The last Superhero

One would hope that each individual could take a look around and find inspiring role models close at hand. A spouse, parent, teacher, neighbour or friend. Look hard, they're probably there.

Looking further afield, and inspiring public figures seem to be disappearing. The sporting world in particular has shown itself to be a world where the greatest can turn into the absolute worst. Tiger Woods perhaps, Oscar Pistorious probably, and without a shadow of doubt Lance Armstrong. Public figures let everyone down, more so than just themselves.

As for politics, most people these days seem to start from the assumption that it is a dark art practiced by equally shady characters. The exception that massively proved the rule is Nelson Mandella.

Alas, Mandela couldn't live forever. If anyone could live forever, he'd be most people's pick. This wouldn't solely be on the basis of merit, but also for the fact that the world still needs a Mandella. 

The basic chronology tells us he was born in 1918, convicted on trumped up treason charges in 1964, released in 1990, and President of South Africa 1994-1999. 

Those are the elementary historical facts. The example he set is what set him apart. In describing all of that, it is a hurculean task not to be subjective. In this case however, all of the superlatives that could be used are mere adjectives which would come across as hagiography when applied to anyone else. The famous speech in court at the end of his trial reads like a summary manifesto of what every nation's society should be, topped off by the words "it is an ideal...for which I am prepared to die." In prison he stood up to oppression and for principle from day 1. 

When it came to forgiveness he led from the front. To his former prosecutor, whom Mandella visited after his release he said,  "you're looking very well". In his words, this approach was one of dominance of the brain over the heart. It sounds so obvious and yet how many of us have not heeded the lesson not to make emotional decisions? "I couldn't do that" in the hypothetical is contradicted by what one human being did after going through far worse than most of us ever will. 

The Truth and Reconciliation commission, led by the equally inspiring Archbishop Desmond Tutu, put this all into practice on a national scale. 

Ever the master of the grand gesture, his support for South Africa's rugby team during the World Cup, and wearing Springbok jersey did much to calm white minority jitters and make then feel included in the new country.

What will South Africa do without him?Many will feel lost without him, especially given the current politicians on the national scene. All they can do is try (harder) to emulate his example. The world, however, has lost its ultimate moral authority and conscience, and only his memory will remain to inspire a legacy. 

A legacy, in one sense, is what others do with it. It seems somewhat foolish to just wait for the next inspiring leader, though many are needed in many places.

So what can the individual do, to make some small impact?

In practical terms, in the everyday, how does and how can the example make a difference? Exercising forgiveness. Positive drive. Clarity of thought. Objectivity. Let's all try more of this, though as "normal people" there's a limit to what change we can bring about. Once upon a time, however, Nelson Mandella was also just an individual. He became the leader of a moral army, and in some ways is irreplaceable. Still, to the benefit of humanity and despite all of its ills, he leaves the world in a very much better state because of all he did and the example he set.

The closed Gate Heavenly of Peace

Another year, another anniversary of the events that, when pressed, the Chinese government describes as a "counter-revolutionary rebellion". 24 years on, the events of April-June 1989 in China, specifically Beijing and Tiananmen (gate of heavenly peace) Square, are officially resolved and not to be revisited. 

Despite, in terms of lives and damage to the national psyche, being far less costly than political campaigns such as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), it is currently perhaps the most taboo. While the narratives for those other tragedies have also been carefully crafted for the government's purposes, "6-4-1989" has set the tone for the political orientation of the government of China ever since it took place. 

Legacy

The influence of those events is everywhere, driving the official response to everything, including economic issues even if those are "unrelated". It has to be remembered that double-digit inflation served to underpin the events of the mid-late 80s. What it did however was serve to concentrate minds on the matter of corruption, exacerbating the dissatisfaction that brought. Certain contemporary features of the economy such as inflation are more vigorously tackled, "for the good of the country", as a result. 

Corruption is far less solvable in a system that seems taylor-made for it. The Tiananmen protests, often assigned the label "pro-democracy", were more an anti-corruption movement. Since none of the demanded changes of the various groups at the square were implemented whatsoever, it stands to reason corruption would still be a problem. More than "still" a problem, it has now become an intrinsic part of how China now functions: economic growth, followed by increased involvement of the state (albeit of a different nature than the "old days"), the increased sophistication of the digital age, and confidence that political accountability will barely increase all serve to encourage official misbehaviour.

Wealth inequality is among the worst in the world in China as a direct result also - it cannot be ascribed to just "capitalism" on its own. It is all now part of the Party's DNA, and only strengthens that other genetic feature of an unwillingness to contemplate any political change.

A rule of thumb is that if ever a dictatorship had a list of closed subjects, those would be the ones most in need of attention. The majority are caused by the system that perpetuates them, so discussing such problems is to discuss the validity of the system itself. The CCP has produced a handy list of 7 off-limits subjects, recently given to universities in China: universal values, press freedom, civil rights, judicial independence, the past mistakes of the Communist Party, economic neoliberalism, the wealth accumulated by top government officials, and civil society. Anyone writing "Dictatorship for Dummies" would do well to start there with chapter headings.  There is no way to fully remove the features of a one-party state without changing its nature as a state monopolized by that one party. 

It's the economy

In a sense, "communist" China, in order to maintain the political element of that ideology, has had to go very much against the economic principles of it. Anyone who has lived in China will among other things describe the people as the most materialistic they have ever met. Money is all that matters these days, and the sharpest of elbows are seen as the only attribute worth having. 

To go back to a time in China when this wasn't the case is to go back to the 1980s. It was a time when the country was between the lunacy of the Mao years and before those events leading to the current, greed-is-the-only-safe-mindset era. It is hard to know whether it is ironic or just plain tragic that the "people's government" now only continues having made it abundantly clear through the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police that the people have no place in deciding its future direction: A direction that involves the somewhat un-communist pursuit of wealth. Nothing else apparently matters, and straying into realms of "politics" and not sticking to "economics" became and is still actively discouraged. Repetition of heavily loaded terms such as "maintaining stability" and other verbal gymnastics serves to frequently reiterate that this is still the case. The hope is that this won't last, but the fear and likelihood is that it will.

Painted into a corner

One of a number of brushes that has painted the Party into a corner is nationalism - democracy now might be dangerous, say some government supporters while failing to acknowledge that it is the government's fault for whipping this up. Distraction of attention towards Japan's dark wartime past in particular - though the Opium Wars also get referred to as if they had happened yesterday - manifestly increased in the 90s. Anti-Japan protests take place with far less official hinderence than those that may threaten "stability". It's a much harder proposition to switch this off, however, and this consequence of Tiananmen has the potential to backfire one day.

Entrenched interests brought about by aforementioned corruption is another brush, probably the most significant one of all. Party infighting is very possible in response to any (unlikely) program for political reform, for purely selfish reasons on the part of individual officials rather than standing on a point of principle. One unfortunate thing that outsiders learn in China - slowly, out of a reluctance to believe it to be true - is that principle is in short supply. Government officials and the system they perpetuate lead by shameful example in this context. 

Any analysis of obstacles to change, such as the present one, do indeed start to find themselves gravitating towards that list of 7 features: both a set of hinderences to reform and concurrently reasons in favour of reform.

Unchange we can believe in

The more officially palatable reasons that no change is required stem from China being a special case, not suited to democracy. "National conditions" and an indirectly expressed myth of uniqueness entail not copying foreign ideas, starting from after the point at which inspiration was drawn from Marx and Lenin. The chaos that ensued in the former USSR is also a lesson that the CCP has learned, and is portrayed as the only outcome that awaits China if political change were to occur. While that is possible, it would be more likely if there were those who fought change at all costs, even past the point at which all would be objectively lost. 

Popular will for a new system

Is China a nation full of frustrated democrats? Not really, but that's not to say there isn't a silent majority that does not want change if it were an option not likely to bring about a 1989-style response. It cannot be viewed as a sign of national strength however that it is deemed in the interests of the party-state to imprison or banish those who speak in favour of a different political structure. Brittle rather strong is the most apt adjective that befits the Chinese state. 

A vague legal system and enforcement of it keeps opponents where the government wants them, but the same system stops the rest of country functioning in a way that would provide stability in its proper sense: both innovators and common people feel insecure that their ideas, land and taxation levels and even safety are at risk due to powerlessness. Once more that list of problems and the CCP stand diametrically opposed to one another.

Objectively, it could be argued that a time did exist when economic before political reform was wise, the problem is that by now that time has long since passed. A case was made with exactly that point in 1989. The CCP has stated that China isn't there "yet" for longer than many may remember, certainly since before Tiananmen took place. 24 years, a generation and an Internet later, the political stagnation continues. A few minor openings have appeared on weibo (microblogs in the style of Twitter, itself blocked in China) and frustration continues or has perhaps since exacerbated with some even addressing grievances to the White House's website.

The desire is certainly there in China for something to change, but not among those who could actually make it happen, many of whom insist on China being indefinitely unprepared for it.  Whether or not the CCP will ever bring it about, even when enough of those at the top believe that what is good for the country may not necessarily be good for the Party, is an open question. It is this question's quiet background existence that is the other present-day legacy of Tiananmen which the Party is continually trying to ward off. 

Many doubt however that any kind of recurrence of the 1989 movement, notwithstanding how unlikely that is, will lead to the Party relenting. Pulling the country down with it awaits, as every previous dynasty has traditionally done. A great many Chinese with an equally traditional tendency towards fatalism believe this to be inevitable. The Party, having presided over political stasis for the past quarter of a century has made this a certainty. 

Margaret

One of my favourite quotes attributed to Margaret Thatcher is one of her less famous: speaking to Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, a very different but no less spirited leader, she declared, "we may have our disagreements, but only when you're wrong, prime minister." For me, it sums her up far better than the more famous "u-turn" speech.
Conviction isn't a strong enough word for the force she put behind her statements ("now it's time to fight the real enemy, socialism"). This trait, admired even by those opposed to her politics, brought about such a shift in the political landscape that those same opponents have had to learn how to live with her legacy rather than try to affect a reversal. No Thatcher, no Blair.

Much of what Thatcher did in Britain was introduce a measure of common sense capitalism, an attempt to bring more of it to the level of the less wealthy individual. An example was turning many council housing tenants (basically renters of state-housing) into homeowners. Her background as daughter of a shopkeeper motivated much of this.
Those on the left would most likely counter that a legacy of such policies has just led to the rich getting richer and stagnation, or worse, for others. An economy which is top-heavy with (reckless) bankers and insurers is inherently unbalanced as the lessons of 2008 onwards have harshly taught the UK in particular.

Prior to Thatcher however, the trade unions were busy making everyones' lives worse. It's hard to imagine that secondary picketing - in essence a group of workers going on a strike in sympathy with a labour dispute that has nothing to do with them - used to be legal. Moves to restrict the unions and other measures are blamed by many for the loss of manufacturing, while others would contend the harm was done long beforehand: Thatcher in fact let a failing business fail, instead of throwing more money at it and merely delaying the inevitable. There's an argument that could be made for the coal mining industry having signed its own death warrant in 1974, when it brought down Edward Heath's conservative government.
Electricity generators subsequently deemed it wise to move away from such a heavy dependency on coal given the power cuts it caused at the time. When round 2 took place in 1984, in addition to having Thatcher's own toughness, she also had a stockpile of coal.

It was not only the National Union of Mineworkers leader (and as it turned out, dinosaur) Arthur Scargill who underestimated her. General Galtieri, military dictator of Argentina, made the same catastrophic blunder. Pragmatism was not going to stop her from sending a task force to the Falklands in 1982 to correct what to her more than anyone else was a black-and-white issue of right and wrong. Given that the military dictatorship subsequently fell, perhaps Margaret Thatcher could be called the Surrogate Mother of Argentine Democracy.

Thatcher perhaps even re-defined the word "polarizing". It is a rare British bird indeed that would describe him or herself as indifferent to Maggie. Singer Morrissey, for example, describes her as "a terror without an atom of humanity." While he and others of what some term the "loony left" (another phrase coined in that era) are literally celebrating Thatcher's passing, many are mourning a prime minister who "saved the country" and are now resorting to a measure of hagiography.
Creative destruction is how much of what she did seems a couple of decades later, many of whom on the losing side, however, have never got over it. The bitterness she still inspires comes from the perception that she was indifferent, even callous, to the suffering many of her policies caused.
On the economy, as with more or less every decision she ever made, she insisted there was no other way. Firmness is an admirable, and in her case a defining, trait. Yet to be unmoved on nearly every issue is to make that strength an eventual liability. Thatcher scores very low marks indeed when it comes to Nelson Mandela and South Africa. She was warned about being on the wrong side history (having labelled him a terrorist and being the only leader to oppose sanctions) even before his release, after which his true greatness was revealed.
On the subject of history, it was the main reference point for a great deal of Thatcherite foreign policy. Looking back instead of forward, a large swathe of the British population still, as she did, misidentifies Britain's true place and future direction in the wider world.
Just as she moved the goalposts in many other areas, she steadfastly did not when it came to shaping the European Union and Britain's place within it. Statements such as "the bells of Big Ben rang out over occupied Europe during the war" do not constitute a future-oriented policy, or any policy at all. Today's British Conservative party will not meaningfully look at this in large part just for the fact that Margaret did it. A couple of her personal characteristics, intransigence and unrealistic nostalgia, are to this day still stubbornly presented as political ideas.

It is one more thing therefore, that Thatcher personified: one's greatest strength also being one's greatest weakness. Fortunately she believed and existed in a democracy (indeed was a fierce opponent of communism and enjoyed heroine status in much of eastern Europe), for such a trait can end up doing harm if the public has no recourse. What ended her time in office was precisely the recognition by much of her party that she had been there too long. Years later she claimed she would have resigned shortly after winning a forth term. With the benefit of hindsight then, she had still been "right" about everything and eventually the public would have seen sense.

Does Thatcher's passing symbolize the end of an era of politicians who mean what they say and stand on principle? There don't seem to be many around these days. I find it strange that US Vice-President Joe Biden (yes, really) is labelled gaffe-prone merely for saying what's on his mind.
Of course, always taking a "principled stand" comes at the cost of going too far and not relenting even when advisable. Objectivity is useful in a politician, but then too much can lead to becoming a "perfectly lubricated weathervane" such as Mitt Romney.

Overall she was one of those politicians who from time to time are an omnipresence at home and the embodiment of her country abroad (Reagan comes to mind, Trudeau for Canada, De Gaulle, etc.). She both enjoyed the label "Iron Lady" and being likened to a headmistress - what's wrong with that she said. At home "no ordinary politician" might be about the only consensus statement that could exist to describe her.

Japan - probably the best country in the world

Loving to travel, my wife and I went to Japan (and Taiwan, another subject) recently. There for a grand total of 10 days, that is hardly sufficient to get to know a nation.

However, I've been around more than some: Grew up in the UK, studied German and French and lived on and off in both. I lived in China for 4 1/2 years ("how did I survive/ put up with it for so long?" is a common question of many former residents) and now I live in Canada.

I read a fair bit a bit about east Asia too, so to my reasonably well-trained eye, Japan made me notice in very fine detail many aspects which are (very generally) known to many. Most of my observations made it clear to me that Japan does nearly everything better than any other country you could name.

Orderliness might not be the sexiest sounding attribute of a country, but the ultra-intelligent and artful degree to which it has been taken in Japan provides the visitor with a continuous stream of deft touches that surprise only in terms of their depth.
Neatness and tidiness is more than a given. "Tell me when you see a piece of litter," I said to my wife after a few days there. Even construction sites were largely free of dust and clutter with bricks stacked and even sand in nice compact piles.
Then there's hygiene - a cafe having a little basket for its wash cloths on top of the fridge is one example. If it sits for a few minutes, bacteria will start to grow. Elsewhere, a cloth seems to be treated as something of a magic wand that only ever cleans surfaces and itself never gets dirty.

Sizes and portions of food might look small to many, however if eating slower and mindfully, you're getting what you need and no more. "Competitive sizing" on the other side of the Pacific is, if we're honest, a wasteful joke. Japan's example is proof too that national wealth need not lead to obesity. Mayor Bloomberg of New York's move to ban half litre drink sizes gains fresh perspective, though what the US might need to legislate for comes naturally to the Japanese. The restraint is merely cultural, the reflection of American culture was the fact that groups went to court over Bloomberg's initiative to force a reverse (citing for example "freedom" - most Americans who use this word today have no real understanding of the concept.)

Humans of a larger size (upward here, though of course outward too) would find themselves challenged too. The low door of my hotel room in Tokyo was only nose height (I'm 6'1). There were a few stairwells that had me doing a bad limbo dance on the way down, and one or two ventilation pipes I needed to crane my neck for. Then again, most days where I live now there's a low tree branch to deal with almost daily.
Nothing is wasted, especially floor space, and the same goes for ceilings. Who really needs a 10 foot ceiling at home? All it really does is generate extra revenue for the power generation companies.

The "human architecture" works in the same way. Out walking, everyone stays on the left. Everyone keeps up a good pace, and movement is wonderfully fluid. When I needed to stop and look at my map, I would check behind me and put up my hand if needing to stop.
While the population density is high, there is no need to worry in a crowd. I lived in mainland China, which suffers by comparison in this respect. There, one is constantly on edge, prepared to be jostled, elbowed and knocked off balance in return for no apology. The list doesn't end there, and the underlying reasons could generate an article three times the length of this one. Suffice to say, the argument that high population density makes all of that inevitable is rubbished by the example Japan sets.
While I never got to see the famous "train stuffers" on the Tokyo Metro, I personally always felt relaxed. Just keep moving, you'll be fine. Stay on the left on escalators. They are not an opportunity not to walk as frequently happens elsewhere, along with the "weirdo" look when you ask to get past (I'm looking at you, Canada).

Japan is of course famous for its bowing etiquette. Instead of dissecting the entire practice, two anecdotes offer good illustrations of its core essence. There's the man who dropped his bag, and bowed to the nearest lady to say sorry for "startling" her.
Then there's the tourist who, somewhat slowly buying train tickets just before 9 o'clock, could see 2 businessmen fidgeting behind him, running late but not daring to even gently suggest greater haste. To apologize for causing them delay, as well as thank them for their patience as well as politesse, the tourist bowed. Yes that was me. It felt appropriate. I had understood that bows I had received from those with limited English and asked for directions were also expressions of regret for not being of more help.

Just as litter is unheard of, so the foundation and make-up of all ladies in Japan is flawless. Speaking about it to a friend with a Japanese wife, he said she had detailed notes and diagrams, and that even face washing was "another subject".

If forced to arbitrarily assign just one adjective to Japan, it would be cute. Everything is that way, down to public information signs. The main postal service has a cat carrying a kitten in its mouth. Japan's rather large stationary stores are full of notepads, pens and sticky notes adorned with all manner of animals from mice to hippos.
So it's hard for the first timer not to be charmed by all that can be seen and heard. Ladies tend to speak with fairly high voices, and cover their mouths when laughing even when wearing face masks which are a very common sight. They are worn not only for the more obvious reasons but also out of caution during the recovered but still contagious phase of a cold. That mindset has to be kept in mind when the uninitiated are so charmed they feel like hugging everyone.

Trying to find one sole example which encapsulates all of the above is not easy. The conductor on the bullet train (Shinkansen) is the closest this writer can draw on. Upon entering and leaving each carriage, she bowed. Flawless make-up and cutesy voice, she was clearly saying exactly the same short speech to each passenger, even when it was to tourists who plainly didn't understand. The same courtesy and consistency for everyone, even if it did seem a little robotic. Leaning over to take look at a passenger's ticket, her hat would drop a couple of centimetres. So before starting with every single new passenger (without exception), she would put her index finger to her temple and push up the brim of her hat those same couple of centimetres.

To be sure, the Japanese do not see much of the above as smile-inducing the way this visitor did. That aside, what is the flip side to all this glue that holds society together? It wouldn't have been immediately obvious without some prior background knowledge. A high suicide rate (the highest of any major industrialized nation by some accounts) is one that this writer was aware of. The rigidity of Japanese etiquette, of having to carry on and force a smile regardless, along with it being seen as a bad thing to show negative emotions in public surely make for a lot of bottled up feelings. It might be possible to examine the eyes for a slight giveaway, but by and large everyone is holding everything in. The phenomenon of "Hikikomori" - young hermits who lock themselves away for months at a time - is perhaps another symptom. In Tokyo there seemed to be a lot of young men sitting by themselves in cafes late on a Monday or Tuesday night. "No home to go to?"

So, loneliness, long hours, high pressure to conform and a general societal straight jacket with a (perceived) lack of emotional outlets. These problems may not be unique to Japan, they don't directly affect others. Affecting others most certainly, especially China and Korea, are many attitudes towards Japan's actions in World War 2.
I'm told the average person is indifferent to things like the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands dispute with China. Hopefully, it's a matter of letting the rabid nationalists get on with it, however further reading suggests ignorance of what others are upset about. What is lacking, a Chinese friend in Japan told me, is the kind of fury towards China that Japan receives in the other direction.
Both countries' present day national leaders are on balance as bad as each other when it comes to this particular dispute when seen in isolation (though history is undoubtedly the root cause). While this may be hopelessly optimistic, Japan's could better play its own part by applying its otherwise abundant attention to detail to empathizing with the position of its near neighbours, and truly grasping why some sore points still remain.

None of these bad points are obvious to the visitor though, only the subtlest of hints are there for those who care to look. The endless good impressions, however, charmed this writer from start to finish. Tokyo is pushing to host the Olympics in 2020, and it is hard to imagine a better qualified applicant city.
Japan's cultural underpinnings are essentially Chinese, though Japan is a far superior manifestation of them. Much of the west too, especially slothenly North America could also learn a lot about cutting out laziness, waste and unneeded clutter. All is perhaps not what it seems, however on the face of it, Japan is probably the best country in the world.

Hugo Chavez: Gone at the right time?

The passing of Hugo Chavez is to some in Venezuela, probably a minority, a source of relief or even joy. Those of that leaning saw his actions as something approaching class warfare, increasingly anti-democratic and at times even embarrassing on the world stage.

To others of course he worked hard to improve the lives of the poor, and helped restrain what many South American leftists see as the corrosive influence of the United States.

To an extent both are true. Poverty alleviation was working reasonably well by some accounts.
But being that his cause was "so right", his supporters and not least of all himself saw nothing wrong in changing Venezuela's erstwhile constitutional limit on each president to two 6 year terms.
He appeared to fashion himself on Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, and was building a personality cult to match his self-image. His weekly tv program Alo Presidente came across to many as a way for him to fuel his narcissism.
He may have been doing some good for his people, though some may debate that. Yet it is clear that his presidency was one of creeping authoritarianism. The writing was on the wall for dictatorship, at the very least under the pretext of it being "the will of the people".

But, we never got there after the intervention of cancer (the laughable assertion that the US somehow had something to do with that is best ignored). Being in power too long and having an increasing monopoly inevitably would have led to increasing abuses and reversal of any progress made.
The people of Zimbabwe still have a healthy president in Robert Mugabe, who at the age of 89 has long been running that country into ground despite descriptions from a few observers of the early promise his tenure held.
The early years of communism in China were great years say many, though the following 20 were ruinous and the country could only begin making progress after Mao's death in 1976.
The list of those who might have held good intentions but in the most extreme fashion possible let it go to their heads is long. Hugo Chavez was rapidly joining them. However, his early passing means that unlike certain other figures, objective historians won't be able to claim "dictator" as his only, defining characteristic.

Gerard Depardieu taxes his own credibility

Some puns for you: Deparduh. Depardon't. The "larger than life" (where do some journalists get these expressions from - he's neglecting his health to the point he waddles rather than walks) French actor is really taking to the "all the world's a stage" expression and throwing a monumental, drawn-out strop.

Having decided to move into a house just over the border in Belgium, France's prime minister called the action "shabby" hinting at a lack of patriotism while he was at it. He has since gone to Russia to personally receive a passport from President Putin. Touring the region of Mordovia, best known for its gulags (members of punk band Pussy Riot are being held there) and appearing in tv ads for a Russian bank all while missing a day in court in Paris for being 3 times over the limit while riding a scooter might lead some to say he's allowed himself to be bought and all for being in a huff.

 

There are many tax exiles from France, I admire the rally driver Sebastian Loeb whom when asked why he'd moved to Switzerland said,  "French taxes are huge and the career of a sportsman does not last forever." Depardieu has even claimed he wasn't moving for tax reasons. Liar. Success, creation and talent is punished in France, so he says, which is really just another way of saying I don't want to pay that rate of tax. It has been said that France indeed has a tax regime that stiffles its economy - non-wage labour costs are particularly uncompetitive - but it's questionable whether this can be applied to the rate on personal income over 1 million Euros a year.

It is mostly Depardieu's behaviour in Russia that he is embarassing himself with. Talking about how much he loves the "great democracy" that is the present Russian Federation. Those of us who have been reading the news over the past decade know that democracy is a sham that the government barely bothers to even disguise these days. Imprisoning critics and even those who hold assets those in power want, and arranging "accidents" for still others, it is a thoroughly corrupt state run by the KGB. In the midst of his irritation at the French government singling him out, he's become a photo opportunity for Putin.

So when it comes to it, why not say "I won't lie, I'm moving because of tax." I must admit that I would personally decamp if in the unlikely event of earning that much the taxman would take 75% of my second million.
Loss of perspective from his red mist has seen Depardieu used as a prop by the government of a country that the actor claims to be something it plainly isn't. Russia being a good earner for him comes at a price which is a tax on his credibility.