The Foreign Service Journal, May 2007

of a mischievous Chechen boy whose behavior would normally be met with a mild reprimand, on the grounds that they do not want their children to “learn bad things from a possible future terrorist.” The discriminatory treatment Chechens receive at the hands of ethnic Russians, with tacit government approval, goes beyond all but the worst instances of racial profil- ing in the United States. Politkovskaya describes how com- mon it is for ethnic Chechens to have drugs and even grenades planted on them by authorities, after which they are coerced into signing false confes- sions to capital crimes — such as the rape and murder of a Chechen girl, actually committed by a Russian offi- cer. She asks the obvious question: Does Moscow want Chechens to live within the Russian Federation or not? The book portrays an authoritarian regime bereft of any real ideology, committed merely to preserving and benefiting from the status quo. Writing not as an authority on Putin’s policies, but as “one person among many, a face in the crowd,” Polit- kovskaya sought to awaken a sleeping populace to the corruption at every level of government. Putin has a hand in every endeavor and those who serve him faithfully, regardless of the human cost, are rewarded. What occurred to me repeatedly while reading this somber report was that in a post-Soviet world there should never have been occasion for this book, much less the fate that befell its author. After the collapse of the communist system, facilitated by Mikhail Gorbachev’s era of glasnost and perestroika, threats of censorship and severe punishment should no longer loom before Russian writers and journalists. The Russian people, after centuries of authoritarian rule under the czars and then the commu- nists, are entitled to a transparent gov- ernment instead of the propaganda their leaders continue to feed them. But for that happy day to dawn, how- ever — as Anna Polikovskaya believed — Russian voters must first wake up to the ugly realities of their society. E. Margaret MacFarland is the Foreign Service Journal ’s spring 2007 editorial intern. She is currently a junior at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., majoring in polit- ical science. M A Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 65 B O O K S Power and Principle Human Rights Programming in International Organizations Joel E. Oestreich “Clear, concise and thoughtful, anyone interested in the changing role and agency of international organizations in contemporary international relations should have this book.” — James P. Muldoon Jr., Rutgers-Newark 978-1-58901-159-5, paperback, $29.95 Advancing Human Rights series THOUGHTFUL