Post by B on Sept 9, 2012 0:28:16 GMT -5
New Pussy Riot Video Released as Jailed Members Reject Attacks on Crucifixes
By ROBERT MACKEY and ILYA MOUZYKANTSKII
nytimes
thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/new-pussy-riot-video-released-as-jailed-members-reject-attacks-on-crucifixes/
pussy riot video [grating voices alert!]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDgTRiNOJUM
A video statement from members of the Russian protest band Pussy Riot, sent to MTV News on Thursday.
As the Russian news site Gazeta.ru reports, the all-female punk protest band Pussy Riot
released a new video on Thursday in which they thanked fellow musicians for their support
and burned a huge image of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Three members of the group — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30;
and Maria Alyokhina, 24 — were sentenced to two-year prison terms last month
for an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral in February, on the eve
of the presidential election that returned Mr. Putin to office. A Russian newspaper
published an interview with the three jailed members of the group on Friday,
in which they denied that their supporters were behind a wave of attacks on symbols
of Orthodox Christianity since the verdict.
Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Gazeta.ru that the new video
was produced by members of the group of about 20 activists who did not take part
in the stunt that led to the prosecution of their bandmates, but did play on the group’s
new single, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution.” The single was released in a Moscow
courtroom last month just as the judge found the three women guilty of “hooliganism”
intended to incite religious hatred.
Mr. Verzilov added that the video message, which is in English, was produced
in response to a request from MTV for use during its annual Video Music Awards
in Los Angeles on Thursday. At the start of the clip, women wearing the band’s trademark
balaclavas scale the side of a building adorned with a huge Pussy Riot banner
and large photographs of Mr. Putin and his ally, Alexander Lukashenko,
the authoritarian president of Belarus. They then thank Madonna, Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers
and Green Day for speaking out on their behalf, before lighting the Russian president’s image
on fire. At the end of the clip, they say:
“The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life.”
Novaya Gazeta, the independent Moscow newspaper that once published the investigative
reports of Anna Politkovskaya, reported on Friday that the three jailed members
of the group had rejected the suggestion that their supporters were responsible
for a recent spate of attacks on Orthodox crucifixes across Russia, which has been
heavily publicized by state-run news media outlets.
In their handwritten responses to questions posed by Novaya Gazeta, the three women
took issue with a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov,
who claimed last month that their protest song in the cathedral was a signal
to begin attacks on the Church — likening it to a shot fired by a Russian battleship,
the Aurora, in 1917, as a signal for the storming of the Winter Palace at the start
of the October Revolution.
They also accused the state of an intentional campaign to portray them as antireligious
activists, to fan the flames of culture war and so blunt the political meaning
of the song they performed in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior —
an obscenity-laced plea for the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Mr. Putin’s grip.
As The Lede reported last week, a group of Orthodox Christian activists has carried
out a series of revenge attacks on Pussy Riot supporters in Moscow recently.
Last weekend, a message posted on the band’s @pussy_riot Twitter feed puckishly
suggested that the jailed women were ready to repent their sins against the Church
on one condition: that Mr. Putin repent and imprison himself in a monastery first.
Here is an English translation of the complete Novaya Gazeta interview:
Q. Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov says that “Pussy Riot’s stunt was like the attack volley
of the Aurora, like a signal to attack the Church — and after their protest the attack
commenced.” Do you agree with this statement?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
No, I do not agree. Archpriest Smirnov is highly disingenuous when he says that
our protest was “a signal to attack the Church.” Perhaps he expects that the target audience
of his statements will not and cannot read anything that we say about our performance
in the Christ the Savior Cathedral and our motivations. If the archpriest himself could hear,
for example, our closing statements in court, he would be forced to admit that, unlike us,
he is an active inciter of religious hatred, by way of propagating a biased distortion of
the meaning of our performance in the cathedral. If we, by way of our actions
in the cathedral, were giving a volley like the Aurora, it was a volley of attack against
the uncivil politics of authoritarian powers, of which Putin and his friend Patriarch Kirill
have become symbols — the latter who used his status as a holy man for wholly unholy
purposes. And it would be wonderful if this attack really began.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
“The hatred and religious hostility of the defendants was revealed during the trial,
as seen by their reactions, emotions and remarks,” that is what’s written in the verdict.
But this is not a verdict, it is a school essay on a free theme.
Where are the specific reaction and remarks? You don’t have them?
Well, that means you have no proof. The sentence is invalid and illegitimate.
People feel the truth. And there are many of those who understood that the truth is on our side.
Maria Alyokhina:
Obviously, the statements of D. Smirnov are a provocation and incitement of
hatred against us and our supporters. This is cowardly and deceitful.
We never called to attack the Church. Listen to us, our language, our words,
and do not corrupt their meaning.
Q. Many people believe that the sawing of crosses is to support Pussy Riot and
simultaneously protest against the Church. These are the actions of the people,
and occur spontaneously in waves. Gleb Pavlovsky believes
that the sawing of crosses was invented in Kremlin offices as a way of riling up Russians.
Your opinion?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
I do not know who “invented” this form of protest, but it was certainly not our supporters;
we have never called for and will not call for such actions. We are against any physical
destruction of cultural objects and symbols, including the symbols of the Orthodox religion.
“Sawing of crosses” may be a continuation of the campaign to highlight the religious
component of our case, which was originally hastily invented by the authorities
to have at least something to cover up the politically repressive nature of both our case,
and now our verdict.
Maria Alyokhina:
The authorities are trying to make us scapegoats, at any cost necessary.
Their goal is to gather all that is negative in media spotlight and identify it with Pussy Riot —
banal mudslinging by way of cheap stories on the [main state-owned] TV channel Russia 1.
This was done not to antagonize the Russians. This is done to prevent the unification of
civil society, to prevent it by any means available — even the most distasteful.
Only petrified power can lie so blatantly (Putin, to speak correctly, is frightened,
and more than that — he’s terrified; Pussy Riot was supported by the whole world).
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
We need to take over state TV for a day (even better, a week), and broadcast
the true position of Pussy Riot to the people of Russia (which, remember, is not only
of Putin and Patriarch), as well as our political views and suggestions.
When the people (who are now being held hostage by Putin-TV) discover the truth,
the most traumatic thing of all will happen with the regime — it will lose the support
of the people who are currently hypnotized by the magic of state media.
Q. After the announcement of your verdict, graffiti in support of Pussy Riot began
appearing on the walls of some churches. Orthodox guards have even been formed
to defend churches (their creation was supported by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin).
Memos on how to counter heresy have been circulated, where, in particular,
it is written that “the shedding of blood in the church and the inside the church fence
should be avoided, but in the event of an insult of God’s temple from outside
the fence of the church, you should give a fitting rebuff to their deeds.”
What is your attitude to these protest in your support and what you think of this
reaction by the Church and organizations close to it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
I have not seen the graffiti, I cannot comment on it; we end up with only a very small
amount of information “from the street.” The reaction of the Church, or rather,
the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which, most likely,
is the initiator of these memos, is to be expected in our situation. It is necessary
for them to depict the situation as endless attacks on religion and the Church
as an institution that defends religious freedoms.
It looks like they are trying to divert public attention from the problems raised by our
performance in the cathedral, namely the merger of elite of the Russian Orthodox Church
of the Moscow Patriarchate and the elite of the Putin regime.
But the error of such a strategy is that our criminal case has managed to touch upon
a far wider range of issues than the ones it was originally intended to.
For example, issues such as the monopoly of the state in federal media,
which creates the distortion of political events in the country, the issue of the judicial system,
the problem of the cultural policy of our country, which leads to a low level of
critical thinking among our population, and the problem of an ineffective penal system
with its degrading conditions of detention. News reports of felled crosses cannot cover
all their problems. And it is here that the Russian Orthodox Church faces an impossible task.
Maria Alyokhina:
We believe that the church buildings are our architectural and historical heritage.
It’s not worth writing on their walls. There are so many other places where you can
speak for our freedom. Our protest is political, we are not enemies of the church —
it is important to understand this. Creating Orthodox guards and the words of
V. Chaplin is undoubtedly inadequate political posturing. We come in peace and await peace,
and hope for the same kind of peaceful, creative support.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
On balaclavas. The miserable Russian system, which only knows how to ban,
managed to sit in a puddle even here by banning the wearing of balaclavas.
They accepted that balaclavas pose a danger to them. It’s flattering.
Q. Many people genuinely want to support you. How should they do it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
Support should be primarily peaceful. For example, we go crazy for creative forms
of expression such as contemporary music and media art, they seem to us far more
interesting than chauvinistic ways of expression.
Maria Alyokhina:
The most important thing that we are waiting and hoping for is an association.
An association of civil society groups fighting for their rights. I know it does not
sound new, but in a country with a dying power structure that continually spreads
violence and lawlessness, anybody could be in our place. We need to remember
this and defend our freedom together. Our trial showed the world the face of the judicial system
and the current government, which is afraid of truth and smiles. I think only in this way
— with truth and smiles — can we get rid of it, and I hope that when we come out of prison,
we will step into a different Russia.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
Actually, we are already free, because they cannot take away our mental ability to laugh.
My daughter Gera knows that Putin put her mother in a cage. The only thing
she cannot understand is why I have not been able to escape. Gera sends me detailed plans.
The band’s latest song, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution,” can be heard
at the end of a discussion of the continuing Pussy Riot saga on WNYC’s Soundcheck,
recorded on Thursday.
By ROBERT MACKEY and ILYA MOUZYKANTSKII
nytimes
thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/new-pussy-riot-video-released-as-jailed-members-reject-attacks-on-crucifixes/
pussy riot video [grating voices alert!]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDgTRiNOJUM
A video statement from members of the Russian protest band Pussy Riot, sent to MTV News on Thursday.
As the Russian news site Gazeta.ru reports, the all-female punk protest band Pussy Riot
released a new video on Thursday in which they thanked fellow musicians for their support
and burned a huge image of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Three members of the group — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30;
and Maria Alyokhina, 24 — were sentenced to two-year prison terms last month
for an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral in February, on the eve
of the presidential election that returned Mr. Putin to office. A Russian newspaper
published an interview with the three jailed members of the group on Friday,
in which they denied that their supporters were behind a wave of attacks on symbols
of Orthodox Christianity since the verdict.
Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Gazeta.ru that the new video
was produced by members of the group of about 20 activists who did not take part
in the stunt that led to the prosecution of their bandmates, but did play on the group’s
new single, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution.” The single was released in a Moscow
courtroom last month just as the judge found the three women guilty of “hooliganism”
intended to incite religious hatred.
Mr. Verzilov added that the video message, which is in English, was produced
in response to a request from MTV for use during its annual Video Music Awards
in Los Angeles on Thursday. At the start of the clip, women wearing the band’s trademark
balaclavas scale the side of a building adorned with a huge Pussy Riot banner
and large photographs of Mr. Putin and his ally, Alexander Lukashenko,
the authoritarian president of Belarus. They then thank Madonna, Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers
and Green Day for speaking out on their behalf, before lighting the Russian president’s image
on fire. At the end of the clip, they say:
“The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life.”
Novaya Gazeta, the independent Moscow newspaper that once published the investigative
reports of Anna Politkovskaya, reported on Friday that the three jailed members
of the group had rejected the suggestion that their supporters were responsible
for a recent spate of attacks on Orthodox crucifixes across Russia, which has been
heavily publicized by state-run news media outlets.
In their handwritten responses to questions posed by Novaya Gazeta, the three women
took issue with a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov,
who claimed last month that their protest song in the cathedral was a signal
to begin attacks on the Church — likening it to a shot fired by a Russian battleship,
the Aurora, in 1917, as a signal for the storming of the Winter Palace at the start
of the October Revolution.
They also accused the state of an intentional campaign to portray them as antireligious
activists, to fan the flames of culture war and so blunt the political meaning
of the song they performed in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior —
an obscenity-laced plea for the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Mr. Putin’s grip.
As The Lede reported last week, a group of Orthodox Christian activists has carried
out a series of revenge attacks on Pussy Riot supporters in Moscow recently.
Last weekend, a message posted on the band’s @pussy_riot Twitter feed puckishly
suggested that the jailed women were ready to repent their sins against the Church
on one condition: that Mr. Putin repent and imprison himself in a monastery first.
Here is an English translation of the complete Novaya Gazeta interview:
Q. Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov says that “Pussy Riot’s stunt was like the attack volley
of the Aurora, like a signal to attack the Church — and after their protest the attack
commenced.” Do you agree with this statement?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
No, I do not agree. Archpriest Smirnov is highly disingenuous when he says that
our protest was “a signal to attack the Church.” Perhaps he expects that the target audience
of his statements will not and cannot read anything that we say about our performance
in the Christ the Savior Cathedral and our motivations. If the archpriest himself could hear,
for example, our closing statements in court, he would be forced to admit that, unlike us,
he is an active inciter of religious hatred, by way of propagating a biased distortion of
the meaning of our performance in the cathedral. If we, by way of our actions
in the cathedral, were giving a volley like the Aurora, it was a volley of attack against
the uncivil politics of authoritarian powers, of which Putin and his friend Patriarch Kirill
have become symbols — the latter who used his status as a holy man for wholly unholy
purposes. And it would be wonderful if this attack really began.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
“The hatred and religious hostility of the defendants was revealed during the trial,
as seen by their reactions, emotions and remarks,” that is what’s written in the verdict.
But this is not a verdict, it is a school essay on a free theme.
Where are the specific reaction and remarks? You don’t have them?
Well, that means you have no proof. The sentence is invalid and illegitimate.
People feel the truth. And there are many of those who understood that the truth is on our side.
Maria Alyokhina:
Obviously, the statements of D. Smirnov are a provocation and incitement of
hatred against us and our supporters. This is cowardly and deceitful.
We never called to attack the Church. Listen to us, our language, our words,
and do not corrupt their meaning.
Q. Many people believe that the sawing of crosses is to support Pussy Riot and
simultaneously protest against the Church. These are the actions of the people,
and occur spontaneously in waves. Gleb Pavlovsky believes
that the sawing of crosses was invented in Kremlin offices as a way of riling up Russians.
Your opinion?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
I do not know who “invented” this form of protest, but it was certainly not our supporters;
we have never called for and will not call for such actions. We are against any physical
destruction of cultural objects and symbols, including the symbols of the Orthodox religion.
“Sawing of crosses” may be a continuation of the campaign to highlight the religious
component of our case, which was originally hastily invented by the authorities
to have at least something to cover up the politically repressive nature of both our case,
and now our verdict.
Maria Alyokhina:
The authorities are trying to make us scapegoats, at any cost necessary.
Their goal is to gather all that is negative in media spotlight and identify it with Pussy Riot —
banal mudslinging by way of cheap stories on the [main state-owned] TV channel Russia 1.
This was done not to antagonize the Russians. This is done to prevent the unification of
civil society, to prevent it by any means available — even the most distasteful.
Only petrified power can lie so blatantly (Putin, to speak correctly, is frightened,
and more than that — he’s terrified; Pussy Riot was supported by the whole world).
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
We need to take over state TV for a day (even better, a week), and broadcast
the true position of Pussy Riot to the people of Russia (which, remember, is not only
of Putin and Patriarch), as well as our political views and suggestions.
When the people (who are now being held hostage by Putin-TV) discover the truth,
the most traumatic thing of all will happen with the regime — it will lose the support
of the people who are currently hypnotized by the magic of state media.
Q. After the announcement of your verdict, graffiti in support of Pussy Riot began
appearing on the walls of some churches. Orthodox guards have even been formed
to defend churches (their creation was supported by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin).
Memos on how to counter heresy have been circulated, where, in particular,
it is written that “the shedding of blood in the church and the inside the church fence
should be avoided, but in the event of an insult of God’s temple from outside
the fence of the church, you should give a fitting rebuff to their deeds.”
What is your attitude to these protest in your support and what you think of this
reaction by the Church and organizations close to it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
I have not seen the graffiti, I cannot comment on it; we end up with only a very small
amount of information “from the street.” The reaction of the Church, or rather,
the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which, most likely,
is the initiator of these memos, is to be expected in our situation. It is necessary
for them to depict the situation as endless attacks on religion and the Church
as an institution that defends religious freedoms.
It looks like they are trying to divert public attention from the problems raised by our
performance in the cathedral, namely the merger of elite of the Russian Orthodox Church
of the Moscow Patriarchate and the elite of the Putin regime.
But the error of such a strategy is that our criminal case has managed to touch upon
a far wider range of issues than the ones it was originally intended to.
For example, issues such as the monopoly of the state in federal media,
which creates the distortion of political events in the country, the issue of the judicial system,
the problem of the cultural policy of our country, which leads to a low level of
critical thinking among our population, and the problem of an ineffective penal system
with its degrading conditions of detention. News reports of felled crosses cannot cover
all their problems. And it is here that the Russian Orthodox Church faces an impossible task.
Maria Alyokhina:
We believe that the church buildings are our architectural and historical heritage.
It’s not worth writing on their walls. There are so many other places where you can
speak for our freedom. Our protest is political, we are not enemies of the church —
it is important to understand this. Creating Orthodox guards and the words of
V. Chaplin is undoubtedly inadequate political posturing. We come in peace and await peace,
and hope for the same kind of peaceful, creative support.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
On balaclavas. The miserable Russian system, which only knows how to ban,
managed to sit in a puddle even here by banning the wearing of balaclavas.
They accepted that balaclavas pose a danger to them. It’s flattering.
Q. Many people genuinely want to support you. How should they do it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich:
Support should be primarily peaceful. For example, we go crazy for creative forms
of expression such as contemporary music and media art, they seem to us far more
interesting than chauvinistic ways of expression.
Maria Alyokhina:
The most important thing that we are waiting and hoping for is an association.
An association of civil society groups fighting for their rights. I know it does not
sound new, but in a country with a dying power structure that continually spreads
violence and lawlessness, anybody could be in our place. We need to remember
this and defend our freedom together. Our trial showed the world the face of the judicial system
and the current government, which is afraid of truth and smiles. I think only in this way
— with truth and smiles — can we get rid of it, and I hope that when we come out of prison,
we will step into a different Russia.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova:
Actually, we are already free, because they cannot take away our mental ability to laugh.
My daughter Gera knows that Putin put her mother in a cage. The only thing
she cannot understand is why I have not been able to escape. Gera sends me detailed plans.
The band’s latest song, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution,” can be heard
at the end of a discussion of the continuing Pussy Riot saga on WNYC’s Soundcheck,
recorded on Thursday.
