The Fair Elections Protests

Protests, it seems, are much more civil than I expected: that could just be Russia’s new style. I was standing with a group of an estimated 1000-strong last Saturday afternoon, people who ranged from the passionate student, to the silent babushka, to the child in her mother’s arms, to be a part of this exciting chapter in Russia’s history. Personally, it was my first protest, and I expected drama—the shouting of drunken men, political passion turned destructive rage. However, what I witnessed was the exact opposite.

People were passionate, of course, but peacefully so, with words as their weapon of choice. In light of the police brutality that I’ve been reading about in the context of our own 2011 demonstrations in the US, the Occupy Wall Street Movement that sought for economic equality, I was actually confused by the level of civility. Where were the angry jeers? The pepper spray? The SWAT men bearing intimidating weapons? The police at the Yaroslavl rally were of course attentive, but they allowed the protestors to state their views and rally for their cause in peace. For a country that is labeled as “not free” by Freedom House, an American organization that annually monitors democratic qualities in nations around the word, I experienced first-hand a level of civility that seemed above what my own country had been exhibiting towards its protestors of late.

From the view of a Westerner who has a history of fearing the ignorant cult of American politics, I greatly appreciated this civility, best demonstrated by the honest discussions of the generally well-informed protestors that were taking place all around me at the protest, Russians, to me, express a quality that is unimaginable to Americans involved in the political scene: the ability to separate a man from his point of views. In Russia, it is possible to intelligently argue about an idea—by argue, of course, I generally mean talk in circles around a central point—but then, when the debate has run dry, the two participants can shake hands and walk away. I attribute this quality to the similarly appreciated quality of honesty that the Russian people possess— and the majority of Americans, unfortunately, do not.

It is this honesty, I believe, that makes the demonstrations for fair elections so successful and important. The deception is what spurred people to action more than the result. In a working democracy, it is most important that a government remains honest with its people, and, judging by my conversations with Russians over the past few weeks, it seems that their spite towards Edinaya Rossiya is more directed towards the fact that they are uncomfortable with a government that was developing into a single-party system, a system that is ripe for deception. In fact, when asking Russians around Yaroslavl whom they voted for, I almost received a unanimous answer: not Edinaya Rossiya. It didn’t matter whether the vote went to Fair Russia, to the Communist Party, or to Yabloko; one friend even claimed to have flipped a coin to determine his vote.

It has been no secret to the public that they have sacrificed a lot in terms of freedoms in recent years to achieve the level of stability that Russia currently enjoys: with a system of censorship through the widely government-controlled web of media, many independent voices of the opposition have been squashed out: some, like Anna Politkovskaya, have paid for it with their lives. “We don’t want revolution,” passionately shouted one of the speakers at the Yaroslavl protest on Saturday, “We just want fair elections.” The people are just calling for their voice to be honestly heard, in a democratic process that best represents them.

Putin’s Russia is by no means a Western democracy, however I feel that more and more Russians are starting to warm to the idea of having the freedoms granted to them in the Constitution. A democratic constitution does not make a democracy: it is a process that requires the will to embrace freedoms both on the side of the government and on the side of the people. In the last 11 years of Putin’s power, people have agreed to the government’s bargain for their freedoms in return for the coveted stability. However, now Russia is hungry for change: they do not want another possible 12 years of a Putin presidency, but a government that will allow not only the freedom, but the development of expression in the future.

Russia may consider herself ready for the big leap towards advanced democracy. However, unless the people can find a better candidate to represent their views in the upcoming presidential elections, they will have to settle for the controlling Putin to hold them back along the way.