Do you think it might not have been Putin?
No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. We don’t know. I think I know, but I don’t know for a fact. And as a scholar I stick to what I know.
There are, it would appear, about 9,000 Russian troops milling around Crimea, on the streets, guarding buildings. There’s a naval base there. So by law, by contract, Russia has every right to be there. They have an infantry protecting it’s strategic facilities.
I think they took the troops that they’re moving around Crimea from the Crimean naval base. I don’t know that they actually sent troops across the Russian-Crimean border. So if we’re going to use the word invasion we need to be precise.
Now [Putin] did do something. He mobilized some troops he had there. There’s no doubt about that. He may have broken the terms of the contract he had with Ukraine governing troop movement at that naval base. That may be the case. But have you heard the story about the snipers?
I did.
Everybody blamed Yanukovych for the snipers that killed people in Kiev on Maidan Square. I said at the time, how can we know who killed whom? How do we know? I said let’s wait. Now, evidently, the Estonian foreign minister told the foreign minister of the European Union that those were not government Yanukoyvch snipers, they were snipers from the right-wing movement in the streets, that it was a provocation.
But I don’t know if it’s true. If this turns out to be true, can you turn the clock back? Can you say Yanukoyvch was legitimate and right? Can you bring him back to Kiev? No, that train left the station. When people such as myself say, Can we get the facts before we decide? they say, “Putin apologist!”
But the protests in Ukraine still happened, whether or not those snipers were under Yanukoyvch’s direction.
It was a very peaceful protest in November and into December. And John McCain went there and stood alongside one of the fascist leaders and put his arm around him. He didn’t know who he was. And [Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State] Victoria Nuland, we now know was plotting to overthrow the government, because we have the tape telling the American Ambassador, Here’s how we’re going to form a new government.
That’s called a coup d’etat. Yanukoyvch was elected legally. Everybody said that election was fair.
Do you see any merit in the protests?
Of course. But let me turn it around. Let’s say the tea party says that Obama has violated American law and the Constitution through Obamacare. They surround the White House. They throw fire bombs at the White House security guard. Obama flees and the tea party puts Ted Cruz in the White House. Do we say that’s democracy?
So how is it democracy in Ukraine? Why couldn’t they wait, by the way? The next presidential election was one year away. Why didn’t Washington and the EU say no? We’re democracies; that’s not how we do it. Peacefully protest all you want, but don’t throw firebombs at the policeman because if you did that in any democratic capital we’d open fire.
Look what they did in London. Look what they did in Greece. Look what we did to Occupy [Wall Street]. They weren’t even violent and we beat them up and pepper sprayed them. That’s what we do.
We believe you’ve got a right to peacefully protest. You get a permit and you go there and you can stay there until snow falls. That’s your right -- if you don’t block the traffic. But you can’t throw firebombs at policemen. That’s true in any country, in any democracy. But suddenly from our point of view it’s okay in Kiev. They’re freedom fighters.
So Yanukoyvch, who was democratic elected, flees and now you’ve got a government in Kiev with no legal legitimacy in Ukrainian or international law that we’re now being told is a paragon of virtue. And you’ve got a parliament where they scared away the majority deputies who represented the governing party. And you’ve got a parliament passing crazy laws.
[Secretary of State John] Kerry went there and tried to chill them out and I guess he did because they pulled back on some of the things they had done. Because the tail is wagging the dog.
You’ve mentioned that the American media has misrepresented several aspects of Russia, including the situation for gay people there. So how has the media misrepresented the crackdown on gay rights?
Well [the media] don’t know the history. Homosexuality was a crime in Soviet Russia. When I lived in Russia in the 70s and 80s our gay friends lived in fear of being arrested. They were not in the closet, they were in the basement.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993. After that gays began to emerge in public. Not the way it is here, but you know. Then they began to apply for permits to have gay pride marches, and cities’ governments reacted badly.
Why? Russia’s a very traditional country. All the polling we have shows that approximately 85 percent of Russians think that homosexuality is either a disease or a choice. You and I say that’s horrible. How can they be so primitive? And I can tell you how.
That’s the way people thought in the U.S. when I grew up, when I lived in Kentucky or Indiana. And even when I came to New York in the 1960s. What changed it? Enlightenment. Gays fought for their rights. It was a long struggle.
But even today we have eight or nine states with much more repressive gay laws than they have in Russia. The Russian law was a stupid law, because, first of all, legally it’s not enforceable. Secondly, it incites homophobia.
But the fact is there is no substantial popular opinion in Russia that favors gay rights. None. Nor was there any here 30 or 40 years ago. I don’t remember any Russians coming over here and telling American gays how to fight for their rights.
I grew up in the segregated South. I don’t recall any Russians coming over here and telling black folk how to get their rights. This is a universal rule. You win your rights in your own country or you never have them. All we’ve done is made it worse [for Russian gays]. As my gay friends in Russia say, “Yesterday I was a faggot; now I’m an American faggot.” It’s just made things worse for gays there. And sensible gays, politically conscious gays in Russia, will tell you that.
So you think US intervention has made things worse for gays in Russia?
I don’t think it, I know it. I can give you the names of Russian legislators who told me that they wanted to get rid of [the law] and wanted to talk to Putin. But you can’t do that when you turn it into another barricade between America and Russia. Do you think this Ukrainian thing is going to be good for Russian gays?
But things are dire for gay people in Russia. We’ve seen plenty of reports about that.
I didn’t say they were doing fine. But how is that our concern? Are we supposed to form a brigade and go there and liberate Russian gays? You win your rights whether you’re a black person or a Jew or a gay or a person of Islamic descent in this country by fighting for them. That’s the way it works in a democracy.
Why is it America’s job to go over there and sort out the gay problem when 85 percent of Russians think they should have no rights? They’ve got to struggle at home and most intelligent gays know that. That happened in this country over and over and over again.
By the way, before we get too sanctimonious, I read in the New York Times that violent acts against gays in New York City doubled in 2013 over 2012. Can we clean up our own house first?
What do you think the goal is of the people who are criticizing you?
It’s a form of censorship. I know people in American universities who think as I do and they’re afraid to speak out and I say, shame on them. There’s nothing to be afraid of in this country. Be afraid in Russia. But here, what are they going to do?
Alright, so you won’t get that great job you wanted, or you might not get the promotion. You get tainted, you become toxic, you get labeled.
They want to silence me. Calls I’m getting are threatening me. I would disregard it as silly except I’m too alone. I need others to come out of the political closet.
We are on the cusp of war with Russia. Others see now that it’s stretched too far. Even [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid, for god’s sake, said the other day, Maybe we ought to all calm down and think a little. Good for Harry Reid.
[Senator] Rand Paul said we need ask ourselves if maybe we have contributed to this debacle. And on a panel on CNN the other night, I almost fell off my stool. I say to them what I said to you, that we’ve been pushing this on the Russians and we bear a heavy responsibility. Putin’s not innocent, but we can’t get out of this unless we share some of the responsibility. And I thought, boy am I about to get flogged.
And you know what [former Representive Newt] Gingrich says? “I agree with Professor Cohen.” [Editor's note: A transcript of the show has Gingrich saying there was “a lot of accuracy" to what Professor Cohen said.] He says we have overextended, we haven’t been wise in our approach to Russia. We need to think what we’re going to be doing. And I almost wept, except I was on television. That was a lifeline to me.
You don’t think he’s just using that to have something to wave at Obama?
Yeah, you’re right. They’re bashing Obama a lot, saying he brought this on because of Syria and everything. It’s complete nonsense.
You know why I think Newt Gingrich said this? Because he’s an educated man. He’s an historian. He thinks historically. He’s smart. And he doesn’t have any presidential ambitions now. So now he’s speaking from his core.
What do you think of Pussy Riot?
Somebody did a survey. In 82 countries they would have been executed for what they did [Editor’s note: Unable to locate the survey, Cohen revises this statement to say that Pussy Riot would have faced criminal charges in many countries and the death penalty in several of them]. I don’t know what would happen if it happened in St. Patrick’s [Cathedral, New York]. About 15 years ago a young couple went into St. Patrick’s, took off their clothes and had sex in St. Patrick’s and they were arrested. I don’t know exactly what happened to them.
One of the problems in Russia is they don’t have much administrative justice where you get a suspended sentence and a fine and you have to go wash all the graffiti off the subways. They have it but they need to develop it because a lot of people should never be in prison or given prison terms instead of probation. They need to reform the judicial system.
In Russia when it happened the whole country was against them. When they went to prison the country softened up and said “Poor girls. They seemed kind of nice.” You know what they were doing before they went to prison? They would go into supermarkets, strip, lay on their back, spread their legs apart and stuff frozen chickens in their vagina.
There were people in there with their kids shopping and Russian authorities did nothing. They didn’t arrest them.
[Pussy Riot] did do something really funny. There’s a drawbridge, I forget whether it’s in Moscow or St. Petersburg. They created a penis on it, so when the drawbridge went up it became an erect penis. That’s actually pretty funny. I mean, that’s clever. [Editor's note: This prank was not done by the protest group Pussy Riot and instead by the Russian contemporary art group "Voina." Cohen points out that Pussy Riot is considered to be an offshoot of Voina, and famously jailed Pussy Riot members Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were formerly part of Voina.]
But you go to the most sacred church in Russian that Stalin had blown up in the 30s and [they rebuilt] it. It wasn’t just “Putin’s bad!” they were singing. They cleaned the song up later when they put it on the internet. there was scatology in there too. It was bad opposition politics.
