Erstellt am: 1. 12. 2010 - 15:45 Uhr
Make Jokes, Not War
Two members of the art collective Voina are sitting in a St. Petersburg prison on charges of "hooliganism". Fellow artists from the group who have been able to contact the prisoners have told journalists that Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov are shivering in under-heated cells that are "dark as coffins". Attempts to send them warm clothes have failed. The two were arrested for their central role in an attention-grabbing campaign of stunts aimed at drawing attention to what they see as the brutality and corruptibility of the Russian police.
plucer.livejournal.com
Voina are probably best known internationally for the 70 metre long phallus that they painted onto the St Petersburg Liteiny draw-bridge ahead of an international economic forum this summer.
According to a statement from the group's website they did it in order, "to show what the Federal Security Bureau and Interior Ministry are doing in terms of security for the forum.” They have also filmed themselves overturning a cop car in 9 seconds and highlighting police racism by sneaking into police stations on all fours to protest against the fact that the police seemed to be treating immigrants like animals. They have staged faked lynchings in shopping malls to draw attention to homophobia and the now imprisoned Vorotnikov was filmed walking into to a Russian supermarket in a police uniform, filling 5 bags with expensive goods and then walking out without paying. No one challenged him in a revelatory demonstration of the apparent impunity of the police.
Activists told the BBC that their videos are designed to show people that they can live differently; that a different world is possible. They want to encourage Russians to be braver when dealing with authority.
The reputation of the security forces is so tainted in Russia that even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin himself has admitted that Russians tend to cross the road rather than risk encountering a man in uniform. According to the country's leading opinion pollster, the Levada Centre, two-thirds of Russians fear the police. And it seems that's not just paranoia: a 2007 study by the Russian Academy of Sciences found that "every 25th person in Russia is tortured, beaten, or harassed by law enforcement officials each year."
After a spate of recent police scandals, including the discovery of a kidnapped business man in the trunk of a police car, Prime Minister Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered, as part of a reform process, that the name of the law and order forces be changed from the "militia" to the more western term "police", but FM4's correspondent in Moscow Charles Maynes says it is going to take more than such superficial moves to reassure people.
Voina actually translates as "war" but despite the bellicose name, Voina are a refreshing example that rebellion doesn't have to mean violence. That's a refreshing philosophy, particularly after a disturbing episode this summer involving real anti-police insurrection. A group of 6 young Russians in the far east of the country actually took up arms against the police. Shockingly for the Kremlin they were initially dubbed "Partisans" rather than criminals by the media. The government intervened in the media description, but the name stuck in the popular imagination. In a video the group accused the police of "providing cover for drug-trafficking, prostitution and the theft of wood from our forests."
These were 6 angry young men and their methods of rebellion were blood-thirsty. They shot traffic policemen, and stabbed an officer in a rural outpost to death. In spite of this, surprisingly perhaps, their message seems to have found resonance among a frustrated Russian public. In a radio call-in 70% of people there supported the attacks, likening the armed youths to Robin Hood. That says a lot about the reputation of the police. This brief rebellion of the so-called 'Primorsky Partisans' ended rather predictably in a shower of bullets and the deaths of two of the partisans who were barely out of their teens.
As for the two imprisoned activists from Voina, who have eschewed violence and only hurt the pride of the police, they face up to 7 years in prison for their crimes. The group accepts that in overturning the police car, they earned $3,500 fine handed down for vandalism. But a lengthy custodial sentence in one of the world's harshest prison environment - surely that's an overreaction? Voina hopes that the Russian authorities might show a sense of humour and let their art-activists go. So far they have been waiting in vain.