Good
Guys vs. Bad Guys: Russia Today is the Latter (Gazeta, Russia)
“In the West,
the rights of citizens are valued above all, and there is one set of laws for
all, while in other states, people are treated like garbage, and the rule is ‘everything
for my friends, but for everyone else - the law.’ … No Brioni suits, no
conversations in English, no hiring of expensive Western lobbyists, no
travelling to summits and posing for white-teethed collective portraits, will
change this simple tenet: in this world, there are the good guys and bad guys.
The former are always against the latter. And in the modern world, the former
always win.
Sergei Magnitsky: His death in a Russian prison, after implicating top officials in a scheme to defraud the government, is widely regarded as a murder-cover-up in the West. Moscow is warning the if the U.S. Congress passes the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act as punishment, Russia will react in kind against Americans regarded by the Kremlin as human rights abusers in places like Guantanamo and Iraq.
The nervous reaction of Russian plutocrats to discussions in
the U.S. and other countries in regard to the “Magnitsky list,” and other obstacles Russians
are erecting to toppling the Syrian dictatorship, are not a result of concern for Russia's strategic interests. Rather, the Kremlin’s stubborn insistence
on protecting tyrannical regimes and its preoccupation with the ease with which
Vladimir
Sorokin’s Day
of the Oprichnik protagonists travel to the U.S.
and Europe are solely the result of a concern for private interests, and fears
that similar sanctions might be used against Russian leaders and their
families.
[Editor’s Note: Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia’s most
highly regarded authors, and his novel Day
of the Oprichnik, which takes place in the Russia
of 2028, depicts an authoritarian Russia ruled by members of the secret police.
To say the least, he is out of favor with the Kremlin].
The class interests of businessmen-cum-government officials are
being presented as if they were the interests of the entire Russian people.
Like a Christmas tree, coarse materialism is being festooned with garlands of
patriotism and lit up by the lights of “national interest.”
It can be argued that in some sense, there is no distinction
between domestic and foreign policy. At least not at a time when universal
ideologies - be they socialist or liberal - are on the minds of a considerable
number of members of the globe’s political class. On the other hand, the quickening
spread of political, economic, cultural, and scientific globalism, despite the
problems associated with it, remains a consistent trend. If so, then the nation
state, which by the way is historically only one of the many forms of human
coexistence, is a vestige of the past, a relic, a political entity on the brink
of extinction. It will undoubtedly take a fairly long period to expire. Still,
the main trend is that of a global humanity, living in a society based on a
common set of values, on the doctrine of human rights, and with a more-or-less
fair wealth distribution.
Therefore, current debates at the United Nations, diplomatic correspondence or bilateral talks within the G20 - these are external expressions of Russia’s domestic problems, inserted into our political agenda by the Russian protest movement. This is the case even with the Syrian or Egyptian situations. What are the limits to the relationships
a government can achieve with its own people? What methods can the people use
to influence their government? Should citizens overstep legal boundaries – even
violating the criminal law? What should Western governments do if the current
Russian government doesn’t confine itself to beating demonstrators, and begins
imposing even harsher measures?
To what extent should Realpolitik
prevail over the values of human rights that lay at the foundation of
democracy?
With regard to those parts of world that live under liberal-democratic
political systems, one cannot be in a state of eternal friendship with
tyrannical regimes like China, Russia, North Korea, and Near and Middle East
dictatorships, and with all the other regimes that explain away their lack of
free elections by citing the peculiarities of their historical development, geographic
location or climate. Relations with these states may be peaceful or tense,
depending on the state of affairs in those countries or the world. But there can
never be complete trust and open-ended cooperation with them, because the
values that form the basis of such states are very different. In the Western
world, the rights of citizens are valued above all, and there is one set of laws
for all, while in these other states, people are treated like garbage, and the
rule is “everything for my friends, but for everyone else - the law.”
Senior Russian leaders, having become accustomed to a
different political culture, do not want to understand this distinction. They believe
it possible to negotiate based on under-the-table agreements, not only domestically, but
internationally. With like-minded countries that might be possible. What such arrangements
look like are well-illustrated by Russia-Belarus relations. These are
characterized by anxiety, suspicion, hostility, deception and public insolence.
It is just like the behavior of two gangs of drug dealers or racketeers trying
to divvy up a town. It is an agreement on the surface, but in fact, it is a
case of might makes right - the strongest one wins. Therefore, when the balance
tips to one side, the consequences are immediate - all agreements be damned.
Even if it is occasionally possible to arrive at an agreement with
certain Western leaders based on private conversations or something reminiscent
of the Kremlin’s habitual domestic “under-the-table agreements,” Russian political authorities
must know from experience that Western leaders come and go. The transfer of
power is a central feature of Western political societies. If so, one can have
good personal relations with the formers leaders of Germany and Italy, and one might
get something beneficial out of current leaders, but one cannot change the internal
value systems of Western politicians.
So, using the rhetoric of an old American western, and going
as far as creating a political system in Russia based on the same set of
principles, unelected rulers will always be the “bad guys” to Western leaders, with
whom relations are only pursued out of necessity and only up to certain limits.
It is like dealing with the bad guys who you have not yet been able to defeat,
but whom you can use against even worse guys. You have to coexist with them - but
not forever.
If so, then the Magnitsky list, persistent U.S. and European
attempts to destroy dictatorships when they are weakened by internal strife, war
or other things, and their concern about human rights abuse in Russia, are inevitable.
Allowing NATO “in principal” to open a transit hub in
Russia, softening our position on the Syrian issue, and other tactical solutions
will not paralyze Western aspirations. These solutions are just as ineffective
as the ludicrous threat of denying American officials entry into Russia.
So no Brioni
suits, no conversations in English, no private chats, no publishing
articles in English and Spanish in the Western press, no hiring of expensive
Western lobbyists, no travelling to summits and posing for white-teethed
collective portraits, will change this simple tenet: in this world, there are
the good guys and bad guys. The former are always against the latter. And in
the modern world, the former always win.
