In the opposition

Gongo on the march

August 3, 2010 Alexander Podrabinek

Fate has his own sense of humor. Sometimes she hurries to repeat in the form of a farce the story that has not yet had time to end. So they exist in parallel - history and farce. This is exactly how it happened with “non-state organizations” (Non-Governmental Organization-NGO) and parody “state non-state organizations” (Governmental Non-Government Organization-Gongo). The latter themselves, of course, are not called. Created at the command of the authorities, they impersonate the real ones, which people who are not sophisticated in these matters are sometimes inclined to believe.

In our country, such fakes began to appear in Soviet times. A classic example is the International Commission on Human Rights, which was created in 1987, headed by a communist functionary, an employee of the Central Committee of the CPSU Fedor Burlatsky. The main task of the commission was to switch to all foreign contacts through the human rights line. Move aside the remnants of the dissident movement and new independent human rights groups. Then they did not really succeed.

However, we will leave the story to be torn to be divorced by historians. Today, Gongo is numerous and diverse. Of course, the designation of “public” organizations as “state” conditionally - in their constituent documents, they do not declare their connections with the state. It is easiest to determine Gongo by two signs: in significant matters, they support power and financing for their activities receive from domestic state structures.

These criteria, for example, corresponds to a little -known human rights movement “Resistance”, which receives targeted budget financing for its own needs and having a state order to distribute grants for 170 million rubles in 2009. This is headed by Olga Kostina, wife of the deputy head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration. Her human rights credo has been set out in one of her statements: “For decades, Russian human rights have been formed and perceived exclusively as political power, opposition authorities. However, today the social request both in Russia and in world practice has shifted towards solving social problems. ”

Solving social tasks to the best of their strengths and mood, Gongo quietly master budget money for the good of themselves and their own kind. It is enough to say that in 2009, four still little -known organizations as the “resistance” (sort of “Baikalfinance groups” of the third sector) were transferred from the state budget as subrogant recipients of 1.2 billion rubles. To whom and how they distribute this money - a separate conversation.

However, the pile of budget money is a regular occupation in today's Russia. Of greater interest are the organizations and their individual functionaries who enter the public space. The ability to assume power in time in a sensitive question for her is worth a lot and pays out more than pays off. So, for example, in the recently unfolding discussion about the right of Roskomnadzor, the director of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights Alexander Brod took part from the Internet media. His performance on the Vesti-FM radio was later posted on the website of the radio station under the heading Alexander Brod: Roskomnadzor must monitor our Internet. The title definitely reflects the gaze of the “human rights activist” on the problem of censorship on the Internet. A voice from the human rights community in support of the restriction of civil freedoms, of course, is perceived by the authorities with a bang.

The temptation to be the power on a short leg is experienced by many human rights activists. Alas, many of this temptation cannot withstand. Unfortunately, it so happened that the movement between NGO and Gongo is a one -way street. Non -state organizations drift towards state, and never the opposite. Many human rights activists, among whom are very famous, are included in the public councils of just those state structures that are a source of human rights violations - law enforcement agencies, the presidential administration, and the government. The general public can be explained for a long time and dullly explained considerations of expediency, however, the actual effectiveness of such a practice was demonstrated the other day by the editor -in -chief of Kommersant Mikhail Mikhailin. He left the Public Council under the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate, since the Central Internal Affairs Directorate does nothing to be held to be held accountable for police officers who broke the hand of the Gazeta.ru network publication Alexander Artemyev to the triumph of the Settlement Public Square. Mikhailin is not a human rights activist and to increase significance does not need the status of a “close to power” - therefore, realizing his helplessness in contact with the Moscow police, he came out of this public appendix of the power structure.

Human rights activists, with rare exceptions, do not allow such liberties. Unless Oleg Orlov left the Presidential Council for Human Rights, but Ella Pamfilova announced a resignation, although it is not entirely clear so far, for what reasons. Everyone else prefer to endure reputational risks for the sake of a special status.

Entering Gongo noticeably changes the behavior of human rights activists. Sometimes the characteristic authorities of resentment and intolerance appear. Take, for example, a story with a stupid installation of young idiots on Lake Seliger. Is it possible to relate so seriously to a dirty attempt by poorly developed youths to declare their loyalty to senior comrades? When this audience pursued the English ambassador or blocked the Estonian embassy, ​​this should have been treated seriously as dangerous actions. But when they write, draw and say, then no need to be like a ban on the excitement. Yes, sneeze a hundred times for all their installations, caricatures and accusations. It is necessary to distinguish threats from opinions; Publicly respond even to hidden threats, but to ignore even the most boorish opinions. Public people should not react so sharply to attacks against them.

Most of all there were experiences for Lyudmila Alekseeva, who, by the way, was quite calm about this. However, the flow of barely at her surpassed all conceivable limits. In fairness, I would like to object to some of the Yezhovsky authors respected. Lyudmila Mikhailovna was not expelled from the USSR, but voluntarily emigrated to the United States when arrests in the Moscow group of Helsinki began in 1977, and returned back when the USSR was no longer. Alekseeva is not at all “our oldest human rights activist”, since there is no need to write off the accounts of either Elena Georgievna Bonner, nor Malva Noevna Landa, who, incidentally, unlike Alekseeva, paid court sentences for their human rights activities. And they did not accept from Mr. Putin neither flowers for his birthday, nor places in presidential structures.

The ability to be simultaneously in different guns is a line of time. Gongo is a collective manifestation of such a skill. On the one hand, public and independent, on the other, on the content of the state and in the interests of the authorities. Today, the most striking such organizations are youth movements created under state patronage. They act in the interests of the authorities with a public enthusiasm. “Ours” will picket embassies and persecute the ambassadors of those countries with which Russia has a tense relationship. “Young Russia” arranges its mediocre events on the Triumphal Square, not even hiding that it seeks to prevent rallies that arrange “disagreed” in defense of the 31st article of the Constitution.

Gongo’s life is juicy, but short -lived. You can mislead others with your social status at the start, then the deception is revealed. Therefore, such organizations so often change signs, instead of old projects they create new ones, under which you can get new financing.

The natural Gongo and the “gongons” inhabiting them do not have much need to take care of their own reputation. Another thing is human rights activists who are drawn into the orbit of public service. For them, reputation is the key to successful social activity, and you can’t strengthen a reputation in society with the Commonwealth with institutions of power. Unless you get a grant from the Public Chamber. Maybe that's why the popularity of human rights defenders in Russia is so small today.