Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 16 -- It has become fashionable as Russia’s latest
attempt to build a state in which people live in freedom and sufficiency and
one which enjoys the respect of the surrounding world has failed to call for
liberals and patriots to compromise, to agree to “call the naked king ‘half-dressed,’”
Georgy Kunadze says.
But the former Russian deputy
foreign minister (1991-1993) and deputy ombudsman 2004-2014) says, no
compromise between the genuine versions of either. Rather what is needed is for
“the government to stop setting one group against the other,” to live according
to the law, and “in general to know its place (ng.ru/politics/2014-04-16/3_kartblansh.html).
In a comment in today’s “Nezavisimaya
gazeta,” Kunadze defines “genuine patriotism as above all the striving to help
one’s own country become better,” including via “honest and direct criticism of
the shortcomings of the state, intolerance toward its mistakes and an
unwillingness to come to terms with crimes.”
Genuine liberalism, in turn, he
says, is “faithfulness to the principles of democracy, human right, the
equality of all before the law, principles without which no country in the
contemporary world can survive.” And he concludes that “in this sense, liberals
are also patriots.”
But that is not how the Kremlin or even many
Russians see the situation, especially given “the almost complete international
isolation of Russia and even more the coming out from under the rocks of the
most repellant types of the Soviet past – chauvinists, Stalinists, and
semi-fascists,” both of which are the result of Vladimir Putin’s annexation of
Crimea.
“Russia did not have and does not
have a legal basis for this or the slightest chance to convince the world in
the nobility of its goals and the purity of its intentions,” Kunadze says. Instead, it has to whip up “a ‘patriotic’
psychosis,” blame the West for everything, and demonize “Russia
liberal-Russophobes with their ‘anti-state’ ideas” as “’agents of influence.’”
And in that context, Kunadze says,
some like Aleksandr Lukin in a recent article in “Nezavisimaya” (ng.ru/ideas/2014-04-09/5_collapse.html)
are prepared to urge liberals to sacrifice their principles and to find common
ground with the patriots in the name of a “third way” much beloved by Russians.
The “starting” point in this
argument is that “Russia took the path of democracy not because this
corresponded to its new national interests but only as a form of concession to
the West.” Consequently, such people say, Kunade continues, Moscow “continued
to formulate its national interests all these years in a purely Soviet way.”
That is, “through the prism of
opposition to the United States.”
The West extended NATO to the east
despite a “gentleman’s promise” not to do so, those who hold this view say, but
they forget that this promise was “given to the Soviet Union, that is, its
strategic competitor and not to Russia which it began to consider its potential
ally,” Kunadze points out.
Such people talk about Russia’s “’traditional
allies,’” he says, ignoring the fact that “Russia did not have and does not
have any ‘traditional allies: the Soviet satellites dispersed and it did not
acquire any new allies.”
Moscow has “tried to convince the West to acknowledge its
‘special rights’ on the post-Soviet space,” rights that would require “the
limitation of the sovereignty of the post-Soviet countries.” But the West has not accepted this Russian “’voice
of wisdom,’” and in the current case, it has not accepted the Russian ultimatum
to Ukraine.
The
Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine federalize, become a neutral county and give
the Russian language state status. But the West “asserts that Ukraine is a
sovereign state and has the right to decide these questions itself.” How could Russia not be infuriated by such “naked
demagogy?” such people ask.
And
how has the West protested Russia’s “reunification of Crimea”? By suggestions
of “’humanitarian intervention’” and by denying that “nothing threatened the
residents of Crimea,” Kunadze continues.
But in the view of Moscow, “Russian saved them” and has acted with “the
natural right of a strong state to take land from a weak state,” even if that “pushes
Russia into the embrace of China.”
Still
worse, defenders of what Moscow has done in Ukraine say, the West has “cynically”
declared that Russia is not a “normal” democracy lie its members are. But of
course, “Russian democracy ... is so special that it isn’t understood by every
Russian.”
And
the partners of Western efforts to contain and denigrate Russia, in this view,
are “Russian liberals [whose crime consists of] forever demanding that the
state follow the Constitution and laws, secure the independence of the judiciary,”
and other such un-Russian things. Giving in to them would “weaken” the state.
Thus, it turns out that in the current
understanding of the Kremlin and its allies, “all Russian liberals are enemies
of their own country” whereas “the current authorities are honest,
incorruptible,” and with only other good qualities. Thus, Russians should love the authorities and
hate the liberals and the West.
In
this context, calls for “moderate” liberals and “moderate” patriots to find a
compromise are not only deceptive but dangerous. A true liberal is a patriot,
Kunadze says, not because he or she supports anything his government does but
because he wants what is best for his country, and a true patriot is a liberal
because he or she knows that liberal values are the best prescription for that.
If
the Kremlin would get out of the way, liberals and patriots could find a common
language, the former deputy foreign minister says, but neither should sacrifice
that common understanding to do so.
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