In addition to the war of bombs and missiles, and the economic war of sanctions and the new geopolitical blocs, much is said about information warfare and Russia’s influence on the lives of societies, and about the western political struggles. The fall of Johnson and Draghi, the weakness of Scholz and Macron or Biden himself are issues related – in various ways – to the more or less underground manipulations of the Kremlin specialists. And by these we refer both to the hackers on the loose on the net, as well as to the unscrupulous intermediaries financed by hidden sources or to the mercenaries of the Wagner company who, from Libya, unload boats and barges full of desperate people from Africa and the Middle East into the sea. , destined to reinforce the electoral campaigns of the anti-immigration European sovereigntists.
Above any war strategy, economic or political, Russia intends to spread a message in the fractured and morally contaminated world of the postmodern West. It is a saving religious and ideological message, in defense of Tradition, whether it is the pure Christian tradition of Orthodoxy, or the even more aggressive one of a Uralist and Caucasian Islam deployed in the Ukrainian jihad. Or, perhaps, from other minor confessions of a European or Asian stamp, or even from an indeterminate “system of superior moral values” in defense of the Homeland and the Family. All this is evident without the need for conspiracy theories or spy stories typical of the 20th century. Much can be attributed to Putin and his inspiration Kirill, except for the concealment of an apocalyptic preaching that attributes to the Third Rome of Moscow – in a version as old as it is modern – the task of imposing a conservative turn on humanity.
After all, in the United States and Europe there have been for years (if not decades) various political forces and think tanks cultures that claim to uphold traditional principles. Religious and social, from the left and from the right, in favor of the people oppressed by the elites who live in the privileged central neighborhoods of the cities. Populists, sovereignists, identitarian primitives, neocons or theocons, often surprisingly recent converts to long-despised, anti-vaccine and anti-everything doctrines, nostalgic for regimes of which there are no survivors or witnesses. Undoubtedly, Putin’s friends have not come out of nowhere, and in recent months, from Armenian and Hungarian territories, they blocked the supply of weapons to the pretentious Ukraine of the puppet Zelensky to save the holy patriarch of Moscow from the diabolical sanctions.
It was Kirill himself who surprised the entire world by justifying the invasion of Ukraine a few days after it began, alleging that it was necessary to protect himself from the imposition of “gay parades”. What seemed and was certainly a provocative and ingenious intervention, today shows its impressive ideological background in many latitudes.
The solemn promise to prevent the spread of “gender madness” in Western societies is one of the cornerstones of traditionalist politicians on all continents. So much so, that it is difficult to criticize the classic sexist impositions of Islamic countries, which are no longer in the headlines.
Europeans support in large numbers the complaint forums of the Brussels institutions. Russophobia and the proclamation of individual rights combine and lead to the nullification of what is obvious to biology. And also, to the imposition of an “extinctive” vision of Western society, based on the renunciation of all traditions and beliefs about nature and the human person, as well as its cultural and religious roots. Beyond the tactical deployments related to military operations, it is about the real Putin troops in Europe and in the world. But with these troops there is no need to promise them honorable salaries and burials, like the Buryat or Chechen marines sent to the slaughterhouse.
On July 28, the chairman of the Moscow Duma, Volodin, announced that a new law banning all forms of propaganda of “non-traditional values” among Russians of all ages will be passed before the fall. Different variants of the bill, which the Russian government itself intends to perfect, are currently being debated in Parliament. A similar project is being presented in the regional parliament of Sevastopol, in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia, which wants to become the main model of a “genderless” society, free from the toxins of a traditionally phobic West. Just as the events of the war are approaching a phase of exhaustion, at least temporarily, with the proclamation for September of the full liberation of Donbass from the ucro-nazisthe campaign of “defensive” moral invasion of the entire world resumes at full speed.
Putin’s spokesman in the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, welcomed the fall of several governments due to the economic war with Russia. In the meantime, he sent to Brussels a resolution of the Budapest parliament in which it was proposed that the countries of the old world unite to establish the concept of “cultural and Christian roots” as the basis of the integration policies of the States. Variants are exhibited elsewhere, such as “defending liberal and Christian values.” In this sense, the annulment of the right to abortion (after 49 years) in the United States was a roar. A measure that was decided while the “extinct” Democrats are in power.
Patriarch Kirill has specified these concepts on several occasions. For example, on July 21 he stated that “faith is disappearing everywhere in the Christian world. Or else it is deformed to such an extent that there will be nothing left of it.” In these remarks he underlines once again the indispensable mission of the Russian people to avoid definitive surrender to the forces of evil. Several times, over the last two decades, the Moscow Patriarchate, having resumed its central role in the life of the country, has invited the Pope of Rome and all Catholics to join in this fight, obtaining answers that are not always convincing, but also enthusiastic adhesions in the most traditionalist sectors.
Pope Francis echoed the words of the head of the Russian Orthodox, when denouncing in Quebec “which, in the reality of our time, threatens the joy of faith and risks extinguishing it, seriously undermining the Christian experience”. One immediately thinks of secularization, which has long since transformed the lifestyle of today’s women and men, leaving God almost in the background.” The tension between Rome and Catholic Germany in the current synodal process traces precisely the terms of this epochal alternative; the Pope himself has warned the German bishops not to tighten the rope too much regarding the rights of anthropological minorities and the horizontal composition of the ecclesial community, since the risk is to fall again into a schism Lutheran type.
The Vatican’s uncertainties about condemning the Russian war and supporting the Ukrainian resistance are justified not only by its natural support for dialogue and pacifism as the only way to make the contenders lay down their arms. There is also the need to find an adequate response to the epochal challenge launched by Russian Orthodoxy. It is about defining the true universal primacy of the Church and of Christianity in the world, which in this version does not depend on the true or presumed apostolic roots, the number and statistics of the baptized or practicing faithful – which are also very random. -, of ecumenical, theological or humanitarian understandings, no matter how noble and dusty they may be. It depends on consensus and the capacity for social and political influence, on the new use of religion to define the limits of rights and institutions, on ideological support for visions of the world to come.
Conservative revenge, or moral counterrevolution, as some Russian media call it, is the overarching and declared goal of the war in Ukraine. And that is why it shakes the sensitive nerves of the West, much more than because of the geographical contiguity between the armies of NATO and those of neo-Soviet Russia. After all, war is already a fact, to which “by tradition”, human beings adapt with great ease, taking sides and getting excited. Whether it is with the technological innovations of weapons, being shocked and moved by the tragic scenes that fill the news and summoning generals and prelates to comment on the most complex dimensions of the assaults -of missiles and devotions.
Western societies are tired of the crazy war between the Russians and the Ukrainians, especially in the suffocating heat of the summer holidays, when people only seek the coolness of the peaks (which, by the way, collapse due to thaws) or the breeze from the beaches, assuming they can find lifeguards to keep an eye on them and rescue the unwary splashing in the waves. We do not know what we will face after the holidays, between energy crises and electoral proclamations, but we do know that the Russians are among us: not among the spies of the secret services, nor in the resorts and sumptuous villas, now abandoned and requisitioned. They are within us, in our fears and in our indifference, in our inability to unite politically, religiously or even just humanly, so as not to succumb sinking into a new Middle Ages of the spirit.
We cannot fail to entrust ourselves to the magisterium of Pope Francis, when he explains that “when we observe the culture in which we are immersed, its languages and its symbols, we must be careful not to remain prisoners of pessimism and resentment, allowing ourselves to be carried away by negative judgments or for useless nostalgia”.
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