xenophobia and press

[Michele A Berdy]

“I wonder how radical this is, or if any of these ideas are actually 
becoming 
main-stream?”

Well, there are the scary fringe groups of skinheads (estimated at about 
50 000) that beat up and kill random foreigners, and the even scarier ones 
that target specific “antifa” (anti fascist activist) Russians, and the 
really, really scary guys who issue death threats to human rights 
organizations and supposedly have a hit list.  I think that in terms of 
percentages, that makes a very small group (maybe 10-12 percent), but 
still –

Then watch TV, and you’ll hear an Orthodox priest say that “Europeans have 
no religious feeling; they just go through the empty rituals out of 
habit”; or a doctor nauk say that “no mother loves her child like a 
Russian mother” (take that, all you American, French, Canadian, Israeli 
etc. mothers!); and you will certainly hear a dozen times a day that the 
West is only criticizing Russia because it fears Russia’s strength (“They 
liked us when we were weak, but now they hate when we are strong”) and see 
the most extraordinary distortion of domestic and world events and 
comments of Western leaders.  (For example, you might have been interested 
to learn that the only response of Europe to the Russia-Belourssian 
pipeline dispute on the first day was resounding criticism of Belorussia.) 
Or you can hear a prominent Orthodox leader (whom I actually respect, so 
am puzzled by this) talk about “Westernization,” (zapadnichestvo) i.e. 
secularization, that is infecting Russia from the West. (Or you could also 
watch Stalin: Live, in which – based on the absolutely true memoirs of his 
aides, mind you – Stalin will repent his sins before he dies; right now, a 
month before his death, he’s just a Wise, Though Troubled Leader [he had a 
hard childhood]). 

Then pick up a DVD of Pushkin: The Last Duel, in which AS is a loving 
husband and father; Natalia is a faithful innocent; the narod love AS and 
adore the tsar; Tsar Nikolai I is a benevolent sweetheart who gives 
Natalia fatherly advice; and Pushkin is killed in a plot by foreigners – 
who are horrible beasts and homosexuals to boot – because “by killing 
Pushkin they kill Russia.”

Then go to the Pushkin museum in Chisinau, as I did not long ago, and hear 
the director tell you that Pushkin was the embodiment of Russia and 
Russian Orthodoxy, and that  “Of course the duel was all politics, but in 
a way, it had to happen, so that Pushkin could die for Russia’s sins.”

Or then, from my personal experience: a few months ago I was invited to 
speak on Radio Mayak, to support a Russian psychologist’s recommendation 
that parents push their kids out of the nest earlier than was common in 
the past.  The first question to me – and recall that I’m not the 
opposition, I’m the one who is supposed to support the Russian 
psychologist with my American experience—was this: “We all know that in 
American families it’s like a contract: the parents raise the kids, send 
them to school, and then maybe the kids come home once a year at 
Christmas, and there is no warm human emotion between them.”  And the 
question was: “Right?”

And there was the sweet young taxi driver, who was earning money on the 
side while he was at the institute, who was delighted to have an American 
in the car so he could ask some questions.  His first question was: Why 
are Americans so stupid (tupye)?  Not: “Is it true that…?” Not: “I don’t 
understand why you…?” Or not even: “I have to say I don’t like …” but 
simply the fact that we are thick as planks, and he was curious as to 
why.  He also accepted as “fact” – and laughed at my protests -- that the 
CIA was responsible for 9/11.  (This is a widely held belief.)

Or the other kid, a human rights activist from a nice family, who said to 
me: “I understand that Bush is a monkey, but it turns out that 250 million 
Americans are monkeys, too, since they elected him.”  Here I was shocked:  
first, because surely he was raised better than to say something that 
insulting to a foreigner, and second, because he reads the news and knows 
how many people voted for whom, and third, he’s a human rights activist!  
What is that, if not demonization that he has subconsciously accepted? 

Or then there was the experience of my editor at The Moscow Times, who 
stopped at a kiosk and was railed at by a drunk, who started screaming 
about how he had “stolen a Russian’s job.”  My editor commented dryly that 
he didn’t think the guy would have been a good candidate for editor of The 
Moscow Times Op Ed page – but still – but still -- 

Or… or… or.  I could go on.  I could also, as could other foreigners here, 
go on and on about the perfectly cordial and normal relations and deep 
friendships with Russians.  I could also go on and on about a billion 
positive developments in nearly every sphere of life.  Or how my Russian 
friends took their Uzbek construction worker to the airport in a company 
car so the poor guy could get on the plane without hassles.  Or how my 
Georgian friend was barraged with calls of sympathy, concern, and offers 
of help during the Georgian purges in the fall.  Or my film maker friend, 
who said about the Pushkin film: “Well, that’s Natalia Bondarchuk (the 
director) for you.  She’s been nuts for 20 years now.  Completely nuts. 
What did you expect?” Or… or… or… But the syndrome of “wounded pride” 
and “we’re better” and plain old racism and xenophobia (and racism was 
never typical of Russia or the Soviet Union!) is slipping into mainstream 
culture.  How far will it go?  I don’t know.  On good days I can’t believe 
it will take root – how could it?  On bad days I wonder if I shouldn’t be 
thinking about leaving.  

To Mr. Shcherbenok: I have to apologize in advance, but I also need to say 
that I have read this same opinion a billion times and I’m just sick of 
it.  Yes, the internet is relatively free.  Yes, newspapers print a great 
deal. Yes, there’s Ekho Moskvy.  Yes, there is criticism and bad news on 
TV, and yes, it’s not censorship in the old Soviet model.  Call it the 
managed media (as I did in an interview with Irina Petrovskaya, which I’d 
be happy to pass on), or call it censorship by implied threat, or call it 
organized self-censorship, or call it whatever you want.  But the fact is 
that a great number of journalists have been killed in recent years.  The 
fact is that a greater number have been dragged through the courts.  The 
fact is that the media gatekeepers are scared – perhaps not of a 
kontrol’ny vystel (but some are certainly afraid of that from a number of 
quarters – if you don’t think editors noticed Paul Khlebnikov’s murder, 
you are quite wrong), but certainly of a long prison term and 
konfiskatisiya imushchestva (from one quarter).  And the result: well over 
90 percent of the population gets their news only from TV, and what they 
get is so distorted it makes your hair stand on end.  And the result of 
that – it’s that nice, smart kid from a good family who accepts as fact 
that the CIA arranged 9/11 and that all Americans are tupye. 

I’m sorry this is long and heated.  

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