“WE ARE ALL PUSSY RIOT!” “FREE PUSSY RIOT!” “JOIN US AT X EVENT IN SOLIDARITY WITH PUSSY RIOT!”.
It’s everywhere these days. Madonna has “supported” Pussy Riot! Celebrities everywhere stand for Pussy Riot. My Facebook timeline is full of support for Pussy Riot from well intentioned Dutch people who are outraged. OUTRAGED I TELL YOU that these women are detained.
And yet, not a single acknowledgement in their complicity for the incarceration of Pussy Riot. Because if you are a Dutch person (or a citizen of the EU for that matter), whether you like it or not, the suffering of these women partially rests on your hands. You are complicit, via the State that represents you and the government(s) that you have voted for the administration of the State, for the incarceration of these women. Oh you say that’s too much of a stretch of the imagination? No, it isn’t.
Royal Dutch Shell, one of the corporations that “represents” Dutch interests in Russia has been repeatedly accused of bribing the Russian regime to get oil drilling contracts in the country. Shell’s bribing practices are so widespread and shameless that the Board even included them in their past shareholder’s reports. Needless to say, they have made quite recent statements of their interest to further expand their drilling capabilities in the Russian arctic. Shell is an Anglo-Dutch corporation with headquarters in The Hague. Paying taxes in The Netherlands while they stand accused of corrupted practices in Russia in complicity with the Russian government.
The complicity of the Dutch government in Human Rights abuses has even been highlighted by Radio Netherlands in a report
The case highlights a fundamental dilemma for Dutch foreign policy – when does addressing human rights abuses take precedence over economic interests? Dutch foreign ministers usually try to do both. The current cabinet’s foreign policy is decidedly pro-business, however, leading critics to suspect that human rights are no longer a priority.
The European Union has a joint cooperation agreement between the Border Police task force and the Russian government to keep “illegal” immigrants outside the EU borders:
Cooperation between the EU and the Russian Federation in the field of Justice, Freedom and Security has increased rapidly over recent years and is now a key component in the development of the strategic partnership. The EU is focussed on making progress in each of the three areas of the EU-Russia Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice for the implementation of which a detailed roadmap was agreed in May 2005. The six-monthly Permanent Partnership Councils (PPCs) on Justice, Freedom and Security set priorities and monitor progress.
The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the EU (FRONTEX) signed a first working arrangement with Russia in January 2006, enabling practical and operational cooperation on the common border. This comprises annual meetings at executive level, regular meetings of experts on risk analysis, training, and research and development related to border management, as well as the possibility of involvement of the Russian border guard authorities in joint operations under the aegis of FRONTEX. FRONTEX has agreed on a joint cooperation plan with the Russian Border Guard Service to take cooperation forward.
The European Union and Russia are engaged in talks on further enhancing cooperation on migration and asylum related issues.
And straight from the Russian Government’s mouth:
The Border Guard Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (FRONTEX) established contacts in 2006. Cooperation of the two agencies is carried out on the basis of Terms of Reference on the establishment of operational cooperation and of the relevant Common Actions Plan. Russian representatives have taken part in a number of operations coordinated by FRONTEX.
Recognizing the need to further strengthen cooperation on migration, in May 2011 Russia and EU launched a high-level Dialogue on Migration and agreed the parameters of this new cooperation format. The Dialogue will comprise regular exchange of views on topical issues of legal migration, asylum process, other forms of international protection, as well as combating illegal migration and trafficking in human beings.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. When these three women put their bodies at the service of resistance, they were also resisting US. They were resisting the complicity of the very same States that enable their oppression. The Russian government does not exist in a vacuum, it exists within an international network of corporate, military and political interests that enable this corruption and oppression because it is “profitable”.
So, you want to offer your “solidarity” for Pussy Riot? How about you start to de-colonize your own relationship to the oppression of these women? How about you start to examine how you, inadvertently perhaps, benefit from the actions of the Russian government and the “cooperation” that our own governing bodies have in place to keep people like these women outside our own borders? Pussy Riot should be freed immediately, but the political systems that incarcerate them will remain fully operational until we disentangle how their freedom is bound to our own collective responsibilities.
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