During my teen years, I used to be an ardent Ian Fleming fan until I graduated to John le Carre, whose tales of espionage are peerless. The cold war years were hugely beneficial to the spy novel genre, which comprised a large chunk of the publishing industry until the Berlin Wall fell and the communist bloc dissolved amidst the magic of democracy and the free market. I must say that I sometimes miss the now defunct fictional world of ruthless secret agents and cerebral, melancholy spies. (Al Qaida doesn’t quite lend itself to thrilling spy vs. spy narratives.)
International diplomacy and statecraft have changed dramatically in the last two decades vis-a-vis the communist – capitalist ideological divide. Old enemies have been befriended and new enmities have sprung up in unexpected places. But it appears that the political climate within Russia has not changed very much, sushi bars and newly minted millionaires notwithstanding. Last week I wrote about the poisoning of Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Litvinenko has since then died and the lethal poison was identified as the highly radioactive metal polonium and not thallium as previously believed. Although Kremlin has vehemently denied it, Russian involvement is suspected. According to Russian cultural commentator Artemy Troitsky, politics of secrecy and intimidation are just as alive in today’s Moscow as they were during the Iron Curtain days. Troitsky is nostalgic for the officially totalitarian era of Leonid Brezhnev. The so called liberalized Russia of Vladimir Putin unnerves him even more.
At least in Brezhnev’s time you knew where you stood. We had no illusions. Public life was black and white. Censorship was overwhelming. Journalists wrote under instruction and according to the social and political orders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. .. Now, in the new Russia of sushi bars and oligarchs, the situation is more shameful and rotten than it was then.
Democracy is on the retreat in Russia, from the nationalistic rhetoric and sub-superpower gestures of its leaders to the energy threats of Gazprom, to the millions poured into European soccer clubs. Now, instead of black and white, we have different shades of grey. In the media, self-censorship is in vogue. Journalists know what is good for them to write, and what is not. In an increasingly materialist society, they depend on the authorities’ goodwill to keep them in their luxury lifestyles. They deliver the goods, convincing themselves that Putin – in the face of threats from afar – is the lesser of evils.
As for myself, half a year ago I stopped posting difficult items on my website, Diversant Daily, feeling tired and uninspired. Or was it fear? … I try to convince myself that I have stopped writing about politics, not out of fear but because the subject is no longer interesting. I am not sure. What I do know is this: it is demoralising to write the same things over and again, to no effect. It is demoralising to realise that among Russia’s silent majority Putin is genuinely popular and there seems no way of waking these people up. Most depressing, however, is that the so-called democracies of the west are turning a blind eye. One day, messrs Blair and Bush, the Germans and the Italians, will regret that."
Accidental Blogger 