BYLINE SUPPLEMENT: ‘We Must Speak In the Language of Art’
BYLINE SUPPLEMENT: ‘We Must Speak In the Language of Art’
My latest report in Byline Supplement ‘People Have the Power’ suggests ways to help political prisoners in Russia being held in Putin’s dungeons
“Putin knows that creative people are one of his main enemies. He cannot control independent journalists and free-minded artists. The artists are dangerous for Putin because they have a large audience and the courage and experience to tell the truth.”—Dmitrii Kovegin
This report stuck to my bones. I was out of alignment for days last week after turning in the draft to the Byline team. I knew it to be among the most profound reports I have written in some time, but I also knew it to be the most tragic.
Do we just sit around in the West waiting to weep as political prisoners are murdered by Putin’s barbaric regime, or can we do something? Anything?
I turned to my friend and ally Dmitrii Kovegin, who is mourning the loss of Alexei Navalny — a man who inspired him so much, he risked his own life volunteering for two Navalny campaigns.
I needed action steps, things we can do, so we can be the kind of Americans the world respects and looks up to again. Not the radicalized mob the world saw on J6, but the kind of Americans the world once knew.
So Dmitrii, as is his way, took some time to reflect on what we can do, and I wrote his responses in my report. Bette members who are joining us for today’s Speakeasy, will hear him from him directly.
Below is an excerpt from Byline Supplement, and for those who already subscribe to Byline, you are helping a small global team of investigative reporters in this time of great peril — thank you. If you can subscribe, please do. If you are unable to do so at this time, I am authorized to send my reports upon request to bettedangerous/gmail and am happy to do so.
Here is an excerpt:
“The people have the power
To redeem the work of fools
Upon the meek the graces shower
It's decreed the people rule.”
—Patti Smith
On my daily walk, I see a makeshift altar on a tree. I walked on by the day before — I didn’t want to go near it. I use my walks to try to clear my head of the Sturm und Drang that comes with investigating the corrupt of heart, and I needed a momentary reprieve from grieving another lost soul. I just wanted to listen to music and stare at the clouds.
As I walked by the tree in my neighborhood park the next day, the altar had grown, there were now photos nailed to the old growth oak tree, and I knew I had to pay my respect to whomever this person was. Despite the rainstorm that drenched Los Angeles the night before, the photos were clear, the flowers intact.
As I neared the tree, I saw a Ukrainian flag at its base, and bouquets of yellow roses, white hydrangeas, and potted plants with orange and pink blossoms. Above them, nailed to the tree, were photos of Alexei Navalny; of him with his family; in the hospital after the 2020 poisoning; a photo of a mural painted of him on the night of 28 April, 2021 holding his hands in the shape of a heart, with the words ‘A Hero of a New Time.’ The St. Petersburg mural was painted from a photograph where he is sending a love-heart to his wife, Yulia, from a defendants’ cage. St. Petersburg police destroyed the mural within hours.
There’s a photo of him smiling in front of a Christmas tree with hand-scrawled words in Russian, ‘I’m not afraid and you shouldn’t…’ the words obscured by another photo.
There’s a portrait I recognize from February 2020. It was taken at a march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, the man who would be President if he hadn’t been assassinated in front of the Kremlin five years earlier.
Navalny, too, was murdered by the Putin regime in February, in an arctic penal colony, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for having the audacity to challenge and expose the corruption of Putin and the St. Petersburg mob.
I think of the beauty of Navalny and Nemtsov — for they will always be young and beautiful — and then I think of the ugly botoxed spy, a pathological liar, made uglier by the barbarism of his regime.
In the play My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, by Ukrainian playwright Sasha Denisova, Putin is played as a feral creep with an oversized alien head, sneaking around like a human rat.
In Denisova’s play, The Hague, about an orphan from Mariupol envisioning Putin and his war partners on trial for crimes against humanity, he is played by a woman.
“Putin must be laughed at without mercy,” Denisova said in an interview.
In The Hague, a character based on RT propagandist Margarita Simonyan, is performed with a dangling pocket watch, as if to hypnotize everyone in her path with her chronic lies.
A Ukrainian soldier and filmmaker Volodymyr Demchenko once told me that Russia is ruining the world with lies.
These lies are effective at clouding minds in the West from taking action.
Too often, the West — because of Putin’s petrol and lie factories — gazes upon the cruelty of the gulags as if zombified by the hypnotic effect of active measures.
The pro-Kremlin vampires on X/Twitter, sharpen their verbal fangs each day, marveling at shopping carts, as they spew Orwellian lies: “Oceania was always at war with Eastasia.”
#FreeKaraMurza
As I see gaunt but defiant images of prisoner of conscience Vladimir Kara-Murza, the protege of Boris Nemtsov, I think, ‘Has the world gone mad? Are we just sitting around waiting for him to die?’
#FreeAlsu
On Monday, we saw the first prison video of Alsu Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor who holds both US and Russian passports. Kurmasheva’s crime? Visiting her elderly mother.
She is being kept in a Russian prison — accused of being an unregistered foreign agent and spreading false information about the Russian army.
#WithoutJustCause
Former Navalny campaigner Dmitrii Kovegin told Byline Supplement about #WithoutJustCause — a political prisoners initiative launched in 2023 by the US Department of State, which promises diplomatic involvement by US embassies and calls for the release of all political prisoners.
I ask Kovegin what we can do to be more effective at helping political prisoners.
First, he sends me a Patti Smith song. It’s a live version of ‘People Have the Power’. Smith, long wavy gray hair, sings as if in church. As the voices carry her lyrics, it immediately possesses healing qualities.
Daily Conscious Actions
“People who support democracy must create a counterbalance system. Democracy should be proactive… We must counter Putin’s propaganda with creativity.
“Putin knows that creative people are one of his main enemies. He cannot control independent journalists and free-minded artists. The artists are dangerous for Putin because they have a large audience and the courage and experience to tell the truth.
“We must speak in the language of art.
“It is necessary to organize political pressure on the Russian regime through the press. Political prisoners in Russia are a moral problem for Putin. He is forced to make excuses publicly when pressure is put on him in the global public space. Pressure works best when the dissident names are spoken. For Americans, it’s best to start by supporting public campaigns for the release of Americans from Putin's dungeons.”
Byline members can read the full report here:
Among Kovegin’s suggestions is to adopt a political prisoner and become an ambassador for them. We will learn more from him today at our Speakeasy at 1:30 pm PT.
Here is another song he sent me that seems appropriate in this moment — it’s from a Russian-American band called Chase the Comet, an anthem called ‘Hero’ encouraging people to wake up:
“Wake up from your sleep
Yeah, I know it’s scary
Stop being a sheep, trusting the shepherd blindly…”
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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