V. V. Putin's geopolitical catastrophe

[Alina Israeli]

It's as if we are reading different texts. It reminds me of a story how
three blind men described an elephant, one said - a wall, the other said a
snake, the third said a column.

A head of state is supposed to defend the rights of his own citizens
wherever they might be, even if POWs. We would attack him if he didn't. A
leader's major address to the Parliament is usually about the state of the
nation and the new directions of the nation, not about the state of
minorities (and every country except for Iceland has manorities).

The catastrophe and the national question are just one line of a 16 page
text. And to be sure it was a catastrophe for some, even for many. So was
the desintegration of the British empire, or the French empire (the debates
over Algiers are still going on, 40 years later.)

But this is not what the speech is about. It is about "svoboda",
"demokratija", "spravedlivost'", "pravo" "gosudarstvennost'" - these are
the key word. Three paragraphs are devoted to corrupt bureaucracy, there
are at least two mentions of curbing of state government power on the path
to democracy. There is a section on economy and capital investment, several
passages about law and morality, quite a bit about poverty, health,
mortality and low birth. And it ends where it began: gosudarstvennost',
spravedlivost', svoboda.

As leaders' speeches go, this is a good one, full of honorable ideas and
suggestion how to improve the country.


>To view the manner in which Mr. Putin's remarks were presented in the
>Ukrainian press, see:
>http://www2.pravda.com.ua/archive/2005/april/25/news/20.shtml
>
>According to the remarks cited in this report, Mr Putin is concerned
>with the rights of ethnic Russians who, as a result of the
>USSR's breakup, find themselves outside of Russia.  Interestingly, he
>fails to mention the rights
>of the numerous non-Russians living within the Russian federation.
>
>A better politician would first enumerate what the Russian federation
>is doing for the retention
>of language and culture among its minorities, including those whose
>roots are elsewhere and those
>whose lands were conquered by the Russian empire.  If no such measures
>are in place, the politician
>would work toward introducing them. Having proposed a model worthy of
>imitation,
>the politician would request that the same be done for the Russian
>minorities in today's independent countries.
>
>As things stand, Mr Putin lacks the moral authority to talk about
>minority rights in the post-Soviet space.


__________________________
 Alina Israeli
 LFS, American University
 4400 Mass. Ave., NW
 Washington, DC 20016

 phone:    (202) 885-2387
 fax:      (202) 885-1076

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