Putin: “Russians Are Stupid”. Well, He Got That Right.
But it is not their fault
When the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out, the world was devastated. Putin and his henchmen promised not to attack Ukraine. And even Zelenskyy said, there will be no war. Then 24th of February arose, and Russia attacked Ukraine.
Of course, Putin doesn’t see it as an attack. It’s not only an order to the media and the people of Russia, to describe the invasion as “a special military operation on Ukrainian ground”, Putin believes it himself! He is convinced about his right. That might sound very odd and unbelievable, seen with European or American eyes.
We see the world
You might know the sentence “we see the worlds as we are, not as it is”. I learned these words when I read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, by Stephen R. Covey. Later, I learned that Anaïs Nin, a French author, wrote something similar in her book “Seduction of the Minotaur” in 1961, and according to Quote Investigator, one of the characters in the book was reminded of the Talmudic words, but the origin is not known. That doesn’t matter anyway who said it. The only thing that matters is that it is true. We do see the world, not as it is, but as we are.
Putin is a product of the circumstances and the way he grown up. Putin, a former KGB Agent, is raised and formed in the Communist Party, and got all the arguments and the teachings of the Soviet ideology. Despite he is not an ideolog himself, his mindset and action pattern is communistic and soviet-like. And according to that ideology, people are dumb, and do not know what they actually want.
Paradox
That is actually a whimsical paradox, or perhaps a self fulfilling prophecy: Putin does not give Russians a fair chance to decide their own destiny, because he is convinced, people do not know what they want. But because these people do not get all the information, so they can decide for themselves, they don’t know which possibilities they have. And thus, they cannot decide freely: they don’t know what they want. So, is Putin wrong in his assumption that people do not know what they want? No, he is not. Is Putin right in his belief, that (Russian) people are dumb? Sorry to say so, but yes, he is right. Only because Putin keeps them dumb.
I read an article, here on Medium, written of somebody, calling himself (or herself) “the enemy”, indicating that this person is a Putin supporter, defending the Russian point of view. To proof, I am not censored at all, neither by a government, a website owner nor myself, I will link to this article.
In the article, the author defends and justifies the war on Ukraine. According to the author, Ukraine became an independed state after the Soviet Union was disbanded. Never before, Ukraine was independed: it has ALWAYS been a part of Russia, or whatsoever was the name of that foundation. And that should give Russia in its current form the right to decide over the Ukrainian area. And, as I wrote before, Putin thinks people are dumb, so Ukrainian don’t know what they want.
You can’t forget the smell of freedom
But here’s the problem for Putin: The Ukrainian people have found out, what real freedom is. They have been connected to the Free World, they have access to all information. Whether you want it or not, Ukrainian people are not dumb anymore! Because they have no authoritarian leader, such as Putin, Stalin or Lenin, og a czar, who decide for them. They have smelled how sweet freedom smells. And they won’t forget it soon.
Zombified
A few days ago, I played a chess party on the website chess.com. I chose a party of 2 rounds of 10 minutes, with a random person. And I was paired with a girl from Russia. So, of course, I started talking to her, and she replied.
Obviously, she is aware of what is going on. At least, she wrote to me, that both Ukrainians and Russians “… are waiting for all this to end …”. And she added, that help is hardly possible. I replied, that help is possible in several ways, but we need to inform Russians on what is going on. I wasn’t sure she really knew what was going on. Her reaction confirmed that: “Are you being zombified? everything is fine in our country, we need to unite against the Nazis”.
Am I zombified? I guess not. Sure, there are Nazis in Ukraine — a little part of the Ukrainian Army, the Azov Regiment, consists of Nazis. If you ask me, they are a part of the army under the motto “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer” — now they are controllable. They would go rogue, if they were thrown out of the army. The Azov Regiment is not the core problem. But because of their existence, Putin was able to focus his views on them, and beam that onto the news in Russia. “Look, here is the proof that there are Nazis in Ukraine”. Well, they exist in every country. Perhaps except for Russia, China, North Korea and other “people-are-dumb”-states.
There is no button
We cannot press a button and remove the dumbness from Russian people. At least not as long as United Russia is the absolute power in Russia. Not as long as there is no significant opposition.
It won’t help to send military into Russia to “liberate” Russians from their tyranny. They don’t know they are ruled by a tyrannous leader. We’ve seen that in Irak — when the Iraqis were liberated from the tyranny by Saddam Hussain, many Iraqis were against the existence of the Americans. Can you blame them? Of course you can’t: they’ve been hearing all the time, that America is the Great Satan, the enemy. And even they got liberated by the Americans, they do not blatantly embrace the Americans. Russians won’t do either.
Snowgreen
Try to imagine, you have heard all your life, that snow is green. Your mother and father told you that, because they have heard it too, all their lives. Same goes for your grandparents. And sure, you’ve seen the clouds in the skies, they were white. You’ve seen white flowers, white stones in nature — and you know they were white. And even if the color of these things very very similar the color of snow, you’ve been told that snow is green. And suddenly, someone says: the snow is white, not green. You’d think at least: can that be right?
A few weeks ago, I read a little book for my daughter, about a family who travelled to the South Pole. There, they saw a polar bear. The author wrote: “Polar bears have a black skin. Their fur is not white, It’s transparent. Due to the white snow, being reflected by the sun, their fur looks like white”. I am intended to believe that the author, Cressida Cowell, is right, Because I’ve been reading other books by her hand, and the other details on animal knowledge are correct. So why should she lie about the polar bears? But I have to admit, that I am not 100% convinced. Simply because I have heard all my life, that polar bears are white.
So, if you tell Russians, Putin is a liar, they would not believe you. If you tell them, there is a war in Ukraine, they think you are … zombified, just like that chess player on chess.com told me. And if you tell them: Nazism is not the core problem in Ukraine, they’d say: “But there are nazists! And that is what Putin has sent his soldiers for”.
If we want to win this war once and for all, we need to tell the Russians what is going on. And yes, Biden has right: that man cannot remain power, for god’s sake. I know, the US government has no plans on removing Putin from power. It won’t work. But Putin needs to be removed. United Russian needs to be disbanded. And it can only come from inside Russia.
So please, do as I do: talk to Russians, wherever you can find them. I find them on chess.com. I find them by writing reviews on Trust Pilot and Google My Business. Russians are dumb. It’s not their fault. They are being kept dumb. Let’s help enlighten them.
