This post in no way reflects the views of any organization, just the thoughts of the author.
1. Developments of the past few months:
this section will be called "Civil society on Moscow's streets and in Moscow's bars."
The past few months saw a huge rise in numbers of protesters and frequency of protests. They were all peaceful and hopeful and smiley. People came out with even more nerdy slogans and the city even allowed a march which ended in a rally in downtown Moscow. The turnout of the march and rally was astonishing, especially given it was -20 degrees celsius outside. People were dressed like bears! Everyone was red-nosed and hopping up and down to keep warm. This was a musical rally with lots of dancing and walking and moving, lots of white ribbons (the symbol of the opposition), lots of politeness and friendliness and people chanting to literally make their voices heard in a cold and wintery Moscow. The opposition at all these protests since December marched side by side, acknowledging differences amongst themselves but also peacefully standing together with a mutual understanding that there are universal things we can all fight against, like corruption, lack of transparency, unfair elections, a non-legitimate Duma, and an entirely unfree pre-election campaign which did not allow the registration of many candidates, just like the registration of many parties was blocked preceding the Duma elections in December.
In these months, state television loosened up a little, but in a weird way. They started showing protests, but after a while by looking at the screen of state television channels it remained sort of unclear what the crowds were rallying for or against. Some channels and websites showed rallies against Putin while describing them as rallies for Putin. Others just started using the murky term "rally" without really describing the referent, leaving it up the the viewer to conclude what exactly the rallying was all about. At the same time, opposition leaders and presidential candidates started appearing on state TV with anti-corruption speeches and their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs was given some attention. Yet the curious thing is the blogger and anti-corruption activitst Navalny, considered by many as one of the most likely emerging leaders of the opposition, was kept ENTIRELY silent on state TV. Putin even refused to SAY his name allowed, and even when asked direct questions in prime time by journalists he preferred to speak of him as "that person you speak of" and then change the subject. Any TV program that invited Navalny to speak was automatically closed down. Putin has some incredible level of personal fear and hatred of this person, that much is clear. Also funny, because the opposition movement has not yet even embraced him as a full-fledged leader, and the entire movement remains horizontally organized and civil. If Putin thinks he can seriously shut them up by pretending that one guy suddenly doesn't exist, he needs to get with the program. Clearly, a communal sense of responsibility, civic duty, and horizontal modes of organization mean nothing to our future president.
In the meantime, Putin's rhetoric of the State Department having paid people to rally against him continued with full force, and what's even more fun: the administration began a kind of ridiculous mock-campaign: on any day the opposition would rally, they would ship in busloads of obscure students and school kids and factory workers from outside of Moscow into the city to make a pro-Putin rally, then bus them back in the evenings. Many were paid, others were given a chance to "see the capital" and take a tour, and still others were just clueless and went along with the party. It was a weird process of mimicry and theater, when they would just organize these paid rallies and then show them on TV for god knows whom - I am starting to suspect they really were meant to be shown to one person, that being Putin. For his own enjoyment.
One of the most absurd/cool/sad/awesome/eclectic (as many things in Russia are) opposition demonstrations of the past months was a rally held on the 26th of February, organized through facebook and twitter and blogs, entirely last-minute and ad-hoc, unsanctioned: it was a "big white circle" of tens of thousands (if not 100 000) people for a couple hours just standing on the edge of the sidewalk side by side along the street that encircles downtown Moscow (known as the "Garden Ring"). A giant human circle entirely closed around the Kremlin and the center of town as thousandssssss of people locked hands or stood shoulder-to-shoulder. It was awe-some! Cars, as the sped by along the street, honked in admiration and support, waved white ribbons, sheets, scarves, toilet paper (since white is the color of the movement) out the windows and smiled. In the meantime, pro-Putin youth groups gathered outside the RIA News Agency/Russia Today news building trying to stage the whole thing as if the entire crowd was a pro-Putin group in front of cameras and journalists, causing chaos and generally being irritating and stupid, holding ridiculous signs saying stuff like "Putin loves everybody" (which, among other things, is also a lie). The white-ribboned opposition protestors stood there stoically and no fights broke out. My mom tried to convince the youth groups to read more books and newspapers, and my dad screamed anti-Putin chants trying to be louder than the pro-Putin kids in the crowd. I was in a different part of the circle, but I hear their little section was pretty lively.
And so the rallies continued, while the candidates lucky enough to even get into the final lists (a very hard task because the current administration set enormously high legal barriers to entry to the race) worked at their campaigns. It seemed like Putin was really going to have to buckle down and for once TRY to gather support, even though objectively he still has lots of supporters who do actually believe in him and his representation of a Strong Russia.
In this race for gaining or feigning support, the past months saw his people administer and organize the FORCED gathering of people at rallies. These people, whose names were written in lists and whose bosses announced they HAD to go rally for Putin, were mostly employed by the state (teachers, professors, bureacrats, all kinds of people from all ministries, many factories) and asked to rally with the threat of being fired. While this provided for thousands of people taking to the streets to demonstrate their "support" for Putin in pretty pictures and camera shots, it did NOT convince these poor people that they were going to actually vote for him when it came down to it. A lot of people who were asked or forced to rally for him were SO angered by this kind of manipulation, that I know for a fact he lost a ton of support in this absurd drive to stage fake massive gatherings based on fear and material reward.
2. Developments of the past few days:
"Fear and Loathing in the Kremlin."
Aside from these staged rallies, Putin didn't appear in front of anyone but those forcibly brought to the streets to chant things in his favor. He didn't even participate in any pre-election debates in the past months and of course not in the past days, nor did he make efforts to explain why he wouldn't debate with other candidates or appear next to the opposition and speak with them. His campaign was made up of balming the state department for financing protests, making absurd populist promises about pensions and other things which are absolutely economically infeasible, trying to talk about the world in the 22nd century and planning Russia's defense plan for the next 100 years (presumably he will still be president then), and making an absolutely crazy polarization of a choice between electing him and electing chaos. He has humuliated Medvedev, who has been kept entirely silent this entire time. And instead of trying to gain support, he has divided the country into invisible groups of the anti-Putin elite and middle class on one side, and the pro-Putin blue-collar crowd on the other side, mostly from outside of big cities and from the industrial heartland of Russia, or from Gazprom families, or from his croneys in government, or from the state's bureuacratic machine.
Here I must add my repetitive personal disclaimer: I used to be a supporter of Putin, and he used to be different. He used to be entirely pragmatic, entirely realist-oriented, entirely unemotional. And he used to have support from much wider groups of the population, AND he used to have legitimacy. Elections were not rigged as cynically, corruption was more widespread, people lived better, and the propaganda machine was not this developed. They key thing here is that he used to have legitimacy. Now he lost it, and to put it bluntly, I think he's gone crazy. I'm sort of uncomfortable with that.
To put it simply, in the past few days, Putin has been looking more and more insane. He's appeared at his own rallies reading poetry about the War of 1812 and calling for people to die at the gates of Moscow for their city and for his country, which I guess meant to vote for him... or something. The message was unclear, but I'm pretty sure he was talking of elections as a matter of life and death, which in itself is pretty absurd. His voice cracks, he tears up, he refers to classical Russian poets a tales (a sentimentality he NEVER exhibited before), and he calls for his supporters to not give up, to not give in, and announces he "will not give Russia up to the enemy." I.e. me, my friends, my parents, and the hundreds of thousands of peaceful and nerdy protestors who make up our civil society and middle class, I guess. The entire thing has kind of become weird and awkward, and he was clearly in bouts of hysteria in the days leading up the the election.
3. Developments of the past few hours:
"Putin Reloaded: civil society on the streets and behind bars. No smiles this time."
(the title of this section is as unclear, awkward and bulky as the feelings we all had today).
So finally March 4th came around, people voted, the whole thing was overseen by all the same bureacrats who were responsible for the massive fraud of the December Duma elections, the entire campaign for president was not transparent or free or fair, web cameras set up to monitor voting showed people hooking up next to election booths, people coming up to the voting places with stacks of filled out ballots and just casting them by the dozen, etc. That said, election results across several polling places all over Russia have been scrapped and will be held again. That said, lots of volunteers who came as overseers were beaten up. When about 65% of results were processed, Putin came out with a victory speech, preceded by the dimwit-puppet-fake-of-a-president Medvedev, who idiotically announced that "we did not give up Russia to the enemy," or something stupid of the like, and then a botoxed Putin with tears streaming down his otherwise immobilized face, with a cracking voice said that "you" (so the people at his rally) made the right choice, they fought the enemy, etc. This rhetoric of division, polarization and anger, coupled with his absolutely manic facial expression, scared a lot of people over the country. I, for one, was terrified to see this last night. To be honest, I thought he would come out and say something like "I still have lots of support, and I am the president of all of Russia and Russians, not just those who voted for me, and I intend to fulfill my job for my citizens, we are in this together," etc. Nope - nothing of the sort. He continued to demonize some kind of "enemy" (again, presumably me and all the other normal people of this fantasmagorically diverse and charmingly insane country) and to push a "we will not give up Russia" narrative. He equated himself with the Russian state and is becoming more and more absurd in his poetry-readings and emotional outbursts. This is a new Putin, indeed. And not in the hopeful "Putin 2.0" way.
That said, even if elections were not rigged, Putin still has the most support of all the candidates, at least partly due to the control he has over television and the high barriers of entry for other politicians into government, as well as due to the fact that he has single-handedly managed to concentrate power on himself and destroy all of Russia's (perhaps feeble) political institutions, leaving himself as a one-man political institution in and of himself. These are sytemic problems that deserved a lot of reform, attention, and political will in order to even begin to change the system. The other issue here is that when people are paying so much attention to corruption, rigging and falsifications, his rule becomes illigitimate, and when he doesn't address these issues, he becomes even more illigitimate in the face of ever more Russians. I can't stress enough that the Putin of today is not the putin of 6 years ago, nor does he have the same support, nor are his actions as transparent, nor does he answer to the people as much. Many of you have asked me why Russians have suddenly awoken from their deep slumber and only now seen his true color, so I hope I have given bits and pieces of answers here and there in my email thus far.
Important latest news:
The post-election rally for free and fair elections was held today (and sanctioned after a tremendous political tug of war with the city and the state) at 7 pm after work. This was of a different sort than the happy-go-lucky funny rallies of the past months. People were glum, not joking, not laughing, not dancing. It was a crowd of sincerely upset people. But not because they are all suprised that Putin will be president - this was already a given truth months ago and everyone knew. But there are other things driving the growing dismay as well.
This extremely negative mood in the giant crowd was caused, I believe, by three main factors:
1. The corrupt liars who organized the Duma elections in December were all in place administering these elections too. I get the feeling that these were more free and fair than the Duma ones, but the system is in place and the system is built to falsify. Even the Liar in Chief Churov, believed to have had the greatest hand in all the cynical falsifications in December, remained in charge yesterday. This is an outright demonstration of the will to entirely ignore completely valid and easy-to-satisfy complaints. We have been chanting "out with Churov" since December. WHY WAS HE IN CHARGE YESTERDAY. It would have been so simple to gain some brownie points by just getting rid of the guy. But no. Not even this was done.
2. Putin's victory speech last night was all about dividing the state and its supporters from the "enemy", presuming anyone who voted against him. The speech was about division, not unity, and not about reform or dialog or hope. An angered and vengeful-looking Putin faced us yesterday, and we did not like it. (If he ever sees the video of tens of thousands of people laughing at a joke at tonight's rally made from the stage into the microphone about how his now-infamous tears last night were just his botox leaking from his face, he will NOT be flattered.. not to mention the countless references to the Soviet movie called "Moscow Does not Believe in Tears"...).
3. The HUGE crowds of special units police in absolutely terrifying uniform looking like people from some kind of horror film, war movie, or very violent video game, holding all kinds of sticks and riot police stuff and wearing helmets, vests, and protection I never dreamed of. There were TRUCKLOADS of these men brought to Moscow from all over Russia (I hear 1/4 of the country's riot police was in Moscow today), and they stood in HUGE rows and rows and rows along the streets you had to walk down as you came up to Pushkin Square, the site of the protest. It was highly intimidating, and it was definitely a new scale of protection.
Of course there are many other longer term factors that contribute to the seriousness of the situation. And I have to stress, no one is laughing anymore. This is getting very grave.
It got even more grave as the protest was coming to a close and suddenly the riot police began to encircle the square where some people were still left. The demonstration was scheduled to end at 10, so anyone remaining after 10 were automatically participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, so they had the right to detain. They began encircling at 9:59 pm, according to twitter. I made it home and followed the rest online. They broke one woman's arm, arrested 250 people, and took 3 of the main organizers to police stations. In St. Petersburg up to 300 were arrested. They acted with a lot of brutality and force and the mood of the end of the demonstration was also like nothing we have seen yet, a stark contrast to the peacefulness of the demonstrations of the past several months. Some demonstrators were probably guilty of provocation in that they announced they would remain on the square, which was, strictly, not sanctioned... but starting beating people up at 9:59 is also not exactly adequate. I think, and many think, that this was the first muscle-flexing of the state in this new post-election Russia, and we don't know how things will unfold. A possible scenario is a radicalization on all sides - both the state and the oppositions. The state allowed the riot police to act in such a way tonight, while the mood of the protestors was far from jolly. People were visibly angered. Young crowds of nationalists may easily decide it's time to stop "talking" and "meeting" and begin acting.
On a side note, after the opposition demonstration I went to the Red Square-ish area (Manezh actually) down the street to look at the remnants of the pro-Putin rally, which was held simultaneously. I wanted to know who they were. It was organized groups of young kids, high school age, gathering in groups, with older people taking attendance, filing single-file into buses to be taken back to their towns outside of Moscow and handing in their supplies (signs, flags). Clearly staged, clearly organized as some kind of party for some kids, who maybe got paid. Another group was military guys dressed in civilian clothes, partly overseeing the situation to keep it peaceful and under control, and partly just forming extra masses for a feeling of crowdedness. Yet another group was a group of Cossaks in Cossak hats (yeah... not kidding). And a group of absurd looking older women with golden teeth, probably from textile factories or something, also brought in on buses from rural aread. Entirely different people from the kind of crowd marching in opposition. And now comes the question of how on EARTH these various Russias will ever come together and live in harmony, especially under the botoxed madman that is Putin? As a poet-activist concluded in a recent work, maybe the only thing that can unite us now is an attack from the USA... just kidding. Bad humor. Sorry.
On that note, I would like to point out that at some point I started thinking it was 2012 outside, and not 1942 or 1952 or even 1972. I hope my government will get with the program, because my fellow citizens are definitely getting there, and this process is irreversible. So sad for Putin.
1. Developments of the past few months:
this section will be called "Civil society on Moscow's streets and in Moscow's bars."
The past few months saw a huge rise in numbers of protesters and frequency of protests. They were all peaceful and hopeful and smiley. People came out with even more nerdy slogans and the city even allowed a march which ended in a rally in downtown Moscow. The turnout of the march and rally was astonishing, especially given it was -20 degrees celsius outside. People were dressed like bears! Everyone was red-nosed and hopping up and down to keep warm. This was a musical rally with lots of dancing and walking and moving, lots of white ribbons (the symbol of the opposition), lots of politeness and friendliness and people chanting to literally make their voices heard in a cold and wintery Moscow. The opposition at all these protests since December marched side by side, acknowledging differences amongst themselves but also peacefully standing together with a mutual understanding that there are universal things we can all fight against, like corruption, lack of transparency, unfair elections, a non-legitimate Duma, and an entirely unfree pre-election campaign which did not allow the registration of many candidates, just like the registration of many parties was blocked preceding the Duma elections in December.
In these months, state television loosened up a little, but in a weird way. They started showing protests, but after a while by looking at the screen of state television channels it remained sort of unclear what the crowds were rallying for or against. Some channels and websites showed rallies against Putin while describing them as rallies for Putin. Others just started using the murky term "rally" without really describing the referent, leaving it up the the viewer to conclude what exactly the rallying was all about. At the same time, opposition leaders and presidential candidates started appearing on state TV with anti-corruption speeches and their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs was given some attention. Yet the curious thing is the blogger and anti-corruption activitst Navalny, considered by many as one of the most likely emerging leaders of the opposition, was kept ENTIRELY silent on state TV. Putin even refused to SAY his name allowed, and even when asked direct questions in prime time by journalists he preferred to speak of him as "that person you speak of" and then change the subject. Any TV program that invited Navalny to speak was automatically closed down. Putin has some incredible level of personal fear and hatred of this person, that much is clear. Also funny, because the opposition movement has not yet even embraced him as a full-fledged leader, and the entire movement remains horizontally organized and civil. If Putin thinks he can seriously shut them up by pretending that one guy suddenly doesn't exist, he needs to get with the program. Clearly, a communal sense of responsibility, civic duty, and horizontal modes of organization mean nothing to our future president.
In the meantime, Putin's rhetoric of the State Department having paid people to rally against him continued with full force, and what's even more fun: the administration began a kind of ridiculous mock-campaign: on any day the opposition would rally, they would ship in busloads of obscure students and school kids and factory workers from outside of Moscow into the city to make a pro-Putin rally, then bus them back in the evenings. Many were paid, others were given a chance to "see the capital" and take a tour, and still others were just clueless and went along with the party. It was a weird process of mimicry and theater, when they would just organize these paid rallies and then show them on TV for god knows whom - I am starting to suspect they really were meant to be shown to one person, that being Putin. For his own enjoyment.
One of the most absurd/cool/sad/awesome/eclectic (as many things in Russia are) opposition demonstrations of the past months was a rally held on the 26th of February, organized through facebook and twitter and blogs, entirely last-minute and ad-hoc, unsanctioned: it was a "big white circle" of tens of thousands (if not 100 000) people for a couple hours just standing on the edge of the sidewalk side by side along the street that encircles downtown Moscow (known as the "Garden Ring"). A giant human circle entirely closed around the Kremlin and the center of town as thousandssssss of people locked hands or stood shoulder-to-shoulder. It was awe-some! Cars, as the sped by along the street, honked in admiration and support, waved white ribbons, sheets, scarves, toilet paper (since white is the color of the movement) out the windows and smiled. In the meantime, pro-Putin youth groups gathered outside the RIA News Agency/Russia Today news building trying to stage the whole thing as if the entire crowd was a pro-Putin group in front of cameras and journalists, causing chaos and generally being irritating and stupid, holding ridiculous signs saying stuff like "Putin loves everybody" (which, among other things, is also a lie). The white-ribboned opposition protestors stood there stoically and no fights broke out. My mom tried to convince the youth groups to read more books and newspapers, and my dad screamed anti-Putin chants trying to be louder than the pro-Putin kids in the crowd. I was in a different part of the circle, but I hear their little section was pretty lively.
And so the rallies continued, while the candidates lucky enough to even get into the final lists (a very hard task because the current administration set enormously high legal barriers to entry to the race) worked at their campaigns. It seemed like Putin was really going to have to buckle down and for once TRY to gather support, even though objectively he still has lots of supporters who do actually believe in him and his representation of a Strong Russia.
In this race for gaining or feigning support, the past months saw his people administer and organize the FORCED gathering of people at rallies. These people, whose names were written in lists and whose bosses announced they HAD to go rally for Putin, were mostly employed by the state (teachers, professors, bureacrats, all kinds of people from all ministries, many factories) and asked to rally with the threat of being fired. While this provided for thousands of people taking to the streets to demonstrate their "support" for Putin in pretty pictures and camera shots, it did NOT convince these poor people that they were going to actually vote for him when it came down to it. A lot of people who were asked or forced to rally for him were SO angered by this kind of manipulation, that I know for a fact he lost a ton of support in this absurd drive to stage fake massive gatherings based on fear and material reward.
2. Developments of the past few days:
"Fear and Loathing in the Kremlin."
Aside from these staged rallies, Putin didn't appear in front of anyone but those forcibly brought to the streets to chant things in his favor. He didn't even participate in any pre-election debates in the past months and of course not in the past days, nor did he make efforts to explain why he wouldn't debate with other candidates or appear next to the opposition and speak with them. His campaign was made up of balming the state department for financing protests, making absurd populist promises about pensions and other things which are absolutely economically infeasible, trying to talk about the world in the 22nd century and planning Russia's defense plan for the next 100 years (presumably he will still be president then), and making an absolutely crazy polarization of a choice between electing him and electing chaos. He has humuliated Medvedev, who has been kept entirely silent this entire time. And instead of trying to gain support, he has divided the country into invisible groups of the anti-Putin elite and middle class on one side, and the pro-Putin blue-collar crowd on the other side, mostly from outside of big cities and from the industrial heartland of Russia, or from Gazprom families, or from his croneys in government, or from the state's bureuacratic machine.
Here I must add my repetitive personal disclaimer: I used to be a supporter of Putin, and he used to be different. He used to be entirely pragmatic, entirely realist-oriented, entirely unemotional. And he used to have support from much wider groups of the population, AND he used to have legitimacy. Elections were not rigged as cynically, corruption was more widespread, people lived better, and the propaganda machine was not this developed. They key thing here is that he used to have legitimacy. Now he lost it, and to put it bluntly, I think he's gone crazy. I'm sort of uncomfortable with that.
To put it simply, in the past few days, Putin has been looking more and more insane. He's appeared at his own rallies reading poetry about the War of 1812 and calling for people to die at the gates of Moscow for their city and for his country, which I guess meant to vote for him... or something. The message was unclear, but I'm pretty sure he was talking of elections as a matter of life and death, which in itself is pretty absurd. His voice cracks, he tears up, he refers to classical Russian poets a tales (a sentimentality he NEVER exhibited before), and he calls for his supporters to not give up, to not give in, and announces he "will not give Russia up to the enemy." I.e. me, my friends, my parents, and the hundreds of thousands of peaceful and nerdy protestors who make up our civil society and middle class, I guess. The entire thing has kind of become weird and awkward, and he was clearly in bouts of hysteria in the days leading up the the election.
3. Developments of the past few hours:
"Putin Reloaded: civil society on the streets and behind bars. No smiles this time."
(the title of this section is as unclear, awkward and bulky as the feelings we all had today).
So finally March 4th came around, people voted, the whole thing was overseen by all the same bureacrats who were responsible for the massive fraud of the December Duma elections, the entire campaign for president was not transparent or free or fair, web cameras set up to monitor voting showed people hooking up next to election booths, people coming up to the voting places with stacks of filled out ballots and just casting them by the dozen, etc. That said, election results across several polling places all over Russia have been scrapped and will be held again. That said, lots of volunteers who came as overseers were beaten up. When about 65% of results were processed, Putin came out with a victory speech, preceded by the dimwit-puppet-fake-of-a-president Medvedev, who idiotically announced that "we did not give up Russia to the enemy," or something stupid of the like, and then a botoxed Putin with tears streaming down his otherwise immobilized face, with a cracking voice said that "you" (so the people at his rally) made the right choice, they fought the enemy, etc. This rhetoric of division, polarization and anger, coupled with his absolutely manic facial expression, scared a lot of people over the country. I, for one, was terrified to see this last night. To be honest, I thought he would come out and say something like "I still have lots of support, and I am the president of all of Russia and Russians, not just those who voted for me, and I intend to fulfill my job for my citizens, we are in this together," etc. Nope - nothing of the sort. He continued to demonize some kind of "enemy" (again, presumably me and all the other normal people of this fantasmagorically diverse and charmingly insane country) and to push a "we will not give up Russia" narrative. He equated himself with the Russian state and is becoming more and more absurd in his poetry-readings and emotional outbursts. This is a new Putin, indeed. And not in the hopeful "Putin 2.0" way.
That said, even if elections were not rigged, Putin still has the most support of all the candidates, at least partly due to the control he has over television and the high barriers of entry for other politicians into government, as well as due to the fact that he has single-handedly managed to concentrate power on himself and destroy all of Russia's (perhaps feeble) political institutions, leaving himself as a one-man political institution in and of himself. These are sytemic problems that deserved a lot of reform, attention, and political will in order to even begin to change the system. The other issue here is that when people are paying so much attention to corruption, rigging and falsifications, his rule becomes illigitimate, and when he doesn't address these issues, he becomes even more illigitimate in the face of ever more Russians. I can't stress enough that the Putin of today is not the putin of 6 years ago, nor does he have the same support, nor are his actions as transparent, nor does he answer to the people as much. Many of you have asked me why Russians have suddenly awoken from their deep slumber and only now seen his true color, so I hope I have given bits and pieces of answers here and there in my email thus far.
Important latest news:
The post-election rally for free and fair elections was held today (and sanctioned after a tremendous political tug of war with the city and the state) at 7 pm after work. This was of a different sort than the happy-go-lucky funny rallies of the past months. People were glum, not joking, not laughing, not dancing. It was a crowd of sincerely upset people. But not because they are all suprised that Putin will be president - this was already a given truth months ago and everyone knew. But there are other things driving the growing dismay as well.
This extremely negative mood in the giant crowd was caused, I believe, by three main factors:
1. The corrupt liars who organized the Duma elections in December were all in place administering these elections too. I get the feeling that these were more free and fair than the Duma ones, but the system is in place and the system is built to falsify. Even the Liar in Chief Churov, believed to have had the greatest hand in all the cynical falsifications in December, remained in charge yesterday. This is an outright demonstration of the will to entirely ignore completely valid and easy-to-satisfy complaints. We have been chanting "out with Churov" since December. WHY WAS HE IN CHARGE YESTERDAY. It would have been so simple to gain some brownie points by just getting rid of the guy. But no. Not even this was done.
2. Putin's victory speech last night was all about dividing the state and its supporters from the "enemy", presuming anyone who voted against him. The speech was about division, not unity, and not about reform or dialog or hope. An angered and vengeful-looking Putin faced us yesterday, and we did not like it. (If he ever sees the video of tens of thousands of people laughing at a joke at tonight's rally made from the stage into the microphone about how his now-infamous tears last night were just his botox leaking from his face, he will NOT be flattered.. not to mention the countless references to the Soviet movie called "Moscow Does not Believe in Tears"...).
3. The HUGE crowds of special units police in absolutely terrifying uniform looking like people from some kind of horror film, war movie, or very violent video game, holding all kinds of sticks and riot police stuff and wearing helmets, vests, and protection I never dreamed of. There were TRUCKLOADS of these men brought to Moscow from all over Russia (I hear 1/4 of the country's riot police was in Moscow today), and they stood in HUGE rows and rows and rows along the streets you had to walk down as you came up to Pushkin Square, the site of the protest. It was highly intimidating, and it was definitely a new scale of protection.
Of course there are many other longer term factors that contribute to the seriousness of the situation. And I have to stress, no one is laughing anymore. This is getting very grave.
It got even more grave as the protest was coming to a close and suddenly the riot police began to encircle the square where some people were still left. The demonstration was scheduled to end at 10, so anyone remaining after 10 were automatically participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, so they had the right to detain. They began encircling at 9:59 pm, according to twitter. I made it home and followed the rest online. They broke one woman's arm, arrested 250 people, and took 3 of the main organizers to police stations. In St. Petersburg up to 300 were arrested. They acted with a lot of brutality and force and the mood of the end of the demonstration was also like nothing we have seen yet, a stark contrast to the peacefulness of the demonstrations of the past several months. Some demonstrators were probably guilty of provocation in that they announced they would remain on the square, which was, strictly, not sanctioned... but starting beating people up at 9:59 is also not exactly adequate. I think, and many think, that this was the first muscle-flexing of the state in this new post-election Russia, and we don't know how things will unfold. A possible scenario is a radicalization on all sides - both the state and the oppositions. The state allowed the riot police to act in such a way tonight, while the mood of the protestors was far from jolly. People were visibly angered. Young crowds of nationalists may easily decide it's time to stop "talking" and "meeting" and begin acting.
On a side note, after the opposition demonstration I went to the Red Square-ish area (Manezh actually) down the street to look at the remnants of the pro-Putin rally, which was held simultaneously. I wanted to know who they were. It was organized groups of young kids, high school age, gathering in groups, with older people taking attendance, filing single-file into buses to be taken back to their towns outside of Moscow and handing in their supplies (signs, flags). Clearly staged, clearly organized as some kind of party for some kids, who maybe got paid. Another group was military guys dressed in civilian clothes, partly overseeing the situation to keep it peaceful and under control, and partly just forming extra masses for a feeling of crowdedness. Yet another group was a group of Cossaks in Cossak hats (yeah... not kidding). And a group of absurd looking older women with golden teeth, probably from textile factories or something, also brought in on buses from rural aread. Entirely different people from the kind of crowd marching in opposition. And now comes the question of how on EARTH these various Russias will ever come together and live in harmony, especially under the botoxed madman that is Putin? As a poet-activist concluded in a recent work, maybe the only thing that can unite us now is an attack from the USA... just kidding. Bad humor. Sorry.
On that note, I would like to point out that at some point I started thinking it was 2012 outside, and not 1942 or 1952 or even 1972. I hope my government will get with the program, because my fellow citizens are definitely getting there, and this process is irreversible. So sad for Putin.
I've been wondering for quite some time how I can best share what's been happening in politics here for the past few months, and then I got this email from a friend, and I feel like it's a wonderful expression of the current events.
ReplyDeleteAdding a few of my own thoughts, I just finished "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and loved the book. A major theme is how we all run the danger of being consumed by society (the combine/machine). The main character, Chief Bromden, pretends to be a deaf mute for years. His explanation-"the apparatus inside them take the words I just said and try to fit the words in here and there, this place and that, and when they find the words don’t have any place ready-made where they’ll fit, the machinery disposes of the words like they weren’t even spoken." When the book's hero, McMurphy, finds out that most patients are in the hospital by their own will, he decides they really are crazy for willfully choosing to stay in the ward. How often do I willfully give myself to society's whims and pushes?
I think that is the first time I've heard of anything in Moscow being "smiley". Especially in -20 C weather.
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