The Human Rights Foundation works to aid and unite brave people working for individual liberty and justice around the world. Our annual Oslo Freedom Forum brings together hundreds of dissidents, activists, philanthropists, journalists, and policy makers from all over the world. The goal is for every participant to learn and to share and to return home with new strength and new ideas.
In 2014, I presented our Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot. It is not often I agree with the Putin regime, but in their case I must make an exception. Their startling performance, their ridicule of Putin, their courage to take a stand with their art, this was not just a cheap prank as their defense lawyer attempted to argue. It was political and it was powerful.
And their trial in Moscow was no trivial persecution. Dictatorships must be feared to survive and so they cannot bear to be mocked. Unlike most observers, Putin, with his dictator’s animal instinct, immediately perceived the seriousness of the threat. The result was two years in prison for a performance that lasted fifteen minutes.
And so my last policy recommendation is to listen to the dissidents, even if you do not like what they have to say. They are the ones who reveal to us the dark realities of our societies, the realities that most of us have the luxury to turn away from. Listen to the dissidents because they warn us of the threats that target minorities first and inevitably spread to the majority. Every society has its dissidents, not just dictatorships. They speak for the disenfranchised, the ignored, and the persecuted. Listen to them now, because they speak of what is to come.
“Winter is coming” is a warning, not an inevitable conclusion. The good thing about the seasons of political and social change is that we can affect them if we try hard enough. If we rouse ourselves from our complacency and relearn how to stand up to the dictators and terrorists who threaten the modern world we have built, we can alter our course. Anti-modernity is a dangerous virus, and to remove a virus a reboot or a reset is not enough. We have to build a values-based system that is robust enough to resist the virus at home, smart enough to stop it before it spreads, and bold enough to eradicate it where it grows.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Whenever I’m at risk of sinking into a sea of interesting ideas and intriguing opportunities, my wife Dasha throws me a line and pulls me to the right destination. She knew that this was the right book at the right time.
I very much hope that the book itself recognizes the many individuals who have educated and inspired me during my past ten years as a human rights activist, so I will use this space for those who turned that education and inspiration into a book.
Chris Parris-Lamb, my agent at The Gernert Company, impressed us from the first day we met with his preparation and energy. Chris and our editor at PublicAffairs, Benjamin Adams, were essential in quickly figuring out how to turn a tangle of ideas, history, memoir, analysis, current events, and opinion into a coherent story with a vital message. PublicAffairs founder Peter Osnos has a great nose for news and his enthusiastic support for the book was a tremendous boost.
Special thanks to George R. R. Martin for his marvelous book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and its derived HBO television series Game of Thrones, which inspired this book’s title. Putin may be a lot like Tywin Lannister but I’m justifiably afraid to compare myself to any of the characters considering how often they meet gruesome fates!
NOTES
CHAPTER 1: THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND THE FALL OF THE USSR
-bring the normal life to my people. The daylight. A metaphor I adapted from the mirror-smashing scene in a movie that had only just become quite popular in the USSR, Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon!
-shaking its political structure to the roots. George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1998), Kindle edition, locations 10106-07.
-the republics will have their independence. Fred Waitzkin, Mortal Games: The Turbulent Genius of Garry Kasparov (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993), Kindle edition, locations 594-95.
-trying to save everything he can. Ibid.
-a $2.5 billion aid package that had been delayed. Curt Tarnoff, U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action, CRS Report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.
-against its enemies, both internal and external. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2004), Kindle edition, locations 4284-85.
CHAPTER 2: THE LOST DECADE
-crisis since the end of World War II. The US and the USSR both agreed on the creation of Israel in 1948 and were the first two countries to recognize it.
-consensus for the American role in the world. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, Kindle edition, locations 11416-20.
-much bloodier than we thought. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 29.
-yesterday America elected the leader of the world. Garry Kasparov, “Moral Principles Must Underpin U.S. Leadership,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 1992, A14.
-and advancing the cause of peace. President Bill Clinton statement to the American people on Kosovo from the White House, March 24, 1999. Full text and video at http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3932.
CHAPTER 3: THE INVISIBLE WARS
-though most are blessedly peaceful today. The Wikipedia page “Disputed territories in Europe” is fascinating reading and excellent trivia.
-what you would have to say to him about that? President Bill Clinton’s news conference with President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in Moscow, May 10, 1995, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=5l336.
-without even telling Yeltsin. Kommersant newspaper, May 18, 1995. Referenced in John W. Parker, Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008), 116.
-who promoted close political and economic ties with Iran. Ibid. 117-188.
-a more cooperative relationship in the future. Tarnoff, “U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action,” CRS report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.
-manage the conflicts they themselves had provoked. Steven Erlanger, “Five Years Later: Eastern Europe, Post-Communism—A Special Report; East Europe Watches the Bear, Warily,” New York Times, October 21, 1994.
-territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, 1994, http://www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484.