Why Is Accounting Firm KPMG Funding Putin’s Version of Hitler Youth?
“…Russian democracy activists have likened (Kremlin-funded youth summer camp called “Selinger” ) to the Hitler-Jugend”
“Selinger had the youths take photographs of the faces of the most well-known democracy activists …. They then put the faces on pikes, and topped them off with Nazi hats.”
Sounds like they both argue against each other using “reductio ad hitlerum.” Do not we see the same debates here at much higher level (e.g. MSNBC comparing Bush to Hitler?) What is so unusual about it?
It is easy to label someone as racist (e.g. liberals label Tea Party as racist.) We should expect that such ‘debates’ go on in Russia as well. But could we take such labels seriously? I think not. Here is wiki on nashi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashi_(youth_movement)
Here is a paragraph about their goals:
“Walking Together leader Vasily Yakemenko said in 2005 that the goal of the new movement is to put an end to the “anti-Fatherland union of oligarchs, anti-Semites, Nazis, and liberals.”
They are Russian nationalists, but are they racist?
” Nashi organizes voluntary work in orphanages and old people’s homes, and helps restore churches and war memorials. It also pickets shops accused of selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors, and campaigns against racial intolerance.”
It looks like the group as whole is anti-racist and that is part of their agenda to fight with the new racism emerged after fall of Soviet Union.
So, Kim why is “Nashi” racist any more than Tea Party is racist? Do you have any proof that they are actually racist? Or being “Russian patriot,” that is believing in special role of Russia means to be a racist? If so then anyone who is US patriot, who believes in American exceptionalism is a racist by the same logic. Tea Party is racist, Ronald Reagan is a racist and most of us PJM readers are racists while the citizen of the world Obama who has deep seated hatred for white people is the light to the world similar to Dr. King.
So, Kim why is “Nashi” racist? If you do not have solid proof of it aside ‘common knowledge ammong Russian Democrats’ then correct your article. Or if you consider ‘common knowledge’ of one group as a solid basis for reporting then consider moving to MSNBC, CNN or Huffington Compost.
