Why are the pigs walking on their hind feet?
Michael Kimmelman, writing in the New York Times is convinced that the heart of "Putinism" is totalitarianism. His argument is pretty strong. Is he naive about the ease of establishing control of everything? What would your students say?Is it time once again to assign Animal Farm in political science classes as well as in literature classes? Maybe we should also make sure our students read 1984.
Putin’s Last Realm to Conquer: Russian Culture
"The fight is long over here for authority over the security services, the oil business, mass media and pretty much all the levers of government. Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, notwithstanding some recent anti-government protests, has won those wars, hands down, and promises to consolidate its position in parliamentary elections. But now there is concern that the Kremlin is setting its sights on Russian culture.
"Just a few weeks ago, the Russian culture minister censored a state-sponsored show of Russian contemporary art in Paris. Criminal charges have been pressed during the last couple of years against at least half a dozen cultural nonconformists. A gallery owner, a rabble-rouser specializing in art that tweaks the increasingly powerful Orthodox Church and also the Kremlin, was severely beaten by thugs last year. Authorities haven’t charged anyone...
"These are not Soviet times, it’s worth remembering, and artists, actors, filmmakers and writers here can do and say nearly whatever they want without fear of being shipped off to a gulag...
"Even so, some prominent artists and writers, cognizant of a long, dark history of repression that Russians know only too well, and especially wary of the grip the church is gaining on the state, have been expressing deep anxiety about the government’s starting to encroach on artistic freedom the way it has taken on other aspects of society...
"'Our future is becoming our past,' the well-known novelist Vladimir Sorokin told me...
"Artists are perfectly free, [Nikita Mikhalkov, a once-pampered filmmaker of Soviet days and today a big promoter of Mr. Putin] said. “My view is simply that the modus operandi of Russia is enlightened conservatism,” meaning hierarchical, religion-soaked, tradition-loving...
"Russia needs authority, he said. 'Maybe for the so-called civilized world this sounds like nonsense. But chaos in Russia is a catastrophe for everyone. Even if Putin isn’t always the most democratic, he should nevertheless remain in power because we don’t know that the new president won’t begin by undoing what Putin has done.'..."
Labels: change, political culture, politics, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:36 AM
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