At the end of December, I posted a piece about my choice for “Leader of the Year – 2023.” And I posted a piece about my choice for “Follower of the Year – 2023.” The latter was Alexei Navalny who, according to Russian sources, just died in a Siberian prison. His age was 47.
As indicated in the earlier piece – the link for “Follower of the Year – 2023” is below – I have been writing about Navalny for over a decade. No need to reiterate what was in my previous posts, except to point out that it has long been obvious he was exceptional. Even early in his career as an impossible, ultimately intolerable thorn in Vladimir Putin’s side he stood out for being clever and handsome, daring, defiant, and original. Navalny was also much bolder and braver than ordinary mortals. Over time he became in fact so bold and brave it was to the point of being, arguably, reckless. To the point where he seemed to be courting a martyr’s death at the hands of the despot, Putin. If this was his goal, he achieved it.
In life, Navalny was, for various reasons, not much of a leader. First, Putin wouldn’t permit him to lead, nor would he permit Russians to follow anyone but himself. Navalny was then more of an episodic activist than he was an effective resister. He was not – while he was alive – able to effect change.
But in death it will be different. This is not to predict that Navalny’s dying will cause Putin tomorrow to topple. Not hardly. But it is to point out that because the former died on the orders of the latter, the name Alexei Navalny will endure.
He will not be like others of his ilk, such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Czechoslovakia’s Vaclav Havel, both of whom were dissidents and similarly spent years in prison. Navalny cannot now emerge from his cell to take a place in politics. He will, however, live forever in the hearts and minds of people everywhere who fervently believe in politics that are clean not corrupt. And in lives lived in liberty not chains.
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