Active citizens who do not want to cooperate with the regime still have many ways to apply their strength. The main thing is not to lose time for showdowns with the “defectors”: they will deal with them without us, says Columonist Ivan Davydov
Ivan Davydov to the other side
In St. Petersburg, inexpensively hired small villains picked up the headquarters of Alexei Navalny. They accused the politician of “protecting the perverts”, ruined the walls of the building with the inscriptions of the “headquarters of pedophiles”. Indeed, there is some kind of muddy story with two activists of the Opposition Movement "Spring", who are accused of molestation of a minor. What does Navalny have to do with it and how exactly he protects the perverts, the picket participants, of course, agreed, could not explain, and this is not important. The story is completely ordinary, and the meaning of it is that the acting governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, seems to be seriously afraid of a clash with the Smart Voting project. History would not be at all attention, but among the picketers they identified the former opposition Dmitry Myakshin.
On June 12, 2017, during a male organized by Navalny protest, which was unsuccessfully falling on a riot police, knocked out a police tooth. He was detained, judged, received a suspended sentence. Even at the trial, he stated that he was disappointed in the opposition and intends to join the “Young Guard of United Russia”. Now here he is working out trust, apparently, and the work is selected as dirty as possible to him.
This happens from time to time. That a prolific publicist who, according to a strange tradition, is considered opposition, will begin to suddenly flicker in one of the most odious propaganda TV shows.
That suddenly a girl who once engaged in something in the structures of Mikhail Khodorkovsky is in the staff of the Russian Today channel. Well, and so on.
And each time in the vastness of Facebook, which has long replaced the liberal intelligentsia of the newspaper, magazines, books and even kitchen, something like the party committee is self-organized to condemn and scourge. Not forgetting to emphasize, of course, your own impeccability. And in the same way, every time the background begins to talk about “burnout of the opposition”, about the futility of the confrontation with the regime, that rats are running from the drowning ship only.
Personal business
To discuss whether the “opposition” fades or not is a rather empty business. The people who attributed themselves to the opposition are used to looking down on the current owners of the country, considering them some kind of stupid fools. Not that such a relationship had no reason at all, but the current owners were still able to do something. Inside the country, they built a quite effective political system, the purpose of which is self -defense and self -reproduction. They destroyed politics and are there. Glory, of course, to the heroes with the awareness of their own mission, but politics is not only heroes. Politics is such a job, a way to do a career, to equip your own life. Opposition - including. In Russia, the opposition has no such opportunities. The opportunity to get a fine for repost or sit down for participation in a peaceful action is so -so a career option.
The system works effectively. She replaced opposition citizens from the legal field. There is not a single opposition party in the country. We do not take the parliamentary in the calculation - this is a long -standing, decorative opposition, the branches of United Russia, deprived of the internal meaning of the United Russia, whose aging leaders are seriously concerned only to preservation of the status of the CVO. We will make this reservation so as not to return to them anymore.
A completely effective repressive apparatus has been legislatively formalized, allowing to apply aimed point hit on any dissatisfied. Different departments inside the system - in an eternal conflict, fight for budgets, pull the blanket over themselves. But in the fight against dissent, they are one
It is difficult to imagine an opposition policy that has made its way to any elections a level above the municipal. Yes, something like this occasionally happened, but is it not in the election of the Moscow Mayor in 2013-for the last time? Six years have passed, by the way.
A completely effective repressive apparatus has been developed, legally issued, which allows you to apply aimed point hit on any dissatisfied. Different departments inside the system - in an eternal conflict, fight for budgets, pull the blanket over themselves. But in the fight against dissent, they are one. Even the General Staff decided to connect by inventing the “American strategy of the Trojan horse”, and hinting that the “fifth column” was weapons in the hands of the enemy.
Those who, despite all the difficulties described above are trying to reanimate politics, often spend more time on disputes than on confrontation between the regime. It is not easy to recall when the opposition politicians at least managed to agree on something. And even more difficult to recall which of them at least something substantial said about the "beautiful Russia of the future." Not about current troubles, but about the purpose of the confrontation.
Perhaps - again Navalny, in the election program in the presidential election, which, of course, was not allowed to. But it is not difficult to recall with what bloodthirsty joy this program, in which, of course, both weak and uncomfortable places came across too, literally torn to pieces not opponents, but conditional “their own”.
In the world of fiction and scenery, into which the Kremlin architects consistently turned the domestic policy, the political opposition also gradually began to turn into a fiction. Let's tell ourselves honestly - we are in a bad situation. And this situation itself turns politics into a personal file, forces everyone to make a personal choice. To answer a question that has long ceased to be idle: I am ready, here I personally risk it all up to freedom for the sake of political goals? Are I ready to remain a political animal on the covenant of Aristotle, or is it quite comfortable for me and just an animal?
Non -non -nonsense recipe
It’s stupid to call everyone in the heroes, and I myself am not a hero at all. But somehow, it is still dishonest to talk about “burnout”, looking, for example, at young people going to work in the regional headquarters of Navalny, understanding perfectly well what happens for this. They did not burn out.
Students who gathered last Saturday to support the graduate student of the Mehmat MSU Azat Miftakhov, who is tortured by the police, did not burn out. After all, they did not particularly doubt that they would be detained, and that next is the lottery: maybe they would just let go, or maybe they would manage a criminal case and launch a stun gun. This time they released, did.
Journalists who, under the ongoing conversations about the “death of the profession”, are drawn into the light of the story from the life of the bureaucratic thief, knowing very well with whom they are dealing with, knowing that the bets are high - they can simply kill, have not burned out. They are here, and thanks to them for that.
Firstly, do not cooperate with the regime. No need to take money from them, even for the most good things. Just don't, that's all. Secondly, no need to talk about the possibility of "changing power from the inside." There is no such opportunity
But what to do to the rest? We, ordinary, are not ready to sign up with heroes? I have an answer - mine, not at all universal (not in vain, after all, it is said above that politics is now personal). I'll just share it.
Firstly, do not cooperate with the regime. No need to take money from them, even for the most good things. Just don't, that's all. Secondly, no need to talk about the possibility of "changing power from the inside." There is no such opportunity. These conversations have been sounding for twenty years, and everyone who tried to change power from the inside, or burned strongly, or fragments. This power is unable to change. Thirdly, we recall, even the president regularly discusses the “savings of people” as the main task. So we would listen to him and become more likely for like -minded people. Take care of your own, postpone squabbles for later, do not get carried away by the division of portfolios in the shadow governments of the beautiful Russia of the future. After all, we are still in ordinary Russia of the present, and there are enemies more serious.
Fourth, to be less afraid. Do what can still be done. Think, speak, remember. Use the remaining legal opportunities for confrontation. Go to the protest, do not forget to vote for the opposition candidate in the elections, if it suddenly breaks into the elections. By the way, the “smart vote” mentioned above (that is, the support of the “second” candidate in contrast to the protege of the authorities) is not so poorly invented. It’s even interesting to see how it will work in the fall.
We saw: they are nervous when something goes wrong in the staged elections. They are smoking. Of course, a trifle, but still it's nice. So why not give yourself this modest pleasure?
Why is it all? Here, of course, you can speculate not without pathos about the duty to the homeland and other exalted matters. But we will leave the pathos of the TV presenter from state channels. This, for example, then, in order to have reason to consider themselves a political animal. Just warms the soul.
And finally: do not waste time organizing virtual party committees and elaborating defectors. Time is an uninvited resource. Anyway, our anger, as a rule, will mix and fuel this breed of people. And most importantly - they will deal with them without us. It seems only to the next broken, which is a little more, another step, and it will be allowed to the main trough with food. The trough is not bottomless, limited places. You won’t have time to look around - and now he is already standing with an idiotic poster at a shameful event in the herd of gallop fools. For nothing else, they do not really need defectors. For this they call. The system knows how to make fun of those who decide to play with the system.
