Moscow Started Global Battle of Values
19:34 22.08.2024 (Updated: 19:37 22.08.2024)
© Sputnik / Aleksey Babushkin
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On September 1, Vladimir Putin's Presidential Order #702 will be enacted: foreigners who share traditional Russian values may move to Russia with minimal paperwork. It's worth noting that just a few years ago, these values could easily have been called European, American, etc. Not anymore.
The main sensation about that order is not the estimate that up to 3 million people from the West may be willing to move to Russia. What is even more surprising is that a significant number of people have already moved in.
The concept of "traditional Russian values" is not exclusively Russian, nor necessarily Christian. Many civilizations have shared these values, and most still do. Life is sacred, family is important, and culture is a treasure accumulated by generations reflecting on beauty. Are these values the monopoly of the West or Russia? Certainly not. However, these values are increasingly under threat in vast parts of Europe and the U.S.
What exactly is terrifying people who share these values? Let's quote, at random, a recent speech by Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, USA. It mostly concerns education. Parents who work hard to provide their children a good K-12 education shouldn't have to worry that a college or university will undermine their efforts, he said.
"You’re working hard to instill values. You do that for 18 years, and then your kids go to some university where they want to undo that with indoctrination," DeSantis added.
This isn't just a cultural revolution in schools and universities like the one in China in the 1960s–1970s. How about these revolutionaries telling your children that they can change their sex at any moment, surgically, and parents have no say in it? These mutilations of adolescents are really happening, and in some European countries, the government might even take your children from you if you protest too much or "indoctrinate" them against the new norms of the woke ideology, whatever it may be.
Overall, we are witnessing an inhuman idea of creating a totally new woke generation, preferably on a global scale, while leaving the older generation to fade away — unless that generation objects, of course. If it does, cancel culture steps in.
This may be a very Western idea, one that was also popular in Communist Russia, but it’s absolutely anti-Russian today. Russia hasn't just watched in horror as this "cultural revolution" ravages the West; it has taken steps to stop this revolution at its borders. The "LGBT*+ ideology" has been banned in all its aspects by law in Russia, and that’s just one example of resistance.
Presidential Order #702 says that the government will facilitate the entry of those who do not support other states' policies of imposing a "destructive neo-liberal ideological agenda" that also runs counter to Russia's traditional values. In such cases, Moscow will allow such people to stay indefinitely, without even asking if they know any Russian. No quotas will be imposed on such entries, either.
This measure applies only to immigrants from certain states where such a "destructive agenda" is part of governmental policy. The Foreign Ministry will compile the list of such countries, and I suspect it won’t be lengthy. The Global South is definitely not intended to be included.
The presidential order may appear to be an ideological challenge by Russia against the West, with dubious prospects of being even known to people in Germany or in the American states run by Democrats. After all, people from such states are fleeing to Republican areas like Texas or Florida, not to Russia, right?
Wrong, say many people in Moscow who are engaged in immigration issues daily. Do you think that only a couple of world-famous actors have escaped to Russia from the West? Yes, there are Gerard Depardieu (Green Card, Life of Pi) and Steven Seagal (Above the Law, Under Siege). But how many less-known Westerners have recently moved to Russia for ideological reasons, unable to bear the woke ideology that is ruining their lives?
A lot. Dozens, if we're only talking about people I know personally and who live in a small county near the city of Yaroslavl," says Boris Akimov, a columnist and activist for rural development.
"Thousands," he adds, "if we include people I've only heard of." They call each other and share experiences, they marry Russians and their own kind, and they work. There are Swiss, Germans, Greeks, Danes, but also many Italians. Moscow supermarkets are full of wonderful Italian cheeses and sausages made in Russia, all from local products. Well, that figures — Italians are conservative and respect family values, don’t they?
Then there's a wonderful lady named Maria Butina, who was previously jailed in the U.S. for being an 'agent of Russian influence.' (She was in love with guns and had many connections in the gun-toting conservative South of the U.S.) Now, she is a Russian MP, and her parliamentary committee deals with legislation on political asylum.
"We were only giving refuge to people in physical danger," she says. Simple disagreement with values imposed on society was not sufficient grounds for accepting such people as refugees, she adds, noting that each case previously required phone calls and political horse-trading. But now, it will be easier. Maria Butina predicts that Germans will be especially active in moving to Russia in large numbers, as woke ideology is particularly aggressive there. At least, that’s what her committee’s statistics — based on Foreign Ministry data on asylum requests — suggest.
So, how many Westerners could we expect to move east? Up to three million, estimates Boris Akimov, though we’ll have to wait and see. After all, his NGO has discovered that between 1860 and 1913, 100 people were migrating to Russia from Europe daily. This inflow started in the 18th century, and foreigners eventually formed a whole class of military, engineering, and medical experts in the Empire.
A grain of salt is always useful when dealing with estimates like three million political — or rather, ideological — refugees moving from the West to Russia suddenly. Nevertheless, the idea is not impossible. We're talking about a vast landmass where you could get a hectare (that’s 100 by 100 meters) of good land with plenty of water and decent soil for a purely symbolic sum. We also have lots of cheap energy and other advantages. Russia is the biggest country in the world, inhabited by only 145 million people. So, repeating the previous centuries' experience of attracting people who share your values cannot be ruled out.
Will this be the start of a global battle against the leftist ideas of total societal transformation? That might be a good idea. However, even without such a battle, a conservative paradise doesn’t have to be just a dream.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
* Extremist organization banned in Russia
