Two years in prison for performing an anti-government song in a church. Two years in prison for insulting the official religion. Two years in prison for encouraging people to protest against the nation's leader.
Two years is what the three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot received after being convicted of hooliganism last Friday.
Russia is a country with a long tradition of discouraging dissent. Whether we're talking about life under the tsars, under Stalin or under Putin and his minions, the story is always the same. Those who speak out against the government are outcasts.
Criminalizing anti-government speech is the mark of an insecure leadership. Repression in Russia has survived for centuries because of the docile nature of the masses. When a people are scared to walk or talk out of turn, the result is a lack of creativity and new ideas.
Criminalizing speech is a means of controlling thought. You raise the price of poker enough, even the most ardent critics will begin to think twice before criticizing those in power. You eliminate criticism and you eliminate opposition to your ideas. You eliminate criticism and you eliminate a very powerful check on authority.
New ideas are always born out of opposition or criticism of the ideas currently in vogue. As Marx would say, new ideas are born from the contradictions of old ideas. Yet that fostering of new ideas is the very thing the Soviet government fought against for decades. It is the same thing that Mr. Putin and his minions are fighting against today.
Every new movement in art is the result of a struggle against the existing movement.
Those who fight to prevent dissenting voices from being heard are the conservative wing attempting to prevent progress. That progress may not be smooth or linear but so long as there are competing opinions and competing visions, progress will be made. The alternative is stagnation and decay. All of the old empires fought off progress and they all collapsed under their own weight.
The Russian government is fighting a losing battle.
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