I have to confess. The outrageous in-your-face behavior of the neocons finally got to me as Armageddon approaches, after seeing more and more references to it (albeit usually wacky), I recently downloaded the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Guiltily, mind you, as if it were Mein Kampf or porno. I bet you haven’t dared (or bothered) to read it.
So what is this best-selling political tract of the 20th century, the reading of which carried the death penalty in Stalinist Russia, lauded by the likes of Henry Ford and Winston Churchill, and then loudly condemned for the past 60 years since it was briefly declared an anti-Semitic forgery (in a Swiss court in 1935 overturned by the Appeals Court in 1937)?
The bile aside, it is in fact an series of 24 mostly articulate, well-argued lectures outlining a plan for world capitalist domination, with sharp political and social analysis, lots of Machiavelli and a Marxian sophistication in its understanding of capitalism and historical processes. Briefly, it outlines a plan of world conquest by first establishing world government by consent. As with any brilliant political analysis, it has been denounced, dismissed, misinterpreted and banned. And made very good use of by those lusting for world power.
What immediately struck me was that with a little dusting off, abridging and updating, it could easily be the handbook of the neocons. With the wonders of modern computers, you can download a free copy from the Internet, cleanse it of anti-Semitism by replacing "fellow Jews" with "neocons" and make sense of what’s happening in the world today.
Mysterious origins? Not really
Though its origins are still unknown, it was clearly inspired by the French revolution and its aftermath, the then-popular Masonic order, and most of all the nascent 19th century Zionist movement. All that we know is that it was written in France and brought to Russia, supposedly in 1884. It first appeared in print in St Petersburg in 1903, but reached the West only after the Russian revolution. It caused an immediate sensation, originally crudely interpreted as foretelling the Bolshevik revolution as the crucial link in a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. As such, it was admired by the likes of Winston Churchill and Henry Ford, both confirmed anti-communists and anti-Semites.
True, it has the prescience to allow for an anti-capitalist revolution on the way to its final goal, but there’s nothing even vaguely socialist in it. It’s firmly founded on a plan for capitalist domination through Jewish control of international finance and just happened to appear at the very moment of the founding of the Zionist movement, with its goal of establishing as soon as possible a Jewish state in Palestine, backed by powerful worldwide Ashkenazy Jewish economic interests.
It's as if an especially ruthless and well-read 19th c Zionist, inspired by the Rothschilds and other great Jewish financiers of the time, wrote it or most of it, as I am sure is the case. Really, it reads as if it were written by the Jungian shadow of the likes of Zionism's founder, Theodore Herzl, or any of Israel's notables from Ben Gurion to Ariel Sharon. Its anti-goyim callousness certainly indicate it was not written for public consumption, and after Hitler, it was relegated to the Forbidden Shelf in ALL libraries along with Mein Kampf and naked bottoms. But it is very hard to believe that it is a spoof or a mere provocation, as it is just too impressive in detail and understanding of the logic of late 19th c capitalism.
Did Hitler read it? I bet the Nazis read it carefully. They certainly followed much of its advice, from how to use the press, to how to manipulate both politicians and the masses in consolidating their political hold. It's also clear why destruction of the Jews became Hitler's tragic obsession. His New World Order (NWO) would have to exclude a group even remotely connected with such a scheme for world domination. As the neocons warn today: “You are either with us or against us.”
Many paths - but they all lead to Rome
The trouble with the Protocols is that it has been interpreted since it was published to suit the prejudices of the moment. In pre-revolutionary Russia, it provided fuel for the already widespread Russian anti-Semitism. In post-WWI Europe and America, it provided fuel against the Russian revolution. In the post-WWII world, it became the Bible of American isolationists and racists who see the poor UN as the dreaded “World Government,” backed by the Soviet Union and 3rd world revolutions. Now it is read by Muslims as proof of the conspiracy by US imperialism to destroy them.
Another problem is that there have been many variations on the theme of the NWO ever since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The French revolution and Napoleonic conquests, the Masonic lodges, imperial Germany and England all have had their own NWO fantasy. The Russian revolution was the most radical attempt at a NWO, and even can be distinguished for the large number of Jews who took part, but despite the fact that the Protocols was first published in Russia and strictly banned during the Soviet period, the Soviet experiment was not even remotely the final World Government of the Protocols, as it was anti-capitalist in its essence.
The red herring in it is of course 'Jewish', which is supposed to refer to a race. The Jews referred to in the Protocols are the European Ashkenazy Jews, who had been traditionally usurers and who were in the 19th century becoming increasing wealthy and part of the mainstream European culture. From them sprang the Zionists, who transformed a religion where God is to bring them to the 'promised land' someday into an active plan to seize Palestine based on their growing international economic and financial might. So it is this group that is the real inspiration behind the Protocols and not some amorphous Jewish RACE. Think of the authors as the neocons of the day. For by the 19th century, usury was the norm, and the rapid spread of capitalism meant that the Western world effectively became Jewish, as Marx put it, and adopted the Jewish idea of success.
Yet another problem. It is loudly dismissed as a forgery. Hello? It was anonymous, so how can it be a forgery. Who forged what? No wonder the Swiss Appeals Court threw the case out. In that case we can dismiss the Bible as a forgery. And who cares who wrote the Psalms anyway? They stand on their own merits, as does the Protocols stripped of a few provocative phrases here and there, which could have been slipped in by anyone.
You may well protest: “The Protocols attributes the conscious machinations of Jews to be behind all historical developments. I don’t believe the Zionists are either so powerful, or so far-sighted.” In answer: It’s not necessary for our actions to be premeditated. The logic of world capitalism sweeps us along, whether we like it or not. Some players are more conscious (and ruthless) than others. They become the Herzls, the Wolfowitzes, the Sharons. The rest of us get swept along, either yielding to, or fighting the current: the Bushes and the Schwartzeneggers or the goyim. The Protocols (or its original, if it is indeed a forgery) was inspired by the new economic system sweeping the world, and composed by the 19th century equivalent of the neocons. It hasn’t played itself out yet, just as capitalism hasn’t played itself out. We ignore it at our peril.
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation?
Contrast the Zionist movement with the other great attempt at a NWO from the 19th century on -- the world socialist movement. It is far weaker, split by nationalism and hundreds of ideological splinters, and motivated by social justice, a far less sexy motivation that money, wealth and power-for-its-own-sake. The Protocols is quite clear about this: "Our triumph has been rendered easier by the fact that in our relations with the men whom we wanted we have always worked upon the most sensitive chords of the human mind, upon the cash account, upon the cupidity, upon the insatiability for material needs of man: and each one of these human weaknesses, taken alone, is sufficient to paralyze initiative, for it hands over the will of men to the disposition of him who has bought their activities.” (I)
There is no fear of the dangerous effective of democracy: ”The abstraction of freedom has enabled us to persuade the mob in all countries that their government is nothing but the steward of the people who are the owners of the country, and that the steward may be replaced like a worn-out glove. It is this possibility of replacing the representatives of the people which has placed them at our disposal, and, as it were, given us the power of appointment." (I)
Socialism never had a chance against this corrosive Machiavellianism, though, just in case, the Protocols had a plan: "The hour strikes when, not for the sake of attaining the good, not even to win wealth, but solely out of hatred towards the privileged, the lower classes of the goyim will follow our lead against our rivals for power, the intellectuals of the goyim." (IV) This is the only reference to the use of a revolt of the masses, which was seized upon to associate the Protocols with the Russian revolution. Rather slim pickings, and it reveals the strategy is to undermine the “intellectuals of the goyim”, i.e., the socialist opposition to world capitalism.
On the contrary, the Russian revolution seemed to really shake the very foundations of the plan for world capitalist domination. Curiously in its first 30 years the SU had the Zionists split. Why? Well, no doubt partly because many rank-and-file Zionists were socialist by persuasion, truly wanted the SU to succeed and hoped for a socialist Israel as a bonus (Herzl's utopian novel depicts a socialist Israel). But for the Zionist fanatics of the Protocols, their fence-sitting was because achieving their own state was the main priority, and required the support of both the communist and capitalist camps.
And as for the softer versions of socialism which have surfaced occasionally in the West, their headway has always been kept well in check, and social democratic reforms were rolled back very easily after the collapse of the SU, via the tactics envisaged in the Protocols. So the plan of the Protocols should not be confused with the many variations on a socialist/ communist NWO.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
The Protocols also lauds "the successes we arranged for Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzscheism." (II) Why promote such radicals? Because of the "disintegrating importance these directives have had upon the minds of the goyim." Just how central to Marx’s success these Zionists were is debatable.
But it's become clear to me that Zionists have penetrated and tried to control all the NWO fantasies, from left to right, to further their own cause. It is not surprise then that they have been at the center of the present neocon insurgency from the start. And as for the EU-as-NWO, Sharon even suggested Israel should join the EU since ‘we share common ideals’. In spite of Israel’s loathing for the UN, it is at the very heart of THAT beleaguered, clumsy organization too (with a stake in hand just in case, it can be argued). It has recently been revealed that Zionists are even involved with extreme right anti-Semitic movements in Europe and with the creation of Hamas. After all, anti-Semitism is the Zionist’s best defense. "The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world." (Albert Einstein, Collier's Magazine, November 26, 1938)
True, anti-Semitism got out of control under Hitler and it even looked like it was touch-and-go for a while for the Ashkenazy Jews of Europe, but fascism was in turn destroyed by a capitalist-communist alliance, with Zionists at its heart, as the Protocols so brilliantly foretold: "For a time perhaps we might be successfully dealt with by a coalition of the goyim of all the world: but from this danger we are secured by the discord existing among them whose roots are so deeply seated that they can never now be plucked up." (VI) Divide and rule!
The Holocaust gave the fanatical Zionists their long-sought state, which allowed them to discard any socialist pretensions and nurture the capitalist-Zionist alliance essential to the goal of world domination. The defining moment is perhaps the triumph of the neocons under Reagan in the 1980s. The Zionists had consolidated their hold on American foreign policy under Democrat Carter, and were ready to make the alliance official under Republican Reagan. It is at this point that the very term Zionist and even Jew can be discarded. As I have argued elsewhere, We are all Jews now. And with the Bush coup in 2000, we all (for the present at least) have become neocons (or goyim). As the opposition grows weaker, with the shield of the Holocaust at the ready, the neocon-Zionist alliance has begun to act more and more brazenly to consolidate its hold on the world and destroy the last meaningful resistance - the Islamic world.
The ultimate trump card
Not only was the Holocaust and the way to defeat it foreseen in the Protocols, but, like the anti-Semitism that gave rise to it, it has been turned into the ultimate defense of the Zionist cause. A kind of perverse win-win situation for the Zionists. It transformed important anti-Semites into Judeophiles overnight. While Churchill was an enthusiastic reader of the Protocols before WWII, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the foundation of Israel after, and shifted his anti-Semitism onto the Arabs. Stalin, also a confirmed anti-Semite, provided the key vote at the UN to approve the foundation of Israel and supplied crucial arms via Czechoslovakia to the beleaguered state, foolishly thinking he could ultimately manipulate. Ha, ha! Finally it became the linchpin in consolidating today’s neocon-Zionist alliance, and a brilliant defense for all manner of Zionist crimes: “We can do anything to defend ourselves after the Holocaust!”
The icing on the cake is the impressive Holocaust museum which blends in tastefully with the Lincoln and Washington memorials in the heart of Washington, D.C. (Note: There is no museum to the Holocaust against the native peoples or the blacks.)
A crack in the wall?
While ‘Old Europe’ has made some noises about this lethal NWO, the governments are nonetheless beholden to it, and can do little but try to carve a slightly bigger piece of the pie. No, the only meaningful remaining resistance to the neocon-Zionist NWO is the as yet unbrainwashed goyim of the world - the peace movement and the Islamic world, strange bedfellows at best.
However, there are some disturbing ripples in the NWO waters. Bush/ Sharon have chosen the warpath, while the Soros branch, which includes Europe, wants a more peaceful transition. The reckless policies of the erstwhile "servile administrator" in Washington are quite possibly endangering the very economic foundation of the NWO. The Protocols foresees such chaos, though it presumes to be in control of it: "We shall soon begin to establish huge monopolies, reservoirs of colossal riches, upon which even large fortunes of the GOYIM will depend to such an extent that they will go to the bottom together with the credit of the States on the day after the political smash...." (VI)
Such a collapse of the present world financial system is not at all beyond the realm of possibility. And if it comes, it could take down the US government and the neocons with it. It is here that the Protocols begins to unravel. The Protocols assumes the corporate financial cabal controlling the world economy will be invited to take over bankrupt governments with their World Government, as indeed has been happening under the guise of IMF restructuring programs and more recently by direct invasion. But the bankrupt and invaded countries, such as Argentina, most of Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq for starters are proving to be problematic, more than the cabal can digest.
Maybe, just maybe, the neocons' gamble will trip them up before they reach the finish line and they will end up along side the despised goyim19 at the bottom. A switch to a gold dinar in the Muslim world and oil-euros for the rest would seriously endanger the NWO, as would a massive ecological disaster, natural or man-made.
The mild neocons (Soros etal) see this clearly and are scurrying to minimize collateral damage. Theirs is a strategy closer to the spirit of the Protocols - no overt wars, a careful amassing of power through education and the control of the press, no dangerous splits in the capitalist-Zionist alliance, achieving victory through financial and trade blackmail. Have a look at the Protocols yourself. It’s all there.
So, are these cowboy jackboot high jinks a momentary glitch in the triumphal march to the neocon-Zionist paradise? Will a Howard Dean, urged on by Soros, put the out-of-control steamroller back on its proper path? Or has the Protocols played itself out? Is our present apocalyptic scenario instead a crack that gives us hope of emerging from this nightmarish plot?
Rational racism?
I don't know about the Elders, the Symbolic Snake, the actual killing off of the goyim, whether the line of King David will be re-established to rule the world, the importance of the Masons, or whether the French Revolution "was wholly the work of our hands". There's surprisingly little of such bile for a work of such notoriety, and it can be easily edited out so as not to distract from the sharp analysis. Perhaps it was added by an anti-Semite as a provocation. Who knows? As for the Masons, come to think of it, the popularity of them, the Yale Skull and Bones, and other such Monty-Pythonesque groups shows a stubborn inclination by would-be goyim leaders to voluntarily (i.e., consciously or unconsciously) make themselves part of a world conspiracy, however idiotic.
That's not so much the problem. The major flaw behind the logic of the Protocols is its basic premise - that there is a Jewish race. There is only one race - the human race. Just have a look at Israeli society if you think there is a racial basis to Judaism. But hey! Scientists are discovering that there are genes which are responsible for skin color, that define risk-takers or those susceptible to various diseases… Maybe there’s a gene for these would-be Elders of Zion. Perhaps the NY Times will post the following soon: The Zionist-neocons now welcome to their fold those who share their lust for capitalist world domination. All those with gene DN145, please sign up here. We are all equal before Mammon. MBA schools will go crazy.
The Masonic lodges, Skull and Bones fraternities, the Jewish ‘race’ itself are just foils in this march of world capitalism, gathering in like-minded wanabes as it makes its final push for total control. It is somehow fitting that the once reviled Jew should sit one day on the world’s golden throne surrounded by his neocon minions. That is the Protocols’ vision of the end of history. Eat your heart out Fukuyama!
Simon Jones is a Canadian freelance journalist. He has also published pieces in www.Counterpunch.org and YellowTimes.org. He can be contacted here
Ben Stein, noting that about 60% of the top positions in Hollywood are held by Jews, says "Do Jews run Hollywood? You bet they do - and what of it?" Well, let's look at what this spectacular freedom for Jews during the past half century has resulted in: *Israel and America are terrorizing the entire world with unrelenting, vicious, bloody wars and occupations. *The collapse of the only serious attempt (if it was indeed serious) by Israel to make peace with the Palestinians in the mid-90s and the subsequent ascendancy of the Zionist neocons in Washington have ended any illusions about the innocence of the Jews in all this. *Apart from Israel, most Jews (including a half million Israelis) live in the US; 80% blindly support Israel; many of the fanatical settlers in occupied Palestine are American Jews; and the US government provides $6 BILLION per year to Israel in foreign aid (which is promptly used to further persecute Palestinians). All US politicians must pass the AIPAC test before they can be 'elected' formally (the ADL and the AJC, all basically lobbyists for Israel, do not have to register as agents of a foreign government). A truly vicious circle, if there ever was one. *Meanwhile, the entire international world order, so painstakingly constructed over the past 300 years is collapsing, as nuclear and environmental Armageddon approach with each passing day.
While goys are equally complicit in this nightmare world order, the fact that Jews have never had it so good and have climbed to the top of the West's economic, cultural and political ladder with unprecedented speed cannot be ignored. Enough with the coincidences already!
It is astounding that so few people have removed their blinkers. Mine were ripped off early for a very good reason: though not Jewish (though who really knows?), and from a well-off white family, I have the (dubious or otherwise) distinction of being a member of another persecuted minority, one strikingly similar to the Jews, though with significant differences. Yes, gay, faggot, queer, pansy, poof, etc. Watching another prominent minority GAIN, and then promptly MISUSE its newly won freedom, I have become increasingly angry. The justified reaction against the injustices that Jews are, to a very large extent, responsible for these days is gaining momentum, and I can see it spilling over onto other groups - my own not surprisingly comes immediately to mind.
I generally resist identifying myself as 'gay', as I consider it is no business of anyone besides my sexual partner, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the work I do, or even how I relate to my friends. But the times demand that we wrestle with both the Jewish and gay issues - in a way they are key issues of modern society and must be dealt with, so my cards are on the table.
Similarities
Like Jews, gays have ancient roots of persecution and have been mostly outcasts since the rise of Christianity (though the roots of persecution, ironically, are in the Torah). This persecution complex - I know it first-hand - leaves an indelible mark on one's character - defiance of a hypocritical, unjust society, a desire for revenge, a feeling of superiority (warranted or not), a lack of patriotism./ *(i)So gays automatically empathize with Jews. At the same time, gays often crossed paths with Jews professionally - in the arts, as writers, philosophers, councilors, etc.
In Jungian terms we can say that gays function as a psychological shadow for straights (having a dominance of traits usually associated with the opposite sex), just as Jews are a kind of social shadow for mainstream society (practicing forbidden activities such as usury (updated today to include stock market fraud and the like) and fomenting revolution). Think of Jews and gays as the spice in society, giving it flavor, variety, acting as catalysts in the arts and in social relations.
To be or to do? - that is the question
Gays and Jews face a common problem of just what makes them what they are. 'Is it a breath mint or a candy mint?' Is there some genetic code at work or is a gay/ Jewish identity merely a social construct?
Jews love to attack critics by labelling them 'anti-Semites', a late 19th century construct which is completely inaccurate, as most Jews are Caucasian Ashkenazy, while Arabs and the relatively few Sephardic Jews are the real Semites. It is a term which underlines the essentially racist attitude of contemporary Jews in describing themselves, anti-SEMITE emphasizing inherent and unchangeable inborn qualities (vs anti-Jewish, emphasizing the Jew as a socio-religious construct, a reaction to the dominant society). The Jews can 't face a reasoned, rational objection to their IDEAS, and stick to the mantra "It is because of what we are, not of what we do."
Few gays feel comfortable defining themselves as genetic oddities (only the militants), and apart from people born with both sexual organs, gays only begin to differentiate themselves at the earliest at 5-10 years of age. Most do not 'realize' they are gay until puberty or even as late as 30-40. In reality, neither group really has much of a claim for genetic exceptionalism.
So this similarity in the problem of even defining what 'gay' or 'Jew' means is in fact a very big difference. Unlike the Jews, who secretly or proudly relish the idea of genetic difference (read: superiority),*(ii) the gut instinct of gays is to dismiss this as the loony idea of some homophobic genetic engineer, hoping to find the 'faulty' gene and provide an instant 'cure'. Even if we accept that being gay has some genetic basis, and while gays (likes Jews) are economically much better off than others, there has never been a serious attempt to maintain that gays are SUPERIOR in any way to straights.
Jews will insist that they are not racists, that it is the goys that are racist, and then, without batting an eye, talk about their DNA *(iii)and defend unconditionally the only blatantly racist state - Israel, unique among sovereign states (except for Nazi Germany). Judaism is a veritable 'shell game': a religion, no - an identity, oops - a culture, wrong again - a tradition. It is a slippery fish - whatever fits the bill at the moment.
Clearly not fair, but you question it at your own risk. The standard response to the slightest whiff of criticism is "Anti-Semite!" Whatever you may think of gays (queers, faggots, etc) or whether they were found under a cabbage leaf or not, they clearly define themselves by what they DO as predominantly MSM (men-having-sex-with-men) or WSW in the case of lesbians. There's no confusion there. The buck stops here, if you'll forgive the pun.
Assimilationist or outsider
This brings me to the second important difference. While most gays are 'that way' from an early age (5-10 years old), and like Jews have had to live their lives as outcasts, gays have traditionally never had much group identity. And they have mostly (with varying degrees of success) tried to assimilate, hide themselves, marry and otherwise blend in to society. Indeed gays have almost always had sexual relations primarily with straights. The very idea of gays living in a closed 'ghetto' is a very late-20thC one, and like the Jewish ghetto (or Israel, as a monster Jewish ghetto) is bizarre, if not repulsive, to most gays, despite Greenwich village and San Francisco as 'gay meccas'. Mecca, after all, is a place of pilgrimage. Who in their right mind wants to LIVE there?
Jews, however, at least those who have not assimilated, are famous for stubbornly remaining aloof, reveling in their persecution as God's Chosen People, alienated from society. Otto Weininger, a 19thC German Jewish philosophy described Judaism as a state of mind. That's cutting to the quick. Yes, for some the focus is on the rituals, for some - the tribal solidarity, for others - the supposed superiority, etc. But while you may be born a Jew, there's nothing to stop you from NOT being a Jew whenever you like, as most have done in the past, including hundreds of thousands of immigrants to America over the past 200 years. It's as easy as (apple) pie to move, change your name, join a church and blend in. But these assimilationists are no longer Jews. As for gays, they can never REALLY stop being gay, despite bogus claims by Bible-thumping evangelicals. The gay 'state of mind' always comes up against the brick wall, the implacable, insatiable sex drive, whatever IT is.
Let history judge
Historically, wherever Jews settled and maintained their Jewish identity, they eventually gained more and more economic, political and cultural power, and then started to manipulate it for their own group purposes, inevitably inciting an angry reaction. Today's wave of revulsion in light of Israel's outrages backed by a Zionist-inspired, corrupt US government is just the tip of a huge, ancient iceberg, which despite global warming (read: holocaust worship and human rights legislation) refuses to melt.
Gays have also been persecuted - mostly by the church, though Islam and Judaism (yes, our fellow sufferers!) traditionally also forbid and punish homosexuality. But there were never any instances of hysterical, mass expulsion of gays, as there were of Jews. Why? Clearly, because gays never really posed a threat to the dominant society.
Will the real Chosen People please stand up?
Indeed, in many pre-Christian cultures (including the native American), gays were often respected as special people and made shamans, priests, artists, musicians etc. Ironically there is a much stronger argument in the million-odd years of human existence that the 'Chosen People' are in fact GAYS rather than Jews. But even if this is true, you will never find gays creating a state and migrating en masse to live there (kicking out the natives in the process). A (brave) Jewish comedian recently commented to the effect that 'Jews are like spice, a little is good. Putting them all together in one country is a recipe for indigestion.' The same goes for gays - living on the edge of the mainstream society, they provide that 'je ne sais quoi' for the social stew. No wonder Jews and gays have produced so many great comedians, able to stand back and poke fun at mainstream society.
Effects of freedom for gays and Jews
How many parallels, coincidences there are! The most significant, of course, is the WWII holocausts against BOTH gays and Jews, and the subsequent post-WWII process of creating TOTAL freedom for both Jews and gays. Not only the ADL can take people to court for perceived slights these days, but gays can too (though it's much harder). Painting swastikas on Jewish grave and gay-bashing are both grounds for violation of hate crimes (again, much harder for gays, and there is much more gay-bashing than Jew-bashing). We can both publicly flaunt what many perceive as antisocial behavior and not suffer any consequences. Books about the holocaust are part of children's curricula, just as story books where 'Susie has two daddies' (at least in the most 'progressive' schools).
Look at the effect of Jewish freedom, the triumph of the Jewish idea, on the modern world: the eternal torment of war in the Middle East, the collapse of the Soviet Union (a largely Jewish intellectual elite - a million people - up and left in the 1970s-90s), the rampant commercialization of the entire world, the accelerated destruction of nature ('And God made Man to have dominion over the Earth')... Within US politics, where Jews have gained control of the main levers of power, we see total cynicism and corruption, blind support of one Israeli outrage after another, an all-out war against Islam. Why? It is not all the fault of the Jews of course, but their prominence in all facets of Western society means they have to account for themselves. Freedom implies responsibility for one's actions.
I would phrase it as 'They want to have their cake and eat it.' They have full, equal rights now in the advanced countries, have gained unprecedented control of these societies, and yet continue to support their own racist, outcast state, persecuting and displacing millions of Muslims. Any criticism of them and this 'shitty little country' is simply dismissed as anti-Semitism; they refuse to recognize that they are in fact to blame.*(iv)
What of the effect of gay freedom? Gays, lacking a cohesive tribal identity, have no clout economically (except maybe as consumers of expensive toiletry and clothing). Politically, true, gays have successfully lobbied and won remarkable changes to laws in their favor. The crowning achievement (the equivalent of the creation of the state of Israel for Jews?) is/ will be marriage rights. The icing on the cake after decades of pushing the loosening of morals from the 1960s on.
But it is culturally and socially that gays have had the most influence, and the results are mixed at best. The past 40 years have witnessed a sustained crisis in the traditional family - divorces up, single-parent families up, teens much more openly rebellious, the rise of the 'metrosexual' .
Why? Just as the Jews are not solely to blame for the world's political problems, it is not fair to blame gays for the virtual collapse of the family in the West or the perceived castration of men. It is a result of the long-term decline of western societies, the invasion of the family by commercial media, with its questioning of traditional values and its manipulation of sex in the promotion of consumption. However, equally crucial have been post-WWII liberal social reforms, including equal rights for women and the legalization of homosexuality. In claiming our rights, gays played an important role in rebelling AGAINST the traditional family and the male/ female stereotypes. Unfortunately, what is replacing them - serial parents, one-parent families, now gay families, and the wimpy metrosexual - are poor substitutes. I am the first to acknowledge that our society is in crisis, just as is our world, and my fellow gays and my sometime Jewish allies have a disproportionately large role in this.
But again there are differences
While there were no pogroms of gays, I would suggest that gays have taken more of a beating on a day-to-day basis, even in this age of Political Correctness. In most of the world, it is much more dangerous to be openly gay than openly Jewish. And historically, despite occasional outbreaks of anti-Jewish anger, Jews have traditionally had much greater freedom. Compare the infamous Oscar Wilde trial with that of Dreyfus - coincidentally at about the same time. Dreyfus, an obscure officer, became the cause celebre of Victor Hugo and other prominent figures and was rehabilitated, while Wilde, the greatest 19th c playwright, died broken and abandoned. Ironically, these historic trials were a kind of swan song for civilization' s overt repression of Jews AND gays.
Of course, the barbarian holocausts of Hitler against Jews AND gays were yet to come, but again, look at the difference. The Jews (at least the Zionists and the 80+% of Jews that actively support them) have used this tragedy to reap billions of dollars in reparations and, by creating their own racist state, inflict an equally tragic fate on the Palestinians. No gays (or relatives) received reparations for their suffering (let alone communists or Roma). Gays have not used their new freedom to inflict suffering on others claiming that it is justified because of Hitler's holocaust. Perhaps gays are just wimps, unlike the more aggressive, self-promoting Jewish tribe. But then, perhaps being a wimp is not such a bad thing.
Gays and Jews - cool
I have traditionally felt sympathy for Jews, knowing what it feels like to be an outsider to society. My upbringing taught me to respect education and economic success, much like Jews do. My doctors, dentists, musician friends, quite a few profs were all Jews - perhaps my strongest influences growing up, though just as I never spoke about being gay, they never spoke about being Jewish. It was always assumed that we were basically assimilationists, that being Jewish or gay was something secondary, spicy, if you like. Something that made life interesting but that was not essential.
But that seems to have changed over my lifetime (since the '67 war?). Jews are now much more up front about their Jewishness. In the US, it is now 'cool' to be 'Jewcy', as some young Jews flaunt on their t-shirts. Israel has no small part to play in this. God knows, it has been ITEM NUMBER ONE on news and in the deluge of holocaust films and museums for decades now (since the '67 war?). The once staunchly ant-racist assimilationist Jews have disappeared or been drown out. Increasingly, Jews are casting aside their quiet assimilationism, promoting themselves as a race both in their host countries and as supporters of Israel, their second or even first loyalty (since the '67 war?).
Consider what it is like for a child growing up in Israel, where little Ariel is taught that he is superior to other races, especially the 'darkies' living in excruciating poverty in concentration camps close by because Ariel 's parents kicked them out of their homes. Imagine growing up with a political role model like Netanyahu or Sharon - bloodthirsty, cynical, corrupt, soulless, lying but clever leaders. Imagine being brought up by parents, BOTH of whom, otherwise traditional mommies and daddies, have killed dozens of innocent, defenseless Palestinians in cold blood. Imagine the children in your country loathing the children a few kilometers away, considering them animals to slaughter when they grow up, with nuclear bombs in necessary. Brrr. It's ice cold down in Dante's Inferno.
It is now 'cool' to be gay now, too. There are now many people who identify themselves first and foremost as gays, rather than as, say Canadians or socialists, though being gay by itself means very little when it comes down to it. Some have taken the 'battle' to another level, demanding the right to marry and adopt children. WHAT?! I always thought being gay meant liberation FROM the nuclear family. Enough with all this irony, PULLEASE!
Call me a social conservative if you like, but I don't much like the idea of 'two daddies' or 'two mummies'. It's a way of forcing complex issues of sexual identity on children who just aren't ready or interested in such things, and makes their own difficult process of growing up more difficult than it already is. Children need to grow up in fairly conventional arrangements where they can love and learn from both male and female role models. Yes ROLE models, so they can experience first-hand, while their own sexual identities are forming, how 'standard' adults relate. Being gay will always be the exception that proves the rule. By all means, provide some alternatives - collective child-rearing, day care. OK, even the odd gay 'families' (God knows there are thousands of children in dysfunctional hetero families who would be much better off with 'two daddies'), but the rule of thumb should be to provide a mainstream hetero blueprint.
Gays and Jews have a common choice
I understand why some gays are so eager for these hetero trappings: they WANT to assimilate, really! They want to be accepted as upstanding, patriotic, even right-wing citizens. They don't relish their (God-given?) special status and want to paper it over, to take comfort in their two-car garage and their Big Macs, their X-Files and Calvin Klein. They like the commodity fetishism that has replaced the straight-laced asceticism of Christianity, with its suspicion of all sexuality and indulgence.
As for this pathetic attempt by gays to totally assimilate, count me out. I EMBRACE my role as outcast, gadfly, the 'other', much like Jean Genet. 'Gay is good' but in small amounts and on the fringe. It curdles the milk of straight society if it becomes too in-your-face. It is boring if it becomes your raison d'etre. In small quantities, gays are great. En masse, they are insufferable.
The same goes for Judaism. Assimilate OR remain an outcast. But there's an added caveat with respect to the Jews: you can't have your cake and eat it. You can be an assimilationist, like the 'two mommy' gays, and blend into goy society (much more successfully), or live in a secular Palestine side-by-side with the original population if you have a thing about the Bible, the 'Promised Land' etc (IF that's OK by the natives). OR you can choose to stay a Cohen, a Jew, an outsider, staying aloof, amassing economic, political and social power (that certainly seems to be the historical record), and taking the risk that goes along with this wherever you happen to be born (with your basic rights protected, of course). But take note: you can't at the same time promote another, outcast country and call it your REAL homeland. Trust the eternal outsiders to reinvent themselves on a international level as a rogue state. If there's a hell on Earth, it's got to be present-day Judaicized America and Israel.
And, non-assimilationists, be prepared: as Shylock found out to his dismay, your daughter may up and marry a goy, and if you try to take your 'pound of flesh', you've got to be prepared for a backlash of some kind. Hopefully not a holocaust, but control of goy society by an alien tribe is just not in the books. You should have learned at least THAT much from history. Take it from a fellow sufferer. As the Russians say 'The farther you go, the quieter you should proceed."
The outsider
So why choose to stay an outsider at all then? I suggested my own reasons as a gay. There is another very good reason: It's already clear our present capitalist nightmare is lurching towards an Armageddon of some kind or another, whether it be nuclear or environmental.
PROGRESSIVE Jews and gays as natural outsiders have traditionally played a vital revolutionary role with respect to society, a role which is lost when a loudly proclaimed pro-gay, pro-Jew agenda is promoted. There is an old saying: 'I don't live to eat, I eat to live.' Well 'I don't live to be gay, but I am gay in order to be alive.' Ditto, I should think, for Jews. I suspect that this is the real reason that the post-WWII anti-communist West seemed to change overnight from Jew-hating and gay-bashing to Jew/gay-loving. It WANTED to assimilate the gays and the Jews as a kind of protection against radical social change. After all, the Russian revolution and the Communist movement were inspired by Jews, and homosexuals and Jews first gained freedom in Russia in the 1920s.
From revolutionary to reactionary
Maybe THAT'S why I feel so angry about Jews today (and sorry for the boring assimilationist gays) - I feel betrayed. I learned Russian and socialism from a wonderful old Polish Jew, who was married to an Irishman, had no use for a racist Israel, and was generous and open-hearted to a fault. For all intents and purposes an assimilationist, she nonetheless nurtured her outsider role in a nonracist way and was proud of her Jewish heritage till she died at the age of 90. But Jews today have largely lost this positive outsider role. They invariably support Israel and in alliance with the so-called neocons pursue unbridled self/ tribal-interest. Progressive non-Zionist Jews are as rare as hen's teeth (as, I fear, are progressive non-Zionist gays).
The post-WWII strategy to neutralize the revolutionary outcasts - Jew and gay - worked! Jews (and to a lesser extent gays) have become bedrocks of reaction. And, because of the power that the Jewish lobby wields in the West now, unless a Jew speaks out clearly against Israel, s/he must now share responsibility for Israel's crimes. The successful co-opting of the world's Jews by the Zionists ensures that. (Thank God there is no gay Israel.) On the other hand, a Jew who protests will not experience the growing 'anti-Semitism' or rather anti-Jewish sentiment. On the contrary s/he will be treated as a courageous progressive, as indeed s/he is.
The Zionist-coopted Jews are betraying their God-inspired role as catalyst for progress (the 'Chosen People', if you must). They are misusing their freedom, not only to their own, but to everyone's detriment. In the same vein, quasi-assimilationist gays are also rejecting their special spiritual role and misusing their new freedom to indulge in silly hetero-aping and narcissistic commodity fetishism. (Give me a job as shaman over a two-car garage any day.)
This is not a call for a return to good ol' straight-laced Christianity as conceived by Bible-obsessed evangelicals. Institutionalized Christianity in many ways deserves its present state of collapse. Leaving aside its genocidal role in the spread of imperialism over the past 5 centuries, it long ago adopted the Judaic oppression of gays and promoted the persecution of Jews themselves, until this reached a nightmarish peak in the 13-14th cc, not to mention the unspeakably brutal Crusades of the 11-12th cc against the Muslims.
There are lots of benign alternatives to the nuclear family, just as there are lots of benign alternatives to a racist Israel. The Soviet Union, as an attempt to build an alternative civilization, sadly just didn't make the grade for a host of reasons. However, we haven't reached the 'end of history' just yet. The good fight to try to make 'heaven on Earth', to achieve a just society with freedoms, alternatives - oh, and don't forget the spice - goes on. But there is no room in society for racism and vengeance, a lesson I hope the Jews (and their goy sidekicks) learn soon (you don't have to teach this to gays) before we are all burnt to a crisp in a US/ Israeli-inspired nuclear (or merely) environmental holocaust. ***************
*(i) The gay writer CM Forster: "If I had to chose between betraying my country or a friend, I hope I would betray my country." For Diaspora Jews, if it is a choice between Israel and their host country, there is no question which is more important.
*(ii) It is even argued that Hitler merely took the Zionist racist agenda as set out by Moses Hess and Theodor Herzl a few years earlier, substituting German for Jew. Considering what the Zionists have done since they have gained ascendancy first in Israel and now in the US, this looks uncomfortably close to the truth.
*(iii) Charles Bronfman, a main sponsor of the $210 million "Birthright Israel" project which attempts to deepen the commitment of American Jews: "You can live a perfectly decent life not being Jewish, but I think you're losing a lot - losing the kind of feeling you have when you know [that] throughout the world there are people who somehow or other have the same kind of DNA that you have." (Bronfman is co-chairman of the Seagram company and brother of Edgar Bronfman, Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress.) Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2000
*(iv) Some critics argue that attacks against Jews are actually part of the Zionist strategy to justify further repression of Palestinians and to encourage Diaspora Jews to emigrate to Israel. The 'shitty little country' reference is an unfortunate slip by the now former French Ambassador to the UK at a 'private' party.
There were only 2 scenes in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan that were truly funny IMHO and only one of them even vaguely original. 1/ Borat Sagdiyev buys an icecream truck to cross the US in search of his true love Pamela Anderson, a Baywatch bimbo. He buys a bear to protect him and then going through a suburb can't turn the icecream music off. Children run to the truck, the back window opens by chance and the bear lunges at them, growling fiercely and terrifying the children. 2/ At what appears to be an unscripted autograph session for Pamela in a shopping mall, Borat proposes marriage, throws a sack over her head, is wrestled to the ground by security guards, magically frees himself and chases Pamela across the parking lot, shouting his eternal love.
But the first is merely clever, and the second was in fact scripted. Anderson and Cohen are old friends and have pulled pranks before. Last year, a 'commitment ceremony' between her golden retriever, Star, and Chihuahua, Luca, was crashed by Cohen in a Borat segment for his 'Da Ali G. Show.' Others weren't so lucky. Feminist Linda Stein was told she was being interviewed about the plight of women, only to hear Borat call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a 'chocolate lady.' She and others were paid a few hundred dollars and made to sign waivers against claims for 'offensive behavior.' But some lawyers feel the waivers may be null and void because of the deception.
Borat in the movie is a native not of Kazakhstan, but of Glod (meaning 'mud'), Romania (the natives are suing him too). There is nothing remotely Kazakh about the people there who are Roma (Gypsy), as is the music throughout the movie, the geography and climate. Even the credits are not in Kazakh, but Russian - lazy editing. [Or maybe it doesn't really matter - we are his willing dupes in any case.] Apart from Pamela, Borat conned his many unwitting costars into signing these waivers which will likely do the trick in the face of 'impartial' US justice. He speaks with an amateurish Italian accent, constantly says thank you in Polish (dziękuję), and his sidekick seems to be speaking some east European language (as opposed to Borat's gibberish).
So the movie is really just about Sacha Cohen, i.e., traditional Ashkenazi Jewish humour, hiding behind a purportedly Muslim character, the last minority acceptable as a butt of jokes because it is our official enemy. I.e., it is deeply reactionary, not at all brave, despite its scenes of nudity and patina of risque 'stretching the limits'. Interestingly, the words 'Muslim' and 'Islam' are not even heard in the film, though 'Jew' figures prominently throughout. I.e., this is Ashkenazi humour claiming to speak on behalf of world Jewry.
I constantly marvelled while watching it: What torture to make such a film, continually provoking anger and disgust in simple, trusting people and making fools of them. How can he live with himself?
There are 2 cryptic political statements that indeed shocked me, but for the 'wrong' reasons: 1/ Borat's sidekick warns that Jews were responsible for 911, and the duo pretends to fear poisoning by their Jewish bed-and-breakfast hosts. (We are shown their art gallery of old-fashion Ashkenazi portraits, i.e., yet more J content.) 2/ A frat partyer argues that minorities, including Jews, have more rights than the majority in America. These loaded claims are portrayed as ridiculous prejudices which we, the audience, of course dismiss.
Interestingly, despite being an orthodox Jew, Cohen managed to evoke criticism as being anti-semitic, i.e., anti-Jewish, presumably because of these statements and other scenes, such as the traditional 'running of the Jew' in his native Glod, where an ugly Jewish puppet lays a huge egg which children proceed to smash to Borat's urgings.
But our willing acceptance of this obsessive focus on Jews and supposed anti-Jewish prejudice merely shows how masterly we have been taken in, how deeply controlled we are by philo-Jewish prejudice. The crowd at the rodeo, where Borat sings the US national anthem to nonsense words praising Kazakhstan, first accept his rant about 'the war of terror' and finally boo him to drown out his insulting rendition of the anthem. He manages to show them as inferior at the same time as he tricks us (supposedly superior to these yokels) into buying his philo-Jewish reality. Jewish cultural hypnosis is sooo powerful that Borat can mouth truths which we trained seals automatically reject as shocking prejudices.
It's really a dare: 1/ 'We did mastermind 911 and got away with it. Ha, ha.' 2/ 'We really do control western discourse and get away with it. Just try to stop us.' 3/ 'Look at yourselves incarnate in Borat. Deep down, you're really just subhuman bigots like him. We Jews really are the master race and can do with you as we like.'
Remove the supposed Kazakh facade and you see the Ashken-nazi. It's eerie how often Borat is shown nude or semi-nude, his ugly, awkward body a metaphor for the ugly reality that Ashkenazi hegemony presents to the world, disguised as something else.
'Mr Jesus' comes in for special ridicule as Borat crashes a pentecostal revival meeting and grabs the microphone, asking if Jesus can secure him his beloved Pamela.
Despite Borat's reference to blacks as 'chocolates', they come off well in his attempts to mock them, maybe because they are just too far beyond ridicule for Borat/Cohen to trick. Maybe because they suffered (and still suffer) very real and far more vicious racism in America than Jews ever did, putting them out of his range of fire. Cohen even ends up marrying an (albeit fat, unattractive) black prostitute and brings her back to Glod or whatever nonsensical name Cohen gives the unfortunate Roma village he so mercilessly parodies.
Fascinating the variations on this cruel mockery, sense of racial superiority and talent for global manipulation for which Jews are rightly renowned. This film, which will be seen around the world to great applause despite its infantile, manipulative 'humour'. And of course the way Izzy (sorry, 'Israel') tortures and provokes hatred from its Palestinian neighbours and Muslims in general.
The zio (sorry, 'Zionist') project, with Borat as a fitting metaphor, aims to provoke and divide its enemies, keep them angry, irrational and divided. To play cruel and mocking games with them as it pushes for greater and greater hegemony over them - over us all, both physically and spiritually.
Just when it became patently obvious that the tail was in complete control of the dog (i.e., Izzy was directing US Middle East policy), the dog has decided to try to reassert control over its nether appendage.
Since the days of Raygun, the Jewish lobby in Washington (and every nook and cranny in the US) has wielded more and more power, until with AIPAC, PNAC, 911 and Iraq, it took complete control over US foreign policy, getting Washington to wage open war against Israel's greatest enemy - Islam.
US vs SU/Islam
The ghost of Raygun is haunting us for another reason. His war against the Soviet Union as 'Evil Empire' was successful beyond his wildest dreams, resulting in its collapse. This shining hour (in fact a tragedy, but leave that aside for now) has been the inspiration of hawks ever since, and is the template for the neocon war against Islam and the 'Axis of Evil' today. The idea is a massive arms build-up, active subversion, invasion where possible - all this will bring about the collapse of the current enemy, in this case Islam.
The SU and Islam represent(ed) the same anti-imperialist challenge to US (now USreali) imperialism which it was/ is not able to coopt, as it was in the case of the 'Christian' 'West'. So it was/ is necessary to destroy these obstacles. Raygun's strategy worked in the case of the SU, which was not so resistant to US imperialism as its ideology made it out to be. It was in decline, and was vulnerable to the seductive materialism of the West. It only needed a naive leader and a push and a shove to fall into the US embrace.
Fast forward to Raygun's reincarnation. Izzy now in complete control in Washington, a process that began with Raygun. The idea behind Washington's 1998 blueprint for the future - PNAC - was much the same - topple the remaining (Muslim) states resisting USrael. Finish the job that Raygun started(and Bush sr failed to finish). The idea was that the latest invasion of Iraq would go like clockwork, creating another US puppet Muslim state friendly to Izzy, put paid to the Palestinian resistance, and allow USrael to wage further wars against other 'Evil Axis' enemies of Izzy, namely Iran and Syria.
Dog turns tail (or rather 'Tail turns dog')
But things didn't pan out so well - Iraq proved a harder nut to crack than the SU, and the Palestinians elected a vigorous anti-Izzy government, Hamas, that USrael long has labelled a terrorist organization. Meanwhile, Iran elected a fiery anti-zionist leader, and even the puppet Iraqi government is refusing to cozy up to Israel, let alone the Iraqi resistance.
The inexperienced Olmert, thinking he would do in Lebanon what the US was unable to do in Iraq, ended up repeating the exact same mistakes as the US in Iraq, not to mention in its own previous invasions of Lebanon. And as a result that pesky Hezbollah has managed to do what no one else has been able to do - put the fear of God back into the 'chosen people'. This is indeed the turning point for the USreali vision, but not the one foreseen in PNAC. The failure of Israel to tame Hezbollah, coming on the heels of the failure of the US to tame Iraq, signals the death knell of PNAC and the neocons. But it turns out the Washington ear is deaf to this sweet music.
A normal US administration would have noticed the egg on Izzy's face, heard the call, and helpfully sponsored a 'stiff' UN resolution ordering Israel out after a week of devastation, which of course would allow another week for Israel to delay, reluctantly pull out, and assuage the world community, which in turn would be left to clean up the mess without so much as a howdy-do from Israel.
But this is no ordinary US administration. It actually believes the Christian-zionist apocalyptic nonsense about WWIII and the end of the world, and far from seeing the bits of egg as a call for help, has decided to egg Izzy on, so to speak, letting it continue to wreak havoc, carpet bomb civilians, painting itself into a corner, as the US prepares to launch wars according to the now dog-eared PNAC schedule: Syria and Iran.
A nice irony - still flush with its success against the SU and inspired by loony Christian zionists, the US regains control of Middle East policy by out-Izzying Israel, by serving up a clumsy parody of Likud. What Izzy wanted deep-down (and desperately needs) was a face-saving slap on the wrist. By being given carte blanche to continue its blitzkreig and being respectfully consulted on the UN resolution, it's just digging itself deeper and deeper into its blood-soaked swamp.
We can now witness a true miracle: Izzy as the wise elder statesman (its inner petulant child still intact, of course) in this dance of death, with the US appearing to take control of the strings (the screams in Lebanon are really just Condi's birthpangs) in order to complete the PNAC scenario come hell or highwater. Whether or not this really proves the dog has retaken control of its tail, I'll leave up to you. Whatever. This multiplying of the USraeli quagmires still represents a truly breath-taking moment in history, though unfortunately we may literally end up never taking another breath.
Mubin, an editor at Information Weekly, a nondescript tabloid specializing in pop music and sports, invited me over Sunday evening for dinner. It's Ramadan now, and he warned me not to be late, as he'd eaten his morning meal at 4:30 am and would be counting the minutes until 5:11 pm. After a tasty ploff, prepared by his lovely, retiring wife, Nargiza, we went out on the street to smoke a joint and meet with his neighborhood friends for the traditional evening hanging out session -- a scene which is repeated in thousands of neighborhoods across the Muslim world.
Hasim, a chubby and friendly forward on their local soccer team (most Uzbeks are avid soccer fans), eagerly asked me about the Toronto Maple Leafs, how much a driver earns in Canada, etc. - the typical questions which I'm asked countless times. An electrical engineer by training, he earns much more now as a budding capitalist, emptying cash each day from pinball machines he owns in the neighborhood. He then announced, with a laugh:
"I'm off to America soon." When pressed further, he explained that he had applied to the American Embassy for the 2nd year in a row for the green-card lottery.
As virtually all young men here (and many women) believe, America is the magical heaven on earth where they can earn lots of money and come back home to live like kings. That prompted me to ask: "What do you think about Bush's plans to attack Iraq?" [note: I wrote this in 2002. Since the Andijan massacre in June 2005, Uzbekistan has virtually broken relations with the US and turned to Russia and China, though many Uzbeks still fantasize about going to America to make money.]
"That's just to gain control of the oil there," he said in a matter-of-fact way.
His friend Salim piped in: "Afghanistan, Iraq…the U.S. has lots of weapons. It has got to use them up. War's good for the economy."
I thought that wasn't far off the mark, considering their only sources of news are word of mouth and official Uzbek news, which is slavishly pro-American.
Somehow the conversation came around to what it was like 'before,' i.e., before the Soviet Union collapsed.
"Life was secure then. We had communism and didn't realize it," said Hasim sheepishly. "You didn't think much about money. Studying was free. Now our kids have to hustle to pay for everything. They don't have time to study properly. Or play."
"And the U.S. thought twice before bombing another country into oblivion," I couldn't help adding. "We were part of a powerful country that the world respected," said Salim. "Where are we now? A backwater, cut off from the world."
It was getting nippy, so Mubin and I made our farewells and joined his family. As the youngest son, he settled into the family home when he married, and he looks after his energetic, no-nonsense mother, this being the tradition here. In fact, she needs little looking after, though she's pushing 80. The garden is a riot of color in the summer. She just finished a biography of her father, who studied in Turkey until 1925, and, as with so many of the intellectuals of the Soviet Union, disappeared during the '30s one day, never being heard from again.
Despite this, Barno opa (opa means elder sister, a term of respect) never suffered being a child of an 'enemy of the people'; the family, though devastated when he disappeared, fantasized that he had gone back to Turkey somehow. She became a noted journalist, joined the Communist Party, and lived a full and interesting life; a strong, independent woman who had no need for 'women's lib.' She had read Khrushchev's speech denouncing Stalin, but only learned the fate of her father when the floodgates opened under Gorbachev in 1989 -- over 50 years later. He had been arrested along with 80 other leading Uzbeks, and was one of 15 who were spirited off to Moscow and shot without trial for advocating a pan-Turkestan independent republic.
"But didn't you know about the gulag?" I asked her. "Didn't you suspect that he had been 'repressed'?"
"No. We knew that there were many unjust arrests and murders under Stalin, but I never thought this had happened to my father," she said.
As a result of this shattering revelation, Barno opa welcomed Uzbekistan's independence, and supports Karimov, refusing to bemoan the collapse of the Soviet Union that had done so much -- both good and bad -- for her. She accepts the entrenching of a petty dictator (who incidentally was a destitute orphan and yet was able to rise to be President), the extreme censorship of media, the jails full of ordinary believers. In her twilight years, she doesn't worry about the radical economic changes and the brave new world growing up around her. What's important to her is that her father's picture is in the Museum of the Victims of Colonialism, which lumps Russian and Soviet periods under one imperialist yoke. It's hard to blame her.
Nonetheless, I suggested that it was a tragedy that the Soviet Union collapsed. Mubin's sister, Sayora, readily agreed. She is a professional pop singer and would have lived comfortably in Soviet times, with her charming personality and talent. Their mother remained silent, but Sayora's husband, Temir, an erstwhile Communist Party member, launched into a critique of the Soviet Union as state capitalist. He is a budding businessman, and during perestroika, was active in organizing a 'trade union of entrepreneurs.' As we were both economists, I started to protest his obvious misuse of terms.
"Of course, it wasn't a trade union in the real sense of the word, but at that time, we had to use acceptable terms to organize," Temir explained smoothly.
You know the type: he would have fit well into the ideology section of some Soviet ministry, and now, if his English were better, he would be snapped up by Saatchi & Saatchi to dream up ads in Uzbek for Dentamint. He struck me as having less of a grip on reality than the street-smart Hasib, and with a lot more pretensions.
"Yes, poor Gorby," I said rather undiplomatically and proceeded to poke holes in his trade union for entrepreneurs and his theory about the S.U. "Gorbachev had these naive ideas that if things were loosened up a bit, people would honestly work together, form real cooperatives, and the reforms would succeed," I continued. "Instead, everyone grabbed what they could and Yeltsin tore the whole system down." Maybe they were just being polite, but no one dissented. Even Barno opa didn't have a good word for Yeltsin, except that by scuttling Gorbachev's attempt to salvage the Union, he had paved the way for Uzbekistan to become independent.
Such a stew of contradictions -- the worship of the American dream, but also the cynical awareness that the U.S. is selfish and violent on a world scale. People lived well under a harsh but egalitarian system, but their personal tragedy and susceptibility undermined their faith in it. They have to come to terms with their brave new world, and it's not easy.
But the chief cook and bottle washer here has the last word in any case. Uzbek President Islam Karimov told parliament in August that "the shadow of the USSR" was a major reason for its present problems. He hailed the new generation growing up free of "the totalitarian heritage" of the Soviet Union.
As Karimov told parliament in August, "Having visited one of the schools, I asked the children, 'Do you know who Brezhnev was?' They answered, 'No, we don't.' Then I asked them, 'Who is Gorbachev?' They again said that they didn't know. Then I told them that they are doing great."
It seems the goal of gaylib these days, what with marriage, adoption etc, is to achieve social respectability and assimilation. This is just a variation on the traditional attitude of this '3rd sex', inverts, queers, fags, whatever.
In history, 'gays' (to grudgingly adopt the present misleading monicker - see below) have been always been on the margins of society, trying to fit in, and have either repressed their sexual attraction to the same sex, or channeled it in ways acceptable to the society of the time, be it as shaman, musician, actor, priest, etc.
Even today, there is a not inconsiderable dissident community of MSM* who want none of this white-picket-fence respectability. Harry Hay, an American Communist and founder of the Mattachine Foundation in the early 1950s, the first 'gay' organization of note in America, was the godfather of the current dissident MSM movement promoting a sexual minority identity. He was opposed by the assimilationist Hal Call, who expelled the communists from the Mattachine Foundation to found the Mattachine Society in 1953, 'coincidentally' at the time that Joe McCarthy was purging communists from more illustrious organizations.
This conflict merely recapitulated that between 1930s German reformers of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and the cultural radicals of the Community of the Self-Owner, and continues today with the confrontational politics of the Gay Liberation Front, ACT-UP and the radical faeries, versus the politics of engagement practiced by the National Gay Task Force, the Log Cabin Republicans and the Human Rights Fund seeking a seat at America’s table of power and affluence.
But this is a false dichotomy - both are wrong and right. Of course, MSM must find some kind of respectability as citizens, some kind of modus vivendi with society, but the fact remains that nature has 'chosen' this 'exception to the rule' for some evolutionary purpose (what other possible reason could there be?). MSM (or WSW) should always remain aware of nature's separate role for those who don't fit the age-old dominant male-female family bonding scenario, but without threatening that scenario.
Many MSMs have always managed to fit themselves into this mold through history (when not being persecuted), though I suspect 99% have ended up as 'good friends' with forced sex once a month and real sex furtively on the side, or graduating to group sex or celebacy. But, hey, we could all do with a bit more self-restraint. It's actually a good quality. And solitude is great (most of the time).
Vive la difference! (mais pas trop)
Let's face it: a permanent sexual bonding without offspring is sterile and cuts off the important advantage of being a 'wandering minstrel', monk, social revolutionary, whatever evolutionary niche you can eke out for yourself, freed of the chains of monogamous marriage.
So why not celebrate this freedom, rather than repressing it? Yes, repress, repress. That old canard that gaylibbers love to shout: "I had to repress my sexuality growing up." How awful. But maybe that is actually a blessing. In fact, one ex-gay, born-again-Catholic, wrote that "All the approval in the world won't take away that unease over same-sex activity, because God gave us that unease. As a gift. I have good news too, though. So-called internalized homophobia is not a booby-prize. God can free us from the whole weight of guilt we carry around (for all sorts of reasons, of course, not just because of sexual sin), consciously or unconsciously."
Now, that could be based on specious reasoning. After all, everything God 'gave us' is by definition good. There's the old adage 'what doesn't kill you is good for you'. You can justify some version of this unease about homosexual activity anyway you like, but there's definitely a grain of truth there. A half a million years of tradition (we can deal with the Greeks and the Romans separately) can't be all wrong. The bottom line is the basic unit of society has been and will remain the male-female family bond - the child's development is hard-wired to mother-bonding, family- and then society-bonding. Non-family people are special/ outside this logic, possibly complementing it. End of argument.
As for the monicker, 'gay' is a bit of an oxymoron - certainly wishful thinking, considering that suicide rates, AIDS rates, mental health problems and (despite the marriage hype) relationship instability are the statistical crosses we seem to be stuck with. For me, labelling myself as gay comes, maybe, 4th after (hu)man, environmentalist, peacenik. One reviewer very astutely states that "'gay seems to have become old-fashioned; at any rate, distinctly uncool."*
While I disagree that someday "Sex will be like the turn-up of the trousers or the length of a skirt", I DO agree that "The day has almost come when nobody will care a farthing any more for who is who sex-wise, or what label should be worn, allotted, or imputed." I would even go farther, in line with "The gay movement will get to the point where it no longer needs to be. It will get to the point that we recognize each other as sexual beings in all of our varieties." (Hal Call)
So it turns out that the present noisy gaylib movt is an aberration which will soon peter out. The trajectory for militant lesbians and feminists (ie, those who see women as more perfect in a Darwinian sense than men and dream of freeing society of all males) is a different kettle of fish. They are much more of a threat to patriarchal society than the apolitical male gays, who generally worship str8 males (who are already on the top of the pile), and are not so militant about being superior. Few gays would claim superiority the way lesbians do, precisely because of patriarchal politics. In fact most gays have an inferiority complex despite all the 'gay is beautiful' stuff. The 'proud to be gay' movt is primarily to buttress gay egos rather than to ease gays into a productive, responsible role in society.
Militant lesbians have far more reason to hate the dominant society (much like militant zionists - see Atzmon's "Zionism and other Marginal Thoughts"). But far from delivering society from the travails of patriarchal slavery, radical feminism is actually partiarchy flipped around, and has nothing to do with real matriarchy, which involves equality, nonviolence, no totalitarian narrative/ center.
Down with ghettoes (not to mention sex slaves)
But getting back to this assimilation/ separation dialectic, true emancipation is through assimilation/ integration. I approve of the way gays are integrated traditionally in Muslim society - do your civil duty (marry, have a couple of kids, assimilate, or become a mystic or scholar if str8 sex is just too much) and abstain from or carefully practice MSM discretely without disrupting the fabric of social life. Of course there are abuses, but a society which is built on peace, spirituality, and social responsibility will find that such abuses are minimal. Islam is fundamentally based on self-restraint - the purpose of the regular prayers and the impressive month of fasting each year is to strengthen one's self-control. This aspect of Christianity has been destroyed by the West's embrace of consumerism. It seems the war against Islam today intends to destroy this very resistance of Islam to western decadence, epitomized by gaylib.
And it is precisely in liberated USrael (and its tourist outposts in the 3rd world) where the abuse of sex slaves of ALL persuasions is most rampant. As if to emphasize the complicity of Judaism in all this, Jerusalem held an international gay festival this summer, and Tel Aviv trumpets itself as the "Pink City," as tourism industry heads are planning on transforming the city into the gay capital of the world, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth recently reported.
My (few) gay friends (who cares if a friend is 'that way'?) criticize me for not liking to gossip about my sex life. I tell them 'sex is something you DO, not talk about'. Doesn't 'pride come before the fall', after all? Unlike love affairs, civil life is based on respect, courtesy, restraint rather than affection or willful animal attraction. Scott Peck (The Road Less Travelled) argues that true love is hard work, that 'falling in love' is just a built-in instinct to facilitate bonding in creating a stable family unit. Sure, 'gays' can play at this, but at the margins. Let's not destroy the very fabric of society to satisfy the fantasy of a few percent of the population.
So what I'm proposing is a kind of fusion of assimilationism and culturalism - maintain a unique identity but respect the needs of heterosexual society. Once you've got your human rights on paper, shut up and pull your weight. As for the long-term, let's fight patriarchal exploitation, by all means, but let's not end up with something worse (anti-patriarchy or just decadence).
********* *the abbreviation used by 3rd world NGO outreach groups, meaning 'men having sex with men' **In a NYRB review by John Bayley of "Strangers: homosexual Love in the 19th c" by Graham Robb and "Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture (1947-1985)" by James McCourt
на русском языке Uzbekistan's unending tragedy - 15 years of unremitting repression of its Muslims (OK, make that a century) - has reached a critical impasse. With the massacre of up to a 1000 innocents in Andijan, the mood in the country is set against Karimov: there is no graceful exit for this once wily balancer of clan greed, untempered by any basis in Islamic principles of social justice and public service.
But K and Uz are not alone. A recent analysis of Tunisia (Le Monde 6/5) describes the poverty and anomy of life under its repressive, secular, pro-US dictator Ben Ali, with his playtime democracy, prohibition of all Islamic parties and general discouragement of Islam, and above all the fear to make even the mildest public criticisms. We can say “Ditto” more or less for Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia... Then there are such embarrassments as Dubai, which is building a high tech Disney-style archipelago replica of the world for the super-rich, or the Emirates, which imports Russian and Uzbek women as sex slaves. It is very hard to find a Muslim country which reflects the austere social justice of the Koran. But then it is hard to find a Muslim country which is not a US-client state. Malaysia and Iran come to mind, and in their own very different ways, they offer some hope.
In his July 4th speech this year, Bush hailed the new era of democracy, the result of US battles “from Bunker Hill to Baghdad”. Leaving aside Bunker Hill and what's left of the American Revolution, we can already see the democracy that the US is bringing to Baghdad and Kabul - the kind where the living envy the dead, of which there are hundreds more with each passing day. No. The call should be: 'From Bishkek to Baghdad, the Caliphate's time has come.' And ironically, though Karimov loudly proclaims himself its greatest enemy, he is unwittingly one of its greatest assets, constantly raising its specter in justification of his persecution of Uzbek Muslims. Irony: never has the Muslim world been so enslaved to kufr (anti-Islamic) countries and leaders, and yet never has it been so demonized and despised by them. While western media construct fantasies to the contrary, this is the sad, tragic reality.
K's contribution to the Caliphate
K's relationship with Islam is complex. In 1990, when he was campaigning for president in Uzbekistan's only relatively free election, he addressed an Islamic meeting of 40,000 in Namangan organized by the religious movement Adolat (Justice), even praying on stage, to the delight of the demonstrators, and promised its charismatic leader Tahir Yuldashev, the future founder of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, that he would build lots of mosques and let Islam flower, that "the road should be opened to become friends with and get help from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, so that we can become a united Muslim state."*
Coincidentally, after securing his election, he also promised his secular nationalist rival Mahammad Salih of Erk, who had come a respectable 2nd, that he would be a strong nationalist leader and allow the flowering of secular democracy. Apparently he was convincing, as both leaders were taken in and initially supported him. Of course, he reneged on both these incompatible promises and proceeded to issue death sentences on both his nemeses. (The heroic Yuldashev died fighting to overthrow K; the wily Salih lives comfortably in Norway and recently met with Secretary of State Rice.)
US choices
Now that the US willingly or unwillingly has chosen to bring on another of its CIS velvet revolutions, what are its alternatives? It looks like the pressure is on to allow the legal operation of only pro-US, pro-market nationalist parties Birlik, headed by Pulatov (living in exile in US), and Erk, headed by Salih (living in exile in Norway), plus Hidoyatova’s Free Peasants party and Umarov’s Party of Agrarians and Entrepreneurs. [Update: the business leaders associated with the unofficial opposition 'Sunshine Coalition' are now being persecuted and some are fleeing the country. One of Umarov's sons Guliambek was poisoned but survived and the other Sardorbek fled the country.] Recently a Congress of Democratic Uzbekistan was set up in the US by these and other US-sponsored Uzbek dissidents, bringing its favorite sons together in one happy, politically correct opposition force much like Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
In short, a mirror image of the phony independent parties set up by K to give a semblance of democracy (National Democratic, Patriots, etc). Not a word about religious parties or greater freedom for Muslims to organize, and certainly no intention of promoting Muslim unity.
Stalin without socialism
By obsessively condemning the idea of Islam as the formative principle of Uzbek society, K takes his direction from an earlier dictator who ruled over Uzbekistan. And I don’t mean Amir Temur. His style and methods are chillingly like those of Stalin in everything except Stalin's concern for basic economic standards for the masses. There is no social security net anymore, and Stalin (oops, K) can't seem to understand that his self-exaltation and cold-blooded disdain for his people is his nemesis, that violence will now increase until a full-blown crisis, including international isolation and possibly intervention, is reached.
Because Stalin could point to the solid socialist achievements of his ruthless reign ('Islam without Allah'), and because he had control over a huge territory, his rule was safe as long as his terror apparatus was in tact. Thus, the 1920-30s movement for a united Turkestan was easily repressed and indeed forgotten as the SU consolidated itself as a political system without meaningful internal borders, and ancient Turkestan was carved up into competing, dysfunctional Central Asian 'republics'. Furthermore, the pressure for a modern-day caliphate was not so great where all Muslims could interact in work and culture, and where basic social needs were met.
Logic of the Caliphate
But 'caliphate'? Yes! By first promising the idea, and then ruthlessly suppressing even the normal practice of Islam, let alone any mention of some hare-brained caliphate, Mr K has made himself captive to it, and like Lady Macbeth, must wash and wash and wash again the guilt for his political intrigues from his bloodied hands. By continually harping about Hizb ut Tahrir and its program of trying to revive the political unity of Muslims, he merely provides greater legitimacy to the idea. A unique feature of this part of the Muslim world is that it has experienced both socialism and capitalism and knows first hand the weaknesses of both, so the argument in a nutshell, to paraphrase Lenin, would be something like "the 21st c Caliphate = communism + the Koran."
An Islamic explanation would take the following form: Muslims base their identity first and foremost on Islam, and Islam being a universal religion, they naturally will overcome kufr nationalism and work together to realize the ideal state, based on the Koran's detailed and surprisingly robust program. The very concept of nationalism is a western one and became the predominant political force surprisingly late, only with the triumph of capitalism and the ascendancy of secularism in the 19th c. It reached its most criminal form in Nazi Germany and today in Israel. It must be abandoned in favor of the unity of all Muslims, rejecting the nationalist regimes sponsored by imperialism - first British and now American - to keep Muslims divided.
This politics, once reversed throughout the Muslim world, would of course lead to all Islamic countries working together. Yes, Mr K, that's what the dreaded caliphate is all about. And what's so wrong with it? Why shouldn't Muslim countries throw off their western masters and use their immense clout to fight the real sources of terrorism - USrael and its secular quislings like you?
History of the Caliphate
The Caliphate refers to the first great flowering of Islam and its rapid spread to form a mighty spiritually-based empire with various centers from the 7-14th cc in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Caliph is the leader of the Ummah (community of Islam). The word caliph (khalifa) is Arabic for stewardship of nature and family, a key obligation of all Muslims (vs the Old Testament "dominion over nature"). The Caliphate was unquestionably far more civilized than feudal Europe, despite a near death blow from invasions by the Mongols (who were NOT Muslim) and the Europeans in the 10-12th c.
For a while in the 8th c it even looked like Christianity reconcile with this latest monotheism, but Rome suppressed its revisionists and eventually the disastrous Crusades turned ecumenism back a 1000 years (just as Bush's present Crusade is ensuring that no compromise is possible with the Muslim world). It was only with the rise of capitalism and imperialism that the Ottoman Caliphate was overpowered by a now secular, materialist monolith and destroyed by the ‘winners’ of WWI, the spoils divided among the Judeo-Christian empires of Britain, France and later the US and Israel.
In reality, the present war against Islam began in the late 19th c and has continued ever since. While Jewish and Christian cultures embraced the soulless materialism of capitalism, Islam remained and still remains unwilling to reform itself to suit the needs of Mammon. However, the onslaught by the capitalist powers and the ex-Soviet Union has had its toll on the Muslim world, setting up small malleable states with secular governments now dominated by the US. The aim is to continue to westernize Muslim societies, by seduction or force if necessary, to make them willingly accept US (make that USraeli) imperialism. But the final count is not in.
Present nadir and rebirth
Islam has shown incredible resilience in the face of this unremitting attack, which has increased exponentially since the collapse of the SU, or rather, because of it and the blow that dealt the left in the West. Since then, it's been full steam ahead for the USraeli imperial project, leaving Muslims (plus Cuba's communists and Venezuela's Bolivarians) as the only significant countervailing force.
"The triumph of Islam will most likely come after severe crisis - social, economic and ecological - leading to the military abandoning the kufr regime [Uzbekistan looks like a case in point] and through a coup d'etat proposing a pro-Islamic system to stabilize the society now bankrupt and suffering economic collapse."*** Think Nasser or Chavez.
There is the distinct possibility that soon the international order will collapse, along with the US $ as world currency, and bank-created fiat money, with or without the 'peak oil' wildcard. So this scenario is not as far-fetched as you might think. Look for more about Iran and Malaysia's gold dinar as the $ continues to sink. Funny how capitalism's physical nemesis - oil - is found predominantly in Muslim countries, along with its spiritual nemesis - the Islamic ban on fiat money and usury and other (wise) restraints on economic activity. Funny how precisely the Muslim world holds all these keys to the world's economic salvation. Perhaps Allah really does exist.
No doubt Marx would chuckle if he were to be told that "Yes, world capitalism is doomed to collapse, but so is socialism, and it is ancient Islam that will survive to rebuild economic relations built on stewardship of nature, social justice, the gold standard and prayer."
Central Asia as a crucial link in the logic
Just as the secular attempts at pan-Arabism by Gaddafi, Nasser and Hussein failed, Kemal Ataturk's earlier flirting with pan-Turkish nationalism in Central Asia collapsed as the Soviets consolidated their grip in the 1920s and replaced Islam as a binding force with socialism. However, with the collapse of the SU, the pressure or desire for such a union of all Muslim Central Asian states is much more compelling, and with the revival of Islam in Turkey, it is in a position to dispense with its wanabe fascination with secular Europe and turn to embrace the Muslim world to the east. The only solution to the 'Kurdish' problem is to base society on its one common denominator: Islam. Already Afghanistan and Iraq, with their US-controlled governments, have formulated constitutions based on Islamic law and Iraq has begun to work closely with Iran. And the only way to hold Iraq together and to end the stand-off in Afghanistan is (excuse the mantra) to appeal to the one common denominator: Islam.
The pseudo-nationalism promoted by Central Asian leaders to secure their power and state theft has meant that they are all pathetic backwaters, unable to create a meaningful common economic space. Borders, visas, customs, etc. are all used to fill corrupt officials’ pockets, hindering any rational economic revival. The blatant maneuverings here of Europe, USrael, China, and Russia, each with its own anti-Muslim, anti-Central Asian agenda, makes it especially urgent that Central Asia unite.
Interestingly, even in the present state of political disarray, both Kyrgyzstan, with its 'tulip revolution' and Uzbekistan with its ruthless pro-US (oops, anti-US) dictator, are trying to close their US bases, suggesting there's a compelling logic to resist US hegemony, even without that unity. Ironically, the very suppression now of Islam throughout the region only adds fuel to the desire to rebuild society without Big Brothers imposing their secular fantasies.
Once Islamic-based parties such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir are allowed to organize openly, honest citizens will be able to criticize the horrendous mess here. This is what ‘democracy’ should be about. It would also empty the jails of many thousands of devout Muslims in Uzbekistan. So what if an Islamic party comes to power and Central Asia becomes greater Turkestan? So what if women wear headscarves? I suspect local Russians (i.e., everyone) would be much better off than under the present clan-based mafias and the ever-present specter of official or opposition violence. Of course, it would mean a drastic reduction in prostitution and restricted alcohol sales. And a big move away from the trashy American culture that floods the TV and airwaves here. A small loss IMHO.
Long-term scenario
The focus of Central Asian politics should be to unite the 60+m Central Asians, with their rich resources and ethnically close peoples, as a political and economic block to resist the various imperial agendas, to ensure the dignity and livelihood of the largely Muslim, Turkic peoples living here. Combined with Turkey's 70 million, Iran's 70 million, Pakistan's 140m and the Middle East, and we can see a superpower in the making second only to China, but one based on social justice, not greed and violence.
This will be the first step in uniting all Muslims from Morocco to the Philippines. Once the Central Asian states shake off the western imperial yoke, including their erstwhile 'friend' Russia, and join with their Turkish cousins, their example will inspire the Arabs to the west and the Asians to the east. Whereas once upon a time, the Caliphate emanated from Mecca, now it will be renewed from the home of the medieval Islamic renaissance, the home of Biruni, Avicenna and Ulugbek.
Yes, the time for reconstituting the Caliphate, uniting Muslims throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, has come. The free ride that British and US imperialism (OK and the Soviet Union) have had, training and propping up secular political leaders (fluent in English or Russian and trained in the UK, US or Moscow), is over. The SU pushed too far in trying to incorporate Afghanistan into the socialist fold, and the US has gone one better (i.e., worse) with its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its attempts at soft landings for other Muslim states-in-trouble are not panning out. Uzbekistan is a fine example of this.
There is no way out except by turning to Islam as the only force capable of overriding the greed and downright evil of secular politics. This is not an easy road. Imperialism will not give up without a fight, and just as it ably assisted in destroying the SU, it is hard at work undermining any Islamic alternative. We can only thank Allah (and maybe his Catholic and secular fellow travelers in Latin America) that there is still a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. ***
*Mir Kaligulaev, "The road to death is greater than death," Black Quadrat UK 2005 **HuT, "The method to re-establish the Khalifah," UK 2000 ***Abid Ullah, "Approaching the actual end of history" 3/6/5
Since the Andijan tragedy, the country (if Tashkent and reports from Fergana valley are a good indication) has been drifting along in a state of suspended animation. While people are bombarded by government propaganda, are afraid to be overheard on the street or to pass along critical articles culled from the internet, and TV and internet censorship is increasing (if that's possible), the loathing of the regime and its most concrete manifestation, 'garbage' (ie, the police, as they are commonly called), is palpable. Even babushkas selling cigarettes, gum and sunflower seeds will hold forth at the slightest promptly, counting on the 'garbage' to leave at least them alone.
While an entire 7-storey building across from the President's Office was torn down (no explanation why is necessary), other monster construction work seems to be on hold (no funds?). Some mysterious power politics resulted in the transfer of security forces from the internal ministry to national security forces. 3000 additional troops have been sent to Fergana valley.
Of course, ALL the 'security' forces have been equipped and trained by NATO and the US, including the butchers of Andijan. ALL of Fergana is under curfew, formerly 7pm, now 9pm. Government propaganda videos were sent to ALL schools and there have been pro-government meetings held across the country, and even a pro-government 'demonstration' in Jizak, home of the illegal Free Peasants' party.
The US, Israeli and French embassies long ago withdrew all but essential staff, and others are also quietly cutting their staff. With the onset of chillah (the 40 days of 40 degree summer heat), the feeling of malaise could hardly be greater. At the best of times, this heat causes tempers to flare.
For 15 years now, inshallah has triumphed over jihad in the Uzbek psyche. Were it not for the idiocy and savagery of K's dictatorship, Uzbeks would be happy to tolerate a secular regime as long as it left room for Muslims to organize and live according to Islamic principles. At the most extreme, a Popular Welfare party a la Turkey would come to power, which would actually be a blessing in disguise for all the nosy big brothers (USrael, Russia, China), but that would make too much sense.
Now it seems K is making a last desperate attempt to loosen the death hold on business and trading, enacting a series of edicts (ALL laws emanate from the prez) making officials who interfere with businesses liable for any losses. But similar edicts have been issued before, and made no difference. The legal system here is f*&^ed, to put it mildly, and the 'garbage' live off bribes and regularly practice torture, so only a rising fear among these officials that they could lose everything in an uprising could conceivably make them change their ways.
I am not optimistic. A sad example: an Uzbek friend H was imprisoned for selling dope, though the only evidence was a forced confession by a 'friend' (whose live is of course ruined by the consequences of this confession) - no dope was found at H's house. But in Uzbekistan the conviction rate (always based on forced confessions (OK - torture)) is 100%, so the best we could do was try to bribe the judge to reduce the sentence. We gathered $1500, a huge sum here, and it was quietly slipped to the judge as a present just before sentencing. The prosecutor was asking for 9 years (!) and we hoped it would be 3 max... Well we were wrong! FIVE years. Clearly the bribe was just not up to snuff. The entire judicial system is swimming in bribes from poverty-stricken, mostly innocent victims. So some more hot air from K is simply not going to change this.
Meanwhile, the craven Russian press mostly supports K, though a major article recently sent a veiled warning: it seems K's daughter Gulnara has her heart set on controlling the oil and gas sector with her company 'Zeromax' (I'm not kidding), which would greatly upset Gasprom and others which have already invested massively in upgrading the energy sector here. This dilemma was politely outlined in The Independent Gazette, suggesting that normal relations with Russia will require K to rein in G's latest obsession and that K is up to the task. Hmmm.
As you can see, it promises to be a surreal summer. I am making no predictions - anything could happen.
