Itogi (Moscow): "UNFREEZING"
The court has decreed the release of former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina. President Medvedev has met with human rights activists. The liberal-minded public is talking of a new thaw. But author and television presenter Andrei Maximov thinks a thaw should come from within you, not outside of you.
We keep waiting for a thaw, but only from above. That is to say, either the current authorities decide to put on the heat, or new ones will step in and say: "You may proceed." Intellectuals have all their eyes on the Government, waiting for someone to give the go-ahead. Every intellectual is, understandably, heart and soul for democracy, but still awaits a thaw. My belief, however, is that the thaw lies within us, not from without. It lies in wait inside each of us when we ourselves want it to begin: Each of us, not the president, the prime minister, or any other national leader.
As we think of people such as Iosif Brodsky, Bulat Okudzhava or Yury Levitansky, we understand that it never occurred to them to expect any signal to go ahead. Brodsky, when asked: "Who ordained you a poet?" answered calmly and with consideration: "I think it was God."
Our frame of mind is different. We all expect freedom to be granted to us from above, like children reaching the age of adolescence. We are looking around and waiting for someone to tell us: "On your marks, get set, go ... for your freedom." I like very much the term coined by the political analyst Alexander Auzan: "unfreezing." It describes all our doings and feelings much better than any other. Can you imagine Anton Chekhov or Leo Tolstoy waiting for a thaw?
We live in a strange country. We are not particularly interested in what the President and the Government are doing, say, to deal with the crisis. Actions are beneath us. Historically, we are masters at decoding signs. Our public opinion is so curiously arranged that any governmental or presidential step is seen as a sign from above, sent from the bureaucratic skies to the sinful earth. Whatever our superiors might do up "there," each move is meant to imply something. Not directly, of course, but in a roundabout manner - by means of a secret language, with cautious hints. Incidentally, straightforward things said by our leaders have less credence than underlying implications. We want to see through the context ourselves.
Take Svetlana Bakhmina, released from prison. There are a lot of implications hidden in this piece of news. It is too simple and uninteresting to suppose that the court, perhaps under public pressure, has shown mercy. It is too obvious and unbelievable. Oh no! The authorities are expected either to permit unheard-of liberties, or to come up with cruel reprisals, or unprecedented upheavals.
For some reason we have become used to people and authority figures communicating surreptitiously, by winks, if not prison tapping. It seems to me the authorities are beginning to think not about what they should undertake to solve some problem or other but how their step will be perceived by the general public. We take more note of pauses, voice timbre, casual slips of the tongue and even the colour of their neckties rather than their actions.
The President's Novaya Gazeta interview is seen as unheard-of. Some author wrote that in Mr Putin's time a president talking with the opposition press was unthinkable. But what really happened? Mr Medvedev, in meetings with Dmitry Muratov and Mikhail Gorbachev, promised to grant an interview for Novaya. So he simply kept his promise. I see no particular hint of anything else here. If there was any, it was in the way our fellow journalists responded to the news. As soon as it was clear that Mr Medvedev had chosen Novaya Gazeta for his first interview, all the other papers began asking: "Why is that? It is not the most popular newspaper in the country!" Understandably, they consider their own the most popular, but at least they could have pretended to share their colleagues' joy...
Here is another never-ending topic that makes the daily rounds in the columns: The speculation regarding when and how Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev will have a spat. Everybody knows when this will happen and why, and the President and the Prime Minister are only left to perform the roles written for them. After all, my fellow political journalists need to have something to write about. And they invent stories they consider interesting. Besides, we are mistrustful of our leaders and bosses by definition. At first, we elect them and then we begin to distrust them. It seems to us that their actions have some negative aspect. We are convinced that an intellectual cannot like his boss. Here, you are either an intellectual or you like your boss. It seems to us that these people are worse than they really are. Always. Our dislike of our superiors is sincere, it is our credo.
I think Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin are worthy of our trust and will not let their relations develop into a quarrel. At any rate, I see no basis for this except in journalistic fantasies. A couple of times I have read that Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev are one and the same item, only Mr Medvedev is meant for export, and Mr Putin for domestic consumption. In fact, there is no difference between them except in style, which was planned all along. As if foreigners were again living beyond the iron curtain and were unaware of local developments. We are not accustomed to thinking that a person assuming a public office remains a human being. Mr Putin is one person. Mr Medvedev is another. Being different, they behave differently. And that is all. But it would be strange to say that we are moving back to the 1960s, to a sort of thaw. Besides, let us not forget that a thaw follows a freeze: to have a 1960s-era thaw we would need to experience 1937 or 1947. The freeze, or Josif Stalin, is, thank God, past history. And I hope there will be no more of them ...
Yevgeny Belzharsky
