The final statement
« Freedom is the process by which you develop a habit for being unavailable for servitude.»
I’m not going to talk about the case, the search, the interrogations, the volumes of evidence, or the courtrooms. It’s boring and pointless. Lately I’ve been attending the school of fatigue and annoyance. But even before my arrest, I managed to enroll in the school of learning to talk about really important things.
I’d like to talk about philosophy and literature. About [Walter] Benjamin, [Jacques] Derrida, [Franz] Kafka, [Hannah] Arendt, [Susan] Sontag, [Roland] Barthes, [Michel] Foucault, [Giorgio] Agamben, Audrey Lord, and bell hooks. Of Timofeeva, [Madina] Tlostanova and Rachmaninova.
I’d like to talk about poetry. On how to read contemporary poetry. About [Mikhail] Gronas, Dashevsky and Borodin.
But this is neither the time nor the place to do it. I will hide my little tender words on the tip of my tongue, at the bottom of my larynx, between my stomach and my heart. And I’ll only say a few.
I often feel myself to be a little fish, a small bird, a schoolboy, a little kid. But recently I was surprised to learn that [Joseph] Brodsky was also tried at the age of twenty-three. And since I am also counted among the human race, I will speak like this:
In Kabbalah, there is the concept of tikkun olam – repairing the world. I see that the world is imperfect. I believe that, as written by Yehuda Amichai, the world was created beautiful for the sake of goodness and calm, like a bench in a garden (not in a courtroom!). I believe that the world was created for tenderness, hope, love, solidarity, passion, joy.
But there is a terrible, unbearable amount of violence in the world. And I don’t want violence.
Not in any form. Not the hands of teachers in the panties of schoolgirls, not the fists of drunken fathers on the bodies of their wives and children. Had I decided to list all the violence around us, neither a day nor a week nor a year would be enough to complete that list. To see the violence around you, all you have to do is open your eyes. My eyes are open. I see violence and I don’t want violence. The more violence there is, the more I don’t want it. And especially I don’t want the greatest and the most horrific violence.
I really love to learn. From now on, I will speak in the voices of other people.
In history classes in school, I learned the expressions: “You crucify freedom, but the human soul knows no fetters” and “For your freedom and ours”.
In high school, I read Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, Yevgenia Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind, Bulat Okudzhava’s The Abolished Theater, and Anatoly Rybakov’s Children of the Arbat Street.
From Okujava’s writings, I liked most of all the following poem:
Conscience, Magnanimity, and Dignity —
These are our holy warriors.
Hold out your palm to them.
For them, one can step into the fire without fear.
Their countenance is lofty and amazing.
Dedicate your humble age to them:
You may or may not become a winner,
But you will die as a human being!
At the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, I studied French and learned a line from Edith Piaf: “Ça ne pouvait pas durer toujours” [This could not last forever]. And from Marc Robin: “Ça ne peut pas durer comme ça” [This cannot go on like this].
At nineteen, I traveled to Majdanek and Treblinka and learned how to say “never again” in seven ,דוע אל, languages: never again, jamais plus, nie wieder .רעמ לאמנייק, nigdy więcej.
I studied the Jewish sages and loved two pieces of their wisdom most of all. Rabbi Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I for? If not now, when?” And Rabbi Nachman used to say, “The whole world is a narrow bridge, and it is essential not to be afraid.”
Then I went to the School of Cultural Studies and learned a few more important lessons. First of all, words have meaning. Second, one must call a spade a spade. And finally, sapere aude, or have the audacity to use your own mind.
It’s laughable and preposterous that our case has anything to do with schoolchildren. I have been teaching children humanities in English, worked as a nanny, dreamed of going to a small town for two years under the “Teacher for Russia” program “to sow, in the words of Nikolay Nekrasov, the enduring seeds of reason and goodness, ,”. But Russia – through the mouth of the government prosecutor Mr. Tryakin – believes that I involved minors in life-threatening activities. If I ever have children (and I will, because I remember the Great Commandment), I will hang on their wall a portrait of the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, so that my children grow up tidy. The portrait will show Pontius Pilate washing his hands. Indeed, if thinking and caring is now life-threatening, I don’t know what to say about the gist of the charges. I wash my hands of it.
And now comes the moment of truth. The hour of legibility.
I and my friends are out of breath with horror and pain, but when I go down in the subway, I don’t see crying faces. I don’t see crying faces.
None of my favorite books – whether childrens or adult – taught indifference, callousness, or cowardice. Nowhere was I taught to resort to these expressions:
– We are humble people.
– I’m a simple person.
– Nothing is clearcut.
– You can’t trust anyone.
– I’m not interested in any of that.
– I’m staying away from politics.
– It doesn’t concern me.
– Nothing depends on me.
– The relevant agencies will sort this out.
– What could I have done on my own?
To the contrary: I know and I like the words that are quite different.
John Donne says:
“No man is an island, Entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, As well as if a promontory were: As well as if a manor of thy friend’s Or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
Mahmoud Darwish says:
“When you prepare breakfast, think of others. (Don’t forget to feed the pigeons). When you wage wars, think of others (do not forget those who seek peace). When you pay your water bill, think of others (those who are fed by the clouds). When you return to your home, think of others (do not forget those in the camps). When you sleep and count the stars, think of others (those who have no place to sleep). When you express your thoughts in metaphors, think of others (those who have lost their right to speak). When you think of those who are far away, think of yourself (say: Ah, if only I were a candle in the darkness).
[Soviet poet] Gennady Golovaty says:
“The blind cannot look wrathfully. The mute cannot shout furiously. Those with no arms cannot hold weapons. Those with no legs cannot march forward.
But – the mute can look wrathfully. But – the blind can scream furiously. But – those with no legs can hold a weapon. But – those without arms can march forward.”
I know that some are afraid. They choose to be silent. But Audrey Lord says, “Your silence will not protect you.”
Announcements in the Moscow subway say: “Passengers are forbidden to be on a train to a blind alley.”
And the St. Petersburg Aquarium band adds: “This train is on fire.”
Lao Tzu, as rendered by [Andrey] Tarkovsky [in his film Stalker], says: “The main thing is to make them believe in themselves and become helpless like children. For fragility is great and mightiness is insignificant. When a human is born, he is soft and flexible, and when he dies, he is hard and rigid. When a tree grows, it is tender and flexible, and when it is dry and stiff, it dies. Stiffness and hardiness are the companions of death. Softness and flexibility convey the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not prevail.”
Remember that fear eats the soul. Remember Kafka’s character who, assuming gallows was built for him in the prison yard, escaped from his cell at night and hanged himself.
Be like children. Don’t be afraid to ask (yourself and others) what is good and what is evil. Don’t be afraid to say that the king is naked. Don’t be afraid to shout, to burst into tears. Remind yourself and others: two plus two equals four. Black is black. White is white. I am a human, I am strong and bold. We are strong and bold.
[As stated by Avery Gordon paraphrasing Tony Cade Bambara,] freedom is the process by which you develop a habit for being unavailable for servitude.
The Final Statement in other languages: Russian (original), Italian, Romanian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Dutch, Czech.
Dorogomilovsky District Court, Moscow, Russia
April 1, 2022
Source: https://doxa.team/articles/lastword-alla
More about the case: https://memopzk.org/dossier/delo-doxa/
Фото: Evgeny Feldman. Meduza
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