Member-only story
The fierce anti Putin critic, died today in a remote prison colony in the Arctic region.
An article in the WSJ quoted his reply to a question he was asked in 2022 — ‘What message would he leave to the Russian people if he was killed?’
‘Don’t give up’ Navalny said, ‘everything that’s needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing. So, act.’
It’s a message for all of us.
The preservation of democracy concerns every citizen of a nation.
Repressive forces everywhere use the same approach. Fear. Intimidation. Brute force.
Repressive and autocratic leaders don’t come to power overnight.
They do gradually.
Putin started in 1999 when he became prime minister.
Slowly he began to abuse his authority.
And Russians looked the other way. ‘It will be all right,’ they told themselves.
But they did not speak to power.
And then Putin abused a little more his increasing authority.
And Russians looked at each other again and said, ‘it will be all right.’
They did not speak to power.
And so Putin’s rule grew and grew to the point that he said to his people,
‘I wish to expand Russia’s territory. We don’t have enough. To accomplish this I need your sons and daughters to go fight and kill Ukrainians.’
‘Will our children be back?’ Asked the parents, timidly.
And Putin smiled kindly and replied, ‘What greater honor is there than to die in defense of our growing empire?’
Alexei Navalny saw through the absurdity of all of it.
He saw that…
