I fundamentally dislike Imperial Russia, which held sway since the 16th Century, even under so-called Russian communism. Moscow forcibly spread its language in the Caucasus, Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus so that even in today’s independent Belarus, Russian is preferred to Belarusian—and the same holds for eastern Ukraine. Throughout the former Warsaw Pact countries, Russian was seen as the lingua franca, much in the way English is seen in the west—which is what the Russians were emulating. It’s a way of robbing people of their heritage—a way of killing a nation—a form of genocide. Looking after your own interests is all well and good, but casting predatory eyes on your neighbours, I find repulsive and menacing. It’s like having a nest of crocodiles as your neighbours. You never know when they are likely to have you for lunch.
However, US English is as guilty of imperialism, even more so than Russian. Canada has succumbed and is now merely a US cultural clone. Various other parts of the globe have taken on the nasty consumerism of the US, with its ubiquitous unhealthy McDonalds and KFCs—not to mention the wall to wall advertising that goes with it. Coca rotten Cola, acidic Pepsi, toxic mortgages. This rampant consumerism is at the heart of the Credit Crunch misery currently raging throughout the financial markets. The immature, “I want it now!” runs through the veins of the permissive West to a horrendous extent, distorting culture and giving us conceptual PR art (Ermine’s Dirty Bed; Hearst’s formaldehyde Cows and Sharks) in place of art based on a smattering of talent. The notion of delayed gratification, a purely human concept, has been cast aside—lust is pervasive, spreading AIDS. The permissive West is heading to oblivion—even the Arabs have the scent of the corpse, encouraging a creeping invasion of the West by their religious zealots disguised as economic migrants.
I mentioned a predatory Russia at the outset, to show that I’m no Russophile, yet what Putin and his KGB pals have installed in their Imperial fiefdom is the old Soviet contempt for Western permissive values. The Simpsons trashy cartoon has been banned on Russian TV. National pride is being reinstalled via the Nashi young people’s movement (akin to the old Pioneers). There is a sense of revival of an old Russian pride in themselves, which is designed to outlast the collapse of the West. Europe is weak under its own style of socialist permissiveness and slavish attendance to the Human Rights dogma. The question for the future is—will Europe pull itself together or sink within the permissive sycophantic Political Correctness it now pursues. Time will tell.
Köln is replacing its cathedral with a mosque, the Pope keeps apologising to the Muslims, Hollywood’s porn industry expands and increases its reach into schools, drugs are pervasive, MP’s busy themselves devising Bills to outlaw parents smacking their kids, gays march annually through the major cities (why?), and Human Rights are used by terrorists to outmanoeuvre a countries laws. It may be too early to bury the Western corpse, but unless someone revives it, the rotting stink will become pervasive—and predators love such a scent.
