Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "rumblings of disquiet across Russia" video.

  1. Please could you give me a reference to look this story up? Regrettably, I missed it completely. I would very much like to know what this head teacher is saying and how he explains his rebellion? It is a bold and brave thing to do, regardless of his reasoning, right or wrong. Prima facia I stand with him. Though I too recognise the enormous importance of memorialising those among us who make the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of us, it seems fairly plain that even the over-propagandised Russians know that their cause is unjust, their methods brutal and their sacrifice too great for the sake of a tiny oligarchy’s ambitions, flinging all of the laws of diplomacy and war into the teeth of an outraged democratic world. Usually, when one person bravely takes a stand like this, they are merely expressing what everyone about them is thinking and feeling. And, if I had to guess, I would bet real money that this educator is not unwilling to memorialise the fallen soldier, as he is to accept the propaganda that they propose to hedge about his plaque? He will argue that it is the war he is opposing, not the boy. And that is a dilemma, which I am sure he must be feeling keenly. He may even feel that he is sacrificing his own future, liberty and possibly more, for the sake of that soldier as much as for his community. He does not have the luxury of distance that we do, knowing his actions must have an impact and that his time has come (presumably?) for this gesture. It will be easy for the Russian state to mobilise arguments similar to the one you expressed. But, for me at least, it does not take a great leap of the imagination to picture a head teacher who once knew this boy, knew his values, his hopes and dreams, his anxieties and fears, and perhaps is in a position to know that the person who would be most offended by a memorial of this type would be that boy himself? And that is just one of so many scenarios that leap to my overactive writer’s mind (“an imagination trained to misbehave,” as Stephen King once put it) that may fully justify this head teacher in a more personal, moral stance than we see on the face of it? That is why I would very much like to know where this story came from, read it myself and maybe use the search terms to find other journalistic takes on the situation? Such matters are close to my heart too.
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