[Nettime-bold] bespredel

BESPREDEL

The owner of Most-Media holding Vladimir Gusinsky was arrested on June 13 by the Russian authorities and charged with fraud. He is currently in prison under the article 90 - which means he can stay there for 10 days before he is accused. Although there are some rumours, oficially he has not been approached with any accusations.

Mr. Gusinsky controls two TV-networks, a satellite network, a newspaper and a number of magazines (including a TV-Guide and a joint venture with Newsweek). During the last elections he supported the rivalling party of power (represented by the Moscow city head Youry Luzhkov) that scored badly. His media are also the strongest critics of the ongoing war in Chechnya.

The most popular of his terrestrial TV networks (NTV) is not ideal, but ok., pretty fair and accurate, especially in comparison with the rivals. When we did campaign on TV boicott during the elections (see www.osvod.org/english), we considered it the only one that could be watched.

The arrest of mr. Gusinsky, the Russian clone of Rupert Murdoch, is best understood if we try to imagine a Murdoch's arrest in Britain. If you name the reasons why Murdoch cannot be arrested even if his media oppose a rival party and a little war outside the country - you understand what it is like when he can get arrested. In Russian it would be called BESPREDEL (no limits).

The worst thing is that this is a global trend - indeed, probably the next stage of transformation, that started with Kosovo war, the Second Chechen war, the Haider case - and will drag along for some time. It is a backslash against the nineties, and against freedom in general, world-wide. It is a revenge of forgotten institutions like state, of forgotten but crusial national identity.

Times are changing and things are getting worse. The worst part of this bespredel is that it is happening world-wide, but no state or restored national identity can produce a positive effect. Fuelled by the political spectacle, the political agents are taking a challenge to control the situation that is out of their reach.Yet, if it indeed is a global wave, it can produce effects on the global scale.

So far the reaction of the business comunity and journalist comunity was mixed, although mostly benefitial for Gusinsky. Everybody says - if he is gulty, let him stand a trial, but there is no sence in locking him up - he's not going to run away. It is not known yet, what the vox populy says. If the people of Russia are delighted to see the oligarch and the evil Jew vanish, it will be most tempting for Putin to get rid of the political elite as unnesessary intermediaries between him and the people. In this case bespredel is likely to continue.

This is quite possible in fact, especially because it does not contrafict the current policies of mr. Putin. Distrustful of the government and rather inexperienced with this tremendous administrative unit, he is trying to build a parallel power system based on the former KGB people and police. The most visible signs of this are the administrative reform, which so far means giving regional policy to the ex-KGB generals, and a number plate reform. Now the police, FSB and other police units have blue number plates on their cars. Everybody else has white (diplomats used red and blue - but that was a tradition from the Soviet times). It looks like Ivan Grozny and Joseph Stalin policy - when he created "oprichina" (basically, a special force - NKVD in Stalin's case) which was in a way superior to any other form of government, because it controlled the administration, but itself was immune from any kind of control.

What is important in Gusinsky case, if you will follow the headlines, is the fact that opposite to the state, Gusinsky is supported mostly by transnational actors - the Jewish Congress, the global media, the US Senate and the state of Israel. While Putin is trying to use him as a scapegoat in his fresh nation state project. Interesting - what this might lead to.

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