In November of 1862, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, went to the White House for a visit with the president. Upon meeting her, Abraham Lincoln is said to have remarked, “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
The Russian punk band Pussy Riot probably has Vladmir Putin thinking something similar. The band’s music is horrible, but subversive, and the band members are heroically unafraid of authorities. At a time when the rest of Russia’s opposition seems if not cowed, then certainly subdued, Pussy Riot is rocking the boat and spitting in the face of its authoritarian president.
The band’s trial and 2 year sentence for “hooliganism” — a catch-all charge from the days of the KGB for political dissent — has electrified the opposition in Russia and breathed new life into a movement whose members suffer constant harassment and are subject to arrest at any given moment.
But Pussy Riot just keeps on truckin’:
If anyone thought the members of incarcerated Russian punk band Pussy Riot would be cowed by the two-year prison sentence handed down last week, all they need do is check out the lyrics to the group’s latest song, “Putin Lights Up the Fires.”
A video for the song created by London’s Guardian newspaper was released Friday:
“The country is going into the streets boldly… the country is going to bid farewell to the regime,” the band’s singers blare over a suitably thrashy guitar-bass-drums track built on a descending chord progression.
The trio of women were arrested after a February guerrilla performance protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral. Last week, the three were sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism.”
The government’s response to the group’s protest has sparked reactions around the world, with serious messages of solidarity from superstars such as Paul McCartney and Madonna to “Family Guy” creator and “Ted” director Seth McFarlane, who tweeted last week: “Russian Punk Band Sentenced … For Hooliganism (Plus 8 counts of shenanigans, tomfoolery, hijinks, jibber-jabber, and razzmatazz).”
Here’s the full text of “Putin Lights Up the Fires”:
This state may be stronger than time in jail.The more arrests, the happier it is.
Every arrest is carried out with love for the sexist
Who botoxed his cheeks and pumped his chest and abs.But you can’t nail us in the coffin.
Throw off the yoke of former KGB!Putin is lighting the fires of revolution
He’s bored and scared of sharing silence with the people
With every execution: the stench of rotten ash
With every long sentence: a wet dreamThe country is going, the country is going into the streets boldly
The country is going, the country is going to bid farewell to the regime
The country is going, the country is going, like a feminist wedge
And Putin is going, Putin is going to say goodbye like a sheepArrest the whole city for May 6th
Seven years isn’t enough, give us 18!
Forbid us to scream, walk and curse!
Go and marry Father Lukashenko
Like Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland, an opposition under siege needs a symbol of resistance to brave the oppression from authorities. While there have been several courageous leaders of the loosely organized movement opposing Putin, like recently arrested Gary Kasparov, there has been no overarching personality or symbol around which the Russian opposition could unite and rally. Pussy Riot may not want the job but their actions have inspired and heartened a heretofore despondent movement.
An internet vote is scheduled for October 7 with all of the fragmented opposition invited to participate. They are to elect a coordinating council in advance of big demonstrations planned for later this year. If Pussy Riot does nothing else except inspire people to participate in this online event, they will have served their country well.
I’d like to see how Americans would react to a similar stunt at a place they consider sacred. Throwing excrement on the Vietnam Memorial or a Martin Luther King statue would do the trick. In the UK there are many people in jail for minor acts of political incorrectness yet Paul McCartney, Pete Townsend and company are silent about their plight. Pussy Riot’s supporters are the usual leftists, many of them funded by George Soros and the US State Department. Comparing them to a genuine hero like Lech Walesa is appalling. (Incidentally, they would probably have got a similar sentence in Poland).
They threw no feces. They said out loud the Russia is run by criminals. They’re right.
Putin should be fed Po219.
Goose, gander.
“They said out loud the Russia is run by criminals. They’re right.”
do it in front of the kremlin not in a church
If the church doesn’t support Putin, give them 5 days of community service for trespass. If the church does endorse this bloody handed false Dmitri, give them a medal.
don’t do the crime you don’t do the time. oh and have any of the #occupiers been charged and tried for their crimes in this country? oh noes ’cause there “cause” is proggtard.
Their crime is trespass is at worst. Several days jail at most.
Putin’s crimes are Legion. Do you have a care for those? Do you pretend any crime of the occupiers’ excuses any done by Putin?
How long were the ACT-UP protesters who invaded St. Patrick’s Cathedral jailed?
America stop considering Christian sites to be sacred some time ago. That’s why I mentioned MLK and the Vietnam Memorial.
pussy riot = #occupy poopers
I am impressed by the courage of these young ladies. They have the strength to look Putin squarely in the eye and deliver an unpopular message. Our current president cannot do as much.
Perhaps I sympathize with them because I work for a university that thinks El Presidente is mahvelous. There is no free speech in my work environment regarding The Won. Granted I have not had sex in a museum or sung a poltical song in church, if I thought it would cause our Dear Leader any heartburn, I might do one. Or both. I’ll start small and vote against him in November, as many times as I can..
I am impressed by the courage of these young ladies.
Given that they are backed by big money and the USA I don’t think what they did required much courage. Were you equally impressed with their ‘courage’ when they engaged in acts of cruelty to defensive animals in previous protests?
While its nice to see artists who are actually against authoritarian government, supposedly anyway, I am way more concerned about free speech on supposedly free countries than in Russia. People in Britain actually get jail time for saying things that are supposedly ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ for example. I haven’t seen any artists rush to the side of people saying naughty things in that country. People get jail terms on the continent for things like holocaust denial (‘cept if their Muslims I think), which isn’t nice but shouldn’t lead to a jail term.
Greetings:
My sainted and departed Mother used to have an expression that she got to use multiple times immediately after my antagonizing my bigger sister provoked an unexpected response. “Well, sonny jim,” she would emotionlessly intone, “it looks like you got more than you thought you had bargained for.”
Now other people may consider this “bearding the lion” and instead of getting scratched, getting clawed. So be it. They knew what they were doing and had given themselves, under the fig leaf of a political demonstration, license to invade someone else’s property and bend it to their purpose.
As to what crime they committed, hooliganism might be too vague to American minds, but certainly a trespass. And when a group of people plan to commit a trespass, might that not become a conspiracy. And when someone else’s property is used by others without permission is that not conversion. I mean there are places in Moscow that one can rent to film a music video, aren’t there ???
I live in the San Francisco Bay area and for the last decade or so have been sharpening my analytical skills on the difference between a demonstration and a disruption. It sure seems to me that the local powers that be have effectively established a kind of reverse Jim Crow system in which demonstrators of similar ideology are permitted to disrupt the rights of their fellow, but obviously less enlightened, citizens to travel freely and conduct their lawful commerce. This I reject.
LIke what has been said about obscenity, the difference between political demonstration and civic disruption is easily seen. The ownership of the property was the give-away. No one has a right to demonstrate on someone else property without permission.
Their purpose was demonstration, it was no figleaf. And conversion implies proprietary control. Were you very well briefed? Did you think so?
It also occurs to me to ask, do you imagine the church was barred to the public? A strange sort of church if it was.
The church was open to the public for use as a church, not a punk rock club.
Hence a few day’s, tops, for trespass.
Mighty odd now many anonymous types their are obscuring and distracting from Putin’s crimes.
But then not so odd considering Putin’s background.
Active measures.
What anonymous types? Newrouter? Been around for years under that name.
Newrouter’s the person’s name? Or do you mean that’s your sockpuppet?
Putin is nutz, and Pussy Riot is counter-nutz. It’s a Russian thang.
The girls ultimately win, I think, because Putin loses by any association with them at all, but Putin is happy losing as they are happy (or at least unbowed) going to jail winners.
“Pussy Riot?” How charming and lady-like. Take over a church service with an obscene gesture of using a crucifix to perform a sexual act while belting out some vulgar ‘song?’ no one wanted to hear in a place of worship?
They might have pulled off this stunt inside a mosque for better effect, although there’s no cross to use there; so they’d have settled for something a little less dramatic, such as pissing on a koran. Now THAT’S courage.
Two years is a kinder, gentler sentence for these shrews than what they would have received from the Muslims, a beheading.
…islamophobic troll. this conversation had nothing to do with Islam.
Hey PJ Tattler and Tom Perkins,
Link below – here’s one of your Heroines for Freedom stuffing a chicken up her in vagina in a supermarket. In front of kids.
You’re all class, you idiots.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aea_1343072683
Gosh Putin still comes off 2nd best by far in comparison. It’s the murderous territorial and political ambitions, and his international friends like Assad.
But she stuffed her vagina with chicken ! Hello? Epic fail for PJ Tatler.
So Putin thinks Po219 is a good sweetener for tea, but Pussy Riot is really what tweaks you?
This is a set of priorities I think you should be shamed to make known.
The problem with Putin is, he killed and jailed oppositions. Thus the oppositions take any and all opportunities to give him a heartache. Only wish the heartache turns into a real heart attack.
Pussy Riot may not be saints, but “saints” are too chicken to stand up to Putin. After all the years of bloodshed, political jails, and excursions to Siberia, the Russians did fight and die. It’s awful that an ex-KGB could hijack their hard fought freedom in rigged elections.
As I’ve said before, if Ted Nugent gave an anti-Obama concert/rant by taking over Rev. Wright’s church, he’d be arrested and probably jailed for a “hate” crime. 2 years? Probably not, but I could easily see six months.
And looking at the incarceration rate US is looking a lot more like a prison state than Russia is…
No, couple days tops, and quite likely just a fine. Is a misdemeanor, not a felony.
Have some sympathy for what Vladimir Putin is faced with, a nation in civil and demographic decline………
The Orthodox Church is a key institution against social dissolution and despair. Allowing the Gash Trash to mock and humiliate the Church at a time when the Russian people are dissolving into infertility and drunkenness is an issue of legitimate national security and interest. We may not like this, but this is a freedom the Russians may not be able to afford, sorry……
What Russia can’t afford, is Putin’s fever dreams of a revived Cold War. Russia can’t afford sending arms and this to support Assad. Russia can’t afford keeping former Warsaw Pact prison nations in thrall to suit it’s strategic vanity.
Want Russia to prosper? Free it! Start by putting Putin’s head in a wire cage in
Red Square.
What Russia can’t afford, is Putin’s fever dreams of a revived Cold War
If Russia wanted a new Cold War it wouldn’t have been so conciliatory towards the US over the past decade. You sound like you get your news from John Bolton and George Soros-backed sources.
Oppression and a cynical mafia-run government isn’t the way to reverse the decline of Russia. That’s how they got there in the first place.
pussy riot = arab spring: you go effin’ neo idiots
Yeah, I’m sure Pussy Riot is real big with the Moslem Brotherhood.
If you weren’t supporting Putin silly is all you’d be.
Obscene, self-indulgent adolescents = hero?
How cute.
Standing up to Putin? Yes, = hero.
Then why didn’t these ‘heros’ ‘stand up to Putin’ inside a mosque, rather than a Christian church? Blasphemy is not acceptable, ever. For any reason. Ever.
And, why do you have so much to say about this? Admiring thugs who protest thugs while acting like thugs must be wearisome; go sit down and breath into a paper bag.
Why haven’t we heard from The Screecher from Foggy Bottom who screeched in not quite dulcet tones “I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration”?
It would seem that Hillary Clinton, like Pussy Putin, is just a shill for government tyranny and subjugation of the peasants.
And what do we hear from the worldwide “free press”? Crickets chirping. Where’s all that “speaking truth to power”? Why it’s back in the past of the Bush White House where the power looked at you and laughed? It seems that Uncle Ben was wrong, with great power comes great irresponsibility.
Pussy Riots are cultural Marxists. Teir performance stands in the tradition of anti-christian Terror well remembered in Russia and the former sowjet block.
In the 90s I met an old communist Lady in Berlin. She told me how they (a communist Group of artists) went around the early GDR on sundays and “performed” in churches, just in front of the altar during the service. They loved to shock and frighten the parishers and she was still proud of her actions decades later.
I am no friend of Putins regime, but it makes me sad, that so many people in the west seem to know so little about the bloody history of christian persecution in communist Russia, where Christians got cilled and detained and churches where made into stables or, as the church the Pussies perfomed in, public bathhouses.
I think the American concept of freedom of speech is superior – thinking of Russia or Europe and it is good to promote it. That said, the Pussies are no freedom fighters, to call them heroes is terribly wrong.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/43497
.
comparing the P.Riot to the persecution of the church under the Soviets is a favorite weapon of modern Russian church propagandists. Doesnt it bother you to learn that all those who yell the loudest against P.Riot are also virulent Stalinists who seem to forget it was on Stalin’s orders that the churches were destroyed and the priesthood was replaced by the KGB officers – who work hand-in-hand with their former comrade Putin under their lifelong cover as church clerics. Look at the bio of the top priest Kirill and tell me how it is different from PUtin’s.