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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison. At least that is what the regime detaining him has said. He was 47.
Vladimir Putin’s government was able to use its unjust stranglehold on the levers of power to imprison Navalny, as it so often does, to criminalize dissent and treat opposing ideas as enemy ideas. But, despite his many efforts, Putin was long unable to silence Navalny and his clarion call for a better Russia, a freer Russia, a more normal Russia.
“I want to live in a normal country, and refuse to accept any talk about Russia being doomed to being a bad, poor or servile country,” Navalny told NPR when running for president in 2018. “I want to live here, and I can’t tolerate the injustice that for many people has become routine.”
Normalcy. Such a simple desire, yet so unattainable in Russia today — not because of its people, but because of its leaders. Leaders who not only tried to silence Navalny in that presidential campaign, not only responded to his anti-corruption efforts with more corruption, but tried to poison him, and tried to freeze his message by shipping him away to an Arctic prison camp on manufactured charges. In each of these efforts they failed, not only because of Navalny’s steadfast commitment to his cause of a more normal Russia, but because of the strength of his ideas.
Freedom triumphs over oppression, as long as we remain committed to it. Navalny refused to let comfort — or lack thereof — shake his conscience. And while we all may not be capable of his remarkable personal bravery, it should inspire us. The Russian government wanted to silence him, Putin could hardly stand to mention him by name, so we must continue to amplify his message.
“If they decide to kill me, we are incredibly strong,” he said in the award-winning 2022 documentary “Navalny” while addressing his fellow Russians. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing. So don’t be inactive.”
With Russia slated for another presidential election in March, unfortunately and effectively a sort of coronation for Putin, freedom-loving Russians must continue to clamor for a better, more normal Russia — admittedly no easy task with a government so hostile to dissent.
They, and those of us around the world, must continue to value and elevate Navalny’s ideas. A state that resorts to locking up its critics is weak in its heart even as it flexes control over its people. Strongmen like Putin possess a brittle sort of strength that will fall apart in the unyielding gaze of history, even if they rule for the moment.
Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, brought a message of defiance to the Munich Security Conference on Friday. In addition to his wife, Navalny leaves behind two children, Daria and Zakhar, and a brother Oleg.
“We cannot believe Putin and his government,” Navalnaya told the audience of world leaders and diplomats Friday, as reported by the New York Times, expressing skepticism about the government’s claims around her husband’s death. “They are lying constantly. But if it’s true, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government, his friends, I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family and with my husband. They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.”
In the meantime, we must honor her husband by sharing his ideas. That in itself is a form of punishment for a government that tried relentlessly to silence him.
We go back to his answer when asked for the CNN Films documentary what his final message to the Russian people would be.
“I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up,” Navalny responded to director Daniel Roher. “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power, to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes.”
