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PUNK PRAYER

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THESE ORGANISATIONS WORK TO PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY AND AN ALTERNATIVE TO CORRUPTION

FAQ

TO THOSE IN RUSSIA, TIRED OF THE WEST'S OBSESSION WITH PUSSY RIOT:

You discuss Pussy Riot as if no independent journalists had been assassinated. As if Putin hadn't appointed Medvedev as a stooge, and twisted the constitution to ensure he'd be in power for another 12 years (instead of 8). As if your last elections had been transparent and fair. You act as if the evil of Oligarchic influence and corruption outweighed and somehow justified the evil of governmental coercive oppression and media manipulation. You act as if you were free. As if this was as good as things could ever be.

You act as if the world didn't see through the charades, as if every citizen on the outside was at best being misled or at worse acting in bad faith. You act as if we were blind to what you already know. Those indignities you have to endure daily. The corruption, the crime, the red tape, the impunity. As if people more powerful than you couldn’t, at any time, swoop in and destroy your life without you having a say in the matter. As if you hadn’t better keep your head down and go about your business, making sure you don't attract the wrong kind of attention. This is what needs to change. Think what you will of Pussy Riot's pranks. This isn't about some cheeky punk chicks. This is about their song. About the price they had to pay for bringing government collusion to your attention.

The West has got its lot of problems. Most media outlets here are either broken, corrupt or lazy. They've given a free pass to corporate interests and to propagandists like FoxNews. But in your country, FoxNews isn't only on every airwave, it's actually in power. And it's changing the laws to stay in power indefinitely.

The Western media's obsession with cute girls is exactly why we're making this about the cute girls. Yes, it is a means to an end. The media's end is to make advertising money by selling the sexy. Our end is in getting you the freedom every human being deserves.

We have been calling attention to the problems of our own society. We continue to do so. If we're speaking to your situation now it is because your country is at a turning point. It is on the cusp of reverting to the autocracy was just a few years ago. Unless you act – soon – to support actions like Strategy-31 (Стратегия-31) or groups like The Other Russia (Другая Россия), there soon will be no alternative to the people who rule over your daily lives. Not just President Putin, but the Bratva and Vorovskoy mir and every two-bit bureaucratic crook, landlord or oligarch who treats you like a puppet and a slave. Your window is closing. Only the streets can save you. Go to them. Denounce the suppression of your rights and freedoms. Decry the oppression of all your sisters and brothers. Not just of those you agree with, but with those who fight for the right of peaceful dissent. Think of your children’s children. Save their Mother Russia from the men who have been raping her.

WHY SHOULD WE LISTEN TO THE OPINIONS OF SOME UNKNOWN CANADIAN MUSIC GROUP?

For one thing, we have nothing to gain from you being in or out of chains. It doesn't affect us personally in any way. This shouldn't concern us any more than Iran's Green Revolution should have. But it does. It concerns us deeply. Because this isn't about one country's power over another. It's about every human being's fundamental rights. This isn't you against us; it's about you and us against them. Who is «them»? The people in power and behind the scenes who continuously try to corrupt the system for their own benefit. Who change the rules to make the game fundamentally unfair. They are just as present in Canada and in the U.S. as in Russia and Iran, but they are now running the show where you live. They're working hard at making their crooked rules permanent. At making you so cynical that you won't even complain when they finally do slam the window shut.

Who the hell are we? No different than the Petrashevsky Circle. We are part of a timeless philosophical brotherhood that goes beyond race, economic class or country of origin. We do not speak to you as Canadians trying to impose their ways. We speak to you as free men and women who mean only to help those who seek similar, basic freedoms. We speak to you as our predecessors did to an imprisoned Alik Ginzburg (Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Ги́нзбург) or Aung San Suu Kyi (Аун Сан Су Чжи). We speak as they did to Martin Luther King Jr (Ма́ртин Лю́тер Кинг) and to Mohammad Ali (Муха́ммед Али́) when he refused to fight in Vietnam. We speak to you as they did to the majority opinion of their time: We speak the truth. And we mean to tell you that you are not alone in your struggles. But you need to reach out to those who think like you do. They need you. We need you.

The powers that would have you silenced – that would love to have us silenced – are too entrenched and resilient to be taken lightly. This isn't a schoolyard game. Honest people – your people – have died trying to expose the crimes of your leaders. They will continue to die, until you take a stand. We will stand with you. Throughout the world, we will stand with you. But you must lead if this cause is to succeed. This is not about overthrowing President Putin. It's about forcing him to respect the Constitution, forcing your representatives to pass laws that protect the citizen against political coercion and that punish corruption of every kind. It's about insisting that a country that calls itself democratic actually live up to its ideals.

RUSSIA ALREADY HAS A FREE PRESS – YOU SHOULD HEAR THE THINGS RUSSIAN MEDIA SAY ABOUT PRESIDENT PUTIN

There is a critical difference between empty blowhards who only spew unsubstantiated invectives and actual investigative journalists. The people being murdered aren't the blowhards, because windbags aren't a threat. Verified and unimpeachable facts are the real threat. And the message in Russia has been clear for years: if you dig around too much, you will either get yourself killed or imprisoned on trumped up charges. And after you've been «incited to suicide» or conveniently murdered, nobody will even raise an eyebrow. It will blow over, like the results of a disappointing football game. To even suggest that this isn't a problem is in itself a problem. One murdered journalist should be one too many. You're looking at dozens upon dozens of deaths. Far too many independent, idealistic, honest reporters have been summarily executed on the streets or in their homes. Meanwhile, the typical citizen tends to measure your Fifth Estate by the volume of its talk radio. There may be more of it than ever before. And it may be louder than ever before. But it is empty and therefore harmless to those who wield true power. Free press is priceless; your press clearly has a price. It has been cheapened by poor ethics and conflicts of interest. But cheap does not free make. And though most Russians may recognize this as true, most also see it as being an insurmountable fact. Like in the West, it's easier to shrug and deny than to address and confront. That's why we're pleading with you to do the latter. You know the alternative. You're living it.

REGARDING OUR BEING «FOREIGN AGENTS »:

“…newspaper headlines still display: "No right to interfere in our internal affairs!" Whereas there are no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! And mankind's sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business; in the people of the East being vitally concerned with what is thought in the West, the people of the West vitally concerned with what goes on in the East.“ - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel prize address

The single easiest way to discredit your opponent has always been to call her an illegal, an imposter, or an arriviste. Conservatives tried it against Obama in 2008, calling him a Muslim, a Kenyan and someone who «pals around with terrorists». This tack is not exclusive to Russia's present administration, but is rather typical of reactionaries who prefer to attack a movement's backers and reputation instead of its ideas. Our plea to the Russian people is to listen to the ideas. For they alone can set things right.

We'd probably be better off if we were U.S. State Department agents: it would, I imagine, bring us some sort of compensation. Or at the very least some technical support. But alas, we are acting unassisted. We are acting on this because we see your great country slipping away from your control. We are students of history and we've seen this happen countless times before, in countless other places. Democracy is – and will always be – a tug of war between competing factions. But the game is being rigged in Russia, while your state-run media and government-backed blogs are numbing you to its effects. We saw a very similar thing happen in the United States, in the lead up to the Iraq war. We witnessed powerlessly as mass media enabled the groupthink that led not only to tragically misguided decisions, but also to the public tarring and feathering of anyone who dared oppose the party line. In 2003, the Dixie Chicks were America's Pussy Riot. Nobody much gave a crap when they were branded traitors and blacklisted. Sure, it made the evening news. But the version that made the news only reinforced the backlash. The majority of Americans looked on in apathy or disgust while the Chicks' «un-American» supporters cried injustice. Sound familiar?

Of course, to this comparison, some Americans will say: «yeah but Dixie Chicks never went to jail». No, but consider their crime – merely claiming to a foreign audience that they were ashamed of their president, nothing more. And yet they suffered the wrath of their own people, like thousands of truth-tellers before them. Just like Mohammad Ali had, when he refused to fight the Viet-Cong for a country that wouldn't even recognize his own most basic rights. He was stripped of his title and vilified both in the press and on the streets. People forget just how nasty things got. How nasty they can get. Americans forget that it happened there not ten years ago.

So yes – we know and understand where you're coming from. We've seen it before. Countless times. But it doesn't make it right.

Now you might see these examples as proof that you're no worse off than anyone else. The West's double standard does come up often and there is truth to it. One key difference though: The American government did not surreptitiously mandate the pillorying of the Dixie Chicks. Opponents to the Iraq war were indeed marginalized by the mainstream media, lambasted by the right-wing media and though sometimes harassed and spied upon by law-enforcement, none were sent to labor camps. Certainly none were conveniently murdered.

More importantly, the right-wingers were eventually ousted from power. The pendulum swung back. That won't happen in Russia. Not unless you – the people – manage to shore up the institutions that keep the power brokers in check. Without freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience, you cannot call yourselves free. It really is that simple.

And though you may agree with many of Putin's policies, and though you may dislike the candidates that oppose him, without accountability, there can be no democracy. You are losing your country. And you are apathetic to it slipping away from you. That's what this is about. Your freedom is necessary. The world needs a strong and democratic Russia. Without it, there will only be more dissonance and conflict.

Dirty governments need an external enemy to rally their people around their leaders. So in the absence of aggressors, they fabricate or greatly exaggerate threats. It is the oldest trick in the book and it works every single time. Because we are a tribal species, our instincts push us to trust our own kind before risking trust in others. Your government, like thousands of others before it, will do everything it can to frame this as a conflict with malicious outsiders, so that any critique – no matter how legitimate – might be branded suspicious and therefore be summarily dismissed by you. It's something that Iran and North Korea and most Arab monarchies have made into an art form. It's something Joseph McCarthy excelled at and something neo-cons of the recent Bush Administration were also rather skilled at. The establishing of a siege mentality will always rally people to a cause and give governments a free pass. But it's at your own expense. Because a government that does not fear the consequences of its actions will never govern in its people’s best interests.

So no, though Putin's puppets will likely do everything in their power to convince you otherwise, we are not Canadian government-mandated agents. We are free members of the human brotherhood and nothing more. We are critical thinkers, impartial observers. And we do not take bribes. Only bets. We're betting on you. Otherwise we wouldn't be wasting our time. Or yours.