A must-read for persons interested in media & politics/international relations in the Russian Federation
...
...
Moscow TV Tonite
MOSCOW TV TONITE: Who’s Up for the Big Game?
Большая игра/The Great Game (Political discussion. Russia, 2018)(Channel 1, 22:30; premiere)
--> Russian political talk shows start with two strikes against them: (1) they are aired at the sufferance of the current regime, which has no discernible interest in authentic political life or anyone talking about it on TV; and (2) the “experts” rolled out to do the yakking are, with a very few exceptions, so utterly predictable as to make watching the shows unnecessary. When something unexpected actually does occur – a Polish journalist dubs Russians “red fascists,” say, or MID’s Masha Zakharova recounts how “the Jews” bought America’s presidential election – it becomes news you can watch in social media clips almost immediately after the fact anyway.
Большая игра/The Great Game (Political discussion. Russia, 2018)(Channel 1, 22:30; premiere)
--> Russian political talk shows start with two strikes against them: (1) they are aired at the sufferance of the current regime, which has no discernible interest in authentic political life or anyone talking about it on TV; and (2) the “experts” rolled out to do the yakking are, with a very few exceptions, so utterly predictable as to make watching the shows unnecessary. When something unexpected actually does occur – a Polish journalist dubs Russians “red fascists,” say, or MID’s Masha Zakharova recounts how “the Jews” bought America’s presidential election – it becomes news you can watch in social media clips almost immediately after the fact anyway.
But what of the prospects for “The Great Game,” state flagship Channel 1’s new-format, adversary-inclusive entry into this unpromising arena? It features only two principals – instead of a half-dozen vying for attention and playing to a studio audience – and one of them is an actual American expert (political scientist Dmitri Simes). Is there reason to hope that viewers are in for less of the same or maybe even a Big Mac for political thought tonight?
Keep your hopes high but your expectations minimal. While the Moscow-born Simes does indeed boast expert credentials, he is also capable of emitting idiosyncratic realpolitik-driven views that can surprise and unsettle his fellow Americans – who he doubtless thinks need surprising and unsettling. And though Simes is unlikely to be shouted down by his opponent, Vyacheslav Nikonov, the latter is extremely unlikely to say anything constructive or even sensible. This is a man known not just for fantasy-based anti-American rhetoric in and outside Russia’s fantasy-based Duma, but also for parading ostentatiously with a photo of his redoubtable grandfather, Stalin henchman Vyacheslav Molotov, in a holiday procession dedicated to war heroes. Yikes.
But there are far bigger flashing red lights here than an unpredictable Simes and a too-predictable Nikonov. The first is the very premise reflected in the show’s title: The Great Game flows naturally from the VVP regime’s imaginatively self-serving construct of the world, to wit: Russia is a Great Power whose interests must be reckoned with in any and all matters of international import, not least because it has been and remains a nuclear superpower capable of turning an opponent into atomized dust.
So the Great Game beloved of empire builders of the 19th century continues today, as this construct would have it, with a mighty and re-energized Russian state defending its legitimate interests in nearby and far-flung regions of the globe while jockeying for advantage against other state-actors doing the same, in concert if not in harmony determining the lot of an anxious humanity. No joke: the show’s promotional blurb augustly announces, “The fate of the entire world depends on the Great Game between Russian and America.”
Oh please. It’s hardly a secret that the fate of the Russian Federation’s part of the entire world will be decided neither by some game with the United States nor by nuclear weapons nobody can use without risking suicide in the bargain. No, the fate of Russia -- defined here as the current regime’s ability to sustain itself -- will be determined by problems and solutions rather more prosaic: Can the Putinists (and possibly Putinism after them)
-- meet their citizens’ pension payments and remain solvent?
-- convince the smartest and most productive under-30s not to leave the country?
-- prevent more toxic fires around the nation’s capital?
-- treat a million untreated HIV/AIDS cases?
-- find employment for more of the country’s 4 million unemployed?
-- raise the living standards of the 20 million citizens now languishing in poverty?
-- deliver heat to the 24 million citizens whose homes lack it?
-- pump running water to the 30 million citizens who don’t have *that*?
-- provide indoor plumbing for the 37 million citizens who don’t have *that*?
-- raise the national bureaucracy significantly higher than 135th place in the international corruption index?
-- meet their citizens’ pension payments and remain solvent?
-- convince the smartest and most productive under-30s not to leave the country?
-- prevent more toxic fires around the nation’s capital?
-- treat a million untreated HIV/AIDS cases?
-- find employment for more of the country’s 4 million unemployed?
-- raise the living standards of the 20 million citizens now languishing in poverty?
-- deliver heat to the 24 million citizens whose homes lack it?
-- pump running water to the 30 million citizens who don’t have *that*?
-- provide indoor plumbing for the 37 million citizens who don’t have *that*?
-- raise the national bureaucracy significantly higher than 135th place in the international corruption index?
Or should the regime keep ignoring the warp and woof of quotidian Russian reality in favor of Great Powerish but un-winnerish tactical initiatives – invading your neighbors, annexing their land, propping up mass-murdering dictators, disrupting other people’s elections, things like that. Hey, a cynic might ask, why solve old problems when you can both distract people’s attention from them and create new ones that will make the problem-solving more expensive when it becomes impossible to put off any longer...or the state goes kablooey again for what, the 4th time in a century?
Does anyone think Mr. Simes, however genuine his poli sci credentials and however uncensored his speech is left by Channel One, is going to pose any of these questions tonight? In fact, it would be a phenomenal breakthrough if Simes were able to ask his interlocutor even *one* real question, which might go something like this: “It has been said that President Putin is a great global tactician, a past master at playing a weak hand strongly. Can you tell us why he has never sought to solve his country’s actual problems – so that in time he or a successor could play a *strong* hand strongly, making fabulously resource-rich Russia an actual world leader instead of an economic cripple with a GDP smaller than Italy’s and reduced to the status of fantasy player in some fondly-imagined Great Game?”
My guess is that Nikonov would respond, “I was told that if things got sticky I should immediately jump to conspiracy theories.” Which to judge once again by the show’s promotional ads, he is unfortunately very likely to do in any case, stickiness notwithstanding. Yes, the second flashing red light is even flashier: the promo narrator asks, “Who in reality makes the historic decisions?” – as a visual of a Great Hand manipulating marionette strings covers the screen. Cue the vibrating-saw music. And if that isn’t suggestive enough, Novikov himself adds, “The time has come to reveal the hidden mechanisms.” Cue the American alt-right’s Deep State music. Yikes again!
The very short version: real politics may be a game for some, but real talk about it shouldn’t be. The chances of anything of real interest busting out on Channel One’s “Great Game” – an apparent answer to Rossiya 1’s awfully popular and awfully awful “Evening with Vladimr Solovyov” – can likely be found somewhere between slim and none, and slim just caught the bus to Yaroslavl. So yeah, you should never give up hope here – but feel free to uncross your fingers on this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment