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Ed Webb

British archaeology falls prey to Turkey's nationalist drive - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...tanical-erdogan-ata-tohum.html

Turkey nationalism history plants agriculture archaeology Britain UK culture heritage politics Erdogan

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Turkish authorities have seized possession of the country’s oldest and richest archaeobotanical and modern seed collections from the British Institute at Ankara, one of the most highly regarded foreign research institutes in Turkey, particularly in the field of archaeology. The move has sounded alarm bells among the foreign research community and is seen as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s wider xenophobia-tinged campaign to inject Islamic nationalism into all aspects of Turkish life.
  • “staff from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, the General Directorate for Museums and Heritage from the Ministry of Culture and the Turkish Presidency took away 108 boxes of archaeobotanical specimens and 4 cupboards comprising the modern seed reference collections” to depots in a pair of government-run museums in Ankara. The institute’s request for extra time “to minimize the risk of damage or loss to the material was refused.”
  • Coming on the heels of the controversial conversions of the Hagia Sophia and Chora Museum into full service mosques this summer, the seizure has left the research community in a state of shock, sources familiar with the affair said.
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  • The formal justification for the raid was based on a decree issued on Sept. 3, 2019. It authorizes the government to assume control of local plants and seeds and to regulate their production and sales.
  • Turkey’s first lady Emine Erdogan, a passionate advocate of herbal and organic food products, introduced the so-called “Ata Tohum” or “Ancestral Seed” project that envisages “agriculture as the key to our national sovereignty.” The scheme is aimed at collecting and storing genetically unmodified seeds from local farmers and to reproduce and plant them so as to grow “fully indigenous” aliments.
  • Ata Tohum is thought to be the brainchild of Ibrahim Adnan Saracoglu, an Austrian-trained biochemist.  He is among Erdogan’s ever expanding legion of advisers. The 71-year old has written academic tracts about how broccoli consumption can prevent prostatitis. He was with the first lady at the Sept. 5 Ata Tohum event.
  • The professor railed against assorted Westerners who had plundered Anatolia’s botanical wealth and carried it back home.
  • “Seeds” he intoned, “are the foundation of our national security.”
  • a “classic nationalist move to dig deeper and deeper into the past for justification of the [nationalist] policies that you are currently putting in place.”
  • parallels with the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, who “connected Turkish civilization back to the Phrygians and the Hittites” as part of his nation-building project.
  • “You have these genetic ties to the land through these seeds as proof that our civilization belongs here and has been here since time immemorial. To want to have these [seeds] in the first place is part of the nationalist framework.”
  • The ultimate fate of the British Institute’s seeds remains a mystery. It’s just as unclear what practical purpose they will serve.
  • “the archaeology seeds are essentially charcoal, dead and inert.” As for the modern reference collection “we are talking about stuff that was collected 25 to 50 years ago and is not going to be able to germinate.”
  • “But in order to get genomic information you only need one or two grains, not the whole collection. What [Turkish authorities] have done is they’ve removed this research resource from the wider Turkish and international community of researchers. It was a nice, small research facility, open to anyone who wanted to use it. Now it’s all gone,”
Ed Webb

Neo-Nazi attack survivors create tool to track racist extremists | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 16.12.2020 - 0 views

www.dw.com/...a-55959989

Germany USA US NewZealand farright fascism bigotry violence terrorism online internet

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Dec 20 - Cached
  • The two white supremacists didn't know each other personally, and there is no evidence that they ever communicated directly. But they shared an ideology and frequented the same online forums and often unmoderated "imageboards," where a globe-spanning network of young men regularly air racism and misogyny and feed each other's anger and resentment about society.
  • The sheer frequency of these otherwise "unconnected" attacks mean they are often lost in the ocean of daily news: In the two months between the El Paso shooting and the Halle attack alone, there were two more attacks by young men in Dayton, Ohio, and Baerum, Norway, which together left 10 more people dead. And in Germany, the death toll in Halle has already been superseded by a more recent racist atrocity: this February another man attacked a cafe and a hookah bar in Hanau, western Germany, killing 10 people of immigrant background.
  • a new online project that allows users to trace on a "timemap" how one attack is being prepared while another is being carried out elsewhere in the world
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  • could make future attackers visible before they carry out their attacks.
  • Members might not know each other, but they recognize common memes and symbols, and would-be perpetrators post selfies with their guns and manifestos moments before launching attacks. They also publish their plans, along with game-like "goals" to set themselves, expecting to be rated by others for their success or failure in murdering people.
  • the attacker told the judge under questioning that setting up the Twitch live stream had been vital to his plans — in fact, it was "the whole point," he told the judge. He wanted to encourage others just as he had been encouraged by the Christchurch mosque attack. He added that he had chosen Twitch because he had learned from the Christchurch attacker that Facebook would take the stream down too quickly
  • When questioned in court, many of the police officers said it simply wasn't their job to investigate the background of the crime. After all, from a narrow legal point of view, this seemed reasonable. The case was clear: There was a confession and a video recording the act — why dig any deeper? "So often I heard them say: It's not my job to understand the context," said Feldman. "Which leads me to ask, well then whose job is it?"
Ed Webb

Counterproductive Counterinsurgency: Is Mozambique Creating the Next Boko Haram? - Lawfare - 0 views

www.lawfareblog.com/bique-creating-next-boko-haram

terrorism Mozambique Africa Nigeria Kenya CT analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • Mozambique has a small terrorism problem, but the government’s response threatens to make it a big one. Hilary Matfess of Yale University and Alexander Noyes of RAND Corp. contend that Mozambique is overreacting to the danger with a heavy-handed crackdown that is inflaming tension while doing little to disrupt the most radical elements there. Indeed, they argue that Mozambique risks following the path of Nigeria, where a ham-fisted government response to a radical sect led to a surge in support for the group that became Boko Haram
  • Mozambique’s current approach threatens to escalate the crisis. The experience of other African countries provides an instructive lesson: A hardline response that depends solely on repression will only make things worse.
  • Mozambique is 27 percent Catholic and 19 percent Muslim, with significant Zionist Christian, evangelical, and other religious communities, and these groups have enjoyed relatively harmonious interfaith relations
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  • northern Mozambique is a commercial and migration hub in the region, so multinational membership is not surprising, nor should it be taken as a sign that ASWJ is a transnational jihadist insurgent group
  • tensions are particularly acute in Cabo Delgado, which holds the unenviable distinction of being the country’s poorest province
  • objectives remain unclear and information about the group’s targeting patterns and membership base is limited
  • discovery of vast stores of natural gas in the area
  • According to ACLED, more than 80 percent of the group’s attacks have been directed at civilians, and attacks on civilians are on the rise. There have been more than 70 instances of violence against civilians in 2019 to date—more than there were in all of 2018 (when just over 44 events were recorded)
  • Alleged abuses at the hands of corporate security guards, issues over land, widespread youth unemployment and high levels of distrust in the government are also contributing factors to the development of an insurgency in the region. ASWJ has sought to capitalize on these tensions: In February the group attacked an Anadarko convoy, leading the multinational oil and gas company to suspend construction of a liquefied natural gas plant.
  • Mozambique’s response to the spate of ASWJ attacks has been extremely heavy handed and militarized, with allegations of widespread human rights abuses by security forces. After the group’s first attack in October 2017, the government shuttered mosques and detained up to 300 people without charging them. The government has not let up. In late 2018, the government again carried out large-scale arbitrary detentions, and the counterinsurgency campaign as a whole has been characterized not just by mass arrests but also by torture and extrajudicial killings.
  • detaining or killing religious leaders usually only inflames tensions and accelerates the threat
  • Both Nigeria and Kenya responded to similar threats with repressive tactics, but this only amplified religious and ethnic tensions and provided fodder for extremist recruiting. The rise of Boko Haram—the deadliest group in Africa in 2015—and the enduring threat from al-Shabaab in Kenya show how these approaches proved counterproductive in the long run.
  • A 2014 study looking at al-Shabaab recruitment in Kenya, found that the “single most important factor that drove respondents to join al-Shabaab, according to 65% of respondents, was government’s counterterrorism strategy.”
  • recent United Nations report found that this pattern holds beyond just Nigeria and Kenya, concluding that those who join extremist groups very commonly hold grievances against the government and particularly distrust the police and military.
Ed Webb

Somalia is Set to Be Ravaged by the Coronavirus, and Terrorists Will Profit - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...rus-pandemic-somalia-al-shabab

pandemics Africa Somalia Ethiopia Kenya Djibouti hornofafrica health publichealth terrorism failedstates

shared by Ed Webb on 13 May 20 - No Cached
  • Somalia has been spinning on a crisis carousel: war, famine, terrorism, climate stress. Now, the coronavirus pandemic is set to steer the country towards another hemorrhaging of human life. Even with a youth population above 70 percent, the virus will likely compound Somalia’s chronic medley of miseries. With each passing day, an uneasy question looms large: If the pandemic has left such death and upheaval in its wake in the world’s most powerful countries, what impact will it have on one of the world’s most fragile?
  • a psychological readiness for catastrophe. Extreme violence has long been a fact of daily life in Mogadishu, under siege by one of the deadliest terrorist groups in Africa, al-Shabab, which, by conservative estimates, has killed more than 3,000 people in the past five years and wounded tens of thousands in the past decade. Somalis, often touted for their resilience amid unrelenting adversity, are no strangers to mass loss of life.
  • As of Monday, 1,054 infections—out of a miniscule testing pool—and 51 deaths have been confirmed. The true spread is doubtless far worse.
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  • Despite testing far less than its neighbors, Somalia has the highest death toll in East Africa. On April 17 and 18, 72 people were tested, out of which 55 were confirmed positive, a staggering 76 percent infection rate. Since this revelation, the Somali government has stopped sharing the numbers of people tested with the public.
  • Anecdotal accounts of COVID-19 symptoms and a spike in burials abound. “There is extraordinary community transmission. Infections and deaths are out of control,” explained a Mogadishu doctor on the condition of anonymity. “And why visit a hospital if they can’t treat you?” Somalia’s health infrastructure is mere scaffolding: scarce public hospitals struggling with a lack of equipment, unaccredited doctors in private facilities offering unaffordable services, and medication that is as low-grade as it is scarce.
  • Somalia’s best-equipped medical institution, Erdogan Hospital in Mogadishu, was shut down in April after 3 of its doctors were infected. Martini Hospital—kitted with 76 beds—is the only medical facility in the whole country designated to treat the infected
  • Answers to this acute health crisis lie in part with the government’s 2020 budget, which allocated $9.4 million for health spending, a mere 2 percent of the national budget. A whopping $146.8 million was reserved for security institutions—a telling indication of a cash-strapped state facing widespread security threats.
  • The group heralded the disease as divine punishment for the treatment of Muslims globally. Weaponizing the disease, al-Shabab ushered in Ramadan with an attempted vehicle-borne explosive attack at a military base on the first full day of the holy month.
  • Like the virus, al-Shabab transcends national borders and presents risks not only to Somalia but to its pandemic-weakened neighbors, particularly Kenya, which has weathered violent attacks from the group for years. Born out of a power vacuum itself, al-Shabab will capitalize on lapses in states’ security apparatus as governments redirect resources from preempting terror attacks to enforcing curfews
  • risks reversing critical security gains
  • Kenya’s northeastern towns lying on its border with Somalia have been particularly vulnerable to devastating al-Shabab attacks. In response to the illegal smuggling of people and goods from both Somalia and Ethiopia, Kenyan security authorities have recently ramped up aerial surveillance along its borders, in part, to curtail cross-border infection. Ethiopia’s health minister announced last week that 13 of its new cases were imported via illegal migration from Djibouti and Somalia
  • More than 80 percent of global trade passes through the Gulf of Aden
  • the resurgence of piracy can be expected
  • For more than a year now, the central government has been embroiled in a rancorous fight with two of its federal states. This being an election year, the fledgling Somali state finds itself at a critical juncture. It remains to be seen whether federal elections will be postponed, following in the footsteps of neighboring Ethiopia.
  • The populations most at risk in Somalia are those living in the densely populated camps scattered across the country. More than 2.5 million internally displaced people live in these cramped conditions, already weakened by malnutrition and compromised immune systems, and with limited access to clean water, soap, or bathrooms.
  • harrowing statistics from across Europe show that Somali communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In Sweden, Somalis are dying from the virus at “an astonishing high rate” according to the BMJ despite accounting for only 0.69 percent of the population. The World Bank is calling on governments to designate remittance companies as an essential service, a crucial step to easing restrictions on these financial flows.
  • The disappearance of remittances—a lifeline for millions on the continent and estimated at $1.4 to $2 billion annually in Somalia alone—makes the situation all the more desperate. These critical cash flows have dried up as a global recession sets in and incomes of workers in the diaspora shrink.
  • According to the World Food Programme, the number of food-insecure people in East Africa is projected to reach up to 43 million in the next few months—more than double what it is now—sparking fears of conflict over scarce resources.
  • The specter of drought and famine, alongside the unforgiving plague of locusts that has ravaged crops in recent months
  • deadly flash floods
  • will force more people to move, compounding the internal displacement crisis and heightening intercommunal tensions  even as it spreads the disease further
  • Border closures across the region have throttled migration flows, making it ever harder for people to escape conflict or starvation. This will simply force migration into the shadows, opening up avenues for human trafficking and exploitation. Irregular movement of refugees has already been observed across the Horn of Africa’s highly porous borders.
  • During  Friday prayers at Mogadishu’s Marwazi mosque on April 10, armed forces tried to forcibly disperse a congregation of worshippers without notice. A massive demonstration broke out, and shoulder-to-shoulder prayers continue across the country today
  • Riots swept the streets of Mogadishu again on April 24 in response to the fatal shooting of two innocent civilians by police as they tried to enforce a curfew. Ramadan, replete with nightly rounds of public taraweeh prayers, is likely to catalyze disease spread in the absence of clear communication with communities and Islamic leaders.
  • The virus demands self-sufficiency. Countries are forced to make do with their own systems, however broken.
  • government’s restrictions on press freedom and access to information about the novel coronavirus to the detriment of its own people
  • As has often been the case in the disaster-prone country, it will be up to grassroots community groups, the private sector, and members of the diaspora to mobilize en masse to contain the crisis.
  • Two officials at the Ministry of Health have already been arrested on corruption allegations related to COVID-19 response donations, denting public confidence.
  • With domestic flights suspended, it is all the more critical to invest in hospital and testing capacity across the country. This cannot be achieved without genuine collaboration between the federal government and its constituent member states.
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