COLUMN. News of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny broke on Friday afternoon. In the evening, hundreds of Russians gathered outside the Russian embassy in Stockholm to show their grief. Rasmus Canbäck writes about the importance of Alexei Navalny in his column.
Av Rasmus Canbäck 19 februari, 2024
Pictures by Rasmus Canbäck
The cold winter rain did not seem to bother those who had found their way to the Russian embassy. A crowd of just over a hundred people made their way to what is now called Free Ukraine Square to show their grief over the death of Alexei Navalny.
It was clear that those who had found their way there were moved. For never have I been to such a silent demonstration that was at the same time torn between feelings of sadness, anger and resignation. The vast majority seemed to be Russians who are opposed to Vladimir Putin’s reign of terror, and who are opposed to the invasion of Ukraine.
On Friday, it was their grief that took center stage. It was the grief that the hope that Alexei Navalny had embodied when he returned to Russia four years ago now seems to have been extinguished. I was not prepared for it when I arrived at what turned out to be a funeral mass. A funeral mass that admittedly went from the message ”Freedom for Russia” to ”Russia will be free”.
”We owe that to Navalny,” someone said.
He added that it is not so much about Alexei Navalny himself – but about a Russia that after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 quickly went towards an abyss. The Russian abyss seems sadly bottomless. The enormous demonstrations that arose in connection with the invasion of Ukraine turned out to be able to be silenced. The Kremlin knew that. Freedom of expression must be met with violence.
Some seem to think that the assassination of Alexei Navalny is associated with a weakened Russia. If increased violence and the ability to suppress critics are signs of weakness, then yes, Russia is weakened. But that is probably not the first thought that strikes those who have left Russia as the violence has increased.
Shortly after the first news reports that Alexei Navalny was presumed dead were published, several relatives of other political prisoners in other countries wrote to me. They were visibly affected. The importance of Alexei Navalny as a symbol, not only for a possibly free Russia, but for the struggle behind bars, seemed more important to the relatives than they had perhaps reflected on before. It was when the news of Alexei Navalny’s death came that it dawned on them what a symbol he had been for, if not the world’s, then at least the former Soviet states’, political prisoners.
I still remember the words that Pussy Riot activist Lusine Djanyan said to me at one point.
”As a Russian activist, I know what solidarity means. When things were at their worst, we could always look down at our phones and get energy from all the support from outside. As an Armenian, I know what the word silence means.”
There are surely many, from different conflicts, who feel the sense of silence that Lusine puts into words. Not least among relatives of other political prisoners in countries or under circumstances that have not been given media coverage or broad solidarity. But for some of them, the case of Alexei Navalny has been a source of hope. The first question that the Azerbaijani political prisoner Gubad Ibadoglu’s daughter asked me after hearing the news was: ”is my father next?”
A similar question was asked by the sister of the Karakalpak activist Aqylbak Muratbai, who was arrested by Kazakh police on February 15, with threats of deportation to Uzbekistan. There, a lawless legal process awaits, with the threat of torture.
The more serious question we need to ask ourselves is probably whether the boundaries of authoritarian forces have shifted further, especially in the former Soviet states. This is something that Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström raised in his first comment after the news.
”The ruthlessness against Navalny shows the importance of continuing the fight against authoritarianism,” Tobias Billström wrote on Twitter.
This is something that people who have lived in undemocratic societies have known for ages. Authoritarianism never disappeared after the fall of the Soviet Union. At least not without a reasonable struggle to deal with it, which the Baltic states have succeeded in doing. In other countries, such as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, it has only been replaced by an authoritarianism in symbiosis with the West’s hope that things will get better just around the corner. If only trade increases and the education system approaches that of the West, then democratization will come.
The leaders of these countries have understood how to speak the cosmopolitan language that appeals to the suit-clad and well-combed diplomats of the West. At the same time as more political dissidents are thrown into dark dungeons, the countries join international institutions. Smiling, the leaders of the West praise their authoritarian partners for their progress.
Enough authoritarian states, like Russia, have made or are on the verge of making a break with cosmopolitanism to build another wall. This time, unlike in 1962, the wall is being built with handshakes and white smiles. So far, the fight against authoritarianism, which Billström talks about, has failed.
This is what many seemed to understand on Friday evening. The need for symbols to be able to fight against dictators is enormous. In Russia, there was Alexei Navalny.
One speaker, Russian dissident Philipp Galtsov, briefly ended his speech in a way that made one believe it was a farewell to more than just a person.
”Rest in peace, Alexei Navalny.”
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