“A case study of how an idea written on paper sacks in the midst of the gulag archipelago could one day be pronounced as a national idea by the heirs of the NKVD.”
– Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism
Charles Clover, the Financial Times’ former Moscow bureau chief, began the debate at the Frontline Club on Thursday 28 April by defining the idea of Eurasianism as, “essentially an artificial nationalism created in the 1920s by Russian exiles to rationalise and justify, in theoretical terms, an empire where Russia forms the core of a unique non-western civilisation.”
It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that these ideas were re-discovered and re-appropriated by “regime dead-enders who wanted to see a continuation of the soviet empire but on other terms,” through a different idea that would justify it.
Driven by the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin and propagated by the media, “this is not an ethnic nationalism,” said Clover, but rather a “civilisational nationalism” with Russia at its centre.
While not a new idea, Eurasianism as part of official discourse only appeared very recently, said writer and broadcaster Mary Dejevsky.
Eurasianism was an attempt to bring some sort of concord between the pro-western and Slavophil strands of thinking that had dominated Russian society since the turn of the 20th century, “at a time when Russia was looking for an identity for itself… especially in terms seeking a definition of nationhood,” said Dejevsky.
“The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Russia with a huge identity crisis that took a long time to enter official consciousness, but that has really started to crystallise in the last two or three years.”
Rodric Braithwaite, British ambassador to Russia from 1988 to 1992, said that Eurasianism is merely the “current phase of something that has gone on a very long time in Russian history.
“With a humiliating collapse, questions of identity – who we are, what we are – become vital and people produce fake answers which can then be exploited by politicians.”
Russian history, said Braithwaite, is a succession of humiliations and “the Slavophil-Eurasian idea is partly a compensatory device for the various disasters that have happened” – and a way of rationalising that with the idea of Russia as a great nation.
Clover said he would group this philosophy of Eurasianism with Russia’s changing relationship to the West as part of a multi-national nationalism designed to accomplish certain strategic objectives.
BOOK LAUNCH: @charles_clover 'Black Wind, White Snow', 27 April @YaleBooks https://t.co/kmdYY1B8GO pic.twitter.com/dJ4KSWF1iX
— Pushkin House (@Pushkin_House) April 17, 2016
At the same time confronted by a more nationalistic opposition during Putin’s third term, the Kremlin decided to equate this sense of national humiliation with the idea of a foreign conspiracy and promote a Eurasianism that “would ensure the integrity of a multi-national state and possibly expand it” said Clover.
Gabriel Gatehouse, chair of the debate and BBC Newsnight foreign correspondent, asked the panel to comment on the observation that a lot of the current official Russian discourse seems to be aimed at trying to return to a bi-polar world, reminiscent of Cold War divides.
For Dejevsky, many Russians are not looking to resurrect the old Cold War order, “but rather a multi-polar world where a smaller Russia co-exists but has an equal voice with other powers in the world.”
“There is a resort to Eurasianism, whether organised or simply as a concept, when Russia feels that is has been cold shouldered, especially by Europe, and is looking to a certain identity which has some justification, some basis, in a Russia that belongs to both Europe and Asia,” she said.
In this context, said Clover, the question of whether Putin himself believes in the idea of Eurasianism is almost irrelevant.
“We assume that Putin is a pragmatist at heart and only really cares about power. That has always and will always be true, but the context of his pragmatism has changed utterly over ten years.”
In the past, pragmatism was paying lip-service to nationalism, said Clover, but now national interests are denominated in completely different ways in terms of territory, making it pragmatic for Putin to seize Crimea and put troops into eastern Ukraine.
“The entire context of being Putin has changed. The playing field in Russia is now a totally nationalist one. So as a skilful, powerful politician, the way he plays politics has changed and as a pragmatist he must now be a nationalist.”
]]>By Sara Elizabeth Williams
The West’s reaction to 9/11 was excessive and misguided, wrongly influenced by hubris, hysteria and ignorance. Ten years on, we are still mired in a mess largely of our own making.
Last night’s First Wednesday Special: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century, which was in association with BBC Arabic, looked at how the decade post-9/11 has reshaped our world. Chaired by presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, the discussion at the Royal Institution of Great Britain turned to the question of what we learned – and how could we have done things differently?
For all their differences of opinion, the five members of the panel – journalists Mehdi Hasan, Isabel Hilton and Michael Goldfarb, ex British diplomat and founder of Independent Diplomat Carne Ross, and co-Founder and executive director of Quilliam and Founder of Khudi, Maajid Nawaz were in agreement on the most critical point: the reaction to 9/11 was a wrong one.
The response to non-state terrorist action should no be a declaration of war against individual states, but action against the non-state organisations.
The state-directed violence employed has destabilised entire populations and brought about some of the very things it sought to eradicate. Homegrown radicalisation comes at a devastating cost, and it is one we are becoming all too familiar with in the Islamic world and in the US and Europe.
Nawaz, who was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, reminded the audience that the process of radicalisation is the result of a political awakening, not a religious experience. For this reason, the right reaction would have been to support democratisation. But this wasn’t on the policy agenda:
“For decades we have been following a policy of sponsoring dictatorships and human rights abusers, and we ended up with a choice: support dictators or terrorists. But there was a third way: we could have supported civil society.”
While terrorism undermines the rule of law, Ross and Hasan pointed out that the West’s reaction did the same: we failed ourselves and the communities we sought to reach. The price of this mistake, according to Hilton, who is editor of chinadialogue.net.
“Now we have no moral standing to talk about human rights. In the course of the war on terror, we threw away everything that was worth defending. The damage we did to ourselves was greater than that which was done to us.”
Hilton also brought up the language of fear and safety – the American rhetoric over the last ten years. This, again, was the wrong invocation: ten years on, Americans still don’t feel safe. But is the mistake reversible? Hasan, who is senior political editor at the New Statesman, described a “fear industry grown our of control”.
Another cost is financial. Being at war has become normal for Americans. This affects policy: few politicians are willing to question Homeland Security spending. But for how long? Goldfarb, who is an author, journalist, broadcaster and GlobalPost’s London correspondent, answered:
“‘The war on terror’ is the worst phrase ever concocted. It’s a forever concept that can never end.”
The panel also looked at how the West’s misreaction to 9/11 may have paved the way for China’s global advance. Hilton, an expert on the subject, pointed out that China is seeking economic power by securing food, resources and access to water while letting other states get on with the international security agenda. In another ten years, we may consider this anniversary the beginning of a second turning point in the geopolitical landscape. One of the evening’s most-tweeted comments was made by Hilton, who noted:
“Wars have very, very long tails… they don’t end when the whistle blows.”
For those at tonight’s event, it would seem that the end of these wars will be a long time coming, indeed.
The hashtag for this event was #fcbbca
]]>By Jasper Smith
As eurozone leaders continue efforts to counter turmoil in the financial markets, a team of inspectors from the IMF and EU are due to arrive in Athens on Monday to assess Greek efforts to sort out their public finances.
Across the Atlantic, Tuesday sees Dominique Strauss-Kahn back in court in New York on rape charges stemming from an incident back in May at the Sofitel Hotel. Prosecutors are said to be considering dropping charges due to supposed weaknesses of his accuser’s testimony.
Also Tuesday, Liberians vote in a referendum on proposed changes to the West African nation’s constitution.
Back in Europe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to finalise plans on Wednesday to reduce his country’s deficit. Sarkozy was forced to return suddenly from holiday amid (apparently unfounded) rumours that France would be the next major economy to lose its triple A credit rating.
In Jerusalem, outspoken Republican commentator Glenn Beck is scheduled to hold his ‘Restoring Courage’ rally.
Meanwhile, at its headquarters in Ethiopia, on Thursday the African Union is holding a pledging conference to raise funds for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.
At the International Criminal Court in The Hague, closing arguments are due to wrap up on Friday in the case against Thomas Lubanga, alleged leader the Union of Congolese Patriots. He faces war crimes charges over allegedly conscripting child soldiers in the DRC.
Saturday sees the ‘Tea Party Express’ bus tour kick off with a rally in Napa, California.
Finally, on Sunday, captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit turns 25. Hamas has held him since 25 June, 2006 when he was just 19.
]]>After the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden by a U.S. special operations team the questions have come thick and fast. At our May First Wednesday we are hoping to throw light on some of them:
What impact will the death of Osama bin Laden have on Al Qaeda and on the people who support its cause? We will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss what impact his death will have on extremist Islamic groups and to look at the implications for Pakistan now that it has emerged that the Al Qaeda leader was hiding in Abbotabad.
We will also be discussing what Osama bin Laden’s discovery so close to Pakistan’s capital means for Afghanistan where the ‘War on Terror’ was launched.
The operation to kill bin Laden will improve President Obama’s standing in the US and the West, but what does it mean for US foreign policy? How it will play out on the ground, particularly in Asia and the Middle East?
Chaired by Humphrey Hawksley, leading BBC foreign correspondent, author and commentator on world affairs.
With:
Lynne O’Donnell, former bureau chief in Kabul for AFP, and the author of High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in War-torn Iraq. She is the recipient of a 2010 Human Rights Press Award for coverage of the plight of Afghan women;
Dr Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow of the Asia Programme, at Chatham House and author of Making Sense of Pakistan;
Aamer Ahmed Khan, head of BBC Urdu Service;
Rosemary Hollis, professor of Middle East policy studies and director of the Olive Tree Programme at City University;
Zaki Chehab, Arab journalist, editor-in-chief of ArabsToday.net, the largest Arabic-language news website and author of Iraq Ablaze: Inside the Insurgency and Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement.
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