Abraham Lincoln Statue, Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor’s Center, November 8, 2010, (c)2010 James S. Oppenheim
I’m an American of Jewish descent and the last name tells of a small wine-making town on the Rhine. Perhaps growing up the proper noun-based cultural infusions in the development of self-concept shaped whatever it is I’ve become, but had those details been missing, would I have gravitated toward writing, music, photography, and, later, blogging?
In the democratic modern mode, there’s a lot more going on in the “mixing” of the person — multiple influences and variables — and in many ways we choose our character and if not for better — I’ve been handed some things . . . haven’t made a good life or at least picket-fence-and 2.5 children template of the “American Dream” — then at least for the possession of integrity, an authentic existence, which I think ultimately a good thing.
In other modes — authoritarian, medieval, Orwellian — legacy may indeed fix in place the future.
We should be able to enjoy our respective ethnolinguistic and other legacies in heritage by finding for ourselves what is noble in survival and scrapping and shrugging away and tucking in the miseries of the past. For everyone: something happened back there — so what needs to happen to produce a better experience in living, personal and community-wide, tomorrow?
The prompt: “The Palestinians went to Poland . . . the Israelis went to refugee camps . . . .”
A Palestinian professor had taken a group of students to Auschwitz, and on the other side, Israelis have toured Palestinian camps — so both statements are true but leave out the third and fourth parties (Soviet Era Moscow and the the post-WWII and 1948 Arab leaderships) responsible for the Arab Apartheid and political conditioning that have produced generations (70 years worth) of confined, politically programmed, and emotionally “weaponized” Palestinians — also unemployed and trapped.
It would be better if Palestinian and Israelis would travel to Moscow and ask Mr. Putin directly why the Soviet Union chose to block democracy and liberalism by transforming a post-war refugee situation into a People Resistance movement that would go on to cover another system for making money and distributing the same through systems of patronage.
Now that Palestinians have had a glimpse of the Jewish history of persecution in Europe (and in Russia) and Israelis have seen how Hamas and the PLO actually regard their people, it would be helpful as well to revisit both Arab and Soviet history at the end of WWII — and then work to get that history more securely into the past, fixed there, remember there, and, ultimately, dismissed in the interest of regional peace and cooperation.
End the preoccupation with the Jews — and End the Hate (once engineered by Moscow).
One may also consider the business of producing and sustaining conflicts for politically criminal profiteering by way of corruption, skimming, and smuggling.
But not everyone wants to be sacrificed. When vigilante mobs and Myanmar’s soldiers burned down his village, Noor Kamal, 18, tried to flee with his 6-year-old brother, Noor Faruq. Both were hacked in the head by ethnic Rakhine armed with machetes and scythes.
At a bleak government hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Noor Kamal shivered with outrage at the ARSA insurgents from his village in northern Maungdaw Township, who attacked a local police post last month. “We are the ones who are suffering because of Al Yaqin,” he said. “They disappeared after the attack. We were the ones left behind for the military to kill.”
The Rohingya, marginalized in Burma / Myanmar and ripe for agitation by Islamist organizations have been forced into conflict by way of the agitation and provocations produced by the latter.
As you read through the excerpts chosen by BackChannels for display and continue following the story, the image of the “poor Rohingyans” being placed at the mercy of Myanmar military may need to be modified by the barbaric criminality produced by those who have infiltrated their numbers.
Still, what compels Myanmar to use so much force against the Rohingya?
BackChannels would venture that earlier border insecurity and inability to defend informants and detect the Islamists for arrest have contributed to the wholesale response.
In essence, the Ummah is especially being “played” — manipulated! — by Islamic extremists who have learned how to abuse the innocent among Muslims to turn them into the victims of larger but also legitimate forces. This is the same model that Hamas has used in its rapacious abuse of the Palestinians to create the showcase of victimization while the leadership and patronage system make off with billions in loot wrung from global sympathy.
The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits.
The emergence of this well-organised, apparently well-funded group is a game-changer in the Myanmar government’s efforts to address the complex challenges in Rakhine State, which include longstanding discrimination against its Muslim population, denial of rights and lack of citizenship. The current use of disproportionate military force in response to the attacks, which fails to adequately distinguish militants from civilians, together with denial of humanitarian assistance to an extremely vulnerable population and the lack of an overarching political strategy that would offer them some hope for the future, is unlikely to dislodge the group and risks generating a spiral of violence and potential mass displacement.
Al Qaeda has warned Myanmar will face punishment for its “crimes against the Rohingyas”.
“The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers … shall not pass without punishment,” Al Qaeda said in a statement, according to the SITE monitoring group.
“The Government of Myanmar shall be made to taste what our Muslim brothers have tasted.”
But not everyone wants to be sacrificed. When vigilante mobs and Myanmar’s soldiers burned down his village, Noor Kamal, 18, tried to flee with his 6-year-old brother, Noor Faruq. Both were hacked in the head by ethnic Rakhine armed with machetes and scythes.
At a bleak government hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Noor Kamal shivered with outrage at the ARSA insurgents from his village in northern Maungdaw Township, who attacked a local police post last month. “We are the ones who are suffering because of Al Yaqin,” he said. “They disappeared after the attack. We were the ones left behind for the military to kill.”
Myanmar has launched a project of re-construction of destroyed houses in conflict-torn areas in northern Rakhine state under a mechanism of the Union Enterprises for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD), Xinhua reported quoting the Myanmar News Agency.
Someone always has to pick up the pieces — and the terrorists never do.
Alptekin, an ally of Erdogan, had already agreed through one of his companies to a $600,000 contract with the consulting firm of Michael Flynn to research Gulen. Flynn was also a Trump campaign adviser and later became his national security adviser before being fired in February.
Woolsey was a member of Flynn’s firm, the Flynn Intel Group, according to a Justice Department filing by the firm and an archive of the company’s website, although a spokesman for Woolsey disputed that characterization, saying he was an unpaid adviser and his affiliation was “loosely defined.”
The theme of this book is the political system of Russia. It traces the growth of the Russian state from its beginnings in the ninth century to the end of the nineteenth, and the parallel development of the principal social orders: peasantry, nobility, middle class and clergy. The question which it poses is why in Russia — unlike the rest of Europe to which Russia belongs by virtue of her location, race and religion — society has proven unable to impose on political authority any kind of effective restraints. After suggesting some answers to this problem, I go on to show how in Russia the opposition to absolutism tended to assume the form of a struggle for ideals rather than for class interests, and how the imperial government, challenged in this manner, responded by devising administrative practices that clearly anticipate those of the modern police state. Unlike most historians who seek the roots of twentieth-century totalitarianism in western ideas, I look for them in Russian institutions. Although I do make occasional allusions to later events, my narrative largely terminates in the 1800s because, as the concluding chapter points out, the ancien régime in the traditionally understood sense died a quiet death in Russia at that time, yielding to a bureaucratic police regime which in effect has been in power there ever since.
Pipes, Richard. Russia under the Old Regime. Forward, xxi. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
BackChannels editor has embarked on what has started out as an extraordinary journey through the Russian experience starting with Pipes’ observations about early agricultural yields, extended family-dependent farming practices, migrations to virgin soil and lands with soil more rich, and the impacts of related economic struggles, such as that of wintering-over cottage industries against industrial production, on the cultural, social, and political character of the Russian enterprise.
For referencing other web content so often and so much, BackChannels has practically stopped expressing its own logic and sensibility. Therefore and herewith a few observations related to the now infamous and nationally degrading accusations aimed at the world’s — not only America’s — major high-integrity media (even the famed “Gray Lady” has been the target of somebody’s half-packed mud balls).
First, choose your own preferred mode in contemporary governance:
Feudal Political Absolutism
Modern Checked and Democratic Distribution of Power
That should be easy, but if you’re up to your chinny chin chin in loot, corporate or illicit (or both), and have been the object of generous favor by some singular power, then weighing the options (starting with making a little to a lot less money) may be more difficult.
Let’s move on.
Dictatorship should be oh so 20th Century by now. If a citizen of the old EU / NATO experience, you have seen it, defeated it — Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin et al. — lived through it, or at least heard about it and thought as much gone with the Cold War and done, finished, and dead in the west. If respectful of the American flag and those of others aligned with it in spirit, then perhaps you have been also respectful of the war dead whose sacrifice has enabled this very freedom to read and write with earnest and responsible intent.
In short, you may know and love freedom of speech — “Press Freedom” — as intended and practiced and appreciated.
And yet here I / you / we are confronted by an “information space” packed with the must vulgar of accusations: those institutions wholly devoted to reason and truth, so much has been inferred, have reverted to malicious invention.
It ain’t so, Joe.
Something has been sabotaged, gone wrong, thrown off course in relation to common confidence in America’s political discourse and news, but is that to be blamed on the many communities of best educated editors and writers and remarkably informed, sharp, and thoughtful readers?
An American homily may apply: “He who points the finger should point it back at himself.”
Two days ago on the web, BackChannels listened to the pleas of a young man in Morocco for relief from lowest-wage labor and daily uncertain employment ($7 per day if it could be found) and exposure to illness and injury and related distress without access to local basic health services. The acquaintance told the story of friends, two among five who for sleep shared a room in a house. One had been stricken with severe stomach pain and the other with a leg injured in a fall, and there followed the story of getting to a hospital, being initially refused emergency care, and persisting in insisting on being seen.
Being seen — eventually the two were, the one with the leg injury being sent home, and the other with severe stomach pain remained in the hospital.
Being made visible – that’s why this post is here.
With online research, it doesn’t take long to connect the absence of simple human decency in the distribution of Moroccan health care in its public facet to the social cancer of pervasive corruption. In fact, corruption appears to BackChannels the chief impediment to the firm establishment and distribution of basic medical services in the state.
There appears in numerous reports the petite corruption of patients bribing the doctors to rush the que.
How rude!
However, of greater concern may be the business to privileged business way of doing business, i.e., what is referred to as institutional or “grand corruption”, and that appears suppressed: nonetheless, one picks up from the literature notes associated with bribery, nepotism, profiteering, skimming, and stealing — all the many possibilities available to the feudal and ruthless.
Who diverted money budgeted for facilities maintenance and how was it really spent?
Who took the medicine or failed to protect it in storage?
Equipment or medicine damaged or stolen would seem the same thing — i.e., useless — to doctors and their patients.
Where is the money going?
Who is getting it?
What are they doing with it?
BackChannels has no idea although reading Gulain P. Denoeux’s 1999 or 2000 report may raise awareness of the tension between a feudal systems of absolute power — and lenience and patronage — and a modern rule-of-law system engaged in independent investigation, administrative and judicial oversight, and associated regulation with corrective measures and penalties specified.
This blogger’s impression, which could change with the next reference piece, is that both external forces and internal pressures have made corruption a major theme in Moroccan governance, and while related policies and laws have been developed to address issues, they have yet to be vigorously implemented by King Mohammed VI who needs must balance the legacy relationships of powerful families and institutions in situ with the state and its quest for a political modernity that cares for, enfranchises, and empowers a broadening swath of the less visible Moroccan population.
In the manner of kings, Mohammed VI this past summer shifted culpability for the death of a fishmonger trying to recover a swordfish — caught out of season — from the garbage truck (in which police had by implication thrown it) to local political authority while pressuring the same to do their work:
“If the King of Morocco is not convinced by the way political activity is conducted and if he does not trust a number of politicians, what are the citizens left with?” Mohammed VI said during a televised speech commemorating the 18th anniversary of his ascension to the throne.
“To all those concerned I say: ‘Enough is enough!’ Fear God in what you are perpetrating against your homeland. Either carry out your duties fully or withdraw from public life.”
Often in the feudal mode, appearance may be made to suffice for performance.
In the modern world, that’s not enough: the conditions of things, the states of affairs come out in open observation and statistics, and today that observation is global.
To get public health distributed as needed — as deserved and as befits the humanity and image of the state — Morocco needs greater economic development supported by rule of law and capable of sustaining revenues within the state and seeing a greater part of that confidently distributed in the public interest.
One may paint the hospital’s new oncology wing to avoid a king’s ire while also making him look good, but one may not paint over the misery of suffering alone in pain and uncertainty without recourse to accessible basic clinic services staffed by personnel educated and trained for the purpose.
It was a makeover fit for a king, Mohammed VI, whose visit, to inaugurate a new oncology wing, was later broadcast on national television. But it did not do much to mask the reality of health care in Morocco, where even Health Minister Houssaine Louardi has conceded that standards of care for the country’s 33 million people are far from adequate.
Public hospitals are decrepit and lack doctors, equipment and medicine, and fewer than 30 percent of Moroccans have health insurance coverage.
The Rif, a predominantly Berber region where al-Hoceima is located, has been gripped by months of unrest.
Protests erupted last October after a fishmonger was crushed to death in a rubbish truck as he tried to retrieve a swordfish confiscated for being caught out of season.
Demands for justice later snowballed into a wider social movement named Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, calling for jobs, development and an end to corruption.
A broadly worded article in the Moroccan penal code criminalizes receiving support from foreign organizations with the purpose of “harming the integrity, sovereignty or independence of the Kingdom, or shaking the loyalty that citizens owe to the state.” This article can be used to penalize a wide range of legitimate forms of expression and association and to curtail the right of Moroccan civil society to seek funding freely as guaranteed by the international human rights conventions to which Morocco is party
Blocked pipes, mouldy walls, wet blankets and a shortage of supplies: this is what users of Morocco’s public health system have to deal with. Dozens of photos published on Facebook have shed light on the grime reality of the country’s public hospitals. According to our Observer, it reveals a disastrous state of affairs that the government’s privatisation plan won’t be able to fix.
The Suharto regime allows no space for a democratic opposition to emerge. So what the pro-democracy, pro-clean-government forces are relying on is not a revolution from below, not a revolution from above, but a revolution from beyond.
Their strategy is to do everything they can to integrate Indonesia into the global economy on the conviction that the more Indonesia is tied into the global system, the more its government will be exposed to the rules, standards, laws, pressures, scrutiny and regulations of global institutions, and the less arbitrary, corrupt and autocratic it will be able to be.
Corruption represents a problem for businesses in Morocco. Almost all sectors suffer from rampant corruption. Cultures of patronage, nepotism and wasta (the use of connections) exist, and inefficient government bureaucracy and excessive red tape deter investors. The legal framework concerning corruption, transparency and integrity is in place, and the regulatory system is becoming increasingly transparent. Under the Moroccan Criminal Code, active and passive bribery, extortion, influence peddling and abuse of office are illegal. Anti-corruption laws are reportedly not enforced effectively by the government. Prosecutions of corruption cases have been accused of targeting only petty corruption, and, allegedly, companies owned by highly influential persons are rarely disciplined. Facilitation payments and giving and receiving gifts are criminalized under Moroccan law, but businesses indicate the likelihood of encountering these practices is high.
The report goes on to comment on Morocco’s judicial system, police, public services, land administration, tax administration, customs administration, public procurement, natural resources, legislation, and civil society.
What are Morocco’s expectations for the 6th session of the UNCAC Conference of States Parties (COSP)?
It’s a UN process. All UN processes are slow because you need consensus and you cannot force governments to agree to anything. Still it’s worth noting that more and more countries accept evaluation, country visits, publication of full review reports. It’s less and less comfortable for the countries that oppose transparency. Morocco will work to help to make progress in the review process at the next COSP session, although I remain sceptical about reaching quick achievements
What is Morocco’s position on holding a discussion of grand corruption at the UNCAC Conference of States Parties (COSP)?
I think the UNCAC COSP can discuss grand corruption. Transparency International should elaborate instruments for this. The Corruption Perceptions Index is biased towards petty corruption—it does not point out grand corruption or institutionalised corruption.
I would cite the confusion and perversion of political language — what is “Left”; what is “Right”: how do gradations work? What is the new political typology — as very much a part of “active measures”.
When we most need to think categorically and straight, we can’t.
In the modern political ecology, I am liberal, humanist, moderate, and social, and yet by the latest in impression, I have no identification with the Left / Hard Left of the, for example, “J Street” type. They ain’t my people.
Active Measures.
KGB Theater.
Yuri Andropov.
How many of my fellow Americans have the knowledge of or sense for each term?
Whatever the answer may be, it’s certain at this moment to be fewer than would be helpful for democracy.
BackChannels 