The Slumber of Europe, or Why Putin Was Allowed to Become the New Hitler
In Look Who’s Back (Er ist wieder da, literally He Is Here Again), a 2012 satirical novel by Timur Vermes adapted into a film in 2015, Adolf Hitler, considered dead since 1945, mysteriously awakens in the 21st-century Berlin to find himself in a world that is strange and familiar at the same time.
The world has changed, but for him it’s not a reason to renounce his plans and ideas. He views new technologies as useful tools for spreading his message. No one takes him seriously; he is looked upon as a comedian and soon becomes popular on TV and YouTube. He is attacked by Neo-Nazis who believe he’s just a poor parody of their Führer, which makes him even more popular with free speech activists. And so the message goes far and wide.
The Timur Vermes’s Hitler uncannily reminds me of someone. Vladimir Putin. He, too, seems to be stuck in the past. The modern world is alien to him, and he believes it must be transformed according to his vision. He is convinced of his exceptional mission. Providence, he seems to believe, has chosen him to lead his people to global domination.
Putin, too, used television and other mass media to spread his message and to thoroughly wash the brains of his compatriots and those in other countries who were willing to listen. And, indeed, many were willing to listen considering him funny, like an awkward stand-up comedian satirizing modern society with a poker face so that no one really knows when he’s really serious or which side he’s really on.
Some far-right activists feel attracted to him, seeing in him their new hope, the New Führer who would put an end to capitalist and leftist hegemony, while others think he’s but a miserable parody of Hitler. And, ridiculously, many a stray sheep do regard him as a free speech champion — just look how many Western alt-rights, conspiracy theorists and other Querdenker found refuge on VK.com, a FSB-controlled rival of Facebook.
Intoxicated with his success, confident about his greatness and the righteousness of his cause, Putin then went full 1939, bringing terror and destruction, showing no quarter, ordering murder, rape and looting — all for reaching his perverted goals.
Paradoxically, this reawakening — or reincarnation, if you please — of the previous century’s greatest evil became possible because Europe fell asleep. And this slumber has three major symptoms:
1. Short memory. They say time heals, but it also makes memories fade away. World War II was so long ago and there are so few survivors left that many in the West forgot how and why it started and what it led to. History books and movies are perceived as no more than sentimental stories from some faraway world that can’t happen here and now. Neo-Nazi marches take place in Berlin and Dresden under the banner of free speech. After all, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it’s about one nation’s superiority over others; what could possibly go wrong?
2. Complacency. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Europe, lulled by Francis Fukuyama’s promise of the end of history (although Fukuyama did not actually claim that history ended everywhere and there’s no risk of backslides and new wars), seemingly decided that the political question had been solved once and for all and we now could focus on other things. Sure, climate change and LGBT rights are also political, but it’s kind of smaller politics that is about finding even better liberal world, changing things we were doing wrong or inefficiently without changing the political system as such.
3. Self-focus. Europe has been exceedingly focused on its internal issues while ignoring what has been going on outside of its comfortable cocoon. Sure, we will accept refugees fleeing wars and bloody dictators, but we will not interfere — after all, the dictators and their supporters have their own reasoning and are also entitled to their opinions. Moreover, let’s allow the dictators spread their propaganda in Europe, too, — aren’t we committed to free speech? Most Europeans don’t really try to understand why other countries aren’t concerned with the problems they deem important. Neither do they perceive any threat from the outside even when the beast has awakened and now tries to impose its own rules and establish its new world order.
Will Europe be able to broaden its perspective — both spatial and temporal? Will it finally awaken? What else should the New Hitler do for it to happen?