Human Rights Defenders and Libertarians

Russian human rights defenders met Edward Snowden in the transit area of the Sheremetyevo airport, where he finally expressed the desire to get political asylum in Russia, probably because his chances of ending up in any other country anytime soon are pretty low. He has no international passport, and it’s hard to appeal to any nonprofit organizations like Red Cross for help, because he is slightly restricted in his possibilities to travel. Therefore, it’s more likely that he will remain in our country, all the more so since the human rights defenders he met with expressed the desire to help him get asylum.

However, there are other human rights defenders that are convinced Snowden is guilty, and if he is guilty in his own country, then Russia has no reason to defend him. We must admit, however, that this point of view isn’t really popular — if not among bigoted liberals who have no shame, then definitely among those who are responsible for defending rights — as it is [an argument] vulnerable to criticism. We have a dual attitude towards the rights activists: The most well-known seem to be the least objective. It’s believed that they exact unfair judgments towards Russian government. One of these right defenders, Valeria Novodvorskaya, being a person of laudable integrity and honesty, claimed a little while ago that she had never fought for the abstract rights of the abstract people; instead she fought for the West as a civilization and for the interests of those who live in Russia but whose souls belong to the West. Novodvorskaya just received a strict sanction from the patriarch of the right-defending movement Sergei Kovalev, who said that her position is incompatible with the human rights conception.

Nevertheless, the suspicion remains that many movement activists are, so to speak, unfairly critical toward their country. When our country was weak and almost on its last legs, the term “human rights defender” triggered negative emotions among many of our patriotically-spirited contemporaries. One young publisher from the loyal camp called the late academic [Andrei] Sakharov a “chief of the barbers.” Another good friend of mine wrote hateful and wrathful necrology dedicated to Larisa Bogoraz. It must be said: These harsh descriptions of events from early in 2000 didn’t meet serious objections from the liberal society, which at that time was in a deep coma. If I try to write something similar in Izvestia today, I’d be hearing all day long about how I’ve changed my views.

Meanwhile, it’s not me who has changed; the Russian state has. It has become stronger, gotten rid of its own torturous sense of guilt and its inferiority complex, and even stopped finding excuses for those actions that are sometimes incompatible with European norms. Upon this background we started to notice other phenomena — phenomena that have always existed, but that went unnoticed for years while we were awaiting the moment Russia would have its nuclear weapon acceleration codes or its right to use its own natural resources taken away. Now, however, we start noticing the chaos in Russian jails, the despotism of the security services and the injustice of the court system — all that had been left on the periphery of our comprehension. Upon this background, too, the human rights activists who had always paid attention to such things start to regain their authority, and their lack of objectivity is no longer regarded as a deadly sin. Now it’s come to seem that they are simply a case of necessary evil.

In Snowden’s case, human rights activists demonstrated not only their lack of objectivity, but also their ideological weakness. Apparently, Snowden seriously violated the laws of his country. By doing that, however, he released some facts about violations of international rights by the U.S. intelligence services. What can human rights defenders do in this case? Whose interest shall they defend? If Snowden is given back to the U.S. justice system, would that mean that from now on, the intelligence services of a superpower will be allowed to do whatever they want to the rest of the world — listen to private conversations, read correspondence, kill unwanted witnesses? Although, if Snowden is sheltered in Russia, will that mean that all kinds of betrayers greedy for fame would come here in the hopes of being awarded safe refuge, world honor and the gracious attentions of one of the local cuties like Anna Chapman?

I honestly think that Snowden should be given refuge in Russia. As far as I understand, that’s what any Western country would do if one of our domestic tattletales (or whistle-blowers, as the Americans call them) were to ask for it. And I’m afraid no one would even require him to cease anti-Russian activity. I’d rather solve the world justice problem the following way: They would shelter our betrayers, and we would shelter theirs.

Of course, there is a difference between the “betrayers” and the “whistle-blowers”: The former share secrets only with their new “masters”; the latter, with all mankind. The former ones would act secretly; the latter, openly. The radical branch of U.S. libertarianism insists that the rights of whistle-blowers should not be violated, that there shouldn’t be any criminal cases opened against them and that they should be defended by the courts. Moreover, the libertarians regard whistle-blowers as the true heroes of their country. Even Snowden proudly called himself a libertarian when met with human rights defenders.

I’m not going deep into the whistle-blower apologia, but they can at least be blamed for playing dirty and breaking oath. Although libertarianism has an element of truth, so do human rights defenders, despite not always judging objectively. Strong government, strong intelligence services and strong legislative power — how can a single person possibly stand against this incommensurate power, doomed to grow ever stronger through technological progress? That’s why those who are trying to save Snowden from public vengeance today are right because they realize that in this case the law doesn’t work in favor of individual interest, no matter how freely we interpret this term.