Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [31]
These middle classes voted en masse for Putin, voted en masse for Medvedev; they believe they have no credible alternative; like their government they consider the rebukes of the West (over Chechnya et al.) to be unacceptable meddling. It must be admitted that, in this, the Russian government is on the same wavelength as the populace.
Nor has Russia, and here I have to contradict you, become a cultural desert. In the numerous bookshops, literature from around the world is freely available with no restrictions. The books are exceptionally well made and well printed and, most important, they are very cheap, even on a Russian budget. In short, in Russia, many people still regularly buy books—more so than in, say, Brazil or even Italy or Spain.
It’s true that Solzhenitsyn is considered to be an orthodox old pain in the neck; he, I admit, has every reason to feel disappointed in the recent evolution of Russia, to feel that it has “betrayed its soul”; and I’m not sure that Dostoyevsky would have adored the nightclubs … Then again, I’m not sure whether I adore the nightclubs, but I was glad to see Frédéric again and the sumptuous blondes, well, you know the terms of the equation, I’ve written enough books on the subject.
On my second trip to Moscow, I had a very interesting conversation with a civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (These people lead a strange life; they spend a few years in a job, develop a temporary sense of belonging, only to be uprooted; their conversation is often fascinating.) I was telling him that in France after the war, it was said that the country was ungovernable, the Fourth Republic, the frequent changes of government, etc.; none of which prevented France from fast-track development, so much so that this period of government irresponsibility remains, from an economic standpoint, the most flourishing period in our history. He replied that though Putin’s Russia could be accused of all the evils in the world, though not of “governmental instability,” the same phenomena were evident (the rise of the middle classes, consumer capitalism).
There was silence for a few seconds, then he said something like: “All in all, maybe it’s for the best; it proves that society has its own momentum and the system of government superimposed on it with its regulations, its government officials, is simply a form of parasite.”
Then he stopped, remembering that he too was a government official, a civil servant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to be precise; there was an awkward silence, which I easily managed to dispel, since I’m quick to play the fool by asking for more vodka. Another example of the tendency of people to tell me things that they themselves hadn’t expected; even so, we changed the subject pretty quickly.
There you are, dear Bernard-Henri, the first root (the one I consider to be honorable) of my lack of political commitment: an ideological diffidence verging on atheism. Russians certainly do not feel that they are living in a democracy; I think for the most part they don’t give a damn and who am I to disagree with them? For many years, I lived in a country (France) where I had the right to vote, a right I barely exercised. From a political point of view, many measures were implemented, concerning public health especially, of which I completely disapproved. Off the top of my head, I would mention the banning of products considered to be “drugs,” the constant hectoring campaigns against alcoholism, in favor of using condoms, against cocaine, sugary foods, and who knows what-all, the absurd inability to buy most common medicines without prescription, and more than anything, the thing that in itself is symbolic of all the others: the slow, pitiless pincer movement that in a few short years closed