“My message for the situation when I am killed is very simple. Don’t give up.”

Photo published by Vatican News and other news sources

Shock

Had I not read the awful headline lying down, I might have fallen to the floor. Then again, why the surprise? Anyone who follows Navalny likely also hid a hazy nausea about this day, but I believed there was a chance, I don’t know why. Maybe it was his easy jokes, smiling reassurances even while Putin’s threatening chain of events hung ominously in view: the Novichok-laced tea, an unsurprising airport diversion to yet another unsurprising arrest, more fabricated crimes and demoralizing sentences, and finally Polar Wolf, penal colony IK6, the gulag.

Censorship, repression, unlawful detention, torture, murder. It’s easy to say Putin did all of this, not you or I, but in every country we willingly inhale smokescreens of patriotic rhetoric to ease that queasy cognitive dissonance rearing up whenever hard evidence reveals the grave errors of our judgment. It’s not easy to question misplaced trust and allegiance. If we can stomach the truth, we learn and grow, but for too many of us, there’s no admitting a mistake like this. In our desperation to believe that things can’t possibly be what they are, we created the Putin who poisons (poisoning of Navalny, poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko) hijacks (Ryanair flight FR4978, kidnapping of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega), corrupts laws, rights, and accountability (Putin’s palace), because it feels good to feel patriotic and it’s so easy to look away, not think about it, do nothing. True patriotism calls for the defense of a country and its peoples, including everyone’s rights, freedom, inherent dignity, and equality, and that responsibility is up to each of us.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Therefore, don’t do nothing.”

Heartbreak

The world is mourning the loss of fearless dissident leader Alexei Navalny because a head of state sanctioned his murder. The absolute zero of this crime is heartbreaking. Conscience can’t be killed. From poison and prison to death and now the arrest of grieving citizens laying flowers, when does it end? Perhaps the removal of Н as in Навальный (Navalny) from the Cyrillic alphabet.

The dream that Navalny would survive and become president is over, but one day soon someone inspired by Navalny and equipped with his legal education, principled anti-corruption experience, and tireless fight for justice will stand up.

“I’m not afraid. And you, don’t be afraid.”

Freedom

Navalny is free at last. No more persecution, starvation, solitary confinement, untreated medical and dental conditions. The countless daily cruelties designed to break the mind and spirit have stopped.

I think about his last years in prison and wonder when was the last time Navalny spent summertime with his family. Sunlight, laughter, his wife and children, picnics, a playful, easy rhythm throughout the day from waking up late to watching the sun set in a burst of brilliant colors, evenings together over a simple, savory meal, reflecting on the day’s highlights.

In these heartbreaking days, I think about Navalny in summer.

It makes sense, I suppose, that I write this in Lato, which means summer in Polish. Łukasz Dziedzic designed Lato, a Google font, and according to his bio: “During Poland’s first free elections in 1989, he joined Gazeta Wyborcza, the first independent daily newspaper.” The font styles are shown in excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I think Navalny would like Lato:

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

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Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity

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Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is

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No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

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Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

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No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

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Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

“Prison exists in your mind. If you think carefully, I’m not in prison, but on a space voyage to a wonderful new world.”

“If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We don’t realize how strong we actually are.”

Spring is coming