On the Death of Alexey Navalny
“The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.”
- Soren Kierkegaard
I just heard the news.
Russian opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, has suddenly died in prison at the age of 47.
There’s a great documentary about Navalny that I watched last night, about the career and travails Navalny suffered standing up to Putin and trying to bring freedom and democracy to Russia, very good.
This comes, ironically, while Tucker Carlson engages in a publicity campaign for Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin, and runs around Moscow saying how much better Russia is compared to America. If you want further proof that Carlson has become a Russian shill and stooge, consider Carlson’s response to the death of Navalny: “Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader.” Well … okay then!
I urge you to read a post by Konstantin Kisin, a pro-Western Russian emigre, who shares Carlson’s critique of wokeness, but is mortified by Carlson’s support for Putin. Timothy Snyder - who I really like - also has a great piece on Putin’s Genocidal Myth which debunks Putin’s whole take on Russian history. Over at The Free Press, Bari Weiss celebrates how Alexei Navalny Lived and Died in Truth. Across the spectrum, there are great critiques of Putin and Carlson and lament for Navalny.
There are many dictators around the world. Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and even some autocrats in Europe. Why should we care about this particular case and this particular death of one more political dissident?
It is because Putin has become the Lucifer of our age whose example has the seductions of power, masculinity, militarism, nationalism, and (pseudo-)Christianity that have a tantalizing appeal to the religious right of America who aspire to such things.
An America, a world, a church, more like Putin and less like Frederick Douglass or even Beth Moore.
What I’m learning from reading right-wing Christian nationalism is that it doesn’t want power through weakness, but power through power. It prefers the gladiator and senator to the slave and the outcast. It wants to displace Jesus naked on the cross, with naked power, unfettered from childish notions of compassion and charity. It’s Nietzsche reading book four of Calvin’s Institutes.
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