RUTHFULLY YOURS

Russia has changed since the days when I fled the old Soviet Union, but a recent visit to my former homeland suggests not as much nor in the ways I might have hoped. When the best and brightest feel their futures lie elsewhere and queue up to leave, prospects are grim and unlikely to improve.

Like Bilbo Baggins and his unexpected journey, my wife and I did not specifically plan to visit Russia, the country of our unhappy lives until we migrated to Australia. In my travel diary of years ago, I finished the Russian chapter by saying we were departing “with the heavy heart, knowing full well that we will not return.” At the time I wrote those words we were grieving the sudden loss of life-long friends who shunned us at best, abused us just as often. It was a shock to discover when we announced that we had been approved to leave the barely suppressed hostility and poisonous envy where friendship and laughter once prevailed.

The unforeseen visit to St. Petersburg I am about to describe was a stop on the Baltic cruise we took. The limited time we spent there cannot be regarded as the only source and foundation for this article, as the thoughts contained in it were forming for some time. My recent visit served to crystallise them. The identities of the people with whom we spoke will not be revealed for obvious reasons.

Avoiding foreign ‘contamination’.

All foreign cruise ships are docked in the farthest corner of the port, at a considerable distance from the city. This separation from the ‘corrupting’ Western influence is augmented by elaborate checkpoints for visa and passport control, unique among other states in the region.

Traditionally, Russian governments have been determined to stop Western influence contaminating the purity of the Russian mind without sacrificing the very much needed tourist dollar. It is a fine balancing act, which the Russian elite has maintained in order to isolate, or at least to distance, the masses from the rest of the world. Abominable standards in the teaching of foreign languages also help.

The days spent in the Russian Federation were, to put it mildly, instructive. We were able to speak to local people, much to the displeasure of our tour guides, who warned each other that some Russian speakers were in the group and they should therefore be extraordinarily careful in their off the cuff comments.

Appearances.

The overall impression of St Petersburg was one of shabbiness, with crumbling facades, a general grubbiness and an oversupply of police. Except for the very center of the city, with its famous monuments and palaces, the rest of the metropolis left an impression of neglected maintenance and a general lack of care.

People were dressed better than I recalled from memories of Soviet days, especially the young. Equally, there were all kinds of uniforms, including a granny in semi-military garb who occupied a glassed-in booth at the bottom of the Metro escalator. She appeared to do bugger all but keep a sharp eye on those going up and down — a sensible job, perhaps, in light of the Metro system’s recent terror bombings. Elsewhere and everywhere there are so many uniforms to be seen the town seemed like a heavily armed convention of boy scouts and girl guides.

There were many attractive young faces on the streets of St Petersburg and the so-called ‘Landau Index’ was somewhere between six and seven. Never heard of the landau Index? Let me explain this unit of measurement, which seeks to calibrate female attractiveness. It was invented by the legendary Soviet nuclear physicist Lev Landau, who was an equally legendary connoisseur of a female beauty. Upon arrival in a strange town he would take up station on a main thoroughfare and appraise the first ten women of reproductive age. The number of pretty faces was his eponymous index. Three fetching faces would be a low rating, five medium and seven considered to be high. This measure was jokingly accepted by the USSR’s male populace and, by my entirely subjective reckoning, St Petersburg rates very high on the scale.

Religion’s resurgence

In a city church we visited the publicly demonstrated piety of worshippers astonished me — a man raised in the atheist USSR, where religion, any religion, was not only frowned upon but actively discouraged and adherents persecuted.

Inside the church, women wearing hijab-like headscarves caressed the little rails in front of icons, kissing those barriers, crying over them, muttering endearments and heartfelt pleas to Heaven. They surrendered their positions only when the crush of the insistently prayerful behind forced them from their supplications. I found it difficult to watch such unrestrained emotional outpourings. I felt too much like a voyeur observing another’s passionate yearning.

Men were not that far behind in their devotion. Young men, somewhere within the 30 to 40 years’ age bracket, were crossing themselves ostentatiously, bowing in front of icons, whispering prayers, endlessly crossing and bowing, immersed in their very personal conversations with the Divine, demonstratively lost in their devotions and oblivious to the world at that moment, yet acutely aware of its presence. It was a weekday, the middle of the working week. Instead of earning the daily bread by the sweat of their brows, these young men of productive age were whiling their day in prayer. An atmosphere of exalted expectation, of investing all hope in the expectation of imminent miracles, was a near-tangible presence. The candle-scented atmosphere of unhappiness was palpable and contagious, so I left. Stepping outside under the grey St. Petersburg sky I felt better.

Reprinted from Hoover.org.

Recent elections in France, the Netherlands, and Austria, in which Eurosceptic populist and patriotic parties did poorly in national elections, suggest to some that the EU is still strong despite Britain’s vote to leave the union. Yet the problems bedeviling the EU ever since its beginnings in 1992 have not been solved. Nor are they likely to be with just some institutional tweaks and adjustments. “More Europe,” that is, greater centralization of power in Brussels at the expense of the national sovereignty of member states, is not the answer. The flaws in the whole EU project flow from its questionable foundational assumptions.

Those problems have been identified and analyzed for decades. EU economic growth and per capita GDP consistently lag behind those of the U.S., in part because of over-regulated dirigiste economies, over-generous social welfare transfers, expensive retirement benefits, restrictive employment laws, and higher taxes. Some countries have addressed these problems, most importantly Germany. But Germany’s economic success has exacerbated the stark contrast with the poorer performing Mediterranean countries. They are still struggling with debt and deficits, and suffering double-digit unemployment rates, particularly among the young, which range from 15 to 25 percent. Germany’s current dominance makes the EU look less like a union of sovereign states and more like a German economic empire.

Particularly ominous is the case of France, the second largest economy in the EU. France is facing cumulative national debt––government, household, and business––that totals 250 percent of its GDP, up 66 percent since 2007. This total does not include unfunded pension and health-care obligations. New president Emmanuel Macron has pledged neoliberal reforms to begin correcting this unsustainable drag on growth, yet previous attempts at even minor changes by French presidents have been met with street demonstrations comprising millions of protestors. It remains questionable whether there is the will among the citizens and their political leaders to face the harsh cuts and painful adjustments necessary to right France’s fiscal ship. Given the size of France’s economy, a fiscal crisis similar to that still troubling Greece will severely stress and further fracture the EU.

Europe’s economic woes are entwined with a serious socio-cultural problem: Europeans are not having children. Birth rates are at 1.58 child per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. Since human minds and entrepreneurial creativity are modern capitalism’s most valuable resource, a shrinking and aging population––by 2030, one in four Europeans will be 65 years or older––bodes ill for future economic growth, leading to fewer and fewer workers paying taxes to support more and more of the aged drawing benefits. Pragmatic considerations aside, the failure to have children is also a failure to invest in the future or even concern oneself with the fate of one’s country beyond this life. Such attitudes promote an Après nous, le déluge mentality, and turns la dolce vita into the highest good.

Islam was created 600 years after Christianity not to affirm the Bible, but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book” — Jews and Christians — but to replace them.

It is hard to read Islamic law books without concluding that Islamic values are essentially “a rebellion against the Ten Commandments”.

Islam violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” when Allah commanded Muslims to kill Allah’s enemies, and in the process, kill and be killed in jihad if they are to be guaranteed heaven.

Accepting a parallel legal system would effectively nullify actual freedom for many of the people possibly forced to use it, and the ability to receive equal justice under law. Sharia is the reason there is a death warrant out on this author, on Salman Rushdie and others, for apostasy.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, of the “Ground Zero mosque”, once again wrote a deeply inaccurate article reprimanding Americans for their supposedly “right-wing caricature” of Islamic law, sharia, which he insists is not a threat to American law. In his recent article “The silly American fear of sharia law”, he denied that sharia is incompatible with US laws and the constitution. Oh, really?

Imam Rauf tries to blame sharia’s amputation and stoning on Biblical Law:

“Sharia is not about amputations and stoning. These extreme punishments carry over from earlier, biblical law” and “Within the history of Islam, they have rarely occurred. What Islamic law does prescribe are the same do’s [sic] and don’ts of the Ten Commandments.”

Imam Rauf’s article is, to say the least, misleading — especially regarding the Ten Commandments. Sharia is not only incompatible with Western legal system but is the direct opposite of Western values; it has violated all ten of the Ten Commandments.

Islam was created 600 years after Christianity not to affirm the Bible, but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book” — Jews and Christians — but to replace them. It is hard to read Islamic law books without concluding that Islamic values are essentially “a rebellion against the Ten Commandments.”

Islam has little respect for human life — of either Muslims or non-Muslims. To begin with, Islam violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Sharia punishes sins against Allah, such as blasphemy and apostasy, with execution. This is while it prohibits prosecuting Muslims who kill apostates, and also parents and grandparents who kill their offspring. Allah commands Muslims to kill Allah’s enemies, and in the process, kill and be killed in jihad if they are to be guaranteed heaven.

“Surely Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their belongings and in return has promised that they shall have Paradise.106 They fight in the Way of Allah, and slay and are slain. Such is the promise He has made incumbent upon Himself in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Qur’an.107 Who is more faithful to his promise than Allah? Rejoice, then, in the bargain you have made with Him. That indeed is the mighty triumph.” (9:111)

The concept of adultery and loyalty in marriage is totally different. Loyalty is expected from the woman under penalty of death, but men have a lot of room in that regard, the result of the rights of polygamy and temporary marriage for Muslim men. Thus, in Islam, the concept of marriage as a covenant of loyalty between one man and one woman does not exist.

In an interview Wednesday with Tim Sebastian — host of the program ‎‎”Conflict Zone” on German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle — former Israeli ‎Prime Minister Ehud Barak was at his worst. Not only did he fail at his initial ‎attempt to field Sebastian’s hostile questions; he ended up using the rhetoric of ‎Israel’s sworn enemies to answer them.‎

Sebastian, who was in Israel and the Palestinian Authority this week to record ‎a series interviews pertaining to the anniversary of the Six-Day War (or, as the ‎DW website referred to it, “50 years after Israel captured East Jerusalem, the ‎West Bank and Gaza”), pounded on Barak to acknowledge that the 1967 war ‎was an act of Israeli aggression, and that Israeli government control over a ‎Palestinian population that has no say in its election is immoral. ‎

Rather than blasting Sebastian for misrepresenting the entire issue, Barak ‎replied, “I do not start my consideration from the moral issues.” ‎

‎”Why not? You don’t care about morality?” Sebastian asked.‎

‎”I care about morality,” Barak said. “But I care more about our very survival ‎in life. And I should tell you that I do not disagree with the bottom line of what ‎you are trying to kind of somehow argue. The situation that has been created is ‎such that Israel faces a choice. If we keep controlling the whole area from the ‎Mediterranean to the River Jordan, where some 13 million people are living — ‎‎8 million Israelis, 5 million Palestinians, that if only one entity reigned over ‎this whole area, namely Israel, it would become inevitably — that’s a key word, ‎inevitably — either non-Jewish or non-democratic…”‎

Sebastian interjected, “But the state you have at the moment is an apartheid ‎state, isn’t it?”‎

Barak nodded and continued: “It’s not yet an apartheid [state], but it might ‎come on the slippery slope toward apartheid.”‎

In spite of three attacks in three months, Britain does not seem to be choosing the path of vigilance and determination. June is not even over but the media barely talk about terrorism any more.

Then, in the early hours of June 19, a man who acted alone drove a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London: the main “threat” to the British right now was soon presented in several newspapers as “Islamophobia”.

Decolonization added the idea that the Europeans had oppressed other peoples and were guilty of crimes they now had to redeem. There was no mention of how, throughout history, recruits to Islam had colonized the great Christian Byzantine Empire, Greece, Sicily, Corsica, North Africa and the Middle East, most of the Balkans and eastern Europe, Hungary, northern Cyprus and Spain.

While most jihadist movements were banned by the British government, more discreet organizations have emerged and demurely sent the same message. The Islamic Forum for Europe, for example, depicts itself as “peaceful”, but many of those it invites to speak are anything but that. The Islamic Human Rights Commission uses the language of defending human rights to disseminate violent statements against the Jews and the West.

London, June 5, 2017. A minute of silence is held at Potters Field Park, next to the City Hall, to pay tribute to the victims of the London Bridge jihadist attack three days before. Those who came have brought flowers, candles and signs bearing the usual words: “unity”, “peace” and “love”. Faces are sad but no trace of anger is visible. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, gives a speech emphasizing against all evidence that the killers’ ideas have nothing to do with Islam.

A few hours after the attack, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May also refuses to incriminate Islam, but dares to speak of “Islamic extremism”. She was immediately accused of “dividing” the country. On election day, June 8, her Conservative party lost the majority in the House of Commons. Jeremy Corbyn, a pro-terrorist, “democratic socialist”, who demands the end of British participation in the campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS), led the Labour party to thirty more seats than it had earlier. In spite of three attacks in three months, Britain does not seem to choose the path of vigilance and determination. June is not even over but the media barely talk about terrorism any more. A devastating fire destroyed a building in North Kensington, killing scores of residents. Mourning the victims seems to have completely erased all memory of those killed in the terrorist attacks.

Then, in the early hours of June 19, a man who acted alone drove a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London: the main “threat” to the British right now was soon presented in several newspapers as “Islamophobia”.

The United Kingdom is not the main Muslim country in Europe, but it is the country where, for decades, Islamists could comfortably call for jihad and murder. Although most jihadist movements were banned by the British government, more discreet organizations have emerged and demurely spread the same message. The Islamic Forum for Europe, for example, depicts itself as “peaceful”, but many of those it invites to speak are anything but that. One was Anwar al-Awlaki, who for years planned al-Qaeda operations until he was killed in Yemen in 2011 in an American drone strike. The Islamic Human Rights Commission uses the language of defending human rights to disseminate violent statements against Jews and the West.

A spate of terrorist attacks has hit Europe in the past month, not only in Manchester and London but also in Paris and Brussels, where incidents this week were mercifully terminated before they could do any real damage. In Britain, a man seeking vengeance rammed a van into a crowd exiting a mosque, giving rise to real and justified fears of an anti-Muslim backlash. The incidents have left the Continent, and especially Britain, in a state of nervous agitation, fearful of a prolonged period of social unrest and heightened tensions between Muslim communities and their secular neighbors.

On the issue of free speech, the response from authorities has been sad but predictable. Reports the New York Times: “In a coordinated campaign across 14 states, the German police on Tuesday raided the homes of 36 people accused of hateful postings over social media, including threats, coercion, and incitement to racism. Most of the raids concerned politically motivated right-wing incitement.” In Sussex, in southern England, a man has been charged with “publishing written material intending to stir up religious hatred against Muslims” on his Facebook account in 2015; he faces a year in prison. The Sussex police say they hope the lengthy sentence will deter those looking to “spread messages of fear and hate” on the Internet.

There are two things that come to mind in the wake of this suppression. The first is that Americans should never forget the value of free speech. Free speech — not its anodyne, Continental form — is by and large a uniquely American institution. It simply does not exist in Europe. Those who yearn for an America that looks more like the orderly, regulated, universal-health-care systems of Western Europe should keep this fact in the back of their mind always.

The second thing to say is that the crackdown on free speech is not occurring in absentia. The ongoing suppression interacts with decisions taken or not taken in other domains of policy and public debate. The most important of those decisions is that politicians and the culture more broadly have chosen not to inquire into the specifically Islamic roots of terrorism. To decline to blame Muslims en masse for terrorism is well and good and should continue. But the unwillingness to ask how Islam may provide a wellspring of justification for terrorist actions is harder to rationalize. It comes with a certain set of implications and corollaries.

By Kejal Vyas in Irapa, Venezuela and Sara Schaefer Muñoz in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago

Struggling to find basic staples in her own country, Mariana Revilla and five neighbors here took to crossing a treacherous 60-mile gulf under the cover of night to the island of Trinidad.

On her last trip, they made a good haul, securing seven tons of flour, sugar and cooking oil from the former British colony in exchange for fresh shrimp from home. But on the way back their rickety 46-foot boat capsized, leaving Ms. Revilla and her companions clinging to the wreckage for nearly two days before she and two others ran out of strength and drowned, according to survivors. Her stepfather says her 3-year-old daughter, Isabel, keeps asking, “Where is my mama?”

As Venezuela’s economy crumbles, an increasingly desperate people are doing all they can to get food and medicine. Here that can involve great peril.Venezuelans make trips as long as 10 hours to hawk shellfish, plastic chairs, house doors, ceramic pots and even exotic animals like iguanas and brightly feathered macaws. They are exchanged for basic goods—rice, detergent, diapers—that Caracas is increasingly unable to provide.“It’s thanks to Trinidad that we have any food here,” said 49-year-old Angela Caballero, a resident of this town on a peninsula that extends toward the island. “If that didn’t come, we’d be dead.”

If you’ve ever been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, chances are that you visited the glass pavilion containing the Temple of Dendur. One of only three such temples outside Egypt, it was built by the Roman emperor Augustus around 10 B.C. as part of an effort to cultivate the local Nubian population. This month marks its 50th anniversary overlooking Central Park, where it provides an unforgettable glimpse of Egypt’s ancient culture for millions of tourists who will never travel to the Middle East.

But more important, at a time when the U.S. is questioning the nature of its longstanding relationships with countries across the world, the temple is a symbol of international cooperation. In the 1960s, 50 nations united to save 22 irreplaceable monuments—including the Temple of Dendur—set to be submerged during the construction of Lake Nasser. These countries were motivated not by their own national interests, but by an understanding that mankind has a common interest in protecting historic monuments.

With a final investment of $16 million, the U.S. became the largest contributor to the $100 million preservation project. As a demonstration of gratitude, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser gave the Temple of Dendur to the U.S. in 1965. After a competition led by the newly created National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, President Lyndon Johnson decided that the 2,000-year-old temple should go to the Met.

The Middle East’s fragile cultural heritage was in the news again this week. On Wednesday Islamic State blew up the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, obliterating a cultural and religious site that had stood since 1173. Religious fundamentalism, illicit excavation, black-market trade and simple neglect have destroyed historic sites in the Middle East at an alarming rate. Wednesday’s bombing underscores the most urgent problem: ISIS and its affiliates have turned cultural destruction in Iraq and Syria into propaganda, even as they sell looted works of art on the black market to raise money for arms.

Why should we worry about a bunch of old monuments when the human cost of the unrest is so high? There are two reasons. First, the Middle East is the cradle of civilization. As our forebears recognized when they acted to save the cultural heritage of Lower Nubia, these monuments are integral to our collective human story. Architectural monuments illuminate the complexity of our common past. So much has already been lost. We have a moral obligation to save what remains.