| Battling Russophobia |
[Dec. 23rd, 2008|09:33 pm] |
...Why was the conflict in South Ossetia so important? Because Russia was a party to it. Readers were led to believe that minuscule South Ossetia is a proto-state like Kosovo, while no parallels were drawn with Nato action in ex-Yugoslavia in support of Albanians.
The question is: can Russia do anything good? In Russophobes' eyes, it should
(1) surrender and apologise,
(2) give western companies control over natural reserves because Russians mismanage them anyhow,
(3) limit their ambitions to culture and
(4) award Boris Berezovsky a medal for democracy-promotion.
What feeds Russophobia? Moscow's own actions are only part of the story. In the last few years several constituencies came together to create a new momentum. The cold warriors found a mission again. The existence of a familiar enemy who plays by the rules is more comfortable than the "enemy amongst us" who may work in a corner chip shop. Western liberals who passionately believed in Russia's democratic transformation to their own recipe became disillusioned, turning the energy of embittered idealism into exposing the evils of "Putin's KGB regime". They were joined by immigrants who made their way in the new country by "unveiling the truth" about Russia.
What are the effects of Russophobia? Economically, as BP and Shell found out, it is harder to do business. Politically, it is impossible to conduct a frank dialogue on issues of common concern, as trust has gone out of the relationship.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/13/russia-west-media-stereotypes |
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