this is the oldest of the charges - experts "knew" that Gorbachev would never leave Germany - and as time moves on, the accusation remains. The format is the same: Russia's so-called nostalgia for empire is asserted (Jonathon Eyal in 1993, Pipes in 1994 and 1998, George Tenet in 1997, Paul Goble 2000) and examples are filled in as needed: "democratic Georgia" today, the Baltics yesterday, Germany the day before. As the troops leave one country, another place is found to prove the point. The "energy weapon" is deployed against contumacious neighbors like Ukraine (but be careful not to mention that Gazprom is raising the price for "friends" like Armenia and Belarus, too). The charge predates Putin ЁC in 1993 The Economist decided that Georgia's independence had been already snuffed out and the energy wars have been going on since 1991.

Rarely, however, is it pointed out that Russia's neighbors are more independent each year and that Russian troops are leaving them too. Or that while Ukraine needs Russian energy, Russia needs Ukrainian pipelines to move its gas to those who actually pay for it. The boot here is actually on both feet. "Imperialist Russia", it is clear, is a premise, not a conclusion. The repetitive bills of indictment have a cumulative effect - people forget the alarums that never came to pass but remember the underlying message that Russia is a menace. Why try to take an objective look at the whole of Russian reality when "traditional Russian imperialism" (Kissinger, 1997) is all you need to know? A great deal of opinion in the USA and the West has been shaped by the continual drum roll of warnings, accusations and indictments. Eventually the message gets stuck in: Russia is an enemy.

[Mike Stacy]

DISHEARTENED WITH THE WEST
REPRINTS: By Alexey Pankin
Moscow Times, August 11, 2009

Hello Tavarish: FYI, I think you're experiencing and buying into a poor me "pitty party."
As a former Marine, I learned that a good Marine never goes into battle without a camera. Also, I think Georgia was wrong to invade the disputed area unilaterally and I also think it was wrong for Russia to invade Georgia, after the fact, unilaterally, without international support.
Turn around is fair play and it was wrong for the US to engage in Preemption into Iraq, when there were many ways to get the MADASS out of office. That's Saddam spelled backwords. This is why both sides, US and Russia must work at international trust, and do so through the UN, currently an impetent organization.
Also, be advised that a camera, reflecting the story behind the story, is the way to restore a better level of trust in the global community. In the US, we have 24/7 news coverage and the networks will sell their mother for a story, whether true or embellished, as the embellishment is what scares the begebies out of the masses inasmuch as ratings are king, weather factual or embellished. So, at times, I can "puke" over our 24/7 coverage, but the American people can see embellishment, just as the Russian masses can. So, greater transparency is the way to bridge the gap. Best regards: Mike Stacy, www.youtube/supermediaguru

[Michael Averko]

On this point, Pankin has been behind the times, unlike some others who've gotten it right from the get go.

The first wave of NATO expansion involved mis-informative anti-Russian caricaturing. Likewise, much of the Western commentary on Chechnya didn't take into full consideration the Russian position. The same can be said relative to former Yugoslavia. With objectivity in mind, the overall high profile Western responses and coverage of the so-called "Orange Revolution" left something to be desired as well.

With this background, a similar response to last year's war in the former Georgian SSR was to be expected.