The passing of Alexei Navalny, has it left you feeling despondent? Yes, undoubtedly. Embarrassed? “Absolutely, he shames us,” responds Robert Meagher, an academic of Irish-American heritage. He believes the depth of our self-focus is such that we cannot envision ourselves risking our lives for something beyond our personal interests. This extreme level of egotism that Albert Camus observed as the ultimate product of the 20th century isolates us, rendering the suffering of others merely a source of amusement.
When the tragic news of Navalny’s assassination surfaced, naturally, Meagher crossed my mind as the appropriate person to converse with. Not only to grapple with why Navalny’s bravery makes me feel humbly resigned – as echoed by cries of “forgive us” at his funeral – but also to shed light on the nature of his courage.
Renowned for his understanding of Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher who is often cited – or misinterpreted – regarding the act of sacrificing one’s life for a principle. Camus writes in The Myth of Sisyphus: “The same thing that motivates us to keep living can also motivate us to accept death.” This is often contorted into: “Whatever is worth living for is leaping to your death for.”
However, these are two absolutely different propositions, as Meagher highlights. Camus “vehemently objected to the dangerous, reckless idea of blood sacrifice glorified by some French intellectuals”, notably Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon, “who praised the sacrifice of Hungarian revolutionaries from the warmth of their offices”. This line of thought that history necessitates blood sacrifice, that martyrs must bleed, was something Camus vehemently resisted.
Camus throughout his life exhibited gallantry – first in the struggle against Nazis and later becoming a target of the Soviets. However, he was not offering his life, he was placing it at risk. Similarly, “Navalny understood the perils he faced, but he was not in pursuit of martyrdom,” I believe.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the demise of Camus in a 1960 car accident continue to invite speculation. Eyewitness testimonies suggest tampering with the car and a recently published book has brought to light perhaps damning information, accusing KGB operatives of orchestrating his murder because of his strong anti-Soviet sentiments. When he died, Camus was 46, a year younger than Navalny at the time of his death, which, according to his bereaved wife and his team living in exile, was executed by ex-KGB agent, Vladimir Putin. They lay the blame squarely on Putin, alleging he had Navalny killed to thwart his freedom in a prisoner swap deal.
The eerie similarities between Camus and Navalny are hard to ignore. They both had careers in the journalism sector, using the leading medium of their times. Both were also opponent of radical and autocratic ideologies.
In a well-documented conversation with an Algerian scholar advocating for guerrilla warfare tactics that involved the use of bombings on trams, Camus made it clear his mother, a resident of Algiers, could easily be a victim of such an attack. “My belief in justice is strong, but my mother’s safety takes precedence over justice,” was Camus’s retort.
This quote, possibly Camus’s most famous, was often misinterpreted and incorrectly quoted according to Meagher. “Camus was advocating for the sanctity of human life. He was condemning terrorism by saying no form of justice that threatens my mother’s life is justifiable.”
Both Camus and Navalny rejected indifference, both in their words and actions. Camus, in his book “The Fall”, drew a comparison of the “modern man” to someone who “had sexual relations and perused the newspapers”. Navalny echoed this sentiment, urging action over passivity in a statement recorded before his 2021 journey back to Russia: “Surrender is forbidden… Do not remain idle.”
They both retained faith in the influence of minor acts of honesty. A similar stance has been taken by another individual who has fall foul of the Russian authoritarian government. As Russian tanks rolled into Kyiv on February 25th, 2022, it was widely anticipated that Volodymyr Zelenskiy (46) would flee Ukraine for his safety. However, Zelenskiy chose to remain, broadcasting via social media that “the president is here” in a powerful display of defiance.
The acclaimed writer Timothy Snyder pointed out that Zelenskiy’s choice to remain in Kyiv took western analysts off guard. Snyder attributed this to “the politics of inevitability”, a growing belief in the weakened democracies of the USA and Europe that we can’t halt the relentless march of history; our only options are to flee or hide and hope we avoid getting trampled upon.
Camus had a disdain for Sartre and his fellow French intellectuals due to their Marxist conviction in the inevitability of history, as cited by Meagher. Navalny was steadfast in his belief that no person was helpless. His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, continues his fight, encouraging Russian voters to either void their ballots in the elections slated for March 17th or merely mark their presence at the polling booth and then leave. These small gestures, though seemingly insignificant, are anything but.
But, what can we, ordinary citizens, do about injustice, whether foreign or local?
Camus offered a few solutions. Firstly, cease to consider historical occurrences as predestined. Secondly, engage in bold debate in democratic platforms – you may even strike up a friendship with someone you previously regarded as an adversary.
For Camus, friendship was a sacred bond, as stated by Meagher. While it may sound overly simplistic to advise ‘practise friendship’ or ‘befriend others’, Camus would likely advocate for dialogue as a moral principle. He insisted that we cease to exist without dialogue – perhaps a part of us withers without dialogue.