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A very un-orange "revolution"

Mark MacKinnon, 04/12/06 at 6:12 AM EDT

As I strolled through the tent camp in front of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s offices in Beirut the other night, my mind repeatedly flashed back two years in time to another December, another uprising.


 The parallels between what is happening in Lebanon and the Orange Revolution that shook Ukraine in 2004 are obvious and intentional. The Hezbollah-led anti-government coalition in Lebanon clearly studied the non-violent tactics that helped propel Viktor Yushchenko to office and are applying them with great discipline.


 The forest of canvas tents erected on Beirut’s muddy Riad al-Solh square is almost a mirror image of the tent city that orange-clad demonstrators lived in for weeks on Kiev’s snow-covered Khreshchatyk Street.


 As in Kiev, the campsite is policed by demonstrators anxious to both keep out provocateurs and keep protestors on message, though the backgammon boards and water pipes that demonstrators pass the nights with add a distinctly Middle Eastern touch. The calls for clean government and an end to corruption are also familiar, as are the accusations of foreign interference on both sides. As in Kiev, a large stage has been erected in the city centre, lending the protests a music-festival atmosphere.


 Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities end. While the orange revolutionaries set up camp during a disputed election – believing that their candidate had been cheated of victory – the anti-Siniora demonstrators are calling for the fall of a government that won a clear majority of seats in a popular election just 18 months ago (albeit under a much-hated election law that assures that the country’s Shia population is under-represented). Demanding the collapse of a legitimately installed government necessarily gives these protests a more aggressive tone, and stiffens the resolve of those on the other side of the razor wire that now separates the regime from its critics.


 More worrying are the demonstrators’ chants. The signature slogan of the Orange Revolution was a hip-hop song written for the occasion that had the chorus “together we are many, we cannot be defeated.”


 Lebanon’s demonstrators cannot even pretend at the same feel-good unity. In fact, the demonstrations have in many ways broken from one mass protest into two.


 On Riad al-Solh, where the protestors are almost exclusively Shiites, the frenzied chants of “Allah, Nasrallah, the Dahiyeh!” – praising Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Shiite-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut – are somewhat less than inclusive.


 Meanwhile, the followers of General Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, have effectively broken away from Hezbollah – though they still share the aim of bringing down Mr. Siniora’s government – and are holding their own smaller protests (including their own tent city) on the neighbouring Martyrs’ Square. It’s only a short walk away from where Hezbollah’s supporters are gathered – and the two camps occasionally do mingle during the day – but by nightfall, when the sides retreat to their camps, it’s clear that the two groups have less in common than they pretend. The chants of “God, Lebanon, the General, that’s all!” are no more welcoming than Hezbollah’s.


 Which is exactly why so many fear that the current demonstrations could disintegrate into very un-Orange Revolution violence. While there was an ethnic split in Ukraine, between the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country and the Russian-speaking east, there were in fact many Russian-speakers who supported Yushchenko and his ideas for the country. And the Russian-Ukrainian divide was nothing compared to the rifts in Lebanon.


 On the streets of Beirut, there are almost no Sunnis or Druze standing among the demonstrators. The Sunnis, in particular, see the protests as Shia effort to topple a Sunni-led government. The country’s Christians, meanwhile, are split between Gen. Aoun’s supporters, and those who back the pro-government Samir Geagea.


 Last night, as I walked through the aftermath of a shootout between Sunnis and Shias that left at least one person dead, it was clear that Lebanon was a country with too many guns, too much sectarian hatred, and no Viktor Yushchenkos. Sadly, no amount of canvas can cover that up.

Where Christmas really IS all about the shopping

Geoffrey York, 03/12/06 at 2:31 PM EDT

BEIJING – It’s one of the biggest and most elaborate nativity scenes I’ve ever seen – complete with a nearly life-size church and a bell tower, along with a manger and six other buildings. But the most bizarre touch is its location: in front of a shopping mall in the capital of Communist China, a country where an unauthorized Christian worshipper can be thrown in prison.

There are still three weeks to go until Christmas, but the Pacific Century shopping mall in Beijing, across the street from my apartment, is putting the finishing touches on its gigantic nativity scene. The fake stained glass has been installed in the windows of the faux church, with a Christian cross on the roof. The trees are decorated with fake candles. The imitation Christian paintings have been dabbed on the church walls. A Virgin Mary mannequin and a golden-haired Jesus doll are installed in the life-size manger.

Chinese shopping malls, of course, have been appropriating the symbols of Christmas for years. Malls are often decorated with Christmas trees, fake snow and ribbons, while Christmas carols are blared from loudspeakers and even Santa Claus images are common. But this is the first time I've seen such a large-scale display of a purely Christian image in such a prominent public space. What’s next? A nativity scene on top of Chairman Mao’s mausoleum in Tiananmen Square?

The irony is considerable. While its police are raiding the underground churches and arresting any unauthorized priests, China is happily using Christian imagery as a marketing gimmick to promote sales in its shops. Most Chinese shoppers, however, would be unaware of any paradox. For them, Christmas is just a good excuse for a gift-giving holiday, and most would not even recognize its religious connections.

"Commercialization is obviously a driving force behind its popularity in China," a local journalist explained in the pages of China Daily, the English-language propaganda newspaper. "And you cannot really fault us for ignoring its religious origin… We just welcome the jovial mood created by an imaginary fat old guy who vaguely resembles Buddha, who has the capacity to boost the sales of every store under the sun."

 

'The world's eye is on Turkey'

Doug Saunders, 01/12/06 at 9:19 PM EDT

What exactly happened in Istanbul on Thursday? Was it a great reconciliation between the supposedly clashing civilizations, or was it an angry shot across the bow of European harmony? This morning, nobody here seems to agree, though there is an enormous sense of relief, across Turkey, that everyone came off looking very mature and civilized.

People certainly expected something to happen, and they didn’t expect it to be good. The public hadn’t given much thought to the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI until he actually arrived on Wednesday; at that point, the already-unmanagable traffic of Istanbul ground to a halt, people were forced to walk in police-controlled throngs through the paralyzed streets, and the conspiracy theories began to spread. “He’s just landed, I know it,” one of many said on a streetcar as everything stopped moving (he was right). His friend added: “This is it. He’s going to start praying and turn it into a church.” Everyone nodded. Another man spoke up: “He’s going to make trouble and keep us out of Europe.” Everyone seemed to agree with this, too.

A third of the population of Istanbul seemed to believe that the Pope would drop to his knees in prayer when he visited the Hagia Sophia, and attempt to re-Christianize the Byzantine cathederal-turned-mosque-turned-museum that is claimed by the more extreme members of the Christian and Muslim faiths. The other half seemed to believe that he would do something dramatic and divisive that would drive Turkey out of Europe at the moment when its leaders are struggling to get admitted to the European Union. Another third of the population appeared to believe both theories.

In the end, the Pope did pray on Thursday- - but it was a history-making Muslim prayer, in the historic Blue Mosque. And he did make a statement, with the Orthodox Patriarch, that seemed to thrust Turkey out of Europe by declaring the continent fundamentally Christian and opposing secularism.

On Friday morning, people were scratching their heads. But the most excitement was generated by the Pope’s shoeless walk through the mosque and the meditative turn towards Mecca. The right-wing populist newspaper Vatan just about burst with excitement: “History was written in Istanbul - - He took off the Pradas - - Prayer of Apology – He turned toward Mecca”

The other mainstream newspapers carried similarly ebullient messages, with big pictures of the Pope and the Grand Mufti praying, hugging and generally cavorting in Abrahamic abandon.

A lone note of caution was struck by the staunchly secularist newspaper Cumhuriet. Above a photo of the Pope with the Patriarch, it ran a very different headline: “Ecuminical Crisis” (the second word also translates to “depression.”) Its deck read: “Bartholomew, despite Ankara, issues a declaration to the world with the Pope: It is a call to religion. Secularism is on the rise, he says, and we must return to religion.” It went on to say that the two leaders were trying to destroy Turkey’s policy of secularism and drive Turkey away from Europe. There was a sense yesterday that few observers had woken up to this other message (in the West, the Germans were almost alone in seeing this as the most important message delivered on Thursday; the English media concentrated on the mosque visit.”

But the business newspapers found a very different sort of secular message: Welcome back, tourism! After terrorist attacks and the bird flu had devastated the Turkish tourist images, suddenly the world was seeing something else: Panoramic shots of some of the most beautiful ancient religious buildings in the world, two religions living in peace, and streets that were virtually devoid of protesters (the failure of the anti-Pope parties to get more than a couple hundred people out says more about modern Turkey than anything).

So when the business newspaper Referans asked Prime Minister Tyyip Erdogan what had actually happened on Thursday, that was what he chose to notice.

“They used to know Turkey from the film Midnight Express,” he said, “But now we are the center of attention. The world’s eye is on Turkey.”

 

Silence in the streets

Paul Koring, 30/11/06 at 1:43 PM EDT

RIGA, Latvia -- Old town Riga, a beautiful warren of narrow streets, cobbled plazas, and elegant buildings still transforming from Soviet-era disrepair into a trendy urban space infused with history, has morphed into a security czar’s twisted fantasy. Crows and cats and cops in lime-green reflective vests seemed the only living things. Most shops were closed. Latvians had been given two days official holiday and told to go away. Residents of the old town were forced to go through airport style security screens erected in grim tents. It might make some Latvians rethink their massive nationwide hospitality effort.

For Latvia, the first former Soviet republic to host a NATO summit, the symbolism was huge. And it sometimes seems like everyone in this tiny Baltic republic has personally helped host the gathering. For instance, 5,000 pairs of mittens were individually hand-knitted for gift boxes to be given to the horde of official guests. But this week, it seemed almost none of the guests even saw Old Town, save the occasional leader through the darkened windows of hurtling, armoured limousines.

 

No more Mr. Nice Bus

Paul Koring, 29/11/06 at 1:45 PM EDT

RIGA, Latvia -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a little Baltic surprise for the media (the Dalits of his entourage). The first hint that Mr. Harper’s handlers were ditching decades of PMO travel tradition came when they didn’t collect passports from the handful of hacks flying with the prime minister to the NATO summit in Riga.

Usually, the entire entourage piles into in the motorcade; fancy, flags-on-fenders limo for the PM at the front, buses at the back for officials and the media. But after they boarded one of the empty 40-passenger buses parked on the tarmac when Mr. Harper’s air force plane taxied in for the official arrival, the media were ordered off. ``And take your bags,’’ a handler added helpfully.

Instead of zooming downtown in the motorcade like other delegations, Mr. Harper’s media pack were shuffled to "Arrivals’" and stood in line behind a just-landed Air Baltic flight.

First we welcome, then we protest

Doug Saunders, 28/11/06 at 12:52 PM EDT

ANKARA, Turkey -- In Turkey, few things are as prized as hospitality. They’re famous for it: Even a casual passer-by can become an honoured house guest, and to be rude or unkind to a visitor, in keeping with both Islamic values and Turkish secular traditions, is a very bad thing.


So the visit of Pope Benedict XVI today has posed something of a dilemma. He’s an honoured guest; he also bugs a lot of people. He has been unpopular here since the days when he was Cardinal Ratzinger and he argued that Turkey should never belong the European Union, lest its Muslim values poison the Christian heartland of Europe. And his speech in Germany in September, when he linked Christianity with reason and Islam with violence and unthinking faith, infuriated people here.


So how do you signal your disapproval of someone who happens to be a guest? On the streets and public squares of Ankara today, I found a lot of people wrestling with that one.


Here, on a dusty patch of land in front of Turkey’s vast Ministry of Religious Affairs building along a busy highway in the barren outskirts of Ankara, I met an Ufuk Erdem, a 37-year-old clerk with the agriculture ministry who was patiently waiting for the Pope to show up. With a small gaggle of protesters - - maybe 50 - - he was hoping to hold a protest. Some of his friends were holding placards denouncing the Pope as a crusader or a murderer.


“I wanted to show that we are not happy with the Pope’s words,” he told me. “He has insulted our religion, and he has shown over and over that he is opposed to Turks and that he has no respect for Islam.”


But what, then, did he think of the fact that his Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, had just shaken hands and warmly greeted the Pope? Had the Prime Minister, who had once been an outspoken Islamist, betrayed his principals?


“Of course he must be greeted as a guest,” Mr. Erdem said. “A guest is coming to our country. Although he’s an unpopular guest, he should be welcomed by the Turkish people. We need to show our hospitality.”


Most, to be fair, seemed not to be bothered at all: The place is not exactly swarming with protesters.. In fact, the big protest in Istanbul on Sunday, which had perhaps 25,000 people waving identical banners, didn’t look like a spontaneous display of anger at all but rather a party-organized affair. One senior official nodded and smiled when I mentioned this: “Of course. Nothing here is ever spontaneous.”


 

Policing human rights history

Geoffrey York, 26/11/06 at 1:46 PM EDT

BEIJING – This was no ordinary stroll to a museum. To reach this exhibit, I had to walk past a long menacing line of police vans and police cars. (I counted 24 police vehicles parked at the museum entrance, including jeeps and vans, not including the undercover police who were certainly there too.) Then I had to slip through a gauntlet of policemen and security guards, who were pushing back an angry Chinese citizen who waved his identity card in a futile attempt to enter the hall.

As a foreigner, I was ushered through the police gauntlet, and then through a metal detector. Then past an open space where dozens of back-up security guards were lounging, ready for duty. And finally into a grandiose hall – the cavernous Museum of Culture Palace of the Nationalities – where more policemen and guards were on high alert, watching every visitor carefully.

Welcome to a human-rights exhibition – China style. None of the organizers seemed bothered by the irony of the scene. Here was China trying to boast of its political rights and freedoms – yet the entire event was blanketed by a heavy police presence and a thuggish attitude to visitors.

Inside the first hall, visitors were greeted by giant photos of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, former president Jiang Zemin and current president Hu Jintao – all surrounded by happy smiling Chinese citizens in ethnic folk costumes. The introduction claimed that China had made "unremitting efforts" to improve human rights, leading to "prominent achievements that attract the world’s attention." (China’s record of human rights has certainly attracted the world’s attention, but not for the reasons that its bureaucrats apparently believe.)

The introduction droned on, laden with official slogans and deadened phrases: "To respect and safeguard human rights is the ideal and goal that the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have all along pursued, a significant concept with which the party and government take command, make the country prosper and construct a well-off society in all aspects during the new social period and an important part of the construction of a harmonious socialist society."

The three huge exhibition rooms were filled with more than 700 photos, 250 documents, 330 books and 24 diagrams. (These numbers were listed breathlessly in every laudatory article about the exhibit in the state press.) But there was not a word about the millions of innocent Chinese killed in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Nor was there anything about the hundreds of peaceful students killed by the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

There was a grudging reference to "serious setbacks and mistakes" which occasionally happened, and a brief reference to mistakes during the Cultural Revolution, but no details about the death toll, the ruined lives, the violence and bloodshed. Instead the emphasis of the exhibit was on China’s economic development – the "rags-to-riches stories" of the Chinese people under Communist guidance, as the state media explained it.

The exhibit, which ended today after a 10-day run, has attracted a number of petitioners who tried desperately to protest against government abuses, including land seizures and local corruption. Most of the protestors were forcibly bundled into the police vans and carted away. Some Chinese citizens were allowed into the exhibit, of course. A number of state organizations were required to fill buses with official delegations to visit the exhibit. (One such visitor complained of how boring and absurd it was.)

In the final room of the exhibition, three computer screens allowed you to read more about human rights. Three Chinese men were engrossed in the computers. At first I was impressed – until I realized that all of them were playing computer solitaire games, oblivious to the slogans around them.

Sunnis, Shias and sahafis: Beirut on the brink

Mark MacKinnon, 26/11/06 at 5:32 AM EDT

The atmosphere of tension in this city following the assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel is hard to explain to those who aren’t here right now. The Lebanese talk constantly about how dangerous the situation is, but when they're not staging mass protests in the city centre, they're largely going about their lives as if nothing were happening at all. You can almost forget how close this country is to the brink of something disastrous until the situation explodes in front of you.

 It happened to me on Thursday night, just hours after the massive funeral-cum-political rally staged by pro-Western forces in the centre of Beirut. When reports came over the news wires that hundreds of Shia Muslims – supporters of the Hezbollah militia – were blocking the road to the airport, Megan Stack of the Los Angeles Times and I decided we should head out to see first-hand what was going on.

 Our intention was to be there as witnesses, just in case the demonstration turned violent and details like who did what first became crucial. Instead, we very nearly became the story.

 As we headed towards the airport, it became clear that the main protest – heeding a call for calm from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – had broken up. But gangs of young men were still roaming the streets on motorcycles, looking for trouble. On the dimly lit airport road, they looked like a swarm of angry hornets, buzzing about waving yellow Hezbollah banners.

 Perhaps foolishly, we decided to follow them in our decidedly-out-of-place white taxi cab. The motorcyclists circled menacingly at the edge of the Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of Tariq al-Jadeeda, looking for a fight. The Shias were angry over insults to Nasrallah they heard at the Gemayel funeral and wanted some form of revenge.

 Soon, they settled on a target – a Sunni mosque on the edge of the neighbourhood – and began hurling stones and anything else they could find over the iron fence, looking to damage the place of prayer in any way they could. It drew the predictable response. Within minutes, a chanting mob of several dozen enraged Sunni men came sprinting up the street, hurling stones at the Shias, who quickly dispersed.

 There was no one left for the mob to vent its anger on – except Megan and I, who had run back to our taxi to find our driver had taken a mental break and was strolling the sidewalk, entirely unaware of the danger we were in. Megan wisely jumped into the back seat of the car and locked her door.

 Less wisely, I turned to face the charging mass, hoping I could explain myself to them. There wasn't time. In a rage, one of the men grabbed the front of my shirt and lifted a club over his head, intending to bash me on the suspicion that I may have had something to do with the mosque attack.

 That’s when my off-and-on attempts to study Arabic paid off. “Laa, laa – ana bass sahafi!” I told him. Just a journalist. He paused for a second, confused, then seemed to decide after some internal debate to proceed with the bashing. Whether or not I was telling the truth, to him I was clearly an idiot for hanging around his neighbourhood at night. Perhaps a blow to the head would straighten me out. He lifted his arm higher. Another man, also wielding a club, caught up to us. He looked anxious for a turn hitting me whenever the first guy was through.

 “Min Kanada!” I shouted. From Canada. I repeated it in English and French, just in case he was aware of our country’s official bilingualism. He paused again, but looked unconvinced. “Afwan, Afwan,” I said. Excuse me. Excuse me. Unbidden, but the most Canadian thing I could have said at that point. Clubber No. 2 intervened. “He’s from Canada,” he told my first would-be assailant. Maybe he’d seen a Due South rerun.

 Just then, the Lebanese army arrived, separating the mob from its babbling prey. The Sunnis warily returned to their homes, and the dazed mass media was sent on its way.

 A happy ending this time out. But this country can’t get any closer to the edge without falling over. When I’m finished this blog, I’m cracking open the Arabic textbooks to learn how to say “don’t shoot.”

Eating with Jesus in Kandahar

Graeme Smith, 23/11/06 at 5:08 PM EDT

My Afghan friends are conspiracy theorists.

Their country has been a gaming field for spies, a chessboard of intrigues between great powers, for so many centuries that the idea of simple motives seems laughable to them.

Is the United States really interested in rebuilding Afghanistan so it can never again serve as a host for terrorism? This makes them giggle. They consider me a little naive for arguing, again and again, that the Western world wants to fix what's wrong in this country and go home. They see darker ambitions. None of them want the foreign troops to leave now. They assure me that civil wars will erupt the minute that happens. But they're skeptical about whether the foreign militaries really have a desire to leave, ever.

Isn't it true, they ask, that big military bases in Afghanistan give the U.S. a presence near the borders of Iran and China? Wouldn't the Americans love to establish here a permanent outpost of their empire?

Isn't this a kind of colonialism?

So maybe it's a good thing that these Afghan skeptics didn't see the dining hall at Kandahar Air Field this week.

It's Thanksgiving in the United States, and the U.S. contractor that supplies the camp's food (and almost everything else) decided it would be a good idea to splash out. The company, KBR, has prospered from this war and it seems Thanksgiving is the moment when KBR tries to say "thanks." The rich spread of turkey, stuffing, shrimp, pate, and other goodness was framed by ice sculptures, sparkly paper chains, and fountains set aglow by coloured lights. The sheer wealth is what an ordinary Afghan might find strange, with hungry children in refugee camps just a little ways down the highway.

But I wonder what my educated Afghan friends would think of the dazzling array of native American and Christian symbols on display.

They would walk through an entranceway shaped like a giant wigwam, complete with a glowing replica of a bonfire, and enter a room full of predominately white-skinned soldiers with guns as they eat their dinners under the gaze of paper sculptures of native Americans, and a huge Jesus stretching his arms in blessing over a gingerbread model of the airbase. I wonder whether my friends know the history of white-skinned men with guns in North America. I wonder whether they quietly hope that, this time, the arrival of Europeans will have a happier result.

Rolling out the red welcome mat

Geoffrey York, 17/11/06 at 10:29 AM EDT

BEIJING, China – The cabinet minister from Myanmar was a happy man. His repressive military regime is not very welcome in many places around the world – but he was warmly applauded by Chinese mining executives in Beijing this week. The minister, Ohn Myint, praised the “friendliness” of China as he spoke to the annual mining conference here. He boasted of how often he has traveled to China and how many times he has attended the mining conference.

As I listened to his speech, it made me reflect on the parade of dictators and autocrats who regularly sweep through Beijing. It’s one of the hallmarks of political life in this town. Authoritarian leaders and outright dictators who would be shunned in many parts of the world are given a red-carpet welcome when they come to Beijing.

The man from Myanmar was just the latest autocrat in town this fall. Earlier this month, we saw the presidents of Sudan and Zimbabwe – two of the world’s most oppressive regimes – being treated like heroes at the Africa summit in Beijing. Their motorcades raced through the city on empty streets while the police held back the ordinary traffic to make way for them.

Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, is a frequent visitor to Beijing. At the Africa summit this month, he bragged that China’s support for Zimbabwe has made him much less vulnerable to political pressure from the West. On an earlier visit, the Chinese government had praised Mr. Mugabe for his “brilliant contribution” to diplomacy.

Another military regime, the new one in Thailand, has been equally welcomed in China. The new prime minister, appointed by Thailand’s coup leaders, flew to China within weeks of his appointment. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-il, is another frequent visitor to China. It’s one of the very few countries in the world where he is welcome.

And in one of the most blatant examples of the trend, Uzbekistan strongman Islam Karimov was given a state dinner and a 21-gun salute in Beijing last year – just two weeks after he supervised a bloody crackdown on peaceful protestors that left hundreds dead.

None of this is an accident, of course. China has adopted an international strategy of doing business with anyone – no matter how nasty and brutish the regime. It has helped China become one of the most powerful countries on the world stage, with friends and allies in places that the West shuns. From Beijing’s perspective, it is a successful strategy. But it certainly makes for an extraordinary list of visitors to this town.

 

 

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