Stones In Glass Houses

Der Spiegel is waxing indignant over the trial of the blasphemous punk band Pussy Riot in Moscow. With that placid liberal certainty that their opponents will inevitably come round and see things their way in the end, the article assures us that "it has slowly begun to dawn on both the Russian Orthodox community and the Kremlin that they may have done themselves a disservice with this ruthless and bizarre prosecution of the anti-Putin band members."

Has it, indeed? This ruthless and bizarre prosecution? Der Spiegel is published in a society where, in the past few days, an athlete was sent home from the Olympics in disgrace because of her boyfriend's political opinions, where a radio presenter lost her job for letting the words "Arbeit macht frei" slip during a live broadcast, and where the presenter's assistant then lost her job for pleading with angry callers complaining about the slip to "take it humorously." Pussy Riot, on the other hand, quite deliberately staged a sacrilegious demonstration in a cathedral that had already been demolished once in its history during a time of almost unimaginable atheist persecution. What they did was coldly calculated to shock and offend strangers who had never done them any harm whatever. It was a far more reprehensible act than either Nadja Drygalla's choice of boyfriend or those unfortunate radio workers' choice of words. So Spiegel should give the finger-wagging a rest for once.

Rod Dreher too, however, thinks that the Pussy Riot trial is turning into an embarrassment for the Russian Orthodox Church. He quotes the Spiegel article and also a journalist from the New Republic who has fun sniggering at the simple souls testifying in court who were scandalized at Pussy Riot's act, and concludes by asking:

"How is it that Putin and the Patriarch have managed to make people feel great sympathy for a group of loony feminist slatterns heretofore known for staging an orgy in a museum?"

Well, I'm not sure that many people do feel "great sympathy" for the rioters in question. Even the Spiegel piece admitted that 47% of Russians polled by the Levada centre thought that the maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment would be an "appropriate" one.

That aside, however: a public order offence is a public order offence, regardless of whether there is a danger of the offender's attracting "sympathy" or not. And committing such an offence in a place which people hold in reverence and respect will bring a sterner punishment than committing one elsewhere. I believe that a hefty custodial sentence for Pussy Riot would both teach them to have a bit of respect for the religion and traditions of their country in future, and discourage others from copying their idiotic example.