"Vi anklagar Putin – han mördade Navalnyj"

Som Gandhi och Martin Luther King Jr.

Ett sådant vidöppet osjälviskt mod gör Navalnyjs martyrskap svårt för alla med en hjärna att inte bli provocerad av, och alla med ett hjärta att inte bli rörd av. Jag säger därför att Navalnyj har anslutit sig till ett grupp av personer som Mahatma Gandhi och Martin Luther King Jr.

Alla som inte redan var vakna borde nu se saker och ting klart. Putin är den nye Stalin: En fiende till väst, till sitt eget folk, till civilisationen själv. Oavsett om du bor i St. Petersburg, Ryssland eller St. Petersburg, Florida, är Vladimir Putin din gemensamma fiende.

“Ekonomi som på en öde ö”

Var och en av oss kan hålla fast vid lite av Navalnyj i våra hjärtan för att fördubbla vår beslutsamhet att göra Ryssland till en “ekonomi som på en öde ö”, stödja dess fiender som Ukraina med vapen och bistånd och undergräva dess allierade som Kina och Iran med sanktioner och mer än så.

Putin tog livet av Navalnyj, men Navalnyj gav sitt eget. Putin tog det av rädsla för förändring. Navalnyj gav det med hopp om förändring.

Om Putins handling lämnar oss i ett tillstånd av sorg eller ilska, är det precis vad Aleksej skulle ha velat. Det betyder att han inte har offrat sitt liv för ingenting. Varje uns av oro vi känner, varje handling vi vidtar, hamnar i balansen för att rättfärdiga hans förlust och generositet och tippa världen mot en bättre framtid.

När det gäller Putin så skrev hans mentor och medmassmördare Stalin under på det onda mantrat, “Ingen man, inga problem.” Som svar säger jag, “Ingen man, stort problem.”

Varje martyrskap har en guldkant och jag hoppas att detta ska bli Aleksejs.

Mark Dixon

Mark Dixon grundade och driver Moral Rating Agency (moralratingagency.org), som syftar till att få företag ut ur Ryssland, Ryssland ur Ukraina, Putin ur Ryssland och diktaturer ur världen.

Översättning: Daniel Jacobs

Läs även: Navalnyjs död stoppar inte hennes kamp mot Putin (Dagens PS)

Version in english:

Murder of a Saint

Navalny’s death has a silver lining

The more evil a dictator is, the harder it is to deceive us that he isn’t one.

Putin’s murder of Alexei Navalny – with the certain knowledge it would horrify every civilised human being – should be enough to dispel the slightest shred of doubt anyone had about the monster who rules Russia. This abominable act doesn’t suddenly make Putin a murderer because Putin has been murdering people for decades. What it does is to make it more difficult for him to confuse people in the West with their heads in the sand of self-censorship, or people in the East with their heads in the fog of propaganda.

Navalny himself understood the heads-I-win-tails-Putin-loses upside of his predicament better than anyone. He knew that he – by which he meant Russia – was going to be a winner either way: if he lived, he would continue from behind bars to be Putin’s greatest critic, with a courage that inspired and a vision that gave hope; yet, if assassinated, his death would be a seminal moment that would outrage and infuse people with greater courage and vision.

His love for his country, hope for a free Russia, and belief in democratic values were so strong that he didn’t care about himself. All he cared about was that his life or death would tip the balance for liberty and reform. I believe this sense of a win-win destiny made him, in the end, sufficiently neutral between the two outcomes that he feared nothing and welcomed anything. Navalny was a secular saint and is now a secular martyr.

Every life has equal value, but when a devil kills a saint it sends reverberations around the world and cuts deep into our hearts.

The dictator who has manipulated and murdered his own people and is an enemy of his own country didn’t just kill a man who loved that country and his fellow Russians. Putin also murdered someone who had voluntarily returned to Russia after the despot had narrowly failed to fatally poison him with a Novichok nerve agent in 2020. After miraculously surviving, Navalny promptly booked a flight right back into the jaws of the dictator.

Such eyes-wide-open selfless courage makes Navalny’s martyrdom hard for anyone with a brain not to be provoked by, and anyone with a heart not to be moved by. I therefore say that Navalny has joined the ranks of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Anyone who wasn’t already awake should now see things clearly. Putin is the new Stalin: an enemy of the West, of his own people, of civilisation itself. Whether you live in St. Petersburg, Russia, or St. Petersburg, Florida, Vladimir Putin is your common enemy.

Every one of us can hold onto a bit of Navalny in our hearts to double our resolve to make Russia a “desert island economy”, support its enemies like Ukraine with armaments and aid, and undermine its allies like China and Iran with sanctions and more.

Putin took Navalny’s life, but Navalny gave his own. Putin took it out of fear of change. Navalny gave it out of hope for change.

If Putin’s act leaves us in a state of mourning or anger, that’s exactly what Alexei would have wanted. It means he has not sacrificed his life for nothing. Every ounce of unease we feel, every drop of action we take, goes into the balance to justify his loss and generosity and tips the world towards a better future.

As for Putin, his mentor and fellow mass murderer Stalin subscribed to the evil mantra, “No man, no problem.” In reply, I say, “No man, big problem.”

Every martyrdom has a silver lining and I hope this shall be Alexei’s.

Mark Dixon

Mark Dixon founded and runs the Moral Rating Agency (moralratingagency.org), which aims to get companies out of Russia, Russia out of Ukraine, Putin out of Russia, and dictatorships out of the world.