IT is impossible to measure how much influence the intemperate and jingoistic language of the tabloid press had on the rioting in London and the random violence in other parts of England following Germany's advance to the final of the European Soccer Championship. But there surely is a link.
The build-up, as far as I can gather from my remote perch in Moscow, was deliberately linked in some newspapers to events which took place more than 50 years ago when Germany and England were involved in a contest of far greater ferocity. Terms such as "hun" and "kraut" and "fritz" were freely used. There was even a mention of "Gestapo" and the "mad cow" controversy got an airing.
Here in Russia, in case anyone has forgotten, the second World War cost the then Soviet Union the lives of 26 million of its citizens. It was here that the most costly land battles were fought, yet the Russian press, to quote Basil Fawlty, did not "mention the war". The losses were so great that to liken the hostilities to a mere game of football would be considered bad taste in the extreme.
Not surprisingly, that other war against the American phenomenon of "political correctness" has been conducted most fiercely by the tabloids. A climate in which the stirring up of racism, ultra-nationalism and intolerance for minorities, is the last thing they want.
Here a certain "convergence theory" comes into play, for apart from references to the war, "PC" or similar concepts have never taken hold in Russia, and those who advocate the extirpation of "PC" from our lives should perhaps come here and take a look at what a society is like.
An acquaintance recently took a trip north-wards to the monastic city of Sergiev Posad, once known as Zagorsk. It is a fairy tale place, the first view of which remains for ever in the memory of those who have been there.
A long stretch of motorway through the countryside does not prepare one for what one is about to see. To right and left are fields and forests and large concentrations of "dachas", the country houses to which most Moscow families retire at weekends to commune with nature.
THE land is flat and less than exciting with few hills to vary the view. Then at the crest of a rise in the road one suddenly sees blue onion domes embossed with gold stars, gold onion domes topped by orthodox crosses which look rather like the Croix de Lorraine symbol used by General de Gaulle's Free French forces 50 years ago.
There is a slight difference in that at the bottom of the gross there - is what one observer, new to Russia thought was a little golden boat. In fact it represents the crescent moon of Islam lying on its - back having been defeated by Christianity, in the eminently Christian form of Ivan the Terrible, in 1552.
The little symbol is a reminder to Muslims, and there are millions of them in Russia, of where they stand vis-a-vis the resurgence of Orthodoxy.
Their crescent symbol is to be found in such a manner on churches all over the country, an eastern version of the message: "Croppies Lie Down."
My acquaintance, having arrived in the heavenly surroundings of the Trinity Sergius Monastery, was taken on a tour of the churches, the holy well and the large seminary which is now flourishing.
At one stage he found himself in a picture gallery in which religious art abounded. One picture portrayed that less-than-fortunate portion of humanity whose lot is to be consumed by the fires of hell for all eternity. Some of the damned were wearing what appeared to be religious vestments, and since the guide was near it seemed sensible to ask who these evil beings were.
The answer from the guide, a young Orthodox monk, came with the swiftness and sureness of a true believer. "Those," he said, "are the Roman Catholics."
As for the Jews, things are even worse. Recently, the offices of the Jewish Agency in the southern city of Pyatigorsk, from whence many Russian Jews make their way to Israel, were unexpectedly closed down.
A lingering anti-semitism exists in the country which produced the original forgery known as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and I have heard the word "Zhid" (Yid) used more frequently here than its counterpart in other countries.
Other minorities are subjected to other forms of non-PC language.
Natives of the Caucasus are paradoxically called "blacks" rather than Caucasians and are sometimes described by another term which will not be reproduced here.
A neighbour who voted in the first round of the Russian presidential election for the nationalist Gen Alexander Lebed did so, she told me, because he was just the man to "run the blacks and those Vietnamese who live here without passports, out of Moscow and out of Russia altogether".
As far as real "blacks" are concerned, a student from Lesotho once told me of her horror when she opened the door of her room at a university medical residence in southern Moscow to find a note bearing the message: "A black monkey lives here."
EVEN the president, in the course of his campaign, once referred to his communist opponent, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, as "Zyugan", a word which has no particular meaning in Russian but is close enough in its sound to resemble "Tsygan", which means "Gypsy".
So much for humans. If one strolls down the Arbat, Moscow's Grafton Street, these days one will see a bizarre menagerie of animals used mainly as props by street photographers. A once-proud eagle, its wing feathers clipped to prevent flight, can be pictured perched on a tourist's shoulder. Bear cubs, chimpanzees and snakes are used for the same purpose.
For those of us old enough to remember, there has been a form of PC around for a very long time. In those days it was described in the old-fashioned term "good manners". The fact that it came originally from England and was used in terms such as, "I say, old boy, would you mind terribly if we invaded your country", should not deter us from keeping the good bits and discarding the bad ones.
Describing a girl as a "pre-woman" is one of the bad bits of "PC's" more extreme version, but it is hardly as offensive as fans throwing bananas at black players at football games. In America, PC has eliminated terms such as "nigger", "kike" and "spick" from all but the lowest forms of conversation.
Is it too much to ask that they be joined in oblivion by "bun", "fritz" and "kraut?"