Ames: Jaded Russians hardly shaken by terror act

Compared to most of Russia's bloody and brutal 20th century, the last decade of so of Chechen terrorism in Russia has been a relatively peaceful period! Meanwhile, 10 years on, 9/11 still has us Americans frightened and on edge. Everything is relative, sure.

Nevertheless, a revival of our old-fashioned Western frontier stoicism might not be a bad thing.

Dead Souls: How Russians React to Terror

By Mark Ames
January 24, 2011 | Vanity Fair

It takes a lot to terrorize a Russian. Compared to the truly spectacular acts of terrorism and violence that Russians have suffered over the past two decades, today's suicide bombing at Moscow's busiest airport, Domodedovo, is too small-time to have much of an effect besides pissing off an already-pissed-off population.

Back in 2004, two passenger jets that took off from this same airport were blown out of the sky by Chechen "black widows"—Chechen women widowed by the brutal war with Russia, and turned into suicide bombers. Shortly after that double-Lockerbie airplane bombing, opposition leader Eduard Limonov explained to me what he thought was behind the logic: "They understood that Russians wouldn't be moved if only one plane was blown up, so they blew up two planes simultaneously, just to get our attention," he said. Limonov used to write about Russian hard-heartedness, the result of their brutal experience with Communism, followed by the nihilistic Yeltsin Era, when the average male's life expectancy plunged from 68 years to just 56, in a free-market Babylon of corruption, plunder, and violence.

At a Moscow rock festival in 2003, two Chechen suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gated entrance, killing more than a dozen people and wounding scores more. Nevertheless, the 40,000 concert-goers were neither frightened nor particularly bothered; the festival went on for another six hours of vodka-and-beer-soaked revelry. Previous bombings of the Moscow metro, buses, and airlines have had no effect on public transport usage or travel. When suicide bombers attacked the popular Egyptian resort at Sharm-el-Sheikh in the summer of 2005, killing 88, most Europeans panicked and canceled their trips to the resort area—but not Russians.

Several years ago, Limonov—Russia's most famous living writer and leader of the anti-Putin opposition with Garry Kasparov—wrote a column for my defunct Moscow newspaper, The eXile, about how desensitized Russians have become:

Russians have a healthy attitude towards literature. As barbarians they expect it to shake them, to shock them, to thrill them. As Lolita didn't shock them, they throw it away with a deep contempt. The fact is that Russians are very insensitive people, with a low level of sensitivity. In order to move, to touch them, one must hurt their sensitivity, to wound their stone-made Russian souls. That is the task not for literature, but for mass-murderers, for the rapists of children, for the civil war, for the Hitler's invasion. Russians were not moved by "White House" massacre of 1993, they were not touched by [Chechen guerrilla leader] Basayev's assault on Budyonnovsk in 1995. Mass-murderer Andrei Chikatilo have winned their interest, yes, indeed Russian punk band call itself "Chikatilo Blues." But Russians were not moved at all by old-fashioned seduction of intellectual Humbert Humbert by teenager Lolita, as it is no shock for them, no big deal.

Russian news sites are already reporting stories about how the notorious taxi mafia at Domodedovo is taking advantage of the chaos by charging as much as 20,000 rubles, or nearly $700, for the ride into the city center. In the immediate aftermath, the airport's incoming passengers weren't told about the bombing, and were led to another part of the airport to get their bags, unaware that they were walking through the scene of a gruesome terror act. Online bloggers and commentators are already complaining about airport corruption and lack of security, how the suicide bomber was allowed to walk into the "green zone" in the baggage claim area to maximize his kill count.

In 2004 at the same airport, it took only $200 in bribes to get the two Chechen suicide bombers onto the two airlines which they destroyed in mid-air.

As appalling as it might seem, let's remember what America's far more sentimental reaction to 9/11 got us: two disastrous wars, tens of thousands of deaths, and the sorts of police-state measures once thought unimaginable. The difference may be more in our sentimentality than in our brutality.

Mark Ames is a founding editor at eXiled Online, the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan's Workplace to Clinton's Columbine, and a co-author of The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.