Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 24 – Russians “aren’t
used to freedom; they are used to prohibitions,” Sergey Afanasyev says; and
they assume not only that there is little difference between more prohibitions
and fewer but also that more prohibitions will make the state stronger and tthemselves
more secure.
That explains, the Moscow
commentator says, why “no one reacted to the prohibition of the Bible in the
translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russians hate those who are able to use
their freedom and realize their rights.”
And “this is one of the reasons for their hatred of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=599D286072F5C).
According to Afanasyev, “the logic
of an uncivilized country, the society of a society stuck in Asiatic
medievalism is that the more prohibitions, the stronger the state.” There is no
recognition that such prohibitions leave society weaker and less secure and
that they do nothing to stop the real threats to Russians like the Surgut
terrorist presented.
But as horrific as the popular
acquiescence in the banning of the Bible in the Jehovah’s Witness translation,
he continues, there is something even worse at work. The government media
constantly talks about bringing to responsibility believers of this or that
denomination, and the average Russia is so “legally illiterate” he doesn’t
understand the differences between criminal and administrative rules.
If someone violates administrative
rules, he is assumed to be a criminal.
As a result, Afanasyev says, a view of believers “as criminals and
violators of the law” is being formed in Russian society; and that in turn is
creating the grounds for making criminal what are now only administrative
violations. Few Russians will notice the difference.
And they will fail to see, he
concludes, that their state with all its bans on religious activity is doing
little or nothing to make them more secure in the face of terrorists or
criminals.
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