09.01.2017

Ilyumzhinov returns chess to the world

A few days are left before the Barack Obama’s presidency will becomes a history, which is recognized as one of the worst pages in the history of the USA. However, the outgoing leader has managed to mess things up to such extreme that it would take a long time for American politicians and diplomats to make things right.

For example, from the point of view of sane person, it was quite illogical to lift the ban on supply of arms "to the Syrian opposition" or rather, jihadists of the terrorist organizations, which for some reason are considered to be the US allies but in fact are no different from ISIS or Al-Qaeda.

The recent UN vote on Israeli settlements in Palestine, when the US delegation suddenly refused to support his loyal Middle East ally, is hard to explain either.
But the most striking absurdity is the expelling of 35 Russian diplomats and their families, coupled with the sanctions imposed on the Russian security services. For the last time, such demarche took place by Ronald Reagan's administration in 1986. At that time, under the false pretext, 80 Soviet diplomats were expelled from the USA. But even Reagan's "hawks" were not smart enough to prohibit business activities of the head of the GRU and the KGB Chairman in the US.
Such chaotic actions are an evidence of the Obama team’s attempts to complicate the life of Donald Trump's team, and the new President is likely to cancel them soon after his inauguration. However, it will be not an easy task. The snag is not that Trump, with his entire antagonistic attitude towards Obama’s regime, is not a graduate of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens (who knows, maybe the convulsive somersaults of the "lame duck" are the part of his own plans?) And it is definitely not in the fact that the US legislation does not provide the ways to easily fix what has been made.
It’s worth mentioning that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in response to the expelling of Russian diplomats, invites children of American diplomats to the Kremlin Christmas tree festival, making fool of the US Department of State. In addition, one should note how FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, in response to sanctions, makes New York the venue of the championship for the world chess crown, and even declares 2017 the Year of Chess in the United States. Is it a victory of Russian diplomacy or the triumph of humanism and generosity, which are known to be a weapon of the mighty?
Recall that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, sanctioned in November 2015 by the US Treasury, has resolutely refused to quietly endure the blatant injustice and intends to initiate transparent proceedings in court. Now the US Treasury together with the responsible for this decision the Director of OFAC Adam Szubin make any tricks to avoid meeting with Ilyumzhinov in an open adversarial proceedings.
What is happening is so phantasmagorical that it is hard to believe that the collision with Ilyumzhinov was caused by his so-called cooperation with the legitimate Syrian authorities and, at the same time, with terrorist groups (in which, it seems, the US Treasury itself doesn’t believe). After all, Ilyumzhinov is a successful businessman, an experienced politician and diplomat, who represents the antithesis of the type of thinking, which is persistently promoted by the members of Obama's entourage.
«Yes, we can», recklessly said Barack Obama during his first presidential campaign, who became the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, in a manner of speaking, in advance. For his two presidential terms manifested the unprecedented collapse of the US economy (the worse one was during the Great Depression), the national debt has almost doubled, and the country is stuck in the chasm of endless wars for "compulsions to democracy" in different parts of the globe.
Unlike Obama, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who was elected President of the falling apart at the seams FIDE in 1995, did not promise anything epochal. However, by the end of its first iteration, the Chess Federation, which initially had not even own a car and could only afford four tournaments a year, began to work like a well-oiled machine. It managed to put an end to confusion with various "versions" and "systems" of chess players’ ratings and the methods of determining the champions. Today, the International Chess Federation holds tens of thousands of tournaments annually, both amateur and professional.
Obama, nearly with Hitler aplomb, blamed "dictators" Gaddafi and Assad from the White House Podium, while the Americans and their satellites continued to kill tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Syria. As a result, Europeans got millions of refugees, some of whom were hidden terrorists and religious fanatic or just angry people. And the State Department earnestly recommends the Americans travelling to the Middle East to introduce themselves as anyone but the US citizens.
At the same time Ilyumzhinov meets with Gaddafi and Assad, arranges a chess match between the children of the divided country on the border of North and South Korea. With a fantastic persistence he promotes the idea of "One Billion players - one billion smart people." According to possibly obsolete data, there were 600 million chess players on the globe a couple of years ago, but there are definitely a lot more today. It would be difficult to convince such people of the necessity of "humanitarian" bombing by renting the air with hypocritical speeches about "liberal order".
Obama gives official permission to supply weapons to Syrian "rebels" (and informally - and it's an open secret - the United States supports and funds the terrorists around the world for decades). Ilyumzhinov organizes delivery of chess sets and books for children under the fire in Syria. However, for some reason, the sanctions are imposed on Ilyumzhinov.
The effect is the opposite: increasingly more people refuse to believe the aggressive Western propaganda. A video became popular on internet, in which a black pastor James David Manning speaks of Obama: "We gave him everything. We gave him the Peace Prize. We gave him the greatest prize in the universe (the US presidency,- Ed.) We gave him all!!!". Manning ends his tirade with «and the nigger failed».

The problem, of course, lies not with just Obama, and one can be absolutely certain that it lies not with him alone. One may question the obvious facts, assuring that the Bilderberg Group is a congregation of tea lovers and that the problems of global warming are the only subject of discussion at the Davos forums. But it's hard to deny that there is a stratum of people in the world elite, who are interested to influence some of the earthlings to their way of thinking and benefit from it.
It so happened that Ilyumzhinov opposes these plans by promoting the development of intelligence, "training the muscles of a brain" (as Einstein said), dialogue and mutual understanding between people of different views. He is not alone but his person is one of the brightest and most popular on the global chessboard. And to slander and discredit the image of the leader of the two associations of intellectuals (in addition to the FIDE Ilyumzhinov heads the International Mind Sports Association) would be a success for those who have less noble purposes.
However, no matter how they try to slander Ilyumzhinov, they always fail. There is a widespread legend in chess mythology that an Indian sage presented people with this ancient game. And Ilyumzhinov’s achievements give mystic impression that the soul of the sage returned to us in the guise of the head of FIDE not only to spare the chess from oblivion but also to give it a new impetus.

Alexander Kramer