Putinism Is the Only Religion That Matters
20 August 2012
By Garry Kasparov
There was shock, if no real surprise, at the verdict against Pussy Riot on Friday. Despite whispers of leniency, I never doubted that a conviction and prison term would result. Not because they violated anything in the Criminal Code, which, as of this writing, is still freely available on the Internet. No, Pussy Riot’s actions were hateful toward religion only in breaking the First Commandment of today’s Russia, “Thou shalt not take Putin’s name in vain.”
This commandment has replaced the more famous original set of Ten Commandments in Russia. No one observing the Kremlin would believe there is any prohibition against theft or murder. No visitor to a Moscow courtroom would guess that bearing false witness is forbidden. The only statute that matters is that there is no god but Putin, no acceptable religion but Putinism.
Patriarch Kirill was wise enough to see the advantages of putting faith at the service of the KGB roots he shares with Putin. Unlike in Iran, where the imams run the show behind the curtain, here Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church to impose his repressive rule in the classic Byzantine tradition. Kirill ordered his religious institution to support Putin. When a sacred space is used for political purposes, you should expect others to come to pray for the Virgin Mary to drive Putin away, even in the most extravagant fashion.
I went to the Pussy Riot trial Friday to watch the tragic farce unfold, but the Moscow police decided to make me a part of it. Unable to gain entry to the packed courtroom, I was outside speaking with a group of journalists when I was abruptly carried off by police to a waiting bus. I don’t think I have been lifted and carried away like that since I was acclaimed as the new world chess champion oh so many years ago. As we jostled through the crowd, I repeatedly asked the police what I was being charged with, but if they had been told, they were not inclined to share this information. They only repeated the word “order,” over and over.
The officers were more than willing to share their fists with me, however, as I found out when I attempted to exit the police bus. It was not in my mind to escape through a deep phalanx of police. I had been seized illegally and merely wanted to learn the charge against me. Instead I was tackled, beaten and dragged back into the bus, where the physical abuse continued. All of this is well-documented, which is the only piece of good fortune I can claim. I was still sitting in the police station with other arrestees when the police headquarters told the media that they were planning criminal charges against me for assaulting a lieutenant named Ratnikov, whom they alleged I had bitten.
I am by no means a vegetarian, though as I am turning 50 next year I have had to cut back on red meat on my doctor’s advice. I can say with certainty that were I to acquire a taste for human flesh, the way Bengal tigers are said to do, I would never bite anyone under the rank of general.
On Monday, I returned to the same local police station for an interview, armed with photos and video footage of the assault from every possible angle. It is ironic that all this evidence must first be used to clear me of an absurd charge and only then used in my own charges against the officers who beat me. The captain recorded my testimony of the day’s events. I was shown the report of the officer I supposedly assaulted, which states the intent to open a criminal investigation. I left the station not knowing if and when they will take this next step. While under Damocles’ sword, I am preparing my own legal actions against the police. The first is for the illegal arrest and physical assault, and it names two of the officers who signed my arrest report. The other suit will be against Lieutenant Ratnikov for libeling me with his assault allegation.
I had a few interesting chats with police officers while in custody Friday. None of them could look me in the eye when I asked if they really thought I was chanting anti-Putin slogans when I was arrested. It would be unfair to say that every member of the security forces is a brainless thug. After all, these are people smart enough to enter the only growth industry left in Putin’s Russia. Our scientists and engineers are leaving in droves — so quickly that soon we may not have enough of them to maintain the creaking Soviet infrastructure on which we still depend. Perhaps this is all part of the plan by Putin and Kirill to lead us boldly back to the ancient days of the all-powerful Inquisition. I await the addition of courses on blacksmithing and tanning hides to the Moscow State University curriculum.
Several of the police admitted that they did not think Russia was headed in the right direction, and I take hope in these admissions. Putin has made it clear he will not hesitate to create a new gulag with a new generation of political prisoners. If and when the time comes, he will not hesitate to give the order to pull the trigger, to spill Russian blood to maintain his power. Many lives, therefore, will depend on the men whose fingers are on those triggers. Will they kill their compatriots for chanting, for marching or for wanting nothing more than to express the human need for freedom?
Before I was released, one police officer told me he had been stumped by a clue in the day’s crossword puzzle. “Who,” he asked, “was the sixth world chess champion?” “Mikhail Botvinnik,” I answered. “He was my teacher, and today was his birthday.” Botvinnik was also the first Soviet world champion and has long been known by another name in the chess world: the Patriarch.
Source: http://www.themoscowtimes.com
He has no case as he resisted arrest.
Dear Mr. Kasparov:
I support your position 100%. I may be wrong, but I think you might be more effective in your opposition to the Putin regime if you used less sarcasm. I know what a great temptation that is, and I know how clever you are, but a level, sober, calm stance, without humor and without spleen or rancor, is more apt to be effective in any principled campaign opposing a tyrannical political regime.
I wish you success. I am glad that there are persons with prominence and perhaps influence like yourself who use that influence to good ends. Confronting the powers that be publicly is vitally important as long as moral persuasion has any force left in the world.
Lucymarie Ruth
Here is another perspective from Bloomberg:
What Madonna Doesn’t Get About Russia’s Punk Protest
To a Westerner, the imprisonment of three women from the feminist performance group Pussy Riot might seem a clear-cut case of inspired rebellion and mean-spirited repression. For Russians, it’s not so simple.
In the days since a Moscow court handed down a two-year sentence for Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, everyone from celebrities to opposition leaders has struggled to make sense of the group’s staggering success. Even those fervently opposed to President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule are in some cases finding it hard to align themselves with Pussy Riot — either because they genuinely disagree with the group’s approach, or because they realize it could harm their careers.
It’s easy for Paul McCartney, Madonna and Bjork to back the three twenty-somethings, who staged an impromptu gig at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, performing a wild dance and screaming a song calling on the Virgin Mary to chase away Putin. The Western pop stars will, at best, play a show or two in Russia and move on. Russian musicians and TV personalities, by contrast, have withheld support for Pussy Riot. They depend heavily on income from performances at private and corporate parties, a source of cash that could easily dry up if they became too vocal against Putin.
“Our popular artists’ humiliating, slavish dependence on the corrupt government and criminal business is common knowledge,” music critic Artemy Troitsky wrote in a column on the website colta.ru.
The more far-sighted opposition leaders face a similar problem. They hope someday to win public office in a deeply conservative country. In a poll taken by the Levada Center, 44 percent of respondents said they thought the Pussy Riot trial was “fair and just” — this despite the judge’s unvarnished bias in favor of the prosecution. Some 52 percent of the population still supports Putin’s policies, and it was Putin’s electorate that demanded harsh punishment for Pussy Riot in the first place.
“Most people get their information from TV, so they either know nothing or buy the official version,” said Levada Center director Lev Gudkov. “This is a very aggressive society that needs clear rules of behavior and dogmatic, authoritarian enforcement of these rules.”
Opposition activist Vladimir Milov, writing on the website gazeta.ru, warned that the Pussy Riot trial could serve to deepen the chasm between the liberal opposition and the rest of Russian society. “It is practically impossible to explain the girls’ action to the mass of Russian voters in a positive light,” he wrote. “This is extremely beneficial for the authorities.”
One could attribute Milov’s irritation to jealousy — after all, Paul McCartney might not know him from Putin. But anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most popular opposition leader, has expressed some of the same concerns. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Navalny, an Orthodox Christian, said he found Pussy Riot’s action “despicable” and would be outraged if his daughter did something similar. He explained that he supports Pussy Riot only because he believes they should not have been sent to prison for mere “stupidity.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-21/what-madonna-doesn-t-get-about-russia-s-punk-protest.html
I agree with Alexei Navalny. I found the actions of Pussy Riot, if not “despicable”, at least deplorable, ill-considered, and “stupid”. I also think that a 2-year prison sentence for this offense is unjustified. Maybe a better sentence would have been to require the Pussy Riot members to beg for alms for the poor for a week (with a police officer or two guarding the Pussy Riot members and making sure that they did their work), the alms to be distributed by the Orthodox Church.
I am more concerned about the treatment of Mr. Kasparov by the Russian police. Arresting him was both despicable and stupid.
Lucymarie Ruth
I may hesitatingly agree that Kasparov may have been punished harshly but the Mr. Kasparov is not saint either. He is a dishonest thug and interested in gaining popularity through protest. He is only interested in inflating his ego and money and power. The guy is a disgrace to chess world. Shame on him.
Players like Svidler, Kramnik are Chess icons as well known for their intellect. They may agree things may not be ideal in Russia ( tell me one country where it is) but it is not a uncivilized state as Garry paints it to be to acheive his own end( power).
Serial Liar Garry has no moral power to mobilize the masses. Garry is mean and he need to be given a taste of his own medicine..