Year of the youth ad.

I found this video through a Slovak 'nationalist' youtube channel. They said this is applicable to any country, not just Russia and provided Slovak subtitles to it. I was trying to find it translated into English but to no avail so I provided my rudimentary translation of it below, please excuse my mistakes and correct them if possible. Over a track which is a sample from 'Прекрасное далёко' put over some heavy, broken beats it asks the viewer about what he does for himself and his country. The entire campaign is aimed at young people and attempts (or at least attempted) to instigate pride in themselves and their nation. Here the meaning of this campaign is explained in a pretty straight manner. I tried to run it through the google.translator, as I don't have the time to do my own, but the product was atrocious. In short the text says that much has been improved since the humiliating 90's but there is still a lot of work ahead.

Both the Slovak subtitles version and some of the Russian version uploads on youtube indicate that this film did not survive censorship.

If you were searching for the right moment, for the opportunity to change your life, the time has come.

The time of change.

Your time.

Russia

1000 years

Faith

Effort

Intellect

Bravery

Patience (I'm not sure here if the meaning is not suffering)

Love

Millions of lives

You

The largest country on Earth

The richest country on Earth

The best country on Earth

(Can't read the middle line well): You country ... will not exist.

You are not doing anything just, just using it.

Studies - your profession

The country does not need

Working for a someone else's uncle

You drink, you smoke, you smoke pot (?)

You will die aged 55-66

You are not planning to have children

You are not planning to have a family

You are not planning to go into the army

Everything to your self.

Look around.

Wake up.

You are simply living your life, thinking that you are spending it on something valuable.

After you a gravestone with 16 numbers will remain.

Stop lying to yourself.

You are not laying foundations to anything, building anything, making anything, inventing anything and you are not planning to.

(Big) Nothing (with pretty much the entire sentence above)

You think you have no relation to Russia.

You think that somebody, somewhere decides about things.

In reality, except for you she has nobody.

You are her true future, past, the first and the last hope.

And that's scary.

Because you don't need anything.

You are a consumer.

A battery.

In a large and 'alien' system.

What do you consider as valuable?

Money?

A Phone?

Nice clothes?

A Car?

Parties?

All that is worth nothing.

But you life is, and your time and your dreams.

Which don't exist.

Look around.

Your Country is dying.

In the global system we are miners and lumberjacks.

We are not fit for competition.

We will be torn into pieces at first opportunity.

No grand discoveries, No grand victories, No great culture.

(Big) Nothing (With all of the above)

This is your freedom.

Freedom to be a gangster or a prostitute.

Freedom to destroy yourself.

Freedom to be humiliated.

Freedom to be nobody.

Your predecessors, two generations back, fought, built, invented, fell, rose and continued walking, so that you could live they created a great country.

And you?

Are you an ungrateful bastard?

Or someone who can change the world?

Nobody or a hero?

The last or the first?

You decide but bear in mind, there is nobody but you, nobody will live your life for you.

Our country has two choices, reconstruct itself or perish. 

Resurgence of red terror in the Mediterranean

Merry Christmas to you Western people!

On his twitter page Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion linked this report by Evans-Pritchard the other day. I was busy travelling to the continent and meeting old time friends and was not able to blog about it earlier. 

The article is entitled 'Euro 'Diktats' risk terrorist response' and as the title suggests it tries to link the spate of terrorist attacks, carried out by extreme left against symbols of capitalism, that have recently hit Mediterranean countries from Greece to Portugal, with the economic shortcomings of the European project. It doesn't seem that the article does a good job at linking these two. The 'revolutionary' terrorists on the left are usually well off kids with enough time on their hands and no respect for the society. The revolt of desperate masses looks more like mass riots. The reason behind these lefties rearing their head all of a sudden is also a mystery and I guess the greed of capitalists and working class despair is not a satisfying explanation. Where were they in the years of prosperity?

But I'm digressing here. More often than not I find a common ground with the left despite the fact that I do not subscribe to their ideology or share any respect for some of their methods. I can agree with them on the issue of Iraq and Afghanistan wars and share the Euroskepticism of the radical fringe. This is why am linking this article. Read for your self:

The hard-Left resurgence cannot be blamed on monetary union as such, yet the two are linked. EMU [European Monetary Union] has always been viewed as a capitalist conspiracy – a 'bankers' ramp' – in Left-wing circles. While their view may seem odd to us, they are entirely right to think that poor people in certain countries are victims of the experiment.

Unemployment is 19pc in Spain (43pc for youth) on Eurostat data. Greece is catching up fast. Labour minister Andreas Loverdos said Greek joblessness has jumped above 18pc over the last two months as EU-funded workfare schemes expire.

This will get worse. Southern Europe is being ordered to carry out IMF-style austerity, without the IMF-style devaluation required to rectify the massive imbalances that have built up between North and South under the euro. The victims are caught like France and Germany under the Gold Standard of the early 1930s, when society was broken on a wheel of deflation decrees.

The EMU system has condemned Club Med to structural depression, with no way out. The logical – yet politically absurd – response of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to talk of overriding national democracies in order to save the euro. 'The question arises over what authority Europe has to tell national parliaments what to do, in order to avoid damage to Europe itself? National parliaments don't like to be dictated to about such things, but we need to address the problem,'she said.

The Euro needs to be saved over the wishes of the Mediterranean electorate and their representatives. The EMU is not a simple capitalist scam, it is a globalist scam. There is nothing wrong with capitalism per se as long as the free market knows its boundaries. Merger of states and economies is always possible especially in cases when the states share cultural and/or economic similarities or when force is applied. Even then such merger is not always a smooth ride. How do you merge different countries as Greece and Germany? How do you merge them in such a short time? And how is it possible that a vehicle of this merger, the European project, which defines itself as a collective of democratic nations now needs to be saved by undemocratic means? The answer to this set of questions is the European project is utopian and slowly meets its reality.

I quite don't feel like the extreme left is able to formulate a response to this date with reality. Those that come from the Marxist tradition view the world divided into workers and exploiters. Their more moderate comrades from the mainstream left are the biggest fans of all sorts of universalist projects (EU including) and working class to them is only good as a gullible electorate. The Anarchists do not think in terms of a state and are rarely seen campaigning in elections. The localism of the Anarchists is commendable, however I think any response to European utopia will be formulated in a discourse criticised hundred times by the left. That of the nation and its state.   

Kosovo - can you imagine?

RT screened this short but powerful film...

Tatra History

This looks like a promotional video shown to tourists and does not go much into details. Unfortunate thing about Tatra passenger cars is that in the latter Communist days they were produced for the use by officials, the post-Communist model emerging from the nomenklatura limousine was unable to withstand the market pressures (read: was an utter failure) and now only trucks are produced. I wish somebody smart would resurect the passenger car...

Orthodox Priest critical of Islam shot in his Moscow church

The news of Fr. Daniil Sysoyev's martyrdom are now several weeks old. At around 11 PM, on 19 November unidentified gunman entered the church of St. Thomas where Fr. Daniil was a rector and mortally wounded him by gun-fire, Fr. Daniil died of the wounds shortly after midnight (Sources: 1; 2; 3). The assailant escaped.

Father Daniil was first brought to my attention when an enraged Chechen user of a Czech discussion forum linked to a televised debate featuring Father Daniil on the dangers of Islam. She (the user) paraded him as an example of bigotry not quite addressing his message. It looks like someone else took his rage a one step further.

Father Daniil certainly was a controversial figure, opinionated and extraordinarily brave. Half-Tatar himself, he was very vocal about Islam which he characterised not as religion but as political project akin to National Socialism or Communism, an ideology claiming to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth through human effort (Source). His publications on Islam include: Orthodox Response to Islam and Married to a Muslim (Source). He was also vocal against the pseudo-Christian religious groups such as the Jehova's Witnesses and Seventh day adventists, that made inroads into Eastern Europe spiritually weakened by decades of militant atheism. 

He actively proselytised among Muslims and cultists and in the process aroused the voices of many. He was criticised by a diverse crowd including Neo-Nazis; ultra-conservative, monarchist believers and the Old Ritualists among others (Source). He was receiving not only open criticism but anonymous death threats as well. 

Hat tip goes to Byzantine Ramblings

Never get high on your supply

No comment needed...

Every twelfth resident of Prague comes from the former USSR

If you are travelling to one of Prague's suburbs these days, you can be sure you will hear Russian on the streets. And it is no wonder, as novinky.cz report, the combined populations of Russian and Ukrainian residents in Prague exceeds 67,000. Residents originating from Moldova, Belorus, Kazachstan and Uzbekistan number approximately 8500. While nationwide their population represents about 4% in the capital it is about 12%.

In 1997 there was only one Russian shop and one hairdresser's in Prague. Now there are 24 shops selling Russian products, 15 beauty salons, 5 branches of Russian universities and minimum 6 kindergartens. 

Victory for common sense

Few months ago I blogged about a Christian hotelier couple from Liverpool being taken to court for calling the Islamic messenger Muhammad a warlord. Unaware of the the identity of the accuser I raised some questions about certain gaps in knowledge of her adopted faith. Yes adopted, the Times report:

Ericka Tazi, 60, who converted when she married a Muslim man...

Well, that explains a lot but I cannot help commenting on another piece of revelation about the case that appears in the Times article:

Mr Vogelenzang denied the allegation and suggested that it was Mrs Tazi who had provoked the confrontation by stating that Jesus was a minor prophet and the Bible was not true.

Jesus is not a minor prophet even by Islamic standards. Given the ludicrousness of the entire case the couple was of course acquitted already in the first hearing. I found out about the development from Voices from Russia, Varvara [the owner of the blog] raises our attention to a politically correct drivel inserted into the Times article:

It [the acquittal] is likely to cause widespread alarm in the Muslim community.

What should cause widespread alarm in the Muslim community is the utter ignorance, on the part of some of its members, of their own faith.

Turkey prepares to join EU in a building confiscated from the Orthodox

AsiaNews.it reports:

...the headquarters of the Secretariat for the entry of Turkey into the European Union is a building confiscated from the Orthodox Christian community in the 90s. The building is located in Istanbul, in the well-known area of Ortakoy, under the first bridge over the Bosphorus.

Before the seizure, the building was used as a primary school for children of the minority Orthodox...

The community is taking the matter to court:

The community of Ortakoy appealed to the administrative courts in Istanbul, which have yet to rule on the issue. In case of a ruling to the contrary, the Orthodox intend to apply to the court in Strasbourg.

Well at least the court in Strasbourg would have something serious to do. But given that they have a tendency to rule in favour of secularism (it voted several times to uphold Turkish secularist ruling against the majority Muslims and recently made Italy pay a fine for having crosses in schools) I am skeptical that a faith based school case would impress them. But that is only my opinion, the outcome might be a surprise to my pessimism.

Meanwhile in Brussels some discomfort is spreading towards politicians who are champions of Turkey’s entry into the EU. Ankara has not yet shown a convincing European orientation, it is believed that the 'champions' are tied to the country by economic and financial interests.

There are no other interests in this, pure and simple.

One suggestion for resolving the issue comes from Lakis Vigas, representative of minorities in Turkey in the General Directorate of Foundations. Interviewed by the newspaper Milliyet on the case of Ortakoy, he says a possible solution would be if the Ortakoy foundation were granted the possibility to lease the building to the Turkish nation. This gesture would have a noble purpose: the entry of Turkey into the EU the 'source of our hopes.'

As I indicate here, the hopes Lakis Vigas talks about might not be shared by many of his Turkish neighbours. His Turkish neighbours might also be aware of the dangers, 'minority' hopes might pose to their oppressive hegemony, as I argue here.

No visas for Russians traveling to the EU?

At least the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini wishes it to be so. The issue needs to be agreed on through a vote of all the countries, but it looks like it has a good chance of passing through given that the Lisbon Treaty is now in place. The BarentsObserver reports:

According to the Italian foreign minister, Russians now deserves the right to travel without visa in the union. He calls for a stronger engagement of Russia in international processes.

However the Czech online newspaper novinky.cz quotes a high ranking member of the European Commission Eneko Landaburu as stating, on his visit to Moscow this spring, that the EU will not abolish visa requirements for Russian citizens any time soon. This is not a simply technical matter, first it is important to exclude all the risks, have trust in the partner and break a deal on repatriation of illegal migrants. The article also states that although the Lisbon Treaty might be ratified, until 2014 the voting process will be conducted in a manner drawn up by the Treaty of Nice. Meaning that all countries will be involved and that would of course mean the traditionally anti-Russian Eastern Europe as well.

I must say I do not put any hopes in this for the foreseeable future. Easing of visa requirements for businessmen, scientists and students as also mentioned in the novinky article seems more plausible...   

Frontline: The Tank Man

I found this gem of a film while searching for videos on the Chinese sect Falun Gong on youtube. If you look at the tags given by the user that uploaded it, I could as well had beeen led to the film searching for something much less relevant. This movie talks about the events of 1989 in China and furthermore about how China changed since then. Whenever you hear me talk about "Asian Slave Camps", you will understand where I'm comming from after watching it...enjoy...

John Laughland: The De-Russification of the Baltics Serves a Geopolitical Purpose

I didn't visit the Brussels Journal for ages but since I am momentarily relegated to my brother's computer not having the usual links stored in the browser, the idea to have a look at what they have to offer somehow came to my mind. The reason for my discrimination against this site were my feelings of it being rather neoconservative in it's ethos, being Euroskeptic not because they have the good of Europe in mind but are rather concerned about maintaining the North-Atlantic geopolitical order. I think the comments bellow the following article prove my point beyond doubt. It should be admitted that the article is a bit crude and linking STORMFRONT to confirm the argument that Anti-Russian sentiment is often Anti-Semitic in nature is not very wise. A few paragraphs of discussion would certainly not do it any harm, even though Laughland admits the complexity of the subject and says he has a book out; on the subject presumably.

The article is in a way linked to my previous post because it speaks of the European Court of Human Rights, the arbiter of right and wrong that for example ruled against the crucifix in Italian schools because of the wishes of an atheist, Finnish immigrant with no life and against the wishes of Catholic majority. Bans the very criticism of homosexuality and is now ready to rule against the Swiss ban on minarets. Yet for some reason the very same court is unable to head the calls of disenfranchised Baltic Russians. Laughland rightly points out the hypocrisy of this. Looks like atheists, gays and Muslims deserve their rights to be recognised more than the Russians.

Read the article here. 

The hypocritical Swiss vote

As you probably heard by this time, the Swiss public voted yes to the ban on minarets. New mosques will not have towers and no calls to prayer will be heard in Swiss valleys. Those that are opposed to Islamisation hail victory, I on the other hand think this is pathetic. Not that I view cultural enrichment from Muslims as anything positive but I would not be opening champagne to this laughable victory.

You see these days campaigns are being waged in Europe against visible aspects of Islamic culture, i.e. hijabs or minarets in this case, nobody has the balls to ask about the elephant in the room however. That elephant is the Muslim immigrant population that now numbers millions throughout Europe. The Swiss vote on minarets was not quite about minarets, that is a substitute issue, but about the sizeable Muslim population in Switzerland. Of course nobody dares to propose a vote of 'NO to Muslim neighbour'. Everyone vividly remembers how those that had objections to mass immigration from the Muslim world were and still are discredited by cries of racism and xenophobia. Recently I recall Lord Pearson, the ambiguous, new leader of UKIP taking back his comment about Muslim natality.

In the name of political correctness and popularity we see our leaders backtracking on their comments and using substitute issues to find a back door for their arguments. What is this? Why can't nobody admit that the indigenous population is worried about the transformation of their surroundings by non-European immigration, and in the process identify non-European immigration as the actual problem. Legal issues perhaps? Well if the majority of Swiss voted this way on a substitute issue they should also cast their vote for a party that has the guts to pronounce their apparent worries. So should people in other European countries. Meanwhile the European public seems to be grinding their teeth, complaining about multiculturalism and Islam in their midst while voting for centrist parties that either justify or at least perpetuate the very thing that makes people worried. I don't get it...  

My feelings about 'Climate Change'

I would like to make this a follow up on the 'Climate Gate' affair post below. Due to the fact that I am not a climate scientist at all but rather a historian I will not go into extensive debates about what is or is not happening to climate and will start off with a position drawn from what I know.

The climate is always changing, that can be established as a fact. The last Ice Age ended about 11,000 years ago, in this period glaciers covered large parts of Europe and North America, what is now the North Sea and the English Channel was a landmass and human population was but a small fraction of what it is now. Suddenly the Earth warmed, glaciers receded far to the north and Polar bears miraculously survived. Few millennia later we see the emergence of first cities and de facto civilisation. Indeed, human beings thrive in warm climate. The Vikings sailed the North Atlantic to Greenland and the Canadian East Coast (1) during the Medieval Warm Period (around the year 1000 A.D.), when it could be argued temperatures were higher than today. What led to the downfall of Viking colonists was the arrival of colder and more inhospitable climate 600 years ago. The instances of unprecedented warming in the pre-industrial era only reinforce my skepticism about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) but on the other hand I do not find comfort in total denial. Nevertheless, let me for the purposes of the following argument assume the truth of AGW in all its totality.

Let us say that the AGW is real and our industrial civilisation is the major contributor of it. In that case, what are we to do about it? Are we to abandon our computers, turn off our central heating or air-conditioners? On the same level we could ask: who are we to lecture developing nations on what they should or shouldn't not have? Who are we to tell those millions of poor Chinese and Indians that what they wished for (and what we all enjoy) , for decades, i.e. electricity, cars, central heating and water treatment plants might be causing some type of irreversible damage to the planet? They would certainly laugh at us for the hypocrites we are. Any international agreement on this issue is doomed to failure, I am for one certain that the Russians would laugh in the face of any such thing. Perhaps the collapse of our industrial civilisation as Anatoly Karlin (yes read his blog in entirety, although I am unwilling to agree with him on many issues he does have his writings corroborated by a number of sources and it is certainly thought provoking) predicts will teach us all a lesson. Furthermore he seems to imply that AGW combined with the collapse of industrial civilisation will not help us to adapt. Again my own thoughts on the matter are that the adaptability of human race is not to be underestimated. If our prehistoric ancestors were able to adapt to a change of climate, under much harsher conditions, why can't we?

Have we devolved to such unadaptable creatures destined to extinction? I don't think Anatoly meant that. Anyway to answer a question contained in his latest piece: What will you do for your planet? I did a test on my carbon footprint a while ago with a result of 6 tons. 6 tons seemed like a truckload of carbon to me, unable to interpret that number I told one of my classmates engaged in environmental movements about my share of damage and she said that it in fact very little. I guess the low result could be due to the fact that I do not own a car, have no need for it and frankly no wish either. I use the tube when I'm in a hurry and when I'm not I walk. In my philosophy walking takes a special place. Our ancestors walked a lot not being able to take advantage of modern transport. Horses and oxen were not quite a cheep commodity and before domestication of these animals, legs were the only means of transport available (the pre-Colombian American natives did not even have these animals at their disposal).  This line of thinking is what gives rise to my optimism concerning the adaptability of human beings. Perhaps it is naive and to an extent fatalistic discourse as the rest of my feelings on the matter.

(1) One Norwegian commenter on Anatoly's blog replied to my comment in which I claimed Vin in Vinland, the name given to New Foundland (or North American East Coast) by the Norse colonists, refers to wine saying that it means a grass plain. I have not linked Vin to wine in this post for that reason, nevertheless he confirmed that the colonists died out because of inhospitable climate. Not quite going into how come they managed to live there for centuries. He also did not address the issue of there being places with wine in their name elsewhere in Europe and remnants of vinyards can still be seen there. Again it does not account for the existence of unprecedented warming without human influence in the past, it is said that the Medieval Period was slightly warmer than the contemporary situation.