Vladimir Putin against Black Lives Matter
..and the liberal opposition to Putin is also opposed to BLM. Go figure.
Yasha Levine
Jun 16
In today's press conference, Vladimir Putin came out against the Black Lives
Matter movement and said he'd never allow such disturbances and violence
against the state to happen in Russia - which is why his government has been
cracking down on the opposition, who he said are trying to instigate a
BLM-style violent movement.
"America just recently faced a very difficult situation after the murder of
an African-American and the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm
not going to comment on it right now, but I just want to say that what we
saw pogroms, violations of the law, and so on. We sympathize with the
Americans and the American people. But we don't want this to happen on our
territory. And we will do everything possible to prevent this from
happening.
This is an interesting comment on a few different levels.
First off, I can't help but recall that prominent American liberals blamed
Russia for instigating the protests and violence that erupted in the wake of
George Floyd's murder. They blamed BLM on foreigners, as if black people
were incapable of independent political action or anger without a malicious
outside force guiding their actions. These people included Susan Rice, who
went on CNN to speculate about it.
The second, and I think the funniest, part of Putin's anti-BLM stance is
that the Russian opposition that he accuses of trying to instigate a
BLM-type movement against the Russian state and his ruling clique, well,
they themselves are very much opposed to BLM. That's right, Russia's liberal
opposition to Putin is rabidly anti-BLM. I repeat: They oppose BLM, just
like Putin himself.
Confused? Yeah, well, Russian politics can be very confusing to outsiders.
Evgenia and I talked about this at length in our very first episode almost a
year ago - "Russians Against Politics."
In this episode, Evgenia Kovda takes over and we talk about something that
might come as a surprise to a lot of people. It's the rabid pro-police
reaction of most Russians in Russia (and abroad) to the Black Lives Matter
protests taking place in America.
While CNN and the New York Times run segments that blame "the Russians" for
using the protests to destabilize America, in Russia the exact opposite is
taking place: The Russian government - and most of Russian society - is
firmly against the protests. Russian society stands with the police. It
stands in solidarity with America's political establishment.
There are two main parts to the episode.
In the first hour, we get into the details of how these protests are
depicted in the Russian media. What we see is that there is no real
difference between the Kremlin and the liberal opposition. They're both
united in their hatred and condemnation.
But we really get warmed up and going in the second hour, when we try to
figure out why Russian society is so united against these protests. It's a
complicated question. But on a bigger more conceptual level, we think it has
to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the total negation of the
Russian Revolution that followed it.
Give it a listen: Episode #1: Russians Against Politics
-Yasha Levine
PS: Evgenia also touches on this theme in her recent essay about Russian
culture.