#Shibani

[southeastasianists]

On 5th July 2023, The Washington Post published ‘In Singapore, loud echoes of Beijing’s positions generate anxiety’. Written by Singaporean journalist Shibani Mahtani, it alleged that local Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao “now routinely echoes some of Beijing’s most strident falsehoods” and “has been running regular opinion columns since 2016 from at least two [Chinese Communist Party] officials without noting their party affiliation”. 

The article argued this was a symptom of more extensive efforts by China to influence Singapore’s Chinese population. 

It sparked immediate (and anxious) reactions. Lianhe Zaobao rebutted that they take in “Chinese and Western viewpoints while preserving [their] unique stance and independence”. Lui Tuck Yew, Singapore’s Ambassador to the US, published a letter saying the article “wrongly suggests that Lianhe Zaobao […] echoes Beijing’s propaganda” and that the article was “misguided for American news outlets to expect Zaobao to resemble The Washington Post or for Singapore to follow either the US or China”. 

Prime Minister-in-waiting Lawrence Wong briefly discussed the article during his US trip, affirming that Singapore is vigilant about external influences, including “Western liberal ideals”.

“To be candid, there is no shortage of criticism about Singapore in the Western media, no shortage of commentaries and articles highlighting the shortcomings in our system and asking us to be more like Western liberal ideals,” DPM Wong clarifies.

Naturally, it was the first thing I asked her about. 

On Lianhe Zaobao

As expected of someone who interviews public figures for a living, Shibani’s relaxed manner instantly puts you at ease. Her speech—liberally peppered with “you know” and “right?”—draws you into the same wavelength. 

Learned from years of journalism, the 35-year-old balances her claims with caveats. Her neutral-sounding English is flawless, void of the full ‘R’s characterising American accents or the poshness of British accents. In her own words, she speaks like “someone very privileged to have experienced different cultures, societies, and ways of life”.

When I bring up the Lianhe Zaobao kerfuffle, her demeanour turns serious. 

“Nowhere did I advocate for Singaporean media to be like Western media,” she begins. 

“The story didn’t argue from a US-China perspective at all, honestly. It was an investigation into the discourses and the narratives around Chinese-ness.”

While acknowledging Western ideas and narratives have long been embedded in Singapore, she argues China’s resurgence makes examining Chinese influence more urgent. 

“Ethnicity has historically been very fragile in this part of the world. Most of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese. As [Ambassador-at-Large] Bilahari said, there’s something very different about the CCP propagating the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which involves ethnic Chinese from all over the world,” she notes. “The US cannot have that same claim here.”

Probing Shibani is an exercise in probing the Singaporean identity. Born and bred in Singapore, she’s highly invested in the way things operate here.

However, the values she developed from Singapore’s environment differed from most. Where political apathy (even cynicism) prevails, Shibani champions ‘flowery’ values like free speech and transparency. Such values inform her work, birthing social media comments accusing her and her work—like her Lianhe Zaobao article—of being “Western” and a “foreign influence”.

Shibani’s interest in examining China’s influence on Singapore began upon returning home while covering the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

“People around us would be like, ‘Oh, these people are unhinged’.” She suspected these narratives parroted CCP talking points.

After asking friends and consulting academics, she learned how Chinese state narratives can be spread through various channels in Singapore: WeChat, WhatsApp, forum posts, cable TV and print media. 

Shibani focused on Lianhe Zaobao because it was quantifiable. 

Working with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an Australian government-linked think tank that declared receiving $1.48 million from the US State Department in 2021-22, The Washington Post could “run a scraper through” Zaobao’s articles for references to pro-China sources.

She notes another reason. 

“The way Singapore views the media is not as a check and balance but to positively aid national development and discourse. I felt that if it were true that Chinese narratives were seeping in, that would run counter to the Singapore government’s efforts to ensure that our narratives are self-defined and driven by Singapore’s interests.”

A proponent of free speech, she claims pro-China views have a place in Singapore’s media landscape. Her gripe, however, is transparency—publications need to clarify the writer’s affiliations to readers.

“You could not get away with having a US State Department official write for The Straits Times as a neutral analyst.”

A Singaporean, Born and Bred

Her conversations with fellow Singaporeans informed Shibani’s story of Chinese influence in Singapore. It’s far from the first story birthed from her connections here.

“One of the first stories I did—and it remains a story I’m very, very proud of—was writing in the Wall Street Journal about racial discrimination within Singapore’s housing ads. People can—even today—advertise ‘no Indians’ or ‘Chinese preferred’ or ‘light-skin only.'” 

It presented a disconnect from narratives she grew up hearing about Singapore’s racial harmony and the Housing Development Board’s Ethnic Integration Policy preventing ethnic enclaves. 

“I don’t know if I would have caught on to that issue if I had not been born and raised here,” she affirms.

Growing up an ethnic minority, she didn’t see her experiences and views validated. 

Without social media or alternative media back then, she could only read from The Straits Times or Business Times and what foreigners wrote about Singapore in overseas publications. There was little available discourse divorced from those lenses. Her current endeavours in journalism aim to fill that gap: To present perspectives on Singapore she wasn’t able to read growing up.

Her childhood fascination with travel and language evolved into a fixation on journalism as her political awareness developed. 

“I remember the WIRED piece that called Singapore a ‘Disneyland with the death penalty‘”, she says. Reading international coverage of Singapore spurred her to interrogate the place she calls home.

She focused on writing. She contributed to the school paper at Raffles Junior College and became Executive Editor of the student newspaper at the London School of Economics. 

“When I went to grad school [at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2010], I wanted to learn how big global news organisations operate. They are much better resourced and offered a more international career, which can be hard to carve out at somewhere like The Straits Times.” 

Yet, it felt far-fetched. 

“When I started writing for The Wall Street Journal [in 2011], it was rare for them to have non-white, non-Western journalists,” she recalls. 

Her opportunity was borne from need: WSJ’s foreign journalists on employment passes got their passes cut.

“So they said okay, instead of hiring foreigners, we should hire Singaporeans.”

Beyond the Bubble

Working in global news organisations meant Shibani was often overseas, starting with Myanmar in 2013. She volunteered for the job—a leap of faith stemming from her interest in Southeast Asia.

Adapting to Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, was a “crazy experience”. Internet was virtually nonexistent and absurdly priced.

“SIM cards still cost US$150 before the liberalisation of the telecom sector.” She often loitered in the Traders Hotel (now Shangri-La) lobby, trying to connect to decent internet.

For correspondents, living in the country they’re covering gives a valuable taste of life there to inform their perspectives.

Contrary to places like Hong Kong or Singapore, where expatriates have the ability to somewhat detach from local life, Shibani notes that it was much harder in Yangon circa 2013.

“Living in Yangon is a bit of a bubble [for expatriates], but our issues with the internet were shared [with locals]. If it flooded, everything flooded. If the power cuts, the power cuts for everybody—not to equate; I was a privileged expat, but we lived in a pretty local neighbourhood.”

She regales tales from her travels, recalling the poppy-infested Northern areas of Myanmar, where opium is produced.  

“I remember feeling very shaken visiting these shacks, which were treatment centres for recovering addicts. Their eyes were just so hollow and their expressions so blank.”

She remembers interviewing Khin Nyunt, Myanmar’s former Chief of Intelligence—infamous for ruthlessly running the pervasive state security apparatus and cracking down on anyone opposing the regime. 

“What a difficult interview, man. Imagine you’re sitting across from someone who you essentially know is a really bad person, for lack of a better word,” she grimaces.

“And you have to smile at them and go: ‘So. About torturing and disappearing people.'”

She shudders as she recalls speaking to Aung San Suu Kyi—her toughest interviewee yet. When she tried to press Aung San Suu Kyi on the national economy and internal political party dynamics, Aung San Suu Kyi got angry and refused to talk. Shibani crumpled up internally.

Fighting for Something

Then, there was the time when she covered the Hong Kong protests in 2019.

“It was incredibly fast-moving every weekend. […] Protests were so dispersed. Journalists were in WhatsApp groups together so we could crowdsource or trade info.”

It fell into a routine. Mornings and afternoons were peaceful, while at night, there’d be pockets of radical action like vandalism or police chases. 

That soon devolved into chaos. “You didn’t know whether to expect Molotov cocktails being thrown or crackdowns from the police.” That escalation only waned after local elections in November 2019 and the advent of COVID-19.

Despite the violence, it was the tender moments that stuck with her. “We would see people helping each other and giving out food and drinks, young couples holding hands and walking through the streets. It was surreal to see those spaces you’d drive down occupied by people sitting and holding hands.”

“You see what it meant to people to be part of a collective and a community fighting for something,” she reminisces. “That stayed with me.”

Journalists aren’t immune to the heightened emotions: “It’s very hard not to be affected by seeing kids beaten up on the street or seeing your friends flee home.” 

She tries to channel these emotions into her writing, as with her recently published book, Among The Braves. Co-written with her husband, Timothy McLaughlin, the book explores the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement through the eyes of people on the ground. 

“In 2021, when they started mass arresting groups of people, our whole contact list disappeared. We identified a few people [to profile in the book], and they started going to jail, one by one. Local Hong Kong outlets we referenced, like Apple Daily or Stand News, began shutting down.” 

She stressed the urgency. “I think the power of the Chinese Communist Party to do this forced mass amnesia has been well-documented post-Tiananmen. If we didn’t do it now, we’d lose the opportunity to put down what we saw in these people’s life experiences.”

‘A Different Approach’

Today, Shibani is back in Singapore after returning home with her husband and Bean, her dog.

“It’s pretty surreal,” Shibani reflects, sipping coffee as her eyes linger on the Singapore skyline. “It feels like we’re in a corner of the world untouched by the insanity everywhere.”

“For all of Singapore’s flaws, we should feel fortunate to have a good, stable and functional government,” Shibani notes.

“In Hong Kong, all people wanted is to vote for their government,” she says. “I’m not saying that stuff like gerrymandering doesn’t exist. Singapore’s not a perfect system, but we still have that right [to vote] many people are fighting for.” 

Shibani pauses. “I sometimes wonder if it is valued as much as it should be.”

Despite being well-travelled, she doesn’t consider herself an international citizen.

“Being Singaporean is at the heart of everything I do, everything I believe in, and everything I am.”

From Shibani’s perspective, many of her contrasting beliefs are because of her Singaporean experiences “formed in opposition to narratives [she] heard since young”.

Not all her beliefs are oppositional. She attributes positive experiences in Singapore to her strong belief in multiculturalism, the virtues of an open immigration system (relative to other countries), and diversity within our neighbourhoods.

Shibani reflects Singapore’s difficulties balancing a desire to be an open, cosmopolitan city while nurturing a nationalism that, in its quest to unite, may exclude Singaporeans who stray from conventions of how a Singaporean should think or act.

Being critical of these perspectives is one thing. Shunning these viewpoints altogether strangles Singapore’s social diversity and vibrancy of thought. 

Those differences in values influence her views on Singaporean journalism. “I don’t want to criticise traditional SPH media, honestly. They inform society on things only they will cover right, like day-to-day concerns of Singaporeans.”

“Perhaps the only point I would make is, generally, I believe journalism should be free of government interference, red lines, and tacit control, but that’s not the way Singapore’s government sees its media; they see it as having a civic role. And that’s just a different approach.”

A Journalist’s Role

In comparison, she recalls, “When I was in the US [between 2016 and 2019], I was highly critical of the Chicago local government, the Chicago Mayor, and the Illinois state government. That’s our role as journalists: To be a check on government.”

This principle also holds in Hong Kong. She rejects claims that her writing, often critical of the Hong Kong government, represents Western influence in a larger East vs West ideological conflict. After all, she scrutinises Western governments using similar criteria, too.

“[Journalists] mean it when we say we want all perspectives,” she says, citing her own extensive interviews with people within the Hong Kong government.

That includes police officers on the ground. “We worked with a local journalist who—this is a true story, and RICE Media fodder—Tinder matched with two cops. When the movement started, she was like, ‘Oh my god. Let me reach out to my Tinder contacts.'”

However, those core disagreements with journalism’s role in Singapore are also why she’s so excited about the burgeoning independent media scene. “I feel like this landscape now is so much more diverse and interesting than I could have imagined in its history.”

After her book tour, she intends to add to that diversity by writing for The Washington Post on topics like trafficking or refugees in Southeast Asia. I ask what sustains her dedication to pure journalism. 

“So cheesy, but I’m just interested in hearing people’s stories,” she laughs.

“We can’t escape the confines in which we grew up—the schools we go to, the countries we live in. All that means we interact with only specific subsets or groups of people. The amazing thing about journalism is that all those boundaries don’t exist.”

She’s talked with so many people: Hardcore gun-toting Republicans in Southern Illinois, Rohingya refugees on the Thai border, and millionaires relinquishing everything to support the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.

“It’s like therapy, I think, for them,” she ponders.

“It’s a testament to how so many people have stories to tell—it’s just about drawing it out.”

[exotic-indians]

[movie-titlecards]

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006)

My rating: 2/10

You don't often get a movie with absolutely no redeeming qualities, but boy, this one sure is trying - even when they go to the opera, it's a shitty, amateurishly cobbled together synth version of Swan Lake instead of one of the many, many orchestral recordings out there. Almost impressive.

[bolllywoodhungama]

Bhumi Pednekar and the actors of Thank You For Coming pay a visit to the new Parliament Building in favor of the Women's Reservation Bill

Bhumi Pednekar and her co-stars from the upcoming film Thank You For Coming paid a visit to New Delhi's New Parliament Building.

On September 20, 2023, Bollywood actress Bhumi Pednekar and her co-stars from her upcoming film Thank You For Coming paid a visit to the New Parliament Building in New Delhi. Anurag Thakur, Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting, accompanied them.

The visit coincided with the introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha. The bill proposes to reserve 33% of Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly seats for women.

For their tour, Pednekar and her co-stars, Shehnaaz Gill, Shibani Bedi, and Dolly Singh, dressed in traditional garb. They toured the structure and marveled at the artwork and architecture that depicted India's old cultural history. Pednekar, Bedi, and Singh are all known for their feminist and women-centric activism. Bhumi Pednekar said of the law, "I am very proud of being a modern Indian woman and being here at this historic moment." The Women's Reservation measure was the first measure considered in the new Parliament, and I am extremely hopeful for the change that women will bring while in power and being a part of policy decision-making," she said while talking with the journalists present. Returning to the film, Thank You For Coming, it is set to be released on October 6. It made its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival recently.

[suchananewsblog]

A Look At Shibani Dandekar's Latest Tattoo, Courtesy Husband Farhan Akhtar

Image was shared by Farhan Akhtar.(courtesy: faroutakhtar) Farhan Akhtar and Shibani Dandekar are targets. The couple by no means fail to make our hearts skip a beat with their lovely posts. Now, on Sunday, the actor shared an image that includes Shibani’s newest tattoo. In the pic, we will see three birds flying. Sharing the image, Farhan wrote, “Flaunt it, Shibani Dandekar.  #tattoo.” The art…

[tfgadgets]

Farhan Akhtar, Richa Chadha, Honey Irani, Divya Dutta and others grace Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi's intimate Diwali party - See photos |

The festive spirit of Diwali enveloped Javed Akhtar‘s home as he prepared to host an enchanting celebration for friends and family. As guests arrived, the sound of laughter and chatter filled the air.Farhan Akhtar looked stylish in a all-white ethnic wear as he struck a pose with his beautiful wife Shibani Dandekar. The actress looked stunning in a multi-coloured oufit. Javed’s ex-wife Honey…

[lyricsolution-com]

Shibani Dandekar Talks About How Farhan Akhtar's Daughters Treat Her After Her Marriage With Their Father | People News

Mumbai: Shibani Dandekar and Farhan Akhtar appeared on Rhea Chakraborty’s podcast Chapter Two where Shibani revealed how Farhan’s daughters behave with her after their marriage. Shibani in the shell revealed how she was warmly welcomed by Farhan’s daughters Shanya and Akira, hailing Adhuna Bhabani’s upbringing and mentioning,” The Akhtar family is super evolved and liberal. They have a way of…

[movienized-com]

Thank You for Coming

Thank You for Coming (2023) #KaranBoolani #BhumiPednekar #DollyAhluwalia #ShibaniBedi #SaloniDaini #SushantDivgikar Mehr auf:

Jahr: 2023 (oktobra) Genre: Comedy Regie: Karan Boolani Hauptrollen: Bhumi Pednekar, Dolly Ahluwalia, Shibani Bedi, Saloni Daini, Sushant Divgikar, Gautmik Gautmik, Shehnaaz Gill, Mitali Kamat, Kusha Kapila, Anil Kapoor, Karan Kundrra … Filmbeschreibung: Die 32-jährige Kanika Kapoor (Bhumi Pednekar) ist auf der Suche nach der Person, von der sie glaubt, dass sie ihr den ersten Orgasmus…

[donkepp05]

Shibani Dandekar

[craythesecondgayass]

Shibani you silly thing..

Little doodle

[dk-thrive]

If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.

— Rumi, in "Don't Wait" by Shibani (Notion Press, February 27, 2023)

[imafish000]

Lemon shark oc!

Shibani and Remon are close friend

🤍💛

[cerebrodigital]

El gorila Shibani del zoológico de Higashiyama se convirtió en una celebridad por su popularidad entre las mujeres japonesas, que lo describieron como "atractivo, sexy y fotogénico". Su apogeo llegó en 2015 con un álbum de fotos del que se vendieron 15.000 copias, además de merchandising.

[pinkrangersarah]

what's even more unexpected than a season 5 announcement, is me actually getting back on my bullshit and thinking about max's parents. (yeah, i just rewatched parent's day and, yeah, i got a little teary eyed, don't fucking look at me.)

it's canon that max's parents are inattentive to him; they "don't care" about him. it's popular for people to headcanon that they are also physically abusive to him (despite no evidence supporting this in the show), and i remember a while back seeing some theories that his parents are actually foster parents. over the years i've come to dislike these theories, the former having nothing to back it up and the latter getting under my skin because of how the foster care system is in real life--broken, with children often falling into the hands of horrible people. i've come to really dislike media feeding into that reputation.

in trying to come up with my own ideas for max's parents, i started looking into marital traditions and the views of divorce in indian culture. max states in "camp cool kidz" that his parents left their home country (although i'm willing to bet the reason he gives isn't entirely true, if it's true at all), so we can assume that they were married in india. i found an article by shibani joshi, where she talks about her experience with marriage and divorce. arranged marriage is a tradition in many indian cultures and, according to joshi, india has one of the lowest divorce rates, and divorce can bring shame to families, particularly to women.

in her story, joshi makes it clear that she wanted to put her children first; that if she was really going to go through with divorce, it wouldn't be until after her youngest turned 18. she was afraid of what her family would think if she and her now ex-husband divorced. because of this, i'd be hesitant to make a similar case with max's parents; i wouldn't want to potentially smear a cultural tradition and anxieties of a group of people. with how max describes his parents, i wouldn't feel good about it (or perhaps i'm overthinking it).

however, what if his parents wanted to avoid those traditions? before i turned away from this fandom, i used to headcanon that they were young and naive (barely 20) when they had max. i could still see that being the case; perhaps neither of them wanting to go through with arranged marriages, despite that being a generational tradition in their families. consider max's parents leaving india to start over somewhere in america, similar to how joshi describes her father starting a new life in america.

this inevitably takes a turn for the worst, as they are still in those young "finding yourself" stages of life and, on top of that, are trying to settle into a new life in a new country with a baby. the marriage gets strained, and as the two parents take out their frustrations on one another, max is often ignored as a result. "i'm busy, ask your father." "i'm busy, ask your mother." communication falls apart and max is often forgotten about at school, the parents spending more time blaming each other rather than comforting their child. one parent signs him up for after school activities he isn't interested in doing because it's cheaper than hiring a sitter and neither parent is willing to compromise on their work schedules. his parents aren't involved in any aspect of his life, unless they are called in for it (parent-teacher conferences, "max was sent to the principal's office again"), because they are too focused on themselves and their own lives not meeting their expectations. eventually, max learns that negative attention is better than no attention at all. emotional neglect is still abuse, even if it isn't immediately noticeable.

i highly doubt anyone is going to read this, but to anyone who does: what are your thoughts? i'm 100% open to constructive criticism (especially if i've stepped on any toes in regards to culture and traditions, it's the very last thing i want to do) and anyone else's takes on max's parents. i definitely have other headcanons, but if i'm really hopping back onto my bullshit then i'll most likely share them another day.

[beardedmrbean]

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa has a lot to prove to win over Western powers. If the first few week of his rule are anything to go by, he may be heading in the wrong direction.

The West is watching Syria's leaders closely to ensure they rein in the Islamist jihadis who killed hundreds of Alawites, create an inclusive government with effective institutions, maintain order in a country fractured by years of civil war and prevent a resurgence of Islamic State or al Qaeda.

To hammer home the message, three European envoys made clear in a March 11 meeting with Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani in Damascus that cracking down on the jihadi fighters was their top priority and that international support for the nascent administration could evaporate unless it took decisive action.

The meeting has not previously been reported.

"The abuses that have taken place in recent days are truly intolerable, and those responsible must be identified and condemned," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine, when asked about the message delivered in Damascus.

"There is no blank check for the new authorities."

Reuters spoke to the three European envoys as well as four regional officials during a trip to Damascus. They all stressed that the authorities must get a grip on security across the country and prevent any repeat killings.

"We asked for accountability. The punishment should go on those who committed the massacres. The security forces need to be cleaned up," said one European envoy, who was among the group of officials who delivered the message.

Washington has also called on Syria's leaders to hold the perpetrators of the attacks to account. U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said they were monitoring the interim authority's actions to determine U.S. policy for Syria.

The problem for Sharaa, however, is that his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group only comprises around 20,000 fighters, according to two assessments by Western governments.

That makes him reliant on the tens of thousands of fighters from other groups — including the very hardline jihadist factions he is being asked to combat – and moving against them could plunge Syria back into war, five diplomats and three analysts said.

Thousands of Sunni Muslim foreigners, from countries including China, Albania, Russia and Pakistan, joined Syria's rebels early in the civil war to fight against the rule of Bashar al-Assad and the Iran-backed Shi'ite militias who supported him, giving the conflict a sectarian overtone.

One of the reasons Sharaa now depends on a relatively small force of some 20,000 fighters from several disparate groups, including the foreign jihadis, is because he dissolved the national army soon after taking power

While the step was meant to draw a line under five decades of autocratic Assad family rule, diplomats and analysts said it echoed Washington's decision to disband the Iraqi army after the fall of Saddam Hussein - and could lead to similar chaos.

Sharaa's move, along with mass dismissals of public sector workers, has deepened divisions in Syria and left hundreds of thousands without income, potentially pushing trained soldiers into insurgent groups or unemployment, worsening Syria's instability, according to five European and Arab officials.

Neither Sharaa's office nor the Syrian foreign ministry responded to requests for comment for this story.

STUCK IN A PARADOX

In addition to the challenge of quelling sectarian violence, Sharaa must also contend with a host of foreign powers from the United States to Russia, Israel, Turkey and Iran - all turning Syria's territory into a geopolitical chessboard.

Turkey holds the north, backing opposition forces while suppressing Kurdish ambitions. U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces control the east with its vital oil fields, while Israel capitalised on Assad's fall to bolster its military foothold. It now controls a 400-square-km demilitarised buffer zone, supports the Druze minority and is opposed to the Syrian leadership.

In response to the massacres of civilians, Sharaa has established an investigation committee and promised to punish those responsible, even those close to him.

But any action against the jihadis who carried out the killings could ignite factional infighting, purges and power struggles - leaving the new government stuck in a paradox, the diplomats and analysts said.

"Obviously Sharaa doesn't control the foreign jihadis and does not call all the shots," said Marwan Muasher, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "What is clear is that the massacres were carried out by people who are Salafi jihadists, and are not listening to what he's saying."

While diplomats recognise that the inquiry is a step in the right direction, they said its credibility would have been far stronger with U.N. and international observers.

Ultimately, they said, the true test of Sharaa's leadership lies not just in the commission's findings but in how he deals with the fighters responsible for the atrocities.

The massacres were, however, a stark reminder of the forces at play in post-Assad Syria, signalling a brutal reality that toppling a dictator is the beginning of a larger, more perilous battle to shape the country's future.

Abdulaziz Sager, founder of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said the presence of "rogue groups" - the foreign jihadis - operating outside the law would lead to a collapse in security and undermine the state's authority.

"Therefore, the new leadership has no choice but to take firm action against such violations," he said.

An Arab diplomat said political support from Arab states was also not unlimited, and would need to be matched by concrete steps, including inclusive governance, protection of minorities and real progress on the ground.

That means genuine power-sharing with Alawites, Christians, Kurds and other minorities - and only then can the new leadership stabilise Syria and garner U.S. and European support, the Arab diplomat said.

Washington and European states have tied the lifting of sanctions, imposed under Assad, to the new authorities proving their commitment to inclusive governance and the protection of minorities. Removing these sanctions is crucial to reviving Syria's shattered economy, Sharaa's most pressing challenge.

SAME PLAYBOOK?

But despite promises of reform, the five-year constitution Sharaa unveiled this month gave him absolute power as president, prime minister, head of the armed forces and chief of national security, as well as granting him the authority to appoint judges, ministers and a third of parliament - dashing hopes for democratic reforms.

The constitution also enshrines Islamic law as "the main source" of legislation.

Critics argue that the constitution swaps autocracy for Islamist theocracy, deepening fears over Sharaa's roots as the leader of a hardline Islamist faction once allied with al Qaeda.

Kurds, who control northeastern Syria and recently agreed to integrate with the new government, criticised the temporary constitution for "reproducing authoritarianism in a new form".

Syria's dilemma, analysts say, mirrors the trials faced by Arab states a decade ago when, in 2011, a wave of uprisings ousted dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen.

The "Arab Spring" upheavals promised democratic revival, but takeovers by Islamists, military coups, and violent fragmentation turned these hopes into setbacks. The victories were short-lived, with states such as Yemen and Libya descending into violence and chaos.

Syria, having endured a far longer and bloodier conflict, now stands at a similar crossroad.

Analysts say if Syria's rulers adopt exclusionary policies that ignore the cultural, religious, ethnic diversity of its citizens, they are bound to fail - just as late Islamist President Mohammed Mursi did in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

In Mursi's case, his divisive constitution failed to meet the people's diverse demands and led to his toppling by the army. Such a policy in Syria, the analysts add, would fuel domestic resistance, antagonise neighbours, and prompt foreign intervention.

"Some internal and external forces wanted a secular state, while the constitutional declaration reaffirmed the state's religious-Islamic identity, stating that Islamic law (Sharia) would be the primary source of legislation," said Sager. "A possible compromise could have been a model similar to Turkey's - a secular state governed by an Islamic party."

Muasher at the Carnegie Endowment said Assad's fall should serve as a warning to those who replaced him in Syria.

He said Sharaa must decide whether to adopt the same playbook that made Assad vulnerable and led to the mass Sunni uprising that eventually ousted him - or adopt a different course.

"Syria's new rulers must recognise that the brutal authoritarian model of the regime they replaced was ultimately unsustainable, as is any political system based on exclusion and iron-fisted rule," Muasher said.

"If they fall back on repression, they will subject Syria to a grim fate."

[succubunsvent2]

Luca KNOWS how to draw adults in a stylized way, just look at shibani’s ref art vs how Luca drew him in this nsfw piece

https://succubuns.com/character/Shibani

https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/18

Even in pieces where all the characters are stylized in this other style, there are just some that look more childlike than the others?? Like look at Mercy vs Angora or Dan, or even Hops here.

https://www.deviantart.com/lucacrafts/art/Succubuns-ARPG-Launch-934970398

She’s way smaller, her face is rounder and even her neck is thinner. It’s not just that she’s short, or ‘androgynous and flat chested’ or whatever other strawman arguments you guys wanna pull. Hops is too, but doesn’t look nearly as childlike. Even Shibani looks more like an adult than Mercy.

And look at these adopts on Luca’s deviantart.

https://www.deviantart.com/lucacrafts/art/Succubuns-Adopts-939253017

The one on the very left looks very childlike, but the others look pretty much okay. And they’re all stylized the same way, all pretty androgynous, and almost all are flat chested, so again, you can’t play that card. There are ways to make them petite and cute and dainty and not childlike, and Luca obviously knows this and can draw this way. If this many people are telling you there is a problem with the art looking like children, just change the art and stop pulling excuses out of your ass, it’s really not that difficult.

🐰