Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 13 – Sergey Levitsky,
the artistic director of the Ulan-Ude Dramatic Theater, has issued a passionate
appeal to his fellow residents of Buryatia to either boycott the constitutional
amendment referendum or vote no and to protect themselves from falsification by
recording their votes on the Internet.
His Facebook declaration has been
picked up by Irkutsk’s Babr24 portal, an
Internet site with a readership across the Russian Federation east of the
Urals. Because he is an ethnic Russian but is speaking on behalf of all Buryat
residents, his words deserve to be quoted in extenso (babr24.com/bur/?IDE=201669).
“I cannot look with indifference,”
Levitsky says, “on the latest shameful spectacle taking place before our
eyes that is called ‘Voting for Amendments to the Constitution.’ It would seem
that a worse time for doing this could not be dreamed up when to complete this
farce, the fates of millions of our fellow citizens are cast to the winds.”
“But this is the logic of ‘a healthy
individual.’ By the logic of the powers that be, statistics are everything,
with the chief one being about participation. And who will guarantee this level
of participation? In its majority, the entire budgetary sphere” of those
employed by the state.”
“It’s no secret for anyone how this
is taking place. The center gives an order to federal ministers, they give one
to the governors of regions, the governors in turn give it to their ministers,
the ministers to the directors and so on. Naturally, not out of good will but
by order because those who do not accomplish the assigned task can expect big
problems.”
“To the extent that the lion’s share
of all these great leaders are people who fear exclusively for themselves,
their positions, their possibilities, and their income, they” will do whatever
they are ordered however debasing it may be.
Everyone can see this, but few speak
out. “I have heard again and again and I will hear now that I am stupid, that I
am not playing ‘by the rules,’ and that if I’m not going to think about myself
then I should think about my big collective … But I all the same consider to
lie or to participate in lies, injustice and obvious excesses as a major crime.”
“Moreover,” Levitsky
continues, “I consider similar actions by officials of all kinds crimes as
well. I am ashamed for them. I am especially ashamed for those in Buryatia
because I live here. I am especially ashamed for Buryat officials who are drawn
into all this horror and obscurantism.”
“For how long will Buryatia remain a
colonial Republic which is fed by castoffs from the tsar’s table? For how long
will Buryatia and its citizens be deprived of the opportunity and right of
self-identification? For how long will be bow to the policy of the center which
is impoverishing Buryatia both materially and in human terms?”
“The best local brains ‘have drained
and will continue to ‘drain;’ the environment has become bestial. Baikal is
almost buried; poverty is all around; business (even without the pandemic’ is
breathing its last; the local mentality is angry, crude, cowardly and shameful.”
“But the local powers that be
continue to tell us stories that if we do not vote for the amendments, then it will
be very bad for all of us and that we will then be on the brink of disaster.
Forgive me, but where are we now? And we
are supposed to say to the Kremlin for this ‘thank you’?”
“Therefore, I call on all residents
of Buryatia either to ignore this spectacle by not giving it ‘legitimacy’ by
voting or to go to the polls and vote ‘against.’ And in this, it is absolutely
necessary to take a picture of your position and put it up on the web lest the
powers succeed somehow and report the result they want.”
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