Hey Medvedev, you are no Tom Joad!

It is amazing how politicians can spin anything. In the Russia/Georgia conflict, Putin and Medvedev talk as if they are defenders of liberty, and the yearning of independence that people have. (Conveniently forgetting Chechnya, of course!) I mean, in a recent FT piece, Medvedev writes as if he is the Russian reincarnation of the Tom Joad character in The Grapes of Wrath: Whenever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . . .

You ought to read that piece. Here is an excerpt:

The Russian Federation is an example of largely harmonious coexistence by many dozens of nations and nationalities. But some nations find it impossible to live under the tutelage of another. Relations between nations living “under one roof” need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity.

After the collapse of communism, Russia reconciled itself to the “loss” of 14 former Soviet republics, which became states in their own right, even though some 25m Russians were left stranded in countries no longer their own. Some of those nations were un­able to treat their own minorities with the respect they deserved. Georgia immediately stripped its “autonomous regions” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia of their autonomy.

Can you imagine what it was like for the Abkhaz people to have their university in Sukhumi closed down by the Tbilisi government on the grounds that they allegedly had no proper language or history or culture and so did not need a university? The newly independent Georgia inflicted a vicious war on its minority nations, displacing thousands of people and sowing seeds of discontent that could only grow. These were tinderboxes, right on Russia’s doorstep, which Russian peacekeepers strove to keep from igniting.

Here is Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) in The Grapes of Wrath