The Arab Spring was made possible by Facebook servers -- sitting in one country affecting another. The ability of information in the form of electrons, to easily pass through borders designed to stop things in the form of atoms, forces us to update our ideas of sovereignty, and the seven billion pieces that give it form -- citizenship.
The most simplistic reading of sovereignty is the ability to issue passports, to have a postal system, print money and field an army. But what is the point of a postal system when letters arrive in your inbox without needing stamps? And what is the point of government-issued currency, when we pull out a plastic card instead of paper bills every time we buy things? And what is the meaning of citizenship, when people who are born and live in one country carry passports issued in another? And what is the power of an army when dealing with non-state actors like Al-Qaeda?
Perhaps a way to understand the big picture is to look at the small picture.
My attention these days is focused on Russia -- not for the obvious reasons of civil unrest due to election fraud that is currently in the news; the story that has got my attention is smaller but it, too, is a window into the health of Russian democracy.
It is the story of an Italian resident and American and Russian citizen, Marianne Grin, who fled Italy for St. Petersburg, Russia with her four children. My friendship with her family is how I initially learned about this story. The rest comes from Russian and Italian newspaper reports and court documents.
Ms. Grin has said she has fled to St. Petersburg, Russia to escape domestic violence where she claims to have close family. This is an odd claim as she has no family in Russia. Her mother, the children's maternal grandmother lives in California, as do the children's paternal grandparents.
Once in Russia she re-invented herself as a persecuted "Russian mother" playing to cultural xenophobic fears. She appeared on TV, gave interviews, and started a blog drawing attention to herself -- leaving out the fact that she owns property in both Russia and Italy and has a law degree from Harvard University from her new narrative.
She has also claimed that the U.S. Consulate tried to break into her apartment and kidnap her children. This seems more like a cry for a help than a serious accusation against the State Department.
While the weakness of Russian democracy can be seen through the lens of a recent fraudulent election, another way to get a pulse of this democracy is by looking at the integrity of the press corps. In Russia, it seems as if it is on life support. The transition from a top down authoritarian system under communism that told the press what to write, to the independent investigative system that is essential for a healthy democracy has not gone well.
In fact, it has gone terribly. While the high-profile brutal murders of journalists Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya, Paul Klebnikov, Khadzhimurad Kamalov are well known, what is less known, but horrifying, is the murder of 213 Russian journalists in the last decade. With so many journalists killed one can conclude that in order for a reporter to survive it's better not to ask questions. This makes doing one's job as a journalist impossible. Perhaps, this why none of the reporters verified Ms. Grin's story by talking to the father, family members, or the Italian authorities before publishing it in Russia.
When the story was told in Italy, it was radically different than the story told in Russia. According to the leading Italian national newspaper, La Repubblica, Ms. Grin had lost custody after the court-appointed psychologist concluded that she had a severely disturbed personality and posed a danger to her own children. It's not easy for a mother to lose custody in Italy as the Italian courts strongly favor "Mamma" in custody disputes and fathers are awarded exclusive custody in only 1.6 percent of cases.
The Italian newspapers also reported there had been no domestic violence by the father and others that Ms. Grin had accused of violence.
It appears that Ms. Grin was not escaping domestic violence -- rather she was escaping a court judgment that she didn't like.
Why does any of this matter?
I think this case redefines how we can think about the bigger ideas of citizenship and sovereignty and is a window into the state of democracy in Russia.
Let's talk about citizenship first. What does it mean to be a citizen in a world of global employment hop-scotching? There are four children involved here. Three of them were born in Italy, one in the U.S. The children have Russian and U.S. passports, but that's a legal status. What does that mean to a child? To these kids the only home they have ever known is Florence, Italy. This is where they have been growing up. It's where their schools are and where their friends live. It's their state of mind, and their state of place, until now.
Now, through no fault of their own, it seems the children are stateless. The mechanism for protecting children is established. It's called the Hague International Convention Against Child Abduction. The Convention provides for the immediate return of children abducted from their "habitual place of domicile." In July of 2011, Russia joined the convention. This is the first case to come up in Russia after the convention came into force in October 2011. So far it seems that the Russian Foreign Ministry is supporting international child abduction instead of honoring the treaty it signed and has turned a blind eye to the human rights at stake here. The father, family and friends have been denied access to the children; the children's education has been interrupted, and that's cruel.
The safety of the children needs to be made a priority.
Given the Italian courts' allegations against Ms. Grin of mental instability, all of this took on a sense of urgency on Nov. 21, 2011 when, in a parallel story, Elke Mellersh left her husband with her two children and fled from England to Turkey, where she also claimed to be protecting them from the father. She, too, found refuge in local Turkish media, which sensationalized rather than verified her story. The story ends with Elke taking her delusions of protection to the extreme, killing herself and the two small children.
Do laws in countries matter? Do laws between countries matter? I would argue that they do now with the new permeability of borders caused by a shift from the analog to the digital more than ever. So while the concept of citizenship remains blurry to me, one thing that would make it clear, and would also be a sign of healthy democracy would be if the children were returned to their home in Italy and reunited with their father, friends, family and classmates in accordance with Italian law, Russian law, and international treaty.
Follow Harris Silver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/
I would draw your attention to the recent coverage of the same story by Ms. Irina Tumakova, a highly regarded journalist whose work has appeared in Isvestia and other mainstream Russian press. Her investigative report appears in the Fontanka newspaper, http://www.fontanka.ru/2012/03/22/024/
The coverage you mention in your article was merely of Russian tabloids (known locally as "yellow journalism") which deal with UFO conspiracy theories as much as themes like the one you discuss. Few regard the tabloids as serious journalism.
Ms. Tumakova, by contrast, did what any real journalist would do: as her article shows, she reviewed documents from the case, interviewed people from all angles of the story. She even reports that Ms. Grin abandoned her children in Russian orphanages. She does not portray Ms. Grin as a "persecuted Russian mother", but a manipulating woman who is more American than Russian, and who has lied in order to exploit Russia's corrupt legal and political system.
The situation you describe is illustrative of what happens when information is referred by tabloids instead of real newspapers. But real, competent journalists do exist in Russia, and they are not afraid to report the truth.
http://bringflorentinekidshome.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/inessa-grin-isolated-grandmother-statement-of-despair-jan-2009/
http://bringflorentinekidshome.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/international-parental-child-abduction/
http://www.HelpBringJulieHome.com (site in English and Russian)
and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HelpBringJulieHome
and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BringJulieHome
Thank you for the help, leads and following of this case...
thanks for publishing an Italian "voice".
I grew up in a wonderful family where my father and mother gave me all their love.
By the way I was and am really linked to an aunt that for me was really like a mother.
I would not allow to anyone to separate me from her, since I would suffer a lot now as adult and much more as children.
So I would like to know what do you think about this consideration:
I have always thought that "a parent" is not only the one that gives you birth, but the one that gives you love and support you to become a FREE adult.
How can a person that prevent your choices and stole your freedom set an example of future freedom?
No one can predict the future ... but no one has the right to make anyone suffer for a choice that is not his/her choice, especially children that cannot defend theirself and do what they REALLY want to do!
I really hope that Russian authorities will make their borders wider and wider to the defense of individual rights.
The German and Italian courts have outdated laws that favour the mother regardless of the situation. These cases linger for a long time and it takes dramatic events such as child abduction for the courts to act. The system is both slow and inefficient, while many still fail to take parental child abduction seriously. The authorities in the countries involved must work together to address these cases rather than try to blame one another for their failures.
As mixed marriages and international travel become more prevalent, the cross border nature of these cases must be handled accordingly. The convention could be hugely significant if member countries were willing to apply them effectively. What values do these laws have if they are not enforced and don't serve those they seek to protect? It is not just countries like Russia or Turkey, but EU states that are also party to the convention, who fail to act within their capacity in international child abduction cases.
If countries can refuse to apply the Convention like Turkey and Russia, then the countries in the Grin and Mellesh cases, Germany and Italy, need to start taking away the mother's rights, not just their custody rights, but their parental rights! This way they will have no right to be with the children anywhere. This is the only way to protect the children in these cases.
As someone who has seen first-hand the devastating effects of international parental abduction on children, thank you and the HP for so eloquently drawing attention to this problem. You are absolutely correct about the serious risks posed to abducted children when countries like Russia ignore their commitments and harbor felons like Grin. It is heart-breaking to read that even her own mother is appealing for their return.
Let's hope Russian democracy and rule of law have a brighter future than this.
International child abductions must always confront nationalistic, xenophobic and sexual biases. I follow such cases closely and can confidently say that I can find similar instances where almost every other country's media portrays a women criminally kidnapping children across international borders (ie Child Trafficking) as being a helpless mother "fleeing an abusive situation" and "seeking refuge" with her children.
The "Holly Collins Custody Hoax," involving the United States and the Netherlands, comes to mind (see Collins section):
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=11890
Another story, involving a wealthy woman who is an expert in martial arts, but still a defenseless victim of domestic violence according to, not just the article, but the chivalrous American courts who heard her sad story of kidnapping (and overturned her conviction):
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-07-23/local/29822374_1_vietnam-s-bruce-lee-martial-arts-ly-huong
The sheer one-sided hyperbole of this article from Mexico regarding a child abducted from Canada which gets my nomination as the most xenophobic article ever written on an ICA case (Spanish):
http://sdpnoticias.com/columna/3191/Jueces_mexicanos_favorecen_a_canadiense_contra_madre_mexicana
But I disagree that Russia is undeserving of special criticism. Some countries are worse than others in ICA, and Russia is a black sheep among the darkest.
As the article points out, Russia very recently committed to respect international law, and in its first case it is flouting, very publicly, that commitment.
On the specific topic of Italy and Russia though I am also reminded of Italy's very poor handling of the Liam McCarthy abduction case (among others.) I'm not so sure that Italy can claim any moral high ground either.
I don't know what to do with the rest of this; given that the West "opened up" the Soviet economy "in its image" certainly would go far to explain why its media is toothless, just like the media in the West, whose central role is to uphold the dominant system of globalization that somehow is described here in benevolent terms. Most bizarre perhaps is that we should care about some rich woman with a law degree mediating her transnational move on television, as opposed to, say, the transnational displacement of thousands of children trafficked out of Russia (and other source countries) to satisfy the needs of this same class in the West. You want stateless? Come to Palestine. You want lack of citizenship? Talk to anyone forcefully dispossessed of their land and place. A serious reality check is in order here.
Thank you for reading and posting. It is unfortunate that the translation of this article in the language that you speak wasn't at a high enough quality and thereby prevented your from understanding it.
What is your point, that nobody should complain about the murders of Russian journalists or that we have a toothless media? Sure, there may be better examples, but that doesn't mean this one is wrong. Of course we should care about women striking in textile factories instead of "some rich woman with a law degree" lying about her case on television. In fact, that's the whole point.
I disagree with Harris Silver that Russian democracy needs a heart. What we really need is a brain.
Signing a treaty is easy. Living-up to a treaty is hard. Look how poorly America behaved, in a moment of pressure, when it came to torture and living-up to The Geneva Convention. After reading your story, I must confess, if it would help return the children to their family and friends, I'd be in favor of subjecting Marianne Grin to Waterboarding.
While this makes me unfit to be an uncle to your children, it keeps me on track to be a Republican Vice-President.