Dear Pussy Riot Supporters,

Dear Pussy Riot Supporters,

Increasingly, I have become concerned about your inability to see the woods for the trees. Your desperate attempts at out-cooling each other as the Great Defenders of Free Speech seem to have come at the cost of your critical thinking skills. Frankly, I'm still disturbed by the articles which seemed to suggest that the only people who shouldn't be deported to the Gulag are the women of Pussy Riot because they might be raped or killed. I know you can't really mean that. No one deserves to be raped or killed because they committed a crime and, let's be honest, Pussy Riot aren't the only Russian citizens being deported for questioning the state. I have no idea what the statistics are for convictions and deportation but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Pussy Riot aren't the only political prisoners. So why are they important and others not? Why is it important they not be raped or killed in prison?

This case is manifestly not about "free speech" or the right to protest. What this case has demonstrated, time and time again, is that we, as a society, are essentially a bunch of hypocrites. The 'Western' support of Pussy Riot is not because we are the great defenders of Free Speech. Anyone who believes that is, frankly, completely deluded. Pussy Riot has not garnered support because they are feminists who are critical of the power of the state and church. In fact, their feminism, which is actually a fairly patriarchy-approved brand of feminism, has been written out of much of the media coverage. They have gotten support because they are young women dancing in public. They have been supported because they don't really challenge the status quo; although they do wear all their clothes which puts them ahead of Femen's soft porn protests. If Pussy Riot were challenging the Patriarchy in any way, they would have been slaughtered in the Western Press. They certainly wouldn't have Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and half of Hollywood lining up to support them. Personally, I think a lot of their support is because of their name. It appeals to the juvenile; those who haven't progressed emotionally from being 5 and yelling penis in the playground. And, yeah, I sniggered the first time I heard a right-wing journalist say 'pussy' on air but that's not a good enough reason to support Pussy Riot at the expense of others.

The UK has recently banned protest outside of Parliament. If there is any physical space in the UK where the right to protest should be paramount, it's outside of Parliament. Yet, we let the government deny us this right with very little complaint. Trenton Oldfield was sentenced to 6 months in prison for jumping in water to disrupt a boat race. His crime: prejudice against prejudice. You literally couldn't make it up. As Nina Power writes: "The message is blunt: if it's on TV and aristocrats are involved, then the state can deprive you of your liberty for as long as it likes." The correlations between Oldfield's conviction and that of Pussy Riot are pretty clear, yet I doubt there will be any protests to have Oldfield's sentence over-turned. Certainly, there was very little campaigning about the ridiculously harsh sentences given out in light of last years riots with people being sentenced for 6 months for, basically, shoplifting. If we incarcerated every shoplifter in the UK, prisons would be overflowing. We'd have to move all prisons to the Outer Hebrides and let them fend for themselves since no country can afford to imprison that many people. 

I think the Pussy Riot case matters. I think it matters a lot. These women do not deserve to be arrested or imprisoned for what was a political protest. Political protest against the government should be a fundamental human right but let's not be hypocritical here. The right to political protest really exists nowhere. There are limits everywhere on the right to protest and Russia isn't the only country guilty for imprisoning people for political reasons. Pussy Riot aren't the only activists whose voices are being silenced by repressive regimes. Oldfield isn't the only protestor being silenced in "democracies". You only need to look at the 3 activists currently imprisoned in the US for refusing to testify in a grand jury case. Maya Evans was incarcerated in the UK for having the gall to read aloud the names of British soldiers who died in Iraq across from the Cenotaph in Whitehall. That garnered very little support. There has been very little media coverage of the attempted silencing of Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho by drug cartels. In Cacho's case, I suspect the almost total lack of media coverage has something to do with the fact that she deliberately targets the Patriarchy in her research into sex trafficking.  Yolanda Ordaz De la Cruz was murdered because of her activism as a journalist. The murder of journlaist Anna  Politkovskaya was covered by the media but she had no celebrity endorsements about her right to free speech [or the right to life for that matter].

I'm not saying we shouldn't be protesting or standing up for Pussy Riot. I'm saying we don't get to choose whose "free speech" we defend based on their relative attractiveness or the fact that their name inspires giggles. If we are defending the right to protest all political structures, then we damn well had better be defending everyones and not just a group of young girls in Russia.  We also need to ensure that our defence of "free speech" does not happen at the expense of harming vulnerable members of our society. The use of free speech to defend pornography and prostitution is basically the acceptance of state-sponsored rape. It's the Patriarchy defending itself.

And, all those celebrities lining up to support Pussy Riot, how about you put your money where your mouth is and pay their legal representation. How about  you pay for the childcare of their children required whilst their mothers are in prison? How about you financially support the grassroots activists in Russia fighting to end the Gulag system? Why aren't you financially supporting Sara Kruzan who was imprisoned for life as a teenager for killing the man who raped and trafficked her?

SGM

Some articles which need to be read:*

Why the Pussy Riot case still matters.

CeCe McDonald vs. Pussy Riot: Political Imprisonment and Perspective

Q&A: Pussy Riot's Yekaterina Samutsevich on Their Fight for Freedom

Pussy Riot's Act of Faith

From Pussy Riot to Todd Akin: The Claiming—and Silencing—of Language and Speech

What is Vladimir Putin up too?

Pussy Riot on their feminism, pseudonymity, Femens, Voina and more

Putin has blood on his hands

What Pussy Riot taught the world

Riot Grrl, Pussy Riot, and the Heartbreak of Seeing Feminism Attacked in Russia

Pussy Riot: Gender, Free Speech, Benevolent Sexism and Western Hypocrisy

* I do not agree with the analysis in all of these articles. I have included them specifically because I disagree with them.