In America, Alex Ovechkin, the captain of the Washington Capitals, can criticise national policy without fear of retribution
By M.S.
I GREW up in the 1980s rooting for the Washington Capitals, a hockey team that at the time was best described as hopeless. Over the past decade I have enjoyed the exploits of a much better version of that team, graced with a captain, forward* Alex Ovechkin (pictured), who last year led the NHL in goals for the second year in a row. Mr Ovechkin is a Russian who got his start playing for Dynamo Moscow, and yesterday, as Zack Beauchamp of Vox noticed, he put up an Instagram picture that seems to advance a pro-Russian position on the conflict in Ukraine. In the picture, Mr Ovechkin holds up a sign bearing the hashtag #savechildrenfromfascism. Beside it, he writes (in Russian): "Our grandfathers and grandmothers saw all the horrors of fascism! We will not allow it in our time!" Outside Russia, the question of which side in the conflict has more fascist characteristics is considered debatable, but in the context of Russian media discourse Mr Ovechkin clearly seems to be saying that he considers the Ukrainian government to be fascist, and implying that Russia's military intervention is justified.
If this is what Mr Ovechkin thinks about Ukraine, he's completely wrong. But he is entitled to his opinion, and he is entitled to express that opinion on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else he likes. He is entitled to do so because he plays hockey in a free country. He is entitled to do so even though he is not a citizen of that country. Regardless of how many people follow him on the internet, no government institution will require him to register as a media organisation or force him to conform to regulations for broadcast media (as bloggers with more than 3,000 followers are now required to in Russia), let alone use the threat of prosecution for violating such regulations to pressure him to alter the opinions he expresses.
By way of comparison, on Wednesday Ella Polyakova, a member of the Russian government's human-rights council, said in an interview with the online Russian TV station Dozhd that in her opinion Russia has invaded Ukraine. Ms Polyakova, who directs the St Petersburg branch of Soldiers' Mothers, a Russian human-rights group founded in 1988, further said she had information that 100 wounded Russian soldiers had been flown to a hospital in St Petersburg and that soldiers were being paid 250,000 rubles each (about $7,000) to fight in Ukraine. The following day, the Russian authorities announced that Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg had been placed on the government's list of "foreign agents" engaged in political activities. The law requiring organisations receiving any foreign donations to be listed as foreign agents has been used as a tool to essentially shut down Russian civil society over the past two years, apart from organisations bankrolled by or co-operating with the government.
The fact that Americans and Russians are taking opposite sides over the conflict in Ukraine is not just a matter of cultural sympathies or a geopolitical grudge match over the cold war. It is also, as Lilia Shevtsova writes in the American Interest, a conflict between the world's liberal democracies and a new and adaptive form of capitalist authoritarianism. In other words, it's a conflict between the kinds of countries where foreign athletes can openly express support for an increasingly unfriendly power, and those where even soldiers' mothers' committees may face crackdowns if they dare to criticise the government. As tensions between Washington and Moscow grow sharper, Mr Ovechkin may find that American fans are angered by his apparent support for the other side. Athletes are celebrities, and celebrities cannot publicly express their political opinions without affecting their brand. But Mr Ovechkin lives in a country where his position will not earn him any sort of official censorship.
My criticisms of Mr Ovechkin are of a different sort. He's something of a showboat. He always notches far more goals than assists; truly great NHL forwards have more balanced stats, showing that they are boosting their teammates' productivity as much as their own. As a captain, he has failed to inspire the team to execute under pressure, and the Capitals consistently perform well during the regular season only to be knocked out in the first or second round of the playoffs. As for his political opinions, if anything, they incline me to root even harder for Mr Ovechkin and his team. I think it's fantastic to be reminded that in a liberal democracy, a foreign citizen who is the star captain of a team based in the national capital can openly express views diametrically opposed to government policy, and not be punished for it in any way. I don't agree with Mr Ovechkin's views on Ukraine. But not only do I defend his right to express them—I vow to watch him play this season, and to root for him to score, especially (apologies to my nephew) against the cursed Anaheim Ducks. Go Caps.
*In a moment of spaceyness, this post initially called Mr Ovechkin a centre. Whether or not his politics are right-wing, he is a right wing.
