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Climate Change Is Claiming Aspen Groves—and the History of Basque Immigrants in the US · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

A Basque arborglyph found outside Boise, Idaho. Researchers are cataloging this record of American immigrant experience, etched into trees by sheep herders from the 1890s through the 1980s, but it’s a race against the clock. Credit: Courtesy of the Boise State University Arborglyph Database
This story by Ryan Schuessler originally appeared on PRI.org on September 13, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
John Bieter never knew his grandfather. A Basque immigrant from Spain, his grandfather had died by the time his grandson was born in the northwestern US state of Idaho.
But Bieter has found a way to connect with the world where his grandfather walked: names, pictures and messages carved into the aspen groves that cover the mountains surrounding Idaho's capital Boise, carved by the last century’s Basque sheep herders.
To the average hiker, the carvings probably appear to be just that. But to Bieter and other Basque people in the US, they represent something more. The Basque, native to what are now the Atlantic borderlands of Spain and France, are an ethnic group whose origins are so ancient, their language so old, that nobody quite knows where they came from. Long persecuted in their homeland, many Basques began immigrating to the US in the late 1800s, with many men finding jobs as herders in the West.
During those solitary days in the mountains, those men left small pieces of themselves carved into the white bark of the aspen groves. Think petroglyphs, but carved into trees: “arborglyphs.” They’re not just vandalism or the marks of bored men, but rather a record of the early Basque American conscience — the personal, the intimate, the anguish felt by the forefathers of one of the American West’s most well-known diasporas, who endured hard labor as they forged a new life for themselves and their families, far from the persecution of fascist Spain. In the 20th century, thousands immigrated under contracts with the Western Range Association, a livestock group that had set up a recruiting office in Bilbao, Spain.
“[The arborglyphs] start to give you different glimpses into who they were, what they were thinking, what they thought of each other,” says Bieter, also a professor of history at Boise State University who has catalogued Basque arborglyphs around Idaho. “Something comprehensive needs to be done to document these.”
But time to document them is running out. The fact that the Basque herders carved into trees (as opposed to rocks) always meant the arborglyphs would not be permanent. Not only do the trees heal over time, but anything that can damage the trees themselves — disease, pests, fires like those currently raging across the West — puts existing arborglyphs in danger. The oldest Basque arborglyphs have already been lost. Finding and documenting those that remain, before they disappear, has always been a race against the clock.
Now climate change is running the clock out even faster.
“We’re starting to see what we think is another wave of mortality starting,” says Bill Anderegg, a biologist at the University of Utah who studies sudden aspen decline, or SAD. “It really seems it's the hot temperatures driven by climate change that are really pushing these trees over the edge.”
Anderegg was one of the scientists who documented a massive SAD event that peaked in 2008, when aspen groves across western and central North America succumbed to the type of drought that will only become more common as the planet’s climate continues to change. He’s starting to see the familiar symptoms again in the state of Colorado: sudden loss of the trees’ canopy in as little as a year.
“It was striking to see that,” Anderegg says. An aspen grove can die between two and five years after those first signs. “I would say that the threat is increasing to aspens in the West, and the main reasons is that we are doing relatively little to stop climate change.”
Joxe Mallea-Olatxe, who literally wrote the book on Basque arborglyphs and has documented thousands of them, says he has noticed the aspen decline himself. “I’ve seen it in every grove I visited recently,” he wrote in an email.
One study (PDF) predicted that nearly half of the aspen’s current range will be lost to climate change by 2060. And when those trees die, they will take existing Basque arborglyphs with them.
On the left, an arborglyph catalogued in the Idaho Basque Arborglyph Database. On the right, a note in the database about its content. Credit: Courtesy of the Boise State University Arborglyph Database
The majority of the carvings are names and dates. If a herder returned to the same place each season, their assimilation into American culture might have been documented. “Lorenxo” became “Lawrence,” or they changed the way the date was written from the European style to the American way.
Bieter has seen carvings of specific churches, barns or villages these herders left behind in Europe. He’s seen the crest of Bilbao’s soccer club in Spain, as well as political messages supporting Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque separatist group responsible for bombings in Spain and France in the mid-20th century. He’s found pornography carved into these remote aspen groves. He’s found carvings dating from the 1890s through the 1980s.
Tree carving is not a tradition practiced by Europe’s Basques, Bieter says. It’s something that emerged in the American West.
“It’s a way into that whole immigrant experience, which is at the core of the whole American experience,” says Bieter, who first saw a Basque arborglyph around a decade ago when hiking with a retired herder. “It helps me get a sense of [my grandfather], what his life was like. He’s the reason I’m in Boise, Idaho.”
The Basque culture itself is not in danger of disappearing in the US. Boise is home to a neighborhood called the Basque Block and is a hub of an effort to revitalize the Basque language. Boise State University is one of several in the region that host Basque studies programs. The Basque American story is one that the community regularly and proudly celebrates.
But it's the messages, thoughts and memories those earliest Basque in America left on the papery, white bark of the aspen that are quickly fading, taking with them the stories and thoughts of those who forged a new life in the West. Among the arborglyphs that Bieter found was a message decrying the solitary, harsh life of a sheep herder contracted to work on the frontier: “We’re the new slaves in America.”

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
One Mother’s Tireless Pursuit of Justice for Kashmir’s Disappeared · Global Voices
VideoVolunteers

Parveena Ahangar. Screenshot from YouTube Video by VideoVolunteers.
This post was written by Madhura Chakraborty and originally appeared on Video Volunteers, an award-winning international community media organization based in India. An edited version is published below as part of a partnership with Global Voices.
Losing a child is hard enough. But imagine not knowing where they might be and waiting for 27 years. One night in 1990, Parveena Ahangar’s 17-year-old son was captured by paramilitary personnel from Batamaloo locality of Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on the suspicion of being a militant.
Parveena has waited ever since for some definitive news on her son's fate. And she is not alone. Unofficial estimates by human rights groups establish the figure of “disappeared people” at over 8,000. Alongside this is definitive proof of unmarked, mass graves in Kashmir holding the remains of over 7,000 people.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is geographically divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in entirety by both. Twelve million live in the Indian portion of Kashmir and many want independence. Since 1989, more than 68,000 people have been killed in sporadic uprisings and subsequent Indian military crackdowns. Today, it is the most densely militarised zone in the world, with a presence of more than half a million soldiers.
Social worker and Video Volunteers community correspondent Nadiya Shafi reported about the resistance of the parents of the disappeared, spearheaded by Parveena:
By 1994, Parveena’s dogged determination to get justice led to the formation of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). Parveena would travel to remote areas of rural Kashmir to seek out the families of people who had been abducted, mostly by the Indian military and paramilitary forces, never to be seen again. She commented:
I had to give up the burqa. I had to appear in courts, visit military interrogation centres. It was not possible to do all that in a burqa. I did it for my son.
Enforced disappearance is only one in the long list of human rights abuses that the Indian state and military establishment in Kashmir stand accused of. However, there has never been any attempt to allow the law to take its course and conduct independent inquiries into these cases.
Since 1993, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has been denied entry into the valley. The country's Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA) give impunity to armed personnel in the state in the name of combating insurgents. The draconian laws give troops the right to shoot to kill; arrest anyone as young as 12 with force and without a warrant; enter and search any premise and stop and search any vehicle; occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations; and detain Kashmiris for up to two years without charging them. There can be no prosecution, suit or any other legal proceeding against anyone acting under those laws.
In not a single case of rights violation from custodial torture to murder, disappearances, rape has the accused been tried by the civil courts. In the most high profile case of recent times, the armed forces tribunal suspended the life sentences of five personnel from the Rajputana Rifles regiment of the Indian Army for luring Kashmiri villagers with the promise of jobs and killing them, staging it to appear as a foiled infiltration bid by militants.
Despite the judiciary's failure to successfully address any of the wrongs committed in name of combating terrorism, Parveena has persevered, traveling from Kashmir to Delhi and Geneva to appeal before international rights bodies.
It wasn't an easy task to bring together the parents, wives, and children of disappeared persons across the valley. Most of the relatives belong to poor, rural families often without access to lawyers and human rights activists. Parveena said:
They were often threatened to not file First Information Reports (FIRs) and the police would also not register cases. I assured them that nothing will happen to them, that I will always be in front of them and that I needed them at my back. We have even traveled to Delhi and protested and held hunger strikes at Jantar Mantar monument.
Her activism and pacifism earned her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2005. Parveena remains steadfast in her goals:
Is the law only for the military, the [Border Security Force], the Special Tasks Force? They offer us compensation of 100,000 Indian rupees [1,540 US dollars]. We don’t want their money. We want our children back.
India has signed but not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. With her indefatigable activism, Parveena hopes to create enough international pressure on India to treat enforced disappearance as the culpable criminal offense it is.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: VideoVolunteers


text:
14 Tweets from Kyrgyzstan’s Colourful, Competitive and Concerning Presidential Vote · Global Voices
Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy

Photo by Danil Usmanov for Kloop.kg. Used with permission.
Formerly communist Kyrgyzstan is the only country in its authoritarian neighbourhood to host genuinely competitive presidential elections.
To the north of the mountainous Central Asian republic lies Kazakhstan, which has been ruled by 77-year-old autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayev since before its independence in 1991.
To its south is Tajikistan, whose dictator of more than two decades Emomali Rakhmon came to power during a civil war and stayed put.
To its west is Uzbekistan, where the regime of late despot Islam Karimov was widely reported to boil dissidents.
To its east is China, which has been under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party since 1949.
If Kyrgyzstan's vote goes smoothly it should ensure the first peaceful transfer of power between two elected presidents in the republic of six million.
The country's first two presidents were overthrown in revolutions while the country's third “interim” president was not elected, but endorsed by referendum.
Here are 14 tweets to provide readers outside Kyrgyzstan with an idea of some of the themes that have characterized this vote.
Like in any election, but particularly because Kyrgyz votes are associated with political instability, some can't wait to see it end.
The main character in this video is pursued home by an agitator asking him to vote for a specific candidate: “Ugh! I'm so sick of this! When will the elections be over already!?”
The message at the end of the video reads: “Elections 2017. Hopefully they will end peacefully!!!”
#ш2017 тажаттыңар ? pic.twitter.com/mUaMxKq0Ry
— Kanatbek Sh. (@KanatbekS) October 14, 2017
The state monster, to be exact.
This voice-overed video depicts pro-government candidate Sooronbai Jeenbekov as the Incredible Hulk emboldened by the machinery of government (or what are referred to in the ex-Soviet region as “administrative resources”) with his main challenger oligarch Omurbek Babanov struggling to compete.
Their dialogue in the Kyrgyz language runs as follows:
Babanov: “I am Babanov and [neighbouring Kazakhstan's ruler] Nazarbaev is backing me. I will buy people with my money. I will buy you all too.”
Jeenbekov: “And I am Sooronbai. I am Sooronbai. I am Sooronobai.”
#шайлоо2017 pic.twitter.com/0xPbNkQhCS
— Батус (@S0u1_Keeper) September 24, 2017
It depends who you speak to.
Some say he is a ruthless and slimy former oil trader with connections to criminals.
Others argue he is the reform-oriented progressive politician capable of lifting Kyrgyzstan out of its long post-Soviet stagnation.
At any rate, he looks good with a dove.
Омурбек Бабанов: Пусть в Кыргызстане будет мир и процветание! https://t.co/EqW4TnZPta pic.twitter.com/BPgqVHarbP
— Vitalyi Iskakov (@VitalyiIskakov) October 10, 2017
Omurbek Babanov: Let there be peace and prosperity in Kyrgyzstan!
Продавец газетами зашел в СлимФит в очень хорошем настроении и всем девушкам предлагает газеты “Бабанова любишь?” #ш2017 pic.twitter.com/q5CHUZiJ3w
— Edil Baisalov (@baisalov) October 13, 2017
A newspaper salesman just came into [a cafe] in a very good mood, offering girls newspapers. “Do you love Babanov?”
Супер момент с семьей! @BabanovOmurbek #ш2017 pic.twitter.com/IFggwMQcLS
— Edil Baisalov (@baisalov) October 13, 2017
What a moment with his family!
#СуперАта #СуперПапа – это и мой отец :). И вот почему:https://t.co/fkZmeaPiVd pic.twitter.com/T9hq4tyefv
— Омурбек Бабанов (@BabanovOmurbek) June 16, 2017
#SuperPapa – is my father. Here is why: https://www.facebook.com/omurbek.babanov/posts/804123763102068
On top of being backed by the state machine, Jeenbekov has his supporters.
Here he is pictured in a hat to the left of Aida Kasymaliyeva, a popular former journalist and MP in the ruling Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan.
Jeenbekov's supporters say they like the fact he is unflashy and committed to hard work and stability.
#ш2017 pic.twitter.com/EZ4YmD5nAv
— Aida Kasymalieva (@a_kasymalieva) October 5, 2017
A bit like this. Here a media outlet claims citizens are being bussed to polls to vote for Jeenbekov.
More seriously, supporters of Babanov have been arrested in the run-up to the vote.
Nevertheless, the actual count is expected to be fairer than in previous presidential elections thanks to the use of biometric technology.
Фото. Подвоз избирателей в пользу Жээнбекова https://t.co/jH2844kzrI
#ш2017 #шайлоо2017 pic.twitter.com/BYsCee59Iz
— Kloop (@kloopnews) October 15, 2017
Bussing in favour of Jeenbekov.
Yes, on all sides. And exposing it is a dangerous business for journalists.
Another journalist assaulted in #Osh trying to film the distribution of cash to voters. #Kyrgyzstan https://t.co/OBy5gm9CvC
— DeirdreTynan (@DeirdreTynan) October 15, 2017
Of course, and thanks to them it could go to a second round.
In the tweet below a Kyrgyz netizen applauds the performances in a presidential debate of ex-Prime Minister Temir Sariyev and Taalatbek Masadykov, a former United Nations expert who received his Masters degree in the United Kingdom.
#ш2017 #Шайлоо2017 #дебаты2017 pic.twitter.com/rcjbBGMgEG
— ★♥Нияра Солнечная ♥★ (@NiyaraSweet) October 5, 2017
Sariyev and Masadykov – bravo!
Global Voices first covered Arstanbek Abdyldayev in 2011.
He famously announced the end of winter and called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a complex bio-robot”.
He has promised the world a new era under the leadership of the Kyrgyz people, and he is apparently writing a book.
He isn't expected to get much of the vote, though.
Бу кишини жайына койсоң дүйнөнү сактагысы бар #ш2017 pic.twitter.com/wdDfF4IbDP
— Bakyt Torogeldi (@b_torogeldiev) September 22, 2017
If we just let this person [be president], he will save the world!
Then there is Azimbek Beknazarov, who says he is not participating in the vote but is on the ballot anyway.
His nickname is “the bulldozer” due to his active participation in the 2005 and 2010 uprisings.
This was his pre-election campaign commercial which was shown on television before he dramatically withdrew his candidacy during one of the debates.
Kid: “Mum, dad, the bulldozer is coming, the bulldozer is on its way, the bulldozer is on its way!”
Old man: “Who did you say is coming? Beknazarov, the bulldozer of the 2005 revolution?”
Woman: “Beknazarov, the one who brought up the issue of Ungar Too [territory disputed by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan]?
Kid: “Yes, yes, that very Beknazarov!”
Old man: “Oooh! That is very good. If there is anyone who can straighten out our society, it is him. Support him!”
С таким роликом Азимбек “Бульдозер” Бекназаров передавит на выборах всех конкурентов, не иначе #презедент2017 pic.twitter.com/HFxcdbVXks
— тем временем… (@a_imanaliev) October 6, 2017
With an ad campaign like this, Beknazarov will crush his opponents, no doubt!
Stirring, the pot, as usual. Almazbek Atambayev was limited by the constitution to a single, six year term in office following his own election in 2011.
Any hopes that the president would offer up a veneer of neutrality for the vote have been thoroughly dashed during the last few weeks, however.
He spoke again on election day, claiming representatives of the fabulously wealthy Babanov had offered him $20 million to endorse him, without offering proof.
With his speeches invariably inflammatory, one foreign correspondent suggested it would be better if he did not speak at all.
Given his recent eccentric remarks, this looks like an ideal Atambayev press conference #Kyrgyzstan pic.twitter.com/XeIQpSxaaE
— Peter Leonard (@Peter__Leonard) October 15, 2017
As mentioned, a second round is fairly likely, assuming the vote is sufficiently clean.
After that, who knows? But some have seen negative omens in the pre-election campaign of slight favourite Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
Обнаружена угроза! ☠ pic.twitter.com/6SYFiC6HZ6
— Umet (@UmetKerim) October 11, 2017
An electronic banner calling on voters to vote for Jeenbekov malfunctions, leaving an on-screen message: “A threat has been detected”.

author: Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy


text:
Not Without a Fight: The Battle for Affordable Housing in Cape Town · Global Voices
Nyasha Kadandara

Laundry Day – Shaneekah Abdullah washes he children's clothes in one of the washrooms in Cissie Gool House. PHOTO: Nyasha Kadandara. Used with permission.
I have always said there are two types of people who travel to Cape Town. There are the ones who are enthralled by the mountains, beaches, and endless kilometers of wineries. And then there are those who cannot get over the harsh contrast between the shacks and the mansions, or the scarcity of black and brown people as they go about their tourist activities, except on the township tours.
Honestly though, one does not have to look too hard to recognise that Cape Town is an African utopia only for a few. For many of the city’s residents, the legacy of segregation and spatial apartheid persists in a tangible and powerful way.
After three years away, I recently traveled to Cape Town on business, and decided to extend my trip in order to re-acquaint myself with the place that had been my home for seven years. Naturally, a university reunion was in order. I sat with my friends around a dinner table in Woodstock Coop, the latest addition to the string of new trendy businesses taking over the old, abandoned streets of lower Woodstock, and listened to their stories of how they—university graduates and qualified professionals—couldn’t afford to live in Cape Town. Some of them had already had a taste of life in Johannesburg, South Africa’s notorious economic capital. Some had even bought property in Sandton, reputed to be the richest square mile in Africa. Yet even they couldn’t afford to live in Cape Town?
My friends weren’t exaggerating. The average Capetonian needs to earn three times the average salary to buy a home in the city. And not only are property prices in Cape Town the highest in the country, in 2016 it ranked third globally in terms of annual price increases.
And the prices keep going up, the latest being a R10 billion deal to sell and prime coastal land between Clifton and Camps Bay, which many residents fear will hike up the prices even more.
My friends and many other middle-class residents in Cape Town have been able to find ways to work around the system and survive, but there is a growing number of Capetonians who are barely surviving, and have found themselves displaced and homeless.
Land For People, Not For Profit
On the top of Mountain Road in Woodstock a banner hangs from the windows of an abandoned wing of Woodstock Community Hospital, emblazoned in bold red and black with the words “Reclaim the City”—the name of a political movement dedicated to fighting for affordable housing. The occupiers have named the wing Cissie Gool House, after the anti-apartheid political activist often referred to as Cape Town’s Joan of Arc.
Reclaim the City's slogan. PHOTO: Nyasha Kadandara. Used with permission.
Inside Cissie Gool House I found a combination of homeless families and individuals who have converted the first floor of a ward into their home, turning patient rooms into bachelor’s studios of a sort, and dilapidated amenities into communal washrooms and kitchens and meetings rooms used for educational purposes. On the walls of the hallway they have painted words of affirmation—“Land for people, not for profit.”
At the back of the building, I found Shaneeka Abdullah hanging her laundry on a washing line. After making one complaint too many about the run-down state of her previous apartment, Shaneeka and her family had been abruptly evicted by her landlady. The family of four slept in their car for three nights before Abdullah discovered “Reclaim the City” through a Facebook post. The movement was advertising accommodation for recent evictees and those struggling to find affordable housing.
Shaneeka told me she “cried [her] eyes out” when she learned she would be able to give a home to her two daughters, 11-year-old Tarana, and four-month-old Almira. Standing in her converted room, she explained how she used a divider to separate the living and sleeping areas. The former is kitted out with a gas stove, a small fridge and makeshift cupboard, the sleeping area with a queen-sized mattress on the floor and a dresser against the wall.
Know your rights – Jennifer Williams holds out a booklet on South African Constitutional Rights. PHOTO: Nyasha Kadandara. Used with permission.
Abdullah’s living situation is not ideal, but she is determined to stay in Cissie Gool House until the city can provide her with housing.
The South African constitution states that everyone has the right to adequate housing, and government must take reasonable measures to provide it from its pool of available resources. The land on which Woodstock Hospital sits has been unoccupied for 10 years and was earmarked for affordable housing. But despite making commitments to using the site for housing, the owner, the Province, put in a development application to build offices worth R100million. The rezoning bid is part of what prompted Reclaim the City to occupy Woodstock Hospital and the Helen Bowden Nurses’ Home, another property earmarked to be used for affordable or transitional housing. Subsequently, the rezoning application was withdrawn.
After pressure from a number of housing activist groups, the City identified 11 sites to build social and transitional housing within the inner city and Woodstock Community Hospital is one of those sites. But in order to be eligible, however, people need to be registered with the national housing database.
“I’m too old to sleep in the streets now,” said 58 year-old Jennifer Williams as she sat on her bed playing a card game with her neighbor, Ismail Rahim. Jennifer is city girl, raised between Woodstock and adjacent Salt River; living in the metro areas is all she has ever known. She’s been waiting for a house for over 30 years. Jennifer’s is one of 373, 641 households in the national housing database still awaiting, and this backlog is set to grow to 650,000 in the next 15 years.
Residents express their feeling about the Cape Town, the good and the bad. PHOTO: Nyasha Kadandara. Used with permission.
While families continue to wait for the City to provide affordable housing, those in immediate need are sent to relocation camps like Blikkiesdorp and Wolwerivier, 30 km outside the city. Blikkiesdorp was established in 2008 as part of the preparations for the 2010 football World Cup, and when translated into English, means “Tin Can Town”. These settlements are far from urban centers with employment opportunities and residents struggle to access public transportation, or healthcare services.
“I hope I get attached to the new things that come along with the new developments,” says Jennifer, who has seen Woodstock change drastically over the last 30 years. But she accepts that some change is inevitable, and sometimes it’s beneficial. She notes, for instance, the decline in crime that occurred when the new shops came in. With a defiant look on her face, Jennifer says that “as long at the city gives us our places to stay,” she’s okay with the development.
Whether the city will, in fact, offer housing to people like Jennifer remains a question. The City of Cape Town has had plenty of opportunities since the end of apartheid to implement policies that promote inclusive urban development, such rent control and inclusive city-wide zoning. But perhaps movements like Reclaim the City will turn out to be David to the Goliath of gentrification and we’ll start seeing housing and development for all—not just for a wealthy few.
Nyasha Kadandara is a Zimbabwean-born, journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker based in East Africa.

author: Nyasha Kadandara


text:
On Language: The Many Flavours of Persian in Eurasia · Global Voices
Eurasianet

In places such as Bukhara, the language encountered — still ostensibly a variation of Persian — would be near incomprehensible to someone with knowledge of “colloquial Persian.” The same goes for Afghanistan and even Iran itself. The formal Persian of the media is virtually identical across borders, while the spoken dialects vary tremendously on a city-by-city, village-by-village basis. (Photo: Sergio Tittarini via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The following is a partner post from EurasiaNet.org written by James Pickett. Republished with permission.
Is Tajik a dialect of Persian? Or a language in its own right? What differentiates it from varieties prevalent in Afghanistan and Iran? There is no easy answer to these questions because the very categories we use to think about language in Central Asia, and elsewhere, are insufficient.
Consider these paradoxes: A student trained in modern Persian at an American or European university would have no trouble understanding Tajik-medium news on the radio, even though he or she would initially be unable to read the Cyrillic script of print publications. And at bazaars in places such as Bukhara or Khujand, the language encountered — still ostensibly Tajik — would be near incomprehensible to someone with knowledge of “colloquial Persian.” The same goes for Afghanistan and even Iran itself. The formal language of the media is virtually identical (excepting the alphabet in the Tajik case) across borders, while the spoken dialects vary tremendously on a city-by-city, village-by-village basis.
This basic insight is taken for granted by scholars with years of experience studying Persian (by its various names) and living in Iran and Central Asia. But it is a language framework missing from most Persian textbooks and actively subordinated to an explicitly national way of understanding language dynamics in the region.
The language categories we are more or less stuck with are organized vertically by nation-state, which at once obscures the profound variation of local dialects (Mazandarani, Bukhari, Kabuli, and many others), while simultaneously implying deep differentiation by country that does not in fact exist, among Farsi, Dari and Tajik.
Prior to the 20th century, Persian served as a remarkably uniform language of high culture from the Balkans to western China, in no way confined to the modern country of Iran. Much like Latin in Europe or Sanskrit in India, it was a literary language that many educated people could write, but far fewer spoke as a native tongue. Crucially, the language was known as Persian (Farsi) everywhere, and the written language formed the basis for the modern languages of Dari and Tajik as well — terms rarely used to describe a language before the 20th century. (“Tajik” was used to refer to people, but not language; and “Dari” was used in medieval texts to refer to Persian, but without any exclusive relationship to modern Dari or Afghanistan, despite nationalist claims to the contrary).
So if literary Persian formed the basis of all of these languages, just what is so Tajik about the Tajik language? (The same point applies to Dari and Farsi). This question is complicated by the inadequacy of our categories. If one has in mind the formal Tajik of the media and language textbooks, the answer is “not much,” aside from the alphabet. And a separate alphabet does not a language make: otherwise the recent script reform in Uzbekistan from Cyrillic to Latin would have effectively invented a new language.
A smattering of grammatical forms specific to Central Asia though not necessarily exclusive to Tajikistan were codified into grammar manuals during the Soviet era, and consequently survive in contemporary English-medium language textbooks.
For instance, “man rafta istāda būdam” (“I was going”) appears alongside the literary variant, even though that construction would make little sense in Tehran. Vocabulary is overwhelmingly etymologically Persian, with Turkic and Russian loanwords mostly excised from such language manuals. Students who master the contents of Tajik textbooks — the most widespread options are by Baizoyev and Khojayori respectively — would therefore be prepared to converse with well-educated colleagues in Iran, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.
It is true that slang and neologisms would pose a challenge when moving among the three countries. If one wished to say “satellite,” Tajik dictionaries offer “hamsafar,” and Farsi dictionaries “mahvāra,” for instance. But there is no escape from the learning curve associated with engaging in specialized domains. Moreover, rigidly adhering to one national language is no panacea, as foreign loan words for technical terms complicate the picture further. Returning to the example of “satellite,” most Tajiks would probably not use either of the previously mentioned variants, and instead use the Russian term, “sputnik.”
In other words, the predominant pedagogical approach is a good fit for diplomats, journalists, and literature scholars. Step outside the elite circle, however, and this picture changes dramatically. If by “Tajik” one has in mind the language of the hearth and bazaar, then it turns out there are many varieties of Persian.
Dialects common in Central Asia freely mix not only Persian, Turkic, and Russian words, but grammatical forms and sentence structure as well. Students who achieve high marks in a Tajik program may be surprised to find that the living language they encounter in Bukhara — where the local dialect is understood as “Tajik” — is very close to unintelligible. To engage on that level, one would have to study language as it is spoken, rather than the language as reformists wish it were spoken.
Nor is this situation limited to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Although education in formal Persian has penetrated much more deeply in Iran (not having to compete with the imperial language of Russian), Iran is home to a spectrum of local dialects, some arguably more pronounced even than those found in Central Asia. The same is true in Afghanistan, where languages such as Pashto and English provide ingredients for the local dialects.
Students wishing to engage with these colloquial forms are mostly out of luck. Language textbooks and programs strictly hew to the tripartite Farsi-Dari-Tajik division, and when “colloquial” elements are introduced, the variant in mind is that of Tehran, masquerading as a common spoken dialect for the language as a whole. There are a few examples of exceptions to this rule, such as the insightful, but difficult to obtain, guide to colloquial Tajik by Aliev and Okawa (Colloquial Tajiki Phrasebook, 2009). For the most part, the anthropologist and development worker (for whom formal Persian may be less useful) are on their own.
This need not be the case. If there is one thing that historical scholarship of the last several decades has demonstrated, it is that what we understand today as “nations” and “ethnicities” are the product of contested, and often very recent, historical processes. Those insights have yet to filter into language pedagogy in any meaningful way, but it is not too hard to imagine an alternative approach.
Indeed, just such an integrated approach is already on offer – for Arabic. Most Arabic programs focus on the formal language prevalent throughout the Arab world, while concurrently offering targeted introductions to various regional dialects, with special attention to the most prevalent one – that of Cairo. It is taken for granted that students’ journeys are not over at the end of the integrated program, since they will by necessity have to use the formal language as a platform for further specialization in a local dialect, technical field, or literary genre.
The only thing holding Persian back from a similar approach is the tenacity of national categories. An integrated pedagogy presenting a shared formal language transcending national boundaries, combined with exposure to regional and historical diversity, would better prepare language learners for realities encountered on the ground, and help undermine the conceptual silos of the nation-state.
For now, the DIY version of such an approach is not impossible, but certainly challenging due to a lack of materials. Students would have to strain to cobble together resources across dialects under a bewildering array of contradictory headings. But even a basic appreciation of the limitations of our perceived language categories opens the door to a far more diverse and interesting world.

author: Eurasianet


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Syrian Architects Challenge ‘Post-War’ Reconstruction with Real-Time Designs · Global Voices
Sina Zekavat

A collage of Syrian reconstruction initiatives by leading designers featuring Khaled Malas windmill project, map/diagram from Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj, and Qibaa Studio’s earth projects. Collage created by the author.
In the midst of escalating aerial bombardments of Aleppo by the Assad regime and its allies in February of 2016, an international design competition titled “Syria: Post-War Housing Competition” appeared online.
Organized by “Matter Better,” a website aiming to solve “the actual problems of mankind by organizing open-idea competitions in the fields of architecture and design,” the competition underscored the differences between Syrian and non-Syrian approaches to reconstruction during war-time.
The competition focused on a ‘post-war’ reality and asked participants to “propose a solution to the housing scarcity crisis as more cities in war-torn Syria are freed and refugees return.” It also invited competitors to design “living conditions which will be attractive for once-displaced Syrians to return.”
It also encouraged designers to “think on a bigger scale” and to “propose a typology which could be used anywhere in Syria and an infinite number of times until the post-war housing crisis is solved.”
Prominent mainstream architecture platforms like Archdaily published the call and attracted 245 design submissions mainly from Europe. No Syrian or Middle Eastern architect was part of the jury panel comprised of members from Europe, Russia, and the United States.
Architects, engineers, and civil society activists from Syria have been envisioning and implementing a very different reconstruction process in their country that focuses on the present.
Their “bottom-up” and resourceful approach is based on the idea that reconstruction efforts cannot be postponed to an indefinite and hypothetical “post-conflict” future. Many architects on the ground believe that the need for reconstruction is urgent and also inseparable from ongoing rehabilitation and civilian protection.
Their approach has resulted in a proactive and uninterrupted engagement with rehabilitation projects throughout the conflict. The resulting projects may be less visually grand than non-Syrian projects, but they focus more on engagement with the emerging social, economic and political actors on the ground.
Qibaa Studio, a young architectural collective from northern Syria, has been testing “people-centered” housing strategies using local resources and vernacular approaches since 2013. Their goal is to “preserve Syrian culture while utilizing and developing local capacities.” Their mission statement explains:
We are a group of Syrian architects who happened to meet in the Northern parts of Syria in the wake of the Syrian Revolution in 2011. Amidst the huge destruction that our country has been undergoing, physically and socially, we deeply believe that planning for reconstruction begins now, during the conflict and not in its aftermath. It begins in the hearts and minds of those who suffer the horrors of war and want to change societies so that there is no return to violence. It is an essential part of negotiating our way towards peace.
Driven by this belief, we established Qibaa in 2013, a studio aimed at developing sustainable practices through which we can spatially address the urgent needs of our communities in the current situation, while setting the ground for a sustainable recovery process for our war-torn country on the long run.
Khaled Malas, a Syrian architect and curator from Damascus and co-founder of the Sigil Collective, has also been involved in the rehabilitation process through site-specific “monuments of the every day” and “rural architectures of resistance” in areas besieged and targeted by the Assad Regime.
Malas defines his role as an architect who builds upon existing networks of resiliency established by local civil society organizations across Syria to preserve life and dignity during the war. Describing the nature of his work, Malas writes:
Whilst contemporary conditions appear dire, people have not lost hope. In Syria, an empowering resistance originates within the everyday of those who dare to diligently think and act differently. It is amongst these brave men and women that we have located our collaborators. Amongst other forms, our alliance is given material expression in a series of humble rural and semi-rural architectures.”
Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj, an interdisciplinary Syrian architect and urban planner from Aleppo, calls on the mainstream media to debunk notions of  “post-war” reconstruction as a “myth.” During a recent workshop and seminar at the Department of Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design at Stuttgart University Hallaj explained:
This notion that one day the conflict will stop and the next day a grand national reconstruction will begin is a fake paradigm. There’s not going to be a “day after.”
Hallaj believes that a centralized, large-scale, nation-wide reconstruction process is simply impossible and that any serious redevelopment effort has to take into consideration notions of informality, local economies, and decentralized planning.
The reality is that centralized planning approaches for reconstruction are not going to be feasible, they never were, and they never will be. In reality urban growth will mainly take place in the informal sector with a few exceptions where neoliberal policies will incentivize limited opportunities for the emerging war lords and their regional partners. But of course these few exceptions will look great in front of the camera and they may bring in a few hundred thousand tourists eventually in 20 years. There’s probably going to be two or three such exceptions in Syria with beautiful landscapes and restored facades like in Beirut. Areas that very few will be able to go to. The rest of the country is going to be desolate land.”
“We need to change the paradigm. We need to move away from centralization and accept decentralization as a new paradigm for decision making processes. We need to accept informality because we can no longer create normative, beautiful, grand solutions that are not going to be implemented. If anything, these normative beautiful solutions will increase the corruption. We need to move away from strict spatial planning to flexible negotiations and social actors on the ground.”
During a recent lecture at Venice University's Department of Architecture, Hallaj discussed displaced Syrians’ ‘right of return’ to their homes and neighborhoods. He explained that through design architects play a critical role in either facilitating or obstructing the achievement of this right:
Who has the right to come back to the cities? You as architects and planners sometimes draw beautiful drawings, but every line you put on your drawing will decide who gets to come back to the city and who doesn’t get to come back. If you do beautiful grand projects, that some big developer is likely to develop, most likely people will not be able to return to their cities.

author: Sina Zekavat


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‘When You Write a Song About Racism, It’s a Big Deal’ · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Aliou Toure of the band Songhoy Blues Credit: Leo Hornak
This story by April Peavey originally appeared on PRI.org on September 21, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
Aliou Touré told me not too long ago, “When you write a song about racism, it's a big deal.” Touré is lead singer of Songhoy Blues, a band from Mali.
He said this in the context of the band's new song “One Colour,” off their new album, “Résistance.”
The song was recorded with a school children's choir in London. Touré says recording with kids made him optimistic about the future, especially if adults take the moment to learn from them.
“The children are not racist. When we went to a school to record these kids’ voices, they were so beautiful — with all the different kids from different countries. From Asia, India, US, from France, from Africa. They're all together, playing together, happy,” he says. “It's so beautiful when you see kids like that. We said maybe the kids can educate the parents.”
“One Colour” is just one of the many lessons the listener takes from “Résistance.”
Touré says another lesson was to change the preconceived notions of what Africa, Mali and Bamako, their home city, are all about — stereotypes like the fiction that lawlessness and crime occur on every corner in Bamako. One way to break the stereotype, Touré says, is to fight back with music.
“When you put 100 people in a small venue, you put the music on, everyone will be happy,” he says. “When you turn the music off, everyone will be gone. It's not interesting without music. So, the thing with us is to turn all of these things happening around the world and to try and find a positive way to bring people together.”
You might be able to catch some of Songhoy Blues’ positive energy and the lessons they impart. Beginning in October, the band is embarking on a tour throughout North America and Europe.


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A ‘Verified’ Social Media Account Can Help Protect Iranian Activists — If They’re Lucky Enough to Get One · Global Voices
Simin Kargar

Iranian musician Shahin Najafi at a “United for Iran” event in Amsterdam. Najafi has been denied verification by Twitter and Instagram, despite persistent threats against his account. Photo by Marjolein Katsma via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
When hackers attacked the Instagram account of popular Iranian musician Shahin Najafi, they replaced Shahin’s profile picture with the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They replaced his account bio with what appeared to be the attacker’s contact information. These other kinds of defacement are typical features of state-aligned cyber attacks and intrusion.
Najafi's songs address socially and politically sensitive issues such as theocracy, censorship, sexism and homophobia. After the release of his controversial song about a Shiite saint in 2012, two leading Iranian clerics issued fatwas declaring Najafi guilty of apostasy. He received multiple death threats across the social media sphere, and a far-right Iranian website offered a USD $100,000 bounty to anyone who killed Najafi.
He has remained a constant target of hate speech and cyber attacks ever since. Multiple fake accounts have impersonated Najafi and spread negative messages about him. And state-run media have repeatedly conducted smear campaigns against him.
Despite his celebrity status and a clear need for protection from platform operators, Najafi remains vulnerable on Instagram and Twitter. He chooses to remain present on both platforms, despite the consequences.
Najafi is not alone. For several years, Iranian civil society and political dissidents have been top targets of state-sponsored cyber attacks and intrusion campaigns. More recently, these groups have become regular targets of coordinated online mobs that sometimes appear to have links to the state agencies. Many encounter content takedowns and account suspensions that stem from coordinated flagging and reporting of their posts and accounts on social media. They are often impersonated by fake accounts that disseminate misinformation about targets’ private and public lives.
With their privacy and integrity under attack, some end up deactivating accounts. Others restrict the comment section of their profiles. And some seek protection and support directly from social media companies.
One partial remedy that has helped many public-facing artists, activists and journalists who face such threats online, is account verification — an official signal from the social media company, indicating that a person's profile is legitimate and that their identity has been verified. When a company “verifies” a user, that person's profile is adorned with a blue check mark, indicating their authenticity.
In practice, verified profiles enjoy more protection against false reporting and politically driven flagging of content. They appear to have more leverage in mitigating hacker attacks, removing fake accounts or curbing misinformation that could bring them harm. While it is not a panacea, the small blue badge has proven a helpful measure of protection of freedom of expression for its recipients.
But not all those who need this protection are able to get it.
Over the course of 2016, I interviewed 20 prominent Iranian human rights activists, artists and journalists who described challenges they faced in mitigating social media harassment and hacking. The majority of these interviewees had struggled to get the attention of social media companies when they most needed help, and several of them — including Najafi — could not convince the companies to verify their accounts.
While Twitter offers detailed steps on how to request a verified badge for an individual account, Instagram and Facebook simply explain that verified accounts are only available for “some public figures, celebrities and brands.”
In practice, of those who I interviewed, only journalists affiliated with widely recognized employers, such as large international media houses, were able to easily obtain the coveted blue badge.
All four of the Iranian women’s rights activists and LGBT public figures who I interviewed were unable to obtain verified status, even after sending companies the required documentation. Indeed, for activists, artists and journalists who work in an individual capacity, it is often difficult — if not impossible — to obtain verified status, unless they have a personal contact at the social media company.
In addition to the unclear process, there are other complications.
First, these guides are not available in Farsi. And this language gap is not limited to the verification rules — there is no information available in Farsi to guide individuals on reporting and documenting harassment on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
This is worrisome for Iranian human rights activists and dissidents who are regularly targeted with harassment and threats through direct messages on Facebook and Instagram, which are among the most popular social media platforms in Iran, and Twitter, which Iranians are increasingly using.
The error on top of the text reads “Sorry but this text is not available in your language.”
On Twitter, the drop-down list includes 32 languages. But as with Farsi, a handful of these a few generate the same message, stating that content is not available in the language selected. These include Chinese, Bengali, and Vietnamese. Like Farsi, these are all among the 25 most commonly spoken languages in the world, according to UN statistics.
“Major” languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Dutch are all available.
The text in yellow box states that the guide is not available in the selected language (i.e. Farsi) but that users can choose from “supported” languages.
Second, multiple interviewees reported that when they submitted requests for verification to Twitter, they were rejected because they were not “famous enough,” despite their strong notoriety within their country or field.
Social media platforms’ often obscure understanding of the significance of this work and the local context work appears to be keeping these communities from getting these vital protections. It also creates a climate of mistrust between activists and social media companies.
In the past few years, social media platforms have taken noteworthy measures and demonstrated more accountability against harmful speech online. Yet there are still gaps to address, particularly concerning vulnerable communities whose work is deeply influential and not based in the West or conducted in “major” languages. In addition, their audience — and attackers — largely reside far from where major social media companies are headquartered.
These individuals also are often deprived of protection from law enforcement in their respective countries. In some cases, there is even evidence that the government perpetrates or supports the perpetrators of this harassment. This leaves activists even more dependent on the other major power holder in play, i.e. the social media platforms.
More transparency about the dynamics and processing of verification requests and reports of abuse can go a long way toward maintaining trust with end users worldwide. For effective engagement in addressing the concerns of affected stakeholders, companies also must take language, cultural fluency and other barriers into account. Making relevant information available to local communities reflects care and respect for the rights of regular users, not just western celebrities.
Making verification more accessible to at-risk groups is only a partial remedy for the adverse impacts that these individuals endure in the face of harassment. But it can bring a much-needed layer of safety to vulnerable voices who are trying to protect the rights of their fellow citizens.
This essay first appeared in the series “Perspectives on Harmful Speech Online,” published by Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

author: Simin Kargar


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Was the Anti-Kleptocracy Rally That Gathered Thousands in Malaysia a Success or Failure? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The anti-corruption rally in Kuala Lumpur ended peacefully. Photo from the Facebook page of Pakatan Harapan
An opposition-led rally was held on October 14, 2017 in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur to denounce corruption in the government.
According to Pakatan Harapan, the main opposition coalition which organized the rally, they were able to gather 25,000 people. But the police said only 4,000 joined the protest. Most media reports pegged the number of participants at 8,000 to 10,000.
Themed “Sayang Malaysia, Hapuskan Kleptokrasi” (“Love Malaysia, End Kleptocracy”), the rally aimed to unite Malaysians in condemning incumbent Prime Minister Najib Razak who is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal. Najib is accused of pocketing more than 600 million US dollars through anomalous transactions involving the state-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investment firm.
During the rally, opposition politicians appealed for public support to remove the ruling party in the next general elections. The United Malays National Organisation has been in power since the 1950s.
Thanks for being here, my fellow Malaysians! Love Malaysia, save Malaysia! pic.twitter.com/x53LpMsNn6
— Nga Kor Ming 倪可敏 (@ngakorming) October 14, 2017
The 1MDB scandal has polarized Malaysian politics. It generated widespread public outrage which led to massive rallies across the country to call for Najib's resignation. Even former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad publicly called for the ouster of Najib, his former protégé.
The October 14 anti-kleptocracy protest was supposed to be the culmination of a two-month information campaign by Pakatan Harapan. The coalition originally targeted a crowd of 100,000.
The number of people who ended up joining the rally was many times smaller compared to the 100,000 anti-corruption protesters who gathered in the capital in 2015.
Thousands but not quite the 100,000 they were hoping for at the anti-kleptocracy rally. pic.twitter.com/U5EyNaMT3K
— Sumisha Naidu (@SumishaCNA) October 14, 2017
There were various perspectives as to why Pakatan Harapan delivered a ‘dull’ rally with a lower than expected turnout. Some blamed the lack of preparations on the part of the organizers, the failure to convince young people to join the protest, the dominance of politicians in the program and their not so subtle appeal for votes, and the main message of the rally which focused too much on corruption rather than the economic needs of ordinary citizens.
Blogger and activist Anil Netto highlighted the comment of one his readers, PolitiScheiss, who analyzed the program of the rally:
…the speakers were too heavy on condemnations of corruption, kleptocracy, the 1MDB issue.. and shouts of “Reformasi!” [reformation or change] instead of saying more about how a Pakatan government, if elected, will deal with issues such as the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing prices, public transit, declining education standards, affordable public healthcare, the problem of flash floods, environmental degradation and so forth.
Whether or not the rally boosted the political and electoral influence of Pakatan Harapan remains to be seen; what is certain is that it fell short in mobilizing a massive crowd that could affect the plans of the broader anti-corruption movement in the country.
Below is a video showing an aerial shot of the protest

author: Mong Palatino


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What’s at Stake in Japan’s Snap Election? The Country’s ‘Peace Constitution’, for One · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“(I will) defend our country to the end.” Screencap from LDP official YouTube channel.
Following Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's decision to call a snap election, Japanese voters will go to the polls on October 22 to decide the makeup of their House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan's bicameral parliament or Diet.
The stakes are high: the election offers Abe a chance to repair his damaged political reputation while shaking up Japanese politics and breathing life into perennial efforts to revise Japan's post-WWII “pacifist” constitution to allow the country to go to war. So far, the campaign has seen the disintegration of one political party, the birth of two new ones, and protests from a vocal movement accusing the prime minister of representing a national crisis.
Abe is hoping to capitalize on rebounding voter support in the fallout from North Korea's ongoing nuclear and missile tests. In fact, when the Japanese Diet convened for its three-month summer recess in July, the prime minister's popularity had cratered. A series of scandals had led to speculations that Abe was planning to step down, with a potential successor waiting in the wings.
But on July 4, North Korea started regularly testing true intercontinental ballistic missiles thought to be capable of striking the continental United States. Some tests landed near Japan, while by the end of the summer residents in northern Japan were receiving text messages about North Korean missiles passing overhead.
Thanks to tough talk on North Korea, Abe saw his poll ratings steadily improve over the coming months, so much that he felt confident enough to call a snap election on September 25. After North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb and US President Donald Trump threatened nuclear war, Abe adopted the campaign slogan: “I will protect our country to the end” (この国を守り抜く).
Throughout the campaign, Abe and the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have continued to use the perceived threat of North Korea to appeal to voters.
LDP election campaign is wall-to-wall North Korea threat, North Korea threat, North Korea threat, North Korea threat, and so on…
— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) October 9, 2017
The weakness of Japan's opposition parties also made calling a snap election attractive. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the main opposition party when Prime Minister Abe dissolved parliament on September 25, had remained deeply unpopular with Japanese voters after being perceived to mismanage the Fukushima nuclear crisis when they were in power in 2011.
However, just hours before the snap election was called, Tokyo governor Koike Yuriko, one of the few prominent female politicians in Japan, announced the formation of the “Party of Hope” (希望の党, Kibo no To), a new political party intended to run candidates all across Japan to challenge Abe and the governing LDP.
Bit more #genderbalance on the front page of the #Nikkei than I am used to! #election #衆議院解散 #Koike #Abe ?? #Japan pic.twitter.com/uSGBREY4t1
— Melanie Brock (@melanie_brock) September 28, 2017
Koike's new Party of Hope appeared to seriously challenge Abe‘s plans to crush the opposition and consolidate his hold on power. The largest opposition party in Japan's lower house effectively disbanded a week after the election was called, in order to allow its members to run as Party of Hope candidates, and potentially provide Koike's unfunded party with the now-defunct DPJ's election campaign subsidies worth nearly US$150 million (the DPJ still lives on in Japan's upper house, the House of Councillors, which next has an election in 2019).
However, compared to the DPJ or even Abe's LDP, the Party of Hope ran on a plank of populist and even ultra-conservative policies. Notably, like the LDP, the Party of Hope promised to revise Japan's “peace” constitution in order to allow the country to go to war, and party leader Koike promised to purge any DPJ lawmaker that opposed constitutional revisionism.
As a result of Koike's hard-right approach, yet another new party was launched during the election campaign, this one dedicated to preserving Japan's “peace” constitution.
Both Shinzo Abe's LDP and Koike Yuriko's Party of Hope have promised to revise Japan's constitution to make it easier for Japan to go to war. In response, Edano Yukio formed the Constitutional Democratic Party (立憲民主党, Rikken Minshuto). Yukio is a former high-ranking opposition DPJ member who served as chief cabinet secretary–the de facto deputy prime minister–during the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Based on social media statistics, at least, this new party, dedicated to constitutionalism, peace, freedom of expression and democracy, appeared to quickly eclipse Koike's Party of Hope:
JPN Politics: Hope Party (Kibo no To) losing momentum and altitude fast. Case in point: the Kibo no To Twitter account
4,240 followers
4 (no, that is not a typo) tweets pic.twitter.com/sz2iSyG7Ks
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 5, 2017
Contrast this with the @CDP2017 account of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan:
123,000 followers
119 tweets
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) October 5, 2017
By mid-October, with less than a week to before the end of the election campaign, Edano's Constitutional Democratic Party had become the most popular opposition party by a percentage point, although many voters still said they had not decided who they would vote for:
Mainichi poll confirms that progressive CDPJ has quickly become leading opposition party in terms of public support. pic.twitter.com/5Imz5ktPKu
— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) October 16, 2017
The Constitutional Democratic Party is expected to gain support at the expense of other left-leaning parties, notably the Communist Party of Japan:
Kyodo poll predicts victory for #Japan‘s ruling LDP as Koike's Party of Hope lags behind, and Communist Party looses https://t.co/VH0edl92H5
— Kjeld Duits (@KjeldDuits) October 12, 2017
According to polls, Abe's LDP still appears to be in the lead, and is expected to easily form government after the election on October 22.
However, the prime minister has still encountered protesters while out on the campaign trail, and is also confronted with a hashtag on social media: “#You're_the_National_Crisis (#お前が国難).”
とりあえずアップしておきました　【拡散希望】 セブンイレブン ネットプリント番号 12424741 有効期限10/13迄　A3出力　 #お前が国難　#国難来たる pic.twitter.com/IEabNTJOTG
— T.O.M. (@Rstudy) October 6, 2017
Image caption: “[Abe], you're the national crisis”
Tweet: I've uploaded this poster on Twitter #You're_the_National_Crisis #The_Coming_National_Crisis. To amplify this meme: use code #12424741 at 7-11 printers to print out this poster.
The hashtag reflects the sense of national crisis Abe has fostered since North Korea began its missile and nuclear tests over the summer, and the crisis that will occur should Abe be reelected to pursue revising the constitution to allow Japan to go to war.
Protesters have become such a problem for the prime minister that he has had to avoid publicizing campaign events ahead of time. In this video (see 1:40), protesters hijack an Abe election event with placards stating the prime minister is the real “national crisis” or disaster, and that he should quit:
At other election events, crowds have gathered to voice their support of protecting Japan's constitution from Abe and other parties devoted to revising it.
Now in #Tokyo
‘Protect #Japan‘s constitution’ chanted at event organized by Shimin Rengo, a citizens group supporting opposition candidates pic.twitter.com/uAwt8ayFtN
— Kjeld Duits (@KjeldDuits) October 8, 2017
Besides plans to revise Japan's constitution, Abe and the LDP have also spooked the electorate by planning to double Japan's consumption tax (VAT) to 10% in order to pay for social programs such as elder care and daycare in order to encourage women to enter the workforce.
Still, an October 11 survey by the Yomiuri newspaper showed the LDP and its coalition partner winning close to 300 seats out of 465 members of the House of Representatives in the bicameral National Diet of Japan.
While the LDP and its supporters could fall short of the two-thirds majority (a super-majority) in both houses of the National Diet needed to trigger the process for revising the Constitution, Abe's position as prime minister will likely be cemented on October 22. This will make him one of Japan's most successful postwar prime ministers.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Mozambicans Want to Know If Militant Group al-Shabaab Was Behind Police Post Attacks · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Militants of the extremist group, which currently controls around a third of Somalia and has conducted attacks in other African countries. Photo: Screenshot of a 2013 Channel 4 news report on YouTube.
Around 30 masked men attacked three police posts in northern Mozambique over three days, raising suspicions that al-Shabaab, a militant group that for years has violently fought to impose its intolerant interpretation of Islamic law in Somalia, could have a presence in the country.
The three police posts are spread across an area of 70 kilometres in the district of Mocímboa da Praia, near the Tanzanian border, and were attacked between October 5 and 7 simultaneously, indicating a methodical plan of action.
According to a police spokesperson, the confrontation left 16 dead, comprising two police officers and 14 armed attackers. Local sources, according to a report by news website NNA, stated that the assailants were armed with security forces’ weapons, and some militants were captured alive by the police and are being interrogated.
Police accounts also stated that at least three languages were spoken by the armed men: Kiwali (a local language), Portuguese (the official language of Mozambique), and Swahili (spoken by much of the population of the Great Lakes region’s countries).
There are suspicions that the group has links with al-Shabaab, which currently controls around a third of Somalia and has conducted attacks in other African countries.
The Somali group emerged in 2006 from the aftermath of the dismantlement of the Islamic Courts’ Union, which was defeated by the Ethiopian military and lost control of the capital Mogadishu which it had controlled since 2000. Somalia has been left without an effective government since 1991 and suffered from fighting between different factions.
Al-Shabaab, whose name means “the youth” in Arabic, preaches Wahhabism, the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia, and espouses a strict application of sharia that includes death by stoning for women accused of adultery and the amputation of hands for robbing.
Around 18% of Mozambique’s population identifies as Muslim, most living in the country’s northern region.
The national police authorities stated that it is still not possible to know if these attacks were effectively orchestrated by al-Shabaab, but questions grew louder on social media.
Egídio Vaz, a prominent commentator, posed some questions:
‘’ (…) Se o que temos em Mocímboa é ou não Al-Shabaab, aqui vão as minhas ideias.
– Dada a porosidade das nossas fronteiras, segurança e sistemas de controlo, é mesmo possível que esses sejam Al-Shabaab.
– Todavia, não creio que esses estejam em Moçambique para pregar o seu jihad. Pode ser que façam deste país seu campo de recrutamento, treino para depois “exportar” esses soldados para os seus vários campos de batalha.
DE UMA OU DE OUTRA FORMA, esses tipos estão lá. As autoridades moçambicanas devem lidar com eles sob pena de mais uma vez o país ser visto como albergue de inimigos internacionais, receio que há muito habita em muitas capitais do norte global. (…) ‘’
Whether what we have in Mozambique is Al-Shabaab or not, here are my ideas:
-Given the porosity of our borders, security and systems of control, it is really possible that they are Al-Shabaab.
-However, I do not believe that they are in Mozambique to preach their jihad. It could be that they are making this country into their recruitment/ training camp to then “export” these soldiers to their various battlefields.
IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, they are there. The Mozambican authorities must deal with them at the risk of the country again being seen as a shelter for international enemies, a fear of many living in the many capitals of the global north.
The newspaper O País interviewed residents of Mocímboa da Praia – which has just over 25 inhabitants – and reported that “none of the residents of that village have the least doubt that the attacks were perpetrated by members of the aforementioned sect Al-Shabaab”.
According to sources interviewed by the report, al-Shabaab operates two mosques in the city which were deserted on the days the attacks happened, and their leaders argued for civic and Christian monuments in the city to be dismantled and for a strict interpretation of Islamic law to be applied.
A trader, Amade Mussa, said in the report that the majority of the mosques’ adherents in question are local citizens, men between 25 and 35 years of age:
Eles todos são daqui de Mocímboa da Praia, conhecemos. Outros vêm de Mocoche em Macomia, outros vêm de Palma, Nangade e Montepuez. Os outros são daqui, conhecemos. Mas desde o dia 6, fugiram. Se tem pessoas que vêm da Somália ou outro país, não sei.
They are all from here from Mocímboa da Praia, we know. Others come from Mocoche in Macomia, others come from Palma, Nangade and Montepuez. The others are from here, we know. But since the 6th, they fled. If there are people who come from Somalia, I don’t know.
Fernando Neves, president of the district of Moacimba da Praia, confirmed Amade’s account, but said that this does not necessarily imply a direct link with al-Shabaab in Somalia.
São jovens que pensam que, quando fazem aquilo, pertencem àquele grupo, mas eles não têm nenhuma ligação.
They are youths who think that, when they do that, they belong to that group, but they have no connection.
João Ventura is an Angolan citizen, who feared that this type of violence could also come to his similarly Lusophone country:
‘’ Facto: Em Moçambique aconteceram ataques armados coordenados numa cidade do interior primeiramente atribuídos a desconhecidos.
Causadores: Fundamentalistas islâmicos que se auto denominam de Alshabab.
Intenção: estabelecer um estado islâmico em Moçambique.
Lição a reter: A propagação do islamismo deve ser muito bem controlado e monitorado em Angola pra evitar actos similares.
Avisos e exemplos não faltam.’’
Fact: In Mozambique coordinated armed attacks occurred in a city of the country’s interior originally attributed to unknown assailants.
Perpetrators: Islamist fundamentalists who declare themselves to be Alshabab.
Intention: Establish an Islamic state in Mozambique.
Lesson to learn: The propagation of Islamism must be very well controlled and monitored in Angola to avoid similar events.
Warnings and examples are not lacking.
Ashraf Sidat is a Mozambican Muslim, who urged people not to let themselves get carried away by fear, as these groups seek to divide the country:
‘’ *IRMÃOS MOCAMBICANOS*…
Não caiam na armadilha, não caiam na tentação do explorador… Isso que aconteceu no norte do país tem como objetivo criação de guerra como único objetivo de países estrangeiros de dividir e reinar …! Como fazer isso!
Primeiro atacam a corrupção se isso não resolve, aliam se ao partido oposto munindo de armas e poder. Mesmo assim se isso não se resolver então vão para dentro de pais criar ódio e raiva entre tribos e religiões …isso tudo para criar guerra!
Nós todos temos conhecimento que nosso país tem riquezas no Norte concretamente e essa riqueza está c mau olhar deles. Querem guerras e mortes para poder financiar as ambas as partes do conflito e eles cobrarem a dívida de guerra com recursos.
Gás petróleo e diamantes e ouro! ’’
*MOZAMBICAN BROTHERS*…
Do not fall in the trap, do not fall for the bait of the exploiter… What happened in the north of the country aims to create war as the only objective of foreign countries to divide and rule…! How to do this!
First they attack corruption and if that does not work, they ally themselves to the opposition party supplying it with arms and power. Anyway if this does not work then they go inside the country to create hate and anger between tribes and religions… all this to create war!
We all know that our country definitely has riches in the north and this wealth is their curse. They want wars and deaths to be able to finance both sides of the conflict and they collect the war-debt with resources.
Gas oil and diamonds and gold!

author: Dércio Tsandzana


text:
One Activist’s Vision of a Feminist Democracy for Catalonia · Global Voices
Elisa Marvena

Young people holding signs spelling the word “democracy” at a protest against police repression during the independence referendum.  Barcelona, October 3, 2017. Photo by Silva Valle, used with permission.
With its current push for independence from Spain, the region of Catalonia is experiencing one of the most intense and critical moments in its recent history. Throughout Spain, debates and  analysis surrounding the issue are everywhere, from mainstream media to social media, and from the streets to people's living rooms. Tensions are high, but different sectors of the population are asking for dialogue and calm.
The breaking point came on Sunday, October 1, with the celebration of a referendum — considered illegal by the central government — that asked: Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic? According to the official vote count, 2,286,217 people participated (43% of the electorate). The “yes” camp received 2,944,038 votes (90.2%), the “no” got 177,574 votes (7.8%) and 44,913 votes were left blank (2%).
The referendum was violently repressed by state security forces. As a consequence, a strike was organized for October 3, as were various protests in the region.
To understand firsthand how people are experiencing these events on the ground, we interviewed a Barcelona resident who participated in the referendum and the strike. Silvia Valle is an activist and educator who brings a feminist perspective to a number of struggles she is involved with.
Silvia Valle. Photo used with permission by subject.
Global Voices (GV): On October 1, you voted in the referendum. How was the experience? What was the atmosphere like?
Silvia: Creo que como a mucha gente el sábado noche me costó dormir… nos levantamos el domingo temprano con una mezcla de sensaciones. Los medios están manipulando mucho la información y no sé cómo cree la gente que se han vivido estos días aquí, pero la realidad es que siempre se ha entendido como una fiesta. Hace tiempo que dejó de ser por el sí o por el no y pasó a ser por la democracia.
El censo era electrónico y se podía votar en cualquier centro. A las 9 se presentaron la Policía Nacional y la Guardia Civil en el mío y no llegó ni a abrir. Así que decidí quedarme en el que estaba, en un barrio humilde muy cercano a la montaña, el barrio donde estudié de adolescente. La cola daba la vuelta a la calle, no sé cuánta gente habría… 200 o 300… La gente había dormido ahí, había ido a las 5 de la mañana.
Silvia: I think, like many people, it was hard for me to sleep that Saturday night…we woke up on Sunday with a mixture of feelings. The press is manipulating the information a lot and, I don't know what other people who have experienced the situation these days think, but the reality is that it was always understood as a celebratory event. The situation stopped being about a yes or a no a while ago, and started being about democracy.
The vote was electronic and you could vote in any voting center. At 9 am, the National Police and the Civil Guard showed up at mine and the center wasn't opened. I then decided to stay in my center, in a humble neighborhood very close to the mountain, the neighborhood where I studied when I was young. The line went around the block. I don't know how many people there were…200 or 300… People had slept there, they had come at 5 in the morning.
As the day went on, the situation took a turn:
Silvia: Empiezas a recibir mensajes. Están pegando a gente en otros colegios. Llegan fotos de abuelas sangrando. Han cargado en los dos colegios electorales que te rodean. Sabes que si siguen la ruta, el próximo va a ser el tuyo. La organización coge el micro y va por toda la fila hablándole a la gente: “no necesitamos héroes, habíamos comentado que haríamos resistencia pasiva pero no lo recomendamos”. Están cargando muy fuerte e indiscriminadamente. “Por favor, gente mayor y niños que se vayan a casa. Quién quiera quedarse éstas son las recomendaciones: si vienen no responderemos a preguntas. No seremos violentos. Nos iremos. Tenemos cámaras en el tejado, no hace falta que nos peguen, lo que queremos es que se vea que hemos venido a votar.” Las abuelas dicen que no se van. Los padres mandan a sus criaturas a casa. Más WhatsApps de compañeras: “¿estáis todas bien?” Los bomberos han defendido algunos colegios electorales. Después de las cargas de Sabadell ¡vuelven a votar!. Han usado balas de goma, un chico puede perder un ojo. Y en ese momento, te das cuenta de que llevas 4 horas bajo la lluvia por votar. De que están agrediendo a las abuelas de tu gente, a tus compañeras, a tus profesores, han reventado a mazazos la puerta de tu instituto. Solo quieres que pase rápido, quieres votar. Que nos dejen votar.
Silvia: You begin to receive messages. They are hitting people in other high schools. Photos of bleeding grandmothers arrive. They are charging into the two voting center schools that surround you. You know that, if they continue on this route, yours is next. Organizers take the microphone and go through the line, telling people “we don't need heroes. We have said that we will practice passive resistance, but we don't recommend it.” They are charging against people hard and indiscriminately. “Please, older people and children go home. For those who want to stay, here are the recommendations: If they come, we won't answer their questions. We won't be violent. We will leave. We have cameras on the roof. We don't need them to hit us, we just want them to see that we have come here to vote.” The grandmothers say they won't leave. Parents send their children home. More WhatsApp messages come in from friends, “Are you all okay?” Firefighters have defended some voting center schools. After charging the crowd at Sabadell, the vote is back on! They have used rubber bullets, a young man could lose his eye. In this moment, you realize that you have been waiting in the rain for four hours to vote. Why are they hitting your people's grandmothers, your classmates, your teachers? They have busted down the door to your high school. You just want it to go by fast. You just want to vote. You want them to let you vote.
GV: On October 3, two days after the referendum, a protest was held in Catalonia. What was the objective of this protest and what was the atmosphere like?
Silvia: Hay que entender una cosa, la huelga vino como respuesta a las cargas policiales del domingo 1 de octubre [el día del referendum]. Lo que se pretendía era, una vez más, salir a la calle a expresarse en un ambiente pacifico. No tenía nada que ver con el sí o el no. Esta huelga tenía que ver con reclamar que las calles son nuestras, que creemos en la democracia y que rechazamos la violencia.
Una de las cosas que más se repitió a coro en la manifestación fue: “Als nostres Avis no se'ls pega” (a nuestros abuelos no se les pega). Y la gente lo gritaba emocionada, porque eso es algo que jamás creímos que podríamos ver. Todos conocemos los relatos de nuestros abuelos o abuelas durante el franquismo. Sabemos qué se vivió porque nos lo han contado. Sabemos que les persiguieron, les torturaron, sabemos la represión constante a la que se enfrentaban. Y se nos cae la cara de vergüenza al ver que estamos dejando que eso pase otra vez. Nuestros abuelos y abuelas no se merecen pasar por esto. Se merecen poder mirar atrás y ver que dejan el mundo un poco mejor.
Se vivió con la alegría del que sabe que el mañana será mejor, mezclado con el amargo sentimiento de saber que en realidad, tienes la necesidad de creerlo.
Supongo que en los medios han salido constantemente las imágenes de gente echando a los cuerpos policiales de sus hoteles. Yo ahí solo puedo ver gente valiente, gente que una mañana se levantó y se negó a servirle el desayuno a unos señores que habían ido a dormir a su casa tras hacer sangrar a sus amigos, a sus hermanos o a sus abuelos.
Silvia: You have to understand one thing, the protest came in direct response to the police violence from Sunday, October 1. The goal was to, once again, go out into the streets and express ourselves in a peaceful way. It didn't have anything to do with the yes or no. This protest was about reclaiming the streets as our own, it was about showing that we believe in democracy and we reject violence.
One of the things that was repeated most was a protest chant which went: “Als nostres Avis no se'ls pega” (Don't hit our grandparents). And the people shouted this passionately because it is something we never thought we would ever see. Everyone has heard the stories from our grandparents about the years under [dictator Francisco] Franco. We know what they lived through because they told us. We know that they were persecuted, they were tortured, we know about the constant repression that they were up against. We are left absolutely ashamed that we are allowing this to happen again. Our grandparents don't deserve to go through this. They deserve to look back and see that they have left the world a better place.
They lived with the happiness of one who knows that tomorrow will be a better day, mixed with the bitter knowledge that, in reality, one needs to believe this to carry on.
I suppose that the press is constantly publishing images of people kicking out police forces from their hotels. In that, I can only see brave people, people who one morning got up and refused to serve breakfast to people who had come to sleep at their homes after making their friends, brothers and grandparents bleed.
GV: How do you mix other causes you are involved in with the Catalan independence process?
Silvia: En concreto una de las cosas que más me afectan a nivel de lucha son las diferencias entre la ley de violencia de género (VdG) y la ley contra las violencias machistas. La primera estatal, la segunda catalana. Su diferenciación principal es que, hasta ahora, la Ley VdG entiende que solo hay una agresión condenable como violencia de género cuando el agresor es pareja o ex-pareja. La ley contra las violencias machistas es más amplia y contempla (tal como hace la ONU) como agresor a cualquier hombre que agreda a una mujer por el hecho de ser mujer. Sin embargo, tal y como está ahora la ley, Cataluña tiene poderes sobre lo social pero no sobre lo jurídico. Eso implica que podemos reconocer a la víctima como tal y ofrecerle un mayor soporte, pero no podemos condenar al agresor con el agravante de violencia de género. Eso hace que las penas sean menores para los agresores, que no tengamos un estudio real de víctimas a nivel nacional y que la gravedad del feminicidio no se comprenda como lo grave que es.
Pero eso es algo que todo el mundo tiene claro que tiene una fecha límite. Hay otros partidos, muy votados, con una concepción fuerte de la importancia de implementar medidas sociales, controlar la subida de los alquileres o aplicar políticas feministas. Se tiene muy claro que se quiere una república feminista.
Silvia: Specifically, one of the things that affects me on the level of activism is the difference between the gender violence law (VdG) and the law against misogynist violence. Firstly, on a state level, and secondly at the Catalonian level. The biggest difference is that, until now, the VdG law only sees punishable aggression as gender violence when the aggressor is a partner or ex-partner. The law against misogynist violence encompasses more, seeing any man as an aggressor when he attacks a woman because she is a woman — just like the UN does. However, the law as it is established now, means that Catalonia has power over the social area but not the judicial area. This means that we can recognize the victim as such and offer them support, but we cannot sentence the perpetrator under the rules that apply to gender violence. So the sentences are shorter, we don't have a real study of victims on a national level and the gravity of the situation concerning femicide is not understood for what it is.
However, this is something that everyone knows won't last forever. There are other parties — backed by a lot of votes — with a clear understanding of the importance of implementing social justice measures, like controlling the rising cost of housing or applying feminist policies. They are clear that they want a feminist republic.
GV: So, now what?
Silvia: Pues bueno, supongo que aplicarán el artículo 155 de la Constitución española [dota al Estado de un mecanismo para controlar a las comunidades autónomas que incumplan las obligaciones impuestas por la Constitución (u otras leyes) o que atenten gravemente contra el interés general de España] y puede que lo perdamos todo. Me daría vergüenza decirle a mis hijos que no lo intentamos. Ellos venían con armas y nosotros escondíamos urnas. Me gustaría seguir pensando que intenté hacer la revolución lo mejor que supe, como diría María Mercè Marçal: “A l’atzar agraeixo tres dons: haver nascut dona, de classe baixa i nació oprimida. I el tèrbol atzur de ser tres voltes rebel” (al azar le agradezco tres dones: haber nacido mujer, de clase baja y nación oprimida. Y el turbio azul de ser tres veces rebelde).
Silvia: Well, I suppose they will apply Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution [a rule that provides the state with a mechanism by which they can control an Autonomous Community that fail to meet obligations placed on them by the constitution — or other laws — or seriously infringe upon the general interest of Spain]. It is possible we will lose everything. I would be embarrassed to tell my children that we didn't try. They came with weapons and we hid ballot boxes. I would like to continue thinking that I tried to create a revolution in the best way I knew how. As María Mercè Marçal said: “A l’atzar agraeixo tres dons: haver nascut dona, de classe baixa i nació oprimida. I el tèrbol atzur de ser tres voltes rebel” (I thank luck for three gifts: being born a women, from the lower classes in a oppressed nation. And the dark blue that made me three times the rebel).

author: Elisa Marvena


text:
Tightened Security in Beijing Means Windows Ordered Shut and Bans on Knife Sales · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A cartoon by Badiucao titled “Xi Jinping Thought.” Via Hong Kong Free Press
Ahead of the 19th National Chinese Communist Party Congress on October 18, Beijing has adopted several security measures in the city, such as restricting short-term apartment rentals and banning restaurants from using gas to cook, that are causing inconveniences for city residents.
Delegates at the Congress, which is held once every five years, elect the Chinese Communist Party's top leaders. The last Congress was in 2012, in which the Chinese President Xi Jinping established himself as China’s most powerful figure. It is widely expected that this Congress will see Xi further consolidate his power.
To make sure the Congress goes according to plan, all Beijing residents now have to follow extremely harsh security control measures. According to US government-funded broadcaster Voice of America, short-term apartment rental services are suspended between October 11 and October 31. Shops have been ordered to stop selling knives, cutters and scissors to customers, and quite a number of restaurants have also been told to stop cooking with gas in order prevent fires from accidentally breaking out during the Congress.
Twitter user @redfireage posted a Beijing restaurant's notice about the gas ban:
邪恶变态之极 pic.twitter.com/x9YXl1ozGP
— Red Fire Age (@redfireage) October 13, 2017
Tweet: the most evil and pervert [act].
Sign board in image: To make sure that the 19th Congress goes smoothly, this restaurant has been banned from using gas from October 13 until October 25. We can only provide cold dishes and set lunches during this period. Please accept our apology for the inconvenience caused.
Image from Weibo
Additionally, beginning the week of October 16, Beijing along with other major cities including Guangzhou and Shanghai have set up security checkpoints on subway stations. One user on social media platform Weibo posted photos of the queues at various Beijing subway stations and said:
今日的北京…地面车多人多，地下？地下根本下不去….因为打今起北京地铁全路网实施“人物同检”！就是你在机场过安检怎么检，地铁里就怎么检。这可苦了早上上班的好青年们啊…明天可得早点出门，千万别带有的没的，要严格要求自己同志们，为中国富强而努力！
Today’s Beijing… on the road, so many cars and people. Go underground? It is impossible to enter [the station] because today all subway lines have adopted passenger and luggage security checks. Which means the security check in the subway is like the airport. Young people who have to travel to work will have a really hard time, they have to leave really early and remember, don’t bring useless stuff. Be self-disciplined for China to be rich and strong.
“Be self-disciplined” implies that people should not complain about the security measures. In fact, most of the posts about security controls on Chinese social media, where content that does not follow the official government line is routinely censored, are positive.
The viral story below is one of the very few exceptions. The story was firstly circulated on messaging app WeChat, then was screen-captured and reposted elsewhere with the title: “As Evil as the Gang of Four Was, They Never Asked Me to Close My Windows.” The Gang of Four refers to a group of Chinese Communist Party leaders who were convicted for treasonous crimes for their role in the Cultural Revolution, a movement from 1966 to 1976 that saw violent purges of those deemed ideologically impure.
The viral story reads:
In the afternoon of the day before yesterday, someone knocked at my door and I heard quite a number of people talking in the corridor. I thought it was the delivery men and opened the door without unlocking the security chain. I saw a number of rude guys and asked them what was the matter? One of them said: Check if your back window is properly closed. I answered: There is no storm or rain, why should I close my window? Moreover, whether I close my window or not is none of your concern. He said: Xijing Hotel is hosting a meeting, residents here have to close the windows facing the hotel. I answered: Xijing Hotel always has meetings, what does their meeting have to do with my windows? The police officer standing to the side said: Just close the windows for one hour. I answered: So after one hour you'll alert us and announce that we can open the windows again? This building belongs to [state press agency] Xinhua and the residents are retired Xinhua cadres who have lived here for 50 to 60 years. Since when do we have to shut our windows when you have meeting? The Gang of Four was anti-revolutionary, how evil they were. The Gang of Four always had their meetings in the Xijing Hotel, but they never asked us to close our windows. What are you doing here? The leader who stood at the back said to let it be and asked his team to leave.
Gao Yu, a veteran journalist in Beijing, also shared the screenshot of the above Wechat story along with more details about Beijing security controls on Twitter:
長假北京連續發生亡人傷人火災，19大前全市派出所首查防火與片警責任掛鉤。接著市局又下令排查轄區內所有打印復印店，重點檢查登記上報有幅面寬度超過A3尺寸的打印、噴繪、復印、轉印設備，即可制作條幅、橫幅、標語的設備，備案並上報設備規格型號用途及使用記錄。派出所本月全額上崗挨罵的也是它 pic.twitter.com/Y19MqvI140
— 高瑜 (@gaoyu200812) October 13, 2017
Beijing had a series of accidents during the one-week-long [national day] holiday. Fire broke out with human casualties. Ahead of the 19th Congress, police officers have to take up the responsibility of fire prevention. The city public security bureau has also given out the order to check on all the photocopying shops that provide services including printing, output and photocopying of posters and banners bigger than A3 size. They have to make sure that their machines were under proper registration [or else they could not operate]. The viral story attached below certainly has caused the police station some troubles.

author: Oiwan Lam