By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY
“You are possibly the most demonized politician in the world today.” Those are the words of journalist Peter Lavelle, spoken directly to President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a recent conference. The occasion was the October Valdai Conference at Sochi where Putin addressed an assembly, received questions, and exchanged views with Western political leaders, including former Prime Minister of France Dominique de Villepin, former Federal Chancellor of Austria Wolfgang Schuessel, and representatives of a number of international institutions, including reporters. The annual Valdai Conference, now in its 11th year, has begun to address issues related not just to Russia but to global economics and politics as well.
The denigration of Putin goes on unabated worldwide, reflecting the bias of a global media on a daily basis. In the United States readers of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post encounter the same editorial narrative on a daily basis. That Putin invaded Ukraine and is responsible for its current financial crisis is taken for granted. But then we are assured that “for the present, Putin may not try to grab any more territory,” or “nibble away at his neighbors,” as if such deeds or intent were factually supported. Authors speak of “Putin’s Kleptocracy,” and of Russia as a “gangster state.”
A front-page article in The New York Times speaks of “Outrage in Athens as Britain Lends ‘Elgin’ Figure to Russia.” We are told in yet another article that as punishment for Putin’s annexation of Crimea, “two warships may never be delivered to Russia” because President François Hollande of France, under pressure from the United States, ignores a contract and postpones delivery. Another headline informs the reader that “Russia is once again seeking to stir up trouble in Ukraine.” Question begging and innuendo are common in the absence of fact.
What we do know for fact is that the United States was behind the attempted overthrow of the Syrian central government, directly financing and arming the rebels against an embattled President Bashar al-Assad. We also know that it was not Putin but the United States that was directly responsible for the uprising in Maidan Square and its success in bringing down the government of the duly elected President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine.
Against this backdrop, it is helpful to understand a few things about the person, Vladimir Putin, whose leadership stems from a deep love of his country. Speaking of himself in his December 4 address to the Russian Parliament, he felt obliged to refer to his family’s genealogy, noting that his forebears from the 17th century all lived within 75 miles of Moscow, “going all those long years to one and the same church.” At the Valdai Conference he told his audience, “It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptized before bringing Christianity to Russia.”
There is an intellectual, and, one may say, spiritual depth to Putin, evident in many of his addresses. His promotion of Orthodox Christianity as the unifier of Russian peoples and his concern for the moral fabric of society go against Western liberal perspectives. His stand against homosexuality and same-sex marriage and his insistence that immigrant Muslims learn the Russian language and integrate into Russian culture are enough to drive the hostility of Western media. Aware that Russia, like all Western countries, lacks a replacement birthrate, Putin, in promoting large families, drew the attention of George Cardinal Pell, who in reporting on the recent Vatican synod for Annals Australasia, wrote, “Too many Catholics are silent publicly on this [demographic fact]. Why is this so? Why does President Putin speak more about the demographic crisis than some or many Catholic bishops?”
Wherever he travels, Putin is tiresomely confronted with questions about Ukraine, whose history he knows better than any Western correspondent. Using a rare metaphor on one occasion when discussing the historical fluctuation of Ukraine’s boundaries, he recalled an old saying, “Whatever Jupiter is allowed, the Ox is not.” Accused of identifying himself with the state, of being a nationalist, he refused to be likened to the Sun King [Louis XIV of France who proclaimed, L’État, c’est moi], and went on to say, “For some European countries national pride is a long-forgotten concept and sovereignty is too much a luxury. True sovereignty for Russia is absolutely necessary for survival.”
Given the present foreign policy of the U.S. State Department, supported by those of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, to align a divided Ukraine with the West, the demonizing of Putin is likely to continue.
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(Dr. Dougherty is dean emeritus of The School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America.)
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