Intercepting rhetoric

On April 12, Alexei Navalny announced a new opposition rally - it should take place on June 12, on Russia Day

The question "what's next?" appeared immediately after the success of the opposition actions on March 26, and the success was completely unexpected, stunning both the authorities and their opponents. The authorities rushed, not embarrassed by the occasion, to gather “meetings of sorrow” after the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg in order to show that they control the street and are able to bring more people to the rallies than Navalny. The opposition first had to collect parcels for the detainees, of course. However, continuation options were also offered. Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced the holding at the end of April of the all-Russian action "I'm Tired", directed directly against Vladimir Putin. Now representatives of "Open Russia" in some cities are trying to get permission for rallies. Navalny, who had 15 days of administrative arrest in order to calmly think things over, proposed a different strategy.

The March 26 rallies were a demand for a direct response from the authorities to the facts that formed the basis of the film and the investigation “He is not Dimon to you.” There were no answers - except for the intention of the two defendants in the film, the oligarch Alisher Usmanov and the banker Ilya Eliseev, to sue Navalny. So there will be a new promotion.

The choice of date and the call to go out under the tricolor Russian flags is a good move. If the action is approved, the opposition will claim its rights to an important public holiday and fill it with new content. If not, it will look like an obvious arbitrariness: on Russia Day, rallies and marches are traditionally held in all major cities, of course, legal ones. And it is not easy to explain why some citizens have the right to celebrate a public holiday, while others do not.

Frankly speaking, I’m already quite tired of the fact that people who draw Russia into international conflicts, who are clearly working to worsen the situation inside the country, and cover up frank power lawlessness, have declared themselves patriots

But even more important than the choice of date is Navalny's bid to intercept patriotic rhetoric. He calls potential protesters who are ready to resist the corrupt government "patriots and normal people", and the other side - "thieves, swindlers, hypocrites and cowards", as well as "traitors" for some reason. And do not underestimate the claim to a new (not to say common) sense of the word "patriot". This is more than a word game.

Firstly, frankly, I'm already quite tired of the fact that people who draw Russia into international conflicts, who are clearly working to worsen the situation inside the country, and cover up frank power lawlessness, have declared themselves patriots. It seems that in fact, love for the motherland should look somehow different.

And secondly, the operation to intercept patriotic rhetoric in our memory in the Fatherland is not the first. In 1999, the young and promising Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took away from the red-brown opposition its traditional clearing - talk about the former greatness of the state and its current humiliation. He recognized the former greatness, noticed the humiliation and promised a new greatness in the future. This, of course, was not the main factor in his victories, but it undoubtedly played a role. Moreover, this semantic complex still works today, remaining the basis of state propaganda.

Talk about new patriotism, the patriotism of “normal people” who need a calm and honest life in a comfortable country, and not at all imaginary greatness, paid for both with money from their own pocket and with blood in other people’s wars, can deal a serious blow to propaganda. Perhaps even more serious than the anti-corruption investigations themselves.

And, of course, it should be noted that, having announced preparations for his own action, Navalny actually distanced himself from Khodorkovsky's rallies under the slogan "Tired".