"Occupy Abay": struggle or obedience?

In Moscow, the opposition camp on Chistye Prudy became a new event in the life of Russia. For the first time, the opposition is holding an open-ended protest, which has become a kind of civil forum. The Moscow initiative, popularly called “Okkupayabay” after the poet Abai Kunanbayev, near whose stone statue a camp was formed, was picked up in the regions.

However, a lot of questions immediately accumulated for the newly-minted Occupy. A real civil forum involves defining strategies and tactics of action, forming demands, and training activists. For now, we are only observing an aimless concentration of people in a single place. With guitars, with jokes, with white balls, but without any clear content.

Political activist Konstantin Makarov published a landmark ad from Occupy Bay.



Makarov makes a fair conclusion:

“Do you want a revolution? Get rid of the slave virus of submission and obedience. First of all, throw out this disgusting Zonovsky list of prohibitions! Stretch banners over the camp that say “We do not cooperate with the police!” and “This is our land!” Well, it would be nice to remind you about Article 31 of the Constitution. Otherwise, you won’t see the Revolution like your own ears. So you will wander through the pens until your death.”

So what is the purpose of standing on Chistye Prudy? Show the authorities your position? What is this position? After all, you can’t not raise posters, don’t shout slogans, don’t call for anything that a strict “uncle policeman” might consider a provocation. All that remains is silent rejection of the authorities. “Occupy Bay” showed that the regime does not yet prohibit simply being in the park with a white ribbon on your chest. To be honest, this result is not impressive.

As I already wrote , on May 6, during the massacre at the “March of Millions,” a certain point of no return was passed. By setting riot police on the demonstrators, the regime showed its military-police grin. In this situation, the logical behavior for the opposition should be severity and seriousness, caused by the awareness of the repression that will soon fall on the participants in the “mass riots.”

What is needed is real resistance to the regime - radical, but not violent. It is necessary to openly and honestly call those who fought back the brutal riot police at the Stone Bridge - heroes, and those who were unarmed people - scum. Appropriate slogans are required. Among the successful finds is a poster that appeared on St. Isaac's Square on May 7 with a quote from Balmont: “Who began to reign with a walker, who will end by standing on the scaffold.”

The main thing is that we need the appropriate things to do. It is necessary to find out, finally, whether those who were beaten to death by riot police on May 6 were actually beaten to death. This is fundamentally important. If there were still no casualties (God willing!), then we need to monitor the fate of the seriously injured - compile at least an approximate list of people who were injured.

And then - take actions. Such forms of expressing civic position as a sit-in strike (not in the park, but somewhere in front of the State Duma) or a real strike are quite applicable. And it’s even cooler to simply enter some government building with a crowd of several hundred people. Then there will be a real, and not a carnival, “occupation.”

However, we see the opposite. Instead of the logical radicalization of those who were used to protesting quietly, there is a new buffoonery on Chistye Prudy. Party toothless hipsterism has reappeared, which means there is a growing divide between fighters and buffoons, between those who truly resist the System and those who perceive what is happening as a comfortable happening broadcast via Twitter.

On Saturday I attended an event on St. Isaac's Square in St. Petersburg, similar to the Moscow Occupy. I was interested, first of all, in the strategy of action of those gathered. From the diversity of opinions, we managed to catch something like the following: “For now there are few of us here, so nothing is happening, but when there are many, then it will begin.”

Let's hope that “something will really begin.” We radicals will contribute to this. I’m just afraid that cowards and rags will again call what is happening a provocation.