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Why the Russians Don’t Care About Trump, Clinton, and the DNC Hack · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

For the last week, many in the US national media seemed to talk of nothing else but the spectre of Vladimir Putin and his supposed plans to derail, disrupt, and discombobulate the American voter, as the Democratic Party assembled in Philadelphia to nominate Hillary Clinton at its national convention. The reason for all the concern, of course, was the release of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, which Hillary Clinton's campaign manager subsequently blamed on Russian intelligence agencies.
Original photo by Larry Koester, edited by Kevin Rothrock. CC 2.0.
Contents
With Russians facing such serious allegations against their government, not to mention the suddenness with which their country has become a main focus of US political commentators, you might expect the Russian Internet to be abuzz with discussion and debate about the email hack and Moscow's alleged effort to sway the US presidential race.
But that has not happened; the RuNet has remained relatively quiet about the DNC hack, and about speculation (rampant in the United States) that Donald Trump is something approaching a Manchurian Candidate sent by the Kremlin. Why?
RuNet Echo asked more than a dozen leading RuNet voices to offer their interpretations of why most Russian Internet users—particularly Russia's “political-class” intellectuals—seem not to care about the allegations against Moscow.
The commentaries below come from a variety of public intellectuals: opposition activists, Kremlin supporters, media analysts, journalists, human rights workers, and more. This medley of opinions is by no means exhaustive, but it does offer a rare look at a question few people even seem to be asking: Why don't the Russians care about this story?
You can find all 16 responses below.
Denis Volkov is a noted sociologist and an expert at the Levada Center in Moscow, which conducts some of the most trusted political survey work in Russia today.
Мне кажется нужно говорить о различных сюжетах: реакция рунета, российская пропаганда, реакция американских экспертов и общественности. Каждый из этих сюжетов обладает собственной логикой. Российская пропаганда не использует эту историю, пропаганда стремиться создать у российских обывателей образ России как жертвы. Роль нападающего при этом отводится Западу. При этом Россия не может выглядеть агрессором, поэтому историю с атаками российских хакеров (реальные или вымышленные) вряд ли можно использовать. Вялую реакцию политической части российского интернета можно объяснить тем, что эта аудитория сосредоточена сейчас на происходящем внутри страны (принятие новой серии репрессивных “законов Яровой”, отставки в высшем руководстве страны, громкие коррупционные скандалы) и до небольшой истории где-то в Америке никому нет дела. У меня также есть подозрения, что мысль о том, что Россия способна вмешаться в политические процессы в других странах, может льстить даже значительной части либеральной интернет-аудитории.
Громкая реакция на Западе укладывается в недавний тренд списывать на действия России и лично Путина все главные проблемы Запада: сегодня все чаще приходится слышать, что именно Путин устроил миграционный кризис в Европе, пытается сместить Ангелу Меркель, именно он спровоцировал Brexit и даже создал ИГИЛ. В этой логике было бы странно, если российский президент не попытался повлиять на результаты выборов в Соединенных штатах. Интересно, что такие объяснения повторяют штампы российской пропаганды, которая во всех неудачах российского руководства склонны видеть руку США. В России центральной задачей такой пропаганды является создание образа врага, на которого можно списать любы свои неудачи и переложить на него хотя бы часть ответственности. Может быть, политики на Западе сейчас пытаются опробовать что-то в этом роде?
I think we need to discuss a few different themes here: the reaction of the RuNet, Russian propaganda, and the reaction of American experts and American society. Each of these themes has its own logic.
Russian propaganda isn’t using this story [because] propaganda strives to depict Russia to the Russian masses as the victim, and the West is cast as the attacker. Hence, Russia can’t look like the aggressor, therefore Russian propaganda can hardly use a story about an attack by Russian hackers (whether it’s real or fabricated).
The sluggish reaction of the Russian Internet’s political class can be explained by the fact that this audience is currently focused on developments inside the country (the adoption of a new series of repressive, “Big-Brother” laws, the resignations and dismissals of some of the country’s top leaders, high-profile corruption scandals), and nobody has time for small stories somewhere out of America.
I also suspect that the very idea that Russia is capable of interfering in other countries’ political processes might even flatter a large number of the Russian liberals online.
The strong reaction in the West fits into a recent trend of blaming all the West’s problems on Russia’s actions and Vladimir Putin personally. Today, more and more, we hear that it’s precisely Putin who produced the migrant crisis in Europe, that he’s trying to dislodge Angela Merkel, that he is personally responsible for provoking Brexit, and that he even created ISIS. According to this logic, it would be strange if the Russian president weren’t trying to influence the results of the US elections.
It’s interesting that such explanations repeat the cliches of Russian propaganda, where the long arm of the US emerges as the reason for every failure by Russia’s leadership. In Russia, the central task of such propaganda is to create an image of an enemy that can be blamed for any failure, on whom you can pin at least some responsibility for anything. Maybe politicians in the West are giving this approach a shot?
Alexander Amzinis a Russian Internet and media expert. He currently serves as the chief editor for the website “Media and Journalism,” which collects and reviews Russian and foreign experiences in the news media industry. In 2013, Amzin published a textbook called “News Internet-Journalism.”
Ну в вашей формулировке он по умолчанию приписывает мне мысль, что в США все лопаются от злости, а в России более-менее нет. А я не очень компетентен в реакции Штатов (видел яркие выступления, но во всей полноте эмоционального фона и накала не ощущаю). На вопрос, почему Путин, Трамп, слив переписки и так далее сравнительно спокойно восприняты в России, ответ дать могу.
Новостная повестка в России подчиняется дневным и недельным циклам — по
периодичности выхода итоговых телепередач. Обычно каждая неделя запоминается 1-2 крупными событиями, а на каждый день находится то или иное событие помельче.
Под этот процесс заточен весь механизм пропаганды. Крупные стратегические темы прорабатываются в конце недели и планируются на следующую, тактические управляющие инструкции спускаются главным редакторам и их замам сверху в конце и начале дня.
Продвижение такой важной темы как расшатывание Путиным американской политики сопряжено с известными трудностями. Во-первых, страна напряженно следит за олимпийским скандалом, от окончания которого напрямую зависит поддержка Путина, а также за коррупционным скандалом вокруг главы ФТС, от результата которого зависит продолжение эксперимента по показательной чистке рядов.
Во-вторых, и это самое главное, телезрителю не понять глубины политического кризиса в США, так как это по факту означает объяснение зрителю всех раскладов и принципов гонки в понятном виде. Это довольно трудно сделать в формате новостной заметки. Гораздо удобнее для этого сделать фильм или посвятить этому часовую передачу с объяснением, как следует понимать скандал.
Только после этого ресурсы (а интернет-ресурс по привычке в пропагандистском маркетинге еще относится к BTL) можно распределить на следующую неделю среди лидеров мнений. Пока идет подготовительный этап — так, 27 июля на сайте RIA.ru опубликован с десяток новостей про Клинтон (многие с запасом и набрали десятки, иногда сотни просмотров).
В-третьих, важно лично определить противника. Российский телезритель не может испытать одинаково сильных эмоций к Клинтон, Обаме или Трампу. Негатив (или сдержанную гордость за вероятных российских хакеров) следует направить в определенное русло; предполагаю, что инженерные работы по прокладке этого русла начнутся ближе к пятнице.
The wording of your question assumes that I think people are going mad from anger in the United States, and that I don’t see this happening as much in Russia. I’m not really qualified to address reactions in the States (I’ve seen the colorful speeches, but I’ve got no sense of the full emotional background or intensity). But I am able to answer your question about why Putin, Trump, and the leaked emails aren’t bigger news in Russia.
The news agenda in Russia is subject to daily and weekly cycles determined by the frequency of TV news reports. Usually, there are 1 or 2 major events covered each week, and every day there is a smaller, less significant event. Russia’s entire propaganda mechanism has been honed on this process. Major strategic themes are worked out at the end of the week and planned for the next. The tactical “channel commands” are delivered from above to chief editors and their deputies at the end and the beginning of each day.
There are certain obstacles in the Russian TV news media when it comes to promoting such an important subject as Putin’s meddling in American politics. First, the country is focused intently on the Olympics scandal, where a resolution requires Putin’s direct support, and there is also the corruption scandal surrounding the head of the Federal Customs Service, where the outcome depends on how much longer the government continues its experiment with publicly purging the ranks of Russian law enforcement.
Second, and most important, the average Russian viewer doesn’t understand the depths of the political crisis in the US, because this would require breaking down and explaining to viewers all the elements of the race in some clear way. It’s pretty hard to do this in the form of one short newsbreak. It’s much easier to film a short documentary, or to devote a whole hour-long program to the topic, with an explanation about how to understand the scandal.
It’s only after this that resources (and Internet resources in the marketing of propaganda are still considered “below-the-line”) can be allocated for the following week among the different opinion leaders. During the preparatory stage, what you see is like what we got on July 27, when Ria.ru published about a dozen news stories about Clinton (and many attracted just a few dozen or sometimes a few hundred views).
Third, it’s important to define the enemy personally. The Russian television viewer can’t experience the same strong emotions about Clinton, Obama, or Trump. Negative [feelings] (or restrained pride for the likely Russian hackers) should be channeled, and I suspect that the engineering work on laying down this channel will begin closer to the end of the week.
Nikita Likhachevis the creator and chief editor of the popular online website TJournal, which mixes news reports about Russia and the Russian Internet with community-crowdsourced content that ranges from hard news to entertainment stories.
Мне видятся две основные причины, по которым тема взлома DNC не обсуждаема в России: никто не видит в этом никаких последствий для России, плюс это взлом каких-то непонятных для россиян политиков за бугром.
Если бы ответственность за взлом действительно взяла российская группировка или группировки (а они не возьмут), это могло бы привлечь внимание части медиа, но несильно. Есть и другие проблемы: сложно объяснить на пальцах, что именно удалось узнать в результате взлома, какие последствия это несёт для западной политической арены, а те подробности, что известны, отсюда кажутся малозначительными. Всё это больше напоминает один из финальных раундов политической конкуренции между двумя кандидатами (учитывая и то, как они обмениваются обвинениями в связи со взломом и каждый использует его в свою пользу). Да и внимание к США в России всё-таки переоценено: ТВ не упускает возможности сказать что-то колкое по отношению к обоим кандидатам, чтобы на всякий случай держать их имидж на уровне ниже наших политиков, но по моему мнению массовой российской аудитории больше интересна Лариса Гузеева (ведущая шоу «Давай поженимся»), чем Хиллари Клинтон.
I see two major reasons that the topic of the DNC hack isn’t being discussed in Russia: nobody sees any consequences for Russia in any of this, plus this hack affects a bunch of politicians “across the pond” who are completely unknown to most Russians.
If a Russian group, or multiple Russian groups, claimed responsibility (and none has yet), that might attract some media attention—but even then, it wouldn’t be much. There are other problems, too: it’s hard to explain in simple terms what we managed to learn from the hack, and what consequences it carries for the Western political arena. From here, the details that have been revealed seem to be insignificant. It all looks more like one of the final rounds of political competition between two candidates (especially considering how they’ve both traded accusations about the hack, and both candidates have used it to their advantage).
And the amount of attention actually paid to the US in Russia is exaggerated, ultimately. The TV never misses a chance to say something biting about either candidate, just to play it safe, so that these politicians have an image that’s always at a level below Russia’s politicians. In my opinion, the mass audience in Russia cares a lot more about Larisa Guzeeva (the host of the TV show “Let’s Get Married”) than it does about Hillary Clinton.
Darya Luganskayais a journalist who focuses on technology and the media. She has worked at the BBC, Forbes, RBC, and other publications. She currently lives in London, where she is completing a master's degree in Multimedia Journalism at the University of Westminster.
Я не могу сказать, что внимательно слежу за историей со взломом почты демократов, и даже не в России сейчас, чтобы наблюдать резонанс в обществе. Мне кажется, об этом писали – РБК, Slon, Медуза точно. Но если посмотреть в сюжетах (группах новостей на одну тему, опубликованных в Рунете) Яндекс.Новостей, популярного в России сервиса аналогичного  Google News, набирается около 40 публикаций в одном сюжете на эту тему, включая государственную “Россия сегодня“. Только на популярном в России новостном сайте РБК по поиску пробиваются, если не ошибаюсь, восемь статей на эту тему. Но в новостях, а тем более колонках и фичерах государственных и подконтрольных СМИ, конечно, нужно смотреть на подачу. Например, независимый Slon.ru вышел с заголовком “Спецслужбы США проверят Путина на причастность к утечке писем демократов”, а прокремлевский НТВ – “Лавров воздержался от ругани после обвинений во взломе почты американских демократов”. То есть уже заголовокм НТВ намекает, что это такая ересь, что министр иностранных дел едва не обошелся матом на эту тему, но, молодец, воздержался. Об этом так или иначе писали, но разные СМИ, как обычно, гнули свою линию. Текстов было не так много, как в США, конечно, хотя бы потому, что влияние на выбора интересно людям той страны, где эти выборы проходят. Если бы нашелся американский след в выборах в России, была бы буря в России.
I can’t say that I’ve closely followed the story of the Democrats’ emails being hacked, and I’m not even in Russia to see how it’s resonating in society. I think it’s been written about—on RBC, Slon, and Meduza, definitely. But if you look at the news by leading themes (the groups of news stories published under single themes) by Yandex.News (a service popular in Russia that’s similar to Google News), you’ll find about 40 articles on this story, including some from the state-news outlet Rossiya Segodnya. Looking only at the popular news website RBC, you can find eight articles on the subject, if I’m not mistaken.
But with these news articles, and especially with opinion columns and feature stories, in the state-run and state-controlled media, you’ve got to look at the presentation, of course. For example, the independent news website Slon came out with the headline “US intelligence agency to review Putin’s role in the leak of Democrats’ emails,” whereas the pro-Kremlin network NTV said, “[Foreign Minister] Lavrov refrains from swearing when asked about accusations [against Russia] in the leak of American Democrats’ emails.” Meaning that NTV’s headline already hints that this is such nonsense that our foreign minister nearly broke out into obscenities, but, good man that he is, he managed to avoid it. Different media outlets have written about the hack and the allegations, and as usually they’ve gone their own ways.
There haven’t been as many articles as in the United States, of course, not least because influence on the election is of interest to the people of the country where the election is taking place. If they found an “American trail” in Russia’s elections, there would be a media storm in Russia.
Stanislav Apetyan is a new-media expert and political analyst. Formerly an anonymous blogger, today Apetyan is a resident at the think tank the Civil Society Development Foundation and he serves as the general director of the pro-Kremlin website Ruposters.ru.
Собственно вот эти мои тормоза – яркая иллюстрация того, почему “русским все равно”. У меня, как и у многих других людей, которые так или иначе связаны с политикой, сейчас свободного времени фактически нет из-за наших собственных выборов)
1. Сам тезис о том, что некие русские, тем более спецслужбы, имеют хоть какое-то отношение к взлому этого почтового сервера (его же взломали?) демократов – это, очевидно, попытка Демократической партии отвести внимание от не самого приятного содержания полученной в результате взлома информации, на некую очевидно выдуманную историю про “длинные руки Путина”. То, что близкие к демократам СМИ хором подхватили эту тему без наличия хоть каких-то доказательств причастности к этой истории России этот тезис только доказывает. Даже забавно, что задавая мне вопрос ты указываешь на причастность России к взлому как на некий общеизвестный факт, хотя сам прекрасно знаешь, что никаких доказательств этому нет и это всего лишь политтехнологическая уловка.
2. Да, мой комментарий про то, что у нас сейчас свои выборы и весь “политический класс”, т.е. эксперты, медийщики, технологи и остальные заняты ими, а на обозревание ваших банально не хватает времени. Я думаю после 18 сентября интереса к выборам в США в России будет больше, сейчас все реально заняты своими делами. Ну а счастливые люди в отпусках.
Personally speaking, what’s kept me from paying more attention illustrates quite well why “Russians don’t care” about this story. These days, like so many of my friends who are involved in one way or another with politics, I’ve got almost no free time because of our own elections [which will take place in Russia this September].
The very thesis that certain Russians—Russia’s intelligence agencies, no less—played some role in the hacking of the Democrats’ email server (was it ever really hacked?) is obviously the Democratic Party’s attempt to divert attention from the not-altogether-pleasant content revealed in the leaked information—to divert it to some obviously fictitious story about “the long arm of Vladimir Putin.” The fact that those in the media sympathetic to the Democrats all embraced this theme in chorus, without having the slightest evidence of Russia’s participation in this story, only proves this.
It’s even funny that your question treats Russia’s involvement in the hack as some kind of well-known fact, even though you know perfectly well that there’s no evidence for this claim, and that it’s nothing more than political spin.
2. And as for my comment about our own elections and Russia’s whole “political class,” meaning the experts, media people, campaign managers, and others involved here: there’s just no time left over to examine your boring elections. I think Russians’ interest in the US election will be greater after September 18. Right now, everyone is really just busy with their own affairs. That, and all the lucky people are off on vacation.
“Andrey Zalgo” is the pseudonym for the anonymous chief editor of Ruposters.ru and an extremely active Twitter user. Changing his name and avatar regularly to reflect popular trends (at the time of this writing, his Twitter name and profile image are a tribute to Pokemon Go), “Zalgo” is one of the RuNet's most inventive and often offensive critics of Russian oppositionists.
Я думаю, что нам сейчас просто не до этого – у нас лето, период отпусков и отдыха. В целом люди значительно меньше следят за новостями, особенно за политикой. Выборы в США остаются для нас темой скорее далекой – на первом плане всё же борьба с нашими спортсменами, которая воспринимается куда более серьезным выпадом в сторону России со стороны Запада. Более того, мало кто в России до этого слышал про DNC и понимает, что это такое. Это взломали не Обаму, Хиллари или Трампа, востребованной публикой новости из этого не сделаешь, поэтому СМИ не акцентируют на этом внимания. Лично мне смешно наблюдать, как Путина обвиняют во внутренних склоках – раньше это было уделом Украинского failed state, и зачем вам опускаться до такого уровня для меня загадка. Неужели у демократов все так плохо?
I think we’re just not up to it right now. This is our summertime, when we go on vacation and relax. Generally speaking, people are following the news—and especially politics—a lot less right now. For us, the elections in the US are still far from the biggest concern, and most of our focus goes to the fight with our athletes, which it perceived as a far more serious swipe at Russia by the West.
Moreover, few people in Russia had ever heard of the DNC or knew what it is, before all this. It wasn’t Obama, Hillary, or Trump who got hacked, and there’s no news story here demanded by the public, which is why the [Russian] media isn’t putting particular focus on this.
Personally, I think it’s funny to watch how Putin gets blamed for the [Democrats’] internal squabbles. Before, this is what Ukraine's failed state had to do, and why you would stoop to such a level is a mystery to me. Is everything really so bad for the Democrats?
“XS_71” is one of Andrey Zalgo's Twitter allies. With even more followers that Zalgo, he is a very similar online presence.
Очень смешно наблюдать, как Клинтон пытается разыграть российскую карту и напугать всех Путиным, а американские медиа ей радостно подыгрывают. Наши украинские друзья более 2-х лет 24 часа в сутки именно этим и занимаются. То есть в Америке происходит ровно то, что отечественные либералы всегда считали невозможным – фиксация на теме России, как будто бы других проблем у них нет.
На данный момент, какие-то шаги на встречу и одобрительные жесты в сторону России вызовут больший интерес у нас. Лето, а привычная демонизация Москвы в Вашингтоне – это также скучно и предсказуемо, как новости о жаркой погоде. Только саркастическая реакция Трампа на эти обвинения заставляет хоть как-то обратить на это внимание.
Если резюмировать, то обвинений России в чем-то плохом уже столько, что наши люди перестают ориентироваться в новостных поводах. Все скатывается к тезису “Россия виновата”, а это мы уже слышали миллион раз, уже не интересно, спасибо. Сотрудники российских спецслужб в шоке от своего могущества, которое им приписывают западные СМИ. Да и сам формат претензий дает только повод для шуток, не более.
It’s very funny to watch how Clinton is trying to play the Russian card and scare everyone with Putin, and the American media happily plays along. For more than two years, our Ukrainian friends have been doing the exact same thing 24 hours a day. In other words, what’s happening in America now is exactly what Russia’s own liberals have always thought impossible: the Americans have become fixated on Russia, as if their own country has no other problems.
At this point, any steps to meet Russia halfway or some sympathetic gesture toward Russia would spark a lot of interest here. But it’s summertime, and Washington’s typical demonization of Moscow is as boring and predictable as a news story about hot weather. Only Trump’s sarcastic reaction to the allegations was enough for some people to pay a little bit of attention to all this.
To summarize, there are so many accusations that Russia’s done something bad that our people have stopped paying attention to these stories in the news. Everything boils down to the thesis that “Russia is to blame,” and we’ve already heard it a million times. Thanks, but we’re not interested anymore. The Russian intelligence community is shocked by the power ascribed to it by the Western media, and the very nature of the allegations is reason for jokes, and nothing more.
Ruslan Leviev is a Bellingcat contributor and one of the founders of the “Conflict Intelligence Team,” a Russian-language website that also uses open-source investigation to conduct citizen journalism on armed conflicts involving the Russian military.
> Почему вы считаете, что все в Америке сейчас чуть не лопаются от злости
Ну лично я так не считаю :) Почему в России «всем по барабану» — наверное потому что сама атака и взлом для нас в России не является чем-то экстраординарным, для нас это совершенно бытовой, рядовой случай. И пока в результате взлома не обнаружится что-то ошеломляющее, а-ля тайные директивы по отправке американского спецназа на Донбасс — шумихи в России не будет.
Лично мне пока неизвестно о том, чтобы в результате этого взлома обнаружилось нечто такое скандальное, что привлекло бы внимание россиян. Плюс, как среди прокремлёвски настроенных граждан, так и среди оппозиционных граждан нет такого чувства, что «российские спецслужбы перешли границу». Среди всего населения России сильно мнение, что спецслужбы могут и прослушивать, и взламывать, и сажать по вымышленным делам и устранять негодных людей. Сильно мнение, что такие инциденты — нормальная, обычная практика для наших спецслужб.
Why do I think everyone in the US today has “nearly gone mad with rage”? Well, personally, I don’t see it that way. :) Why doesn’t anybody in Russia “give a damn”? Probably because the attack itself and the hack doesn’t seem so extraordinary to us in Russia. For us, it’s a perfectly routine, daily occurrence. And so long as they don’t turn up something shocking as a result of the hack (à la secret directives to send US special forces into the Donbas), the story just isn’t going to get much hype in Russia.
Personally, I don’t know of anything discovered in this hack that’s scandalous enough to attract Russians’ attention. Plus, in both the pro-Kremlin and opposition communities, there’s no sense that “the Russian intelligence agencies crossed a line.” Many Russians strongly believe that government intelligence agencies can wiretap, hack, imprison bad guys on trumped up charges, and ultimately eliminate them. They believe strongly that such incidents are an acceptable, ordinary practice by our intelligence agencies.
David Homak is the founder and chief administrator of Lurkmore, a popular Wikipedia-style Russian website that focuses on Internet subcultures and memes.
Новость-то, вроде, уже и не новость; мне казалось, честно говоря, что история с почтовым сервером Клинтон последнее время занимала куда больше экранного времени (ок, screen space) на реддите, чем Guccifier 2.0. Он вообще какой-то совершенно «нерусский», этот скандал. Русский VPN, подпись «Феликс Эдмундович» в .doc-файлах… как-то это все слишком карикатурно. «Как мы узнали, что это были русские шпионы? — Они подписались именем-отчеством (patronymic!) основателя госбезопасности СССР. — Seems legit.»
А может быть, у шпионов и правда шутки такие дурацкие, и всегда такими были, и вся Холодная Война — это сплошной «Наш человек в Гаване» пополам с Dr. Strangelove, а вовсе не Джеймс Бонд. То есть даже наверняка так и было.
Другой вопрос, что в нынешней России принято хвастаться любыми победами, подлинными и мнимыми, честными и нечестными. Как удержаться и не похвастаться этой — непонятно. А ведь месяц почти прошел. С другой стороны, непонятно, как русскому телезрителю объяснять, что там вообще происходило, на демократическом конвенте: по идее, там должны были приносить в жертву христианских младенцев, а не письма слать и не выяснять занудно, кто лучше — Хиллари Клинтон или Берни Сэндерс. Русский зритель давно и наверняка знает: Хиллари — жена сатаны Билла (других в американские президенты не берут) и сама немножко сатана, а Сандерс — это на логотипе KFC. Если объяснять подробнее, зритель нечаянно может узнать про демократию слишком много подробностей и проявить нездоровое любопытство!
Whatever this is, it’s hardly news anymore. Frankly, it seemed to me that the story with Clinton’s email server has taken up a lot more screen space on Reddit lately than “Guccifier 2.0.” This whole thing—this scandal—it’s absolutely “non-Russian.” A Russian VPN, a “Felix Edmundovich” signature on the DOC files… somehow it’s all too caricatured. “How do we know that it was Russian spies? — They signed with the name and patronymic of the founder of the USSR’s secret police! — Seems legit.”
Or maybe spies really do play stupid pranks like that, and always have, and the whole Cold War was just “Our Man in Havana” mixed with Dr. Strangelove, and not at all James Bond. Actually, that’s probably exactly how it was.
It’s another issue that, in today’s Russia, it’s accepted to brag about any victory, whether authentic or imaginary, honest or dishonest. [If you’re the Russian hackers,] I don’t see how you resist this urge and avoid bragging about it. And nearly a month went by [before the hackers released the stolen emails]. On the other hand, it’s unclear how you explain to the Russian TV viewer what on Earth was going on at the Democratic convention. In theory, [the Democrats] should have been sacrificing Christian children, not sending letters trying to find out the boring answer to the boring question: Who’s better? Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? The Russian viewer is well aware that Hillary is the wife of Satan, i.e. Bill (all American presidents are evil, after all), and she’s a bit of a Satan herself. And Sanders is the guy from the KFC logo. If you explain it in any more detail, the viewer might accidentally learn too much about democracy and start showing morbid curiosity in the thing.
Ekaterina Vinokurova is a reporter for the website Znak. She regularly covers insider Kremlin gossip, as well as news about political intrigues within Russia's security agencies. She is also well known for posing a particularly difficult question to Vladimir Putin at the president's annual marathon news conference with journalists last December.
Я думаю, что отсутствие скандала в российских соцсетях имеет несколько причин.
Во-первых и в-худших, Америка последние пару лет нам объясняла все про всесилие российской пропаганды. Над нами смеялись, что у нас во всем виноваты Штаты. А теперь выходит, в США в большом скандале, конечно, виноват Путин. Простите, мы устали от теорий заговора. Разбирайтесь со своими проблемами сами.
Во-вторых, у нас много внутренних проблем, они выходят на первый план, я этому рада. Если честно, мне совершенно пофиг от того, кто и когда в США в очередной раз назвал кого из наших политиков диктатором. Мне пофиг, понимаете? Ребята, я не люблю наше правительство, я не люблю нашего президента, но уймитесь, дайте нам побыть наедине с собой.
Я ненавижу российскую пропаганду, но считаю доказательства причастности наших спецслужб недостаточными, чтобы раздувать истерию. Я считаю, что истерика ваших СМИ работает скорее на режим Путина, чем против него. Sorry. Guys.
I think the absence of a scandal in Russian social media has a few reasons.
First and worst, America has spent the past couple of years explaining to us all about the omnipotence of Russian propaganda. The Americans have laughed at us, that we blame the States for everything in Russia. And now it comes out that the US is in a big scandal, and of course Putin is to blame. I’m sorry, but we’re tired of all the conspiracy theories. Sort out your problems on your own.
Second, we have a lot of domestic problems, and they’re the priority, and I’m perfectly happy about that. If I’m being honest, I’ll tell you that I couldn’t care less who or when the next person in the US calls one of our politicians a dictator. I could not care less, you understand? Guys, I don’t love our government, and I don’t love our president, but give it a rest and leave us alone.
I hate Russian propaganda, but I believe that the evidence of our intelligence agencies’ participation in this hack isn’t enough to justify whipping up a hysteria. And I think that your media’s hysteria is doing a lot more to help the Putin regime than to hurt it. Sorry, guys.
Anna Veduta is the former spokesperson for Alexey Navalny, one of the most prominent leaders of Russia's democratic opposition, and served as the press secretary for his anti-corruption organization. In 2014, Veduta left Moscow and began a master's program in International Relations at Columbia University. She graduated earlier this year and now lives in Washington, DC.
Even if this has something to do with the Kremlin specifically, which I personally doubt very much (conspiracy theories have no place in the 21st century), [Russia] hasn’t found a way to make the best of it. The [news] agenda has focused solely on the Olympics and today [Thursday, July 28] it’s all about Putin reshuffling his cabinet.
But the point is that the people in the Kremlin still haven’t found an advantage in this story, regardless of how true it is (and, again I can’t stress this enough, I don’t buy the allegations myself).
That’s why the Kremlin didn’t order its media outlets and its trolls to start hammering away at this issue.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the “Bolotnaya” part of the RuNet [the democratic opposition], I assume people feel the same way that I do: Who could take this conspiracy theory seriously? All rhetoric and political campaigning aside, what serious person discusses and analyzes something like this?
Lesya Ryabtseva is a former staff member at the independent radio station Echo of Moscow. Enormously controversial during her brief tenure as the chief editor's personal assistant, Ryabtseva left the station in late 2015, and immediately appeared in a documentary film aired on the pro-Kremlin television network NTV, where she lambasted the Russian opposition and praised several Kremlin officials, including Vladimir Putin.
Мне кажется, дело в том, что в России и в частности русским вообще все по барабану. А не только Национальный комитет. Единственное, что может волновать русских – это либо то, что им навязывает информационная повестка (СМИ, политики, общественные деятели), либо то, что творится в конкретно их личной жизни, либо то, что имеет короткую перспективу и ближайшие последствия.
Мало кто из русских думает хотя бы на 3 шага вперёд. Не говоря уже о том, чтобы думать о чужих выборах (в которые у нас никто не верит), в чужой стране, с чужими данными… И так далее.
I think it’s that nobody in Russia cares—that the Russian people particularly don’t care—about anything [happening abroad]. It’s not just the DNC. The only thing that worries Russians is what they’re told to fear by the “information agenda” (the news media, politicians, and public figures), or what’s happening concretely in their private lives, or what they can expect in the short-term with the most immediate consequences.
Few Russians are thinking at least three steps ahead. And all this is to say nothing about the fact that we’re talking about Russians worrying about someone else’s elections (elections in which nobody here believes), in a foreign country, with foreign data, and so on.
Anastasia Karimova is a former Russian journalist who now works as the press secretary for Transparency International Russia. She is a self-described feminist.
Я тоже не следила особо за этой темой и не придала значение этой новости. Честно говоря, я подумала, что это too good for Russia to be true. I thought US experts overestimate russian intelligence service. From my perspective, it is impotent, powerless and ineffective. Знаете, я слышала байку, что у ГРУ в Вашингтоне есть специальный человек, который каждый день считает количество окон, в которых горит свет, в Пентагоне. Про низкий уровень IT-грамотности российских силовиков ходят многочисленные байки. Я по умолчанию решила, что в США напрасно ищут русский след – мне показалось, что могущество русского КГБ, мне показалось, что представление о могуществе русских спецслужб зиждется зачастую на фильмах о Джеймсе Бонде со злодеями из КГБ. Я, конечно, могла быть предвзята. Думаю, российские наблюдатели разделились тут на две основные группы: первые, как я, просто не поверили в то, что российские спецслужбы в принципе на такое способны в силу низкой квалификации сотрудников. Вторые подумали, что спецслужбы способны на такое, но при этом уже не удивились этому – Россия в последнее время ведёт себя настолько агрессивно, что после участия наших солдат в вооруженных конфликтах в Сирии и на Украине какая-то там кибератака кажется мелочью.
I myself haven’t really followed this topic very closely, and don’t attach much significance to the news. Honestly, I think it’s “too good for Russia to be true.” I think US experts are overestimating the capabilities of Russia’s intelligence agencies. From where I’m sitting, they’re impotent, powerless, and ineffective. You know, I once heard a story that the GRU [Russian Military Intelligence] in Washington has a special guy who, once a day, counts the number of windows in the Pentagon with the lights on. You hear all kinds of stories about the IT ineptitude of the Russian intelligence community.
I just assume that the Americans are looking in vain for a trail that leads back to Russia. It seems to me that [perceptions of] the might of the Russian KGB and ideas about the might of the Russian intelligence agencies are often based on James Bond movies with a KGB villain.
Of course, I could be biased here. I think Russian observers fall into two camps: first, there are those like me, who simply believe at a fundamental level that the Russian intelligence community is incapable of such feats due to the incompetence of its staff. And then there are those who think the intelligence agencies are capable of such things, but then they’re not surprised by news like this. Recently, Russia has been behaving so aggressively that a cyberattack seems like a trifle, after our soldiers’ engagements in the armed conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
Polina Nemirovsky is the project manager at Open Russia, the civil society movement launched by the former oil tycoon, turned exiled-dissident, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. She has also worked for the human rights group Zona Prava, which was founded by members of the punk rock group Pussy Riot.
Я вообще в последнее время наблюдаю, что истерия вокруг США немножко идёт на спад. В интернете по инерции некоторые борются с проклятым Обамой, но инерция тут ключевое слово. Вообще сейчас я за время кампании Маши Бароновой много общалась с людьми, и такого накала страстей, как был в 2014-м году, уже нет. Потому что люди не могут быть на пределе эмоций так долго, они выгорают. Даже о “хохлах” уже забывают потихоньку, а тут США, где, к тому же, президентские выборы, на которых непонятно кто победит и как будут выстраиваться отношения. Я ещё с Трампом это замечала: говорит что-то за Россию — СМИ в России пишут. Говорит против — тишина. Во-первых, люди устали быть на войне со всем миром (как пример, Сирия и Турция явно вызывали меньше эмоций, чем Украина в своё время), во-вторых, возможно со всеми разговорами о том, что Путин хочет вернуться на мировую арену, готовится почва для того, чтобы эта арена была нормально воспринята.
Generally speaking, I’ve watched lately as the hysteria [in Russia] surrounding the US has declined slightly. Online, some are by mere inertia carrying on the fight against that “damned” President Obama, but “inertia” is the key word here. I’ve been busy with Maria Baronova’s [State Duma] campaign, and I’ve spent a lot of time communicating with people. The intensity of the [anti-American] sentiments you found in 2014 doesn’t exist any longer. Because people can’t live at their emotional limit for so long. They burn out.
People are even gradually beginning to forget about the “dumb Ukrainians,” and now we’ve got the United States with its presidential elections, where it’s unclear who will win and how our new relationship will take shape. I have noticed this about Trump: when he says something favorable about Russia, the news media in Russia reports it. When he says something critical, there’s silence.
First, people are tired of being at war with the whole world (for example, Syria and Turkey clearly stirred up fewer emotions than Ukraine did in its time); and, second, it’s possible with all the talk about Putin wanting to return to the world stage that they’re laying the groundwork now, so people aren’t surprised later.
Maria Baronova is the project coordinator at Open Russia. She has also worked as a columnist and journalist at independent media outlets in Russia. Currently, she is running for a seat in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's federal parliament.
Обычно я всегда слежу за американской политикой. Если своей нет, то хоть за чужой послежу. Но за предыдущие 4 недели мне надо было собрать 15 000 подписей в своем мажоритарном округе – это 3% от общего числа избирателей и дико тяжелая задача летом.
То есть, у меня была и есть своя политика и я отвлеклась от вашей. Теперь, что касается твоего вопроса:
1) с самого начала твой вопрос выглядит в духе российской конспирологии. Конечно, я нормальный либерал, я боюсь Трампа. Но то, что теперь Демократы используют путинскую риторику – это смешно и говорит, как на самом деле недалеко ушла от России Америка. Собственно, то, как все проглотили то, что сейчас творит Эрдоган – президент страны НАТО, и Америке на это наплевать, это подтверждает.
У Путина вечно были во всем виноваты американцы в последние годы. И постоянно люди типа меня были foreign agents. Внезапно у Демократов во всем виноваты Русские и тоже стал использоваться термин foreign agents. Смешно. Какие все одинаковые и примитивные в своей пропаганде
2) остальные в России не сильно следят за этим, потому что Америка и Россия – это разные страны. Не уверена, что американцы следят за моей избирательной кампаний, за обысками у главы таможни и за взломом почты Арама Ашотовича Габрелянова
3) то, что внезапно как hawks ведут себя демократы и винят во всем русских, а не республиканцы, тоже очень забавно. Вот так нелюбимый мной трамп поменял вектор.
4) а еще я вот прочла такую статью от Юли Иоффе о сапоттерах Демократов. О Дарье Жуковой и Байбаковой:
Ну что сказать. Жена причастного к тому, что Россия живет в том дерьме, в котором сейчас живет и дочка Байбакова, которая несколько лет дала такое интервью: “Мария Байбакова: «Увольнять прислугу надо быстро и при свидетелях»”
Относящаяся к людям как к обслуге, вполне довольствующая тем уровнем коррупции и разворовывание России Путиным, внезапно поддерживают Хилари и демократки.
Ну как же омерзительно это всё.
Тут надо спрашивать не о том, почему в России всем наплевать на скандал со взломом почты, а почему люди такие одинаково бессовестные.
Ну а по косвенным признакам Россия и правда может иметь отношение ко взлому почты Хилари. Факт этот, как и факт существования Patriotic Act – примечательный, а не ужас-ужас.
Ужас-ужас – это ИГИЛ, растущий исламский террор в Европе, рост опасных популистов в Америке (к которым относится и Трамп, и Сандерс и теперь вот Хилари, к сожалению) и Европе, вечный Путин в России и то что люди готовы сдать свои общемировые ценности на тупой популизм и изоляционизм.
И отдельно ужас-ужас то, что страны НАТО ничего не делают с тем, что Турция – страна НАТО и Эрдогану сейчас разрешено делать что угодно с гражданским обществом в Турции.
Usually, I always follow American politics. If we [in Russia] don’t have any, I might as well watch somebody else’s. But for the past four weeks, I’ve needed to gather 15,000 signatures in my own majority constituency—that’s 3 percent of the total number of voters, and it’s a wildly difficult task in the summer.
So lately I’ve had my “own politics,” and it’s distracted me from yours [in the US]. But now let me answer your question.
1. From the very beginning, your question looks like it's inspired by Russian conspiracy theories. Of course, I’m your typical liberal, and I’m afraid of Trump. But the fact that the Democrats are using Putinist rhetoric is hilarious, and it shows that America really isn’t so far from Russia. In fact, that everyone just accepts what Erdogan—the president of a NATO power—is up to now, and America doesn’t give a damn, just confirms this.
In recent years, Putin has always blamed the Americans for everything. And people like me have always been considered foreign agents. Suddenly the Democrats are blaming Putin for everything, and they’ve started using the term “foreign agents,” too. It’s funny how identical and primitive everyone is in their propaganda.
2. The rest of the people in Russia aren’t following this very closely because America and Russia are different countries. I doubt that Americans are following my election campaign, or the police raids on [Russia’s] Customs Service, or the hack of [media mogul] Aram Ashotovich Gabrelyanov.
3. Suddenly, it’s hilarious that the Democrats—not the Republicans—are acting like hawks and blaming the Russians for everything. That rascal Mr. Trump has flipped everything.
4. I read this article by Julia Ioffe about two of the Democrats’ supporters, [the wealthy Russian socialites] Dasha Zhukova and Maria Baibakova. And what’s there to say? This is the wife of a man [Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich] who's responsible for the fact that Russians live in such shit, and Baibakova the daughter [of a notable Russian industrialist and real estate developer], who several years ago said in an interview, “You’ve got to fire your servants quickly and in front of witnesses.”
People who treat other human beings like servants, who are so content with the level of corruption and looting in Russia by Putin, are now suddenly supporting Hillary and the Democrats. The whole thing is just disgusting.
The thing we need to be asking isn’t why everyone in Russia doesn’t care about the scandal with the hacked emails, but why people are so equally shameless.
Based on circumstantial evidence, it’s true that Russia may have played a part in hacking Hillary’s emails. This fact, like the fact of the Patriot Act’s existence, is noteworthy, but it’s not the horror of all horrors.
The horror of all horrors is ISIS, growing Islamic terrorism in Europe, the rise of dangerous populists in America (which includes Trump, Sanders, and now Hillary, unfortunately) and in Europe, Putin’s enduring reign in Russia, and the fact that people are willing to surrender their shared values for stupid populism and isolationism.
And, separately, the horror of all horrors is that NATO countries aren’t doing anything about the fact that Turkey—a NATO member—and Erdogan are now being allowed to do whatever they want with civil society.
Karina Orlova is a journalist at the radio station Echo of Moscow, and a columnist at the American Interest. Recently, she has written extensively about the clan war now raging within Russia's security agencies.
У меня есть объяснение только того, почему в российском фейсбуке – а это единственная из оставшихся в России свободная площадка для интеллектуальных дискуссий, почти не обсуждают, да даже и вообще не обсуждают, что «Путин украл письма Клинтон, чтобы его, Путина, протеже и марионетка Трамп стал президентом США». Поскольку русскоязычный фейсбук – это свободная площадка для интеллектуальных дискуссий, то и участники этих дискуссий, или иными словами, владельцы аккаунтов – это интеллектуальная часть российского общества. А российские интеллектуалы, которые почти все сплошь в оппозиции режиму (а стараниями самого же Владимира Путина стало невозможно обратное),  невысокого мнения о всесилии и величии Владимира Путина. Даже, наоборот.
Кроме того, у россиян нет надобности замылить тему порочности Хиллари Клинтон. К сожалению, даже если ее почту взломал лично Владимир Путин, это не отменяет факта того, что было обнаружено в этой почте. Но зато всемогущий Путин, ну просто Доктор Мориарти 21-го века, является хорошим отвлекающим фактором, о чем блестяще написал Джейсон Уиллик в The American Interest (гиперссылка). Очень старинный и действенный метод, который успешно применяет в последние три года российская пропаганда.
На фоне это мышиной возни, кстати, даже Дональд Трамп выглядит приличным человеком со своими шутками про то, что кремлевские хакеры должны найти еще 30 тысяч писем, которые Хиллари Клинтон удалила, когда ее за хвост поймало ФБР.
P.S. Я не за Дональда Трампа, если что.
I can only explain why on Russian Facebook (and this is Russia’s only remaining free space for intellectual discussions) almost no one is discussing—in fact, there’s almost silence about it—that “Putin stole Clinton’s emails, so that Putin’s protege and puppet Trump will become the next US president.” It’s because Russian-language Facebook is a free space for intellectual discussions, and the participants in these discussions (or, rather, the people who control these accounts) are the intellectual part of Russian society. And Russian intellectuals, who are almost universally in opposition to the regime (thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Putin this has become impossible to reverse), don’t have a terribly high opinion about Vladimir Putin’s omnipotence and greatness. In fact, quite the opposite.
Plus, Russians have no need to conceal the topic of Hillary Clinton’s corruption. Unfortunately, even if Vladimir Putin personally hacked her emails, it wouldn’t negate what was found in those emails. That said, Putin the All-Powerful—the Professor Moriarty of the 21st century—makes for a good distraction, about which Jason Willick has written brilliantly for the American Interest. It’s a well established and effective method that Russian propaganda has utilized successfully for the past three years.
Against the background of this rat race, incidentally, Donald Trump looks like an altogether decent man, with his jokes about how Kremlin hackers should find the 30,000 emails Clinton deleted, when the FBI caught her by the tail.
P.S. Just to be clear, I am not a Donald Trump supporter.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Helping Out With Migrants Stuck in Calais, France · Global Voices
Suzanne Lehn

The fence separating the highway from the Jungle in the outskirts of Calais, built to prevent people to climb into trucks bound for the U.K. by Flickr user malachybrowne, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
The following is a first-hand report from two Global Voices contributors, Suzanne Lehn and Marie Bohner, who volunteered with a British NGO in the migrant camp of Calais, France.
The Calais Jungle, as it is called these days, perfectly exemplifies the migrant crisis in Europe. Lots of refugees and migrants are desperately attracted to the United Kingdom, for reasons real or imagined; a common language, existing communities of kin and job opportunities. Their arrival in Calais, the French town closest to England, is a hoped-for precursor to entry into the United Kingdom.
The U.K. government, and a large part of its population, however, does not want them to enter, which means the French and U.K. governments are cooperating to build high barbed fences and deploy anti-riot police forces at strategic points in order to prevent illegal crossings into the U.K.
A number of charities have been launched to help out in Calais, fuelled by a swell of volunteers, mostly from the U.K. and Ireland, who are motivated both by a dislike of anti-migrant politics in Europe and by their own desire to extend help to migrants and refugees enduring dire living conditions.
Calais, pleasantly located on the Côte d'Opale, is a major ferry port linking to the British port of Dover.
Since 1994, the Channel Tunnel has linked the two countries by rail.
To the great displeasure of some residents of Calais (population 126,774), the city has become internationally and infamously known for its large makeshift camp of around 6,000 residents, where a mix of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants from many war-torn or otherwise troubled areas in the world try to survive while attempting to enter the United Kingdom stowed away on big trucks, ferries, cars, or trains.
We wanted to join the help effort and also take a closer look at this large unofficial community living and working inconspicuously in and around Calais to aid and support the refugees and migrant population.
The following information, interviews and pictures try to summarise what we learned from an extremely enlightening week with the people of Help Refugees, a U.K. nonprofit partnering with a local French association L'Auberge des Migrants.
Help Refugees states on its website:
We help the most vulnerable people currently reaching Europe's shore by supporting local groups, charities and volunteers who are at the front lines, carrying out life changing work in difficult circumstances. We are working everywhere where Governments and NGOs cannot be. Unconstrained by red tape, politics and bureaucracy, we act fast to change lives. Your donations go directly to the people who need it most.
Photo from Album Calais Jungle, 2016-01-17 13.02.06, by Flickr user malachybrowne, CC Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
This intense work takes place in a large warehouse inconspicuously located inside one of Calais’ business centres.
Every day, 100 to 150 volunteers of various ages and backgrounds, whether staying for a few days, weeks or months, sort donations of clothes and toiletries, pack food parcels and firewood for Calais Jungle residents to be able to cook their own meals, load and unload trucks and vans.
They take part in camp cleanups, distribute food and other items, teach french and english, and more.
Management is fluid and efficient, the atmosphere friendly and respectful. The dignity and security of the people living in the camp are the top priorities.
Hettie, a 24-year-old Briton from Help Refugees, is — alternating with colleague Cécile — in charge of welcoming the volunteers and organizing their daily work on the site.
Global Voices had quite a few questions to ask her.
Hettie, a member of the management team of the Help Refugees operation in Calais. July 2016. Photo: Marie Bohner
Global Voices (GV): Can you please introduce the operation in a few words.
Hettie (H): Here French Auberge des migrants and British Help Refugees come under one roof and work together. When Help Refugees first came to Calais, they were looking to work with groups and organizations on the ground, that's how the relationship came to be.
GV: How do you explain the fact that there are so many volunteers from the U.K. and few French people?
H: I think it's just a different way of doing it. When you are here for a while, you notice that, from the French side, there's often volunteers that having volunteered for ten years, come once a week, or once a month, that's total commitment, whereas in Britain, we like to do this, “Tadaa, I'm here for a week” so it's very visible that we are all here. And as well, there's a lot of frustration, and anger, in the U.K. about what's going on, and here is an opportunity do what the government is failing to do.
GV: How long have you been staying here? and how long do you plan to stay?
H: I have been here for ten months. Actually I was supposed to leave a month ago (she laughs), to head to Greece with Help Refugees, to follow a grassroots group particularly in northern Greece. I set up the first ground team of this charity. But I came back, because it's very hard to hand over, to find people who will take on this responsibility.
GV: Do plenty of British volunteers also intend to leave for Greece?
H: Oh yes, quite a few whom I know. There are a lot from Switzerland, Americans, Canadians, people from New Zealand, Australia. The relationship with Greece is different.
A ferry sails away from Calais terminal, seen from the beach in the evening. Photo: Suzanne Lehn
GV: How do you replace the volunteers leaving for Greece?
H: We are recruiting. We changed our management system. We have coordinators for the various tasks, we have a coordinator in Dunkirk as well. As we are dividing the roles, growing, the needs also increase, and also for the responsibilities, we need to hire more people. “Come and volunteer!” People can commit to a role, be supported and develop in that role.
If volunteers commit for a month or more, this is very, very valuable. For a week as well. We are flexible and will fit them in where the need is at the moment.
GV: How do you sustain yourself, if you go for such a long time to volunteer for a month, or a year?
H: It depends on your personal background. We give accommodations the best we can for people staying for a month or more. Obviously we can't do it for everybody, because we are limited, so if you can support yourself please do as much as you can. For the everyday lunch of volunteers we often use donations which cannot go to the camp because of not being halal. With the support of Auberge for basic necessities, we can help, if necessary.
Preparing to pack food parcels. Photo Suzanne Lehn
GV: Is there any possibility of conflict with the French authorities?
H: We make volunteers here aware that their actions, and how they behave in the evening when they go out, reflects on the camp residents. If, when going to pubs they are loud, shouting, or aggressive, then it becomes another reason for the [Calais residents] to resent the camp. It is very, very important that we are all very well-behaved and very respectful, because we are here to help people and not to make it worse for them. As for the CRS, they are a military-trained force, and, absolutely, there are difficult instances whenever there is a verbal aggression, physical aggression, they take your ID, the car's number, and there are a lot of cases we were not able to take forward because we haven't got the information that we really need. And there is the fascist element as well, which poses a risk, but if you follow our rules and listen to our advice, you will be OK. You have a supportive background.
GV: Do you feel you are accepted by the CRS?
H: It depends. Sometimes it is ok. There are good people [among them], not so good people, people who are just doing their job, and they have been given a mandate to do things. What is scary is that they don't even have to think about what is right. The authorities are not made accountable for the actions of these people.
GV: What is the role of social media, what is your relationship with social media?
H: This whole thing probably happened because of social media! The catch angle has existed for 20+years, in some form or other, but because of social media things get spread quite quickly, people can get involved and know how to come here, [it enlarges] the scale and numbers of people. Last week we had an average outreach of 150 or more people a day here, volunteering, not including the long-term volunteers… so we do rely on it.
[On the other hand], we do [deal] with a lot of people wanting to achieve something when they first come, so we had to crack down on this and say it's not appropriate, what are your priorities? To help people or feel satisfied from your doing good? It's totally ok to feel good [for helping] but that should not be your reason of doing it.
But social media is very, very useful.
GV: And does it not jeopardize the security of your organization?
H: Yes, we have to be very careful about location, or features on the warehouse, about photos taken by volunteers and fascist groups sighting them. We had volunteers attacked, we had cars attacked. It has gone better, they have cracked down on this kind of things. We are very cautious and wary about refugees’ images not being taken, for their own security or that of their relatives. We insist that we have a lot of unaccompanied minors at risk from traffickers, and this is also an issue for children with their mothers, and family back in Afghanistan for instance.
GV: What message would you like to convey to our readers?
H: I had some journalist contact me, and he wanted to film me and refugees, and said, “we want to capture the gratitude.” I have a massive issue about that. I'm not here for somebody to be thankful, I'm not here because somebody is a refugee or an economic migrant. I'm here because I disagree with the way people are being treated. As a fellow human being, I realise it's in my power to do something that betters another life, and if I was in their situation, I would hope that would [also] be the case. But even if it isn't, I vote with my feet, I build the world that I want to be a part of. Every potentiality that is in front of you, it is yours to make. Do things you feel are good and you know do not harm others. That's it and it's totally possible. You come here. You can find possibilities in yourself that you had no idea could exist.
GV: Thank you very much!
We asked two questions to a few fellow volunteers :
Some volunteers, clockwise from top left : Tom, Chohee, Nieves, Renke. Photos: Marie Bohner and Suzanne Lehn
1) Why have you decided to come and help in Calais?
2) What did you learn from this experience?
Tom, from Ireland, 25:
I decided to come because I felt helpless, I didn't know what's going on, should we open borders?
I learned that I can help personally. I set up a bike repair workshop, so that unaccompanied boys in the camp can graduate as bike mechanics who will be able to work for cash.
Chohee, from South Korea, in a round-the-world backpack trip:
I want to help and serve refugees. I already helped Palestinian refugees in Jordan, so I had experience.
Here there are so many people and nationalities, even though I did not yet go to the camp, I expect to understand the life of refugees, and want to share some hope.
Renke, from the Netherlands, 34, supervisor:
I have a Quaker background. I used to volunteer for homeless people and in a kitchen for an elderly community. One year ago, I went to a meeting, and the question was, if we believe, why not be in Greece and help people? I knew about Calais being a town too small to manage its refugee situation.
My life changed, I am here definitively. I used to come a few times, and after four trips, I thought, of course, I'll be back! After a year here I will reassess my priorities. My aim is to think positive and make the world positive.
Nieves, from Mexico, currently living in the U.K., 33, trained for the opening of a shop giving out hygiene products in the camp:
I was worried about the refugee crisis and wanted to do something to help, but didn't know how. So I researched Help Refugees U.K. and the Auberge des Migrants. I started reading and saw stories about other volunteers.
I discovered that it is much easier to help than I thought. There are so many things anyone can do, just get started! And I love the environment, so many people, organized and getting things done!
Jungle residents take an evening stroll on the Calais beach. Photo Suzanne Lehn
The days with Help Refugees and Auberge des Migrants are indeed busy. They also provide beautiful encounters and conversations, friendships in the making, ending at night with a bit of laughter and food.
At dinner with friends. Photos Marie Bohner and Suzanne Lehn
For more information:
A blog: Passeurs d'hospitalité (meaning “Smugglers of hospitality’)
On Twitter: hashtag #helprefugees; more photos
On Facebook: the Help Refugees Facebook page; l'Auberge des Migrants Facebook page.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Suzanne Lehn


text:
Irom Sharmila’s Long Protest Is Over, but Military Impunity in Northeast India Continues · Global Voices
Ajin K Thomas

Image from Flickr by American Centre Mumbai. CC BY-ND 2.0
This week there was one news item that brought relief to many Indians.
Irom Chanu Sharmila, also known as the ‘Iron Lady’ of the Indian state of Manipur, has decided to end her world-record holding 16-year fast.
Sharmila started the non-violent protest in November 2000 and her main demand was the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) that has granted government forces de facto impunity in their bid to rein in militants and separatists active in the region.
All of these years she has been kept detained in a hospital in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, and has been force-fed through a tube in her nose on the basis of a law that prohibits suicide.
In a statement, she stated that she no longer feels she can win the battle against the AFSPA through fasting alone.
She has also made clear her wish to get married and act as a candidate in future elections to the state legislature, where she plans to continue opposing the law.
Wow! After 16 years-Irom Sharmila to quit fast. Symbol of resistance in Manipur-wants to contest next elections.Aug 9-last day of her fast.
— Tavleen Singh Aroor (@Tavysingh) July 26, 2016
Great decision Irom sharmila. Truly your fight will be remembered by the masses
— Praveen Paul (@praveenpaulpuzh) July 29, 2016
Sharmila began her protest in November 2000 after 10 people including two children were killed by troops of the Assam Rifles (a paramilitary force) by a bus stop near Imphal.
Sharmila was detained after being charged under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code for an attempt to commit suicide by launching an indefinite hunger strike.
She has been released and re-arrested every year since her hunger strike began and was hailed as an “icon of public resistance” in the region where the central government remains unpopular.
Earlier this year a court ordered her release from judicial custody.
While her actions sparked controversy, there is no doubt that forces loyal to the central government continue to enjoy extensive impunity while operating in conflict-ridden Northeast India (including Manipur and Kashmir) under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
The AFSPA was legalized in Manipur in 1958.
Marking half a century of the law 2008, Mukul Sharma wrote on Kafila.org:
It is a law in force in large parts of the northeast that gives armed forces special powers in a locality declared as ‘disturbed area’. However, while AFSPA is considered necessary by the state and army officials to protect the state against internal disturbances, to uphold the integrity of nation, to fight against terrorism and insurgency, and to protect sensitive border areas, it is being vehemently opposed and discarded by human rights groups, women’s organizations and political groups, as it is seen as facilitating grave human rights abuses, impunity, rape and torture, and silencing of democratic dissent.
Violations by security forces operating in the region are well documented despite a lack of interest on the part of the national press.
Writing on the Raiot alternative website last year Lalit Shukla noted:
AFSPA violates the fundamental constitutional rights  of right to life, liberty, freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly, free movement, practice of any profession, and protection against arbitrary arrest and freedom of religion, as enshrined in Articles 21, 14, 19, 22 and 25 of the Constitution.
‘There is no sense in dialogue, I want a repeal:’ Watch Irom Sharmila, real life (and theatre) hero https://t.co/2Np39PiOti
— scroll.in (@scroll_in) July 29, 2016
In November 2010 Anjuman Ara Begum wrote a three-part series at Twocircles.net detailing Sharmila’s protest.
The second part of the series focuses on “unsolved” massacres in Manipur, stretching from 1984 to 2000, when Sharmila's protest began.
Recently, in a landmark judgment the Indian Supreme court agreed to a probe into some 1,528 alleged cases of extra-judicial killings by security forces in Manipur from 2000 to 2012.
The court also opined that there is no right to impunity for the armed forces operating under the AFSPA.
Ankita Mukhopadhyay at Being Indian questions India's general ignorance regarding Sharmila's struggles:
I think it is time we applaud her and the struggle of the Manipuris instead of ignoring this news like it’s a daily activity. Because, it isn’t.
Vishnu Pillai at Youth Ki Awaaz writes:
The national media ignored her. Like an anniversary celebration, they used to show her fast, year after year, one, two, three up to fifteen. Then forget it. They never pushed for what she wanted – to repeal AFSPA. They made the story about the fast, never why she was fasting. They decided to highlight the messenger instead of her message. Maybe that gave them more TRPs.
Irom Sharmila is Paradigm of democracy
A big salute to the iron lady albeit she cudnt succeed to get rid of #AFSPA but its defeat of us
— sandip yadav (@yadav_sndp) July 28, 2016
For those who think #Manipur story/reporting ends at Irom Sharmila,see images as protests continue~unresolved #ILP pic.twitter.com/etBzgIwPXw
— Binalakshmi Nepram (@BinaNepram) July 29, 2016
Welcoming Sharmila's decision to cease the fast while remaining politically active, the Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign (SSSC) noted the long wait for fundamental rights in Manipur, along with other northeastern states and Kashmir, where people’s lives continue to be terrorised by the military.
The omnipotence of AFSPA, the presence of other inhumane legal provisions (like the Disturbed Areas Act, which was put in place in Manipur in 1980) and the absence of a system for holding out-of-control military personnel to account have amalgamated to form a juggernaut of injustices.

author: Ajin K Thomas


text:
Japanese on the Move: Life Stories of Transmigration · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Screencap from Japanese on the Move: Life Stories of Transmigration
If you're interested in language, identity and blending cultures in a globalized world, you may also be interested in the interview series Japanese on the Move: Life Stories of Transmigration.
The online project features fifty in-depth interviews, all hosted on YouTube, with people who call both Japan and Australia home.
Their stories are personal reflections on what it means to be on the move and at home and to belong to two (or more) countries:
What is it like to call two countries home? What makes migrants move in the first place and how do they settle in a new society? What keeps them on the move? Where do they belong? In “Japanese on the Move: Life Stories of Transmigration” fifty individuals share their experiences. Each of them has a unique connection to Japan and Australia and they all have a story to tell.
The interviewees come from all walks of life.
In one video, Shingo Usami, an actor and Australian permanent resident based in Sydney, Australia, provides an amusing behind-the-scenes account of his TV debut role as a “samurai/ninja.”
He then shares with us his reflections on both the challenges and advantages of being a Japanese actor from an English-as-a-Second-Language background in Australia.
The Japanese on the Move project is part of Language on the Move, a peer-reviewed sociolinguistics research site devoted to multilingualism, language learning and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration.
Not all of the 50 interviewees in the Japanese on the Move project are necessarily originally from Japan.
In this interview, Hossein Azimi a medical engineer originally from Iran, speaks, in Japanese about his experiences assimilating into Japanese society.
While currently located in Melbourne, Australia with his British wife and Australian son, Azimi says he identifies most with Japan, and Japanese is the common thread joining all three members of his family together.
Like Azimi, many of the interviewees describe interesting and complicated life journeys that brought them to Australia.
Nobuko Ishii, a volunteer now living in Sydney, left Japan with “a personal mission to see the world.”
She lived in Hong Kong, where she was to meet her Chinese husband and start a family. After 20 years in Hong Kong and before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, she and her family decided to migrate to Australia, where they have lived ever since.
The fifty interviews uploaded to the Japanese on the Move site provide deeply personal stories about what it means to cross cultures in a globalized world. All fifty of the interviews can be seen here.
With a tip of the hat to Mohamed ElGohary.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Once, Students in the US Were Punished for Speaking Spanish. Here, They Are Honored. · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Kiara Rivas-Vasquez, a sixth-grader from Oregon, gives a confident smile to her mother who is watching on from the front row. Credit: Simon Thompson/PRI
This article by Simon Thompson originally appeared on PRI.org on July 27, 2016. It is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The amphitheater is humming: teachers hover, students murmur over spelling sheets and proud parents deliver the last gasps of pep talks. After final embraces and a tear or two, the spelling competitors are swept backstage.
It is sixth grader Jybr Reynoso Hidrogos’ second time competing. He made the top five last year, but fell short of a trophy. Every day since, he’s spent two hours or more practicing spelling. That’s what helped him beat out his classmates and win a preliminary contest to wind up here today.
“It seemed impossible and I am actually here. It is like a dream,” Jybr says.
This isn’t the Scripps National Spelling Bee that you watch on ESPN. This is Concurso Nacional de Deletreo en Español, the National Spanish Spelling Bee, held this month in San Antonio, Texas.
Words are drawn from the “Lista de Palabras,” a 1,448-long list of Spanish words. When contestants need a word repeated, defined or used in a sentence, they are encouraged to ask the judges in Spanish. They also have to correctly place any diacritical marks, like the tilde in artimaña (trick), the dieresis in ungüento (ointment) or the accent in constelación (constellation).
“It makes it hard sometimes,” says Jybr. “There some words where it seems like there is no accent — maybe you can’t hear it — but actually it is there.”
Jybr has been learning Spanish from the cradle. Though he is in the bilingual track at Bradley Middle School in San Antonio’s North East Independent School District, he mainly speaks English with his school friends.
His parents came to the US from Mexico before he was born. His father, Liborio Reynoso, says seeing his son compete in their native language is a massive point of pride.
“Oh man!” he says. “My first language, my native language. We want our language to grow up here in this country.”
It wasn’t that long ago that first-generation American citizens like Jybr were scolded for speaking Spanish at school and encouraged to abandon their native language.
The director of the Spanish spelling bee, David Briseño, grew up in the US state of New Mexico where his Spanish-speaking parents were convinced that teaching their children the language would hold them back. Now 60, he says he still hasn’t quite mastered Spanish.
“My parents went through the time when you were punished in school for speaking Spanish,” he says. “They wanted to make sure we weren’t getting punished.”
His parents, he says, were belittled, spanked or could have their mouths washed out with soap if teachers caught them speaking their native language. Many people don’t like to talk about this painful history, but another school administrator at the spelling bee tells me the same thing happened to her parents. At last year’s bee, José Reyes, a bilingual instructor from Gadsden Independent School District in New Mexico, told me that a teacher punished him for speaking in Spanish. He went to school in El Paso, Texas, in the 1960s and 70s.
“I used Spanish and I remember her taking me to the sink in the corner and washed my mouth with Borax, with soap. And she said, ‘You won’t use this language again.’”
Fifth-grader Mariana Moya-Rubiano from Thomas Harrison Middle School, Harrisburg, Virginia, correctly spells her first word in the competition. 27 students competed — accents, tildes and all — in the bee this year. Credit: Simon Thompson/PRI
Briseño founded the National Spanish Spelling Bee six years ago to change these attitudes and to raise the status of the Spanish language in the US.
Efforts like his are making a difference. The benefits of bilingual learning gained recognition in 1968 with the Bilingual Education Act. The federal legislation encouraged school districts to incorporate native language instruction for children with limited English-speaking ability.
A 2010 study in the Review of Educational Research Journal surveyed 63 studies on the effects of bilingualism. It found that being able to speak multiple languages correlates with increased working memory, better problem solving skills a greater ability to pay attention.
It’s not just a boon for people who speak a language other than English at home. Briseño says more non-native speakers of Spanish are taking advantage of dual-language programs in schools too. According to the Harvard Education Letter, programs have increased tenfold in as many years. In 2011, there were around 2,000 programs nationally that teach in both English and a second language.
Native English-speaking students hold their own in the Spanish spelling bee. After three hours of tense rounds, three of the top five finalists are non-native Spanish speakers.
Joe Dooley is an eighth grader from Dedham, Massachusetts. He got eliminated just before the break for lunch.
“I did better than I thought I would,” he says. “I felt good when I got it [the words] right.”
Dooley is among the few spelling bee contestants who aren’t in bilingual programs at school. The US state of Massachusetts requires public schools to instruct only in English. According to the Massachusetts Association of Bilingual Education, only 33 schools in the state offer dual-language programs or immersion programs in languages other than English.
Dedham Middle School is not one of these schools, so Dooley takes Spanish as an elective. That’s where he found out about the Spanish Spelling Bee.
“I was really excited about it and I won in my class and then I came in third for the school and at regionals, I got in second,” Dooley says.
Massachusetts is considering legislation that would allow local school districts to choose the most appropriate instructional program for their students who are learning English. Changing the law could mix more English-language learners into dual-language classes with native English-speaking students like Dooley.
His mother, Liz O’Donnell says she hopes the dual-language model gets implemented at her son’s school.
“I would like to see it happen. I think it would be amazing, especially as we are going to become a majority minority country,” she says, referring to US Census Bureau projections that non-whites will outnumber whites in the next 30 years.
Concurso Nacional de Deletreo en Español had 11 contestants in its first year. In the past it was hosted in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the spelling bee this year, there are 27 students, representing nine states: California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas and Virginia. About 270 students competed in state and regional competitions to make it to the national stage, according to Briseño.
William Moss is an educator in the Brentwood Union Free School District in Long Island, New York. The district is 79 percent Hispanic, one of the most Hispanic districts in the state. This is the first year New York is represented at the bee.
“A program like this, you would think in its sixth year, it should be already be in every state,” he says.
Moss is organizing New York’s first state Spanish spelling bee for 2017: “I am actually surprised some thing like this wasn’t already done. Why don’t the Spanish teachers of America have a Spanish spelling bee? Like, duh!”
This is also the first year the national competition is being hosted outside New Mexico. Briseño says there were hopes the contest could reach a larger Spanish-speaking population and tap into a Hispanic media market with a move to San Antonio. But funding and exposure remain obstacles to growing the bee.
“We had another [contestant] coming in — actually from a territory of the US, the Virgin Islands — but they couldn’t raise the money to get here,” he says. “This is a labor of love and right now it is coming out of my pocket.”
By the last heat, the contest is now between Jybr and sixth-grader Kiara Rivas-Vasquez of Oregon. The competitors’ steps to the podium echo through the hall, seats creaking as the audience tenses before each word.
The audience lets out deep sighs of relief as spellings are confirmed. “Correcto,” the judge says in round after round.
The contestants rally back and fourth for what feels like hours (but is actually about 25 minutes) until Rivas-Vasquez slips up. She puts an “h” at the beginning of ermitaño, which means “hermit.”
Jybr can barely keep himself seated until he is called to take his turn. He strides up to the microphone. Smooth and deliberately, he spells it out: “E-r-m-i-t-a-ñ o.”
“Correcto.”
Jybr doesn’t celebrate or break focus as he looks back to the judges for the final word. If he spells it correctly, he will clinch the national title.
The word is Tahití, the island in the Pacific Ocean.
Jybr doesn’t ask for a definition, context or clarification.
“T-a-h-i-t i con acento.”
“Correcto.”
The crowd rips into applause. Jybr releases a breath it looks he’d been holding for the last three rounds. Family, friends and teachers rush the stage to celebrate the new National Spanish Spelling Bee champion. He says he can’t wait to get back to school to tell his friends.
“They are probably going to say, ‘Oh my god.’ They are going to be so very impressed.”
And he’s already thinking about the defending his title in next year’s Spanish spelling bee. But he's also thinking about competing in an English spelling bee.
After winning with the word “Tahití,” Jybr Reynoso Hidrogos of Texas is presented with the 2016 National Spanish Championship and $500 in prize money. He is surrounded by organizers of the spelling bee, and the founder and director, David Briseño, who is at the far right. Credit: Simon Thompson/PRI

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
South Sudanese Journalists Face Increasing Threats as Political Violence Peaks · Global Voices
Pernille Baerendtsen

Alfred Taban. Image shared widely on Twitter, by the Association for Media Development in South Sudan.
Amid the sudden return of violent internal conflict in South Sudan, media veteran and former BBC correspondent Alfred Taban was arrested on July 16 by agents from South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS). Shortly before his arrest, Taban called for the removal of both President Salava Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar in an editorial Taban wrote for the Juba Monitor, where he serves as editor-in-chief.
The long-standing tensions within South Sudan’s so-called “transitional” government reached a boiling point earlier this month when misinformation concerning a meeting between President Salva Kiir and the Vice President Riek Machar triggered an armed conflict that lasted for several days and left hundreds dead. Many are comparing it to December 2013, which marked the beginning of a new period in South Sudan’s history of increased political instability, despite having maintained relative peace since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between South Sudan and Sudan in 2005.
On July 22, Taban was charged with ‘publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to Southern Sudan’ and ‘undermining the authority of or insulting the president’. Journalists and human rights advocates in the region have been advocating for authorities to release Taban and drop all charges against him, with many using the hashtag #FreeAlfredTaban. Taban was released on bail on July 30.
Taban's arrest attracted the attention of the international community with several demands to the South Sudanese authorities, among others to either charge those who’ve been detained, or to release them. Taban’s detention has raised particular alarm, as he was once a member of the South Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), the entity that has now detained him.
In March of this year, Taban highlighted the paradox in an conversation with The Intercept:
The same people — the leaders — who would have me arrested today are the people I was arrested with [back then]. It’s as if we struggled for nothing.
One journalist reminded Global Voices that though Alfred Taban is one of South Sudan’s most prominent journalists, he is not the only journalist who has been detained by NSS and held without charge:
You should also know that we have (another) journalist inside for almost two years George Livio. He was arrested during the problems in Wau then referred to Juba. Since then he is [has] been there.
In August 2015, a young journalist named Moi Peter Julius was shot in the back with a pistol at close range by an “unknown gunman.” The killing took place shortly after President Salva Kiir had threatened to kill journalists for reporting “against the country.” A few days later, the president’s spokesperson withdrew the statement, saying that Kiir did not mean it “that way.”
The media and civil society have long struggled to survive in Sudan and South Sudan, but the impact of the conflict that erupted in 2013 has made working in media even more dangerous. The government released a set of quasi-official (and thus unclear) guidelines of what journalists “should” (and by default, should not) report on. In 2014, officials banned journalists from citing political or militant sources opposing the government.
‘Access the Internet anywhere you are’ says this Vivacell billboard, posted in the small village of Morobo on the border with Uganda in 2015. Only a small minority of South Sudanese have decent Internet access. Photo by Pernille Bærendtsen.
Though South Sudan has passed bills on public broadcasting and media oversight authority in order to ensure citizens’ access to information, the bills have not been implemented. In the meantime, authorities have implemented the National Security Service (NSS) Act of 2014, which Amnesty International described as follows:
The NSS Act of 2014 grants the NSS sweeping powers to arrest and detain, without ensuring adequate judicial oversight or safeguards against abuse of these powers….The law effectively gives a carte blanche to the NSS to continue and extend its longstanding pattern of arbitrary detention, with total impunity.
Alongside increasingly restrictive legal measures, journalists report that they receive threats, often from a person calling from an unknown number telling them to stop writing.
This difficult media climate alongside a slow but steady increase in Internet and mobile phone use has led citizens to rely more heavily on major social media platforms, chiefly Facebook, for information. While this shift has had some positive effects, it also has increased the potential for the spread of misinformation and political propaganda.
Many are attributing the July 8 violence to a message sent by Vice President Riek Machar’s spokesman James Gatdet Dak (and later posted on Facebook, see above), in which Gatdet falsely suggested that Machar had been detained while at the presidential palace. Machar was in fact meeting with the president. Some believe that it was this rumor that first caused Machar loyalists to open fire outside the palace.
The South Sudanese diaspora, which in some cases tends to divide along ethnic lines, has also played a significant role in contributing to such narratives on social media. One such sample is the narrative which gradually built up on social media in the last days of December 2013, that 25,000 of ethnic Nuer militia fighters, ‘The White Army’, were marching to attack the ethnic Dinka in Bor Town. The narrative was not accurate, but it spread massive fear in local communities surrounding Bor.
An anonymized sample of hate speech, used with permission from the #defyhatenow project.
On July 10, South Sudanese security and development analyst Jok Madut Jok, who is also co-founder of the Sudd Institute, wrote on Facebook:
Listen folks, South Sudanese in the Diaspora, please stop commenting on social media about what is going on in Juba right now. You know no shit about this….just try to find your relatives on phone, check on them to see if they are safe, help them in whatever way you can, and then shut the fuck up. You are not helping whatsoever. I'm not trying to suppress your individual rights to speak all you want, but only asking you to weigh what you say, and do so with a conscience… Every misinformation you peddle will most likely cost us another life. Is it not enough that our leaders have caused us this pain, do you have to add salt to injury?
Matthew LeRiche, a lecturer in conflict, security and development, describes how social media is affecting local conversations and perspectives on the conflict:
Many people in South Sudan, especially youth facing major difficulties in accessing information, are turning to Facebook as a primary source for news and information – and in many cases as their only source. They then pass this information onto others via very effective local word of mouth channels, [which have] greater scope and velocity due to mobile phones. The comments particularly by those in the diaspora, but also many media and other commentators, are then filtered back through communities.
LeRiche goes on to describe how these information flows can sometimes lead to misinformation or even stoke further tension or conflict:
Such sources, especially those with education in the West are seen as authoritative by many back in South Sudan. People then act on whatever information they have since they are in active survival mode and there are few opportunities for verification. The action taken is at best antagonism and at worst overt acts of violence. This dynamic also grants justification to many to act on sentiment or desire that might have been curtailed without a supporting narrative.
South Sudanese journalists have spoken against hate speech, as well as religious leaders, and on July 23 a group of activists got together in Nairobi under the #defyhatenow hashtag in an initiative to combat social media hate speech. The event was initiated by a collaboration between r0g_agency for open culture and critical transformation in Berlin and the Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO) in Juba.
Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranked South Sudan at 111 at its independence in 2011, now it has moved to 140 out of 180 this year. Freedom House rates South Sudan “not free.”

author: Pernille Baerendtsen


text:
In Nike’s Ad About Female Athletes in India, Too Much Glamour, Not Enough Names? · Global Voices
Kisholoy Mukherjee

Screenshot from Nike advertisement “Da Da Ding”, which features Indian women athletes.
A recent advertisement by leading American sportswear company Nike featuring badminton player-turned-Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone and other sportswomen has faced criticism from some netizens in India for not identifying anyone but Padukone by name and for glamorising what strong Indian women look like.
The video, titled “Da Da Ding”, shows several Indian sportswomen playing their respective sports and purports to promote women's athletics. The lyrics of the song accompanying the video also suggest the same. Padukone herself explained the idea on her Facebook page, where she shared the ad:
And so I want to say to every girl and every boy and every woman and every man…play a sport…because it changed my life…and it will change yours too!
Sport has taught me how to survive! It has taught me how to fight! It has made me unstoppable!
The video shared by Padukone has received 3.6 million views and thousands of likes and shares.
However, some weren't happy that the ad only spotlighted Padukone and didn't name any of the other sportswomen featured. Critics argued that this perpetuates the invisiblisation of women athletes in India:
That Nike Ad shows how little we know about female sportsperson or athletes in this country.
— SreeV (@SreekrishnanV) July 12, 2016
I am sure people who watched #DaDaDing video by Nike can't even name 5 female athletes who hv been featured in the ad. Kya fayda?
— Ashwani (@Social_spartan) July 12, 2016
“Kya fayda?” translates as “What’s the point?”
I wish Nike had made the ad about sports women without Deepika. Would have been more real. But then who would watch it!
— Binty Mehta (@bintymehta) July 11, 2016
Jaideep Vaidya at independent news site Scroll.in was of the view that it was a shame Nike took such an approach:
Nike itself does not name or feature any of the women from the ad on its website apart from Padukone, and leaves it to the media to publish the names from its press release or by themselves.
[…]
A pity, then, that despite breaking new ground in a country where brand-building hasn't really focused on women athletes, the ad drew attention to itself rather than the people it featured.
One Nike spokesperson reportedly admitted the fact that most viewers would probably not recognize the athletes in the ad.
Others came to the company's defense:
If you don't know a single athlete in the Nike Ad, then it reflects on you. Not on Nike, or the ad, or D Pad. 😂😂
— Vijayeta (@SacredInsanity) 12 de julio de 2016
Gender inequality in Indian society is the oft-cited reason behind prejudice towards women's sport. The lack of awareness of India's successful female athletes can be attributed to this built-in structural discrimination. Tennis star Sania Mirza, who is currently ranked number 1 in women's doubles tennis worldwide, had emphasized this point in the recent past as well.
Successful female athletes aren't the only women largely ignored in India. A YouTube channel called Epic Spiritual made a spoof of the Nike ad titled “Da Da Ding: The Other Women” mashing footage from the Nike ad with videos of poor working-class women of India.
The video, which had received more than 85,000 views at the time of writing this article, conveys the fact that hardworking women from lower-income backgrounds in India have been “doing it, barefoot” — a clear dig at Nike's tagline “Just Do It” — without any glamorous representations or expensive footwear. Staff at Scroll.in commented:
[…] the other Indian women are profiled – the thousands who are part of the labour force, engaged in activities like farming or construction (their share in both is around 50 per cent) or just household activities that require carrying water over large distances day in and day out.
Some Twitter users enthusiastically responded to this parody video:
Been doing it!!!
The original @nike da da ding ad made poignant https://t.co/wpGQCTYcia
— Poorna Jagannathan (@PoornaJags) July 27, 2016
Brilliant twist on the Nike da da ding ad! https://t.co/45sZKlXwUQ
— Farhan Siddiqui (@Farrenhite) July 27, 2016
Nike's Da Da Ding ad campaign modified for the women who have been silently “just doing it” for hundreds of years https://t.co/4XJsFIurUA
— Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) July 27, 2016
The complex intersection of class and gender in a country full of inequalities like India will perhaps continue to provoke such controversies in the future as well.

author: Kisholoy Mukherjee