Friend in St. Petersburg Labeled 'Foreign Agent' for Non-War Related Activities
Russia ends all remnants of civil society under the guise of 'national security'
They are just kids. Adults, television, and rules shape their world. The hand-off of children to school is a moment that scares the hell out of all parents and offers a small respite from the daily molding of the little humans looking to us for the fulfillment of every need. Today, Russia regards children as a weak spot.
Using the rules and the bully pulpit of being a “big person of authority” in the world of these children, teachers are guided by the ruling fascist party in Moscow to indoctrinate children. Shamelessly, children are being fed vicious propaganda that their Ukrainian counterparts are less than human. Russia is being destroyed by Ukrainians and people from Western countries — this is the narrative, the “story” being peddled to school children. Children believe what they are told because they don’t have the skills or experience to question such statements — kind of like Fox News watchers.
An acquaintance from St. Peterburg, “Lena,” was recently detained when leaving her house. It was the day of Aleksey Navalny’s funeral. Like many, she was going to the location in St. Petersburg where Navalny mourners were leaving flowers to express their grief. Lena considers her work too important to engage in anti-war posts on social media.
Lena is a constitutional lawyer who works with parents in Russia who feel the “system” is encroaching too aggressively on their parental rights. She defends parents not aligned with the more egregious activities of over-zealous school directors who, having no regard for the mind of the child in their care, fill their children with hate and lies and otherwise push extreme xenophobia onto little children.
Neither Lena nor the parents express anti-war beliefs because they know that’s the easy way to lose the battle; they are choosing a long-term strategy. If a parent is blackballed, then the child is at the mercy of fascism. If a parent effectively exercises his rights, then he can potentially spare his child from the worst parts of the fascist revolution underway in Russia. Lena is extremely talented at defending parents’ rights, and the school directors don’t like her meddling.
Detained
Lena’s only questionable “anti-war” act was to leave the house on election day. It seems whoever was monitoring her online messed up. The police thought she was going to vote, but she was taking out the garbage.
Lena’s power to understand the hysterical Russian constitution is like a superpower in totalitarian Russia. She knows it better than probably all policemen in Russia. Despite the hundreds of amendments, sometimes multiple changes are made each month, Lena has managed not to get lost in the swamp. Amendments come out that contradict the original text, and then later ones contradict the amendments. Lena forages through the legalese and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and somehow maintains an understanding of the law.
Lena knew that she was legally permitted to film her interaction with the policeman, so she immediately turned on her phone.
“How did you know where I live? How did you know when I was coming out today?”
“That’s not important. But you need to come with us.” At that moment, a police van pulled up.
“Wow, is all of this for me?”
“Let’s go.”
“No. I have a 9-year-old child home alone. You can’t leave my child unattended according to (cites a Russian law).”
Unaware but scared by the confident citation of the law, the police officer calls his superiors. Eventually, Lena is permitted to make arrangements for her daughter to sit with a friend. They take her to the station.
She cited law after law the entire way to the station. The cops were clearly off balance, and their faces were filled with regret. Russian cops like timid, scared, and obedient detainees. Lena was using the one thing they knew so little about to defend herself — the law. After some time had passed, she was shown why she had been detained. Someone had denounced her as being “against the rules and morals of Russia. She is clearly against the special military operation and Vladimir Vladimirovich.”
In the case of the denunciation, Lena needed to sign that she had been informed and was asked if she planned to dispute it. She said she would, and a date was set for her to appear before a judge. On her way out of the police station, Lena left the garbage near the door. She purposely never threw it out and carried it the whole time. A derogatory term for the police in Russia is “garbage (musor).”
As I said, Lena’s social media is void of any anti-war pronouncements. She has no Ukrainian flags. Lena, however, was using Russian law to create a fortress around Russian parents who found the encroachment of the state into their homes to be overbearing and burdensome. Most of her cases have nothing to do with the new “patriotic education” in the schools — Lena argued that if a parent didn’t want their child to take part in such classes, they could pick them up early from school. A judge agreed that the classes cannot be mandatory until a law has been passed.
A week before Lena was due to argue against her denunciation, her daughter brought home a form from the school. All parents “are now required to give a detailed plan for the child’s vacation. Parents must also show how the children’s studies will be continued and whether or not any patriotic activities will be involved.” Anyone who was educated or lived in Russia could easily see the writing on the wall: If your child were being indoctrinated also at home, the future would be brighter.
Lena refused to fill out the form. The school director was later invited to Lena’s court appearance and testified that she felt Lena was a danger to Russian children, including her own.
While the judge was impressed with Lena’s knowledge of the law — “You could have been a very talented lawyer if you were on the right side of the law,” the judge amazingly quipped — the denouncement stood.
Yesterday, Lena received a registered letter informing her that she had been declared a “foreign agent for her anti-Russian activities.”
Civil society in post-Soviet Russia never developed past the tetrapod phase of human evolution. The fascists in the Kremlin are gleefully crushing the little creatures with their jackboots, returning Russia to a pre-historic, anti-intellectual mindset.
Amazingly, many Russians welcome the dumbing down with open minds and hearts.