Month: October 2006

Russian livejournal-users are talking non-stop about the spat with Georgia mentioned below. [Plushev](http://plushev.livejournal.com) has a heartwarming [roundup](http://plushev.livejournal.com/1209051.html#cutid1) of what people are saying.

[Cook](http://cook.livejournal.com) wants to make badges with the slogan “I am Georgian”, and [Antoshkin](http://antoshkin.livejournal.com/) has a template for a banner saying “I love you, Georgia!”.

A protest is being planned this Sunday in Pushkin square in central Moscow, “_against the kindling of hostility againstGeorgia, and against discrimination against Georgian citizens and citizens of Georgian origin_”

I’ll try to translate more of this, because it is inspiring stuff. Unfortunately it’ll have to wait until tomorrow :(.

Until then, thanks to Livejournal, and to the Russian LJ-users!

From the comments of an Abu Aardvark post: “_Subjectively speaking, I think we (the US) had a lot more respect for the Soviet Union than we do for Islamists and their allies_”

This rings true. I can’t work out what it proves, but I’d love to be able to. I would have expected al-Qaeda to get a lot of respect, through being caricatured as an comic-book evil genius. Instead, it seems the stereotype has stuck to evil, without any of the genius.

Why? Do the powers that be have less respect for non-state actors? Is it because nobody reads Arabic, so we can’t understand their cunning plans? Have we got so hung up on the ‘they hate us because we’re free’ angle that we’re blind to the Cunning Plans they do have? Is it objectively true that the leaders of al-Qaeda are less cunning than the old men in the Kremlin?

And what are the consequences of this different stereotype on how the USA (and Britain, by extension) behave?

Also: yes, I know I’m posting a ridiculous amount today. I had one of those moments where I did a word count on my ‘notes too shoddy to put anywhere’, and decided that 400,000 words of notes kept to myself is utterly useless. I apologise to my lone reader for inflicting all this on you – I still have a vague hope that one day I’ll find the right balance between hoarding information and inflicting all my crap on people.

Quick news from Hungary: the Prime Minister is keeping his job. There are protests going on outside Parliament at the moment: I’ll waddle over in an hour or two, but judging by Sunday it’s unlikely to amount to much.

The next date for things to happen is Revolution Day in a fortnight’s time.

Just as al-Qaeda (*) love prolonging the war in Iraq, so they must be overjoyed every time Blair or (usually) Bush go on some belligerent, over the top rant about Iraq. Then, it becomes so much easier for them to paint as evil megalomaniacs.

So, whenever Bush ramps up the rhetoric about Iraq, what he’s doing is putting domestic party politics above the fight against al-Qaeda(*). In other words, helping his country’s enemies to score a few political points.

Yes, this point has doubtless been made better elsewhere. But obviously it still hasn’t got through.

* no, I’m not happy boiling ‘The Enemy’ down to one sinister cartoon organization. Nor do I much like world politics being a ‘fight’ against anybody – but it’ll do.

It is hard to resist the temptation to scream at the Iraqi government to get on with doing something. But Condeleezza Rice is going a bit far telling them:

“They don’t have time for endless debate of these issues, They have really got to move forward.”

. In other words, stop worrying about all this democracy business.

Even the Guardian has devoted several articles to the spat between Russia and Georgia. Georgia arrests four ‘Russian spies’, Russia cuts off all links with Georgia. Georgian businesses in Moscow start getting raided (there’s nothing Russian police enjoy more than going after anybody from the Caucasus). No word on what is happening to ethnic Russians in Georgia, who make up some 6% of the population.

All this sabre-rattling seems very good for helping Saakashvili and Putin get their parties re-elected, but not much use for anybody else. Grr!

Parties, and not the government, rule Iraq now

One line that tells you more than most articles, out of an excellent piece of journalism by Lara Logan. It’s also a perfect example of how compelling human interest journalism

can

be, when it’s done on the basis of a lot of facts, not just telling the story of the first native you meet.

Lara has framed what seem like two of the most important issues in Iraq. The first is the role of parties, mentioned above. The other is this picture of befuddled GIs surrounded by two conflicts they don’t understand:

…American soldiers are bearing the burden of a failed strategy and being forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, suddenly caught in the midst of two distinct wars: a counter-insurgency and a rapidly escalating sectarian conflict.

And their partners in the counter-insurgency war are participating in the sectarian conflict they’re being asked to stop.

I’d not heard of Lara Logan before, but from here on in I’m reading everything she writes.

Looking through Brookings Iraq Index for something else entirely, I came across this baffling table. The amount of post sent each year in Iraq:

Year	Tons of mail
2001	148 tons sent (231 received)
2003	37 tons sent
2004	43 tons sent
2005	54 tons sent

Huh? Use of the postal system is a third of what it was under Saddam? Why on earth would that be the case?

Granted, dodgy statistics are the most likely culprit – the figures are sourced to an article in the New York Times, and its quite likely that the Baath figure is dodgy for some reason or other. Odder still: somehow the Times writer interprets the figures as “

evidence of recovery

“.

Still, it’d be nice to think there’s some mystery in those numbers, waiting to be uncovered.

Two scary things about the Saudi plan to building a 550-mile fence to shut out Iraq:

1. It’ll take 5-6 years for them to complete. They reckon things will be bad for a
   
   long
   
   time
2. The cost is some £13bn. I know this is a country rolling in money, but still: that’s an awful lot to pay just to keep Iraq’s rebels from getting out.

Now, maybe I’m overreacting. Building protection along a border is normal, and normally expensive. It’s only the Telegraph spin linking this so directly to Iraq. But still, it does suggest that the Saudis are working on an assumption that Iraq is going to end up in civil war within the next few years.

I’m entirely in love with the Russian section of my friendslist right now (*).

Russia is currently having a tiff with Georgia. The Georgian government arrested four alleged Russian spies (possibly as a way to look good before today’s local elections); Russia responded by cutting off air, rail, postal links with Georgia. Now Russia has moved into the overtly racist stage: Moscow police have been turning up at Georgian-owned businesses, looking for minor legal infringements that would justify closing them down. A Georgian arm-wrestling champion, of all people, has been murdered in Moscow. Georgian refugees are being ordered to report to the police, etc, etc, etc… In short, the anti-Georgian prejudice that has long existed in Russia is being fanned by the Russian government into something potentially far more dangerous.

With all this going on in the mainstream, I look at livejournal. What I see is Russians making a point of going to Georgian restaurants, making “I am Georgian” badges and “I love Georgia banners”, arranging an anti-racism protest on Sunday, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Makes me feel good.

Now, I’m going to head out and see what I can make of a Hungarian industrial/synthpop mix. But I’m going to do it a lot more happily having looked at Livejournal

Edit

: Neeka at Global Voices has a summary and translation of some of what’s going on. Bed now, since it’s 5am.

(*) This being essentially a few of the nicer (and some less nice) A-list Russian political bloggers, all of whom use Livejournal. In other words, I read them, they don’t read me, and it’s all a lot less like my English LJ and more like reading blogs.