written 1 May 2022
published 8 May 2022
Russian political scientist and human rights activist Ekaterina Schulmann, speaking at a roundtable discussion on Russian torture, answered a question from the audience; "Why does Putin need this war?" The following is excerpted from her response.
"He did this to halt time."
"We have noted that violence in society is decreasing; that crime rates are falling; that new generations have a new value system; that video games actually reduce violence, rather than increase it; that, in general, the younger the social stratum, the more pronounced the decline in violent crime and in consumption of hard liquor; that imperial nostalgia is fading into the past."
"Now, turn this picture around, and imagine yourself on the other side. There you sit and watch as the sands of time slip through your fingers. You will inevitably be succeeded by -- let's use his language -- traitors. Your children are traitors. They do not share your view of life, they do not share your view of the world, they do not see that which you see with such clarity. You are the last defender of the fortress. They will surrender it to the enemy, because they do not even consider him an enemy, and no matter how much you try to convince them, they still won't consider."
"The neighboring country is causing you unease. It has somehow made progress, which is very disturbing. And you realize that a little bit longer, and that's it, your historical time will end. Your window will shut. The next ones are coming, and they are unacceptable to you. From your point of view, they are worse than useless, they will doom everything, they will ruin everything. This is hatred for one's heirs; hatred for the living, simply because they shall go on living."
"A reasonable person can accept this, can caress a baby, understanding that while I will turn to dust, you will live on and prosper. But if you happen to be constituted a little bit differently, and you also happen to hold a great deal of power in your hands, then you can do this trick; onto the heads of all these future generations, you will overturn a heavy concrete slab, which will crush them forever, or least in any foreseeable perspective. That future that they wanted, they won't get. Instead, they will get the future your way, even after you are no longer among the living, because you will do such a thing."
"You are inside this fortress that you're guarding, you will figuratively detonate an atomic bomb. True, there will be no life left in the fortress, but it will be radioactive and therefore unapproachable, and so it will forever remain unconquered, so to speak. Anyone who can't accept the flow of time and come to terms with it, yet possesses power, could do this kind of thing."
"It's only a working hypothesis, but that's how it is. I do see confirmation from many sources, this sentiment of time flowing away. The feeling that somehow history is not headed in our direction, this hatred and disgust for tomorrow, because it is not what I need. What is hard to grasp is that someone would go to such ends in an attempt to drown out these apparently unbearable feelings."
Unfortunately, we see the same insane fear and hatred of a changing future in America. Some yearn for the past; when rich white men controlled everything and women were powerless, quiet, arm candy, simple breeders of the future generation; when people of color were actual minorities, and kept in their place through economics and police systems; when gender roles were rigid and limited by law; when the world was ripe for corporate plundering.
But that was an unsustainable moment in time, because humanity is in the middle of an evolution of consciousness and the climate crisis is growing. Those refusing to accept this, stoke rage against the changing reality. The GQP, claiming Christian patriotic "leadership", while being neither, is working to destroy democracy and the rule of law to force the future into their distorted perspective. This is similar to Putin's work destroying any notion of Ukraine, while risking Russian stability, which is why Fox News is such a Russian mouthpiece. The question we have to answer is; will we allow this insanity to prevail in America?
