Archive for
May 19th, 2007
Stories
Russia: Dissenters' March in Samara
On Friday, police at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport prevented Russian opposition leaders Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov from boarding a flight to Samara, where they planned to take part in the Dissenters' March, scheduled to coincide with the Russia-EU Summit. A number of other opposition activists and journalists didn't make it to Samara as well that day, and Kasparov's aide Marina Litvinovich (LJ user abstract2001) was one them. Here's what she wrote (RUS):
[…] I've just returned from Sheremetyevo-1, where they didn't allow us to take our 9 AM flight. We were released around 1:45 PM, only after the 1:30 PM flight to Samara had departed (we, of course, didn't have tickets for it, and we couldn't buy them without our passports [that were taken away by the police], and moreover, they were not letting us out of the waiting lounge). […]
Despite the absense of Kasparov and Limonov, the opposition rally did take place.
LJ user insie (Stanislav Sazhin) attended and posted his photos here and a 27MB video - here (WARNING: both links are bandwidth intensive). Below are excerpts from two of insie's May 18 posts (RUS):
The situation around the Russia-EU Summit is incredibly banal. “Potemkin Villages” is what it's called. Mr. Putin thinks that Merkel and company are a bunch of idiots if he hopes that by showing Russia's presentable side he'll manage to deceive the European leaders. And this exactly is the goal of all the latest actions, which are more like state terrorism.
First of all, all who in some way had been revealed to have something to do with the marches were hunted down in a rude and mean way on their way to Samara. And they aren't even looking for reasons to detain. They give no reasons. They just detain and that's it. […]
The second stage is no less intricate and smells even worse because of that. All the Summit's guests are transported from the airport to the site of the event … on helicopters! Yes, on helicopters, to keep them from seeing the Russian reality, so that they didn't notice the empty villages, broken down roads, rusty cars. And you know what - I've seen it all on the way from the airport to the city today. […]
What is the regime thinking of - does anyone really believe that the European leaders aren't aware of the way things really are in the country? Is Putin really sure that it's possible to [embellish the truth] of his crimes […] by ordering all villagers to stay away from their garden plots during these days (yes, so that they didn't spoil the view)? […]
This morning, I saw for myself how the arriving passangers stood in line at Samara international airport. But it wasn't an ordinary line, no. People were being searched. Their personal passport information was being read aloud and they were forced to wait. Those who complained were rudely admonished. […] Every last name was openly checked against some printed list. And they were openly saying this: “You aren't on the list of undesirable persons, you may go!” The very fact that citizens of the Russian Federation can be undesrable persons in the Russian Federation - this needs no further comment, I guess.
[…]
Streets leading up to the fountain on Osipenko blocked, empty asphalt, lots of water cannons and gloomy policemen on every crossing: each step I was making in this sleepy kingdom led me to think that soon I'd see Something. Something that all these special services are so afraid of.
But I failed to see it. Didn't see it! From afar, it seemed as if young people were getting drunk near the fountain. The only thing that seemed to ruin this idyllic Friday afternoon were the [Imperial flags] […].
[…] Near the fountain, there were about 200 people - merry, relaxed, happy young faces, enjoying the sun […]. These people waved flags, chatted, and the already familiar black banner of the Other Russia was in the vanguard. I thought - are civilized rallies possible in Russia, withough fights and hysteria? The police were barely visible. They encircled the square loosely and were also present all the way along the street up to the embankment.
But this was nothing compared to the April clashes in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This was victory. The first and last one this evening. The regime decided against using harsh measures […].
Journalists were slightly less numerous than the young people, mainly photographers - I've counted at least 150 people. Plus the usual old women, sympathetic city residents and the coalition's leaders (those who had not been caught) - all in all, 500 people or so.
[…]
And then the farce began. At the command of the cheerful guy Yura […] all these folks moved along the street. It bacame clear right away that the people had gotten too relaxed in the sun, as they kept refusing to march, and didn't chant anything, and felt more like taking a merry walk and chat on various topics.
Yura and his assistents were screaming menacingly at them, the column rearranged shoulder to shoulder again, but their slogans subsided after two or three times, and the straight rows were beginning to stray apart once the leaders looked the other way.
Special respect to journalists. There were so many of us! Photo and video cameras literally surrounded the marching protesters. […]
A crowd of onlookers as large walked along on the sidewalks and small paths - they didn't have it in them to join the march, but they didn't want to walk away either. What if the fighting starts - you gotta watch it from the first rows!
So this is how we walked cheerfully to the embankment […]. By then, some of the onlookers had decided to join the march. It all looked pretty funny - half-naked girls with guys or mamas, elderly women, men in suits. Democracy! […] All in all, I'd say there were about a thousand people.
Despite the quantity, the march still failed. The chants were kind of weak, and only the [National Bolsheviks] were yelling them, and the rest were silent. These phrases that we've already heard a million times are boring. “Russia Without Putin” - yes, I agree, but is there some other way to say it!?
[…]
For the next half an hour, there were boring speeches on the same subjects, and in the hellish heat, and without a microphone (the police did not allow to use amplifying equipment). The same slogans were being repeated over and over again. The boredom was diluted only by a woman from Belarus […]. She was harshly critical of Lukashenko, and it turned out that there were many of his supporters in the crowd. […]
The great finale of the evening were the handshakes between the rally's leadership and the leadership of the local police […] - all went great, not a single person has been detained. And really, no one wanted to fight in such heat.
And would they want to? The regime has achieved its goal - it eliminated the backbone before it reached Samara. And the rest turned out to be ineffectual, to tell the truth.
My verdict - a great walk, great company, great acquaintances and smiles, no march, no politics. Simply a great evening.
Bahrain: When Only Illegal Prawns Will Do
Freedom of speech is always a hot topic in Bahrain, and we start this week by looking at some of the apparent contradictions in official policy. Mohammed AlMaskati tells us:
The internet has always been the alternative “peoples media” when it came to news of the political standpoints of local issues. Blogs and Forums are very widely spread around the country; typically every small village has a forum of its own, usually used to announce news of public social events like marriages, deaths and such, others are very wide in content and extend over political and religious debate to offer semi-live coverage of protests, marches and clashes with the local police, shedding a light of truth on the local congested political scene that is typically either ignored or marginalized by the public press.
Mohammed has found more and more instances of violence being promoted on such forums, and he asks why opposition leaders who do not endorse such activities are threatened with legal action, yet:
Violence and sectarian divides are being provoked before our own eyes on the internet, what are they doing against it?
Mahmood Al Yousif also examines the ‘inciting hatred' charge that he claims is thrown at opposition leaders so quickly:
Okay, talk - against another old adage - is not cheap in Bahrain. It can cost you your freedom!
LuLu addresses what she says is Bahrain's ‘culture of impunity':
…our government, and pro-government parties, have been trying consciously to blur any memories of government oppression or conspiracy in fear of damaging the perfect picture of a unified, proud Bahrain, and their own image of benevolence. … All nations have moments in their history that make them feel especially proud. All of them have moments of shame as well. In order to foster healing and “real” unity, Bahrain cannot afford to continue on this path of “unaccountability” and denial.
Cradle of Humanity was shocked this week by an acquaintance buying a huge amount of prawns illegally caught out of season, ostensibly for religious reasons:
Why did he buy 70 kilograms of illegally fished prawns when he certainly did not have to? Not for business, I know that much for sure.
“But it is prawns reproduction season. You are practically not letting the prawns reproduce”. “We cook prawns Machboos every year on the commemoration of Imam Ali’s death. Whenever I have that quantity of prawns available I have to snatch it and stock it”.
Now his reasoning not only made me feel worse, but rather appalled. That occasion is supposed to be a spiritual one, a religious philosophy celebrating sacrifice, fighting for the cause and devotion. How that can mandate fishing prawns when it is endangering our ecological system is beyond me. Now I did not only feel bad for the poor prawns, but also for the poor occasion.
Could not your Machboos be lamb or chicken? Could you not wait at least, with the occasion being four months away (21st Ramadan)? How about dried prawns – popular for Machboos in Bahraini cuisine? … With such a mentality about marine life, are we really expecting the government to respect and preserve our environment, and not destroy our Fashts (coral reefs) or reclaim our sea?
Silly Bahraini Girl has left Bahrain after coming back for a holiday and family visit, and is back at home in Canada. She says:
Isn't it sad that I am happy to be back ‘home' - a home which is zillions of light years away from where my heart is?
I am back to the safety and comfort of my pad in Canada and I can say I am content and happy here. I strangely feel safe and secure. I am also more in touch with Bahrain virtually. … I also have all my sisters and friends online … and they are actually making the effort to chat to me. Even my nephews and nieces are talking to me and giving me undivided attention as they speak directly into the mic .. to tell me how my Arabic accent sucks.
My four-year-old niece had the nerve to tell me that although she fully understands my Ba7rani (Bahraini Shi'a) accent.. she will not speak it. She explained to me that I say: nadheef (clean) and not nedheef! That I say erjoool (leg) and not iryool! That I say wajed (a lot) and not wayed!! and the list goes on!
As a compromise, she said we better communicate in English from now onwards .. as that is a common language we both understand. … What a world we live in!
More from Bahrain – and Bahrainis around the world – next week!
Beheadings, Shoot-outs and Baby Dumping: Where is Japan heading?
News stories covered this week by the mainstream news media in Japan have shaken Japanese society, with many wondering where their country is heading and what has happened to the nation's youth. Most sensational among these stories is the shocking tale of a high-school boy who killed and beheaded his mother, then carried the head with him to an Internet cafe before turning himself over to the police. (It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that this type of crime has occurred in Japan.) Police reported that after admitting to the crime, the boy said: “I want terrorism and war to disappear from the world,” and explained that: “It doesn't matter who I choose to kill.”
Next up is the story of a 24-hour standoff involving a former yakuza gangster, who hid in his suburban home holding his former wife as hostage. The standoff finally ended, but not before the man killed one police officer, injured another, and also injured his own son and daughter.
Add to these two the story of the first Japanese “Akachan Post” (Baby Post, also referred to as a “Stork's Cradle”), a kind of “baby hatch” measuring 50 centimetres by 60 centimetres, opening onto a small heated compartment. Parents who, for whatever reason, cannot take care of their children can drop off their young babies in this hatch; hospital personnel are alerted when the door is opened, and immediately come to receive the baby.
The idea of introducing a “Baby Post” was sparked by the rise in cases of child abandonment in Japan. One such case, also in the spotlight this week, involved a couple whose baby died in the luggage compartment of their motorbike as they gambled their money away at a local pachinko parlour, the baby's body later found dumped in the gutter.
Although the Baby Post may help avoid horrific situations such as these, the system is not without its detractors. On its first day of operation, a man apparently misunderstood the intended age range of the “Stork's Cradle” and dropped off his 3-year-old son into the baby hatch, telling him that they were just playing hide-and-go-seek. The boy apparently could talk and was able to identify himself by name.
What do Japanese people think about all these stories? Many expressed great distress about what is happening to Japanese society. Blogger choumi summarizes the situation well in the first few lines of her entry on the topic:
母親を殺す息子に、
息子を捨てる父親。
嫌なニュースが立て続け。
to a father who abandoned his son.
The series of hideous news continues.
Another blogger dawnpurple writes:
親殺し、子殺し、育児放棄など昔からあったといいますが、明らかに性質が変わっているといわざるを得ません。
いつもこの結論でどうしようもないのですが、いったい日本人はどうなってしまったのでしょうか。いや、世界か？
As always, this leaves us with no answer, but where on Earth is Japan heading? Or is it this whole world?
In a post called “What is this we call life?“, blogger bar_moonCot writes:
何故、なんで命の奪い合いをしなければならないんだ？ あんた方にとって、命とは一体どういうものなのだ！？
人間、所詮は「人の形をした獣」だということか？ 否、俺はそうではないと信じたい。
Are human beings, after all, just “beasts in the shape of people”? No, I want to believe that I am not like that.
人の心の奥底には、忘れることのない道徳心、慈しみの心を備えているはずだと、信じていきたい。
悲しいニュースではありましたが、改めて「命」というものを自分の中で再確認する機会となったのでした。
This is all very sad news, but it is also an opportunity to reaffirm yet again for myself what the word “life” really means.
Others, such as Prefectural Assembly Member Kanda Masakuni, related the recent events to their own lives:
報道によれば母親殺害事件においては、被害者の母親は子供達に多くの愛情を注いでいたようであるし、赤ちゃんポストに預けられた3歳児は名前を名乗る事が出来るという。
ましてや赤ちゃんポストには、父親に連れられ預けられたという。
何という世の中かと思うと同時に、親の愛について考えさせられた。
In the case of Akachan Post, the father brought his child and dropped him off.
As I thought about what kind of world this is, I also had to ask myself questions about parental love.
１つに、親の愛がなぜ子供に伝わらないのか?
もう１つが、親の愛をなぜ放棄するのか?
Another question is: why was the parents' love cast aside?
私も現在、子育ての真っ最中。
3人の子供は難しい盛りにある。
日頃から思っている事だが、親の愛の表現も千差万別、受け取る子供の感受性も千差万別であり、これが愛情表現という正解は無く、よって親子間による手探りの繰り返しこそが、親子の愛の深まりにつながるのかなぁと思っている。
勿論これは私の考えであり、もっと素晴らしい形で親子間の愛を深めておられる方も多いと思う。
Having 3 children poses difficult challenges.
This is something that I think about every day, but there is a great variety in the way parents express their love, and there is also a great variety in the receptiveness of children who receive this love. There is no correct answer to the question of how to express one's feelings of love, but I feel that, perhaps, repeated trial and error on both sides of this relationship is connected to the deepening of love between parents and their children.
Of course these are just my thoughts, I'm sure that there are many other people with much better ways to deepen the love between parent and child.
There was another group of bloggers who took a different position, arguing that the mainstream media had sensationalized these stories at the expense of other issues, which received much less (or no) attention. Blogger mk-labo expresses this sentiment:
メディアは、こういった事例をセンセーショナルに取り上げて
「時代がおかしくなった」「若い世代はキレるから怖い」と
いたずらに不安を煽ろうとはしていないだろうか。
Other bloggers made this argument more explicitly. Blogger wayakucha argues that the sensational stories were used to cover up or ignore other more important issues, such as the passage of the new national referendum law and the protests at Henoko Bay:
他の方も指摘されていますが、ここに書かせてください。本日の夕刊で、国民投票法ごり押し、沖縄復帰35周年を大きく扱った全国紙、あるいは、在京キー局のニュースがありましたか？
ないですね？
There aren't, are there?
本日のトップは、高校生が母親殺害か、赤ちゃんポストに3歳児、ですね。
つまり、これらの事件は、国民投票法を隠すために使われていたのです。
実際、赤ちゃんポストは、10日に分かっていたのです。それが、なぜ本日、これだけ大きく報じられたのでしょうか？
In other words, these incidents were used to hide the story of the National Referendum Law.
Actually, the Akachan Post story was already known on the 10th. So then, why was only this story so extensively covered in Japan?
私は、高校生の母親殺害も、少し前の事件で、本日、国民投票法を隠すためにリークされたと思っています。日本の警察には、赤子の手をひねるようなものです。
[…]
さらに、沖縄で、辺野古の基地に反対する市民を弾圧するために、自衛隊が「派兵」されています。いつ、国民に、自衛隊が銃口を向けるか、わかりません。
明日の朝は、北朝鮮が核ミサイルを撃ったとか言うニュースが流れても、私は驚きません。
日本の言論統制は、ここまで進んでいる…のではなく、もともとそうなのです。
Even if, tomorrow morning, news comes out that North Korea has fired a nuclear missile, I would not be surprised.
Japan's suppression of speech has advanced this far… no, actually it's been like this from the beginning.
Finally, other bloggers were more introspective. Blogger kiryuyrik's post on the topic, simply titled “Saikin…” (Recently…), expresses dismay and great sadness:
なんとなく
泣きそう。。
そんな気分。。。
I feel like crying…
It's that kind of feeling…
特に意味はない。
でも涙が出そう。
切ないです。
But it feels like the tears will come.
It is so painful.
最近のニュースもそんなんばっかり。
エキスポランドの事故死
神戸の妊婦殺害
福島の母親殺害
赤ちゃんポストに３歳児
負の連鎖
が止まらない。
The accident in ExpoLand
The murder of the pregnant mother in Kobe
Matricide in Fukushima
The 3-year-old left in Akachan Post
This progression of negative stories
is not stopping.
誰か止めてくれ。
ニュースを見る度に鬱になる。
悲しい。。
When I watch the news, I become depressed.
It's so sad…
何かが蔓延している気がする
社会の流れとかじゃない。。
何かに侵されてる。
そんな気がする
It is not just a social trend.
Something else is plaguing us.
I have that kind of feeling.
暗いニュースばっかり。。
マスコミも無駄に食いつく。
無意味な報道合戦
The mass media is taking the bait, all for nothing.
A meaningless media circus
最近少し疲れました。。
Links for Sat, 2007-05
According to Inja va Aknoun[Fa],Babak Zamanian,a student activist from Amir Kabir University in Tehran,is in danger in prison. He was arrested about three weeks ago and he has heart problems.
Zeynabeh Peyambarzadeh,journalist and woman activist is out of jail. She is a member of the “One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding an End to Discriminatory Laws against Women.”
In Free Haleh blog we read that two days ago Nobel Laureate lawyer Shirin Ebadi had agreed to defend Haleh but the latest news is that Iranian authorities are denying Ebadi’s request to represent Haleh - and denying access to Haleh in prison.
Dr. Haleh Esfandiari is the Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Kamanagir has published several photos about daily “life” in Iran or recent events.You can see a Tehrani cab driver decorates his cab with a halter or you csn discover Iranian police is seriously pursuing an anti-gang program in Tehran. The program is followed by punishment in the streets, including marching the gang members with plastic swords. The red vase in the above picture is what Iranians use to wash themselves up in the restroom.
Petit has published several photos of grafittis in Tehran.The blogger says they look like New York ones!
Borin has some points on what is holding back e-commerce in Cambodia.
Registan.net discusses an Uzbek pop star's anger at the daughter of the country's president. The singer believes that her fame is being used by the president's daughter to build up a bid for the presidency later this year.
neweurasia reports on strategies for tackling Kyrgyzstan's regional divisions.
Bonnie Boyd writes about Tajikistan's alarmingly high poverty rates and why it looks like things are only going to get worse for many in the near future.
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