Integration into Chaos

"Legions of Russian officials have descended on Crimea to teach the local people how to become Russian." For us older Westerners 'becoming Russian' takes us back to the appalling campaign of Stalinisation that followed Soviet troops liberating Eastern Europe from the Nazis. I still come across older Eastern Europeans here in Canada who blame Churchill for letting the Russians have a free hand in what were pre-War reasonably prosperous countries. Time stood still or went backwards for fifty years for those many peoples unfortunate enough to be left behind the Iron Curtain. We now know Churchill new perfectly well what Stalin was likely to get up to and Roosevelt was the one with rose-tinted glasses.

Crimeans are already coming to rue the day they hastily voted to rush headlong into Mother Russia's arms. Just as Stalin's levels of ruthlessness and deceit went way beyond the imagination of Western politicians and public (the British public called Stalin 'Uncle Joe' during the War), so we press on with fruitless time-wasting exercises like the Geneva 'agreement' on the Ukraine while Putin puts his full arsenal of KGB dirty tricks into play.

I spent my youth listening to radio in Europe that was largely a propaganda barrage from both sides in the Cold War. It is time once again to crank up Russian (and Ukrainian) language broadcasting and saturate the airwaves and Internet. Time to stop pussyfooting around revoking the residence permits and visas of the Russian rich in cities like London, and high time to cancel all cultural and commercial initiatives and shut down immigration process for Russians. We have a pariah on our doorstep and it needs to feel lots of pain right now.