In the afternoon July 28 my phone burst with journalists’ calls. The Federal registration service of the Ministry of Justice and certain “Russian culture protection” proved to have threatened with legal liability the mass media, which would mention the NBP or the NBP officials. They say the NBP was liquidated in summer 2005 and wasn’t later registered by the Ministry of Justice. Journalists asked me to comment on that.
The definition “the state moronity”was my simplest explanation. I recalled history, I had to go deep, to possessed Roman Caesars, but even there I didn’t find any data about a prohibition to mention an insurgent tribe or a political organization. Neither Kaligula, nor Nero let themselves to commit such a foolishness. The only place, where the Ferderal registration service and “Russian culture protection” would be pertinent, is a play by Gogol or those of the Theater of the Absurd (Ionesko and Bekket, for example) and texts by Daniil Harms. That’s all. No, “1984″ by Oruell too.
The threats against journalists from the FRS and the “Russian culture protection” is a clinical symptom of imbecility. And note: they don’t seem to realize their stupidity! To solve the problem they suggested the journalists so that they should add an explanation to the word NBP: either “not registered be the Mnistry of Justice” or the “self-proclaimed”.
Personally I like the “self-proclamed” more. Sounds heroically, like a “self-proclaimed republic”. And then, by whom else should a party be poclaimed, but its members? By the Kremlin? By the Ministry of Justice? By Veshnyakov? By the “Russian culture protection”, though I have no idea who they are? At any rate there’s no sence in looking for logic in imbecility.
The law about extremism (i.e. the additions and ammendments to it), signed by president the very day, July 28, is also full of signs of paranoia and schizophrenia simultaneousely. The only thing to be added there is the definition, that sneezing and cough are also extremist activities: a sane law-abiding man breathes evenly. Also the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations gets under suspicion - aren’t they extremists?
That is what the power reactionary character leads to - to a complete madness, like alcohol leads to delirium tremens. First they prohibited (only the functionaries yet)to mention the “dollar’ and “euro”. Now they taboo the “NBP”. Who are they?
They have simply gone mad. In the process of the consistent protection of the power from the society, political parties and groups of citizens encroachments they have been and are adopting more and more restrictive and reactionary laws. Now they have got themselves into a mess. The railing has finished, and their car is merilly going on the ground of madness. To the alluring expanses of paranoia.
You may beat me every day, but I’ll never believe, that slandering a functionary is extremism, or that (created specially for nazbols) preventing state institutions from work is extremism either. In the soviet times there was a good method to get an apartment: a brave mother could take her snotty babies, rush into a regional committee reception hall and refuse to leave, till she gets the apartment warrant. She did prevent them from working: the children were crying, the snots were hanging, the committee workers were running around the corridors. In most cases the brave mother received the desired warrant. In the state of the sovereign democracy the mother will get a term of imprisonment. A long term.
I’m not telling, that everything was good before, and today paranoia is reigning. I’m simply illustrating the collective paranoia as a disease of the power. Of their group: I mean Chaika, Ustinov, Sergei Ivanov, and Putin, of course.
It would be good to admonish them: dear ministers, there’s nothing dreadful in the multi-party system, it’s not painful, it’s ok, it’s not always, that one group is in power, it’ll heal up, you’ll get used to it. And most likely, you’ll not be taken what you have collected - limonovists would take, but only a part, there’ll be somebody to defend you, everything will be ok, relax, let go the power! You will be in power, if opposition doesn’t manage to rule the country. Patients, be calm, everything is ok, be calmer, don’t jerk, get up from the floor, wipe up the foam from the mouth…It would be good to admolish them that way, but it’s already too late. The disease has gone too far, passed to the chronical stage. The yellow expanses of paranoia are alluring with phantoms of frightful mass disorders, orange revolts…
Their despair and weakness is demonstrated in the prohibition to mention the dangerous words “dollar”, “euro”, “NBP”. Not to mention, to prohibit to mention - like an exhausted ostrich buries his head into the sand not to see the enemy, as if he doesn’t exist. Putin’s group is bewitching: “Dollar doesn’t exist!”, “Euro doesn’t exist!”, “NBP doesn’t exist!”. Mircha Eliade, the great researcher of primitive beliefs of different tribes of the world, if my memory doesn’t fail me, studied several Indian tribes, driven by civilization to Amazonia jungles. So, these half-naked undersized guys, living in the eternal darkness of the rainforest, taboo the people and phenomena of the modern world: a white man, a group of white men or a motor-launch, or, for example, a car. The poor half-naked guys call that all “nothing”. It’s their instinct of self-preservation in action. They refuse to see the things dangerous for them. There’s nothing, and that’s all.
The process of the NBP liquidation lasted for a long time. I started feeling at home in the Moscow regional court. Not more, than in the Saratov regional court, where I was tried for ten months, but we were at law with the Moscow regional court for a rather long period of time too. There was a moment, when even the judge couldn’t control herself and crossly barked out in response of another incantation of the Federal registration service, that the NPB doesn’t exist: “How can it be? Here they are, the hall is full of them!”
I repeat for everybody concerned. The NBP exists, and the problem of the NBP exists. And the problem becomes sharper and sharper. And the essence of the problem is the following. There exists as if civilized Russia, where president and the government are preventing by means of violence and repressions (and direct slander!) the political party NBP from activities. The party has been existing for 13 years. The society aknowledges the NBP, and the bigger and bigger part of the society treats us with friendliness. It’s time for the Kremlin to surrender, in spite of intensifying the confrontation.
The summery: Russia will remain in the eyes of the whole world and its own residents a bond and repressive country till the NBP is let to the voters. Do you see, gentlemen from the Kremlin, this problem through the yellow-orange mist of your paranoia?!
Meanwhile the European human rights court asked us the complete list of complaints of the NBP. I’m sure we will be aknowledged a repressed organization. And what shall you do then?
Eduard Limonov, Grani.Ru
Tags: Chaika, Eliade, extremists, FRS, Harms, Ivanov, Kremlin, nazbol, NBP, Oruell, Putin, Saratov, Ustinov