Christmas reading from a guest author
I see them walking around shopping malls, laughing, carefree. I see them getting out of or into gleaming cars. I see them going along the streets and thronging the squares of my city. And I listen in. I listen in and hear them almost all and sundry speaking Russian. Beautiful, literary, radio and television Russian. I get thrilled by its sound. I recall the time when Soviet troops were stationed in my country. Soviet troops were statistically overwhelmingly composed of soldiers of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities, the three nationalities that speak Russian. There were quite a few of them, especially in the part of my homeland where I lived and where I still live. Back then, however, I didn’t hear Russian spoken on the streets at all. Nor did I see Soviet soldiers. Today, it is impossible to walk a hundred meters not to hear people talking in Russian, not to hear Russian spoken by… Ukrainians. Indeed, in a store you stand amazed when you hear both the customer standing in front of you and the cashier serving him communicate in Russian. You wonder if you have moved across the eastern border in your dream. Immediately, however, you come to the realization that you are still at home and ask yourself: are you sure you are still at home?
Now I am getting to know firsthand how the Germans, French, Swedes or English feel. They are at home, and yet as if not at home. But no. They probably have it worse. My country is taking in people of the same anthropological type, people who adhere to a similar creed: my country is being populated by Europeans. Of course, I realize that the aforementioned Germans, Frenchmen, Swedes and Englishmen need not feel at all bad about having relocated to a foreign country without relocating. After all, years of grooming by schools, the media and churches have done their part. I recall those young German women from 2015 with “Welcome refugees” signs and facial expressions that I won’t describe because of the not-so-nice words I would have to use. These young German, Swedish, French, English women whose minds have been completely appropriated and who do what their grandmothers would have been ashamed of, preach what their grandmothers would have condemned, believe what their grandmothers would not have thought of! Unfortunately, their grandmothers and grandfathers are leaving the stage and are – like me – deeply disgusted by what they see and hear.
I’m shopping in the big shopping mall of my city, listening and looking at the Ukrainians, looking at those so-called refugees, looking at the young men and young women, and I can’t help thinking that their countrymen are sitting in trenches, in tanks, in armored vehicles; that their countrymen are sitting in cold and unlit apartments and houses; that their countrymen have lost hope of effective medical help, that their countrymen…. And I can’t shake off the thought that their compatriots – like the sick man on his bed of pain – would like at least the presence of those here, those who shop around in brightened malls and smile and sit down at a table with coffee and cake; I can’t help thinking that their compatriots would like those here to be there with them and at least accompany them with their presence.
Someone will tell me I’m wrong. Someone will tell me that those there in the trenches and cold apartments are happy that at least some managed to break out, some managed to escape. Perhaps. In a similar situation I would, however, prefer my compatriots to be with me. I would not be comforted by the thought that, lo and behold, this man or this woman managed to escape. Rather, I would feel betrayed. I would feel left to my own devices by this man and this woman. I think there are more like-minded people, more people like me, who have neither so much cleverness, nor such acquaintances, nor such a lack of a sense of duty and solidarity with their compatriots to save themselves and not to bother with the fate of the other members of the community. I wouldn’t be heartened by the thought that many managed to escape. I know myself, so I know I would be pushed out of the train crowded with defectors or if you will refugees; I know I would not be able to arrange for fuel for my car, I would not be able to bribe an official to delete me from the conscription list. I would be helpless.
With this thought I saunter through the shopping mall, look at the people who we are told to call refugees – don’t you dare call them defectors or deserters! – and wonder about the world in which I happen to live. For several decades the word refugee has been present on the pages of dailies, weeklies and monthlies, for several decades the word refugee has not stopped resounding on radio and television. I can’t help thinking that this global movement of refugees is not a natural phenomenon; rather, behind the appearance of naturalness there is someone’s idea, an idea to resettle millions of people around the globe, an idea to make ethnic exchanges, to wipe nations off the face of the earth. A truly satanic intent. Solve et coagula: destroy (what is) and put back together or – as they customarily say nowadays – build back better (from scratch). Artistic stagings inaugurating the 2012 London Olympics or those accompanying the 2016 opening of the St. Gotthard Tunnel only confirm this conjecture.
It is obvious to me that these mass displacements are wanted. How else can we explain that phenomenon that the mighty United States spends billions of dollars arming Ukraine and is unable to control the endless stream of human masses crossing the southern US border? How else can we explain the phenomenon that one day German police forces are cracking down on some organization whose members allegedly sought a coup d’état and wanted to restore the German empire (quite a ridiculous idea), while Britain’s police forces failed to do what they ought to have done when gangs of Pakistanis enslaved and raped hundreds of teenage British girls in Rotherham and other towns for years? Where there is a will, that is a way. Obviously certain things are wanted. The accompanying double standards have become a political and social norm in the West. In all spheres of life. How to explain such extraordinary vigilance of the Western media to any manifestation of – what they call – nationalism or Nazism while they turn a blind eye or even support groups with a nationalist and Nazi political profile in Ukraine?
What is the so-called public opinion on all this? It is difficult to make judgments about true public opinion. After all, what passes for public opinion is nothing more than the opinion of the leading mass media, that is, the small group of people who dispose of these media. Period. Here is the German Chancellor giving a speech against the backdrop of a sign: Deutschland – Einwanderungsland. Do all Germans really wish for an ever-growing mix of anthropological types, religions and cultures in their country? Here is the American president repeating again and again that diversity is America’s strength and that it’s a good thing that whites have already become a minority in the US since 2017. Does he really believe this? Does he have people of various anthropological types, faiths and cultures in his family? How about the other Western countries? Alas, everywhere the same hypocritical ideology and everywhere this supposedly authentic public opinion that wants diversity and immigration. Somehow I don’t want to believe it. And the reason I don’t believe all of this is because I’m from a country where, just a month before he completely lost power, the then leader was still achieving a 98 percent result in parliamentary elections….
Similarly, I don’t believe in the man-made climate change with which our consciousness has been assaulted for more than a quarter of a century. Why I don’t believe in it? Precisely because my consciousness is being assaulted with this nonsense ruthlessly, day in, day out; precisely because this man-made climate change gibberish is being thrust down my throat; precisely because I am being shown hysterical teenagers who are seriously convinced that in a few years they won’t have air to breathe. I am thoroughly sick of it!
On the other hand, I readily believe that this man-made climate catastrophe scheme is a clever, not to say devious and sly plan of the West to rule the world. Look! Here is a climate or carbon tax being introduced on products made in so-called developing countries. Clever! The West doesn’t have the guts to simply impose tariffs on Second and Third World goods, so it resorts to a hoax like this! Why does the West not have the guts to openly impose tariffs? Simply because it has talked so long and so unbearably about equal opportunity for all, about free market, free movement of goods and services, that imposing tariffs would openly contradict these noble slogans. And so, there you go! We – the West – are fighting for the good of all mankind! It is only in the name of this good that we are forced to impose a climate or carbon tax! It is by no means because we are afraid of competition. We hope you understand us: it’s all for your good! Of course.
Of course, I think to myself as I stroll through the shopping mall and listen in to the people passing me by. Hearing Russian every now and then, I can’t help but think of Russia and Ukraine, I can’t help but think of Slavic nations. I recall how it was with Yugoslavia more than twenty years earlier. The southern Slavs – mainly Croats and Serbs – were pitted against each other; now the eastern Slavs – mainly Russians and Ukrainians – are pitted against each other. When Yugoslavia collapsed with military, financial and political participation of the West, the disputes did not end. When the Soviet Union collapsed, peace did not follow. Both there and here, the powers that be seek to further politically dismember the selected region of the world, and to that end they sow, breed and grow hatreds between nations. To think of it! It seemed in the late 1980s and early 1990s that a wonderful new world was being born! Those who are older remember the triumphant march of the song “Winds of Change” by the Scorpions, a tune that became the soundtrack to the footage showing the smashing of the Berlin Wall. It seemed that the end of the Cold War had come, that humanity was entering an era of friendship and cooperation. Alas!
From the very beginning, Ukraine was created as a state set in opposition to Russia. “Ukraine is not Russia” was the title of a book by Ukraine’s first president Leonid Kuchma. Gradually, from not-Russia, Ukraine became anti-Russia, a battering ram in the hands of the West, meant to punch that Russia. Do we still remember Yulia Tymoshenko’s words, how she wanted to hit Moscow with a nuclear bomb? Do we remember how Secretary Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt cheered the Kiev demonstrators into battle by standing among them in the Kiev Maidan? And yet, a similar conduct – that is, overt support for violent, weeks-long protests by the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador in London, Paris or Berlin – would provoke a fury of outrage in the countries experiencing it! What would Washington do if Mexico, hostile to it, entered into a military alliance or just military contacts with Russia or China? Is it really so difficult to imagine the consequences of certain actions? Did Nuland and Pyatt and those who pulled the strings not know what risks they ran at that time? Please.
Why do we mindlessly repeat that the one who started the military invasion is to blame? It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to realize that the aggressor is not the one who responds physically to a situational threat, but the one who creates that situational threat. Let’s bring before our eyes a classic scene from a western: two gunslingers face each other, hands over the handles of their guns. Once the situation in which these two men find themselves has already occurred, once they are already facing each other, the one who first draws his gun, who first fires, is not the culprit. On the contrary! The duel is all about which of the opponents shoots first – draws first – because this gives a better chance of victory, a better chance of survival. Was it hard to foresee? What is it that these great politicians, graduates of top universities, do not have: a sufficiently high intelligence quotient or elementary goodwill?
Now, when people are dying and suffering, aging models with fashionable hairstyles and trendy suits, those who in the Western world have fulfilled their feminist dreams and become presidents, prime ministers and ministers (they are especially excited by the position of defense minister, where they can finally command real men!) are shedding crocodile tears and deploring the fate of the people in Ukraine! But instead of doing everything to end the war (and, above all, to prevent it from breaking out), they are still adding fuel to the fire by fantasizing about how they will punish Russia and bring its leaders before an international tribunal! Truly one can envy the alcohol or the dope they consume! For these feminist-minded ladies, the war against Russia must be the last crusade in the white man’s world against white men. Hence, presumably, their intransigence, acrimony and desire to bring Russian leaders before the tribunal. After all, toxic masculinity must be punished, is that not so?
Now the Western leaders are imposing sanctions. They are imposing sanctions and they want the whole world to join in. They want the whole world not to send medicines to the Russians, for example, so that ordinary people will die off and their relatives will feel the need to rebel against the Kremlin. Such are the hopes of the Western leaders. Whether sanctions are effective or not is one thing. The imposition of sanctions certainly teaches every patriot and leader of a country that in order to be independent, in order to survive!, one should strive to produce as much as possible of everything vital – at home. The powers that be used to promote a world in which a division of labor would prevail: some countries produce this, others produce that. Can’t you see now how deadly this trap is? If a country gets rid of a few important industries and then crosses swords with the managers of the world, these managers of the world can hold this country – excuse the expression – by the genitals. This is the most important lesson that sanctions teach: never ever get rid of industries important to the country; never ever put your own finances in foreign hands; never ever enter into international agreements that strip your country of its sovereignty. Never ever believe that brotherhood between nations is possible.
That’s what I’m thinking, strolling through the shopping mall and listening to conversations in Russian. Here and there I notice signs in Ukrainian next to those in my native language, signs that are supposed to make the defectors – displaced persons – or, according to EU terminology, refugees – from Ukraine feel at home. What a comedy! They all speak Russian and are presented with notices in Ukrainian! It follows that they are yet to become Ukrainians! Do you understand? It’s like providing Irish notices to the Irish and pretending not to know that the native language of the Irish is English! My God, what a buffoonery, what a manipulation, what a crazy world!
I wouldn’t even ask these people from Ukraine what is the reason for their arrival. Why? Because I can easily imagine their explanations. I know this type of people and I know these explanations. I know them from my own countrymen. They, too, for generations, have only dreamed of going anywhere to the West, and there they spin stories about how it was impossible to live in their homeland because – and here they give a few banal, foreseeable reasons, and especially those that always work effectively on people in the West. What else will I hear from these Russian-speaking Ukrainians? They will say what they think a person abroad wants to hear. They will tell stories that will make the host nation favorably disposed to them.
In my country, too, there are plenty of people who believe such stories from foreigners: without reservation. It started with the mass media, the message they repeated a hundred times over, and especially the images: a mother with a child or, even more effectively, a crying mother with a crying child, preferably against the backdrop of a demolished house. Immediately, houses and apartments of thousands of my countrymen opened wide, and my compatriots welcomed the defectors – displaced persons – refugees (choose a term for yourself) – in a sense of their own moral superiority over all those who did not welcome them. I ask these people questions. Simple questions. Hey, aren’t you worried about the future of our country, the well-being of our nation? I remind them that the grandfathers of these defectors – displaced persons – refugees murdered our grandfathers in a bestial way. I remind them of what they cannot be unaware that for several centuries our nations feuded, which is mildly put. I ask them what makes them think that similar events will not happen again. I wonder whether they feel that they are subjected to emotional manipulation. What do they say? They look at me in disbelief. After all, what they are doing is the right thing to do! There are aggressors, and here are innocent victims. That’s all there is to it. Period.
I remember that the people who are now the elite of my nation, back in the days when they aspired to seize power, back in the days when they were victims of the previous political system, liked to say that the first step to sowing hatred between people and nations is to dehumanize, and the second step is to prevent those who think differently from speaking. This is true. I also remember from those years that a representative of the system, which was already leaving the historical stage, said the following about the political dissidents of the time (the present-day political elite): Give them power and money, and they, too, will morally debase themselves. Being an ardent supporter of all those dissidents at the time, I did not believe that my political heroes could ever morally debase themselves. And yet.
And yet they dehumanize their opponents in ways that go beyond good taste and they shut the mouths of those who disagree with them. Like their Western principals – their fellow ideological idols – they apply the worst possible terms to Russians and Russia and gag the mouths of those compatriots who express a different opinion. What was my astonishment when, immediately after February 24, 2022, I could not visit the site of one of the political portals, a site that was read by only a few thousand people! What was my astonishment when I found out that sites with a similar political profile were blocked in countries that used to be under the rule of Big Brother from the east, and have now passed under the rule of Big Brother from the west. The once-praised slogans of freedom of speech and humanism have gone up in smoke. Apparently, those who are stifling dissident voices are afraid of something. Of what?
The proponents of transhumanism and those who run the modern world are certainly afraid of death and the wrath of humanity. Fear of death makes them believe in science and technology, makes them fantasize about connecting humans to the Internet of Things and technically enhancing their biological capabilities. It makes them believe in the possibility of achieving immortality on earth. Fear of the wrath of humanity makes them float plans to abolish cash and introduce central bank digital currency, which will enable them to have complete control over everyone. Fear of the wrath of hundreds of millions of people, who may, after all, grow weary of the brave new world, who may, after all, not want to live under the dictates of these few billionaires, causes those who rule the globe to create apocalyptic visions for the masses, causes them to prophesy climate Armageddon. These visions and prophecies – like visions of hell and eternal damnation once did – are designed to keep billions of people obedient to the few do-gooders who know how to save us from CO2 asphyxiation.
The terminology of the old religions – concepts of sin and virtue, salvation and damnation, God and Satan – has been superseded by such terms as cancel culture, deconstruction, systemic racism, same-sex marriage, critical race theory, sustainability, LGTB, planned parenthood, gender mainstreaming, climate change, loop economy, carbon footprint, decarbonization and many, many more. It makes a normal person thoroughly disgusted to hear or read these terms. The new theology needs new theologians and new theology departments at universities; it needs saints and martyrs, it needs ardent believers and hardened heathens to make a negative background for the positive attitude of ardent believers.
The Christmas decor of the shopping mall inspires reflection. I look around. I see advertisements and can’t help thinking that I am subject to a subliminal influence here as well. Why do I see people of color in seven-eight pictures out of ten? Why does an ad for school stationery show me five children two of whom have dark skin in a country where – for the time being – the number of students with a complexion other than white is less than one percent? I wonder if I’m the only one paying conscious attention to all this. I recall noticing similar phenomena years before Barack Hussein Obama became American president. In the run-up to his election, in almost every second American feature film the role of head of state was given to a black actor. This was how the American public was accustomed to the idea that they would soon have such a president. Did Americans sense then that they were being groomed? A black president was not the last word on the part of the powers that be: the managers of the world want to soon remake America demographically. If they can do it with a superpower (think of the border with Mexico and thousands crossing it north every single day!), what awaits my homeland which is a financial and psychological vassal to the West?
Are those who speak Russian and cheerfully walk (while there’s still a war going on where they came from) through the festively decorated shopping mall going to return to their own country? I know – we know – that the vast majority are not. The family of the One, in memory of whose birthday we celebrate this Christmas, fled to Egypt in fear of Herod’s henchmen. However, as soon as the threat was over, they returned to their homeland, returned to where their language was spoken, where their customs were upheld; they returned to the places to which they were attached and the landscape that they held dear. Most of those foreigners around me in this shopping mall will not return just like most of my countrymen who left for the West. I wonder what kind of psyche one must have (to put it scientifically), or what kind of soul one must have (to put it humanly), not to want to live among his own, in his own home, not to want to hear his native language in the office and in the street, on the radio and television; what kind of psyche one must have to want to uproot his own children, to want to listen to them mispronounce and mishandle their parents’ language, which will never be their mother tongue. There are quite a few such people among my countrymen, there are quite a few among those defectors – displaced people – fugitives I pass by in a festively decorated shopping mall.
