I was particularly struck by a letter from Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, written as part of a correspondence with Slavoj Žižek. I'm going to order the book. From what I've seen, it ought to - but probably won't - provide food for thought on those sections of the left who are reluctant to criticise the Putin regime for fear of giving comfort to the West. On Edward Snowden, for example, Tolokonnikova writes:
Slavoj, it wasn’t too long ago that you suggested it might be a good idea for Masha and me to speak our minds about Edward Snowden. This is no simple thing to do when Snowden is living in your country under the protection of the same intelligence services that have ordered and overseen physical violence against you and your friends. At the same moment that we two were in prison, Edward Snowden was finding himself in quite an awkward situation—a fighter for the free dissemination of information, he found himself in Russia, where, like it or not, his presence inevitably conferred legitimacy on the Kremlin’s information policy. The same Kremlin that was directing an aggressive propaganda campaign on TV, destroying all independent channels, condoning the murder of independent journalists—professionals, heroes like Anna Politkovskaya. Snowden, however, had been cornered into a dismal position from which he could not expose any of this. He now lives in Russia, but he can’t tell the truth about how information is collected and disseminated here. He has no choice but to keep his mouth shut. Russia’s intelligence and propaganda sectors have used Snowden for their own grubby games. And for me, as one of Russia’s activists, it’s horrible to watch. There’s no doubt that his persecution is a drastic misstep by the US, which is keeping far too busy destroying the possibilities for true democracy around the world. This error is made visible by Russia’s cynical use of the whistleblower to stabilize the Kremlin’s own reactionary information policy.
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