"What is pure democracy?" asked Vladimir Putin at the joint press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Russia yesterday. "It is a question of … whether you want to see the glass half full or half empty." Putin was lashing back at Merkel’s criticism of Putin’s crackdown on protesters in his country:
"Early on Friday, leaders of the Other Russia coalition of opposition – Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov – and right advocate Lev Ponomarev were prevented from leaving Moscow for Samara to join the Dissenters March, which is timed to the summit of Russia and Europe there. According to some sources, the opposition chiefs weren’t allowed to set aboard of plane, as police doubted validity of their tickets."
The other day I wrote about the efforts of the German police to disrupt the protests planned at the G-8 Summit in Heiligendamm. I ended the post with this: "I can only laugh when Washington or Berlin express outrage at how Vladimir Putin has stifled dissent in Moscow." Well now it is Putin himself who is laughing at Merkel by pointing out how protesters in Germany are being are being taken into "preventive custody".
More about this in Telepolis:
Bundeskanzlerin Merkel kam durch den Gegenangriff Putins auf Estland, aber auch auf die Praxis in Deutschland, offensichtlich ein wenig aus dem Tritt und konnte nicht recht erläutern, was der Unterschied zwischen der Haltung gegenüber Demonstranten in Deutschland und Russland ist.
Putin will be watching with great satisfaction at the Summit how the protesters will be blocked from getting within 2 Kilometers of Heiligendam, how they will be shepherded into makeship prison camps for the duration of the Summit. Then he can listen to his good friend President Bush talk about "enhanced interrogation techniques" at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the massive illegal surveillance progam on American citizens.
Dear Vladimir, you are wrong. The glass of democracy is neither half-full nor half-empty. It has been completely empty for a long time.
0 comment
Well, the problem is not how full or empty the glass is; the problem is the use of “democracy” (or human/civil rights) to gain some political advantage. It becomes a bargaining chip, nothing more! This is what the ‘west’ has been doing regarding Russia and many other countries.
As long as the interests of the mighty get along, nobody is going to criticize a nuclear power of killing some human beings – be they in China, Afghanistan, Tchechnya, Iraq, Guantanamo or anywhere else. So, Germany having to crack down on extrmists (i.e. those who have radically different views than the mighty) is something very normal!
Just browsing the net, very interesting.