This is an interview with Maria Butina, alleged Russian spy, released after she spent 15 months in jail in the US. Her case is remarkably similar to that of Mata Hari, shot for espionage in 1917 in France, some one hundred years before. Fortunately, though, Maria Butina was not shot.
Sometimes, it is amazing how history repeats itself. It seems that whatever we do is always a repetition of an old story, that we live in a sort of Hollywood universe, where there exist a limited number of TV tropes, repeated over and over, always the same, just with a few changed details.
Think of Mata Hari: the evil spy. Yes, the one who caused the death of "perhaps 50,000 of our children" during the Great War, as one of her accusers said. How did she accomplish such a remarkable feat? Well, it seems that somehow she was able to understand the French war plans by gathering intelligence while staying in a hotel in the back of the front line. And that the Germans were killing French soldiers because they were told how to do that by an aging Dutch dancer who had styled herself as a Hindi priestess.
Madness? Sure, but she was not shot not because of something she had done, but because of what she was. A foreigner who had made the mistake of accepting the offer of the French secret services to embark on an improbable plan of spying on the Germans. Possibly, it was because she really thought she could help France. But, of course, it could never have worked and it never did. Rather, it put Mata Hari in a very dangerous position. A foreigner, a beautiful woman, and, avowedly, a prostitute, and she meddles with things larger than her. And when it is a question of finding a scapegoat, that kind of women make the perfect target.
Fast forward of a hundred years, and we have the case of Maria Butina. A good looking woman, although not a prostitute. Nevertheless, she went through an ordeal similar to that of Mata Hari, the target of accusations so improbable that you wonder how in the world anyone could even remotely take them seriously. Would you believe that the Russian secret services would gain anything by "planting" a spy in the US in the form of a student of international relations? What could they learn from him or her that could be even remotely important for the current confrontation?
Rather, Ms. Butina found herself in the wrong place, just as Mata Hari had: a foreigner who could be demonized at will. Ms. Butina had made her big mistake with enrolling in the US National Rifle Association (NRA). She believed that the right to bear arms was a good thing that should be adopted in Russia. She didn't realize the danger she was putting herself into. The NRA is notoriously among Trumps' supporters and by hitting Butina they were hitting the NRA and, indirectly, President Trump himself. Like Mata Hari, Butina was meddling with things much larger than herself.
So, we had another variation of the theme of the evil, foreigner female spy. Fortunately for Ms. Butina, she was not shot like Mata Hari, if times had been more difficult, it might have happened. And we keep living in a Hollywood universe where things that you believe are true become true. It is the infinite power of propaganda to create its own reality.
