Feb
21
“A war is going on now and we all must participate in it”
February 21, 2008 | 11 Comments
Those Nashi kids really, really want to go to Estonia. So bad that they’re protests are beginning to sound more and more deranged. Leave it Nashi to push a campaign to the brink of absurdity. Is Estonia bashing all they have left? I guess they “10=5″ campaign just doesn’t provide that populist umph. If this is Nashi’s future, then the greatest threat to Nashi is not a fed up Russian government, Garry Kasparov, or their imagined fascists. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Nashi’s greatest enemy might just be themselves.
Take for example Nashi’s new virtual campaign chernymspiskam.net. That’s right you too can “be active” in Nashi’s quest for victimhood. Perhaps the most egregious aspect to this site is not so much the 30 minute film which makes a pathetic attempt to paint the Estonians and the West as fascists. It’s that in order to do so Nashi portrays itself as victims of the fascism of WWII. “These people were killed by fascists in 1942,” begins the film with ominous music playing the background. “Dmitrii Ganin was also killed by fascists, not in the 1940s, but in April 2007. The war is not over. It has been going on all these years. A war is going on today and we all must participate in it.” That’s laying things on thick. Poor Ganin this is what he was stabbed to death for? To have his corpse become the symbol of Nashi’s imagined victimhood?
The real sad thing is that this farce seems to be working on some level. Over 10,000 people have joined Nashi’s “black list” campaign since it was announced on February 2.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Comments
11 Comments so far
This is a sad joke. Nashi et al. should be ashamed of the way they prostitute the memory of WWII in service of whatever their latest beef is with Europe and the independent countries they prefer to view as Russia’s uppity former colonies.
The website’s layout is not even original – it is pretty much the same design as zaputina.ru, with the tiled userpics of everyone who has “signed up.” On zaputina.ru, the array of userpics visible at any given time seems to be managed to create the impression of support from average people all over the region or even all over the world (e.g., although the number of people “za putina” is now 90-some thousand, I still see the same woman from Kishinev on the front page who was on it months ago).
On this new site, there seems to be less of an attempt at verisimilitude – for example, does anyone really think that Nikita Mikhalkov, Alina Kabaeva, Zhirik, Zyuganov, Anatoly Kucherena or Sergei Markov took the time to upload their photos themselves? Not to mention Valery Tishkov, who seems rather out of place among this strange brew of celebrity “protesters” and everyday Nashi supporters. The impression of a growing mass of people is created by shuffling the “supporter userpics” every time visitors reload the site.
The real joke would be if the Schengen countries (as I understand it, just one of them would be enough) were to decide to take these assorted luminaries at their word and allow them to get involved in the protest for real. Hey, if they’ve signed up on a website under the heading “We are on the black list”… Just imagine – no more foreign film festivals for Mikhalkov, no more opportunity for Kucherena to “monitor human rights” in Western Europe firsthand, no more chances for Yakemenko (yes, his mug is in the mix as well) to spend money embezzled from the Nashi general fund on shopping sprees in Italy, or whatever he does with it….
Wow, that video is really something. It’s not just that “a war is going on now” – it never stopped! By the way, for more casual abuse of WWII-era rhetoric, check out this charming “think piece” – one guess as to who gets the role of HNIC (that’s head nazi in charge, of course). I’ll spoil the suspense and won’t make you read it – it’s the US, natch, running our “hitlerite satellites” on Russia’s doorstep. Amazing stuff.
The opening line is superb. lol.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Nashi’s greatest enemy might just be themselves.
Or possibly a future government? How secure is the leash on these kids? Any idea?
The Nashistas, besides being a pathetic bunch, are a negative influence. I hope that soon enough they’ll become irrelevant–whether that will happen or not, I don’t know.
And then, of all people, the Russian authorities are investigating Lev Ponamarev. Here is the Robert Amsterdam link on this:
http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/02/lev_ponomarev_under_investigat.htm
It’s a strange counterpoint isn’t it, Kolya? A whole country, Estonia, accused of being a last holdout of the Third Reich, on the one hand. And on the other, a rights activist accused of slander against the RF.
It’s been a rather creepy couple of weeks. President-to-be Medvedev displaying his soft and fluffy side, talking up the rule of law. Meanwhile — the awful Aleksanyan case, and now potential charges against Ponamarev.
Or possibly a future government? How secure is the leash on these kids? Any idea?
Do you mean a Medvedev government? If so I doubt it. You never know when you might need them. As for the leash, it’s impossible to say. Even if the leash goes all the way to the top, it doesn’t matter. Youth orgs can be an uncontrollable bunch, especially in the provinces.
But we don’t have much info about what really goes on in Nashi. Their campaigns are hard to judge how active they really are. I don’t take signing up to some website and having paltry protests every week or so active. But I think that Nashi is searching for its purpose in a post-Putin Russia. Sure Putin will be a factor, but Medvedev will be its symbol. One solution would be, like the Komsomol did, is to declare themselves a defender of the “Putinist idea”, within which Medvedev belongs. Nashi needs an ideology that demonstrates what they are for, an idea that transcends a period of time. Anti-Estonian/Fascist campaigns may get some members hopped up, but it has a short life.
Nashi could also just be in a lull. Like I’ve said before, youths orgs can’t sustain extended periods of campaigns. They sap energy and resources. They also produce excess that you have to reign in. I think some of this stuff with Estonia is an example of excess.
Any signs of independent sourcces of finance? Annual membership fees? Other fund-raising? Affiliated youth-oriented businesses?
“It’s not just that “a war is going on now” – it never stopped! ”
Isn’t this a slogan of anti-Nazi activists? It’s in Splean’s song “Fuhrer Fuhrer” if I recall correctly.
Utterly off topic, but may I just point out a rather amazing phenomenon picked up by Lyndon:
http://scrapsofmoscow.blogspot.com/2008/02/well-this-looks-interesting.html
Any signs of independent sourcces of finance? Annual membership fees? Other fund-raising? Affiliated youth-oriented businesses?
Depends on how you define independent. The only sources of “independent” funds are from Gazprom and I think Rosneft.
Besides that I don’t even know if Nashi collects dues. I must say, I haven’t been able to connect to the Nashi website from home in a long time. I wonder if they do have blocks on western IP addresses. Can someone test it out and let me know?
Nashi does have a few clothing stores.
http://www.nashi.su is still alive. No sign of dues that I can see. I imagine the Kremlin guys would not wish Nashi to be self-supporting in any way. Money is how they keep it under control. I would say, that is probably a good thing, though in strictly western terms, it looks bad that the presidency and key parastatals are sponsoring and promoting this kind of rubbish — the “excess that you have to reign in” that you’ve referred to.