Boris Yeltsin

Thursday June 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 23, 2022

Rwanda is a brutal, repressive regime. Holding the Commonwealth summit there is a sham

Back when I was a reporter based in Africa in the 1990s, there were two organisations whose meetings regularly took place amid widespread media indifference: the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Commonwealth.

August 12, 2005

There were solid reasons for our lack of enthusiasm. Such get-togethers were strong on pomp and rigmarole, but the interesting decisions usually took place behind closed doors. Both organisations were widely seen as little more than dictators’ clubs, attuned to the interests of ruling elites while aloof from the millions of citizens they nominally represented.

The Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Kigali, Rwanda this week will do nothing to challenge those assumptions.

Held in a country primed to receive Britain’s unwanted migrants – a deal that even Prince Charles, who will be chairing for the first time, apparently regards as “appalling” – the meeting will highlight the weaknesses of the organisation on which Britain is pinning its hopes of future global relevance.

In the run-up to the EU referendum, Brexiters talked up the benefits of ditching the EU in favour of a market that – thanks to the vastness of Britain’s defunct empire – holds 2.5 billion consumers, a third of the global population. And, since Brexit, it is true that free-trade agreements have been signed with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, while a host of other deals are being negotiated with members of the 54-nation association.

August 14, 2007

Last week I did a cartoon showing Vladimir Putin atop Lenin’s tomb reminiscent of photos we’d see of Soviet leaders during the cold war years. I was inspired to draw it following renewed interest by the Russians in the Arctic from the North Pole to the Mediterranean via the Caucasus. It made me think back, before Boris Yeltsin, to the last time I drew Lenin’s tomb back when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power, as he warming up to the west with Glasnost, and implementing political and economic reforms otherwise known as Perestroika. The year was 1989, democracy was spreading throughout Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall had just come down, and I was a student at the University of Ottawa. I was just starting out getting my worked published in the student press, through the campus newspaper called The Fulcrum. I had a cartoon strip called:

It was modern day (mostly Canadian) political news placed in a medieval setting. Brian Mulroney was the King of Canadaland, Gorbachev was the Russian Tsar, they rode around in horses, they spoke in Monty Pythonesque olde englishe. For most of the time it existed between September 1989, and April 1991, I collaborated with my friend, Paul Nichols, who was a fellow history student. He helped write it, and I drew it. It was published for each weekly edition of the Fulcrum.


Click here to see a larger version.

In retrospect, they were a bit wordy. The jokes were corny. The drawings were a bit crude, but keep in mind that we were twenty year olds. At the time home computers were still very basic word processors, there was no Internet, and early versions of Photoshop were still half a decade away. The inking of Alas & Alack had to be configured with exacto knives and glue stick. Tones were done using Chartpak shading film, and some special text was incorporated using Letraset transferrable lettering. It was all very time consuming work to put together a single Alas & Alack cartoon. A perfect excuse to keep me from reading textbooks, writing essays and studying for exams.


Click here to see a larger version.

Throughout the series I portrayed former Canadian Prime Ministers Clark and Turner, who were still active in politics at the time, as “erstwhile kings” who would show up every now and then carrying the crowns they once wore when they were in charge. Pierre Trudeau would show up portrayed as some sort of God-like character who lived in an acropolis type of temple on Mount Royal.

More Alas & Alack in the days to come….

FEEDBACK

I remember Alas and Alack quite well, Mr. Mackay. I started studying at U of O in 1990 and I remember seeing it and a whole bunch of other cartoons of yours in the newspaper. Looks like you’ve done pretty well in cartooning eversince. Not surprising! Glad I can keep enjoying your work.

Marc LeBlanc (August 16, 2007)

April 23, 2007

Boris Yeltsin is dead. Many, I think, were surprised he was still alive. Perhaps he was pickled by the constant flow of alcohol he evidently consumed midway through his Presidency of Russia towards the end of his retirement. Who knows? The fact is after he handed the Kremlin keys over to Vladimir Putin in 2000 he never really resurfaced in the public limelight again, becoming largely forgotten.

It’s only on reflection that I realize he was a character that shaped many editorial cartoons. Here are just a few I drew as he neared the end of his reign in a drunken stupor:

&

Of course there must be credit given to the man who began his rise to stardom by toppling a Communist coup designed to reverse the democratic reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev.

While he will undoubtedly go down in history for liberating Soviet citizens, he may be better remembered in the old “free world” for his trashing the old USSR, and thereby ending any remnants left from the cold war years. He oversaw the disintegration of the old Soviet Union and became Russia’s first democratically elected leader. Then he tried to bring in goofy economic policies which only empowered corrupt oligarchs and angered legislators, and when things didn’t go his way he brought back old style Soviet tactics to deal with dissent and ethnic unrest. Blasting the Parliament buildings with cannon fire isn’t exactly the most democratic way to debate things with opponents, although Yeltsin seemed to think it was, and he got away with it. He also got away with pinching the bums of women politicians and bureaucrats; hamming for the cameras while visiting Berlin and by grabbing a conductors baton and leading an orchestra; playing the spoons on the head of Askar Akayev, the president of Kyrgyzstan; and staggering around in his underpants shouting for pizza in the hotel room during his first summit meeting with Bill Clinton.

Upon further reflection I connect the Yeltsin years with the Clinton years… and can’t help associating those figures, as much the buffoons they were, to that relatively harmonious period of time in the pre-9/11 world. No wonder Bill Clinton loved to bear hug Yeltsin. But once Boris was gone, the good old days of close relations clearly started to wane. Seven years on Vladimir Putin continues to rule Russia at a far sobering and utilitarian pace. What freedom Yeltsin brought in, much has been clamped down upon by his successor. Here’s one I drew shortly after Putin came to power in Russia:

Tuesday March 28, 2000

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 28, 2000

Wary optimism best way to view Putin’s regime

When crooks and clowns — the Russian mafia and Boris Yeltsin and Co. — have ruled a country for years, anyone with a modicum of restraint and common sense looks good by comparison. That’s especially true of Russia, a country still struggling in the transformation from a totalitarianism to democracy, from superpower to … well, a much lesser world power.

That’s not to damn president-elect Vladimir Putin with faint praise, but to acknowledge the realities of the massive nation. Russia is still very much the “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” that Winston Churchill described in 1939. Getting elected, let alone governing in Russia, happens within an entirely different set of rules and expectations than here in the comfortable West.

Russia is a nation of terrible disparities: Enormous wealth for a select few and soul-stealing poverty for many more; a space station orbiting Earth but a disintegrating health system that has led to life expectancy for Russian men of just 58 years. Russia today is plagued by crime and alcoholism but is also “Motherland” to a nation of remarkably resilient and patriotic people.

Putin now has to govern while balancing Russians’ still-tentative moves into the unknown of a free-market economy and those same citizens’ demands for restored stability.

Despite all that, the West should be warily pleased with Putin’s election, which appears at the moment to be good for that country and for its neighbours. He has a strong popular mandate and is outspoken in his determination to root out corruption, reverse the country’s fortunes and do it without resorting to the excesses of his former masters.

Putin brings to office the pragmatism and ruthlessness of the spymaster that he was. The brutal assault on Chechnya has been more about campaign strategy than military tactics, and Putin’s first major challenge must be to find a graceful way out before his army becomes mired in an Afghanistan-style war of attrition.

Putin is smart and articulate and has shown he has the ability to be a good manager. Time will tell if he will be a good national leader. In the meantime, the West should applaud the winner of only the second democratic presidential election in Russia’s history — but keep two fingers crossed for Russia while we do so. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial, A10, 3/28/2000)

 

Wednesday August 11, 1999

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 11, 1999

Yeltsin Protecting Entourage in Shuffle Russia

Political analysts see Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s nomination of Russia’s fifth premier in 17 months as an act of desperation aimed at protecting the interests of his entourage and not of the country.

The choice of security boss Vladimir Putin, with roots in the Soviet-era KGB, also boosts the threat of “unconstitutional” measures like declaring a state of emergency that might derail a general election scheduled Dec. 19, they said.

Earlier yesterday, Yeltsin fired Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, just three months after appointing him to the post, and named Putin acting premier. He also declared Putin his preferred candidate in next summer’s presidential election.

The move coincides with rising political tension triggered by the formation of a powerful new bloc uniting popular Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and regional leaders and by fresh conflict in the unruly North Caucasus — a development that could provide the grounds for declaring a state of emergency in Russia.

“Putin is tougher than Stepashin and has the support of the security organs, ” said last week’s edition of the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, which accurately predicted Putin’s appointment.

Other “unconstitutional” scenarios rehearsed in Russia’s mass media include bann ing the main opposition Communist party, in the name of fighting political “extremism” and dissolving the legislature to allow Yeltsin to rule indefinitely by decree.

Yeltsin’s naming of Putin as his preferred heir did not impress analysts.

“Putin is not a public figure, ” said analyst Andrei Piontkovsky of the man dubbed the Grey Cardinal for his secretive, behind-the-scenes style.

Putin’s taciturn expression is also unlikely to appeal to Russian voters.

“But Putin is the best candidate (as prime minister) if The Family is preparing a non-constitutional scenario for holding on to their power and privileges, ” Piontkovsky added.

Politicians and analysts from across the spectrum were unanimous on one point — Putin’s appointment had nothing to do with protecting national interests or helping the economy.

“This could jeopardize the (economic) recovery we have seen, ” said Peter Westin, economist at Russian Economic Trends.

“Yeltsin is just showing the only means of power he has, hiring and firing. It is becoming fairly ridiculous.”

Putin, whom Yeltsin also named as first deputy prime minister yesterday, must now be approved by the State Duma. If the opposition-dominated chamber rejects him three times, Yeltsin must call an election.

Analysts were divided over whether deputies, who in any case face the voters in December, would accept Putin.

Some said deputies would quietly nod him through, as they did Stepashin, to hold on to their privileges until their mandate expires. (Hamilton Spectator, C4, 8/10/1999)