PUTIN - NOT A PUNK ROCK FAN?

Recent events must be striking a rather sour note for Russian president Vladimir Putin. Having recently “won” a second term, it’s not all going quite according to the script. In fact, it’s all going a bit pear shaped.

First time, Putin cast himself as the strongman bringing stability and prosperity to Russia after the drunken chaos of the final Yeltsin years.  After two terms he had to stand down, so he orchestrated it that his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, replaced him. After a bothersome few year languishing as PM, Putin prepared for his comeback. And that’s when script and reality parted ways.

First Vlad launched his comeback campaign with a bit of PR. Bad move. To start with, Vlad unintentionally albeit hilariously, turned himself into a gay icon by posing bare-chested atop a fine stallion ostensibly whilst on holiday (the intention of striking a heroic tough man pose falling flat). This was followed by further silly gaffs – Vlad the Black Belt winning a Karate competition as competitors conveniently fell over their own feet, Vlad the mean Hell's Angel riding a harley, and Vlad the ping pong demon, beating the hapless Medvedev at table tennis. This was topped off with a ridiculous stunt where Vlad the Diver discovered two ancient Greek urns whilst diving in the Black Sea. A beaming Vlad posed, emerging from the water, with his two chipped and broken old jugs, not dissimilar to those mass produced large faux-Grecian flower pots available at most garden markets. Not very presidential…

Next came the 2012 presidential election. Putin on the campaign trail alternated between the maudlin shedding of tears and wittering on about how much he loved Russia and appearing stony faced in response to the massed demonstrations against him by…er… thousands of others who loved Russia.

This would not do - clearly the masses were getting above themselves. So, as soon as he was re-elected, Vlad embarked upon a banning frenzy. An Orwellian sounding new "Law of Strengthening the Fight against Extremism in the Information Space", to tighten the rules for evil foreign publications (i.e., clamping down on any view not an echo of his own), is apparently being planned. A ban on internet alcohol advertisements is coming in (nope, thats not made up). A ban on unsanctioned public demonstrations (those in favour of Vlad of course being sanctioned) is already in place.

Vlad must have felt well pleased with all his handiwork. No foreign or unacceptable views on the internet, no public demonstrations against him and no more adverts for drunkenness. But then, earlier this year, a punk rock band went and spoilt it with an act of outrageous public indecency. The band, Pussy Riot (que gasps of shock in the Kremlin), sang a rude ditty about Vlad playing' uninvited we can assume' in the Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church. It took the form of a punk prayer, asking the Holy Mother rid them all of Putin. Pussy Riot also took a pot shot at the Orthodox Patriarch, Krill, one of Vlad's toadys. Krill called the performance “blasphemous” – well, it’s certainly a bit disjointed and discordant, but there again, its punk. Perhaps Krill, like Vlad, doesn’t like Punk very much. Quite what the outraged Patriarch must have made of the band’s name, history hasn’t yet related although we can probably guess.

Putin’s answer to this challenge is to put them in the dock and then, no doubt, apply some pressure to the court to have them locked up for about 7 years, all for singing a song. Why Putin objects so much to Pussy Riot is a mystery. Perhaps it’s because their name offends his conservative sensibilities. Perhaps it’s because, as an ABBA fan, he finds it all a bit hard on the ear (by contrast Mr Medvedev is a Deep Purple fan–no argument about who wins the macho musical contest there then). No – it’s more likely because, like anyone else who publically annoys him (oligarchs, businessmen closing factories, small neighbouring countries etc.), Putin’s default response is to crush and humiliate.  Dealing with a couple of naughty girls singing rude song was going to be small beer. But, it’s not going to plan like it would have even just a few years ago.

Firstly, thousands of the Church’s followers, other believers and atheists signed a petition to Patriarch Kirill, asking him to stand up for the girls. Then the whole thing has gone viral online, on TV and in the international print media. Predictably, it’s getting millions of hits on YouTube, the following being a small selection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uptv4ubOr_k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdcyDZ4bsY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uptv4ubOr_k&feature=related

Putin seems incapable of grasping just how the world is changing. He is being globally humiliated by sticking by his murderous chum in Syria. He is despised by more and more of his own people. He doesn’t understand how the world has become interconnected and what this means both for individuals and nations in terms of liberty, information and the virtual dissolution of borders. He tries to ban views dissenting from his own - he may as well ban the sun from rising.

His Russia is fast disappearing. It is no longer a docile, subservient union, silently going along with the abuses of its leaders. A new, restive Russia is growing in its place in which there is no place for leaders longing for the days of the cold war, wishing they were “back in the USSR”. Putin is fast becoming a man out of his time and a nasty reminder of a fading era.

There is much talk about the Arab spring, but Putin may have inadvertently turned Pussy Riot’s song into the soundtrack of Russia’s own spring.

Taliban Justice

A few days ago horrific footage of an Afghan woman being shot dead by the Taliban was broadcast on television and the internet. Her alleged crime? Adultery. Whether she had any trial (or what kind of sordid excuse for a hearing this takes under Taliban law) is irrelevant.  Perhaps all that was required was for a bearded accuser to make an allegation?

There she knelt, or crouched, in a final pose almost too painful to watch, bent in the dirt and the heat before her merciless executioners. She was the wife of a local Taliban leader. Or something. It scarcely matters. Some of the turbaned heroes were caught on film, pitiless smiles, grinning. A crowd had gathered, perhaps in expectation of some light entertainment to relieve the monotony of another long, hot and pointless day in a world trapped in the intellectual dark ages.

A couple of Kalashnikov shots rang out. Footage swept quickly over a crumpled form, motionless in the grainy dust. Some more smiles and another execution. She was not the first by a long way. There will be many more.

It is quite difficult to describe the people who live by this sort of code where a defenceless, probably innocent woman, is shot for something only slightly more than sport. Without resorting to pointless expletives, they are despicable and barbaric. They are intellectually diseased. They are poisoned by a kind of viral psychosis, imprisoned in a twisted wicked philosophy that defies the modern world and which is frighteningly resilient. They have been bombed, shot, “droned” and hunted down. Yet, like some deadly tide, they wash back, like a mutating virus resistant to all attack, they reappear.

At roughly the same time a mega conference was being held in Japan about the future of Afghanistan. Deep pocketed worthies (or at least big talking worthies) pledged support to poor Afghanistan as it writhed in its agony of being torn between worlds that are centuries apart. The US Secretary of State pledged the US to stand side by side with its new best friend in the glowing future of the years ahead. What else could she say?

And with those fine words comes that horrible juxtaposition – the twisted body of an executed woman in the bloodied dust and the echoes of the fine words and ghostly platitudes of fading “friends”, heading for the exits.

Afghanistan will, once again be left to its fate. Its future, more likely than not, lies in its past. Once again, the long shadow of the dark ages prevails.

See earlier blog The long shadow of dark ages.