For background on Xinjiang, see Mick Hartley’s post from last month, linked to earlier in my roundup below.
Monday, 6 July 2009
A familiar script
According to BBC News, “China's response to Sunday's violence has been to accuse foreign forces of fomenting the unrest.”
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Not Iran
It’s hard to keep your eyes pointing in all directions at once . . .
Iraq, and Thoughts on Intervention, by Roland Dodds. Added: Ibn Muqawama on Joe Biden, Iraq envoy.
Sietske in Beirut writes on conversations she has. Not many dead, according to the papers.
Via Mick Hartley, Riots in China. Mick has also paid particular attention to the Uighurs being released from Guantanamo, fleshing out their tale with information on ongoing repression of Uighurs by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. Since his last round up on the story, The New York Times has published a report on the Uighurs settled in Bermuda.
Georgia’s Hard Slog to Democracy by Michael Cecire, at Michael Totten’s blog. Related at the NY times, Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying.
Also from Michael Totten, A Conversation with Robert D Kaplan. This does include discussion of Iran, along with China’s involvement in Sri Lanka, Russia and its neighbours, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However I’d like to highlight an exchange at the end regarding Israel’s failure in counterinsurgency, material relevant to the essay topic set in an earlier post here.
Kaplan: You know what’s interesting? The Israelis. They’ve been great at defeating structured Arab armies, but they haven’t figured out how to deal with a few thousand insurgents in South Lebanon or in Gaza. What did their wars in 2006 and 2009 in Lebanon and Gaza get them?
MJT: It got them fewer rockets for a while, but it’s temporary.
Kaplan: Yeah.
MJT: I don’t know what they should do. They can’t put a David Petraeus in Gaza or Lebanon. It won’t work.
Kaplan: No.
MJT: And they can’t fight a counterinsurgency from the air because that’s just absurd.
Kaplan: Yeah. They haven’t been able to solve this problem at all.
MJT: I’m glad it isn’t up to me what Israel should do. There aren’t any good options. Maybe they should hold Syria accountable. Syria is at least a state with a return address and national interests. I don’t think the Syrian government is particularly ideological. It isn’t like the Iranian government. Syria isn’t an ideology, it’s a state.
Kaplan: It wants to survive.
MJT: Maybe the Israelis should lean on Assad. They can’t lean on Hamas or Hezbollah. They can’t lean on Beirut because Beirut is too weak to do much.
Kaplan: Yeah. I mean, the idea of bombing highway overpasses near Beirut to punish Lebanon for Hezbollah is ridiculous.
Kaplan and Totten point to Israel’s failure to develop of a true counterinsurgency campaign, but positive suggestions are still lacking. Tackling the Syrian regime may be relevant, but does not address the absence of a population-centric strategy. Any takers?
Update: Vigilant as I try to be, one direction I didn’t think to look was down.
Gumby crosses the Delaware
Read you loud and clear, come in Pokey, over.
I can’t seem to make this pony understand that I need food badly -
- not only for me but for my buddies at Valley Forge.
This fellow is no beatnik, he’s one of General George Washington’s soldiers!
Yes, to understand what really happened at Trenton, you have to see Gumby crosses the Delaware by Art Clokey. It can be found on Gumby Essentials Vol 1.
Gosh, General sir, if I hadn’t read my American history, I’d be afraid to cross the Delaware River with you tonight!
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Beetles and Gershwin
Above: the perfect art of Harrison Cady, at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.
For more six-legged larks may I recommend a visit to The Insect Circus.
Moving away from the insect theme, here is more musical theatre, this time from choreographer Pina Bausch who died on tuesday.
(Thanks S.)
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Western anti-imperialists go home!
Above: animation by Noureddin Zarrinkelk for UNICEF. Here’s an earlier film by him. And a short item on his recent visit to Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.
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On Iran and the Kitsch Left, this is my favourite of the posts I’ve read recently: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Dave Osler.
More on that theme by Bob From Brockley: Iran and the left, continued, and Iran, drawing clear lines. See also Norman Geras, Peter Ryley, Terry Glavin and Francis Sedgemore.
In contrast, UCU does something right, from Martin, and a declaration of support for the protesters signed by Noam Chomsky even, along with very many others. (Via Bob.)
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Another recent item that stood out was by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, on the prescience of protest. (Via Norm.) An excerpt:
People in free societies watching massive military parades or vociferous displays of love for the leaders of totalitarian regimes often conclude, "Well, that's their mentality; there's nothing we can do about it." Thus they and their leaders miss what is readily grasped by local dissidents attuned to what is happening on the ground: the spectacle of a nation of double-thinkers slowly or rapidly approaching a condition of open dissent.
To see the telltale signs, sometimes it helps to have experienced totalitarianism firsthand. More than once in recent years, former Soviet citizens returning from a visit to Iran have told me how much Iranian society reminded them of the final stages of Soviet communism. Their testimony was what persuaded me to write almost five years ago that Iran was extraordinary for the speed with which, in the span of a single generation, a citizenry had made the transition from true belief in the revolutionary promise into disaffection and double-thinking. Could dissent be far behind?
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A lot has been written on the leading role of women in the protests, see for example links provided by Norm and Martin. See also Roger Cohen in The New York Times: Iran’s second sex. The closing paragraph:
I asked one woman about her fears. She said sometimes she imagines an earthquake in Tehran. She dashes out but forgets her hijab. She stands in the ruins, hair loose and paralyzed, awaiting her punishment. And she looked at me wide-eyed as if to say: do you understand, does the world understand our desperation?
And here’s Roger Cohen answering questions on his reporting from Iran, including criticism of his writings prior to the stealing of the election. For myself I find that criticism overdone.
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Background: from The New Yorker, February 2nd 2009, The Rationalist by Laura Secor, on a dissident economist’s attempts to reform the Iranian revolution.
See also her most recent New Yorker news blog contribution, Burning silence in Iran, on how events are being driven not by the splits at the top, but by momentum from below.
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Stone City
I recently produced a bit of Flash animation and other art for the website of Stone City Films. The redesign was timed to coincide with the broadcast of their latest production, Casualty 1909. (The first episode aired on BBC 1 on the 14th, but distracted as I’ve been, this post comes a couple of weeks late.) The series is set in the Royal London Hospital, sketched here.
This was my first attempt at Flash. I don’t even have an up to date version of the program, so the animation was created in Illustrator instead.
Related posts here.
Friday, 26 June 2009
In fear of the people - 13
More on the aftermath of Iran’s stolen election.
Today there is a protest at the Iranian Embassy in London organised by the Trades Uunion Congress and Amnesty International, as part of an international day of action in solidarity with the people of Iran.
Friday 26 June, 12.30 -1.30pm, Iranian embassy, 16 Prince’s Gate, London SW7 1PT.
Some of the other events around the world are listed by the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
The above illustration is by Brian Stauffer, created for the NYT Week in Review. You can read more on how it came about at his Drawger blog.
Image copyright © Brian Stauffer.
The Guardian News Blog has not posted on Iran today. The New York Times blog has updates, but much less than previous days. On BBC News, Jeremy Bowen reports on the eerie calm in Tehran. His closing paragraph:
When you ask Iranians about the way this might go, a phrase keeps cropping up. They say it might seem quiet to an outsider, but there is fire below the ashes.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
In fear of the people - 12
Also from that corner, Shuggy writes on Iran and the power of democracy. He has two reasons for believing that “the turmoil in Iran demonstrates the power of democracy.” The first is that he thinks “all the talk of 'sham-elections' that provide a facade for dictatorship omits an important question: why do dictatorships feel the need to provide such a cloak of legitimacy to their rule in the first place?” The second is that “sham elections and emasculated parliaments have a habit of gaining a life and assuming a role that exceeds the intention of their creators. Consider the Duma, created as a fig-leaf for Romanov imperial power but which outlived not only them but the USSR itself.”
Read the whole argument. As mentioned earlier, others have had similar thoughts.
Moving on from the Soaks, Flesh is Grass: Ich bin ein Iranian.
Global Dashboard reads GQ on Tehran’s party scene.
Liars
These are from a set of faux tarot cards created in 2000 for a documentary The Science of Lying, directed by Ian Barnes.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
In fear of the people - 11
Normblog: Iran x 9.
Roland Dodds: McCain is wrong about the Iranian upheaval.
From last week, Stephen Kinzer on Muhammad Mossadeq.
On that last one, I have no idea if the use of Mossadeq’s image by protesters that he describes is widespread, and while his reading of its meaning is probably correct as far as it goes, it also seems rather narrow. The invocation of Mossadeq seems more likely a signal directed internally rather than externally, as a claiming of national history by the protesters rather than a message to Obama on intervention.
Other signals clearly are directed externally, namely the flood of english language messages, via the net, and displayed by marching protesters. These people obviously do want engagement, though as the population in Iran are showing themselves to be the centre of ultimate power, so the greatest power for supporting their fight internationally is probably not in the hands of international political leaders, but in the hands of the people at large. Still, leaders do have a role to play, in not recognising the election, and in the clear declaration of principles that go beyond partisanship.
Today’s updates at The Guardian and The New York Times.
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