[kj] Jaz still AWOL

[sade1]

I agree with you, they shouldn't have cut down the church's cross. Where else would cross'dressers hang their tinsel and garments if not their persecutors' bodies? (Hang not lest ye be hung?) The crosscutting was (to me, anyway) a misdirected intention from a usually pretty-good-at-protesting bunch of girls. What got to me was when they toppled the Eurocup on display. I jsut felt wrong to watch.

Here is the closing statement from one of the band, at close of trial. It's got lots to say:
Read this closing statement from a member of the imprisoned group Pussy Riot.
Yekaterina Samutsevich’s closing statement in the criminal case against the feminist punk group Pussy Riot.

"During the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent or express regret for her deeds, or to enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary. Instead, I want to express my views about the causes of what has happened with us.

The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be used openly as a flashy setting for the politics of the security services, which are the main source of power [in Russia].

Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetics? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, national corporations, or his menacing police system, or his own obedient judiciary system. It may be that the tough, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, the bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more convincing, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the helm. It was here that the need arose to make use of the aesthetics of the Orthodox religion, historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from
 God Himself.

How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and shouldn’t any intersection of the religious and political spheres be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of Orthodox aesthetics in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had the aura of a lost history, of something crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present their new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project which has little to do with a genuine concern for preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.

It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, which has long had a mystical connection with power, emerged as this project’s principal executor in the media. Moreover, it was also agreed that the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the crudeness of the authorities towards history itself, should also confront all baleful manifestations of contemporary mass culture, with its concept of diversity and tolerance.

Implementing this thoroughly interesting political project has required considerable quantities of professional lighting and video equipment, air time on national TV channels for hours-long live broadcasts, and numerous background shoots for morally and ethically edifying news stories, where in fact the Patriarch’s well-constructed speeches would be pronounced, helping the faithful make the right political choice during the election campaign, a difficult time for Putin. Moreover, all shooting has to take place continuously; the necessary images must sink into the memory and be constantly updated, to create the impression of something natural, constant and compulsory.

Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of this media image, generated and maintained by the authorities for so long, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to combine the visual image of Orthodox culture and protest culture, suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it might also take the side of civic rebellion and protest in Russia.

Perhaps such an unpleasant large-scale effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. First they tried to present our performance as the prank of heartless militant atheists. But they made a huge blunder, since by this time we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media raids on the country’s major political symbols.

In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, Russia looks different in the eyes of the world from the way Putin tries to present it at daily international meetings. All the steps toward a state governed by the rule of law that he promised have obviously not been made. And his statement that the court in our case will be objective and make a fair decision is another deception of the entire country and the international community. That is all. Thank you."
from the Skylight Books fB. https://www.facebook.com/skylightbooks?ref=stream
  
I wonder what Mnsr. Le Chevalier Coleman would've wrote. 
Written, i mean.
 

Blessed are the Cracked for 
  they let in the Light,
    others all are just a..
      'nother brick in the Wall


________________________________
 From: Rob Moss <rob.moss at gmx.com>
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) <gathering at misera.net> 
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 1:51 AM
Subject: Re: [kj] Jaz still AWOL
 

I really think these people who protest so violently against the church are kind of missing the point. 

I'm no fan of the church. Headcount lyrics would confirm that, but is there anything to be gained in vandalizing a church? I just don't get it. It's like the most petulant and holiday way in which to protest. 

Ok girls. No one is listening to our records. How do we make our point. Oh I know. Let's pick on the church. 
Yeah. Beat the shit out of a cripple too why don't you I you want shock value!  

Should Pussy Riot have gone to jail? Of course not. Should they have made a smarter protest? Yes. Of course they should protest. If we don't protest we are cannot call ourselves intelligent life IMO and Putin? Well.......

The St Paul's protesters had the sense to not storm the church. That would have guaranteed a harsher reaction. PR could have picked a clever target. Maybe a bag of liver and maggots at the local music rag might be an idea.....


On 19 Aug 2012, at 05:14, sade1 <saulomar1 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> 

> There is a video of those oh-so-delicioux protest godesses FEMEN responding to the Pusssy Riot issue w/a Breast Bash of their own by chopping down the High Holy Crucifix outside the local Orthodox Church. WITH a chainsaw. =:~o +:~* Wendy O Williams would've been so very, very proud of them.  Amn't at my 'puter so cnt post da Utube link.

> ------------------------------

> On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 4:48 PM PDT Brendan Quinn wrote:

> 

>> Pussy Riot have hopefully wiped any last bit of interest anyone had in the Coleman saga, thank god. 

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On Behalf Of pssyche23

>> Sent: Saturday, 18 August 2012 6:36 a.m.

>> To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)

>> Cc: gathering at misera.net

>> Subject: Re: [kj] Jaz still AWOL

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Sent from my iPhone

>> 

>> 

>> On 13 Aug 2012, at 11:27, jpwhkj at aol.com wrote:

>> 

>> The Guardian website actually had this relatively prominent.

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/13/killing-joke-jaz-coleman-resurfaces

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> The last line is particularly comic:

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> "Nevertheless, there remain signs of friction within Killing Joke. On Sunday morning, just one hour before Coleman's comeback statement, Killing Joke called off a gig on 8 September "due to Jaz still not surfacing". That concert, at London's Metropolis Studios, was due to be recorded for a live DVD."

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> So, not due to the fact that only one ticket has been sold, to Mr A. Adamiak of west London?

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Jamie

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Definitely not me - the facebook event suggested 40 "guests" but likely only 10% of those actually bought a ticket.

>> 

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