Pussy Riot and Russia's surreal 'justice'

When people become certain of their identity as 'fighting against' something believed wrong - or evil, they give themselves justification to break or except themselves from rules. If these rules are merely rules set by an illegitimate act - then those rules and the authority that made them is being challenged, and this can be an assertion of authority that witnesses to an illegitimacy. To take over a church as a stage and to be so dishonouring to the purposes and community that uses it doesn't feel like a witness to Putin's illegitimacy, or an act of legitimate opposition - but a shock tactic to get attention. It can be argued that such things 'work' - but I suggest that any momentary advance is met with a shift in mind that becomes more polarized and less available to any process of communication.

In respect of setting precedent, is it to be applauded or rewarded if anyone with a grievance or a cause, acts in this way?
However, to jail such offenders is entirely disproportionate - and is like the disproportionate sentences given anyone involved in last year's UK riots. It attempts deterrent rather than serve justice.

There may be a groundswell of a movement to rise up against or openly challenge Putin, and those within it may feel emboldened. If anyone gives the opportunity to use force by seeming to be a terrorist or an agent of foreign influence, I doubt Mr Putin will hesitate to use extreme force.

To withdraw allegiance and support for what one feels in one's heart to be illegitimate may not require taking a stance of being a lawbreaker or a rebel, but simply to provide only the letter of the law insofar as 'giving to Caesar' requires. To give others power is to lose one's own. It isn't worth hating or opposing if doing so makes of one's life a justified hatred or vengeance. Better to consciously focus on what is real in our lives and if called for, give witness from that shared reality when a communication needs to be made.

It is so easy to hate - and to love doing so when the 'other' is mutually agreed to be hateful. And there is a sort of hysterical attraction to it, in which we feel we are finding freedom, but are simply being used. Whoever gets in ... will tend to take the power role that fits or expresses the consciousness of the people. They may rebrand under new banners and change all the props and seem like a new beginning, but look around.

Instead of changing the world; change our mind about the world - by observing and becoming responsible at a level of awareness that manipulators (victims and victimizers both) do not want to be opened.

The issue of power over others, is so fundamental to our human consciousness - but in personalizing it, we play the game of divide and rule. The mind of deception and manipulation does not care who hosts it, and can easily insinuate itself into and as our personal thinking.

I write this in case anyone has some sense of this and recognizes themselves in it. The world is a sort of playground for getting experience and making identity - but at some point that becomes shallow and meaningless - and not a true or legitimate calling to the heart. And so we wake up to a different purpose or motivation - that expresses a wholeness into relationship rather than manipulate relationship for personal getting.

Growing the former, is starving the latter. As we grow this 'culture' within our own life we see and serve it in others. While the attraction to conflict and guilt traps attention, no one is listening, but these things do not truly fulfil us or hold allegiance forever and there are times when there is a genuine desire to find a better way.

Thank you for your attention