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Following the Paris Attacks, Some Africans Wonder If All Human Lives Are of Equal Value · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Rebels training in Central African Republic. Photo released under Creative Commons by Flickr user hdptcar.
Following the November 13 attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris, France, a large number of Facebook users around the world showed their solidarity with that country by replacing their profile pictures with the French flag.
Many Africans online joined the rest of the world in expressing sympathy and solidarity with France by doing the same. However, not everyone supported the idea, arguing that attacks in Africa do not receive enough global or even local sympathy.
One Facebook user, for example, wanted to know why there wasn't a similar push to change profile pictures to the Nigerian flag after Boko Haram militants killed 200 people in the country.
Sub-Saharan Africa has suffered its fair share of violence from politically or religiously motivated organizations, killing thousands of people. Most of these attacks are from militant groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon; Al Shabaab in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda; the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, South Sudan and Central African Republic; and Séléka militants in Central African Republic. For example, on April 2, 2015, Al Shabaab militants attacked the Garissa University College in Kenya, killing 148 people. And on September 21, 2013, the group attacked Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people.
In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, leading to a global campaign under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. In July 2015, the group killed at least 200 people in Kano, Nigeria.
Amnesty International described a brutal attack on Baga, a town in Nigeria, by Boko Haram early this year as the group’s “deadliest massacre in recent history”. Controversy rages between the official estimate of 150 deaths against the 2,000 reported by other independent sources. The attack happened around the same time that Charlie Hebdo shootings took place in Paris, France. After the Nigerian attack, Global Voices author Nwachukwu Egbunike asked, “Why Hasn't the Baga Massacre Made as Many Headlines as the Charlie Hebdo Attack?”
Out of 10 countries with the highest number of deaths caused by “terrorist activities” in 2014, four of them are in Africa. Nigeria ranks second, before Afghanistan but behind Iraq.
Nigerian-based Facebook user Sen John Ayokunle Falodun expressed his opposition to the French flag gesture:
To me its so strange how Suddenly people are praying for France, changing [default pictures] to French flag. And I started asking myself different Questions, do we value the lives of the less than 200 people who died in Paris more than the thousands killed by Boko Haram? How many French Nationals do we see use Nigerian flags as [default pictures] and then pray for Nigeria whenever [Boko Haram] strikes? How many of us have prayed for Nigeria in the wake of all the [Boko Haram] strikes? It is time Africa and Africans wake up to be counted mostly Nigerians. I believe it is inferiority complex that is responsible for this. Don't get me wrong, I am totally against terrorism, and I feel pained by the incidence in Paris but i think what my people lack is the will.
Boko Haram killed over 200 in kano in a day, Did Nigeria do not have flag? I wonder why we like to take medicine for another person's headache. Boko haram are killing us in numbers…yet no Nigerian use our flag or wrapped it on His or Her body.
The flag of France used by people around the world to show solidarity with the country. Public Domain photo sourced from Wikipedia.
Another Facebook user, Kimario Pankrass, said:
Facebook recommends people to change their profile picture to French flag which I would do to support the victim's but do they have one for Beirut Lebanon where bomb killed people 24 hours ago, what about The constant attack in north east Nigeria by Boko Haram, also over 200 Russians died of bomb blast on a plane in Sinai, I refuse to acknowledge that some human beings are more special than the rest of us. Life of a simple farmer in Nigeria,African Americans in South Carolina, a baker in Beirut, a russian tourist and French concert goers should and must be valued the same and equal to life of a child in West bank. The world has a hypocritical double standard, please do not play to it. What happened in paris is despicable, but so is what happened in Beirut barely 24 hours ago. I suggested europeans change their profile to french flag, Africans change their flag to green and white (nigerian flag) and middle east change their to colors of Lebanon. […] If anything, change your profile to the image of the globe for a better world. Peace to the whole world.
Adamu Chiroma shared an article that had gone viral quoting the former aide to ex-Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri. The use of the French flag for profile images, according to Omokri, shows “low self-esteem” on the part of Africans and Asians:
According to the cleric, “Terrorism is evil and condemnable. But we should not only cry when it happens in rich nations. We should treat it the same wherever it occurs. I sympathize with France, but why are Africans and Asians putting French flags on their profile when they do not put their own nation’s flag on their profile when terrorists attack their own nations? Are French lives more precious than their own brothers and sisters who are killed daily by home grown terrorists like the satanic Boko Haram and Al Shabab.”
Commenting on Omokri's arguments against the use of the flag, Luqman K. Olateju thought the former presidential aide is short-sighted:
France and Paris are hugely important because they are the bastion of hope, freedom, opportunities and civilization for the world and particularly their people. What has your country done to provide the same for its people? I presume you'd say nothing. Your own countries have been ravaged by corruption, mismanagement and over many years, bad leaders. When your rich folks in Nigeria or even in Asia fall sick, they run to the western world for treatment. They cannot even stay in their countries hospitals to be treated because they don't trust the health care there. That's why Paris, London, New York, Brussels, Switzerland are important […] When the girls were kidnapped [by Boko Haram] in Maiduguri [in Nigeria], did you tell tell France, Britain or the United States to provide resources to help retrieve them, of course, not. They did it on their own.
Other Facebook users like Izuchukwu Justin from Nigeria saw nothing wrong with the gesture. He pointed out that Facebook has not forced anyone to use the French flag:
[…] you never woke up to see your profile pix covered with a French flag overlay/ filter, facebook never forced anyone to do that!, so why the f**k are you complaining Now??, Hey guys groW uP!, this is JUST to express solidarity for FRANCE, if you don't wanna do it, i mean changing your profile pix, you want to show solidarity in your mind but not on facebook, GOOD!!!!. Also if you choose not to show solidarity nor pray for them, its yours! OK.
Writing on a citizen media site, Zambia Reports, Peter Adamu called the criticism of the French flag profile photo “primitive thinking and hypocritical”. He argued that acts of violence themselves don't discriminate based on nationality, but instead target anyone in sight, as well as that France and other Western countries have given much in resources and support. Many people in Western countries participated in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, he pointed out, and even if they hadn't:
Even if France and other European nations did not show sympathy with African death victims, 2 wrong don’t make a right. Moreover our African culture attaches much respect to death victims regardless of race!
We are one and we live in a global village so let support each other regardless of our Race!

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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On Covering the Paris Attacks, and Other Thoughts on Journalism · Global Voices
Arash Azizi

Arash Azizi reported on Parisian reactions to the November 13, 2015 attacks near the Bataclan theatre, scene of one of the attacks, on the day after the events. Image from Manoto report.
Arash Azizi is an Iranian journalist who has worked for BBC and is currently a journalist for the UK-based Persian media outlet Manoto. He was sent on assignment to Paris on Saturday November 14, the day after the attacks to cover the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. After the President's visit was canceled, Azizi was left covering the aftermath of the attacks.
“You are just like other mainstream journalists,” wrote a fellow leftist friend, angry at my casual suggestion that some deaths are more “newsworthy” than others (my putting the term in quotation marks not having helped much, it seems).
My original argument, however, was simple: human misery and death are constant happenings around the globe. What made the Paris attack such a global hit wasn’t a particularly high death count (it's somewhere around 130), but the fact that it had happened in a “first world” city that is usually considered “safe”. That explosions in Baghdad and Beirut, scarcely a day before, had killed a similar number of people, in similar types of attacks, perpetuated by the same group, didn’t change one sad fact. Sadly, massacres are much more common in Baghdad and Beirut and thus less “newsworthy”. By definition, the more uncommon an event, the more “newsworthy” it is. If, for instance, an entire year passed in Baghdad without any terrorist explosions, that would be quite newsworthy. In areas outside the 15 percent of the world where people live in bubbles of safety, human life is more easily taken away.
Did my friend not have the right to be angry?
Of course she did. That our world is so unequal is the brutal legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism and oppression. All the joyous celebrations of “globalization” aside, the fact remains that in 2015, our global system is still feudalistic in one fundamental sense: where you are born determines your chances of success (or how long you will live) than almost any other factor.
Life expectancy in Africa’s richest country, South Africa, is 59 years. That’s a good 20 years lower than Europe or parts of East Asia. To make another comparison, that is just nine years higher than the average world life expectancy in 1950, and 11 years lower than the current world average of 70. And looking at the numbers for black South Africans gives an even clearer picture of the startlingly unequal world we live in. Media must find a way to remind the public of this fundamental reality.
But the point remains that it is not “The Media” (I capitalize deliberately here) that somehow miraculously and mischievously runs a racist conspiracy to “value” some deaths more than others. Mainstream media tend to reflect some of the existing norms, values and prejudices of a society, though thankfully some public service outlets, such as the BBC or Canada's CBC, also challenge many of these prejudices.
The condescending view of certain liberals that the masses are stupefied by The Media is not quite true. Dark forces like racism and prejudice have deep roots in our societies, and different media work differently around them. Some choose to fight them, some encourage them (think Fox News). But the Orwellian conception of a single “Mainstream Media” that runs our brains, à la 1984, doesn’t quite match the reality of things.
Arash interviewed an Iranian-Parisian who canceled plans to attend the concert at the Bataclan theatre that was disrupted by the attacks. Image from Manoto report.
It is true that monopoly ownership in media is a problem in most countries. In this capitalist world we live in, most of our information sources are controlled by just a handful of people. Even in the case of public service media like the BBC, democratic oversight is missing, and certain “men in suits” tend to run things at the highest levels. But, as this journalist can tell you, journalists and media workers aren’t simply sheep without agency, merely channeling the propaganda of media owners. Years of unionizing and struggle on the part of journalists means that we have gotten a certain degree of autonomy. People don’t usually become journalists because they want to be the hacks of the ruling class. Generally, it's because they're committed to some version of truth-telling and speaking truth to power.
Which brings me back to the Paris versus Baghdad and Beirut comparison.
Is it true that “The Media” didn't report on those atrocities? Of course, not. They did and they do everyday. As I check the BBC website right now, the news of deaths in Palestine and civil war in Colombia are on the front page. Or take the example of refugees. Can we honestly say that “The Media” didn’t cover the refugees story sufficiently? Or that they were anti-refugee? Of course, this also depends on which media you are talking about—but the Daily Mails of this world were, arguably, not more prominent than media who reported the story with compassion.
So if knowledge of international events is not widespread enough in a certain society, it can’t simply be fault of The Media.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t get to criticize media coverage. It just means that the criticism loses its meaning if it is done without much study or thought and trades in generalizations.
One of the criticisms that could be made is the short historical memory of most journalists. As a journalist and also as a student of history, I am very aware of that. As people whose bread and butter is tied to daily changes in a situation, journalists can sometimes miss the bigger (historical) picture. Common events can be mistaken for phenomenal; common prejudices that a dose of historical knowledge could easily refute can be taken for granted.
For example, the horrendous attacks of last Friday were widely reported as “unprecedented” in post-war France. On 17 October 1961, however, a group of 30,000 people demonstrating in Paris in favor of Algerian independence was brutally repressed by the French police. The official estimate of the number of deaths is 40, though it is believed to have been as many as 200.
But there wasn’t some racist conspiracy behind this lack of reporting. It was basic lack of historical knowledge, a serious problem for many journalists, who often are more versed in current affairs than in history, even though the latter is arguably as, if not more, useful, to the honest exercise of our profession.
What to take from all this?
That instead of making blanket conspiratorial denouncements, it is more useful to engage your media and show where it is wrong—but also remember that media outlets don’t exist outside society.
One should also bear in mind the most persistent cause of bad journalism: lack of resources.
With the recent disruptions in the media industry, which are themselves the result of an anarchic and irrational capitalist economy, many outlets simply don’t employ enough people to produce the quality journalism the public deserves. Will you do anything to change that? Add media consumption to the household budget? Call your MP and ask for more funding for the publicly-owned media?
As your correspondent landed in Paris a day after the massacre, he had just about 24 hours to tell a story on TV. Where should I have gone? Who should I have talked to? How to maintain a balance between telling personal human stories and giving you the bigger picture? Show the beautiful feelings of solidarity in Paris but also report the ugly side of things? These are questions journalists always have to consider, while knowing that they often lack sufficient resources to do the kind of stories they would wish to tell.
After a busy day of filming, my cameraman and I were walking the streets of Paris, anxiously debating whether we had done a fair job of reporting that day. Thinking we were done for the day, we suddenly came upon a panicked group of hundreds running away from what we were certain were gun shots (they later turned out to be firecrackers). Had a second round of attacks started? Were there terrorists mere steps away?
Arash's cameraman starts rolling as gunshots are heard on the streets of Paris the day after the attacks. The sounds were later revealed to be firecrackers.
Instinct might have caused us to run away but instead the cameraman whipped out his camera so we could tell the story as it happened. We didn't want to sensationalize events, but we simply couldn’t do anything else.
At the end of the day, there is one thing you can trust: it is that, irrespective of bias, most journalists have one simple desire, and that's to tell a good story.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Arash Azizi


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Taiwanese Netizens Make the Most of Chinese Users’ Brief Facebook Visit · Global Voices
Sophie Hsu

Tsai Ing-wen at Facebook's headquarters in California, June 2015. Photo from Tsai's Facebook.
Tsai Ing-wen, the favorite to become the next president of Taiwan, recently saw her Facebook page flooded with negative posts. The messages appeared to be written by pro-government Chinese netizens who suddenly were able access to the social media platform, which largely has been blocked in China since 2009.
Instead of deleting the negative messages, Tsai's social media team took the opportunity to address her visitors from the mainland. She was joined by many other Taiwanese users who took advantage of the unique situation to post news and information censored in mainland China in an effort to “educate” their Chinese counterparts.
Alongside an image weaving together the “F” from Facebook's logo and the word “freedom”, Tsai's message to the Chinese newcomers was:
昨天晚上，有眾多對岸的「網友」滑到我的臉書頁，對此，我表示「歡迎光臨」。
在臺灣，有許多對時政的討論、甚至公民行動，都是透過這個平台，由人民自主組織起來的；不同的意見、多元的聲音，也讓我們在交流論辯中，一步步往更美好的社會前進。
希望這難得的全新體驗，可以讓「新朋友」更完整的看見民主、自由、多元的臺灣。歡迎大家來到臉書的世界！
I want to welcome the numerous friends from across the strait who have visited my Facebook page since last night. In Taiwan, through social media, we are able to communicate and discuss current events and even mobilize social movements. Progress is made through communication and debates over difference of opinions and listening to multifaceted voices.
I hope our “new friends”, through this new experience, can further witness the free, democratic and pluralistic Taiwan. Welcome to Facebook!
China considers Taiwan to be a rogue territory. It has threatened in the past to forcibly retake Taiwan if it were to formalize its independence, even though in practice Beijing has no control over the island.
Tsai represents the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) against the current ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which was defeated by the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War and exiled to Taiwan in 1949. KMT accepts the “One China” principle, which serves as a common ground for cross-strait dialogue. On the other hand, DPP's China policy is considered more strategic and ambiguous and hence not favorable to communist party.
Screencapture of mainland netizen's Facebook comment repeating the phrase, “Taiwan and mainland, one China”. Image from Taiwan's most popular online bulletin board PTT.
On average, Tsai’s posts receives about 500-1,000 comments. Her latest posts incited an online war among her fans and visitors, seeing as many as 10,000 comments in two days.
The negative posts were written in simplified Chinese, which is more often used on the mainland and not so common in Taiwan. Some posts contained images of the Chinese flag and promoted the might of the People’s Liberation Army. One of the messages that read “Taiwan and Mainland, One China” was repeated more than 10 times (see image on the right).
Some Taiwanese Facebook users saw the sudden opening as an opportunity to share otherwise forbidden political content with mainland visitors. Facebook user Dan was one of several netizens who shared a three-hour-long documentary about the Tiananmen Massacre  on Tsai's fan page in hopes that the mainland Chinese users would see. The Tiananmen Massacre was a Chinese government crackdown on protesting democracy activists on June 4, 1989, in which hundreds to thousands of people were killed.
Mainland authorities have developed a very sophisticated online censorship system, which makes keywords related with major human rights incidents and violations like Tiananmen Square or the persecution of followers of the spiritual practice Falun Gong unsearchable. Searching other politically sensitive terms simply generates results from so-called “whitelisted” or government-approved websites.
The posting of censored news and information highlighted the contrast in freedoms between those behind the “Great Firewall” and those beyond it. Facebook user Hu Chan's emphasized the value of the freedom of expression on display in a welcome poster written in simplified Chinese font for mainland Chinese netizens:
Written in simplified Chinese, the poster says: “Warm welcome. Free to shop and free to Facebook. Welcome to freedom, freedom of expression in cross-border exchanges.”
PPT, a popular bulletin board in Taiwan, was among the first online communities to take note of the abnormality on Tsai's Facebook page. Users came up with many different theories on the lifting of Facebook block, such as a sudden malfunction of the Great Firewall, a trial to prepare for the unblocking of the Facebook or a plot to interfere with Taiwan's upcoming presidential election.
If it was indeed the last scenario, the plan backfired spectacularly, as even users who aren't Tsai supporters flocked to her wall to take part. PPT user “myizumi” wrote in the discussion thread:
根本適得其反 笑死我了 這樣根本是在幫蔡英文助選 XDDD
This is so counterproductive I almost died laughing. This whole thing simply helps Tsai Ing-wen's campaign XDDD
Other netizens did not react so cheerfully as they were afraid the 50 Cent Party, as the corps of paid pro-Chinese government commenters are called, would start interfering with Taiwan's online space. A user on the PPT system called “eatingfish” commented:
所以PTT會有事嗎 我好擔心阿
Will PPT be affected? I am quite concerned
The interactions between Chinese and Taiwanese Facebook users only lasted for two days, however, before the social media site was once again blocked in the mainland. After it was over, Tsai's fan page went back to receiving the average number of comments.

author: Sophie Hsu


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Women Recognized for Their Contributions to Sports · Global Voices
Carlos Esteban Cana

From left to right: Sara Rosario Vélez of the Olympic Committee of Puerto Rico, next to Stavroula Kozompoli (Europe); Kereyn Smith, Secretary General of the Olympic Committee of New Zealand; Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee; Lydia Nsekera, chairwoman of the Women in Sport Commission; Sheika Hayat Bint Adbulaziz Al Khalifa (Asia); and Mervat Hassan (Africa) during the awards ceremony at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of the IOC, Christophe Moratal.
Five women from different parts of the world have been awarded the Women in Sport Trophy, which is presented by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in recognition of public figures and organizations that have helped develop and promote the participation of women in all areas of sport, including administration and positions of leadership.
This Olympic prize, which has been awarded since 2000 to representatives from each continent, was received on this occasion by: Sara Rosario, president of the Olympic Committee of Puerto Rico (the Americas), Egyptian journalist Mervat Hassan (Africa), Sheikha Hayat Bin Abdulaziz Al Khalifa of Bahrain (Asia), Stavroula Kozompoli (Greece), and the Australian Olympic medalist Cathy Freeman (Oceania). The New Zealand Olympic Committee, the recipient of the World Winner trophy, was represented by Secretary General Kereyn Smith.
The event, which took place on November 10 at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the IOC’s Women in Sport Commission, which was founded in 1995, when the United Nations held the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. The Declaration of Beijing established a number of important strategic objectives and measures for the advancement of women and women’s rights. With this framework, the Olympic Committee has consistently advocated for the presence of women in sports across the world for two decades.
Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, and Lydia Nsekera, chair of the Women in Sport Commission, have expressed their satisfaction with the increased gender balance of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games set to take place in Buenos Aires, which will see the most participation from women in the history of the games.
At the ceremony, each of the winners emphasized the power sport has to empower women. The representative of New Zealand, Kereyn Smith, noted that 50 percent of the gold medals awarded to New Zealand’s Olympic delegation were won by women. “We know that, through sport, women can both build and demonstrate the same qualities that also make great leaders—we have been working hard to strengthen and promote this link.”
Sara Rosario addressing those present at the Pierre de Coubertin gala hall, where the ceremony took place. Photo courtesy of the IOC, Christophe Moratal.
Sara Rosario, who in 2012 became the first woman elected president of the Olympic Committee of Puerto Rico, said in an aside to the press:
Este es un premio por el que realmente mucha gente ha trabajado. Son muchos los trabajos que hemos hecho junto a las federaciones nacionales, junto a cada presidente federativo, junto a todos los atletas. Todas esas mujeres que por tanto tiempo han dedicado horas y horas al deporte como atletas, como entrenadoras, en los medios de comunicación, como presidentas federativas, como jueces, como árbitros, en fin, en tantas facetas. Yo creo que el (hecho de) que Puerto Rico sea hoy recipiente de este premio representando al continente de América, aquí en Lausana, en los 100 años (del Comité Olímpico Internacional en este lugar), debe ser motivo de satisfacción para todos los puertorriqueños.
Really, the work of many people has gone into this award. There is so much work that we’ve done together with national associations, with each federation president, with all the athletes. All the women who have dedicated hours and hours to sports as athletes, as coaches, in the media, as federation presidents, as referees, [and] as umpires—in short, in so many ways. I think that (the fact) that Puerto Rico is today the recipient of this award representing the continent of America, here in Lausanne, in the 100 years (that the International Olympic Committee has been here), should be a cause for satisfaction for all Puerto Ricans.

author: Carlos Esteban Cana


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Amsterdam’s Sahand Sahebdivani and His Storytelling Phenomenon · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Sahand Sahebdivani and his mother, Parwin Akhbari, share the stage in Antwerp, Belgium. Photo: Facebook (used with permission).
This is the first of a two-part interview with Sahand Sahebdivani. Read part two: Sahand Sahebdivani: ‘The Main Thing That Storytelling Does Is It Makes You Human’
In the spirit of cultural exchange and the celebration of ethnic hybrids, the Mezrab was created to gather people around music and storytelling. Located in Amsterdam, the Mezrab is a space where people come together to share stories, music, rhythms, and more. Today, it's also become known for concerts, improv, and comedy, and it represents a beloved spot for culture lovers in Amsterdam. Following years of charming storytelling nights, a school to teach this very art opened in this cultural center not long ago. The idea of the Mezrab, moreover, has developed together with its founder, Sahand Sahebdivani, and his family. Resilience, identity, art, and a bit of jinns (Arabian and Muslim folklore demons)—it's all part of the Mezrab's story.
To learn more about the Mezrab, Global Voices recently spoke to Sahand, who told us about its origins and his own beginning. He discussed cultural hybrids, women’s representation in traditional stories from Iran, and the story of the Mezrab, which started as a small family tradition and today is one of Amsterdam’s most celebrated cultural spaces.
Basically [the Mezrab] starts with two key ingredients: I grew up with my parents having all these talents, that they weren’t using. They were highly educated but when they came here [to the Netherlands], all they could do was wash and cook, which they did, without complaining. This is a life they reconciled with. But at the same time at home, they were these amazing, cultured people. Always involved with cooking, reciting poetry, singing.
When I was about 20 I started inviting people to my house, to eat together […]. It became such a success that we opened a place where this could also happen. To be fair, when I was ten my dad opened a similar place, a cultural center in Amsterdam. It was called Khaneye Aftab (“The House of Sunlight”), and this place was close to the Mezrab. I remember I saw my first Persian storytellers there. They would come from France. A lot of cool things happened there. My dad would cook, there was video tape music, poetry, but it didn’t work because it was only for Iranians. Everything that happened was in Persian. So, non Persians wouldn’t feel at home there. […]
[So, we thought of] another place like this, but open for all cultures. We opened this place that was about 30 square meters. I remember it would strongly appeal to people from South Europe, Spain, Italy, Latin America. Not so much from the Middle East as you would expect, but a lot of Latin Americans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese… Few Kurdish people… In 5 years we did storytelling, but mostly we had music as a way to connect people. We did a lot of jam sessions. For me, that place was my conservatory. I never studied formal music, so playing there every week was very important. I learned in the field how to make music. That was the birth of the Mezrab.
As the project developed, Sahand trained himself as a storyteller and realized the art form's need for a bigger stage. It’s this way that the Mezrab started to become known as a place where storytellers could go and tell all kinds of stories. Real, mythological, imagined, and from different traditions—in both English and Dutch. The online presence of the Mezrab also started to develop, and this evolution is visible on YouTube.
Both the Mezrab Cafe and fans share videos of performances. These recordings offer a taste of what this phenomenon is about. A video from 8 years ago, for instance, shows a jam session taking place in room 20 square meters (about 200 square feet), where Parvin, Sahand’s mother, accompanies the musicians.
Some videos of this period are available through MezrabCafe on Youtube:
Storytelling is about more than passing old tales from one generation to the next; it's also about recovering lost narratives, like stories highlighting the roles of women in old epics, for example. In this way, the Mezrab embraces ideas and movements that aren't just about intercultural communication, but also equality. These stories come from distant, ancient places, but they resonate with the ideals of our time. The Mezrab has become a place of living dialogue between the past and present.
There is a bit of an idealist me when I tell a story. For sure this is true. But I think the wrong approach would be to find stories and then to put my idealism in the stories. What appeals to me is that a lot of these stories already have these ideas. Much more than we would expect. We come from countries—I’m thinking of the Middle East, or maybe when we look at India—where women have an inferior role to men.
What I could do is that I could find these stories of oppression and change them to suit my ideals, but I don’t think the good way of going about it, specially if the stories themselves already have so much empowering stories about women. So, for instance the story of Rostam and Tahmineh. This is a story that as a kid my father would tell me as an example of strength in a woman. […] At the end there are so many examples of strong fierce women. My idealism is more to point that out than to try to invent those details in the story.
It’s very beautiful to see that these strong women exist in these stories, and it’s also in a way, quite gratifying to know that the current regimes, that want to keep women down, are ones who have to change the stories, to fit their narrative.
Finally the same thing goes for nationalism, because Iranians, they can be incredibly nationalistic, horribly nationalistic, and if you’re very nationalistic one of your points of pride is this Shahnameh [the epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi]. Now, the most important heroes of the Shahnameh they were all mixed of Iranian and the blood of the enemy. Almost none of them were “pure blood” Iranians. They all had a grandparent or a mother that was from the so-called “enemy side,” and, in a way it can serve as an antidote, this book, this old collection of stories. That for me is very inspiring.
In the second part of this interview, Sahand talks more in-depth about people's encounters, cultural hybrids, and the power of stories, both online and offline.

author: Laura Vidal


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Greece’s Opposition Party Loses Its Own Election · Global Voices
Elaine Rigas

The caption reads: “New Democracy, the only political party in the whole world that achieved loosing in its own internal party elections.” Image seen at “Leme tin Alitheia” (We tell The Truth) Facebook page, widely circulated online.
After a turbulent pre-election period, followed by an unexpectedly large victory in September 2015 voting for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's political party SYRIZA, Greece's biggest opposition party, New Democracy, was supposed to hold an internal election to choose a new party president on Sunday, November 22. During the past three months, four candidates (Evaggelos Meϊmarakis, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Adonis Georgiadis, and Apostolos Tzitzikostas) have campaigned nearly everywhere imaginable, visiting cities and reaching through Greece's mainstream and social media to tell the public about their platforms and visions for the future of the party.
On Sunday morning, though, with the party's supporters already gathered at polling stations, the process for counting votes malfunctioned, leading to election's postponement.
According to reports, the company “Infosolution” won a contract against three competitors to manage the voting process. That Infosolution's own website is still “under construction” did not seem to worry the officials in New Democracy who chose it. The malfunction on November 22 that's made the election impossible is believed to be a glitch that Infosolution's software suffered from an error that made it impossible to synchronize voting machines with the party's electronic electoral register, which is necessary to prevent double voting.
Unexpectedly, the Greek Internet was overwhelmed, almost immediately, with tweets and social media posts criticizing the aborted election. Later on, the hashtag #eklogesnd (#ElectionsNewDemcracy) became a nationally and internationally trending topic.
H ανικανότητα της @neademocratia να διεξάγει εκλογές ανάδειξης αρχηγού είναι παγκόσμιο trending topic #eklogesnd pic.twitter.com/GLad2JK9Lg
— spyros gkelis (@northaura) November 22, 2015
New Democracy's incapability of holding its own party elections for a new president is a globally trending topic.
Η τελευταία οθόνη πριν πέσει το σύστημα. #eklogesnd pic.twitter.com/piyWynlyPy
— TAND (@Takis_Tand) November 22, 2015
The final screen before the system broke down.
ΑΠΟΚΛΕΙΣΤΙΚΟ. Εντοπίστηκε το τερματικό που ευθύνεται για το φιάσκο στις #eklogesnd pic.twitter.com/gIm3ElS48z
— P.G. Papanikolaou (@PGPapanikolaou) November 22, 2015
Exclusive! We found the server responsible for the fiasco! (the picture reads: “Exclusive! We found the server responsible for the problems in the electorial process“)
Twittergr on fire mocking @neademokratia for not being able to carry out party leader elections #eklogesnd is a TT pic.twitter.com/Zjj300ofSO
— spyros gkelis (@northaura) November 22, 2015
New Democracy's election fiasco begs the qstn: if they cannot organize a vote who will trust them 2 run the country? https://t.co/YPmchqthCW
— Daphne Papadopoulou (@daphnenews) November 22, 2015
blue screen of death #eklogesndpic.twitter.com/qEkz3GYw5p
— shoegazer (@Owned8) November 22, 2015
Just woke up, found out about the #eklogesnd fiasco. Can't. Stop. Laughing. What a sorry state for the opposition. And the country.
— The Greek Analyst (@GreekAnalyst) November 22, 2015
#eklogesnd Elections for the new @neademocratia leader postponed this morning after software glitz! This party aims to govern again #Greece.
— Stratos Safioleas (@stratosathens) November 22, 2015
The Greek government itself couldn't resist the opportunity to mock its opponents on Twitter:
ΣΥΡΙΖΑ: Ευχόμαστε σύντομα η χώρα να αποκτήσει σοβαρή και υπεύθυνη αντιπολίτευση #eklogesnd https://t.co/ZLZnzFQ8YE
— ΣΥΡΙΖΑ (@syriza_gr) November 22, 2015
SYRIZA: We hope that the country will soon have a serious and responsible opposition party.
CNN Greece reported that angry New-Democracy supporters are looking for Mr. Andreas Papamimikos (the President of the country's Central Election Committee and the party's Secretary), believing him to be responsible for the fiasco.
In the aftermath of the botched election, the party's next steps remain unclear. Whatever New Democracy and its four candidates decide to do, they can likely expect a rough period ahead, until they live down the embarrassment of this weekend.

author: Elaine Rigas


text:
Haitians Take to the Streets to Protest Elections Results · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Post-parliamentary elections protest in Jacmel, Haiti in August 2015. Photo by Georgia Popplewell, used under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.
In the wake of Haiti's presidential elections on October 25, 2015 — the second such election since the devastating earthquake in 2010 — the country is mired in violent protests over the election results, which demonstrators say are fraudulent. Constitutionally, incumbent president Michel Martelly could not run in this election, and as no candidate received a majority vote in the first round, a runoff will be held on December 27.
Once the preliminary election results were announced by Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), it was revealed that Martelly-backed Jovenel Moïse, who is currently campaigning in New York and Miami in an attempt to woo the Haitian diaspora, won 32.81% of the vote, while Jude Célestin, the candidate for former President René Préval's Unity (INITE) party, won 25.27%. It is interesting to note that after the country's 2010-2011 elections, there were also allegations of fraud and violent protests, which resulted in the CEP disqualifying Célestin from the runoff and replacing him with Martelly, who ended up winning against Mirlande Manigat.
This time, though, Célestin is prepared to put up a fight. Along with five other presidential candidates, he issued a statement calling the results “anti-democratic”. His supporters heeded the rallying cry and began street protests. The domino effect soon took hold — supporters of other candidates, including Jean-Charles Moïse who placed third in the polls and Maryse Narcisse, who represents former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party, also began staging protests. Martelly's party has discounted accusations that it interfered in the electoral process, but there is enormous public pressure for the CEP to declare the elections null and void — both on the ground and online.
Images and videos of the protests were also being shared on Twitter:
Delmas 95, 4h18 pic.twitter.com/WMkq5hZDWD
— Jean Daniel Sénat (@jdanielsenat) November 20, 2015
Today's protest over allegations of #election fraud in #Haiti. Direction: Petionville. pic.twitter.com/wjU54J8yBn
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) November 20, 2015
#Haitians making their way through streets of Port-Au-Prince. pic.twitter.com/zisQ3KxbYY
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) November 20, 2015
There was also some discussion about the United States’ response to the situation:
@HBeaucejour @RAMhaiti Nearly 12,000 tweets from @USEmbassyHaiti — but not a word against stolen #HaitiElections.
— James North (@jamesnorth7) November 20, 2015
Mon: What will US Amb to #Haiti have to say about exit polls saying only 6% voted for ruling party's Jovenel Moise? https://t.co/DA1DwJDIXu
— Dan Beeton (@Dan_Beeton) November 20, 2015
Miami Herald correspondent Jacqueline Charles reported via her Twitter feed that members of the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), with whom Haitians have a conflicted relationship, were out in their numbers on the streets:
.@MINUSTAH backup are also out on the streets to help @pnh_officiel with today's #Haiti protest. pic.twitter.com/BCvFMiiaqp
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) November 20, 2015
.@MINUSTAH police also out in the streets of Port-Au-Prince where thousands of protesters demonstrating. #Haiti pic.twitter.com/6ycPo6ImPE
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) November 20, 2015
Most Haitians want MINUSTAH troops off the island. Members have stood accused in the past of violence, sexual assault and being the source of the cholera outbreak that plagued Haiti just months after the country was sent reeling from the effects of the earthquake.
It is clear that Haitians are hoping that their voice in these elections will help to steer the country towards greater autonomy in their own affairs. The blog HaitiRozo shared its perspective on the electoral developments:
On Oct. 25, Haitian people went to the polls to elect a president, members for both chambers of the legislative branch and local officials. From Haiti to the last corner of the world, national and international officials praised Haitian voters for their patient, their motivation and their enthusiasm to use their votes to give their country a new leadership. There were also reports of fraud.
[…]
From the very beginning, it was clear we will have a second round to elect President Michel Joseph Martelly’s successor. I think now, we should let the candidates discuss those results before a special court. The way things happened in 2010 must not occur the same way in 2015 for the sake of a better Haiti. The international community should stay away from the discussions. Let Haitian people handle their business. Thank you.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Molenbeek, the Complex Reality of a Community Vilified by the Media · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

Poster distributed at the “Molenbeek Shines a Light” demonstration, a tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks, held on November 18th in Molenbeek’s main square. Photo by the author.
Alors face à toutes les extrême droites, contre toutes les divisions et contre toutes les guerres, pour toutes les victimes de toutes les bombes partout dans le monde, de Paris à Alep en passant par Beyrouth et Ankara, nous, habitant.e.s de molenbeek et de toutes les communes de Bruxelles, nous lançons un appel à refuser la peur et la division, à célébrer l'unité et la solidarité pour un monde de justice et d'égalité.
Against all far-right extremists, against all divisions and against all wars, for all the victims of all bombs anywhere in the world, from Paris to Aleppo and Beirut to Ankara, the residents of Molenbeek and all the districts of Brussels are launching a call to reject fear and division, and to instead celebrate unity and solidarity on behalf of a more just and equal world.
This is the message that will be invoked by the “Rally for all victims, against all wars, for solidarity and against disunity“, set to take place on November 25 in Molenbeek. The Belgian district has appeared repeatedly in media around the world since the November 13 attacks on Paris, and it's not the first time the name Molenbeek has surfaced in connection with various attacks perpetrated by militant jihadists around Europe.
The media has perpetuated an unsettling image of the district, one that its residents have rejected. On 18 November, about 2,000 people gathered in Molenbeek’s central plaza to honor the victims of the attacks in Paris and to show a different side of the community than the one presented by the press.
Still, the reality of Molenbeek is extremely complex and cannot be expressed with simplistic descriptions and labels.
Molenbeek-Saint-Jean is one of 19 municipalities that make up the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium, which serves as the headquarters of the European Commission, the  Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, and NATO. Brussels is less than two hours from Paris by the high-speed Thalys train, as well as two hours from London via the Eurostar that runs through the Channel Tunnel.
Located on the west side of Brussels, Molenbeek is one of the most economically depressed areas in Belgium. It has around 95,000 inhabitants, but its population density is double the average of the capital. It also has an enormously high unemployment rate of 31%, a rate which exceeds 40% among young people. Around 25% of the community’s population are foreign-born, with more than 100 nationalities represented. The district’s Muslim population is estimated at 40%, the second largest in the Brussels region, and is served by 20 mosques as compared to the five churches that serve the Christian majority (figures from 2013).
Amid a population vexed by an uncertain future, some have placed their hopes in radical currents of Wahhabi Islam. Supposed friendly countries finance the construction of mosques and send religious leaders who preach the most severe interpretations of Sharia. In recent years, multiple militant jihadists have passed through the district, including those that took part in the bombings of Madrid in 2004, the shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014, the attack against the Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo in January of 2015, the Thalys train attack in August of 2015, and the most recent November attack on the French capital. It is estimated that more than 400 Belgians have joined Daesh, also known as ISIS.
Journalist Mario Moratalla of Spanish news organization VozPópuli opined that Molenbeek-Saint-Jean long ago became “a breeding ground of ethnic and cultural hatred disguised as class struggle”. Françoise Schepmans, the mayor of Molenbeek, further explained the problem of radicalization within the commune:
On a assisté au cours de ces dernières décennies à un repli identitaire, un repli religieux. Puis, avec les évènements internationaux, à un fondamentalisme qui s'est parfois transformé en radicalisme violent
Je pense que les autorités n'ont pas suffisamment pris la mesure de ce phénomène. Et le politique n'a pas assuré l'intégration et l'accueil des personnes d'origines étrangères. Certains sont restés en marge de la société
In recent decades, we have witnessed identity-based isolationism, religious-based isolationism. And then, with international events, a fundamentalism that has sometimes transformed into violent radicalism. I don’t think the authorities have sufficiently estimated the reach of this phenomenon. And politicians have not ensured the integration and care of people of foreign origin. Many remain on the margins of society.
Molenbeek, Brussels. Attendees of the Music Festival in June of 2008. Photo by Lieven Soete on Flickr, licenced CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Johan Leman, a Dominican priest, scholar of cultural anthropology and professor emeritus at the University of Leuven, has a profound understanding of the reality in Molenbeek. The organization that he chairs, Foyer, seeks to integrate minorities into the community. In an article published in the Guardian, Leman emphatically asserted that despite appearances, the area is not at all a center for Daesh sympathizers.
For the authorities there is a double lesson: invest in the future of the children (improving schooling), so that young adults see a future for their children (if not for themselves). Secondly: show respect for the inhabitants. Avoid facile slogans like “we will clean up”. Stop treating people as potential murderers, because they are not. You need them as a social cushion against jihadi-recruiters, drug dealers and hate preachers.
Leman is referring to statements made by Jean Jambon, the Belgian interior minister, who a few hours after the attacks in Paris expressed his determination to “clean up Molenbeek.” Jambon has also admitted to the failure of measures that had been introduced to combat radicalism following the dissolution of a jihadist cell in January. These measures included the employment of task forces to identify people who might turn to violence or travel to Syria.
Molenbeek. Photo by Antonio Ponte on Flickr, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Nevertheless, the media has largely neglected to address a problem that continues to afflict Belgium: how the complexity of Belgium’s political structure reduces the effectiveness of its security forces. The BBC took note of this, writing:
Una de las dificultades que enfrenta el gobierno en controlar el radicalismo yace en la limitada efectividad de sus servicios de seguridad y de policía.
Bélgica está compuesta de dos principales nacionalidades rivales: la valona, de habla francesa, y la flamenca, de habla holandesa.
Para aliviar la tensión entre las dos, se le ha dado más independencia a los gobiernos locales, lo que ha creado varios niveles de burocracia.
Es una estructura muy densa para que fluya eficientemente la información de las agencias de inteligencia y que puedan operar y obtener resultados positivos.
One of the difficulties faced by the government in controlling radicalism lies in the limited effectiveness of its police and security services. Belgium is composed of two main rival nationalities: the French-speaking Walloon and the Dutch-speaking Flemish. To ease the tension between the two, more independence has been given to local governments, which has created various levels of bureaucracy. It is a very dense structure that hinders the efficient flow of information between intelligence agencies and the ability to operate and obtain positive results.
In addition to this, the borders of continental Europe lack cohesive units that can effectively control crime on an international scale. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the French Center for Analysis of Terrorism:
(…) on est dans un phénomène qui concerne plusieurs pays européens et pas seulement les pays individuellement.
(…) y a des choses que la France et d’autres pays européens ont demandé à l’Union européenne de mettre en place depuis de nombreuses années pour accroître et systématiser un centre d’information, à travers Europol notamment, s’agissant des jihadistes.
L’Europe, malheureusement, dans le domaine de l’antiterrorisme, est une énorme force d’inertie jusqu’à ce jour.
[…] We are facing a phenomenon that affects several European countries, not just an individual country.
[…] For years, France and other European countries have asked the European Union to put certain measures into place to improve and systematize a center of information through Europol, since now we are dealing with jihadists. Unfortunately, when it comes to counterterrorism, Europe has so far been a largely inert force.

author: Lourdes Sada


text:
One Woman’s Poem for Syrian Refugees—Including Her Cousin, Who Died Crossing the Mediterranean · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

This article by Jared Goyette and Steven Davy for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on November 19, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Zena Agha is a 23-year-old student at Harvard University and spoken word poet who relates to the refugee crisis in a way most of her peers cannot.
Exactly a year ago to the day she recorded this video — on Nov. 16 — she found out her cousin Amjad, who lived in Damascus, died on a migrant ship that likely capsized on its way from Turkey to Greece.
Amjad was in her thoughts and she wrote this piece, “The Sea is Big” which she performed at PRI’s forum on refugee crisis at Harvard Kennedy school.
“I think it’s important to have this event and conversation now because it feels like the strings that are keeping us together are gradually getting frayed,” Agha says. “I anticipate dark times ahead, especially with Paris being linked to refugees, and the most vulnerable in society being blamed, inadvertently or otherwise for what’s being done, and they are voiceless in responding.”
She hopes the poem makes listeners think more deeply about the refugee crisis, how they relate to it, and perhaps stirs them to act.
“If I can provoke that in people, to make them think about the vulnerability [of the refugees], and actually help them take that step, that leap, into the unknown and away from everything that they know,” she says. “If I can create an empathetic bridge for them, through the poem, that that will create a really powerful success story.”
The father's side of her family is ethnically Palestinian and settled in Damascus after 1967. Her father left to teach in Algeria, and migrated to London in the 70s with 200 French francs in his pocket. “He went to start a shipping company that focused on sending goods to the Middle East. His siblings, two brothers and a sister, remained in Syria. It was during family visits that Agha, who grew up in London, got to know her cousin, Amjad.
Her father told her Amjad had tried to make the trip across the Mediterranean. She was devastated when she found out Amjad, like so many others, didn't make it.
“Last year, I cried in the shower for a long time. And this year I took a deep breath after doing the final take [of the poem], and I thought ‘This is me doing my part for him, and for everyone else, so in many ways it impacted me while writing it, it impacted me while performing it. It causes me a lot of grief if I think about it but also empowerment because without their struggle, I wouldn’t be who I am. And without his story, I wouldn’t have the ability to try and share it. And it’s a daily reminder that I have privilege and I must use that.”
‘He is one of many. He is not nameless and faceless, like other hundreds if not thousands are, but that doesn’t make it any better, so he’s in my thoughts, they are all in my thoughts, but also the thought that I could so easily be them. There is no different in blood nor genes between us and if I were to dwell on the injustice of that, it would drive me insane, so instead of that happening, I’m writing it down and performing it.”

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
Nord-Ost Siege Survivor Remembers Captivity After Paris Attacks · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Original photograph by Vladimir Varfolomeev. Nord Ost terrorism memorial. October 27, 2013. CC 2.0. Edited by Kevin Rothrock.
Not so long ago, an armed group of Islamist militants seized a theater in a major European city during an event with roughly a thousand people in attendance. After special forces finally raided the building and killed the hostage-takers, more than a hundred civilians lay dead. This was Moscow’s 2002 Nord-Ost siege, when at least 40 Chechen separatists took 850 people hostage at the Dubrovka Theater. The siege lasted four days and three nights, resulting in a controversial decision by Russia’s special forces to flood the theater with knockout gas, which accidentally killed 130 hostages.
With the tragic attacks in Paris earlier this month (particularly the massacre at the Bataclan Theater, which claimed 89 lives), many Russians are now remembering how bullets and bombs littered their own capital thirteen years ago.
On November 15, 2015, blogger Anastasia Nikolaeva published an interview with a man who says he was one of the hostages who survived the Nord-Ost siege. The man, another LiveJournal user who writes under the name Maksi2278 (and provided a scan of his hospital release papers from October 2002), described what it was like to be held captive for days, how he came to feel about the men and women who promised to murder him, and how the experience helped shape his support for Russia’s military intervention in the North Caucasus. Runet Echo presents Nikolaeva’s interview translated into English.
Maksi2278: Yes, I was there from the very beginning all the way up to when the theater was stormed.
I wasn’t there alone—I was with two female friends. One of them died. Her name was Masha Panova. You can Google it. My other friend survived, and she’s fine now.
Using the gas was the right call, I think. And I think our special forces handled themselves like true professionals. Admittedly, I didn’t see the assault itself. I passed out. The last thing I remember is how this smoke started pouring out from the orchestra pit, and Mr. Vasiliev ran over there with a fire extinguisher. Everyone thought there’d been a short circuit (there was a bathroom in the orchestra pit and things had gotten quite wet).
The next thing I remember is waking up in intensive care at Hospital Number 13. Clinically, I’d actually died, but they were able to revive me.
At the hospital, everyone who could—even some patients—were helping out. It was pretty close to the Dubrovka Theater—walking distance even—and it’s where they brought most of the hostages [after they were rescued]. My friend was brought to Sklifosovsky Hospital, which is much farther away.
So everyone was helping out. Like they were helping to carry people from place to place, and so on. When I woke up, all around me were several doctors, and I remember that I wanted a glass of water desperately and needed to use the bathroom. I couldn’t go in a bedpan, though, and I couldn’t make it to the toilet on my own. A couple of women doctors basically had to carry me over their shoulders to the bathroom. :)
After a few hours had passed, I started feeling almost normal again. They kept me there another couple of days, and then I was released. The hospital was cordoned off. There were even special forces guys with automatic weapons in the hallways.
Yes that’s true, but there were several dozen experienced fighters at Nord Ost, not four youngsters. The Nord Ost terrorists also mined the entire theater and controlled not just the main hall, but the whole building and even some of the street.
Could the authorities have saved all the gas victims? Who the hell knows. Here you’ve got to take into account the situation and the condition of the hostages. On the one hand, you need absolute secrecy, and for God’s sake you can’t let the journalists sniff out the preparation for the assault. On the other hand, the hostages had been in the building for a very long time, sitting in uncomfortable chairs in the same position, without food and without even enough water. For instance, I only got up and went to the bathroom twice during the whole thing. And the stress was absolutely monstrous, of course. In other words, everyone was extremely weakened. Could the authorities have taken all this into account? Could there have been more ambulances and first aid ready, with roadways to hospitals cleared, and enough doctors on staff? Sure, probably. And maybe not. In the end, they saved 90 percent of the hostages and that’s an enormous success. We were very lucky.
It wasn’t the people who organized our rescue or the “slow-moving” medics who killed the victims—it was the armed men and women who came to our peaceful city, to a theater, to kill civilians. Did you know that most of the people in the theater audience were women and children?
Of course, the situation [at the concert hall in Paris] is very different, but the fact is that three of the four terrorists blew themselves up, after they fired all their ammunition at the crowd and at police officers. In other words, the assault against these men failed. Of course, it’s impossible to blame [the police] for this—I think they did everything they could.
It just seems to me that, by the results alone, these two terrorist attacks are similar. Of course, the situations were different.
Screenshot from television footage of Nord-Ost Siege. Circulated anonymously online.
Yes, I most definitely saw some humanity. I was sitting in the fifteenth row on the ground level, and not far from me stood a young woman suicide bomber. I tried to talk to her, and a couple of times she even answered me, but the older ones noticed and said something to her, and she stopped responding to me.
I remember her eyes. Afterwards, I often dreamt of them.
I talked to her about letting the women and children go: “What did they ever do to you? If you’re burning so bad to fight, take it to our officials. They’re the ones who started the war.”
To this, she said, “Our families—everyone’s families—have died in the war that you started. They weren’t guilty of anything, either, and there were women and children among them, too.”
Then I said, “Well, let’s say you kill us all right now. Can you imagine what the Russian Army, in retaliation for our deaths, would do next?” And this suddenly had an effect on her. She was thinking about it, and then they shouted her out of it.
There was another terrorist there, Yasser, who walked around without a mask, and was sort of a “good cop,” as opposed to this complete thug they called “Abubakar.” Yasser talked to people like a normal human being, and he listened carefully to people who, for instance, were asking something on behalf of the sick. But if Abubakar said anything, it was just a bunch of threats: we’ll cut your heads off, you’re all gonna die, you swine, I hate you, and so on. And on the first night, he executed a young woman. They just stood her up in the exit way and he emptied his automatic weapon into her.
I also remember hearing a conversation between other hostages and a woman suicide bomber. She grabbed a mobile phone from one of the hostages and said, “Hmm, this thing is cool. How nice that you have such phones, and we don’t.” The thing is, she was genuinely impressed and honestly thought it was “cool.” This is back when mobile phones were still really basic.
And there was their commander, Movsar Barayev. Now, at the time, we were completely overwhelmed and we didn’t know it was Barayev. We just heard them call him “Movsar.” The name sounds strange to Russian ears, and I remember thinking it must have been his nickname—something like “Mozart.” :) Generally speaking, he was relatively calm—the way he behaved. He wasn’t especially rude, and he didn’t kill or beat anyone himself.
Maybe that’s how we saw that not all the terrorists were complete thugs, and “Stockholm Syndrome” set in, and people started believing that they could reach some deal with the terrorists and we could all survive, if right now we could send just one message or make just a single phone call.
I’ll tell you about another moment: after a failed assault on the theater (on the first morning, they sort of tried to storm the building), they blew up a wall somewhere and knocked out some windows, not in the main concert hall, but nextdoor. And there was a strong draft, and it was very cold. The hostages begged for clothes from the coat check. Eventually, [the terrorists] gave in, and a few guys brought the coats over, dropped them in a pile where we were sitting, and started handing them out. I saw my coat and I stood up, saying, “Please give me that one—it’s my coat.” Then one of the terrorists poked me with his automatic weapon and said (verbatim), “You’ll manage without it, buddy. Take a seat. You’re pretty enough already.” :) And I really was quite “dressed up.” I was in a good suit. :) I’m not sure what you make of it, but at the time we all thought this was pretty funny, and people all around had a good laugh.
And I can tell you about another time: there was a moment in the main concert hall, when suddenly in the radio room (the window above the auditorium, where the theater’s operator sits) the news broadcast stopped and a rather cheerful song by the band Scooter started playing. And people in the theater noticeably started to perk up—some of them were even singing along. But this didn’t last long, of course.
Well, we were there for a very long time. We didn’t sleep and we didn’t eat. We just sat there and waited. Mostly it was just numbness and panic attacks, when you lost feeling in your feet or you had a spark of hope that we’d be rescued, and you’d start twitching all over. You’d start talking quietly with someone next to you, but you’d put as much energy into speaking in a whisper as you’d normally use to scream. You’d think over all your options, choose every word carefully, listen insatiably to every word the terrorists uttered and every phrase that you could overhear on the news. Then the apathy would return, and there’d suddenly be more gunfire. For a moment, people would fall to the ground between the rows of seats, and Barayev would yell at us to stay standing, otherwise they’d execute anybody who ducked down. But everyone would still fall to the ground. It was like an instinct.
Screenshot from television footage of Nord-Ost Siege. Circulated anonymously online.
Her face was covered. Only her eyes were visible. They were hazel and very beautiful. She was clearly very young. But I didn’t feel any sympathy, except maybe toward Yasser. Thanks to him, we got bottles of water, for instance. I didn’t feel hatred, either. I experienced only two things: fear and the desire to survive. My brain was racing at a hundred miles a minute, searching for ways to live. And the absolutely strangest ideas came into my head: escape plans, plans to get the hostages together to attack the terrorists, or even a way to give the terrorists what they wanted, so they’d let us go.
Although, they took the men’s passports and looked at our military service records. If you were in the army reserve, it meant you’d be first in line to be shot. That’s what they said to us, so I didn’t have much hope of surviving.
Not only were there people without their passports, but there were people who hid them. Some men had military cards with them, not passports, and they either hid them or tossed them away. I myself saw a few military cards tossed into the orchestra stalls from the balcony. You see, the terrorists promised to execute or behead any soldiers or KGB agents on sight.
In practice, if someone was missing his passport, they’d just keep an eye on that person and promise to kill him later. But they never ended up doing this. There were no executions without clear reasons. They just never worked up to it, though they were finally ready to start executing hostages, just before the police raided the theater. If memory serves correctly, they wanted to shoot 10 people every hour. But they executed no one without a reason.
Well, if you ask me, there was a reason. As I found out later, this girl had come to the theater after she learned about the hostage crisis. They caught her near the main doors and took her into the concert hall, where they brought her to Movsar Barayev, who started to interrogate her in front of everyone. The terrorists thought she was one of the FSB’s scouts. Later we learned that she was just someone who lived nearby—from basically the neighboring building. But none of this was clear then, and the terrorists didn’t believe a single word she said. At the same time, she made a show of defiance and bravery, acting like she was on the verge of hysteria.
The dialogue was something like this:
Movsar: Who are you and why did you come here?
Girl: And who are you and why did you come to my city?
Movsar (to the whole concert hall): Ah yes, she’s a KGB agent, come to scout out the situation!
Girl: Get out of my city and my country! I don’t give a damn about you, and you don’t scare me!
Movsar (to Abubakar): Shoot her.
Then Abubakar took her by the arm, put her at the theater’s exit way (imagine a theater’s standard arrangement, where, close to the stage and to the left of the orchestra, there’s an exit leading out to the street that opens when a show or movie is through), and that’s where she was told to stand. The doors were opened a bit and Abubakar shot her point-blank. The girl fell to the floor dead. This was the only execution the entire concert hall witnessed. When they killed other people, they took them into the lobby, upstairs.
By the way, later on, they made some people who needed to use the restroom go to the one near where her body was lying. But I didn’t go.
Screenshot from television footage of Nord-Ost Siege. Police remove gassed hostages. Circulated anonymously online.
My advice is to remain calm, don’t lose your head, don’t succumb to their taunting, and don’t draw any attention to yourself. Well, don’t do these things, as much as it’s possible not to. If you think gas might be used, get a piece of cloth ready and try to figure out how you could wet it, if you needed to. But the main thing is to keep your head and not go out of your mind.
In the theater, there was one man who truly lost his mind. He suddenly jumped up and ran along the backs of the chairs, throwing an empty bottle of Coke at one of the terrorists. They fired at him a few times, missing him but hitting some of the other hostages who were sitting quietly. They caught him, of course, dragged him out from the hall, and executed him. The whole time, he was absolutely silent and looking around crazily in every direction. The whole thing was so stupid and absurd.
I was fairly young back then—just a little over twenty. A month later, I was back at the Taganka Theater [in Moscow] with my family. I do remember being a bit off. My family, incidentally, didn’t understand how I was feeling, at all. They were just, like, “What’s going on?” And back then it wasn’t so much that I was scared, but that the confined space was weighing on me, and filled me with a sense of anxiety. Not to mention that the Taganka is a pretty drab theater, in terms of architecture. It was an interesting feeling to know that people just don’t understand how easily and tragically their entertainment can come to an end. And it’s all so easy—so many people relaxing in one place…
But if people really want to blow something up, they can blow up anything. I’m sure of this. And there’s nothing you can put at the entrances that will stop them. By the way, at the entrance of the Dubrovka theater on the night of the Nord Ost show, there were some very serious-looking guards. I remember them well. These days, I attend concerts and plays calmly enough, but I don’t go all that often.
There were psychologists while I was in the hospital. There was one woman who would talk to me, though I don’t know exactly who she was. She would just let me talk, and she’d listen. But I’ve already forgotten the details.
As best I can remember, my attitude about Chechnya before Nord Ost was the same as everyone’s: yes, we need to wipe out all the terrorists. During the siege, my attitude became something entirely different. I thought, “They say it’s pointless going in there. Let them withdraw the troops. Let the Chechens live on their own, and we’ll be on own our, and there will be peace throughout the world. After we were freed, not immediately but gradually, I came to realize that the good side in this conflict really is Russia. Back then, I read a lot about the issue, talked with people about it, and took a big interest in the subject.
Whatever one makes of the Chechen conflict, I came to another important realization after Nord Ost. It’s something most people, not having lived through such an experience, never guess: the reality is that, somewhere right now, there are people willing to kill or maim you. You’d never guess it, but they already seriously hate you, just because you’re not of their faith and nationality. Or maybe it’s not that they hate you, so much as they don’t think of you as a human being. And often people still talk about the war in the Caucasus like it is something far away—like it’s something that never affects them personally. In fact, it’s all at our doorstep.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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The Struggle of More Than One Thousand Cuban Immigrants Stranded in Central America · Global Voices
Mary Aviles

Image shared on social media of Cuban immigrants stranded on the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Almost 1,500 Cubans hoping to reach the United States find themselves in a limbo between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, after the latter country denied them entry, sparking a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis in Central America.
In 2014, a total of 20,384 Cubans reached or attempted to reach the United States. According to data collected by the daily newspaper The Miami Herald, 17,459 crossed over from the Mexican border, 814 landed ashore in Florida, and 2,111 were intercepted in the 150-kilometre strait that separates Cuba and the US.
In force since 1996, the Cuban Adjustment Act, also known as the “wet feet, dry feet” policy, allows Cubans who reach US soil to obtain work visas and various benefits: an “exceptional” agreement unavailable to immigrants from other nationalities.
The land-based route, which is also the most popular, covers almost 8,000 kilometres and looks like this:
La travesía de los cubanos #QuePasenLosCubanos pic.twitter.com/I49eFQ1vIi
— La Nita (@_EdnaML) November 16, 2015
The route Cuban people take. #QuePasenLosCubanos [Let the Cubans in]
This group flew into Ecuador, where they were not asked for entry visas, and proceeded to cross over to Colombia before setting off on the journey through Central America. The immigrants’ journey is far from a novelty in the region. However, the Nicaraguan government denied almost 1,800 Cubans entry last Sunday, 15 November, armed the border, and used violent methods such as tear gas and rubber bullets to drive them away.
The news channel CB24.tv posted video to Facebook shortly afterward of Cuban immigrants marching toward a line of police on the border with the following description:
1.100 cubanos se encuentran a la deriva en la frontera entre Costa Rica y Nicaragua. El Ejército nicaragüense informó que “no va a permitir el ingreso de personas ilegales al territorio nacional, para lo cual se ha reforzado la frontera sur con un Batallón de Infantería”.
¿Qué piensa usted que deberían hacer las autoridades de cada país?
1,100 Cubans find themselves adrift on Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan Army reported that “it will not allow undocumented people into the country and has therefore strengthened its southern border with an Infantry Battalion.”
What do you think each country's authorities should do?
Screenshot of video posted by CB24.tv on Facebook showing Cuban migrants marching toward the border. Click the image to watch the video on Facebook.
According to press reports, the group previously spent weeks stranded at Panama's border with Costa Rica until Costa Rica authorised the temporary entry after dismantling a ‘coyote’ or trafficking smuggler network. Nicaragua demands that Cubans have a visa to enter the country.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's leftist government alleges that Costa Rica has not formally expressed any interest in resolving the conflict, but quite the opposite, spurring it by issuing additional visas.
CubanetNoticias: Expulsión de cubanos fue un acto de “defensa”, afirma canciller de Nicaragua … pic.twitter.com/FeNTEzGqlS — Jorge E. Alvarez (@jealvarezb343) November 18, 2015
CubanetNoticias: Turning away Cuban immigrants was an act of “defense”, Nicaraguan Chancellor affirms …
The daily newspaper La Nación reports that Panama's Minister of Foreign Affairs Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado called upon neighbouring countries to “adopt a united stance” with Cuban migrants.
With the images of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees attempting to reach Europe fresh, people have expressed their displeasure with the Central American governments through the hashtag #QuePasenLosCubanos (Let the Cubans in).
#Ortega no es #Nicaragua. Los Nicaragüenses somos solidarios y queremos #QuePasenLosCubanos @ReporteNi https://t.co/awqnkrpyHs
— Suyen Barahona (@SuyenB1) November 18, 2015
#Ortega is not #Nicaragua. Nicaraguans are caring and we want them to let the Cubans in.
Enemigo de la prensa libre, expulsa a los emigrantes que llama “ilegales”…no, no es Donald Trump, es Daniel Ortega #Quepasenloscubanos — HMairenaZ (@HMAIRZE) November 16, 2015
Enemy of the free press, expels so called “undocumented” migrants…no, it's not Donald Trump, it's Daniel Ortega. Let the Cubans in.
¡Visa humanitaria para los cubanos! ¡Todos somos migrantes! #QuePasenLosCubanos
— Silvia Nadine (@SilviaNadine) November 15, 2015
Humanitarian visas for Cubans! We're all migrants! Let the Cubans in.
Meanwhile, the minister of foreign affairs of Cuba released the following statement:
Estas personas han salido de Cuba de manera legal hacia diferentes países de América Latina, cumpliendo todos los requisitos establecidos por las regulaciones migratorias cubanas. En el intento de llegar a territorio de los Estados Unidos se han convertido en víctimas de traficantes y de bandas delincuenciales, que de manera inescrupulosa lucran a partir del control del paso de estas personas por Sudamérica, Centroamérica y México.
Las autoridades cubanas se han mantenido en permanente contacto con los gobiernos de los países implicados, con el objetivo de encontrar una solución rápida y adecuada, que tome en consideración el bienestar de los ciudadanos cubanos…
… El Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores ratifica que los ciudadanos cubanos que hayan salido legalmente del país y cumplan con la legislación migratoria vigente tienen derecho a retornar a Cuba, sí así lo desean…
These people have legally left Cuba for other Latin American countries, complying with all of the requirements established by Cuban migration regulations. In the attempt to reach the United States, that have become victims of criminal organisations and traffickers, who immorally profit from controlling the passage of these people through South America, Central America and Mexico.
Cuban authorities have stayed in constant contact with the governments of the countries involved, with the aim of finding a quick and appropriate solution that takes the wellbeing of Cuban citizens into account…
…The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms that Cuban citizens who have legally left the country and comply with current migration regulations have the right to return to Cuba if they wish to do so…
The Cuban government added that the immigrants “are victims of the politicization of the migration issue by the United States government, by the Cuban Adjustment Act and, particularly, by the implementation of the so called ‘wet feet-dry feet’ policy.” Rumours about the end of the migration agreement following the rapprochement between Washington and Havana could account for the high number of immigrants.
While many seek out ‘coyotes’ to fulfil this journey, the majority of Central American governments prefer to look the other way, with border officials accepting bribes, providing letters of safe passage or, in the worst case scenario, detaining them for a few days without being extradited.

author: Mary Aviles


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Zambian Journalist and Global Voices Contributor Gershom Ndhlovu Dies · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Gershom Ndhlovu speaking at Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2015 in Cebu, Philippines. Photo by Jeremy Clarke. Used under a Creative Commons License
It is with great sadness and pain that we announce the death of one of our active members, Gershom Ndhlovu, who passed away in Basingtoke in the United Kingdom on Sunday, November 22, 2015. He was 51.
Ndhlovu joined Global Voices on July 9, 2010. In his more than five years in the GV community, he contributed tirelessly, even when he was not in the best of health, with posts covering economic and socio-political events happening in his home country of Zambia. He wrote a total of 136 posts.
His first post, Zambia: Meet Zambian Citizen Broadcasters, was published on July 20, 2010. His last post, Zambia’s Master Class in Mishandling ICT Exams, was published on November 7, 2015.
This is how he described himself on his profile on Global Voices:
I am a Zambian journalist and blogger with a passion for all things Zambian. In the process of commenting on the political, social and economic issues of my country of birth, some people obviously get hurt which is not my intention. My mission is to present facts as they are. Whatever the case, the idea is to leave a better Zambia for our children and their children.
Gershom worked at the government's Zambia Daily Mail in Zambia for 12 years as the deputy news editor and later as deputy Sunday Mail editor. He studied for a bachelor's of mass communication from the University of Zambia and later obtained a master's degree in 2008 from University of Winchester in the United Kingdom where he relocated for political reasons. He was pursuing a postgraduate degree at the same university.
Gershom is the founder of news website Zambia News Features and co-host on popular Zambian podcast Political Crossfire on CrossFire Blogtalk Radio. He also used to blog at Issues Over Matters.
In 2013, he published a book titled “The Declaration of Zambia as a Christian Nation: Blessing or Curse“.
Gershom Ndhlovu in Cebu, Philippines, during Global Voices Citizen Media Summit. Photo from Facebook
A former workmate wrote:
Uncle Gershom Ndhlovu a colleague, former workmate and friend. i cant believe you are gone. i remember last year July 17th, you left your busy schedule in Basingstoke suspended all your programs and travelled to London to come and see me, accompanied me to my Graduation Ceremony at the University of Greenwich. you took me for Lunch in the company of my mum Maria Kapambwe Kasolo and my friends, you spoiled me Uncle Gersh with all i needed that special day. As if it was not enough, you took me out for a post celebration at the O2 with my friends Mutulu Shalyako Chilenga. you really coloured my day, made me feel special and loved. you treated me like a Son/brother together with my man Champo Nkonjela. Uncle Gersh, as long as that day will remain memorable to me i shall always live to remember you. you left me with a selfie as you use to love selfies. your also promised to come a do a project in Zambia with me, why do you have to go….!. May your Soul Rest in eternal Peace. you will be greatly Missed.
His friend, Benjamin Esau-Mkono remembers the first time he met Gershom after being friends on Facebook:
In November 2010, one Facebook friend, Gershom Ndhlovu, came to life. When I informed him I was in the Queen's land; he insisted we must meet. He invited me to his Basingstoke base. I had planned for a day's visit but he insisted, I spend a night there, in his house; he arranged everything.
After a few drinks, nshima and all, our discussions moved to the nearby Lloyd's Pub. The stories were endless, from how he got into the politicians’ hot soup in Zambia, how he ended up in the UK to the way social media is shaping up governance (access to information) in Africa and beyond […]
Fast forward to November 22, 2015; this blogger, journalist, father, uncle is no more. Life is but a candle in the wind! Shush!
Hamba Kahle! Rest well, ba Gersh!
Gershom Ndhlovu will be deeply missed by the Global Voices community. Our heartfelt condolences go to his family, friends, and Zambia's media fraternity. May his soul rest in peace.


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As Toxic Mud Ravages Brazil’s ‘Sweet River’, People’s Trust in Government Sours · Global Voices
Elizabeth

The mud that came from the Samarco dams with mining waste reached the mouth of the Rio Doce (Sweet River), located in in the state of Espírito Santo. Foto: Fred Loureiro/Secom, use permitted
When the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade wrote “Lira Itabirana” in 1984, he certainly didn't think of it as a prophecy. “The river? It's sweet. Vale? Bitter”, the poem goes.
On 5 November, the collapse of a dam belonging to mining company Samarco, a joint venture between Vale (Brazil) and BHP Billinton (Australia), poured an avalanche of 62 billion liters of mining waste into the Rio Doce (the “sweet river”) watershed in the southeastern region of Brazil. “If only the load was lighter,” Drummond de Andrade wrote 30 years ago.
After flowing more than 600 kilometers down the Sweet River, bringing despair to several cities bathed by it, the mud started to empty into the Atlantic Ocean in the week of 23 of November.
And if the impact of the toxic waste on the riverbed was extremely worrying, experts warn that the damage to the marine ecosystem could be even bigger, since it is more vulnerable than its terrestrial counterpart. Biologist André Ruschi, director of the school Biologic Station Augusto Ruschi in the state of Espírito Santo, says that the damage could be equivalent of “decimating the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland area.
The mouth of the Sweet River is close to a nesting ground for the leatherback sea turtle, the biggest turtle species to inhabit the Brazilian coast. The timing couldn't be worst: November is mating season for those turtles. The Tamar Project has taken the initiative to move the nests away from the beach, but no one is sure of what the longer-term effects will be, since turtles always come back to the same place to lay their eggs year after year.
Dead fish on the banks of the river after the passage of the mud. Photo: Apurina Krenak/Facebook
The collapsed dam, called “Fundão”, is located on the eastern part of Minas Gerais state near the city of Mariana. Around Mariana lies Bento Rodrigues, a village home to 600 people that was completely engulfed by the toxic avalanche and risks disappearing off the map. Seven people have died and 12 are still missing, nine of whom are Samarco employees.
The mud merciless swam down the Rio Doce, hitting other towns and reaching the state of Espírito Santo. In total, about 800,000 people were affected by water supply interruptions in those places.
Samarco and Vale managed to deliver 250,000 liters of water in tank trucks to the population of Governador Valadares, home to 240,000 people (the largest population center in eastern Minas Gerais), but the water was soon discovered to contain large amounts of kerosene, making it unsuitable for drinking.
This was not the only clumsy attempt by Samarco to mitigate the impact since November 5. In the week after the dam collapsed, the company gave a press conference asserting that the mud wasn't toxic, but two lab analyses conducted by the towns of Governador Valadares and Baixo Guandu detected high levels of iron and other metals such as mercury in it.
Experts explained that even if the composition of the waste isn't toxic in itself, the mud acts as a “sponge”, attracting other pollutants to the river.
Citizen of Barra Longa, one of the towns hit by the mud. Photo: Antonio Cruz/Agência Brasil CC 3.0
The state governor of Minas Gerais, Fernando Pimentel, of the ruling Workers’ Party, gave a press conference in the headquarters of Samarco itself, defending the company and asking for “caution” before pointing fingers. The governor's attitude attracted criticism from citizens. Fabrício Costa, who is from Minas Gerais, commented on his Facebook page:
Alguém imagina, após o desastre em Fukushima, o Primeiro-Ministro japonês, Shinzo Abe, indo até a sede da empresa que administra a usina nuclear, e de lá conceder uma entrevista dizendo que a empresa tem feito a sua parte para amenizar os danos às vítimas e ao meio-ambiente? […]
Da mesma maneira, como postou Maurício Caleiro, “imaginem o Obama na sede da Exxon, assegurando que a empresa está tomando todas as atitudes?” […]
Pois foi isso que aconteceu no meu estado. O Governador Fernando Pimentel, fazendo as vezes de relações públicas da empresa, vai até a Samarco e de lá dá uma entrevista coletiva dizendo que a mesma empresa que causou esse ecocídio está fazendo de tudo para amenizar os danos e que “não podemos apontar culpados, sem uma perícia técnica mais apurada.
Can anyone imagine after the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe going to the headquarters of the company that manages the nuclear power plant and from there giving a press conference saying that the company has been doing its part to mitigate the damage to the victims and the environment? […]
Similarly, like Maurício Caleiro said, “Imagine Obama at the headquarters of Exxon, assuring that the company is taking all the necessary measures”. […]
That's exactly what happened in my state. Governor Fernando Pimentel, doing some public relations for the company, walks down to Samarco and from there gives a press conference saying that the same company that caused this ecocide is doing everything it can and that “we can't point fingers before a technical investigation is conducted”.
The Brazilian press has had restricted access to affected sites, controlled by Samarco. The citizens of the villages hit by the mud have been removed to hotels, which also makes press access difficult since visiting hours are controlled. All the clean-up work is being conducted by Samarco/Vale, who, until now, still hasn't explained the causes of the accident.
The federal government has established a fine for Samarco of R$250 million (US$70 million). In 2014, the company had revenues of about R$7.6 billion (US$2 billion).
The Mariana disaster is already being nicknamed the “Brazilian Fukushima”. The shocking images of the devastation, the lack of answers about the causes of the accident and the passive attitude of the federal and state governments have scandalized and angered the public.
The little village of Bento Rodrigues, unknown to many Brazilians, became the center of a national debate on Brazil's apparent failed environmental policies. An old video showing life in Bento Rodrigues before the tragedy has made the rounds on Facebook throughout the past week:
About the video, columnist for O Globo newspaper Cora Ronai wrote on her Facebook page:
Penso nas vidas que já não existem, nas vidas delas e nas vidas de tantas outras pessoas afetadas por esta tragédia. Penso nos vilarejos pequenos de que nem estamos ouvindo falar, nos bichos, nas modas de viola, nas tardes desaparecidas, no sossego que nunca mais, e sinto uma tristeza enorme, uma raiva profunda e uma vergonha indescritível por viver num país tão negligente e irresponsável.
I think about the lives that don't exist anymore, about their lives and the lives of so many other people affected by this tragedy. I think about the little villages that we're not even hearing about, about the animals, about the countryside songs, the vanished afternoons, the ease that will never be again, and I feel an enormous sadness, a profound anger and unspeakable shame to live in a such negligent and irresponsible country.
The toxic mud contaminated land and water, killing a large part of the fauna and flora in its path. Biologists and ecologists fear that it might alter the course of the river and its fauna forever, since the mud will likely settle on its riverbed, altering the morphology of the water. Worries that endemic species from the region might go extinct are also circulating.
Luiz Carlos Azenha uploaded a video to Vimeo of dead fish in the river:
Biologist Maurício Ehrlich told newspaper Folha de São Paulo that the mud might transform the river banks into “deserts of mud” and that the reconstitution of the soil might take hundreds of years (the geological timeframe for a new soil to form).
But if Brazilian authorities are accused of a lack of leadership to mitigate the impacts of the disaster, ordinary citizens promptly took the matter into their own hands. Residents, fishermen, scouts and biologists set up operations nicknamed “Noah's Arc”, salvaging different species from the river before the mud arrived. Neighboring cities also quickly donated water to the towns hit by the waste.
“Noah's Arc” operation: Volunteers retrieving species from Rio Doce before toxic rejects arrive. #PrayForMarianapic.twitter.com/7LQS0VIgDh
— Etiene Dalcol (@etiene_d) November 15, 2015
The Independent Group for Analysis of Environmental Impact (GIAIA) created a Facebook group to mobilize a task force of citizen scientists, guiding those interested on the basic protocols for collecting water samples from the river, so that they could independently analyse its quality later on.
GIAIA also launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of an independent study of the environmental impacts caused by the mud. In a few days, the groups raised more than R$70,000 (US$18,000), almost 50% above its original target.
Citizen efforts aside, many are pointing out that it's crucial to punish those responsible for the tragedy: online petitions have been circulating demanding from the company and the government justice for victims, and the hashtag #NotAnAccident (#NãoFoiAcidente) has been appearing on social media in the past weeks.
Minas Gerais literally translates to “general mines”. The name is no accident: since colonial times, mining activity has been crucial to the public revenue of this state, which prompted a cosy relationship between government and extractive industries.
This relationship is even more evident in the cities closer to the mines themselves. About 80% of the public revenue of the city of Mariana, for example, comes from the Germano mine, owned by Samarco. However, in the whole of Minas Gerais state there are only four public inspectors to supervise more than 700 waste dams. According to one member of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), Minas Gerais has at least 50 dams under alert for risk of collapse.
On 18 November, the company acknowledged that two other dams in the region, Santarém and Germano, risk collapsing as well. The Germano dam, the largest of them, is the one in the most critical state.
Bento Rodrigues village, in Mariana (MG), destroyed after being hit by an avalanche of mud. Photo: Antonio Cruz/Agência Brasil CC 3.0
The newspaper of the Institute of Arts and Social Communication of Fluminense Federal University highlighted a technical report from 2013, requested by the state prosecutor's office of Minas Gerais, that warned of the risks of collapse among Samarco dams.
They also pointed out that Australian BHP Billinton was involved in a similar disaster in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s, where billions of liters of mining waste were poured into the river Ok Tedi, affecting the lives of about 50,000 people.
Vale, the other company behind Samarco, also isn't just some small enterprise. It's the third biggest mining company in the world by some measures, with operations on five continents. Originally a state company, it was privatized in 1997 in a process allegedly clouded by irregularities that were never investigated.
Though both companies, in theory, have know-how when it comes to disaster management, they have been accused of using Samarco as a shield to distance themselves from the media after the tragedy.
Accident or not, the pain of the people is clear. In the minidocumentary “Doce Rio” uploaded a week ago, Governador Valadares native Caíque Castro assures that “with all we're going through, faith must not falter”.

author: Elizabeth


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‘Charlie Hebdo’ Tweets Are Now Banned Throughout Russia · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Charlie Hebdo on trial. Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
A municipal court in Chechnya has banned the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's Twitter account. The court's ruling is dated November 23, 2015. In accordance with Russian federal law, the ban is effective nationwide.
In an appeal to the court, Chechen Attorney General Sharpuddi Abdul-Kadyrov explained that police discovered offensive materials on Charlie Hebdo's Twitter account on November 11, 2015. The content satirized the October 31 crash of a Russian passenger flight in Egypt that killed all 224 people on board. (The tragedy is now believed to be the result of a bombing.) Abdul-Kadyrov says the magazine's caricatures on this subject are an incitement to religious and ethnic hatred, which is banned as illegal speech in Russia.
The federal government's media watchdog agency, Roskomnadzor, is now charged with adding Charlie Hebdo's Twitter account to the state's Internet blacklist, which Internet service providers are required to download twice a day, if Twitter refuses to block the account in Russia.
It remains unclear what Twitter account Russian officials have actually banned. Charlie Hebdo's official Twitter account has not published anything since January 7, 2015, meaning that it couldn't be the account Chechen police banned for posting caricatures about the plane crash in Egypt, which occurred almost 11 months later. So far this week, Roskomnadzor has yet to add any Twitter accounts to its RuNet blacklist, nor has it reported any takedown orders sent to Twitter.