Russia painting Crimea's Tatars as 'ISIS supporters'

Newly erected hoardings on border. Left: On your way to Crimean Tatar Autonomy. Right: On your way from Crimea to Free Ukraine. Via Olga Klymenko

Reblogged with permission. Although news about the situation of Crimean Tatars is rarely in mainstream media the potency of their fightback for the Kremlin is described in this post. See also Paul Goble on the reaction to the current blockade of the peninsula initiated by the Tatar leadership. Their importance in the information war can be seen in their vile treatment by pro-Kremlin trolls. See, for example, this attempt to fictionalise Tatars fighting for the Nazis in WW2.

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By Halya Colynash

For the second time in a week, the de facto authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea have publicly claimed via Russia’s official RIA Novosti that Crimean Tatar leaders are recruiting Crimean Tatars to become Islamic State fighters. The allegations are especially ominous given Russia’s current military involvement in Syria which Moscow asserts, in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, is directed against the Islamic State. They also coincide with the latest unexplained siege by armed enforcement officers of the predominantly Crimean Tatar Ak-Mechet suburb of Simferopol and the ongoing offensive against the Mejlis, or Crimean Tatar self-governing assembly.

On Oct 9, Ruslan Balbek, deputy prime minister of the de facto government in Crimea asserted that the leaders of the Mejlis, and particularly Mustafa Dzhemiliev, had, as Crimean politicians, encouraged the development on the peninsula of radical religious sects, whose militant ideology was alien to most Crimean Tatars. “Therefore now, having settled in Ukraine, they have surrounded themselves with Crimean radicals who during various years [sic] fought in the ranks of the Islamic State, and after Crimea’s re-union with Russia left the peninsula.” Balbek specifically claims that Dzhemiliev is recruiting ‘radicals’ for the Islamic State, and that he has encouraged Crimean Muslims to take part in ISIS in order to “later use their military experience for subversive activities in Crimea”.

71-year-old Mustafa Dzhemiliev’s defence of Crimean Tatar rights and Ukrainian democracy and his unwavering commitment to only peaceful protest, have earned him immense respect throughout the world. As well as numerous international awards, the veteran Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian MP has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems safe, therefore, to assume that outside Russia the allegations will be dismissed as scurrilous lies.

The concern is about the purpose of such inflammatory claims and their impact on an audience in Crimea and in Russia which receives its information solely from state-controlled media.

There can be no suggestion here that the state-controlled RIA Novosti is simply reporting Balbek’s words. The agency refers dismissively and wrongly to the Mejlis as “an organization unregistered in Russia” and claims that both Dzhemiliev and the Head of the Mejlis Refat Chubarov “left Crimea”, and were later banned entry to Russia for five years “because of their extremist statements, inciting ethnic enmity”.

Pro-Kremlin media have been particularly active in hurling mud at the Crimean Tatar leaders since they initiated the Crimea Blockade now into its third week. There were initial attempts to mention only ‘Ukrainian radical nationalists’ as involved in the blockade. Then on Oct 5, one of the few Crimean Tatars who chose to cooperate with the Russian occupiers, Zaur Smirnov claimed that Islamic State recruiters had fled from Crimea to (mainland) Ukraine, and were now actively recruiting Ukrainian Muslims. “He excluded any possibility of their returning to Crimea”.

Once again RIA Novosti can be relied on to provide a highly contentious version of events. It claims that “Crimea became a Russian region after a referendum held in March 2014 in which the overwhelming majority of inhabitants …. voted to join Russia” (see: Even Russian human rights body finds Crimean referendum falsified)

The rest of the brief report returns to Smirnov’s claims that “radicals implicated in Islamic State left the peninsula after reunification with Russia”.

Thousands of Crimean Tatars, as well as other Ukrainians, were forced to flee Crimea after Russia’s occupation of their home. Attempts to deny legitimate opposition to annexation, claiming that opponents are ‘radical Muslims’, are a brazen – and menacing - distortion of the facts.

None of it, unfortunately, is new. The first signs that Russia was seeking to use growing fear of the Islamic State and ‘Muslim radicals’ for its own benefit came in early Autumn 2014. News that Russia’s Justice Ministry wanted to get the renowned human rights organization Memorial dissolved coincided with a defamatory TV programme alleging that Memorial was cooperating with terrorists and radicals now fighting for the Islamic State.

Media reports appeared which painted Crimean Tatars as ‘radical Muslims’ who could unleash a wave of violence in Crimea. On Oct 8 a particularly sinister article entitled “Islamists in Crimea are getting up to something” appeared in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya. It begins with the words: “Fighters schooled by war in Syria and Novorossiya are amassing on the borders of the peninsula” (more details here Bogus claims of ’Muslim radicalism’ as weapon against the Crimean Tatars. )

Mustafa Dzhemiliev reported within a month or so of annexation that Russian FSB [security service] officials were quite openly watching Muslims in their mosques, and it was not long before armed searches of Crimean Tatar homes, mosques and religious schools began. Russia has increasingly used its excessively broad legislation on so-called ‘extremism’ against Crimean Tatars and all opponents of Russia’s land grab.

Ai-Vasyl Mosque

On August 14, 2015, FSB officers turned up at the Mosque in Ai-Vasyl [Vasilyevka] in Yalta to install video surveillance. They claimed that this was needed to ‘counter terrorism’, although the Crimean Human Rights Field Mission points out that no legitimate grounds were provided.

It remains unclear why police and OMON riot police have effectively surrounded the ak-Mechet district of Simferopol for two weeks, with armed officers appearing at people’s homes from 7 a.m., checking documents, copying out phone numbers, etc. There were so-called ‘anti-terrorist exercises’ in early April, with those obviously targeting Crimean Tatars. There have also been suggestions that Muslims will be called in for so-called ‘prophylactic talks’.

It is fairly widely feared that through its bombing of mostly non-ISIS targets in Syria and open support for Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, Moscow will face retaliation within Russia. This probably is a real risk from President Vladimir Putin’s latest political game, making the renewed attempts to gain mileage against Crimean Tatar opponents of annexation particularly cynical and dangerous.


See also:

• Another Crimean blogger interrogated by FSB over Facebook post
• Ukrainian swimmer flees persecution in Crimea: “It’s worse than Soviet times!”
• Ukrainian teacher arrested in Crimea on ‘extremism’ charges
• 17-year-old Crimean charged with ‘extremism’ for social network entries
• FSB search Sevastopol home, threaten prosecution for mystery ‘extremism’
• ‘Anti-terrorist exercises’ as latest intimidation of Crimean Tatars
• Kremlin creates agency for national minorities as it axes Crimean Tatar media
• Crimean Tatar TV silenced, searches and arrests continue
• Crimean Tatar Leaders ‘”Warned” Not to Protest as Media Silenced
• Do Not Let Crimean Tatar ATR and Media be Silenced!
• Last desperate attempt to save Crimean Tatar TV channel
• Giving hope that Crimean occupation will end equated to ‘inciting enmity’
• Only Crimean Tatar TV Channel is being forced off air
• Silencing ‘hostile’ media? Crimean News Agency refused licence
• Armed Offensive against Independent Crimean Tatar TV Channel

• Historical Photo Fake: Crimean Tatars in SS Division
• Crimean Tatars: CoE Parliamentary Assembly Discusses Human Rights in Occupied Crimea 
• The Media Has Swallowed Five Russian Myths That Have Helped Putin Win In Ukraine 
• Armed Right Sector & Azov fighters are discrediting Crimea Blockade

Boycott McDonalds: “it’s run by Jews”

Xpost from Little Green Footballs
 

No, London is not a hotbed of jihadists (neither is Birmingham, thank you very much Fox News). Yes, it has its fair share of rubbish jihadists. Witness:

When one of our activists at the Israel Advocacy Movement went undercover at a BDS protest of McDonald’s in Shadwell, London. The activists admitted they were not boycotting Israeli businesses - but all Jewish businesses.

On extremism, jihadism and counter-jihadism

Reblogged with permission from BobFromBrockley.

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This post is prompted by David Cameron’s recent speech setting out a new agenda on addressing the threat of Islamist violent extremism, and also by the recent launch of a whole series of “counter-jihadi” initiatives on the British right, including the planning of a Mohammed cartoon exhibition in London in September. The latter has been the subject of a report by the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate (HnH). My friend Sarah made some sympathetic criticisms of that report at Harry’s Place, for which she got some sharp criticism on Twitter. This whole topic is one which frequently inflames irrational passions and generates more heat than light. This post, therefore, is an attempt to set out a series of propositions on these issues as an attempt to cut through some of the hysteria.  I didn’t mean for it to get so long!

“Extremism” is not a helpful framing of the problem

 

Cameron frames his approach to Islamism in terms of the wider generic problem of “extremism”, noting that Islamism is just one of many forms of “extremism”, along with that of the far right. Cameron is right to note that other ideologies constitute a threat, and there are certain similarities between the Islamist far right and the British nationalist far right. However, the term “extremism” creates more confusion than it solves, especially when the border between extremism and terrorism is blurred, as it was in Cameron’s speech, and in fact can do damage.

The idea of “extremism” implicitly contrasts these ideologies to the “normal”, acceptable politics of the centre ground, of the mainstream status quo. The concept of “extremism” criminalises the desire for change. It stops us from looking carefully and critically at the ideologies caught in its remit – which closes down debate, imagination and criticism, and stops us from engaging “extremist” ideologies and challenging them politically. The concept of “extremism” can make minor, marginal ideologies seem more dangerous than they often are – and therefore can sometimes make them seem glamourous and exciting. 

 

We know from history that the rubric of “extremism” is most often used against the left. In recent decades, for example, we have seen huge amount of resources put into the policing and surveillance of left-wing politics, with undercover police officers inserted into ecological, anti-fascist and anti-racist movements, sowing havoc and ruining lives. Anti-capitalist groups like Occupy are lumped together with al-Qaeda and the IRA in the category of “domestic extremism”. The language of the guidance on extremism given to universities effectively means that not just jihadism but also anarchism should be excluded from such institutions. We have seen the infiltration and disruption of the campaigns led by the families of victims of racist violence, such as Stephen Lawrence’s; collusion in the blacklisting of union activists; and acts of provocation to push non-violent activists into criminal activity.

Cameron is wrong to think that extremism in general is a conveyer belt to violent extremism and terror

 

Cameron claims that “many [terrorists] were first influenced by what some would call non-violent extremists”; Islamism, he says, “has often sucked people in from non-violence to violence”. This is true, as far is at goes, but it is also true that most followers of “non-violent” extremism do not get “sucked” to jihadist violence, just as most anti-immigrant racists and casual antisemites do not get “sucked” to violent fascism. Not making that clear is problematic. 

 

The evidence-based blogger Anonymous Mugwump has collated all of the research showing very conclusively that there is no necessary or straightforward step from extremism to violent extremism, no single pathway from Islamism to terrorism; his case is pretty conclusive. 

 

(Cameron’s mistaken emphasis on this connection is probably due to the emphasis on the government’s thinking of the thinktank Quilliam, who have long argued, with little evidential basis, that extremism in general leads to violent extremism in particular – although their position,  as Amjad Khan argues here, is more subtle than Cameron’s: non-violent extremism, they say, provides the “mood music” for terrorism.)

 

As Anonymous Mugwump notes, there may well be good reasons to oppose some forms of non-violent extremism – but its connection to terrorism is not one of them. The category of non-violent extremism is basically a form of “pre-crime” or thought crime; making it into a security issue is dangerous because it criminalises beliefs that are not in fact criminally dangerous; it is a licence for authoritarian over-policing, for policing without the consent of communities. As I will argue more fully below, while terrorism is a policing issue, non-violent Islamism is a political issue, which should be challenged politically, by all of us – citizens, communities – and not from above by the state. 

 

Cameron is broadly right to highlight ideology over “root causes”

Russian Orthodoxy's growing "pogrom-like" violence

The BBC recently reported on a "stand off" between local residents in a Moscow suburb and activists from the Russian Orthodox church (ROC). The residents were protesting plans to illegally erect a church in their local Torfyanka park, taking precious green space, which is against Russian law, and despite there being numerous other usually empty churches in the vicinity.

Sarah Rainsford reports that the locals are scared of the activists, most of whom are not from their suburb, and that those protesting the church are called "sinners". The ROC activists told Rainsford that 'the West' was behind those protesting the new church.

The government wants hundreds more churches in the capital, when the real need is for more mosques for Moscow's two million Muslims, one sixth of Moscow's population. There are also only five synagogues and two Catholic churches. Worshipers have been trying to get permission for over a decade for one Krishna temple.

Despite the constitution's Article 14, which defines Russia as a "secular state", only the Orthodox church is allowed to teach religion in Russia’s public schools and it also has the right to review any legislation before the Russian parliament. In 2013 a blasphemy law was passed. The church has backed Putin and bad-mouthed the opposition. Any priest who criticises the government faces being defrocked.

Notes Paul Coyer:

Taking this a step further, the view of Putin as a quasi-sacral figure is becoming increasingly widespread throughout Russia. In St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown, he has been portrayed as an angel reaching out his hands and blessing the city’s inhabitants. Just this past weekend St. Petersburg unveiled a bust of Putin in the attire of a Roman Emperor.

Sects within the ROC revere Putin as the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul and even pray to him. Drawing an analogy between the Apostle Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus, this sect believes that, just as Paul persecuted Christians and then became their leader, Putin once was part of the KGB, which persecuted the Church, and he now works to strengthen it. (Although it is perhaps of more than passing interest to note that the leader of this sect began praising Putin so highly only after her superiors in the ROC asked the FSB (the successor to the KGB) to begin tailing her. After beginning her sect, the government surveillance stopped.)

In this article by Paul Goble, reblogged with permission from Window On Eurasia, Goble reports on what is being called the increasingly "pogrom like" violence associated with Orthodox activists.

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Staunton, July 19 – An article in the current issue of “Sovershenno Sekretno” asks whether there is a line between Russian Orthodox Church activists and those who engage in pogrom-like violence. It concludes sadly that there is not -- and that church activists and those engaged in attacks on other groups are increasingly one and the same people.

The monthly’s Dmitry Rudnyev writes that he decided to focus on this issue after the fights between those who want to build more Orthodox churches in Moscow and those who oppose these being put in what are now public parks and Father Dmitry Smirnov’s shutting down of a concert that he said was disturbing prayer (sovsekretno.ru/articles/id/4902/).

Such incidents, he continues, “are taking place ever more frequently, and the causes which generate among Orthodox [activists] such an incommensurately stormy reaction are becoming ever more varied.” That raises the question as to why Russian Orthodoxy has “suddenly acquired hysterical aspects” and seems to be trying to find occasions to be upset.

“Five to ten years ago, the phrase ‘Orthodox radicalism’ would have elicited a condescending smile,” Rudnyev says. “Today however, this has become one of the realities of Russian religious life.” So far, “thank God,” it hasn’t claimed human victims in the way that nationalist or Islamic radicalisms have.

“But the problem of radicalism in the church exists,” he continues, “and today people talk about it in a serious way.”

Yevgeny Nikiforov, head of the Orthodox Radonezh Society, says that “the percent of radically inclined people among believers is absolutely equal to the percent of radicals in society as a whole.” It generally “’infects’” recent converts, but at times, it involves those who have been active in Orthodoxy their entire lives.

An example of the latter is Father Dmitry Smirnov, Nikiforov continues. He is nominally only a priest, but “in the structure of the church he has already for a long time occupied the slot of a bishop. This is like in the army where a colonel may serve in a general’s place” and where he enjoys the trust of those above him.

What Father Dmitry did, Archdeacon Andrey Kurayev says, reflected “a free decision” on his part. Each of us is complicated, and each makes his choice as a result of a multitude of causes pressing on him.” What makes his action of concern is that Father Dmitry had the kind of access that would have allowed him to solve this problem without any conflict.

He “could have made a single telephone call,” Kurayev continues, and there wouldn’t have been a problem. But “of all the mass of possible resolutions of the problem, Father Dmitry chose the path of open and forceful intervention. And this is not a result of shortcomings of his mind or experience.” Instead, it reflected his judgment of “the general atmosphere of today’s dialogue between the church and society.”

Via Oppositum

Since 2012, Kurayev says, some in the church have felt “called upon to show that we also are a force agency,” that the people of the church are part of the foundation of the secular authorities, that they can act on that basis, and that they may move against anyone confident that they won’t be punished even if we go beyond the bounds of legality.

In this, they are not different from the pro-Putin bikers, and this propensity to engage in violence won’t end as long as the powers that be continue to support. Indeed, Kurayev continues, actions like those of Father Dmitry “will be a regular feature” of Russian life.

What makes this situation somewhat of “a paradox,” Kuryaev says, is that Patriarch Kirill “is one of the most educated of all the hierarchs of the Russian Church” but because of his dramatic expansion of the number of bishoprics, he has brought into the hierarchy many who are uneducated and thus inclined to settle things not by negotiation but by violence.

Roman Lunkin, a senior specialist at the Center for the Study of the Problems of Religion and Society at the Russian Academy of Sciences, agrees. “Earlier under Aleksii II, the church did not use in its political goals various kinds of radical groups … this would have been unnecessary and quite dangerous in a democratic society where the church suddenly wouldhave been associated with the worst kind of nationalists suffering from xenophobia.”

“However,” Lunkin says, “the situation in [Russia] has changed.”

The Church needs the help of the state to achieve its goals, he continues, and consequently, “radical Orthodox tricks are called upon to convince the authorities that Orthodoxy is a powerful force. Therefore, often the hierarchs themselves make declarations in defense of the Orthodox” in ways that offend others.

However, “the paradox is that the more official representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church demand from the government and even impose on it its own ideology, the more such people come into conflict with what church life really needs,” Lunkin says.

The church radicals, he continues, have little support: “the majority of believers have no desire … to prohibit plays or break up rock concerts.” Instead, they properly understand that “the single task [which the church must fulfill in the future] is the construction of an Orthodox community in a democratic society in which believers support one another, life according to the law, and respect even non-believers” rather than use force to address problems.

Moving in that direction is a long and slow process, Lunkin says, and the actions of some who speak for the Russian Orthodox Church are not helping. “But the process is inevitable and it is already in course.”

There have always been radicals in and around the church, but in general, the hierarchy has kept them on a short leash as was the case with Bishop Diomid of Sakha* in 2008, the scholar says. His views were quite radical then, but now they would be viewed as more or less mainstream.

Indeed, the “Sovershenno Sekretno” journalist says, there is evidence that some in the church hierarchy like Father Dmitry are actively sponsoring radical groups like the Movement in Support of 200 Churches and the Movement of 40 by 40 and encouraging their members to go from one place to another to push their views, something ordinary believers would not do.

And many of those in the leadership of these groups are not only followers of Father Dmitry but show both his intolerance and willingness to engage in force, two things that alienate many ordinary believers even if they are not inconsistent with the kind of values being promoted by the Putin regime.

• *On Diomid, see Orthodox Schism Threatens Moscow Patriarchate, Kremlin, Diomid Tapping into ‘Orthodoxy of Despair’ of Rural Russians, Bishop Diomid Raises the Stakes in Orthodox Church Dispute, Diomid Case Highlights Serious Problems in Russian Church and Society  and How Much Support Does Bishop Diomid Have?

• Jim Kovpak writes on the difference between the Orthodox/state propaganda version of Russia and the reality:

In the minds of many of these drooling morons, Russia is this simple, fairy tale land where men are respectable fathers and patriots, and women are demure, modest maidens waiting patiently to get married and start bearing children.  The reality is something quite different.

Update October 9: The activists won! The construction of the church has been cancelled.

Against Said on 'orientalism'

Margaret Katherine at Gabarnmung

After once more regretting going BTL (below the line) in a comments section of The Guardian I discover a fantastic demolition of Edward Said's 'Orientalism' on Jacobinism.

The lengthy, thorough post had lots which springs out. It quotes Ibn Warraq on practitioners "intellectual terrorism". It describes Said's hugely influential work as "an accusatory and deeply reactionary text" and describes the ill effects it has had, principally in the Arab world. Go read the whole thing.

But what most sprung out to me was this:

And while Said's work was a convenient cudgel with which to bash the West, it was often misleading and tendentious to the point of outright fraudulence. The Orientalists Said attacks in Orientalism were not the Imperialist stooges of his imagination. They were learned classicists and multi-lingual philologists motivated by a desire to know about and to understand cultures, traditions and peoples unlike their own. Their voluminous research and the translations of Arab texts they undertook have proven invaluable, not only to Western scholars but also - in spite of Said's claims to the contrary - to Middle Eastern scholars, who were grateful for the preservation of their own neglected pre-Islamic history.

I immediately thought of the scholars who documented Australian Aboriginal culture in C19th and early C20th. Who did this work at a time when the worst horrors were being inflicted on Aboriginal people.

Their records are now used by Aboriginal communities all over Australia to reconstruct or fill in the blanks about their ancient culture. They have been crucial to native title claims over land.

It also made me think of the four part series just finished on Australian TV, First Footprints, about how Aboriginal people transformed the environment. The series is a collaboration demonstrating this alive and wonderful connection between scientists and Aborigines.

Doug Anderson, the veteran TV critic now writing for Guardian Australia, describes one of the series' highlights, from a site which is at least 15,000 years older than Stonehenge:

The sight of Jawoyn elder, Margaret Katherine, learning factual details at an amazing rock art gallery near Kakadu from anthropologists and archeological experts is profoundly moving. You can feel her joy as she realises the stories she is custodian of not only have authenticity but are verified by tangible evidence thousands of years old. Her gratitude is as palpable as her dignity.

Indeed. Throughout the series we see a real exchange. In one highlight trackers from the central desert explain to scientists what is going on in ancient footprints found at Willandra Lakes. In another at the 'world's largest gallery' in the Kimberley, Western Australian, a scientist gives the date of rock art depicting a human face to an awestruck young Aboriginal local.

• The whole of First Footprints is on YouTube, part one here. (Timelapse photography short after the jump.)

Another of the things I learned from the series was that there are probably more trees now in Australia than at first contact because Aboriginal people systematically burnt to create grassland and open woodland. This so impressed the first white settlers and it is now thought that the pictures painted of pastoral scenes once thought misleadingly reminiscent of Britain are accurate.

HT: Harry's Place.

The American Wahhabists

The horrific image above, which I make no apologies for posting, comes from the Ugandan Parliament.

The Ugandan lesbian activist Kasha Jacqueline posted it on Twitter. It is an example of the sort of disgusting anti-gay crap being distributed to Ugandan Members of Parliament. Kasha said it left her "sobbing" and pleading for advice on what to do about it.

• Here's the larger version.

Kasha also just tweeted the cover of a Ugandan tabloid headlined 'Broke MP Sodomised For ShS900m' (about £200,000 / US$345,000). Her comment on that headline was that it was "dense". Unfortunately many Ugandans would believe it.

The idea that gay sex results in people requiring surgery and that gays recruit and target boys did not descend (from heaven) on Uganda, it comes from American dominionist (theocratic) Christian activists. Groups like Right Wing Watch and Truth Wins Out have long documented the sort of vile propoganda, which extends to deranged claims like that gays ran the Nazi party, circulating amongst anti-gay activists.

Back a couple of years and the activities of these people and their links to Uganda were all over US media. Coverage topped by that of MSNBC primetime host Rachel Maddow, who spoke many times with author Jeff Sharlet. His work has exposed the secretive American groups whose aims are internationalist, to spread their theocratic vision worldwide. Other writers like Chip Berlet, writing here for Alternet, have examined just how deeply such militants have infiltrated US conservative politics.

The media focus was on the infamous 'Kill the gays' bill, proposed in Uganda and whose contents are directly linked to US influence. One US Christian activist in particular, Scott Lively, is actually being sued in a US court in a groundbreaking case for inciting persecution. Last month the group sueing Lively, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), exposed links between the people behind the shocking literature distributed to Ugandan MPs and US group LibertyCouncil.

Writes Dan Littauer in GSN:

[The 'Kill the gays' bill] language echoes the false and hateful allegation by Lively and Liberty Counsel that a ‘sodomy’ and ‘homosexualists’ groups from the West ‘promote’ ‘perversion’ in Uganda, naming LGBT activists as ‘militant homofascisits’.

An ironic persistent whine from anti-gay Ugandans is that they oppose homosexuality because it comes from 'foreign influence'. Uganda had no gay people before the whites arrived, they claim. Anyone reporting the ties of anti-gay activists to US funding is rigorously attacked despite a wealth of evidence showing the timeline between American missionaries arriving and anti-gay political action following.

That proposed law, which retains the death penalty (despite heavy spin claiming otherwise, a lie unfortunately bought into by much international mainstream media) is not dead, despite some non-Ugandan activists claiming 'victory!' over it. It still sits on the order paper of the Ugandan parliament, waiting for a vote.

Maddow hasn't covered Uganda for a couple of years now but neither have most others. Jim Burroway at the Box Turtle Bulletin, who do similar work to Right Wing Watch and Truth Wins Out, has been covering developments since Lively first appeared in Uganda. He thinks the bill could be revived for political reasons in Uganda and keeps a watchful eye.

The shocking tweets from Kasha show that anti-gay forces in Uganda haven't let up and, as Burroway has also warned, won't give up until their 'Kill gays' bill becomes law.

Wealthy, anti-gay, international fanatics

The activities of rich American religious fanatics are directly comparable to those of the rich Saudi Wahhabists, who also have their own 'by-the-book' proselytising brand of an Abramaic religion.

The new documentary 'God Loves Uganda' filmed US dominionist evangelical Lou Engel calling Uganda "ground zero" for American efforts.

Writes Peter Montgomery for Religion Dispatches:

It’s clear that much of the power American culture warriors have in Uganda comes from the money their ministries pour into the country along with their missionaries. At the massive Miracle Center Cathedral, the biggest megachurch in Uganda, the high-living pastor is quite frank that “American money helped us build this church,” adding, “whatever you see here is the fruit of American labor.” In another clip, a pastor marvels that aid from U.S. evangelicals increased threefold when they started attacking homosexuality.

Churches’ financial success brings added clout to anti-gay pastors like Martin Ssempa—who drives his congregation into a frenzy by showing explicit and extreme gay pornography—and the politicians allied with them, like David Bahati, the sponsor of the kill-the-gays bill.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is a multi-million dollar organisation, founded by US televangelist Pat Robertson (pictured on the cover of Time magazine). It is actively funding and organising anti-LGBT efforts in Zimbabwe, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and in Brazil.

Mirroring Uganda, reports Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian priest, and Jandira Queiroz, a Brazilian activist, in the Huffington Post, in Brazil:

The ACLJ typically hires local staff for its international offices to mask the U.S. origins of their assault on LGBTQ and reproductive rights, while hypocritically using that façade to attack human rights advocacy as a neocolonial enterprise imposed on the country in question.

In international bodies like the UN another wealthy US group, Family Watch International (FWI), works with the Vatican and Islamic countries against gay interests. It actively recruits and indoctrinates diplomats in the sort of propaganda Kasha found in Ugandan MPs pigeonholes. FWI President Sharon Slater has said that:

Iran is one of the strongest nations in standing up for family values at the UN.

In Zambia, writes Chivuli Ukwimi:

There has been an increase in the number of visits to Zambia by notable American evangelical leaders calling upon Zambian leaders to reject ‘anti-biblical’ practices like homosexuality and abortion and uphold and retain the status of Zambia as a ‘Christian nation’. Of course, many of them have come with sizeable cheques to ‘support’ various churches and religious institutions. And opportunist religious leaders – like Bishop Edward Chomba, who was actually ex-communicated by the International Communion of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church in the US in 2007 – are happily jumping at the chance to make friends with their wealthy peers from across the sea by trying to out-do each other’s anti-gay rhetoric.

If you think you have heard this process before, it is because you have – in Uganda. And we know where that ended up – in legislation calling for the death penalty for homosexual acts, vile and vitriolic press ‘coverage’, and the murder of an LGBTI activist.

The West turns a blind eye

In Ethiopia a building anti-gay campaign is being fueled by US funded religious groups. It is reaching the point of proposing laws -- death sentences -- similar to those proposed in Uganda.

According to Ethiopian activists, the developing wave of persecution is being ignored by the US State Department and the British Foreign Office.

"The U.S. and other countries don’t do enough to push for an end to such violations," writes Rainbow Ethiopia. "It’s not because the foreign governments don’t know what’s going on."

This is not the first time that those countries have been accused of ignoring serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia -- for geo-political reasons -- and the charge undermines the pro-LGBT shift in foreign affairs claimed by both the UK and the US.

Although some may see any actions taken by Western governments opposing persecution of LGBT as 'colonialist' -- and anti-gay forces would loudly agree with that claim -- Ugandan activists have cited international pressure as the reason why the 'Kills gays' bill is not now law. Activists in Malawi, Russia and elsewhere have also supported international pressure.

Richard Lusimbo from SMUG told Littauer:

We need to hold accountable those in the west who support and praise for the persecution of the LGBTI people in Uganda and other parts of the world. Their work imposes a denial of rights and a life of hardship and suffering for gay people in Uganda and elsewhere.

America's shadow foreign policy

According to activist the Rev. Canon Albert Ogle, American tax dollars are supporting many of those active in pushing for LGBT persecution internationally.

Ogle cites the invisibility of LGBT related services from the aid budgets of USAID, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) as well as in funds going to the United Nations Global Fund.

Organisations like the televangelist Billy Graham's family charity Samaritan’s Purse get millions for unscientific 'abstinence only' HIV/Aids programmes which exclude LGBT. And, Ogle notes, Andy Kopsa’s research shows that Samaritan’s Purse:

Brags about converting Muslims to Christianity through the distribution of "hygiene kits" and clean water projects in Niger. They have been found to be evangelising Haitians as part of their relief efforts.

But despite being censured previously for proselytizing with federal money, Graham's group still gets millions.

Another group, World Vision, massively funded by US taxpayers, won't employ gay people and have been involved in the anti-gay activity in Ethiopia.

Says Ogle:

[My Ethiopian friend] was arrested and tortured as a direct result of this kind of shadow foreign policy by American-based evangelical organizations that receive multimillion-dollar contracts from the American government. They hide behind good works to orphans and widows while ignoring the devastation they cause for the LGBT poor of the developing world. As more and more light is shed on a very hidden part of American-funded evangelism in the global south, the American tax payer deserves more accountability as to where their gifts are going and what they are actually used to fund.

Who's fighting American Wahhabists?

The pro-gay foreign policy announced with fanfare by Hillary Clinton in December 2011 is already showing some fruit. One little noticed example is the American government's support for LGBT organisation in Mongolia, where that country's parliament just discussed the issues for the first time and where a first ever Pride march is planned.

There are people working hard to end US support for anti-gay forces and, Ogle reports, that on April 8:

USAIDlaunched a new initiative with the Astraea Foundation, The Victory Institute and the Williams Institute to create a $12 million superfund to help struggling LGBT organizations in the Global South to try to reverse the impact of this kind of discrimination and invisibility.

"It is a beginning," says Ogle. But "so much more is needed to repair years of discrimination and neglect and to stop funding faith based programs that are on the front lines of LGBT oppression in many countries."

Evangelicals like Warren Throckmorton, who has done hard reporting on developments in Uganda and has been cited by Maddow, are working within religious circles to expose the international theocrats. The producers of 'God Loves Uganda' are using their documentary to try to get American evangelicals to "consider the impact of their words and deeds", writes Montgomery. He says that the film's producers have had hundreds of inquiries from churches for screenings.

Polls show that there has been a huge, positive swing in the attitude of American 'born again' Christians towards LGBT over the past quarter-century. Perhaps within another generation the American Wahhabists attempt to impose 'biblical law' outside America will have simply died at its source?

Related articles

• Ugandan anti-gay pastors hold hate rally next to gay hero David Kato's grave
• Uganda 'Kill the Gays' bill remains a threat, just off stage
• "God loves Uganda," hates gays
• Getting Our Perspective Right on Our Fellow Africans

Exporting American homophobia

One of the criticisms which you sometimes hear from 'global south', particularly African activists, about international LGBT activism as well as Western media is the failure to tackle Western religious groups and their interventions.

I thought of this whilst reading an extremely detailed post by Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian priest, and Jandira Queiroz, a Brazilian activist, about the activities of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). This multi-million dollar organisation, founded by US televangelist Pat Robertson, is actively funding and organising anti-LGBT efforts in Zimbabwe, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and now, the article reports, in Brazil:

Filipe Coelho, director of the newly formed Brazilian Center for Law and Justice (BCLJ) and a friend of the Sekulows from his time studying in the U.S., says ACLJ decided to open an office in his country after discovering last year "how strong evangelical power is within Brazilian politics." A well-connected evangelical in the rapidly growing Assemblies of God church, Coelho was able to arrange a meeting for Jordan Sekulow with Brazil's vice president on 48 hours' notice. With more than 40 million people identifying themselves as evangelical in Brazil, the world's second-largest predominantly Christian country (after the U.S.), it presents a tempting prize for ACLJ expansion.

Though Brazil boasts the largest Pride parade in the world, it may come as a surprise that same-sex couples cannot marry or adopt and lack constitutional protections. In 2011 Rev. Silas Malafaia, pastor of the nearly 20,000-member Victory in Christ Assemblies of God church and vice president of the Interdenominational Council of Evangelical Ministers in Brazil (CIMEB), mobilized thousands to march through the capital city of Brasilia against a bill that would have extended protections to cover sexual orientation. After the Pride parade the same year, Rev. Malafaia, a family friend of the Sekulows and Coelhos, told listeners of his television show that the Catholic Church should "beat [literally 'stick'] down those gay activists" for using saints' images on posters.

Facing language like this, for 11 years Brazil's LGBTQ movement has unsuccessfully promoted an anti-homophobia bill that would make discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity an aggravating factor in hate crimes and speech. Evangelicals perceive this as a threat to their "religious liberty" to preach on national television that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God. When Rev. Malafaia, who calls himself "public enemy No. 1 of the gay movement" and leads "crusades," asked his audience in 2009 to vote against the anti-homophobia bill, in a poll posted on the Senate's webpage, there were half a million "no" clicks in less than a week. His Twitter followers number close to half a million.

Brazil has some of the highest reported rates of anti-LGBT violence in the world. In 2011 I reported on how:

Thousands of Twitterers [are] expressing support for homophobic attacks on LGBT using the slogan "Homophobia? Yes!" (#homofobiasim, see English translation of tweets, some of which are explicitly pro-violence, pro-'corrective rape' of lesbians) or used the number of the proposed hate crimes law (yes=#PL122Sim, No=#PL122Nao).

Say Kaoma and Queiroz:

The ACLJ typically hires local staff for its international offices to mask the U.S. origins of their assault on LGBTQ and reproductive rights, while hypocritically using that façade to attack human rights advocacy as a neocolonial enterprise imposed on the country in question.

Warren Throckmorton has reported on another, similar organisation, Family Watch International (FWI). That group is particularly active at the United Nations, where LGBT activists have had a long presence and have been slowly gaining victories. FWI has worked with Islamic countries, including Iran, in opposition to UN resolutions calling for decriminalization of homosexuality and opposing violence against LGBT.

FWI President Sharon Slater has said that:

Iran is one of the strongest nations in standing up for family values at the UN.

Throckmorton reports that FWI has held conferences to "immerse UN delegates in U.S. right wing culture war talking points about homosexuality." This means working with discredited groups preaching the snake oil of conversion therapy like the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

American-sourced ideas that sexuality can be changed, so-called conversion or 'reparative' therapy, has gone around the world, popping up from Hong Kong to Ecuador.

Throckmorton, an evangelical who is professor at a liberal arts Christian college and has been a leading reporter on Uganda's 'Kill the gays' bill and 'reparative' therapy, had a message for fellow American Christians:

Social conservatives who generally support “pro-family” causes should take pause to consider what being pro-family means in a country like Uganda or Nigeria, where the conservative position is to detain gays on suspicion of homosexual behavior and then threaten them with jail or stoning.

Francis cannot save Catholicism

Father Murphy was a priest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He ran a School for the Deaf. He was a classic predator in the sense that he would seek out weak people. He was very charismatic like many of these predators are and also was an excellent signer.

But one of the things he did was to use the confession booth to find out things about the children and he would particularly prey on children whose parents themselves could not sign either at all or very well, so in effect he imprisoned them because he was tormenting them sexually and yet they couldn't even complain to their parents without the intercession of Murphy as an interlocutor.

So it was really a horrible, horrible crime. But even he imagined himself to be performing a holy act. He used to say, "I'm taking their sins upon myself."

This is Oscar winner Alex Gibney talking to the ABC's Tony Jones about his documentary, 'Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa'.

The film, which is still doing the arthouse (natch) circuit, focuses on the first victims of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal to go public, the deaf boys of Milwaukee.

They pled to the former Pope's racket, Ratzinger's renamed Inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They got nowhere.

This incredible film, through its centre in these deaf boys, now men, conveys the pain of abuse better than any other I have seen on this scandal. Sign language has a power that no verbal language does, in this regard.

If you want to watch one thing to understand this issue, this issue's living rawness, seek 'Mea Maxima Culpa' out.

Jones asks Gibney: what are the chances that Pope Francis could demand that the Vatican open up its secret case files on these paedophile priests and the men up the Church's chain of command who covered up for them?

He says:

I think the chances are pretty small, frankly. I mean, the new pope is a creature of the old system, so I'd be very surprised if he does it. I think we're all hoping that he might or might have the courage to do so, but I think the chances are extremely unlikely.

Why? 'Mea Maxima Culpa' explains why. To do so would upend the very point of this church, the ridiculousness of supposed sexual piety at its core and its absolution in 'confession'.

The film interviews Richard Sipe, a former priest. Sipe names what lies at the centre of Catholic hypocrisy, a syndrome known to police as 'noble cause corruption', the belief that good intentions purify bad behaviour, turning a perversion into a holy act.

A priest who had an affair with this 12, 13-year-old girl brought to one of their encounters what he said was a consecrated host. And he touched it to her vagina and he said, "This is how God loves you." And then he raped her.

Francis cannot end that mindset, everything would crumble if he did.

Says Gibney:

One of the things about Sipe's study was that he discovered that at least 50 per cent of the clergy have an active sex life.

So if you have that kind of lie or that kind of hypocrisy at the heart of the Church, then what it does is it creates a system of secrecy and blackmail and then that colours everything surrounding investigations into sexual indiscretions or crimes in the Church.

Gibney tells Jones he suspects but cannot confirm that the scandal definitively lies behind Ratzinger's resignation. The Church and its enablers cannot admit it. Secrecy is everything.

Ratzinger is now protected by Italy, where Gibney's film has had difficulty getting screened, and Ratzinger will live out his days within the Vatican's walls. Here he will be safe from lawyers. Why? Says Gibney:

There's a direct connection to the case that we look at in this film because there was an archbishop in Milwaukee who tried to see that this priest who'd abused over 200 deaf children be defrocked. And they went to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and tried to see if then Cardinal Ratzinger would do it, but the investigation was abated because the priest himself wrote to then Cardinal Ratzinger and said, "Gee, I'm an old priest. I'd like to die in the dignity of my priesthood. Please give me a break." And that is precisely what Ratzinger did. He gave him a break rather than defrock him.

The whole film is availables for frees on the interwebs (natch) but it's still in cinemas so I'm just posting the promo clip for 'Mea Maxima Culpa', after the break, plus Gibney Q+A from the BFI Festival, where he compares the Catholic Church to tobacco companies, hoping the 'Global South' will break free:

The 'fight online porn' crusaders' gay roadkill

Texas has become, like the Tennessee of the Scopes evolution trial, a modern day laboratory for the influence of 'Xstianism'. That's the spot on term invented for their sort of muscular, dominionist religiosity by the writer Andrew Sullivan.

Texan Xstians have taken over the body that decides what gets taught in the state's schools. Alongside the teaching of 'intelligent design' they want history rewritten to say things like that McCarthyism was a good idea and so was the gold standard.

Writing last year for the New York Review of Books, Gail Collins describes how the state's School Board members ..

.. seemed determined just to sprinkle stuff its members liked hither and yon, and eliminate words they found objectionable in favor of more appealing ones. Reading through the deletions and additions, it becomes clear that a majority of board members hated the word “democratic,” for which they consistently substituted “constitutional republic.” They also really disliked “capitalism” (see rather: “free enterprise system”) and “natural law” (“laws of nature and nature’s God”).

What Collins discovered was that this ideology was having a national impact in the USA because Texas is such a big market for textbooks and what can be sold to Texas can be mostly sold elsewhere. She quotes one expert saying that the proportion of social studies textbooks sold nationally that contain the basic Texas-approved narrative range from about half to 80 percent.

Books, printed books, usually expensive and arguably overpriced textbooks, are still bought in large quantities by students everywhere because they are a requirement. But elsewhere students look to the internet for information and what they will find there are barriers resulting from heavy, ideological influence from Xstianists. Recently joining the Xstianists at the digital barricades have been some other forces such as feminism.

The Muslims who love the gays

Published 11 February, 2013 by Box Turtle Bulletin.


Last week’s historic vote on gay marriage in the British House of Commons was noteworthy not just for the quality of the speeches, such as this one by MP David Lammy, but also for how Muslim MPs voted.

Five Labour Muslim MPs supported gay marriage as did one Conservative. Three other MPs who could not attend had previously stated their support, two Conservatives and one Labour. Only one Muslim MP, the Conservative Rehman Chisti, joined the scores of MPs citing ‘religious grounds’ in their opposition.

Many MPs explicitly said that they took their orders from the Vatican, or cited Bible verses in the debate. That seven out of eight Muslim MPs did the opposite should be better known. It’s unfortunate that it is not as it would probably surprise many, although it should not.

Muslim MPs only arrived in any numbers in Britain at the last election but both locally in Britain as well as in other Western democracies numerous Muslim politicians have shown themselves to be gay friendly and supportive of LGBT rights. The sole Muslim member of the US House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, has a 100% Rating from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). HRC President Joe Solmonese calls him “a true champion”.

Although senior Muslim organizations joined the opposition led by the English and Scottish Catholic Churches to the marriage bill, you would hardly know it — a source of anger to some Muslims. In contrast to various Bishops, there have been no headlines about the latest outrageous statement from prominent Muslim clerics claiming that civilization is about to end.

Why not? Perhaps because any assumption that British Muslims are opposed to LGBT equality is somewhat dashed not just by these MPs actions but also by polls. One in 2011 found that British Muslims are more likely to strongly agree with the statement ‘I am proud of how Britain treats gay people’ than are people of no religion. Only Sikhs were more likely to strongly agree.

Now here’s an idea …

Sarkozy's burqa ban busted

And you think we (the west) can comment on this without a little, er, hypocrisy being involved. The Daily Show thinks otherwise ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Burka Ban
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Allahu Akbar

I cannot in any way claim to know what people are thinking or meaning on the ground, but for centuries, 'Allahu Akbar' has been in the Muslim world a battlefield of meaning and ultimately of political legitimacy. They are five syllables pregnant in meaning, mutability and richness, not simply a ritualistic or fundamentalist dogmatic trope. Nor is 'Allahu Akbar' simply a prayer. In fact, despite all its negative, violent connotations in the West, 'Allahu Akbar' has been uttered by Muslims throughout history as a cry against oppression, against kings and monarchs, against tyrannical and despotic rule, reminding people that in the end, the disposer of affairs and ultimate holder of legitimacy is not any man, not any king or queen, not even any supreme leader, but ultimately a divine force out and above directing, caring and fighting for a more peaceful, rule-based, just and free world for people to live in. God is the one who is greatest, above each and every mortal human being whose station it is to pass away.

The fact that 'Allahu Akbar' is echoing through the Iranian night is not only an indication of the longing of people there to find a peaceful and just solution to this crisis. It also points to how deep the erosion of legitimacy is in whosoever acts against the will of the people, in whosoever claims to act on God's behalf to oppress his fellow human, including in this case some of the 'supreme' Islamic jurists themselves. This all goes to show that Islam, far from being merely an abode of repression and retrogression, has the capacity of being a fundamentally restorative and democratic force in human affairs. In the end, so it seems, at least in the Iranian context, 'Allahu Akbar', God is greatest, is a most profoundly democratic of political slogans. So deep is this call, that what is determined out of this liminal moment may very well set the terms for (or against) a lived, democratic Islamic reality for decades to come.

From Huffpost's (Nico Pitney's) incredible coverage

Gay Morrocco and Koranic anti-gay interpretations

News about 'Outrage sweeping across Morocco' following a gay association's announcement of a planned seminar on sexual problems led me to the video below.

The video tells the story of a gay couple's 'marriage', celebrated traditionally by their families and echoing centuries of actual Muslim tolerance of homosexuality.

It dramatically contradicts the news story which plies the same mythical line that certain churches and politicians in African states like Uganda have that "homosexuals have been attempting to infiltrate Moroccan culture".

It claims that "Moroccan authorities are in a very awkward situation since they are torn between European pressure and Morocco's conservative community".

Well good. The more pressure the better. As the video makes clear, you either support basic human rights or you don't. 'Culture' is no defence.

What's more, as with women's rights, it is not a case of 'change cannot happen because the Koran is clear'. The video explains how it's simply how it's interpreted - much like the bible - and some aspects highlighted and others ignored. Again, 'culture' is no defence' - and culture is not immutable.

This argument reflects those of the small but profoundly significant 'renaissance' movement amongst Muslims opposed to the likes of Saudi's Wahabbi's and Iran's rulers, saying there is another way. A movement which we're hear far too little about, instead we hear about zealots like Anjem Choudary.

HOMOSEXUALITY in MOROCCO & in ISLAM (part 1 - 5)

• Moroccan gay organisation Kifkif