Aleksei Navalny has lived in opposition to Vladimir Putin for over a decade. He has been a political organizer since at least 2001. He was first arrested and imprisoned in 2011. Since then, in 2020, he has been poisoned by Russian operatives using a kind of nerve gas agent, airlifted to Germany to receive medical care, returned to Russia under threat of immediate imprisonment, had his assets frozen, his political party banned, his allies arrested or driven out of Russia and been tried and found guilty of false charges by Putin’s corrupt legal system.
This is what Putin fears:
“Over the past decade Mr. Navalny has built a political organization with offices in major cities. Despite growing police and government pressure, Mr. Navalny’s organization was able to consolidate some of the most vocal critics of Mr. Putin and helped organize some of the biggest street protests against his government.”
“In 2013, when the Russian government allowed Mr. Navalny to run for the post of mayor of Moscow, he came close to defeating the incumbent pro-Kremlin candidate, garnering more than 630,000 votes.”**
He knew he would be arrested when he returned to Russia from his recovery in Germany. Upon his arrest, his allies released a pre-recorded a message that went out on You Tube. In the video he “urge[d] Russians to take to the streets. Don’t go out for me. Go out for yourselves and your future.”
On Tuesday he appeared in court, again, to face new charges. He is tall, thinner now than before his imprisonment began, and the table he shares with his lawyers is framed by a blank wall. Two guards in blueish camo uniforms and body armor stand to his left. The authorities allowed him a moment with his wife. Who knows why Putin allowed this video and Navalny’s words to be transmitted to journalists and thus to the world?
These are his words:
“I am not afraid of this court, of the penal colony, the F.S.B., of the prosecutors, chemical weapons, Putin and all others. I am not afraid because I believe it is humiliating and useless to be afraid of it all. I insulted your dark lord Putin by not only surviving, but by returning. Now, he will increase my prison terms forever. But I believe that the worst real crime I could commit is if I get afraid of you and who stands behind you,” he said addressing the judge and prosecutors.
I don’t believe in heroes. The word wipes out all nuances. It suggests a permanent condition in a human being, not an action or series of actions that may be unique, never to be repeated. But I do believe in bravery. Navalny is a brave man.
James Jones, Pacific Theater WWII veteran and novelist, wrote a whole book on the evolution of a soldier. To be a good soldier on those islands, thrown into battle after battle, in order to remain cool under fire and to be able to move calmly to execute orders and accomplish a mission, the soldier had to accept that he was already dead and then simply press on. I wonder if Navalny has done that. Here he is speaking from the belly of the beast, utterly unafraid, powerless except for his defiance, setting his single, frail life against a system and man who exercise complete control over him. I wonder why Putin hasn’t ordered his death. I wonder if Navalny is the only man in Russia he respects.
