|
Baby Boom for Cannon Fodder
Lisa Vronskaya - MosNews Authoritarian rulers have always loved children. Or would it be more honest to say, they feigned their love for the little ones? Perhaps, they realized even though they hated the idea that sooner or later they would have to yield to the younger generation. But they also knew that to win their peoples hearts, it was enough to shower warmth and affection on a few babies and their mothers. We still remember pictures of Lenin, grandad Lenin to us, surrounded by children, from our schoolbooks, the same grandad who left a bloody trail behind him in history. We remember old Soviet-era newsreels featuring Josef Stalin holding a little girl, smiling kindly that smile that still makes thousands shudder across the globe as he watches hundreds of jubilant demonstrators marching through the Red Square... Vladimir Putin toes the line. In his latest state-of-the-nation address, the Russian leader championed the role of motherhood in tackling the demographic crisis in this country. He made it quite clear, though, that the problem of the dwindling population was especially acute, not for the nation on the whole, but for the Defense Ministry, being short of children meant it had trouble manning Russias ailing armed forces. Putin voiced concern over the pace at which the Russian population has been shrinking over the past decades. Demographics researchers warn that if the most pessimistic models hold, the decline could make the country a vast, under-populated state within four or five decades, a country with too few healthy people for a competitive work force or a capable army. It seems that the Defense Ministry is the only institution that understands why it is necessary to solve the demographic problem in Russia, Andrei Illarionov, former presidential aide and, since recently, vocal critic of the Kremlin regime, said commenting on Putins remark that the Defense Ministry understood quite well the importance of such notions as love, women and children. What do they know about love in the army? While love means nothing without respect for human life and dignity, the Russian armed forces are plagued with bullying, so-called non-statutory relationships, with conscripts beaten, molested and driven to suicide? Kids left disabled, crippled for life with their genitals amputated! And he says the Defense Ministry understands such things as love and children Had he been just a bit more honest although he is quite frank, of course he could have openly said: Give us cannon fodder! Indeed, he did not go as far as Josef Stalin, as The New York Times noted last week, and encouraged women to give birth by offering Medals of Maternal Glory to repopulate a country thinned by repression and war. What Putin did offer, though, is financial support to women who give birth to more than one child and families who adopt children. Not in the form of cash payments, of course, for he knows better how to deal with those seemingly enormous sums of money. Families will apparently be entitled to certain benefits and subsidies, while real cash will go to maternity hospitals, schools, and property developers. I dont have any children. Never wanted any. Never knew the joy of childbirth, and, to be honest, dont miss it. I would not have children for money. It sounds indecent, at least. Much has been said and written lately in Russia about the immorality of surrogate motherhood, but there at least we have an honest contract a woman sells her body to a desperate couple who need her help in carrying their child and once it is born she can rest assured he, or she, will be loved and cared for. Our government wants us to have children, for a meager fee that real estate professionals say would not even suffice to secure a mortgage loan Then they will send our children to war (even if officially Russia is not at war with anyone) and have them beaten, molested, driven to suicide, or killed. I am not talking here of Chechnya alone, the ever-bleeding hot spot of Russia that is likely to bleed for years ahead. They are trying to solve the crisis through good old militaristic methods. At the same time they insist that their objective is to build a free democratic society under the rule of law. Vladimir Putin has given me another excuse for not having children. Ever. Posted by: Steve 2006-05-18 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=152332 |