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      What WhatsApp Conversations Reveal About the Far Right’s Ideology

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      Forum for Democracy (FvD) is a political party on the rise in the Netherlands. Thierry Baudet, FvD’s conservative revolutionary leader, positions himself and his party as right-wing and as an acceptable ideological alternative to all other Dutch parties. All media controversies about his radical-right ideology are labeled by Baudet as the work of opponents trying to frame him and the party in a negative way. A careful analysis of WhatsApp messages shared between the youth divisions of the party, however, shows a different reality, namely that mass media reporting helps shape a metapolitical discourse without deradicalizing the core ideology. 

      Intimate Conversations

      Thierry Baudet likes to use controversy to normalize his ideology. This strategy can be seen in his victory speech following the 2019 election and his review of Michel Houellebecq’s book “Sérotonine” for American Affairs. The two interventions were in essence about what he calls the decline of the boreal (or “Northern”) civilization and what Baudet sees as the devastating impact of the party cartel in particular and the individualization and atomization of society since 18th-century Enlightenment in general.

      Such discourse is emblematic of Baudet’s ideological position. He regularly echoes anti-Enlightenment, conservative revolutionary and new right thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye. All the classic tropes from these thinkers are present in his discourse: the decline of the nation, the demographic question, the loss of identity, traditional family and gender roles, and the devastating impact of globalization, liberalism and the French Revolution. And, as with any new right leader, he also loudly stresses the need for a national and civilizational rebirth. 

      Most notable, however, is that both his victory speech and his review became the object of intense media scrutiny. In Baudet’s victory speech, the use of the word “boreal” was read as an indication of his radical-right stance. In his review, it was the use of the word “suicide” in relation to abortion and his suggestion that women entering the workplace causes the decline of society that affirmed this profile. But despite all the classic ingredients of generic fascism being on full display, the Dutch media centered around some emblematic features without discussing the ideology that gives meaning to those excerpts.

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      This allowed Baudet to claim that the media was taking his words out of context and that it avoided the real debate on the issues that he was proposing. He constructed, as usual, the idea of an unfair witch hunt by fully exploiting the multilayered meanings attached to his words.

      In light of this public debate, the discussions in the party WhatsApp groups are revealing. WhatsApp groups have become important tools for political parties and for populists in particular. The groups are used to share political messages among young FvD militants and even to suggest a direct line between Baudet and his sympathizers. The closed spaces of those groups not only enable so-called echo chambers, but they also facilitate more intimate conversations among party members and sympathizers as well as functioning as a teaching environment for new recruits.

      As a result of the more informal and private nature of such groups, participants tend to lower their guard. Those conversations, when made public, can become highly explosive scandals. The FvD experienced this first-hand in April this year when a group of young party militants leaked a series of racist, radical-right memes and posts that were posted on the party’s official WhatsApp groups. They did this after their concerns remained unanswered by the leaders of the youth division and the party elite.

      The whistleblowers categorized the communication in those groups as “expressions that correspond to authoritarian, fascist and/or National Socialist ideas, including anti-Semitism, homophobia and racist imperialism.” In short, the posts showed the integration of the members in the global new right culture. The media backlash was substantial, but the party, even though it called the discourse “disgusting,” refused to apologize. 

      Surveillance Culture

      This summer, the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant asked this author to analyze another 900 WhatsApp messages of the FvD’s youth divisions. Those new chats were collected after the media storm caused by the first leak and illustrate the impact of earlier leaks. Concretely, we see how members of the WhatsApp group act as if they are being watched by mainstream media like de Volkskrant or the NRC. 

      Moderators help members to imagine surveillance and to self-surveil. Party member Iem Al Biyati, for instance, explains how members should interact in the WhatsApp group: “Place yourself in the position of a journalist before you post edgy memes. You know very well how everything can be framed, so don’t open up that space.” In the literature, this is called imagined surveillance: moderators imagine “the scrutiny that could take place … and may engender future risks” for the party and act accordingly. As a result, a culture of (self-)surveillance is installed within the group chat. Not only the moderators but also regular members intervene when somebody posts something that can create bad optics.

      Why is this important? The interventions and the non-interventions of moderators and members help us understand what the party and its members understand as acceptable discourse within both the party itself and society at large. It also allows us to understand the reception and appropriation of the discourse of the party elite by the militants and staffers. This is especially relevant when the party elite regularly claims to be misunderstood by the (left-wing) mass media and academia. And, lastly and maybe most importantly in the context of this article, it allows us to assess the impact of mass media hype on the discourse among party members.

      Moderation policies in the WhatsApp group affect those topics that can connect the party to national socialism, Nazism and, in particular, anti-Semitism. Explicit anti-Semitism, explicit racism or incitement to violence are (sometimes) moderated. Any association with those topics has the potential to destroy the metapolitical construction of the party and push it out of the Overton window. Despite this surveillance culture, we see that members are still very explicit in their aversion toward LGBTQ+ people, migrants and migration, and the left. The analysis that Dutch identity has been emptied and is now filled with “transgenderism” in an attempt to destroy the nation passes without moderation. The framing of criminals as mainly “non-boreals” is not moderated, indicating that the controversy the media has created around Baudet’s use of the term didn’t succeed in harming the party. 

      A similar pattern is visible after mainstream media claimed that Baudet questioned the role of working women, as well as the availability of euthanasia and abortion in his review of Houellebecq’s book. Baudet himself claimed that his words were taken out of context, but in the WhatsApp group, the members, including the moderators, were enthusiastic, responding with “It was about time,” “nice!,” “he is just a great thinker, who thinks things through and puts them up for debate. Very well done! Proud of Cherry.” These takes were not only similar to what the mainstream media read in Baudet’s interventions, but in many cases, this back-facing discourse was far more radical than what Baudet explicitly stated or what the media made of it. Mainstream media reporting didn’t have an impact on the reception of Baudet’s words among peers.

      Triggering Outsiders

      Already in the 1990s, J.B. Thompson stressed that the study of ideology should not only look at the original text, but also at the transmission, construction, reception and appropriation of ideological discourse. From the FvD’s WhatsApp messages, we see how the party’s ideology is shaped in the interaction between the members of the WhatsApp group, the official party discourse and mass media reporting. 

      The moderation policies in the WhatsApp groups are partially informed by previous media attention. An earlier WhatsApp scandal created a surveillance culture that steers the militants away from damaging scandals. But this surveillance culture is rarely legitimized in terms of the party and its ideology. The need for self-surveillance is advocated to avoid what the journalists, in the words of another moderator, can use it to “frame” the party. 

      The imagined surveillance does not seem to affect the uptake of Baudet’s discourse by the militants and staffers in the WhatsApp groups. Mass media hypes that avoid tackling the larger ideology of the party contribute to the metapolitical character of the discourse. They help to establish a radical discourse that avoids explicit connotations with neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and fascism. At the same time, we see that mass media reporting hardly affects the ideological core conviction of its members. With the exception of explicit or so-called “ironic” racism, anti-Semitism and references to Nazism, militants and moderators in the Young Forum for Democracy WhatsApp groups amplify Baudet’s discourse even when they think that they are being watched.

      The word “boreal” has been used in over 100 WhatsApp messages. Baudet clearly has succeeded in introducing the term and establishing a strategic ambivalence concerning its meaning. The militants clearly understand the strategic potential of the ambivalent meaning, which now functions as an identity emblem in the group. It is clear that when media hypes fail to sketch the bigger ideological picture, the words and sentences that are extrapolated from of Thierry Baudet’s discourse become badges of honor because they have succeeded in triggering the outsiders without causing bad optics. 

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Working-Class America Needs Real Change, Not Slogans

      by

      In August, Joe Biden addressed the Democratic National Convention as he accepted his party’s nomination to run for president. During his speech, Biden framed the election on November 3 as a battle for the “soul of America.” The former vice president depicted the urgency of the moment as he saw it: that the American people have a critical choice to make in an election that carries great social, political and economic implications.

      However, Biden’s use of the word “soul” is not new to American political discourse, according to historian Jon Meacham. Behind Biden’s message is an appeal to euro-centric principles or certain traditions attempting to underscore the reality that the US political and economic system is broken — dividing people culturally and socially along the way. Biden claims our beliefs, values and political norms have been dismantled, corrupted and co-opted by those who either do not understand them, take them for granted or perhaps couldn’t care less about them for the sake of their interests.

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      The blame is placed on President Donald Trump and his associates at home and abroad for good reasons. Trump and his ilk have distorted or corrupted liberal traditions, republican citizenship and democratic institutions and, at the same time, they have disregarded individual rights, civic fairness and human decency.

      Trump has wrought a new divisive politics, from his self-serving slogans (“Make America Great Again” to “Keep America Great”) and rhetorical tweet storms to his elite-centered social policies. Together, this has ushered into the mainstream of American life radical right-wing ideas, extra racial and immigrant animus, and anti-media hostility. These divisions have reached unimaginable heights, with dire consequences reflected further in Trump’s and the Republicans’ lack of leadership around the coronavirus pandemic, racial and social justice, the homelessness crisis and rising unemployment, among others.  

      Both Trump and Biden are operating within a symbolic/performative political frame that supposedly addresses the real needs of the American working people. Yet the competing slogans and the performative politics we have witnessed over the past few months have done more to perpetuate the bitter partisanship keeping us “trampling on each other for our scraps of bread,” as E.L. Doctorow pointed out in 1992. So, what we instead need is a transformative (redistributive) politics that directly answers the complex quotidian concerns of the majority working-class people across race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and civic or legal status now and after the election.

      Sloganism and Performative Politics

      American author William Safire once wrote that slogans can serve as a “rallying cry” or a “catchphrase” that often “crystallizes an idea” or “defines an issue.” Most importantly, according to Safire, some slogans even “thrill, exhort and inspire” people into action. Sloganism has become an American neoliberal ideological tool and strategic marketing imperative that guides both the Republican and Democratic parties, especially during presidential elections.

      The 2020 election seems different because there is more urgency to win at any cost, even at the expense of democracy itself, from both major parties and their supporters. American voters seem to gravitate more to familiar or comfortable slogans, without critically assessing the purpose or the message behind them. Many lose themselves in the symbols and patriotic images that slogans invoke. Even Biden seems to use a “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” as both aspirational and inspirational, if not transformational.

      These slogans and the broader performative electoral context that gives rise to them obscure the political and economic structures creating and sustaining the underlying problems facing the working class. This includes wealth inequality, lack of labor and political power, declining wages, unemployment, affordable housing issues and limited access to quality health care. Taken together, all of this makes many Americans more vulnerable during public health crises, environmental disasters and economic downturns.

      What Forms Transformative Politics Take Also Matters

      We need to consider the forms of transformative politics that Trump, as the incumbent president, has engaged in that run counter to his “Keep America Great” slogan. Trump’s housing policy, for example, is not based on what the working class need, especially in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis. His slogan does nothing to help those in need of affording housing, rent control and extended eviction moratoriums.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Trump’s proposed federal budgets and other policies on public and assisted housing reflect his real intentions. Yet his form of transformative politics was evident just a few years ago, too. “Trump’s administration has proposed legislation that would sharply raise rents for tenants in public and other federally subsidized housing,” wrote Thomas J. Waters back in 2018. Regarding the economy, this is what Trump’s transformative politics under his slogan “Keep America Great” looks like, according to Jerry White: “While tens of millions of people are confronting the worst economic and social crisis since the Great Depression, the multitrillion-dollar CARES Act bailout for Wall Street has led to booming bank profits. Goldman Sachs on [October 14] announced that its third-quarter profit nearly doubled to $3.62 billion.”

      President Trump’s actions with failing to control the spread of the coronavirus are as irresponsible as his politics, economic views and policy positions. Trump used taxpayer-funded hospital services at Walter Reed Medical Center to “heal” from the COVID-19 disease, while ordinary Americans who do not have access to such quality services — despite paying taxes — die by the hundreds of thousands. Other Republicans have been irresponsible too. This is not what Americans want at any level of government.

      Another way of looking at the impact of Trump’s form of transformative politics is his federal judge appointments, including the placement of Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Federal Circuit to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Her place in the nation’s highest court has the potential of negatively transforming the lives of millions of Americans. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse argued in a recent statement that the effects of replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg with Barrett would eliminate many people’s access to health care. Moreover, Justice Barrett would signify a major shift in the court’s ideological makeup with transformative political, social and economic consequences.

      Barrett, with her ultra-conservative credentials and originalist judicial philosophy, could play a role in overturning Roe v. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court case to protect women’s reproductive rights, including access to abortion. Her appointment could also lead to the elimination of the Affordable Care Act, which protects over 20 million people with preexisting medical conditions. Most importantly, with another conservative justice in the court, Trump could secure an election victory by disqualifying mail-in ballots and allowing restrictive voting tactics (reducing drop-boxes, for instance) with impunity.

      On voting rights and the role Barrett may play on any potential challenge to the election outcome, Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman observes: “President Trump has explicitly said that he wants the Supreme Court to look at the ballots. So, everything about Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination is illegitimate, but it’s especially illegitimate if Trump wants to get her on there so that he can install himself in a second term.” This form of transformative politics in the name of “keeping America great” would thus undermine the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all Americans, eroding the underlying political culture that is often ingrained since childhood, and thus further deteriorating American voters’ trust in their democratic institutions.

      In terms of protecting workers and industries, Trump has failed to fulfill his promises as his 2016 slogan, “Make America Great Again,” suggested. Yet he continues to make similar arguments about bringing back manufacturing jobs and providing health care to working-class Americans. In reality, Trump’s policies have led to more offshore jobs than ever before.

      Finally, although Trump does not possess a presidential temperament that has been a requirement since at least the 1960s, he has remained popular among many within the Rust Belt states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though that could change). This is due to his performative nature as a reality-TV celebrity and, of course, his longstanding image as a so-called successful businessman, despite recent revelations about his failure to pay income taxes (only $750 in 2017 and 2019) because he lost more money than he made in the past 15 years.

      Importance of Class Solidarity for Transformative Politics

      What are the real concerns of American voters who are in the majority working class? Although some people are convinced by catchy slogans and performative politics, most working-class Americans expect real reforms in the short and long terms. Ed Yong of The Atlantic recently pointed out, “Showiness is often mistaken for effectiveness.”

      Americans want real redistributive policies and need even more critical structural changes around issues like education reform, police brutality, affordable housing, employment opportunities, a living wage, health care, infrastructure and taxation, among others. Framing the election in either rhetorical, symbolic or moralistic terms only goes so far in the voters’ minds. According to the Pew Research Center, the economy (79%), health care (68%), Supreme Court nominations (64%), the coronavirus outbreak (62%) and violent crime (59%) are the most important issues for registered voters this year.

      Policies that impact real people are the key to creating universal and transformative changes that will benefit all, if not most Americans. As Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project suggests: “Given the demographic composition of the different economic classes, it really is the case that class-based wealth redistribution will also heavily reduce the disparities between different demographic groups.” He adds that every “$1 redistributed from the top 10 percent to the bottom 50 percent reduces the class gap between those groups by $2 while also reducing the white/black gap by 52 cents, the old/young gap by 57 cents, and the college/high-school gap by 75 cents. This kind of leveling is where our focus should be.”

      Regrettably, we have seen an increase in symbolic politics from both liberals and conservatives over the past several years that ignore or down-play voters’ demand for transformative (redistributive) politics. Both Trump and Biden have remained within the same neoliberal capitalist framework where concerns over racial, class-based inequalities are outdone by superfluous debates over removing Confederate flags and monuments of racist historical figures. Less debated are issues dealing with demilitarizing police departments and properly funding public schools.

      As Professor Toure Reed of Illinois State University recently wrote: “For the past several decades now, liberals and conservatives alike have been disposed to view racial inequality through one of two racialist frames: the ingrained, if not inborn cultural deficiencies of black and brown poor people; or the ingrained, if not inborn racism of whites. The political-economic underpinnings of inequality, however, have been of little interest to either Democrats or Republicans.”  

      Yet economic redistribution is rarely, if ever, seriously discussed in public, the media or even in academia. Why? Because that would force both Democrats and Republicans — who are often beholden to Wall Street firms, K-Street lobbyists and the broader investor class — to reveal positions, strategies and policies that produce the forms and types of racial and wealth inequalities that they ought to be addressing for the betterment of all Americans. But to do so means potentially putting themselves and their supporters out of business. Lastly, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed, Jr. show that a race-only policy focus or using race as a proxy measure, especially in the medical industry, may lead to dire real-world consequences for working-class communities across race and other categories of ascriptive difference.

      Of course, if we were to focus on a broad class analysis (as measured by an individual’s relational position within a power structure that determines who produces what goods and services and when), that would put the neoliberal capitalist and political establishment in jeopardy of being closely scrutinized by those critical of the elite/investor class’ malfeasance, which is something that mega corporations, media conglomerates and the big pharmaceutical industry, among others, do not want.

      This may partly explain why Trump — and, at times, Biden — would rather engage in performative politics and empty promises than deal directly with what ails most of the poor and working-class people, who are often essential workers making the neoliberal capitalist system work. It is easier to frame things with slogans like “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” and “Keep America Great” than talk about wealth redistribution, single-payer universal health care, a Green New Deal and workers’ rights.

      There is a big difference between what Trump has accomplished — and for whom — over these past four years and what Biden stands for and promises if elected president. Despite Trump’s claims that Biden is a radical social democrat, the former vice president’s record over the past 40 years shows he is neither a radical nor a social democrat. At best, Biden is a moderate liberal with certain progressive tendencies. 

      Within this context, Biden has tried to navigate and balance competing interests within the Democratic Party. There has been tension between the progressives represented by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and “The Squad” and Biden’s own Clinton-Obama neoliberal establishment (Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer). Biden’s historic choice of Senator Kamala Harris, who is the first woman of Indian and Jamaican descent on any major party ticket, is supposed to appease the progressive wing while also satisfy the neoliberal Democratic establishment.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Yet Harris on the ticket would also appeal to those moderates in the Republican Party who want to return to pre-Trump norms. However, this moderate-to-liberal past has been distorted by a misguided and opportunistic Trump who continues spreading falsehoods and lies about Biden’s record, vision and plans.

      At the Republican National Convention in August, Trump said: “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens. And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.” Later, he offered a different picture to counter Biden’s “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” slogan. While Biden’s version offers a hopeful message, Trump provides a dire and apocalyptic vision of an America under a Biden-Harris administration. “Joe Biden is not the savior of America’s soul — he is the destroyer of America’s jobs, and if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of American greatness,” Trump said.

      Nevertheless, the president failed to heed his own messaging. His political short-sidedness has once again brewed controversy. Trump has called service members or those who lost their lives at war “losers” and “suckers.” Jeffrey Goldberg, while referring to John Kelly’s reaction to Trump’s off-putting questions and comments about US soldiers, wrote, “Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.” Trump’s performative politics then backfired because the commander-in-chief is expected to respect service members and their families, not insult them.

      Trump has lost the support of many military families despite his speeches otherwise during the most important election in a generation. Unfortunately, this attitude from the president is not new and reflects his well-known tendency toward self-absorption and self-imagery that places the well-being of others, including the entire country, in a secondary position.

      This attitude endangers the men and women serving in the military at home and abroad. It weakens the image of the military and the working-class citizens who volunteer to serve in that capacity for often economic reasons, which is something Trump himself avoided during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth captured Trump and his position well when she called the president the “coward in chief” during an interview with MSNBC in September.

      Transformative Politics Viewed From Likely Voters’ Perspective

      Whether Trump’s political strategy of invoking fear of a Biden-Harris administration proves effective, only time will tell. Yet, according to the latest national polls of likely voters presented by FiveThirtyEight, Biden is running ahead of Trump. The Quinnipiac University’s state-by-state polls also show Biden leading in key swing states (including Georgia), though Florida is too close to call either way, as per the latest figures.

      The regional or state-by-state approach to understand likely voters should be our focus instead of the national polls. The latter are usually conflated by Democratic likely voters in California, New York and New England states, which masks the fact that the Electoral College historically determines the presidency, not the national popular vote. This makes both Midwestern swing states — Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin — as well as Pennsylvania pivotal grounds in presidential elections. 

      Several other factors must be taken into consideration in this most critically important election. The debate over absentee ballots, vote-by-mail and early voting versus in-person, same-day voting has increased over the past few weeks amidst the rising numbers of COVID-19 infections.

      Most likely Republican voters (Trump supporters, presumably) have said they will vote on Election Day (70%), while those who lean Democratic have said almost the inverse: they will vote early and by-mail/absentee ballot (74%). Still, Republican Party officials have begun to make strides toward convincing many of their supporters to reconsider the vote-by-mail or absentee ballot option over in-person voting, attempting to keep up with the Democrats while contradicting President Trump’s claims about the potential corruption and voter fraud of the mail-in ballot process. Trump’s comments have been proven false by many election experts.

      Voting in the United States is controlled and managed by local and states officials, while the federal government through the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) regulates, administers and enforces federal campaign finance laws. The Trump administration and the Republican Party have been engaged in voter suppression tactics that further erode Americans’ views and confidence in long-standing democratic practices and institutions. Yet potential voter intimidation at voting places and the elimination of drop-off boxes are two more reasons to be vigilant.

      A Transformative Paradigm Shift in the Presidential Election Cycle

      American poor and working-class people demand better from a republic that promotes freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness. These standards require a political and economic system that provides stable employment, a living wage, modern infrastructure, access to a fast internet connection, quality health care for all, affordable and modern housing and more. This means real transformative elections and politics.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In the end, the American voter is expected to make an important choice on which party will bring about those kinds of transformative changes. Many states now provide a variety of voting options because of the pandemic. At the time of publishing, over 75 million people have voted either early in person or by mail. An increase in early voter turnout should lead to a paradigm shift in the ways we talk about voter participation and how states deal with presidential elections in the future. Although the increase in mail-in and absentee ballots is due to circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic, the additional voting options beyond the traditional in-person method should be made permanent, especially if we want to uphold the ideals of freedom, equality, community and democracy in the US.

      Media, social commentators, scholars and political pundits alike need to talk less about Election Day that is based on anachronistic constitutional rules and norms and more about a fall election quarter where registered voters often begin casting ballots as early as September in some states. This transformative paradigm shift will, in turn, lead to less pressure in having to declare a winner on election night and, more importantly, prevent President Trump and others in the future from claiming that the election is rigged, corrupt and illegitimate or even unconstitutional.

      What will become the new normal in American political and social life? Will we be a liberal, social or racial democracy? Will we become a real democracy based on working-class solidarity across races and less on racial divisions across and between classes? These are some of the most critical questions of our time that should keep us busy in trying to hold elected officials, the media and ourselves accountable if we want to keep any semblance of our republic intact.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Lindsey Graham’s Campaign Falls Below the Political Poverty Level

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      Senator Lindsey Graham, the archetypal Southerner, has throughout the 21st century been regarded as a pillar of the Republican establishment in the US. His talent with the media has also made him a consistent star thanks in part to his lethargic, emotionless eyes and his honey-glazed South Carolinian drawl. The media — and not just Fox News — love him for always making himself available for interviews in which he displays serious rhetorical skills in making his opinion on major issues sound as if it represents the authoritative truth.

      His Senate seat in South Carolina, which formerly belonged to Strom Thurmond, has always been deemed secure. During the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, Graham has cleverly navigated the issues to appear independent of Trump — notably in his condemnation of Saudi despot Mohammed bin Salman — and yet totally loyal to the US president as the ultimate wielder of power. He was counting on this dual image of a man who knew how to balance an image of brave individuality with the right level of obsequiousness to power to guarantee victory in this election and others to come.

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      But this year’s senatorial election in South Carolina has produced what may be one of the major surprises of an exceptional moment in politics. Graham has now fallen behind in the polls to an African-American challenger, Democrat Jaime Harrison. The Democratic nominee has benefited from an exceptional war chest now evaluated at $57 million compared to the mere $28 million remaining for Graham in the final stretch of the campaign. By September, Harrison’s campaign had, since the beginning, raised $85 million compared to Graham’s $58 million. And as every American knows, money talks.

      In normal times, Republican politicians like Graham celebrate the fact that money talks. But as he complains about Harrison’s war chest, Graham is at least being consistent. In late 2015, when he was campaigning in the presidential primaries against a slate of Republican hopefuls that included a political outsider named Donald Trump, Graham was the one Republican who promised “to add an amendment to the Constitution curtailing money in politics.” That was a bold idea. His plan, if successful, would have prevented the Supreme Court from defending its notorious Citizens United decision establishing the principle that “corporations are people” and that “money is speech.”

      Now, Graham is worried about his own hide. The logic of fundraising has betrayed him, leading him to complain: “Where is all this money coming from? You don’t have to report it if it’s below $200. When this election is over with, I hope there will be a sitting down and finding out, ‘OK, how do we control this?’ It just seems to be an endless spiral.’”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Endless spiral:

      1) A series of causes and effects that develops a dynamic of its own to escape the control of American politicians, a group of people who feel that, as the greatest nation in the history of the world, nothing should escape their control
      2) In the political system of the United States, the perennially repeated ritual of enthroning, in election after election, the same personalities, whose successful association with power derives from their skill at using the power of the media to become the name that will always prevail on a ballot

      Contextual Note

      Newsweek reports that “Graham’s team has accused his rival of trying to ‘buy a Senate seat.’” That privilege was traditionally reserved for Republicans, though Democrats in recent decades have become adept at the skill of gleaning dark money from corporate donors, which helps to explain why their politics have become indistinguishable from that of the Republican.

      Graham feels just as justified today in accusing Harrison of buying a Senate seat as he felt justified in pushing through the nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court weeks before a presidential election, after claiming in 2016 that no president should ever be allowed to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the year of an election. Graham clearly understands how political opportunism works.

      He also understands how, in modern times, the media works concerning the idea of outsiders meddling in elections. He has decided to mobilize the Democrats’ favorite trope concerning elections. It consists of blaming evil foreigners (mostly Russians) for interfering with the integrity of electoral processes. Because this is a state election, Graham’s outsiders needn’t be a foreign power but simply masked interlopers from other states.

      Though the mysterious donors remain unidentified, their characteristics can be surmised. Just as establishment Democrats draw conclusions about foreign interference on the basis of their suspicion that certain actions bear “all the earmarks of a classic Russian information operation,” Graham sees a cabal of out-of-state Democrats undermining his hopes for reelection. Vox quotes Graham, who appears literally shocked: “He also shared a statement outlining what were described as ‘shocking numbers from Jaime Harrison’s record-setting fundraising haul,’ describing the money as coming from ‘liberal out-of-state donors angered by Sen. Graham’s support of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.’”

      At least Senator Graham is comforted by the fact that he is a true conservative in a truly conservative state. “National Democrats will invest more than $100 million of out-of-state money to buy the race, but the voters of South Carolina know a liberal Democrat when they see one,” Graham’s campaign spokesman said earlier this month. Liberals have never been welcome in the Deep South.

      Historical Note

      Thanks to his skill with the media, Lindsey Graham has become a fixture of US politics. He established himself as a symbol of continuity in the culture of the formerly Confederate South. At the same time, he has successfully avoided appearing simply as a caricature of the traditional Southern politician committed to rural values, historical nostalgia and deeply ingrained racism. Throughout his career, he has understood how to appeal to his peers in both parties while maintaining his own staunchly conservative identity focused primarily on an aggressive militaristic stance.

      In 2002, Graham seized the opportunity of running for the Senate seat that became available at the retirement of the iconic racist and former Dixiecrat presidential candidate, later turned Republican, Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond had held onto his Senate seat for 48 years. Graham knew that with the right PR and the unrelenting support of Fox News, he would most likely be poised to demonstrate a similar longevity.

      Embed from Getty Images

      His African-American opponent, Jaime Harrison, is now unexpectedly threatening Graham’s political longevity. Who could have imagined a black man occupying Thurmond’s seat in the Senate? Harrison understood that Graham’s Senate seat was very secure, if not beyond reach. Harrison has expressed his own surprise: “I got into this race because I knew I had a shot, but not in my wildest dreams did I imagine a campaign growing like this campaign has grown.”

      In a statement like this, Harrison demonstrates his own mastery of the art of electoral rhetoric. It would have been more honest and accurate to say: Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine the funding of my campaign growing like this funding has grown.

      It wasn’t the campaign that grew, but the amount of cash in his coffers. Although he may not want to admit it, Harrison too knows that money talks.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Anti-Semitism Is Resurfacing Again in Germany

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      In October 2019, a right-wing terrorist attack on a synagogue in Halle an der Saale led to two fatalities and reminded the German public of rising anti-Jewish violence and right-wing extremism. In the aftermath of the attack, Chancellor Angela Merkel called for more protection for Jewish people. Sadly, statements like these expose the fact that the political sphere in Germany has been underestimating the growing threat against Jewish life. 

      Anti-Semitism Continues to Be a Steady Feature Among Germany’s Radicals

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      Roman Yossel Remis was leading the prayers at the synagogue on the day of the attack and stated, “Today I experienced what it means to be Jewish, to be a Jew in 2019.” According to the journalist and author Richard Chaim Schneider, the attack in Halle showed that “Anti-Semitism has long since returned to the center of society. No, not arrived, because it never left: it simply crawled out of its holes again.”

      Jewish Voters Want to Know

      The Halle terrorist attack was the point of culmination and a gruesome expression of overriding societal developments concerning anti-Semitism in Germany. According to the latest report on anti-Semitism from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, “Anti-Jewish sentiment can be found in all extremist areas of Germany but is particularly prevalent in the right-wing spectrum.” Corresponding anti-Semitic attitudes also circulate among conspiracy theorists, in Islamism and, to a lesser extent, in left-wing extremism. Recent statistics undermine these worrying developments: Anti-Semitic violence doubled between 2017 and 2019, and 85% of the 73 anti-Semitic acts of violence in 2019 were motivated by right-wing extremism. 

      The return of anti-Semitism into the mainstream of German society highlights the question of where political parties stand in respect to its manifestations. The question also weighs heavily on those affected, namely Jewish people living in Germany. Linda Rachel Sabiers, a German author and columnist of Jewish descent, tried to describe the psychology of Jewish voters. According to Sabiers, many hinge their voting decisions on two key questions. Which party does the most against anti-Semitism and how to “vote Jewish.”

      These were the questions she had to face up to herself: “If one wants to vote Jewish … one can perhaps weigh up which party actively opposes anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The search for a political home that offers both has made many Jews unhappy. … For years, I asked myself similar questions when voting, and at times — because of the anti-Semitism that flared … — I felt so cornered that between the ages of 18 and 34, I had no normal relationship to voting.” Following Sabiers’ opinion that this pattern of thought seems to be widespread among Jewish voters, a closer look at Germany’s political parties is of interest. Where do the main German parties stand in regard to anti-Semitism?

      Alternative for Germany (AfD) 

      Despite leading representatives of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stressing the party’s pro-Israel and pro-Jewish stance, statements by members repeatedly trigger allegations of anti-Semitism. Even the existing faction, Jews in the AfD, which the AfD often refers to as evidence for the party’s pro-Jewish viewpoints, cannot gloss over anti-Semitic tendencies in the party ranks. The Central Council of Jews in Germany criticized the AfD’s pro-Jewish image by stating that the “AfD is a danger for Jewish life in Germany [and] a racist and anti-Semitic party.”

      This warning comes against the backdrop of numerous problematic incidents of anti-Semitism within the AfD. One accusation was brought against Wolfgang Gedeon, an MP for the AfD in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, according to whom the view that the blame for the Second World War lies with the Nazis is “a version dictated by Zionism.”

      Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) 

      After the lessons of the Nazi past and the resulting anti-Semitic fundamental consensus in the German public, anti-Jewish references ceased to play a role in the programmatic orientation of the center-right CDU/CSU. Nevertheless, the reproaches of anti-Semitism occurred regularly. Most prominently, Martin Hohmann, a former CDU MP, stated in 2003 that the claim of collective guilt against Germans during the Nazi period should also apply to Jewish people. The CDU/CSU subsequently excluded Hohmann from the fraction and party. Hohmann joined the AfD. 

      Liberal Democrats (FDP)

      After the foundation of the FDP in the 1950s, national liberal tendencies were dominant. The party included people who had held high positions in the Nazi regime. From the late 1960s onward, the FDP departed from its national liberal imprint toward a center to center-right party.

      But in 2002, the infamous Möllemann scandal awoke ghosts of the past. Jürgen Möllemann, a former MP in the national parliament, the Bundestag, was accused of stirring up anti-Semitic attitudes in society by claiming that the Israeli prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, had to bear the blame for the escalation of the Middle East conflict. He also branded German-Jewish television journalist, Michel Friedman, to be his political propagandist. The FDP refrained from taking decisive action against Möllemann. Since then, no incidents of equal gravity occurred.

      The Greens 

      The center-left Green Party, which defines itself as a political force oriented toward human rights and the environment, publicly condemns anti-Semitism. Correspondingly, issues with anti-Semitism remained the exception. Still, debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulted in internal party disputes about potential anti-Semitic remarks and connotations. One major incident took place in 2002, when Jamal Karsli, an MP in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament, criticized the Israeli armed forces for applying Nazi methods in the conflict. In reaction to accusations of using anti-Semitic rhetoric, Karsli left the party and joined the FDP.

      Die Linke (The Left)

      A minority of The Left party harbors a pronounced hostility toward Israel that bubbles up regularly. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether anti-imperialism, anti-Semitism or a mixture of both lies at the forefront of this hostility. Anti-Israel positions in the left-wing of the party usually aim at Israeli state policies toward Palestine. By often alluding to a “David versus Goliath” narrative, Israel supposedly acts as an imperial, ruthless power.

      Among several problematic intraparty incidents was the invitation of two controversial publicists and Israel critics, Max Blumenthal and David Sheen, to a discussion on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by two MPs from The Left. Gregor Gysi, former party whip in the Bundestag, disapproved of the invitation and decided to call off the meeting.

      Social Democratic Party (SPD)

      The center-left SPD has been steadfast in its committed stand against anti-Semitism. André Levi Israel Ufferfilge, a researcher in Jewish Studies at Münster University, wrote in 2009: “In my opinion, the SPD seems to have a good standing with many Jews. … It is very welcome that the SPD has a working group for Jewish Social Democrats and that Judaism is considered part of the roots of social democracy in the SPD’s latest party manifesto.”

      Although anti-Semitic incidents are just as rare as with the Greens, the party has not been untouched by accusations. In 2018, Ulrich Mäurer, an SPD senator from Bremen, falsely claimed that the Israeli army is “executing dozens of Palestinians at the border fence.” In response to fierce criticism from outside and within the party, Mäurer apologized for his “unfortunate choice of words.”

      Germany’s Parties Need to Act on Anti-Semitism

      All parties in the German Bundestag show sensitivity toward the issue of anti-Semitism and are quick in denouncing it. Still, some, particularly the AfD, either display more frequent or singular prominent allegations of anti-Semitism, like the Möllemann scandal in the FDP, that persist in the public memory. Thanks to fewer major allegations, Jewish voters lean toward parties closer to the center, like the SPD and the Greens.

      Nevertheless, none of the parties have been unblemished by accusations of anti-Israel or anti-Semitic rhetoric. These controversial incidents often give rise to exhaustive debates among the German public about the thin line between justifiable criticism of Israeli politics and anti-Semitism. Due to the public attention and the recent increase in anti-Semitic violence, these intra-party incidents weigh heavily on the minds of Jewish people and voters, and hence deserve scrutiny.

      Jewish voters in Germany seem to make their voting decision dependent on the parties’ attitudes toward anti-Semitism. That highlights their vulnerability in society, which originates in Germany’s history and the persecution of Jews during the Nazi period. This vulnerability has reemerged due to soaring anti-Semitic attitudes in Germany. The growing concerns of Jewish people is a call to action for Germany’s political parties. Evaluating their own and other parties’ activities against anti-Semitism more thoroughly should be a small building block of a bigger picture, namely protecting Jewish life in Germany.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What the US Election Means for the Liberal World Order

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      In 1992, Francis Fukuyama published his controversial best-seller, “The End of History and the Last Man,” arguing that liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations. Almost three decades later, G. John Ikenberry, one of the most influential theorists of liberal internationalism today, in “A World Safe for Democracy” suggests that the liberal world order, if reformed and reimagined, remains possibly the best “international space” for democracies to flourish and prosper. After all, reasons Ikenberry, what do its illiberal challengers like China or Russia have to offer?

      Apart from outside challengers, the liberal international order’s project is threatened from the inside as well. In fact, both populist parties and technocracies in a variety of forms and shapes represent a growing threat not only to the rule of law, party politics and parliamentary democracy, but to the international order tout court. Ikenberry considers the COVID-19 pandemic as the moment possibly marking the end of the liberal world order, specifically the spring of 2020, “when the United States and its allies, facing the gravest public health threat and economic catastrophe of the postwar era, could not even agree on a simple communiqué of common cause.”

      360˚ Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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      However, Ikenberry admits that “the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic engulfing the world these days is only exposing and accelerating what was already happening for years.” As the COVID-19 pandemic risks to mark the end of the world liberal order, will the upcoming US election represent the last call for the existing system or what still remains of it?

      A Brief History of the Liberal World Order

      The liberal world order was forged in the aftermath of the Second World War upon a set of principles governing the international system. Based on the leadership of the United States and exerted through five core institutions — the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and NATO — with all its limits and weaknesses, granted economic development and security to a significant part of the world during the Cold War. Free market societies, supported by strong welfare policies, produced a long-term yet fragile balance between instances of economic competition, social inclusion and cohesion.

      The dynamic worked well until the 1980s, when the foresightedness of preserving such a fragile balance gradually vanished. Liberal premises (equality of opportunities) and liberal promises (a more equal, peaceful and wealthy world) have been subverted by neoliberal politics and economic ideological positions, regressive and anti-progressivist in nature.

      Today, a neoliberal world order has almost replaced the liberal one, bringing with it the opening of the markets through economic privatization, financialization and deregulation that results in national governments unable to shield citizens from social inequality deriving from unregulated globalization. Neoliberal politics and technocracies, often by taking advantage of emergencies and crises, have produced financial bubbles and rising economic inequality. This has taken place in light of an abstract intellectual orthodoxy, often reduced in opening international markets even if detrimental to social order, as argued, among others, by Joseph Stiglitz.

      These days, the majority of the mass media points to radical-right populism and nationalism as the main threat to liberal democracy and its “international space.” In fact, the mainstreaming of the radical right has become an international phenomenon, with radical-right and nationalist parties experiencing growing electoral support among the middle classes globally. Yet Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen & Co are not the only threat: A new balance between state sovereignty and the coordinative action of international institutions is paramount to saving the international liberal order.

      If we want liberal democracies to escape a Scylla and Charybdis’ kind of dilemma, such as having to choose between the trivialization of politics proposed by populists or the gray hyper-complexity of technocratic governance, it is key to point out elements of convergence, different from the status quo and envisioning a general interest — not the sum of particular interests — to change non-cooperative behavior.

      Everything’s Not Lost

      From abandoning the World Health Organization (WHO) in the middle of a global pandemic to the signing of the Abraham Accords and openly flirting with right-wing extremists and white supremacists like the Proud Boys or QAnon adherents, President Donald Trump’s radical and populist rule has given up on multilateralism for a chaotic and opportunistic unilateralism. Trump has galvanized radical and far-right nationalist and populist parties worldwide, while his administration’s lack of interest in multilateral governance, in times of increasingly global nature of the issues policymakers are called to deal with, has implied both the weakening of the international order and the risk of handing it over to authoritarian challengers.

      Paradoxically, some of those challengers, particularly China, have now even recognized that international institutions and organizations such as the WHO, with all their shortcomings, do have a comparative advantage in confronting global trends such as pandemics, climate change or large-scale migration.

      However, on the other side of the Atlantic, old historic allies, in particular Germany, have not given up on the possibility to resume multilateralism with the US, as recently argued, among others, by Max Bergmann on Social Europe and Peter Wittig in Foreign Affairs. While the Trump administration jeopardized decades of liberal international order, transatlantic relations and multilateralism, Germany kept fighting to keep it alive. Germany’s Zivilmacht — civilian power, to use Hanns Maull’s formulation — even if often expressed internationally in geoeconomic terms, with key business partnerships established with China or Russia, has never allowed business interests to undermine its regional and international commitments.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Chancellor Angela Merkel has demonstrated leadership in the recent poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s key opposition figure, or when forced to act unilaterally during the 2015 refugee crisis, providing leadership by example to reluctant EU member states despite being heavily criticized at home, or in the case of the €750-billion ($821-billion) EU recovery fund, produced in close partnership with France. These crises made Angela Merkel the most trusted leader worldwide (and, for the time being, without a political heir), holding that spot since 2017, when Trump succeeded Barack Obama as US president, according to PEW research surveys. This trust was even more confirmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Germany’s leadership considered most favorably in relation to the US, France, China, UK and Russia.

      As we await the 2020 US presidential election, we should not forget one lesson: In a globalized world, crises can be unique occasions to rediscover the mistreated virtues of multilateralism and collective decision-making. A victory for Donald Trump next week would translate into a coup de grace for the liberal world order, as countries as Germany will not be able to take on America’s role as global leader, in particular if other European Union member states are neither able nor willing to join their efforts.

      If Joe Biden enters the Oval Office next January, there is a chance for the liberal system to survive, but it would require both bold vision and reforms, as suggested by Ikenberry. However, if globalization keeps increasing financialization and deregulation, only a simulacrum of the liberal world order will remain.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Macron Claims Islam Is in “Crisis.” Erdogan Disagrees

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      In France, Samuel Paty was beheaded on October 16 near Paris. He was a history teacher who had shown caricatures of Prophet Muhammad to his students in a lesson on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

      Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, is an 18-year-old of Chechen origin. He arrived in France at the age of 6 as a refugee and was granted asylum. In an audio message in Russian, Anzorov claimed to have “avenged the prophet” whom Paty had portrayed “in an insulting way.” Before he was murdered, Paty was the victim of an online hate campaign orchestrated by the father of a student who reportedly might not even have been in the class.

      As Agnès Poirier wrote in The Guardian, since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, the French seem to be “living [their] lives between terrorist assaults.” Since then, she writes, “Islamists in France have targeted and murdered journalists, cartoonists, policemen and women, soldiers, Jews, young people at a concert, football fans, families at a Bastille Day fireworks show, an 86-year-old priest celebrating mass in his little Normandy church, tourists at a Christmas market… the list goes on.”

      Emmanuel Macron, France’s Islamophobe-in-Chief

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      Yet Paty’s killing has touched a chord. Arguably, no country venerates its history teachers more than France. After defeat against Prince Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia in 1870, the Third Republic emerged. In the 1880s, it took away education from the Catholic Church, making it free, mandatory and secular. Poirier observes that the “peaceful infantry of teachers” has since “been the bedrock of the French republic.”

      She poignantly points out that the first generations of teachers were nicknamed “the Black Hussars of the Republic” because they had to battle the local priest for influence. Thanks to these teachers, as per Poirier, “religion was eventually relegated to the spiritual realm.” More than others, history teachers are the keepers of the revolutionary and republican flame, exposing young minds to Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot et al and emancipating their thinking.

      French President Emmanuel Macron called the brutal beheading an “Islamist terrorist attack.” At a ceremony at Sorbonne University, he conferred the Légion d’honneur on Paty. Macron awarded France’s highest honor posthumously to the late history teacher because he died for trying to explain freedom of speech.

      Macron has since defended the right of French citizens to publish anything, howsoever offensive others might find that to be. Earlier this month, he claimed, “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country.” His comments enraged many Muslims inside and outside France.

      Paty’s killing has shaken France to the core. After more than a century, religion is back to the forefront in the country. This time, it is not Catholicism but Islam.

      A History of Blood and Gore

      At the heart of the matter is a simple question: Does Islam lead to violence and terrorism? Many Islamic scholars and political analysts argue in the negative. After all, the Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno and launched the Inquisition. Jews fled Spain to find refuge in Ottoman lands. These authors take the contrarian view that Islam can only be a religion of peace after it conquers the world and establishes a supremacy of sharia.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Writing about Islam’s links to violence and terrorism is sensitive and controversial. There are nuances to be sure. However, most scholars know fully well that Islam has a just war theory. It rests on the assumption that justice would not be served unless the will of Allah is established all over the world. As per this theory, non-believers in Islam have three choices.

      First, they can convert to Islam and become part of the umma, the global community of Muslims who recognize there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his final messenger. Second, they can refuse to submit to Allah, but they must then flee their homes or face the sword. Third, they can surrender to Muslims and pay jizya, a poll tox for non-Muslims in a state run according to Islamic principles.

      Both Sunnis and Shias prize jihad, which denotes both personal struggle and just war. Both Sunnis and Shias believe that jihad is the duty of an Islamic state, should certain conditions arise. There is little daylight between Sunnis and Shias on their ideas of jihad against non-believers. Many Muslim jurists considered the non-acceptance of Islam by non-Muslims an act of aggression that had to be countered through jihad. Like Christianity, Islam lays claim to universality and jihad is its version of a crusade.

      Arguably, the most interesting reform of Islamic law occurred when Arabs conquered Sindh in the eighth century. For the first time, Islam encountered Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. A puritanical Abrahamic faith encountered much older spiritual traditions of the Indus and Gangetic river basins. These pagan polytheists were not covered by the Quran. Its verses recognized Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and the imprecisely defined Sabians. These religions are based on divine revelations and came to be known as Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book.

      The Indo-Gangetic spiritual traditions were clearly not the People of the Book. When Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh, he approached the then-caliph in Damascus for how to deal with Indian polytheists. The fuqaha (Islamic jurists) and the ulema (clergy) in Damascus ruled that these new religions ultimately believed in the very same god as Muslims and the People of the Book. Therefore, through the exercise of qiyas — analogical reasoning as applied to the deduction of Islamic juridical principles — these non-Muslim Sindhis were to be treated as protected minorities if they paid the jizya.

      As waves of Muslim invaders came to the Indian subcontinent, conversion took place both through peaceful and violent means. Lower-caste Hindus turned to Islam because it offered a greater sense of community, charity for the poor and egalitarianism. Yet violence was par for the course too. Idols were smashed, temples desecrated and local communities slaughtered.

      Muslims who claim that theirs is a religion of peace could do well to remember that even the golden age of Islam is full of blood. The first three caliphs were assassinated. Ali ibn Abi Talib and Khalid ibn al-Walid were brave generals who led aggressive armies and did not hesitate to spill blood.

      The Battle of Karbala exemplifies the violence that has accompanied Islam from its early days. In 680, Umayyad Caliph Yazid I’s troops massacred the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and son of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph. For Shias, it remains an annual holy day of public mourning. This was a bloodthirsty struggle for succession and has led to a Shia-Sunni divide that runs deep to this day.

      The Umayyad Empire’s extravagance and decadence led to a successful Abbasid rebellion in 750. The victors invited over 80 Umayyad family members to a grand feast on the pretext of reconciliation. In reality, this feat was the infamous Banquet of Blood in which the Umayyads were killed in cold blood. Abd al-Rahman I was the only Umayyad who escaped, and he fled all the way to Spain to set up the kingdom of al-Andalus.

      Violence in Modern Times

      Over time, Arab rule became benign. There is a strong argument to be made that Muslim rule was more tolerant than Christian rule in many matters. Minorities who paid jizya carried on with their business and way of life. The Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals governed multi-ethnic empires even as Europe imploded into religious wars.

      Once Europe took to technological, industrial and military innovation, the rest of the world fell under its sway. Tottering Muslim empires were no exception. This defeat still rankles among many Muslims. Many have turned inward and hark back to a glory period of Islamic dominance. They dream of the days when Muslim armies swept all before them, including Jerusalem in 1187 or Constantinople in 1453.

      After World War II, European colonial rule has been replaced by American economic domination. Oil was discovered in key parts of the Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, it was Western companies that took much of the profits. Till today, the price of oil is denominated in dollars. The formation and domination of Israel in the Middle East added to this Muslim angst. In 1979, a millenarian revolution succeeded in Iran. In the same year, militants seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca, and it took two weeks of pitched battles for Saudi forces to regain control. The militants might have lost, but Saudi Arabia emulated Iran in hardening sharia and giving more power to the ulema.

      In Iran, the new regime killed thousands who did not agree with it. They included liberals and leftists. Led by hardline clerics, the Iranian regime liquidated the minority Bahai sect in Iran. It set out to export its Islamic revolution. In response, the Saudis began to export their own puritanical Wahhabi Islam. Saudi money poured all the way from Indonesia and India to Bosnia and Chechnya.

      This took place at the height of the Cold War. This was a time when the West in general and Washington in particular were terrified of the Soviet Union. The fear of communism led Americans to intervene in Iran, Vietnam and elsewhere. They made a Faustian pact with militant Islam. The CIA worked with god-fearing Islamists to fight godless communists. These Islamists went on to become a trusty sword arm for the US against the communist menace of the Soviet Union. Nowhere was this best exemplified than the jihad Americans funded in Afghanistan against the Soviets. As is hilariously captured in Charlie Wilson’s War, the Saudis matched the Americans dollar for dollar.

      Eventually, the Soviet Union fell and the West won. As nationalism, socialism and pan-Arabism stood discredited, the battle-hardened jihadis stood ready to take their place. Conservative, fundamentalist, extreme and radical Islamists soon found their spot in the sun. The Molotov cocktail of violence and terrorism spread throughout Muslim societies. Disgruntled young Muslim men in the West found this cocktail particularly irresistible. In the post-9/11 world, there is a mountain of literature that chronicles all this and more.

      Embed from Getty Images

      American action after the attacks on September 11, 2001, have strengthened rather than weakened this culture of violence and terrorism. George W. Bush’s war on terror has proved an unmitigated disaster. In 2003, the Americans unleashed chaos in Iraq by dismantling the Baathist regime and leaving nothing in its place. A Shia-Sunni civil war followed. Iran became a touch too powerful in Iraq. Sunnis who had been dominant during the Baathist era under Saddam Hussein were left leaderless and felt marginalized. In the aftermath, the Islamic State emerged in the vacuum. Syria imploded as well and the Sykes-Picot construct collapsed. The Islamic State’s messianic message of violence and terrorism not only garnered local support, but it also drew in recruits from Europe, South Asia and elsewhere.

      Eventually, Syria, Iran and Russia allied together even as the UK and the US collaborated quietly to crush the Islamic State. They were able to destroy it militarily, but radical Islamist ideology lives on. It is the same ideology that powered the Iranian Revolution, the Afghan jihad and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. Now, it is inspiring Anzorovs to behead Patys.

      A Clash of Cultures

      In the aftermath of Paty’s beheading, France and Turkey have fallen out. Macron has championed freedom of expression, which includes the liberty of publishing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. Like many of his countrymen, Macron sees freedom of expression as an essential part of France’s secular values. Laïcité, the French version of secularism, is enshrined in the very first article of the constitution. It declares, “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic.” Macron has pledged to “to defend secular values and fight radical Islam.”

      Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes objection to Macron’s position. He believes that there must be limits to freedom of expression. With millions of Muslims in France and over a billion around the world, the French should desist from insulting Prophet Muhammad. Erdogan sees Macron as having a problem with Islam and Muslims. In a speech, the Turkish leader declared, “Macron needs treatment on a mental level.” In response, France has said Erdogan’s comments are unacceptable and recalled its ambassador to Turkey.

      A new kind of Islamism has now entered the scene. Unlike clerics in Iran or royals in Saudi Arabia, Erdogan is a democratically elected leader. Ironically, he rose to power in Turkey thanks to the country’s growing democratization, which in turn was fueled by its quest to join the European Union. In Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkey, the Islamist Erdogan seized power and brought in a very different vision for the future.

      Erdogan jettisoned Ataturk’s Europeanization of Turkey. Instead, he decided to become the popular, democratic voice for Islam. He has championed causes like Palestine, Kashmir and Xinjiang that resonate with Muslims worldwide. Even as the Turkish economy stumbles, Erdogan is taking on Macron as a defender of Islam. Erdogan gains inspiration from the Ottoman Empire. Until a century ago, the Ottoman sultan was also the caliph, the spiritual leader of the Sunni world. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi’s first mass movement in 1919 demanded the restoration of the Ottoman caliphate.

      President Erdogan wants to bring back Ottoman cultural glory to Turkey. One by one, he is smashing up the symbols of secular Turkey. A few years ago, Erdogan built a 1,000-room white palace on 50 acres of Ataturk Forest Farm, breaking environmental codes and contravening court orders. On July 10, 2020, he reversed the 1934 decision to convert Hagia Sophia into a museum. Now, this architectural marvel is a mosque again.

      Embed from Getty Images

      France is a land of joie de vivre, which favors bikinis over burkinis. Laïcité emerged after a bitter struggle with the Catholic Church, is central to the republic and is an article of faith. In contrast, Turkey is rolling back Ataturk’s version of laïcité. Erdogan is striving to emerge as the popular Islamic leader who takes on the West, India and even China. He has thus thrown the gauntlet to Macron.

      Erdogan has geopolitical reasons to rile Macron. Turkey and France are on opposing sides in Libya’s civil war as well as the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. France has deployed jets and frigates to counter Turkish oil and gas exploration in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean. Now, the two countries are squaring off on religion.

      The Turkish president is not alone in criticizing Macron. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has also accused Macron of “attacking Islam.” Erdogan is urging a boycott of French goods. Many others in the Muslim world are also calling for such a boycott. Some shops in Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar have already removed French products. Protests have broken out in Libya, Syria and Gaza.

      Secularism vs. Faith

      Erdogan’s actions and the support they have garnered raise uncomfortable questions. In the Westphalian system of nation-states, what right does he have to tell Macron how to run his country? More importantly, his rhetoric raises a key question about the world. Who decides what is offensive? Can a popularly elected leader of a former imperial power speak up for co-religionists to another former imperial power or anyone else? If so, are we seeing a drift toward Samuel Huntington’s famous proposition about a clash of civilizations?

      This question assumes importance in the light of the past. When Spanish conquistadores took over Latin America, they did not just rape, torture and kill. They killed the local gods and ensured the triumph of the Christian one. In “Things Fall Apart,” the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe chronicles how Christianity went hand in hand with colonization in Africa. In India, Muslim invaders sacked temples. In Iran, Safavids destroyed Sunni mosques and converted them into Shia ones. In recent years, many have seen secularism as a way out of this maze of centuries-old religious conflict.

      Intellectually, secularism is the legacy of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It involves the shrinking of religion from the public to the private sphere. After all, religious wars tore apart Europe for more than a century and a half. Today, France is thankfully not ruled according to l’ancien regime’s dictum of “un roi, une foi, une loi” (one king, one faith, one law). Unlike Huguenots, Muslims have not been subjected to St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Laïcité may not be perfect, but it is much better than the alternative.

      Unfortunately, Muslim societies have failed to embrace secularism. From Indonesia and Pakistan to Iran and Turkey, there is a disturbing intolerance afoot. Of course, the West fanned the flames, but now this conflagration inspired by religion is singeing societies, states and even the international order. Earlier this year, the Islamic State group massacred Sikhs in Kabul. By September, most of the Hindus and Sikhs had left Afghanistan. It is important to note that these communities had lived in Afghanistan for centuries and even stayed on during the heydays of the Taliban.

      After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the failure of American-style capitalism to provide prosperity or opportunity, people are turning again to religion. On October 22, a Polish court banned almost all abortions. In Eastern Europe and Russia, the influence of the church has been increasing. Even benign Buddhists have turned malign and are targeting minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Yet the scale of what is going on in the Muslim world is different. There are tectonic shifts underway from Islamabad to Istanbul that are disturbing. Minorities are fleeing Muslim countries and radical Islamists like Anzorov are taking to the sword.

      Does Macron have a point? Is Islam truly in crisis?

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Perils of Federalism in Time of Pandemic

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      Germany is a federation, and so are Belgium, Spain and Austria. Switzerland is a confederation — something of a federation plus. Federations consist of relatively autonomous entities, like states in the US, states and territories in Australia, provinces in Canada, Länder in Germany and Austria, cantons in Switzerland. Until recently, these institutional arrangements posed relatively few problems. With COVID-19, this has very much changed.

      Take the case of Switzerland, which is composed of 26 cantons, 20 of them so-called full cantons and six half-cantons (for historical, particularly religious reasons). In the west of the country, people speak predominantly French, in parts of the south, Italian, and the rest, German. Cantons differ not only in terms of language spoken but also in territorial size and the size of their populations.

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      Zürich and Bern have relatively large populations, while some of the cantons in the center of the country — what in German is called Innerschweiz, or inner Switzerland — have populations equivalent to small or medium-size cities. Yet no matter the size, they all jealously guard their autonomous position within the confederation, particularly with regard to the federal government.

      Proud Heritage

      The Swiss are proud of their political heritage and treasure their independence, particularly with respect to the European Union. They insist that Switzerland represents an idiosyncratic case in Western Europe, whose particularities, above all its system of direct democracy, does not jibe well with the rest of Europe. This largely explains why the Swiss have repeatedly rejected membership in the European Union even if they have agreed to adopt a large part of EU regulations — a logical consequence of the fact that the EU represents Switzerland’s most important market.

      Until a few days ago, COVID-19 appeared to have been contained in Switzerland. And then, suddenly, the number of daily infection rates skyrocketed, a surge “as steep as the Alps” as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel put it. At the beginning of the pandemic, infection rates were particularly dramatic in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino and in the French-speaking cantons of Geneva and Vaud. All of these cantons have a large number of daily commuters from neighboring Italy and France. This time, it is the German-speaking cantons that are most dramatically affected — and not because of German commuters. The sudden upsurge in infections has primarily been the result of the way different cantons have dealt with the COVID-19 crisis.

      I speak from experience. We live in the canton of Vaud in the southwestern part of Switzerland. Here, the cantonal authorities mandated the wearing of masks in stores, supermarkets and enclosed public spaces in early summer. It took the canton of Geneva a few more weeks to follow suit, but it did. A few weeks ago, when I had to go to Switzerland’s capital, Bern, I thought I was in a different world. Most people appeared not to have heard that there was a pandemic. At the train station, in supermarkets and in other public spaces I was among the few customers to wear a mask.

      The situation was similar in other German-speaking cantons, including Zürich, Switzerland’s largest city. The reason: Different cantons had different security regulations, and these regulations were considerably laxer in Bern than in Geneva. It was not until the dramatic upsurge in infections a few days ago that the federal government issued new directives, making it mandatory to wear masks throughout the country. Too little, too late. In the meantime, the German government has declared all of Switzerland a risk zone, dissuading German tourists from visiting the country.

      This, of course, is highly ironic. In recent days, Germany has gone from one record to the next when it comes to new infections. As has been the case in Switzerland, the second wave is sweeping over Germany, setting off alarm bells. And, once again, federalism has proven to be a serious impediment to confronting the challenges posed by the pandemic. Already in early September, a report by Germany’s foreign broadcasting service Deutsche Welle noted that every state was “doing its own thing.” It went even further, raising the question of whether or not federalism was impeding “sweeping measures in the pandemic.”

      The answer was a tentative yes, which by now has been fully confirmed, given the massive increase in new infections. A few days ago, a text on the website of Die Tagesschau, Germany’s premier TV news broadcaster, raised the question of whether or not federalism had reached its limits. Ironically enough, it was Bavaria’s strongman, Markus Söder, who came out in favor of strengthening the position of the federal government. Bavaria has traditionally been most adamant in defending its autonomy within the federal republic. With COVID-19, taboos are no longer taboo, or so it seems.

      Borderless Autonomy

      The reality is that, in a federation, the constituent entities maintain a significant amount of autonomy, just like any sovereign state, but, at the same time, there are no borders between the units. People are free to travel from a lax unit to a strict one without controls, in the process potentially infecting people. This seems to have been the case in Switzerland in the wake of a yodeling musical staged before 600 spectators in the canton of Schwyz, which turned into a superspreader event. As a result, Schwyz, one of these miniature cantons in Innerschweiz, experienced a huge surge in infections that threatened to overburden the local health services. The spectators carried the virus to other cantons in the region, contributing to the upsurge in infections.

      Australia has shown that there is an alternative, even if a draconian one. In March, Tasmania closed its borders to the mainland, requiring “all non-essential travellers arriving in the island state … to self-isolate for 14 days, with penalties for those who did not comply of up to six months in jail or a fine of up to $16,800.” A prominent victim of these drastic measures was Australia’s leading radical right-wing populist, Pauline Hanson, who was unable to join her daughter who she suspected had caught the virus.

      In July, Victoria and New South Wales, Australia’s two most populous states, closed the border between them, following a dramatic outbreak of COVID-19 in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital. Until today, the border is closed to most people entering from Victoria, with severe penalties for those illegally into New South Wales without a permit, with fines up to $11,000 or jail time for up to six months, or both.

      Embed from Getty Images

      So far, such drastic measures seem inconceivable in Western Europe. Closing the borders with neighboring states, as happened in the spring, poses no problem, even among EU members. Closing the border between different Länder or cantons is an entirely different thing. The only alternative is binding measures issued by the federal government to be followed throughout the federation. This is what the Swiss federal government belatedly did. But in Germany, there is still great hesitation. Given the seriousness of the situation, this seems rather odd, to put it mildly.

      Yet the Germans might have a point. After all, things are hardly any better in France. And France is a unitary state where the government exercises a large measure of control over the country’s subordinate regions and departments. At the same time, however, the French government has been in a position to introduce drastic measures such as a curfew throughout France to curb the advance of the virus. In Germany and Switzerland, at least for the moment, this is unthinkable.

      There is, of course, a third alternative where people actually learn to act responsibly. It is ultimately up to the individual to reduce the risk of infection as much as possible. Unfortunately these days, individual responsibility and a sense of the common good beyond narrow self-interest appears to be in short supply. Blame it on the deleterious influence of neo-liberalism that has drilled into all of us that everybody is on their own, that there is no such thing as a society, as Margaret Thatcher told us, and that we have to learn to live with risks. COVID-19 has exposed the dark side of this ethos without, as it appears so far, having taught us a lesson.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Will the NY Times Fixation on Russia End After Biden’s Election?

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      Will there ever be a vaccine for the not so novel coronavirus, Russiagate-16? It has clearly infected beyond cure various media outlets and the establishment of an entire political party in the US for the past four years. Even though it has been repeatedly debunked and identified as a pathology by rational critics, multiple news outlets and public personalities continue to show symptoms of succumbing to a disease that is clearly not lethal but diabolically chronic.

      Some say that politicians in Washington can never be cured of any disease other than those specifically listed in their generous government health plans. They also point out that there is little hope of cable television networks recovering from the virus of their favorite conspiracy theory because that is what their audience expects them to feed them every night. Some even speculate that network presenters have actually been cured, but because their ratings depend on their playing a role that reassures their audience, they keep coughing out the same exaggerations and lies. In the televised media, it’s crucial to appear consistent even when the message contradicts the obvious truth.

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      The case of The New York Times is harder to explain. It has miraculously maintained its reputation as a serious newspaper reporting the news and treating it with some depth. There are no audio-visual tricks. Readers cannot be conquered by the studied vocal and facial effects of officials and experts trained to sound authoritative in front of a camera. A reader who peruses a news story in black and white has the time to process the messages it contains, reflect on the nature of the content, appreciate the points of view cited and assess the level of veracity of the facts and opinions.

      In an internal meeting back in August 2019, Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet admitted that the newspaper had gone too far with its Russiagate obsession. In the meantime, many prominent independent journalists and even a former Russia specialist of the CIA have exposed the charade. But even today, The New York Times insists on putting the most visible symptoms of the disease on display. The Russians may not have tampered with elections, but they have literally invaded the copy of The Times’ coverage of the election if not the brains of its journalists.

      Here is the latest example: “American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of the local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results, according to officials briefed on the intelligence.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Expect:

      Speculate

      Contextual Note

      The sentence cited above can be reduced to two verb phrases: “American officials expect” and “Russian groups could.” Everything else could be filled by any creative journalist’s imagination. The single word, “expect,” transforms the meaning of what the authors are reporting.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The same sentence would sound vastly more truthful if the authors added “some” before “experts” and if the word “speculate” were to replace “expect”: But some American officials speculate that if the presidential race is not called on election night…

      When officials expect something, it suggests they dispose of solid evidence that provides a high level of probability for their thesis. But a little investigation shows there is no evidence, just wild ideas.

      It is possible that the officials do expect behavior even without evidence. In that case, the journalists should follow up by explaining why they do so. We know, for example, that some members of the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, expect “the rapture” or the second coming of Christ to occur in their lifetime. Could something similar be taking place in the minds of the officials cited here? Here at The Daily Devil’s Dictionary, we expect that is the case.

      The idea of expectation often includes the hope that the subject of speculation will come true. That certainly applies to Pompeo’s expectation of the rapture. The Times journalists claim that the officials they cite expect Russian groups “to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results.” This leaves the impression that they are hoping to find evidence of such acts. None of those nefarious deeds is likely to seriously compromise the integrity of the US presidential election results, but proof of their existence would validate the experts’ and The Times’ belief in the culpability of the scapegoat they have been promoting for the past four years.

      When analyzing the pathology of the Russiagate syndrome, the language the authors use reveals their intent. They designate the culprit as “Russian groups.” What does that mean? It could be random individual Russians or a complicit association of Russians. It could be Russians using the web for fun, profit or getting even with someone or some other group of people.

      But the word “groups” sounds vaguely sinister. And, of course, Russiagate from the beginning was always about a suspicion of collusion and conspiracy. The journalists clearly want the idea to germinate in the readers’ heads that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a key member of the group and probably the one who ordered and engineered the operation.

      Though they leave the accusation open, they know that they can always count on Democratic Representative Adam Schiff to connect the dots. Schiff came straight out and accused Putin, claiming it is neither expectation or speculation, but knowledge: “We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff told CNN, with nothing to back it up. At the same time, the political scientist Thomas Rid, writing in The Washington Post, inadvertently revealed how the system works when he counseled on Saturday: “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation – even if they probably aren’t.”

      Who needs knowledge or even reasonable speculation when you can formulate an “expected” result as a solid truth?

      Historical Note

      In the past, politicians and the media invented stories of attacks, interference and threats only when their aim was to provoke a serious armed conflict. Whether it was the sinking of Maine in 1898 that launched the Spanish-American War, the Bay of Tonkin incident in 1964 that triggered the conflict in Vietnam or the weapons of mass destruction imagined in the collective screenplay authored by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell before invading Iraq in 2003, the accusation of a violation of US political or moral space (even in foreign waters) proved “necessary” only as a prelude to declaring or prosecuting war.

      Russiagate was never intended to provide a pretext for war. Instead, it began as the means for the Democrats to save face and explain away their humiliating defeat in 2016 to the most unpopular and manifestly incompetent presidential candidate of all time, Donald Trump. During the campaign, Hillary Clinton was already a close second in terms of unpopularity. But Trump ultimately proved his claim to the title by losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes while winning the election.

      Any rational observer of politics should have seen and understood the pattern at the time. Most people yawned at the comic absurdity of it. Few imagined that it might still populate the discourse of the Democratic Party four years on. Fewer still would have imagined that The New York Times would keep running with it over those four years.

      And yet, that’s where we are today. Perhaps the real culprit of the story is Fox News. Its insistence on rehashing the same simplistic lies, distortions and libels night after night while refusing to take any critical distance seems to have created a model for all commercial media and especially its Democratic rivals, including The Times, MSNBC, The Post, CNN and others.

      Dante reserved the eighth circle of hell for liars, just one flight up from Satan’s own dwelling. No one doubts that Trump deserves a special spot in that circle, given the number of lies he tells on a daily basis. But media outlets that try to tell the truth while repeating the same single lie day after day, year after year probably also merit their own little corner of that circle.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More