New Russian Law Makes It Illegal to Be Friends With Foreigners
Putin has done what other heartbroken men have failed to do — he forcibly returned his lost love
Vladimir Putin is a patriot of sorts but this term needs to be put into a cultural context. Patriotism in Russia is sadly a state of mind that means that Russia is either defeating someone else at something; or, Russia is subjecting someone forcibly to its will.
Patriotism is not an unspoken love for country. It is not a desire to be kind, supportive of one’s neighbor, and sympathetic when others are down. Russian culture thrives on stomping on people when they are down. Russian culture very succinctly glorifies those with power and openly mocks those without power — which is 99.5% of the Russian population.
Russia’s entire ruling infrastructure exists to keep its people down, misinformed and subservient to the whims of the state.
While it may seem I have just strung together a bunch of generalizations together, I am sparing you a verbal recounting of the past 30 years of my life. I resided physically in Russia or was on my way to Russia, since 1990. Somewhat reluctantly, I departed my Russian life two days after the war started at 5 AM on a flight to Munich. The new law makes it even less likely that I will return any time soon.
Accept my characterization of Russia as gospel. When I write that Putin is a patriot, please filter that word through the above-proposed cultural interpretation of that word. Being a patriot in the Russian sense of the word does not mean you “love your country.” More precisely, it means you hate it.
Russian patriotism is “hatred for one’s country” because everything the government does, and the people eventually praise out of fear, is bad for Russia.
Here are Putin’s words in April 2005:
“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory (Soviet Collapse a Genuine Tragedy).
