Ba-Ba Boom

In the news...Georgia demolishes a World War II monument, killing two people.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have long ago transpired into theatrics. Since the 2008 armed conflict, which seemed more of a popularity contest for the attention of Western media, the two countries re-embarked on the tour of mutually-assured embarrassment. This came to a tragic high point on December 19, when a mother and her seven year-old daughter were killed in an explosion that demolished a World War II memorial.

The 150ft monument was erected in 1981 to commemorate lives lost in the war which is still referred to in Russia as ‘holy’. And no matter how hard President Saakashvili wants to sever ties with its neighbour, 700,000 Georgian lives lost in WWII sanctify it in the country’s collective memory. The two Soviet soldiers placing a flag over the fallen Reichstag were a Russian and a Georgian - more than a poster-image for the two nations. So while it is safe to assume that President Saakashvili was thinking when he signed the order to destroy the monument, it is not at all clear that it is safe to let him think at all.

It is difficult to say what benefits either side gains from the spat. The five-day war had left both Russia and Georgia discredited by bilateral lies and false accusations and the lack of a sober political agenda. But although Russia seems to have emerged from the incident if not with grace, then at least with public opinion back on its side, it has since been working hard to undermine itself. Firstly, it refused to remove the remainder of its troops from the contested region of South Ossetia, to which Georgia responded with the resumption of NATO training exercise. Then, in a move that defies all common sense and all sense of measure, Russia paid the Pacific nation of Nauru $50m in return for recognising Abkhazia. A move that makes George W.’s ‘coalition of the willing’ sound like a solid political force. According to The New York Times, ‘Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been desperate for income since its most important resource, phosphates formed by centuries of bird droppings, is nearly exhausted. The island has tried housing refugees for Australia and investing millions in a West End musical. (It bombed.)’ I have nothing more to add.

It is understandable that Saakashvili wanted to get back in the game, and he did that with a grand furore. It is worth a mention that initially the demolition was scheduled for December 21, which is Saakashvili’s birthday. A birthday he shares with one other infamous Georgian Joseph Stalin. Talking about being unlucky. A fact not lost on either the Russian and Georgian opposition media or the Kermlin, who are not shy to draw parallels. Even The Guardian carried an article claiming that Georgia’s first lady Sandra Roelofs stated in an interview that her husband ‘aspires to follow in the long tradition of strong Georgian leaders "like Stalin and Beria"’. This is of course mostly media-hype. But Stalin made history by not only annihilating millions of Russians, Georgians and everyone else who stood in his way, but also by erasing an enormous chunk of history by replacing churches with public pools. If Mr. Saakashvili wanted to avoid unpleasant parallels, he should have thought twice before asking for the dynamite.

What is strange is that the Western media paid absolutely no attention to the event. Only the BBC website carried a small story. Clearly, this mishap does not rival another blast in Baghdad; the politics behind it are much less explosive and thus not really newsworthy. But it is the absence of such small components of a complex mosaic that leads to erroneous preconceptions - just like it happened in August 2008 when the world immediately took Russia to be the bad guy. Conversely, if one turns to the Russian media, it will be rather difficult to distil an accurate portrait of the Georgian leader from the blood and oil-thirsty, lunatic images he is so often prescribed. In this reality-vacuum that has formed in the Russian-Georgian public space, the silence of the Western commentators seems unprofessional at best. Especially as the memory of a woman and a girl buried alive under a block of concrete seems to me to deserve more than a moment of silence.

Truth or Dare

In the news...Five British soldiers are killed by a rogue policeman in Helmand...An army psychiatrist kills 13 at Fort Hood military base in Texas.

On November 4, 2009 reports that five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman at a military post in Helmand emerged, but did not hit the headlines. The next day, terror was brought a step closer to home when a major in the US Army shot 13 people dead at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The first incident was treated by the media as yet another side-effect of war, while the second sparked a debate over national security, military strategy and, of course, religion. However, no one seemed to have tied the two events together and consider the underlying suggestion that we are not only fighting a distant threat, but an enemy from within.

Had these two shootings taken place at the same time, their co-ordination may have suggested a terrorist attack. But it appears safe to state that we are dealing with two isolated incidents of solitary madness. The British Army has classified the shooter as a ‘rogue’ policeman with ties to - it’s a shocker - the Taliban, while the press chooses phrases like ‘murderous rampage’ to designate the singular nature of brutality at Fort Hood. However, it is precisely the timing that makes the two shootings significant. Happening consecutively, they draw attention to the fact that the Allied effort in Iraq and now Afghanistan is beginning to lose sense for those who have enlisted to fight for it.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American Muslim born in Virginia, 39 year-old army psychiatrist. That description sounds like a bad joke. Had it not been for the horror of the pointless deaths, the headlines would no doubt be screaming with the likes of ‘Shrink Goes Postal’. The fact that the shooter was Muslim only adds fuel to the already-hot fire of paranoia and distrust - which is precisely what the American government is desperately trying to avoid. While President Obama praises the unity of purpose in the US Army and the whole nation, the mainstream press is hardlining the lone-shooter scenario. Unlikely as it is, America is still cautious about a Hollywood-remake of Kristallnacht, so everyone seems to be tiptoeing on broken glass.

The situation is beginning to look a little like a game of truth or dare, where the authorities can’t decide what would be worse for America’s wrecked nervous system - the fact that a home-grown jihadist was allowed to slip through to the heart of the US security like an unnoticed blood clot or that the stress of its aggressive foreign policy is ricocheting in its own back yard. Of course, it was only a matter of time until lines like ‘90% screwball with 10% jihadi flavour’ were going to surface, and not only from the far right. While the Army and the FBI are being very cautious in drawing premature conclusions, links to radical Islamists are being investigated. Not to consider a religious aspect would be utter folly. As would be hedging all your bets on it. This is a fine line through the psyche of an American Muslim officer - a cross-section that needs to be thoroughly understood, if we are to learn anything from this experience.

The US Army finds itself in a precarious situation when it comes to enlisting Muslims in the current climate. It is safe to assume that living under the shadow of George W.’s ‘crusade’ is not easy for any American Muslim. The New York Times carried an interesting piece on the problems faced by Muslim soldiers in the army, emphasising their ‘civil war’ state of mind. The US Army cannot afford not to enlist Muslims, as that would not only violate what America stands for, but create an army of Christian America. But at the same time, arming people against whose systems of belief a war is being waged is a clear risk. It is a choice between a country and an army you can trust, and the US government has its money on the state. Fort Hood was a necessary sacrifice for national unity. To date, out of 1.4 million active servicemen, about 3,500 official claim to be Muslim (unofficial estimates are around 20,000). Admittedly, you could bet on those odds.

The shootings come at an uncertain time of deliberation. Hamid Karzai had just won a shady election in Afghanistan and is now touring Europe to be lectured on the extent of his corruption. The Taliban is shelling Kabul, and the NATO generals cannot agree on a strategy. President Obama is under stress at home to formulate a clear Afghanistan policy - so that the people would know exactly what their young coutry-men and women are dying for, as opposed to just dying. The British government is suggesting, in half tones just now, talks with the Taliban - which can only mean one thing - and it is not victory.

Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die. First the British, then the Soviet, now American. Defying historical - but some might agree not common - sense, the Allied Forces have pried open Pandora’s Box and are fighting the consequences. But it was one thing when the enemy was a ‘haaji’ or a ‘raghead’. It becomes a whole different story when someone you trust, someone you train, someone you give a gun to fight for your cause turns around and machine-guns you down. It upturns the scales of justice, grief and blame - and not in our favour.

In the wake of the Fort Hood massacre, the US Army is reopening the grievances-box and psychiatric help for veterans is high on the agenda. Of course, the incident places a question mark over the condition of mental health specialists themselves. According to The New York Times, the Army is trying new methods for stress-management, including breathing techniques. So we should all take a deep breath and remember that as long as there is a war for hearts and minds going on, there will always be some we cannot convince. And then ask ourselves whether we should be trying to at all.

The American Way of Death*

In the news...Wal-Mart launches an online funeral range.

Death is an $11 billion industry in America. With the ever-evolving brutal weapons, funky viruses and random cataclysms, dying seems to be easier than ever. And so does grief - with the multitude of creative, innovative ways to show how much we care for our dead. If shooting your beloved's ashes out of a canon or using them as fertiliser for endangered coral reefs isn’t quite your style, then you can always opt for the traditional mood-setting flower arrangements and status-appropriate caskets, complete with blood drainage and macabre theatrical make-up (also knows as embalming) for that special someone. In the attempt to parade our mourning appropriately, the funeral industry has gone to great lengths - using such props as the Successful Mortuary Operation Service Manual or the basics of sales psychology - to lead us into a false comfort that we are paying exactly for what our loved ones would have wanted on their last day on earth. And now, in a whole new strike of cynical genius, Wal-Wart has decided to make things easier for everybody and launched its online coffin line.

The world’s largest retailer, with its 3,600 stores and over one million employees in the US alone, already caters to such basic human consumer needs as childbirth and marriage, so death was only a natural progression. The memory of entering an American supermarket for the first time and thinking ‘God, do they really sell everything?!’ is still very fresh from my Soviet teenage years. And now indeed the dream that you can have it all, nay - buy it all, and yea! - in one place - has finally become reality. An American dream or a nightmare - that is not for my foreign self to decide. But the remarkable opportunity to buy a bicycle, baby clothes, an engagement ring, a coffin and some bubble gum with a few swift clicks has been granted to our laziness. Life, which has for long resisted postmodern consumerism prophesies, has finally caved in and become one large supermarket, to the sound of Foucault turning in his grave.

Now, Wal-Mart has not broken the cynicism barrier on its own. Costco.com has been selling a range of grief-paraphernalia for some time now, offering charming products such as the ‘sympathy wreath (patriotic)’ and the ‘In God’s Care’ casket, as well as pet urns. It delivers to a larger number of zip codes than does Wal-Mart, but it has a somewhat smaller, more pricey range and you must have someone die by 12 p.m. so that you can place your coffin-order on time. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, prides on its 14-piece collection of quality American-made caskets that are available for less. For example, Costco’s ‘Mother Casket’ is $924.99, while Wal-Mart’s ‘Mom Remembered’ is only $895. Now, if your mother has taught you well, you’d know the sense of good economy. Also, Wal-Mart’s Bill Me Later! policy secures interest-free 12-months credit. Unfortunately, the offer is only valid until Dec. 31, 2009. So if someone you know and love is looking frail, you could take the chance and pay in advance. But you won’t be able to return the product. Sensitive issue, this.

The BBC has quoted Pat Lynch, of the National Funeral Home Directors Association, saying that ‘There's no question in my mind as a funeral director for nearly 40 years that the most critical element is the human contact.’ Surely, if you prefer, you might dig up your NFDA membership and login and peruse the Grief Resources section to find ‘information about the various aspects of grief and suggestions for coping with the death of a loved one’. It is strange that there is no semantic section that explains the retailers’ preference for the word ‘casket’. For surely someone attempting to buy an appropriate death receptacle on Walmart.com wondered why the search for ‘coffin’ produces a selection of Steven Seagal DVDs, a guitar case and an inflatable vampire available in-store only. For me, at least, that was slightly misleading. Much as the 4.5 star customer rating on the ‘Lady de Guadelupe’ steel casket, where the link still implores for someone to be ‘the first to review this product’. Someone should tell them.

‘To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;/For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...?’ asked Hamlet. In the philosophical abstraction of one of life’s most chilling unknowns, the Prince of Denmark could hardly have envisaged such developments - dark and broody as he was. Four hundred years on, the world spins faster on the hardened axis of healthy cynicism. But just because we like to simplify things (again, thank you postmodernism), doesn’t necessarily mean that we stopped caring. We are just harder to shock, and ever more shocking.

* In 1963 Jessica Mitford published The American Way of Death - a journalistic investigation into the American funeral industry that disclosed the unimaginable cynicism with which our deaths are sold to us. After the publication of Mitford’s book, cremations rose by 8% in the US, as did membership in non-profit funeral agencies. I have dared to borrow her brilliant title.

Crimes and Misdemeanours

In the news...Commander in Chief of the Russian airborne troops orders special forces units to hinder a police investigation into his private affairs.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and particularly Boris Yeltsin’s tipsy years in power, Russia’s young government has been trying to rough-hew the country’s tattered international image. The project may as well have been entitled ‘Keeping Up Appearances’, for the words ‘lawlessness’ and ‘impunity’ are still prevalent in Russia’s discourse. While President Medvedev’s smiling eyes may have lured part of the audience into a false sense of well-being and security, the events off camera leave one shuddering at the state of play. On September 21, 2009 it became public knowledge that the commander in chief of the Russian elite airborne troops, Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, had ordered two paratrooper squads to interfere in an active police investigation for personal reasons.

Novaya Gazeta - Russia’s leading investigative newspaper, which lost four journalists to political assassinations since 2001 (including, famously, Anna Politkovskya) - published the complete audio files of phone conversations from August 18, 2009 between the general and a group of his subordinates in which he ordered two special forces units to dispatch to the Moscow factory of his son-in-law to prevent a police detective from entering the premises. The communications are full of urgency and impatience on the general’s behalf and - to their credit - nervousness and tension from his subordinates, spiced with outrageous swearing on both sides. It makes for an obscene soundtrack to Russia's injustice system.

What adds extra salt to the story is the fact that this was not just an ill-judged misdemeanour but a grave obstruction of justice. Alexei Hramushin, the young man in question, has been a member of a Moscow mafia ring and has recently become a fugitive wanted internationally for conspiracy to murder of a former business partner. When Gen. Shamanov found out that police investigators were headed towards Hramushin’s offices, he did what every family man would do - he placed a phone call. Clearly, the fact that being under oath to his country surpasses all other affiliations did not cross the good man’s mind when he shouted the ‘Fuck, go ahead!’ command.

Overriding federal law might seem a small offence to a man who has disregarded much more reputable parameters of international jurisdiction. In 2005, the European Court for Human Rights convicted the former commander of the Russian federal forces in Chechnya for the ‘massive use of indiscriminate weapons’. In 1999 Gen. Shamanov ordered heavy bombing of the Katyr-Yurt village, which was being used as a ‘safe zone’ for refugees without either warning or allowing for an exit route for civilians. His order to prevent refugees from leaving zones of conflict has been infamously disobeyed by other commanders in the region. Allegations of Shamanov’s troops both carrying out extra-judicial killings and failing to prevent them are also abundant. A close personal friend of the General - Colonel Yuri Budanov - was the first high-ranking Russian officer to be convicted for a brutal murder of a Chechen girl. Shamanov protested against all allegations and is suspected to have been instrumental - as Governor of the region where the trial was held - in Budanov’s premature release after only 8.5 years in prison. For all these extraordinary achievements, Gen. Shamanov was awarded the Hero of Russia - the country’s most honoured medal.

As if becoming Chechnya’s very own bogeyman was not enough Shamanov, as head of Ministry of Defence’s combat training command, made headlines last year when he expressed the need for Russian soldiers to be prepared to fight for territorial acquisitions in the oil-rich Arctic. His public persona wavering from the inhuman to the grotesque, in May 2009 he was, nevertheless, named commander in chief of the airborne troops - the pride and glory of the Russian army - an equivalent to the US Marines. One only has to imagine what tricks Gen. Shamanov turned for the government during the controversial counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya, and what cards he holds against Russia’s Commander in Chief to get his alcohol-swollen, monosyllabic self appointed to this position.

It is superfluous to mention that Russian authorities have closed the investigation into the Shamanov’s war crimes allegations, ‘having found no evidence of a crime’. It hardly comes as a surprise that after two shorts weeks the Ministry of Defence investigation committee announced that all charges against Shamanov’s abuse of power will be dropped due to the lack of corpus dilecti - or constituent elements of offence. According to the committee, Shamanov recalled the operation after he realised he had made a mistake. Due to the information ban placed on this story, there is no confirmation that it was indeed the case or of what exactly happened at the factory when, and if, the swat teams arrived.

It has been just over a year since President Medvedev stressed the ‘particular importance on the fundamental role of the law,’ stating that Russia ‘must ensure true respect for the law and overcome the legal nihilism that is such a serious hindrance to modern development’ (Time, Jun. 04, 2009). In the meantime, Gen. Shamanov has been reprimanded and apologised, but still remains in office, clearly not embarrassing the image-conscious government enough to be replaced. After all, having war criminals present at conference tables is a long-standing political perk. Thus, foreign leaders will have the opportunity - on the next visit to Moscow - to shake hands with the devil.

Suit Up

In the news...Japan creates a suit to ward off swine flu.

When it comes to trends, the Japanese do it best. Whether it is Luis Vuitton handbags or vitamin IV-drips, the children of the rising sun like being swept away. And what more than a global pandemic to create a new hype? It seems like the enthusiasts at the Haruyama Trading Co. thought just that and gave the world the very first anti-swine flu suit.

Whether it is our well-developed cynicism or pathological fear of ridicule, but it is difficult to imagine westerners going to such lengths to avoid infections as do the Japanese. Could you imagine businessmen walking into meetings with a medical mask on? Or queueing up in front of the office for a splash of disinfectant? Or paying $500 for a suit that allegedly kills bacteria? Even the doctor at the Tokyo British Clinic, who is surely used to idiosyncrasies, gave CNN a nervous laugh at the idea.

But we are still just a bit curious about how this miracle cure. Well, 40% protection, rather, but nevertheless. The active agent is titanium dioxide. For the chemically challenged among us this is far from a Eureka moment, and not that the manufacturers are eager to explain the details. Apparently, TiO2 is a white pigment used mostly in food colouring, toothpaste and paints. Evading technical details, it has been widely used, for example, in self-cleaning glass and sunscreen. My immediate reaction was the image of viruses being blinded by the unsurpassed brightness and whiteness - much like a 32-tooth smile in a Colgate ad. But although the suit is black and its workings are much more scientific, in essence that I wasn’t too far off.

Compared with Australia and the United States, Japan remained relatively spared by swine flu. Perhaps if things had been more serious, no one would have had the time to spice up the dress code. Like in South Africa, for instance, where over 5m - or 10% of the population - are living with AIDS, a flu outbreak doesn’t seem to send shivers down too many spines. Although it probably should, given what a common flu can do to someone with HIV AIDS. But every nation seems to deal with a crisis differently. Americans queue up for vaccinations. Egyptians do not know what to do with all the waste downtown Cairo, now that they have slaughtered the pigs that used to feed on it. The Japanese are suiting up. It may be one world, but each bit spins off in its very own fashion.

It's a boy-girl thing

In the news...South African athlete is asked to undergo a gender test after a striking performance at the Athletic World Championships in Berlin.

Serious things have happened in the world this week. Afghanistan, despite popular belief, survived its second presidential election. The Pakistani Taliban appointed the next Mehsud, despite, once again, popular hopes that the Talibs would kill each other in the fight for succession. Scotland refreshed its status as a cradle of Enlightenment and released one of the world’s most hated men on compassionate grounds, again, against popular outcry. It is in the world of sport, however, that a subject everyone was embarrassingly whispering about has made the blushing headlines.

Caster Semenya, the 18 year-old South African athlete who won the women’s 800 metre race with unprecedented advantage on Wednesday, would probably never make it onto the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Hawkish and abrupt, she resembles a teenage boy not only physically. When confronted by allegations of her actually being a him, Semenya shrugged quickly, grumbled that she ‘doesn’t give a damn’ and walked out of shot in signature Premier League footballer style. After all, football is her biggest passion after athletics, her family says.

Questions about Semenya’s gender started sipping through the internet following her victory in the African Junior Championships at the end of July. For all its freedom of expression, the world wide web remains unbeaten in the disciplines of obscenity, narrow-mindedness and plain idiocy. But exactly what margin of bad taste has given the Brisbane Times the idea to break the story under the headline ‘Gender Bender on the IAAF Agenda’ remains a matter personal slapstick taste. How low down you are willing to go for a catchy header? Well, Downunder they should know.

The world media is full of outrage about such unhealthy attention to the young athlete’s rather private business. Publications world-wide are repeating fellow athletes’ criticism of the media’s shamelessness. Family members are continuously quoted saying: ‘it’s a girl!’ and waving birth certificates in protest. In its attempt to denounce the sensationalist savagery, the media is only making things worse. Mulling the issue over and again, bringing up past examples of gender confusion and detailed explanations of genital mutations is akin to hitting the already-bruised finger with the hammer. And incessant talk of the painful, embarrassing and plain insulting nature of the controversy is doing nothing to make the situation less painful, embarrassing or insulting for Caster Semenya. She may be used to teasing from her school years. But you can bet that childhood traumas in the sand-pit were nothing compared to this. The press could do everyone a huge favour and stop discussing the size of Semenya’s breasts. But that wouldn’t be newsworthy, now, would it.

While the media is stumbling all over the issue, smiling sheepishly, trying to convince us how sorry they are for having to bring this up, the South African political activists could not miss a chance to wave the red flag. The ANC’s youth wing, the Young Communist League spokesman claimed that ‘This smacks of racism of the highest order. It represents the mentality of conforming a feminine outlook with the white race’. Now, I am not sure what to say. All my life I was convinced that the ‘feminine outlook’ - a strange thesaurus hick-up - of the white race was on the scrawny side. While the media continuously parade black women celebrating their curves, it is their white sisters that have embraced the garden salad as dinner in their fight against cellulite. And what about those great African figurines in history museums? The Mother Africas. If the YCL guy was hinting at the fact that the West has an image of black women as being fat, he’s only got the archeologists to blame. Surely, no one is free of preconceptions, but this is really taking the racism issue far beyond plain eyesight. And if he knew better, he’d realise that Semenya’s chiselled abs are much closer to what women want nowadays - as opposed to sagging F-cups.

It is indeed a great shame that this is the way Semenya gets to celebrate her first international victory. I am not the first, and not even the hundredth person to write that this week. It is a shame that the race issue is still so fresh in our widely-publicised post-racial world. It is also a shame that the media just doesn’t seem to be able to stop itself from perpetrating the scandal by discussing the terrible perpetration of the scandal. So I am just going to shut up.

Happy Anniwarsary

In the news...ten years since the start of the Second Chechen campaign, ten years since Putin's coming to power, one year since the Georgia-Russia war over South Ossetia.

August is a heated month in Russia. What the northern country lacks in temperature is more than compensated for by its political climate. This year, Russia is marking some major anniversaries - some more widely advertised than others. On August 7, 1999 the Islamist rebels from Chechnya invaded the neighbouring republic of Dagestan, thereby triggering the beginning of the Second Chechen War and Russia’s continuing streak of human rights abuses in the Caucuses. Vladimir Putin has been named Deputy Prime Minister on August 16, 1999, to be carried forward to the Presidency on the wings of his hard-line policies and the couter-terrorist operation in the breakaway region. Rearing popular support through military bravado has been the Russian government’s steady bet for the past decade. The new President-heir Dmitri Medvedev clearly needed a sprinkle of patriotic heroism for his halo. Thus, on August 8, Russian state media has launched a magnificent propaganda campaign to commemorate last year’s war with Georgia over the contested region of South Ossetia.

Well, less of a war and more of a squabble, rather. Russia has been at odds with the Georgian government ever since the coming to power of the Harvard-educated and NATO-ambitious Mikhail Saakashvili in 2004, who deposed a pro-Russian ex-KGB Eduard Shevardnadze as the result of the so-called Rose Revolution. After four years of stepping on each other’s toes (see below), the Big Bear and its unfortunate neighbour finally came to blows on August 7, 2008. Or August 8, depending on whom you choose to believe. When trying to place blame for some 400 civilian deaths you also have to pick sides, as both Russia and Georgia plead self-defence. As Georgia symbolically picked the first day of the Beijing Olympics in its bid to portray Russia as an aggressor, so Moscow decided that 08.08.08 would look prettier when people will be lighting church candles in the streets a year later.

In the midst of this war-branding process, no one bothered to ask what colour flag South Ossetia wants to be waving. Well, they sort of did. In the 1991, South Ossetia - a small Georgian enclave of about 100,000 inhabitants - declared its independence. No one paid it any attention. Russia was too busy trying to prevent its own dissipation into a million little pieces after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The rest of the world had its nose deep in the Helsinki Accords. So the 1992 and the 2006 internationally monitored referenda - where some 99% of the South Ossetians expressed their desire to belong to Russia - went largely unnoticed. Until recently, when Russia decided to flex some political muscle and show Georgia that flirting with other super-powers like America is hurting Russia’s romantic notions of the Caucuses. Who started shooting first is to be determined by the EU committee, hopefully by September. The report, originally planned to appear in July, was postponed; the world is still not sure who to blame. So the media field is still fair game both for Moscow and Tbilisi. And a year on, the information war is hot as ever.

In the week leading up to the anniversary, Russian state media started reminding its viewers of the Georgian aggression. War ‘trophies’ in the form of military documentation intercepted from the Georgian side were widely cited, proving preparation and intent. First-ever broadcast from the Russian military base in South Ossetia was aired, showing armour glistening in the summer sun. On August 6th, Russia announced tightening of security on the Georgian-South Ossetian 'border', and once again tanks were rolling through the greenery. On 08.08.08 Channel One offered a wide selection of patriotic delicacies. A television series about the special forces fighting Russia’s numerous enemies was being aired as a double bill. Later on, a film about a brave Russian journalist who risks her life trying to prove to the world that Georgia, and not Russia, started the 2008 war, is scheduled. There is also a concert of the army’s favourite rock band. Just to set the mood.

Actual propaganda comes in the shape of two documentaries - ‘Tsekhenvali: a life without war’ and ‘07.08.08’ dedicated to the Western media’s outright prejudice in favour of Georgia at the outbreak of the conflict. Controversial images from CNN, showing the destruction of the South Ossetian capital Tskhenvali but claiming it was the Georgian town of Gori, were shown over and over again. A mistake suggesting that there are usually two sides to a war - a fact that Channel One seemed to have neglected somewhat. The Tskhevali film showed crying mothers and children reminiscing about the horrors of Georgian mortar fire. Awful, no doubt. But the authors of the ‘documentary’ failed to walk across the border to Gori, which saw heavy attacks by the Russian air force. It was a rich dish of human suffering, served with a hefty side of arrogant bias.

Georgia seemed to have ceased to exist on the Russian demagogic map that day. The Channel One news opened with the statement that Moscow, Tskhenvali and ‘the rest of the world’ are commemorating the year since Georgian aggression. Not Tbilisi, mind you. Standing ovations for President Medvedev from his July visit to the South Ossetian capital were repeated. A poster declaring ‘Thank you, Russia!’ was displayed in the centre of Tskhenvali. It was suggested that Russia’s President will visit the capital again. However, he only made it to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia. There, he addressed soldiers and doctors who took part in the conflict, thanking his fighting comrades for saving innocent lives. Somewhat over-stated, since the President did not even have the balls to go to South Ossetia proper. The same balls by which Vladimir Putin promised to hang Mikhail Saakashvili only a year ago.

If you were curious about how Georgia was dealing with the consequences of the war, you had to go do your own research. The ‘rest of the world’ seemed to pay little attention to the date; the anniversary failed to make any headlines in the Western media. Neither President Saakashvili nor the Georgian press were too vociferous about Russian aggression. Perhaps, realising that the world adoration has shifted, Tbilisi curbed its rhetoric of Russian aggression. Still, with not-so-mild innuendo, the main street in Tbilisi was closed down for a photo-exhibition dedicated to the years of Soviet oppression, specifically the Spring of 1989 when Russian troops suppressed the anti-communist protests. Church bells rang and candles were lit all over the country to remember the dead. The dead neither Russia nor South Ossetia bothered to acknowledge.

Just like the 30,000 ethnic Georgians that are still displaced by the war. South Ossetian ethnic cleansing, that saw some 25,000 Georgians expelled from the border regions, is not getting a great deal of press coverage. However, these people are out there, living in makeshift housing provided by the Georgian government, on as little as $3 a day, according to Amnesty International. Official reports say that 70% of Tskhenvali was destroyed. Although the city saw some of the heaviest fighting, the statistic gives an indication of what damages the Georgian side has suffered. With the propaganda campaign in high-season, Russian promises of aid and reconstruction are echoing over South Ossetia. Distant echoes, that have no walls to bounce off yet.

In August 2008, Russia clearly lost the information war. But in the past year, Saakashvili’s oppression of the Georgian liberal opposition, the fabrications of the Georgian state media and empty accusations of Russian provocations - as well as military documentation - have toppled him off the victim’s pedestal. You would think that Russia could have shrugged that misunderstanding off. But its national pride hurt, and its image of a world super-power under strain, it has debased itself to Orwellian-style propaganda. It seems now that it is not as important to place blame for the events of August 2008 as it is to rise above politics and acknowledge the human tragedy of the five-day war. Alas. Having painted President Medvedev in victorious colours, there is a strong chance that Russia is going to neglect not only the Georgian people, but the South Ossetian pawns of the Moscow propaganda machine as well.

A gun for a gun

In the news...terrorist attack seriously wounds the president of Ingushetia.

For over 200 years the many small nations in the Caucasus have resisted Russian aggression. From the 1834 campaign through to Stalin’s genocide against the Chechen and the Ingush people during World War II, little trust was won for the federal government they never asked for in the first place. The ethnic, cultural and religious rift between Russia and its southern republics is so deep and violent, that it makes the Irish conflict seem like a family squabble over Christmas dinner. 

On June 6, 2009, the Dagestani Minister of Interior was shot dead on third assassination attempt. On June 10, the speaker of the High Court of the Republic of Ingushetia was killed; on June 13, the ex-prime minister. On Monday, June 22, a suicide bomber rammed into the presidential cavalcade severely injuring the current leader of Ingushetia Yusur-Bek Yevkurov. The ex-KGB commander - who came to international prominence as a head of the Russian troops in Kosovo in 1999 - was flown to Moscow with head trauma, injuries to the chest and multiple internal organs. 

President Medvedev - visiting at the hospital - has told the doctors and the state TV that he expects Mr. Yevkurov to be in fighting order soon. Such delusional optimism used to frame the Russian authorities’ lying through their teeth when it comes to the situation in the Caucasus is not winning them any supporters, on any side. And despite the fact that a terrorist attack has been waged against a head of local government, no official statement was made. Instead, Medvedev took off to Africa the next day. Mr. Obama paid more attention on the train-crash in Washington. Priorities.

In April this year the 15-year long anti-terrorist operation was finally lifted in Chechnya. The two-stage war, which began after Boris Yeltsin decided to crush the republic’s bid for independence in 1994, cost Russia not only thousands of lives, but reputation. Indiscriminate killings, rape and carpet-bombings resulted in over 150,000 civilian deaths in Chechnya, and over 500,000 misplaced lives. The war, that catapulted Putin to the presidency in 2000, has become a mark of shame on Russia’s already spotty face. 

Under Ramzan Kadyrov, a son a Chechen freedom-fighter, the republic seems more peaceful than one could hope. Kadyrov’s cut-throat methods of control include extra-judicial killings, kidnappings, torture and secret concentration camps. On the surface, schools and roads are being built, as well as Europe’s largest mosque. All with Russia’s money. The carpet-bombings levelled Grozny with the ground, costing the military millions and millions of dollars. Now, some 100 billion rubles are pumped into Chechen economy yearly. Russia is desperately bribing the most powerful man in the Caucasus to at least help keep the appearance of peace. Kadyrov has even been named the member of the Russian Academy of Sciences - a title that academics work for most of their lives. Speaking in April, Russian foreign minister commented on the renovation of the Grozny airport and claimed that Chechnya is blooming as a tourist destination. Holidays in hell, anyone?

Peace in Chechnya may be fragile, but after years of severe brutality, the people there seem to be enjoying it. Wahhabism seems to be out of fashion, while Muslim practices and -  in places - Sharia law are allowed. Unemployment is only 50%, compared to Ingushetia’s 80%. So the people’s revenge army, curtailed by Kadyrov’s power, has been spilling into neighbouring, less stable republics. Years of Russian federal lawlessness will not go un-forgiven in a culture, where to avenge the death of a family member is a matter of honour.

When the war on terror became a fashionable word in international politics, President Putin eagerly jumped on America’s anti-Islamist bandwagon to give Russia some kind of excuse for what it was doing in the Chechnya. The hype had gone, the problem remained and festered like a sore. This year only, over 300 terrorist acts have been carried out in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and three other small republics. Kremlin-appointed government officials are being swatted like cockroaches. So are the members of the anti-Kremlin opposition. Russian army’s dodgy dealings with the militants it is allegedly seeking to destroy blurs all boundaries of a clear-cut policy. The war is on between the Islamic militants, the federal forces and the puppet government. And again, it is the people on the streets that are losing. 

Little coverage of the conflict, which many news agencies are calling civil war, makes the Russian state news. Occasionally there is a mention of an interception of militants. Recently, Channel 1 ran a story about the ‘arrest’ of a group of armed rebels and their leader. Then they showed a dead man surrounded by Russian soldiers. A televised Freudian slip. 

The term ‘human rights abuse’ doesn’t apply in the Caucasus. There is no law. But there are guns. Ramzan Kadyrov has promised a revenge for the assassination attempt on Mr. Yevkurov, ‘highlander style’. Kremlin had asked him to follow federal law in aiding the investigation. Who were they kidding? Themselves, if anyone at all. Having destroyed any illusion of justice in the region, Russia has only violence to resolve to. When a peaceful demonstration following the murder of Ingushetia’s opposition leader in 2007 publicly plead with President Putin for help, he ignored it. He left the people no hope of trust or understanding from the far-away Moscow. 

Meanwhile, the Western observers are calling for the cessation of violence and the establishment of judicial structures. Considering NATO’s involvement in the war with the Taliban, this seems a double-standard at best. After all, the Russian state cannot take the terrorist aggression lying down. But when its own tactics become synonymous with those of the insurgents - mired in ethnic hatred and vengefulness - even a long-term solution seems to escape even the most optimistic and self-deluded of imaginations. It is too late to suggest that the Russian government should have read more history books. When the military command claimed that the Chechen operation was going to take ‘one night’, the government bottled up all common sense and threw it overboard. And now no one is even interested in finding the bottle, floating in the sea of hatred, corruption and blood.

Iran, uploaded

In the news...Iran’s contested election results lead to mass uprisings by the opposition.

‘Iranian democracy’ is not a phrase that flows easily off a Western tongue. The chart-topper at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch group and the International Press Institute, modern Persia seems to mock its history as a progenitor of the first recorded human rights declaration. But on Friday, June 12, 2009 over 80% of the Iranian people came out to vote in the presidential election.  When Iran’s supervising theological body - the Guardian Council headed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - announced on Saturday that the president-incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won with 63% of the national vote, opposition protesters took to the streets. For the past week, Iran has been delivering images of a democratic struggle that would make Che Guevara proud.

Over the past four years of his presidency, Ahmedinejad made the world flinch more than once. Speaking at Columbia University, he announced that homosexuality does not exist in Iran. At the United Nations he infamously declared the Holocaust to be a ‘myth’ and called for the annihilation of the state of Israel. After a negative response from the international community, official Iran tended to blame the mistranslation of the president’s words. In equating Zionism with Nazi Germany’s territorial aggression or in declaring that 9/11 was just a ‘collapsed building’, the Iranian leader has dealt the Western cultural canon a blow below the belt.

Ahmadinejad seemed to perfect his image as a renegade leader of an antagonistic state to the tic. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, most people associate Iran with the scandalous book-burning of the Satanic Verses and the Ayatollah’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, or, more recently, with the mass outrage over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons. In a state where under the Shari’a law adulterers are allowed to be publicly stoned and thieves’ hand cut off, it does not come as a surprise to the Western public that someone like Ahmadinejad would win the public vote.

But it is at best careless to dismiss the current president as a nut-case leader of a backward nation, even though it appears that it’s exactly what the Western media would like us to do. It is very difficult to find any affirmative information about Ahmadinejad in the foreign press, that swells with generalisations like ‘corruption’, ‘cronyism’ and ‘repression’, while the opposition is ubiquitously referred to as ‘liberal’. Like  some sort of a black-and-white game of chess. Iran does not have a government - it has a regime. That’s the Western consensus. Ahmadinejad’s socialist policies of distributing oil revenues to help the poor or his food subsidies are largely ignored. Much like Mir Hussein Mousavi’s support for the Iranian nuclear programme. The international media has come to the information buffet and picked out the junk food.

Mr. Mousavi - the former Prime Minister during the Iran-Iraq war and a favourite of the Revolution’s Supreme Leader - is the new favourite liberal pin-up for the West. Unlike Ahmadinejad, who looks more like a foreman of a not-so-well-off kolhoz from a distant Soviet era, Mr. Mousavi photographs well. He is handsomely intellectual. In a country where women’s rights are a subject of human rights abuse groups, his politically active wife is always by his side. In that he resembles Mihail Gorbachev, who was the first Soviet leader to travel with his university-educated couture-clad wife, unleashing waves of envy and derision in the USSR while promoting the idea of ‘socialism with a human face’ in the West. Similarly, Mr. Mousavi’s tailored suits and stylish glasses make his seem like someone we can talk to, someone we like.

There is a sense of general euphoria about the triumph of information technology over dictatorial governments. In the Soviet Union, it was satellite television - in Iran, the world wide web. YouTube, and - as a consequence of the information ban, the leading networks - are full of images of students being shot in the streets of Tehran. The world is applauding the audacity of the uploading revolutionaries. Iran’s government tried shutting down the social-networking site Facebook as a precaution. But they were just not on the young population’s beat. Who would have thunk that the 20-somethings would prefer Twitter? Exactly.

In accusing the United States of economic and informational terrorism, Ahmadinejad's Iran is ironically not very far from George W. Bush’s famous ‘you are either with us or against us’ stance. Unpopular as he was, Bush had his supporters for a stronger, harder-headed America. Why does Iran have to be different? For us - here inside the mind of Western democracy - the fewer people we see speaking in their strange doctrinal, religious tongues, the tighter we sleep at night. Globalisation is the new, world-wide peace treaty. And it seems to be conquering an insurgent government, click by click.

The Swat Shop

In the news...A bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan, kills at least 18, a bomb blast in Lahore destroys an anti-Taliban school.

Over the last months, Pakistan has been making the unwelcome headlines. Military action, civilian refugees and an increasing number of Islamist suicide bombings have taken the country to the top of the most dangerous places to be, according to The Economist . Number one is still Baghdad. Afghanistan is third. Given America’s involvement in the region, the battle for democracy is threatening to leave no demos to practice it.

On June 10th, another explosion in Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan, is said to leave at least 18 dead and another 60 injured. More bodies are being found under the rubble. The Pakistani Taliban, led by Baitullah Mehsud, have not yet claimed responsibility. But it’s just a matter of time. The war-game is on.

It is as early as February this year that the Pakistani government has called off a four-months long operation in the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) against the local Taliban led by Mullah Fazallulah. April 13th saw a signing of a cease-fire that would allow for the introduction of sharia law in the region of Malakand. $10 billion of U.S. counterinsurgency aid since 2001, you could argue, were not spent the way America had hoped. Especially considering the fact that the Taliban did not lay down arms, but quickly followed with the take-over of the Buner region, just 60 miles away from Islamabad. We all saw Mrs. Clinton’s face.

This last attack proved to be the last drop in Pakistan’s seven-year struggle against the Taliban in the NWFP. Following a number of terrorist attacks, including the one in Mumbai last November, and with America and the rest of the world watching more closely than ever, President Asif Zardari had to do more than just pretend everything was under control. On April 28th, the Pakistani army moved into Swat. The plan was to clear the Buner district of militants within a week.

Six weeks into the offensive, Pakistan seems more fragile than ever before. UN humanitarian agencies are estimating around 2.4 million displaced civilians. The number of civilian deaths is unknown. But the pictures of children dying in the arms of their parents after U.S. air force raids have been diligently taken off air. Hearts and minds, hearts and minds...

Bombs are landing everywhere. Hospitals are running out of means to help. The UN is asking for $600,000; so far, less than half that has been promised. According to The Economist, a recent survey by an American NGO revealed that 69% of Pakistanis thought of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as a threat, and 45% backed the army’s fight against then in the NWFP. With the number of victims of terrorist attacks throughout the country reaching 2,300 last year, the government is going to have to work a bit harder to maintain this support.

Having fallen off President Bush’s anti-terrorist bandwagon, much like America itself, Russia seems all but too eager to brush all the reminders of Islamic extremism under the carpet. No one likes to think about Chechnya, anymore. Or Pakistan, for that matter. These are not Russia’s worries, anymore. Only occasional bomb-blasts make the Russian news; no one is trying to understand the workings of someone else’s fight against extremism. Which is a shame, really. If the current unrest in the Caucasus is anything to go by, then Russia’s fictitious office-made peace in the region will prove far more headlines-prone than it would like us all to think.