The Pussy Riot Olympics A Review of Masha Gessen's "Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot"

By Kelly Cogswell

If activism were an Olympic sport, Pussy Riot would have taken the gold for their 2012 punk prayer performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Central Moscow, asking, "Virgin Mary, Mother of God, chase Putin out, / Chase Putin out, chase Putin out..." They picked the perfect target, sent a clear message, and got so much global media attention, they deserved a perfect score.

Unfortunately, instead of standing atop a podium, three of the five landed in jail, tried and convicted for "hooliganism inspired by religious hatred". Yekaterina Samutsevich was given a suspended sentence on appeal, but Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina served nearly their complete two year sentences in penal colonies before they were released in the recent amnesty for prisoners-- Putin's gambit for improved P.R. just prior to the Sochi Olympics.

In her new book, "Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot," journalist Masha Gessen transforms their now familiar story into an important exploration of rebellion itself, especially the role played by protest art and direct action when language no longer serves.

Unlike many progressive activists that see history as an arc with a pot of gold at the end of it, Gessen refreshingly asserts that it's a miracle Pussy Riot emerged at all. It's not enough to be an outcast to make protest art, "One also has to possess a sense that one can do something about it, the sense of being entitled to speak and to be heard." And the Russia that gave birth to Pussy Riot was placid with oil money, nearly mute in the face of an electoral system, judiciary, and media overwhelmingly controlled by Putin.

Trying to see what made them different, Gessen looked to their biographies and found the three jailed Pussy Riot members had quirky families, and more than one winter of discontent. They were curious, rebellious, avid readers, and despite the antifeminist culture, mostly encouraged by their families to speak their minds.

Nadya aspired to be a journalist before she was admitted at sixteen to the philosophy program at Moscow State University. She was disappointed by the other students which she quickly dismissed as mediocre and stupid, all except for Petya, a student a few years ahead who would become her boyfriend and collaborator.

Disgusted by Russian politics and society, the two didn't write radical treatises, or create new schools of philosophical thought, but joined another couple to form the art group, Voina (War),which took over public spaces like the subway to hold performances.

Gessen finds this unexpected move into art and direct action nearly inevitable, considering the legacy of the Soviet era that still echoes through everything from the surreal justice system to the glut of ex-KGB officers in lofty places from Putin to his pal, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the case of the two students, it was the Soviet impact on public rhetoric that made any other engagement impossible.

"Voina faced a challenge that perhaps exceeded challenges faced by any other artist in history: they wanted to confront a language of lies that had once been effectively confronted but had since been reconstructed and reinforced, discrediting the language of confrontation itself. There were no words left."

Gessen is onto something here, though it's not just Russians who have turned to performance art and direct action when language fails--for whatever reason. Queer Nation, the Lesbian Avengers held actions in public spaces. ACT-UP even disrupted a service at St. Patrick's Cathedral. And as Gessen herself noted, art and activism were blended in the Riot Grrrls. They, in part, inspired Pussy Riot when Nadya and other female members of Voina turned more and more towards feminism and LGBT issues.

The marginal always struggle to have a voice, find a mode of expression. It's often a radical act for us just to plant our bodies in public. As a writer, I suspect even Gessen had to consider how best to communicate the Pussy Riot story to an Anglo-American audience not only unfamiliar with Russian life and Russian politics, but often dismissive and sneering when confronted by performance art or direct action.

Her effective solution was to rely on anecdotes and details, make the world familiar. The prologue, for instance, begins with the simple phrase, "Gera wanted to pee." And Gessen describes what it's like for a four-year old girl, Gera, her dad, and granddad to go visit her now infamous mother, Nadya, in a Russian work camp. We see the squabbling, and irritation. The car of German journalists behind them. Then the penal colony with its endless rules for prisoners, and the rare visitors.

Details work the same way bodies do. When Gessen starts to write about Maria and Nadya's life in the penal colonies, details make their experience concrete, and keep the two from blurring into a generalized image of human misery. With "Words Will Break Cement" Gessen furthers the trend of what I'll call post-Soviet realists, like Yoani Sanchez in Cuba, who employ a similar strategy of understated description. Not only bearing witness to unforgivable conditions, the book illuminates the tools of resistance and social change.

Activism in Sepia: Losing Community

By Kelly Cogswell

It's Black History Month again, and time to celebrate the sepia-toned accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Watch TV, you'll learn it didn't really take work, just a lot of outrage at inequality, and the overwhelming desire for liberty, justice, and a long, pain-free life.

God, how this storytelling enrages me, how we cast a few chosen figures as heroes, and obscure any useful knowledge about the way movements actually work. In fact, the whole project seems over and done with, the monster of racism and white supremacy magically slain. So much for all the black men in prison. The inequalities of income. Voter disenfranchisement. The young black men killed in Florida when others Stand Their Ground.

Not that The Gays are any better when it comes to popularizing our history. We celebrate Pride around the anniversary of Stonewall, as if a few nights of rioting changed the world by themselves. We ignore all the activists before and after, except for Harvey Milk. And when the Supreme Court definitively overturns all the anti-gay state marriage laws, we'll toss a bunch of confetti in the air, and put the lawyers on pedestals. Hip, hip, fuckin' hurray.

Though when the worst of the courtroom battles are over, we'll discover, like African Americans, that we're left with our own intransigent problems: LGBT youth kicked out of their homes, the baby bigots in schools who torture young queer kids into suicide, or when they get older, beat the crap out of us on the street. Gay marriage won't protect anybody from AIDS. Transpeople will still find it tough getting jobs much less keeping them. And lesbians better look het, and knuckle-under, not just to homophobia but that social delight, misogyny.

Only a renewed movement can save us. Which you can forget as long as our only images of that are a few speeches and marches. A demo with horrible cops, and virtuous protesters. Not the late night conversations. The pamphlets, and phone trees, and endless, sometimes acrimonious meetings.

The real history of change is a story of tedium, and dashed hopes, too much coffee, quick affairs, so many failures that they eventually take on a critical mass that destroys the thickest walls, and somehow takes root-- if there's a thriving community, under siege, yes, but self-aware, with a language and identity that grows stronger day by day.

That was the situation, anyway, after Stonewall. And before that, when four young black freshmen from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University put on their Sunday best, and dared demand a snack at the Woolworth's lunch counter. They couldn't have done it alone in a time and place when Southern segregation was still enforced by violence, terror, and death.

Those four kids were able to fight back because they could feel the thousand and millions behind them. They were part of something bigger than themselves as students in a black college where black student groups thrived, sometimes partnering with the NAACP, sometimes emerging from black churches, sometimes in spite of them. It helped, also, that they knew of other black students that had been successful with similar protests in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. Activism begets more activism when there's a community primed and ready for it.

The irony is how quickly we minorities can become victims of our own success. Growing acceptance opens doors, and especially in the case of queers, isolates us from each other. Born among straights, young queers have begun to stay there, declaring, "I'm the same as you." The traditional community in New York is all but defunct. First dispersed from our ghettoes by gentrification, and newly satisfied with the merely gay-friendly, we've decided virtual contact is enough. Along with maybe the quick fuck.

One by one we've lost the bars, and bookstores, art projects and theaters. Activist organizations have been replaced by LGBT, Incorporated, the mammoth lobbying groups that lead the charge only in the most conservative, and acceptable, of fights. Only a few places have survived, like Women's One World Theater (WOW), and the LGBT Community Center.

As we consolidate our politics, the identity and language that evolved in the streets and bars have also been lost. Queers come out even before high school, but don't seem to have any sense of the collective, no matter how many Facebook groups they join, or selfies they "heart" on Tumblr. A girl likes girls. So what? She can still barely say the word, "lesbian," and is probably appalled by "dyke." Either because it sounds too butch, or because she hasn't heard it being reclaimed by a lesbian mouth.

And when they're turned away, insulted, bashed, all they can do is tweet about it. Post on Facebook and hope it goes viral. File a lawsuit. Shrug. What are the stakes after all? When we're only getting picked off one by one?