Three female members of a Russian punk band called Pussy Riot were arrested five months ago for crashing service at a Moscow cathedral to perform a protest song against President Vladimir Putin.
I suspect few commentators have criticized Putin in print more than I have for his dictatorial rule. In fact, I coined the phrase “the putinization of Russia” way back in 2005 to encapsulate my contempt for his litany of abuses.
Yet I am not nearly as troubled as everyone else in the West seems to be that these punks were sentenced to 24 months in prison today for their hooliganism and blasphemy. Hell, to read BBC reports you’d think there were no difference between Pussy Riot and revered Soviet dissidents like Andrei Sakhorov and Natan Sharansky. But, far from being political dissidents, these women are a public disgrace for desecrating a place of worship to protest Putin’s rule.
To be fair, Putin is on record declaring that these rioters should not be punished too harshly. Therefore, whatever he meant by that, I suspect he will pardon them when he finds it politically expedient to do so (i.e., so that he does not appear to be caving in to self-righteous outrage from Westerners).
Apropos of which, am I the only one who recalls that just last year a British court sentenced the 21-year-old son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmore to 19 months for swinging on the Union Flag at the Cenotaph (the national memorial to Britain’s war dead)? And, far from the noble cause of democracy, this spoiled brat was merely protesting increases in university tuition fees? Where was the outrage then?!
Frankly, the only thing I find noteworthy about this story is the way latter-day puritans in the American media are doing all they can to avoid saying the group’s name.
Which begs the questions:
- Why is it okay to say “pussycat” but not “Pussy Riot”? Surely, there’s nothing profane in the word “riot” – notwithstanding the violence it connotes?
- If “cat” makes pussycat okay, then surely “mother” makes motherfucker okay, no?
- Indeed, why is it okay to say “cocksure” but not the four-letter word from which it is derived…?
- And how does one say “pussy” in Russian anyway?
Things that make you go, hmmmm.
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