Vladimir Kara-Murza, the imprisoned Russian opposition politician for whom the Russian government is seeking a 25-year term with harsh prison conditions, has no special reason to be of interest to anyone in India. He just released the text of his closing argument. The statement attracted some interest, not the least because it served as a reminder of Vladimir Putin’s tyranny.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a member of the Russian opposition, is brought to a court hearing in Moscow. (AP photo)
The clarity, fearlessness, and eloquence of it also attracted notice. Neither did it make a plea for pity or vent its anger. His steadfast dedication to a free and peaceful society was reaffirmed by it. He tied his star, like all dissidents, to the broad arc of history. He said that, he is confident that our nation’s current state of darkness will end one day. When black and white will both be referred to as such. In a hint to the contemporary Orwellian spirit. He added that, he long for the day when at the official level it will be recognised that two plus two equals four, when a war will be called a war, and a usurper a usurper.
However, in a weird way, the general lack of concern for his fate serves as a reminder of a significant contemporary political phenomenon: the dissident’s demise. Of of course, there are still many people alive today who have displayed exceptional bravery in the face of autocratic repression and who are suffering greatly as a result of their commitment to freedom. However, throughout a good portion of the twentieth century, the dissident was a famous figure.
The phrase itself became popular in relation to the authoritarianism that prevailed in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. And a few of the most well-known dissidents of the era originated from that setting, including Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, and Kara-Murza, who was awarded the Havel Prize. Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Aung San Suu Kyi (before she destroyed her own standing on human rights) are two examples of other circumstances. Or even farther back, Bertrand Russell, whose national image was largely established by his decision to support pacifism during World War I and subsequent imprisonment for it. One of the final prominent players in this line was Liu Xiaobo from China.
There is, of course, the dissident’s background and charm, or in certain circumstances, their capacity to personify a movement, as Mandela did. There was the obvious intellectual and literary power of Havel, Xiaobo, or even Russell. Nevertheless, despite all, there was a reluctant understanding that the significance of these individuals went beyond any current ideological differences or practical applications.
Even those who wanted to put them in prison understood their moral force and the fact that they contributed to the search for human values. The combination of their weakness and tenacity, their devotion to a foundation of moral decency, and their ability to call out injustice without expressing animosity was precisely what made them attractive. Their attraction was frequently just the fact that they were on the receiving end of authority.
However, since “strongmen” have become iconic in our time, it is more difficult for dissidents to serve as the centre of a conversation about freedom.
There may be several causes for this, including the fact that we live in a more pessimistic era when we assume that every dissident is hiding a flaw in humanity. It is simpler to have doubts about the dissident than to discover the source of courage and optimism in them. The disappointment was undoubtedly fueled by the experiences of individuals like Aung San Suu Kyi as well as the failure of promising movements like the Arab Spring.
Or otherwise, we live in a time of instant fame. In the deluge of information and counterinformation, the gravitas of a dissident’s imprisonment or an ardent call for freedom is lost. Even the courageous act of Iranian youth removing their headscarf rapidly faded from the public’s memory.
Maybe we are more aware of how opposition personalities are used strategically. I believe that a large portion of the world is uninterested in Kara-Murza because it only considers the Russia issue from a geopolitical standpoint. Even in nations like India, the Cold War era was peculiar in that the war was viewed in terms of ideologies: at least, there were opposing universalisms at play.
