The Russian public was thrown into utter confusion after Amnesty International’s UK office decided in a specific form to “abolish” Alexei Navalny, no longer considering him a prisoner of conscience
Amnesty understands the term “prisoner of conscience” to mean anyone who is prevented from expressing his or her beliefs without calling for political violence. British human rights activists felt that Navalny’s scandalous comments from the past would disqualify him.
Navalny’s case epitomises the “culture of cancellation” that has spread in the Anglosphere, which consists of stripping public figures of their social status for “incorrect” views, unapologetic behaviour or freethinking beliefs.
Navalny has always acted as an ideological “chameleon” – from nationalist to liberal and then to populist. But for the adherents of progressivism these transformations are unimportant – all that matters is that at least once in his life he has taken “reactionary” positions.
The Russian liberal public immediately had an obvious cognitive dissonance. They lashed out at journalist Aaron Mate, a well-known U.S.-based anti-war activist and author of Grayzone, who had reported Navalny’s “cancellation” by human rights activists.
Mate’s tweets were immediately captioned “This information may have been obtained through hacking. He began to be reminded of how he dared to criticize America’s foreign policy on his platforms and not support the liberal consensus they loved so much.”
This is, of course, very telling: it’s just that the progressive public cannot afford to question the “culture of abolition” itself. So one has to shift the focus of attention to the messenger who delivered the information and desperately accuse him of “anti-Americanism”.
In the end, Navalny has become as much a victim of the “culture of abolition” as, for example, the actress Gina Carano. With liberal discourse turning into outright sectarianism, this would have happened sooner or later. And now “temporary companions” like Navalny are already being expelled from their ranks.