Paul Goble
Staunton, May 13 – In ever more
sectors, Vladimir Putin has dropped all pretense that he is acting with the support
of the Russian people and has moved instead to institute what can only be
called the rules of a state of emergency on ever more sectors of Russian life,
according to Rosbalt commentator Sergey Shelin.
The clearest evidence of this, he
says, is to be found in Putin’s latest decree (static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/OZmu2EMWXUfRwa5w9bv2CxzNlVq5sRgd.pdf) banning
demonstrations for 1.5 months in 2017 during the Confederation Cup matches and
for two months in 2018 during the World Cup (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2017/05/12/1614666.html).
“If you don’t like the words ‘state
of emergency,’” Shelin says, “you can call this something else,” but “that
doesn’t change the essence” of what the Kremlin leader is doing.
According to the Rosbalt commentator,
“the threat of terrorism” which Putin is using to justify his actions “constantly
exists … but if the powers that be consider the Confederation Cup a
sufficiently weighty occasion to introduce a 1.5 month long special situation,
then they will not find the least difficulty” in doing the same in the future
for almost anything else.
Russia does not have “a state of
emergency as a single system of administration at present, but ever more
frequently we encounter states of emergency in separate parts of life;” and
thus almost unnoticed, they are spreading from one segment to another and the
threat they pose needs to be recognized.
The case of the blogger Sokolovsky
shows just how far this spread has gone because a state of emergency, unlike
ideological pressure or administrative manipulations that the Kremlin has used
before, “no longer pretends on the approval of those it controls” or involves
any “ritual of consultation with society” as do elections and permitted
demonstrations.
The suspended sentence handed out to
Sokolovsky, Shelin says, is in fact a real one in that he has already promised
to stop acting in ways that might bring him back into court and land him in
prison. But more important, this action
by the authorities is not widely supported by the population: it didn’t occur
to meet any popular demand.
Having found the blogger guilty,
Russia’s legal system and the powers behind it “condemned not only the existing
Constitution, not only Russian atheists, but also believing non-Christians and
non-Muslims and a significant share of formally Orthodox,” given that “about 30
percent” who identify as Orthodox but don’t believe in God.
The decision is deeply unpopular,
Shelin says, but “the state machine has waved away its customary game of
agreement with the people. They don’t agree – that’s OK. Let them get angry as long as they obey.
Precisely this is the logic of a state of emergency” in the minds of the
rulers.
And “this logic,” he continues, “ever
more frequently dominates the situation.” For example, when Mikhail
Khodorkovsky said he wanted his demonstrators to leave appeals at Putin’s
office, a practice guaranteed in law and tradition, the powers that be simply
blocked the way – and they didn’t lift that restriction after his protest passed.
“In place of former rituals of
exchange between the authorities and the subjects” that were full of hypocrisy
but nonetheless observed, the Putin regime has shifted to using “simple force”
without any ceremony whatsoever. “Ever
more often an individual can be seized and punished simply because he is at
hand.”
At present, there isn’t a full-blown
state of emergency in Russia. But things
are definitely moving in that direction, Shelin says; and the experiences of
other regimes that have taken this step does not bode well for the future of
the country and its residents.
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