Quo Vadis Pussy Riots?

Sometimes, I feel that people that are not too much in love with democracy are trying to do their best for convincing other people about their disregard for democracy. The more you criticize them, the more they would enjoy doing something bad against those who do not agree with their opinion.

Arts of any kinds are one of the domains that always gave serious headaches to people without too much interest or sympathy for human rights and plurality of opinions in general. Some might remember how much hate the communists had against rock bands and creative arts, and how happy they were to impose their 'standards' on visual representations - by qualifying as 'decadent' everything that failed to meet the simple and anti-artistic standards of the nomenklatura.

This interest towards 'purity' in arts concerns both the ideological and religious based regimes. The Middle East countries is a case apart that will address on another occasion. My inspiration for the above thoughts was represented by the case of the punk rock Russian Band Pussy Riot. Three girls of the band - Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevitch - are about to be condemned to 3 years of prison for protesting against President Vladimir Putin in a church. They are accused of hooliganism and religious hatred, despite the fact that nothing was vandalized in the church. However, the process in itself could be an inspiration for an absurd novel, in the old style of the good Russian literature. 

For many Western democracies, Vladimir Putin is considered a long-term reliable partner and many EU capital cities prefer stability and avoid spontaneous changes. True is that Russia is a huge country, with so many contradicting realities and interest groups ready to die for a slice of power that someone as Putin is seen as the only one that could control them. He did it in the last 12 years, but the question will be, what could happen after he will assume that his power should end? However, the witch hunt against a punk group and the possible new restrictions imposed to the freedom of speech and human rights in general, might worry the big powers. 

As China demonstrated successfully, you do not need to have democracy for outperforming economically and being considered an important player on the international stage. Russia is a difficult and complicated player, with a long history of problematic democratic developments - if any. The key to change is to have more people committed to democracy and understanding why you should accept that even Pussy Riots have their right to say something against you.