Post by bazooka on Nov 2, 2019 23:54:06 GMT
The Russian media is hating Greta Thunberg!
The precocious green activist Greta Thunberg drew a massive fire of derision, hate, revulsion and resentment from Russians of all classes and ideological colors. Loyalists and Putin-haters, liberals and radical nationalists, patriots and apolitical hipsters found themselves suddenly unanimous.
There have been some sympathizers, too. But in the public space they seem to be few and far between.
What might be the reasons for this rare unanimity?
Watching the Aspie activist speak is a disturbing view. If you turn off the sound, it looks like the girl is auditioning for a role in “The Exorcist” franchise.
The spirit of old Russia’s patriarchal worldview still haunts many corners of our society. It accepts angry ranting only from grey-haired, paunchy old-timers. If someone young and green tries to teach us how to live our lives, they would be quickly cut down to size. Cheeky brats preaching high virtues from rooftops? In Russia, that’s considered dismal parenting, pure and simple.
The decades following the disintegration of the USSR saw an increasing level of everyday verbal aggression. If you lived in Russia more than a few months, you probably know what a verbal attack from a total stranger in the public transit or a line sounds like. Greta Thunberg easily recalls in the minds of Russians the angry outpourings of hate and abuse that assorted bullies and weirdos love to subject us to when we least expect it.
Sweden has been known to several generations of Russians as a rich privileged corner of the world, shielded from global troubles. Greta comes across as a white, well-fed kid from this little Nordic paradise. When she rants in fluent English about her childhood ruined by people she never met, the mass of Russians —who struggle in our stagnated economy, with dysfunctional social services, poor customer protection, rampant corruption, and depopulating provinces—see a spoiled teen throwing around cockamamie accusations just for the fun of it.
After the ruin brought upon Russia by revolutionary romantics a century ago, anything that comes from European lefties and smacks of revolutions and class struggle, immediately causes a negative knee-jerk reaction even among people who are critical to our State-oligarchical system. President Putin’s propaganda has been very successful in nurturing the public mood that says “Russia cannot afford another revolution”. Not only revolutionaries, but also somewhat radical reformers run a real risk of feeling the heat of our “anti-extremist” legislation.
People here are sick and tired of a lifetime under grey skies, cold winds and snow half of the year. Even those who sometimes feel alarmed by the climate change, often ask themselves if Siberia and our European North turning into a perennially green, continent-sized version of California is maybe not such a bad thing, after all.
President Putin doesn’t like green activists. His KGB-trained gut feeling tells him they are almost always just pawns in someone else’s bigger game—just like his men in Gazprom used to reach a friendly hand to anti-frackers in the West. Such a wise and well-informed man wouldn’t be wrong about these rabble-rousers, would he?
During the Soviet era, our propaganda used to arrange in working places and schools “protest rallies” directed against Fascists, counter-revolutionaries, American Imperialists, Zionist murderers, German revanchists and other deplorables. Children often were assigned the role of moral accusers. They went up on raised pulpits and in theatrical voices recited angry texts. Their speeches were full of moral indignation and sharp rhetorical finger-pointing. Those who went to school in the USSR can vividly recall these sessions just by looking at Greta’s performance.
One popular radio host said about Greta that using children in propaganda is the sign of totalitarian ideologies. A considerable part of our pro-Western “liberals” truly share the view of the American conservatives that the Greens are just Communists in disguise, dead bent on enforcing a new dictatorship under the pretext of saving the planet.
Protection of nature has never been popular among the mass of Russians. Lost amidst dense, hostile, mosquito-infested forests, our ancestors were used to seeing nature as something to “vanquish”, to exploit. This was reinforced by the industrialization push of Soviet rule. In the meanwhile, the mass of commoners viewed the environmentalist measures of the State, often half-hearted and ill-conceived, as just a continuation of the prohibitions and restrictions of the Communist days.
There have been some sympathizers, too. But in the public space they seem to be few and far between.
What might be the reasons for this rare unanimity?
Watching the Aspie activist speak is a disturbing view. If you turn off the sound, it looks like the girl is auditioning for a role in “The Exorcist” franchise.
The spirit of old Russia’s patriarchal worldview still haunts many corners of our society. It accepts angry ranting only from grey-haired, paunchy old-timers. If someone young and green tries to teach us how to live our lives, they would be quickly cut down to size. Cheeky brats preaching high virtues from rooftops? In Russia, that’s considered dismal parenting, pure and simple.
The decades following the disintegration of the USSR saw an increasing level of everyday verbal aggression. If you lived in Russia more than a few months, you probably know what a verbal attack from a total stranger in the public transit or a line sounds like. Greta Thunberg easily recalls in the minds of Russians the angry outpourings of hate and abuse that assorted bullies and weirdos love to subject us to when we least expect it.
Sweden has been known to several generations of Russians as a rich privileged corner of the world, shielded from global troubles. Greta comes across as a white, well-fed kid from this little Nordic paradise. When she rants in fluent English about her childhood ruined by people she never met, the mass of Russians —who struggle in our stagnated economy, with dysfunctional social services, poor customer protection, rampant corruption, and depopulating provinces—see a spoiled teen throwing around cockamamie accusations just for the fun of it.
After the ruin brought upon Russia by revolutionary romantics a century ago, anything that comes from European lefties and smacks of revolutions and class struggle, immediately causes a negative knee-jerk reaction even among people who are critical to our State-oligarchical system. President Putin’s propaganda has been very successful in nurturing the public mood that says “Russia cannot afford another revolution”. Not only revolutionaries, but also somewhat radical reformers run a real risk of feeling the heat of our “anti-extremist” legislation.
People here are sick and tired of a lifetime under grey skies, cold winds and snow half of the year. Even those who sometimes feel alarmed by the climate change, often ask themselves if Siberia and our European North turning into a perennially green, continent-sized version of California is maybe not such a bad thing, after all.
President Putin doesn’t like green activists. His KGB-trained gut feeling tells him they are almost always just pawns in someone else’s bigger game—just like his men in Gazprom used to reach a friendly hand to anti-frackers in the West. Such a wise and well-informed man wouldn’t be wrong about these rabble-rousers, would he?
During the Soviet era, our propaganda used to arrange in working places and schools “protest rallies” directed against Fascists, counter-revolutionaries, American Imperialists, Zionist murderers, German revanchists and other deplorables. Children often were assigned the role of moral accusers. They went up on raised pulpits and in theatrical voices recited angry texts. Their speeches were full of moral indignation and sharp rhetorical finger-pointing. Those who went to school in the USSR can vividly recall these sessions just by looking at Greta’s performance.
One popular radio host said about Greta that using children in propaganda is the sign of totalitarian ideologies. A considerable part of our pro-Western “liberals” truly share the view of the American conservatives that the Greens are just Communists in disguise, dead bent on enforcing a new dictatorship under the pretext of saving the planet.
Protection of nature has never been popular among the mass of Russians. Lost amidst dense, hostile, mosquito-infested forests, our ancestors were used to seeing nature as something to “vanquish”, to exploit. This was reinforced by the industrialization push of Soviet rule. In the meanwhile, the mass of commoners viewed the environmentalist measures of the State, often half-hearted and ill-conceived, as just a continuation of the prohibitions and restrictions of the Communist days.
