By David Cohen*
Opinion - Civic leaders, academic pundits, Defence Force brass and journalists in New Zealand have all figured prominently in the latest 'Russophobic Awards'.
Photo: 123RF
Thirty-two winners were announced over the weekend by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The recipients were honoured - at fairly hasty notice, it would appear - for what the organisers described as their noteworthy criticisms of Russia over the months since the superpower invaded Ukraine.
Many of the people on The List sounded genuinely perky about the accolade. In Auckland, the political commentator Matthew Hooton hailed his own award it as an "invitation to a great long lunch".
In Tasman, city councillor Matt Lawrey thanked the Russian ministry for having "taken notice of the good things we've been doing in Nelson-Whakatū to support the people of Ukraine".
News of the award had left him and other local government recipients "quietly chuffed", Lawrey said.
On the other hand, he made it clear that he was not happy about the suggestion he was Russophobic, adding that he loved the people of Russia.
Other recipients, such as Massey University's James Hollings, TVNZ's Whena Owen and Josie Pagani from ZB, appeared to be still digesting the news that they're on The List as well.
Also on the mayoral front, civic leaders from each of the main centres picked up a coveted gong.
In a surprising move, the judges even included Wellington councillor Nicola Young as another of those with an "indefinite" ban from entering the Russian Federation.
In its statement, Moscow said The List would continue to be updated.
Critics might say a significant opportunity was missed by the Russian convenors themselves for not having given themselves some kind of a special award for rather shooting themselves in the foot.
To be sure, Russophobia is a real thing in the world today, as much as when the term was first coined in the 19th century to denote an intense and irrational dislike of all things Russian.
In 1836, a couple of decades after Russia and Britain fell out, the Westminster Review attributed the growth of British navy to "ministers [that] are smitten with the epidemic disease of Russo-phobia". In recent years, the term has been expanded to include the former Soviet Union and its former republics, presumably including Ukraine.
Leaving aside the obvious question of whether the Russian army is therefore Russophobic for having dropped an untold number of bombs on or around Kyiv over recent months, there certainly is - in all seriousness - plenty of evidence for the prejudice elsewhere in the Western culture.
In crime yarns and thrillers, Russians are frequently depicted as the eternal villains.
On the political front, the old "reds under the beds" trope used to be more or less a byword for all things Russian. Or at least it was before the Trump era and endless stories of "collusion" between the last Washington administration and Moscow saw it tweaked a little to something more like "reds under the feds".
In both cases, the assumption has been that Russia not only enjoys a tremendous influence on countries far away, but possesses an amazingly nuanced understanding of how these places tick.
Yet nothing could have undermined either of those tropes quite as effectively as the convenors of the recent 'Russophobic Awards' themselves.
Say what one will of any of their Kiwi nominees, nobody with the faintest knowledge of New Zealand culture would describe any of them as a dead ringer for the late Senator Joe McCarthy.
It makes you wonder. Who is writing the cables for the Russian embassy these days? He or she really deserves the biggest prize of all - perhaps an all-expenses-paid one-way trip somewhere far away from the New Zealand capital they appear to know so little about.
*David Cohen is a Wellington author and journalist.