In the meantime the Russians did gained much

While I attended a ceremony very simple but dignified in memory of Anna Politkovskaya, Russian journalist murdered "a courageous woman beyond all limits" in the words of its editor , I repensais to an another posthumous tribute to which I had participated in Moscow almost seventeen years. Unlike Anna Politkovskaya, Andrei Sakharov, the great scientist and human rights activist, had not been murdered and the ceremony in his memory seemed to mark a new era. A new page was opened, a page full of uncertainties, but also full of hope that the Russia become a "normal country".

It is probably this page that has to be finally turned with the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. What the small crowd of intellectuals meeting in Paris was the mourning was the hope of a different Russia. We were burying the collective dream of intellectuals and the Democrats for a Russia in which freedom and respect for the right would take root and bloom after a long and cold winter Soviet. The portraits of Anna Politkovskaya, as a multitude of mirrors, recalled us in a much darker reality. The dream was finished, he had no doubt at no point was feasible.

We are witnessing today a totally different story. The Russia is one of the first places on the international scene, she found power and influence by replacing nuclear weapons by the oil and gas, and fear with greed. The balance of terror of the Soviet era has given way to unilateral energy dependency for the Russia. With their enormous, Russian billionaires are buying lavish properties around the world and the Russia buying prominent Germans, like the former Chancellor Schröder, and perhaps the support of the Germany.

Although enormous differences between them, the post-Communist Russia and the Iran fundamentalist have much in common. Energy wealth gives them the feeling of a unique opportunity, the conviction that the time plays in their favour and they can now take their revenge on the humiliations have suffered them from the outside world. It is as if they were combining the culture of the humiliation of the Arab and Muslim world with hope of Asian culture. Both are marked by an arrogant nationalism and feel irresistible, so they have the impression that America is in decline because the Iraqi quagmire, not to speak of the Afghanistan.

Of course, the differences between the Russia and the Iran are enormous. The Iranian regime is a strong ideology and animated by the desire openly expressed to destroy Israel. It is not the overwhelming support of the population, except in so far as nationalism and the quest for nuclear power status. In contrast, the Russian regime is driven by money, not ideology. In his effort to rebuild the power and influence of the Russia on the geopolitical chessboard, President Putin has the support of the vast majority of the population. Its currency, "becoming rich and not to make noise", recalled the priorities of Guizot in the France of half of the 19th century, even if it is strongly "seasoned" for Imperial pride. As long as the oil money flows to flow, the majority of the Russians will not nostalgia for the democratic opening of the Yeltsin years, with their combination of chaos, corruption, weakness on the international scene and contempt for the State.

The Russians are so different from us, in the Western democracies, or democracy is a luxury that only old, stable, prosperous and satisfied companies can afford In their search for post-Soviet stability, the Russians seem reassured by Putin. It does not match Peter the great in terms of physical stature, but he shows gifted politician, able to capture and control the mood of the Russian people.

For the majority of Russians, economic prosperity and television have become the modern equivalent of the bread and the games of the time of the Romans. The war in Chechnya helps probably the moral degradation of the Russia in its overall and its frightening descent in a culture of violence. But it is also patriotism the people's desire for a restoration of the imperial status and the prestige of the Russia the Putin regime has shrewdly exploited.

In the meantime, the Russians did gained much. The multiplication of the assassinations of political opponents or economic rivals and Mafia crimes under contract practice cannot be considered as a sign of stability found; nor the manipulation by xenophobia Putin's regime against the citizens of the former Soviet Empire, as Georgians. The Russia may have regained its status of great power, but is it respected or even happy The Russia is rich, but the Russians, at least most of them, remain poor, with a life expectancy that is closer to Africa than to Western Europe. Eventually, they will have to recognize that the modern countries cannot prosper by power alone.