Much has been and will be written about the appalling tragedy of Beslan school and its children held hostage by Chechen terrorists that came to a bloody conclusion two days ago. What I want to remind the western observers just how different the world is on the other side of what used to be the Iron Curtain. There is much disregard for human life and for individual suffering or fate. We often complain here about the state’s natural tendency to override the individual and point out where the balance between the two needs to be redresses. But what happens in Russia (and many other non-Western countries) is beyond the finely tuned scale we apply to western governments.
The contempt in which the Russian government and the ruling class in Russia hold individual life is profound. Perhaps contempt is the wrong word since one would need to recognise something has value in the first place in order to deny it to someone out of contempt for them. Individual human life is not intrinsically valued by the Russian society. The lives of the family members, relatives and the loved ones, of course. But it is not expected that the faceless collective will or even should take heed of others’ suffering.
My brother and his two children are in there. His little girl, Lera, is three. His son, Shamil, is nine. They really didn’t have to do this. To storm the building. With all those children inside. They shouldn’t have done it. But they are the government and we are just ordinary people.
This was a cry of one of the relatives waiting outside the besieged school when the Russian troops starting firing their machine guns. Whether he was right or wrong on the Spetsnaz tactics in particular or hostage situations in general is beside the point, it was the acceptance of his or anybody’s powerlessness in the face of the Government.
The ruthlessness of the Russian state and its President is echoed by Oleg Gordievsky, the highest-ranking KGB officer to work for MI6, in his opinion piece.
Despite all the caring, sympathetic noises he is now making, Putin has a fabulous indifference to human life. When the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk was stuck on the bottom of the Baltic, its 118 crew suffocating and freezing slowly to death, he didn’t even bother to interrupt his holiday. When he was later interviewed on CNN about what had happened to the Kursk, he simply smiled and said: “It went to the bottom.” About the 118 Russians who died he said not a word.
The thousands of deaths in the war in Chechnya don’t move him in the least. He regards them as “normal wastage” – a hardly noticeable price which has to be paid for maintaining Russian control of Chechnya. That is the traditional KGB view, an attitude I remember all too well from my own days in the organisation.
Western governments offered sympathy to Mr Putin and the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the massacre had tested his faith. But the European Union called for an explanation of how this tragedy could have happened. The Russians described the request as blasphemous.
For once, I agree with the Russians. Sort of.
I didn’t understand your point. The Russians don’t respect human life ?? Was it the Russians who murdered in cold blood, shooting in the back, hundreds of children ? I thought it was the muslim terrorists.
The moment the hostages were taken, no other outcome was possible. The muslim nuts didn’t have any demands, just a death wish.
Maybe there was lack of organization on the part of the Russian troops, maybe ineptness, but disregard of human life ?? You are dead wrong.
The same goes for the submarine – maybe it wasn’t right to send them on patrol on a poorly maintained boat, but the moment it sunk – nothing could have been done.
Yeah (Mr Gabriel Syme) I didn’t quite get your last point about the EU’s response and agreeing with the Russians – what did you mean?
I thought it was insensitive for the EU to *demand* an explanation for how it was ‘allowed’ to happen, but that Dutch guy did have a point because there did seem to be a blatant lack of coordination in the Russian response.
Jacob: regarding the Kursk, I seem to recall that we (the British) had diving rescue vehicles not to far away from the site and we did in fact offer our help, but were turned down. Aside from questions about Russian policy, I suspect Putin is a utilitarian monster.
What the articles says is pretty clear to me, though I did mention to Gabriel most folks would not ‘get it’.
It is not really about Beslan or the Chechens, so what the muslim terrorists did is not the central issue. It is rather about why the Russians are so inept and end up with so many dead innocents when these things happen… the reason that there was not a veritable swarm of ambulances and an army of doctors waiting at hand when the whole operation ended in a bloodbath is that it probably was so low on the list of things that occurred to the authorities that it was simply not organised yet. Why? Gabriel’s article explains why.
As for the EU asking the Russian to ‘explain’ anything… how exactly would people in the USA have reacted if the EU had asked the US government to ‘explain’ why so many people died in the September 11th attacks (with the clear implication that the US was obviously not trying hard enough to save them and therefore they must justify themselves to some obscure EU politico).
In terms of ‘prevent-ability’ of civilian casualties, September 11th and Beslan are not at all the same thing by any stretch of the imagination and you know it.
Perry de Havilland writes:
“Gabriel’s article explains why.”
Indeed it does. Well, almost all of it. I think it is also instructive to remember that the Soviet Union set the gold standard for shambollic (lack of ) organisation and that the skills learned under Lenin haven’t been lost.
So, to a historic disregard for the value of human life, we need to add an equally historic inability to handle chaotic situations, the knee-jerk reaction to which is to lie.
As so often, callousness and collectivism go hand in hand.
True, the Russian politicos do seem to have an immunity to human suffering – as I said before, Putin is a utilitarian monster.
What would happen if terrorists took hostages in a foregin embassy in Moscow – e.g. the UK embassy – would the Russians come out with the same shambolic response then? If they did, there’d be hell on about it, and I’d expect Blair to demand an explanation at the very least.
mike wonders:
“What would happen if terrorists took hostages in a foregin embassy in Moscow – e.g. the UK embassy – would the Russians come out with the same shambolic response then?”
Most probably.
“If they did, there’d be hell on about it, and I’d expect Blair to demand an explanation at the very least.”
Wow!
what was that quote about sarcasm and least intelligent form of humour…?
Face it, it matters not how many ambulances the Russians could have brought to the scene but didn’t.
The moment the hostages were taken with the intention to kill, nothing could have saved them. Maybe 20 or 30 of those 360 victims could have been saved by the ambulances, maybe not.
So stop dissecting the Russians, this is not the main point of this horror. This is obfuscation.
The main point is the barbarity of the Muslim terrorists, and what can be done to stop the next acts of terror.
mike complains:
“what was that quote about sarcasm and least intelligent form of humour…?”
Actually, ‘the lowest form of wit’…
But it rarely pays to overestimate your target.
Jacob writes:
“So stop dissecting the Russians, this is not the main point of this horror. This is obfuscation.”
If I may say so, a very good point. I’ve found today’s approach by the British media to this terrible, tragic story extremely unpleasant.
Whatever satisfaction there may be found in Boris-bashing (and I readily accept that Putin is every inch the weasel-faced little shit he appears), there are far too many using the motes in Russia’s eye to ignore the bloody great forest in Islam’s.
This whole story is in danger of becoming a love-in for the moral relativists before the children’s bodies are cold in their graves.
And that is truly despicable.
Did you actually read the article, Jacob? The main point is not the muslims. Why? Because the article was not about the muslims or their barbarity. It was about the Russians.
Perhaps you wanted the article to be about muslim terrorists and what can be done to stop them, but that would be a different article, not this one. The article was an observation about the Russians. Not the Muslims. The Russians.
I think Gabriel Syme has a point, but really I think it applies more to the previous Russian hostage crisis. In this case, from what’s been reported so far, it sounds like the disastrous outcome was caused by an accidental explosion, which inevitably made everyone start shooting. The Russian government claimed that they had no intention of storming the place before the explosion, and given how badly the theater thing went for them, I’m actually inclined to believe them.
To quote Gabriel:
Clearly the military forces on hand were forced to rush the building without prior planning and with zero notice, so to say it was a ‘far from ideal’ situation for the Russian military would be an masterly understatement.
Yet that still does not change the fact medical assets were limited and only today, more than two days after the end of the matter, are Russian officials collecting names and trying to notify next of kin.
I’ll take Putin’s response over Jimmy Carter’s anyday.
I have to give them a pass on storming the school anyway. It really didn’t look like there was much hope for getting anyone out alive with diplomatic efforts. Besides, didn’t the terrorist begin shooting when some captive tried to flee?
I wanted to respond last night when this was first posted but I was numb from following the story all day long at nicedoggie and at Logic & Sanity. I cannot remember anything like this happening while I’ve been aware of international news. The Munich Olympics, the Dunblane massacre, The Stockton California and Littleton Colorado massacares pale when compared to this. I cannot remember when a comparable number of hostages had been taken.
The first day of school is done a bit different in Russia as well. Parents take their children to school and spend time meeting the other parents, the teachers and the other children. This attack was coordinated to take place where they could take the largest number of hostages possible.
Survivors have reported that bombs inside the gym were secured with scotch tape (cellotape? translation glitch?) and one of the bombs fell and detonated. That first explosion apparently killed close to 100 of the children.
The terrorists had been planning this for months. I read over at L&S that the terrorists had agents posing as a construction crew putting weapons under the floor and inside the walls of the school last July during some remodeling work. I took the article to mean that some of these construction workers have been positivly identified among the dead terrorists.
Suggesting that the Russians are a nation of sociopaths (Ok so the article wasn’t that blunt but that’s what I read between the lines) ignores that several generations of Russians lived under Soviet communisum. Externalized feelings would make someone stand out and be noticed. Not a desireable attribute in a big brother society. I imagine that all of Russia is hurting but they do not know how to express the feelings. The tone of blaming this massacare on the Russians says a lot about how European leaders feel about Russia. I’m probably ignoring many years of angst over the adversarial relationship the Europe had with the Soviet Union. Time for them to get over it. The Soviet Union collapsed.
The “how did this happen” question was gratuitous and arrogant. The answer is simple: It happened because some psychopathic suicidal moslem terrorists planed and executed a terrorist operation. The terrorists began the operation by executing around a dozen hostages. This suggests that they intended to kill every hostage and anyone else they could lure into the building. The operation was dragged it out as long as they could to get news coverage.
Partial translations of Russian news articles can be found at: http://www.logicandsanity.com
Sorry for the rambling post.
Oh dear, although I expected some people would not get the point of my post, I had no idea that it would be such spectacular missing of the point… The title should make it clear who it is I am attacking. The first sentence should also make it clear that I am not writing about the here and now of the Beslan tragedy. Even Perry’s valiant efforts to explain did not seem to get through.
Djl4570, I know what communism is like and if you read through my post I talk about the Russian state, not the Russian individual – the poor, suffering and oblivious toy of the totalitarian monstrosity – communism or Putin or [insert another Russian leader].
There are many articles about Muslims and the attrocities committed in the name of Islam, but this is not one of them. This one is about highlighting the brutality of the context in which these attrocities were committed. Why? Because it is worth remembering that there is rarely one evil at the time although usually only one grabs the headline.
djl4570:
scotch tape is cellotape; brand name which has come to mean all cellotape – like band-aid used here or like elastoplast in UK
Gabriel,
Your timing for complaining about Russian brutality was very poor, and totally out of context.
“The ruthlessness of the Russian state and its President ….”
Totally out of context.
It’s like complaining about the lack of life guards at the beaches in Florida amidst the hurricane.
Jacob, the brutality of the Russian state will NEVER be out of context for me… we are talking about a disaster that happened in Russia and there is more going on there than just the actions of muslim terrorist.
We have written about the actions of Muslim terrorists ad nauseam (and will continue) and our views on them are well known and robust. Now I am writing about the Russian state and society, which we have just seen in action in Breslan, so the timing would seem rather appropriate.
To see what I am writing about just check the title of the post.
Gabriel, while I have to agree that the Russian government and much of the ruling bureaucracy have little concern for the individual life, your statement that “individual human life is not intrinsically valued by the Russian society” is an enormous exaggeration. There is a very large segment of the Russian society–I would call it the underclass–that has a very limited and primitive set of values indeed. Outside of this segment and the government bureaucracy, there is nothing to suggest the Russian society values human life less than any other (post-)Christian one. Its problem is failure to communicate this concern to the government via collective action.
You may argue that the Russians at large have paid remarkably little attention to the brutality of the Chechen war, but that probably has to do with racism (Chechens as savages/barbarians–compare this to the British or French public’s attitudes to their government’s excesses in the colonies in the 19th century, or Winston Churchill’s proposal that “uncivilised tribes” be gassed in Iraq) as well as the fact that many of the soldiers come from the mentioned underclass, alienated from the rest of society.
Gordievsky misinterprets Putin’s laconic response. Given the context, it was perfectly acceptable; moreover, it reflected traditional Russian stoicism in the face of trouble. Yes, Russians are stoics: they may enjoy soap operas, but they don’t like making soap operas of tragedies.
Sorry, Mr Syme. I’m sure it’s not your intention, but this reads a little like those apologists who wrote about America’s failings in the days after 9/11. Both those writings and this one have the appearance of blaming the victims. As I say, I’m sure that wasn’t your intention, but in the immediate aftermath of this murderous act (not “an appalling tragedy”,please. It’s not some natural disaster, rather it is a deliberate foul act designed to kill as many as possible), your timing *is* rather off. The time for reasoned reflection will come, but it is not now.
John R: I can’t see anywhere where I am linking the Chechen terrorist actions to the brutality of the Russian state… How could the post be apologist then?
I am pointing out, at this very opportune moment, that the Russian government is a different creature to the western democratic governments and the tragedy serves as another reminder of that. The Muslims do not come into this. This is between the Russian authorities and their subjects.
Apart from the fact that there is no better time for a reasoned reflection than in the aftermath of a crisis, my opinions about the Russian state are no ongoing ‘reasoned reflection’, but a result of a bitter experience, historical and personal.
Alexei: I know more about the Russian society than I ever wished to know. Indoctrination by the communist authorities from the tender age of five and fighting them from a less tender but still early age of 10 gives one a very good insight into the Russian masters’ ways.
I feel nothing but sympathy with individual Russians, however, have nothing but venom for the Russian state/government. As for Russian society, apart from family ties and local connections, pre-extented order style, there is no society (as in ‘extended order’) to speak of in the majority of the country.
Gabriel, I appreciate your joke about fighting Communism from age 10, and I agree with you that the Russian society suffers from atomization. Actually, even the “local connections” aren’t that strong, which explains the absence of grassroot democracy in Russia, although new horizontal networks are emerging.
Yet the value system of most Russians I know includes respect for the life of those outside of the immediate family or locality (with some exceptions).
The government can afford to be inhumane not because the society is immoral, but because it is weak.
Gabriel,
“I know more about the Russian society than I ever wished to know.”
Ok. I respect that. Maybe you are right that the Russian government is ruthless, or inhuman.
But I don’t think that the current atrocity in Beslan points to that conclusion or strenghtens it. The Russian army and authorities did what they could, maybe in an inept way, but there was no ruthlessness or inhumanity manifest in their actions.
I really wish terrorists would choose better targets. If the terrorists had aimed at military or political targets, had intended to minimise civilian casualities, then it would be much easier for people to be sympathetic to them. But no, they target the innocent and so, even though one may understand and sympathise with what they want, we must always back retaliation against them.
Alexei –
“individual human life is not intrinsically valued by the Russian society” is an enormous exaggeration.”
As an ignorant, insulated yank, I have to agree with you. I can’t remember the source, although I’m certain it was conservative, from over 30 years ago speaking of the Russian people. What impressed me most was the disciplining of the young – where often neither raised voice or hand was required. But rather a disapproving or disappointed “look” from family or “neighbors”.
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I’m curious, what alternate outcome would have come of the situation if the Russians were warm and fuzzy regarding human life?