Vladimir Putin's war on South Park - Political Fever

RSDavis · #1 (**permalink**) 10-10-2008, 06:34 PM

Kenny Will Live!
Vladimir Putin's war on South Park
Cathy Young | October 10, 2008

Forty years ago, eight brave Russians came out on Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion that crushed the “Prague Spring” with a banner that said, “For your freedom and ours.” (As one might expect, it ended quite badly for them.) Last month, a banner with these words showed up in the hands of one of hundreds of demonstrators in a Moscow park protesting the Russian government’s attempt to crush the television show South Park. And, for now, it seems to have ended in a victory for the protesters—at a time when victories for freedom in Russia are a rare treat.

It started on September 7 when a prosecutor’s office in Moscow, on a complaint from an evangelical Christian group, brought charges of “extremist activity” against 2x2, a television channel that specializes in cartoons. The offense was a January broadcast of the South Park episode, “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Special,” in which characters including Satan, Adolf Hitler, and the anthropomorphic human excrement Mr. Hankey perform in a Christmas variety show. The episode, prosecutors said, “insults the honor and dignity of both Christians and Muslims” and could “provoke ethnic conflict and inter-religious hatred.” (Under a 2006 law, Russia’s “extremism” statute includes not only incitements to violence but loosely defined hate speech.) A few days later, the General Prosecutor’s Office lodged a complaint with the Federal Mass Communications Control Agency accusing 2x2 of “violating the rights of children” by broadcasting “propaganda of violence, cruelty and pornography.” The complaint named twelve animated series, including South Park and The Simpsons.

With 2x2’s broadcast license up for renewal in mid-October, these actions raised concerns that the channel would be shut down. Further alarm bells went off when Pavel Tarakanov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Youth Issues, suggested that 2x2’s frequency could be given to a new channel reflecting “the government’s position with regard to youth policy.” “We need to raise a generation of 21st Century Russians who are proud of living in a civilized nation, so we need our own media outlet that would reach the largest possible audience,” Tarakanov told the Interfax news agency.

But in the meantime, something else was happening. The Russian public, grown notoriously apathetic during the Putin era of relative prosperity, stability, and rising authoritarianism, suddenly stirred. Starting in mid-September, Moscow and St. Petersburg saw a flurry of pickets, flash mobs, and rallies protesting the moves to squash the channel. Passing drivers honked in solidarity. While the demonstrations were held with prior permission from the authorities, one of the organizers of a September 22 rally in downtown Moscow was briefly detained because the turnout of about 700 vastly exceeded the estimate in the permit application. That evening, over a thousand people gathered around a club that hosted a free rock concert in support of 2x2; some clashed with police when attempts were made to disperse the crowd. In a few days, the protesters collected 34,000 signatures to keep 2x2 on the air.

Judging by photos, the atmosphere at the rallies—which drew mostly young men and women—was both defiant and exuberant, with much sharp humor and creativity. In St. Petersburg, men in black capes and Ku Klux Klan robes slapped “Signal lost or scrambled” notices on the screens of two TV sets. In addition to the inevitable “They killed Kenny!”, a particularly inventive sign read, “Kenny lived, Kenny lives, Kenny will live!", in a play on the once-ubiquitous Soviet slogan about Lenin. Many handwritten signs, like “For your freedom and ours,” had broader political overtones: “This is a free country—we don’t want censorship!”; "Today they came for Kenny, tomorrow they'll come for you"; “Let’s ban banning!”

(...)

Oregon Elephant · #2 (**permalink**) 10-10-2008, 08:06 PM

Russia needs to keep South Park banned, since South Park wears the banning as a badge of honor.

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