Pavel Durov and the Illusion of Independence

The arrest of Pavel Durov, one of the founders of Telegram and one of the main fighters for freedom of speech on the Internet (along with Elon Musk and Julian Assange) is, first of all, a blow to the illusory picture of the world in which even a very rich and influential person can be independent of the state.

Even the average citizen is inclined to indulge in such illusions — from the Kremlin, which has started mobilization, one can relocate to Georgia or Serbia, from the elected president Trump — to Mexico or Canada. Moreover, people whose wealth exceeds a certain conditional mark, say, one hundred million euros, are prone to such illusions. There is no need to even talk about billionaires.

All these illusions dissipate, like morning fog under the rays of the sun, at the first collision with reality. Order beats class. The system destroys rebels. A hero can only win in a movie. It doesn’t matter how many billions and passports you have — if you cross the system, it will crush you.

The only way out is to find a patron in the person of another system, hostile to the one that wants to gobble you up, and go under its “roof”. But here there can be no talk of any independence, not to mention the fact that it is strongly recommended that the hero does not leave the jurisdiction of the “roof”.

At one time, Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrogantly thought that protection from the USA and Great Britain (the Bushes, Rothschilds, etc.) would provide him with immunity in Russia – and he seriously miscalculated.

Even if Durov had not landed in Le Bourget, the system would have gotten to him anyway. If not in Paris, then in Monaco, if not in Monaco, then somewhere else. Pavel Durov could have not renounced his Russian citizenship and not left Russia at all — but then he would have had to play by the rules that the Kremlin would dictate to him.

Now he will do what his uncles from DGSE and CIA tell him. Whether French horseradish is sweeter than Russian radish is a question for a gourmet.

If some idealistic monarch decides to create a freedom of speech reserve (information offshore) in his kingdom, where fighters against the system from all over the world can find refuge, he will need, among other things, to invest heavily in his army and special services. After all, the fighters will have to be protected, and all the countries of the planet will unite against such an info-offshore.