Monday, September 29, 2014

Democratic Russians

From the MT:
"Poll Shows Russians Divided on Democracy's Meaning, Importance"

Democracy is important to most Russians, but they can't seem to agree on what exactly it is, according to a survey published Monday. In the survey, conducted by the state-run pollster Public Opinion Foundation and published by the Kommersant newspaper Monday, 63 percent of respondents said it was important for Russia to have democracy, while another 16 percent said it made no difference to them personally whether Russia was ruled by a democratic system or not.
Twenty-seven percent of respondents said Russia's most democratic period was the current one, under President Vladimir Putin, while another 12 percent said Putin's previous two terms were more democratic.  Putin has faced harsh criticism from the West in recent months over ongoing events in Ukraine. Russia's annexation of Crimea in March and accusations of Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine have prompted some Western leaders to compare Putin to a tyrant.
But many respondents to the poll seemed to disagree, with one-third saying Russia currently had "as much democracy as is necessary." Twenty-two percent said there was not much democracy in the country and that transparency and free speech were lacking. Another 11 percent said there is too much democracy, lamenting the fact that "everything is permitted, and everyone does what they want," Kommersant reported.   The poll's results also revealed that there was no common consensus on what exactly democracy entailed, with 43 percent of respondents saying democracy meant "transparency, free speech and free elections" as well as "upholding human rights," while another 12 percent described it as ordinary citizens taking part in the country's management.  Another third of respondents said they could not define democracy.

^ This does not surprise me in the least. Russians have always been subjected to the force of a strong leader who always made their decisions for them. First it was the Czar ordering the serfs. Then it was the Soviets ordering the proletariat and today it is the Oligarchs ordering the people. You can't expect a nation of people to understand or want something when they have never been able to fully experience that one thing. I know that in the 1990s many Western organizations came to Russia and other former Soviet Republics to teach them about democracy, but just in years past the Russians do not like to be told anything from foreigners  - especially after learning that everything in the past 70 years was either a lie or a half-truth. I had a Russian history teacher when I studied in Russia that told me she taught history (not sure if it was at a school or university) for decades and that when she started learning the truth in the 1990s she had to take several years off to process the fact that she had been "brainwashed"  her words - and that in turn she had helped brainwashed generations of people to fit the Communist ideology of the time. After she took some time off and learned the truth she went back to teaching (this time she included teaching foreigners about Russia along with Russians about their own country) so that she could help make up for the "crimes" of the past. That is just one example of millions. Anyone 30 and over was taught the same exact thing for 70+ years so that children, parents and grandparents all have the same knowledge and training. Now for the past 20 years we expect all that propaganda that was ingrained into generations of Russians to simply go away. The Russians today continue to do what Russians of the past have always done - when in doubt isolate yourself, keep your head down, your mouth quiet and believe in the saying "We will live and we will see." ^



http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/poll-shows-russians-divided-on-democracy-s-meaning-importance/508060.html
 

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