RESPECTFULLY, FOR RUSSIAN ANNA

A humanitarian with an undeniable need to assist those in need; to speak for the many whose voices have been seized by the status quo of fear and slight-of-hand violence. She was writer who dared tread in the lion’s den and the snake pit; through peril and pestilence. From my comfortable seat in a nation where Democracy is, at worst, allowed with the dissent democracy encourages, this journalist-soldier is a person I never heard of before her murder inside a Russian apartment building. I did not meet her nor read her work, and yet, I feel the weight of her attempts at inclusive humanity. Anna Politkovskya is no longer on the earth, in physical form, but her spirit remains. Her deeds cannot be boxed into the irrelevancy of the past tense. Even in death her life and efforts leave us, or specifically, those of us attempting to create lives filled with equality and freedom, with questions that would be better answered voluntarily, in the present, rather than at a forced crossroads in a fast approaching future of despair.

By appearance and report, Anna was cruelly murdered, shot twice, inside the elevator of her apartment building after years of investigative journalism that boldly pronounced alleged corruptions within the ranks of Russian government and military operations. Fellow journalists have spoken of their belief that her murder was nothing short of a political assassination, not an event to be laid at the feet of random violence. Her life had been threatened for many years, at one point, leading to relocation in Vienna. Not long after her murder a Russian spy, poisoned in London, accused Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of the lethal action that led to his eventual death. Reports have indicated that at least thirteen journalists have been killed in contract style killings since Putin took office. Of course, no crimes against Prime Minister Putin or any other governmental officials have been proven, but there has been a clear, chilling and covert war being perpetrated against journalists and others who speak out against the Russian political and military hierarchy. There is simply a tack of suppression misting the air in present day Russia.

At news of Politkovskya’s death, America, Britain and the European Council called for immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing; in other words the world called for justice. Prim Minister Putin agreed and has said all of the right things in terms of looking into the matter, but in a reality where dissent is silenced by murder how can one expect to find justice? These are troubling times for a country that has lived through oppression, poverty and resulting famine. And a raging war against Chechnya has recently raised red flags with Politkovskya being the chief flag waver. Her colleagues describe her as a person who could not suffer the suffering of others. Her journalistic travels; exile, escape in car trunk away from and to far flung villages due to death threats, attempts to negotiate the release of hostages with Chechnyan rebels, reads like the stuff making up one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. But she never ceased to writer for freedom. Politkovskya’s crime was the crime of believing in a fair and democratic society; a crime of vision in a world where possibility and vision is a valuable commodity that those in power seek to maneuver and control, playing keeps away, tossing it about while the common citizen reaches, at times futilely, for its hope. The probabilities of Poltikovskya’s killers being found are slight indeed. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Putin supported, Chechen Prime Minister has called her and other human rights activist’s liars who protect the interests of Russia’s enemies. Putin commented on the cruelty of the murder, while minimizing the impact of Politkovskya’s journalism on Russian politics.

There is a long history of discrediting and minimizing the effectiveness of those who organize, investigate, and therein, challenge political and social systems and agencies. In America, this is evidenced by the government sanctioned Cointelpro program that used mail fraud, violence, wire-tapping and other means to quell civil rights and other counter-culture movements in the 60’s and early 70’s. The evidence of Politkovskya’s effectiveness is her very murder, a crime that has yet to be solved. And her murder leaves our world with several uneasy questions: If her killers and those of other journalists killed during Putin’s reign are not found, what does this say for an honest concern about democracy in Russia’s leadership ranks? In this time of a wary peace between America and Russia, what would a continuing line of murdered journalists and other dissenters to Russia’s political operations say about America’s professed belief in protection for democracy around the world? Could a continued appearance of democratic suppression lead to a renewal of a cold war that had been thawed over? Or will America’s active protection of democratic ideals rest in the bosom of her hypocrisy that fed a non-aggressive stance on democratic abuses in places such as apartheid ravaged South Africa?

Whatever way the current situation plays out, we, as members of the international family, have been brutally reminded that the cost of democratic ideals and its fulfillment in progression or dissent, is often death, marginalization, loss of freedom and the forgetful anonymity inherent in a calendar that refuses to stop the world long enough to honor the brave souls consumed with a mission to make our world a more righteous place for every human being. May these people, these men and women; these leaders; these writers; these artists; these rabble-rousers, rest-in-peace. But more than that, let their courage and determination be an example of, not just the bluntly rude truth about the cost of individual courage, but of the hope that lives in the ability for one person to “change” themselves, others and systems. I respectfully remove my hat and smile a quiet celebration for these brave human beings, amongst them Russian Anna.