Back to the bad old days of the Soviet Union

The Russians are back to the bad old days......

The trial, currently underway, of the punk band, Pussy Riot, has all the hallmarks of what was the norm under the Soviet regime.

"Of all the bad feelings one can have about one’s own country, shame is the most painful. Righteous outrage motivates one to act; sadness breeds solidarity; even fear can bring people together. But shame not only makes you want to jump out of your skin, it also means you have already effectively jumped out of the skin that is your country.

I distinctly recall the first time I recognized the feeling of shame in myself. It was a bit over a year ago, when I watched a video of an American gay activist, Lt. Dan Choi, being grabbed and dragged off by the Moscow police just outside Red Square for attempting to take part in an illegal gay pride parade. I remember, too, thinking about what was causing me to feel ashamed: I was imagining many of my friends in other countries watching the video and thinking of me as living in a backward country.

This summer, that feeling is growing familiar. The ongoing trial of three members of Pussy Riot, the girl band that staged an anti-Putin “punk prayer service” in Moscow’s main cathedral, has been compared to the Spanish Inquisition, a witch hunt, and Stalinist show trials (I am guilty of that comparison, too). All of these comparisons give the Moscow court too much credit. The Inquisition, the witch hunters, and even Stalin’s executioners believed in their causes and fought passionately for them. What is going on in the Moscow courtroom today is a dispassionate, cynical travesty of justice.
 

Take the judge, for example. She appears to consider being possessed by the devil to be a valid medical diagnosis.  Or take the prosecutor, who demanded that the trial be closed to the public – as though the women’s performance had been a state secret. Or take the defense lawyer who, when the judge corrects him on inappropriate language, snaps, “Don’t tell me what to do.” Or take the court marshals, who try to kick members of the public out of the courtroom for turning their heads toward the window — through which they can see a protest erupting.

Or take the bomb threat on the fourth day of hearings. The building was evacuated while the mine squad swept it. As the lawyers, the witnesses and the journalists waited outside, the three defendants were left in the courthouse, where a bomb had supposedly been planted.

Or take what happened the next day. The defense was hoping to finally begin calling witnesses, but the court marshals did not allow most of the people on the defense list to enter the building. Then the judge ruled that they would not be called to testify because they were absent. The defense objected; the judge pretended not to hear.

Every day last week, front pages the world over — except Russia — carried headlines about the Pussy Riot trial. Several of those stories managed to communicate the tragedy of the situation: three young women, two of whom have young children, are facing years in jail for staging a peaceful protest. But I don’t think any of those stories really got across the ridiculous nature of what is passing for court proceedings in Moscow today. The trial is not even absurd — a quality that might have some appeal for the defendants’ artistic sensibilities. It is simply a very bad, half-hearted attempt at a show.

That makes me feel shame. But shame leads to alienation — which is exactly what the government officials want: for people like me to feel like outsiders at these proceedings and in this country. And that is the only thing that still gives me a shot at achieving righteous indignation".