I'm truly and pleasantly surprised to see Russians protest against the result of the profoundly fraudulent election that just took place. It was a mere charade, ridicule of democracy and they dare issue self-congratulatory statements on how the public still supports them. There were outrageous incidents of violations, recorded by activists and observers. Ballots were snatched, replaced and in many instances, one person would vote for a group. Impartial observers were harassed and intimidated, as was the case with "Golos".
But maybe Russia's perpetual winter has drawn a modicum of inspiration from Arabs' spectacular and admirable spring. Maybe the awakening of Russian consciousness is on its way. Scores of youths went out chanting "Shame". These are those agitated youths who no longer want to remain silent, complicit in this dictatorhip or simply indifferent. These people could potentially knock some sense into Vladimir Putin's machist mentality.
Opposition blogger Navalny, who coined the term "party of thieves and swindlers", was detained. His site chornicled in a defiant and bold manner the ubiquitous breaches. While I salute his courage and active citizenship, here I would like to draw attention to something that I found rather disturbing on his blog.
While castigating Putin for his lame policies and dictatorial stunts, Navalny dismisses the returning president as "the president of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan but not Russia". It baffles me how deeply etched aversion to ethnic republics and minorities is in Russia. Here's this putatively progressive young man with a bold stance on politics and a desire to change discarding the entire North Caucasus as an alien and outcast non-Russia. Could he not the president of Chechnya and Stavropol and St Petersburg and Moscow and Russia in its entirety? Oh wait, everything non-white is not considered Russia in the minds of this saluted activist. This one phrase is enough to show that even among politically engaged youths, anti-minority sentiment is a common feature. Vladimir Putin may have committed myriad faults and crimes, but caring for the Caucasus is not one of them.
But maybe Russia's perpetual winter has drawn a modicum of inspiration from Arabs' spectacular and admirable spring. Maybe the awakening of Russian consciousness is on its way. Scores of youths went out chanting "Shame". These are those agitated youths who no longer want to remain silent, complicit in this dictatorhip or simply indifferent. These people could potentially knock some sense into Vladimir Putin's machist mentality.
Opposition blogger Navalny, who coined the term "party of thieves and swindlers", was detained. His site chornicled in a defiant and bold manner the ubiquitous breaches. While I salute his courage and active citizenship, here I would like to draw attention to something that I found rather disturbing on his blog.
While castigating Putin for his lame policies and dictatorial stunts, Navalny dismisses the returning president as "the president of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan but not Russia". It baffles me how deeply etched aversion to ethnic republics and minorities is in Russia. Here's this putatively progressive young man with a bold stance on politics and a desire to change discarding the entire North Caucasus as an alien and outcast non-Russia. Could he not the president of Chechnya and Stavropol and St Petersburg and Moscow and Russia in its entirety? Oh wait, everything non-white is not considered Russia in the minds of this saluted activist. This one phrase is enough to show that even among politically engaged youths, anti-minority sentiment is a common feature. Vladimir Putin may have committed myriad faults and crimes, but caring for the Caucasus is not one of them.
