Pavel Selin: Putin and Lukashenka are political animals

However, the well-known Russian journalist is convinced that no dictatorship lasts forever.

Pavel Selin is the former head of the correspondent office of the Russian TV-channel NTV in Belarus. For his keen reports about the situation in the country, Pavel Selin was deported with a 5-year ban to come back to Belarus. During several years he was the host of the TV-show “Last Word” on the NTV. In September 2012 Pavel Selin left the TV-channel after 15 years.

Pavel Selin has recently visited Warsaw and given an interview to the editor-in-chief of charter97.org Natallia Radzina.

- Pavel, more and more Russian politicians compare the situation in Russia with the situation in Belarus. You lived in Minsk for quite a long time, you were deported, banned to come to Belarus in the nearest five years. It means that you know the Belarusian reality well enough. Are our countries really so alike?

- Absolutely. I support the so-called theory of a Russian-Belarusian time loop. Nothing here is new. Everything what has happened in Minsk happens in Moscow with a several-year pause; it goes for the freedom of speech, freedom of parties, freedom of an individual.

As for the freedom of speech, almost the entire independent TV has been destroyed. There is not a single completely independent TV-channel. Only tiny platforms are left but their scope is very limited, like, first of all, the TV-show “Week” with Marianna Maksimovskaya on REN-TV, partially “Central Television” with Vadim Takmieniov on NTV. And the only platform that still can do a lot is the Internet-based TV-channel Dozhd. Its scope though is not that big.

As for the freedom of speech, all political parties that could compete with the incumbent powers are banned or unregistered, like, for example, the party PARNAS (Party of People’s Freedom – Partiya Narodnoy Svobody). Such parties are not allowed to participate in the political life. There is no opposition in the executive and legislative powers. And hence, there are no gears of impact. The power is absolute, autocrat, and it’s moving rapidly to become totalitarian. As for the freedom of an individual, just look at the situation with Navalny, this is the most eloquent example.

- And what, in your opinion, is happening to Navalny?

- Navalny is Khodorkovsky for common people. In 2003, Khodorkovsky became a “black mark” of big business. Today Navalny is a “black mark” and a show-case for everyone who wants to oppose and criticize the powers. It means that Khodorkovsky’s example is intended to show all oligarchs: guys, back off, or you’ll get there, just like Mikhail Borisovich. Today everyone who was at the rallies in Bolotnaya Square, Sakharov Street can observe Navalny; they are shown what will happen to them if they don’t stop. My forecast is pessimistic. And I think that, unfortunately, he will go to prison on completely fake charges.

- Today Konstantin Lebedev, a participant of the ”swamp case”, was sentenced to 2,5 years in reformatory, despite his cooperation with the investigators.

- The key words are cooperation with the investigators. He might have acknowledged something he hadn’t done, he might have given in his allies and so on. And nevertheless, 2,5 years of an actual imprisonment, not conditional. But, they promised a conditional term, for sure. This is done to demonstrate what will happen to all of us. Their message to us is: no rallies, no demonstrations. Stay at home if you don’t want to go to prison.

- Doesn’t it remind you of the events of December 19, 2010 in Minsk, when the opposition was accused of organization of massive disorders?

- Exactly the same situation. This is the loop. Everything that has happened in Minsk, then happens in Moscow. This is exactly this case. And now we are getting information that a group of provocateurs might have been working there, too – the people in black masks that the police let go in and out. They were grabbing the others, and then they were trying to break the OMON chain. The same scenario: a massive rally, provocation, detentions, trials, prison. But of course, in Minsk it was even tougher. All presidential candidates were detained, and even you, a journalist… Everything was much more brutal and rude. In Russia, the methods are more Jesuit and refined, but the essence is identical.

- You left NTV after 15 years, being a host of your own show. You’ve started your career as an insourced reporter in Voroniezh. Did it feel bad to resign?

- The word ”bad” is too weak to describe the process. I didn’t just feel bad or sad. These words are too weak to express the feelings I had and still have. I came to the TV-channel because I dreamt of working there, because it was the most powerful, open and free TV in the country. And this is what they’ve done to it after all this time. This very long process was performed in a most Jesuit way between 2001 and 2012.

During these 11 years they extracted, in a most cynical manner, the liberal essence of the channel, leaving the exterior, this green logo-ball empty, and filled it with what NTV is today – crime, pop-culture and tabloid material in its worst. Today the channel has a very strong ideological and propaganda component. Just take the movies about Khodorkovsky – NTV was the first to show them, all those horrible “Anatomy of Protests” episodes about the funds that opposition lives on.

- But the movie “God Batka” was a treat for the Belarusian viewers.

- This movie was a treat, but even it was Kremlin’s order. Let me quote Boris Nemtsov: “They are very alike, Putin and Lukashenka. They really hate each other, but they are the same.” They have their periods of love and hatred. They are political animals.

Periods of love come after periods of hatred, and then back again. There was a period of political hatred that created the “God Batka”. Now, when there will be love at the Russian airbase, nobody can even think of such movies –neither on NTV, nor somewhere else. I have a feeling that when Lukashenka decides to close down the Russian base, there will come new “God Batkas”. This is my forecast for the future.

They have turned my channel into a swamp of crime, pop and tabloid news. This is what NTV is today. Imagine: your mother who brought you up, gave you everything, has fallen ill. But you don’t stop loving your mother, you feel terrible for her, you are sad and you hurt, but you hope that she’ll get better one day. This is how I’m feeling, that one day it will happen to my channel.

- In the meantime, what do you do?

- I am working with several projects at once, like the weekly ten-minute program “Megalopolis” broadcast every Friday on RTVi, the major Russian-speaking TV-channel abroad. The program tells about Moscow’s social and culture life.

Recently I have done a nine-minute special report for the show “Parfionov” on Dozhd shown at 9 p.m. on Sundays. This is a reincarnation of “Namedni”, our cradle. I do hope that the guys will offer me to work with other topics in the future.

Today I am a hundred-percent freelancer, a free artist. I’ve made a series of programs for TV-3 for an eight-episode investigation. There is another very interesting proposal from one of Ukraine’s leading TV-channels that I am still considering, so I won’t give away any details yet.

I have also been an executive producer and scriptwriter for a long movie at TV-channel Rossiya about Chernomyrdin. The movie’s called “CH.V.S.” Sergey Briliov was the host, but we did it together.

My life is very versatile, and it has become fuzzier. I cannot even compare and say if I earn more today than earlier. But my life has definitely become more saturated. Today I can to work with two completely different projects at the same time.

- In other words you recommend journalists not to be afraid of leaving the official media?

- I recommend journalist to stay away from the state-owned media, especially today’s Russian and Belarusian media. Although the movie “Ch.V.S.” that I had done with Briliov turned out really decent, but only because, in my mind, it is about the past. I don’t think that it is possible to produce anything of this scale about the present day on a state-own TV-channel.

- Yesterday in Minsk Nemtsov said that Belarus will become free before Russia. Do you agree with him?

- Of course, I’d like to hope so. You know what Belarus and everything connected to your country means to me. But I believe that what we need is a profound transformation of the system, like in the USSR in mid-80s and then early 90s. The people should realize that it is impossible to live like that.

I have very good memory of the perestroika. It was my graduation year, and I remember queuing in Staryi Oskol for bread. When they delivered the bread, the crowd rushed smashing everything on its way and tearing the breads from each other. I really don’t want anything like that to happen again, in Belarus or in Russia. But unfortunately I understand that unless the people reach the edge, nothing significant will change in the present order. When the people have nothing to eat as a result of the “wise” politics of their leaders, maybe then something radical will happen. Until the I-Just-Wish-There-Were-No-More-War-attitude is common, stimulated by the propaganda, nothing will happen.

On December 19 at the square in Minsk there were a huge number of people, but the demonstration was severely suppressed, because the state is terrified by any change and will never compromise with the nation, the people, the suppressed. The same thing happened in Russia on May 6, 2012. The scheme was identical: to strangle, to suppress, no negotiations, no opposition – God forbid – in the parliament, government.

But I recall how in 1968 8 persons walked out to the Red Square to protest against the soviet troops led into Czechoslovakia. In the late 80s-early 90s the very same square was filled with millions. This really shows that no dictatorship lasts forever.