Translated material
Candidate Alexei Navalny
How the main political news of the last days was born
The statement of Alexei Navalny about readiness to fight for the post of President of Russia commented, it seems, everything. From a deputy of Burmatov and pro -government political scientists to the leaders of the opposition. From Eduard Limonov to Maxim Katz and from The Guardian to the Czech newspaper Lidové Noviny. The statement itself was evaluated, of course, differently-from “finally” to “this is political infantilism,” but one agreed: Navalny, they say, specially prepared a sensation for the beginning of the process of Kirovles in order to put the authorities in a difficult situation-the presidential candidate is somehow inconvenient, not like a simple blogger.
Everyone, except for Alexei Navalny himself, who wrote on Twitter the next morning after the broadcast on "Rain": "The laws of the media is an amazing secret. Yesterday, in @dziadko3, he did not say anything that he had not talked about a hundred times before. But everyone rushed to quote."
Navalny is right. He really not only did not say anything new regarding his plans for the presidency, he could not say anything new. Unless to refute what he said earlier.
The topic with the possible presidency of Navalny was discussed even before Bolotnaya Square. One of the first who seriously spoke about this was a man named Oleg Makarenko, the once popular blogger Fitzmorgen and the "public controller" "Rospila", now - the Posmrevsky propagandist, very distinguishable from others. The site "People's President", created by Navalny's associates, when he was serving in December 2011, he collected more than 15 thousand signatures in support of his presidential candidate in a few days. The words "our leader", spoken by Oleg Kashin about Navalny in Bolotnaya Square, even then few people were crushed. On Sakharov Navalny Avenue, they did not listen to a person from the Top LJ, but as a politician.
Finally, he was called to the presidency to nominate in the 2012 elections - and he explained several times why he did not. Not all of his explanations seemed convincing, but it was in these explanations that he said that he would like to become president, but he did not see any sense in those specific elections. And in a recent interview at the rain, he did not deny this thesis in any way. Navalny said exactly one phrase, a tongue twister, in response to a direct question about the desire to become president.
Alexey Navalny is wrong in another. This is not so much about the laws of the media as about the laws of interpretation of the text.
Text is not just a set of phrases united by some thought. Text is primarily interpretation. The text in the modern world is inconceivable without context. It’s not enough to say something-it is more important how you will be understood. Supporters of Navalny, those who are commonly called participants in the "civil movement", interpreted his fleeting comment quite unequivocally. And it was this reaction - and not at all the statement of Navalny - became news. It is she who is the same "amazing secret."
Why, a year ago, although Navalny said about the same thing, his words did not cause such a reaction? Because subconsciously no one found them news. Of course, not all participants in Moscow protests were ready to seriously set up tents on Manezhnaya Square, but most of those who seriously counted on such an opportunity, it was in Navalny that they saw the one who could lead the country after the possible success of the Maidan and hold of honest elections. And this despite many words about the liminity, about horizontal connections, that if not Putin, then the cat ... The fact that Navalny is “the first among equals” was, of course, the secret of the police.
What has changed now, over the past few months?
The context has changed, a sense of euphoria from the fact that “we exist” and “there are a lot of us,” was replaced by disappointment, and the ghost of the political thaw - “twisting the nuts” and repression. The first wave of civil protest subsided, and the landscape after the battle is rather joyless. Obviously, the country is threatened not only by stagnation, but a rather gloomy reaction, expressed not only in the persecution of political opponents (it did not stop in the 2000s), but also in the attempt to freedom of private life, on the constitutional principle of the diversity of ideologies. The country has become different. Between February 2012 and April 2013, the difference is huge.
"Falls, sunsets remained behind our back. Well, at least insignificant, well, if only an invisible take -off." The fact that Alexei Navalny remained the same and did not refuse to “put crooks and thieves” after coming to power, in the new context is already perceived as such a “take -off”, new hope, and therefore, as a new phenomenon, although the words themselves are really different from what he spoke a year ago.
During this year, many expressed, if not disappointment, then bewilderment in connection with Navalny’s actions. They said and wrote that he could not become a politician that he was much more comfortable to be a blogger, expose specific members of United Russia, and not to build a party to fight in the elections ... Now such conversations are the end: the semi -duty news about presidential ambitions blew up the Internet stronger than any “Pekhtting”. If something is expected to be subconsciously from a person, his actions will be interpreted in the context of these expectations. The gun hanging on the stage may not want to shoot itself, but in the current context of the drama, it is obliged to shoot, if, of course, a gun, not a dummy. From Navalny - subconsciously or consciously - they were waiting for leadership, and the first after some break the words he said about the presidency were interpreted as a conscious readiness to take on this burden. The declared readiness to help Navalny and during the proceedings in the Kirovles case, and in further struggle inspires the hope that he will not be left alone with his problems, which would become the same violation of the spirit of movement as the transformation of the leader into the Fuhrer.
No less responsibility now lies on Alexei Navalny itself. Whether he intentionally went to aggravate the situation or, as I think, everything turned out outside the pre-developed plan, is now not so important. The context is built, and in this context Navalny is a presidential candidate and the opposition leader who is judged by a fabricated charges, and not a blogger-a corruption fighter who crossed the road in the Kirov region. Now Navalny is put in such a situation that the retreat will cause not just bewilderment, but the loss of reputation. From now on, the situation forces him to behave as a presidential candidate, which means, among other things, and the search for other ways to report his views outside the “target audience” on the Internet. In other words, if Navalny did not have any clear political plan, he was the time to appear. His today's article in The New Times with the characteristic words: “I chose this path, took on some obligations to the people who believed me and knew what he was going to,” the indicator that Navalny, with all his sense of humor, perceives the current situation seriously, more than ever. And not only because he is facing a prison.
The story with the "Presidential President" seems to have become an unpleasant surprise for the authorities. Everything neglected became obvious - and now it is necessary to solve in the forehead. Plant the leader of the opposition? Precedents in the modern world can be counted on the fingers-one of the latest examples was Myanmar, where Aun San Su Sui recently came out of house arrest with a triumph and has every chance of victory in future elections. Give a conditional term? But in this case, Navalny remains free as the leader of the opposition, albeit formally and deprived of the right to run.
On the other hand, in the character of Vladimir Putin - not to be afraid of simple decisions and chop the Gordian nodes. There is no doubt about one thing: in the Kremlin, the situation with the “nomination” of Navalny is hardly underestimated.
And they are waiting for how to react to the verdict those whose support is counted.