Irish Examiner view: Brave Russians

Police stand blocking approaches to the street as protesters try to break through during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thousands of people have taken to the streets across Russia to demand the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, keeping up the wave of nationwide protests that have rattled the Kremlin. Picture: AP

A decade ago, almost to the day, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled by protests triggered by the self-immolation of a street vendor. A former military officer, he ruled that country for 23 years. Almost immediately, tens of thousands of emboldened Egyptians flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square, driving Hosni Mubarak from power and transforming the nascent Arab Spring into a true phenomenon.

Yet in Egypt today, authoritarianism has a tighter grip than ever, and its people are drained or traumatised. The most populous Arab nation is enduring its deepest human rights crisis for decades. Poverty has deepened, while the pandemic and falling oil prices exacerbate hardship.

Yet despite that sobering example, tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets this weekend in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s autocracy. At least 1,000 were arrested.

We are, at least those Russians who long for change, at a point when that old equation — how much force will a dictator use to stay in power — becomes more and more relevant.