#when your government fails you and misconstrues the narrative

[stil-lindigo]

I would never ever “recommend” someone to get a twitter account (because it’s somehow even worse than this place is most days) but if you’re serious about having informed opinions on the university protests happening right now, tumblr is just not the place to be.

video on this website is just not as accessible a media as it is on twitter. And I feel like seeing videos posted from pro-palestine students in real time as cops unleash hails of rubber bullets and tear gas on them, or zionist agitators firing fucking fireworks into their encampments and beating elderly women over the head with wooden planks would be…illuminating for some of you.

[glassheartstonesoul]

Criticisms of Qatar are racist. This mustn’t be misconstrued as I agree certain criticisms are valid. However it must be stressed that these criticisms would not even exist if Qatar were a western country. The migrant worker deaths must be investigated and appropriate compensation must be given to their families. However almost all countries facing rapid development/industrialization have committed the same atrocities Qatar has, yet no one has brought attention to them. Furthermore most if not all countries who have hosted the world cup have committed the same acts. Not to mention western media have grossly exaggerated the statistics to fit their narrative. They failed to mention that a large percentage of the deaths were due to natural causes. These human rights violations are only highlighted because the country hosting the Fifa World Cup is Qatar. These issues would not be brought to light if a western country were to host the World Cup. The hypocrisy in this situation is un-fucking-believable. Please keep the same fucking energy for the next World Cup which is going to be hosted in the United States. I can guarantee that in four years no one is going to be talking about all the injustices occurring in the USA. The only reason Qatar is facing this much criticism is because of western hypocrisy. Where was this energy when Russia was hosting the World Cup. Literally just type “World cup 2018 human rights” and look at the results. Over 110 North Korean workers died building a stadium. This is a quote from one of the articles “International experts describe the workers from North Korea as both slaves and hostages.” Let’s not forget the strikes in Brazil in 2014 protesting worker exploitation or the xenophobic attacks in South Africa during 2010. So ask yourselves why is Qatar facing the most heat ? The simple answer is xenophobia coupled with the recent trend of woke culture and performative activism. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones !! All these western nations criticizing Qatar should look inwards and rectify the corruption and human rights violations in their own countries before acting so righteous. Moreover Grant Wahl may he rest in peace was not killed by the Qatari government. Wahl himself stated "My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you," Wahl wrote. "What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort. Furthermore Wahl said on his podcast that he visited the clinic once more and even admitted to canceling all his plans and staying in. There quite literally no proof of foul play and you cannot draw conclusions based on your own prejudices and one emotional video from his brother. Ask yourself why is a reporter so important to Qatar that they would go as far as killing him ? There are thousands of articles criticizing Qatar and there have been dozens of cases of people wearing lgbtq+ clothing or arm bands during the World Cup this year. If you think Wahl wearing one rainbow shirt and writing a few critical articles for him killed then why haven’t other journalists or lgbtq+ supporters gotten killed ? This is complete and utter bullshit. Qatar has its flaws and yes it is not a country that is accepting of lgbtq+ people and yes they’ve violated human rights but why the criticism now ? The hypocrisy of the west is disgusting. The hypocrisy of celebrities is disgusting as well. So many singers are speaking out against Qatar yet are still holding concerts in stadiums built through human rights violations and still hold concerts in countries committing the same acts Qatar has. Celebrities, politicians and public figures are so eager to speak out against Qatar but refuse to talk about other human rights violations (Iranian govt, Israel-Palestine, BLM, roe v wade). Where was all this lgbtq+ allyship when the World Cup was hosted in Russia ? A very anti-lgbtq country. Basically screw all you hypocri

[joannechocolat]

“Taking it on the Chin”: or why words matter  even more in the time of the corona.

Words matter. Every writer knows that. Politicians know it too. Words are how we communicate ideas, or sometimes fail to communicate them. Sometimes that failure is deliberate. But for politicians, as well as writers, it is rarely accidental. When Boris Johnson uses a word so obscure that most of his audience doesn’t know what it means, or lapses into Ancient Greek, or when he pretends to stammer and stumble for comic effect, he’s giving us the on equivalent of Donald Trump making the “loser” sign while pretending to scratch his nose. He’s using words as a smokescreen on which to project the message: I’m cleverer than you are. That’s why I can get away with never giving you the truth.

Four weeks ago, Covid-19 was still news. Whenever it trended on Twitter, it always seemed to be spelt wrong. Coronoavirus: corvid19; the country seemed to be struggling with the words as well as the concept. And when Boris Johnson suggested in interview that maybe taking it on the chin would be the best way to deal with the crisis, his supporters were quick to believe that his words had been misconstrued. It’s only a figure of speech, they said. Words don’t really matter.

But yes, they do, and here’s why. Words do a lot more than communicate. They help create an mindset. And during the past four weeks or so, the government has been building a mindset of conflict, of aggression, of supremacy, of war. The daily Cabinet meetings have been reframed as The War Cabinet. The daily reports on the Prime Minister’s health have contained a repeated narrative that “he is a warrior”, “he is a fighter”, “he is the strongest person.” Now that he is recovering, they promise he will be “fighting fit” in no time. And yes, these are all figures of speech, but it’s a disturbingly unified kind of imagery. It’s the imagery of combat, of “taking the virus on the chin.” And it’s full of hidden messages, all as toxic at the first one.

Taking it on the chin is a boxing image. A fighter learns to take the hit. Only losers and cowards don’t. Losers and cowards walk away, but fighters take it like a man.

And no, it’s no surprise that our self-styled War Cabinet, as well as those who have consistently used this aggressive, warlike language, are all men. The women who have spoken out so eloquently against it – Marina Hyde, Emily Maitlis - have mostly been shouted down. In war, says the current narrative, women are expected to stay at home, manage, make do and support morale. They’re not expected to ask questions, or point out mistakes, or make comments. Even the Queen channelled Vera Lynn in her address to the nation.

Except that we are not at war. We are in a global pandemic. And in this pandemic, women are at risk, not just from the virus, but from this very male-dominated narrative. Women are losing access to cervical and breast cancer screenings, maternity and abortion services, as “non-essential” services shut down. And they are increasingly at risk from domestic abuse, which has shot sky-high during this time of lockdown, and which feeds on aggressive narratives. It is no surprise to lean that domestic abuse skyrockets around important sports’ events. And a narrative that says “we’re at war” makes violence inevitable. During wartime, certain groups - the elderly, the disabled, the poor – are often seen as inevitable casualties. Some regimes – ours included – might even consider it objectively beneficial, when it comes to boosting the economy, to lose half a million people. It’s a message we’ve heard a number of times, lurking behind “herd immunity”. After all, they keep telling us, the poor and the old and disabled are a drag on our benefits system; a drag on our “weakened” NHS. As if the NHS itself had failed to take it on the chin. And let’s not forget that, however much clapping for carers our Government now encourages, it is the same Government that applauded the decision not to award them a pay rise just last year. To them, nurses and carers count as “low-skilled workers.” Low-skilled workers may earn applause, but that doesn’t stop them from being expendable.

Which all goes to say, that this wartime narrative is very convenient for a certain type of politician. It gives them the chance to shout down dissenting voices as disloyal or unpatriotic. It allows them to send out the message that people only die of this virus because they are weak, or cowardly, or just not British enough to survive. It allows them to voice a renewed distrust of foreigners – as if we didn’t have enough of that in this country already. And it allows them to think of the victims of coronavirus as some kind of inevitable consequence of war, while painting themselves as heroes for “battling the enemy.”

Except they’re not. Because, here’s the thing. There is no fucking enemy. A virus doesn’t care about morale, or politics. A virus doesn’t respect borders, or care whether you’re brave or not. A virus really doesn’t care whether you take it on the chin. Nor do the families and friends of the thousands of people who have died so far of a virus that shows no real sign of slowing down, thanks to this Government’s mindset.

“But... it’s a figure of speech”, they say. “People have always used this language when it comes to battling illness!”

Actually, they haven’t. People have been complaining for years about the language of illness. Cancer sufferers, especially, have been vocal in their resentment of a narrative that frames death as a “defeat” – basically, a failure to take cancer on the chin. We can do better, and we should. In this time of global crisis, words matter more than ever. We need to ditch the War Cabinet and look to the medical cabinet. The language surrounding this virus should not be the language of blame, or bluster, or individualism, or patriotism, or macho posturing, but the language of intelligence, of problem-solving, of co-operation, of globalism, and of compassion.

You don’t need your boxing gloves for this challenge, boys: you need to put on your thinking-caps.

Or didn’t you have them at Eton?

[newstfionline]

Turkey Sees Foes at Work in ‘Smurf Village’

By David Segal, NY Times, July 22, 2017

LONDON--Akin Ipek, one of Turkey’s richest men, was staying in the Park Tower Hotel in London when the police raided his television network in Istanbul. The raid was national news, so Mr. Ipek opened his laptop and watched an unnerving spectacle: an attack on his multibillion-dollar empire, in real time.

It was an oddly cinematic showdown. Through a combination of shouting and persuasion, the network’s news editor convinced the officers that they should leave, then locked himself in the basement control room with a film crew. For the next seven and a half hours, until the police returned, the news editor spoke into a camera and took calls on his iPhone. One was from Mr. Ipek, who denounced the government’s action as illegal.

“I was shocked and angry,” Mr. Ipek said in a recent interview in London. “But I thought they would leave after a couple days. There was no reason to stay.”

Actually, the government never left, and the events were the start of a personal cataclysm for Mr. Ipek. His station, Bugun TV, was taken off the air a few hours after that phone call, on Oct. 28, 2015. His entire conglomerate of 22 companies, Koza Ipek, is now owned and operated by the state.

The episode proved to be a dry run for a nationwide series of confiscations that began soon after an attempt to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15 last year. Since then, more than 950 companies have been expropriated, all of them purportedly linked to Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric who Turkish leaders say masterminded the putsch.

About $11 billion worth of corporate assets--from small baklava chains to large publicly traded conglomerates--have been grabbed by the government, a systematic taking with few precedents in modern economic history. Several thousand dispossessed executives have fled overseas to cities as far-flung as Nashville and Helsinki. The less fortunate were imprisoned, part of a mass incarceration campaign that has included purged members of the military, judiciary, police and news media, adding 50,000 new inmates to the prisons.

Turkey was once considered one of the world’s great emerging markets, with years of torrid growth and an Islamic government that embraced democracy. Tourism boomed and hundreds of malls popped up across the country. Starbucks arrived in 2003 and has since opened hundreds of stores.

But the political and financial are deeply entwined in Turkey, and the fallout from the coup attempt has damaged the economy. The corporate seizures have also changed the way the country is perceived in the international business sphere, largely because of what they say about the leadership.

The Turkish lira is crumbling and foreign investment has dropped by half compared with last year. All three of the major rating agencies have downgraded the government’s debt to junk status, citing among other factors the bludgeoning approach to companies suspected of having ties to the Gulen movement.

“We’ve seen this new narrative about Turkey as it has taken an authoritarian turn,” said Jonathan Friedman of Stroz Friedberg, a global risk consultancy. “In boardrooms, the country is now a very hard sell.”

Turkey’s war on its “enemies” in business--and the evolution of Mr. Ipek from revered industrialist to public villain--illuminates much about the tumultuous events that have so jolted the country in recent years.

Mr. Ipek stands accused of being part of a treasonous deep state run by Mr. Gulen, a reclusive 76-year-old who fled Turkey in 1999 and now lives in the Poconos of Pennsylvania.

For decades, Mr. Gulen has preached a theology rooted in Islam and focused on peace, science and democracy. The movement he leads is called Hizmet--service, in English--and is best known outside of Turkey for building schools across the country and the rest of the world, including 120 charter schools in the United States. Delegations of American politicians have flown to Turkey on trips paid for by Hizmet.

To Mr. Gulen’s detractors, his good works have all been all a cunning charade, propaganda camouflaging a vast moneymaking enterprise that sought to overthrow the government. He and his followers indoctrinated youngsters at Hizmet schools in Turkey, then encouraged them to find positions in the government, particularly the justice system--as police officers, prosecutors and judges.

For allies in the corporate realm, Gulenists in the government provided invaluable aid. Licenses were approved, permits issued, rivals thwarted. Entrepreneurs in Mr. Gulen’s favor knew that the levers of the state could make them wealthy, and one of his most successful protégés, if the Turkish government is correct, was Mr. Ipek.

Soon after the raid, a warrant was issued for Mr. Ipek’s arrest, stating that he laundered vast sums for what officials call the Fethullah Terrorist Organization. His assets were frozen and have gradually been seized, starting last year with his luxury cars and ending with all of his real estate and bank accounts. Prosecutors announced in June that they would seek a 77-year prison sentence for Mr. Ipek, though he has no plans to return to Turkey.

Now settled in London, Mr. Ipek spends his days trying to clear his name and somehow reclaim his life. No, he says, he is not a financial backer of Mr. Gulen or a beneficiary of favors from his followers. And no, he says, he didn’t flee Turkey with billions of dollars, as the government has charged. He says his current net worth is less than $10 million.

“I have not committed one single crime in my life, not a traffic penalty,” he fumed, during hours of interviews.

It isn’t easy to sort fact from fabrication in the government’s case, and parts of Mr. Ipek’s account of his own life sound nearly as far-fetched. Truth is a slippery, elusive concept in today’s Turkey, a place where the definitions of basic words, like “ally” and “traitor,” keep changing.

At least one allegation against Mr. Ipek is demonstrably absurd. A judge misconstrued a reference to “smurfs,” a term of art for people who launder tiny amounts of money, in a report by a government investigator. Taking the allusion literally, the judge, in his ruling, wrote that Mr. Ipek and a group of others conspired in “Smurf Village” in Ankara.

“For two years I’ve been trying to prove there is no Smurf Village in Ankara,” Mr. Ipek nearly shouted, “because some idiot mentioned Smurfs in a report.”

Of course, even if Mr. Ipek was one of Mr. Gulen’s truest believers, taking companies with scant due process would seem to violate most countries’ legal norms. Many inside and outside Turkey believe that Mr. Erdogan has exploited the failed coup as a pretext to expand his power, tossing people in prison or firing them from jobs for sins as minor as keeping money in a Gulen-connected bank. More than 130,000 people have been suspended or dismissed in the past year, and dozens of hospitals have been closed, along with 1,200 schools and 15 universities.

Mr. Ipek may simply have experienced the wrath of the president before everyone else. During their last face-to-face meeting, in 2012, Mr. Erdogan smoldered while reading aloud every word of a column in Bugun, Mr. Ipek’s newspaper, that he found objectionable.

“He was not reasonable anymore,” Mr. Ipek said. “I told him, ‘Consider me your younger brother and let me tell you some truths. You need to look at the whole wall, not concentrate on one brick. I’ll ask my columnists to be a little more polite, but we want people to be free to express their opinion. We promised them a free press.’”

Mr. Ipek must have realized that his future in Turkey was not secure. In late 2014, he began the process of relocating to London, forming a holding company here called Ipek Investments that would control all of his assets.

The leverage that the government now has over Mr. Ipek includes his younger brother, Tekin, who was imprisoned two years ago without a trial. Mr. Ipek has offered to fly to Turkey and take his brother’s place if the government releases him. Come to Turkey and we’ll talk, the government has countered, in Mr. Ipek’s telling. It is a proposal that he has declined, because he assumes that the government will simply imprison them both.

“I’ve seen them do that before,” he said.