MOSCOW—Some Russian activists have sued Madonna for millions of dollars, claiming they were offended by her support for gay rights during a recent concert in St. Petersburg. Antigay sentiment is strong in Russia. In St. Petersburg, a law passed in February makes it illegal to promote homosexuality to minors, and the author of that law has pointed to the presence of children as young as 12 at Madonna’s concert on Aug. 9. Russian news agencies quote Alexander Pochuyev, a lawyer representing the nine activists, as saying the suit was filed Friday against Madonna, the organizer of her concert, and the hall where it was held, asking for damages totaling 333 million rubles, or nearly $10.5 million.
Responding to criticism that the plaintiffs were stuck in the Middle Ages, the lawyer said they were using civilized, modern methods to defend their rights. “No one is burning anyone at the stake or carrying out an Inquisition,” Mr. Pochuyev was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. “Modern civilization requires tolerance and respect for different values.”
The complaint includes a video taken at the concert showing Madonna stomping on an Orthodox cross and asking fans to raise their hands to show the pink armbands in support of gays and lesbians that were distributed among the audience, the new agency reported.
Madonna also has angered conservative Russians with her support for Pussy Riot. Three members of the punk band were sentenced Friday to two years in prison for a protest inside Moscow’s main cathedral against Vladimir Putin and his cozy ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Madonna spoke out in support of the group during her concert in St. Petersburg and two days earlier in Moscow. After the verdict was issued, Madonna called on “all those who love freedom to condemn this unjust punishment.”
The new thing this time is that rather than the Russian government taking action, a group of private individuals decided to act and, to make things even more interesting, they are using the Russian courts to get to Madonna were it hurts: money.
This is really very new. The idea of suing somebody for money is totally alien to the Russian culture, nevermind asking for 333-million-ruble ($10.3 million) in damages! (It sure looks like the Russians are slowly learning some very Western, I would even say “American”, tactics).
It thus appears that we are having somewhat of a major struggle under way here: On one hand, the West is dead set in getting Russia to comply with its views on sex and, what one could call, the “right to blasphemy”. In return, the Russians are equally determined to prevent the West’s moral “навозная жижа” (manure slurry) from replacing traditional Russian cultural and religious norms. Characteristically, both sides claim to stand up for fundamental civil rights and against obscurantism. Homos versus babushkas – who would have thought? And yet, this is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
First, there was the “Russia – butcher of Chechen freedom fighters”. Then, Russia became the “poisoner of opponents” (
Yushchenko,
Litvinenko) and “killer of journalists” (
Politkovskaya,
Khlebnikov). Then we had “Russia – the aggressor of democratic Georgia”, and now the evil patron of Gaddafi and Assad in the UN Security Council, the organizer of stolen elections, oppressor of the democratic opposition and suppressor of sexual freedoms. Interestingly, this constant stream of accusations has created somewhat of a backlash in Russia where the words “our geostrategic friends” has now become a funny euphemism for “our sworn enemies” and the West’s hypocrisy towards Russia turned into the topic of humorous
demotivators like these two:
This first one shows the Russian spy Anna Kushchenko (aka
Anna Chapman) and the universally despised “democratic” opposition leader
Valeria Novodvorskaia with the following caption:
their secret agents only look good in Hollywood movies.
The second one show a graph of Russian US Treasury holdings with the caption: and this is when the USA understood that Putin was stealing elections in Russia.
The fact is that the West’s negative attitudes towards Russia are not so much seen as a threat, but much more so as a joke.
A lot was said about “the Church” in Russia and its role in the Pussy Riot issue, and yet I would argue that the influence of the religion in general or the Moscow Patriarchate in particular is grossly over-estimated by the media.
Religious feelings are complex and hard to measure, but being myself an Orthodox Christian I would argue that the very minimal condition to consider oneself an Orthodox Christian would be to at least attend the Paskhal (“Easter”) service since Pashkha (“Easter”) is, by far, the biggest and most important religious feast/celebration in the Orthodox Christian calendar. In Moscow, the city police keep a careful statistic of the amount of people who actually attend this unique religious service celebrated at midnight. For years the figure of actual attendees have been very stable: roughly 1% of the population of Moscow! In other words, 99% of Moscovites are not even religious enough to attend the most important Orthodox service of the year. Not very impressive, don’t you think?
While it is possible that in some Russian cities with a special religious history (Suzdal, Sergiyev Posad, Sarov, etc.) this figure might be somewhat bigger, I am quite confident that the figure for Moscow is higher than in most of the rural or even urban areas of Russia. The reality is that true deep spirituality is only a reality is a very small percentage of the Russian population.
Nationalist feelings in Russia are far more prevalent, but I am quite sure that they are mostly rather moderate and not as prevalent as some people claim. I have no statistic to prove this, but I will say that I personally know the Russian nationalist circles very, very well, and that I am absolutely certain that they are not a majority phenomenon, at least not yet.
The interesting thing, however, is that a full decade of unconditional support by the West for the Jewish-democratic oligarchy under Eltsin followed by a never-ending and completely hypocritical anti-Russian propaganda campaign by the West since Putin got to power has had a deep effect in Russia – the one of greatly fostering national and, to a certain degree, even religious feelings of affiliation even amongst those who otherwise might not have felt them at all.
Again, setting aside all this absolute baloney about the “Kremlin controlled media” or “stolen elections”, there is a reason why pro-Western political parties simply cannot make it into the Duma (nevermind the Kremlin) just as there is a reason why the Putin/Medvedev regime, for all its very real faults, is still so popular: the vast majority of Russians want to “push the West out of Russia” and this feeling plays a much stronger role in the anti-Pussy-Riot sentiment then religion or nationalism even though the latter are gradually becoming involved in this dynamic as identity symbols.
This reminds me of the two Chechen wars which saw numerous instances of Russian soldiers replying “
Khristos Voskrese!” (“Christ is Risen!” – a
traditional Paskhal greeting) to the Chechen “
Allahu Akbar!” (God is greater) even though the vast majority of these soldiers had little or no religious education to begin with (probably true of most Chechens too). To put it differently, the more the likes of Madonna will trample upon Orthodox crosses, the more people in Russia will feel that the Cross is something important, if not sacred, to them.
|
Nikolai Starikov |
I was recently watching a video of a lecture by
Nikolai Starikov, one of the most influential young Russian intellectuals, who when he was asked what kind of ideology Russia could oppose to the Western one simply answered “
national sovereignty and social justice“. Even though most Western Russia “specialists” fail to see the nuance, this is, in reality, a very far cry from any religious or nationalistic resurgence.
This has been main effect of the long Western ideological propaganda war against Russia: to create this sovereignist and anti-capitalist reaction.
Yet, even though they are very far from being religious obscurantists or rabid nationalists, people like Starikov absolutely despise Wahabi terrorists or the folks who supported them against their own people (“human rights activists” like
Sergei Kovalev or pro-Western opposition figures like Novodvorskaia), they feel a deep sense of disgust for the homo-lobby or the “Rioting Vaginas” (as Starikov calls Pussy Riot), and they deeply and profoundly reject the Western model of a uni-polar (i.e., imperial) New World Order dominated by an ideology of exploitation, greed, profit and violence (which is, sadly, all that the West stands for today).
This sovereignist and anti-capitalist movement is not uniform and is therefore not centered around, or lead by, any one single party or individual. It is, however, well-represented in most Russian political movements and parties (with the logical exception of US controlled puppets like
Iabloko or
Golos): Putin’s United Russia, of course, but also Ziuganov’s Communist Party, Zhirinovski’s LDPR and even Mironov’s Just Russia. I would also argue that a majority of the
opposition to Putin is
strongly influenced by such sentiments (
Udaltsov’s Left Front,
Limonov‘s
National-Bolshevik Party – what a name! – or Egor Kholmogorov Russian Nationalists).
What this movement also has in common is a great sense of confidence that Russian can, and will, prevail over the West in any new Cold War: they feel that the US-run international capitalist system is a collapsing pyramid scheme, that the US military is really unable to actually win a real war, that the EU is paralyzed by a massive social and economic crisis and that basically the future is behind Russia and the other BRICS countries.
Of course, the West still has a great deal of military and economic power and these sovereignists cum anti-capitalists are not seeking to openly confront the West, nor have they any desire to compete globally against the US Empire and its 700+ major military bases worldwide. Instead, they are quite content to openly defy the West on their own home turf – inside Russia – and gradually built up the Russian society around the dual goals of sovereignty and social-justice (and God knows that a lot of work still needs to be done in these two realms!).
|
Alain Soral |
This is not unique to Russia. In France, for example, there is a most interesting movement gradually coalescing around the author
Alain Soral who has created an organization called “
Equality and Reconciliation” (E&R) which centers around the slogan: “
The Left of Labor and the Right of values“, something very similar to what is taking place in Russia, I think.
E&R is uniquely French, just as Starikov’s movement is uniquely Russian, but they share some very fundamental values and beliefs beginning by a total and comprehensive rejection of the current Western ideological model of globalism and capitalism.
This makes me wonder in how many other countries besides Russia and France the same process is taking place?
It is very hard to predict where this movement is going in Russia. Personally, I think of it much more as some kind of “
Petri dish” or “ideologically fertile ground” than as a finished, defined, product. Sovereignty and anti-capitalism are definitely good values, but they are also very hollow or shallow, they lack any kind of ideological or, even less so, spiritual depth. These feelings, this movement, currently lacks shape and it could evolve in many very different world-views, movements or policies.
|
Dmitri Rogozin |
I will conclude this sketch by saying that while the Putin/Medvedev tandem currently clearly greatly benefits from this “sovereignist and anti-capitalist” movement, the leaders of this movement have absolutely no loyalty to the current regime. Yes, at this point in time, most sovereignists/anti-capitalists are supporting Putin/Medvedev because they see no alternative to them, but they are also very busy creating their own political parties. And, in some topics, such as the entry of Russia into the WTO, the sovereignists/anti-capitalism are in an open and very vocal opposition to the Kremlin.
Even more interestingly, and in stark contrast to the situation in France, there are very influential people already
inside the Russian government, such as
Dmitri Rogozin, who are ideological far closer to a Starikov than to Putin or Medvedev. Putin and Medvedev understand that, and they are willing to work with them, but they are quite aware of the fact that Rogozin has a support base very distinct from their own.
The current Western “Free Sex and Blasphemy” crusade against Russia, far from intimidating or embarrassing anybody, is actually perceived as a sign of the extreme weakness and even degeneracy of the West. Even the apparent (?) US determination to deploy an anti-missile system against Russia is primarily perceived as a huge waste of money, an act of ideological stupidity which can be rather easily countered, not as some kind of fear-inspiring threat.
In the meantime, some folks in Saint Petersburg will have a good time trying to sue Madonna for “propaganda of homosexuality” before turning to the far more serious business of sovereignization and social justice.
And the BBC, CNN & Co. will never notice a thing :-)
The Saker
Another very interesting piece. When I visited Russia last year, I was quite optimistic about this country: I saw many rebuilt/restored churches with busy congregation, and I thought there was a good probability that Russia would become what it was 100 years ago, the most Christian European state. The Pussy Riot case, however, made me more pessimistic: Russia, in this aspect, is pretty much like Latin America, a divided society (roughly 50/50) between traditional values and modernity. But the truth is that, in this stage, we can only guess what may happen to Russia, as this country still (even though the USSR ended more than 2 decades ago) has the pending task of reinventing the values they believe and want to fight for. There are already some universally accepted ideas, but as you noticed, they are far from being inserted in an all-encompassing, absolute, system of ideas. Russian philosopher Lev Karsavin grasped perfectly his country’s defining characteristic: “Russians always want to act in the name of something Absolute, or to raise themselves to the level of the Absolute.”
@Carlo: Russia, in this aspect, is pretty much like Latin America, a divided society (roughly 50/50) between traditional values and modernity
But see, I am not sure that this measure is the correct one to use. In terms of traditional values, I would see a society at about 90% modernity and no more than 10% tradition. However, it is also a society which is roughly 90% anti-Western, and that is what makes it so dynamic and interesting. Being anti-Western is hardly a system of value, much less so a traditional one, but at the same time this rejection of the prevailing model opens the door to a very dynamic process of soul searching and redefinition. By rejecting the West so overwhelmingly, Russia is therefore a Petri dish for other values even though in actuality only 10% or less of its population (roughly speaking) has a semi-coherent idea of what these alternative values should be.
In other words, the 10% traditional value is really not such a bad thing at all, in particular considering that Russian history has so much dubious and mis-labeled values to offer that being “traditionalist” really can mean anything…
Does that make sense?
It sort of seems to me that the West is hell-bent in trying to offend and insult the Russian people as much as possible and that this process is, paradoxically, very *VERY* positive for the Russian nation as it finally puts an end to a intellectual movement which began under Peter I and which is nowadays represented by such crooks as Nemtsov or Iavlinski: the “Западничество” (Westernizers).
Good riddance, no?
Lastly, with Bolivarianism or Bolivarian Socialism on the rise in Latin America (if maybe not amongst the governments in power, then at least amongst the people) and possibly other similar movements in France and elsewhere, we might be seeing the beginning of a very interesting new era. At least I hope so :-)
Cheers!
The Saker
“It sort of seems to me that the West is hell-bent in trying to offend and insult the Russian people as much as possible and that this process is, paradoxically, very *VERY* positive for the Russian nation”
I fully agree here. The West could have done to Russia what they did to Germany after WWII, that is, allow it to remain a strong, united and prosper state though “controlled” not to have dreams of being a fully sovereign power. Fortunately they didn’t, and since the early 90’s they tried their best to ruin Russia in all possible aspects. So now we have anyway a strong, united and quite prosper Russia, but also fully sovereign. So the West had a double defeat…
“Lastly, with Bolivarianism or Bolivarian Socialism on the rise in Latin America”. Sorry, but I don’t see much of a future in Bolivarianism or the “new left” that came to power in Latin America in the last 12 years. Venezuela is performing badly economically, and in order to keep away the opposition Chavez resorts to acts more and more dictatorial. Argentina is crumbling economically, and Cristina Kirchner is getting more and more surrounded of stupid and even sinister figures. Brazil has been hit by the crisis, though the situation is not too bad, but Dilma Rousseff ended definitely what Lula had began doing, of turning this country into an independent foreign actor. Bolivia and Ecuador seem to be doing reasonably well, but are too small to make a difference. The Latin American left performed too badly economically (except Brazil) and turned a blind eye into corruption, allowing it to grow, and people are getting weary of this. The only good thing is that the old right is still hugely unpopular and couldn’t make much progress into seducing the public opinion.
Russia, in this aspect, performed much better: thanks mainly to Kudrin, the economy is strong and stable, quite diversified (not so much dependent on oil as the Western press claims), and the population had a huge increase in its life standart. The only big problem is corruption, but then again it is not so terrible as the West claims.
@Carlo:but I don’t see much of a future in Bolivarianism or the “new left” that came to power in Latin America in the last 12 years.
Alas, you are not the only person being pessimistic about this and I cannot find any reason to disagree with your rather grim diagnosis. And yet, I want to believe that for all the mistakes and even sins of the Bolivarians, they will have succeeded in at least making it impossible to turn back the wheel of time to a period when the Latin American plutocrats ruled with no concern whatsoever for the masses of simple people whom they abused and murdered as much as they wanted. Do the examples of Chavez, Correa, Morales and others not show that in the end Latin America is far closer to the ideas of Ernesto Guevara than those of Milton Freedman? Does the creation of such entities as ALBA or even UNASUR not represent an attempt to get rid of the Anglo-controlled OAS just the the BancoSur is a way to try to get rid of the IMF/WB duo?
In other words, are we not also seeing a process of SOVEREIGNIZATION and SOCIAL-JUSTICE taking off in Latin America even if the Bolivarian or new left politicians proved very disappointing in many ways?
Cheers!
Interesting. Madonna also found herself in row after likening Front National’s Marine Le Pen to a Nazi.
The same accusation is often leveled at Golden Dawn.
I am somewhat surprised at how clumsy these Western psyops are. I guess the goal is to provoke a harsh reaction by the government.
You know what they say in Hollywood: “any publicity is good publicity.”
Interesting. Madonna also found herself in row after likening Front National’s Marine Le Pen to a Nazi.
The same accusation is often leveled at Golden Dawn.
I am somewhat surprised at how clumsy these Western psyops are. I guess the goal is to provoke a harsh reaction by the government.
You know what they say in Hollywood: “any publicity is good publicity.”
Just to say thanks for another insightful piece.
After a couple of years of sporadic reading, VotS now sits in the ‘Must Read’ section of my vastly over-populated RSS reader :-)) – FWIW
Dear Saker,
Superb in-depth analysis, Thanks for this enlightening piece.
I fully agree with your profound views on Russia. I think that Russia is on the right track and on the right side of History.
Best,
Joe
Hi Saker
Just been reading the thread on Mercouris article on Pussy Riot and it looks as if the woman responsible for the chicken stunt is almost certainly not one of the three Pussy Riot defendants. The woman is most likely a member of Voina who did what she did with the chicken after Pussy Riot split from Voina.
A poster points out: quote
http://mercouris.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/pussy-riot-2/#comment-330
“There is no evidence that Alyokhina was ever involved in Voina; her background is in environmental activism and charity work (including charities run by the Russian Orthodox Church). She has stated that she still considers herself a Christian, but is upset with Patriarch Kirill’s close relationship with Putin.
Reuters photojournalist Tom Peter, in his profile of Voina, states that he never met Alyokhina during his time with Voina.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/us-blog-pussy-riots-idUSBRE87F0PW20120816
Of all the Pussy Riot members on trial, Alyokhina seems to me the most fundamentally decent, and certainly the least likely to insert foreign objects into herself as some kind of political statement.
As far as the Voina split goes, I neither believe nor disbelieve the specific allegations made by the different factions, but whatever the truth is it’s clear that they hate each other. The original Voina go out of their way to distance themselves from Verzilov, and have been silent on the Pussy Riot case, preferring to campaign for other political prisoners such as Taisia Ostipova.
The Pussy Riot members are associated with Verzilov, making it highly unlikely that any of them had any part in the actions performed by the “original” Voina since 2009. This includes the chicken stealing, the bridge painting and the vandalism of police cars.
It follows, too, that your assertion that Pussy Riot and Voina are one and the same is inccorect.”
Another poster called Peter provides convincing evidence that this is a case of mistaken identity. I think this merits a postcript to the “To each their own hero and villain” post
Cheers
Robert
@Robert: yes, I am aware of these arguments to try to split Pussy Riot and Voina. First, Pussy Riot being a collective you can find some who were not, as far as is known, members of Voina while others, such as Tolokonnikova, were/are in fact are members of both groups. That one group gave birth to the other is also not in dispute (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/us-blog-pussy-riots-idUSBRE87F0PW20120816). But what is crucial here, at least in my opinion, is that Voina and Pussy Riot are simply TWO “packaging options” for ONE collective of people. Whether Alyokhina would insert a frozen chicken into her vagina or not is immaterial to the issue of what Pussy Riot represents. This is only material to any opinion or judgment expressed about *Alyokhina* personally. Finally, that these two groups could have fought each other at one time or another also means nothing. The SA and the SS also hated each other, yet clearly there were part of the same ideological movement.
As for the claim that Alyokhina considers herself a Christian, it can only be met with a roar of laughter unless one is simply unable to fill the concept of “Christian” with any kind of meaningful content.
So the only postscript I would add to what I wrote is that I am amazed at the kind of logical contortions some are willing to engage in to somehow make something comprehensively vile and ugly look just a little less vile and a little less ugly.
You are welcome to call Alyokhina somebody most fundamentally decent. As I wrote, to each his own. In my system of values, she is somebody fundamentally depraved, indecent and violent.
But hey, that’s me, you don’t have to agree :-)
Cheers,
The Saker
Just to clarify I didn’t describe her as fundamentally decent or Christian – that was the poster from the Mercouris thread I was quoting. I should have edited the quote.
And of course whether she was responsible for the chicken has no bearing on her guilt for what happened in the cathedral.
But I do think the split between Voina and Pussy Riot is significant if it means PR is being smeared for an obscene stunt that they almost certainly had nothing to do with. What they are guilty of is quite bad enough without guilt by association.
I stress I’m not accusing you of doing this deliberately; you posted the image from Mercouris’ blog in good faith.
Anyway I’ll say no more about it.
Article from the Kremlin Stooge on the economic consequences of Russia joining the WTO and the implications for national sovereignty.
http://marknesop.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/russia-at-the-wto-gate-locking-the-status-of-a-raw-materials-supplier-or-striding-toward-a-modern-economy/