Thursday, March 12, 2015

Image and Reality

Image and Reality: Russia, Ukraine and Yoga

The typical American version of Russia has more to do with cartoons and spy movies. I remember when I was a kid the cold war was on. My favorite cartoon show was called "Rocky and Bullwinkle," about a moose and a flying squirrel. The villains, of course, were Russian spies: Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. This was back in the 1960s.

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Nationalist stereotypes are used to reinforce prejudice and to create a bogeyman that threatens us from without. By promoting these stereotypes of "enemies" we encourage people to avoid questioning leaders and uniting to promote their own self-interest. So stereotypes die hard. The cartoon show was remade in 2000 with Robert DeNiro as Boris Badenov.

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Promoting Stereotypes

The Cold War lives on. During the Cold War, we saw images of Russia from action movies such as the James Bond.
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The Russian president is seen as a Bond villain in the media. The Bond franchise is still alive, promoting England as the savior of the world. But now we have Liam Neeson saving his daughter and wife from Russian terrorists and villains from the mafia.
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Here's a graphic representation of Russian stereotypes:
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Stereotypes are not reality, but a cartoon image. Reality is more complex than a cartoon, stranger than fiction. In fiction, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. We tie up loose ends in the plotline towards the end, and the hero completes his journey. Life is messier than fiction which is why we read novels to understand our reality better. So let's take a look at the reality in Russia and Ukraine. We return to the VedaLife Festival.

What I saw in Kiev, in Moscow, and in Saint Petersburg was a reality entirely distinct from the stereotypes that are blandly repeated and reinforced by thousands of retellings. The people I met didn't drink any vodka. They didn't smoke marijuana or sell drugs. They weren't members of organized Russian crime families.

The photos below are from VedaLife, Kiev. Kiev is in Ukraine. It is a different country from Russia. (I have to apologize to the humble people of Ukraine here for including them in the same breath as my comments on Russia; but from the American point of view there isn't any difference since they were all part of the USSR and so are included in the same stereotypes.)

Reality

The men I met weren't drunken or agressive. The women weren't promiscuous femme fatales. I met a group of sober but joyful young people on a path to truth. Here's a few photos.