Photo by Ernest Mezak, member of Memorial Society in Syktyvkar at a picket in front of the United Russia Party office, February 9, 2012. This was a demonstration staged by Komi's Memorial against the Russian government's position on the Syria crisis.
An interesting factor in the waves of Russian protests recently against the autocratic Putin and election fraud: for the first time since 1968, protesters are taking up the awful aspects of Russian foreign policy.
Back in 1968, you will recall that eight brave Russian citizens went out on Red Square to protest the Soviet-led invasion of then-Czechoslovakia. Two of the women were released, the rest went to jail. I know most of them. It was a rare flash of interest in affairs not directly inside the Soviet dictatorship -- but even when things became a bit more free in the 1980s, Russians tended to be preoccupied with their own affairs -- and still are. They have enough to do just trying to gain their own freedom.
One of the slogans the Red Square demonstrators had on their posters during their short-lived action was "For our freedom, and yours" -- actually, an old Polish saying that means that when you fight against a tyrannical government that oppresses other countries, too, you are fighting "for our freedom, and yours." They put some of their slogans in Czech -- Ať žije svobodné a nezávislé Československo!" (Long live free and independent Czechoslovakia).
In the same way, a group in the Russian region of Syktyvkar in the Komi republic (where, as it happened, the famous writer Dovlatov did his guard duty) has staged a protest at the local office of the United Russia Party, a symbol of Putin. The group is part of the Memorial movement dedicated to remembering -- and preventing -- the crimes of totalitarianism.
The man in the photo here being questioned by police has a sign with Russian, English, and Arabic.
Wikipedia says, "Many of the 'settlers' who came in the early 20th century were prisoners of the Gulag who were sent by the hundreds of thousands to perform forced labor in the Arctic regions of the USSR." So it's that kind of place where people are free thinkers.
I've seen a few Facebook and Live Journal entries here and there talking about Syria and arguing about whether Russia is doing the right thing or isolating itself. This is really the first time in a long while I've seen Russians care about their country's bad behaviour abroad. Of course, the two aspects are intertwined -- the bad behaviour becomes possible because civil society is suppressed inside the country.
