The Horror that is Serving Your Country (Involuntarily) in Russia
If you have the stomach for such things, you can view the documentary film Soldat ("The Soldier", 2001), directed by Paul Jenkins, which graphically illustrates the horrors of hazing in the Russian military, by clicking here.
The authors describe the film as follows: "The Russian Army was once one of the greatest and most powerful armies in the world. Now it suffers from a lack of funding so that it struggles to feed and clothe itself. However they still operate conscription and it is compulsory for young Russian men to do their time. They try to run away and dodge the draft because they have heard the stories about what to expect when they get to camp: beatings from the more experienced soldiers, bad food and freezing conditions. A hierarchical and sadistic system operates there. In this observational documentary the plight of the soldiers is portrayed as comic and yet tragic."
Thus, not only does the film document Russia's barbaric indifference to value of individual human life and pathologically aggressive militarism, but it makes it hard indeed to imagine how anyone could possibly be intimidated by Russia's military or even consider allowing time to pass while it becomes consolidated and more formidable using Russia's oil windfall.
Labels:
neo-soviet failure,
russia
2 comments:
I take mild issue with the blog motto.
Any country and the general citizenry within tends to be very good in nature.
It is always the over aggressive, wealth and power mongering over-achievers who run things that cause all the friction.
I am widely travelled and these are my first person findings.
If the people of Lebanon seem filled with hate, remember years of hate filled media can breed hate in the best of people.
Don*t misunderstand though. This is a great blogsite! = TG
TONY: Thanks for the comment and the compliment! I hope you continue to enjoy the blog. It's quite possible that Russia is the "best country in the world . . . except for all the others" because its contingent of "aggressive, wealth and power mongering over-achievers" are worse than those of any other country. However, there seems to be a fatal defect in Russia, namely the willingness of the general population not merely to allow such persons to rule over them but to allow the SAME such persons, with the same defects, to do so generation after generation. It would be one thing if the Russians merely allowed a different kind of authoritarian to take control of the country even despite the ruin of so many years of authoritarian rule. But Putin isn't just any authoritarian, he's a PROUD KGB spy. He's the personification of the system that Russians have already seen come to ruin. As the old saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME!" So we say, shame on the Russian people. And, in the end, no matter how "good in nature" the Russian people might be, they are going extinct. 1 million disappear every year, meaning Russia won't be populated in the year 2150. Therefore, they can either change or become history.
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