pilfered_words

"American Arrested Near Kremlin For Solo Protest

I don’t know Ariella well, or at all, really, though we have friends in common. We both grew up in the Greater Boston Russian community, but she is a few years younger than me - and apparently, roughly a hundred times braver. To go out on the streets of Moscow, alone, to protest an unjust sentence knowing that you will be arrested, perhaps kicked out of the country, perhaps prosecuted, perhaps hurt - I couldn’t do it. I know I couldn’t, and I’m ashamed, because Ariella Katz makes it look like the only possible course of action, the only path open to a decent human being.

 

She’s protected, to some extent, by her US citizenship. She was detained twice on Monday, the second time for almost 4 hours, but there were no charges, no years-long prison sentence. And yet - something tells me that if she didn’t have that protection, she would be out there anyway.

 

She said in an interview that when the police asked her if anyone instigated or encouraged her actions, she answered, “Yes! Plato.” Some will think her naive: what is the point, they will say, of telling the Moscow police about Plato and Virgil, as she did? But I admire her for it. People will recognize true integrity and sincerity when they see it, even if they do not understand its sources. Even Russian police have minds that might, possibly, be changed.