Russia Tore Down Its Steve Jobs Memorial Because Tim Cook Is Gay? Seriously?
It's, (as The Atlantic duly notes), too simplistic to blame Russia's dismantling of an iPhone monument honouring the master visionary on the coming out of current Apple CEO Tim Cook.
By Sadho Ram — 04 Nov 2014, 05:07 PM — Updated about 10 years ago
By now, you must have come across news regarding the dismantling of a memorial to Steve Jobs in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. According to the reports, the Russians tore down the iPhone monument after a formal coming out of Tim Cook as gay.
iPhone sculpture memorial to late Apple Corp. co-founder Steve Jobs being removed from the courtyard of the Techno Park in St. Petersburg, Russia
Image via aolcdn.comThe monument, which is in the shape of an oversize iPhone, was located on a university campus in St. Petersburg, one of the more liberal cities in Russia, until its removal Friday. It was put there in 2013 under the initiative of Maxim Dolgopolov, head of the holding company ZEFS, known in English as the Western European Financial Union.
washingtonpost.comCiting the need to abide by a law combating "gay propaganda", ZEFS said in a statement on Monday that the memorial had been removed on Friday -- the day after Apple CEO Cook had announced he was homosexual.
nytimes.com
In a statement, ZEFS, a consortium of Russian companies, explained that it had removed the statue on Friday, one day after Tim Cook announced he was gay, for this disquieting reason: After Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly called for sodomy, the monument was taken down to abide to the Russian federal law protecting children from information promoting denial of traditional family values.
theatlantic.com
The monument wasn't a granite statue or anything like that. It was more like an over-sized iPhone with a touch screen that displayed information about Steve Jobs and the company he co-founded.
The 2m (6ft 6in) interactive installation allowed users to learn about the life of Mr Jobs, who died in 2011. But as it stood in the courtyard of an IT university in St Petersburg, the ZEFS statement says it could violate a recent Russian law banning the "advocacy of lifestyles contrary to traditional family values among minors".
ZEFS chairman Maxim Dolgopov said the memorial was also dismantled as gesture against both Cook’s announcement and “aggressive” NSA spying according to published reports.
csmonitor.com
Despite the statement from ZEFS, there are reports in the Russian media that the monument was out for repairs... (but seriously?)
The monument was installed slightly more than a year after Jobs passed away. At the time, an organization called the “Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region” complained that the monument looked too phallic, that its featured face of Jobs “will scare children and students,” and that the structure inappropriately “symbolizes the superiority of the American way of life.”
washingtonpost.comDespite Mr Dolgopolov's statement being widely reported in the media, there is some uncertainty over the story. The National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, where the monument stood, tells state news agency Tass that ZEFS had contacted it before Tim Cook's announcement, to say it was taking the iPhone down to carry out repairs.
This wasn't the only intensely homophobic reaction to Cook's announcement in Russia. One legislator, Vitaly Milonov, suggested that Cook be banned from the country in order to forestall the arrival of "Ebola Virus, AIDS, gonorrhea."
theatlantic.com
The monument's removal may have come under the auspices of Russia's widely condemned anti-gay law, as an article on The Atlantic notes, but it would be reductive to chalk up this particular and peculiar episode to anti-gay sentiment in Russia right now
First, consider that this crusade dovetails with a broader removal of American icons from the Russian landscape such as McDonald's, the Russian outposts of which are being investigated and closed throughout the country. Behind McDonald's, there are few more recognizable American brands than Apple.
theatlantic.com
While Russian officials may have cited security concerns in a decision to swap iPads for Samsung tablets back in March, the fact the announcement came just days after Russia annexed Crimea over American protests seems less than curious.
theatlantic.com
According to The CS Monitor, nearly three-quarters of Russians believe that homosexuality is morally unacceptable, more than disapproving of other hot-button issues such as extramarital affairs, gambling and abortion
As Olga Khazan noted last year, "Russians buck a major trend in modern homophobia: more religious countries are far more likely to be less accepting of homosexuality. ... Russia ranks as one of the least devout countries on earth, with only 33 percent of Russians saying religion was very important in their daily life in 2009." Despite this, she added, only 16 percent of Russians said they believed that society should be accepting of gays.
theatlantic.com
So while tearing down the said monument may be part of the anti-gay Russian attitude, it's also not entirely surprising considering that it took place in a city that is famous for dramatic, power-player breakups
It's not much of a surprise that a group of Russian companies would take such action in the wake of Tim Cook's announcement, considering the recent climate of homophobia in Russia. But, given the fact that this maneuver also involved the snub of a prominent American company, it would be more of a surprise if it hadn't happened.
theatlantic.com
St. Petersburg is the Victor Victoria of Russian name changes. It was first known as St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, Leningrad, and back around to St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by the czar Peter the Great. In 1914, the name was considered too Germanic sounding and was changed to Petrograd. After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, the Soviet Union changed the city's name to Leningrad. Leningrad became St. Petersburg again 67 years later when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
csmonitor.com
Therefore, another way to view the destruction of this paean to Apple's cofounder is that it's placing Tim Cook and Steve Jobs among the ranks of Ivan the Terrible, the Romanovs, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and the city itself for being uncoupled.
csmonitor.com
