03 January 2006 Blog Home : January 2006 : Permalink
The West has to tell Russia that, plainly and simply, its conduct is unacceptable if it wishes to remain part of the club of civilised nations.
Although Britain takes no gas from Russia, it too must speak up for stability in the former Soviet Union and not be seen to condone the punishment by Russia of its former satellites. Mr Blair used his influence with President Putin to secure deals for BP to extract energy supplies from Russia on a long-term basis.
He was right to note that Britain's self-sufficiency is over and that such supplies must be secured from Russia as well as elsewhere. However, for Russia to use its natural resources as a means of behaving ruthlessly and unscrupulously with its neighbours is a medieval tactic that cannot be condoned in the modern world.
However I want to go back to Mr (Professor?) Stone's dire effort and critique it for the 1938 era language it employs. Firstly, while it may well be that the Baltic languages are not exactly major ones, they are no less insignificant than say Slovenian or Albanian and no one suggests that the inhabitants of these countries should not be expected to communicate on their language. Stone is remarkably patronizing to these states which were seized though conquest by Stalin.In the Baltic states, now members of the European Union, there are Russian minorities (and in the case of Latvia an only-just minority). There, the Russians are meant to learn Baltic languages that, with the best will in the world, Russians cannot take seriously as cultural vehicles (and the Euro Parliament is strangely silent as to the linguistic oppression that results, whereas there is jumping up and down about Kurdish in Turkey). The Baltic states are in the end pimples on the Russian back and, in their historic role as entry ports to Europe, better off, for themselves and for Russia, as nominally independent entities.
The difference between the Russians in the Baltic states and the Kurds is that the Russians are, effectively, the invaders, just as the Turks are. The right of the original inhabitants to maintain their language despite the strictures of their (former) invaders and overlords is the same in the Baltics as it is in the Kurdish parts of Turkey. Even if you claim that the Russian language is unfairly oppressed in a manner similar to the Kurdish one, the Russian speaking inhabitants of the Baltics have it even better than the Kurds in that they can easily return to the land of their parents/grandparents and speak Russian. The fact is that actually they seem to be doing the opposite, probably because of the better economic conditions and the linguistic tests imposed on these immigrants is merely an attempt to stem the tide and no worse than the various immigration limits placed upon (say) Polish plumbers in France.Enter that weird piece of pantomime, "the Orange Revolution". There were Ukrainians - the western ones especially - who absolutely did not like the deals being done with Moscow. Why not launch a campaign for the country to join Europe, as Poland and Lithuania had done? Unfortunately, electoral results were very far from being in their favour and a coup was launched. The "stage army of the good", on which our Peter Simple used to write so memorably, has now become a sort of feministo-Euro-non-governmental-organisational-ecologisto-free-media panjandrum, complete with Euro MPs living in tents in the main square of Kiev listening to amplified rock music while pretending to ward off the charge of the Cossacks.
Electoral results were "far from being in their favour" because of blatant vote rigging. It does not seem to me to be a coup to demand that your democratic vote be actually counted. Stone it seems mourns the demise of the Soviet Union as a unified entity despite ackowledging its failings such as the Ukrainain famine. The result is he wants to see Russia reimpose itself on its former empre apparently and he sees nothing wrong with crude threats and economic warfare being used to achieve this aim.The results of the Orange Revolution have been political division and economic insecurity - and deep anxiety for Russia. With Ukraine (in some form), she is another version of the United States; without Ukraine, she is a Canada. But there is one weapon in her armoury: she is a Canada with oil and gas.
If Ukraine attempts to join the Germano-Polish west, which exploited her people cruelly up to the 17th century, then the Moskale (Ukrainian for Russians) will show who is boss. And maybe - maybe - it is for the good of us all. Europe needs a functioning Russia much more than a semi-functioning Ukraine.
The statement that Russia "without Ukraine... is a Canada. But there is one weapon in her armoury: she is a Canada with oil and gas." is totally bizarre. Canada as eny fule kno has major oil and gas, not to mention oil shales and the like, in its westerns provinces. But this pales in respect of the "Sudetenland" echoes of the concluding paragraph. The justifications of Russian control of the Ukraine do seem very much redolent of the policies of Neville Chamberlain with respect to Hitler's Germany and given that Putin seems to have as limited a grasp of concepts like "the rule of law" or "property rights" as Hitler did this is not a policy with a good track record.