It started out as geopolitical bullying, with the Kremlin applying an economic headlock to pressure an obstreperous little neighbor, Georgia, to return to Moscow’s fold. But a related campaign against “Georgian interests” in Russia, involving mass arrests of alleged illegal immigrants and a crackdown on Georgian-owned businesses, has dangerously fuelled xenophobia in Russia’s streets and buoyed the country’s rising neo-fascist… return to article
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Reader Comments (10)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe Russians involved in xenophobic nationalism is bad.
The Russians involved in spreading communist revolution is good.These small nuances escape me. How would the two be different?
Posted by texasindependent on Nov 15, 2006 at 6:51 PM A lot escapes you, Tex. When were the Russkies last involved in spreading Communist revolution ? Not since Stalin iced Trotsky
before WW2. The Soviet takeover of eastern Europe was the natural
military result of defeating Germany & its satellites in WW2.
Ergo for Red China in eastern Asia after Japan’s defeat in WW2.
But then they don’t go in for that book larning in Texass, do they ?
Posted by blondemike on Nov 16, 2006 at 11:14 AM Putin clearly feels his back is against a wall. He’s trying to get some irrational energy going that will somehow bolster his position. And unfortunately, drawing the xenophobe card (whether phrased in nationalist or racist terms, or both) is a sure-fire way to garner more local support for the leadership’s agenda, not just in Russia but nearly everywhere.
Dismaying that it works so easily and consistently around the world, but there ya go.
Perhaps Putin thinks he can somehow control the more radical elements he has activated to help him achieve some important agenda, like feeding Russian antipathy against Chechens and other rebellious groups in the Caucasus region. However, he should take a page from Pakistani history. The Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), in which Gen. Musharraf had a formerly powerful role, fostered radical Islamist groups in-country in hopes they would attack and help loosen India’s grip on Kashmir. They also thought they could control the radicals to serve their own ends. However, those same groups are now the primary thorn in now-President Musharraf’s side, having tried to disrupt his rule, overturn his foreign policy, and also to kill him on several occasions.
Some genii don’t go back into their bottles quite so easily, Mr Putin.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 17, 2006 at 1:15 AM I believe the Russians are still suffering from the diminishing “greatness” of the empire called Soviet Union. The originally vast union has had taken pieces out of it; counties like Ukraine, Usbekistan, Turkmenistan or giant Kasachstan.
And now, after having the west take great influence on the recent elections in Ukraine, the baltic states joining the EU, the seperatist war in Chechnya, another former part of the once proud soviet union is supposedly being “lost” to the west.
It seems like an inferiority complex, to now have the hatred against everything non-russian unleashed and reminds me of developments in my country in the 20’s and 30’s of the last century. Then, after the lost WWI and the harsh Versaille treaty, the inferiority complex of a nation lead to the most terrible outcome there could have been. Scapegoats are being looked for in situations like these, as it is the easiest answer and tends to motivate the mindless masses. Good for politicians trying to stay in power.
This strategy is being used all over to some extent. The unquestionable patriotism in the US during the beginning of GulfWar II, during which not even the media dared to be critical was a symptom of the same thing. The scapegoat here was everybody wearing a turban. Fortunately the tide has changed, and everything balanced itself somewhat.
Maybe, if a fairer distribution of the energy created wealth can be achieved, we can hope for the same in Russia.Nic
Posted by admiral346 on Nov 17, 2006 at 6:26 AM If you polish a turd and wrap it in a bow is it still a turd? Socialist dogma aside, totalitarianism is the same no matter what pleasant name you give it.
If the Soviets enslavement of millions was the natural military result of WWII then perhaps you can explain the difference in the situation in Israel today vs Eastern Europe 1945? Does communism give a country legitimacy in keeping the spoils of war?
Posted by texasindependent on Nov 17, 2006 at 10:54 PM Sorry, I don’t get a thing you say…
Who polished what?
What does it have to do with Israel today?What was the topic to discuss - please don’t make this into a discussion about Israel as you have done with the thread about fundamental christians…
Maybe we find another platform, where we can discuss the matter, but here it is definetly off topic…
Nic
Posted by admiral346 on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:06 AM outright racist Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), which calls for expelling all non-Slavs from Russian cities, whether they are Russian citizens or not.
Outright lie. If you read Russian, go to http://www.dpni.org and see for yourself.
Six days of rioting in the northern town of Kondopoga in late August left at least three people dead and forced hundreds of Caucasians to flee.
Author is gracefully silent it was three Russians murdered by Chechens who cut faces of dead bodies and cut off their ears. After that, riot started and these peaceful, white and furry Caucasians ran away. I know, I know, these evil Russians should repent for that too… Russians are guilty in anything, as usual.
Endemic corruption virtually ensures discrepancies in peoples’ official documents
Endemic corruption virtually ensures full order in peoples’ offical documents because right papers might be easily bought. Bah, Western logic…
By late October, about 100 Georgian “illegal immigrants” were being deported to Tbilisi on special daily military flights.
From 1 million?! Jesus Christ, it’s Holocaust!!! And why author writes “illegal immigrants” in commas, escapes me. AFAIK, these men were illegal immigrants. But surely Russia has no right to decide who has right to live on her territory.
Dozens of Georgian-owned companies have been closed down, on pretexts ranging from sanitary violations to tax evasion.
And? Problem is, there were sanitary violations and tax evasions. I wonder if author thinks only Russian-owned companies might be closed on such reasons without accusations in racism from all-benevolent West.
Sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, creator of several well-known Moscow monuments found himself accused of “misappropriating” 2.1 million rubles (about $80,000) from the Russian Arts Academy that he heads.
No Georgian can ‘misappropriate’, it’s clear as day!
Georgian-born Grigory Chkhartishvili, who writes some of Russia’s most beloved detective fiction under the pen name Boris Akunin, was targeted by the tax police.
These evil Russians wants Georgians to pay taxes! How deep is their evil?!
“It is no longer safe to be a dark-haired person in Russia,” says Chkhartishvili. “What’s happening to Georgians today is ethnic cleansing. The Russian state is sick with the virus of xenophobia.”
Let’s buy him ticket to Kosovo so he would compare. Or just tell him how Georgians cleansed Russians on the wake of their ‘independence’, before the same Georgians arrived to Russia to parasite on her.
Putin launched a full economic embargo, ordered the Russian Black Sea Fleet to hold war games off Georgia’s coast
Sorry, another lie. War-games were sheduled long before that.
Meanwhile, the escalating campaign against Georgians is driving internal Russian politics down dark and uncharted avenues.
...written for consumers of Sunday comics, as whole article.
Posted by 17ur on Nov 18, 2006 at 7:45 AM Admiral
As replying to this is wasting precious deer camp time I will be brief.
Go further up the jesus thread. At least 10 posts before mine were dealing with Israel. I responded to an ignorant racist statement and it spiraled downhill from there. I will accept your apology when posted.
Posted by texasindependent on Nov 21, 2006 at 6:11 PM Texass, the day you issue an accurate statement or a reasoned rebuttal to anyone will be the day pigs fly. Not going to happen.
Posted by blondemike on Nov 22, 2006 at 1:17 PM Russian xenophobia is being stoked more by outside actors than by anything internal. When you have the US, EU, & Nato trying to pick off former republics, then what else can you expect. The realpolitique of the situation is that Russia is a superpower on its way back whether the world likes it or not.
Posted by Anti-War Conservative on Dec 2, 2006 at 2:27 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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