At some point, a certain narrative style became popular in European cinema: telling in the film not one story, but several - as if different and with different characters, but invisibly interconnected. “Bitch-love” by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, “Four Rooms” by Tarantino and even “Two in One” by Kira Muratova - with the subsequent development of these ideas in the epic “Cloud Atlas” by Tom Tykvera and the Wachowski brothers.
All of them, telling short stories, leave the viewer a space for comparison, drawing parallels and understanding the diversity and at the same time the sly intertwining of our reality. Let us and we will play this game - we will tell two stories, one of which, most likely, has long been painfully familiar to you.
So, a former employee of the Soviet and Russian special services lives in a small English town, a traitor who has already served a sentence for his treachery in Russia, and then was exchanged and quietly lived out his days in the UK. And even, according to some sources, he fully supported the current president of the Russian Federation and his policies. Suddenly, a former agent is being poisoned by something. Something that the British side identifies as a terrible poisonous substance developed by the Russians, a drop of which can kill several thousand people. But for some reason, the defector remains alive (although it is impossible to say with confidence - they don’t show him to anyone). There is no direct evidence of participation in this whole Russian side, but the whole world knows that the Russians are to blame.
Now the second story, which happened just the other day. The journalist, the former editor-in-chief of Al Arabiya News, who now lives in exile in the United States and criticizes the government of Saudi Arabia, in particular the de facto ruler of the country, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappears without a trace in Istanbul. Disappears after entering the embassy of the Saudis. Before going there, he instructs his bride what to do if he does not come out for a long time. Actually, he needs to go to the embassy precisely in order to finalize his relationship with the bride, making her his lawful wife, and for this to get the necessary papers.
No one saw the journalist leave the embassy, although his staff assured the press of the opposite. In any case, there is no proof of their words, although they could be easily confirmed, for example, by recordings from surveillance cameras. On the day of the disappearance, a group of 15 people arrived in Istanbul from Saudi Arabia - they enter the embassy immediately after the journalist. On the fourth day after the incident, Reuters employees are admitted to the embassy to make sure that their missing colleagues are not inside.
The Turkish authorities immediately make an eerie, but truth-like assumption: the journalist was killed and dismembered inside the embassy, and the remains were taken out by the same 15 unknown persons.
Let us stop and rethink all this again. 2018 The capital of the country is a member of NATO and, in the opinion of many, one of the most Europeanized countries in the Middle East. The man disappears - a journalist, columnist for The Washington Post and other world famous publications. Most likely, he was killed (!), Possibly dismembered (!!!) on the territory of a diplomatic mission of another state. States to which the United States not only does not apply sanctions, but even, on the contrary, happily sell him weapons for record amounts.
What do you think, which of these two stories takes up more information space, more newspaper space and TV broadcasts: the first, which happened seven months ago, or the second, very fresh, last week? What has become more destructive for a country that is accused of what happened? I think you know the answer. This is despite the fact that in the second story, in contrast to the first, all three components of the crime are evident - as in the textbook: motive, means, possibility.
Jamal Hashukji (and so is the name of the missing journalist - until the murder is confirmed, we will talk about it in the present tense) is not an angel. In addition to the dissident attitude towards his government, he is known for his anti-Russian views, as well as for the support of disgraced Mohammed bin Naif Al Saud, the former crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who resigned from the ministerial post when King Salman made his son Mohammed bin Salman . What doesn’t negate the fact: the disappearance of a journalist, a lawyer of freedom of speech, the author of the most “democratic” media, is conditionally occupied by the Western world far less than the very muddy story of the unchallenged defector, whose perpetrators are completely unclear.
In response to a recent statement by the authorities of the Netherlands about the extradition of citizens of the Russian Federation accused of espionage, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that their actions are "disrespect for the global values and rules that allow us to safely exist." Literally, the British court recognized the existence of a secret directive allowing MI5 internal intelligence agents to commit serious crimes in the country. This is the third story, which, however, in the best traditions of independent cinema, intertwines with the other two in a very clear pattern. It shows what happens when “global values and rules” cease to be values and rules, the same for all, and become an instrument of punishment for unwanted.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.