Pussy Riot from London to Moscow
Israel Shamir
I received a letter from the Arts Editor of the
Morning Star asking for my permission to re-publish
my popular essay on the Pussy Riot:
Dear Mr Shamir
I'm the arts editor of the Morning Star newspaper (see
www.morningstaronline.co.uk) and we'd like to
reprint an edited version of
your Pussy Riot article.
Would you please grant permission? Unfortunately, we run
on a shoestring so
we're unable to pay a fee but I hope you will agree as
it will bring your
challenging piece to a wider readership.
I'd be grateful for a swift response as we have a
possible slot free in next
Saturday's publication.
With very best wishes
Clifford Cocker
Arts editor
Morning Star newspaper
I gave my permission immediately, and they published it
– and took it down in a few hours under pressure of the
Jewish Lobby.
The Lobby had a good reason to object. In this article,
I wrote:
“For much milder anti-Jewish hate talk, European
countries customarily sentence offenders to two-to-five
years of prison for the first offence. The Russians
applied hate crime laws to offenders against Christian
faith, and this is probably a Russian novelty. The
Russians proved that they care for Christ as much as the
French care for Auschwitz, and this shocked the
Europeans who apparently thought ‘hate laws’ may be
applied only to protect Jews and gays. The Western
governments call for more freedom for the anti-Christian
Russians, while denying it for holocaust revisionists in
their midst.”
Actually, the Jewish angle to the PR affair is more than
that: though I did not find it necessary to mention in
my article, the most outspoken PR supporters and enemies
of the Church in Russia, such as Viktor Shenderovich,
Igor Eidman, Marat Gelman, Xenia Sobchak, Alexey
Venediktov happen to be of Jewish origin. None of them
is a practicing Jew, but they apparently inherited their
hatred to the Church from their forefathers.
Surely, there are many non-Jews who hate the Church, and
there are many descendants of Jews who came to Christ
and are saved, but still the correlation can’t be
denied. The British Jewish ‘tribal or kosher’ Marxists
provide their support, for, in words of
Gilad Atzmon, “Jewish
Marxism is very different from Marxism or socialism in
general. While Marxism is a universal paradigm, Jewish
Marxism is basically a crude utilisation of
‘Marxist-like’ terminology for the Jewish tribal cause.”
Indeed they
were on the watch; they
applied pressure to the Morning Star, and the
British Communists surrendered immediately.
They did not care that the attacks proceeded from
Harry’s Place, the dirtiest Zionist leftist blog in
Britain, viciously anti-Muslim, positioned against Iran
and Syria, violently anti-Russian, and surely
anti-Shamir. Harry’s Place described me as “antisemite/Holocaust
denier/Assange collaborator/Lukashenko
enabler/all-around slimeball Israel Shamir”. I think of
using it as my signature in future
J.
They apologised to the readers in the following
language:
A NUMBER of you have raised concerns over the decision
to reprint an article by Israel Shamir on the Russian
band Pussy Riot that appeared in the weekend’s Morning
Star.
The paper would like to reassure readers that the piece
was syndicated from Counterpunch in good faith without
knowledge of the author’s background.
We would like to reiterate the paper’s commitment to
publishing writers who reflect and remain steadfastly
committed to the values of anti-racism, anti-fascism,
international solidarity and social justice that the
paper has campaigned for ever since its establishment.
It remains guided by those goals and will seek in
future, wherever possible, to establish the full
biography of writers before publishing their work.
In the meantime the Morning Star would like to distance
itself from the opinions of the author of the piece,
which do not reflect our position or those of the wider
movement.
We apologise wholeheartedly for any distress caused.
So many code-words to mask their weak knees. If they
can’t stand up to a few Jewish Marxists, how can they
stand up to real big capitalist enemies?
But I do not want to end on such a determinist note,
condemning the Reds and condemning the Jews. Despite all
correlations, people are free to think and to act. We
have free will. Some of the strongest voices against the
PR outrage were Reds and Jews, or rather Russian
leftists of
www.left.ru, some of Jewish origin and some not, all
strongly anti-Zionist (they even translated and
published Israel Shahak). Here are excepts from one of
their texts, by Valentin Zorin. It explains well the
position of the Russian anti-imperialist Left which
should eventually influence the Western anti-imperialist
Left and Right.
Pussies Rioting against Independent Russia, by Valentin
Zorin (excepts)
“…Not only their name (Pussy Riot) is in English. They
talk as if they translate from English.
They use language of an Americanised native who thinks
and speaks the colonisers’ language. Russia is
definitely not a colony of the Anglo-American Empire, at
least it is not a colony yet, but already we have
colonised natives in droves, for colonisation is not a
single event but a lasting process…
The PR belong to bourgeois radical left adapted for the
colonised nations. Their roots are to be found in the
early period of the Cold War, when the US decided to use
leftist ideology to fight communism. Feminism, beatniks,
sexual liberation, even civil rights movement were
sponsored by American state agencies and by private
interests. They developed gender studies, imported
French post-structuralism of Foucault and Derrida, and
eventually exported into colonised cultures.
For what reason? Just guess, which soldier would fight
better for Russia, one who believes in “God, King and
Motherland” or one who thinks that all these ideas
(always excepting post-modernism and post-structuralism)
are just deliberate illusions created by the
authorities? Or make it easier: what would rather wear
Russian marines under their battledress in face-to-face
combat, a cross or a politically correct and
gender-adjusted image?
I know, after asking this question, I’ll be forever
banned from entering the Kingdom of the Leftist Heaven.
A French maître of post-something would sarcastically
smirk, and ultra-conservatives would applaud, to my
chagrin. But this question allows to divine the meaning
of the PR affair, for the meaning is not in our hands,
nor it is in hands of Putin, neither of the Church. The
Imperial Masters of Discourse rule what is the meaning,
while we can only understand it – or not. All Western
newspapers made it clear: “Putin versus PR; Putin
persecutes the PR, PR against Putin”. It was repeated by
the colonial media in Russia, by practically everybody
of importance excepting such dyed-in-the-wool fogies as
yours truly.
Who made the PR so successful and famous, who secured
their place in history? Putin did. Putin is our alpha
and omega. Please do not beat me! It is not my doing, it
is them, the Pussies! They did not ask the Virgin to
banish private property, dope traders, human
traffickers, oligarchs, bankers, police, Sixth fleet or
anything else. They asked her to remove a small unseemly
guy named Putin from the Kremlin. Even if the Pussies
were mistaken, the State Department, Madonna, Mme
Clinton and Mme Merkel, the NY Times and the Guardian
could not be wrong. They all know that behind Putin
there is a force that sets limit to Imperial omnipotence
and to the Masters’ monopoly on the meaning of things.
Without Putin, i.e. without independent Russia blocking
the road of the Western Empire to full spectrum
dominance, nobody would notice the Pussies, or us, or
even our biggest oligarchs. It is unpleasant to hear,
but we would become a remote province of the Empire, fit
for business or pleasure but of no political importance.
We would become eating and TV-watching nothingness. A
small garrison of imperial troopers would suffice to
control us. But despite all Imperial efforts, Putin
still sits in the Kremlin.
What is the secret of his political longevity? Cruel
repressions? But if so, where are the martyrs? The only
possibly political prisoner is the oligarch
Khodorkovsky. The second best, Udaltsov, never rated for
more than 15 days of detention. So perhaps the secret is
– the silent support of masses that do not agree to
Nothingness?
There are many reasons to be disgusted by the Church, as
she consecrates capitalist violence. But if masses need
it as “the heart of heartless world” in order to
survive, let it be. It is good. And if masses silently
support Putin, because there is no other force able to
withstand the assault of the Empire and of Nothingness,
let it be. It is good.
And here a letter of an English reader reacting on the
Morning Star decision:
From Elisha Traven:
I don't agree with everything you write as I'm not
always sure where you are coming from. But writers like
you need to be read over a period of time and not
continually picked up and criticised. If you don't like
what the cook has prepared then don't shout at him.
There is no point. Just leave the restaurant and find a
place where the food and wine and beer and clientele
suit you. Let each writer be himself is my motto. There
are some who could do with being shot but where would
this all end?
I was amazed to read in today's Morning Star that
an article by you which they had published on Saturday
was not to their reader's liking. They apologised to
their readers and distanced themselves from the views
you expressed. Apparently they had lifted the article
from Counterpunch and had no idea who you were.
Who do they think they're kidding? They are either truly
ignorant in regard to you which beggars belief. It is
just not a creditable defence. This newspaper is heavily
involved in the campaign for Palestinian rights. They
would know the names of every single child in the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank such is their knowledge of the
situation out there.
You know what I mean. I have read extremely detailed
news articles published by the Palestinian Solidarity
Campaign in their magazine. If I am reading such a
magazine then so are they. We get continued reports from
Palestine delivered to packed meetings here which are
held all over the country. Organised by every tom, dick,
and harry socialist party. They know you alright. They
couldn't fail to know you because of your strong support
for the Palestinians. I'm not sure what is going on at
the Morning Star. They don't normally listen to their
readers. They preach the gospel according to Karl Marx
and Vladimir Lenin. You take it as it comes. Delivered
to the readers from on high.
I didn't realise you were living in Moscow. I know what
you are saying about the Russian press is true since I
have read it over a period of time through various
sources. Translated or already available in English.
Like Moscow Times. They are running an orchestrated
campaign against the Russian state. It is not like the
so called liberal newspapers in Britain and America.
They are connected up to the street protest gangs and
were delighted when large numbers of people demonstrated
last December and in March. Not only were the people
being egged on to cause a breakdown of social order by
well known Russian newspapers but radio stations such as
Echo Moscow were part of that criminal conspiracy too. I
call it a criminal conspiracy because that's what it
looks like to me. I found the article you wrote about
the PR hooligan girls. The Morning Star has removed
Saturday's digital edition of the paper from its site
altogether. Even though that breaks the subscription
agreement which is that they allow you to read the
Morning Star's previous digital editions of the paper. I
think this is every edition for the past two weeks or it
might even be for a month. I agree with you about PR.
Elijah Traven,
Hull
East Riding of Yorkshire
PS George Galloway of the Respect Party is MP for
Bradford West which is in south Yorkshire. He is well
known for his strong support of the Palestinian people.
I'm sure you know of him. I salute you, Israel Shamir,
for your love of Russia and defence of their elected
president. You are a true and loyal servant of social
democracy and the rule of law.