What The Arrest of Three Punk Performance Artists Reveals About Protest and Freedom of Expression Right Now

A year after the Arab spring faded into grimmer seasons for the Middle East, and with the Occupy movement spreading across the world, a small group of Russian women acted on powerful  personal convictions to start an uprising of their own. By now, most people on Earth know the basics of this story. Under the name Pussy Riot, a group of young feminist activists started staging punk shows in public spaces in Moscow last October, singing songs of protest. It’s worth noting that they were inspired, in part, by the aforementioned waves of protest.

They hid their faces with colorful balaclavas to maintain anonymity and the tale of their exploits quickly spread in the media beyond Russia. Like the American riot grrrls who also inspired them, their actions sought to shock people into awareness of feminist issues. For these activists, the corruption and authoritarianism they see in Putin’s ongoing presidency, is a feminist issue. It’s an issue for many other Russians as well, and at that time, between December and March of this year, many of Pussy Riot’s fellow citizens were participating in demonstrations against Putin, clashing with police in the streets.

Though they acted on their own reconnaissance, Pussy Riot was a part of that. They just happened to be the part that got a lot of media attention. February saw their most daring appearance, a hurried performance of a song called “Hail Mary, Expel Putin” at the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. They chose this church, which was destroyed during the Soviet era and rebuilt by the city under Yeltsin, in order to highlight the what they see as an unholy relationship between the church and the state, specifically Patriarch Kirill’s endorsement of Putin.

The women, who, incidentally, were not interrupting a service, were asked to leave and did so. It was weeks later in March that three of the women who participated, Nadezda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were arrested on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Following a strange, not to say ridiculous, trial where both sides dealt more with political and moral issues than with any laws that may actually have been broken, the women were sentenced to two years in a prison camp.

Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich deny that they harbor any kind of religious hatred and are currently appealing their jail sentence. If the appeals fail they will turn to the European Court of Human Rights, to which Russia is a signatory as well as a frequent defendant, but that could result in no more than a fine. Everyone from Amnesty International to Björk is officially on their side, but they are still in jail and away from their kids.

Still, even the convicted women say that this is not really about them. Tolokonnikova wrote in a letter on the eve of the verdict:

 [We all must see] the big picture in small events, a tendency in a [constellation of seemingly random] signs, and a common trend in specific occurrences. The second-wave feminists said: “The private is political.” This is true. The Pussy Riot case is showing how problems of three particular people who are charged with disorderly conduct, can give life to a political movement.

Perhaps, that’s the real reason this case has attracted so much passion and support form around the world. Certainly, three young, female punk musician/artist/activists in trouble for a dramatic stunt makes for a fantastic news story with great photos, but on a deeper level the case brings certain things to light which would otherwise be harder to see, which is, of course, what both protest and art seek to accomplish, and why authorities fear both in way that doesn’t always make a lot of sense.

From inveterate Chinese visual artist Ai Weiwei to once-imprisoned Tunisian rapper El Général, political and creative expression, which often go hand in hand, are unwelcome all over the world. Musicians and artists, but especially musicians are often allowed to go about their business until they start using their platform to voice controversial opinions. Then the crackdowns can be swift, as in the case of politically outspoken Russian rapper Noize MC who was arrested following comments he made about police corruption and brutality during one of his concerts.

Ole Reitov watches this kind of thing go down for a living, and through his work with the Denmark-based music censorship watchdog organization Freemuse fights against it while seeking to raise awareness about musicians who are persecuted. While Freemuse is working on behalf of Pussy Riot, Reitov is still able to take a slightly philosophical view of what is happening. “Russia like many other societies is living in a asymmetric cultural and timewise context, meaning that in Russia like in some countries you have an urban elite which wants to have the same kind of freedom and lifestyle that many in the west have. And then you have a more traditional group of people who don’t have a very easy situation and look for traditional values.

In that sense Pussy Riot’s case is no different than other cases we work with. It’s a conflict within society that is exposed through music censorship or other sorts of repression of artists, whether it’s Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, you have this conflict within society. You had this in the US with the Dixie Chicks,” he elaborated in an interview.

In a way, Mark Feygin, a lawyer for Pussy Riot, echoed Reitov’s thoughts, though with greater urgency, sounding more revolutionary than lawyerly. “Russian youth are seeking to become a part of a progressive, technical world, the world of civilization, of the 21^st Century. Without democracy and civil liberties this world is impossible and the way to do this is through free and fair elections. Putin’s authoritarian system is an obstacle for these changes and it will be inevitably removed by street rebellion,” he wrote in an email.

The women stand on a fissure in the world. One that exists everywhere but more starkly in certain places and at certain moments. It’s easy to say that other places exist in the modern world and Russia is a throwback, but the rest of the world is not as “modern” as we think it is. Occupy Wall Street has shown that there is a lot of fine print appended to the First Amendment. On a definitely relevant note, across the United States, where writers love to opine that punk is no longer a credible threat to the status quo, it’s strangely difficult for a teenager to find a place where they can put on a DIY concert without getting shut down by police citing one ordinance or another.

JD Samson, an American musician known for her electronic project MEN and as a member of Le Tigre, has been actively organizing on Pussy Riot’s behalf. She has encountered this herself. ”I think as Americans we have this xenophobic attitude like ‘What? You don’t have freedom like us? We want everyone in the world to have this freedom like we do.’ So, in this way people are so shocked at what’s happening in Russia but as soon as we dig into it we realize we also have issues just like that. At the rally, 7 people were arrested in New York. People were arrested all over the country, just for speaking our minds,” she said in an interview.

People acting in solidarity with Pussy Riot have found out what happens when you don the balaclava, such as the Pussy Riot supporters in Germany who actually did interrupt a church service who might get three years.

More recent Western media coverage has made much of the fact that Pussy Riot is not a “real band.” It’s true that they are a collective of activists and provocateurs more than they are musicians, but similar things could be said of seminal punk bands from CRASS to The Sex Pistols. And they are absolutely using music and art as a form of protest. As such, they are subject to the social forces that are unleashed when you do that. On the one hand, you exponentially multiply your ability to galvanize others around a cause. On the other hand you are many times more likely to become a kind of lightning rod, attracting reprisals from a thin-skinned establishment.

“It sounds like a cliché to say it but many artists are the voice of the voiceless, because in many countries where literacy is low, where media is controlled, how else can you voice your frustration? Their songs become like newspapers. Governments can imprison the artists but they can’t really imprison the songs they will continue,” said Reitov.

Not only can you not imprison a song, but it’s hard to not listen to a song. Songs have a way of getting stuck in your head. Pussy Riot’s case is interesting because their songs (and they do have them) occupy a liminal space where the world of controlled media and repressive government butts up against the world of blogs and YouTube.

Mikhael Agafonov, a journalist who writes for Rolling Stone Russia, described this space and how dissent can become invisible, even as fear of punishment for it can become pervasive. “People from the opposition get arrested in Russia, but it’s hard to tell how often and legit those arrests are. At the end of the day, if the Russian media don’t want you to know something it will do everything possible to hide the facts. Yes, there is Internet these days and some kinds of alternative media, but the news/speculations flow over here is so big and eclectic, that it’s easy for the bigger picture to get pretty blurry,” he wrote in an email.

Agafonov went on to give more context to the atmosphere in which Pussy Riot was operating: “I think what triggered the current political climate was the first protest we had back in December 2011 after the parliamentary elections, the one that looked staged to almost everyone with a pair of eyes. That’s when even people (including me) who weren’t interested in politics before, got some kind of reality check and that reality wasn’t that sunny. The protests (though quite peaceful) were treated by the government as some kind of joke, with rival pro-Putin protests and main TV channels not covering opposition protests. And I’m talking huge protests in the center of the capital with thousands of people lining up to voice their rights for the fair elections.

So, depending on a point of view, Pussy Riot’s timing was either horrible or perfect. They are indeed the voice of the current political awareness in Russia and that’s what put them behind the bars,” Agafonov wrote.

According to polls, public opinion is against the women’s actions, but they’re far from the only Russians voicing dissent. Pussy Riot is giving a voice to the voiceless, if only as a point of focus for the media, by putting faces to this unrest, even if they would have preferred to stay anonymous. They are a bright multi-colored flag indicating where the public outrage is buried. Their actions were just one part of the protests that followed Putin’s reelection, but, as their lawyer points out, they have taken that protest into an arena where it could not be ignored, though they might prefer if it were under other circumstances.

“They were able to overcome not only the bordered protest territory, which consists mostly of Moscow and huge cities, they have given the start for a sharp and uncompromising discussion between old norms and new ones. Now every man is forced to formulate his own attitude to the Pussy Riot statement, and his attitude shows if he loyal or hostile to the current authority. No one can stay indifferent,” wrote Feygin. It might have been smarter for the current regime to ignore their prank. Now they are calling attention, not only to the dissatisfaction that many Russians feel about the state of their government, and an uncomfortably close relationship between church and state, but also to restrictions on freedom of speech and problems with the justice system.

In her closing statement, Samutsevich herself said,”I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated.”

From Reitov’s point of view there is still a danger that the heavy sentences handed down in this highly publicized trial will have their desired effect: to answer any questions about how much dissent will be tolerated. “I’m very worried about the whole case, but I’m even more worried about how this will transform into self-censorship among all artists, because it’s a very strong signal to send: make noise and we’ll come after you,” he stated.

Despite their loss in court, Pussy Riot’s camp seems less worried about the future of dissent. “Pussy Riot is a slogan for new generation of Russians,” declared Feygin, along with assurances that many supporters in Russia who were not afraid. It has been reported that two members of Pussy Riot who were not arrested have gone abroad, partly to avoid capture but also to organize on the behalf of those who were arrested.

Of what we can expect in the coming days Feygin would say only this: “Performances will continue in the most unexpected places and in the most dangerous form without question.” Why not? When a band is not really a band, when it has no official members, you can’t put it in jail anymore than you can imprison their songs.