LET US HERE IT FOR Jarvis Cocker, Pete Townsend, Martha Wainwright (who she?), and Neil Tennant. These celebs among others have given birth to new cause-celeb. As far I can see, it is the first this year and has nothing to do with Aids, malnourished Africa or Zionism.
Pussy Riot is what the media describes as a Russian punk trio, who staged a performance against Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral. This caused the cathedral authorities to demand the trio’s eviction. Caring very little for the rights of worshipers, or their deeply held beliefs; these gilded youths of Russia’s new freedoms set about abusing the cathedral’s spiritual tranquillity in a manner worthy of what the Russian Orthodox Church came to expect under communism.
In a letter to the Times our celebrities described the arrest of the pop group as “a minor breach of the peace” – well, they know little about how much the Russian people care about the religious sovereignty of the churches and cathedrals; especially after the totalitarian years.
These three young ladies will only have diminished whatever cause they were advocating. They will not find much sympathy among the Russian people; including those, who, like themselves are against president Putin.
If these “dissidents” had been protesting in a mosque in Tehran against Ahmadinejad, the silence from such celebrities would have been deafening. But they are a pop group and so people from that milieu in the UK have found the perfect cause to support.
In their letter to the Times they continue thus, "Dissent is a right in any democracy and it is entirely disproportionate that they face seven years in jail for what we consider a preposterous charge of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred'.
Dissent is indeed a right, and the prospect of seven years in jail for this group, is indeed over the top, or, in the favourite riposte of the left, “disproportionate”. Whether, however, they are given such a stringent sentence, remains to be seen. But such behaviour should not go unpunished, not because they were dissenting against a Russian president, but because they showed such contempt for an institution that over 90 per cent of the Russian people believe in and had held on to such beliefs throughout the communist era.
But then, what did these “artistes” understand of what their parents and grandparents suffered under? The Russian orthodox church, was, in the darkest period of, in particular, Stalin’s rule, the victim of such destruction of church property not seen since Henry VIII’s destruction of the monasteries.
This limited and enfeebled sisterhood know nothing of Russian history. In fact I believe I know more than them. They, like their 1970s feminist mirror image in the UK , will either fall foul of drugs or a conservative mentality in older age when the realities of life start to mature.
THE TROUBLE WITH the celebrities who have written to the Times; is that they treat religion like a superstitious witchcraft; a hideous and irrational blot on the rationalist landscape. They see no problem with invading a cathedral or church because they, like the Pussy Riot care little for these institutions. If they did, they would understand what such an infringement would have meant: and even more, what such institutions meant for the majority of their fellow citizens, who turn to them when loved ones are Christened, married, or buried. Simple humanity should always orchestrate a person’s actions, including a dissidents, which in Pussy Riot’s case, has been abandoned.
I write as an atheist. As a humanist I can readily understand why the Russian Orthodox church should demand Pussy Riot’s eviction. They should never have targeted a cathedral or church to make a point. As they did, they have now lost the support of those anti-Putin Russians which the Pussy Riot had hoped to appeal to.
Some of these women have children and are now appealing to the public, at least, for leniency in sentencing which I hope they get. But they knew the system they were about to play; and their separation from their children was always on the cards.
PUTIN IS AN AUTHORTARIAN by nature; like all Russian leaders going back to Ivan the Terrible. The Russian people, on the whole, prefer a strong leader. It has always, after all, been Russia’s historical task to show the rest of the world how not to do things.
Pussy Riot chose the wrong target to self-publicise themselves. These young women should have been sent packing; in one case, back to her children who she now complains about being separated from.
This group has been tolerated within the compass of Russian democracy. But in Russia, unlike in the Anglican UK, religion still has a grip upon the Russian people’s conscience. Having long been (far longer than the UK) an agricultural society, its people are deeply religious and as such cannot abide such behaviour from such a group.
If Pussy Riot had not invaded the sacred onion domes of mother Russia, the people would no doubt today be on their side - freedom does not mean licence: it means acting responsibly with consideration for others when protest invades what millions of Russians believe to be a sacred institution where people facing the darkest periods of their lives go to in order to find peace of mind and sanctuary. Pussy Riot mocked such people by their stunt, and should pay a price – say 12 hours in prison and a 200 rouble fine.
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