Monthly Archives: August 2022

Dear India,

We, members of the 191 Denotified Tribal communities, got independence only on August 31, 1952 five years after your Independence. From 1871, we had been categorised as being members of criminal tribes by the colonial government, stigmatised as being hereditary criminals. Though this was repealed 70 years ago, repressive customs die hard. We still have to give periodic hajiri (attendance) to the village landlord and local police station. On being found absent, we face punishment and exploitation.

Since Independence, many of us have been living in reformatory settlements created by the government. But we are nature lovers. Our occupations hunting and animal rearing are dependent on the forest but we were forced to settle in open prisons with many restrictions. Dear country, your policies are not made for our upliftment. They were made only for our oppression and pushed us into marginalisation.

Oh my dear India, over the decades, we craftsmen, pastoralists, snake-charmers, hunters, entertainers have been prohibited from practicing our traditional skills. We left our homes only to work as garbage collectors in your cities and labourers in your fields. But we have no use for your agricultural policies, for policies that allow our women to be sexually exploited by landlords and our men to be treated as petty wage labourers.

Oh my dear country, are your educational policies inclusive? We members of the Denotified Tribes have our own languages and cultures. Yet, 75 years after your independence, our linguistic and cultural values and resources are not included in school textbooks. We face exclusion when you enforce upper caste languages that you define as state languages.

Despite your strong affirmative action policies, still we face discrimination. Teachers do not allow us to sit on the front benches: you make arrangements for us to sit separately from upper-caste children. Oh my dear country, are you really liberal, democratic and progressive?

Oh my dear country, the bricks of your legislative assemblies, courts, government buildings and monuments have been made by our hands. The wood for your chairs and tables comes from our jungles. The Constitution was designed by our own Babasaheb Ambedkar. We want our voices to be echoed and amplified by our own leaders.

We will organise ourselves and fight for representation and we will win. Because Babasaheb Ambedkar gave us hope and showed us the path to winning our rights.

Yours lovingly,

Amol Shingade

Amol Shingade, an alumnus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, is a fellow at Teach for India.

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Your policies were made only for our oppression: A nomads letter to free and just India - Scroll.in

A woman in Suzhou, China, was reportedly detained recently for provoking trouble. Her alleged crime was being spotted outside wearing a kimono. The woman was dressed like a character from a manga (a Japanese comic). Arresting her might seem dramatic but there is more at play here than a simple fashion faux pas.

Clothing is a cultural identifier and, to many, a symbol of national identity and pride. When you think of the kimono you might think of Japan. However, the garment is rarely worn in Japan now, other than at traditional festivals or celebrations. As a result, the kimono industry, which experienced a boom in the 1980s, is currently experiencing a massive downturn.

The kimono worn today, however, is not an indigenous invention of the Japanese. It can be traced back to the 7th century when the Imperial Court began to wear garments adapted from Chinese styles.

Despite these Chinese origins, the kimono is a major cultural signifier of Japan globally. And, in many Asian countries, particularly those which were brutally colonised by Japan, the kimono remains a symbol of oppression.

There is a long history of sartorial similarities between Japan and China.

Chinese explorers in southern parts of ancient Japan around the 3rd century BC observed people wearing simple tunics, poncho-type garments and a type of pleated trouser and top. These were similar to clothes worn in parts of China at that time. Images of priestess-queens and tribal chiefs in 4th century AD Japan also show figures wearing clothing like those worn by the Han dynasty China.

The first ancestor of the kimono appeared in Japan in the Heian period (794-1185). Still often worn with Chinese-style hakama (pleated trousers or long skirts), this garment was made from straight pieces of cloth fastened with a narrow sash at the hips. By the Edo period (1603-1868), everyone wore a unisex garment known as a kosode, made from straight pieces of fabric sewn together like todays kimono.

In the early 1600s, Japan was unified by the Shogun Tokugawa into a feudal shogunate (a kind of military dictatorship) with Edo (now Tokyo) as the capital.

Japanese culture developed during this period with almost no outside influence, and the kosode, as a precursor to the kimono, came to represent what it meant to be Japanese.

Folk clothing and work clothes were also based on front wrapping (left over right), drop-sleeved tops and fastened with strings or cords following a basic kimono pattern. The role of kimono-making developed, and the value of some kimonos increased to the level of priceless works of art.

After previous eras of a closed Japan, the Meiji era (1868-1912) marked a period of rapid modernisation and foreign influence. The kimono, meaning the thing to wear had a proper name and officially came into being.

This was despite a new imperial edict that rejected old dress as effeminate and un-Japanese. As a result, men, government officials and military personnel were encouraged to wear western clothing, yfuku, rather than traditional wafuku.

But as Japan was undergoing fundamental change on multiple levels, the sight of women wearing kimono was reassuring and a popular symbol of Japaneseness.

Women started wearing more western-style clothes, specifically underwear for women, after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. It was felt that a sense of shame in exposing themselves prevented many women from jumping or being rescued from the upper floors of buildings. The possibility that fewer women would have lost their lives in the disaster had they been wearing yfuku or at least underwear beneath their kimonos was a catalyst for general westernisation.

Japans Showa era began in 1926 when Emperor Hirohito ascended to the throne. This period spanned two world wars and the rise of strident cultural ultranationalism and has been described as the most momentous, calamitous, successful and glamorous period in Japans recent history.

For those with a belief in the idea of Japanese uniqueness (Nihonjin-ron), which became especially popular after the second world war, the kimono (along with other aspects of Japanese culture) was considered superior to the western alternative. While the actual wearing of the garment decreased, the kimonos symbolic status in Japan increased.

By the 1930s, Japan was a major colonial power, having transformed from a weak, feudal society into a modern, industrial, military power in the 1890s. As such, the nation had launched territorial conquests into neighbouring countries.

So, while people in Japan were dressing the part in a bold attempt to look powerful to the west, Japanese occupiers in Taiwan and Korea were actively encouraging local women to wear the kimono in order to display Japans superior role and greater east Asian co-prosperity in the region.

A study of how the kimono was perceived in Taiwan and Korea during the Japanese colonial period from 1895 to 1945 showed that the Japanese kimono is clearly linked to Japans colonial control and war responsibilities. The weaponisation of such a beautiful and elegant item of clothing has clearly left its mark.

As the woman who was arrested in China recently was reportedly warned:

If you would be wearing Hanfu (Chinese traditional clothing), I never would have said this, but you are wearing a kimono, as a Chinese. You are Chinese!

The kimono remains a symbol of Japanese tradition and a reminder of the dangers of nationalism for countries of wartime occupation and atrocities. But as Japan is preparing to double its defence budget, raising questions over its pacifist identity since the post-war period, and China is flexing its muscles in Hong Kong and Taiwan, there should be more for officials to worry about than a woman clad in a kimono.

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How the kimono became a symbol of oppression in some parts of Asia - The Conversation

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Santiago Cafiero, revealed this Friday that judicial harassment against the nations Vice President, Cristina Fernndez (CFK), is promoted from the United States of America (USA), with support from other countries, such as Brazil.

One more ignorant than the other. But there is something they expose: judicial persecution @CFKArgentina It is driven by ideological interests that originated outside Argentina. Lets take care of our democracy. All and all with Christina, wrote Cafiero on his account on the social network Twitter.

Cafiero accompanies some publications made by some US officials, such as Ted Cruz, US Senator; Or Eduardo Bolsonaro, politician and son of the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.

In a post, dated somewhat recently, Cruz accused CFK of; of misleading Argentine institutions and undermining American interests in this country and region, reports Prensa Latina.

Messages from the US senator also displayed a letter that he sent directly to the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, asking for sanctions, this time against not only Fernandez, but his entire family, for alleged acts of corruption. For. ,

For his part, Bolsonaros son shared Cruzs statements on Twitter and expressed his support.

For its part, the Fronte de Todos (Government Party) announced a major mobilization for the next 17 October, to express its support for the CFK and against judicial oppression.

We are going to demonstrate in support of Christina because we are against political oppression, announced Tanya Bertoldi, deputy of the Frente de Todos.

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They Warn Of The Role Of The US Judicial Case Against Cristina Fernandez - Nation World News

It started in Michigan. On 15 April 2020, thousands of vehicles convoyed to Lansing and clogged the streets surrounding the state capitol for a protest that had been advertised as Operation Gridlock. Drivers leaned on their horns, men with guns got out and walked. Signs warned of revolt. Someone waved an upside-down American flag. Already nine months before 6 January, seven months before the election, six weeks before a national uprising for police accountability and racial justice there were a lot of them, and they were angry.

Gretchen Whitmer, Michigans Democratic governor, had recently extended a stay-at-home order and imposed additional restrictions on commerce and recreation, obliging a long list of businesses to close. Around 30,000 Michiganders had tested positive for Covid-19 the third-highest rate in the country, after New York and California and almost 2,000 had died. Most of the cases, however, were concentrated in Detroit, and the predominantly rural residents at Operation Gridlock resented the blanket lockdown.

On 30 April, with Whitmer holding firm as deaths continued to rise, they returned to Lansing. This time, more were armed and fewer stayed in their cars. Michigan is an open-carry state, and no law prohibited licensed owners from bringing loaded weapons inside the capitol. Men with assault rifles filled the rotunda and approached the barred doors of the legislature, squaring off against police. Others accessed the gallery that overlooked the senate. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from southern Michigan, tweeted a picture of a heavyset man with a mohawk and a long gun in a scabbard on his back. Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us, she wrote.

The next day, a security guard in Flint [a town about 50 miles north-east of Lansing] turned away an unmasked customer from a Family Dollar. The customer returned with her husband, who shot the guard in the head. Later that week, a clerk in a Dollar Tree outside Detroit asked a man to don a mask. The man replied, Ill use this, grabbed the clerks sleeve, and wiped his nose with it.

By then, the movement that had begun with Operation Gridlock had spread to more than 30 states. In Kentucky, the governor was hanged in effigy outside the capitol; in North Carolina, a protester hauled a rocket launcher through downtown Raleigh; in California, a journalist covering an anti-lockdown demonstration was held at knifepoint; ahead of a rally in Salt Lake City, a man wrote on Facebook: Bring your guns, the civil war starts Saturday The time is now.

I was living in Paris in 2020, where, since late March, we had been permitted to go outside for a maximum of one hour per day, and to stray no farther than a kilometre from our homes. Most businesses were closed (except those essential to the life of the nation, such as bakeries and wine and cigarette shops). Few complained. Id been a foreign correspondent for nearly a decade and during that time had not spent more than a few consecutive months in the US. The images of men in desert camo, flak jackets and ammo vests, carrying military-style carbines through American cities, portrayed a country I no longer recognised. One viral photograph struck me as particularly exotic. It showed a man with a shaved head and a blond beard, mid-scream, his gaping mouth inches away from two officers gazing stonily past him, in the capitol in Lansing. What accounted for such exquisite rage? And why was it so widely shared?

In early May, I took an almost-empty flight to New York, then a slightly fuller one to Michigan. My first stop was Owosso, a small town on the banks of the Shiawassee River, in the bucolic middle of the state. I arrived at Karl Mankes barbershop a little before 9am. The neon Open sign was dark; a crowd loitered in the parking lot. Spring had not yet made it to Owosso, and people sat in their trucks with the heaters running. Some, dressed in fatigues and packing sidearms, belonged to the Michigan Home Guard, a civilian militia.

A week before, Manke, who was 77, had reopened his business in defiance of Governor Whitmers prohibition on personal care services. That Friday, Michigans attorney general, Dana Nessel, had declared the barbershop an imminent danger to public health and dispatched state troopers to serve Manke with a cease-and-desist order. Over the weekend, Home Guardsmen had warned that they would not allow Manke to be arrested. Now it was Monday, and the folks in the parking lot had come to see whether Manke would show up.

Hes a national hero, Michelle Gregoire, a 29-year-old school bus driver, mother of three, and Home Guard member, told me. She was 5ft 4in but hard to miss. Wearing a light fleece jacket emblazoned with Donald Trumps name, she waved a Gadsden flag at the passing traffic. Car after car honked in support. Michelle had driven 90 miles, from her house in Battle Creek, to stand with her comrades. Shed been at Lansings capitol on 30 April, and did not regret what happened there. When I mentioned that officials were considering banning guns inside the statehouse, she laughed: If they go through with that, theyre not gonna like the next rally.

Manke appeared at 9.30am, to cheers and applause. He had a white goatee and wore a blue satin smock, black-rimmed glasses, and a rubber bracelet with the words When in Doubt, Pray. He climbed the steps to the front door stiffly, his posture hunched. When the Open sign flickered on, people crowded inside. Manke had been cutting hair in town for half a century and at his current location since the 1980s. The phone was rotary, the clock analogue. An out-of-service gumball machine stood beside a row of chairs. Black-and-white photographs of Owosso occupied cluttered shelves alongside old radios and bric-a-brac. Also on display were flashy paperback copies of the 10 novels that Manke had written. Unintended Consequences featured an anti-abortion activist who stands on his convictions; Gone to Pot offered readers a daring view into the underbelly of the 60s and 70s.

As Manke fastened a cape around the first customers neck, a man in foul-weather gear picked out a book and deposited a wad of bills in a wicker basket on the counter. My father was a barber, he told Manke. He believed in everything you believe in. Freedom. Were the last holdout in the world. Manke nodded. We did this in 1776, and were doing it again now.

Like the redbrick buildings and decorative parapets of Owossos historic downtown, there was something out of time about Manke. During several days that I would spend at the barbershop, Id hear him offer countless customers and journalists subtle variations of the same stump speech. Hed lived under 14 presidents, survived the polio epidemic, and never witnessed such government oppression. Governor Whitmer was not his mother. Hed close his business when they dragged him out in handcuffs, or when he died, or when Jesus came whichever happens first. Youre getting a scoop, he assured me when I introduced myself. American rebellion.

Customers continued to arrive, and the phone did not stop ringing. Some people had travelled hundreds of miles. They left cards, bumper stickers, leaflets, brochures. A local TV crew squeezed into the shop, struggling to social-distance in the crush of waiting men, recording Manke with a boom mic as he sculpted yet another high-and-tight. Around noon, [rightwing political commentator and radio host] Glenn Beck called, live on air. Its hardly my country any more, in so many different ways, Manke told him. You remind me of my father, Beck responded, with a wistful sigh.

Manke seemed to remind everybody of something or someone that no longer existed. Hence the people with guns outside, ready to do violence on those who threatened what he represented. You could not have engineered a more quintessential paragon of that mythical era when America was great. One day at the barbershop, I was approached by a man clad from head to toe in hunting gear, missing several teeth. He hadnt realised I was press. Manke had first come to the attention of the attorney general, the man informed me, because of a reporter from Detroit. He held out his arms to indicate the womans girth. A big Black bitch.

In the 1950s, when Manke was in high school, Owosso was a sundown town: African Americans were not welcome. Like much of rural Michigan, it remained almost exclusively white. Detroit, an hour and a half to the south, was 80% Black. Because politics broke down along similar lines less-populated counties voted Republican; urban centres, Democrat partisan rancour in the state could often look like racial animus. While conservatives tended to ridicule any such interpretation as liberal cant, the pandemic had created two new discrepancies that were hard to ignore. The first was that Covid-19 disproportionately affected Black communities, in Michigan as well as nationwide. The second was that the people mobilising against containment measures were overwhelmingly white.

On 30 April, the state representative Sarah Anthony had watched from her office across the street as anti-lockdown protesters filled the capitol lawn. Anthony had been born and raised in Lansing. In 2012, at the age of 29, shed become the youngest Black woman in America to serve as a county commissioner. Six years later, a landslide victory made her the first Black woman to represent Lansing in the state legislature. As Anthony walked from her office to the capitol, she had to navigate a heavily armed white mob. She noticed a Confederate flag.

A man waved a fishing rod with a naked Barbie doll brown-haired, like Governor Whitmer dangling from a mini noose. Men screamed insults. A sign declared: tyrants get the rope. Anthony was in Lansings House of Representatives when the mob entered the building. It just felt like, if they had come through that door, I wouldve been the first to go down, she recalled. We were in the rotunda, where she had insisted on giving me a tour. Her eyes brightened above her mask as she pointed out the starspeckled oculus in the apex of the dome 160ft above us. Its designed to inspire, Anthony explained. Her reverence for the building had made 30 April that much more unsettling. A sanctum had been violated its meaning changed.

The structure was an equally potent symbol for the people whose cries shed heard on the other side of the door, however. On the eve of the rally, Michelle Gregoire, the school bus driver and Home Guard member, had visited the capitol. Wearing a neon safety vest scrawled with Covid-1984, she and two friends filming on their phones had climbed a marble staircase to the gallery in the House of Representatives. A sergeant at arms informed them that the legislature was not in session, the chamber closed. This is our house, responded one of them, striding past him and sitting on a bench. The chief sergeant at arms, David Dickson, arrived and grabbed the woman by her arm, attempting to remove her.

You are not allowed to touch me! the woman howled. Dickson turned his attention to Michelle. When she also resisted, he dragged her into the hallway, through a pair of swinging doors. Stay out, he told her. That night, the women posted their footage on Facebook, with the caption: We are living in NAZI Germany!!! Many of the protesters at the capitol the next day had watched the clips, including the man with the shaved head and blond beard in the viral photograph. He was not accosting the two officers in the image, it turns out he was shouting at Dickson, who stood behind them, outside the pictures frame. You gonna throw me around like you did that girl? the man was shouting. Other protesters called Dickson and his colleagues traitors and filthy rats.

I left several messages for Dickson at his office, but he never called me back. Eventually, I returned to the capitol and found him standing guard outside the legislature. His hair was starting to grey, and beneath his blazer his collared shirt strained a little at the midriff. In 1974, Dickson had become the first Black deputy in Eaton County. Hed gone on to serve for 25 years as an officer in Lansing. After some polite conversation, I asked whether he thought that any of the visceral acrimony directed at him on 30 April might have been connected to his skin colour and to that of the white women hed ejected the day before. Dickson frowned. I dont play the race card, he said. Given his deprecating tone, I wondered if hed been dodging my calls out of concern that I would raise this question. It was a question you could not really help raising in Michigan. To what extent was the exquisite rage behind the anti-lockdown fervour white rage? Dickson had no interest in discussing it. Of his encounter with Michelle, he told me: I didnt sleep for weeks. You dont feel good about those kinds of things.

For others, the answer to the question was self-evident. After 30 April, Sarah Anthony acquired a bulletproof vest. Though she was an optimist by nature, her outlook had dimmed. People are angry about being unemployed, about having to close their businesses I get that, she said. But there are elements, extremists, who are using this as an opportunity to ignite hate. Hate toward our governor, hate toward government, and also hate toward Black and brown people. These conditions are creating a perfect storm.

The 30 April protest had been organised by a few men on Facebook calling themselves the American Patriot Council. Two and a half weeks later, they held a second demonstration, in Grand Rapids, at a plaza known as Rosa Parks Circle. This time, there were no Confederate flags.

On the periphery, dozens of armed white men in tactical apparel surveilled the plaza. A few held flags with the Roman numeral III a reference to the dubious contention that only 3% of colonists fought the British, and a generic emblem signifying readiness to do the same against the US government. (Americans who displayed the symbol and embraced the mentality that it represented often identified as Three Percenters.) Some were Home Guard. Others belonged to the Michigan Liberty Militia, including the heavyset man with the mohawk whose picture Dayna Polehanki had tweeted from the senate floor. He wore a sleeveless shirt and a black vest laden with ammunition. A laminated badge read Security. His habit of pressing a small gadget embedded in his ear with his index and middle fingers felt like an imitation of something he had seen onscreen. He appeared to be having an excellent time.

A general atmosphere of cheerful make-believe was accentuated by the presence and intense engagement of actual children. One of them, materialising suddenly, interrupted my conversation with a Home Guardsman: Excuse me, what kinds of guns are those?

We looked down to find a 10-year-old boy with a businesslike expression.

This is an AK-47, the Home Guardsman told him.

With a flashlight or a suppressor?

Thats a suppressor. This is a flashlight with a green dot.

What pistol is that?

That is a Glock. A 9mm.

The boy seemed underwhelmed.

Ive heard a lot of people say that, he said.

Before you ever pick up a gun, you have to have your 100 hours of safety classes, right? admonished the Home Guardsman, bristling a little.

I already have them.

The keynote speaker was Dar Leaf, a sheriff from nearby Barry County who had refused to enforce Governor Whitmers executive orders. Diminutive, plump and bespectacled, with a startling falsetto and an unruly mop of bright yellow hair, Leaf cut an unlikely figure in his uniform, the baggy brown trousers of which bunched around his ankles. Nevertheless, he promptly captivated his audience by inviting it to imagine an alternate version of the past one in which Alabama officers, upholding the constitution, had not arrested Rosa Parks. To facilitate the thought experiment, Leaf channelled a hypothetical deputy boarding the bus on which Parks in the real world was detained. Hey, Ms Parks, said the sheriff, playing the part. Im gonna make sure nobody bothers you, and you can sit wherever you want. The crowd cheered. Thank you! a white man cried out.

In Alabama, during the 60s, sheriffs and deputies were often more ruthless than their municipal counterparts toward Black citizens. The sheriff Jim Clark led a horseback assault against peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, and habitually terrorised African Americans with a cattle prod that he wore on his belt. Dar Leaf, though, saw himself as heir to a different legacy. According to him, the weaponisation of law enforcement to suppress Black activism arose from the same infidelity to American principles of individual freedom that in our time defined the political left. I got news for you, Leaf said. Rosa Parks was a rebel.

And then, for those minds not yet wrapped around what he was telling them: Owosso has their little version of Rosa Parks, dont they? Karl Manke! The equivalence was all the more incredible given that Leaf belonged to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or CSPOA. The notion of the constitutional sheriff had been first promulgated by William Potter Gale, a Christian Identity minister from California. Christian Identity theology held that Europeans were the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel; that Jews were the diabolic progeny of Eve and the serpent; and that all non-whites were subhuman mud people. In the 70s, Gale developed a movement of rural resistance to federal authority that expanded the model of white vigilantism in the south to a national scale, adding to the fear of Black integration the spectre of governmental infiltration by communists and Jews. He called his organisation Posse Comitatus, which is Latin for power of the county, and it recognised elected sheriffs as the only legal law enforcement in America. Posse Comitatus groups across the country were instructed to convene Christian common-law grand juries, indict public officials who violated the constitution, and hang them by the neck.

Gales guidance on what offences merited such punishment was straightforward: any enforcement of federal tax regulations or of the Civil Rights Act. The CSPOA argued that county sheriffs retained supreme authority within their jurisdictions to interpret the law, and that their primary responsibility was to defend their constituents from state and federal overreach. In Grand Rapids, Sheriff Dar Leaf told the anti-lockdowners, Were looking at common-law grand juries. Id like to see some indictments come out of that. At the end of his speech, he called the Michigan Liberty Militia on to the stage. This is our last home defence right here, he said. Glancing at the heavyset man with the mohawk, Leaf added: These guys have better equipment than I do. Im lucky they got my back.

Later, while reviewing my videos from Rosa Parks Circle, I noticed a woman with a toothbrush moustache painted on her upper lip. Looking closer, I saw that she also wore a wig. It was brunette and wavy, intended to resemble Governor Whitmers hair. The woman wasnt doing Hitler, in other words: she was doing Whitmer doing Hitler. She would probably have said that she was doing Whitler. While comparing pandemic measures to the atrocities of the Third Reich might have constituted its own kind of antisemitism, it also suggested how desperate many anti-lockdowners understood the situation to be. Nazis were a frequent topic of conversation in the barbershop which, for Karl Mankes supporters, represented a bulwark against the kind of creeping authoritarianism that had gradually engulfed Germany in the 1930s.

Manke himself had a lot to say on the subject. His great-grandfather had immigrated from Germany, and Manke had grown up attending a Lutheran church with services in German. He often cited the victims of the Holocaust as a cautionary tale. They would trade their liberty for security, he told a customer one afternoon. Because the Nazis said to them: Get in these cattle cars, and were gonna take you to a nice, safe place. Just get in. I would rather die than have the government tell me what to do, the man in the chair responded. In mid-May, when Attorney General Nessel suspended his business licence, Manke exclaimed: Its tyrannical! Im not getting in the cattle car!

But the longer I stayed in Michigan, the clearer it became that many anti-lockdowners sincerely placed mask mandates and concentration camps on the same continuum. This has nothing to do with the virus, a 68-year-old retiree told me outside the barbershop. They want to take power away from the people, and they want to control us. Were never gonna get our freedoms back from this if we dont stop it now. Given the stakes, violence was inevitable. Were a trigger pull away, he said. Youre gonna see it. Were getting to the point where people have had enough. We had to raise our voices to hear each other over a Christian family loudly singing hymns. But I had the sense that the retiree would have been yelling anyway. You got storm troopers coming in here! he shouted, referencing the officers whod served Manke with a cease-and-desist order. They werent cops, they were storm troopers! They deserve to wear the Nazi emblem on their sleeves.

When I went back inside, the phone was ringing. An anonymous caller wanted Manke to know that the national guard was on its way. We need more people, a customer in a pressed shirt announced. Id met him earlier. A self-described citizen scientist, hed given me a flier explaining that masks prevented the body from detoxifying and therefore did more harm than good. If we get more people, we can stand them off, he told Manke. I would hope its a rumour, Manke said. Whatever it is, we could use more people. Well, if they come with a tank

Like Tiananmen Square! the citizen scientist agreed. He lapsed into pensive silence, as if calculating how many people it would take to stand off a tank. Finally, a solution occurred to him: The sheriff can stop them. The sheriff has the power to stop the National Guard, the federal government, everybody.

Someone looked up the number. Reaching a voice mail, the citizen scientist left a message: Attention, sheriff. We need you over here at the barbershop. Please come here immediately to attend to a situation. We need your help here to defend our constitutional rights. Please hurry up.

After a while, it became apparent that neither the sheriff nor the national guard was coming. I went back outside. The family had stopped singing and was now reciting scripture. Psalm 2: Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The patriarch was joined by his son, daughter, and one-year-old grandson. If theres children, they wont shoot tear gas, he said. Thats my hope, anyway if were here, they back off. Who backs off? I asked. The Nazis.

This is an edited extract from The Storm Is Here by Luke Mogelson, published by Quercus on 13 September (14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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American rebellion: the lockdown protests that paved the way for the Capitol riots - The Guardian US

Do you think there's no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. The truth is, it's always been out there, but it's sometimes a bit difficult to find. Every month, I search it out, listen to it all, then round up the best of it that relates to that month's political news. Here's the round-up for August 2022.

Years ago, as a new immigrant to Australia, I watched a movie about Aboriginal massacres. The film,The Tracker, was powerful. But it was the soundtrack by Archie Roach that really hit me. In 2009, while in Adelaide to start an outback tour of Aboriginal communities, I caught Roach performing with his wife, Ruby Hunter, at an Indigenous music festival. She died just weeks later, at 54. This album of their live performances was released on August 1 this year, two days after Roach's death at 66. On it, he describes getting into an altercation with police because they wanted to fingerprint his 11-year-old son, who they'd arrested. The arrest depressed his son, so Roach wrote the song "Life Is Worth Living" for him. On August 15, an activist faced court for protesting against the jailing of Indigenous children as young as 10 at Darwin's Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. Many attempt suicide. LISTEN>>>

On August 19, Grammy-nominated blues singer Shemekia Copeland released her new album, which addresses the terror that non-white kids face. On "The Talk" she describes the discussion all African-American parents must have with their children to try to keep them safe. "I held my breath as you took your first steps," she sings. "I was proud as a mamma can get. Now it's been years you've grown tall, but I'm still worried you're gonna fall. Got to have The Talk." Such a talk could not save Black nurse Breonna Taylor, shot to death by police in her flat. On August 4, after years of protests, four officers were charged with her death. The new album Songs Of Slavery And Emancipationrecalls the roots of such oppression, as does the new album by chart-topping folk rocker Ben Harper. And on August 5, Welsh ragga-rockers Dub War's comeback album addressed the racist cop killing of George Floyd. LISTEN>>>

Floyd's death and the protests it sparked worldwide also inspired the new album by British political stadium rockers Muse, released on August 26. Discussing its song "Liberation", singer Matt Bellamy said: "[It's] leaning towards what I felt seeing the Black Lives Matter protests. I'm not gonna try to claim to have any understanding of what that culture's been through or anything, but 'intend to erase your place in history' was that feeling of anger... that emotion that you feel in the moment of revolution, where you just want to tear it down." The record, hailed as "the band's most politically on-point album to date", closes with the urgent anthem "We Are Fucking Fucked". "We're at death's door," Bellamy seethes. "Another world war. Wildfires and earthquakes I foresaw. A life in crisis, a deadly virus. Tsunamis of hate are gonna find us. We are fucking fucked." LISTEN>>>

Echoing that sentiment was a study published on August 16that said a nuclear war could wipe out 5 billion people. It came as Democratic US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taunted nuclear-armed China by visiting Taiwan, sparking military drills by Beijing. US President Joe Biden distanced himself from Pelosi's grandstanding, as it made Biden's unhinged Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, look relatively sane. Meanwhile, Biden continued to taunt nuclear-armed Russia by funnelling arms to Ukraine as its Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant came under fire. Damning such recklessness is the new EP from Belarusian band Hnida, who have moved to Poland due to the repression in their country and the war in Ukraine. On the EP's closing track, "Nuclear Horizon", they sing: "The nuclear horizon will light up the road to nowhere." All proceeds from the record will be donated to help political prisoners in Belarus. LISTEN>>>

On August 5, Russian former political prisoners Pussy Riot released their long-awaited debut album, which rails against the patriarchy spreading war and oppression worldwide. "I love matriarchy," explained singer Nadya Tolokonnikova. "And I think now is the best time to bring it on. Our rights are being attacked, and that's just not cute." Noting how Russian President Vladimir Putin's jailing of the band only increased their popularity, she said: "I think it's a good lesson to every dictator who wants to silence activists and artists. If you put them in jail, often they will get out even stronger, and they will have a bigger platform, more influence. That's what happened with us. We ended up in jail, being a small movement. We had perhaps just a few dozens of members, and then got out of jail to hundreds and thousands of people identifying themselves as Pussy Riot." LISTEN>>>

On August 19, it was reported that the early release of Bali bomber Umar Patek was being discussed. The news sparked outrage in Australia, since the 2002 Islamist terror attack killed 88 Australians. The context is that the West has been raining terror on Muslims for centuries, from the Crusades to wars in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Palestine and Afghanistan. But that does not excuse the Bali attack, as Balinese rockers Navicula pointed out in a new podcast series discussing their 25 years of music activism. The band say their song "Aku Bukan Mesin (I Am Not a Machine)", recorded in response to the Bali bombing, was "just the pure reaction as a human being, as a Balinese ... thinking about the people who have losing their heart, losing their entity as a human to do such a cruel, unimaginable action. It just destroys everything. The effect of the destruction is affecting everybody." LISTEN>>>

Meanwhile, Australian bosses continued to destroy Australians' lives as they used the excuse of inflation to cut wages, despite reporting record profits. Announcing a cash net profit after tax of $9.6 billion on August 10, Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn took a 35% pay rise, but opposed wage rises for his staff as "inflationary". On August 17, public servants rallying in Western Australia begged the government for fair pay, saying: "Were asking for the bare bloody minimum." Summing up the anger is the new album from Aussie punks The Chats, released two days later. On "Paid Late" they seethe: "Starin' at the ATM. It says insufficient funds. That's just not good enough. 'Cause right now I wanna get drunk." And on "The Price Of Smokes", they spit: "The price of smokes is going up again. I could already barely afford my rent. Those bastards in parliament ought to be hung by their necks." LISTEN>>>

On August 24, "those bastards in parliament", the supposedly climate-friendly new Labor government, released 10 new sites for oil and gas exploration. The same day, it was reported that "China's fragile economy" was "being hammered by the driest riverbeds since 1865" as droughts spread worldwide. A week earlier, Australian resources company Santos announced it was drilling for oil in Alaska, just days after it was reported Antarctica was losing ice even faster than first thought. That news came on August 11, the same day that it was reported that no rainwater that falls anywhere on Earth is now safe to drink. Answering back is the new album from Australian hardcore band In Hearts Wake, which soundtracks their new documentary about the climate crisis, their bid to make touring environmentally-friendly, and their recording of the "first carbon offset album" to hit the top five in Australia. LISTEN>>>

Also despairing at Australia's environmental vandalism are Indigenous surf rockers King Stingray, who released their debut album on August 5. The Arnhem Land band were nominated for the Environmental Music Prize for its lead single, "Hey Wanhaka". It carries an ancient songline about the celebration of nature and Yolngu way of life. We dont own Mother Earth, the Earth owns us," said singer Yirrnga Yunupingu, whose uncle led legendary Indigenous rock band Yothu Yindi. Guitarist Roy Kellaway, whose father was also in Yothu Yindi, said: Yolngu people are perhaps the original conservationists of Earth. Theyve been looking after country since the beginning. So theres a lot that Westerners and other people, I reckon, have to learn from Yolngu people Like what Yirrnga was saying: without the environment, we dont exist. I dont understand how humans have lost sight of that. LISTEN>>>

Want to get this column every month? Just email matwardmusic@gmail.com and I'll add you to my monthly email that includes a link to this column here atGreen Left.Yes, I want to read this column every month.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mat Ward has been writing forGreen Leftsince 2009. He also wrotethebookReal Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Countryandmakespolitical music. This year,Mat Ward released his new album based on protest chants,Why I Protest. Stream ordownload it free for a limited time.

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10 new albums that express anger at the world - Green Left

Dear Editor,

The African economy is in trouble not because Africans are lazy. It is not only chattel slavery that adversely impacted the African race, but Africans continue to face roadblocks in post-slavery society by individuals and groups seeking to suppress efforts and initiatives at economic self-determination. In the immediate post-slavery, our forebears struggled against former slave masters seeking to undermine the village economy by flooding their farmlands. At the dawn of internal self-government, many entered and have stayed in the public sector in service to the nation through the traditional public service, teaching, nursing, disciplined services, etc.

By virtue of the sheer numbers, Africans have been the single largest group that has not only kept the nations wheels of production turning but financed the states spending through taxes. Whereas tax deduction could be manipulated by those in the formal private sector, and many in the agriculture sector (rice, livestock, greens, etc) do not pay taxes, public servants cannot skew the numbers or avoid taxation because taxes are deducted before receiving their pay. Efforts to secure livable wages/salaries and better working conditions continue to be thwarted by government trampling the right to collective bargaining, thereby reducing purchasing power and negatively affecting standard of living.

Dire economic straits are impacting the African household, their ability to feed the families and send their children to school. When many parents are forced to turn to employment in private security that pays minimum wages, or do odds-and-ends jobs, they cannot provide three meals a day, pay rent or mortgage without support from overseas loved ones. It is well established as government engages in acts to shut Africans out of the public sector on claims of ethnic balancing, or GECOM reflecting the reality of Guyana as recently pronounced by Clement Rohee, there is no corresponding policy to see ethnic balance in the private sector through a process of Affirmative Action.

There are young people with 6 to 8 CXCs and university qualifications and cant get work commensurate with their qualifications. This is not because they arent looking but because of how they look. The cooperative sector where the African economy dominates is now under siege by government who, rather than work with the co-ops, is using the power of the state to take full control. The cooperative economy is worth approximately $50 billion and represents workers assets (money and lands). The cooperative credit unions provide loans at low interest rates for home ownership and repairs, cars, etc. Today we are witnessing a targeted onslaught on the African community from Bharrat Jagdeo and other East Indians who appointed themselves authority to determine the African reality. This is separate and apart from collaborating with Africans in giving voice to their reality. Such contempt for the race has never been seen post-1953 (internal self-government).

I am sure were African leaders attacking East Indians in similar manner members of the African community would have publicly condemned the conduct. The attacks are insidious, wicked and part of an overarching mindset, policy and programme to justify marginalising a section of society. These persons are ascribing to themselves what they feel should be given to the African community rather than what the community is entitled to. As the public is fed the diatribe that denigrates a race, there are acts presently being conducted to deprive Africans of their resources. The government is quietly surveying ancestral lands giving rise to legitimate fear the lands will be re-allocated to others and not the rightful heirs. One such exercise is being conducted at No. 53 and No. 54, Corentyne, East Berbice.

The United Nations (UN) warned, whereas apartheid as a system of government is toppled and racist legislation will not be tolerated, the underpinning belief of inferiority/superiority that built systems such as chattel slavery, indentureship, colonialism still exists and government can practice these through policies and programmes which we must be wary of in the process of working for a unitary society. As part of the African community, I live and walk among the affected, see and hear their cries of discrimination, marginalisation and enforced deprivations. As a trade unionist I also witness this in the workforce. The contempt for the right to collective bargaining in the public service, for teachers, and workers employed at the Bauxite Company Guyana Incorporated is largely in part because Africans dominate in these sectors, particularly when compared with the favourable treatment meted out to sugar workers.

There are similarities in the thinking and treatment of the government that gave rise to formations of oppressive systems. The UN urged the continued importance of policing human rights and challenging manifestation of conducts that could lead to the denial of these. The right to self-determination, political, economic and social justice are valued in societies that eschew thinking that sustained racist and apartheid states. The Cuffy250 Movement is entitled to expressing the reality of the group they represent. This at its most basic is a cherished right. After presentations have been made, society, moreso the government, should examine these and put systems in place for corrective action as we strive to live up to the national motto, which is the only slogan that matters. But to tell Africans they must not speak to their reality as they see it would be repeating the fundamental mistakes that led tojustifying oppression.

Sincerely,Lincoln Lewis

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African-Guyanese must speak to their reality as they see it - Stabroek News

A march and rally organised by Nottingham Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (NUSC) brought together around 350 people in support of Ukraine to mark six months since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

On 24th August Ukrainians traditionally celebrate Ukrainian Independence day but celebrations this year were tempered by the date also being six months since the start of Russias full-scale invasion.

Today (August 27th) around 350 people of all ages, consisting of local residents, the local Ukrainian community and recently arrived refugees fleeing from war held a march and rally to raise awareness of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and to highlight the continued resolve of Ukrainians and people around the world to overcome Putins oppression.

People gathered at Speakers Corner by the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham city centre and marched down a busy Parliament Street to Sneinton Market.

People held banners showing solidarity with Ukraine and saying that Russia should get out of Ukraine. The crowd chanted for Ukraine to be free in both English and Ukrainian and called Russia a terrorist state.

Banners were also on display highlighting Russian war crimes, nuclear terrorism, and asking for the release of POWs illegally sentenced to death in the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic including Nottinghamshire man Aiden Aslin.

A group of protestors from the local Hong Kong campaign also joined the march in solidarity with their own struggle against an oppressive dictatorship.

At Sneinton Market supporters gave messages of solidarity and Ukrainians spoke about their experiences, sang the State Anthem of Ukraine and staged a performance of a locally produced short play.

The play showed a young lady who represented Ukraine with her children and possessions being stolen by people wearing the Russian Z for invasion symbol. It represented the impact of war on Ukraine but at the same time showed the resolve of the Ukrainian people to overcome the invasion and the support from other countries around the world.

Michael Holod, branch chair of the Nottingham Ukrainian Cultural Centre, said: Since 24th February we have witnessed with our own eyes the evil that the cancer we know as Putin has spread and will be accountable for.

We now have displaced adults and children amongst us here in Nottingham and in the UK at large, ask them what they have witnessed and why they have left their country if you have doubts about any of the western media.

The support in the UK must continue and we are forever grateful to anyone who has made a donation of any kind and in particular those who have opened their hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees.

Zhenia Myronenko, Ukrainian citizen recently arrived in the UK, said: When the full-invasion started I had to leave my flat and I moved to Lviv in western Ukraine. I tried to find work there but it was impossible so I took the opportunity to travel with a friend who was going to Krakow in Poland. Someone there told me about the UK program that supports Ukrainians. I applied at the end of March and waited about six weeks for my application to be processed.

At the refugee centre in Poland there was a lot of noise, always from people and their pets. When I finally got to the UK in June I slept for ages. My host and the local Ukrainian Cultural Centre have been very supportive.

It is important to have protests like today so that we as Ukrainians can communicate with the British public and explain what is happening there and who we are. I want people to know that we are glad and happy to talk with them, we have a right to say what we have seen and it is helpful to us for people to listen to us.

Pete Radcliff, NUSC organiser, said: European governments including Britain are not doing enough to combat the hugely wealthy oligarchs behind Putin. By Zelenskys own reports, at the start of the war every government thought Ukraine would be defeated in a matter of days. Even now, many Western governments and businesses are keen to return to business as usual with the Russian regime. We must not allow that. The assets in British banks of any Russian oligarch, the oil oligarchs in particular, who dont denounce Putin and his wars should be seized, not just frozen. The price for their oil should not be paid in the lives of the Ukrainian people or soldiers. Dependency on the oil of the Russian oligarchs should end.

A future Ukraine must be no longer crippled with the international debt built up by the oligarchs greed and now by this war.

We must make sure that arms are supplied urgently to Ukraine for it to defeat the Russian army. Western government leaders must be held to their promises as above all, the Russian invasion must be beaten back.

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Pictures: March and protest against six months of Russian invasion held in Nottingham - West Bridgford Wire

Religiously motivated violence has impelled the United Nations to dedicate 22 August as the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. Despite the annual observance, incidents of religious intolerance and strife have increased at an alarming rate. How is the world community to combat incitements to hatred and violence? Repeated time and again throughout history, the pattern of demonizing and dehumanizing a segment of society is always a matter of grave concern. Through such propaganda, the victims humanity is denied. Blame for the economic and social problems of the country and often the wider world rests firmly with the other, who may be reviled as an animal, vermin, a pest, a disease, or as practicing witchcraft.

Some examples of violence perpetrated by the majority religious or ideologically driven population as reported in the media or the United Nations documents that may be cited is the situation of Tibetans and Uighurs in China, Bahs, Christians, Sunni minority and Sufis in Iran, Christians and Muslims in India, Hazara Muslim minority, Sikhs, and Hindus in Pakistan, Hindus in Bangladesh, the list can be expanded to include many other communities who are victims of oppression. The attacks and persecutions on defenceless victims take on various forms. Slanders and falsehoods are disseminated in state-controlled and state-sanctioned media, through pamphlets and tracts, from pulpits, and at public exhibitions and events. As a result, there are severe social and economic restrictions; thousands are deprived of employment and their property, children and youth are barred from education.

The clear objective is to strangulate and exterminate identified people; full details of the specific nature of the acts of violence are available in the public domain. Despite sustained efforts to combat incitement to hatred and violence at the international level there is no stopping the appalling oppression. It parallels with the acts of violence perpetrated due to racism, casteism, ethno-centrism, and deep-seated gender prejudices towards women and girls. As a member of the Bah community of India I am deeply shocked to learn of arrest of some 200 Bahs in Iran last week. They are being subjected to all types of discrimination and assaults. Deprived of their most basic civil rights solely because they belong to the Bah religion, these innocent people, including women and children, are being subjected to great oppression such as the confiscation of their property and belongings and the destruction of their houses, the denial of higher education to the youth, and even instances of individuals being prevented from earning a livelihood.

The United Nations General Assembly and the UN Commission on Human Rights violations, based on authentic reports submitted by the UN appointed Rapporteurs have regularly passed resolutions calling upon the Iranian Government to stop persecuting the religious minorities in their country and abide by the international covenants and treaties to which it is a signatory. Irans double-standard is glaring: it champions religious tolerance abroad only to deny it at home. Particularly with respect to followers of Bah religion, not only have they robbed them of their undisputed rights but by spreading untruths and calumnies against the community to which no informed and fair-minded person any longer pays heed, and by making empty and unfounded accusations, the Iranian Government also undermined and damaged its own reputation and credibility in the eyes of the public but also among the member countries of the United Nations system. Bahs around the globe, including India with its famous Lotus Temple in New Delhi, in a wide range of settings, are striving to establish a pattern of activity and community life that helps translate moral and spiritual precepts, which is the core of every religious and spiritual path, into practical forms of a new social reality.

So why should there be such violent response in the land of its birth? What is there except prejudice, bigotry, malice, and enmity that can thus extinguish understanding and reason and motivate the advancement of claims so untenable and specious that they would fail to deceive even a child, let alone the astute and perceptive people of Iran? The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men, Bahullh, Founder of the Bah Faith, proclaimed over one-and-half century ago. Learning about how this fundamental truth enshrined in all the extant religious systems of the world could be translated into the reality of a spiritually and materially prospering world civilization must be internalized by all who believe in freedom of belief as well as the practice and propagation of ones faith.

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Iran's persecution of Bah's must end - The Statesman

By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Minister for Housing Jogi Ramesh has predicted the defeat of TDP in all 175 Assembly constituencies, including Kuppam, the home segment of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, in the next elections.Speaking to mediapersons on Sunday, he said TDP flags would slowly vanish from every constituency and the party itself would lose its cadre. Trusting Naidu would only led to the downfall of cadres, he said, advising them to choose another capable leader.

Naidu has 45 years of political experience and he served as CM for 14 years. But did nothing to his home constituency Kuppam though he represented it for more than three decades. Now, people of Kuppam are confronting Naidu for doing nothing for them, except treating them as mere vote banks, the minister said.Describing it as a peoples revolt against TDP, the minister said, People are impressed with what the Jagan Mohan Reddy government has been doing in the State for the last three years. Not a section of the society has been ignored and every eligible person is being provided the benefit of welfare schemes. This is evident from the response to Gadapa Gadapa Ku Mana Prabhutavam, he asserted.

Ramesh said people belonging to BC communities had witnessed oppression and negligence during the previous TDP regime. In the YSRC regime, they are being treated as backbone classes. The TDP can no longer show its face to people in any of the 175 Assembly constituencies, he remarked.Dismissing Jana Sena as a non-entity, Ramesh said there is no difference between the party started by evangelist KA Paul and the party floated by Pawan Kalyan. Both have no Assembly seats in the State. Pawan should listen to Paul and merge his party with Pauls party, Ramesh advised.

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TDP will face defeat in all 175 Assembly segments: Jogi Ramesh - The New Indian Express

The Russian-language sign in this image says "exit."

I was going to write a post about the current debate over whether Western nations should bar all or most Russian migrants and visitors. But much of what I might have said has already been better stated in an article by Reason immigration policy writer Fiona Harrigan. Here is her summary of the ongoing debate:

In an interview with The Washington Post earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russians should "live in their own world until they change their philosophy." In practical terms, he suggested that countries should "close the borders" to Russian citizens. "Whichever kind of Russian," he said, "make them go to Russia."

A number of nations have taken steps to prevent Russians from entering. So far, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland have decided to stop issuing certain visas to Russian citizens. Finland will be slashing its current level of Russian tourist visas by 90 percent.

European Union foreign ministers are expected to discuss the issue of Russian visas on August 31. Ahead of that meeting, many major figuresincluding people within the Zelenskyy administrationhave argued against a blanket ban on visas for Russians. They recognize the ethical and practical issues that come with punishing civilians for the actions of an authoritarian government they can't feasibly control.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Zelenskyy, told The Washington Post that he's "not a supporter of collective responsibility [but of] individual." While it might be reasonable to sanction those who overtly support Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, he favored a "more selective" approach to visa denials for Russians.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz likewise has rejected the idea of an E.U.-wide ban on Russian tourists, arguing that such a measure "would undermine the purpose and effect of targeted sanctions that have been applied to those supporting the war," explains Politico. "This is not the war of the Russian people, but it is Putin's war," Scholz said at a press conference last week. "It is important to us to understand that there are a lot of people fleeing from Russia, because they are disagreeing with the Russian regime."

On this issue, Zelensky is wrong and Arestovych, Scholz, and others are right. Harrigan explains some of the reasons why:

Zelenskyy argues that limiting the movement of Russian travelers should be done "until they change their philosophy." But keeping Russians in Russia isn't the right approach to encourage them to change their views. For one, the Kremlin has censored all manner of information about the war. Back in March, it blocked access to Facebook. It's cracked down on journalists and foreign websites, censoring sites like BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Deutsche Welle. And in March, Putin signed a law that would dole out prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who circulate "false news" about the invasion. Russia arrested over 13,000 anti-war protesters in just the first two weeks after the war began.

Isolating Russians will be counterproductive. Allowing them to travel will surely bring them some measure of joy, but it will also give them access to views and insights on the invasion of Ukraine that they'd be hard-pressed to find at home. Fencing Russians off from freer nations will ensure that they're kept in a hostile information environment, deprived of experiences that may make them more amenable to freedom and more hostile to their current regime. What's more, it could keep certain vulnerable groupslike LGBT people or political dissidentsfrom leaving for safer places.

A sweeping visa ban would harm the Russian citizens that could very well benefit either from an escape route or exposure to ideas outside Russia's borders. Keeping them isolated will only trap them in a country rife with censorship and risk alienating them from the West, playing directly into Putin's hands.

Harrigan also notes that it would be a mistake to try to screen Russians in order to keep out those who support Putin, because it would "require visa-issuing authorities to make any number of subjective judgments" about visa applicants' political views. More generally, imposing political viewpoint restriction on migration policy has much the same flaws as other government policies targeting people based on their political views. It's reasonable to sanction and otherwise punish Russians (and others) for perpetrating injustices and human rights violations - including those associated with the Putin's brutal war against Ukraine. But it's wrong to restrict people's liberty merely based on the fact that governments have concluded they have wrong political views. Restricting it merely because they have the misfortune of being born in a country with a horrible government is even worse.

In addition to the points made by Harrigan, it's also worth emphasizing that letting Russians migrate freely to the West can impose a "brain drain" on Putin, while simultaneously bolstering our own economy. It would also strengthen our position in the war of ideas against his brand of authoritarian nationalism. The potential risk of espionage by Russian migrants is low and can be addressed by measures other than exclusion. Instead of making it harder for Russians to enter the West, we should be making it easier, thereby simultaneously helping people fleeing oppression and strengthening ourselves.

It might be argued that barring short-term visitors is less harmful than banning those seeking to live and work in the West long-term. Perhaps so. But even relatively brief visits can open people's eyes to the fact that life in the West is happier, free, and more prosperous than in Russia, and thereby lead the visitors to question Putin's regime. A short-term visit could also lead some to leave permanently. In addition, barring visits is still a restriction on the liberty of innocent people that serves no useful purpose.

The war against Putin is supposed to be a war for liberal democratic values. Imposing collective punishment on innocent civilians - including those who have no hand in the war and in many cases even oppose it - is the kind of thing Putin and other authoritarians do. Rejecting such measures is one of the ways the West can show we differ from our enemies.

In earlier posts (e.g. here and here), I addressed claims that opening the door to Russians and Ukrainians is unfair so long as the West is less open to those fleeing violence and tyranny elsewhere. While such arguments have a certain degree of merit, the right way to deal with the problem is through "leveling up" by being more open to others, not by barring Russians and Ukrainians. For those interested in consistency, I have a long record of also advocating refuge for victims of war and and oppression from elsewhere in the world, including in this recent post about Chinese fleeing that country's brutal Covid lockdowns and other human rights violations. The Chinese government's atrocities are at least as bad as Putin's. If they do not justify barring Chinese from the West (and they don't!), the same goes for the Russian case.

In sum keeping Western doors open to Russian migrants is the right thing to do for both moral and strategic reasons. If we forget that and ignore our principles, the main beneficiary will be Vladimir Putin.

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Don't Play into Putin's Hands by Barring Russians from the West - Instead, let more in - Reason