Cultural distractions ensure a stronger state!

When I read news stories, sometimes it’s not the news that fascinates me so much as unstated (and unexplored) subtexts lurking within.

This morning Drudge linked a rather dismal-looking story about a new trend in Russia to have the government enforce “traditional values” (which I suppose means the KGB working in conjunction with the Orthodox Church). While the news is irritating, it’s not especially surprising if we consider that unfortunate country’s history. However, there was something not fully explained that jumped out at me.

The legislation being pushed by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church would make it illegal nationwide to provide minors with information that is defined as “propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism.” It includes a ban on holding public events that promote gay rights. St. Petersburg and a number of other Russian cities already have similar laws on their books.

The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

It is not explained exactly how gay rights is contributing to a wave of protest against Putin’s rule, but when I started looking into this I found confirmation of my speculation about an alliance between the KGB and the Orthodox Church:

One of Putin’s first photo ops after becoming president was with the Night Wolves, a gang of Orthodox bikers. The bikers used to be anti-Soviet, pro-American rebels. Now, they are patriotic and pro-Putin, and have changed the inscriptions on their leather and flags from English to Cyrillic. The Night Wolves’ anthem is the folk-metal track “Slavic Skies.” The music video of the song intercuts shots of rockers wearing tight jeans and crosses with Russian knights fighting invaders.

We are being assaulted by the seed of the Mongol horde/Attacked by the yoke of the infidels … But the sky of the Slavs boils in our veins …

Putin visited the Night Wolves this year at their annual festival in Sevastopol, Crimea. He arrived by limo; on a previous visit, he rode a bike and wore shades and a leather jacket. Sevastopol was the spot where Catherine the Great founded the Imperial Black Sea Fleet, and the port survived an epic siege in the Crimean War. A symbol of Russian grandeur, it became part of Ukraine after the country declared independence in 1989. Crimea still has a majority Russian-language population, and the Kremlin has been busy giving out Russian passports on the peninsula. The Russian Navy also retains a base in Sevastopol, for which Russia pays Ukraine $98 million annually, for the prestige as much as for military sense. Senior Russian Orthodox priests also attended the bike fest, exhorting “Shining Rus” not to “give up Sevastopol” (and chiding the bikers for hanging out with topless girls). For their part, the bikers staged a mass ride through Moscow after the Pussy Riot case, to show they were ready to defend the church.

On Aug. 18, Sergey Baranov became the first member of the clergy to resign in protest in the wake of the Pussy Riot trial. Since then, Baranov says that he has been the target of a PR campaign accusing him of being a drunk; that senior members of the local administration have visited his apartment in Tambov, which he shares with his invalid mother, to convince him to keep quiet (the incident was witnessed by a Russian journalist); and that friends and family have been encouraged to persuade him to tone down his outspoken criticism.

Baranov remembers asking a religious teacher once why Orthodox bishops “behave like KGB.” He says the man told him “it was because they were all KGB themselves, and work with their methods: intimidation, intrigues, corruption.”

The church has never openly explored its KGB past. When archives were opened at the start of the 1990s, both the previous and present patriarchs were revealed to have been KGB agents—but the files were quickly shut before details of their activities could be explored.

“The tragedy of the church is that it has always grown too close to the state, and then it pays for it. Now the church is trying to prove to the Kremlin it is a serious and useful player,” says Archpriest Alexei Uminsky, a Moscow clergyman whose ministry includes members of the protest movement.

(Emphasis added.)

At the rate he’s going, Putin is well on his way to becoming a full-fledged theocrat. Here’s another piece (titled “Putin’s message: if you’re pro Pussy Riot you’re against the Orthodox church”) exploring his obviously calculated alliance with the church:

On first glance it might seem that this story has become a catastrophe for Putin’s image. Rallies in support of Pussy Riot took place in many countries around the world and, in listing the main stars of global show business, from Madonna and Stephen Fry to Paul McCartney and Björk, it’s almost easier to name those who haven’t come out in support of the Russian punk group. But Putin’s life doesn’t depend on Madonna’s statements, and the image of Russia as a European Iran, where courts make theological decisions, is even useful for Putin, who can now say to the west: look, this is a wild, religious country that can only be ruled by authoritarian methods.

The reconstruction of the political space in Russia began almost right after the mass protests in December of last year demanding honest elections. Putin didn’t start flirting with the “creative class”, where most of the protesters came from, but instead devoted his whole pre-electoral campaign on creating the maximum amount of mutual hatred between the “creative class” and the “simple people”, who, if you believe the propaganda, support Putin. The Pussy Riot case takes this hatred to a new level, adding to it a religious component. If you’re against Putin that means you’re against the Orthodox church. You can sneer at this formulation all you want, but it makes Putin’s power more stable. The hatred being cultivated in Russian society will become a source of legitimacy for Putin.

It’s called divide and conquer, and it works. Cultural issues are emotional, and tend to distract people from looking at issues like whether the country is going to go broke and so on. (It would not be too much of a stretch to say that “the hatred being cultivated in American society will become a source of legitimacy for Obama.”)

Returning to the original article which caught my attention this morning, Orthodox leaders have united with Putin loyalists in fierce opposition to freedoms enjoyed in the West (which are seen as corrupting):

In November, a St. Petersburg court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trade Union of Russian Citizens, a small group of Orthodox conservatives and Putin loyalists, against pop star Madonna. The group sought $10.7 million in damages for what it says was “propaganda of perversion” when Madonna spoke up for gay rights during a show three months earlier.

[…]

On the next day [the day after a violent attack on a gay nightclub], an Orthodox priest said he regretted that his religious role had not allowed him to participate in the beating.

“Until this scum gets off of Russian land, I fully share the views of those who are trying to purge our motherland of it,” Rev. Sergiy Rybko was quoted as saying by the Orthodoxy and World online magazine. “We either become a tolerant Western state where everything is allowed – and lose our Christianity and moral foundations – or we will be a Christian people who live in our God-protected land in purity and godliness.”

Ironically, Rybko was among the very people who welcomed the same corrupting freedoms during Soviet rule.

Many liberals who sided with the group feel the Orthodox Church’s leader, Patriarch Kirill, has overplayed its hand recently.

They point to his support for President Putin and refusal to publicly pardon the protesters.

But more traditional believers say the Patriarch needs to be given a chance to revive the Church’s flagging attendance rates in a mainly Orthodox society.

Sergei Rybko understands the difficulty the Patriarch is facing.

In the Soviet Union he was a hippy, later becoming a priest who struggled against the communists’ persecution of the Orthodox Church.

He is to this day a lover of rock music. He strives to convince other clergymen of the value in 1970s rock bands like Slade and Deep Purple.

He also attends rock concerts, telling crowds that freedom without God is impossible.

I assumed, since he has liberal views, he would defend the likes of Pussy Riot.

I was wrong.

“They should be given forced labour,” he quipped. “That would be a suitable punishment.

Those who are interested can read the Pussy Riot defendants’ articulate closing statements at trial. Of course, unlike Americans who take such things for granted, neither the Russian government nor the Church have the First Amendment to worry about.

In the West, leaders can be disrespected, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Even venerated godlike cult figures like Barack Obama can be roundly insulted and ridiculed.

It seems only fair to point out that both Putin and Obama are regularly accused of being gay. But so far as I can tell, only Vladimir Putin has had to actually deny it. Whether that’s because of the nature of his political alliances, who knows? Obama of course depends on the political support of the very same people who are vilified in Russia and would not be allowed to perform there, in a flip side of the way Putin depends on his bigoted theocrats.

To a Machiavellian (or to a chess player), their seeming differences reveal a very similar way of operating.

We should be happy that unlike Putin, at least Obama is not a KGB agent. (All Russian rumors aside.)

In any event, I don’t foresee major problems between the pair. The worst thing that might happen would be for the two of them to agree to have a battle.