Pussy Riot Disown Former Members (Jealous That They Didn’t Look Hard In Prison, Probably)
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, from the band Pussy Riot accept the award for ‘Most Valuable Documentary of the Year’ for ‘Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer’, during the Cinema For Peace fundraising gala in Berlin during the International Film Festival Berlinale, Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. (AP Photo/Axel Schmidt)
WHEN Pussy Riot members got arrested and sent to prison, simply for mocking President Putin and his goons, right minded people were up in arms. ‘What? You can’t even protest in churches while making pretty awful, but fun music, while wearing a balaclava?’ Nope. And three members were sent off to jail, resulting in hunger strikes, celebrity endorsements and worldwide media coverage.
Putin’s Russia needed to do something to try and divert attention away from this PR disaster. Remarkably, they went after the gays and made everyone hate Putin’s Posse even more. The stupid idiots.
Either way, Pussy Riot were admirable and steadfast, refusing to budge and delivering scathing putdowns of Russian powers with the kind of eloquence that makes the rest of us sound like our tongues have swollen up through our nostrils.
Eventually, they were released from prison (just in time for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, WHICH IS A MASSIVE COINCIDENCE) and everyone was happy.
Apart from, that is, Pussy Riot themselves who, startlingly, have turned on Masha Alyokhina and Nadia Tolokonnikova. This pair were the two most visible faces of the organisation, suffered a prison term and defended their rights admirably. They were wonderful representatives of a group that, previously, had been a little impenetrable.
It seems, for all that good service and surviving a Russian prison, they’re thanked by snide open-letters from a group that has now disowned them. Putin must be pissing his sides.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were criticised in an open letter, with the Pussy Riot members discussing the pair’s departure to focus on prison reform and human rights abuse, after the duo started the non-governmental human rights group Zona Prava (Justice Zone).
The statement suggested that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have ignored attempts of communication from Pussy Riot and they’ve become frustrated with the way the pair were presented at a recent Amnesty International concert in New York.
Responding to the open letter, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova spoke to New York Times and told an interviewer that the letter “doesn’t follow the ideology of Pussy Riot”. Tolokonnikova also denied claims she is no longer in contact with other members of the group. “The people we performed with in Moscow, we’re still in contact with.”
She added that Pussy Riot is not, as the letter claimed, an “all-female separatist collective”. “Pussy Riot can be anyone, and no one can excluded from Pussy Riot,” states Tolokonnikova. “Pussy Riot can only grow.”
While those left in Pussy Riot are represented by snarky open letters, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova toured prisons, met with Amnesty International, got a huge political platform via Madonna and spoke frankly and forcibly against authoritarian political imprisonment and called for Russia to oust Putin.
Looks like one faction is in a better position to get things done, and it is the ones who survived prison with no thanks from their old allies.
Posted: 11th, February 2014 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
