[WSMDiscuss] For those who may have missed this from an extraordinary Russian woman activist

Wed Apr 13 17:46:15 CEST 2022

Yes! Thank you, Brian. This statement moved me to tears!

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 11:19 AM Laurence Cox <Laurence.Cox at mu.ie> wrote:

> Thankyou Brian. A powerful statement from the right side of history.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: <gdaneker at aol.com>
> Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 4:13 AM
> Subject: For those not on FB or who may have missed this from an
> extraordinary Russian woman activist
> To:
>
>
>
>
>
> *READ the closing statement of Alla Gutnikova, one of the editors of the
> Moscow student journal DOXA, who are all facing prison sentences for
> "inciting minors to take part in illegal opposition protests”. But the
> speech is about so much more. (The translation was adapted from that of
> Michelle Panchuk.) Listen to Alla’s original here:
> https://doxajournal.ru/lastword-alla
> <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fl.facebook.com%2Fl.php%3Fu%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fdoxajournal.ru%252Flastword-alla%253Ffbclid%253DIwAR23_QVZMss4vobjlA1XducImuKdniY33kp6Nuzd81b3UOU65JIt21skPZY%26h%3DAT3hNCSpH6zohCGHONZH1sufuOamZaLNlgNrcjre__xhkhQ0z5kRmddtwT-W8BKYImgDqJpJq2XiZn7-MkZliO7FbvTohj7X31RiKOzwvotLgFhI1M_FUa4rFHKjlr3myG5SCKQ%26__tn__%3D-UK-y-R%26c%5B0%5D%3DAT1YWPPJDFlIYYROR8lwx6VlNqO5fwz5GtPfoAItWplefR-1WWt7wAI58iPzJrv-KgDh6DqZKIjAZp9LuTlT14crsBfxrFickEY2Oe9yKi8hTf8fNzTDX0_Acsckl8GpgeWqu_F_oB_U_ITWeYhUsr-_PE-92aFIVkZLE-vJBVx53tWzAHY&data=04%7C01%7CLaurence.Cox%40mu.ie%7C3728403910834948173808da1d5f4999%7C1454f5ccbb354685bbd98621fd8055c9%7C0%7C0%7C637854592921535176%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=vsuHdo4KAostBD9njkjB5Ss3acfly%2BjmHfOu0QAeAKM%3D&reserved=0>*
>
> “I am not going to speak of the case, the search, the interrogations, the
> volumes, the trials. That is boring and pointless. These days I attend the
> school of fatigue and frustration. But before my arrest, I had time to
> enroll in the school of learning how to speak about truly important things.
>
> I would like to talk about philosophy and literature. About Benjamin,
> Derrida, Kafka, Arendt, Sontag, Barthes, Foucault, Agamben, about Audre
> Lorde and bell hooks. About Timofeeva, Tlostanova and Rachmaninova.
>
> I would like to speak about poetry, about how to read contemporary poetry.
> About Gronas, Dashevsky and Borodin.
>
> But now is not the time nor the place. I will hide my small tender words
> on the tip of my tongue, in the back of my throat, between my stomach and
> my heart. I will say just a little.
>
> I often feel like a little fish, a birdling, a schoolgirl, a baby. But
> recently, I discovered with surprise that Brodsky, too, was put on trial at
> 23. And, since I have also been counted among the human race, I will say
> this:
>
> In the Kabbala there is the concept of tikkun olam - repairing the world.
> I see that the world is imperfect. I believe, as wrote Yehuda Amichai, that
> the world was created beautiful for goodness and for peace, like a bench in
> a courtyard (in a courtyard, not a court!). I believe that the world was
> created for tenderness, hope, love, solidarity, passion, joy.
>
> But the world is atrociously, unbearably full of violence. And I don’t
> want violence. In any form. No teacher’s hands in schoolgirls’ underwear,
> no drunken father’s fists on the bodies of wives and children. If I decided
> to list all the violence around us, a day wouldn’t be enough, nor a week,
> nor a year. My eyes are wide open. I see violence, and I don’t want
> violence. The more violence there is, the stronger I don’t want it. And
> more than anything, I don’t want the biggest and the most frightening
> violence.
>
> I really love reading. I will now speak with the voices of others.
>
> At school, in history class, I learned the phrases “You crucify freedom,
> but the soul of man knows no bounds” and “For your, and for our, freedom”.
>
> In high school, I read “Requiem” by Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova, “The Steep
> Path” by Evgeniya Solomonovna Ginzburg, “The Closed Theater” by Bulat
> Shalvovich Okudzhava, “The Children of Arbat” by Anatoliy Naumovich
> Rybakov. Of Okudzhava’s poems I loved most of all:
>
> Conscience, honor and dignity,
>
> There’s our spiritual army.
>
> Hold out your palm to it,
>
> For this, one fears no fire.
>
> Its face is lofty and wonderful.
>
> Dedicate to it your short century.
>
> Maybe, you will never be victorious,
>
> But you'll die as a human.
>
> At MGIMO [Moscow State Institute of International Relations] I learned
> French and memorized a line from Édith Piaf: “Ça ne pouvait pas durer
> toujours” [“It could not last forever”]. And from Marc Robine: “Ça ne peut
> pas durer comme ça” [“It cannot go on like this”].
>
> At nineteen, I traveled to Majdanek and Treblinka and learned to say
> “never again” in seven languages: never again, jamais plus, nie wieder,
> קיינמאל מער, nigdy więcej, לא עוד.
>
> I studied Jewish sages and fell in love with two proverbs. Rabbi Hillel
> said: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself,
> what am I? And if not now, when?” And Rabbi Nachman said: “The whole world
> is a narrow bridge, and the main thing is to have no fear at all.”
>
> Later, I enrolled at the School of Cultural Studies and learned several
> more important lessons. First of all, words have meaning. Second, we must
> call things by their names. And finally, sapere aude, have the courage to
> use your own mind.
>
> It’s ridiculous that our case has to do with schoolchildren. I taught
> children the humanities in English, worked as a nanny and dreamed of going
> with the program “Teacher for Russia” to a small town for two years to sow
> intelligent, kind, eternal seeds. But Russia - in the words of the state
> prosecuting attorney, Prosecutor Tryakin - believes that I involved
> underage children in life-threatening actions. If I ever have children (and
> I will, because I remember the greatest commandment), I will hang a picture
> of the Judaean governor Pontius Pilate on their wall, so they grow up in
> cleanliness. The governor Pontius Pilate standing and washing his hands -
> such will be the portrait. Yes, if thinking and feeling is now
> life-threatening, I don’t know what to say about the charges. I wash my
> hands.
>
> And now is the moment of truth. The hour of transparency.
>
> My friends and I don’t know what to do with ourselves from the horror and
> the pain, but when I descend into the metro, I don’t see tear-stained
> faces. I don’t see tear-stained faces.
>
> Not a single of my favorite books - for children or adults - taught
> indifference, apathy, cowardice. Nowhere have I been taught the words:
>
> we are small people
>
> i am a simple person
>
> it’s not so black and white
>
> you can’t believe anyone
>
> i am not interested in all that
>
> i am far from politics
>
> it’s none of my business
>
> nothing depends on me
>
> competent authorities will figure it out
>
> what could i have done alone
>
> No, I know and love very different words.
>
> John Donne says through Hemingway:
>
> No man is an island, all by himself. Every person is part of the Mainland,
> part of Land; and if a wave sweeps away a coastal cliff into the sea,
> Europe will become smaller. And likewise if it washes away the edge of the
> cape or destroys your castle or your friends. The death of every person
> diminishes me as well, for I am one with all of humanity. And so, don’t ask
> for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you.
>
> Mahmoud Darwich says:
>
> As you prepare your breakfast — think of others
>
> (don’t forget to feed the pigeons).
>
> As you conduct your wars — think of others
>
> (don’t forget those who want peace).
>
> As you pay your water bill — think of others
>
> (think of those who have only the clouds to drink from).
>
> As you go home, your own home — think of others
>
> (don’t forget those who live in tents).
>
> As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
>
> (there are people who have no place to sleep).
>
> As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others
>
> (those who have lost their right to speak).
>
> And as you think of distant others — think of yourself
>
> (and say, I wish I were a candle in the darkness).
>
> Gennady Golovaty says:
>
> The blind cannot look with wrath,
>
> The mute cannot yell with fury,
>
> The armless cannot take up arms,
>
> The legless cannot march forward.
>
> But, the mute can look wrathfully,
>
> But, the blind can yell furiously,
>
> But, the legless can take up arms.
>
> But, the armless can march forward.
>
> I know some are terrified. They choose silence. But Audre Lorde says:
>
> Your silence will not protect you.
>
> In the Moscow metro, they announce:
>
> Passengers are forbidden on the train heading to a dead end.
>
> And the St. Petersburg [band] Aquarium adds:
>
> This train is on fire.
>
> Lao Tzu, through Tarkovsky, says:
>
> And most important, let them believe in themselves, let them be helpless
> like children. Because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing.
> When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard
> and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when
> it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions.
> Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because
> what has hardened will never win.
>
> Remember that fear eats the soul. Remember the Kafka character who sees “a
> gallows being erected in the prison yard, mistakenly thinks it is the one
> intended for him, breaks out of his cell in the night, and goes down and
> hangs himself”.
>
> Be like children. Don’t be afraid to ask (yourselves and others), what is
> good and what is bad. Don’t be afraid to say that the emperor has no
> clothes. Don’t be afraid to yell, to cry. Repeat (to yourselves and
> others): 2+2=4. Black is black. White is white. I am a person, strong and
> brave. A strong and brave woman. A strong and brave people.
>
> Freedom is a process by which you develop the habit of being inaccessible
> to slavery.”
>
>
>
> Visit:  https://murphyslog.ca
> <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmurphyslog.ca%2F&data=04%7C01%7CLaurence.Cox%40mu.ie%7C3728403910834948173808da1d5f4999%7C1454f5ccbb354685bbd98621fd8055c9%7C0%7C0%7C637854592921535176%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=IMJGJVmJZcH20Ycyn1r50WZduK%2FIYLMvtRXqU1a0FOg%3D&reserved=0>
> Twitter:  @BrianKMurphy2
>
>
>
>
>
>
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