{"id":59246,"date":"2012-07-14T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T19:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=59246"},"modified":"2012-07-14T16:04:19","modified_gmt":"2012-07-14T20:04:19","slug":"reverence-revolution-and-pussy-riot-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/reverence-revolution-and-pussy-riot-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverence, Revolution and Pussy Riot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In February, three women got up on an altar in a Moscow cathedral and sang a prayer. The prayer went like this: \u201cSt. Maria, Virgin, Drive Putin Away!\u201d It had some fierce guitar work as well as sweet choral portions. And they sang it wearing masks and short dresses.<\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They\u2019re now looking at up to seven years in jail. They\u2019ve been in detention since March. Last week, they were denied bail, and their trial is set for July 20. Such is the penalty for speaking out about gender, relationships, LGBT rights and politics in Russia today (and maybe here, tomorrow). <\/p>\n

Last month when I was doing my volunteer shift picking up trash at Artomatic, a DC open arts event where a building slated for demolition is given over to un-juried, first-come-first-served art installations, I saw a backdrop with an elaborately decorated gothic-style altar and the words \u201cFree Pussy Riot!\u201d I started talking to the artist, and that\u2019s where I learned the story.<\/p>\n

Pussy Riot is a free-floating (except when jailed) band of punk rockers and activists in Russia. Their punk protest issues include LGBT and gender rights, as well as opposition to Putin and the government. They\u2019re usually anonymous, and they change their assumed and actual names and personnel on a whim. They perform in balaclavas that hide their features, and wear bright-colored tights and plain, skimpy dresses, so anyone can easily don Pussy Riot gear. Hair, makeup, even gender — doesn\u2019t matter. This is not rock star territory. Men can be members of Pussy Riot; so can anyone on the spectrum. They do not perform in clubs or theaters or at music events. Every performance is a guerrilla one. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This inspired the artist to create her stage at Artomatic where, she said, anyone could be Pussy Riot. She made a backdrop resembling the church and supplied balaclavas, dresses and tights. Dress the part and lip-synch to the song, and she would shoot a video. The YouTube videos posted from the event show groups of all sizes, men and women, and me dancing around with a garbage bag. <\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> before the arrest, in Vice<\/em> magazine, they explained the name: \u201cA female sex organ, which is supposed to be receiving and shapeless, suddenly starts a radical rebellion against the cultural order, which tries to constantly define it and show its appropriate place. Sexists have certain ideas about how a woman should behave, and Putin, by the way, also has a couple thoughts on how Russians should live. Fighting against all that — that’s Pussy Riot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservative press has twisted itself in knots trying to figure out how to refer to the group, with one newspaper reportedly translating the name as \u201cUprising of the Uterus.\u201d (I wonder if they\u2019re friends with the indomitable and outspoken Fe\u2019s Uterus? Because all you uteri know each other, right?)<\/p>\n

The photos out of the trials are particularly disturbing, as it\u2019s apparently the Russian way to put the defendant in an actual cage in the courtroom. Outside, protests have included men locking themselves up in cages and a woman tying herself to a cross for an hour. If you want to do a little something, here\u2019s a link to a petition from Amnesty International<\/a> seeking free speech rights for the three arrested.<\/p>\n

A report in Salon<\/a> explains what\u2019s really behind the harsh smackdown:<\/p>\n

The women are arguably as much religious prisoners as they are political prisoners. … Over the past few years, Putin has cultivated a close relationship with the Orthodox Church, giving it the ability to amass fabulous wealth in return for its support. In return, the church exhorts the young to fight in Chechnya, consecrates new nuclear missiles as the nation\u2019s \u2018guardian angels,\u2019 and praises Putin\u2019s return to the presidency as \u2018God\u2019s miracle.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Pussy Riot song also condemns the Orthodox Patriarch Gundyaev Kirill as worshiping Putin over God, and that seems to have really pissed all three of those guys off. I think it\u2019s a glimpse at what could be in store if political power here goes to people with close ties to evangelicals. <\/p>\n

Pussy Riot has tangled not only with the rules of the church, but the rules of relationships. The stakes are high for love in Russia. In St. Petersburg, police have broken up two recent gay rights protests against a law against \u201cspreading homosexual propaganda,\u201d which crime can carry fines up to $15,000 (unless, I suppose, you pay the right people off beforehand and get the mobster discount). Gay rights have been decriminalized, but discrimination, hate, and selective enforcement abound, say news reports. <\/p>\n

Reports are also careful to mention that gay rights protests as well as those against the Pussy Riot trials are \u201csparsely attended.\u201d I think I\u2019d be a bit nervous about venturing out to speak my mind in such a climate as well.<\/p>\n

Here in the United States, I see an echo in the Vatican denouncement of American Catholic nuns. The ‘Nuns on the Bus’ have been cruising through DC often lately, and they\u2019re based here. There are often protests outside the Vatican embassy. Here\u2019s the lowdown, from the Women\u2019s eNews site<\/a> (which also still publishes the Sylvia comic strip, if you\u2019ve missed that, as I have): <\/p>\n

In April, the Vatican concluded an investigation of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, an organizing body that represents 80 percent of the 57,000 nuns in America. The Vatican criticized the leadership’s \u2018radical feminist themes\u2019 and its focus on social services at the expense of other issues. It took particular issue with the leadership’s relative quiet on same-sex relationships and abortion. … The [Nuns on the Bus] tour’s stated mission was to stir up outrage over what the nuns called the immorality of lowering taxes for the wealthy while attacking the poor through cutting food stamps and Medicaid, as outlined in the budget plan crafted by Paul Ryan, a Republican representing Wisconsin’s 1st District in Congress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These nuns are more like the lefty types I remember from my Catholic folk mass girlhood. Their protest has the same feel to me as Pussy Riot\u2019s: We\u2019re going to speak out on what matters to us and what action we\u2019re going to take is based on our own relationship with the divine. <\/p>\n

I remember talking once with a Catholic friend about what would be difficult about taking holy orders — a telling phrase there! The vows are of poverty, chastity and obedience; the hard one for him, he said, would be chastity. For me it would be obedience. (I\u2019m Venus in Virgo. We can sublimate \u2019til the cows come home. And that didn\u2019t sound right, did it.) <\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m just too American, but unquestioning obedience to anything doesn\u2019t work for me — and that\u2019s probably at the heart of my unconventional relationships. <\/p>\n

What made things clearer for me was reading another piece of news, from the Sandusky\/Penn State child abuse cover-ups. One factor that made these crimes possible, the report said, was a \u201cculture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community.” That \u201cculture of reverence\u201d phrase nails it for me. <\/p>\n

Never mind that it\u2019s reverence for a game (which is actually reverence for money and power, of course). How insane do you have to be to care more for that than for a child? \u201cReverence\u201d becomes a convenient plug-in for not seeing, not asking, not changing.<\/p>\n

For myself, I contrasted \u201creverence\u201d with \u201crelationship.\u201d In my own spirituality, I don\u2019t have reverence for the gods. I have respect for them (though not always) and I have a relationship with them. It\u2019s fun sometimes to pretend I worship someone I love, and it\u2019s fun to play at obeying them (especially when they tell me to do something I want to do anyway). But reverence and obedience, to either a person or a model, is not my way. Relationships require constant change and growth. Reverence demands stasis — or death?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila In February, three women got up on an altar in a Moscow cathedral and sang a prayer. The prayer went like this: \u201cSt. Maria, Virgin, Drive Putin Away!\u201d It had some fierce guitar work as well as sweet choral portions. And they sang it wearing masks and short dresses. They\u2019re now looking … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}