Nov 17

Nov 17 Berlin In Chicago

Chicago, Demonstrations, Protest, Public Declarations

“I find it hard to believe you don’t know
The beauty you are
But if you don’t, let me be your eyes
A hand to your darkness so you won’t be afraid”

— I’ll Be Your Mirror, The Velvet Underground (1967)

Michigan Avenue’s retailers will have a prosperous holiday season if the number of shoppers scurrying up and down the Magnificent Mile today is any indication of what is to come. Following Donald J. Trump’s resurrection on November 5th, many may have been engaged in what has been referred to as ‘Doom Shopping’—welcome to Trump 2.0.

Shortly after 2:00 PM, shoppers passing the Wrigley Building heard chants reverberating off the building’s terra cotta facade. “Putin is a War Criminal” “Support Ukraine Now” “Stop Putin, Stop War.” One hundred members of Chicago’s Russian community, including recent émigrés, were holding a rally coinciding with similar rallies throughout the world. No surprise, there was no rally in Moscow, where demonstrators would have faced immediate arrest had they marched down Tverskaya Street, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, which was used for demonstrations during different times.

The Chicago group occupied the same plaza several times earlier this year, including the evening of February 16th, when they celebrated the life of their hero, Alexei Navalny, while mourning his death at the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today, the members of this community were demonstrating in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, demanding that Russia cease waging war against Ukraine. Chicago’s Ukrainian Community will be commemorating 1,000 days of resilience on Tuesday evening at 7:00 PM outside the Wrigley Building.

With Trump’s victory, both the Russians and Ukrainians are positioning themselves on the ground in anticipation of Trump’s outlandish claim that he will end the war in just one day, using his well-honed negotiating skills, the ones that have resulted in several bankruptcies. Most likely, Trump will force Ukraine into submission by cutting off U.S. armaments. While Putin will give his assurances to the gullible Trump that he will respect Ukraine’s now reduced boundaries, Putin will use time to his advantage, rebuilding his depleted army and arsenal in anticipation of yet another attempt at incorporating Ukraine into the Russia of his youth. The world will know just how serious Trump is about Ukraine’s ongoing security by how long Ukraine is precluded from joining NATO and other Western alliances. In all likelihood, Trump is not very serious, so expect a 20-year prohibition.

One of the demonstration’s leaders noted that today, President Biden had finally relented, permitting the Ukrainians to use American-supplied weaponry to launch attacks in Russia’s Kursk region. Biden apparently hopes to place Ukraine on more solid footing before Trump sells Ukraine and the West out, hoping to curry favor with Putin. For those who don’t know, decades ago, the Kremlin began cultivating Trump as a potential “useful idiot.” The full story is recounted in Craig Unger’s book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery (2022). [Note: I have read only summaries of the book.]

Those gathered outside the Wrigley Building probably wished that they could have been in Berlin, where Yulia Navalnaya headed up the lead demonstration, with Russian dissidents Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza accompanying her and thousands of others (estimates range from 1,600 to 6,000) as they marched from Potsdamer Platz to the Russian Embassy, passing the Cold War landmark, Checkpoint Charlie, along the way. Navalanya, who is the late Alexi Navalny’s widow, told the crowd,

We must come out and struggle against the Putin regime, come out and struggle against this war that Putin started with Ukraine, come out and remind about political prisoners.

Before the march, Ivan Zhdanov, the director of FBK, Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, told those gathered in Berlin,

Never before during Putin’s entire rule has there been such a level of political repression, such a level of censorship, such a situation where the entire opposition has been destroyed in Russia, and those who have not been destroyed forced to leave Russia.

Similar sentiments were expressed on Michigan Avenue, as speakers delivered passionate remarks, sometimes in English, but mostly in Russian.

The Chicago demonstration was organized by Voice of Free Russia-Chicago, but representatives from Green Ribbon, Media Partisans, the Feminist Anti-War Resistance, the Voice of Reason, and Vesna took part. Each of those groups is an association of Russian dissidents and others who oppose Putin.

The spokesperson for Green River told those gathered outside the Wrigley Building,

Current unprecedented repressions in Russia make it increasingly dangerous to resist the criminal regime and to speak out against the war. Every day, the number of Russians persecuted for their stance, opinions, and protests grows.

We the Green Ribbon movement, helping Russians protest safely, anonymously, but efficiently. Our goal is to make a protest noticeable but also maximize the safety of every activist.

Joining a public protest in Russia right now is the equivalent of suicide. Nevertheless, nobody can forbid us from writing anti-war songs on paper bills, from secretly hanging green ribbon or from leaving anonymous messages on walls.

Together we will win.

[Translation provided by the organizers]

Another person, who spoke for Media Partisans, told the demonstrators,

Greetings from “Media Partisans!”

We are the anti-war initiative, which was created right after the beginning of the invasion. Our primary goal is to unite efforts and focus on helping anyone who opposes Putin and war regardless of their political preferences.

We wish you strength in your pursuit of freedom and justice. Every dictatorship comes to an end, and Putin’s will end too.

[Translation provided by the organizers]

Following the speeches, two members of Russian America for Democracy in Russia—Chicago (RADR—Chicago) unfurled the blue and white flag symbolizing the Free Russia movement. Others members placed the red, white, and blue flag of the Russian Federation on the ground, and then poured what was presumably red dye on it, representing Russian and Ukrainian blood.

All the demonstrators then assembled for a “Team Photo.” Once all the photographers were satisfied, everyone snapped into formation for the march along Michigan Avenue to the Art Institute of Chicago. After a brief speech outside the Art Institute, the group reversed course, heading back to the Wrigley Building, where they then dispersed.

To those shoppers who were snapping photographs with their phones: the demonstration was not just some cute Instagram moment. “Hey, look at those crazy Russian people.” Those holding the flags and signs were taking advantage of our First Amendment, speaking out against the repression and autocracy that drove the demonstrators from their homeland. Several fled Russia in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Now in the United States, these political refugees rely on temporary visa status, classified as asylum seekers. For them, Donald Trump’s victory poses risks and uncertainties. Will they be denied asylum? Will they be returned to Putin’s Russia, facing imprisonment or death? Despite those risks, they still take to the streets, most without masks hiding their identities.

Will Putin send assassins, dowsing them with zelyonka, a green dye that can cause blindness—the same dye that was used against Alexi Navalny on at least two occasions. Or will the attack involve the deadly nerve agent, Novichok? Members of the Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) likely dosed a cup of tea that Navalny drank just before boarding a plane from Tomsk (in Serbia) to Moscow on August 20, 2020. The plane was diverted to Berlin, where Navalny spent five months recovering in a German hospital. This was the same nerve agent used to poison former KGB spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, while they were in Great Britain in 2018. Is anyone in the United States safe from the FSB and their agents, particularly given the porous borders that Trump rails against?

Earlier in the day, the Sunday morning news shows discussed Trump’s nominees for cabinet and other equally important positions, including Matt Gaetz, the nominee for Attorney General, and Peter Hegseth, the nominee for Secretary of Defense. Given Trump’s call to prosecute the “enemy from within” and his stated intent to use the military to curb protests, longstanding American citizens may see their civil liberties seriously curtailed in the months to come. If these unqualified men are confirmed, Trump will have two compliant lickspittles in key positions, thereby permitting Trump to carry out his perverted plans.

The Russian émigrés standing in front of the Wrigley Building today should not be viewed as amusing curiosities. Collectively, they are a beacon, one that is flashing bright red. In demanding that Putin be ousted and freedom returned to Russia, they function as a gigantic mirror. Each passerby, even if moving quickly, is forced to look into that mirror, if just for a moment.

That mirror recalls the Capuchin crypt below the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione near the Piazza Barberini in Rome. In what is an ossuary, displaying the bones of some 4,000 Capuchin monks who died between 1528 and 1870, there is a sign next to three artfully arranged skeletons that reads “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.” It evokes the cycle of human life. Repurposed, it also serves as a stark warning to those gaping into the mirror held by the demonstrators. Like those holding the mirror, the shoppers may lose what they now take for granted. Freedom.

[I generally don’t take positions regarding the events I cover. I make an exception for Ukrainian and anti-Putin Russian demonstrations. There is only one correct viewpoint.]

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It. The Images Are Not Necessarily in Exact Chronological Order]