Trolling Russia
By Israel Shamir
January 20, 2015 "ICH"
- The edifice of world post-1991
order is collapsing right now before our
eyes. President Putin’s decision to give a
miss to the Auschwitz pilgrimage, right
after his absence in Paris at the Charlie
festival, gave it the last shove. It was
good clean fun to troll Russia, as long as
it stayed the course. Not anymore. Russia
broke the rules.
Until now, Russia, like a country bumpkin in
Eton, tried to belong. It attended the
gathering of the grandees where it was
shunned, paid its dues to European bodies
that condemned it, patiently suffered
ceaseless hectoring of the great powers and
irritating baiting of East European
small-timers alike. But something broke
down. The lad does not want to belong
anymore; he picked up his stuff and went
home - just when they needed him to knee in
Auschwitz.
Auschwitz gathering is an annual Canossa of
Western leaders where they bewail their
historic failure to protect the Jews and
swear their perennial obedience to them.
This is a more important religious rite of
our times, the One Ring to rule them all,
established in 2001, when the Judeo-American
empire had reached the pinnacle of its
power. The Russian leader had duly attended
the events. This year, they will have to do
without him. Israeli ministers already have
expressed their deep dissatisfaction for
this was Russia’s Red Army that saved the
Jews in Auschwitz, after all. Russia’s
absence will turn the Holocaust memorial day
into a parochial, West-only, event. Worse,
Russia’s place will be taken by Ukraine,
ruled by unrepentant heirs to Hitler’s
Bandera.
This comes after the French ‘Charlie’ demo,
also spurned by Russia. The West hinted that
Russia’s sins would be forgiven, up to a
point, if she joined, first the demo, and
later, the planned anti-terrorist coalition,
but Russia did not take the bait. This was a
visible change, for previously, Russian
leaders eagerly participated in joint events
and voted for West-sponsored resolutions. In
2001, Putin fully supported George Bush’s
War on Terrorism in the UN and on the
ground. As recently as 2011, Russia agreed
with sanctions against North Korea and Iran.
As for coming for a demonstration, the
Russians could always be relied upon. This
time, the Russians did not come, except for
the token presence of the foreign minister
Mr. Lavrov. This indomitable successor of
Mr. Nyet left the event almost immediately
and went - to pray in the Russian church, in
a counter-demonstration, of sorts, against
Charlie. By going to the church, he declared
that he is not Charlie.
For the Charlie Hebdo magazine was
(and probably is) explicitly anti-Christian
as well as anti-Muslim. One finds on
its pages some very obnoxious cartoons
offending the Virgin and Christ, as well as
the pope and the Church. (They never offend
Jews, somehow).
A Russian blogger who’s been exposed to this
magazine for the first time, wrote on his
page: I am ashamed that the bastards were
dealt with by Muslims, not by Christians.
This was quite a common feeling in Moscow
these days. The Russians could not believe
that such smut could be published and
defended as a right of free speech. People
planned a demo against the Charlie, but City
Hall forbade it.
Remember, a few years ago, the
Pussy Riot have profaned the St Saviour
of Moscow like Femen did in some great
European cathedrals, from
Notre Dame de Paris to
Strasbourg. The Russian government did
not wait for vigilante justice to be meted
upon the viragos, but sent them for up to
two years of prison. At the same time, the
Russian criminal law has been changed to
include ‘sacrilege’ among ordinary crimes,
by general consent. The Russians do feel
about their faith more strongly than the EC
rulers prescribe.
In Charlie’s France, Hollande’s regime
frogmarched the unwilling people into a
quite unnecessary gay marriage law,
notwithstanding
one-million-strong protest demonstrations
by Catholics. Femen despoiling the churches
were never punished; but a church warden who
tried to prevent that, was heavily fined.
France has a long anti-Christian tradition,
usually described as “laic”, and its grand
anti-Church coalition of Atheists, Huguenots
and Jews coalesced in Dreyfus Affair days.
Thus Lavrov’s escape to the church was a
counter-demonstration, saying: Russia is for
Christ, and Russia is not against Muslims.
While the present western regime is
anti-Christian and anti-Muslim, it is
pro-Jewish to an extent that defies a
rational explanation. France had sent
thousands of soldiers and policemen to
defend Jewish institutions, though this
defence antagonises their neighbours. While
Charlie are glorified for insulting
Christians and Muslims,
Dieudonné has been sent to jail (just
for a day, but with great fanfare) for
annoying Jews. Actually, Charlie Hebdo
dismissed a journalist for one sentence
allegedly disrespectful for Jews. This
unfairness is a source of aggravation:
Muslims were laughed out of court when they
complained against particularly vile
Charlie’s cartoons, but Jews almost always
win when they go to the court against their
denigrators. (Full disclosure: I was also
sued by LICRA, the French Jewish body, while
my French publisher was devastated by their
legal attacks).
The Russians don’t comprehend the Western
infatuation with Jews, for Russian Jews have
been well assimilated and integrated in
general society. The narrative of Holocaust
is not popular in Russia for one simple
reason: so many Russians from every ethnic
background lost their lives in the war, that
there is no reason to single out Jews as
supreme victims. Millions died at the siege
of Leningrad; Belarus lost a quarter of its
population. More importantly, Russians feel
no guilt regarding Jews: they treated them
fairly and saved them from the Nazis. For
them, the Holocaust is a Western narrative,
as foreign as JeSuisCharlie. With drifting
of Russia out of Western consensus, there is
no reason to maintain it.
This does not mean the Jews are
discriminated against. The Jews of Russia
are doing very well, thank you, without
Holocaust worship: they occupy the highest
positions in the Forbes list of Russia’s
rich, with a combined capital of $122
billion, while all rich ethnic Russians own
only $165 billion, according to the
Jewish-owned
source. Jews run the most celebrated
media shows in prime time on the state TV;
they publish newspapers; they have full and
unlimited access to Putin and his ministers;
they usually have their way when they want
to get a plot of land for their communal
purposes. And anti-Semitic propaganda is
punishable by law – like anti-Christian or
anti-Muslim abuse, but even more severely.
Still, it is impossible to imagine a Russian
journalist getting sack like CNN anchor
Jim Clancy or BBC’s
Tim Willcox for upsetting a Jew or
speaking against Israel.
Russia preserves its plurality, diversity
and freedom of opinion. The pro-Western
Russian media – Novaya Gazeta of
oligarch Lebedev, the owner of the British
newspaper Independent – carries the JeSuis
slogan and speaks of the Holocaust, as well
as demands to restore Crimea to the Ukraine.
But the vast majority of Russians do support
their President, and his civilizational
choice. He expressed it when he went to
midnight Christmas mass in a small village
church in far-away province, together with
orphans and refugees from the Ukraine. And
he expressed it by refusing to go to
Auschwitz.
Neither willingly nor easily did Russia
break ranks. Putin tried to take Western
baiting in his stride: be it Olympic games,
Syria confrontation, gender politics,
Georgian border, even Crimea-related
sanctions. The open economic warfare was a
game-changer. Russia felt attacked by
falling oil prices, by rouble trouble, by
credit downgrading. These developments are
considered an act of hostility, rather than
the result of “the hidden hand of the
market”.
Russians love conspiracia, as James Bond
used to say. They do not believe in chance,
coincidence nor natural occurrences, and are
likely to consider a falling meteorite or an
earthquake - a result of hostile American
action, let alone a fall in the rouble/dollar
exchange rate. They could be right, too,
though it is hard to prove.
Regarding oil price fall, the jury is out.
Some say this action by Saudis is aimed at
American fracking companies, or
alternatively it’s a Saudi-American plot
against Russia. However, the price of oil is
not formed by supply-demand, but by
financial instruments, futures and
derivatives. This virtual demand-and-supply
is much bigger than the real one. When hedge
funds stopped to buy oil futures, price
downturn became unavoidable, but were the
funds directed by politicians, or did they
act so as Quantitative Easing ended?
The steep fall of the rouble could be
connected to oil price downturn, but not
necessarily so. The rouble is not involved
in oil price forming. It could be an action
by a very big financial institution. Soros
broke the back of British pound in 1991;
Korean won, Thai bath and Malaysian ringgit
suffered similar fate in 1998. In each case,
the attacked country lost about 40% of its
GDP. It is possible that Russia was attacked
by financial weapons directed from New York.
The European punitive sanctions forbade
long-term cheap credit to Russian companies.
The Russian state does not need loans, but
Russian companies do. Combination of these
factors put a squeeze on Russian pockets.
The rating agencies kept downgrading Russian
rating to almost junk level, for political
reasons, I was told. As they were deprived
of credit, state companies began to hoard
dollars to pay later their debts, and they
refrained from converting their huge profits
to roubles, as they did until now. The
rouble fell drastically, probably much lower
than it had to.
This is not pinpoint sanctions aimed at
Putin’s friends. This is a full-blown war.
If the initiators expected Russians to be
mad at Putin, they miscalculated. The
Russian public is angry with the American
organisers of the economical warfare, not
with its own government. The pro-Western
opposition tried to demonstrate against
Putin, but very few people joined them.
Ordinary Russians kept a stiff upper lip.
They did not notice the sanctions until the
rouble staggered, and even then they shopped
like mad rather than protested. In the face
of shrinking money, they did not buy salt
and sugar, as their grandparents would have.
Their battle cry against hogging was “Do not
take more than two Lexus cars per family,
leave something for others!”
Perhaps, the invisible financiers went too
far. Instead of being cowed, the Russians
are preparing for a real long war, as they
and their ancestors have historically fought
– and won. It is not like they have a
choice: though Americans insist Russia
should join their War-on-Terrorism-II, they
do not intend to relinquish sanctions.
The Russians do not know how to deal with a
financial attack. Without capital
restrictions, Russia will be cleaned out.
Russian Central bank and Treasury people are
strict monetarists, capital restrictions are
anathema for them. Putin, being a liberal
himself, apparently trusts them. Capital
flight has taken huge proportions. Unless
Russia uses the measures successfully tried
by Mohammad Mahathir of Malaysia, it will
continue. At present, however, we do not see
sign of change.
This could be the incentive for Putin to
advance in Ukraine. If the Russians do not
know how to shuffle futures and derivatives,
they are expert in armour movements and tank
battles. Kiev regime is also spoiling for a
fight, apparently pushed by the American
neocons. It is possible that the US will get
more than what it bargained for in the
Ukraine.
One can be certain that Russians will not
support the Middle Eastern crusade of NATO,
as this military action was prepared at the
Charlie demo in Paris. It is far from clear
who killed the cartoonists, but Paris and
Washington intend to use it for reigniting
war in the Middle East. This time, Russia
will be in opposition, and probably will use
it as an opportunity to change the
uncomfortable standoff in the Ukraine. Thus
supporters of peace in the Middle East have
a good reason to back Russia.
Israel Shamir works
in Moscow and Jaffa; he can be reached on
adam@israelshamir.net
Language editing Ken Freeland
Via
- www.vineyardsaker.blogspot.com
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