Illusion of Freedom

The decision of the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan to prohibit broadcasting two analytical programs of ORT (Public Russian Television) and Russian Television on its territory has become the culmination of the struggle for the freedom of speech the post-Soviet society has been carrying on in the past few decades. In outward appearance, everything is clear: these programs’ hosts, Sergei Dorenko and Nikolai Svanidze, to put it mildly, do not belong to the adherents of the Fatherland-All Russia election block, one of whose leaders is happen to be President of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov. Thus the President has decided that his people should know better than listen to slanders by Moscow journalists.

I am not going to defend here my colleagues or maintain that their activity is a model of professional ethics. That is not the point. In the last few yeas there have been many people in Russia trying to prove that the freedom of speech is limited there only to the environs of Moscow and St. Petersburg, while in Russia’s provinces the absolute power of regional barons and entrepreneurs guarantees that the watcher/listener/reader will get information that serves one or another president, governor, or director. However, this would not disturb Moscow’s elite too much: it had been playing its own game and has not prevented regional elites from playing theirs.

And now everything has come down to prohibition. Censorship is possible not only in a Moscow office: in Kazan they may be dissatisfied with one program of the capital’s television channel, and in Ufa with another. Hopefully, the reader does not have any doubts as to which political block is considered most interesting for Bashkortostan television? Naturally, the one joined by President Rakhimov. If still in doubt, watch the TV-Center channel controlled by the Moscow city administration, and everything will become clear.

The freedom of speech ends where partisan journalism begins. As for Russia, the journalism of power has begun. At the moment there are several powers: regional authorities argue with the center, and the legislature with the executive. This might even create an illusion of free speech. But such an illusion will inevitably end after the final victory of the strongest player.