It’s about time I clear this backlog before this blog expires.
Recent events have shown two ways in which history repeats itself- Russia does something and the West does nothing.
Russia’s invasion of Georgia (it was Russia who started it, for the record) was not its first incursion into a former Bloc country's sovereignty, as the attempted assassination of the Ukrainian president and cessation of heating gas to Ukraine and the quarrel over Russian “war heroes” in Estonia proves. Putin (he never did leave power no matter what the puppet Medvedev may have you believe) has stepped up his attempts to discredit Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakaashvili, and nothing shows a leader’s powerlessness than invading his country (with its vital oil pipelines and ports) while he pleads in vain for the West to help him. The West has done its best to wag its fingers at the recalcitrant Russia (which is still present in Georgia, thus, confirming what political analysts have known since the beginning of this mess). Poland, wasting no more time deciding what was best for it, has allowed the US to build a missile defense system which would ward off possible attack from Iran’s burgeoning missile growth, but might not help if Russia decides to attack Poland, which it has threatened to do. Poland, Russia believes, has arrogantly put a wedge in relation between the countries. So it believes.
The facts are simple yet forgotten. Russia has been expansionist even in its tsarist days but especially during the dark days of communism under which several million perished. When murder and gulags could not achieve the effect of silencing dissent, exile worked just as well. Exile seems, in retrospect, a two-pronged strategy: it removes an offending Russian only to plant him in a territory that may prove strategic later on. This is why Russians are found in places like Kazakhstan and Georgia. A Russian’s residence, however, makes him no more a Kazakh or Georgian than a Canadian living in the US makes him an American. Russians are culturally, linguistically, politically and socially different from the Ukrainians, Poles, Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Tartars, Kazakhs, Hungarians, Czechs, Koreans and every other people on whom Russia has “exerted” its influence. Russia has never kept promises, observed local rites, customs or languages, nor has it apologised for past atrocities (pogroms, the Holodomor, Katyn forest massacre, killing students in Prague and Hungary, causing WWII or the gulags) and has gone so far as to claim they are the victims, if they could deny the facts no longer (remember- Putin has made claims that 2,000 people were killed by the Georgians yet the claim is incredible). Russia, angered that Georgia and Ukraine could gain independence, has tried to destabilize the countries in various ways. Putin issued Russian passports to Ossetians and Abkhazians in 2004. If the said nationalities wish to distance themselves from Georgia, then acquiring passports from a country notorious for its violent assimilationist policies could prove their undoing. The West would be glad to have this swept under the rug, just as Russia would be, but if the Ossetians and the Abkhazians truly trust Russia, then they will sign a pact stating that no matter happens, the West will never help them. Russia looks after its own.
The next time I hear Canadian athletes complain that their government doesn’t fund their efforts to legitimize a communist country- I mean- participate in the Olympics, I would like to point out Afghanistan’s first medalist. Sure, it’s just a bronze but it’s no ordinary bronze. It’s a “work-my-butt-off-and-nobody-funded-me” bronze.
Steve Coogan is a funny man. However, his newest film, “Hamlet 2”, isn’t so much offensive as it is unoriginal. Making fun of Christians, Christianity, Jesus and William Shakespeare has been done before, in varying nauseating degrees. In order to shake the ground these days one would have to make a comedy about pro-abortionists (have you read their blogs? The material writes itself), cartoons and books about Mohammad (yes, that, too, has been done before but the only thing widespread was the damage not the coverage) and a musical about homosexuals. That would be bold. “Hamlet 2” is just the same old joke told over and over.
The Tories have "bravely" skirted Bill C-484, a bill that would punish the harm or murder of a pregnant woman and her unborn child. What would the courts and government of Canada like victims of violent crime to do? They do the bare minimum for victims, anyway, and now the assault or murder of a pregnant woman and her child can carry on with impunity. If no one is going to be punished, then why do anything at all?
