Обстоятельства вступления в должность

Владимир Путин официально занял пост президента России. В день церемонии вступления в должность и накануне в Москве прошли многочисленные столкновения полиции с участниками протестных акций. По итогам двух дней было задержано около 600 человек, 7 человек были госпитализированы,  несколько десятков получили ранения, один человек погиб – им оказался фотограф,  который пытаясь снять колонну сверху, сорвался с высоты пятого этажа и разбился.

Воскресенье, 6 мая, уже окрестили «кровавым воскресеньем». В этот день в Москве состоялось шествие оппозиции «Марш миллионов». По оценкам организаторов, в нем приняло участие около 100 тысяч человек. Официальные оценки, как всегда, в несколько раз ниже – 10 тысяч. Хотя журналисты сообщали, что сами полицейские передавали данные о 70 тысячах. Столкновения с полицейскими начались в момент, когда многотысячная толпа оказалась отрезана полицейским кордоном от Болотной площади, где должен был состояться митинг.

В интернете  выложено довольно много видео- и фотосвидетельств начавшейся давки, попыток прорвать полицейские кордоны и жестких задержаний. Здесь

хорошо виден общий план. В фоторепортаже блогера Ильи Епишкина кадры с «Марша миллионов» (http://onlife.me/2012/05/marsh-millionov-v-trex-fotografiyax/#comment-13697). Видео с задержаниями людей и противостояния с полицейскими, снятое журналистами «Новой газеты»

Организаторы «Марша миллионов» сразу после начала беспорядков были задержаны полицией – Сергея Удальцова, Алексея Навального и Бориса Немцова доставили в полицейский участок. Они призвали людей не расходиться и продолжить борьбу. В тот же день несколько лидеров общественного мнения, принадлежавших к лагерю оппозиции, осудили оранизаторов «марша» и обвинили их в провокациях, в результате которых пострадали люди.

Например, Ксения Собчак, активная участница митингов «За честные выборы» написала в своем Живом Журнале (http://sobchak-xenia.livejournal.com/6049.html), что впервые отказалась от участия в акции, поскольку знала о готовящихся беспорядках. «Я – мирный оппозиционер», – заявила Собчак. В то же время она обвинила Кремль в неадекватности реакции на протестное движение, которая привела к его радикализации.

7 мая столкновения  с полицией на улицах Москвы продолжились. Особое внимание уделялось центральным магисталям, по которым должен был проследовать кортеж Владимира Путина.  В итоге новый президент проследовал по зачищенным улицам.

Этому предшествовала активная работа специальных подразделений с оппозицией. В частности, есть видео журналистов «Радио Свобода» о том, как полиция выгоняет людей из кафе Жан-Жак на Никитском бульваре – традиционном месте сбора либеральной публики.

В Москву в этот день традиционно прибыли для поддержки Путина представители молодежных прокремлевских движений из разных городов России. Они заняли те же улицы, что и оппозиционеры – Тверской и Никитский бульвары, Пушкинскую площадь. Молодежь с сердечками «Путин любит всех» раздавала ленточки с цветами российского триколора, пыталась скандировать «Путин вас любит», а в ответ получала довольно жесткие оценки от противников Путина. На этом видео

 

видно противостояние двух групп: одни кричат «Россия без Путина», другие «Путин, победа!».

В целом, настроение от этих двух дней не то, чтобы испорчено – протестное движение находится в некотором шоке от событий 6 мая и жестокости полиции. Владимир Путин никак не отреагировал на проиходящее на Болотной площади. Между тем Сергей Удальцов и Алексей Навальный, уже получившие титул «радикальных левых лидеров»,  готовят новые акции протеста.

The Inauguration

MYPLACE team members  at Centre for Youth Research, Higher School of Economics (St Petersburg) write on events surrounding the inauguration of President Putin.

For more information on the MYPLACE project, visit the project’s website: HERE

Vladimir Putin officially became Russian president. On the day of the inauguration ceremony numerous confrontations between the protest participants and the police occurred.  About 600 people were detained at the end of the second day, 7 were hospitalized, dozens were injured, one died  – a photographer who was trying to take a picture of the action from the top, fell down from the fifth floor and died.

Sunday, the 6^th of May, has already been named “The Bloody Sunday”. The opposition’s demonstration called “Million-man march”took place this day. According to the organizers, around 100 thousand people took part in it. Official figures, as always, are much smaller – 10 thousand.  Journalists reported that police officers had given the figure of 70 thousand people. The confrontations started when a crowd of thousands was not allowed to procede toBolotnaya Square, the initial place of the demonstration, by the police cordon.

Numerous videos and photographs approving the cram started as well as the attempts to break the cordon and violent detentions were uploaded in the Internet.  Here is a wide shot of the action. 

 

 These are blogger’s Ilya Epishkin’s photographs from the “Million-man march” (http://onlife.me/2012/05/marsh-millionov-v-trex-fotografiyax/#comment-13697) and a video showing detentions of people and confrontations with the policemen made by “Novaya Gazeta” journalists

 

 

The “Million-men march” organisers were detained right after the unrest started – Sergey Udaltsov, Alexey Navalny and Boris Nemtsov were delivered to the police station. They encouraged people not to leave the demostration and continue the struggle. This day a couple of public opinion oppositional leaders critisized the organizers of the “march” and accused them of provocations that lead to people’s suffering.

For example, Ksenia Sobchak, who was actively participating in the “For Fair Elections” protests, made a post in her LiveJournal saying that it was the first time she decided not to participate in the demostration as she predicted the unrest beforehand. (http://sobchak-xenia.livejournal.com/6049.html) “I am a peaceful oppositionist”, – she claimed. At the same time she accused Kremlin for the inadequate reaction on the protest movement that lead to its radicalization.

On the 7th of May confrontations with the police continued in Moscow. Attention was concentrated on the central avenues where Putin’s cortege was supposed to proceed. As a result, the new president proceeded on the deserted streets. 

 

 This was preceded by active work of the special police units with the opposition. Particularly, here is a “Radio Svoboda” journalists’ video showing how the police gets the people out of Jean-Jaque cafe on Nikitinsky boulevard that is a traditional place of liberal oriented people meetings.

As a tradition, pro-Kremlin youth activists arrived in Moscow from different cities to support Putin. They occupied the same streets at oppositionists – Tverskoy and Nikitinsky boulevards, Pushkinskaya Square.

 Young people holding hearts saying “Putin loves everyone” were handing out ribbons with the colours of the Russian flag and as a feedback they were getting rude definitions from Putin’s opponents. This video shows the confrontation between the two groups: one was shouting “Russia without Putin!» the other – “Putin, our victory!”

It is not that the people are down after these two days – people are shocked of the events on the 6th of May and the police’s violence. Vladimir Putin didn’t respond anyhow on these happenings onBolotnaya Square. Meanwhile, Sergey Udaltsov and Alexey Navalny, having got the name of “radical left activists”, are preparing other protest actions.

Socialist Party, crime scenes and cycling: A view on Latvian events on May Day

In another installment of feedback from MYPLACE partner teams on May Day marches, protests and other activities, Liga Rudzite from our Latvian team adds the view from Riga, where cycling eclipsed formal politics in media coverage.

For more information on the MYPLACE project visit the project’s website: HERE

To see the earlier blogs on May Day activities, see here and here.

Two different events took place in Riga – one was organized by a political party, the other – as a joint effort of several non-governmental (including youth) organizations.

The demonstration organized by the Socialist Party of Latvia (not represented in the Parliament of Latvia) gathered around 100 participants in the Park of Revolution of Year 1905, Riga. Participants were waving red colored flags and flags with the logo and name of the party. Slogans carried by the participants read “Power to the people, not capital”, “The key to success of Latvia – very patient people?”, “1st of May – long live solidarity of working class!”. Both representatives of the Riga City Council and other members of the party were giving speeches in Latvian and Russian on topics of current situation in Latvia from the perspective of the party.

The second event taking place was a protest action organized in collaboration of NGO’s Progressives, Renewed Latvia, Reform Task Force of Latvia and youth organizations Patriots.lv and Youth Union of Social democrats. Around 40 people took part in the action taking place by the Cabinet of Ministers. Protesters formed a line, holding a red and white tape symbolizing police line surrounding a crime scene. Participants used cardboard human-size dolls symbolizing those that have migrated from Latvia looking for better work opportunities in other countries. The action protested against political decisions that were claimed to benefit banks, party donors and international creditors, instead of welfare of all people of Latvia.

Besides these actions, there was also the annual Critical Mass bicycle ride taking place in Riga. Inviting participants to think of their own cause and message to express during the ride and to develop their own route of the ride, the event gathered more than a 100 cyclists. One of the leading ideas behind the event was to promote bicycle friendly traffic management in Riga. Interestingly this event received the largest media coverage from all 3 events of 1st of May, as about 38 participants were stopped and fined by the Police for different violations of traffic laws.

Neo-Nazi party ‘Golden Dawn’ enters the Greek Parliament

The Greek MYPLACE team at Panteion University Of Social And Political Sciences present their follow-up to last week’s pre-election blog on the emergence of the “Golden Dawn,” after the party’s gains in Sunday’s parliamentary elections,  

For more information on the MYPLACE project, visit the project’s website: HERE

As it was expected the self-defined as nationalist, but actually neo-Nazi group, ‘Golden Dawn’ managed to enter the parliament after the 6^th of May elections in Greece. Even though, according to all the opinion polls before the elections this was anticipated, no one wanted to believe that the final percentage of this extremist party would be almost 7% (6.97%), while in the previous elections in 2009 they have received only the 0.29% of the votes (i.e. 19,624). Now they have been voted from 440.894 Greek citizens and gained 21 seats, becoming the 6^th of the seven parties entering the parliament. From the first results and the analysis of the exit polls emerge some very interesting findings. Among the new voters, i.e. those voting for the first time, ‘Golden Dawn’ is the second party with 12%, after the Coalition of the Left, which is the first one with 16%. Furthermore, among the unemployed is the fifth party with 9% surpassing PASOK (the previous governmental party). In addition, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs ‘Golden Dawn’ gained many votes in two regions ofGreece, which suffered from the German Occupation during theWWII. In Distomo, where in 1944 the Germans executed 218 people (men, women and children) ‘Golden Dawn gained’ 5.96% of the votes, while in Kalavryta, where the Germans burned the whole village killing 848 people ‘Golden Dawn’ gained 6.44% of the votes.   

    Immediately after the announcement of the first exit polls members of the ‘Golden Dawn’ started celebrating their victory. In the following video you can watch their celebrations in their offices in Thessaloniki. They are mainly male with torches, who cry out their slogan: Blood, Honor, Golden Dawn, which of course rhymes in Greek.

http://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/?aid=195306 (In order to watch the video wait for a few seconds. It follows the short advertisement spot) 

From the celebrations outside the group’s head offices in Athens

Around midnight, the day of the elections, the General Secretary of the party gave his first press conference in a hotel room near the organization’s head offices in Athens. Among other things he attacked against the “junta of the memorandum”, against the “millions of the illegal immigrants who where brought here without asking us” and against the media, which criticized him and his party. He dedicated this victory to “the fine upstanding youths with the black shirts and the ancient Greek letters” and he remembered Julius Caesar’s “Veni, Vidi, Vici” to characterize his victory.  The interesting of this conference, though, took place a few minutes before its beginning. Before the entrance of the General Secretary one of the members asked all the present journalists and cameramen, Greek and foreigners, to rise up upon his entrance because this is a habit among the members of the group, when the ‘leader’, as he said, enters the room.

After the General Secretary’s entrance the journalists were allowed to seat down again!

 A Greek female journalist reacted arguing that they are not members of the ‘Golden Dawn’, but journalists, who are there to cover the press conference. When the general secretary entered the members insisted screaming a military order in ancient Greek meaning “all rise” and kicked out of the room those reporters, who denied rising up as a gesture of respect for their leader, arguing that they are free to exit the room if they don’t want to follow their orders! Below you can see the relevant video.  

Of course, there were many reactions after this incident, but the Golden Dawn’s members seem not to regret about this action. In fact, a new PM and second in the group’s hierarchy, according to the media, when asked about that, he replied that from now on journalists should learn to obey and what discipline means. As it is obvious, this is only the beginning and as the General Secretary of the ‘Golden Dawn’ said closing his press conference “those who betrayed our country should now be afraid. We are coming! We will continue our fight inside and outside the parliament”.

“Members of the ‘Golden Dawn’ passing in the street”: The emergence of far right extremism and the elections of the 6th of May in Greece

The Greek MYPLACE team at Panteion University Of Social And Political Sciences on the forthcoming Greek elections and the emergence of the extreme right “Golden Dawn.”

For more information on the MYPLACE project, visit the project’s website: HERE

Less than a week before the most crucial elections in Greece after the restoration of democracy in 1974 it seems that far-right extremism, as it is expressed by the organization ‘Golden Dawn’, is going to be part of the forthcoming parliament assembly for the first time in almost forty years. This extremist organization was founded in the first place as a periodical in 1980 by his current General Secretary. In 1983 stops its publication and it reappears next year (1984). The General Secretary of the Golden Dawn, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, was the leader of the party the Dictator G. Papadopoulos founded while he was in prison after the fall of the military junta and he founded the political party National Popular Movement – Golden Dawn in 1985. The first activities of the movement were the participation in the rallies about the so called ‘Macedonian issue’, i.e. the name of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and of course the participation in the civil war in Yugoslavia supporting the Serbs. It is very interesting, that Golden Dawn did not participate in the elections of 2007 and in 2009 received 19,624 votes (only 0.29% of the votes). However, in the local elections of 2010 in Athens received 10,222 votes (5.29%) and managed to elect its General Secretary as a local counselor, who in one of the first assemblies of the municipal council gave the fascist salute (they argue that this is a ancient Greek salute and not a fascist one), something that almost all the members do in their gatherings. Today, all the polls agree that Golden Dawn is going to receive between 4 and 7% of the votes and it is almost certain that approximately 15 PMs are going to be elected.
Even though the Golden Dawn begun as a Nazi organization, also supporting ancient Greek civilization and religion, during the last two years and in order to gain the support of the Greek society it denounces its Nazi past and declare its Greek-Orthodox character. They are against globalization, against the corrupted political system and of course against the troika and the austerity measures imposed on the Greek society. However, their main interest is immigrants (legal and illegal), because according to their ideology the Greeks belong to Arian race and as a consequence all other races are considered inferior.

Popular Nationalist Movement
Golden Dawn
“Greece belongs to the Greeks”

Furthermore, they argue that unemployment is caused by the too many illegal immigrants who take the jobs of the Greeks and that criminality is in such high rates only because of the immigrants. In many cases, they have attacked immigrants, who in their majority are afraid to press charges against them, they have attacked leftists and members of anti-racist/ anti-fascist organizations, and also they have attacked politicians of the main political parties. Recently, they started to give food supplies to those who are poor, homeless and unemployed and they are very proud that they managed to ‘clean’ of the immigrants the square of Aghios Panteleimon of Athens in the center of the city. In addition, some of the organization’s members have been convicted for participating in activities of the common penal law (e.g. robberies, murders, etc.). During, the last days they attacked many left-wing electoral stands in many regions of Athens and they were also accused of attacking immigrants, who were begging for some money in Crete.

After the attack of the Golden Dawn against the electoral stand of the Left Coalition

From their attack against the stand of the Democratic Left the same night. On the left of course you can see the swastika and the name and on the right they have written: “We will burn you the following day (of the elections)”. It is very interesting that even though they denounce their Nazi past and the symbol of swastika arguing that their symbol is an ancient Greek meander in their graffiti they exclusively use the swastika.

They are very active in a local level, but they are considered a dangerous and closed organization. Recently, Reutersand the Associated Press did some research about them but they were not willing to answer questions about the issue of violence against the immigrants.  They argue that if they are elected they will bring back the minefields in the borders with Turkey in order stop immigration and also that they will abolish the ‘alternative military service’ for those denying it because of conscience reasons. Additionally, those denying the military service will lose their citizenship. It is evident, that the reason of the increase of their percentages is the immigration issue.

The newspaper and periodical of the organisation

They are also very active in the internet, and even though they accuse the mainstream media of preventing their public presence they themselves ask the Greek citizens to close their TVs because they can find them on the internet, where they have their blogs, their websites, their twitter account, special sites for the youth division (http://www.resistance-hellas.blogspot.com/) and special sites for women (http://whitewomenfront.blogspot.com/).

 http://xryshaygh.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/emvatirio/ (Golden Dawn’s march with the title “Members of the ‘Golden Dawn’ passing in the street”).

From the Golden Dawn’s commemoration of the 1996 crisis with Turkey (Athens, January 2012)

The periodical of the organization’s youth division “counter-attack”

However, one of the specialists we interviewed for WP 3 said that there is no special participation of youth in this organization to the point that it would be worth mentioning it or at least to the point that it is different from youth participation in other parties and coalitions.

A Danish post-script to “MYPLACE multi-national views on May Day Labour Movements”

Following on from yesterday’s multi-national blog on Mayday activities in MYPLACE partner countries, Carsten Yndigegn from Southern Denmark University adds this, having missed the original editorial deadline, due to being out “in the field” where local events were taking place. For more information on the MYPLACE project visit the project’s website: HERE

“I spent the morning with students in Copenhagen, who of course should participate in the festival-like gathering in the People’s Park, but at the same time stated that they were not ‘red’, but attended because of the cosiness. 

In our research area, a more interesting thing happened, which tells something about the still high terrorist threat risk in the perception of the authorities. The prime minister should give a speech about noon. The Prime minister should give a speech in the main square, but the square was emptied by police, and the speech was moved to a nearby park (the fairy tale park, a commemoration of H C Andersen, who was born in the city) due to the risk of a terrorist attack. Somebody had seen a man disposing a bag in a trash can near the spot where PM should give her speech. The police ‘shot dead’ the bag, and inspected the remains, which contained some ordinary goods. I appeared that the bag had been stolen in a nearby shop (for the money purse it contained) and disposed of by the thief.

 And the PM’s speech? The Prime Minister addressed the radical increasing youth unemployment in Denmark.  (although still at a low level compared to parts of Europe more worse off).”

Again, we see the role of memory at play, and again a sense of the de-politicising of 1st May events, as politics gives way to fun for many young people.

MYPLACE multi-national views on May Day Labour Movements

With Mayday labour protests and marches taking place across the world, MYPLACE Project team members were hastily polled on what was (or perhaps just as tellingly was not) happening near them.

The results are a rough and highly unscientific collection of observations (both first hand and based on local news reports), which nevertheless serve to show the constant relevance of the project’s work, as well as hinting at the benefits of using a large international team to address international issues.

For more information on the MYPLACE project visit the project’s website: HERE

Contributors: Martin Price (University of Warwick, UK),  David Cairns and Nuno de Almeida Alves (Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, Lisbon, Portugal), Dr Dusan Deak (Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda v Trnave, Slovakia), Domonkos Sik and Florian Sipos (Debreceni Egyetem, Hungary), Marti Taru (Tallinn University, Estonia)

As an exercise, this straw poll was perhaps hindered by the fact that public holidays across much of Europe meant some people were unavailable to comment.

However, responses from the UK, Portugal and Hungary revealed activities chiefly organised by the trade unions. David Cairns, of CIES Portugal reported “As in previous years, the major unions will be holding marches in central Lisbon.  Most of these marches will take place in the afternoon, with the various unions having their own separate marches, e.g. CGTP (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers) and UGT (General Workers Union). Other such marches will be taking place across Portugal.” while in the UK a major rally took place in Trafalgar Square, London where crowds were addressed by Trade Union leaders. Closer to home in the West Midlands, a demonstration by Birmingham Against the Cuts was held in the ’Second City.’ In Hungary, Domonkos Sik tells us that “the trade unions are organizing a protest demonstration against the financial politics of the government and the new labour law, which drastically cuts back employee rights.” 

Posters for the day's march in Lisbon, which is underway in the background.

In Estonia, the situation was somewhat different, with Marti Taru of Tallinn University revealing that Estonian unions had adopted a more conciliatory tone “No marches in Estonia. Trade Union leader made an announcement that they want emphasize cooperation and negotiating between employees and employers instead of confrontation and conflict. So there are no demonstrations in Estonia. As a matter of fact a number of demonstrations and strikes took place earlier this spring, so trade unions stress peace and understanding now.” Which serves to remind us that the differences we find between countries and regions during the project can be just as interesting as the similarities.

In Slovakia, Dusan Deak discovered that “in one of major Slovakia’s towns, Zilina, there was a meeting of trade-union activists” which was attended by only a few hundred people. With Slovakia’s socialist Prime Minister in attendance, we must doubt whether this can be classed as a ‘protest’ in any event.

A march of the communist party was planned for one of the squares in Bratislava, but this again was quite low-key.

The Slovakian situation appeared to Dusan to be typified rather by apathy. In a theme very crucial to MYPLACE, history nad memory have a part to play here. According to Dusan, 1st May is associated with compulsary marches under the old communist regime. The day remains a public holiday, which many people are happy to keep quite separate from memories of compulsary marching. Put more succinctly “sun is shining, who cares about old communists?” Further evidence of this post-communist reaction are found in Hungary, where Florian noted that “After the obligatory mass “demonstrations” of the socialist era, in Hungary, 1 May became a small-scale, peaceful family event, celebrating the spring. The most important symbols of it are taking a walk (not a common march, a family walk) in a park, balloons for the kids, sausage and beer for the daddies. May Day lost its political meaning for most of the participants.

 The most exciting thing was that 5 persons were arrested for wearing red star, which is prohibited authoritarian symbol in Hungary.”

So we find the M (Memory) and PL (Political Legacy) of MYPLACE very much in evidence, both in Slovakian apathy and in the historical overtones of Labour Day marches. But what of the Y (Youth)?

Lisbon: Youth not much in evidence

It seems that youth focus has been limited (though far from non-existant) in these marches. In Lisbon generally, youth were “Generally not in the union-led marches, which are if anything more gerotocentric” according to David Cairns, although Nuno de Almeida Alves found other activity “at the square of Camões (organised by Mayday Lisbon where more younger people were demonstrating).”  Youth unemployment was, however, a focus of speeches at the rallies.

In Hungary, Domonkos Sik found little youth engagement with the Unions. Does this reflect apathy to the issues, or a failure of the Unions to engage with youth? Questions to be addressed in MYPLACE research no doubt. However, as Florian Sipos discovered, young people were more apparent in other activities; “In Sopron [a MYPLACE field location], a sport event was organized with 600 young participants playing football.”

In Slovakia, young people were not prominent in marches, but were more engaged in “Retros” set up to ridicule the compulsary marches of the old regime. If the theme elsewhere was economic crisis, labour law and austerity, the theme in these “Retros” was simpler: Fun.

The UK also saw branching out from purely economic themes. One group declared Tuesday to be ‘National CC All Your Emails To Theresa May Day’ in protest against planned monitoring of internet use.

Occupy movements were also active around the UK. This was also echoed in Hungary, according to Florian Sipos; “The Occupy Hungary movement organized small flashmobs.”

Astute observation from the Portugese team also perhaps reminds us of the importance of challenging our assumptions, in this instance when viewing protests in the context of the current global economic climate “Protests this year are centring upon changes to worker’s rights and conditions, and in the areas welfare cuts, social security and education. While this can be connected to the recent austerity policies, it should be noted that such concerns were equally prominent prior to the post 2008 economic crisis.”

On a somewhat lighter note, and again on the need to be wary of assumptions, David Cairns, on a whim, or a fit of creative verve, took this photograph of litter in the streets, explained as follows: “For some reason, there was no garbage collection last night (typical pre-holiday tardiness on the part of the local binmen I’m afraid rather than an anti-austerity protest) and there is rubbish everywhere thanks to this morning’s strong winds.”

Portugese litter courtesy of mundane bank holiday logistics, rather than public sector protest, apparently.