Grigory Yavlinsky on the goal and costs of his participation in the “elections”

Novaya Gazeta, 25.12.2017

I am absolutely certain that the truth and rightness are on my side.

Considerations about the percentage and the opinion of the “political scene” stand in the way [of my campaign].

But the percentage is a weapon of the regime.

And the “political scene” is largely a voluntary or involuntary author and the product of the regime.

The regime will be pressing, humiliating and annihilating me with the percentage and its information policy. Because my truth is deadly dangerous for the regime. Donbass with dozens of thousands of victims, Boeing flight MH17 crash, crime, poverty, broken lives…; the second war in Chechnya; [act of terror in the] Dubrovka theatre; [act of terror with in the] Beslan school; [the murder of regime critic] Boris Nemtsov; [head of Chechnya] Ramzan Kadyrov; Crimea, Syria, sanctions; destruction of the economy; total failure [of the government] to fulfill the promises… My truth is dangerous mainly because there is another way, because I am different and there are other people, and all this represents an alternative. The regime will be humiliating and annihilating me for the truth because the truth has its own strength, and it is not contained in mob scenes and percentages. The truth, when voiced publicly, penetrates into the minds, first of a few people only, but then it spreads…

But my truth is not only and not so much in exposing and enumerating the actual or the alleged crimes. My truth is special. It is about the future and the perspective.

My truth is that this regime and its future political course are deadly dangerous for the country in the nearest perspective (in a year all will see it) and Putin does not want and can not (with a probability of 95 per cent) offer anything else.

That is, I will be pressured and humiliated for the truth about the future and for offering a different future. A Future, where there is no place for Putin and a group of his favorites. A Future, where the “political scene” will finally lose its media-privileged position and the halo of the “intellectual elite”, and will take exactly the place the nation rather than the Kremlin’s manipulators put them on. As it was written in the memoirs of the young reformers of the 1990s: “We did not support Yavlinsky in [the presidential elections of] 1996, because we knew that if he is there, then there will be no us…”.

Consequently,

My participation in the “elections” at all their specifics:

– that these are not elections, rather an “electoral Halloween” (a compound from the words “hell”, “hello”, “in” as “inside” which means “welcome to hell”, but it will be not a joke);

– that the regime will humiliate me by the percentage [of a low vote allegedly given for me];

– that the “political scene” will be mocking and mobbing me;

– that I will have to be in company with freaks, idiots and jesters, and almost all the participants will be such;

– that as a result, I may have to lose some of my comrades;

– that my formal (by standards of the regime – humiliating) defeat will lead to a difficult situation for the party, that will be very difficult to overcome,

– that this is a struggle for truth in the face of lies, Bolshevism and obscurantism, the fight against a real and dangerous political mafia that leads my country into an abyss.

The struggle for truth is not comfortable – you have to pay for it. Formal humiliation with a [low] percentage [of the vote], insults, brute pressure, sticky chatter of the hangouts – this is my fee. To whom it seems that my truth is incomplete or is put not in a proper way, join us, let us work together.

And if it is not a fight for truth, but merely a carnival, a show, a television hype, then it is not my cup of tea, and I have nothing to do there. If it is the struggle for truth and the future, then payment is inevitable. This is the nature of this phenomenon. And the price that I am talking about is not the highest. One can pay for it with life, and this is also possible. This is not heroism – it is just such a life, such a place and time, and such a profession.

In other words, participation in this “electoral Halloween” is such a form of modern dissidence in the conditions of a modern rigid authoritarian / hybrid totalitarian regime, and also in the conditions of a very deep and serious crisis of the European West.

Now, a few words about understanding the “truth” in this context. The truth is what I think about and can professionally justify. This is how I see the Future. Maybe I am wrong.

However, I was not mistaken in large before: in [the eve of Russian faulty reforms of] 1991-92, in 1995-96 [the First War in Chechnya and the first fraudulent presidential elections], in 1998 [of an economic crisis in Russian and announcement of a default of the state on its domestic debt], in [the Second War in Chechnya in] 1999, 2000 [when Vladimir Putin became President of Russia]…

I was not mistaken with the forecast of the reforms of the 1990s, with privatisation according to the “loans-for-shares” scheme, assessment of the prospects of Putin’s rule, a vision of the political course after [Putin’s] return [to the post of Russian President for the third term] in 2012.

I think I am not mistaken now.

And how can one be mistaken in the fact that the country needs peace, equality of opportunity, that the law should be the same for all, an independent and merciful court, freedom from fear and arbitrariness, protection of human life and respect for the individual, inviolability of private property, a modern growing economy… Otherwise, there will be poverty, isolation, [the country’s] irreversible backwardness, and, most likely, a war…

My human and professional responsibility is to warn about it and propose a way to ward off the disaster. If the regime will “reward” me with 2 per cent [of the vote] for all this, and the “political scene” will throw mud at me – well, I am ready. History will put everything in its place someday.

If I’m wrong and everything will be fine in the next six years of Putin’s term, I will be only glad.

* * *

Do not ask me what will happen to me. Ask yourself what will happen to you.

Grigory Yavlinsky

13 December, 2017

Source: https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/12/25/75042-moya-pravda