It’s a bit difficult to accept that the “Russian Bear” has never been a symbol for their country accepted by the Russians themselves!! Yet, there is, whenever we think of Russia the image of the Russian Bear rises to the fore. Especially right now when Russian troops have descended on Ukraine from three sides with all their military might. Tanks tearing across highways packed with miles of cars heading into the west towards Europe; bombs hurled from thudding cannons tearing buildings apart and scowling troops advancing and mowing down everything in sight.
It’s like a bear tearing through a hamlet in the forest, ain’t it? And that’s exactly why the West insists that Russia’s best represented by a Bear!! Even though they’ve been trying to soften their image since whenever. In the 17th century Peter the Great returned from a trip to France and Germany and plunged into a frenzy of “reforms” to recreate the trappings of civilisation he’d seen there. He introduced courtly ways and all that, which were continued by Catherine the Great in the 18th century – all to no avail. As someone said earlier THIS century quite pithily, you can put lipstick on a pig, it still remains a pig!! You can’t even put lipstick on a Bear – as the two aforementioned “Greats” can attest!!
In the early 20th century, Lenin tried his darndest to do his bit, and going against what even Marx had said, he tried to drag Russia into civilisation through Communism. No luck. His successor Stalin killed millions and millions (20? 30? Who knows?) of his fellow citizens evidently on his theory that he’d succeed even if he had to kill every Russian in sight!! By then, they’d dragged a host of countries around them – like Ukraine – into a “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. We got to understand the implications of the “Bear Hug”!!
It was more like an empire that the Russians tried to “Russify”. But we all know it all came crashing down like a house of cards. And everyone discovered all their vaunted “progress” was a sham. They were the same backward Russian Bear that just couldn’t build anything lasting. All of the “satellites” quickly seized the opportunity to declare their independence. To show it was “democratic”, Russia said they were free to do as they pleased.
But we now know after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the first invasion of western Ukraine that they never really meant that. Their view of “independence” was the ex-satellites were free to do whatever Russia told them to do!! It was like a bear trap – the only way you can get free is to chew your feet off. And sadly, that’s what Ukraine’s gonna have to do. Stand up to the Russian bully and force them to accept their own medicine: brute force and ignorance. Accepting they’ll have to absorb the Russian Bear’s destructive onslaught!
Let the Russians understand Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib”: “For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, / And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;/ And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, / And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!”
Like all bullies, the Russians will fold!!
…in Guyana
Bet most of you young’uns didn’t know we had our own Russian Bear back in the day in Guyana. Nah…not the ideological variety Cheddi tried to sneak in around the same time!! That’s grist for another mill about when the Ruskies invaded Hungary in 1956. The party was torn apart over whether Russia should be condemned or not!! Sounds familiar?
Anyhow, OUR “Russian Bear” was quite indigenous – a Rum that was made by a company RM Wight on Water and Schumaker Sts in Georgetown. There was a rum shop at the location by the same name. At that time, Guyana had dozens of rums, aged and flavoured by small local companies. D’Aguiar had XM. Your Eyewitness always wondered why the Wights chose that name – Russia might’ve been famous for Vodka but certainly not rums!
Russian Bear had a 12-year-old rum and after the company was eventually taken over by DDL, your Eyewitness wonders if this was the base of their El Dorado 15-year-old brand?
…and aims
There are many angles to the Russian invasion of Ukraine story. And Russia will show that other countries now condemning them have also invaded on trumped-up reasons. Like WMD.
But two wrongs don’t make a right.
Out Bear!!
