Beheading is an effective treatment for a headache, but some sufferers may find it a tad too radical.
This profound thought flashed through my mind when I read about a few Anglophone Westerners, including 17 Scotsmen, emigrating to Russia to swap ‘neoliberalism’ for ‘traditional values’. Considering that over a million Russians have moved the other way since 2022, the score is still in our favour, but still.
I know exactly how those emigrants feel. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t bemoan, orally or in writing, the West going to the dogs. However, I’ll take neoliberalism any day if the only alternative to it is paleofascism.
Yet some people seem to disagree with me, as they are entitled to. Their decision has to consist of two parts, the first one understandable, the second ill-advised: dissatisfaction with their homeland and a realistic hope that Russia will be better.
Major-General Irina Volk of the Russian Interior Ministry accentuated the first part: “The desire to move to Russia for permanent residence arose against the background of the abolition of traditional moral and family values in American society, as well as the low level of education.”
One thing I can say for Gen. Volk is that our own major-generals don’t look like her. I’m sure she has reached such a high rank at such a young age by assiduously practising traditional values. Volk means ‘wolf’ in Russian, and I do hope it’s her surname and not nickname. In any case, the song she is howling is familiar to anyone ever exposed to Kremlin propaganda.
All the recent migrants to Russia sing from the same lupine hymn sheet, highlighting “destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes” in the West. They all claim to “share traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”.
One fertile Canadian couple blessed with eight children explained what neoliberalism means: “There’s a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ, trans, just a lot of things that we don’t agree with they teach there now. We wanted to get away from that for our children.”
Any Westerner who is fed up with ideological wokery has my sympathy. Any Westerner who criticises it has my support. Yet I can respond with nothing but scorn to any Westerner who falls for the Russian propaganda of ‘traditional values’.
That said, they may have a point because traditions differ. The Russian variety, for example, includes the compulsion to pounce on the country’s neighbours. Looking at the 1991 map of the moribund Soviet Union, née the Russian Empire, I can’t see a single bordering country that hadn’t fallen victim to Russian aggression at some point.
Another Russian tradition is government by fiat, the decree imposed by a single omnipotent ruler. Such governments have always oscillated within a narrow range between authoritarian and totalitarian, the latter finely poised these days between fascist and Nazi.
Suppression of free speech is another traditional value there. At the time of Elizabeth I’s reign in England, the mildest critics of the Russian tsar were flayed alive, fried in giant frying pans or, if the tsar felt merciful, only drawn and quartered.
Fast-forwarding to the reign of Charles III, double-digit prison terms are being routinely given to Russians who find anything wrong with the criminal war on the Ukraine – indeed even to those who simply refer to it as just that, a war, rather than the prescribed term of a ‘special military operation’.
It’s true that what the Russians call ‘non-traditional orientation’ is discouraged at all levels short of the upper reaches of government. There, however, it’s rife, and some of Putin’s closest lieutenants aren’t immune to same-sex attractions.
And – here I must lower my voice to make sure we aren’t overheard – if you believe reports from his numerous ex-colleagues in the KGB, even the man himself isn’t quite as macho as his PR will have you believe. Rumour has it that Putin ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko on finding out that the latter was writing a book on why Vlad’s career in the KGB had been so sluggish.
But fair enough: the children of that despairing Canadian couple won’t be asked at their Russian school which of the 100-plus sexes they’d rather be, they won’t be taught advanced condom studies at a barely postpubescent age, and I doubt the critical race theory will figure prominently on their curriculum.
But what will their Russian curriculum feature instead? Independent journalists have found out that the current school year will be mostly devoted to ‘patriotic’ subjects and extracurricular activities – at the expense of traditional, as it were, disciplines.
One such subject, introduced after the full-scale invasion of the Ukraine in 2022, is called “Talks of Important Matters”. Such talks mainly focus on vindicating Russian aggression and portraying the Ukrainians as sub-human in frankly Nazi terms.
Military training will also take much of the schooltime this year. The course is called “The Essentials of Security and Defence of the Motherland”. The pupils will be taught “basic elements of military training” and “safety requirements in handling firearms”, that goes without saying.
Yet Russian traditional values on the syllabus will also include “basic concepts of today’s warfare… including the methods of using combat drones”. Especially privileged will be 523 schools where pupils will be taught not only how to use combat drones, but also how to design and manufacture them.
And of course “Family Building” will be another compulsory course, inculcating “a system of family values traditional for our Motherland”, to teach pupils such “conceptual-value guidelines as marriage, having many children and chastity.”
Knowing Russia fairly well, I anticipate problems in finding instructors qualified to teach chastity. Perhaps some of the monks from the Candlemas Monastery in central Moscow could be thrown into the breach…
On second thoughts, perhaps not. A few years ago, it turned out that the holy fathers used their quarters to run a brothel, charging a modest $35 a pop. An interesting touch was added by the personalities involved. The vicar of the monastery at the time was Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), Putin’s confessor, while Patriarch Kirill is the monastery’s superior.
I wonder if these migrating dupes of the Russians had done due diligence before taking this step. How much do they know about the country? They know exactly what they are leaving, but do they realise where they are going?
I doubt if they even know how to say ‘traditional values’ in Russian, but that presents no immediate problem. Putin has magnanimously agreed to waive the language-test requirement for immigrants, doubtless because he plans to turn them into a propaganda coup.
Generally speaking, I refrain from prophesying, but I’ll make an exception in this case. I’ll tell you exactly what will happen to those useful idiots – and how soon they’ll outlive their usefulness.
They’ll be feted to begin with, and every TV channel will be vying for their appearance. They’ll all be given decent lodgings and sinecures in whatever field they fancy. Their children will be sent to showcase schools, where they’ll have their brains scrubbed clean of any Western memories.
Then, a few months later, the novelty appeal will start wearing thin before it disappears altogether. Like the Cambridge spies of yesteryear, they’ll try to live the life of Russian citizens, only to find they aren’t made for it. Before long they’ll realise they live in a fascist country, where the liberties they used to take for granted are unheard of and where any passing cop can torture them with impunity.
They’ll start missing Scotland, America, Canada, wherever they are from. Unlike their children, they’ll find Russian an impossible language to learn and the local mores impossible to understand.
A gulf between them and their thoroughly brainwashed children will appear, and they’ll be looking with horror at the fascist nonsense the little ones spout after a day at school. Moreover, they’ll realise that, when they grow up, the children may well be asked to die for ‘traditional values’ in the Ukraine or elsewhere.
Eventually they’ll do a Shamima Begum and beg to go back. And there I hope they’ll suffer the same fate. You see, the Russians declare every minute of every day that they are at war not with the Ukraine but with NATO. That means that citizens of NATO countries don’t emigrate to a hostile power – they defect, become turncoats.
Hence they must be deprived of their citizenship and banned from ever returning, just like Shamima was. And as for Gen. Volk, well, she can teach me traditional values any time.