Response to your question (re Masha Gessen) [Whether Massive Prison Protest Reported]
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012
Subject: Response to your question (re Masha Gessen)
From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com>
A response to David’s request concerning the accuracy of Masha Gessen piece “In the Penal Colony. This Being Russia, A Massive Prison Protest Isn’t Being Reported”.
By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova
The temperatures here in Novosibirsk are currently ranging between -20 and -30. That allows for lots of radio listening time as you warm up your car every three hours. I listen to business radio, hardly the dial destination for the protest crowd. Obviously I cannot attest to the reliability of the information they are providing but for the last two days the Chelyabinsk riots have been a top news story and included information on the prisoner complaints that matched those presented by Gessen. Thus, at a minimum Gessen’s headline is inaccurate, the protest is being reported.
Johnson’s request brings up a very serious issue that is well represented by Ms. Gessen and her work. The hatred and comfort with violence displayed by some who present themselves as speaking for “Russia” in the western media troubles me deeply. This is a country where nothing good came after a violent revolution so it was particularly striking to hear Gessen on the Charlie Rose Show in March 2012 in the midst of her anti Putin book tour. Rose asked why Russia didn’t transform into the kind of country she wants it to be (something that was never clearly defined in the interview beyond the imperative that Putin not be there).
Gessen: ” …an inability and a fear to be able to deal with the history of the country. . There was never a de-Stalination, there was never a grappling with the Soviet era, the trial of the communist party sort of fizzled…the understanding at the time was that going forward with those trials and filtering out people who had actively worked for the regime would result in a witch hunt and that peace was more important. I think that was a huge mistake.”
Later in the interview Rose asks about the protest movement, “If something is going to happen in the next 6 months, give me the range of things that could happen?”
Gessen: “Best case scenario from my point of view, the protest movement continues, there’s a large scale protest, Putin orders the use of force, decisive use of force, not what has been done the last couple of days and the interior troops do not obey the order. At this point he feels that he has no recourse, he has to negotiate for an exit, he has to negotiate for immunity from prosecution. That is when we get a transitional government that would essentially, technocratic for a year or two, rebuild the institutions that have been destroyed under Putin and hold new elections. That’s the best case scenario.”
Equally chilling to me is Ms Gessen’s moveable feast with the truth so that , indeed, it was a great comfort to see David Johnson looking for testimony from others in relation to what is happening in Chelyabinsk. The most stark example of this for me came, once again, during the Rose interview where I learned that in Masha Gessen’s Russia “there is no public conversation, there is no politics…..”. Most surprising was that “At this point there are no direct elections except for the election of the President” since I had recently discussed the strategy for getting rid of the Mayor of our village in an upcoming election with a friend who was our elected Deputy for the District Council. Another friend was in the process of organizing a campaign to get the medical clinic reopened after her successful campaign to get the elected Mayor of her village ousted for shutting down the clinic and a new Mayor elected. Rose did not blink, he just believed her, as did all the other hosts and pundits that I saw interviewing Masha on her book tour. Who wouldn’t, Masha sounds and looks very authoritative.
No one is going to dispute the need for political reform in Russia. There are enough inadequacies in this fragile democracy, there is no need to make them up. The issue Gessen raised for me is, does lying to western audiences to make things sound worse help? I think it is not only dangerous to increase the risk of losing credibility for the cause of true reform, but, dangerous because it sets a precedent where the truth becomes irrelevant and/or a victim to some sketchily conceived “end”. In fact, it occurs to me that the problem with democratic politics around the world today is it has become “means” based, rather then “end” defined. I understand why “Means” based politics makes it possible for people with the most “means” to triumph and all that means circulates to media, PR consultants, polling firms, experts, lobbyists and pundits masquerading as journalists. What it doesn’t do is move the process forward in any meaningful way for the people of Russia. This growing disconnect between the people and many of those “representing” them to the West creates a parallel universe that does not serve the cause of increased peace and understanding.