Source: hro.org (info), 09/11/10

· Freedom of Speech · Moscow Region & Moscow City

Aleksandr Arkhangelsky, journalist: “...If it is permissible at Lake Seliger to mock with impunity the portraits of ‘enemies’, if it is possible to wipe one’s feet on the photographs of real people, then why should not OTHERS make the transition from words to deeds?”

In connection with the beating of Oleg Kashin, the words of the valiant Young Guard members come to mind: http://www.molgvardia.ru/marginal/2010/08/11/19397/

Members of Young Guard are not, of course, themselves implicated in the tragedy of Kashin; it is that rare occasion when one can say: they’re not capable of that kind of thing, and thank God.

But many of us note that lately the public atmosphere has begun to darken, the “hankering after conflict” is growing stronger.

There is too much rottenness about, rottenness that on its own would seem harmless enough, only very unpleasant, but nonetheless it is destructive of the social equilibrium and in this way is conducive to evil.

If it is permissible for the leaders of pseudo-Orthodox “Nashist” self-defence units to call on the explosive mixture of fools and cynics to bait a journalist, who must “fear to leave his own house”, in order to avoid being spit at; if it is permissible at Lake Seliger to mock with impunity the portraits of “enemies”; if it is permissible to wipe one’s feet on the photographs of real people; if Ramzan Kadyrov is permitted live on NTV, publicly and without consequences under the law, to say that German Sadulaev is not a Chechen and not a Muslim, and even that he is not a person; if the fates of girls from the Bogoliubovsky Children’s Home become nothing more than a bargaining chip in conflicts among Orthodox church circles, - and so on, then why should not OTHERS make the transition from words to deeds?

Near every Karamazov there is a Smerdyakov hanging around.

Some create the semantic background in the context of which cruelty becomes a moral norm. And others take up sticks for beating.

And it has no significance whatsoever whether we like the writer Sadulaev or not, whether we like what Kashin or Podrabinek write or not.

The only thing that does have any significance is that the idea of ‘reprisals’ hangs in the air. And those who legalize this idea, day after day, bear moral responsibility for what is happening.

Of course, it is necessary to find the perpetrators and those who ordered the crime. Of course it is necessary to distinguish between legal and moral aspects. But the atmosphere must be cleansed.

Autumn is not to blame for the fact that psychopaths experience an exacerbation of their condition. But it is not necessary to distribute, right and left, stimulating tablets.