Good Riddance

So the Pussy Rioters have got two years behind bars. Since the time they have spent in jail already will count as time served, they should be out in, at most, 18 months.

Rupert Cornwell of the Independent thinks the fact that they were imprisoned at all was a "ludicrously excessive punishment." He also takes care to wag his liberal finger at Russian authoritarianism, which he believes is so much more repressive than the tolerant West:

"In any country, such a stunt would have caused considerable offence -- and not merely among the devout. But imagine the consequences, had it occurred in the West -- outrage on right-wing talk radio and much frothing on the warring cable-TV news channels, while the band's PR people would have had their work cut out to prevent a cascade of engagement cancellations.

But never would the affair have got within a mile of the courts."

Right-wing talk radio, eh? Where would that be? I know it exists in the United States, but I didn’t know we had it here in Europe too. Mr Cornwell might like to tell me where I could pick it up. It would make a refreshing change from the media drivel I have to put up with at the moment.

But – does he really imagine speech is so free in the West? What about the harrassed German radio assistant I blogged about a few days ago who pleaded with an outraged listener to take a DJ’s tasteless joke with humour, and was promptly fired? What about the Oklahoma police captain who was denied promotion, transferred and docked two weeks’ pay for refusing to attend a cultural event in a mosque? Neither of those two people did anything remotely as calculatedly offensive as the Pussy Rioters, yet both have had their careers seriously and perhaps permanently damaged. Pussy Riot, in contrast, will probably emerge from prison to a heroes’ welcome from the kind of morons who have been defending them publicly until now.

Actually, most of Mr Cornwall’s article is not really about Pussy Riot, nor about the Church they set out to besmear. It’s about what a bad man he thinks Putin is. He seems to imagine that Putin, and not the trial judge, is personally responsible for deciding the length of today’s sentence. You can read his sneering ramblings for yourself. It seems just a little sad, though. Pussy Riot, much as I detest them, did show some genuine idealism and courage in a public act of desecration of a church which they knew would have serious consequences for them. As C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape points out, a person needs some virtue to be truly and manifestly wicked. But as far as Mr Cornwell and his ilk in the anti-Putin media are concerned, they are just useful sticks to beat their favourite enemy with.When they are in prison and forgotten about by most of the world, Mr Cornwell will have found another stick.

Ultimately, Pussy Riot’s long-term legacy, apart from the desecration of a holy place that they committed, may simply be the enormous trouble they gave to a great many people who had done them no harm whatsoever. There are the faithful in the Cathedral on the day they performed their stupid stunt. There are the smashed windows in London, and the people who will have to clear them up. And there are people like me. When I was in Moscow just after Easter this year, I visited the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. You had to go through airport-style security to get in, complete with metal detectors and tetchy guards, all courtesy of those three idiots. Ironic, really, given that they see themselves as champions of dissent. The only cause they really champion is their own, and that of professional finger-waggers like Mr Cornwell.