I was having lunch with friends on August 17 this year when I received a message on my phone from Amnesty International:
“Pussy Riot found guilty, sentenced to two years in a prison camp.”
The verdict was in on the most controversial trial of the year, and even though I doubt anyone was surprised by the outcome I couldn’t help but be crushed by horrified disappointment. Somewhere within me there were still the remnants of a naive idealism that could let me believe that there was no way three extraordinarily brave young women could ever really be sentenced for what was at worse a disrespectful act of protest.
Women who dress like my friends and I did as first-year drama students do not get sent to prison camp, and feminists wearing a rainbow assortment of balaclavas don’t get punitively separated from their young children. These things just don’t happen these days, now please leave me alone to bury my head in the sand.
The fallout of the Pussy Riot trial, on the other hand, has been somewhat inspiring. The verdict has been criticised by governments and organisations all across the world and has frustrated many Russian politicians, including the former Russian Finance Minister who stated that Pussy Riot’s trial had dealt “another blow to the court system and citizens’ trust in it.” Even the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has called for their early release.
The almost unanimous international outrage over their “disproportionate” sentence (the UN’s words, not mine) has given rise to protests and demonstrations all over the world. From the colourful balaclava-wearing supporters in Berlin who peacefully marched for Pussy Riot on August 9, to the women in London who celebrated the one year anniversary of the Occupy London movement on October 15 by chaining themselves up in St Paul’s cathedral in solidarity with Pussy Riot’s imprisonment, this is a case that continues to capture the public imagination on a scale rarely seen before.
The feminist punk-rock collective that hadn’t even performed the first of their “unsanctioned concerts” this time last year have found themselves at number 57 on ArtReview’s list of the most important figures in contemporary art, while cultural and political powerhouses like Paul McCartney and Aung San Suu Kyi have voiced support for their release. Pussy Riot have become an international symbol of repression, and have highlighted the real cruelty of Putin’s notorious narcissism.
What Happens Now?
And what about the women, Nadezda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, who are the names and faces behind Pussy Riot? Yekaterina Samutsevich was released two weeks ago on the “technicality” that - and I mean it’s understandable that a minor detail like this could get lost in the proceedings of a trial of this scale – she wasn't even fucking there! She had been prevented from accessing the church where the act of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” had taken place, and therefore was actually innocent of the crime on which she was convicted. Fantastic.
As I write this Nadezda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina are being transported to the prison colonies of Mordovia and Perm respectively, both of which are hundreds of miles away from Moscow and their families. The remaining Pussy Riot band members have tweeted that “of all the possible options, these are the cruellest prison camps” in a country not known for its generous detention conditions. At the time of writing we don’t know if they’ve arrived at their destinations let alone what the situation is that awaits them.
Nevertheless, what gets lost in a lot of discussions about Pussy Riot, whether they’re in context of a debate about the right to protest in a place of worship or as yet another example of the extent of Putin’s exceptional conceit, is the extraordinary courage these women have shown in standing up for what they believe in. In a time when a lot of women are uncomfortable describing themselves as feminists and it isn’t uncommon to encounter a man who snorts in derision at the very idea, it’s humbling to come across women who have sacrificed so much just to have their voices heard. The “punk prayer” that was performed in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was a criticism of the Kremlin’s attitude towards gay rights and women’s liberation.
The entire trial and its aftermath just serves as a painful reminder of what it still costs to stand up for anything, be it feminism or your right to protest or your distaste for a government. Just as we were recovering from the shock of Pussy Riot's conviction, a 14-year old was shot in Pakistan for campaigning for girls' education in an area where girl's schools are routinely burned down by the Taliban. What further proof do we need that equality for women is not a "done thing? How much bravery do we need people to show for us to start fighting their fight with them? To me, those are the questions that remain as Nadezda and Maria disappear off the radar in Moscow and get swallowed up into the prison colonies, and it's now our responsibility to make sure they're not forgotten.
Ultimately, what was really at the centre of Pussy Riot's trial was three women standing up to their president, and it's their defense lawyer Mark Feygin's words that remind us of what made that all so exceptional: "Under no circumstances will the girls ask for a pardon (from Putin)... They will not beg and humiliate themselves before such a bastard." Well said.
Image via Pussy Riot's Livejournal