Last
week, BBC Panorama shone a bright light on President Putin and
allegations of corruption against the Russian leader. At first the
programme focuses on Putin’s lifestyle - his expensive watches and
tracksuits - and quickly moves on to hearing journalists, former
allies and politicians dredge up old accusations: $40 billion in
assets and the Cape Idokopas palace. It notes that the CIA and the
FBI agree that Putin may be worth $40 billion in assets.
We’ve
heard much of this before. However, Panorama does flesh out its
coverage with new goodies for its viewers. The US Treasury’s Adam
Szubin makes an appearance to call Putin ‘corrupt’ provoking
outrage from Russia. There have been calls for evidence to be put
forward. It’s obvious the truth isn’t really the point here. The
US and Russia are at odds more so than ever. The crisis in Ukraine
and the Syrian civil war have brought tensions to the surface.
Of
course, this isn’t to say Vladimir Putin is beyond corruption. He’s
often described as presiding over a ‘Mafia state’, and with good
reason. The allegations against Putin are certainly plausible given
the state of Russia’s body politic, yet the more interesting
question may be why the BBC would take aim at Putin now. It’s not
like corruption and authoritarianism are new to Russia. No immaculate
figure could pass through the system and reach its heights. History
tells us all we need to know.
Rule
by excrement
Under
the Yeltsin administration, the level of corruption was so rife there
was an investigation into allegations of embezzlement of funds
through the refurbishment of the Kremlin. The coterie of oligarchs
around President Yeltsin - particularly Boris Berezovsky, Roman
Abramovich and Mikhail Khodorkovsky - brought in Putin as a new
weapon to be deployed against the investigators. Putin did a good job
in quashing the investigation. He was soon on track to succeed
Yeltsin and become the leader he is today.
This
background story is removed from most reportage. It’s particularly
inconvenient given the West’s love affair with Russian oligarchs.
The British media romanticises figures like Berezovsky and
Khodorkovsky. Both men are now portrayed as dissident critics of the
Putin regime. Evidently, the West still harbours nostalgia for the
Yeltsin era, when the Russian economy was prised wide open, and the
state was stripped bare of its regulatory powers. Never mind
corruption. Never mind the plight of Chechnya.
The
Panorama documentary shows us that the system is based upon patronage
throughout a state-embedded elite. This is far from the free-market
utopia, which was meant to emerge under Boris Yeltsin. Instead the
period of primitive accumulation created the basis, not for market
democracy, but for Russian nationalism to be rejuvenated. As a
consequence of Yeltsin’s rule, many Russians jokingly equate
democracy with rule by excrement. Shitocracy might be the word for it
in English.
The
best parts of the documentary provided some details of Putin’s
inner circle. It turns out Putin has maintained his team from St
Petersburg. This includes his old lawyer Dmitry Medvedev, who now
serves as Russia’s Prime Minister alongside President Putin. Even
neighbours and childhood friends have done very well for themselves.
Putin’s former assistant Igor Sechin, who now chairs Rosneft, and
economist Alexey Miller, now the head of Gazprom.
None
of this is very surprising. It’s compatible with the kind of
political system preferred by the former KGB agent. An admirer of the
conservative French strongman Charles de Gaulle, Putin believes in
the confluence of national and corporate interests. The idea being
that this guarantees capital will comply with the body national and
its needs. He thinks he can unite the powers of the state with the
economy. This leaves room for state intervention, protectionism and a
lot of corruption.
The
key difference between Yeltsin and Putin has set out to block the US
in its pursuits. While Yeltsin allowed the Soviet Union to be
dismantled, Putin clearly mourns the loss of the Eastern bloc as a
buffer region. NATO can no longer be kept away from Russia’s
periphery. The crisis in Ukraine emerged out of the tension between
NATO expansion and Russian nationalism. Now Putin has intervened in
Syria to challenge US policy on a new front. The BBC has clearly
taken sides, but this is nothing new.
The
role of the BBC
Much
like the New York Times, the BBC sets the contours of public debate
and its coverage becomes history. Contrary to the popular
misconception, the BBC does not have a left-wing bias and its
coverage really straddles the centre of politics. This is also
something the BBC has in common with the New York Times. It's
standpoint really oscillates around the so-called ‘centre-ground’.
Yet the corporation is as much constitutive of the centre, the left
and the right, as it channels the flow of discourse.
Although
the BBC hopes to stand as an impartial intersection, the truth is far
more complex. If the BBC wants to get both perspectives on a
political issue it usually asks a Conservative and a Labourite to
comment. This excludes everything beyond these tribal affiliations.
Programmes like Question Time and Newsnight become opportunities for
the political class to assert itself. Discussions can only take place
within the realm of certain assumptions.
Despite
the right-wing accusations of rampant ‘political-correctness’,
the BBC was the home of Jeremy Clarkson for many years and Nigel
Farage is a regular guest on Question Time. Many BBC journalists were
cheerleaders of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Famously, Andrew Marr was
eager to herald the vindication of Blair over Iraq. The same was true
over Syria. As David Cameron was pushing for bombing in 2013, the BBC
aired discussions with hawks Bernard Kouchner, David Aaronovitch and
Paul Wolfowitz. The only dissenting voice was Mehdi Hasan, a liberal
Muslim journalist.
However,
the pro-war bias is not consistent. With the rise of Islamic State,
Newsnight allowed Patrick Cockburn to talk freely about the Syrian
civil war, and he is far from an advocate of Western intervention.
Meanwhile the BBC has, for the most part, supported a narrative
around Ukraine favouring the US and the EU over Russia. You can
either support the West and its ‘values’, or you’re secretly
sympathetic to Russian aggression. Other positions are disregarded
from the outside.
‘Objectivity’
is based on the exclusion of particular viewpoints. There is no space
for inclusivity here. If you’re beyond the reach of conventional
opinion, you will be policed and demonised. For example, you could
only be for some kind of austerity and not against it outright. The
contours of official truths can only be perceived once you’ve
cleaved away everything else. This is only possible if the BBC is
partial. In this way, the BBC sets the agenda for the British media.
This is why it is both loved and loathed.
This article was first published at Souciant.
