“WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN . . . ?”
Vladimir Putin and his generals are said to be running short of able-bodied young bucks – “real men” – to send into the meatgrinder that the war in Ukraine has become. The fact that these one-minute recruiting ads have started appearing on Russian television and on various pro-government websites suggests that may well be true. You can view some of these ads for yourself on You Tube.
Below are a couple of screen captures from one of the recruitment videos. The first is the opening scene. As you can see, it shows a vigilant-looking young warrior in full combat gear. He’s standing on-guard in the fruits-and-vegetables aisle of a dimly lit supermarket. It’s hard to tell, but behind him that could be the meat counter, and that could be a butcher who’s selling sausages to the lady with the shopping cart. However, it would be cynical on my part to suggest that, and who’s to say what’s really going on back there? What is more certain is what’s happening in the foreground.
When you watch this particular ad, you’ll see the young warrior morph into a no-less vigilant-looking young civilian volunteer who’s clad in service-worker garb. While he’s standing in the same spot as the soldier, he’s armed only with what looks like a club and not an assault rifle. Despite this, like his counterpart, this virile lad has struck a pensive “don’t mess with me” pose. After all, he’s stepped forward to answer Putin’s call to serve the Motherland and to protect Russia – and that supermarket – against any Ukrainian varmints who are foolish or crazy enough to launch a sneak attack on the fruits-and-vegetables or butcher counters of Russian supermarkets The message, of course, is that Russia is under attack. The reality is actually quite different, but never mind any of that.
The rest of the advertisement presents a series of scenes showing manly looking Russian men pumping iron, wielding heavy weapons, and doing all the stuff that “real men” do. None of that boring civilian stuff for these dudes.
The unfortunate reality is that the kind of recruiting ads these Russian recruitment ads is that they aren’t all that different from the same sort of ads we see on American television and on-line. The United States military spends $800 billion annually on new war machinery, and it needs a steady supply of volunteer recruits to operate these killing machines while putting their lives on the line in defence of their country. Come to think of, the underlying jingoistic message that’s being conveyed is the same sort of silliness that Donald Trump pushes at his rallies and with his “Make America Great Again” slogan. But that’s another story for another time. No matter. Here’s the thing about those Russian recruiting ads and Donald Trump’s sales pitch: both target gullible young males who have too much testosterone and are keen to show the world how manly and brave they are – although any young women who step forward certainly will not be turned away.
The recruiting ad sales pitch is as old as humanity, and it is every bit as empty. Watching those Russian recruiting ads summons to mind the baleful words of the classic song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Written by American folksinger Pete Seeger in 1955, it poses the question “Oh, when will they ever learn?”
Sadly, it’s unlikely “they” will ever do so. The times may change, and so does the world. But human nature is constant. As Seeger put it when he answered the question about where all the young men have gone: “They're all in uniform/ Oh, when will you ever learn?”