Dmitry Babich, observer of Golos Rossii, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
When Western politicians talk to each other or to their neighbors about Russia, they usually speak about making the country weaker and poorer. However, when the same politicians address the Russian audience, it appears that they dream about making Russia a strong and prosperous state. At the same time, all Western politicians have only one prescription for Russian prosperity: the current authorities should be overthrown and replaced by these or those people. At first by Gaidar, then by Yavlinsky, then by Khodorkovsky, now by Navalny. When we follow a recommended course (for instance, the recommended Gorbachev was replaced by the even-more-recommended Yeltsin), our strength and prosperity suddenly begin to reduce.
McCain loves you
The former U.S. presidential candidate, senator John McCain, who has written a message on pravda.ru, appears to be “pro-Russian.” “I make that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to self-determination,” McCain praises the aforementioned prescription for changing the authorities. “you should live according to the dictates of your conscience, not your government… I make that claim because I believe the Russian people, no less than Americans, are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” How could he live without us for all these years?! The same is recommended to our neighbors.
Satisfied customers
Satisfied customers are clients who are satisfied with a used technique and recommend that all others go through the same procedure. At the moment neighboring Georgia is hosting a meeting between two satisfied customers – President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili and the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko. Both of the former leaders gained power due to “colour revolutions” and shock therapy. For some reason, the therapy never touches on the most delicate point of a state, i.e. its head, so Saakashvili calmly showed “the area of growth” to the guest on the shocked body of the Georgian economy – a winemaking training center where a member of the Paris Union of Coopers Jean-Michel Mounier teaches the ancient Georgian nation how to make and drink wine.
The problem is that Western teachers of shock therapies also teach what should not be done. They mostly recommend not to give money to the poor, or to give money but under such strict conditions and humiliation that the poor would never ask for money again. The former interior minister of Georgia, Vano Merabishvili, learnt the idea very well. However, Merabishvili has had his wings burned and is now in prison, where he used to send the poor to.
To win the elections without starting to pay
European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule, who visited Georgia on the same days, faced a difficult task: how to explain the defeat in the elections and the imprisonment of Georgian citizens who followed the Western prescriptions?. Since Saakashvili’s United National Movement lost the parliamentary elections almost a year ago, the EU mass media and officials are constantly hinting at the “bad will” of supporters of Georgian Dream and (for sure!) Moscow’s intrigues. Stefan Fule continues to insist on the same method: even “fairer” elections, even greater distance from Moscow (or Georgia won’t get desired association with the EU).
It seems that the highest valour, according to the EU, is to win elections and not to give money or jobs to the population. Money causes inflation, jobs cause unemployment in the EU. But the problem is that to win elections people should be at least a bit satisfied. However, the top class must convince hungry unemployed people to vote for the pro-Western opposition, which openly demonstrates an absence of desire to make social payments or investment in industry. The former financial minister of Russia Alexei Kudrin is one such opposition activist, and Western analysts believe in his electoral potential.
Gaidar treats you
Western favourites are unique in their ability to avoid not only criminal, but also moral responsibility. Look at the daughter of the former main Russian shocktherapist, the former deputy governor of the Kirov region, Maria Gaidar. Today she is the advisor to Moscow's deputy mayor on social affairs, Leonid Pechatnikov. The Western mass media presents her as one of the most promising young Russian politicians. She is not a doctor, but she is allowed to define the criteria of the effectiveness of Moscow hospitals. Maria thinks that hospitals which send fewer ambulances to citizens should be encouraged materially. And those which come to help, not to attest death, should be punished by cutting their finances. She told Izvestia several months ago: “Often, when blood pressure or temperatures jump, people call the emergency services, even though they don’t need to. A hospital which reduces the number of “non-core” calls of emergency cases in its district should get more money.” The thought is deep: to save gasoline on the temperature jumps of the poor. To come to this idea, you don't need a medical education.
The path to self-respect
But why do all Western “alternative candidates” come to no good? Russia and its Caucasus neighbors need an opposition, but the West is not able to select professional opposition activists. Instead of listening to the population, it chooses politically-correct people (a woman, or a feminist man, a gay man or lesbian, a person with a Western education, a lawyer, a financier with a negative attitude to the poor, absence of Soviet humanitarian education and so on).
It seems our path to self-respect will be a long one. However, it is time to learn how to distinguish between Ksenia Sobchak and an intellectual, Maria Gaidar and a doctor, Vano Merabishvili and an honest policeman, or the first will teach us to die, the second will treat us to death, and the third will simply kill us.
