PUTIN PLAYS IT STRAIGHT


‘MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that gay people have nothing to fear in Russia as long as they leave children alone.’ Washington Post 17/01/2014

Putin’s remarks seem to have perplexed some commentators, why they ask make such inflammatory remarks in the run up to the Sochi Olympics?

Now I don’t know whether Vladimir Putin believes that anyone who is gay automatically harbours paedophile instincts and thus present an immediate threat to all children and young people.[1] I've seen no evidence that he does not believe it. What I do know is that Putin hates liberalism and liberal values. Putin shares with the Nazi’s, and indeed with Islamists, a belief that liberalism and liberal values are some sort of disease that can infect any society, bringing corruption and decadence in their wake. It is a view shared by the Russian Orthodox Church which believes that in Putin they have found their lord and saviour. It is in this context that his remarks need to be understood.

As far as Putin is concerned the games are in the bag anyhow, true there might be a few individual athletes who withdraw, there might even be a few easily stifled protests, Putin doesn't give damn. As he sees it any such protest will only strengthen his hand as the defender of Russia against decadent western values. It is also hard to miss the pleasure that he takes in making such remarks with, as it were a straight face, tweaking the noses of his western liberal critics.

In espousing his disgust with the post enlightenment western values Putin is following in a long Russian tradition stretching back to the 19th Century Slavophils, who propounded a mix of Russian exceptional-ism, Orthodox mysticism and the superiority of Russian ‘spiritual’ values. Solzhenitsyn embraced a variant on his return to Russia after the collapse of communism. It was as great a drag on Russian progress and development then as it is now. 

Not that one ought to dignify Putin’s thought process too much with the grandeur of a coherent philosophy. Putin’s primary concern is always with power, its capture, retention and expansion, if he can have a little fun at the expense of western liberals in the process so much the better.


[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-gays-will-be-safe-at-olympics-if-they-leave-kids-alone/2014/01/17/e6f8c47e-7f7d-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html

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