No monument, thanks

[halldor]

The widow of Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1989, has reacted skeptically to the news that a Moscow city commission has finally, after more than 12 years, agreed to put up a monument in his name:

"Sakharov's widow... says today's Russia is not worthy of her husband's memory.

Yelena Bonner, a prominent human rights activist in her own right, said honoring Sakharov is hypocritical because Russia has failed to live up to his ideals.

It seems to me that putting up a monument to Sakharov today would be a very big deception'.... "

[Robert Harris]

12 years? That is fast for Moscow. It was only a year or two ago that Moscow got its first starue of Dostoevsky, which now sits in front of the Lenin Library.

Of course New York is faster, We do not have a statue but we have had a Sakharov Street for years.

[halldor]

A Sakharov monument might have made sense in 1990, but it seems unlikely that now is the right time.

As Yelena Bonner said:

"All nine years he (Sakharov) would have been standing at protests against the war in Chechnya with his hat off out of respect for the dead... And this country is going to erect a monument to him?''

[ethics]

I agree with her on this issue. But I definitely disagree with her other stances.

[halldor]

What other stances of Bonner's do you disagree with?

[ethics]

Originally posted by halldor
What other stances of Bonner's do you disagree with?

SHe took a template anti-war stance not only in Russia (which I would have to agree with) but throughout the world (which I disagree with).

She recently wrote in a Russian American paper stating her stance and I was very unimpressed.

[halldor]

OK, I missed that. You don't have a link to the article?

[ethics]

It was in Russian print but I'll see if I can find something.

[halldor]

Originally posted by ethics
SHe took a template anti-war stance not only in Russia (which I would have to agree with) but throughout the world (which I disagree with).

She recently wrote in a Russian American paper stating her stance and I was very unimpressed.

She certainly fully supports the American armed intervention in Iraq - see the FrontPage.com link I posted - so I'm wondering if she has been misreported somewhere?

Bonner, like Bukovsky, is critical of the Bush administration's policy of "engaging" Putin's Russia - which in their view is not much better than Saddam Hussein's Iraq - and of turning a blind eye to Russian atrocities and human rights violations in Chechnya.

[ethics]

No, it wasn't about her opinion on US engaging Russia and I had the wrong person, David, forgive me. I went back to the article and it was about QUEEN NOOR!

Tell me I am not losing my mind when I mix the two? God, I need a vacation.

[halldor]

You're not losing your mind, Leon. Easy to get confused with the myriad of posts in the forum.

The magnet on my refrigerator's door says: "I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere." :)

[Robert Harris]

Well it seems that Sakharov has a monument after all despite the widow's objections -- in St. Petersburg.

SAKHAROV MONUMENT UNVEILED IN ST. PETERSBURG. The first Russian monument to physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov was unveiled on a square between the main building of St. Petersburg State University and the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences on 5 May, "Kommersant-Daily" reported the next day. The monument is the work of sculptor Levon Lazarev, who began pushing the project after the square on which the statue stands was named after Sakharov in 1996. State Duma Deputy Grigorii Tomchin (Union of Rightist Forces), a "first-wave democrat" who became involved in politics during the era of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, remarked with pleasure that the idea for the monument originated with "the citizens" and that "the authorities had nothing to do with this event." Sakharov's widow, Yelena Bonner, did not attend the unveiling and told "Kommersant-Daily": "Now is not the time to deal with monuments in Russia. The mass enthusiasm for monuments attests to a superficial, unserious relationship to those to whom the monuments are dedicated." Bonner recently objected to plans to erect a Sakharov monument in Moscow (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 April 2003). LB

From: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 7, No. 85, Part I, 6 May 2003

[ethics]

Had a feeling they would do something in spite.