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Category Archives: Africa

Nigeria: A Note on Community Self-Defense and Nigerian National Purpose

28 Thursday Oct 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Nigeria, Political Psychology

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Nigerian National Purpose, Nigerian Political Coherence and Cohesion


Many people in the country generate their own electricity, pump their own water, arrange private education for their children and so on.

They would also gladly defend themselves against armed attackers.

But, under Nigeria’s laws, it is now impossible to purchase a firearm. No matter how determined an individual might be, they cannot defend themselves with just bare hands and bravery.

Nwaubani, Adaobi Tricia. “Viewpoint: Self-defence not the answer to Nigeria’s kidnap crisis.” BBC News, February 25, 2021.

When, therefore, government proves incapable or unwilling to protect everyone equally, communities must exercise a duty of collective self-defence. The alternative is to suffer voluntary liquidation. In the first six months of 2021, over 6,000 people were reported killed in atrocity violence across Nigeria. 

Odinkalu, Chidi Anselm. “Nigerian law protects right to self-defence: Communities have duty to exercise it.” Vanguard, September 3, 2021.

Nigeria’s bandits and gangs, Fulani Land Raiders, and assorted whatnot bear arms (also explosive and petrol) for their barbaric and tawdry businesses. Nigeria’s Christian communities and others lay bare before them while President Buhari’s government works on rising to the challenge of defending Nigerian communities in their totality, and while it seems corruption must arm the evil — how does so much firepower get through to the worst of the worst? — one may wonder about the complicity — the “voluntary liquidation” — of the victims and their communities and relations.

Possibilities for the Good

Alarms and Barriers: advanced separate-system security communications; spotters; tripwires.

Arms, Bombs, and Edges: warn; repulse; surprise.

Community and State Security Co-Location: On-site partnership between state security and community leaders with zero-time response to assault; secondary government-controlled ready-secret community volunteer units.

Internal Intelligence & State Issues

When it comes to arms and most everything else that has to be smuggled to get where it needs to be, someone knows who’s sellin’ — and someone also knows who’s buy’n.

How is that knowledge come by?

Find an analyst in Nigeria’s State Security Service and ask.

The escapades of bandits, kidnappers, and raiders have not been subtle in the least, nor has their provisioning gone unnoticed.

$$$ & Nigeria’s National Coherence and Cohesion

Although partisan presses emphasize religious aspects of Nigerian conflict, especially involving the Muslim Fulani and Christian villages, one might suggest a more modern world, deeply corrupt and not very religious at all, has come to Nigeria and for bad good reasons ferries (and launders) The Money out to and through “rule-of-law” locations amenable to, well, doing business with not too much of conscience (or law) getting in the way. Whatever the motives may be for moving money offshore and through “shells” developed to hide owner identity, Nigerians would seem shorted as regards both domestic re-capitalization and spending, not that receiving foreign banks, businesses, and states would object to their own good fortune.

One might ask why Nigerians, among others, insist on either fighting archaic medieval wars in 2021 or on experiencing and framing conflicts as such when, in fact, the common denominator from field raids to high office would seem that so-called “root of all evil”, ne, money.

Who is fighting over such an immense thing as the character or nature of God?

While medieval belief sustain absolute power, modern leaders have seen an abyss before them created by demystification and the promotion of reason and by disappointment and the raising of questions that power has never been able to answer or resolve. Before reason and science and now 21st Century technology breakthrough, history’s medieval and primitive inertia would seem to decay and leadership lose its luster especially where it preys on the populations looking to it for improved Qualities and Living, financial and personal security foremost and equally distributed and distributed by merit.

Absence of governance, impoverishment, the presence of interests gaming for the control and plundering of resources in the name of self, clan, family, and tribe may better account for violence welling up from the base between ambition and desperation.

Nigerian National Identity

My own nation, the United States of America, has been riven by agitprop, foreign (e.g., Russian “Active Measures”) and domestic (Partisan drum beaters Far Out Left and Far Strident Right), the unworkable politics of ethnic, gender, and racial identity as cause, and breathtaking disparities in national lifestyle–the gutter (say, Kensington Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) looks awfully low while the priciest of mansions and penthouses sail off in the clouds fully immune, so it seems, to more earthy surrounds. However, should one ask a moderately educated American adult, “What is an American?” most, so one might hope, would define an American as dedicated to upholding the principles and values laid out in the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the full body of compiled – and compiling – national law. Cognizance of and devotion, and respect for essential American ethics, law, principles, and values remain in the heart. Most often, America’s domestic fighting revolves around injustices perceived in light of the country’s essential humanist and secular legal and social ideals and practical political and social ends.

Americans will not fight en masse over religion (which and whose? For all are here) at this time.

Americans will fight — and prove so every day — for their interests, private and public, in light of founding principles and rights.

Nigerians?

Who is Nigerian?

What is a Nigerian?

Who aspiring to power or in power is building a just and modern Nigeria far above parochial business, clan, and tribal interests?

Is there an ideal Nigeria waiting for Nigerians to achieve and secure it?

Last year at about this time (October 20, 2020), Nigerian forces turned their guns on protesters at Lekki Toll Gate. For whom did they kill a dozen Nigerian youth? And for what? Feudal honor? Their jobs? Money?

I believe Nigerians decent but it appears some in business and in power at high levels abuse ideals, their own privileges, and, ultimately, trust of a nation.

Related Online

AFP. “At least 40 killed in attacks in Nigeria’s Kaduna state.” Africa News, September 28, 2021.

Amnesty International. “#EndSars Movement: From Twitter to Nigerian Streets.” n.d.

Asadu, Chinedu. “Dozens killed and abducted in Nigeria’s north.” AP News, September 30, 2021 .

Busari, Stephanie. “‘He died in my arms.’ Twelve months on, a mother’s agonizing wait to find out why her son died at Lekki toll gate.” CNN, October 19, 2021.

Busari, Stephanie, Nima Elbagir, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase. “‘They pointed their buns at us and started shooting’: How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement.” CNN, November 19, 2020.

Campbell, John. “The U.S. Justice Department and Kleptocracy in Nigeria.” CFR, July 19, 2017.

Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999. WIPO Lex.

Duerksen, Mark. “Nigeria’s Diverse Security Threats.” Africa Center for Strategic Studies. March 30, 2021.

Fawole, Rotimi. “The Paradise Papers: When are offshore financial centres okay?” The Guardian, Nigeria, August 15, 2019.

Fitzgibbon, Will. “Secret Documents Expose Nigerian Oil Mogul’s Offshore Hideaways.” ICIJ, July 25, 2016.

Gladstone, Rick and Megan Specia. “Nigeria’s Police Brutality Crisis: What’s Happening Now.” November 14, 2020.

Ibrahim, Raymond. “The Jihadist Genocide of Christians in Nigeria Intensifies.” Gatestone Institute, October 10, 2021.

Jones, Mayeni. “Nigeria’s #EndSars protests: What happened next.” BBC News, October 7, 2021.

Mangut, Ajeck, Angela Dewan, and Nada Bashir. “Nigeria threatens CNN with sanctions but provides no evidence Lekki toll gate investigation is inaccurate.” CNN, November 20, 2020.

News Agency of Nigeria. “Killings: Military warns Plateau residents against self-defense.” Pulse, August 30, 2021.

Obado-Joel, Jennifer. “The Challenge of State-Backed Internal Security in Nigeria: Considerations for Amotekun.” Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2020.

Onuzo, Chibundu. “How Nigerian ‘corruption’ is a cautionary tale for the UK.” The Guardian, April 29, 2021.

Onyiliogwu, Ike, “Money Laundering by Politically Exposed Persons in Nigeria: Consequences and Combative Measures.” Philadelphia, La Salle University Digital Commons, 2018.

Page, Matthew T. “Dubai Property: An Oasis for Nigeria’s Corrupt Political Elites.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 19, 2020.

Panchal, Krishna. “The Poverty Capital of the World: NIGERIA.” Borgen Magazine, August 28, 2020.

Sahara Reporters. “Pandora Papers: Investigation Reveals How Nigeria’s Ex-Governors, Minister Kept N117 Billion Assets in Two Tax Haven Banks.” October 11, 2021.

Shirbon, Estelle. “UK seeks to seize $39 million from lawyer who helped corrupt Nigerian politician.” Reuters, September 24, 2020.

Shirbon, Estelle, Chijioke Ohuocha. “Nigerian growth lags Africa, poverty rising, says World Bank.” Reuters, June 15, 2021.

Tanko, Aliyu. “Nigeria’s security crises – five different threats.” BBC News, July 19, 2021.

U.S. Department of Justice. “U.S. Repatriates over $311.7 Million in Assets to the Nigerian People that were Stolen by Former Nigerian Dictator and His Associates.” May 4, 2020.

Wikipedia. “Americanism”.

Wikipedia. “Constitution of Nigeria”.

Wikipedia. “Informal economy”.

Wikipedia. “Poverty in Nigeria”.

Wikipedia. “System D”.

Zolov, Vladislav. “Galactica Star arrested in corruption case to go under the hammer.” It Boat, March 26, 2019.


Posted to YouTube October 10, 2021.

While it is not a crime for private individuals to set up offshore companies, Nigeria’s law forbids public officials from doing so. According to Transparency International, the failure of the President, Major General Buhari (retd.), to act over past disclosures like the Panama Papers has deepened the culture of impunity. Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director, Nigeria’s TI chapter, says the regime needs to investigate the Pandora Papers revelations irrespective of the political affiliation of the individuals. He adds that the government should equip the Code of Conduct Bureau with staff and resources to adequately scrutinise officials’ asset declarations.

TI’s observation of Buhari’s inaction is not surprising as his avowed anti-corruption war is gradually becoming a charade. \

Punch Editorial Board. “Pandora Papers and Nigeria’s hidden wealth.” Punch, October 12, 2021.

It is not against the law to secretly buy British properties using anonymous offshore companies. Finance Uncovered has seen no evidence in the Pandora Papers that money used to buy houses or apartments in the UK represents the proceeds of corruption or other criminality.

Indeed, many specialist advisers have routinely recommended clients invest in this manner to legally avoid tax.

Bowers, Simon, Lionel Faull, Purity Mukami. “Pandora Papers: The secret London properties of Nigeria’s elite.” Finance Uncovered, October 6, 2021.

Posted to YouTube, October 27, 2021, this video covers both the Lekki Toll Gate slaughter and the Far Right assault and insurrection that brought violence to the America’s Capitol on January 6, 2021.

–33–

Sudan in a Flash

26 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Sudan

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Sudan coup, Sudan October Coup, Sudan protests

The gap between any nation’s stability and the onset of substantial instability might be, oh, three seconds: “You are under arrest”; “We are detaining you”; “Please come with us.”

Add the boots, troops, and guns.

What is power in a weak state?

Evidently, power is the power to cut communications, detain officials, including the head of state, and kill protesters with impunity.


In Khartoum’s twin city Omdurman, security forces stormed the state radio and television headquarters and detained a number of employees, following which the state TV had been reportedly playing patriotic songs and showing images of the Nile. Internet connectivity has been suspended.

Kulkarni, Pavan. “Sudan: More than a million people take to the streets against coup.” Green Left, October 26, 2021.

Related Online

AFP. “Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the general who leads Sudan.” France24, October 25, 2021.

France24 Live. “Sudan military coup: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the general who took power.” October 26, 2021.

Dahir, Abdi Latif and Declan Walsh. “Sudan’s Military Seizes Power and Fires on Protesters: News Updates.” The New York Times, October 25, 2021.

Dahir, Abdi Latif. “Troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters who flooded the streets, with at least two reported killed.” The New York Times, October 25-26, 2021.

Kulkarni, Pavan. “Sudan: More than a million people take to the streets against coup.” Green Left, October 26, 2021.

Kwai, Isabella. “Who is Abdalla Hamdok, the Sudanese prime minister detained in a military coup?” The New York Times, October 25, 2021.

Smith, Elliot. “Sudan’s military has seized power in a coup. Here’s what you need to know.” CNBC. October 26, 2021.

Wikipedia. “Abdel Fattah al-Burhan”.


KBC, October 26, 2021.

Forbes, October 25, 2021.

DW, October 25, 2021.

–33–

Glimpsed: Guinea Coup

05 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Guinea

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Guinea Coup

Posted September 5, 2021.

Greed (somebody wants to control the state’s wealth) or Justice (for those cut out from all the deals)?

Do tell.

(BackChannels would gamble on greed for truest motivation for conflict in Guinea and the contesting or seizing of power with violence).

Wikipedia has already come out with “2021 Guinean coup d’état“.

French Wikipedia has the word on Mamady Doumbouya.


For its part, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement that “the insurgents (had) spread fear” in Conakry before taking the direction of the presidential palace, but that “the presidential guard, supported by the defense and security forces, loyalists and republicans, have contained the threat and pushed back the group of attackers.

AFP. “Guinea coup leader says president ‘taken’ and govt ‘dissolved’.” Africa News, September 5, 2021.

BBC. “Guinea capital Conakry rocked by reports of coup attempt.” September 5, 2021.

Wikipedia. “Alpha Condé”.

Wikipedia. “Conakry”.

Wikipedia. “Islam in Guinea”.

Wikipedia. “Mining industry of Guinea”.

–33–

International Frontier: Nigeria

25 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Nigeria

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Fulani, Fulani Land Pirates, Fulani Terror, Nigeria, Nigerian Civil War, Persecution of Nigerian Christians, President Muhammadu Buhari

In Nigeria, Fulani raids Christian villages have been taking place for years with at least implied complicity on the part of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari. The Fulani’s violence has been brutal and, if reports are to be believed, rising to a stage beyond atrocity in the recent burning of a family alive in its own house.

Ranchers v Farmers?

That’s a familiar framing, but in the press, Fulani barbarism — no other word comes close to describing the inhumanity of it — plays as it has elsewhere, i.e., as Islamic terrorism against civil society. The underlying purposes may be economic and ethnic, but the horror created and relayed through Nigeria’s press would seem the same as that unbridled violence delivered by ISIS.

From the BackChannels reading page on Facebook, August 25, 2021.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/08/25/breaking-gunmen-attack-jos-north-kill-36/

The attackers had reportedly destroyed the bridge leading to the community thereby preventing possible access before launching the attacks.

An entire family was burnt alive in their homes while others that attempted to run into nearby bush were shot. Several persons sustained gunshot wounds and are being treated in the hospitals.

Yelwa-zangam community is dominated by Christian Anagutta natives.


TVC News Nigeria, August 25, 2021.

Unknown assailants attacked the Yelwa Zangam community in Jos North Local Government Area (LGA), Plateau State overnight Aug 24-25. Initial accounts report that up to 36 residents died. Locals have attributed the attack to Fulani bandits who reportedly set bodies and homes on fire. Reports also indicate the attackers set fire to a bridge leading to the impacted area to prevent security personnel from responding. Authorities did confirm the incident without providing the casualty toll and announced that 10 individuals have already been arrested.

The incident underscores the deteriorating security situation in Plateau. Following a similar fatal incident Aug. 14, authorities imposed curfews in Jos North, Jos South, and Bassa LGAs. The curfews remain in effect 18:00-06:00 as of Aug. 25.

More –>

https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/517226/nigeria-assailants-kill-up-to-36-in-jos-north-lga-plateau-aug-25


Related

Silas, Don. “Buhari wouldn’t mind another civil war to realise his Fulani agenda — HURIWA”. Daly Post, June 10, 2021.

–33–

FTAC: On the Tetanus Vaccine Mass Sterilization Rumor and Potential Interaction with East-West Conflict

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Kenya, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics

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disinformation, Fear Mongering, Kenya, lying, medieval v modern, political control, political manipulation, Political Rhetoric and Discord, rumor, Tetanus Vaccination

Inspiration for anger: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/mass-sterilization-kenyan-doctors-find-anti-fertility-agent-in-un-tetanus-vaccine/ (banner: “Health Impact News: News that Impacts Your Health that Other Media Sources May Censor!”).

One might wish that others posting in the world’s open and socially networked web environment would be responsible about it and take the additional 30-seconds it may take using Google search (or Bing, whatever) to check out claims. This particularly vicious sterilization-by-vaccine rumor has been in circulation for decades.

BC’s immediate response to the post follows.


Disinformation.

The story may be a good example of Soviet Era “Active Measures” carried forward into the post-Cold War period. It appears this claim has been in circulation for decades, and not only in Kenya but several other developing nations.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tetanus-vaccine-sterilization/ | https://africacheck.org/2016/05/25/analysis-why-does-an-old-false-claim-about-tetanus-vaccine-safety-refuse-to-die/ | https://www.vaccineconfidence.org/old-rumours-resurface-the-tetanus-vaccine-story/ | https://www.unicef.org/kenya/media_15665.html

Take note of the nations involved — Mexico, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Philippines, Argentina, Bolivia — and their interaction with east-west (Moscow v Washington) conflict.

https://www.workers.org/2009/world/julius_nyerere_1105/

I cannot prove my thesis, such has been the nature of manipulation from “behind the curtains” down through the ages, but often enough, it would seem those who most claim to be interested in Justice turn out also to be the most obsessed with acquiring Absolute Power — and that “by any means necessary”.


In 2014, The Washington Post got involved in this surreal silliness, noting that, “The issue is far from settled: The government says it tested the same vaccine for the presence of the hormone and found none. The government and the Catholic leadership group even used one of the same labs to test the samples, apparently receiving different results” (Abby Ohlheiser, “The tense standoff between Catholic bishops and the Kenyan government over tetanus vaccines”, November 14, 2014).

The possibility of chicanery should not be overlooked in relation to deeply partisan interests.

While the history of the Catholic Church and Communist Movements has been complex, both systems counsel power as absolute, whether the Power of Almighty God or the Power of Communal Man. At least one source-at-a-glance notes the blending of the two in the 1960s through infiltration.

Whatever the fine points of history may be — and the devils are always in the details — “framing” a medical miracle, whether vaccination for polio or vaccination for tetanus as an evil thing, would seem itself a deed most evil and intended to sow discord and fear. Why? Those who promote malicious perception may then portray themselves as the bearers of hope and order.


Related online and associated with similar partisan religious motivations:

Shalzad, Asif and Jibran Ahmad. “Monstrous rumors stoke hostility to Pakistan’s anti-polio drive.” Reuters, May 2, 2019.

–33–

Nigeria: Troubled Elections

23 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Nigeria, Politics, Regions

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blogging, Nigeria, Nigerian Elections 2019, Nigerian Elections Violence, social media

Mash-up.

Feed from mobile phones —

In the news —

Related for Background: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/431071-high-stakes-in-nigerias-elections-for-impoverished-citizenry-and-us

Related Online: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/africa/nigeria-elections-blasts-intl/index.html ; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-6736961/Delays-threats-attacks-fail-deter-Nigerian-voters.html .

Official appeal on Twitter for Nigerian election incident reports —

You can also send real-time incident in both picture and video recordings on Election Day.
Kindly go to your Google play store and Apple App Store via this link https://t.co/NpgnPSGTL6 to download and send Field Reports to INEC#NigeriaDecides2019 pic.twitter.com/p94zPhitG3

— INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) February 23, 2019

And the election parade, as it were, from a so-far calm point of observation.

The world may be still a mystery online: where’s the action? 🙂 What’s coming off it in social media? What could do with authentication but for which the blogger’s desktop is rather out of the loop (for not being there)?


“They just burnt our votes!”

— APC Thugs With Help Of Securities Destroying Ballot Materials In PDP Strongholds.

This is how Buhari hopes to remain in power. Disenfranchisement, intimidation and burning of the Votes of thousands of voters in PDP Strongholds. – Hope For Nigeria (on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefornigeria/ ).

The peaceful change of power by fair and free elections marks democracies, but what are these between states that year after year as corrupt and despotic beneath a veneer of civil democratic governance?

The civilizational narcissism associated with Islam in Nigeria, mostly in the north, has an incumbent Muslim president (Buhari) who has packed the top tier of his military and police services with Muslim officers, and the Christian communities know as much. Between widespread poverty and religious animus and the prospect of Islamic tyranny, the thugs seem to come out to ensure their side remains superior in political power, and generally speaking that has been the Muslim side.

Related on BackChannels on Islamic Civilizational Narcissism (published in 2012): https://conflict-backchannels.com/2012/10/19/mobarak-haider-blasphemy-and-civilization-three-youtube-clips/

–33–

One, two, three + 1: Tired Phantoms of the Soviet

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Fast News Share, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

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One, two, three — Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan — each dictatorship associated with Soviet / post-Soviet political methods. Yesterday, it was the great talk of communism and socialism that yielded so much power to so despicable a kind of peacock thug among leaders — Yanukovych, Chavez and Maduro, al-Bashir, leading their states not to greatness but into dependence on themselves, at best, and state practices that may be regarded as rule of the strong by way of brutality.

Ukraine

Ukraine challenges Russia’s veto right at Security Council. February 20, 2019. Related: https://www.unian.info/politics/10454169-poroshenko-time-to-deprive-russia-of-its-veto-right-at-un.html

The next headline from UNIAN: “33 European states call on UN members to consider non-recognition measures against Russia for Crimea” (February 20, 2019).


Venezuela

Two days earlier the 29-year-old was running through his neighbourhood with a wide grin, draped in a Venezuelan flag.
“Maduro get out, you son of a bitch,” he cried in the empty road outside his home in a defiant a video uploaded to social media.
Then the feared Special Action Forces (FAES) police unit came knocking. “The people who killed him were wearing uniforms and had ski masks,” a family member who didn’t want to be identified out of fear of more violence told The Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/20/nicolas-maduros-special-police-unit-keeping-working-class-neighbourhoods

Sudan


UC26E11 POETRY FOR SUDAN, Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Sudan-Related Online

Africa News. “Sudan protest hub: Sit-in by top private telecom employees.” February 21, 2019.

AP. “Sudan Government Arrests Opposition Leaders Ahead of Protest.” VOA, February 21, 2019.


Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.
Posted to YouTube February 21, 2019.

Bonus: Syria

If the world is able to look back on this period . . . it will be sick with its memories. Bashar al-Assad with the support of Vladimir Putin and Ali Khamenei managed to physically destroy half of his state while running about half of its population as well. Now that the he has regained some areas, the past has come knocking for the release of prisoners.

Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Scanning for news, rejiggering it, “scraping” as bloggers may call it — all takes time. Of late, BackChannels has been wondering what one has gotten back — or just created — from each days sail out into the sea of web-borne news. In the spirit of philosophy, one might enjoy the consolation of having seen and relayed a very small shard of time in the world.

This post has featured web artifacts dated February 20 and 21, 2019 having to do with four conflict-hot states: Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan, and Syria. Central to the historical narratives of each: autocratic and still medieval Russia, Imperial, Soviet, Post-Soviet. The bereft and hungry of the North established tribes in Kiev around the 9th Century and lived and ruled in the feudal manner by way of the standards of the age. Contracts, expansions, hardships exceeding in excessive suffering practically every possibility short of the Holocaust — I have in mind the Mongol Invasion — and here . . . at the end of two modern revolutions and three distinct experiments with government unable to escape a paternal (and these days criminal) paternalism, . . . well here comes perhaps a different end to empire: Moscow has invaded Ukraine and Kiev is fighting back, making the sacrifices every day it must for freedom through democracy.

Venezuela’s “mafia state” will never be able to return Moscow’s “investment” in post-Soviet support — another more responsible government is needed for that.

Sudan has only this day to lose an ageing despot whose control of his state has come down to “shadow brigades” and the muzzling of truth-telling journalists. He doesn’t like the way he looks in Sudan’s newspapers. I wonder how he’ll feel when he sees himself in history.

And al-Assad: behold his greatest near accomplishment across eight punishing years of the KGB theatrical, “Assad v The Terrorists”:

Posted to YouTube January 5, 2017

Similar: Aleppo; Damascus suburb; Raqqa.

–33–

Sudan’s Bashir: All About “Narcissistic Supply”

20 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Sudan

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dictatorship, malignant narcissism, Narcissistic Supply, Omar al-Bashir

Why whole constituencies suffer along with dictators and their criminal regimes, only God and a handful of political psychologists know.

In schematic from childhood to demonhood:

“Narcissistic Mortification” –> “Covering / Splitting” –> “Narcissistic Manipulation” (in practice, “Narcissistic Personality Disorder“; on BackChannels, “Malignant Narcissism“, “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” (the author’s own term) –> (“Excess of Joy Weeps“) : Experience of “Narcissistic Supply“.

As BackChannels may use the term “Covering / Splitting”, the reference is to masking over the defective, humiliated, or impotent self — it’s not uncommon for children to suffer — and suffer deeply — at the hands of a powerful and sadistic other in such a way as to demand a coping and defensive route in behavior in response. The “splitting” then may refer to the development of the heroic or heroic-appearing self and the daring exploration and development of congruent behaviors. Not all who would experience “narcissistic mortification” become malign in their response — some may be reparative in response — but some do wish to get the better of their tormentor in one-up mirror fashion.

“Narcissistic Manipulation” –> “Gaslighting” and “Perceptual Control” — in the linguistic or Orwellian sense, control of the target’s information, imagination, organizing (Gestalt functions) and perception plus predictions or prognostics.

What would you do to be loved (by the masses)?

Widely accepted by Kremlin-watching journalists: Vladimir Putin’s beloved KGB bombed several Moscow apartment buildings in the dead of night in a false-flag operation intended to promote fear of Chechen rebels and produce the election of Russia’s ideal man.

The mission proved successful.

In his acceptance speech, Vlad had tears in his right eye, whether from cold or joy, who can tell?

In any case, the Russian Army would go on to “fight” Chechen rebels (see KavKaz Center) in part by terrorizing Chechen villages not previously hooked up with units.

Had history not had “grandiose and messianic” personalities, there would perhaps be very little of human history at all.

Be that as it may, many ages — feudal, medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, lol (whatever works) — have passed into a modernity in which knowledge and reason prevail in the fashioning and support of modern democratic, humanist, and secular law and policy. Reflecting that sea change in humanity, Europe has come up with a dozen “constitutional monarchies” bound up in a reasonably coordinated, cooperative, and peaceful “European Union” that should be, so BC opines, quite sensitive about states marching themselves backward into the bloody illusions of the past.

Putin’s way has brought out the dictator in some EU / NATO politicians (Erdogan, Orban, Le Pen, Trump), not all completely successful in their quest to be as if feudal lords in command of their tribes x (criminality), language, race, religion, perhaps wealth, but in someways successful enough. Ironically, and while working opposite the direction of the Russian collusion “witch hunt”, the Trump Administration has taken many measures along the crime- and dictatorship-fighting axis to dull the expansion of nefarious post-Soviet enterprise (on BackChannels, have a look at Venezuela).

BackChannels’ trope regarding dictatorships: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

So back to Omar al-Bashir who cannot tolerate that Sudanese should get the world’s news coming out about his regime worldwide.

Al Jazeera English, February 19, 2019.

The news, however, does get out, making the dictator’s image increasingly indelible and negative in global conscience and memory.

Also Related Online

Abdin, Latifa. “Protests in Sudan: A primer on the ongoing unrest, two months on.” Open Canada, February 19, 2019.

Since coming into power in 1989, al-Bashir worked to systemically consolidate power by banning political parties, dissolving parliament and actively muzzling political dissent, through arrests, torture and executions, as recent events demonstrate. His government also worked to systematically ban trade unions, which played a key role in two successful popular uprisings in Sudan — one in 1964 and another in 1985.

https://www.opencanada.org/features/protests-sudan-primer-ongoing-unrest-two-months/

Africa News. “Sudan protest hub: Student rallies ramp up pressure on govt”. February 19, 2019.

Journalists – local and international, have been caught in the middle of the protests. Foreign reporters have been deported or ordered out over their coverage whiles local journalists have been arrested and allegedly tortured.
Rolls of daily and weekly newspapers have also been confiscated. A number of varsity professors in the capital Khartoum were recently arrested for attempting to stage a protest.

http://www.africanews.com/2019/02/20/sudan-protest-hub-africanews-updates/

RSF. “At least 79 journalists arrested in two months of protests in Sudan”.

These systematic arrests have targeted not only reporters covering protests in almost all parts of the country but also journalists who themselves dared to protest against the regime’s policy of censorship and arrests of journalists with the aim of restricting coverage of the protests.

https://rsf.org/en/news/least-79-journalists-arrested-two-months-protests-sudan

–33–

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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