Category Archives: Political Psychology

Venezuela: Putin’s Choice

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, International Development, Political Psychology, Russia, South America, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Venezuela is of limited strategic importance to Russia, though it offers symbolic significance in demonstrating Putin’s reach into a region seen as Washington’s backyard. Russia doesn’t have the capacity to send forces there as it did to support Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, limiting itself to publicity stunts like a December visit by two nuclear-capable bombers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-06/russia-starts-to-worry-maduro-s-grip-is-slipping-in-venezuela – 2/6/2019

Big Crayon BackChannels suggests that nominally socialist Venezuela indulged its leaders in breathtaking kleptocracy while failing to develop its oil industry with care and taking measures to free and diversify the licit potential of its national economy (for coverage of the illicit potential possessed by Venezuela’s present leadership, one may click over to InSight Crime‘s eight-part series, “Venezuela: A Mafia State?”).

Moscow reads the news too, and while perhaps absent of conscience but mindful of money, it’s confidence in the success of the political societies once aligned, captivated, or enthralled with their relationship to the Soviet may be dimming. While perhaps putting a “little” money in the under-the-table pockets of its own, it has also watched parts of Central and South American states churn into cesspool of competing cartels and gangs destroying communities, exporting the nasty — the full smorgasbord of contraband — and for hundreds of thousands producing flight en masse anywhere that hasn’t become a personal no-security hell. Now the chief Phantom of the Soviet appears to be having a look-see at the future of at least one portfolio of debt accumulated by a once ideologically favored son and the picture just isn’t so wonderful as it must have once appeared.

Related Online

Aris, Ben. “Russia’s National Wealth Fund can withstand one more crisis vows Kudrin.” bne Intellinews. August 22, 2018.

InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Eight-part series, May 16, 2018 to May 25, 2018.

Johnson, Keith. “How Venezuela Struck It Poor: The tragic — and totally avoidable — self-destruction of one of the world’s richest oil economies.” Foreign Policy, July 16, 2018.

Laya, Patricia. “Maduro’s Bid to Fly Gold Out of Venezuela is Blocked.” Bloomberg, February 1, 2019.

Meyer, Henry and Ilya Arkhipov. “Russia Starts to Worry Maduro’s Grip May Slip in Venezuela.” Bloomberg, February 6, 2019.

Paraskova, Tsvetana. “Russia Begins to Fear Maduro May Lose”. Oil Price, February 7, 2019.

Rapoza, Kenneth. “Could Russia Be Subject to Venezuela-Style Sanctions”” Forbes, February 19, 2019.

The Moscow Times. “Russia’s Reserve Fund Ceases to Exist: Budget deficits have exhausted the rainy day fund.” January 11, 2018.

Trading Economics. “Russia Cash Reserve Ratio”. Current.

Banning the trading of Russian bonds have been tossed around ever since Trump got elected. Anti-Russian politicians on both sides of the aisle have taken full advantage of Trump being caught in a Russian scandal to force the president to play super hardball with Vladimir Putin and anyone within a country mile of him.
Since taking office, Trump has already signed harsher sanctions against Russian individuals and Russian companies, making some of them extra-territorial. Extra-territorial means sanctions apply to non-U.S. citizens and entities transacting with the sanctioned firm subject to penalties.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/02/19/could-russian-bonds-be-subject-to-venezuela-style-sanctions/#9aa301d75664 – 2/19/2019

–33–

Two American Military Intelligence Officers: One Dies A Hero; One Defects to the Islamofascist Devolution of Iran

14 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Political Psychology, Political Spychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Given who she really was, military officials had little choice in how they described Shannon Kent. They said only that she was a “cryptologic technician,” which anyone might assume meant that her most breakneck work was behind a desk.
In reality, she spent much of her professional life wearing body armor and toting an M4 rifle, a Sig Sauer pistol strapped to her thigh, on operations with Navy SEALs and other elite forces — until a suicide bombing took her life last month in northeastern Syria.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/us/shannon-kent-military-spy.html – 2/8/2019
Fox News, January 20, 2019

A former Air Force intelligence specialist who defected to Iran has been charged with espionage after authorities allege she gave that country’s government information about a highly classified military program and helped Iranian hackers target her former colleagues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-former-air-force-intelligence-specialist-with-conspiring-to-share-classified-information-with-iran/2019/02/13/5e02d518-2f9c-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html
CBS News, February 13, 2019

According to Matt Zapotosky’s report in The Washington Post, Monica Witt had appeared in videos critical of the U.S. government, and the FBI had warned her of the potential for an Iranian recruitment effort. Had she been already on her way to defection at that point? Had steps been taken to change her itinerary — her assignments, her reach — in response to her signalling out potential infidelity?

Five years after having taken flight to the other side as a Muslim revert, the Monica Witt defection has become a part of this day’s really big news.

No less storied but somehow handled more quietly has come the story of the highly performing, highly patriotic Naval intelligence officer Shannon Kent who was killed in the suicide bombing that took place in Manbij, Syria on January 16, 2019.

One may wonder about these two woman and their respective motivations, one to marry, raise a family, and fight for her country so very far away from home; and the other to change her religion, her appearance, and to choose — with sensitive data — to fight against it and on behalf of a state that hangs children, thieves from its population, and supports the murder of innocents via Islamic Terrorism worldwide

Related Online

Oppel Jr., Richard A. “Her Title: Cryptologic Technician. Her Occupation: Warrior.” The New York Times, February 8, 2019.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria – Assad – ISIL – Background.” BackChannels, December 9, 2016. In the medieval totalitarian mode promoted by Moscow through Damascus with the support of Tehran, the dictatorships manipulate ISIS as a useful foil for their own aggrandizement and functional enlargement through the basing of military assets and now cheap-as-rubble real estate acquisitions.

Zapotosky, Matt. “U.S. charges former Air Force intelligence specialist with conspiring to provide Iran with classified information.” The Washington Post, February 13, 2019.

–33–

Sudan Protests: Bashir’s Sadistic Dictatorship Paints Its Own Picture

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Regions, Sudan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Dictators may have just two options when challenged: accept safe harbor, if available, step down, and try to appreciate (and survive) the “golden years”. (In BackChannels memory, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf is the only General and President to have done that, and he today lives in exile — and declining health — in London; Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has been recently removed from power by his former bodyguard, Emmerson Manangagwa — of course there’s more to that story — who may protect the old man while getting hands and head around the disaster left him by the former dictator).

The other is to suppress the revolution.

Beatings. Secret detention centers. Held without charges. Torture.

“Ghost Houses”.

“Disappeared”.

“The Fridge”.

The gangs conveyed by white Toyota pick-up trucks as depicted in the above video may be known as “Shadow Battalions”.

The ISS article suggested for any protest to bring about change in Sudan, it would have to dislodge the government’s power base in the army and security apparatus, as well as the ruling coalition and the Islamic movement.

As former vice president Ali Osman Taha has said, “the authorities have full shadow battalions ready to sacrifice their lives to defend the regime”.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/will-sudans-ongoing-protests-finally-unseat-bashirs-regime-18907844 – 1/27/2019 Bold added.

Omar al-Bashir must make clear the depths of the sadism he will indulge in his quest to remain in power by intimidating all who oppose his stay.

Aside: one BackChannels source has reported the use of shotgun bird shot aimed at faces to take out eyes.

The same sadism that once served Moscow (and may again serve it) at Lubyanka Prison appears repeated in the Soviet / Post-Soviet sphere of influence. Also infamous for murder and torture: Evin Prison, Iran; Sednaya Prison, Syria.

Now we have the “Ghost Houses” of Sudan.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Security forces arrested 14 professors who were gathering to protest outside Khartoum University on Tuesday, witnesses said, as anti-government demonstrations neared the end of their eighth week.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-protests/sudan-security-arrests-professors-as-protests-rage-on-witnesses-idUSKCN1Q11UR – 2/13/2019

Where are those 14 professors?

What are their names?

What are their fields?

How are they doing?

Related:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/activists-sudan-police-arrest-14-academics-in-protests/2019/02/13/52e291ac-2f95-11e9-8781-763619f12cb4_story.html – 2/13/2019

Human Rights Watch, February 11, 2019
Al Jaeera, February 10, 2019

–33–

Venezuela’s Turkish Connection and Other Notes on Dictatorships Surrounding EU / NATO

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, South America, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Let’s start with “East v West”, i.e., “Moscow v Washington” -> “Feudal Absolutism (and Totalitarianism) v Modern Democratic Liberalism” -> and on this blog, “Medieval v Modern”:

As Venezuela’s political crisis is unfolding, the unwavering support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies for the embattled Nicolas Maduro has been a wide-discussed theme in international media.
For some, by standing by Maduro against the “U.S.-backed coup ”, Turkey is only paying its respects to the Venezuelan president, who expressed solidarity with Erdoğan during the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016. Interestingly, Venezuela was among the first countries to back Turkey during the botched coup attempt in Turkey. Maduro’s immediate support to Erdoğan came at a time the Western allies of Ankara were slow to show their reaction over the coup attempt.

https://ahvalnews.com/venezuela-turkey/existential-threats-bringing-erdogan-and-maduro-together – 2/9/2019

What in the hell is Turkey doing in NATO (FB Presence in Part)?

You tell me.

Those dictatorships!

They know how to hang together.

God willing.

For the time being, some Venezuelans have figured out that money has meaning, and they have gone to ground, literally, to dig up gold that they sell to the Venezuelan state (who else?) and the state sells on to . . . Turkey!

Facilitating the transport of gold is Turkish Airlines, it said, noting, ”On New Year’s Day, 2018, Venezuela’s central bank began shipping gold to Turkey with a $36 million air shipment of the metal to Istanbul. It came just weeks after a visit by Maduro to Turkey. Shipments last year reached $900 million, according to Turkish government data and trade reports.” 

https://ahvalnews.com/venezuela-turkey/turkish-airlines-carrying-gold-not-many-people-caracas-reuters – 2/10/2019

How you like them apples?

Start with Putin.

Add Russia’s Vory. \

Now you know something that perhaps you did not know a moment ago?

Does it make a difference?

You (whoever you are) are one out of billions on the (now censored in former Communist states) Internet.

What do you think?

Venezuela’s mafia state —

https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/venezuela-mafia-state/

https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/world/2019-01-17-venezuela-is-fast-becoming-a-mafia-state-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ – 1/17/2019

— appears to have decided to start over with the Treasure of the Sierra Madre — i.e., with some portion of the people digging up wealth — gold — from out of the ground.

Hey, it’s money.

Oh — it’s also capitalism.

From Business Live:

The scale of Venezuela’s current social, economic and political crisis is so severe it is difficult to comprehend. Hyper-inflation has decimated the national currency and crippled the economy. Oil production — which accounts for 95% of the country’s export revenues — has halved since Maduro took power in 2013 and the industry has been further weakened by the collapse of the price of oil in 2014.

In 2018, the economy contracted by 18% and by the end of the year inflation had soared to 1-million percent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted inflation will increase to 10-million percent by the latter half of 2019. These are dizzying figures but they only reflect one part of the complex situation Venezuela is facing.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/world/2019-01-17-venezuela-is-fast-becoming-a-mafia-state-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ – 1/17/2019

Power cuts. Shortages. Starvation.

Yada yada yada — fodder for dozens to hundreds to thousands of articles avoiding reference to the Soviet / Post-Soviet disaster now 26 years past the dissolving of Russia’s Communist passion play — and the world’s tragedy.

Off the cuff —

Zimbabwe tells the story of a dictatorship that personally reintroduced cholera to its people — and Mugabe made it possibly by denying a rival funds for sanitation chemicals (you may look that one up yourself unless the editor here goes all OCD on you).

Syria — with the help of Moscow and Tehran, Bashar al-Assad has succeeded in barrel bombing half of his state (or more) into deeply depopulated oblivion. While one may thank Mother Nature — oh, and ourselves — for the global warming damaging Syria’s agricultural economy, the necessity, eventual of mass migration may have been met with kindness and international cooperation.

BC guesses not.

Where else would you like to go in the still medieval worlds of “political absolutism”?

Yemen?

Posted by France 24 English, November 21, 2018

BC imagines power quite intoxicating if it can do to innocents what is depicted in the above video.

(BackChannels has another bitch with the Kingdom, i.e., the punishment of its best and brightest women).

MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has sought OPEC support against U.S. sanctions imposed on his country’s oil industry, citing their impact on oil prices and potential risks for other members of the producer group.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-opec-exclusive/exclusive-venezuelas-maduro-seeks-opec-help-against-u-s-sanctions-letter-idUSKCN1Q01HD – 2/11/201

Not only has Venezuela sought OPEC’s support.


The Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and top oil producer but non-member Russia will not create a formal combined body as originally planned, Reuters hasreported.
In a draft document, the countries said they aim to set up an alliance rather than a formal organisation when they meet on April 17-18 in Vienna.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/2/11/opec-and-russia-alliance-will-not-be-formal-organisation – 2/11/2019

BC would add to the list of Moscow’s sphere-of-influence failures — well what is one to expect of criminal mercenaries and politicians!? — Crimea, Ukraine, which has been battle torn torn for five suffering years under Moscow’s false pretenses. From Michael MacKay via his Radio Lemberg:

Almost five years after the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine in Crimea, Putin’s army is still on the attack. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are bombarding and assaulting Ukrainian defenders in Donbas, as they have been doing continuously since April 2014. Yesterday, February 10, was typical in that the Russians violated the Minsk Agreement ceasefire in every sector of the battlefront.

http://radiolemberg.com/ua-articles/ua-allarticles/russia-attacks-europe-in-donbas-ukraine-defends-it-alone 2/11/2019

Altogether, Maduro’s regime has brought unprecedented misery to Venezuela, the depth of which would beggar imagination if any were needed or wanted.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/11/americas/venezuela-migrant-women-prostitution-intl/index.html

The above URL updates this kind of video —

To force on to leave one’s home for the vagaries of chance and fate — conditions are bad in Venezuela, but there is this one truth: the dictator — the malignant narcissist — is never wrong.

Vox, November 27, 2018

On more video that BC feels indicative of the true relationship between today’s feudal powers:

–33–

Venezuela: Military Mafia-Borne Political Absolutism v Democratic Distribution of Power and Rule-of-Law

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, foreign aid, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics, South America, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Background / Motivation: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-cuba-helped-make-venezuela-a-mafia-state (June 2, 2018) & https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/drug-trafficking-venezuelan-regime-cartel-of-the-sun/ (May 17, 2018).

Here’s a shocker:

Faucon, Benoit and Summer Said. “OPEC Pursues Formal Pact With Russia.” The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2019.

The “Grand Game” may be over, but the war between the Medieval of Mind and the Modern Possessed of Conscience and Empathy, the foundations of Democratic Humanism and the above-board distribution of power supporting the best reasoned rule-of-law has just begun.

Iran and other producers have opposed a tighter partnership, fearing it could be dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to officials in the cartel. Riyadh and Moscow are the world’s top two oil exporters. A Russian Energy Ministry spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-pursues-formal-pact-with-russia-11549394604 (2/6/2019)

At times, it seems the world is a cesspool or a snake pit — or both.

While Moscow grabs all the energy reserves it can get, Washington boasts of North American Energy Independence. Man oh man, for now, that’s a neener of the first order.

Meanwhile down in President Maduro’s malaria-supporting Venezuela (2014), the Military has been given its two options — Mad Maduro or Good Guy Guaido — and the defections are climbing furiously out of the dictator’s morass.

(The story, what with Bloomberg’s “Tic-Toc” and much else in the Mainstream Media fray, has been moving too fast for BackChannels normally placid quasi-academic treatment, bibliography and all. Inline reference and plain old bald URL’s suit in the making of points).

Just so you know, Putin’s recent purchase of a part of Venezuela’s oil resources is part of his (Moscow’s) 49 percent stake in CITGO.

And what does Putin really want: a world beset and bloodied by a revanche in feudal absolutism wandering around intoxicated by supporting and conflicting medieval worldviews.

How does that look?

Have a glance at Syria — or Yemen.

So as we say in America, here comes the cavalry — or at least the food wagon.

Balushi would have done Maduro justice: “We don’t need no stinking humanitarian aid!”

Venezuela’s President on deck appears less proud about extensions of Yankee democratic good will while altogether more practical:

Posted to YouTube January 1, 2019.

BackChannels will not beat the majors, but it may yet make some points. Herewith, three videos posted on YouTube within the last 24 hours –>

That last: political criminals!

For other glorious examples of Soviet Communist and post-Soviet socialist era success and the success of other feudal elites propped up by their mafia and military, BackChannels suggests spending time online involved with Syria — political disaster of the 21st Century! — and Zimbabwe (with Robert Mugabe gone, the state appears on the cusp of positive / responsible change).

BackChannels has heard Venezuela describe as ” a dictatorship of corrupt soldiers who traffic with oil, drugs and weapons. They have kidnapped the country. Maduro does not dare confront them and has been kidnapped in the government palace pretending to be president.”

Perhaps Venezuela’s now defecting soldiery will put a stop to her suffering at the hands of military and political criminals.

–33–

The Kind of Woman the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Imprisons and Possibly Abuses and Tortures for Her Activism On Behalf of Other Muslim Women

14 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Political Psychology, Religion, Saudi Arabia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Blogger; mother of four; B.A., English, University of Birmingham; M.A., English as a Second Language; post-graduate Ph.D. field: linguistics; religion: Wahabbi Muslim.

Present Location: Dhaban Central Prison, Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.

Disclosure: BackChannel’s editor’s Facebook friendship and correspondence with Eman Fahad Al Nafjan dates back to May 12, 2011.

The editor’s last note to Eman — it was a long time ago given the richness of the Internet experience: August 16, 2016 — contained reference to a Muslim Matters piece, “World’s Largest Women’s University Opens in Saudi Arabia” (May 31, 2011), and had to do with Princess Noura bint Abdulrahman Women’s University, Riyadh. The find had to do with work on a BackChannels’ piece: “Sixteen Women — The Kingdom’s Most Powerful.” November 2, 2016.

The Kingdom had to have seen this greater day coming, “greater” for connecting the privileged of Saudi Arabia with the full breadth of the world’s English-speaking and other intelligentsia, i.e., the broad if thin international band of cosmopolitan, engaged, informed, and rapidly “chatyping” personalities. Nafjan has not only fit right in with the world’s intellectual class, she appears to be in trouble with the medieval kingdom for having been raised for the modernizing path and role taken.

What is it about feudal / medieval / tribal peacocks that so sustains contempt and fear in relation to women that the royal response to mild challenge, criticism, and practical reasoning comes to a still barbarous demand: “Lock her up!”

Addendum – March 14, 2019 (added to post July 27, 2019)

NEW YORK—PEN America announced today that it will award the 2019 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to journalist, blogger, and activist Nouf Abdulaziz, activist and social media commentator Loujain Al-Hathloul, and blogger, columnist, and activist Eman Al-Nafjan—three Saudi women imprisoned for challenging, through their writing and their activism, therestrictive guardianship system that governs Saudi women and limits theirability to travel, marry, work, or receive education and healthcare without approval from a male guardian. Abdulaziz, Al-Hathloul, and Al-Nafjan each used their digital and news-reporting platforms to speak out on women’s rights and other forms of human rights repression in Saudi Arabia, including the long-standing ban on women driving. The ban was lifted in June 2018, yet immediately thereafter, many of those who had advocated for this change were arrested. Today these three writer-activists are among those still incarcerated for their dissent, reportedly facing torture, isolation, and threats of rape. In early March, Saudi authorities announced that they are planning to indict a number of those detained on national security-related charges; initial hearings in the trials of Loujain Al-Hathloul and Eman Al-Nafjan began March 13.

Pen America. “Pen America to Honor Imprisoned Saudi Writer-Activist and Woman’s Rights Champions Nouf Abdulaziz, Loujain al-Hathloul, and Eman al-Nafjan with the Pen/Barbey Freedom to Write Award at 2019 Literary Gala”. Press Release, March 14, 2019.

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “The Saudi women detained for demanding basic human rights.” Reposted on News24, November 30, 2018. –>

Those under arrest have been branded threats to national security and have been accused of being foreign agents. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the reason for the arrest is to silence the women and prevent others from participating in activism.

Rights organisations and governments around the world have called on the Saudi authorities to release all political prisoners, but to no avail.

Al-Nafjan, Eman. “Saudi Arabia, My Changing Home.” The New York Times, June 8, 2012. –>

Most people in the West, naturally enough, get their ideas about Saudi life from the media. They learn that women here are forbidden to drive, that they must be almost completely covered up when they appear in public, that unmarried women and girls can’t appear in public unaccompanied by family members.

All of this is more or less true, but it omits the reality that, for the average middle class Saudi woman who comes from a healthy family background, life is pretty good.

When everything is in place, a Saudi woman can live a comfortable life. A respectable husband is arranged for her to marry; she typically has a driver, servants and an extended family ready to give her financial and emotional support. All that’s expected of her is to have babies and fulfill social obligations.

Amnesty. “Saudi Arabia: Release Women’s Human Rights Defenders Immediately!” June 21, 2018. –>

Official statements in state media accused Loujain al-Hathloul, Iman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Youssef of forming a “cell,” posing a threat to state security for their “contact with foreign entities with the aim of undermining the country’s stability and social fabric.” A related hashtag describing them as “Agents of Embassies”, along with a graphic showing the six activists’ faces, have also been circulating on social media and Saudi Arabian print and broadcast media. Amnesty International is concerned that if charged, the activists could face up to 20 years in prison. Now is the time to take action and defend these brave activists, who are some of the most prominent heroines of the human rights movement in Saudi Arabia.

As the world praises Saudi Arabia for recent “reforms” – including allowing women to drive – we must raise the alarm for these imprisoned defenders who have fought tirelessly for years for women’s rights in the Kingdom.

Amnesty International. “Saudi Arabia: Release women human rights defenders now!” Update on detainees and FAQs. n.d.

Amnesty International. “Saudi Arabia: Reports of Torture and sexual harassment of detained activists.” November 20, 2018. –>

According to three separate testimonies obtained by the organization, the activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly. In one reported instance, one of the activists was made to hang from the ceiling, and according to another testimony, one of the detained women was reportedly subjected to sexual harassment, by interrogators wearing face masks.

Associated Press. “Saudi Arabia tortured female right-to-drive activists, says Amnesty.” The Guardian, November 20, 2018.

Committee to Protect Journalists. “Saudi blogger Eman Al Nafjan detained.” May 22, 2018.

Facebook. “Emad Al Nafjan”.

Fahim, Kareem. “Jailed Saudi women’s rights activists said to face electric shocks, beatings and other abuse.” The Washington Post, November 20, 2018.

Human Rights Watch. “Saudis Arrest 7 Women’s Rights Activists who had Upstaged Crown Prince on Driving.” Reposted by Juan Cole in Informed Comment, May 19, 2018. HRW Location.

Wikipedia. “Eman al-Nafjan”.

Saudiwoman’s Weblog. “About”.

The Guardian. “Eman Al Nafjan”. Profile and authored stories.

The Kingdom’s brand for the Kingdom’s best: “Traitor”.

Author of the tweet: Jamal Khashoggi.

—33-

Bloody Bashir’s Troubles: An Angry and Hungry Sudan Narrows Its Eyes

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

See tweet further on in this piece for the original.

The Sudanese have only to look toward Syria to know how bad revolution before a tyrant may become. While the spectacle of the Syrian Tragedy may have been expected to quell enthusiasm for a similarly motivated revolution in Sudan, it appears to BackChannels at this hour that caught between starvation and a tyrant, the Sudanese motivation — and perhaps the motivation of the military as well — may grow the violence and the level of direct threat encountered by President(-for-Life) Omar al-Bashir.

One blogger, Martha Leah Nangalama, has already picked up on a Middle East Monitor post reporting today Bashir’s evacuation from a mosque.

Of particular and peculiar interest in that story may be the bonding expressed between dictatorships

In Ankara, deputy chairperson of the ruling Justice and Development party Cevdet Yilmaz also expressed support for Al-Bashir’s government after a meeting with the Sudanese ambassador on Wednesday

“We support the legitimate government of Sudan. Turkey has faced similar ploys many times,” Yilmaz said, adding that Turkey is confident that the government is sensitive to the demands of the Sudanese people and would avoid violence.

Although Erdogan’s Turkey exploits NATO for its military defense from Russian aggression in that dimension, it has effectively destroyed democracy in the state and bonded with Russia — or leveraged itself — with the “Turkish Stream” energy project. Basically for the Turks, liberal democracy and freedom have died in their homeland, and they have become part of an increasingly family-run business masquerading some as a sultanate.

DW has placed emphasis on “anger over dictatorship, not bread” in its handling of the story:

“In most of Sudan’s almost 170 cities and big towns, someone has been shot. In some of them, more than 15 people have been shot. The shooting is happening through unofficial types of militia that the regime is using,” says Khansaa Al Kaarib, a Sudanese human rights lawyer and activist.

“For 30 years, this is what the Sudanese people have been getting from Bashir: Killing, killing, killing and more killing. People are simply fed up with this and they want to change this regime. They want to get out of the perception of a people lying under an ICC-wanted criminal, as soon as possible.”

Syria Redux?

https://twitter.com/Mo7a7amid/status/1076401992543674369

The Sudanese story has had a similar start with a modest protest driven by hunger — i.e., economic protest with ecological variables in play — met by escalating means of repression, including live fire that taken or produced martyrs that in turn have become the focus of additional protests.

Ukraine potential?

For Sudanese now active in shutting down Bashir’s goverment and replacing with a government more modern, responsive, and responsible, here is the voice from that other protest against continued (and Russian) feudal political absolutism as once represented by the corrupt and thuggish Viktor Yanukovych:

Posted to YouTube, February 10, 2014.

BackChannels awaits the Sudanese version: “I am Sudanese, and we have tired of the war criminal in Khartoum . . . .

Related on the Web

Abadian, Ramin Hossein. “Bread revolution in Sudan.” MEHR News Agency, December 26, 2018.

Awsat, Asharq and Ahmed Younes. “Sudan’s Bashir Secretly Visits Damascus to Revive Ties.” December 17, 2018.

DW. “Anger over dictatorship, not bread, fueling Sudan uprising.” December 29, 2018.

El- Affendi, Abdelwahab. “Sudan protests: How did we get here?” Al Jazeera, December 28, 2018.

Elmileik, Aya. “What prompted the protests in Sudan: Protests that started over the rising costs of bread and fuel have now widened with calls for the overthrow of al-Bashir.” Al Jazeera, December 26, 2018.

Ibrahim, Omar. “why are the Protests in Sudan Important for Egypt?” Egyptian Streets, December 27, 2018.

Keeley, Gregory. “Keeley: Russia Reminded Us It’s Time to Kick Turkey Out of NATO.” The Daily Caller, December 28, 2018.

Middle East Monitor. “SUDAN: Bashir evacuated from mosque as protests continue.” Martha Leah Nangalama, December 29, 2018.

Reuters. “Sudanese Security Forces Use Tear Gas to Disperse Anti-Government Protesters.” U.S. News and World Report, December 28, 2018.

Sudan Tribune. “Sudanese professionals call for new anti-government protests on 31 December.” December 29, 2018.

Posted to YouTube December 29, 2018.

Channel 4’s retelling has a biblical sound to it: “Beatings. Mass arrests. Teargassing . . . .”

Sadly, BackChannels may be able to add the additional seven plagues to what has most recently been ascribed to the less than beloved dictator Omar al-Bashir.

“Death squads” have been given mention as well.

Six more plagues to go.

And God is Greater.

–33–

“At Least the Dictatorship Provided Its People with Stability”

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Contrary to the beliefs of nice people who believe The West, the United States, and Israel the chief repositories of evil in the world, dictatorship do not provide their people with stability: they provide themselves with the power to accumulate and indulge in excess and that especially of cruelty, power itself as the malignant embrace it becoming the power to visit suffering on others with impunity.

Note: the editor has added the URL to a BackChannels piece on ISIS as Assad’s preferred enemy or foil. 

I used to say the same thing, especially in relation to the invasion of Iraq: ” . . . at least Saddam Hussein kept the lid on the pot.”

In retrospect, Hussein did not keep things under control. He leapt into a ruinous war with Iran when presented with weakness in the shadow of the Islamic Revolution, and produced infamous sport like this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/saddam-drains-the-life-of-the-marsh-arabs-the-arabs-of-southern-iraq-cannot-endure-their-villages-1463823.html

As regards Syria, I and my blog 🙂 have tried to float a too accurate message about barbarism, feudal and totalitarian politics, and their blending in KGB-style Political Theater.  Assad had really to produce conditions favorable to the assembling of the “AQ-types”, the “jihadists”, and their sorting out into the most vicious of fighting elements, and then with ISIL / ISIS make certain that he would have the foil best suited to driving off (to Europe) his most troublesome noncombatant population.

Mission accomplished.

Where westerners believe themselves culpable for such a disaster — “if we hadn’t done this or done that” — the truth slips away without pursuit _except_ by a seemingly small cadre of academics and journalists (and retirees) who drill down beneath the convenient cant to drown themselves in the details of history.

Russian political culture has long displayed itself as medieval, ruthless, and ever paternally authoritarian.

In the near span of 100 years, 1917 to 2017, the experience of two upheavals by revolution and the appearance of three forms in government has not changed its historic character. Russians less connected to Moscow and St. Petersburg are missing out on all the fun with cash while the oligarchy could care less — and thus as it has ever been.

While Moscow often admires Europe and the west and adopts related aesthetic and cultural practices, it seems to resist deep political change, not to beg the point. The Obama Administration had indeed hoped to encourage a little bit of western liberal values in what remained of the Soviet axis of power in the middle east, and at that junction in 2011 defined by Bashar al-Assad’s response to a mild challenge to his absolute power, he would go on to say that Putin had reverted to “the KGB playbook” — and that’s the truth long forgotten at this point in the Syrian Tragedy, so I call it, and the more general and frightening “east-west rivalry”, so others call it.

BackChannels has adopted the term “paternally authoritarian” from the work of the recently late Richard Pipes.  There are two volumes listed in “The Russian Section” of this blog’s library:

Pipes, Richard.  Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.

Pipes, Richard.  The Russian Revolution.  New York: Alfred A. Knop, 1990.

Blog editors may not have the collegial and financial defenses plus resources known to tenured scholars, so there may be other of Pipes’ works here, even bookmarked — there’s a box full of set-asides that has not been opened in ages — but the two mentioned by do for a start.  Note also: flood by web-info, the editor has developed a short memory for which countermeasures are being installed, specifically, limited time on the web to much less “Facebooking” and blog posting in order to return to that world in which the companionship of a book — any long read — might be appreciated for a day or two without deflection or distraction.

Also related to Russia’s New Nobility, the KGB-infused political methods of a revived aristocracy, and the global eruption of the Newest Nationalism: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

Posted to YouTube nine months ago:

&

And posted to YouTube September 2016:

Best ask of every dictatorship: “Stability for whom?”

–33–