A-Infos (en) Russia, Avtonom: By My Own Hand: Murder of Navalny "Trends of Order and Chaos", episode 145 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Let's start with the news of Navalny's death . Despite the fact that 
Navalny is, of course, our political opponent, a nationalist who has 
long been actively exploiting the theme of xenophobia and an 
imperialist, he was the most prominent and visible leader of the 
anti-Putin opposition, who had the largest number of supporters. The 
peculiarities of the political field of post-Soviet Russia made him, 
oddly enough, the leader of the liberal-democratic part of the 
opposition, which turned out to be no stranger to leaderism and chauvinism.
It gained especially great popularity among young people, schoolchildren 
and students. Security guards even nicknamed the youth who go to 
opposition liberal rallies "navalnyaty."

So, no matter how much Putin avoids naming the name of his most popular 
opponent, this name has entered Russian opposition politics forever.

Among my democratically minded friends there were many not only fans of 
Navalny, but also activists from his headquarters. We argued a lot about 
their leader and about alternatives to Putin's dictatorship. And now we 
are on the same side of the barricades.

So, no matter how much we, being anarchists, quite rightly criticize 
Navalny, for us his death is the murder by the state of a political 
opponent of the regime. And of course, the courage and perseverance with 
which Navalny fought against this regime is worthy of respect, at least 
for me personally.

It must also be said that it was clear that Navalny's nationalist views 
were changing. From prison, he began to write about his fellow Muslims 
and foreigners as the same people, which made him very different from 
the Navalny who led the Nazi "Russian marches." One can chalk this up to 
a political ploy, but one can also hope that he might actually have 
reconsidered his previous xenophobic views. Unfortunately, we will not 
know how Navalny would emerge from the ordeal in Russian prison. The 
regime killed him.

Now I see how many opposition-minded people in Russia are depressed. 
They think: if the authorities were not afraid to destroy the most 
famous Russian oppositionist in the whole world, then what will they do 
to me and my family? Such thoughts are understandable, and, of course, 
we can worry about the fate of other political prisoners, among whom are 
many of our comrades. But at the same time, despite the state's 
demonstration of its readiness to destroy everyone who dared to raise 
their heads, people went to monuments to the repressed and other iconic 
places in their cities . Many were harshly detained by the police. Not 
all of these people were necessarily political supporters of Navalny, 
but they were all definitely opponents of Russian fascism and Putin's 
dictatorship.

People's protest
Those who like to point their finger at the fact that again not enough 
came out, as usual, do not realize that even of those who came out 
before, some are in prison, some are in forced emigration. As for the 
claims against Russian society, or even more so the people, it is 
completely unclear who exactly they mean by this society? A politicized 
society is often concentrated in large cities, as the most active 
population, which also has a resource somewhat greater than providing 
for basic needs for the sake of survival. And the conventional "people," 
mostly represented by the poor or impoverished population, have never 
been Navalny's audience, no matter how hard he tried to win them over to 
his side.

Moreover, the conditional "people" of Russia are actually represented by 
many peoples inhabiting its territory. And if Navalny and other 
neoliberals relied on the "Slavic" population, treating other peoples 
with imperial disdain, now more and more often we see active and 
self-organized resistance of peoples whose territories are mercilessly 
exploited in favor of both private capital and the central authorities. 
Of course, nationalists are trying to ride these protests. Any protest 
is always tried to be saddled by those who are looking for their own 
benefit and, of course, the easiest way to turn people's eyes away is by 
using xenophobic, nationalist sentiments.

But this does not mean that these protests should be neglected; each 
situation should be considered as a movement caused by dissatisfaction 
with both the quality of life and its prospects. That is, they are 
initially driven by social injustice, and there is a potential that in 
the end it will become the determining factor, rather than attempts to 
blame problems on representatives of other nationalities.

Now, when the authorities in Bashkiria are putting pressure on the 
protesters, among those who take to the streets there are 
representatives of various nationalities. It is generally difficult for 
me, as a person from a multinational family, to understand division 
based on nationality, and even more so as an anarchist, but for people 
whose voice they have not wanted to hear for so long, it is important to 
express a protest in their own language , and here not only nationalism 
can manifest itself consciousness, but also anti-colonial.

Anti-colonial struggle
And when we talk about the anti-colonial struggle, I disagree with those 
who believe that the Palestinian-Israeli endless war is no longer about 
that. It was the colonial approach that created the very ground for all 
subsequent events. And, unfortunately, at the moment it has led to a 
situation of zugzwang , at least as I see it now.

Muslims from the Maghreb countries with whom I communicate a lot show me 
photographs of dead Palestinian children and ask "will no one answer for 
this"? "Israel is an occupying state!" - they say. Russian-speaking 
bloggers from Israel show photographs of murdered Jewish children and 
ask "will no one answer for this"? - "Palestine is a terrorist state!" 
What's next?

In the minds of many people, the guilt for everything that the state 
does automatically extends to everyone who is on its territory. In 
previous trends  , my colleague also drew attention to the fact that 
this is categorically unfair, and the state does not represent everyone 
who is one way or another its citizen.

However, it is more than strange to me when Russians from the liberal 
opposition, offended by the fact that someone believes that there are no 
"good Russians," completely easily and calmly accepted the idea that 
every resident of Gaza is responsible for the terrorists from Hamas. I, 
of course, would like to hope that the consciousness of that part of the 
Russian opposition that considers this approach completely justified 
will change, but for now people prefer not to destroy their comfortable 
picture of the world. As they say, "we play here, we don't play here."

But it must be said that, unfortunately, there are also enough 
anarchists with the same approach, but, for example, towards the 
Russians. You know, I've already seen enough former anarchists who have 
gone so far to the right on this topic that there's simply nowhere else 
to go. Enough, don't flirt with collective responsibility.

War and silent sabotage
If we talk about colonialism or militarism, then the war of the Putin 
state against Ukraine absolutely fits into this scheme. The vindictive 
persistence with which Putin is ready to endlessly send his citizens to 
death in the hope that Ukraine will run out of citizens capable of 
defending it sooner is striking. The war has been going on for almost 
two years now, no one is surprised that "responses" are arriving in 
Russian cities, in emigration groups there is already a standard request 
from mothers, they say, what to do, my son is soon 16, where to go to 
study in order to leave Russia?

Here again a pointing finger appears: why do they run away and not 
protest? Well, what can I say... The tradition of quiet sabotage in 
Russia has so far turned out to be much stronger than the revolutionary 
one. So, if few people decide to openly revolt, then hidden sabotage is 
also a thing. And sometimes only hidden sabotage is possible.

Confiscation Law
This week news appeared that Putin signed a law on confiscation of 
property for "fakes" about the Russian army. If you read, we mean 
property that was used to harm the state, if it was done for personal 
gain, etc., but we already see how the laws, both old and new, are being 
pulled by the prosecutor's ears. wherever and whenever he wants.

Well, what can I say... expected. In neighboring Belarus, the property 
of political emigrants is already being confiscated and handed over to 
KGB executioners. But "we came into this world naked, we will leave 
naked" did not scare us.

Neither god, nor king, nor hero
In conclusion, I will just remind you again of the words of the 
Internationale, written by the anarchist and revolutionary Eugene 
Potier: "No one will give us deliverance: neither God, nor the king, nor 
the hero. We will achieve liberation with our own hand." If you consider 
that in the French original, instead of "hero" there is "tribun", then 
it becomes even more relevant.

Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and 
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist 
assessments of current events. Listen to us on  YouTube ,  SoundCloud 
and other platforms, visit our website  avtonom.org , subscribe to our 
e-mail newsletter!

The issue was prepared by NinaT

https://avtonom.org/news/svoeyu-sobstvennoy-rukoy-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-145
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