[D66] What is Pussy Riot’s ‘Idea’?

[Antid Oto]

http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/what-is-pussy-riots-idea

What is Pussy Riot’s ‘Idea’?
RP 176 (Nov/Dec 2012)
Maria Chehonadskih



It goes without saying that the Pussy Riot trial was an even more 
obscene performance of power than the punk prayer in the church itself. 
But the most ‘avantgarde’ and cynical part of this ‘power performance’ 
started not today, not a year ago, and probably not just in Russia 
either. If we refresh our memories, we find that all over the globe the 
power of the state is producing some most impressive and provocative 
performances. How else can we understand the Assange case, for example?

While ‘Western’ liberals admired the heroism and sacrifice of these 
‘Eastern’ dissidents fighting for democracy and freedom of speech, 
sixteen ordinary participants in anti-Putin protests were arrested in an 
equally performative manner in mid-May 2012 and have already spent five 
months in prison. As this received no public attention, perhaps we 
should ask: what makes the Pussy Riot case so special? Why have 
wellknown pop stars and public figures stood up in support of the group? 
In his recent letter of support for Pussy Riot, Slavoj Žižek wrote:

Their message is: ideas matter. They are conceptual artists in the 
noblest sense of the word: artists who embody an Idea. This is why they 
wear balaclavas: masks of deindividualization, of liberating anonymity. 
The message of their balaclavas is that it doesn’t matter which of them 
are arrested — they’re not individuals, they’re an Idea. And this is why 
they are such a threat: it is easy to imprison individuals, but try to 
imprison an Idea!1

When it comes to Pussy Riot, everyone is looking for something, but is 
this something really the creation of universal meaning?

For liberals, the band’s performance laid bare the authoritarian essence 
of the Putin regime. The local intelligentsia echoes this and speaks 
about the emergence of new dissident martyrs in Russia. Pussy Riot do 
not oppose this point of view. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova quotes Alexander 
Solzhenitsyn, and in her closing statement in court proclaimed herself 
the successor to the spirit of Soviet dissidence. Some feminists have 
understood ‘Punk Prayer’ as an attempt to attack the patriarchal state, 
and Pussy Riot declared themselves, from the very beginning, to be 
radical feminists. In texts, interviews and performances the band’s main 
point was feminist criticism of the modern Russian state. Artists and 
critics speak of a ‘new actionism’ in Russia; some even foresee a 
Russian 1968. For socialists and communists, the main positive effect of 
the performance was to produce a splash of anti-clerical critique in 
communities of ordinary believers and among the majority of anti-Putin 
protesters. Finally, anarchists and others leftists focus on the 
anonymity of the group, its secret spirit, the risky character of its 
interventions and the tactics of direct action that are for many the 
symbol of a multitude in revolt. All this is true. But many knew about 
Pussy Riot for the first time only when three women took off their 
balaclavas in a court building.

Does this mean that the Pussy Riot moment grasps the universal meaning 
of the contemporary world drama? If so, the drama of this world is that 
feminism can be mixed up with liberalism, and dissident moralism with 
the values of 1968. The sense of these things probably lies elsewhere. 
Here, I shall concentrate on various effects of the Pussy Riot affair 
and present some details of its context as symptoms of unresolved 
antagonisms in public life and culture in Russia.

..continued..