Paul Goble
Staunton, July 9
-- Samuel Johnson’s classic observation that “patriotism is the last refuge of
the scoundrel” applies with special force to Vladimir Putin’s version now on
offer, according to Sergey Khasanov-Pashkovsky, a conservative Christian
nationalist who lives in St. Petersburg.
Many people,
both supporters and opponents of the Kremlin leader’s proposals, have concluded
that the latest set of amendments represents a significant bow in the direction
of Russian nationalists, he writes in the Riga-based Harbin portal (harbin.lv/razmyshleniya-o-konstitutsionnykh-popravkakh-ili-patriotizm-kak-poslednee-pribezhishche-negodyaya).
But in fact, the
formulations contained in the constitutional amendments are clear only in the
one case the Kremlin really cares about – extending Putin’s time in office –
and are so poorly crafted that they do not reflect the national interests of
ethnic and political Russians but only the narrow interests of Putin and his
regime.
That reality, he
says, has been obscured by the fact that many nominally “nationalist” groups
have sung the praises of what Putin has done even though if one takes their
statements seriously, one can see that these Kremlin allies aren’t really
patriots of their own country but rather agents of the regime.
Because that is
so, Khasanov-Pashkovsky says, Putin’s patriotism is an oxymoron and the sooner
he and his regime are removed from the scene, the better if the genuine
patriotic interests of the Russian nation and all the other peoples of the
Russian Federation are to be able to flourish rather than continue to be
perverted.
The conservative
Christian commentator focuses on two things, the arguments advanced by two “so-called”
nationalists, Leonid Reshetnikov, an SVR lieutenant general who heads the Two-Headed
Eagle Society, and Mikhail Smolin, who before he became a Putin loyalist was a
monarchist, and the provisions of the amendments that are anything but
pro-nationalist.
The problem with
the statements in support of Putin’s amendments by Reshetnikov and Smolin is
that they take the idea put about by the Kremlin that the changes are in the
direction of genuine nationalism at face value rather than subjecting each to
careful analysis from a Russian nationalist perspective, the commentator says.
Had they
actually paid attention to what Putin is offering, they would have seen what the
Kremlin leader is doing and would not have continued to perform their assigned
functions of misleading those who are in the Russian nationalist and patriotic
camps. But that didn’t and doesn’t
happen by Kremlin design.
The Kremlin has
made much about the inclusion of the word “God” in the new amendments, its
stress on the uniqueness of Russian culture, and words about the Russian
Federation as a successor state to the millennium of Russian statehood. But in none
of these cases is the regime being clear.
It isn’t clear which
God the constitution is referring to, although other Constitutions including
that of Ireland make that crystal clear while protecting the rights of those
who follow non-Abrahamic faiths fully. Nor is it clear what uniqueness or
continuity one is speaking about either, although there are ways to talk about
that.
All of this reflects
the fact that the constitution only refers to the Russian people in the context
of the Russian language which, Khasanov-Pashkovsky points out, is the native language
of many peoples within the borders of the Russian Federation. What then is their
God or gods, what is the uniqueness of the culture, and what is the continuity
the Kremlin is referring to?
“Hurrah patriots”
like Reshetnikov and Smolin ignore all these problems, and that means they are
not really patriots at all but Kremlin loyalists who are quite prepared to
ignore “the crushing harm which the powers daily impose” on the Russian and
other peoples of the country and on the Russian Orthodox Church and other
faiths as well.
It is vitally
important that Putin not be allowed to claim as his something that he does not
have any part of. He is not a patriot in any meaningful sense: he is interested
only in his own power and is quite prepared to ignore or even trample on the Russian
and other peoples of his country.
That is
something, Khasanov-Pashkovsky says, genuine Russian nationalists and patriots
must make clear lest they be exploited and their causes besmirched by “the last
refuge of a scoundrel” that Putin and his regime have on offer.
(For
background on the far right’s promotion of Putin’s constitutional amendments
despite its criticism of other recent Kremlin actions, see sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2020/07/d42635/.)
