The United States is in the midst of one of the greatest upheavals in its history. Mass disobedience to authorities, riots targeting public and private property, clashes with police, the deployment of the National Guard, and a state of emergency with curfew-all the result of a single murder.
A white police officer, during an arrest, suffocated George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man who was already incapacitated and on the ground, by pressing his knee against his neck despite his repeated cries of «I can’t breathe. All of this was captured on video and quickly spread to a multimillion-strong audience, sparking outrage especially among African Americans and those who joined their protest against police brutality, of which they are disproportionately victims compared to other Americans.
The riots did not stop even after the police officer was arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter, but turned into full-blown riots in which dozens of Americans who were trying to defend their property became victims. The police also showed no restraint, using rubber bullets and tear gas, often against unarmed people, including journalists, and according to some, intentionally.
The innocent lives lost in these events are truly saddening, but the Kremlin’s propaganda response cannot help but be amusing. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement that read in part: «We could not fail to notice the extraordinary situation that has developed in the United States after the murder of the African-American citizen George Floyd by police officers on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota…
…This incident is not the first in a series of lawlessness and unwarranted violence by the «keepers of the peace» in the United States. Similar high-profile crimes are committed by American police officers far too often… The United States has clearly accumulated systemic problems in the area of human rights. These include racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination, police lawlessness, a biased judiciary, and overcrowded prisons…».
It is worth noting that this was said literally the day after the death of human rights defender Sergei Mokhnahtkin as a result of years of torture in places of detention; he was beaten so severely that his broken spine was visible through a hole in his back. Moreover, Mokhnahtkin was not even «black,» but an ordinary «white» Russian.
When we talk about ethnic and religious discrimination, including torture, we are ready to provide the Russian Foreign Ministry with a compilation of murders in Russian prisons that have claimed the lives of dozens of Muslims as a result of sadistic, systematic torture, as well as ongoing cases of abuse based on these factors.
The difference between Russia and America is not that in the former the police do not kill without cause, do not practice ethnic and religious discrimination, and the prisons are not overcrowded. The difference lies in the fact that in the United States, just one such murder, one that becomes public knowledge, is enough to shake the country in every sense of the word. In Russia, on the other hand, the security forces kill dozens of times with impunity, but the apathetic society is incapable of responding adequately, whether the victims are members of minorities or the majority, who are equally powerless in this country.
Moreover, while hypocritically expressing outrage at human rights violations in the United States and hypocritically showing solidarity with their protesters, the Russian authorities are doing everything in their power to stifle any resistance to their own lawlessness. For example, the pro-government channel «Nezygar» describes the content of a new strategy to combat extremism, signed by Putin at exactly the same time that Kremlin propagandists were outraged by the repression in the US: «From now on, extremism will include any mention of violence for political, ideological, religious and other purposes; the formation of closed ethnic and religious enclaves; inter-ethnic and territorial conflicts in Russian regions; any attempts to ‘disintegrate the state’…. Participation in protest actions is considered an expression of extremism. The use of minors by extremists is separately emphasized. They will fight against radicalism in sports, including in sports schools and clubs, as well as against the infiltration of coaches and teachers with supporters and sympathizers of extremist ideologies».
Now compare this with the United States, where almost all of this exists legally, and you will find the answer to the question of why American society is capable of rising up against lawlessness, while Russian society helplessly tolerates it. (In the photo, Maria Zakharova expresses outrage over the persecution of African-Americans)