6A.M., He wakes up. Turns on the television. Switches to CNN. Boris Nemtsov, Russian opposition icon has been executed on a bridge near the Kremlin. He has been shot by an unknown assailant or assailants. As soon as he hears this news he wonders how far this will crank up tensions in Europe. What implications will this have in Russia and the war in the Ukraine?
The days that follow signal what might in time become a change of heart among the Russians. Thousands attended the march to mourn his death. Mountains of flowers formed in that part of the bridge where he fell. Until we knew Nemtzov in the news, the concept of “opposition” in Russia seemed unheard of. Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings were seen as very high, in the 80s percentile. And yet, this seemed almost incredible.
This is after all Russia, the culture that gave us Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevski, thinkers who gave to us some of our deepest, most variegated, visions of the human condition and the capacity for good and evil. And what about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Who, writing of his memories in the Gulag, what was then the infamous prison of the Soviet Union wrote: “I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.”
In the ‘70s, Solzhenitsyn wrote for us the books that would give us our clearest glimpses of how life was in the Soviet Union. These were views that would change entirely our view of the world. And in due time, the Soviet Union would fall.
This fall leading up to what Russia is today. And yet, one must presume that the inertia of that age still lasts to this day. Any person who had been aware during those times must find it hard to believe how Russians can live with, much less, be approving of Vladimir Putin and what he is doing to Russia.
But Russia is a good study of how news media can be controlled to produce an effect over a populace. How Nemtsov described his Russia seems familiar to Filipinos who came into adolescence in the period of martial law in this country. This similarity did not escape Nemtsov. In an interview with Anthony Bourdain, Nemtsov compared Russia to the Philippines and some other countries for their “struggling, growing, new, democracy.”
He did not mention Marcos by name. But the word “oligarch” was again mentioned. The Anthony Bourdain interview over CNN leaves a bittersweet nostalgia for some Filipinos who remember those times. And note how accurately Nemtsov describes the political climate inside which he lived as a leading opposition figure. In paraphrase: Anyone who is rich in Russia can be richer still for as long as he or she does not cross the government or in another word Putin. You can do almost anything you like. But if you displease him then be prepared to lose everything. And just like Marcos, Putin will go through the motions of legality, except for the preordained outcome. Which is usually that you go to jail and lose everything.
The problem with this manner of executing the state agenda is that there can be no exceptions. Such a principle must be applied consistently and with little or only calculated remorse. And often patriotism inside the situation of a state of war becomes the last forlorn excuse for all of the state’s failings. Marcos’ excuse was the war against the New People’s Army and the war in Mindanao. Putin simply annexed the Crimea and let lose his own personal “dogs of war.” This was the war Nemtsov threatened to expose. Perhaps the main reason why he was killed.
And those who follow this particular bit of news must know how the situation in Russia has cranked up one notch reminding of a Russia in the time of Solzhenitsyn when he warned, “The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.”
And then gives us something of a prophecy applicable to the end of every tyrannical epoch, something which might be said of Nemtsov and of many heroic Filipinos in their time: “You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.”
Such is the memory of Boris Nemtsov.