I was leaving the room when I felt a tap on the arm. I looked to my right to find a smiling, fair haired young woman. She asked if I had a moment and if I could answer some questions. I replied that I was in a hurry to get back to work, I was Director of the University College, but she said it would take just 1 minute. I wasn’t in a hurry, I just didn’t want to be there. However it wasn’t this girl’s fault.
I woke up yesterday morning to the news that not far from where I live a bomb had exploded and killed a young female journalist. Immediately my mind went to a friend of mine who’s investigating Chechen criminality in Moscow. She lives in the area where the blast reportedly happened. I went onto a reliable telegram channel populated by Russian-speaking journalists and saw it wasn’t her. I could make my tea and porridge in peace.
A quick shower later and I sat with my breakfast, scrolling through news before writing yesterday’s piece on money. The story of the blast was better known and international outlets had picked up on it. As usual they were making a dog’s dinner out of it with language that showed Russian lives don’t matter. I say that with the caveat being, in this world, no lives matter without a #, flag emoji and go ahead from the military-media moneymaking complex. Governments, much as we’d like to think it, have very little say in most of the media madness and online chicanery.
Aleksandr Dugin is not VVP’s ‘spiritual guide’ as lazy hacks have been churning out. He is also not an ‘ally’ nor is he remotely close to the Kremlin. This clickbait excuse for tabloid journalism went into overdrive yesterday in the race to the bottom. While Dugin is known by enough people in Russia, he has never been mainstream, though that doesn’t matter to reporting from Russia. Because anything, and I mean anything, passes for the truth when commission hungry western for corrs or language teachers want their work read or seen.
Dugin’s reaction to the tragic burning to death of men, women and children in the Odessa Trade Union building in May 2014 got him removed from his position at Moscow State University (MSU). The terribly flawed institution, founded on German principles, was pressured by many inside the Kremlin to rein in their media-loving Professor. His tirade of “Kill them, kill them, kill them” was directed at the murderers of protestors in Odessa, which was not uncommon in Russia on May 2nd when western reporting of the incident made out that those inside the building murdered themselves. WIthout comment was the active part played by the neonazi Right Sector group, whom they interviewed as heroes. Dugin’s removal was, still, appreciated by many inside MSU for whom there remains little affection towards the man.
Darya Dugina was ‘killed’, not murdered or assassinated. The bomb in her vehicle was, presumably, meant for her Father. Darya was ignored by western for corrs before yesterday. A wikipedia page was rapidly set up Sunday morning and filled out through single source articles published the same day. The articles continued to overinflate Dugin’s influence because it’s easier to do so than to do actual journalism. Better to compare an obscure figure to Rasputin because the name brand works well on the western memory. And that cache, notoriety or fame, is exactly what Dugin craved.
The panel discussion in early 2018 took place as part of a meeting titled “Spiritual development of youth”. In the picturesque setting of Svibolovo monastery, Dugin lectured gently about the need for guidance and removal of gadgets. Modern youth needed more education in Russian history. The Ministry of Education was bad, poorly designed to fulfil the needs of students. Also, the Russian education system is the best in the world. And how children needed to heed their parent’s wishes and strive for a better country. Religion, he said, was not a panacea.
We had a very small back and forth when I suggested that children needed more activity and outward looking education. He agreed with me that languages were important, but that physical activity was less important in education. He took up 35 of our allotted 50 minutes, myself and the other 2 participants barely getting a word in. We shook hands afterwards and he wished me well with my work. The 2 others on our panel were already gone. Dugin then turned to the few journos present and hogged the limelight.
And back to the start. The minute with the young woman. She turned on her phone’s audio recorder and asked me why I think physical education is so important.
It’s vital for mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. It needs to be carried out in the right way, with the right motivation and needs to be inclusive. Too many students are alienated from sports and phys ed because they’ve negative connotations. They remember being left to last when being picked for team games or they were laughed at or bullied because they weren’t good at one particular sport. Our job, as educators and adults, is to make the concept of physical education and sports fun.
She went back to Dugin’s earlier monologue on the Ministry’s failings. I said there is no perfect way. She pressed again, I answered that in Ireland we complain yet it’s good quality so there is no perfect solution. She continued for a few minutes asking random questions and I realised she was struggling to find her own thoughts. I apologised and said I really had to go, she thanked me, we shook hands and I left. I bumped into Darya Dugina a couple more times at the fringes of forums or conferences, she was always there with her Father.
Yesterday morning in the metro 2 women next to me spoke about the death. They said how horrible it was, the poor girl. The prevailing sentiment was that she was not guilty. That is not exactly true. Darya had been down to Donbas and had her own views on what was happening, though holding personal views is never a reason for murder. Nationalists from Russian and Ukrainian camps were delighted. Calls to end the conflict were drowned out by ones for revenge or increased assassinations. In the desperation to go lower, the Guardian threw up the wrong photo and tried to grab attention with labelling the murder as one carried out by the National Republican Army, NRA for short. The writer is the same one who said that anti-semitism, homophobia and racism are not important. An unusual view for the Guardian though clickbait is more important. NRA strikes home with the pro- and anti-gun lobby, and of course NRA sounds like IRA. Win-win for the formerly reliable voice of reason. As an example of how little western for corrs and neutral truthtellers know about Darya, they gave her age as 30, an age she would have reached in December. But the truth about Russia or the latest bad flavour isn’t important.
Darya Dugina was not an innocent. Aleksandr Dugin is not ‘Putin’s Brain’. Dugin is not an ally or even a supporter of VVP, he has been a vocal critic and attention seeking voice for conflict escalation. Darya is a product of her Father, in every sense. She rode on his coat tails in MSU as a student and got work in journalism thanks to him. She was his pet, his Golden Child and acolyte. Her murder is senseless and only useful for prolonging the suffering in Ukraine. For the ‘sins’ of her Father and her own activities she has paid with her life.