Who on earth is Alexei Navalny and why should I care? (A brief appraisal)

The only middle-aged Russian that most people in the West would recognise on TV used to be Vladimir Putin, yet, thanks to the proliferation of social media, Alexei Navalny is fast superseding the Russian President's place.

"Just who is Alexei Navalny and why should I care?" - a fair question. Russian politics, a lot of the time, seems very far from our own. Defence is a constant issue in their discourse, nationalism is not treated with the same suspicion as it is here and a topless man riding a horse in a stetson and bad sunglasses is not political suicide. Yet Alexei Navalny is a name that has kept cropping up over the last two years of political protest in Russia and is a name that will surely keep cropping up with every passing controversy.

Action Man? (photo taken under creative commons from Jedimentat44)

In the eyes of Russia's new(ish) middle class Alexei Navalny is the figurehead of legitimate, pro-democratic opposition. A lot of factors have worked in his favour. He's neither a member of the aged Communist Party nor of one of the older, mustier, democratic parties like Yabloko from the days of Yeltsin. His understanding of the power of blogging and clever use of language has earned him a popularity with tech-savvy youth that no Western politician short of Obama, Tom Watson or, perhaps, David Lammy could rival.

In the eyes of the state he is a loud-mouthed, serial-tweeter with a very threatening agenda. For many political cynics his recent sentencing to 5 years in prison for embezzlement seems a little too well-timed and out of character for a man who has been looking to uproot the very same kind of self-serving abuse of power. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23348735)

Alexei Navalny (photo taken under creative commons)

I've written many times on this blog about the image problem faced by the Russian state with regard to its legal matters (1). The feeling that Pussy Riot were the first internationally recognised victims of a new series of show trials is one that has been a constant subtext of Western coverage of Navalny's trial. Yet, as always, reality is far too complex to neatly fit a familiar narrative. We should never fully denounce any court case simply because a political motive can be linked in to its proceedings. That kind of support leads to good people being prepared to make hideous denials of crimes like the controversy surrounding Assange not standing up to accusations of rape because it was assumed to be a set-up.

If all these aforementioned things are part of what defines Alexei Navalny and shapes his context in our world then I have still yet to answer why we should care.

Simply put he is a figurehead for change in a country that is once again showing its significance on the world stage. He is a man who has the potential to push Russian democracy in a new direction and to take steps to outlaw the corruption that seems to have seeped into Putin's Russia. Whether or not Alexei Navalny will make a transition to a position of power he is living proof that Russia is establishing a new class of protest citizen for the digital age, that is, at least, in Moscow where free broadband is readily available and Russians live in relative affluence.

(1) http://fromrussiawithrob.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/orthodox-church-in-pr-nightmare-or-how.html and http://fromrussiawithrob.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/punks-not-dead-but-it-might-end-up-in.html

Punk's not dead! (But it might end up in prison)

Rob finally weighs in on the Pussy Riot story...

3 years – arguably longer than the punk movement lasted in its entirety. Yet three years is the sentence that prosecutors are pushing for in the case against Russian punk band Pussy Riot who performed an impromptu concert in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour last February. The group shouted political slogans, dressed in masks and generally acted like, well…punks.

A simple case of hooliganism is being given a sinister, religious spin by prosecutors who are attempting to cast the trio as the whores of Babylon. Sadly, such an approach may prove successful in the surge of pro-Orthodox feelings after the fall of the Soviet Union. The bizarre religious edge to the case is obscene with the band being affronted for wearing “definitely colourful dresses*” which seems to be equal to an act of treason in a country where nationalism and religion are so dangerously interwoven.

On top of this, the reduction of the group’s actions from “protest” to “hooliganism” is also an attempt to pull the veil over Russia’s wooly political atmosphere that the band was trying to give an artistic opinion on. In this light, the state can be seen to be using religion as a levering tool to remove an opposition voice – something that should outrage Christians as much as secular Russians.

Pussy Riot in their "garish hell dresses"

If the mix of ultra-conservative religious fervour and politics doesn’t make you sick enough already then you need only pick up the Sex Pistol’s debut to feel really nauseous. “God Save the Queen the fascist regime”, while tongue in cheek, is a work of provocative, political art that raises a serious point of contention in contemporary Britain. This can be proven by how quickly it flared up again as an issue surrounding the grandiose royal wedding a few months ago with graffiti showing up across the UK showing republican discontent.

While rigid conservative types and royalists were bound to be flustered in 1977, a public court case against the Sex Pistols was never opened. The group was never incarcerated. Society didn’t break out in anarchy. Johnny Rotten changed his name and started flogging butter.

Surely, these attempts to lock up Pussy Riot will achieve nothing but the converse of the prosecution’s hopes. Global attention has been drawn to a band that practically no-one outside of Russia would ever have heard about.  Last night, Madonna was the latest celebrity to add her support the band’s bid for freedom. Unfortunately this kind of foreign support will only be turned into anti-Western propaganda and may prove to be even more damning in court.

So it’s to Russians themselves that this article should be re-directed. Orthodox Christians should be outraged at the use of their church as a tool for furthering political goals. Non-believing Russians should be outraged at the harshness of this sentencing. And everyone involved should be gobsmacked that the prosecution is trying to say that the group’s actions were in no way political.

 *quote taken from: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/prosecutor-insisting-case-isnt-political-seeks-3-years-for-pussy-riot/463318.html

Photo: Lorena Cupcake (taken from flickr through creative commons)