tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/dissidents-25777/articlesDissidents – The Conversation2022-06-06T12:50:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1831942022-06-06T12:50:23Z2022-06-06T12:50:23ZRussian artists grapple with the same dilemma as their Soviet forebears – to stay or to go?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466433/original/file-20220531-24-eijwk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=419%2C5%2C3450%2C2616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yuri Shevchuk of the band DDT performs in 1987. In May 2022 Shevchuk was charged with a misdemeanor for insulting Russian President Vladimir Putin during a concert. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/musician-yuri-chevchuk-ddt-concert-leningrad-1987-news-photo/1168682760?adppopup=true">Joanna Stingray/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ddt-shevchuk-criticism-ukraine-war/31858449.html">With few exceptions</a>, most Russian artists who oppose the war have been relegated to releasing songs, posting artwork or publishing articles on social media.</p>
<p><a href="https://juliabarton.com/post/3791728051/lost-in-translation#:%7E:text=Starting%20with%201991's%20Russian%20Album,wolves%2C%20stars%2C%20and%20horses">Boris Grebenshchikov</a> is one artist who took to social media in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>On April 16, 2022, Grebenshchikov <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSbvOwxgv0M">posted a song</a> on the messaging app Telegram – and later on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook – with the unsettling line: “But none of us will get out of here alive.” A few days later, his feed went silent. People started to worry about his safety.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079958276/amid-crackdown-on-free-speech-russians-and-russian-americans-speak-out-against-w">A clampdown on free speech</a> has made life riskier for dissident artists who criticize Vladimir Putin and the war.</p>
<p>It’s forced many of them to flee or consider fleeing the country altogether – no easy call, because Russians traditionally haven’t looked kindly upon artists who fled during times of crisis.</p>
<h2>The struggle against Stalin</h2>
<p>During the Soviet era, many talented authors, poets and musicians cultivated an underground culture of opposition to resist government repression.</p>
<p>Different movements emerged, each with its own style and purpose. </p>
<p>One of them, <a href="https://poets.org/text/brief-guide-acmeism">the Acmeist movement</a>, included poets <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anna-akhmatova">Anna Akhmatova</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/nikolai-gumilev">Nikolai Gumilev</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/osip-mandelstam">Osip Mandelstam</a>. The three spoke out against Joseph Stalin’s brutality at a time when <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/sovietmind_chapter.pdf">he attempted to silence</a> any artist who didn’t echo his propaganda or support his political program.</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/stalin-epigram">The Stalin Epigram</a>,” a satirical poem written in 1933, Mandelstam wrote of the climate of terror under Stalin: </p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.
One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone goes boom.
He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
One for the groin, one the forehead, temple, eye.
He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.
</code></pre>
<p>These poets – along with many others – <a href="https://www.faena.com/aleph/russian-acmeist-poetry-the-lyrical-warriors-of-reality">became targets of the regime</a>: Gumilev was shot, Akhmatova ostracized until 1940 and Mandelstam shipped to the gulag, where he died.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Side profile and front profile of man wearing a jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466436/original/file-20220531-16-eaoc05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mugshot of Osip Mandelstam taken by the Soviet secret police after his arrest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NKVD_Mandelstam.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, Stalin demanded that composers write music that was optimistic and triumphant. But for Russian composer <a href="https://www.sfcv.org/learn/composer-gallery/dmitri-shostakovich">Dmitri Shostakovich</a>, there was little to celebrate. During <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1936-2/the-great-terror/">the Great Purge</a> – when Stalin executed or imprisoned millions of people suspected of opposing the Communist Party – his friends kept disappearing. Family members were shot. </p>
<p>To evade persecution, Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony to end on what appeared to be a positive note, using the same key as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” But importantly, <a href="https://medium.com/@beethovennow/how-shostakovich-survived-to-protest-stalins-anti-semitism-e5abf04727fd">the music contains instructions to be performed at half the expected speed</a>.</p>
<p>The result, Shostakovich <a href="https://medium.com/@beethovennow/how-shostakovich-survived-to-protest-stalins-anti-semitism-e5abf04727fd">later explained</a>, is a sound of rejoicing that feels “forced, created under threat. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick, saying ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.’”</p>
<p>The subtle dig didn’t register with Stalin, who interpreted the piece as a paean to his rule.</p>
<h2>Soviet rockers long for freedom</h2>
<p>Though there was a period of <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Khrushchev_Thaw">political thawing</a> under Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, who eased repression and freed millions of people from the gulag labor camps, artists who spoke out against the regime still faced considerable risk. </p>
<p>Beginning in the mid-1960s, after Leonid Brezhnev assumed the Soviet premiership, rock music flourished underground, offering an expressive outlet for a generation that longed for a definitive end to censorship, oppression and persecution. These musicians were the heroes of Russian youth, <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/N/Notes-from-Underground2">and they risked their lives</a> by performing in hidden venues with well-planned escape routes. </p>
<p>While state-sponsored bands such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zemlyane">Zemlyane</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poyushchiye_Gitary">Poyushchiye Gitary</a> appeared on television to play syrupy love ballads and sing about the country’s prosperity, dissident singers and rockers like <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1961-2/bulat-okudzhava/">Bulat Okudzhava</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53846403">Victor Tsoi</a> were performing in dingy basements and cramped apartments. </p>
<p>Songs like Victor Tsoi’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJUjNYeelo">Changes</a>” spoke to the longing and frustration of the younger generation: </p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Our hearts demand changes!
Our eyes demand changes!
In our laughter, in our tears,
And in the pulsing of our veins
We are waiting for change.
</code></pre>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three young men pose." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466431/original/file-20220531-26-an4ahh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1986 photograph of Victor Tsoi, left, and bandmates Gustav Gurianov and Andrei Krisanov.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/musicians-victor-tsoi-gustav-gurianov-andrei-krisanov-from-news-photo/1168682772?adppopup=true">Joanna Stingray/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The dilemma of fleeing</h2>
<p>As Putin, like Stalin, threatens to persecute those who speak out against him, Russian artists face an age-old dilemma of suffering with their people or leaving for places where they’ll be freer to pursue their work.</p>
<p>Under Stalin, the poet Anna Akhmatova famously stayed put, despite the fact that some of her peers chose to leave. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40243154">She was heralded for her heroism</a>, and in 1922 she criticized those who fled with <a href="https://americanliterature.com/author/anna-akhmatova/poem/im-not-one-of-those-who-left-their-land">a poem</a> titled “I’m not one of those who left their land.”</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Russia_s_Abandoned_Children.html?id=bQby48u0wU0C">As an anthropologist studying contemporary Russian culture and society</a>, I’ve found that Russians tend to question the allegiance of artists who left of their own accord, or didn’t come back after being exiled and given the option to return. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1970/solzhenitsyn/biographical/">Alexander Solzhenitsyn</a>, who won the Nobel Prize in literature, was sent to a labor camp in 1945, where he was imprisoned for eight years. In 1973, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and expelled from the country after publishing “<a href="https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-writings/large-work-and-novels/the-gulag-archipelago">The Gulag Archipelago</a>,” which detailed life in Soviet forced labor camps.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-05-27-1994147073-story.html">Yet there were mixed feelings</a> after Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994. Many Russians felt that, even though he had been exiled, he should have come back the instant he had been permitted to – in 1990 – and experienced the post-Soviet tumult and hardships alongside his countrymen.</p>
<h2>Social media as a tool for resistance</h2>
<p>While many Russians have swallowed the messages fed to them through <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-generation-z-kremlin-pro-war-propaganda-targets-young-russians/">Putin’s propaganda machine</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/red-is-dead-russian-anti-war-protesters-fly-a-new-flag-for-peace">many have not</a>. Citizens who feel scared and disillusioned thrive on the hope they glean from artists who speak out against the war.</p>
<p>In a recent conversation with a friend in Russia, I asked if and how current events are discussed. </p>
<p>“Very carefully,” she replied. “Often by discussing the creations of our beloved artists.”</p>
<p>Yet acts of public defiance are becoming increasingly difficult to pull off.</p>
<p>Alexandra Skochilenko, a 31-year-old performance artist, <a href="https://www.artshelp.net/alexandra-skochilenko/">faces up to 10 years in prison</a> for disseminating “knowingly false information” after she replaced price tags in a grocery store with news reports about the war in Ukraine. Yuri Shevchuk and his band, DDT, stopped performing after Shevchuk <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ddt-shevchuk-criticism-ukraine-war/31858449.html">was charged with a misdemeanor in May 2022</a> for insulting Putin during a show. Maria Alyokhina, the leader of the punk band Pussy Riot, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/world/europe/pussy-riot-russia-escape.html">recently fled Russia</a> before she could be arrested. In order to escape, she left her cellphone behind to avoid being traced.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1514912763860205571"}"></div></p>
<p>However, artists today have access to something their Soviet forebears didn’t: social media.</p>
<p>With the internet as a powerful and valuable tool for professing opposition to Putin, Russian artists are rethinking whether there’s any value in staying – and whether they might be able to more effectively resist Putin from abroad as “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/27/ukraine-war-internet-metaverse-cyber-cryptocurrency/">netizens</a>.”</p>
<p>Grebenshchikov, the artist whose feed went silent in April, reappeared almost two weeks later, posting videos on Instagram, Facebook and Telegram in which he performs against a backdrop of a blue sky. It isn’t clear where he is, but with concerts scheduled internationally, it likely isn’t Russia; he’s written about his plans to perform in Cyprus, Israel and the Netherlands in the coming months.</p>
<p>Yes, the mass departure of artists portends the loss of in-person artistic culture in Russia. But on the other hand, online posts can, at the very least, sustain Russia’s endangered dissident cultures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views expressed here are solely those of the author in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Navy or the Department of Defense.</span></em></p>Can social media posts sustain Russia’s endangered dissident cultures?Clementine Fujimura, Professor of Anthropology, Area Studies and Russian, United States Naval AcademyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1800392022-04-04T19:58:09Z2022-04-04T19:58:09Z‘Kafkaesque’ true stories of ordinary people: inside the first days of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China<p>We have lived through two tumultuous years as the COVID-19 pandemic has swept through Australia. Our Prime Minister Scott Morrison took the lead, for domestic political purposes, in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-22/morrison-to-push-for-anti-pandemic-inspection-powers/12173806">calling for an investigation</a> into the origins of the virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan.</p>
<p>In January 2021, China finally agreed to let <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-was-the-australian-doctor-on-the-whos-covid-19-mission-to-china-heres-what-we-found-about-the-origins-of-the-coronavirus-155554">an international team of experts</a> led by the World Health Organization into Wuhan to investigate. The <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/origins-of-the-virus">findings</a> of the team were inconclusive, because the Chinese authorities were not very cooperative and refused to approve a follow-up investigation.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Deadly Quiet City: Stories from Wuhan, Covid Ground Zero – Murong Xuecun
(Hardie Grant Books)</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Infiltrating Wuhan</h2>
<p>People who are curious to know why China is so resistant to outside investigation should read this book. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454655/original/file-20220328-25-12p96d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Its author, Murong Xuecun, is a popular Chinese novelist known for his critical stance toward the Chinese government. The book collects the true stories of eight people in Wuhan who endured the early months of the pandemic, from November 2019 to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52197054">April 2020</a>: from when <a href="https://theconversation.com/mystery-china-pneumonia-outbreak-likely-caused-by-new-human-coronavirus-129729">the first signs of the virus</a> were detected, to when China declared the Party’s victorious conquest of COVID in Wuhan. </p>
<p>Murong himself was not in Wuhan for most of that period. Risking his own safety, he sneaked into the city in April, interviewed eight people about their experiences, and then fled to another province, where he booked into a hotel and wrote up his interviews. He then departed China and is currently staying in London. He has escaped the fate of being denounced, silenced or even imprisoned, as has happened to several other “citizen journalists” who had gone to Wuhan and reported on social media about what had transpired.</p>
<p>Murong’s revelations are different from the other writers’ postings. The eight true narratives in <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/deadly-quiet-city-by-murong-xuecun/9781743798744#">Deadly Quiet City</a> are told in the first person by Murong, who skilfully captures their thoughts and feelings – their fears, their encounters with death, their anger, their losses. Each story provides background information, placing the featured individuals in context, then follows their reaction to the catastrophe of those few months from November to April. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-was-the-australian-doctor-on-the-whos-covid-19-mission-to-china-heres-what-we-found-about-the-origins-of-the-coronavirus-155554">I was the Australian doctor on the WHO's COVID-19 mission to China. Here's what we found about the origins of the coronavirus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Critical moments, from virus discovery to lifting lockdown</h2>
<p>Murong meticulously marked the dates and even times of critical moments: when doctors and scientists first noticed the virus; the date when Li Wenliang first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/chinese-doctor-Li-Wenliang-coronavirus.html">alerted</a> his circle of colleagues that a deadly new disease had stricken his hospital patients, only to be warned by local officials to stay silent; the day he died from the virus; the dates of important official announcements; the day that WHO confirmed the virus was a human-to-human transmittable variant; the date Wuhan was locked down; and the date the lockdown was lifted. </p>
<p>We learn what each of the eight individuals was doing during these periods. An old illegal motorcyclist taxi driver, at the bottom of the economic and social ladder, was grateful that the pandemic had helped him make a bit more money, because there was no other means of public transport. He ferried infected people back and forth between homes and hospitals and waited in queues as his clients desperately tried to get admitted. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="torn poster on wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454653/original/file-20220328-27-20q3dc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr. Li Wenliang, pictured on street poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Petr Vodicka</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another of the eight, a writer and member of the middle class, whose online essays tended to be critical of the government, managed to fly out of Wuhan to Guangzhou at four in the morning on the night the lockdown was announced. On hearing of Li’s death, he immediately started an online campaign, “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55963896">Never Forget Li Wenliang</a>”, to crowdfund a statue of the doctor. Within a couple of days, the state security bureau put him under house arrest. </p>
<h2>Heartless bureaucrats and humanitarians</h2>
<p>Some of the eight or their relatives contracted COVID. They recounted their encounters with heartless bureaucrats in graphic detail. Some of them had lined up for hours trying to see a doctor, or desperately made dozens of phone calls to friends and relatives who might have contacts with powers that be, to be able to find a hospital bed. Most had seen the chaos in hospitals: crying, begging, patients collapsing or dying while waiting. </p>
<p>A hospital cleaner had propped up her sick husband on a bicycle to search for a hospital that would take him. Those who successfully got into hospital were slapped with medical bills totalling a year or two of their annual wage. They all confronted dismissive, callous bureaucrats trying hard to shift responsibility. If they dared to complain on social media – describing their sorry state, begging for help, and trying to raise money – they invited the presence of the police. </p>
<p>The stories also record humanitarian responses. The motorcyclist taxi driver had waived charges for sick people poorer than him. Pleas on social media for help to pay medical bills brought in needed money. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454654/original/file-20220328-27-18p7fac.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Zhang Zhan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lackland123/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Another of the eight, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/reporter-zhang-zhan-risked-life-show-world-covid-wuhan-now-may-not-sur-rcna9212">Zhang Zhan</a>, a citizen journalist who travelled to Wuhan when she heard news of the pandemic, was able to raise enough money to allow her to stay in Wuhan to post her daily reports on social media. In May she went missing. It was later revealed that she is in jail, sentenced to four years. She has been adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and the latest news is that she is on a hunger strike.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fang-fangs-wuhan-diaries-are-a-personal-account-of-shared-memory-138007">Fang Fang's Wuhan diaries are a personal account of shared memory</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Amplifying authoritarianism</h2>
<p>There are many things we can learn about China from these eight stories. COVID has amplified the problems of an authoritarian system: endemic bureaucratic inefficiency, contemptuous treatment of “the masses”, shedding of responsibility, yet readiness to trade favours and succumb to corruption. </p>
<p>COVID has also exposed China’s broken medical system. This is not news to anyone who pays attention to China, but it’s educational to see how the malfunctions play out in such detail. Politics overrides science. Li and his colleagues were interrogated and punished for telling the truth, forced to make official “confessions”. Then, when Li’s warnings proved correct and went viral on social media, he was exonerated posthumously by the authorities, who declared him a national hero in order to placate the Wuhan residents’ anger. </p>
<p>As becomes clear in the book, doctors and nurses in small hospitals earn paltry monthly salaries – less than even poor migrant factory workers. They also need to toe the Party line. As an example, hospitals, all under Party management, were instructed to falsify their statistics in order to shrink the infection and death rates, so as to satisfy the national authorities’ policy of keeping those rates low. </p>
<p>Since deaths outside hospitals were deliberately not recorded, isolation wards were emptied of dying patients by sending them home, infecting their own families. A doctor lamented there was nothing he could do to prevent this. When the virus was partially under control, even though people were still lining up to get into hospitals, the Wuhan authorities celebrated the Party’s conquest of the virus with great fanfare.</p>
<p>A woman who would not be coaxed into accepting monetary compensation for the death of her daughter made a scene on the streets, marching with her daughter’s portrait and crying for justice. She received a phone call from the police in no time, telling her not to “publish sensitive remarks online” because this “would have a negative influence on the country … you must be vigilant against hostile anti-China forces. Don’t let them use you.” She finally acquiesced, after being put under surveillance for several months.</p>
<p>These are sad stories documenting Kafkaesque experiences of ordinary Chinese people. Sadder still is that the others – except for Zhang Zhan, who refused to stop calling out the lies – either lament their bad fate, or halfheartedly (or wholeheartedly) accept the Party’s propaganda. Domestic social stability and national security trump all other concerns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Chan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun infiltrated Wuhan in April 2020 to gather its citizens’ stories from the first days of coronavirus: from the doctor who first warned of a new disease, to a taxi driver.Anita Chan, Visiting Fellow, Department of Political & Social Change, Centre on China in the World, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799972022-03-28T13:43:24Z2022-03-28T13:43:24ZHow Russia’s musicians are taking a stand against the war in Ukraine<p>Speaking from outside the country a fortnight after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian rapper Oxxxymiron <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufRsgtd2fIA">released a video message</a> saying that: “…there are tens of millions of Russians who categorically disagree with this war – and that should be said as loudly as possible”. Oxxxymiron was announcing a series of charity anti-war gigs under the banner Russians against War (RAW). </p>
<p>The first concert in Istanbul on March 15 <a href="https://www.forbes.ru/forbeslife/459257-oksimiron-sobral-30-000-v-pol-zu-ukrainskih-detej-bezencev-na-koncerte-v-stambule">raised</a> $30,000 (£22,000) for Ukrainian refugees. The second concert, at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on March 24, <a href="https://zimamagazine.com/2022/03/russians-against-the-war-v-londone-proshel-blagotvoritelnyj-koncert-oksimirona/">raised</a> $50,000 (£38,000). </p>
<p>Oxxxymiron is just one of many Russian musicians who are using their platform to campaign against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Sergey Khavro is another. Khavro creates dreamy synth-pop under the name <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/0botW5W7KGHTm8BkLemEH8?autoplay=true">Parks, Squares and Alleys</a>. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Parkssquaresandalleys/posts/388511156435055">Writing on his Facebook page</a>, Khavro said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On February 24 Putin invaded Ukraine and turned his so-called ‘special operation’ into a massive genocide.<br>
It was the last straw that forced me and my family to leave Russia immediately and start a new life in Georgia.<br>
I’m not going to release anything new until this war is over.<br>
All of my Bandcamp and Spotify donations are going to United Help Ukraine charity centre". </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other influential rappers such as Morgenshtern (who packed his bags in December 2021) and Face have also abandoned the country in protest. The latter <a href="https://the-flow.ru/news/face-uehal-iz-rossii-on-nikogda-ne-budet-zdes-vystupat">stated</a> he would never return to Russia and asked the Ukrainian people for forgiveness. But these are only a few examples of the many cultural producers who <a href="https://rtvi.com/news/uekhat-nelzya-ostatsya-kto-iz-deyateley-kultury-pokinul-rossiyu/">have left</a> Russia in the past month. For how long, they don’t know: abroad is for now a place from which they can articulate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0TPbCSAbM">dissent</a> without fearing state retaliation.</p>
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<p>Even though their situation does not compare to what their <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60586817">Ukrainian colleagues</a> are <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/andriy-khlyvnyuk-boombox-ukraine-russia-b2027545.html">experiencing</a>, Russian musicians find themselves in precarious conditions that increasingly resemble <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60814306">Soviet times</a>. Once again, artists viewed as “inconvenient” are being relegated to the underground and the independent <a href="https://www.colta.ru/news/29697-colta-ru-zablokirovana-v-rossii">cultural</a> landscape of Russia <a href="https://vc.ru/media/376319-zheleznyy-zanaves-i-cenzura-blokirovka-smi-i-socsetey-v-rossii-taymlayn-sobytiy-i-prognozy">is being eroded</a>. </p>
<h2>Hopelessness mixes with protest</h2>
<p>Two years of COVID and now the war and its sanctions have crippled a music industry that in the past years had tried to develop infrastructure internally and build bridges externally. </p>
<p>The thriving scene of the 2010s, which shaped an alternative community in Russia and offered a different version of the country abroad, feels like a faint memory. “We have lost everything”, <a href="https://the-flow.ru/features/2022-god-kogda-zakonchilas-samodelnaya-kultura-2010-h">writes</a> music journalist Nikolai Redkin, and “those who haven’t left have no strength left in them to create anything”. Russia’s creative class, which for years had been the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Cultural-Forms-of-Protest-in-Russia/Beumers-Etkind-Gurova-Turoma/p/book/9780367874148">most vocal</a> in contesting Putin, may take some time to regroup.</p>
<p>A mixture of hopelessness and protest makes it inappropriate to carry on with musical activities, and several musicians have cancelled their tours: this is no time to “distract” and “entertain you”, pop star Monetochka told her fans on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/monetochkaliska/posts/1201670350649704">social media</a>. </p>
<p>Boris Grebenshchikov, leader of the popular band Akvarium, has called off all his concerts until “<a href="https://vk.com/bgofficial?w=wall-58316960_139969">better times</a>”. Grebenshchikov, is often seen as Russia’s Bob Dylan and was blacklisted repeatedly during Soviet times for dissidence. Akvarium has been banned again for calling the war in Ukraine “madness”. </p>
<p>Mumiy Troll, one of Russia’s most influential rock bands of the past 30 years, have decided to go on an indefinite live <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mumiytroll/posts/513583710130937">hiatus</a>: “music went dead”, they communicated on Facebook.</p>
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<p>Despite the new laws establishing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-introduce-jail-terms-spreading-fake-information-about-army-2022-03-04/">up to 15 years in prison</a> for the spread of “fake” anti-Russian propaganda, musicians <a href="https://www.colta.ru/news/29616-rossiyskie-muzykanty-vystupili-protiv-voyny">have taken a stand against the war</a> in various degrees. Some have used their social media channels, others have <a href="https://www.the-village.ru/shorts/shortparis-antiwar">joined</a> street rallies. Many have signed <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeMLI3bhycHZ4m7m4EukzymR6o8q_TF-z3eMfncfJ43UyRRZg/viewform?fbclid=IwAR0EfToFpaTCoJ7khIfnwQ6vxcxSaKgD5CsrWPfxo44-BzIB-oKlxLd-P5Q">petitions</a> urging Putin to <a href="https://www.colta.ru/news/29643-rossiyskie-muzykalnye-zhurnalisty-vystupili-protiv-voyny?fbclid=IwAR0jzOr1c__siEa4RIRm11A72rXIlaMqh7ye3SdsoGash4kvhAK0dhdgv8s">stop the war</a>. </p>
<p>Others have contested what is happening through their art. Rock star Zemfira released a new video for the song <em>Ne strelyaite</em> (Don’t Shoot) while deleting everything else from her channel. By doing this she is deliberately highlighting images of the destruction caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine combined with the repression of anti-war demonstrations in Russia. Zemfira is now also <a href="https://the-flow.ru/foto/oxxxy-zemfira-bg">abroad</a>.</p>
<h2>The show must go on, but how?</h2>
<p>But a question remains over those musicians who have so far stayed in Russia: if music is to continue, how should it go on? In the current climate, having an anti-war stance but then carrying on with musical endeavours as normal can be seen as hypocritical. The popular Petersburg band Shortparis, after releasing a video that many interpreted as a statement against the war, have now <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=521906062625102&set=a.293355182146859">announced their April tour</a> in Russia. </p>
<p>“We view our concert activity as an opportunity for unity of a certain community, the birth of a sense of solidarity and support within it,” the band said. But their Ukrainian audience was in outrage: “you turned out to be cowards”, commented one user. “Come play in Mariupol theatre” suggested another. </p>
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<p>Nonetheless, musicians who have decided to continue with their activities argue that music functions as an emotional shelter in dark times and a tool for creating an alternative sense of belonging. “Music is a lifeline that pulls people out of trouble”, <a href="https://i-m-i.ru/post/music-premiers">said</a> the singer Alyona Shvets, “it will be even more difficult without music than with it.”</p>
<p>Especially in the independent scene, musicians are caught between a rock and a hard place. Even though many of them oppose the decisions of their government, they also need to resume their musical activities for economic reasons. </p>
<p>Live gigs are the main source of income for artists in the now shrunk Russian market. Payment systems such as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60637429">Mastercard</a>, Visa and <a href="https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5249264">PayPal</a>, distributors such as <a href="https://i-m-i.ru/post/distribution-and-sanctions?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=imi_social">CD Baby</a>, and streaming services including <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60881567">Spotify</a> and Apple Music have halted operations in Russia, which complicates monetising from (and uploading songs to) music platforms for Russian musicians. </p>
<p>Warner, Universal and Sony, the three major labels controlling around 70% of the global music catalogue, <a href="https://the-flow.ru/news/warner-sony-ostanovyat">have also ceased or limited activity</a> in Russia. Moreover, touring abroad for Russian artists will be challenging now that the industry is <a href="https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5238024?">isolated</a>. Once again, like in the 1960s-1980s, precarity in Russian musical labour derives from the state (not the market), its actions and ideology.</p>
<p>Overall, musicians and industry professionals know that something has been lost forever. Participants thought they could eventually succeed in protecting the scene they painstakingly built from within an increasingly authoritarian state. But that didn’t happen. How far back the Kremlin is going to set the clock – whether to 40 years ago, or 90 – remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco Biasioli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many of Russia’s creative class are speaking out against the war in Ukraine and experiencing financial repercussions. As a result, many are leaving the countryMarco Biasioli, MHRA Postdoctoral Fellow, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1775622022-03-23T18:04:29Z2022-03-23T18:04:29ZBestia: Oscar-nominated film exposes how the powerful in Chile still don’t pay for human rights abuses<p><em>This article contains references to sexual assault and rape that some may find distressing.</em></p>
<p>Chilean stop-motion animation film <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bestia">Bestia</a>, up for an Oscar in the shorts category, has exposed wounds in a country still grappling with the demons of its past. Bestia, directed by Hugo Corruvias, tells the chilling story of <a href="https://oicanadian.com/the-nazi-beast-ingrid-olderock-the-cruel-chilean-torturer-known-as-the-woman-with-the-dogs/">Ingrid Olderock</a> a Chile-born German known as “The Dog Lady”. Olderok was an agent of the National Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), which was created by Augusto Pinochet after overthrowing Salvador Allende in 1973.</p>
<p>Accounts by her victims alleged that she had trained her German Shephard Volodia to rape female left-wing dissidents during the Pinochet regime. The film is inspired by Journalist Nancy Guzman’s <a href="https://www.montacerdos.cl/products/ingrid-olderock-la-mujer-de-los-perros">book</a> La Mujer de los Perros (The Dog Lady). Guzman interviewed the now-deceased torturer in 1996.</p>
<p>The film exposes the depths of torture and corruption in Chile through the troubled mind and everyday thoughts of Olderok. After Pinochet fell, those who had committed the worst atrocities were let off scot-free and allowed to reintegrate into society. </p>
<p>The same happened again in 2019 after Chileans rose against continuing inequality and injustice. While the dictatorship-era constitution was abolished, politicians used it once again not to pay for their crimes. Bestia exposes how the powerful in Chile then and now can avoid punishment for such human rights abuses. </p>
<h2>The Dog Lady</h2>
<p>Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Bernhardt was raised in the German Colony of Peñaflor in central Chile where her grandparents settled shortly after the second world war. She went to a German school and she and her siblings were forbidden to speak Spanish or mix with Chileans. She told Guzman:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was a Nazi from childhood. Germany had never been stronger than under the Nazis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her 20s, Olderock became a policewoman, quickly ascending the chain of command thanks to her diligence and work ethic. She was Chile’s first female parachutist to jump 1,000 feet and a skilled markswoman. </p>
<p>Shortly after the 1973 coup, she presented a project to her boss: to train an anti-Marxist female commando. A year later, she was in charge of 60 trainees at the School of Santo Domingo, equipping them to shoot, follow, detain and torture left-wing female dissidents.</p>
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<p>In 1975, Olderock was asked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/08/manuel-contreras-head-of-chiles-spy-agency-under-pinochet-dies-aged-86">the head of the secret police</a> (DINA) to participate in the interrogation of prisoners. Volodia the German Shephard dog became Olderock’s most terrifying instrument of torture. </p>
<p>In the dank basement of an ordinary house in Santiago nicknamed <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/sale-of-venda-sexy-torture-centre-highlights-chiles-struggle-for-historical-memory-regarding-sexual-violence/">“<em>La Venda Sexy</em>”</a> (sexy blindfold), she is alleged to have directed the hound to sexually abuse and maul detainees, most of whom were killed and then disposed of. It wasn’t until 1981 when an attempt was made on her life by two members of the underground resistance, that Olderock’s name and heinous deeds became known to the public.</p>
<p>How was such a sinister character allowed to live in anonymity until she died in 2001? Put simply, Pinochet’s military <a href="https://apnews.com/article/7315b8a74254491786c02fa559b05fd6">pact of silence</a> and a culture of impunity that still thrives in Chile today.</p>
<h2>Urgent Reform</h2>
<p>Neither the military nor police force has been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/26/hrw-calls-for-urgent-police-reform-in-chile-to-address-abuses">reformed</a> since the start of Chile’s weak democracy. This period of transition began when Pinochet lost the 1988 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/10/06/chiles-pinochet-beaten-in-plebiscite-on-rule/cbc2e773-f1cc-4c37-bcb5-91b9de1e8084/">referendum</a> after which he was forced to concede power to a civilian government. </p>
<p>This transition toward democracy came with conditions attached. Pinochet demanded the silence of the survivors of torture, and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur450311998en.pdf">immunity</a> from prosecution for those that committed human rights abuses during the regime. This forced victims to live alongside their former abusers, like Olderock. To date, the whereabouts of around 4,000 people disappeared by the regime is still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/14/where-are-they-families-search-for-chile-disappeared-prisoners">unknown</a>.</p>
<p>With an unreformed military whose silence and crimes are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/chile-years-pinochet-s-coup-impunity-must-end/">protected</a> by the current constitution, a new generation of torture victims are having to live in silence. </p>
<h2>A Democracy Bathed in Blood</h2>
<p>Modern political developments in Chile have all been rooted in political agreements that guarantee immunity for the military, exclude important social actors and ensure the model implemented by the regime remains untouched. In 1985, the <a href="https://elpais.com/diario/1985/12/22/internacional/504054014_850215.html">national agreement</a> seeking a path toward democracy was signed by the Catholic Church, the regime and a small number of opposition groups. Groups affected by the repression, left-wing politicians and nongovernmental organisations were excluded.</p>
<p>In 1991, the “<a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/chile/">Rettig Report</a>” into human rights violations was published on the condition that retaliation violence from left-wing groups was included. Large sections of print were blacked out, protecting the identity of military personnel involved in human rights aberrations. </p>
<p>In 2004 torture victims were invited to give their testimonies to the “National Commission of Political Prison and Torture”. They were paid a paltry sum and the file closed for 50 years. </p>
<p>After the social uprisings over the cost of living in late 2019 dubbed “<em>El Estallido</em>” (social outbreak), Chile’s attorney general’s Office launched <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/chile">8,581 total cases of alleged police abuses</a>. This was in response to widespread military <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2020/10/eyes-on-chile-police-violence-at-protests/">repression</a> against protesters that resulted in over 500 ocular traumas, 35 deaths and tens of thousands of accusations of torture.</p>
<p>The 2019 “<em>Acuerdo por la Paz</em>” (<a href="https://chilereports.cl/en/news/2019/12/02/agreement-for-social-peace-and-a-new-constitution">peace agreement</a>) was a timely solution for the president Sebastián Piñera and his cronies. In exchange for a new constitution, he would get himself off the hook and create a mechanism to quell the uprising. As a result, many of the cases have been closed without prosecution.</p>
<p>Once again, the agreement was made by an elite group, mistrusted by the general public and <a href="https://radio.uchile.cl/2019/11/18/un-acuerdo-excluyente-sin-paz-ni-justicia/">excluding</a> important social actors. It also <a href="https://www.laizquierdadiario.cl/El-proceso-constituyente-nacio-como-un-pacto-de-impunidad-para-los-responsables-de-las-violaciones">side-stepped</a> the many human rights violations, adding yet another layer of impunity in Chile’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">imperfect</a> democracy.</p>
<p>During the dictatorship Chileans resisted impunity through <a href="https://www.forgingmemory.org/narrative/nueva-cancion-chile">song</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23970034">murals</a> and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/arpilleras-chile-marjorie-agosin">textile</a> art. In the digital age, a new generation of filmmakers and content producers continue the struggle against repression, cronyism and lingering injustices. In this context, Bestia serves as both testament and homage to Chile’s forgotten victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carole Concha Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A provocative short film about a woman and her dog, Bestia highlights the impunity enjoyed by Chile’s military and politiciansCarole Concha Bell, PhD Candidate, Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596052021-04-22T21:40:24Z2021-04-22T21:40:24ZFor Vladimir Putin and other autocrats, ruthlessly repressing the opposition is often a winning way to stay in power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396660/original/file-20210422-15-1ybx3ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=84%2C91%2C4423%2C2909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police arrest a protester at a Moscow rally in support of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill while in prison and is now hospitalized.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/law-enforcement-officers-detain-a-participant-in-an-news-photo/1232442492?adppopup=true">Alexander Demianchuk\TASS via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most important opposition leader, is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/17/world/alexey-navalny-health-gets-worse/index.html">emaciated, hospitalized and reportedly nearing death</a> after developing a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny/jailed-kremlin-critic-navalny-says-he-has-temperature-and-cough-some-inmates-may-have-tb-idUSKBN2BS1C0">fever and cough</a> in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/world/europe/navalny-prison-russia.html">remote penal colony</a> where he is imprisoned. Navalny was also on a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/20/hunger-strike-russia-navalny/">weekslong hunger strike</a> to protest the government’s refusal to let outside doctors treat him in prison.</p>
<p>Navalny’s troubles began in 2019, when he was arrested for “leading an unauthorized protest.” In 2020, while on parole for that crime, <a href="https://theconversation.com/alexei-navalny-suspected-poisoning-why-opposition-figure-stands-out-in-russian-politics-144836">Navalny was poisoned</a> in an apparent assassination attempt linked to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>In critical condition, Navalny was flown to Germany for emergency medical treatment. He survived the poisoning. But in February 2021, a Russian court said the Germany trip was a parole violation. It sentenced Navalny <a href="https://www.voanews.com/europe/russian-court-sentences-alexei-navalny-35-years-prison">to three years in prison</a>. </p>
<p>The ruling infuriated Russians and spurred thousands to protest. The nationwide demonstrations <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/world/europe/russia-protests-navalny-putin.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article">united disparate opposition groups</a> into one movement that is challenging President Vladimir Putin’s 20-year rule. Navalny’s current ill health is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/europe/russia-putin-address-navalny-protests-intl/index.html">again galvanizing protesters</a> and spurring a further government crackdown on <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-west-russian-police-060437752.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMHBvpIttnT8-P3ZJ4fV3zklgEBuCTzz1U9Ebn3rsviyln9q7ypiQfbUmh_rrn1ywOnMqMScAts1MQr_DIDJlvFwSap8ffSIyI3ZhnDdQC7Rs0-pyaqhP_LF7WmvP8xKlrkMhbdeF1HpC_FMbYaCBjqJcLC8Qo7RALsMvEWuojAg">the opposition</a>.</p>
<p>If Navalny dies, it will even further <a href="https://theconversation.com/navalny-returns-to-russia-and-brings-anti-putin-politics-with-him-153964">energize the opposition against Putin</a>. </p>
<p>So has persecuting him been a political misstep by Russia’s leader?</p>
<p>As an international legal scholar and professor of human rights, I’ve found that <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030354763">strong-arm tactics by autocratic leaders</a> can sometimes trigger a reaction that ultimately topples their regime. Often, though, repressive tactics like detention, torture and prosecution help autocrats like Putin stay in power.</p>
<h2>Political prisoners</h2>
<p>Many historic pro-democracy leaders, including <a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/biography/arrest.htm">India’s Mahatma Gandhi</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/11/13/burma-chronology-aung-san-suu-kyis-detention#">Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi</a> and the United States’ <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/mlk-topic/martin-luther-king-jr-arrests">Martin Luther King Jr.</a>, were arrested or imprisoned. In these cases, <a href="http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2015/05/05/the-resisters-toolkit/">political repression mobilized</a> – rather than destroyed – their movements. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaa052">Political prisoners</a>, in particular, can turn into international celebrities who rally people around their cause. </p>
<p>South Africa is an iconic example. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography-timeline">Imprisoned for 27 years</a>, Nelson Mandela became the face of an anti-apartheid movement that evolved from its South African resistance roots into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/boycotts-rallies-and-free-mandela-uk-anti-apartheid-movement-created-a-blueprint-for-activists-today-134857">largest international campaign</a> for regime change in history. Anti-apartheid groups around the globe coalesced to harness <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/british-anti-apartheid-movement">punitive economic tactics</a>, such as boycotts of South African products, and to pressure their governments to apply sanctions. </p>
<p>Eventually, South Africa’s leaders folded to international demands, releasing Mandela in 1990. Mandela was elected president, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24595472?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents">ushering in the end of</a> the world’s most racially oppressive system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Mandela holds his right hand in the air, next to a judge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393637/original/file-20210406-17-fhokw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mandela is sworn in as South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nelson-mandela-is-sworn-in-as-the-first-democratically-news-photo/585857374?adppopup=true">Louise Gubb/Corbis Saba/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The Belarus example</h2>
<p>Autocrats in the 21st century aren’t like past dictators. Most now claim legitimacy through rigged elections, which is why votes in authoritarian countries are often accompanied by repression.</p>
<p>Last August, Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko – in power since 1994 – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53637365">faced an unprecedented electoral challenge</a>. He <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/8/leading-belarus-opposition-candidates-campaign-manager-detained">jailed opposition leaders</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53411735">barred rival candidates</a> from running. The elections were held, and Lukashenko <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/europe/belarus-election-protests-lukashenko-intl-hnk/index.html">claimed a landslide victory</a>. </p>
<p>But his only remaining opponent in the presidential race, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b728b6a0-b84d-4f96-97da-2903575cbc9a">was so popular</a> that neither she nor the Belarusian people bought his win. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/09/belarus-election-lukashenko-landslide-victory-fixing-claims">Widespread protests erupted</a> demanding Lukashenko’s ouster. </p>
<p>Lukashenko – a Putin ally – <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/17/belarus-crackdown-escalates">cracked down again</a>, including with brutal police violence. Tikhanovskaya went into exile.</p>
<p>Far from quelling popular anger in Belarus, <a href="https://theconversation.com/belarus-protests-why-people-have-been-taking-to-the-streets-new-data-154494">recent research</a> shows the regime’s violent repression of protests mobilized many people. Protesters <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/winters-quiet-belarus-opposition-prepares-protests-75737562">plan to renew their demonstrations soon</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women in red stand in the snow, holding fists in the air, with pictures of other women" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393639/original/file-20210406-19-be0a0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminists in Minsk protest dozens of women imprisoned for demonstrating after Belarus’ presidential election, Aug. 9, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/feminist-activists-take-part-in-a-flash-mob-with-news-photo/1231161058?adppopup=true">Atringer/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Still, Lukashenko continues in power. In large part, that’s because many of the nation’s elite and key institutions – like security services and courts – remain loyal to him. </p>
<p>The most successful autocrats don’t use just repression to stay in office. They also retain control through a spoils systems and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.738860">corruption that aids</a> those who protect their power. </p>
<h2>International condemnation</h2>
<p>Putin is a master of both repression and corrupt bargains – so notorious for both that the United States created new ways to punish such behavior.</p>
<p>A few years after the 2009 death of corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009, the U.S. adopted the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitsky-act#">Magnitsky Act</a>, which <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10576">now authorizes</a> the president to impose sanctions, including barring entry into the U.S., on “any foreign person identified as engaging in human rights abuse or corruption.” </p>
<p>Canada, the United Kingdom and <a href="https://www.universal-rights.org/uncategorized/eu-adopts-magnitsky-style-individual-sanctions-regime-for-grave-human-rights-violations">European Union</a> later passed similar laws. </p>
<p>These laws <a href="https://www.debevoise.com/insights/publications/2020/12/eu-introduces-magnitsky-style-human-rights">allow countries</a> to punish repressive leaders, as well as any groups or businesses that back their regimes, with asset freezes and travel bans. They have not yet, however, been used against Putin.</p>
<p>On April 15, the Biden administration did significantly <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-04-19/pdf/2021-08098.pdf">expand existing sanctions against Russia</a>, adding new restrictions on the ability of U.S. institutions to deal in Russian <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/sovereign_debt_prohibition_directive_1.pdf">sovereign debt</a>. The new sanctions appear aimed at ratcheting up the economic pressure on Putin and inviting <a href="https://www.gibsondunn.com/biden-administration-imposes-additional-sanctions-on-russia/">similar measures from allies</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to employing <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-are-economic-sanctions">targeted</a> and national sanctions, democratic countries have other ways to reproach states that violate international law. These include severing diplomatic ties and mandating global scrutiny by international bodies like the United Nations. </p>
<p>Such responses have had <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-02/biden-s-sanctions-on-russia-saudis-spark-grumblings-of-weakness">limited success</a> in forcing autocratic leaders to respect democracy and human rights. </p>
<p>Take Venezuela, for example. There, President Nicolás Maduro has been in power since 2013, and mass protests against his government began in 2015. </p>
<p>In a series of damning reports, the United Nations has characterized the Maduro regime’s killing and imprisonment of protesters as “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26247&LangID=E">crimes against humanity</a>.” Many countries have imposed <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021/02/22/venezuela-19-officials-added-to-the-eu-sanctions-list/">increasingly harsh sanctions on Venezuela</a> over <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10715.pdf">many years</a>. </p>
<p>Eventually, in 2019, Maduro <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48887453">released 22 political prisoners</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53985277">pardoned 110 more</a>.</p>
<p>But in December, Venezuela held elections that, once again, failed to meet <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55211149">democratic standards</a>. </p>
<p>Maduro’s party, unsurprisingly, won. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Maduro in a military hat surrounded by soldiers speaks at a microphone with his hand raised" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393641/original/file-20210406-13-1hcyhef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Maduro of Venezuela speaks at a military parade in Caracas on April 13, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-of-venezuela-nicolas-maduro-speaks-beside-head-of-news-photo/1136941388?adppopup=true">Lokman Ilhan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>An evolving playing field</h2>
<p>Mass protest campaigns can succeed and have succeeded in ousting dictatorial leaders, as seen recently in Ukraine. There, protests in 2004 and then <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Maidan-protest-movement">again in 2014</a> reoriented the country away from Russia and toward democracy. </p>
<p>History shows successful protest movements must involve at least <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world">3.5% of the population</a> – including the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/704699">urban middle class and industrial workers</a> – engaged in coordinated, nonviolent tactics like general strikes and boycotts. That may not seem like a lot of people, but in a country with the population size of Russia’s, this would require over 5 million people to participate in an organized resistance.</p>
<p>In these circumstances, sanctions and global scrutiny can add real weight to a pro-democracy uprising.</p>
<p>But experts <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/12/14/new-eu-global-human-rights-sanctions-regime-breakthrough-or-distraction-pub-83415">worry that the international community’s tools</a> are inadequate given the challenges authoritarianism presents worldwide. Today <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/de/39/de39af54-0bc5-4421-89ae-fb20dcc53dba/democracy_report.pdf">54% of the global population</a> lives in an autocracy like Russia, Belarus or Venezuela – the highest percentage in 20 years. </p>
<p>Perhaps not coincidentally, pro-democracy movements are also on the rise. <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/de/39/de39af54-0bc5-4421-89ae-fb20dcc53dba/democracy_report.pdf">Mass pro-democracy protests in 2019</a> took place in 44% of countries, up from 27% in 2014.</p>
<p>As the battle between autocracy and democracy plays out in Russia, Belarus and beyond, the world’s historic defenders of democracy – especially the U.S. and European Union – <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy">face their own democratic struggles</a>. </p>
<p>That’s good news for Putin – and more cause for democracy advocates to be concerned.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-autocrats-like-vladimir-putin-ruthless-repression-is-often-a-winning-way-to-stay-in-power-156172">story</a> originally published April 9, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelley Inglis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s not much the world can do to stop authoritarian rulers from persecuting their political opponents, as shown by the standoff over Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is ill and imprisoned.Shelley Inglis, Executive Director, University of Dayton Human Rights Center, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1542872021-02-01T12:52:31Z2021-02-01T12:52:31ZIndia farmers’ protests: internet shutdown highlights Modi’s record of stifling digital dissent<p>The storming of the Red Fort in Delhi on January 26 marked an escalation of tensions between the Indian government – led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – and farmers who have been protesting against agricultural reforms since August 2020. </p>
<p>With footage of the farmers clashing with police going viral, the Red Fort incident also marked a spike in interest in the farmers’ movement around the world, much to Modi’s embarrassment.</p>
<p>The authorities’ response to events at the Red Fort – a historic building symbolic of Indian independence, and located in the very heart of Old Delhi – was swift. Delhi Police shut down the city’s internet, affecting more than <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/farmers-protest-50-million-subscribers-hit-by-internet-shutdown-in-ncr-1763019-2021-01-27">52 million mobile phone subscribers</a>. The shutdown was <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/india-government-orders-shutdown-of-internet-services-in-parts-of-new-delhi-as-farmers-protest-turns-violent/">ostensibly in the interest of public safety</a>, but it’s also the latest episode in India’s long-running story of heavy-handed internet crackdowns – a strategy used time and again to quell swelling protest movements.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-farmers-are-right-to-protest-against-agricultural-reforms-152726">India's farmers are right to protest against agricultural reforms</a>
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<p>India’s control over the internet is comparable to some of the world’s most authoritarian countries. While India ranks <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/779/mobile-internet/">second in the world</a> in terms of mobile internet subscribers, the country also <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/global-5">leads in shutdowns</a>. They’re used with alarming regularity to disrupt protest movements and – in the case of Kashmir, currently under the world’s longest internet shutdown – to control entire populations.</p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-50833361">Citizen Act protests</a> last year, shutdowns were used in Aligarh – home to the Aligarh Muslim University – one of the hubs of the protests, where <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/25/students-hand-amputated-as-violence-grips-citizenship-protests">severe police brutality</a> is alleged to have taken place. The Indian government implemented more than <a href="https://www.internetshutdowns.in/">106 internet shutdowns</a> in 2019 alone – the vast majority in response to protests.</p>
<p>This control is largely achieved via the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, passed into law in 2017, which expanded the government’s powers for surveillance and connectivity suspension, empowering it to control dissent and opposition. </p>
<p>In Kashmir, where there are tight restrictions on the rights to free expression, speech and assembly, internet shutdowns function as an “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/indias-internet-shutdowns-function-like-invisibility-cloaks/a-55572554">invisibility cloak</a>” to crack down on dissent and isolate Kashmiris from the rest of the world. Because India’s supreme court has ruled that “indefinite internet shutdowns” are illegal, India’s government instead downgrades or “throttles” Kashmir’s mobile connectivity from 4G to 2G, seriously limiting what can be loaded on phones.</p>
<h2>Tractors and tear gas</h2>
<p>The recent events at the Red Fort also presented an example of India’s disinformation ecosystem. At a pivotal moment, some protesters raised a flag sacred to Sikhs next to the Indian flag, even as movement leaders pleaded with them to climb down. Hundreds of cameras caught the moment the flags where raised, uploading photos to social media.</p>
<p>These images were immediately seized upon by social media influencers loyal to Modi, who began a disinformation campaign which spread across the country, claiming the flag to be that of Khalistani separatists. In Modi’s India, separatists are often depicted as enemies of the state.</p>
<p>Disinformation spreads particularly quickly in India, where mobile internet packages make it cheaper to access social media than to run a Google search. This lack of “net neutrality” – favouring traffic to certain websites over others – discourages users from fact-checking what they see on social media.</p>
<p>In response to the fast-spreading flag disinformation, social media activists sympathetic to the farmers were quick to point out that the flag was the Sikh “Nishan Sahib”. They showed how the same flag is flown at all Sikh gurudwaras, used by regiments of the Indian army, and had even been sported by Modi while he campaigned in Punjab. It’s unclear how successful these efforts to neutralise “fake news” have been in a country with powerful state-backed media companies.</p>
<h2>Angry anchors</h2>
<p>Television anchors on state-backed news channels regularly tarnish protesting farmers as Khalistani separatists, Pakistani spies, members of the opposition Congress party, or communists. Using abusive words such as “behuda” (impudent), “badtameez” (ill-mannered), and “gunda” (goons), these anchors are aware that their language will inflame passions when cut into shorter clips for social media. These images achieve virality on WhatsApp and Facebook via common channels of circulation, drumming up support for the state’s crackdowns on dissent. </p>
<p>As with the flag dispute, India’s activists also know how to use the digital space to achieve their objectives. They post videos, release their own memes and hashtags, and are particularly strong at satire, humour, music and art. </p>
<p>By positioning cameras at key protest sites, clashes are recorded and live-streamed on social media, capturing alleged police brutality and heightening the pitch of public debate. Unfortunately, such tactics are often nullified by the state’s common default to full internet shutdowns. </p>
<p>And in a further move to shut down dissent, the <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/twitter-helps-govt-block-accounts-tweeting-on-farmer-protests-withholds-kem-and-other-accounts-1764784-2021-02-01">government recently reportedly sent</a> a legal notice to Twitter that led to the blocking of several accounts linked to the farmers’ protest – revealing the Modi administration’s ability to censor groups and individuals on specific platforms, too.</p>
<p>Beyond signalling the authoritarian drift of the “world’s largest democracy”, India’s internet shutdowns are also expensive affairs. Even as Modi promises to build a “digital India” to boost the country’s economy, his internet shutdowns <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/global-cost-of-internet-shutdowns-4-bn-in-2020-india-share-at-70-report-121010600972_1.html">are costing India US$2.8 billion (£2 billion) a year</a> – which equates to 70% of the global cost of shutting off the internet in 2020. That he is willing to foot this bill is indicative of how much is at stake for Modi. It is time for the world to take notice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Subir Sinha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the protests escalate, Modi’s grip on India’s internet communications remains as tight as ever.Subir Sinha, Senior Lecturer in Institutions and Development, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444782020-08-28T12:22:01Z2020-08-28T12:22:01ZThe US has lots to lose and little to gain by banning TikTok and WeChat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355197/original/file-20200827-14-1jiph21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Banning TikTok and WeChat would cut off many Americans from popular social media.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ChinaUSTrumpTiktokWechatOrder/7f2007a5786340f89657a9aac86d826a/photo?Query=TikTok%20AND%20WeChat&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=19&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/trump-admin-expands-its-war-on-chinese-tech">recently announced</a> bans on Chinese-owned social media platforms <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/en/">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.wechat.com/en/">WeChat</a> could have unintended consequences. The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/">orders</a> <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">bar</a> the apps from doing business in the U.S. or with U.S. persons or businesses after Sept. 20 and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/order-regarding-acquisition-musical-ly-bytedance-ltd/">require divestiture</a> of TikTok by Nov. 12.</p>
<p>The executive orders are based on national security grounds, though the threats cited are to citizens rather than the government. Foreign policy analysts see the move as part of the administration’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/07/trump-ban-tiktok-wechat-china-apps/">ongoing wrestling match</a> with the Chinese government for leverage in the global economy.</p>
<p>Whatever the motivation, as someone who researches both <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7994973">cybersecurity</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X19300417">technology policy</a>, I am not convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs. The bans threaten Americans’ freedom of speech, and may <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/alibaba-pulls-back-in-u-s-amid-trump-crackdown-on-chinese-investment">harm foreign investment</a> in the U.S. and American companies’ ability to sell software abroad, while delivering minimal privacy and cybersecurity benefits. </p>
<h2>National security threat?</h2>
<p>The threats posed by TikTok and WeChat, according to the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/">executive</a> <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">orders</a>, include the potential for the platforms to be used for disinformation campaigns by the Chinese government and to give the Chinese government access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Video of two young women on smartphone screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355198/original/file-20200827-14-yl0l3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">TikTok is an immensely popular social media platform that allows people to share short video clips.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thebetterday4u/46680455555/">Aaron Yoo/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.S. is not the only country concerned about Chinese apps. The Australian military <a href="https://www.cybersecurity-insiders.com/chinas-wechat-gets-banned-by-the-overseas-military-on-security-worries/">accused WeChat</a>, a messaging, social media and mobile payment app, of acting as spyware, saying the app was caught sending data to Chinese Intelligence servers.</p>
<p>Disinformation campaigns may be of particular concern, due to the upcoming election and the impact of the alleged “sweeping and systematic” <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf">Russian interference</a> in the 2016 elections. The potential for <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-ban-us-national-security-risk/">espionage</a> is less pronounced, given that the apps access basic contact information and details about the videos Americans watch and the topics they search on, and not more sensitive data.</p>
<p>But banning the apps and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/order-regarding-acquisition-musical-ly-bytedance-ltd/">requiring Chinese divestiture</a> also has a national security downside. It <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-ban-us-national-security-risk/">damages the U.S.’s moral authority</a> to push for free speech and democracy abroad. Critics have frequently contended that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-has-lost-moral-authority-under-trump-the-mueller-report-gives-some-back/2019/04/18/5bd6683c-6227-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html">America’s moral authority</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/opinions/united-states-moral-credibility-is-badly-tarnished-campbell/index.html">has been severely damaged</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/opinion/donald-trump-and-americas-moral-authority.html">during the Trump administration</a> and this action could arguably add to the decline.</p>
<h2>Protecting personal information</h2>
<p>The administration’s principal argument against TikTok is that it collects Americans’ personal data and could provide it to the Chinese government. The executive order states that this <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/">could allow China</a> to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage. </p>
<p>Skeptics have argued that the government <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tiktok-ban-leave-giant-social-182833842.html">hasn’t presented clear evidence</a> of privacy issues and that the service’s practices are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executive-order-that-will-effectively-ban-use-of-tiktok-in-the-u-s">standard in the industry</a>. TikTok’s terms of service do <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executive-order-that-will-effectively-ban-use-of-tiktok-in-the-u-s">say that it can share information</a> with its China-based corporate parent, ByteDance.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="smartphone screenshot showing the WeChat app" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355196/original/file-20200827-24-1jxjutn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WeChat is a messaging, social media and mobile payment app that is nearly ubiquitous in China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/albert_hsieh/12856611855/">Albert Hsieh/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/">order against WeChat</a> is similar. It also mentions that the app captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States. However, some of these visiting Chinese nationals have expressed concern that banning WeChat may <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/trump-admin-expands-its-war-on-chinese-tech">limit their ability to communicate</a> with friends and family in China.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://research.checkpoint.com/2020/tik-or-tok-is-tiktok-secure-enough/">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://ipolitics.ca/2019/07/05/mps-staff-warned-not-to-use-chinese-app-wechat-due-to-cybersecurity-risks/">WeChat</a> do raise cybersecurity concerns, they are not significantly different from those raised by other smart phone apps. In my view, these concerns could be better addressed by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/the-us-needs-a-national-privacy-law-for-personal-data-salesforce-co-ceo-says.html">enacting national privacy legislation</a>, similar to <a href="https://gdpr.eu/">Europe’s GDPR</a> and <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa">California’s CCPA</a>, to dictate how data is collected and used and where it is stored. Another remedy is to have Google, Apple and others review the apps for cybersecurity concerns before allowing new versions to be made available in their app stores.</p>
<h2>Freedom of speech</h2>
<p>Perhaps the greatest concern raised by the bans are their impact on people’s ability to communicate, and whether they violate the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a>. Both TikTok and WeChat are communications channels and TikTok publishes and hosts content. </p>
<p>While the courts have allowed some regulation of speech, to withstand a legal challenge the restrictions <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3312673">must advance a legitimate government interest and be “narrowly tailored”</a> to do so. National security is a legitimate governmental interest. However, in my opinion it’s questionable <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-ban-us-national-security-risk/">whether a real national security concern exists</a> with these specific apps.</p>
<p>In the case of TikTok, banning an app that is being used for <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/prison-tiktok-behind-bars-still-posting/">political commentary</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html">activism</a> would raise pronounced constitutional claims and likely be overturned by the courts. </p>
<p>Whether the bans <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/technology/tiktok-sues-trump-administration.html">hold up in court</a>, the executive orders instituting them put the U.S. in uncomfortable territory: the list of countries that have banned social media platforms. These include <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/egypt-tightens-restrictions-media-social-networks-190319180632151.html">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-china.html">Hong Kong</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/world/europe/turkey-social-media-control.html">Turkey</a>, <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/turkmenistan-where-social-media-is-banned-gets-first-messaging-app-1983887.html">Turkmenistan</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/01/north-korea-announces-blocks-on-facebook-twitter-and-youtube">North Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/iran-internet-shutoff/">Iran</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/belarus-internet-outage-election/">Belarus</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/13/putin-now-plans-100-facebook-instagram-and-youtube-bans-russians-warned/#75ac2fdb57ff">Russia</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-internet-ban-criticism-could-suppress-coronavirus-news-2020-3">China</a>. </p>
<p>Though the U.S. bans may not be aimed at curtailing dissent, they echo actions that harm free speech and democracy globally. Social media gives freedom fighters, protesters and dissidents all over the world a voice. It enables citizens to voice concerns and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/technology/social-media-protests.html">organize protests</a> about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/world/asia/protests-thailand-king-monarchy.html">monarchies</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/12/social-media-users-stir-outrage-against-egypt-sexual-abusers">sexual</a> and other <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/africa/zimbabwe-solo-protest-intl/index.html">human rights abuses</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-women-lawmaking-socialmedia-trfn/cambodian-women-post-swimwear-photos-to-protest-law-on-how-they-dress-idUSKCN2521YQ">discriminatory laws</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/technology/social-media-protests.html">civil rights</a> violations. When <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-governments-fear-even-teens-on-tiktok-140389">authoritarian</a> governments clamp down on dissent, they frequently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/29/tech/hong-kong-internet-block-emergency-powers-intl-hnk/index.html">target</a> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/egypt-tightens-restrictions-media-social-networks-190319180632151.html">social media</a>.</p>
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<h2>Risk of retaliation</h2>
<p>The bans could also harm the U.S. economy because other countries could ban U.S. companies in retaliation. China and the U.S. have already gone through a cycle of <a href="https://theconversation.com/lawmakers-keen-to-break-up-big-tech-like-amazon-and-google-need-to-realize-the-world-has-changed-a-lot-since-microsoft-and-standard-oil-143517">reciprocal company banning</a>, in addition to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/crowds-wave-chinese-flags-and-take-selfies-as-us-consulate-closes-in-chengdu">reciprocal consulate closures</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. has <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-suspends-android-support-for-huawei-what-it-means-for-your-smartphone-tablet/">placed</a> Chinese telecom firm Huawei on the <a href="https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-announces-addition-huawei-technologies-co-ltd">Bureau of Industry Security Entity List</a>, preventing U.S. firms from conducting business with it. While this has <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/5/21124888/us-5g-huawei-white-house-trump-china-alternative-telecom-standard">prevented Huawei from selling wireless hardware</a> in the U.S., it has also <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-suspends-android-support-for-huawei-what-it-means-for-your-smartphone-tablet/">prevented U.S. software sales to the telecom giant</a> and caused it to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-struggles-to-escape-u-s-grasp-on-chips-11592740800">use its own chips instead of buying them from U.S. firms</a>. </p>
<p>Over a dozen U.S. companies <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/corporate-america-worries-wechat-ban-could-be-bad-for-business-11597311003">urged the White House</a> not to ban WeChat because it would hurt their business in China. </p>
<p>Other countries might use the U.S. bans of Chinese firms as justification for banning U.S. companies, even though the U.S. has not taken action against them or their companies directly. These trade restrictions harm the U.S.’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-steps-up-as-us-steps-back-from-global-leadership-70962">moral authority</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/economy/us-china-trade-war-resume-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html">harm the global economy</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/economy/us-china-trade-war-resume-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html">stifle innovation</a>. They also cut U.S. firms off from the <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2020/08/07/once-again-shooting-ourselves-foot-banning-trade-wechat-parent-tencent-only">high-growth Chinese market</a>. </p>
<p>TikTok is in negotiations with Microsoft and Walmart and an Oracle-led consortium about a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/technology/walmart-tiktok-deal.html">possible acquisition</a> that would leave the company with American ownership and negate the ban.</p>
<h2>Oversight, not banishment</h2>
<p>Though the TikTok and WeChat apps do raise some concerns, it is not apparent that cause exists to ban them. The issues could be solved through better oversight and the enactment of privacy laws that could otherwise benefit Americans. </p>
<p>Of course, the government could have other causes for concern that it hasn’t yet made public. Given the consequences of banning an avenue of expression, if other concerns exist the government should share them with the American public. If not, I’d argue less drastic action would be more appropriate and better serve the American people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Straub is the associate director of the NDSU Institute for Cyber Security Education and Research and a Challey Institute Faculty Fellow. He has received funding related to cybersecurity from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Security Agency and the North Dakota State University. The views presented are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of NDSU or funding agencies.</span></em></p>Banning the Chinese-owned social media platforms raises free speech concerns and could worsen the US-China trade war.Jeremy Straub, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, North Dakota State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1061242018-11-06T09:27:51Z2018-11-06T09:27:51ZKhashoggi murder: how states are increasingly repressing dissidents beyond their borders<p>Authoritarian states have long tried to <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-meng-hongwei-assassination-abduction-dictators.html">suppress dissidents</a> who oppose the regime. But in the age of globalisation, they are increasingly able to mobilise beyond their territorial borders and target political opponents overseas.</p>
<p>The brutal murder of Saudi journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/jamal-khashoggi-disappearance-a-defining-moment-for-saudi-arabias-relations-with-the-west-105064">Jamal Khashoggi</a>, a former Saudi regime insider who became a critic in self exile of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is an extreme example of this new reality. </p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-not-fully-cooperating-with-khashoggi-investigation-turkish-official-says/2018/10/31/804bfc2a-dc78-11e8-8bac-bfe01fcdc3a6_story.html?utm_term=.7a71769f43af">precise details of Khashoggi’s murder</a> have yet to be proved, his <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-turkeys-erdogan-is-seeking-to-gain-in-wake-of-saudi-journalist-jamal-khashoggis-murder-105201">grim fate</a> – he was allegedly strangled and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey – reflects broader patterns of transnational repression.</p>
<h2>Is anyone safe?</h2>
<p>Khashoggi was a controversial and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/19/jamal-khashoggi-obituary">high-profile figure</a>, not only in Saudi Arabia but around the world. He had an international voice and connections with highly prestigious political figures, global media outlets, including The Washington Post, and organisations. And yet this didn’t prevent the Saudi regime from seeking to silence him in a foreign country. </p>
<p>So what of other dissident members of the diaspora – those without Khashoggi’s leverage but who still challenge the policies of home states from abroad? Are they any safer? In fact, all politically exiled activists are becoming increasingly subject to transnational repression while their opportunities to dissent, even in the Western world, are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur62/5974/2017/en/">becoming more and more limited</a>. </p>
<p>The idea that diasporas oppressed in their countries of origin could find political and social <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100369430">opportunities</a> in the West and other liberal democracies was once celebrated. In their new homes, they could benefit from the freedoms of speech and assembly to challenge across borders the governments and policies that had threatened them and their way of life. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/22/refugees-political-resource-help-those-left-behind">was even asked</a> whether diasporas and their newly emerging power in world politics might challenge the very existence of some authoritarian regimes, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2016.1212133">as happened during the Arab Spring</a>. But <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15562948.2016.1177152">recent research</a> suggests that the opposite is now becoming the case.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sergei-skripal-and-the-long-history-of-assassination-attempts-abroad-93021">Sergei Skripal and the long history of assassination attempts abroad</a>
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<p>Khashoggi’s ruthless killing is just one example of a broader trend – outlined in John Heathershaw and Alex Cooley’s book <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300208443/dictators-without-borders">Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia</a> – including the widespread detention, kidnapping, murder and extradition of dissidents and their relatives. Of course, dissidents have long been murdered abroad – take the 1978 case of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9949856/Prime-suspect-in-Georgi-Markov-umbrella-poison-murder-tracked-down-to-Austria.html">Bulgarian Georgi Markov</a>, who was assassinated with a poison tipped umbrella in London. But the evidence suggests that such acts are now more common.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vigil for Khashoggi, staged outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 25.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/webgate?SERIESDISPLAY=1&EVENT=WEBSHOP_SEARCH&SEARCHLANGUAGE=eng_usa&SEARCHMODE=NEW&SEARCHTXT1=jamal+khashoggi">EPA Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://excas.net/exiles/">Central Asia Political Exiles Database</a>, developed at the University of Exeter, demonstrates the drastic efforts of the region’s dictators to silence dissent transnationally. Evidence from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2016.1263078">Iran</a>, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2102131,00.html">Syria</a>, Azerbaijan, Russia, <a href="http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/20180430/editorial-countries-abuse-interpol-red-notices">Turkey</a> and China – where it was revealed the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/07/china-admits-missing-interpol-chief-meng-hongwei-is-under-monitoring">“missing” Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei</a>, is being held – shows how authoritarian states are increasingly adopting repressive strategies to control, extort or manipulate citizens beyond their borders.</p>
<h2>Technology and terrorism</h2>
<p>New technologies and <a href="https://theconversation.com/revolution-how-the-humble-hashtag-changed-world-politics-105483">social media</a> not only help opposition groups to mobilise, they also permit authoritarian states to map dissent internally and internationally – and intimidate dissenting voices. For example, <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/550fdcc34.html">exiled journalists from Iran</a> have reported being contacted while abroad by Iranian security agents, who used social media sites to threaten to harm them or their families inside Iran. </p>
<p>As research by the <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/">CitizenLab</a> at the <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2018/03/bad-traffic-sandvines-packetlogic-devices-deploy-government-spyware-turkey-syria/">University of Toronto demonstrates</a>, authoritarian states are also increasingly buying mass surveillance technologies from Western companies. A major report, released in 2014, by Human Rights Watch, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/03/25/they-know-everything-we-do/telecom-and-internet-surveillance-ethiopia">They Know Everything We Do: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia</a>, documents how the Ethiopian government has acquired surveillance technologies from several countries and used it against perceived political opponents inside the country and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/25/ethiopia-telecom-surveillance-chills-rights">among the diaspora</a>. </p>
<p>Authoritarian states further legitimise their repressive actions by branding dissidents “terrorists”. Turkey, for example, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-kurds-demirtas-idUSKCN0XV1CE">has used this pretext</a> to push Western governments towards banning dissident Kurdish organisations and TV channels.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://euobserver.com/justice/139292">even evidence</a> that nations are using the Interpol system to target dissidents by issuing alerts against <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/interpol-red-notice-alerts-journalist-arrests-by-jago-russell-and-christophe-deloire-2017-12?barrier=accesspaylog">perceived political opponents</a>. According to Fair Trials, Interpol alerts have become weaponised in some cases, by repressive states against exiled <a href="https://www.fairtrials.org/publication/strengthening-interpol-update">journalists, human rights defenders and political activists</a>. </p>
<p>Diplomatic cooperation agreements – such as the <a href="http://eng.sectsco.org">Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)</a> – also facilitate the coordination of transnational repression against wanted people. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2014.976614?src=recsys&journalCode=fasi20">SCO’s anti-terrorist structure</a> enables signatory states, <a href="http://eng.sectsco.org/for_media/20180606/441009.html">including Russia and China</a>, to carry out abductions and renditions of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/01/30/the-league-of-authoritarian-gentlemen/">some individuals</a>, outside the normal judicial procedures and constraints of international law.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jamal-khashoggis-murder-finally-brings-media-attention-to-plight-of-arab-worlds-exiled-critics-105705">Jamal Khashoggi's murder finally brings media attention to plight of Arab world's exiled critics</a>
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<p>Additionally, governments put pressure on the relatives of exiled activists by using them as weapons of retaliation. In 2017, for example, <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/5a61eea14.html">12 family members</a> of Azerbaijani opposition blogger Ordukhan Teymurkhan were detained by Azerbaijani police in Baku. The arrests were made after Teymurkhan took part in the pro-democratic <a href="https://www.meydan.tv/en/site/news/21238/%20%5BAccessed%20:29%20October%202018">Free Political Prisoners</a> protest in Cologne, Germany. Similar tactics have been reported <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-urged-stop-vicious-retaliation-against-activists-hudoidodova-relatives/29417810.html">in Tajikistan</a>.</p>
<p>So what are the implications of such actions for world politics? Where are the red lines for countries that are hosting dissidents and what happens when they are crossed? These questions have yet to be satisfactorily answered, but Khashoggi’s death – and the recent assassination attempt on <a href="https://theconversation.com/colonel-chepiga-who-really-identified-the-skripal-poisoner-and-why-it-matters-104275">Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK</a> – illustrate the rise of authoritarian power that transcends sovereign boundaries.</p>
<p>Globalisation has made territorial boundaries more permeable – for better and for worse. But when authoritarian regimes flout international law and disregard the sovereignty of other countries to oppress those that oppose them, the rest of the world must act.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bahar Baser currently receives funding from the Newton Mobility Fund, The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Stanley Foundation, Gerda Henkel Stiftung and the Council for the British Research in the Levant for her research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saipira Furstenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Khashoggi’s ruthless killing is just one example of a broader trend including the widespread detention, kidnapping, murder and extradition of dissidents and their relatives.Saipira Furstenberg, Lecturer in Politics, Oxford Brookes UniversityBahar Baser, Senior Research Fellow, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835412017-09-07T10:47:41Z2017-09-07T10:47:41ZMusine Kokalari: a lost story of defiance in the face of political oppression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184884/original/file-20170906-9851-12q2x0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C2142%2C2155&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Musine Kokalari during her trial in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://musinekokalari.org/en/biography/">Albanian Telegraphic Agency</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Musine Kokalari was an Albanian writer and political dissident. She was imprisoned and suffered the humiliation of a public show trial under a despotic regime which murdered her brothers and kept her under surveillance and in exile most of her life. Her brave story can now be told after <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32552372">secret police files</a> were released that revealed details about a shocking miscarriage of justice which deprived the world of a great writer.</p>
<p><a href="http://musinekokalari.org/en/">Kokalari</a> was Albania’s first female writer of note from the pre-communist period. She was born in 1917 in Adana, Turkey, where from an early age the young Musine showed a passion for literature and national folklore. The Kokalari family were at the centre of literary and political activity. </p>
<p>They returned to their native Gjirokastra in southern Albania in 1920. In 1938 Kokalari embarked on university studies in literature at La Sapienza University, Rome. She kept a diary, <a href="https://www.viella.it/libro/9788867285952">My University Life</a>, which was published in 2016. Then in 1941, she published her first book called, As My Grandma Says. The book is about the daily struggles of a Gjirokastran woman living in a deeply patriarchal society and can be seen as an early feminist text.</p>
<h2>The writer and political dissident</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184938/original/file-20170906-9862-ja77vc.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Musine Kokalari.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://musinekokalari.org/en/biography/">Linda Kokalari/Musine Kokalari Institute</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>It was during her studies that Kokalari joined anti-fascist and anti-communist movements. She continued her political activities upon her return to Albania in 1942 where she co-founded the Albanian Social Democratic Party. Her brother’s bookshop became a hub of intellectual activity. As a result the family was kept under close surveillance by the communist authorities (represented by the National Liberation Movement/National Liberation Front). Two of her brothers, Vesim and Muntaz, were <a href="http://musinekokalari.org/en/">executed</a> by the state for their political activities. Kokalari herself was detained and arrested several times in 1945 after openly expressing her views against totalitarianism. </p>
<p>She was then involved in the Democratic Coalition, a political movement that supported the postponement of elections and for multi-party elections. The writer hoped that representatives from the United Kingdom and the United States would monitor the elections. But all 37 members of the coalition were arrested and deemed traitors of the Albanian nation. Neither the US nor the UK intervened. </p>
<h2>Hair torn from her head</h2>
<p>In 1946, Kokalari stood before the military court in the Albanian capital, Tirana. She was threatened, intimidated and coerced. <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/projects/in-search-of-musine-kokalari-history-memory-and-law(97837a1a-d116-4d5e-8bdd-b8824d2afd57).html">Archival memos</a> refer to her hair being torn out of her head by bystanders. Her trial was transmitted live via loud speakers to the crowds outside. Her stoic stance is illustrated in a photograph taken by the Albanian Telegraphic Agency. In defiance she wore a mourning veil in memory of her executed brothers. Her powerful image made the front page of the broadsheets in Albania two days running. </p>
<p>This trial was the second in a run of six organised by the authorities from that period that effectively eliminated “enemies of the state”. It was dubbed the “political dissidents trial” and it sent a message about the direction that the regime was taking towards free speech. It did not stop Kokalari. She used the trial to stand up for her rights. <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/projects/in-search-of-musine-kokalari-history-memory-and-law(97837a1a-d116-4d5e-8bdd-b8824d2afd57).html">Witness accounts</a> speak of her declaring: “I do not need to be a communist to love my country”. Despite her bravery, she would have endured severe, prolonged torture during her detention and trial. The court refused to let her speak for any length of time. </p>
<p>Kokalari was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, of which she served 16. She spent a further period of exile in northern Albania, where she worked as a manual labourer. She joked that she was a “mortar specialist” as her work involved heavy, arduous construction. On her days off she would visit the library and sit in a public place reading a book under the watchful eye of the secret police. Despite the fact that she was forbidden to write, she secretly completed <a href="http://musinekokalari.org/en/">a manuscript</a> about the founding of the Social Democratic Movement. Kokalari died in 1983 – two years before the decline of the dictatorship – after being refused treatment for cancer by the Albanian government.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184953/original/file-20170906-9109-1jeuz6j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kokalari with her brother Vesim.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Linda Kokalari/Musine Kokalari Institute.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>The fragile rule of law</h2>
<p>The near full isolation imposed on her by the communist authorities denied Albanian society and the wider world her powerful voice and writings. Kokalari’s writing tapped into local custom and language, using local dialects in a lucid way, as she wrote about the challenges facing her generation of women. Her broader outlook about her country’s future as a democracy is far from outdated. At its core the protection of free speech as a key to participating in and contributing to civil society should serve to remind us how democracies are still works in progress. Her trial and the trials of her contemporaries show how fragile the rule of law can be.</p>
<p>In April 2015 the Albanian parliament <a href="http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-to-open-communists-secret-files-10-13-2015">passed a law</a> permitting individuals to access their secret police or Sigurimi files. In 2017 the Kokalari family was presented with the file that the Sigurimi kept on her. Within it they found the <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/musine-kokalari-and-the-power-of-images(59fbe9ca-d442-49b0-860d-9ff5fb8133a1).html">powerful and defiant photograph</a> of the writer standing alone in front a crowd of people as she was put on trial for her beliefs (main image). Kokalari is evidence of a political dissident voice in a country with little experience with democracy and which existed in near isolation for most of the 20th century. It continues to struggle with its communist past. </p>
<p>It is a timely moment, in Kokalari’s centenary year, to reflect on the contribution that this remarkable woman made to Albania’s cultural and political life. Her life story is a poignant tale of achievement and ambition, of hope in the face of repression and also inspiration – for Albanians and non-Albanians alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agata, who has researched and published on Musine Kokalari, is curating an exhibit of photographs of Musine for the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, which opens 11 September and runs until 16 October 2017. A short film produced by Agata, with support from Lancaster University and a film team from York University, of Musine making her court statement at her 1946 trial accompanies the exhibit.</span></em></p>Musine Kokalari was imprisoned and tortured by the communist regime in Albania in 1946 for standing up for free speech.Agata Fijalkowski, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster Law School, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753562017-05-03T14:11:50Z2017-05-03T14:11:50ZWhat eastern bloc dissidents can teach us about ‘living in truth’<p>“Fake news” may be getting lots of <a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-news-why-people-believe-it-and-what-can-be-done-to-counter-it-70013">headlines</a>, but it is as old as the hills. Propagandists have relied on false evidence for centuries. Of course, not all propaganda campaigns are dishonest; indeed many efforts at persuading people of things are laudable. But the phenomenon of fake news and the “post-truth” culture in which it thrives are clearly a threat to democracy, and to the public sphere that democracy depends on to survive.</p>
<p>Everyone has a part to play in pushing back. Most of us probably assume that only other people fall prey to false or exaggerated news stories. This is complacent. Media historians emphasise that propaganda often exploits <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pEsXBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT54&lpg=PT54&dq=propaganda+builds+on+things+that+already+exist&source=bl&ots=yirPSQwlSd&sig=KB_72F0eQGl43nHJ5guMQf7lpEU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjM26C5wNHTAhWDzxQKHWSEAV0Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=propaganda%20builds%20on%20things%20that%20already%20exist&f=false">already-existing trends</a> rather than creating new ones, making subtle use of half-truths as well as outright falsehoods – and it can be much harder to unpick half-truths than to demolish lies. </p>
<p>Fortunately, a few decades ago, matters of truth-telling and lying were a major concern for Soviet and Eastern European dissidents living under communism, where propaganda was all-pervasive. Their ideas have long outlasted their times, and today they should interest anyone seeking to challenge dishonesty or speak truth to power, or even simply to live truthfully. </p>
<p>They are all the more relevant because the propaganda techniques currently used by Moscow have roots in the Soviet era, and it is valuable to know how people sought to respond to them then. But their ideas have a relevance well beyond Russia; after all, no country, group or person is immune to half-truths or disinformation.</p>
<h2>Reality itself</h2>
<p>On these issues, the thinking of Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, one of Soviet communism’s most trenchant critics, deserves special attention. When Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, he built his <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1970/solzhenitsyn-lecture.html">Nobel lecture</a> around a Russian proverb: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world”. Simple truths, he argued, are always a threat to totalitarianism.</p>
<p>In his 1974 essay, <a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SolhenitsynLies.php">Live Not by Lies</a>, Solzhenitsyn suggested that to end repression, people needed to resist lies and learn to live “by truth”. “Never knowingly support lies,” he declared. While he acknowledged that that could be risky, to put it mildly, he saw it as a kind of minimalist strategy, one within everyone’s reach.</p>
<p>Dissidents and reformers alike read Live Not by Lies as a vision for a different kind of society. One man impressed with Solzhenitsyn’s thinking was the Czech dramatist and future president, Václav Havel. In his 1978 essay, <a href="https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/700">The Power of the Powerless</a>, Havel suggested that people “need not accept the lie”. He imagines a greengrocer who stops putting up slogans he disagrees with and voting in fake elections, and starts to say what he really thinks at political meetings – breaking the “rules of the game” that underpin the system. In finding the strength to follow his conscience, Havel suggests, the man makes an attempt to live “within the truth”.</p>
<p>The notion of “living in truth” points to the idea that being truthful isn’t just a matter of uttering true statements, but also about becoming a truthful person in the fullest sense. Truthfulness and integrity are entwined; <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130515_udienza-generale.html">religious thinkers</a> sometimes talk of the “spirit of truth” at work within people. The Russian philosopher Semyon Frank, writing from a Christian humanist perspective, once wrote that truth is ‘not a judgement about reality, but the living presence of the reality itself".</p>
<p>Another relevant text is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/02/books/books-of-the-times-an-individual-s-triumph-over-soviet-state-power.html">Fear No Evil</a>, a 1986 memoir by Jewish refusnik Nathan Sharansky. Sharansky was imprisoned for his involvement in the <a href="http://www.osce.org/secretariat/73223?download=true">Moscow Helsinki Group</a>, set up in 1976 to monitor human rights abuses. He used to prepare for interrogation by reflecting on the Psalms of David and having imaginary conversations with characters from literature. He was conscious that if he did not develop a rich inner life, he could easily be drawn into compromises he would later regret. </p>
<p>Again, this speaks to our own time, where it is so easy for people to get caught up in the latest news story or media-driven discussion. When we lose our “inner freedom” – another term popular in dissident circles – we become open to manipulation by political, commercial and cultural agendas of all kinds.</p>
<h2>Truth for its own sake</h2>
<p>Truth-telling is not easy in times when the very concept of truth has been brought into disrepute. Lenin named the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, which is Russian for truth. In practice, this meant the politicisation of truth – identifying as true whatever policy or idea the Communist Party chose to promote. Unsurprisingly, there was widespread disillusionment when the Soviet regime failed to deliver on its promises.</p>
<p>It is hard not to be cynical about people who loudly claim to speak the truth, and understandings of what truth even is have certainly changed over time. But to move from that insight to saying that everyone has their own truth is a step too far. No university would survive on a principle like that, even if the “post-truth” culture, with its implicit connections to postmodernism, has some of its roots <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-origins-of-post-truth-and-how-it-was-spawned-by-the-liberal-left-68929">in the academy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=145&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167559/original/file-20170502-17263-gno5tl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Truth: Pravda’s masthead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pravda_logo.png#/media/File:Pravda_logo.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Truth is more than a means to an end. There are times when truths need to be expressed, whether or not a positive outcome will be the result. As Anatoly Yakobson, editor of Soviet human rights journal The Chronicle of Current Events, once <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pIPMFvJW5AgC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=%22One+must+begin+by+postulating+that+truth+is+needed+for+its+own+sake+and+for+no+other+reason%22&source=bl&ots=2lq8jUTkqO&sig=TWMLyIFCme4PfI8QTsORNz4Ayro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI5LDHtdHTAhXKvBQKHVNZCIMQ6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=%22One%20must%20begin%20by%20postulating%20that%20truth%20is%20needed%20for%20its%20own%20sake%20and%20for%20no%20other%20reason%22&f=false">declared</a>: “One must begin by postulating that truth is needed for its own sake and for no other reason.” Or in the words of famous physicist and dissident <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=17seBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=%22may+hope+for+nothing,+but+nevertheless+speak+because+he+cannot,+simply+cannot+remain+silent%22&source=bl&ots=z7EoXEAERE&sig=tDW0GBSglvAGtQCGI0T6oFwhHnQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNouCHttHTAhUE6xQKHXtuDrEQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22may%20hope%20for%20nothing%2C%20but%20nevertheless%20speak%20because%20he%20cannot%2C%20simply%20cannot%20remain%20silent%22&f=false">Andrei Sakharov</a>: “[A man] may hope for nothing, but nevertheless speak because he cannot, simply cannot remain silent.”</p>
<p>Living in truth doesn’t mean speaking out unthinkingly on every issue. It matters not just what we say, but how we say it. It’s all too easy to become strident or pedantic, forgetting that truths expressed well have the power to unlock hearts and open up conversation. Besides, truth and untruth are often mixed up, and it can take time and care to separate the two.</p>
<p>In these times as much as ever, we must live in truth, and learn to tell the truth in constructive ways. This may seem obvious, but in practice it’s no small task – and democracy depends on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Boobbyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Solzhenitsyn saw it, simple truths are always a threat to totalitarianism.Philip Boobbyer, Reader in History, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628952016-07-26T05:38:32Z2016-07-26T05:38:32ZTurkey coup: why have teachers and academics been targeted?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131899/original/image-20160726-31198-1exkeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Following the failed coup in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered the sacking of nearly 1,600 deans, 21,000 teachers and 15,000 education bureaucrats.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tolga Bozoglu/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkey-struggles-to-make-sense-of-a-surreal-failed-coup-detat-62596">failed coup</a> attempt on July 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered the closure of more than 1,000 private schools, revoked the licenses of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/turkey-demands-resignation-of-every-university-dean-in-country-a/">21,000 school teachers</a>, sacked 15,000 education bureaucrats, and asked almost 1,600 university deans to resign from both state and private universities. Turkish academics have also been <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/turkey-issues-travel-ban-academics-failed-coup-160720100811188.html.">banned from travel</a>. </p>
<p>This mass sacking, in tandem with the purges in the military, police and judiciary, has taken the total number of people estimated to have either lost their jobs or be detained within the two weeks post-coup to <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/turkey-set-for-emergency-measures-to-quell-post-coup-turmoil.html">around 60,000</a>.</p>
<h2>Why have education staff been targeted?</h2>
<p>What do school teachers, bureaucrats and university deans have to do with the senior military personnel that attempted the coup? The short answer is: nothing. There is no direct connection. </p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36855846">Gülen movement</a>, which is accused of masterminding the coup, is at its core an education-based movement with schools as its major focus. </p>
<p>It is difficult to know how many Gülen schools there are – they are not founded in Gülen’s name, but rather are established under philanthropic foundations. </p>
<p>As such, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Oe0GDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=number+of+gulen+schools+in+Turkey&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6xNWym5DOAhVCGJQKHW1qCs0Q6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=number%20of%20gulen%20schools%20in%20Turkey&f=false">estimates</a> of the number of schools in the academic literature vary quite markedly from around 150 to 500 in Turkey. </p>
<p>Given these numbers, the closure <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/23/turkey-erdogan-closure-of-1000-private-schools-gulen">of more than 1,000 private schools</a> seems a high number and suggests there might be some collateral damage, for <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-23/turkey-publishes-decree-to-close-gulen-linked-institutions">the aim</a> is to weed out all Gülen schools and those associated with them from all aspects of the state. The prime minister, Binali Yildirim, has vowed to remove the Gülen movement <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/turkey-security-yildirim-gulen-idINKCN0ZZ0TK">“by its roots”</a>.</p>
<p>Such a purge is deeply troubling, especially the sacking of the university deans. </p>
<h2>Seizing control</h2>
<p>It is an extreme measure that seems to speak to a broader agenda of seizing control of all facets of the state and quelling any dissent, as the university sector has historically been a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/20/unprecedented-purge-deans-turkey">stronghold</a> for both liberals and secularists.</p>
<p>Recent history reveals that Erdoğan has a track record of clamping down on those from the higher education sector that critique the government. <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkeys-academics-pay-heavy-price-for-resisting-erdogans-militarised-politics-54088">Earlier this year</a> he came down hard on Turkish academics that signed a petition organised by a group called “Academics for Peace”, that asked the government to end the fighting against the Kurdish militants. </p>
<p>All of the 1,128 signatories, from <a href="http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/171152-investigations-universities-reactions-against-academics">89</a> universities, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/15/turkey-rounds-up-academics-who-signed-petition-denouncing-attacks-on-kurds">were investigated</a>. 33 academics were <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/turkish-academics-pay-price-speaking-out-kurds?platform=hootsuite">detained</a> for alleged propaganda for a terrorist organisation. <a href="http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2016/02/government-turkey-academics-arrested-protest-kurdish-military-action">109 academics from 20 Turkish universities</a> were disciplined, suspended or sacked. Interestingly, this crackdown saw the number of signatories on the petition jump to <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkeys-academics-pay-heavy-price-for-resisting-erdogans-militarised-politics-54088">nearly 5,000</a>, garnering public as well as international support.</p>
<p>While the Gülen movement is certainly the major target of this latest salvo against the education sector on account of its vast network of schools, the sacking of nearly 38,000 staff – many of whom are probably not associated with the movement (something which is difficult to ascertain as there is no formal membership process) – speaks more to a general clearing of the decks to gain tighter control.</p>
<p>It has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/22/biggest-witch-hunt-turkish-history-coup-erdogan-europe-help">reported</a> that at a funeral for a coup protester, attended by Erdoğan, the imam prayed: “Protect us, Lord, from all malice, especially that of the educated”, to which the crowd roared “Amen!” </p>
<p>This quixotic prayer could be another veiled jibe at the Gülen movement, or it could speak to a broader agenda of control through removing educated dissident voices. This attack is also reflected in the sustained war against the media.</p>
<p>In other words, it seems Erdoğan may be seeking to realise the prayer and protect both himself and his party from the educated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Tittensor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The sacking of Turkish education staff speaks to a broader agenda of control through removing educated dissident voices.David Tittensor, Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/562222016-03-15T12:08:23Z2016-03-15T12:08:23ZHow Afrikaner identity can be re-imagined in a post-apartheid world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114975/original/image-20160314-11302-1qrbk4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Birds flock around a statue of Boer War leader Paul Kruger at Pretoria's Church Square.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is a foundation essay. These are longer than usual and take a wider look at a key issue affecting society.</em></p>
<p>In a post-apartheid context, is a democratic Afrikaner identity possible? Are there other traditions apart from apartheid that can be drawn on in Afrikaner culture that can advance democracy and social justice? These questions are particularly relevant in South Africa, given that in recent years there has been a heightened contestation over Afrikaner identify, driven by a hardening of whiteness.</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/national-party-np">National Party</a> came to power in 1948 politician <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/johannes-g-strijdom">JG Strijdom</a>, the apartheid prime minister between 1954 and 1958 who was nicknamed the “Lion of the North”, demanded “<em>eendersdenkendheid</em>”. The <a href="http://capetownhistory.com/?page_id=262">Afrikaans</a> word means a condition of thinking the same. It is a collective term as it necessarily requires more than one person to abide by it. </p>
<p>The directive of <em>eendersdenkendheid</em> was founded in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/apartheid-and-reactions-it">apartheid</a>. Opposition to apartheid was as treasonous as refusing to defend your country during a war, hardliner Strijdom told his white, assumed-to-be male audience.</p>
<p>This demand for conformism to a particular ethnic configuration of <a href="http://www.cpt.org/files/Undoing%20Racism%20-%20Three%20Pillars%20-%20Smith.pdf">heteropatriarchal white supremacism</a> – also known as apartheid – permeated Afrikaner nationalism. State power amplified the authoritarian tendency of conformism in Afrikanerdom. Anyone who did not bend the knee was a “<em>volksverraaier</em>”, or traitor to the <em>volk</em> (Afrikaner people).</p>
<h2>A democratic Afrikaner identity</h2>
<p>In thinking what it means to <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/news-and-events/Final%20Programme.pdf">re-imagine</a> the formerly hegemonic identity of apartheid, namely “the Afrikaner”, and what 22 years of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/timeline-20-years-democracy-1994-2014">democracy</a> in South Africa should mean for this identity, I want to advance <em>andersdenkendheid</em> – a condition of thinking differently – as the democratic duty of Afrikaners.</p>
<p><em>Andersdenkendheid</em> refers again to a collective. But it is a countervailing action against conformism in that one adopts a posture of questioning and critical thinking. One then creates a condition of thinking differently to the dominant thinking within a collective, which is literally what <em>andersdenkendheid</em> means.</p>
<p>Certain sections of white Afrikaans-speaking civil society and the media want Afrikaners to think that they all have the same beliefs. They want all Afrikaners to inherently believe that women, black people, lesbians and gays are inferior. They want all Afrikaners to feel so threatened by anyone different to what is regarded as the “norm” that everyone has to suppress their humanity.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dolLuO9hM5s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Recent clashes over the use of Afrikaans as language of instruction at the University of Pretoria.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But not all Afrikaners are like that. There were those Afrikaners who had the courage to be different, who were the <em>volksverraaiers</em> (traitors to the people) before South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994. Treason in this sense meant rejecting racist and heteropatriarchal oppression and brutalisation.</p>
<p>They are the people who today can show Afrikaners how to once again say “not in my name” when certain organisations pretend to speak on their behalf. Or when certain media corporations pretend to represent “true Afrikaner identity”. The <em>volksverraaiers</em> point the way to full participation in South Africa’s democracy.</p>
<h2>A constructed identity</h2>
<p>Why was there such a strong emphasis on <em>eendersdenkendheid</em> about apartheid, to the extent that diversion amounted to <em>volksverraad</em> (treason)? As with all identities, Afrikanerness is constructed. It was cobbled together using race, gender, class, sexuality and, importantly, ethnicity.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114976/original/image-20160314-11274-zggqh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The neo-nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) epitomised the fascist tendency in Afrikaner nationalism especially during the 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Peter Andrews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Afrikanerness was a particularly precarious identity. It wedged a space where it claimed the privileges of dominant Anglo whiteness but also demanded separateness on the basis of ethnicity. However, it did not want to be lumped with black ethnic others because then it would lose the benefits of whiteness.</p>
<p>Therefore Afrikaner nationalism spent the first several decades of the 20th century <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=LgwWMUbyNVUC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=%22purification%22+of+afrikaners&source=bl&ots=1a46Z1cOnt&sig=VrdCmD0a1e7JFRGKX9-VnIoc9Do&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQxd3RgsDLAhUFXRoKHaG2BF0Q6AEILDAG#v=onepage&q=%22purification%22%20of%20afrikaners&f=false">“purifying”</a> its members. </p>
<p>But seismic changes were under way that would have profound changes.</p>
<h2>Militant women, communists and literary dissidents</h2>
<p>After the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-war-1899-1902">South African War</a> of 1899-1902, Afrikaner nationalist cultural entrepreneurs undertook large-scale political, social and economic work to recruit individuals to their political project. This included emphasising the Afrikaans language over its Dutch predecessor. Class, gender and sexuality were used in the service of whiteness, for example, to “save” thousands of young Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking women under the guise of resolving the <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/sza/wpaper/wpapers28.html">“poor white problem”</a>. </p>
<p>These women, who went to work in Johannesburg and Pretoria, were breaking free from the patriarchal Boer family. They were mixing in the diverse communities burgeoning in the multiracial slums of the Witwatersrand. It was an intense scene of ideological battle. Afrikaner nationalism was up against socialism and liberalism. </p>
<p>The troublesome young women organised themselves in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/garment-workers-union-gwu">Garment Workers’ Union</a>, described as one of the most militant unions in the years between the two world wars. Leading members Hester and Johanna <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/johanna-catharina-jacoba-and-hester-elizabeth-sisters-cornelius">Cornelius</a>, <a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/document/EJC28503">Anna Scheepers</a>, Katie Viljoen, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=eXl9aGN5WGAC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=Dulcie+Hartwell&source=bl&ots=TvnffdvZPI&sig=m9VAZLj9jK0oEWm3gzQwbAaFymc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn2tH5hcDLAhULwBQKHVWpCbgQ6AEIQzAI#v=onepage&q=Dulcie%20Hartwell&f=false">Dulcie Hartwell </a>and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zhqc7q9oL2EC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=Katie+Viljoen+GWU&source=bl&ots=C6RhKcY3V9&sig=GHHLMNSI8CMw2GjBTZUWpg00cgk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy8-zAhcDLAhUJUBQKHTHcCT4Q6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=Katie%20Viljoen%20GWU&f=false">Anna Jacobs</a> created themselves as socialist <em>volksmoeders</em> (mothers of the nation). As Jacobs declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We shall take the lead and climb the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/man-made-women">Drakensberg</a> again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These socialist <em>volksmoeders</em> serve as a democratic pointer today. </p>
<p>Jacobs drew on the courage and militancy of the Boer women in the face of British imperialism. But she did so in an expansive mode of advancing equalisation. It was a proposition that was anathema to Afrikaner nationalism.</p>
<p>Advocate <a href="http://zar.co.za/fischer.htm">Bram Fischer</a> similarly serves as a democratic pointer. Fischer, who was part of the legal team that presented the 90-odd accused in the <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/multimedia.php?id=65-259-D">Treason Trial</a> of 1956-1961 and member of the <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/">Communist Party</a>, came from “Afrikaner royalty”. He was prosecuted under the <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01840.htm">Suppression of Communism Act</a> in <a href="http://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/fischer,b.htm">1966</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">While despised by the Afrikaner community, Bram Fischer was a hero to many black South Africans.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/i-did-what-was-right-statement-dock-bram-fischer-after-conclusion-rivonia-trial-1966">dock</a> Fischer quoted <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/paul-kruger-timeline-1825-1904">Paul Kruger</a>, the Boer republic president:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With confidence we lay our case open before the whole world. Whether we conquer or whether we die: Freedom shall rise in Africa like the sun from the morning clouds.</p>
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<p>Again, Fischer was expanding Kruger’s notion of freedom from British imperialism to a much more encompassing idea. </p>
<p>Fischer was sentenced to life imprisonment and subjected to daily humiliations and harsh treatment in prison. </p>
<p>The poet <a href="http://www.stellenboschwriters.com/breyten.html">Breyten Breytenbach</a> faced similar treatment. He had become <a href="http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/view/44411">radicalised</a> when his Vietnamese partner Yolande was denied entry to South Africa on the basis of being “non-white” in the mid-60s. His militant organisation <a href="http://amykarafin.com/pdfs/breytenbach.pdf">Okhela</a> was short-lived. He was arrested and sentenced to seven years in jail.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/mla-apartheids-blind-spot-the-albino-terrorist/158917.article">“Confessions of an Albino Terrorist”</a>, Breytenbach describes how his Afrikaner male warden singled him out for abuse. The warden was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a complete marionette, fierce and violent. He opened my door with a brusque gesture… and said ‘Ek is die baas van die plaas [I am the boss around here]. I will make you crawl… You will get to know me yet’. Yes, I did get to know him.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Afrikaans poet Breyten Breytenbach was jailed for terrorism by the apartheid state.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These examples make a specific point. Afrikaner nationalism enforced a particularly totalitarian version of identity in which there was little room to manoeuvre for any individuals. Those who dared to transgress were heavily punished.</p>
<p>Writing during apartheid, author <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-02-13-00-andre-brink-a-master-of-words-of-form">Andre Brink</a> explained that dissidence provoked a vicious reaction from the Afrikaner establishment because it subverted apartheid. A dissident was regarded as a traitor to everything Afrikanerdom stood for, since apartheid had become everything that Afrikanerdom stood for.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Afrikaans author Andre Brink was an anti-apartheid dissident.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the post-apartheid conditions of a reassertion of white supremacism, the socialist <em>volksmoeders</em>, Fischer and Breytenbach can be used as guides. What sets these so-called traitors or <em>volksverraaiers</em> apart from the <em>volk</em> is their ability to identify with the racialised other through a sense of common humanity.</p>
<h2>Mandela’s Poet</h2>
<p><a href="https://diesestigers.wordpress.com/ingrid-jonker/">Ingrid Jonker</a>, poet and daughter of a National Party politician responsible for censorship, exemplified this. Her poems include “<a href="http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/culture/3988-ingrid-jonker-the-child-is-not-dead">The child who was shot by soldiers at Nyanga</a>”, which was read by Nelson Mandela when he opened the first democratic parliament in 1994. Her poem “<a href="https://skemerlig.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/i-am-with-those-ingrid-jonker/">I am with those</a>” features a line: “I am with those […]/ coloured African deprived.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela read an Ingrid Jonker poem at the opening of South Africa’s first democratic parliament.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As the US philosopher Judith <a href="http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm">Butler</a> reminds us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One seeks to preserve oneself against the injuriousness of the other but if one was successful at walling oneself off from injury one would become inhuman.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <em>volksverraaiers</em> lived this truth in the face of a system that dehumanised its outsiders and made its insiders inhuman.</p>
<p>There are again attempts to re-enforce <em>eendersdenkendheid</em>, to narrow down and simplify Afrikaner identities, and to corral Afrikaners into a <a href="http://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/hands-on-classroom/classroom/pages/projects/grade12/lesson13/glossary.htm">laager</a> with a view of the world filled with suspicion, fear and arrogance. The <em>volksverraaiers</em> point the way out of this inhumanity. They have done so by claiming the tradition of <em>andersdenkendheid</em>. With that they have provided Afrikaners with a place to build the vibrant democracy that is South Africa.</p>
<p><em>A version of this paper was first delivered at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies’ Re-imagining Afrikaner Identities Dialogue, Johannesburg, March 10 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christi van der Westhuizen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do Afrikaners find a place in post-apartheid South Africa? A look back at the dissidents who took on the apartheid state over decades offers some examples.Christi van der Westhuizen, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.