Category Archives: Political Psychology

Also in Media – “Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities” « Telos Press – On Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi’s experience as the Palestinian professor who arranged appropriate field trips, one of them to Auschwitz, for both Israeli and Palestinian students

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Anti-Semitism, Free Speech, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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As Haaretz reported, “He says the choice of Dheisheh for the Israeli students was not meant to suggest there was an equivalence or even a direct link between the Holocaust and the Nakba. They were chosen as the symbolic events that have deeply affected the psyche on both sides of the conflict.” The aim was to build mutual empathy and understanding through an appreciation of events central to the other side’s narratives and self-understanding.

None of this played well on the Palestinian street. Holocaust deniers asserted that Dajani was trying to brainwash his students by disseminating the fabrication that the Holocaust was real. He was denounced as a traitor and collaborator by students and others and warned not to enter Ramallah. The faculty union cancelled his membership.

Read more about Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities « Telos Press, September 27, 2016.

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FTAC – “These Too Are Palestinians”

23 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Palestinia, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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“Should the UN join the super powers and be a bystander ignoring Israel’s continued occupation and violations of Palestinian human rights?”

This is your answer:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/12/02/quote-manipulation-about-the-plo-leader-pacepa-and-rychlak-2013/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/world/middleeast/mahmoud-abbas-israel-palestine-kgb.html

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/07/ftac-on-the-soviet-contribution-to-contemporary-left-side-anti-semitism/

http://www.btselem.org/topic/inter_palestinian_violations

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180400/hamas-killed-160-palestinian-children-to-build-terror-tunnels

The influence of the Soviet by way of agitation, disinformation, political manipulation (through the KGB) and sponsorship of terrorism in relation to the middle east conflict cannot be underestimated. The post-WWII leveraging of Arab anti-Semitic sentiment — involving some with power, not everyone — succeeding in developing despotic regimes benefiting the Soviet as client states.

Russ-AS-04

Soviet cartoons distributed in the Middle East to leverage “the masses” into the Soviet camp.

Russ-AS-03

The Soviet dissolved in financial and moral bankruptcy about 25 years ago; however, in its place has developed a feudal state in the Russian historic tradition, and it continues to entertain PFLP and to interface with both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Who has been made to suffer as a consequence of Soviet / post-Soviet Russian influence and KGB-designed manipulation?

There are differences between the medieval world and the modern one, and the modern is a much, much better world in which to live.

These too are Palestinians:

Additional Reference

“Eshkol knew and feared the Russians,” noted Michael Oren. “War with Syria [and Egypt] was risky enough; with the USSR, it would be suicidal.” But Eskhol calculated that without U.S. support, the Soviets would find themselves compelled to get involved directly. Moscow had, after all, “invested massively in the Middle East, about $2 billion in military aid alone—1,700 tanks, 2,400 artillery pieces, 500 jets, and 1,400 advisers—since 1956, some 43 percent of it to Egypt.”

Sure enough, as the Israelis demolished the forces of the Arab coalition over the next three days and captured the Sinai, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, reunified the holy city of Jerusalem, and began an offensive against Damascus itself, Moscow saw itself staring into the face of a geopolitical disaster. Those were, after all, Soviet-trained soldiers being defeated. Those were Soviet-made arms being seized or destroyed. Those were billions of dollars in Soviet funding to their Arab client states being poured down the drain. And—it would later be learned by U.S. and Israeli intelligence—the Egyptian war plan itself (code-named, “Operation Conqueror”) had actually been written in 1966 by the Soviets. As a result, the Soviets feared their prestige was quickly unraveling.

Rosenberg, Joel C.  “How the Six Day War Almost Led to Armageddon: Forty years later, Moscow’s role in engineering and exacerbating the crisis is revealed.”  LeftBehind.com, May 18, 2007.

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FTAC – Syria – Anachronistic, Barbaric, Surreal

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

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

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Before hostilities were established back in 2011, Syria may have been washed, as it were, in two streams of political poison that would render it untouchable and toxic to the west and its interests. Both streams would be located in the medieval worldview of political power as legitimate when exercised as dictatorship. Soviet Era duality combining anti-Semitic expression, socialism, and pan-Arab nationalism would become part of today’s “lostness”; and then on the political track linked to religious belief, “Islamist” exceptionalism and hubris would mirror the nationalist dictat.

As regards speaking . . . reporting, seeing, and speaking have not been of issue.

As regards extremism + post-Soviet history, ah, there’s the issue that now has former Iraqi Baath Party officers fighting for ISIL against (some) Iraqi Shiite militia embedded with Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers.

Which is the war being fought?

Medieval v Modern; Sunni v Shiite; “Political Absolutism” v Democracy — and then the lesser politics: Iran v Iraq; Turkey v Russia; Turkey v the Kurdish Liberation community; and so on

???

I tend to focus on post-Soviet Moscow for answers as regards motivation and policy for shaping the conflict as it appears. However, one might also focus on multiple elements in the field and ask about illusive motivations. There seem to me multiple aspects of the conflict that can only be seen _by everyone_ — all involved or on the sidelines — as absurdly anachronistic, barbaric (especially in the cultivation and expression of cruelty) and surreal.

The poem that set off the response was lovely and correct in its complaint about silence and its query about the lack of human intervention in deposing Bashar al-Assad.  However, great vision matters in Syria, and, in fact, it may now be all that matters in Syria, specifically the ability to observe from a distance in time and space that views the whole of it as contained in time.

Truly, the conflict began with a despot’s sadistic response to a peaceful challenge to his authority, and here five or six years later, thereabouts, those outside of Syria area overviewing a complete medieval theater of politics and war of which Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and Baghdadi — and similar others — are of a whole piece.

Different talks — same walk!

The leaders are not opponents: they have been cooperating perfectly in mutual destruction, disregard, and unspeakable sadism.

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FTAC – “Syria is the World Without Israel”

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Religion, Syria

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Syria is the world without Israel. It is the world of Pharaoh in which four dictators, Assad flanked by Putin and Khamenei, his enablers, and another benighted soul, among others, Baghdadi, each believes himself representative of law. Together, they have recreated an image of the medieval world, a complete theater of politics and war.

Israel has received and provided medical services to Syrians for many years now. It leaves the politics of each person in need outside the hospital.

As this tragedy began in 2011 in Dara where a mild protest was met with the arrests and torture of students, it got formed rapidly into a statement about absolute power. No democracy; no talk; no compromises. The prize for each kleptocratic dictator, for each absolute ruler: the power to make others suffer with impunity.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/

With the company of others, the Jews left Pharaoh a long time ago.

God proved greater than the tyrant.

The prompt: “A world without Israel would be so peaceful.”

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FTAC – Clarification on Syria’s Medieval Meltdown

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria

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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/06/02/assad-or-burn-it-assad-burns-it/

Moscow-Damascus-Tehran chose a long time ago to sustain political absolutism and produce between themselves a medieval spectacle, “Assad OR The Terrorists” AKA “Assad vs The Terrorists”. To get “The Terrorists”, Assad chose to bedevil noncombatants and early FSA, whose officers defected from his own corps, while allowing al-Nusra and others greater space and time — an act of incubation, deselection for combat — to consolidate.

No one likes this story — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/ — because it suggests that Syria has been made into a complete theater of politics and war, courtesy of Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, led into it by the early easing off, Baghdadi. The display or tableaux moves “the masses”, but it wasn’t necessary but to defend the politics of dictatorships (“different talks — same walk”) — and Syria has been all but destroyed by it.

We know there is such a thing as the medieval world because we look back on it.

The medieval takes up space in the world’s museums.

Is there such a thing as “modern”?

Perhaps time blends ages and experiences.

One may be certain, however, that what Assad has brought about in Syria combines modern aesthetic and social norms — recall that Concert at Palmyra — with a deeply medieval politics, one that feasts on blood and sets the other side up for doing as much.  Driven from the land or killed: noncombatants and perhaps the more modern of revolutionary units.

Posted to YouTube by Al Jazeera English, September 12, 2016.

Posted to YouTube by AFP News Agency, September 12, 2016.

BackChannels feels that Assad flanked by Putin and Khamenei and accompanied in their medieval journey by Baghdadi are “all in” for “absolute power” — “Different talks, same walk” — and none have either “internal brakes” or personal incentives for compromise.  However, external influences, starting with state (or “state”) money and either the want of it or the loss of it, might apply.

Also, for Putin, greater state interests plus, perhaps, interest in his reputation in history, may come to bear — no pun intended — for as the destruction of Syria intensifies and western intervention remains limited, it’s himself as much as Assad, the head of a Russian “client state”, who may in the world’s memory bear the brunt of responsibility for the horror of it.

Additional Reference

CBS/AP.  “Syria cease-fire — Assad’s “last shot” — seems to hold.”  September 13, 2016.

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FTAC – From Correspondence – Focusing on the Despotic

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

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

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Dictatorships – “Different Talks – Same Walk” — they have nothing to do with any restricted political vision except to exploit language for the eventual attainment of “unlimited narcissistic supply.”

Truly, they flatter themselves, eventually leaving behind pyramids and billion-dollar mansions.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/

Many make themselves living hell for others, unfortunately.

Successful states — plenty of cash across the geopolitical space and plenty to do as regards work — seem to me often well put together combines of public commitments and privately realized opportunities. As all things are worked out between actual persons and organizations, the general rule — public-private compacts, from the provision of infrastructure to area-wide tax policy to real estate development through to public regulation of production (environmental and labor legislation) and trade (controls on distribution and tariffs) — dissolves into improved qualities in living x area-sq.

In good societies, “qualities of living” (economic, physical, psychological, social, spiritual) should produce the benchmarks (casually stated: “are you better off today than you were so many years ago? And how so? And why?) to which constituencies and politicians respond.

The despotic evade popular judgment.

I think we focus too much on the “isms” and not enough on leadership and related social practices, but that feature in cultures need the poets out front. Depending on where one lives, the critics of power, especially despotic power, may be made to suffer in situ or in exile a long time.

Re. education — avoidance of indulging too many in the humanities and social sciences, or doing so through too much of a Far Right / Far Left professoriate, may make a political body too easily disinformed and misled. As I have no relevant power in that realm, or elsewhere, reparative action seems way beyond my reach.

I think generalists among writers have at best subtle influence over time.

A good conversation may be mild and yet moving.

The conversational partner had called for the removal of former communists from Russian politics; however, and President Putin included, the whole have transformed from the Soviet outlook and ditched the CPSU worldview, a process well underway but out of sight in the 1980s when the privileged of the Party had begun work on plans for afterward.  The “afterward” — December 26 of this year will mark 25 years of “afterward”) — has returned to Russians a deeply centralized national security state: FSB | Putin | Oligarchs.

Where the same has run the world into disturbing issues: Syria.

Barbarism, Corruption, and Cronyism v Rule of Law and Meritocracy

*

Medieval Political Absolutism vs Modern Democratic Distribution of Power

*

State-Based Development and Exploitation of Terrorists (as in the medieval realpolitik theatrical “Assad OR The Terrorists”) v Progressive Humanist Discipline in Military / Paramilitary Assessment and Response (as in modern Israel)

The items presented in “That v This” form need not be black-and-white in reality (or “realpolitik”) as the blend may be more the thing, but what’s on display in Russia- and Iran-enabled Syria is so bad as to make modern invention of the political themes involved very easy.  Stopping at an expanded “Medieval v Modern” three should suffice.

Through President Putin, certain features (like that KGB/FSB thing) of the Soviet Union have enjoyed a period of “Soviet Reunion”.  A number of characteristics associated with the period of dissolve around 1991 have been reversed, and the leader has returned to the people a certain boisterous quality.  However, the ambitious neo-medieval neo-imperial state’s “numbers” — military expenditures, reduced oil revenues, incidence of corruption throughout, capital inflows, reduced reserves — may be keeping internal development comparatively suspended.  That may do Putin’s popularity and reputation some damage over time.

General Reference

. . . the majority of the population sees the Kremlin not as the reason for the current economic recession but as the central power making a relatively successful attempt to consolidate society against external enemies that seek to strangle Russia economically. Somehow, it is not hard for the Kremlin-controlled media to find proof and symptoms—Western sanctions are presented as a major instrument of destruction, causing severe harm to the Russian economy; the oil price decline is declared to be the result of an anti-Russian plot; and even the situation around Ukraine is treated as an attack on Russian foreign trade, on Russia’s ability to cooperate with a neighboring market of 45 million people, and on the traditionally close economic ties between Ukraine and Russia. Over time, economic hardships have become a reason for the increase in public support of the president and his policies, not a reason for protesting.

Movchan, Andrey.  “Avoiding the Blame for Russia’s Economic Woes.”  Carnegie Moscow Center, March 30, 2016.

Oxenstierna, Susanne.  “Russia’s defense spending and the economic decline.”  Journal of Eurasian Studies, January 2016, 7:1, 60-70.

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Russia’s P&R Cocktail – New Nationalism May Meet Falling Reserves with Religion

09 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion, Russia, Ukraine

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CHITA, September 9. /TASS/. The Russian Reserve Fund will be exhausted over the course of the next year, the budget deficit financing will start from the Russian National Wealth Fund, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Lavrov told journalists on Friday.

“The Reserve Fund, as I remember, will be used up over the next year,” Lavrov said. He added that once the fund is exhausted, the budget deficit financing will start from the National Wealth Fund.

http://tass.com/economy/898846 – 9/9/2016

Russia spent 18.4 percent of its reserve fund in a single month to plug deficits in the federal budget, Finance Ministry figures released Tuesday have revealed.

The country’s reserve fund fell from $38.18 billion to $32.2 billion during the course of August 2016, shrinking to just over a third of pre-crisis levels.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-spends-18-of-its-reserve-fund-in-august-55223 – 9/6/2016

Long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea and unproclaimed war in the Donbass, Ukraine had become a religious battleground. Despite the warning of Yurii Chernomorets, Cyril Hovorun, and other observers, none of the leading Ukrainian and Western politicians foresaw the threat posed by an increasingly aggressive form of Orthodox Christianity being promoted by Moscow. As events in Ukraine have now shown, Orthodox fundamentalism is no less aggressive than Islamic fundamentalism, and the “Russian Spring” is no less bloody than its Arab counterpart.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/05/orthodox-terrorism – May 2015

If anyone thought Europe’s wars over religion were finished in 1648, the current standoff with Russia illustrates that that is not the case.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulcoyer/2015/05/21/unholy-alliance-vladimir-putin-and-the-russian-orthodox-church/#5cda28ee6881 – 5/21/2015

All of the above: the writing on the wall.

Putin and the oligarchs, slow to develop Russia’s internal economy, “T-34 Tank Tomatoes” notwithstanding, have now to face a precipitous drawdown on the state’s more convenient national reserves, and helping the state’s leaders meet that challenge: (FSB-enforced) faith in the exceptional magic of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Gaze upon that infernal cocktail that is equal parts politics and religion and find the terrible beauty of its love match in mixture: the greater the destruction and hardship wrought by one, all the greater the glory and proof of Divine favor provided by the other.

Says BackChannels.

Complementing Reference

http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew05108.htm – Winter 1997 – “Orthodoxy, Oil, Tabacco, and Wine: Do They Mix?” East West Report.

http://www.geopolitika.lt/?artc=4593 – “The Rise of Russian Nationalism” – 4/4/2011.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/25/putin-s-number-one-gunman-in-ukraine-warns-him-of-possible-defeat.html – 7/25/2014 (on the invasion of the Donbass but linked here by the purpose of the demonstration of power and annexation of Crimea).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulcoyer/2015/05/21/unholy-alliance-vladimir-putin-and-the-russian-orthodox-church/#5cda28ee6881 – 5/21/2015.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/russia-ultra-nationalist-crackdown-150916131749975.html – “Behind Russia’s ultra-nationalist crackdown: Despite targeting neo-Nazis and other hate groups, the Kremlin is rolling out its own version of the ‘Russian world’.” – 9/23/2015.

http://rbth.com/opinion/2016/02/10/why-has-the-world-waited-so-long-for-a-catholic-orthodox-reconciliation_566661 – 2/10/2016 – “Why has the world waited so long for a Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation?”

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/how.the.russian.orthodox.church.is.backing.vladimir.putins.new.world.order/81108.htm – 3/3/2016.

http://religious-nationalism.blogspot.com/2016/03/putin-wars-and-russian-orthodox-church.html – 3/13/2016.

http://christiantimes.com/article/thousands-fast-and-pray-after-vladimir-putin-signs-new-russian-law-restricting-religious-freedom/58896.htm – 7/14/2016.

KGB/FSB | ROC

A secret Soviet-era document uncovered in Estonia suggests that Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and spiritual leader of tens of millions of Christians, was a fully fledged KGB agent.

Accusations that Alexy, elected Patriarch in 1990, co-operated closely with the KGB under the code name ‘Drozdov’ (Thrush), have circulated since a parliamentary commission was allowed a brief peek at secret police files in Moscow in 1991.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1 – 2/12/1999

Liberation theology, of which not much has been heard for two decades, is back in the news. But what is not being mentioned is its origins. It was not invented by Latin American Catholics. It was developed by the KGB. The man who is now the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent four decades promoting liberation theology, which we at the top of the Eastern European intelligence community nicknamed Christianized Marxism.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417383/secret-roots-liberation-theology – 4/23/2015.

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: The two texts that follow—they are actually two parts of a single essay—are of crucial importance for an understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Communist Yoke. They were written by a true confessor of Orthodoxy, who died in prison in the Soviet Union in 1971 for having written these and similar texts. They are presented here as a direct response to the plea of the author himself (p. 484 of Russia’s Catacomb Saints): “This betrayal… must be made known to all believers in Russia and abroad, because such an activity of the Patriarchate… represents a great danger for all believers.” The texts are primary documents exposing with direct and irrefutable proof the conscious betrayal of Russian Orthodoxy by its own hierarchs.

http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cat_tal.aspx – “The Moscow Patriarchate and Sergianism: An Essay by Boris Talantov.”  Orthodox Christian Information Center, circa 1968.  Related in Wikipedia: “Russian Greek Catholic Church“; “1943 Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church“; “Patriarch Sergius of Moscow“.

Only after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 did Joseph Stalin finally start to scale back the anti-religious campaign, needing the moral support of the Church during the war. In the early hours of September 5, 1943, Stalin met with the three chief hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and promised some concessions to religion in exchange for their loyalty and assistance. Among the concessions were the permission to open the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy, the release of imprisoned clerics, the return of some church property, including the famous Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. In return, the Soviet government put the Church under the control of its secret services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Sergius_of_Moscow

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FTAC – Syria, Compressed

05 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

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This is basic:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/

And the confusion in the “battlespace” fails to recognize the true oppositions in the Syrian Conflict and Tragedy.

The correct framing: the 25th anniversary (Dec. 26) of the dissolve of the Soviet Union.

The correct opposition:

“Medieval Political Absolutism” vs “Modern Democratic Distributions of Power”

The medieval axis: Moscow-Damascus-Tehran + others who invest themselves in authoritarian politics. Fair slogan for the kleptocratic dictatorships: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

The dictators are those who walk all over their own constituents (or subjugated populations).

The modern axis: the United States, NATO, the open democracies of the west and worldwide.

There are a lot of fence sitters — Pakistan may be one — but the medieval world is on full display between Putin, Assad, Khamenei, AND Baghdadi.

I don’t know when the perception of the witness of the “Syrian Conflict and Tragedy” will kick in, grow, and align within the lovers of broadly distributed freedom and prosperity worldwide, but this blog has been working on that for a while.

By now, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may know the extent to which his enterprise had been enabled in its infancy to service to serve in these ways:

  • A collector of “jihadist” passion;
  • An organization suiting the blackmailing of the west in a political theatrical one might call “Assad OR The Terrorists” — never mind the both operating as tyrants;
  • A goad to the west, especially mixed in with the hapless of Syria’s mass migration;
  • An excuse to destroy (“Assad or We Burn It”) Syria and depopulate the region for the greater political control of the despotic powers.

Those who merely follow each day’s headlines (and Russian post-Soviet disinformation) will not “see” the political reality that is Syria.  They will see the glorious “Assad vs The Terrorist” and witness Moscow’s latest in military technology set loose on the landscape, while those who dig, and those who have memory — all the way back to Daara, 2011 — will get the whole story, understand it, and perhaps be enraged by what it represents.

Related

Like Syria itself, Daraa has been ripped apart by five years of conflict. What began as a local protest movement against the Assad political dynasty slowly morphed into an international proxy war that’s drawn in the United States, Russia, Iran and nearly all of Syria’s neighbors. Hundreds of thousands are dead, millions are displaced. While it’s difficult to find a Syrian who honestly believes there’s an end in sight, there’s some agreement about where it all began: with Omar’s friends. The graffiti they dared to paint on the schoolyard walls has become an origin myth for Syria’s tragic conflict — not just for the citizens of Daraa, but for the entire country.

By some accounts, the schoolkids were deeply political; they painted dozens of political slogans that day, and eventually set fire to a police kiosk to express solidarity with anti-police protests erupting across the Arab world. Omar remembers his friends a little differently. Sure, they had an eye on Egypt and Tunisia, but Omar says they defaced the school wall because they were teenagers, and it was the rebellious thing to do, not because they were die-hard revolutionaries.

https://news.vice.com/article/the-young-men-who-started-syrias-revolution-speak-about-daraa-where-it-all-began – 3/15/2016.

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