Americans
are generally proud of their freedom - and they celebrate
the
fact on July 4 - Independence Day. The French celebrate their
hard-won
freedom on Bastille Day. But what about Russia?
Yezhednevniy
Zhurnal, Russia
Why Unlike U.S. and France, Russia Lacks a Holiday to Freedom
"For
an overwhelming majority of Russians, freedom is not a priority - and it is not
a priority by a wide margin. … They have
a very tiny, even non-existent, experience of living under conditions of this
aforementioned freedom - and the experience they do have is not at all simple or
for the most part, positive."
If France has Bastille Day and America has Independence Day as reminders of freedom, why can't Russia have such a holday? Perhaps as of yet, it lacks a historic basis for such an event.
Last week, on July 14, France
celebrated a national holiday - Bastille Day. And ten days
before that, the United States celebrated Independence
Day. These are the most important holidays in those countries for which there
is no distinction whatever between so-called “state” holidays and those
“beloved by the people.” They hold, in modern political parlance, a
consolidated position within society. Both the storming of the Bastille, which in
France signifies the beginning of the French Revolution, and the Declaration of
Independence by the American states from Britain, symbolize for the people of
those countries the same thing - freedom. And this very same freedom remains
one of their chief priorities to this very day.
In the new Russia, defending
the White House in August 1991 could have become such a holiday. But it
didn't. First the 1993 October rebellion sowed doubts; then an incomprehensible
and failed war in
Chechnya cast a bloody shadow; followed by elections in 1996 that largely
discredited democratic government; and finally, the people turned their backs
on the “regime of freedom” because of the emergence of an oligarchic regime and
its attendant criminal activities. The condescending and cynical decade of the zeros
created such a basis for disappointment - “zeroing out" the 90s, and declaring
the start of a “souvenir” democracy, that replaced freedom with authoritarian
political stability, the loyalty of subjects and the defense of corporate
interests.
So a search for new holidays
to replace the old began. After all in the USSR, completely organically, the big
holiday was November 7th [the 1917 Revolution]; on
the one hand, it was a day to celebrate the liberation of workers, and on the
other, it helped establish the dictatorship of the communist regime.
In search of identity, Russia
Day was tried, and then Constitution Day - neither took hold. A deep
examination into past centuries resulted in the November 4 Day of National
Unity, which triggered such a debate that, I believe, made the government realize
it made a mistake, but as of yet, no alternative could be found. Because inserting
an artificial implant into a national conscious - this is a difficult undertaking.
It might not take and be rejected.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
The 90s were difficult and
unsettled, but they were genuine. In the “zeros,” the authenticity disappeared.
In everything. Everything became one continuous simulation, an artificial
cloud, a smoke screen under which “things were done”and
“questions resolved.” Even before acquiring one, the
country lost its taste for improvisation. All That Jazz was drowned out
by the lip-synched pop music made possible by “new technologies.”
To be fair, one has to note that
in every opinion poll, for an overwhelming majority of Russians, freedom is not
a priority - and it is not a priority by a wide margin. They don't directly
associate freedom with having a well-fed, just and safe existence. They have a
very tiny, even non-existent, experience of living under this
aforementioned freedom - and the experience they do have is not at all simple or
for the most part, positive. So Russians aren’t prepared to sacrifice even a
shred of well-being or sense of stability, even if it's mostly illusory, for the
sake of an even-more elusive freedom, which, by the way, threatens new shocks
and a loss of an artificially-bred bird in the hand.
Russia knows how to endure,
but not advocate. Because in both France and the United States, there were and remain
many reasons to discredit democratic governance, from Jacobin violence
in France to segregation in the United States, which continued well into the 1960s.
By the way, it's no
coincidence that in France, July 14th only became a national holiday a century
later; it wasn't until the French had to defend their hard-won freedom in a
number of revolutions and wars that they realized precisely why its acquisition was
the most important event in their history.
And now with every
anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, Parisians simply dance in Republic
Square.
