Izvestia: "Just like in that old joke"
There's an old joke about a guy who goes to see a doctor because he's been having problems with his eyesight. His problem is that he sees a naked woman everywhere he looks. It turns out that his problem isn't in his eyes but in his mind ("but I see her all the time").
Russian liberals have similar problems, and they also don't realize it.
Here's a perfect example. The week before last the Public Opinion Fund (FOM) published approval ratings of government leaders. The results were immediately deemed "sensational". Sociologists found that the approval ratings of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dropped 6 percentage points in a week. Dmitry Medvedev's rating fell from 62% three weeks ago to 56% two weeks ago. Putin's rating fell from 72% to 66% over the course of a week.
Predictably, feisty statements started to surfaces, such as "the government is losing the people's trust", "the tandem is growing weaker", and "we want change". Articles and columns were written and interviews were given right and left. One "independent journalist" came up with a theory that approval for both men will soon be so low that the government will have to initiate liberal political reforms and restore political competition. The shackles will be thrown off. (I don't know which is more surprising: the fact that he wrote it or the fact that it was printed in what was once a respectable newspaper).
Alas, the glee was short-lived. Last Thursday FOM published new ratings. Medvedev's approval rating rose to 59% and Putin's to 70%.
I am not a sociologist, and so it's not for me to discuss what causes approval ratings to fluctuate. (All I know is that this is normal insofar as it is inevitable). But there's something else here that intrigues me.
First, it's the opposition that usually accuses the government of being too dependent on approval ratings. They dismiss the ratings as "bogus" and a "foregone conclusion". Now it's become clear that the opposition is far more dependent on ratings than the government. It's acting as if the FOM poll is a call to action. Approval ratings constantly go up and down two, three or even four percentage points, not to mention the statistical margin of error. One time they dropped by a full six percentage points and "everybody broke into a Russian-style hip-hop dance" (to quote the group Diskoteka Avaria).
Second, none of the "opposition experts" or "independent journalists" is rushing to comment on the latest rise in approval ratings. So are we still waiting for change or not? The public is left in the dark.
All joking aside, in the last two years our distraught liberals have interpreted the government's every action and remark as a harbinger of an approaching "thaw" if not a "perestroika", or at the very least a "split in the tandem". It's not their eyesight or hearing that's to blame. At least that's what they think. They immediately announce to their "comrades in arms" and then the public (via the press, blogs, etc.) that the long-awaited change is coming. Of course it soon becomes clear that their eyesight and hearing have failed them after all, and the exact opposite of what they claimed is what ultimately comes to pass. But by the time they are proved wrong, some new pretext to start dreaming about change pops up, and the liberals start to play it up. Alas, there is no doctor who could politely but forcefully explain to them that they have a problem. Not a problem with their hearing or eyesight. The problem, unfortunately, is in their heads, just like in that old joke.
Vitaly Ivanov
