The bad glory of Russia

What did foreigners know about Russia? Matryoshki, vodka, and bears on the streets. Then the horizons expanded to the satellite, Gagarin, ballet and Perestroika. But all this was a long time ago. From those times there was only an atomic bomb, but it is not a unique Russian phenomenon, and you will not surprise anyone. Meanwhile, the Kremlin leaders, sung by national vanity and longing for the collapsed Soviet empire, really want the whole surrounding world, if not to scare, then at least surprise. And nothing! Grace in power does not allow anything bright to develop.

And suddenly - Pussy Riot! The whole world speaks of them, reports about the trial of them go in the first lanes of famous newspapers and at the beginning of television news. Stars of show business and Hollywood actors with world fame, musicians and singers, politicians and writers, mayors of capital and deputies of parliaments intercede for them. Russia has finally attracted public attention. I suspect, President Putin secretly grinds with pride in our country and ascribes to himself the incredible success of PRSY RIOT PR. For the sake of such an advertising success, he would have been in prison in prison all the women's ensembles of the country with all opera singers, and not that Tolokonnikov, Alekhin and Samutsevich.

However, the Pussy Riot defense campaign for Russia in the country and abroad cannot be explained exclusively by the Kremlin's cunning machinations. His role here is simpler - to sentence and plant. Such a spontaneous, powerful and worldwide political campaign in defense of the political prisoners in our country has not been, perhaps, since the illegal internation of Academician Sakharov in Gorky in 1980.

I must say, Sakharov’s link in Gorky was an act of glaring lawlessness, but far from the most severe abuse of power at that time. Dozens of Soviet political prisoners were then in much more difficult conditions and much more needed to defend. But public campaigns have their own laws. In that case, the decisive role was played by the international fame of Sakharov as an outstanding scientist and laureate of the Nobel Prize of the World.

Pussy Riot had no such fame and titles. The "crime" of them and the sentence are not the most serious. Many innocently convicted in Russia for political reasons are persecuted for more serious actions and have much more difficult sentences. Why Pussy Riot?

Perhaps the Pussy Riot case hurts pain points not only in Russia, but also in many other states, including legal and seemingly prosperous. Of course, in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, you will not surprise anyone with a sentence for blasphemy. It's not about them. We are talking about those countries in which civilian freedoms are the basis of the constitution and the entire legal system. The relationship between a secular society with an organized religion is also not cloudless here. This is manifested in constant discussions in connection with the position of the church about abortion and contraception, gender inequality and female priesthood. This leads to direct clashes between religious intolerance and freedom of speech, as in the case of the publication of cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad. These problems are reflected in legal norms, such as, for example, an English ban on wearing in schools of underwear on top of clothing or French law prohibiting women to appear in a burden in public places.

The search for a balance between personality freedom and social morality, between religious rituals and the secular character of the state, is very painful and is not at all simple even from a legal point of view. Therefore, the clumsy decision of the Khamovnik court in the Pussy Riot case made such a repulsive impression on Western society, which is so diligently looking for compromises between freedom, religion, morality and politics.

In our country, such problems are solved purely Russian: easy, thoughtlessly and always to the detriment of the individual. Thanks to which we again became famous throughout the world, but not at all like everyone would like.