It’s not just about the Malaysian flight. Russians are living in an alternate reality. By Mark Adomanis. Washington Post, July 24, 2014.
Adomanis:
MOSCOW—Malaysian
Airlines flight MH17 has already shined a spotlight on the Russian public’s
somewhat, um, unique views. Russian
media are running with conspiracy theories: that MH17 was shot down by NATO to
spark a conflict with Russia, that MH17 wasn’t full of innocent civilians but
week-old corpses, or that MH17 was shot down because it was mistaken for
Vladimir Putin’s personal jet (as if anti-aircraft missiles weren’t aimed with
radar but with a really large pair of binoculars). The only theory missing is
the right one: that Russian-backed separatists accidentally shot down the plane
when they mistook it for a Ukrainian military transport.
This
may seem like the entertaining sideshow to a tragedy, but actually it’s just a
window into a hugely dangerous problem. I recently moved to Moscow, and it’s
hard to miss the extent to which Russian society exists in an alternate
universe. Even well-educated, sophisticated people who have traveled widely in
Europe and North America will frequently voice opinions that, in an American
context, would place them alongside people wearing tinfoil hats. Russia is not
living in the reality-based community.
One
particularly easy and glaring example is Russian TV reporters, filing from
Eastern Ukraine, who say they are reporting from the “Lugansk People’s
Republic” or the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Regardless of your views on the
worsening civil war in Ukraine, which is not a neat story of black and white or
right and wrong, it is obvious that these republics are almost entirely
fictitious and that their “territory” is largely confined to a handful of government buildings. Despite their extremely dubious claims to legitimacy, the
non-existent states are treated with deadly earnestness by both the state media
and large numbers of ordinary Russians. (Ukraine has been a problem for Russian media ever since protests there began at the end of 2013.)
On
almost any other issue you can think of, Russian views differ radically from
the consensus here in America. Russians have extremely different opinions about
the conflict in Syria, viewing the war in that unlucky country not as a brave
struggle for freedom but as a chaotic war of all against all. They have
different views about the war in Libya, where they see the overthrow of Gaddafi
not as a new beginning but as the start of chaos and disorder. They have
different views about 9/11, with shockingly large numbers of Russians
supporting “alternate” explanations of one of history’s most carefully studied
and well-documented terrorist attacks. (I was recently asked what “theory” of
the attacks I supported only to be told that it was “my opinion” after I noted
that al-Qaeda was clearly and obviously responsible.) Even something as
seemingly straightforward and non-political as a meteor strike attracted a
range of bizarre theories and pseudo-scientific “explanations” like the onset
of an alien invasion or the testing of a new American super weapon. These wacky
ideas (“the aliens are attacking Siberia!” “The grand masons are responsible
for 9/11!”) would be extremely funny if they didn’t represent such a tragic
deficit of reason.
I’ve
asked people about these notions. Particularly if they’re a bit bashful about
the position they’re about to advocate, Russians will often highlight their
country’s long track record of superstition and its history as a rural, peasant
society. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard “we’re a
superstitious people” as an explanation for some kind of seemingly nonsensical
position. In contrast to Western Europe, Russia really did urbanize and become
literate much later. This delayed development has left a lasting impression on
popular consciousness and public attitudes.
But
while there is clearly some truth to
the idea that Russia’s unique cultural history renders it susceptible to
conspiracies, explanations centered on the “Russian soul” strike me as a
cop-out. Far more important than the legacy of peasant life or any kind of
natural penchant for mysteriousness and inscrutability is the Soviet legacy of
propaganda. The older generations here all grew up in an environment in which
the government systematically manipulated information on a scale that is hard
to fathom. Although you might expect that this would engender a healthy
skepticism, it appears to have created an unhealthy over-reaction. Russians
don’t just doubt the “official line.” Several expats here, like me, have
observed that they seem to doubt everything.
Like
many Americans, I used to think that these differences would recede with time,
and that, as they traveled the world, got jobs, and got rich, Russians would
eventually start to think more and more like us. After Ukraine and the Malaysia
Airlines crash, I’m a lot less optimistic. Despite ditching communism and its
call to world revolution, Russia appears to becoming more, not less, different
from the United States. It doesn’t just have its own system; it now has its own
facts.
