“The Australian Prime Minister Has Done It Again!”

I hate to get down and dirty with you all, but this is what the current prime minister of Australia actually looks like.

His name is Malcolm Turnbull, and he is the new leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, which currently governs Australia in coalition with the National Party of Australia.

Mr. Turnbull is new at his job, because he ousted the rather wretched Tony Abbott in what the Australians quaintly call a “leadership spill” less than a week ago.

While I don’t like Mr. Turnbull’s politics for the most part, he will be a real improvement over Mr. Abbott, if only because he is less prone to saying and doing blatantly stupid and awful things. Mr. Turnbull comes across as an intelligent, affable and well-spoken fellow.

But that is beside the point.

I wonder whether events like this ever make the news in Russia, because frighteningly large numbers of Russians think that Kevin Rudd (of the Australian Labor Party) is still the prime minister of Australia.

Or, alternately, they think that John Howard (Liberals) or Julia Gillard (Labor) is the prime minister of Australia.

Basically, for the Russian “grassroots” imaginary, it doesn’t really matter who the prime minister of Austrialia is, because whoever she or he is (or isn’t), the “prime minister of Australia” is a folklore character with a penchant for making outrageously Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, and, now, in a new twist, rabidly pro-Zionist statements such as this:

В отношениях евреев и арабов Израиля, да и всей Палестины в границах мандата Лиги Наций. хозяин страны и земли в этой стране НЕ ТОТ, КТО ПРОЛИЛ БОЛЬШЕ ЧУЖОЙ КРОВИ, А ТОТ, КТО ЕЁ СТРОИЛ, ЗАЩИЩАЛ И ТРУДИЛСЯ ДЛЯ ЕЁ ПРОЦВЕТАНИЯ. Из этого следует что мировой порядок не может определяться голосованием в ООН, созданной коалицией , организовавшей массовое истребление евреев в 1933-1945 годах и пытавшейся завершить это истребление в 1953 году – коалицией из Британии, СССР, США, Германии и Франции Эти государства своими тайными и открытыми действиями на протяжении 1933-1945 годов активно участвовали в истреблении еврейского народа и сумели в лагерях и поездах, в расстрельных рвах сожженных сооружениях методично и организовано уничтожить не менее 12 миллионов беззащитных жертв, избранных по национально-расовому признаку. И они же создали организацию ООН и при ней – UNWRA – НЕ ТОЛЬКО ПРОДОЛЖИТЬ ПОЛИТИКУ ДИСКРИМИНАЦИИ ЕВРЕЙСКОГО НАРОДА, НО И СОЗДАЛИ НОВЫЙ “НАРОД” с единственной задачей – не допустить выполнения решений Лиги Наций о СОЗДАНИИ В ПАЛЕСТИНЕ НАЦИОНАЛЬНОГО ДОМА для еврейского народа,

Историческое тайное решение о ликвидации еврейского народа принимали правительства перечисленных выше государств на конференции в Эвиане и неких тайных совещаниях. . И сегодня, когда над миром, над всей Западной цивилизацией нависла исламская угроза Третьей Мировой войны для Европы и Америки, пора опомниться и присоединиться к Австралии и Японии и остановить самоубийство человечества.

[Source: NewRezume.org]

I won’t even bother to translate this fake crap into English. If you are curious, go to Google Translate and let the smart robots there do the hard work for you.

The forger of the above libel goes on to express his and “the Russian world’s” delight in the “Australian prime minister’s” continuing campaign against Islam:

Премьер-министр Австралии снова сделал это!! Этого человека следует назначить королем мира..[sic] Более правдивых слов никогда не говорили..[sic]

The Australian prime minister has done it again! This man should be appointed king of the world… Truer words were never spoken.

God knows that real Australian prime ministers have done and said a lot of really awful things in their time, although, if actual truth be told, besides being remembered for being a fairly goofy customer himself, Mr. Rudd is also remembered for his apology, in parliament, to Australia’s Indigenous people for the so-called Stolen Generations.

Again, that is not the point. The point is that there are rather vigorous forces in Russian society, both at the top and the grassroots, who are keen on putting the most dire spin on current events while also fostering the illusion that their bleak outlook or their own aggressive, imperialist policy has lots of fans in the outside world.

If you are wondering why Kevin Rudd (or, rather, the “prime minister of Australia”) is such a folk hero on the Russian internets, the simple answer is that not enough Russians speak or read English well enough to be able to sort out hoaxes like this.

In more vegetarian times, this would not have mattered as much, but now the Kremlin has been actively priming the pump with fake news and commentary via its “active operations” on social media.

I hope to be describing another such recent hoax, involving a non-existent Finn named Veikko Kerhonen from Oulu, in the next day or so. Here is a sample of the imperialist Russian screeds this non-existent Finn is into posting, exclusively in Russian!

In the meantime, you can reread my recent, obviously futile attempt to expose the “Australian prime minister” canard.