{"id":8405,"date":"2013-03-24T15:57:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-24T15:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=8405"},"modified":"2013-03-24T15:59:02","modified_gmt":"2013-03-24T15:59:02","slug":"the-anti-pussy-riot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-anti-pussy-riot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Anti-Pussy Riot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indrus.in\/society\/2013\/03\/19\/the_anti-pussy_riot_23043.html\">Via<\/a> <em>Russia &#038; India Report<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A group of Creationists staged a publicity stunt in Moscow\u2019s Darwin Museum, unfurling a Christian banner, distributing leaflets, and singing hymns. This is the latest in a string of attention-seeking performances by self-proclaimed \u2018Orthodox activists\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>At 3 pm on Saturday, a group of young people hoisted a banner over the building of the museum that read \u201cGod created the world\u201d. A few minutes later, protesters released several hundred leaflets from the balcony in the main hall onto an unsuspecting audience of mostly children, as several sang traditional Orthodox hymns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s protect our children from lies! The Universe was created by God 7522 years ago. The \u2018Theory of Evolution\u2019 is a pseudo-scientific myth, an inadequate and unproven theory that has been used to justify the murder of millions,\u201d read one of the flyers.<\/p>\n<p>Within minutes, the participants of what was advertised online beforehand as a \u201cmissionary flashmob\u201d began to gather the dropped leaflets, and escaped to the nearest underground station where they burnt them.<\/p>\n<p>Within hours, the organizers, who call themselves God\u2019s Will, posted a video of the stunt, titled \u201cCheckmate, atheists!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9x96Jl7QwH8?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The response of the Russian Orthodox Church was telling\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin refused to condemn the stunt, saying simply that \u201cit was a little more aggressive than it needed to be\u201d in a TV interview on local Dozhd channel.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, renowned biologist Aleksandr Markov, who witnessed the event first-hand, was scathing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are pathetic. I think they were aiming to produce a symmetrical response to Pussy Riot, but with one difference \u2013 they are not likely to face any serious punishment from the state,\u201d Markov wrote in his blog.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026.The ideologue of the museum stunt, Dmitriy Enteo, became famous on the back of several stunts directed at Pussy Riot and their supporters, and has admitted that he consciously uses the same art performance aesthetic, but for opposite aims.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, Enteo\u2019s Orthodox Patrol or Inquisition, as he variously calls his band of active supporters, numbering several dozen, has accosted people on the streets wearing what they deemed to be inappropriate t-shirts, broke into an abortion clinic, interrupted a theater play sympathetic to Pussy Riot, and blockaded an art exhibition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Like so many of such people, Enteo seems to have been on some sort of spiritual journey:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>24 year-old Dmitriy Enteo\u2019s (real name Tsorionov) path to salvation has not been straightforward. The son of a university professor, he was previously a Hindu, a Buddhist, and a devotee of trance music. The pseudonym Enteo was derived from entheogen, a member of a group of psychodelic plants, such as peyote, used by shamans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But holy fools have their uses:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Apart from atheists, Enteo\u2019s anger appears to be reserved for Russia\u2019s opposition parties. On his Twitter account, he says the political program of the long-established social-democratic Yabloko Party is similar to that of Hitler. In another filmed stunt last week, God\u2019s Will burst into the offices of the Yabloko Party shouting that it was the party of \u201csodomites and Satanists\u201d, grabbed their promotional literature, and burnt it.<\/p>\n<p>In interviews, Enteo often speaks about his support for the government and about the need for \u201ca union between Church and State\u201d to protect Russia from \u201cWestern-sponsored threats\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In just the last year, Moscow has introduced Cossack patrols, who claim to be guardians of Orthodox values. Meanwhile, \u201cpropaganda of homosexuality\u201d has been banned in several regions, often after campaigns by deeply religious deputies.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of Pussy Riot\u2019s performance, the Russian parliament has also devised a law that would make it a criminal misdemeanour to \u201coffend the feelings of religious believers,\u201d and a final draft is expected to be passed this spring.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Russia &#038; India Report: A group of Creationists staged a publicity stunt in Moscow\u2019s Darwin Museum, unfurling a Christian banner, distributing leaflets, and singing hymns. This is the latest in a string of attention-seeking performances by self-proclaimed \u2018Orthodox activists\u2019. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-anti-pussy-riot\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15,711],"tags":[1000,946,559,560],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8405"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8409,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405\/revisions\/8409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}