Back a few years during a strange war waged by a tie-chewing clown from Tbilisi on people he thought he owned, the Russian president (Medvedev) prayed for the West to drop their Sovietologists and get some Russologists, instead. Judging by the press and media reaction to the Moscow court verdict over three members of the psychos who call themselves Pussy Riot four years later, it has not happened yet.
The Western media coverage of the incident and trial has been abysmal. To begin with, there is the obssessive thought that Putin is Stalin just about to unleash a war on kulaks and starving millions to death. If the boss feels threatened by a bunch of punk artists and orders them into gulag (as is intimated in Forbes, e.g.) then things are getting really bad in Russia led by a former KGB killer. Of course, to people who don't know Russian history, language, culture, this makes perfect sense. The girls were praying to Virgin Mary for Putin's removal before his re-election, so the maniac ordered two years of hard labour for them. That is all you need (to know), as per one famously accused wife beater. "Shame (on Putin)", for trying to take away the freedom of screaming obscenities in a church, masturbating with poultry in a supermarket and having sexual intercourse in a museum.
Another idee fixe about Pussy Riot, is that the verdict is not sanctioned by law, or that it is somehow legally faulty. Again, this is a clumsy attempt to indict Putin for practicing the Soviet era justice in construing a false link to real dissidents like Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, who were fighting real lawlessness of the Soviet system. This interview from The Economist insinuates that the punk band members were actually victims of "various changes in Russian law that have made life harder for the Russian opposition". As we will see in a moment this is not so.
Finally, the Western media misrepresent facts. The incident is mostly described as "performance", i.e. a staged act which has an audience, whether in a planned, advertized event or an impromptu "flash mob" happening which attracts casual passers-by or onlookers. Carol Rumens of The Guardian expresses solidarity with the singers, calls the their prayer "poetry" and opines that the event only shocks believers because they are unused to "trendy vicars putting on rock concerts". That is an interesting take, given of course, a trendy vicar failed to materialize in this sorry tale. Then there is a nasty attempt to forge a testimony of the malicious act for which the band found itself indicted under the law, and by the Russian public opinion. The version of the "Prayer" carried by The Telegraph shows the infamous video and asks if it "was this worth two years in jails". The problem is that the tape as presented by the outlet has Nixon-like erasures on it, precisely at the spots of the ugliest, hateful utterances against the object of worship that the building has been dedicated to. Incidentally, Carol Rumens's translation of the prayer also forgets to insert the "punchline" into text the second time and renders the sratj, sratj, sratj gospodin (repeated four times in each instance) as 'crap, crap, this godlines; crap, crap, this holiness'. The Guardian blogger seems to overdo her linguistic naivete. The phrase uses the commonest Russian obscenity which shows idiomatic preference for scatology (like the Germans). In English, the nearest idiomatic equivalent would probably be 'fuck, fuck, fuck the Lord !'. Why can't they admit it without dancing euphemistic around it, or deny it happened ?
The Pussy Riot Mongering No Problem for Putin
Perhaps we are in the terminal stage of cultural insanity which blinds us to the obvious. The existing political system in Russia is far from that repressive regime that was the Soviet Union, or for that matter, the Tsarist Russia. It may not be not the democracy that most of us in the fondly remember once existed in the West. But neither it is the rapidly decaying, self-destructing, democracy (in name only) that rules in the West today. It is Russia that is trying to hold its own in a rapidly changing world. Whatever faults one may find with Putin, he is not Ivan the Terrible or Stalin or, for that matter Brezhnev. He is not a mass murderer or a senile idiot. He knows what he wants, and knows how to get it when it is doable. And because what he wants and his accomplishments appeal to most Russians, he happens to be a popular guy. He is not popular in some circles, especially among people who think they could do better than he does. They often exaggerate his faults or accuse him absurdly of monstrous crimes and lawlessness (I will deal with the Khodorovsky, Litvinenko and Politkovskaya affairs in another post). But first thing a bright and informed observer would not that Putin does not need extravagant intimidation and lawlessness. He understands and respects the game of numbers in politics. He grasps the art of public relations (though IMO he should fire the PR manager who counsels him to outdo the photo-op adventures of princes William and Harry). He also has something that is relatively rare in contemporary world politics - brains.
People who believe that Putin would feel threatened by the type of political protest that expresses itself in punk rock shrieks as a rule do not have brains. They are easily persuaded by stupidities they read (if they can read) or hear from the talking heads in the media. As a rule, they are clueless as to what is going on in their own neighbourhoods, let alone what is going on Moscow, Ekaterinburg or Vladivostok. Anyone who watched the Russian TV and social media debates on the incident and its aftermath, knows that the principal issue that has exercised most intelligent Russians about this forgettable media storm is precisely the one ignored by Pussy Riot supporters, in Russia and the West. It is the idea that animates the bolshevizing tyrants, from Lenin to Emmanuel Rahm. Liberty and civil rights do not cover people who believe something else than we believe. Only Pussy Rioters have rights. They can do whatever they please. No one else has rights ! How can anyone but a reactionary monster oppose gay marriage or screaming obscenities at God in a church ? Naturally, the first casualty of such a way of thinking will be that base ingredient without which democracy - a social order worthy of that name - is impossible. It is something called civility. People who worship the narcissism of identity politics simply don't get democracy as a social order.
The legal grounds
The charge or implied narrative that Pussy Riot have been victims of a new anti-rioting legislation designed to stifle political opposition to Putin is false. They have been prosecuted under an article first defined in the Soviet penal code under a heading of khuliganstvo (though the description from the English "hooliganism" dates from the Tsarist times). It is a clumsy catch-all legal category, describing wilful attacks on public order and common standards of decency, ranging from provocations (e.g. public nudity, sex acts), to vandalism, to simple assault, to attacks on monuments or authoritative symbols of the state, and offenses commonly labelled mischief in Anglo-saxon jurisprudence. Despite the wide-spread misapprehension, the statute was not devised to suppress political dissidents, who, for the most part, would take great care to present their plight within the accepted norms of behaviour. Indeed the credibility of the Soviet dissidents and the justness of their cause was recognized by their great personal dignity.
The specific incident was deemed to fall under a subcategory zlostnoye khuliganstvo (malicious hooliganism). The charge presumes that the acts were fully intended to cause harm to either a specific person or persons or society at large. The Russian penal code carries penalties for this offense (if committed by more than one person) for up to seven years. The prosecutor asked for three years; the judge gave two years. (In comparison, Canada's Criminal Code's penalty for 'anyone who obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property' (CC 430 (1) (c)) is a sentence of not more than ten years. No minimum.)
Two years seems a harsh sentence given that the harms in this case were wholly dignitary. But this is for the Russian legal system to ponder. The country has by tradition higher expectations of individuals to conform to behavioural norms as it considers its well-being rooted in a large consensus. There is no evidence that I am aware of, that the court proceeded against the accused in a prejudicial manner.
Western Hypocrisy
Russia Today quizzed a New York-based journalist and activist Don De Bar, who believes that the concerns expressed by Washington regarding the Pussy Riot legal case are phoney and selective. The State Department dragged its feet on legitimate dissent in Bahrain (which hosts its fleet), where recently a prominent anti-government activist was sentenced for three years for activities on social media. Note the markedly different attitude of State Department's spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in that case, saying that the US government does not comment on sentences "in the middle of the process". Of course that handy "rule" would not apply to Russia, where the lawyers for the three women from the singer group indicated immediately they would appeal the court's verdict.
I have shown the problem with the facts about the incidents in the above quotes from Forbes, the Economist, The Guardian and The Telegraph. The coverage has a marked spin and interest to show the Russian authorities as unfair towards the women, and driven by the interest to stifle public protest. This narrative simply does not play out and significant distortions have to be deployed to sustain the phoney outrage.
There are, finally at long last, some voices now emerging trying to inject reality into our understanding of the Pussy Riot trial and sentence. An intelligent view was registered yesterday by Simon Jenkins who understands the hypocritical white-washing the convicted Russian women in the West. Former New York mayor Ed Koch stood up for the rights of the Russian Orthodox Church in Huff Post. Finally today, National Post's Chris Selley weighed in with some much needed field-levelling comments.
No civilized society can tolerate an attack on the beliefs of a religious community in its own house. One may criticize religion, and its beliefs, but one cannot deny the right of people to confess, or appropriate from the believers a sanctuary that is theirs, for acts hurtful to them. Few nations know this better than the Russians.
We have noted in the title of this post that Pussy Riot ® is now a registered trademark. As their lawyer explained, it is not for the money. "On the contrary", the communique said, "the group wishes to discourage attempts to use its name to derive profits or promote questionable projects that contradict its ideals and aspirations." Really ? Who would have thunk ?!
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