Navalny Is With Us Forever Now

It was on New 12 months’s Day. On January 1, 2015, Alexei Navalny referred to as me. “Effectively, you and us have nobody else left however you and us. Let’s work collectively,” he mentioned.

It was certainly most likely the toughest time for each him and me. I used to be editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV channel on the time, and we have been nearly destroyed: we have been lower off from all cable and satellite tv for pc operators, and we have been kicked out of our studio. However Navalny confronted a lot worse: the felony case, which was invented solely to drive him to cease his political actions, got here to an finish with Alexei himself given a suspended sentence, however his brother was imprisoned. Effectively, the principle factor is that each one of us, each Dozhd and Navalny, weren’t positive if we have been nonetheless wanted—in 2014 Putin occupied Crimea, Russia was overwhelmed by a wave of jingoism. Dozhd stopped being essentially the most influential TV channel and Navalny stopped being the preferred politician. “Effectively, you and us have nobody else left however you and us.”

We actually began working collectively then—we helped his staff, Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), to make the primary high-profile investigative film: about Prosecutor General Chaika. That film has 26 million views immediately. By now ACF launched dozens extra nice investigative movies. And I am proud to have been round on the very starting.

In late 2015, I wrote a guide referred to as All the Kremlin’s Men. Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin. One chapter in that guide was about Alexei—though he by no means belonged to that courtroom. Nevertheless, he was all the time its foremost enemy.

Every chapter started with a portrait of the character, and I described Navalny then as follows:

“Alexei Navalny is an alien. At first look he seems like an strange particular person, and watching him stroll the streets or journey public transportation, you would possibly inadvertently suppose that he’s an strange man. In brief, he does every part that strange individuals do and which high authorities officers and superstars don’t. However appearances are misleading. Navalny wears a human masks, like an extraterrestrial in a sci-fi film, to cover his actual id—that of a politician.

Navalny’s life is tough. The state machine is out to get him, and he has to take care of that in some way. As an illustration, he doesn’t drive for worry {that a} “provocateur” would possibly bounce in entrance of his automobile, whereupon he, Navalny, may very well be prosecuted.

Navalny is definitely conscious that he’s a celebrity. Jail is probably the final place Putin needs him to be, since that might make him a martyr and enhance his reputation. Navalny understands his exclusivity. He’s most likely the one actual politician out of Russia’s 143 million inhabitants…

However Navalny is a novel one that made a acutely aware selection. As but he has no energy, and will by no means have. However he has definitely sacrificed the possibility to guide a standard life, though he describes it as a possibility to vary Russia for the higher.

If Russia had an open political system, Navalny would most likely not be alone. However as a result of it doesn’t, there appears to be nobody else loopy sufficient to commerce in life for politics. Why does Navalny proceed to imagine that his time will come and that at some point he might succeed Putin as president? There’s just one rational clarification—he is an alien.”

I used to be naive at the moment—all of us, together with Alexei, have been naive. We’d by no means imagine that Putin wished him useless. As a result of we thought that he did not need Navalny to be a martyr. We have been unsuitable. We’re individuals and individuals are typically unsuitable.

When Putin poisoned Navalny in 2020, I knew he would survive. I do not know why. Perhaps I used to be too naive once more. I all the time thought that Alexei may be very morally robust, he’s a historic determine, he can’t die. And he survived, uncovered his assassins and made Putin a laughing inventory. And for me there was not even a query whether or not he would keep in Europe or return. I’ve described all of it earlier than: if he have been an strange human being, he would keep to stay. However he is an alien. He had already made his option to dedicate himself to politics. And that is why he needed to come again.

A few week in the past, I acquired an e-mail from Alexei. It was, in fact, extremely humorous and energetic. He wrote that he was sitting in a cell from which you’ll’t see a blade of grass or a leaf, and even to take a stroll he was taken solely to a neighboring cell, however he wrote it so cheerfully and dashingly that there was little doubt that every part was all proper with him, nothing would break him. 

He additionally wrote concerning the collapse of the USSR and what a novel probability Russia had within the 90s, and the way it was misplaced, and the way necessary it isn’t to overlook the possibility that may seem through the upcoming collapse of Putin’s Russia. 

He additionally wrote about Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and Vysotsky. He was glad that within the new colony he was in a position to reread Crime and Punishment—as a result of the library there may be very small, there are solely books from the Russian faculty program, however Dostoevsky, in fact, is there. His letter ends together with his conventional joke: “Be like Nabokov and higher!”, he writes.

Now I do not know if he had time to obtain my reply, the place I inform him why I do not like Dostoevsky. And likewise describe  some necessary moments from my future guide. And on the finish I write: “Hope to see you quickly.” 

I by no means doubted that I might see him once more. I used to be all the time positive that Navalny is a supernatural particular person, he cannot die, aliens do not die so simply. 

I believe many people thought he was a magician. Everybody knew that it can’t be like that: sooner or later he casts some type of spell, Putin disappears and Alexei turns into the Russian president. Everybody knew it will be lengthy and tough. However, in some way Alexei will handle to outlive it. After which, in any case, some type of spell—and, pop, he’s the president of Russia.

Nevertheless it seems it will not be like that. He will not be the president of future Russia, he’ll should be the founding father of the longer term Russia. He’s with us now perpetually as an ideal instance. As a messiah. As a superhero for a lot of generations, on whose story kids will develop up. It’s not Putin they may look as much as. 

He’ll stay in historical past as a person who believed that Russia may very well be a standard democratic nation, believed in values, and despised the nonsense a couple of distinctive Russian path and doom to be an empire. He was all the time an idealist. He was not a cynic, didn’t imagine that every part may very well be offered and purchased.

For a few years Russia was a really cynical nation. No one believed in something. Many individuals critically believed that there was no democracy on the earth, and there was no freedom of speech, solely propaganda all over the place, and there was no such factor as truthful justice. However Alexei believed in all these values. And he gave his life for it. So now all of us should imagine. And the following generations will develop up and study by taking a look at him—and they’ll additionally imagine.

Now it appears to many individuals that Russia not has a future. However in reality, its future is exactly these people who find themselves mourning Alexei Navalny all around the world. He united us and requested us not to surrender. “You and us have nobody else left however you and us. Let’s work collectively.”