Because the feminists have attacked the centre of Russia’s political power, it did not meet the resistance they merited

By DMITRY KOSYREV / Pic By BLOOMBERG

Only four months ago I wrote a proud column at https://themalaysianreserve.com/2017/11/29/sex-and-the-nation/, essentially proclaiming the Russian society is immune from that particularly nasty (as in “aggressive”) brand of feminism.

The one that destroys men’s careers, expecting and meeting no open resistance.

Now my optimism is slightly deflated. Because the feminists have attacked the centre of Russia’s political power, it did not meet the resistance they merited. In fact, their attack fizzled out purely by chance. They might be sitting somewhere now and nodding their heads: It was a good raid, now we know their typical reaction and the breaches in their defences.

A proper target in such cases must always be a powerful, full-blooded man known for shrugging off threats and dangers.

So that man has been found, namely Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament.

He was accused of “sexual harassment” by a group of young, frail-looking, vulnerable lady reporters, covering the Parliament. To note, all the ladies belong to the Opposition media. Well, all Russian media seem to be in the Opposition, but some are more oppositionist than the others.

The scandal went no further than the Parliament’s Ethics Commission. It has established the obvious — absence of proof. And then all the nationwide discussion ended. But, not by itself.

Along came a bizarre scandal with Great Britain, where the prime minister accused Russia (as a state and as a nation) of poisoning a Russian double agent who was previously pardoned by Moscow and given out to its British handlers. And then, there was a horrible fire in a shopping mall in a Siberian city of Kemerovo, with more than 60 casualties. So, the previous scandal had simply been drowned by two fresh ones.

A couple of days ago, I was sitting with some political-minded friends discussing the problem. We’ve all agreed that the feminists would strike again — they always do. And the national response to their recent action was not encouraging at all.

The nation shrugged it off. There were predictable jokes about that matter in all the comedy shows. There was awareness of the political aspects of the situation. But generally most people didn’t care, being too willing to share my own recent conviction, that the nation’s immune to feminism and other Western technologies of ruining societies.

But, we noted that the public failed to ask the obvious question: Where is the proof? The same public immediately did it in the case of the British poisoning, while it was not so with the aborted sex scandal. Maybe, people always think that when it’s about sex — not foreign policy — there is no smoke without fire.

But, was there any fire? Too few people bothered to notice that the ladies’ accusations were not accusations at all. Harassment presumes dependence, like in a boss pressing his (or hers, by the way) employee into something unpleasant. Nothing like that was present in the “parliamentary case”. There was simply nothing to accuse about, even if the accusations were true.

What should have been done? First, the ladies should have answered for their unsubstantiated allegations. We cannot achieve it in the case with Great Britain, maybe, but the laws of any country presume some form of responsibility for willing, or even unwilling, disinformation.

By the way, the trick of the feminists in the West is often in outskirting the law and relying on things like boycotts, instead.

Second, our and any other society have to be ready and prepared for any future feminist attacks. That means knowledge. It means an ability to locate the head of the snake, instead of chasing its tail. There must be an organisation to accumulate information about the problem.

The head of the snake is usually some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), spreading hatred between women and men, and recruiting ladies with past grievances to galvanise others. We are, in fact, talking about an international network of such NGOs, propagating a very peculiar and uniform ideology, with its own system of funding. It’s always useful to see who does the funding and why, and who produces the ideas.

Third: Such networks, at a certain moment, are being capped by an international organisation, promoting yet another “global norm”. It may lobby for an international agreement, to be signed by a lot of governments. United Nations or other still-respected organisations often provide an umbrella for such activities. It’s important to have a very, very careful look at such standard tactics, and see what’s beyond it.

In our case there is already an idea, circulating around the world, to develop a global pact against harassment at the workplace. A perfectly positive idea, that. They all are, you know. That, too, is a part of standard tactics of extremists — to mix legitimate and obviously good ideas with their venom.

• Dmitry Kosyrev is an author of 8 novels and a book of short stories as well as a columnist for 2 Moscow publications. Orientalist by education (Moscow University), he has a special love for Malaysia.