Magic Statistics

A very interesting juxtaposition of items about Russia appeared today. The always-brilliant Mark Steyn's latest piece for the [UK] Spectator, entitled "The Death of Mother Russia", was published on the same day that news carried the story of the death of Alexander Yakovlev, mastermind of the Gorbachev perestroika. A unique (not to say perverse) Canadian perspective on the latter was contributed to The Toronto Star by Alexandre Trudeau, son of you-know-who. Mr Trudeau recounts a meeting he had with Mr Yakovlev a year ago, in which Trudeau winds up berating Yakovlev for refusing to admit that Russia was better off under Communism!

I came to Yakovlev undeniably disparaged by the contrasting spectacle of obscene wealth and abject poverty that I witnessed in Moscow. I brought to him the question whether there might not still be a place for some of the spirit of Communism in Russia — the better sides of it of course, some mechanism for the distribution of wealth, for example, for the welfare of the unfortunate.

Exactly where did young Mr Trudeau witness Communism redistribute wealth to, or otherwise care for the welfare of, the unfortunate? Was that under Stalin? Or perhaps Brezhnev? And where was "the spirit of Communism" most purely manifest? That would be the gulag.

Yakovlev, for some inexplicable reason, demurred the suggestion that the spirit of Communism is still needed in Russia. But Trudeau persisted:

I in turn asked whether some monopoly over freedom might not help stabilize the society enough for it to find the proper footing of freedom. Again Yakovlev refused this idea.

"What you are seeing now in Putin's repression of the free press and political institutions is anarchic corruption being replaced by bureaucratic corruption. The point," he continued, "is that the way of real freedom has to be learnt slowly by a whole society. It cannot be willed into being by one part of society. The gentle freedom cannot be built by restricting the harsh kind. The very bureaucrats that run government and Putin himself have to partake in the learning of freedom, the freedom you can trust. Look at how long and hard it was to create responsible and democratic societies in the West. Here too it will take time. Time."

I prefer freedom over Communism as much as the next sane human being, but what Russia has experienced since the fall of the Soviet Union reminds us that freedom is not an end in itself but rather a means to the end of human flourishing. Time–all that Mr Yakovlev thought his country needed–is rapidly running out. As Mark Steyn says,

Russia is the sick man of Europe, and would still look pretty sick if you moved him to Africa. It has the fastest-growing rate of HIV infection in the world. From virtually no official Aids cases at the time Putin took office, in the last five years more Russians have tested positive than in the previous 20 for America. The virus is said to have infected at least 1 per cent of the population, the figure the World Health Organisation considers the tipping point for a sub-Saharan-sized epidemic. So at a time when Russian men already have a life expectancy in the mid-50s — lower than in Bangladesh — they’re about to see Aids cut them down from the other end, killing young men and women of childbearing age, and with them any hope of societal regeneration. By 2010, Aids will be killing between a quarter and three-quarters of a million Russians every year.

What a waste. Russia endured over 70 years of totalitarianism only to commit suicide. I remember the happiness the whole world, and especially the former Soviet bloc, felt when the Soviet Empire collapsed. Free at last! Sadly, freedom for Russia proved to be short-lived.

"The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations."—Edmund Burke

via Notes From A Byzantine-Rite Calvinist and Let It Bleed.

Sweden prides itself on being one of the most politically "progressive" countries in the world, so when several high-profile Swedish women launched a new party called Feministiskt Initiativ, or Feminist Initiative, it quickly shot up to 25% support in the polls. The new party responded to its skyrocketing popularity by letting its fancy flow: "At its recent founding congress . . . the party presented proposals to abolish marriage and create 'gender-neutral' names". Swedish feminism has suffered other travails of late.

Support for feminism took another hit this summer with the airing of a Swedish television documentary called The Gender War. A wrenching debate was set off by the film, which showed militant feminism to be widespread, reaching into official circles: Ireen von Wachenfeldt, the chairman of Roks, Sweden's largest women's shelter organization, for one, was shown asserting that "men are animals".

Suddenly the belief that politics, business, even private life should be reformed to allow a more equal society - a belief that has permeated Swedish politics for several decades - is being openly questioned. In the latest opinion polls, a meager 1.3 percent of respondents said they would give the feminist party their votes.

Yvonne Hirdman, a professor of history at Stockholm University and another one of those people with an intuitive grasp of the obvious, weighed in with this analysis: "This could be a backlash". Ya think?

via Dust My Broom.

Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland today issued a statement in response to Archbishop Peter Akinola's open letter. He seems to think he's being gracious and conciliatory but, in my view, he has only added more obfuscation.

The current debate within the Anglican Communion is a theological debate and I find myself very disturbed by any speculation around the role that money may play in determining outcomes. Such speculation makes genuine communication difficult. I feel that when money or assistance is raised in any part of the Anglican Communion and offered for use where it may extend Christ's kingdom, it should be offered and accepted in those terms alone.

I in no way question the sincerity and integrity of the leaders of the Global South. As they are well aware, I have personally endeavoured at all times to maintain and understand the integrity of their argument. I categorically state I have never believed that any financial offer was accepted by any of those who represent the Global South on any other than terms of Christian outreach. I have communicated this response to Archbishop Akinola this morning.

How can he say he's "very disturbed by any speculation around the role that money may play in determining outcomes", when he himself indulged in precisely that kind of speculation in his interview earlier this month. Unless Abp Eames's evil twin gave that interview, he now says that he disturbs himself.

If he said something that he now regrets, he should just say so. That would provide a constructive basis for reconciliation. But Abp Eames made serious charges, then denied that he made them, and now says that making such charges is disturbing and disruptive to "genuine communication". I think it's nonsense like this that disrupts communication.

via titusonenine.