They are scared of the tide of Western liberal memes and above all, scared of one another....
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| An age old story: Rivalry, tension and distrust between despots: (Lukashenko, Prigozhin and Putin) is liable to break out into a night of the long knives |
I was impressed by the following short article from The Scotsman about Mr. V. Putin, a man who is all but "king" (or "Czar"/"Ceazar") of the Russian federation:
Vladimir Putin's deadly struggle to stay in power shows why democracy is so important – Scotsman comment (msn.com)
The article was a follow up after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's abortive armed rebellion in Russia. In fact, the article is so good I'm going to quote it in its entirety (My emphases):
The means to peacefully transfer power from one person to another is a vital source of national stability
When the Ancient Greeks invented democracy, one of the ways that Cleisthenes, its champion, sold this revolutionary change to the nobility was by pointing out that it would dramatically reduce the consequences of political defeat. Instead of death or exile for backing the wrong tyrant, life would go on much as before after losing a vote.
For all Athenian democracy’s faults, this wisdom is still relevant some 2,500 years later, as can be seen from events in Russia. After 23 years of corrupting the electoral process, abusing his power and murdering his opponents, Vladimir Putin cannot simply step down, as it could quickly result in his assassination or prosecution for war crimes. That means he must become increasingly authoritarian.
There is also no way to challenge or scrutinise his decisions as dissent cannot be tolerated. When Yevgeny Prigozhin, the vicious leader of the Wagner group’s mercenary army, fell out with the Kremlin, he was almost forced into an armed revolt. Following the abrupt end of his mutiny – reportedly after Russian security services threatened the families of Wagner’s leaders – there is widespread speculation that he will find himself the next dissenting figure to be shot dead, poisoned with polonium or mysteriously fall from a high balcony.
Some in Russia and elsewhere praise dictators for bringing stability. However, while three Prime Ministers in two months did make Britain a laughingstock, the ability to remove people from power peacefully is actually one of the most important ways to achieve this.
In 1947, possibly still smarting from his 1945 general election defeat, Winston Churchill told the Commons that “it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”, but he immediately added: “There is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”
The deadly machinations of Russia’s ruling gangster class are an object lesson in the folly of tyranny.
The tyranny this article speaks of is akin to having Mafia bosses running your country. In fact, it is no surprise that Silvio Berlusconi, a man with links with the Italian Mafia, was one of Putin's friends. In the Book of Samuel Chapter 8 we hear that God was not pleased with Israel's populist demand for a king, and God's warning to Israel sounds very familiar, very relevant and very modern:
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
....a very familiar story of absolute rulers using the wealth of a country to feather their nests and enhance their power and glory. Despots run states as if the country was their personal property. This was, of course, the form of government in medieval times and its vestige is seen in the UK Monarch's speech to parliament where the King/Queen frequently uses the prefix "My Government". However, the UK monarchy has matured and moved on from those primitive days and now has a very important symbolic & constitutional role of reminding meritorious & over ambitious politicians of not thinking themselves above their station. It is ironic that today the UK monarchy is a symbolic stand-in for the people whom politicians serve. The monarchy also serves as the focus of the human need to celebrate a personified version of power with the trappings of pomp and ceremony which surround it; the complexities of democratic systems can be too abstract to relate to.
In medieval times the hereditary system of selecting a monarch, if strictly implemented, would have helped suppress the violent struggles of succession that the above article outlines. That didn't always work, however, but it was probably marginally better than the gangster system in Russia where a thin facade of democratic pretense is a cover for jailing and/or killing the opposition and competitors for the "throne". As the Scotsman article points out violent jostling for power is the name of game as would-be-dictators vie for power. We see the violence that monarchical systems of government promote, particularly at succession, in the OT books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. But at least the ancients had the excuse of few precedents of any other form of government from which they could derive templates. In contrast, today we have the well-developed forums of democracy, accountability, systems of voting and law.
Here's another interesting article, this time from the Daily Express:
If Russia collapses we will all perish' warns Lukashenko after Putin hit by Wagner coup (msn.com)
This article quotes Belarussian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko as follows:
He said: "The threat of a new global conflict has never been as close as it is today. They are once again asking to blow up our country, our entire region, to disorient people. To shake up the situation by any means and to impose their own rules under this noise, to establish their own order. which will no longer be our countries or people. "They are asking us to mislead about the real plans and intentions of the collective West. "Unfortunately, our attempts to settle the situation through peaceful negotiations are now called a 'diplomatic imitation'. The price of this 'imitation' is hundreds of thousands of human lives." Lukashenko went on to criticise NATO, saying the world is seeing a "new wave" of expansion of the military alliance close to the Belarusian borders. He added: "Demonstration after demonstration is a demonstration of strength." During the press conference, Lukashenko added: "Our generation is passing its endurance test. We had the mission to preserve the peace won by millions of lives of heroes, our fathers and grandfathers. This means only one thing - we must be stronger than the threat that again hangs a shadow over our land. "I won't lie, it was painful to watch the events that took place in the south of Russia. Not only me. Many of our citizens took them to heart. Because the fatherland is one."
The piece I've underlined is clearly a reference to the attack on Russia by Hitler. In the above Lukashenko is speaking as if his country is a democracy threatened by a "Nazi" West, when in fact he himself is a tyrannical dictator. This brazen distortion of the facts is remarkable; does he really believe his own lying spin? When he says "If Russia collapses, we will all perish" what he really means is that a collapse would usher in either anarchy as gangsters compete for power or it would be the end of his ilk and the whole gangster system of rule. "The fatherland is one"? That should read "The Godfatherland is one". The threat isn't to his country and its people but to the ruling criminal class in the face of the creeping cultural memes of Western democracy. The Mafia Godfathers have everything to lose in the face of the struggle for open, accountable and democratic societies. Let's be wary, therefore, and not underestimate how many people these cornered criminals are prepared to kill in order to maintain their power and status.
And let's not be complacent in the West. American democracy & constitution seemed to be working OK until Donald Trump appeared on scene, when accusations of electoral corruption and news of lawsuits started to saturate the air-waves. Trump's man Micheal Flynn suggested using the army to enforce Trump's rule and I heard one of Trump's followers saying they wanted Trump to set up a dynasty. And then there was that "Golden Trump" statue, the QAnon followers of Trump like Margorie Taylor-Greene who is a Putin sympathizer and the support of popular evangelical religionists..... these people are being duped into acting as kingmakers.
"I was going to get a mortgage this year and buy a flat for our family," Peter tells the BBC. "My wife and I were discussing plans for the future. Now everything is on hold.
"From next January I can be called up to serve and sent to Ukraine. I don't want to join the army, I don't want to take part in this war and die for someone else's goals."
MY COMMENT: The aggressors who are attacking the Russian people are not outside forces, but the Godfathers who despotically rule Russia and treat it as a means of achieving their personal ambitions of conquest, glory and wealth. (Trump is trying to do the same in America). In the days of aristocratic rule it was axiomatic that one serves the purposes and desires of one's liege lord; in effect one was one's Lord's property. I'm tempted to say that Putin is a throw back, but I don't think the "aristocratic" system of rule ever went away completely, except perhaps in name and today's despotic rulers try to gloss their governance with democratic speak.
