It is not the fact that I am in prison that makes me angry. I hold no grudge. I feel no personal anger. But I do feel political anger.
Our imprisonment serves as a clear and obvious sign that the whole country is being robbed of freedom. And this threat of the liberating, emancipatory forces in Russia being annihilated—that is what causes me to be enraged. Seeing the great in the small, the trend in the sign, the common in the particular.
Second-wave feminists said the personal is the political. That is how it is. The Pussy Riot case has shown how the individual troubles of three people facing charges of hooliganism can give life to a political movement. A single case of repression and persecution against those who had the courage to speak out in an authoritarian country has shaken the world: activists, punks, pop stars and government ministers, comedians and environmentalists, feminists and masculinists, Islamic theologians and those Christians who are praying for Pussy Riot. The personal has indeed become the political. The Pussy Riot case has brought together forces so multi-directional, I still have trouble believing this is not a dream. The impossible is happening in contemporary Russian politics: the demanding, persistent, powerful and consistent impact of society on the authorities.
I am thankful to everyone who has said “Free Pussy Riot!” Right now, all of us are participating in a large and important political Event that the Putin regime is having an ever more difficult time controlling. Whatever the verdict for Pussy Riot, we—and you—are already winning. Because we have learned how to be enraged, and to speak politically.
Pussy Riot is happy that we have been able to spur a truly collective action, and that your political passion was so strong that it overcame the barriers of language, culture, lifeworlds, and economic and political status. Kant would have said that he saw no other reason for this Miracle besides the moral principle within humankind. Thank you for this Miracle.
_____
The original of this letter was published on the LiveJournal blog of attorney Mark Feygin.
Translated from the Russian by Katya Kumkova. Our heartfelt thanks to her for sending this to us.
chtodelat news 