Loading...

Russia

Moscow, Manege Square, February 1990. A rally in support of democratic reforms and Boris Yeltsin. Photo by D.Borko / Grani.Ru

Lessons of Manege Square

Now it is more or less clear that police has become the chief mediator in the communication of the authorities and the people. The holders of ratings close to 70% keep sitting in TV shows. All other intermediaries, whether they were federal media or ‘representative’ bodies, have failed in this role. To put it more precisely, they did not even take the stage. So we don’t have any other options but the police. And it is obvious that the agency referred to as ‘militia’ (now ‘police’) will cope better with the mission of whacking the crowd. Finally, we can find at least some explanation for the renaming.
 
Meanwhile, something is getting clear.
 
1. In Russia, there are no public policy makers. There are loads of manipulators, technologists, ‘hellish strategists’ and so on, but not a single statesman who could publicly address either his own people, or the peoples of Ukraine, Belarus and other countries, and look a bit smarter at that moment than Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth policy Mutko during his famous speech. It is truly surprising, but we have really got none! Good God!
 
2. It took a long way to get there: they deliver bosses to us in sealed trains from St. Petersburg, Tyumen, Berlin, even from Moscow, but what’s more important, they all are cut after the same pattern. They do not grow by themselves in our fields – they pass natural selection; they are sharp-toothed, muscular and sophisticated. They were grown in test tubes, using allegedly the latest technologies and taking into account the negative experience of orange revolutions. They can survive only in teletubes. They cannot bear any interactive communication. Over the past 7-8 years, not a single Minister – all right, not even a single Deputy Minister – did show up live before an inquisitive interviewer. All the leaders of the country behave like the Great and Terrible Goodwins with spin-doctors and press secretaries for public relations. Live communication with the population disagrees with their health. The population can not bear such interaction too long either.
 
3. ‘The police reform’ in its current version is something completely disconformable to what we need. It is like a bone thrown to a lapdog so that it would not yelp. The truth is here, however. Police is part of the executive branch; moreover, it is entirely subordinate and dependent. One can not change a part without changing the whole. No one can make the police transparent, elective, controlled by the society, as long as the government is not such. Police can not be changed as long as authorities perceive it as their servant, serving them on the road, while redistributing property, sheltering enterprises and so on. Please note that in the past at least 10 years no ruler of Russia uttered these simple words: "Our goal is equality of everyone before the law". Although both latest rulers in Russia are lawyers (well, Lenin was also a lawyer of royal training, which means already a tradition). Let us assume this is a distant goal, but it is not even declared. In these circumstances, any future "police officer" has to know: if he runs across a trusty on the street, it will cost him his head. No president or prime minister would protect him against arbitrary treatment (and they do not promise). That's it. It means the end of the talk about the militia-police reform.
 
4. But every cloud has a silver lining. Grim reality, armed with traumatic weapons, has looked in the dreamers’ windows. Some test-tube ‘reforms’ may be slowed down. One thing is to demagogically repaint the police as ‘the Dissenters’, in fact trying to keep one’s grounds and not to change anything in reality (except the name). But it is absolutely different to transform it in essence, so that it turns out effective, discloses and prevents crime, ensures equality before the law. Getting a guard dog, a responsible owner will make sure that it has a strong chain and does not bark over trifles. But he will not rasp its teeth and claws – no one needs such a guard dog. For example, the looming deprivation of the police of the right to investigate (assuming the abuse prevention) is a test-tube stupidity, which can be applauded only by greedy lawyers and completely illiterate people. If in two or three years, we get a particularly dangerous upsurge in crime, the public itself will demand to give the police as many authorities as it wished. And then we can really get screwed up. That’s a typical repercussion of stupidity.

By Sergey A. Kredov, BCM.ru staff writer
All publications by this author (2)

See also

16.02.2011 18:01 Moscow authorities affirm there will be no mosque in Tekstilshchiki

07.02.2011 11:58 Tour operators have to persuade Russian tourists to leave Egypt

30.12.2010 13:41 11 Russians detained in Minsk released Wednesday

09.11.2010 12:39 Bloggers in Kaliningrad support Kashin

14.09.2010 18:16 Another 'Day of Anger' in Moscow ends with scandals and lawsuits in court