Eastern
Europe and Russia
When
the Soviet Union dissolved it left secret police and security
personnel suddenly on the outs and without paycheck. Given their
skill sets, for many, criminal behavior was the logical next step.
The party apparatchiks were often out of work too but some were
positioned to advantage. Prior to dissolution, national resources
such as oil were sold abroad and the profits fed into the soviet
system, keeping it alive. The producers shippers, managers etc; of
the natural resources were underpaid compared to their western
counterparts. Gorbachav attempted to maintain the system, shooting
for, in his words, a socialism something along the lines of the
Scandinavian countries. Clearly this would not do for the ambitious
and unscrupulous, who replaced Gorbachav with the alcohol-drenched
Yeltsin. His henchmen changed things in one
major respect: the producers continued to be underpaid; the products
continued to be sold abroad; but the profits were repatriated, into
the hands of those handy henchmen and cronies, creating the first
Russian billionaires and plummeting the greater population into
immediate penury.
The
general population survived, barely, in part by the established
practice of home gardening. The criminal class thrived, those who
weren't killed in the fierce competition, by following the oligarchic
example. Since the first wave had captured the national resources the
others had to content themselves with what was left, buying up
national industries at bargain basement rates, setting up protection
rackets, the shameful practice of trafficking in women, drugs, arms
and various other contraband. The protection rackets actually had a
positive side since normal law enforcement agencies were underfunded
and thus corrupt or incapable of action. The rackets would destroy
your business if you didn't pay but they would provide protection
from other predators if you did
pay. Even the government security people got into it, sometimes
actually backing up different criminal factions and fighting each
other.
The
first wave of diverting profits from national resources created the
widespread penury. The practice of funneling huge sums, via money
laundering, to safe havens abroad, insured that the penury would be
long-lasting, perhaps irreversible. The author describes this as the
largest capital flight in history.
In
his book, Misha Glenny cites several examples to represent the
criminality dominating the former empire. He opens with an instance
of violence seeping beyond the former Soviet empire, into Western
Europe, the blatant murder of a completely innocent British citizen,
a hit gone wrong. Then of a hugely successful 'don”, Ilya Pavlov,
who was assassinated in Bulgaria, his funeral attended by, his
praises sung by the cream of respectable society. Criminals may be
generally despised but highly successful criminals can buy a certain
respectability. In Ilya's case his success bought him U.S.
citizenship. But his “business acumen” also brought him a
sniper's bullet. This was the fate of many as wild west capitalism
unleashed a competition of the most ruthless for the exalted status
of billionaire. Like their counterparts in the so-called legitimate
world, the acquisition of great wealth seems to trigger addictive
behavior. Instead of using wealth to free their time to pursue a
personal or socially uplifting agenda, imagination fails and a
fixation sets in where there can never be enough money and never too
much ostentatious consumption.
Interestingly, for the
current stand-off in the Ukraine, Glenny spends a good bit of ink on
documenting the rise of Ukrainian criminals, their violent takeover
of the state, their fall from grace and the courageous citizens who
had organized their overthrow, the Orange Revolution, only to
fall into fragmented factionalism, leaving the oligarchy to move in
and assert control. One thing can be said about the crisis today: it
is not about democracy, it is not the left fomenting dissent; it is a
struggle of various right-leaning parties, oligarchs and criminals
(not always easy to distinguish) vying for a piece of control, with
probable meddling by the don of dons, the U.S.
Putin comes out of a KGB
background and though he is more or less willing to live and let live
with the Russian Mafia, he has surprised many with his crackdown on
some elements of the oligarchy. Before one swallows U.S. government
highly selective outrage over violation of national sovereignty one
should keep in mind that the U.S. itself has invaded and continues to
occupy two countries and blindly supports the brutal Israeli
occupation and the Honduran coup.
The southern Ukraine, the
Crimera, is heavily Russian, with important Black Sea port facilities
that it would be naïve to think they would simply allow a hostile
power to take. Think of the hysteria the U.S. exhibits over the tiny
island of Cuba when it fails to bow to corporate rule. And according
to some, Putin of course but also others, the Ukrainian overthrow of
an elected government is heavily populated by fascists. Why would the
U.S. throw its support their way? Is this where we say, they who
ignore the past are condemned to repeat it? I mean our government
supported the Taliban and what became Al qaeda which resulted in a
little blowback there. I suppose it's always the 1%'s knee-jerk
response when given the choice between fascism, or independence, and
anything not hysterically pro-capitalist – they'll take any flavor
so long as its “free market” every time.
Israel
Glenny obviously has
roots in the area he is reporting on. He outlines the complexity of
the various criminal factions and personalities in the former Soviet
Union and then jumps to Israel. Once the empire collapsed many
Russian Jews, and some who only claimed to be, capitalized on the
availability of unquestioned Israeli citizenship for Jews. This was a
ticket into Western Europe. Among these new “citizens” were
members of Yeltsin's inner circle. As many as a million Russians
immigrated to Israel between 1990 and 2000, So many from a similar
background of course were drawn to each other, setting up a Russian
China Town within Israel, a sector that felt itself superior
to Israeli culture, identifying more with Europe and Mother Russia
than with Israel. An Israel police official remarked, if only 1% of a
million immigrants are criminals we have a major problem. There's
that miserable 1% again. One estimate is that 1% of the world's
population are sociopaths. Not they they necessarily congregate in
the economic 1%. They more probably are dispersed across all classes
and make their mischief at every level.
A horrifying example of
trafficking from this section was the practice of enticing young
women into the country with attractive offers of high paid employment
and adventure as au pairs or waitresses. Once in the hands of the
criminals the victims found themselves forced into prostitution,
virtual sex slaves. They were also forced at gunpoint to call their
former friends back home to sell them on the scam. When one of these
women got herself free and went to the police she might find herself
in the hands of a client of her brothel and promptly returned, then
beaten. But she might get lucky and only get put in detention while
her deportation is processed. Then when she gets home she's afraid to
contact her family because the traffickers might find her. And
chances are she is now HIV positive. Traffickers, in my mind, have
reservations in the lower rungs of hades, right next to the
torture-masters.
Israel became a center
for money laundering in the 90s, part of the capital flight out of
Russia. Other centers were Switzerland and Cyprus. International
deregulation of finance, part of the conservative love affair with
privatization, made all this quite easy.
South
Asia, Dubai, Africa, South America et al.
Glenny
goes on, in similar detail, to describe how criminal organizations
came of age in India, contributing to religious intolerance and
violence. We go on to Dubai, headquarters of one of India's most
notorious criminals, Dawood Ibrahim, getting a tour of the monied
city state. Dubai boasts 7 star hotels, the highest building in the
world, home office for many criminal chiefs and a
hear-no-see-no-smell-no
legal and financial system that lubricates their transactions. From
here Glenny takes us on a tour of Africa, Asia and South America,
revealing the overlap of legitimate and appalling criminal activities
and the interaction with politics, ideology and terrorism. The world,
as Glenny sketches it, is populated by a desperate poverty that
grinds down the meek and rewards the ruthless. Occasional
inspirationally courageous and honest persons stand up to a
corruption that threatens to engulf humanity in its sociopathic wake.
The obstacle that an obsessive allegiance to profit by the legitimate
business community poses for our survival, is joined by a perhaps
even more difficult one, guided by that same obsession, laid out in
fascinating detail by Misha Glenny's McMafia.
