A ribbon

Coming back from work the other day, a Russian lady inquired about the bus I was about to board. A nice lady, an expat having been back to Moscow to get the right papers for her to be able to draw a pension abroad. She was very sportive, had done basketball, ice hockey, gymnastics, dancing and was cycling a lot in her new fatherland. She was wearing an orange and brown or black striped ribbon, it spoke to me. So I asked never having seen such a ribbon, what is it for? She said: 'It is against the fascists. We won against them and there are big festivities always on Mai 9. Fascism is no good’, she proceeded, ‘In the schools every class has some special activity. I remember one year, the three classes at our level had a choice to be either the communists, the soldiers or the partisans. We were the partisans. We didn’t look as good as the other groups, because they had uniforms and such and we had nothing. So we invented and every one looked different. The others also had official songs, but we choose folksongs, and partisan songs. We didn’t win first prize, but the people present all said the partisans were the best, they cried at the old songs… We cannot live under dictatorship.’ I was wearing my red triangle: the symbol of the political prisoners, trade union people, free masons and some of the resistance in the concentration camps during World War II… Indeed, we ourselves are responsible to defend freethinking and freedom of speech and gathering. We ourselves are responsible if we loose habeas corpus, the right to choose, if we no longer defend Roe versus Wade. Also torturing, extraordinary renditions are unacceptable, the collusion of European states is unacceptable. Fascist racists won 41,5 % of the vote where I live and no, as long as possible don’t let them participate in any form of government: never forget they are not democratic, they don’t respect human rights. So Mai 9 holds an important message.