The protest is looking for a way out

Political scientist Ekaterina Schulman - about what it means and what portends the confrontation of the builders of the temple and defenders of the square in Yekaterinburg

Ekaterina Shulman Photo: From Personal Archive

The plot of protest in Yekaterinburg itself is extremely typical. There is not a single capital of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation in which such or such a story would not happen. There are dozens of them in Moscow. This is exactly what our brother is a political scientist calls the “city situational protest” that arises around a particular reason - construction, demolition, cutting, garbage training ground. Anti -Mimurany has a little its own specifics, but all of them are united by a number of common features. All of them are united by the theme of the well -being of the urban environment and urban ecology in a broad sense. This is the topic of topics! We saw her when, according to the results of 2018, in the traditional survey , which conducts the HRC, to the question “what rights are important for you and what rights were violated last year” most often people put the right to a safe environment in the first place. In second place was the right to a fair court. On the third - the right to free choice. It is not a big mind to understand: this means a radical change in public mood.

Prior to this, the three violated rights always repeated the three significant rights: the right to a dwelling, to work and to rest. In 2018, public opinion changed. So, people are worried about the urban environment and worries interference in it, which no one consulted with them. This is an important point, we will return to him.

How is the protest developing plot? The participants themselves love to say that they are not a political protest, they are not about politics at all. They mean by this that they do not participate in anyone in the election campaign and do not want someone to run somewhere at their expense. But in fact, this is not just a political protest, it is a basic political protest, because its reason is the discontent of people by the fact that their interests are not taken into account when making decisions.

The request with which people come out:

"You decided without us, you did not ask us, but we want you to ask us"

That is, this is a request for participation in the decision -making mechanism. The main political request! There are no other political requests. This is a request for power: I want to have the right to vote or the right veto, I want to participate in what concerns me. Actually, the whole policy is only about this, it does not happen more. It is characteristic that this protest itself perceives this protest very correctly and fights with it as a political one - they have no terminological delusions here. What happens next? Then there are several typical stages, as the famous five stages of taking loss (which, as it turned out, are not quite scientifically justified, everyone accepts loss in their own way). But, nevertheless, they are known: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And here everything is very similar.

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Since any protest activity is a very great nuisance for the local authorities, the main responsibility of which is considered to maintain the so -called stability in the subordinate territory, the first thing they are trying to replacement for the carpet, that is, to make sure that it is not known. Therefore, all landscaping and urban planning plans are hidden. Discussions are held secretly. Documents are posted where no one sees them. Voting is held on some sites that no one visits. When some kind of mess begins, it is also hidden to the last. And when it turns out that it is no longer possible to hide, the authorities say the economic interests of the process: sort it out yourself.

It is clear that in any city reconstruction there is an interested economic group. This is a developer, developer, garbage operator. This, as in the case of Yekaterinburg, is a “Russian Copper Company”, which plans not only to build a temple, but also to build a lot of other interesting things in the vicinity, and which the region and the city belongs to a large extent, along with all its administrative bodies.

The confrontation of the defenders and opponents of the construction of the Church of St. Catherine in the square near the Sverdlovsk Academic Drama Theater. Police officers during duty on the rally photo: Vladislav Lonshakov/Kommersant

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, told us yesterday that this is all not true, from which it follows that it was all true, but they called from Moscow and ordered them to slow down: they say, you are annoying people. That is, the authorities say to economic entities: "Let you deal with this problem yourself." And economic entities answer: "It is not a question, we will figure it out in five minutes." And they send chokes, bandits, friendly athletes ...

At such a moment, it seems that this is a very good idea, because everything can be imagined as "one group of citizens fought with another group of citizens, and we have nothing to do with it." After all, none of them know what legitimate and illegitimate violence is, how they differ from each other, and why humanity has made a choice in favor of legitimate violence, that is, law enforcement structures and law enforcement, acting according to the written rules, and not in favor of combat squads that other combat squads beat. Nobody told them about this, so at first it seems that this is a very good thought, the solution of all problems. But in fact not.

No solution to problems will happen, just a fight will happen

People usually do not fight with the police, but with the titles it is quite possible. But the local authorities will still have to rake the consequences of this fight! When they turn out to be a inevitable fact, a fork comes: either negotiations, or acceleration by the official police, or a combination of both. We see this in Yekaterinburg in a visual-punitive form, since there the authorities made all the mistakes from the possible. And negotiations were carried out, but to no avail, and acceleration was applied, but not particularly effective ...

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Then it happens differently, but in a fairly large number of cases, such a city protest is successful. This is not very advertised so that no one should be done. Nevertheless. Everyone has the case with the Isaac's Cathedral in memory. The cathedral was not transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, although the governor firmly said that "the decision was made." This, by the way, is exactly the phrase that infuriates the most. What does the “decision are made” mean? Who is it accepted?! So it is unreasonable to talk with people: it was in the early 2000s the harsh style “said-did”, and twenty years later, the ability to negotiate and cooperates was in demand.

Exactly on the very days when all this disgrace takes place in Yekaterinburg, in Krasnoyarsk the mayor signed a refusal to coordinate the construction of the church in the square. They have a similar situation, but they decided not to bring to sin.

In Kemerovo there were plans for the so -called improvement of the Rudnic Bor, I participated in this from the Speces, so I know. This did not become federal history, thank God, because it did not reach violence, but there was also a joint city protest.

In Kemerovo in the city there is such a mine boron - not a park, but directly a forest. And the local authorities decided to improve him, in particular, erecting a statue of St. Barbara there. With the saints, we have some kind of wild overdose in the urban environment: there is nowhere to turn away, and that and look the holy poses. There, too, people became unhappy, and successfully took advantage of the available procedural tools: they began to collect signatures in order to make a question for consideration by the City Duma. And when it became clear that they would collect the necessary 5 thousand signatures, the city Duma immediately announced that we would do without a statue, and the governor had performed and said, no, there was no need to chop it in any case. We will follow whether there will be any turn and deceit there, this also happens, but so far everything seems to be happy, they even sent me a certificate of “defender of the ryudnic boron”. I have never been in my life in Kemerovo, but nevertheless it is nice.

Protests against the construction of the Church of St. Catherine in the square at the Drama Theater in Yekaterinburg Photo: Vladimir Zhabriko/Ura.ru/TASS

In Moscow, dozens of cases when the construction sites were stopped or did not begin, because the locals were against it. This is rarely remembered, because every day new occasions appear, but this happens. Everything happens.

From the point of view of the federal center, these are all pure troubles and troubles are delivered to the center by the governor. On the one hand, the federal center is obliged to hold the face and wave its publicly. But the very need to do this and publicly associate yourself with an unpleasant conflict is large disadvantages in governor's karma, as it is usually expressed today. The local government allowed the situations to arise, did not foresee, did not prevent and, when the situation had already arisen, could not figure it out so as not to disgrace.

In Yekaterinburg, the power scenario also passed through the worst of the possible options. The power scenario is what is valuable? The ability to clean the perimeter, as is called in the language of law enforcement officers: riot police arrives and squeezes out the people more or less neatly. Then the fence is put, this fence is protected. Here, there were riots and there are no riots. Beautiful picture.

And when people beat, they are delayed by minors, when people come again - where is it good? The seventeen -year -old boy was broken by his nose, the Investigative Committee should now understand this. And such mass detentions and mass arrests! Twenty -one administrative arrest! This is even unprecedented for Moscow. This is our vegetarian times simply a mass repressive campaign. And she is not good for the authorities. Not only because the townspeople see bloody satraps in them. Even if you look from the other side, this is also a very bad story: "If you detained and put them, how many of them were there?" This will respond to the authorities after a while.

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As for the development of the Yekaterinburg scenario: if people continue to come, then Moscow will have to understand. She really does not want to, until the last tries not to participate. But if it continues what they call mass riots, then you have to understand - that, as we see, it happened.

It is interesting that the reports that the city is conducting a VTsIOM survey - they call people by phone, ask what they think - they appeared before the president said that according to the results of a “survey”, the will of the majority should be revealed, and the minority should submit to it - this is democracy. Although, of course, democracy is not at all, and the legal form of identifying the will of citizens in this situation is not a survey, which is unknown who conducts who conducts according to an incomprehensible procedure, but a city referendum. However, in the absence of elections, a hundredth care is a perverted method of finding out what people think. So, if there are some results in favor of one of the scenarios, then it can come true.

The action against the construction of the Cathedral of St. Catherine was held in the square at the Drama Theater in Yekaterinburg Photo: Anton Basanayev/Ap/East News

From the point of view of the objective socio-political process, it is not very important whether this church will be built or not. The protest feeds on a global turn of public mood, mass discontent. This is a long process. In the summer of 2018, pension reform catalyzed him, but was not a reason. The protest is looking for a reason to manifest. And he finds him. In the absence of existing feedback channels, the authorities behave extremely stupid. It is difficult for them to understand what people like that they don’t like, they are surrounded by their information bubble - like us all, but in their case the consequences are harder than in ours.

Each time they suddenly stumble upon counteraction to people when it seemed to them that they were making another colorful gift to people. Therefore, no matter how the Yekaterinburg protest ends, it will not be the last. People will not forget this. Neither local authorities, nor local oligarchs, nor the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church took into account their opinion. So far, Moscow manages to hold this discontent at the regional level. But then Moscow falls into a terrible trap. The local authorities cannot cope, it is necessary to intervene, but interfering, the federals translate this discontent to themselves, and they almost have no good moves. They can afford to pull time, because the reserve of stability of the political system as a whole is quite large, but it is no longer possible to expand this river of folk opinion.

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