: Culture and rally Park

It is not clear what the metropolitan “guide park” can be called the “analogue” of the British original. In fact, they are completely opposite. But links to “Western experience” are attracted by the authorities, because they allow us to “rationally” explain decisions without finding a public consensus. It seems that the authorities want good, they simply perceive rallies as a type of leisure of citizens.

The metropolitan authorities decided on rallies. The “ Hyde Park” analogues in Moscow will be the Gorky and Sokolniki park. The solution turned out to be extremely controversial in terms of even constructive opposition. State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev on a blog complains that these places do not satisfy one simple requirement - it is technically impossible to collect a really mass rally in them. And he says that in the capital there are much more sites closer to state authorities.

The last argument seems quite doubtful. Rallies are not gathering so that the authorities literally hear the protesters. Bolotnaya Square from Old Square is quite far away - but Bolotnaya in December was quite “heard”. That is why I adopted the Dragon Law on rallies, including just the requirement to create special reservations for the protesters in each Russian region.

However, the opposition’s reaction is understandable: after all, any restriction of freedom in Russia is in pure form of shell and power arbitrariness.

It is noteworthy that officials and news agencies call this initiative “analogue of the Hyde Park”. These reservations are not analogue of the London Hyde Park. Speakers Corner in the Hyde Park and similar sites in other British cities are such a tribute to tradition. There, anyone can come and say everything that he pleases, without notifying the authorities about it.

In other places, a notice is simply required so that the police can organize the protection of your event and protection from you, if necessary. And besides, you need to understand how many people will gather, whether the selected site of all comers will be able to accommodate, whether you are crossing at the same time with implacable ideological opponents. So not far from the clashes, and after all, the task of the police is not to allow them to ensure that people do not suffer.

Approximately such a scheme is valid in Russia now, adjusted for national specifics - the rally requires the “resolution” of local authorities, it is not enough to notify them. What gives birth to well-known incidents, like the prohibition of the already permitted shares and the de facto “black list” of persons who will never allow a rally.

As for the “Hyde Park” actually, then, of course, complete freedom-go out into the street and chat what you want. Well, if, of course, you will not call for an armed rebellion, and even then it is not a fact that someone will be interested in you.

However, our new "Hyde Parks" are definitely not analogues.

The original guarantees the citizen the freedom of utterance, the Russian “analogue” is strictly geographically limits it, and even introduces the actual limit of the number of protests.

The English “Hyde Park” works for stability in society: a dangerous extremist, unbalanced mentally, may not reach the stage dangerous for the rest, reprimanded before a dozen fans. Our Hyde Park contributes to the radicalization of relations through the “Power-Need-Holy Power” line. And taking into account that the authorities are now actively turning for support to the “people” or what it understands by this, and you can reach the civil war.

Finally, purely technically, rallies can go through “pieces” more than can accommodate two sites. What to do then? How to decide how to harness the "horse and trembling doe"? Can Nationalists be allowed to rally in the neighborhood of anarchists, or is it better for the Communists? Will Skinheads with liberals arrange a massacre? God knows that this can be done with this.

The favorite course of the Russian authorities is to refer to the "Western experience." The West is selected situationally, examples are taken clearly incorrect, from another political culture, but we will have “like in the West”. The abolition of the governor's elections - so they are not everywhere choosing! It doesn’t matter that far from everywhere or even anywhere the elections are not canceled, if they are, but links to the same UK where “they don’t choose the Governor of Scotland” (as Putin motivated) are simply ridiculous. Anyway: advanced experience. And it’s hard to say how much you can refer to the “best practices” of South Korea or China.

Choosing between arbitrariness and legitimacy, the Russian authorities over and over again seek from the most good motives (as I would like to believe) to find a “middle ground”.

That is: rationally explain arbitrariness. The focus is that arbitrariness cannot be explained rationally.

Limiting freedom, you need to have not only real support by the population of the decisions made (and not rumbled “indignant residents”), but also an iron explanation from the series “Why is all this done”. "Advanced experience" here is an unimportant help. The legitimacy of such decisions is not even zero - it is negative. And from this, ultimately, the legitimacy of the authorities itself also suffers.

Actually, the authorities want good when organizing these "guide parking". And always in this way they react to social phenomena. For example, on the streets of the capital, street racers appeared and the authorities decide that it is dangerous and generally wrong. Streeters begin to catch traffic cops intensively. Then, when the traffic cops are ineffective, the authorities recognize their right to exist, but they say - only in the place we designated and at a certain time. The same was with diggers, graffitches, skateboarders.

And special sites for leisure for new types in recent years have been growing in Moscow, like mushrooms. Or the old sites are equipped with a new type of leisure. Here you have a “garage” with its actual art, and Gorky Park for a “advanced” civilized vacation (it is interesting, by the way, how do the protesters get along with vacationers on the same site in the heads of the authorities?), And Tsaritsyno with Kolomensky, and “Red October” with its hipsters and fashionable clubs.

It turns out that for power, rallies are such a new strange type of leisure of citizens under which you just need to create a platform. And the problem itself turns from political into infrastructure.

In a certain way, this is really the case - the form of leisure, in a public place, to equip such a place - not bad thought. And there are hot dogs, water, toilets, so that citizens are satisfied. Only many protesters, I am afraid, will not agree with such an interpretation.

See also: Ksenia Itskovich walks in the park