Russia launches patriotism drive

[frigidmagi]

BBC

The Russia government has approved a plan to make people more patriotic.

The $17m programme will urge youths to mark military victories, and will fund the re-introduction of military-style games in schools.

There will also be healthy lessons in the curious subject of "correct reproductive behaviour" - Kremlin-speak for patriotic sex education.

Boosting patriotism is one of President Vladimir Putin's priorities but it is unclear if the move will achieve that.

The Soviet Union may have been short on freedom and democracy, but the one thing it had plenty of was patriotism.

For decades, one-sixth of the world's land surface was adorned with hammers, sickles and busts of Lenin.

The country echoed to the sound of spectacular military parades on Moscow's Red Square.


Vladimir Putin has a patriotic five-year plan
It all went some way to make up for the sausage queues and the rusty Lada cars, and help persuade the population they were part of a superpower.

Until, of course, the USSR fell apart, and the patriotic bubble burst.

Now, though, the Russian government has decided to restore lost pride with something very Soviet - a five-year plan.

Bearing the grand title The State Programme for the Patriotic Education of Citizens, it quadruples government spending on patriotic projects.

There will be more flags, more CDs with the national anthem, more computer games celebrating the might of the Russian army.

'Spiritual backbone'

There are plans to organise patriotic song contests and competitions for Patriot of the Year.

Soviet-style military training will be reintroduced into schools.

And to improve the moral standing of the young generation, there will be lessons in "correct reproductive behaviour".

The plan aims to make patriotism the "spiritual backbone" of Russia and is designed to "counter attempts in the media at discrediting patriotic ideas".

The Kremlin sees the measures as vital for preserving national unity and state security.

It is unclear, though, whether this particular programme will achieve that - after all, money alone can't buy love for the motherland.

Patroitism... A tough thing to kill or grow. It doesn't spring from any goverment program or order, it grows only where it will. If Putin wants Patroitic Russians, I think his best bet is to give them something to cheer about, give them a nation that they can point to proudly.

[Mayabird]

I just want to know what the hell "correct reproductive behavior" actually means. It sounds like it'll be "REPRODUCE FOR THE MOTHERLAND!" with admonitions against homosexuality.

[frigidmagi]

My bet is that it means no sex until marriage (it is not widely known but Putin is very much an Eastern Orthodox) and when you do get married (to a girl if you're a guy, to a guy if you're a girl, no other formula allowed) ladies are to pop out as many kids as possible... For the Rodina.

On the one hand, Russia's birthrate is such that in 4 or 5 generations there could be no Russians. On the other hand, prehaps if Russia wasn't a depressing place to live with little hope of improvement women wouldn't feel that it was foolish to have childern (an interesting note, in the 1970s the USSR had one of the highest aborption rates in the world, the high rate as dropped but continues to this day).

I figure anti-aborption stands also to take place. I'm luke-warm about that because my feeling is if you behaved as an adult odds are high against you actually needing one anyways (condoms, pills, fucking patches... just pick one!)

[Mayabird]

It's very difficult to get any sort of birth control in Russia, but very easy (and cheap) to get abortions. The abortion rate would probably drop rapidly if people could get easier access to condoms, pills, or whatever. Still, it wouldn't solve their demographic problem, which would actually be even worse if they weren't leeching populations off many of the former Soviet -stans.

[frigidmagi]

Most of the problems would correct themselves if the Russian economy was allowed to recover.