END OF THE WORLD MIGHT'VE BEEN NEARER THAN WE THOUGHT
Pretty tight sphere
Maybe you've seen the documentary The Man Who Saved the World about the Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov who allegedly prevented a nuclear disaster after Soviets panicked when they got a false nuclear alarm call in september 1983. Okay, maybe this incident has been blown up (sorry...) somewhat for filmic reasons. If not we can't ask colonel Petrov anymore because sadly he died in 2017. So we should ask another protagonist when not under wodka. But that's not the point, the documentary captures well the sphere in militaristic circles of that time and that was pretty tight. The end of the world was close but funnily it was as in the movies where they say:
... it never happened and that's why I'm writing about it now. Still, was it that better? Hum... it's not that the Russians were or are such darlings but personally I prefer communists with their psychological warfare over a bunch of fundamentalistic madmen who are shredding themselves and your favourite discotheque (yeah I'm a bit old-fashioned) into pieces just when you think you're a polar bear at the cold North Pole.
Grauzone - Eisbär (remastered)
"There's a bomb under the table"
... it never happened and that's why I'm writing about it now. Still, was it that better? Hum... it's not that the Russians were or are such darlings but personally I prefer communists with their psychological warfare over a bunch of fundamentalistic madmen who are shredding themselves and your favourite discotheque (yeah I'm a bit old-fashioned) into pieces just when you think you're a polar bear at the cold North Pole.
And then, obviously, you can not weep anymore... I mean that goes from icecold to burning hot in a few seconds and honestly... no one will benefit from such an act. Some do ages to come to that understanding, others just use their logical natural reasoning. It's true, I oversimplify these things and for many it's not as playful as I want my words to be. Far off in fact, there's a lot of misery, hidden or not, we all know that but that's not what I want to say. I started to say things used to be better. And I wanted to add... 'in espionage times'. Again not everyone will agree to that and maybe on second thought I don't fully agree anymore either.
Espionage never ended
Because what I realise now is: espionage times never ended - it just evolved - and cold war is what we're sitting in right at this moment. It's just that most of us are not being aware of it. I don't know if this will become clearer in future but one can say the dazzling trick of governments worked well because few have noticed what's really going on... Foreign jet fighters still cross other national borders in a provoking game. The teasing continues and there are some new competitors that try to profile themselves in today's cold war. Rockets are back in style. So I ask myself who will become the new Petrov?
Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov in 1999 © Juliet Butler
In the new documentary he will most probably be an underground internet hero that has prevented a state from undergoing a lethal hacking attack. No need to ask in fact, because such a movie might have already been made and analogous stories will be made in future although they will not be a mainstream succes or else the blinding trick would fail. It's not that sources come out that easily, it's more - like I said - that things go faster now. Anyway still nothing can compare to the dark eighties espionage movies. So yes, to answer my own question, it used to be better now! Enough written, I'll end with something I don't question and that is polar bears DO weep. Yet that's another alarming cold-hot issue...
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• The Man Who Saved the World (2013, Statement Film, Denmark)
☆ Directed by Peter Anthony. Starring Stanislav Petrov, Kevin Costner, Nataliya Vdovina and Sergey Schnyryov
☆ Awarded eight times and nominated seven times at festivals around the world
www.themanwhosavedtheworldmovie.com
15.02.2018
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