Celebrity and politics

The final verdict in the Pussy Riot case became the top news of the day for all the world's media. I saw a statistic somewhere that 86% of the world's leading newspapers had headlines about Pussy Riot - and many of these headlines were on the front pages. The second news of the day in the world press was the news of the brutal detention of Garry Kasparov near the Khamovnichesky Court building .

In Russia, even the fact that the first news item made it to the world tops causes bewilderment among many (they say, “well, girls and girls, well, they imprisoned and imprisoned, it’s a lot, of course, but you never know who gets imprisoned without guilt”), and even the fact that the second The news also worries the whole world and seems completely incomprehensible to most Russians. So, on Friday, at the Khamovnichesky Court, no less than a hundred people were detained, and Kasparov is just one of them. Moreover, for the majority of our fellow citizens interested in politics, Garry Kasparov is just a not very clear and rather radical politician.

But let's look at the situation through the eyes of an adult, educated foreigner. No matter what country in the world he lives in, be it Russia, Great Britain, the USA or Kenya, he is immersed in the global cultural context of famous people, facts, phenomena and events. This layer - the sediment of the world information sphere in the head of an educated person - is not very large, but it is not determined by either personal preferences or tastes. There are simply such universal things that everyone knows. You don't have to travel around Europe, but everyone knows the name of the capital of France. You don't have to be a Beatles fan, but everyone knows who Paul McCartney is. And in the same way, anyone knows who Madonna, Brad Pitt, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Pope Benedict XVI, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Stephen Hawking, Mike Tyson, Nelson Mandela are. On this list, if we talk about living people, there are not many religious and political figures, and very few scientists and writers - the bulk of it are stars of world sports and show business. This list may not seem very fair to some, but it is formed on its own under the influence of time. Our time is very media-driven and interactive, which is why the list of famous people of the 19th century contains many more Brad Pitts and David Beckhams than Albert Einsteins and Yuri Gagarins.

I say all this to the fact that if we look at modern Russia, we will see that we have very few people who could be included in the list of world celebrities known to every cultured person. So, for example, Dmitry Medvedev is not (and never was) on this list; Alexei Navalny is not in it (yet?). Of course, it includes Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin, Garry Kasparov - and who else? Probably Maria Sharapova (and ten years ago there was Anna Kournikova). Probably Andrei Arshavin. Who else? Well, maybe Valery Gergiev. Maya Plisetskaya. If we interpret it very broadly, and consider people who do not currently live in Russia, two or three more names will be added. Sergey Brin. Roman Abramovich. Maybe Ernst Neizvestny? Of course, there is something to argue about here; I might have forgotten about someone. Probably, you can add 2-3 more people, but still the list will be extremely short, within the fingers of two hands.

This is a very important list, in fact - it is part of the country’s brand, its associative series. “Vodka, matryoshka, balalaika, tsars, ballet, hockey, bear, satellites” - there are also no more than a dozen of these concepts, as well as famous names. Concepts, like surnames, get into this list along winding paths that are not always completely clear; these paths, in any case, are almost beyond the control of manual control. Therefore, every last name is important. Quite similar historical processes took place in Chile and Argentina in the 70-80s, but “Pinochet” is already a common noun, and Chile first comes to mind when it comes to the Latin American dictatorship, and Argentina is Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona and Eva Peron; completely different image!

When, as a child, while vacationing with my grandmother in Bulgaria, I played chess with some children from other socialist countries, and if I happened to win, the little Bulgarians and East Germans, my peers, would say: “Oh, that’s understandable! from Russia, you have Kasparov there, everyone there is so smart,” and this is “you all are so smart there” - this is how the country’s brand, expressed in personalities, works.

It’s funny and at the same time very painful to watch how the authorities of our country, without understanding this, create terrible problems with their image out of the blue. 99 people could have been arrested at the Khamovnichesky Court, and this would not have become top news among world news agencies. But Kasparov’s detention, from the point of view of the media effect for the world community, is equal to the announcement of Angelina Jolie’s next marriage. This does not mean, of course, that Kasparov, in principle, cannot be detained (if David Beckham is drunk and speeding, then in any normal country he will be arrested), but here the whole world saw: Garry Kasparov talked to journalists, he cannot be out of the blue it was possible to detain him in the same way as was done at the Khamovnichesky court - for no reason whatsoever, during a conversation with journalists. From an image point of view, it is completely unacceptable to illegally detain and beat a person with whom Russia is associated in the modern world, even if Putin does not like this person. Now, to the image of Russia, where you are imprisoned for 2 years for singing in a church, another image has been added: Russia is where Garry Kasparov was illegally detained and beaten. These facts will be included in the thesaurus of an educated person, and this becomes very embarrassing. (The sad paradox is that the people who are in power disgrace the country, but those who travel abroad and communicate in a multicultural environment become ashamed; it is we who have to catch sideways, sympathetic, very unpleasant glances when we mention Russia) .

Why does Putin set himself up so stupidly? Well, apparently, he is simply not one of the educated adults.

* * *

There is one more thing that I would like to talk about in this regard. On Saturday, I reposteda post by Fedor Krasheninnikov , in which the following thought seemed very close to me: it is impossible to rationally understand why Garry Kasparov is not in the State Duma, but Vladimir Burmatov is there.

Look here. Not all of the world-class celebrities listed in this post even want to get involved in politics. However, if only one of them decides to go into politics as, for example, Arnold Schwarzenegger did, then all doors will always be open for them. A world celebrity, that is, a self-made person who has earned a lot of money with his intelligence or talent - this is a very good image for a politician. He is always in great demand and he always bears great responsibility. It is obvious that he does not go into politics for money; one would expect that first of all he wants to do something useful for the country. So for a person who has achieved a lot in life, moving into politics can be a completely natural step, although it can cost him dearly. In his field, this man was and remains the first, but in politics he is not guaranteed great success, and he will be just one of many.

Of course, Garry Kasparov, with his sharply liberal views, even in Europe, would hardly have had a chance of becoming a member of the party of the parliamentary majority. But parliament is a place where a very large number of different points of view collide! The more or less centrist position almost always wins (depending on the political situation: center-left or center-right), but extreme points of view are also very necessary; They are the ones who ultimately help find a compromise.

It is quite obvious that if in any European country a famous person of Kasparov’s level wanted to become a member of parliament and represent his point of view, he would become one without any problems (a chess example is the great Nona Gaprindashvili , deputy of the Tbilisi City Duma; she, by the way, As far as I understand, he is in strict opposition to Saakashvili). It does not matter that his position would seem radical to someone. One way or another, in the end the compromise will be built much closer to the center than the extreme position, but he will participate in the search for a compromise - therefore any parliament would benefit from his presence. And his foray into politics would be perceived by society with absolute gratitude: a person who has glorified his country wants to devote part of his time to public service.

But in our upside-down world, everything is not like that. Garry Kasparov is dangerous to society just by appearing on the street; he is practically an enemy of the people. And in our parliament we have a bunch of patented idiots (truly dangerous to society) who, to the best of their abilities, are pushing the country into the abyss.

Original