Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [173]
Where are these 250–300 million peasants who were to be taken out of the countryside?
Everywhere and nowhere. Some here, some there. The catch is that most of them have not settled. Some are milking frogs in Russia.
* Soviet Foreign Minister under Gorbachev, then President of Georgia until unseated by the Rose Revolution in November 2003.
* In the summer of 2004 the Georgian Government tried to put an end to the smuggling through the Roki tunnel, the border between Russia and Georgia. First they took control of the tunnel, only for South Ossetian nationalist slogans immediately to ring out claiming independence. The Georgian Government continued to attack and one day closed down the Ergneti market. The Roki tunnel mafia had a heart attack. Where were they to sell their smuggled goods? At this point the “right of nations to self-determination” came in very handy, and South Ossetia started making a fuss about it, openly supported by Russia. A war began which lasted from August 12 to 21, 2004, and when 16 Georgian soldiers were killed, President Saakashvili withdrew his units from the commanding heights they had previously occupied in order to defend Georgian villages from bombardment. [This note is taken from an article Anna wrote after her assignment in Tsinkhvali, Sukhumi and Tbilisi.]
8. The Other Anna
Anna Politkovskaya has been described as “steely.” She was not; she was matter-of-fact. These articles show her humanity, a sensitive conscience, a willingness to engage with the unfamiliar, and regret that her homeland was not a more enjoyable place to live.
PASSION ON TIPTOE THAT MAKES YOU QUIVER: MOVEMENT AS AN ALLOTROPE OF LOVE
March 30, 2000
In London the performances of the internationally renowned Buenos Aires company Tango Por Dos, directed by its creator and invariable principal dancer, the breathtaking Miguel Angel Zotto, have played to consistently full houses, raising sighs and gasps from a habitually reserved audience. In the Peacock Theatre on Kingsway, the visitors have been presenting a two-act performance of Tango Argentino. Almost three hours of bewitching stage action with never a word spoken, only music, dancing and emotion. By the finale the exceedingly well-balanced, phlegmatic, and even apathetic British audience had been roused to a peak of frenzied enthusiasm, wanting more. Know how to live and you can have a life!
There is pure passion on the stage, nothing else, performed by six couples. Naturally, there is no sex, which I mention for Russian ignoramuses yet to learn the distinction between passion and bed. All the dancers are middle-aged, not babes in arms or adolescents, expressing more than just climactic ecstasies. These are adults who know all about losing, and winning, and hoping. Their intensity is magnificent and mind-blowing. No grinding of teeth, no rending of raiment, no biting of lips, not even any crying out. It is a presentation of oblivious passion. There is such heat generated by the show that from time to time you see couples quietly sneaking out of the auditorium and the theatre. The theatre’s regulars assure you that they leave to make love to each other themselves. Rumors are swirling around London that this always happens during Tango Argentino: the men and women watching the dancing, in which nobody is topless, there is no striptease, not a hint of Playboy titillation, can’t sit it out to the finale. They want to do it themselves, to experience this eternal reality. Such a torrent of libido floods from the stage that unless you are made of stone you succumb to it. If you came on your own, you would feel amorous towards whoever was sitting next to you. If only for a couple of hours,