GROTESQUE “STREET THEATER” MAY BE BRAVE BUT IT DOES NOT ADVANCE REAL DISSIDENCE: SASHA PASTERNAK….SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4361/after_man_nails_scrotum_to_cobbles_in_red_square_why_don_t_russian_protestors_just_get_real
THIS MAY BE “BALLSY”, BUT THINK OF THE “REFUSENIKS” WHO STARTED A WHOLE MOVEMENT….IDA NUDEL WHO WAS HARRASSED CONTINUALLY BY THE KGB STOOD HER GROUND AND CONTINUED TO DISPLAY A SIGN READING “KGB GIVE ME MY VISA” FROM HER WINDOW. FOR THAT ACT SHE WAS SENT TO A SIBERIAN GULAG FOR FOUR YEARS. SHE WAS KNOWN AS THE “GUARDIAN ANGEL” OF SOVIET JEWRY. AND THERE ARE SO MANY OTHERS….THEIR SACRIFICE AND COURAGE LED TO THEIR RELEASE AND VOYAGE TO ISRAEL AND THE WEST…..RSK
After man nails scrotum to cobbles in Red Square, why don’t Russian protestors just get real?It was a pointed protest. But instead of nailing his scrotum to Red Square why didn’t he join a Facebook group, or start a new movement? This won’t help democracy in Russia one bit.
There’s got to be a better way. Pyotr Pavlensky’s decision to nail his scrotum to the cobbles in Red Square last week in protest against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism will no more help the cause of democracy in Russia than have the lewd antics of the now jailed young women from Pussy Riot.
Pavlensky has just been charged with “hooliganism” — a catch all part of the criminal code that was widely used to jail dissidents in the Soviet era.
Except that the dissidents in the Soviet era didn’t nail their private parts to public squares, defile churches or have sex in public to make their point, which is why Pavlensky and Pussy Riot enjoy very little respect among ordinary Russians. Their actions harm the democracy movement in modern Russia by making it easy for the authorities to portray all its opponents as cranks and weirdos.
“…our fixation on our defeats and losses is nailing us to the Kremlin’s cobbles,” Pavlensky said in a statement. No Pyotr. It’s you.
Let’s not forget that opponents of the Soviet regime faced far greater pressures and consequences. And beyond samizdat — literally “self-published” material — they had practically no way to express their opposition.
Today, opponents of what they rightly condemn as a neo-authoritarian Russia have the internet, protest groups, and some limited access to traditional media.
Don’t get me wrong, they face enormous restrictions, and Putin’s regime will go to any lengths to protect its hold on power. Pavlensky — almost certainly heading to jail — and Pussy Riot — whose members are already there — do not deserve to be incarcerated.
But they do need to think a bit harder about what they are doing to the wider credibility of the democratic opposition. Their country’s history offers some great figures to emulate. The dignity of Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn should be a lesson to them.
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