The Thing About Russian Mobilization 2022

A Culture and Time that is Desperately Trying to Hold on to the Old:

I was watching the first episode of The Handmaiden's Tale for the first time yesterday and I couldn't help but relate it to the situation in Russia.

Fiction

For those who don't know what The Handmaiden's Tale is about: it is a story where a near-future America, a country with a dangerously low fertility rate, has come under the rule of a radically conservative and theocratic government.

As theocratic governments throughout the history of the world do, primarily target women, (present-day Iran and Afghanistan for example which are enforcing dress codes and education bans), in The Handmaiden's Tale too, the women become the government's primary target.

The highly fertile women are forced into prostitution and are called handmaidens. They are forced into an all-red uniform, with headgear, and are pushed through camps where they are trained to become proficient at obeying orders and having emotionless sex. After their dehumanization, they are sent from one house to the other to get impregnated by the man of the house.

The training camps look a lot like military barracks, and the handmaiden instructors carry themselves like Fullmetal Jacket's Sgt Hartman. They are asked to sacrifice their lives for the greater good and sent to obediently fulfill their duties.

The treatment of their lives in some ways resembles that of army recruits, and in other ways like pigs in a slaughterhouse.

Russian Connection

A part of the story revolves around the events that occur during the protagonist's abduction, where she is snatched from her husband and daughter and is forced to become this state-enforced prostitute.

The connection I am trying to establish here is a no-brainer, especially with what's going on in Russia. Putin has called for mobilization, that is, civilian men and reservists have been called to back their troops up in Ukraine. Men here are being snatched away from their families to become state-authorized murderers or suiciders.

Comparing fictitious state-enforced prostitution to men being asked to fight for their country in real life may seem like I am taking things a bit too far, but I can't help but notice a lot of similarities.

You see, the women who are made handmaidens in the show are only those who are fertile in a world where the fertility rates are terribly low and humans are on the brink of extinction. Sounds reasonable.

There is usually a sense of honor, courage, and pride that is attached to men who go to war for their country when called. But with the Russian mobilization, the "honor" factor is being put into question.

The question that is asked by many of the fleeing Russians and reluctant soldiers is:

• "Where is our country at the risk of invasion?"

• "Why are we being sent to fight for a territory that we have invaded?"

• "Why are we fighting Putin's war?"

It gets a bit troublesome when fiction starts to seem a bit more reasonable than real life. Russians being mobilized now is like handmaidens being forced into prostitution without there being a fertility problem. If the fertility problem is removed from the story, The Handmaiden's Tale collapses on its head.

The Cost of the Internet

For the common man, these wars have stopped making sense for a long time now. The boundaries that separate countries are slowly being questioned.

• Why are there boundary lines that separate countries?

• Who drew them?

• Who needs them to be maintained?

The internet and the connection it has established between people are making everyone realize that we are all similar in more ways than we are different. Off course, we are fighting to keep the differences alive, for it is in these differences that we bear our identity. For instance, to be an American means to not be a Mexican or a Canadian, or a communist. But what does being an American truly mean?

Killing our differences costs us our identity, but is our identity worth our lives?

Putin and all the world leaders are fighting the last fight to keep the old traditions of nationality, patriotism, and our differences/identity attached to this alive. This is not a war for survival, this is a war to save the old ideas of identity.

The Absence of (Traditional) Identity

Our identity is attached to regions, religions, nations, languages, cultures, professions, genders, and sexual orientations. As all these traditional lines are blurring we have started to come up with an extreme identity crisis which is causing us to redefine many aspects of our being.

The Russians are now being sent to almost certain death, which is not only stranger than fiction but is almost a mockery of the traditional values it is trying to keep. The Russian "men" are not given a choice but to fight for a leader who is basking in his narcissism.

By devoiding their men of choice, and a reason to defend their land and honor, this Russian war is making a mockery out of what it means to be a Russian man. How much of a man is a man if he has no choice to reason, but to simply bow his head down and obey?

Putin's mobilized men are being treated like handmaidens in one hand and dogs waiting in line in a slaughterhouse in the other. The final push toward traditional nationalism and patriotism in Russia is being devoid of pride and honor, will that make this story collapse on its head?

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