Mick Hartley

Uzbek girl

From photographer Hassan Kurbanbaev's series Tashkent Youth:

Uncle Vova, we are with you!

Uncle Vova being Putin.

If you were wondering how bad things can get in Russia - and have a strong stomach - check this out:

"The world's population is fed up with hegemony..."

I imagine it sounds better in Russian.

"Samurai will never get the Kuril Islands.
"We shall defend the amber capital [Kaliningrad] with our bare chests.
"We will save our Sevastopol and Crimea for our descendants.
"We shall bring Alaska back to the harbour of the homeland."

It reminds me of North Korea's Moranbong Band, though without the glamour. The same militaristic fervour; the same adoration of the strong leader. Fascism, in other words.

And that girl on the right (1;36, 2:13, 2:47)....chilling.

A transformative opportunity

More on the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone, which, we've learnt, is one of Kim Jong-un's pet projects, and one he's hoping will receive a considerable boost with the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics:

The North Korean authorities are mobilizing ordinary citizens and military conscripts alike in a push to accelerate construction of the "Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone" situated on the country's east coast.  Sources inside North Korea report that the authorities have conveyed their intentions to complete the project before the July 27 "Victory Day" holiday, which is referred to as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day in South Korea. 

The beach resort project, along with Kalma Airport and the Masik Pass Ski Resort, all appear to be part of a larger plan by Kim Jong Un to address economic difficulties by generating more tourism revenue. He made this clear in his 2018 New Year's address, saying, "This year, service personnel and residents should join efforts to complete the construction of the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area in the shortest period of time."
 
"The authorities have mobilized 120,000 military members and 20,000 ordinary citizens for the Wonsan construction project," a source in China close to  North Korean affirs told Daily NK on January 28. "People are worried over implications of another 'speed battle' (intense construction mobilization) after Kim Jong Un's order to complete the project by July 27."
 
According to the source, the current priority is building lodging (hotel facilities) for tourists at the Kalma beach resort.  [...]

But for the locals mobilized to construct these projects, it is not only their labor that is being exploited. They also bear the burden of having to provide the construction materials themselves.
 
"The authorities are now issuing orders for Wonsan area residents to provide construction materials for the mobilized workers before March. All households in the area must also contribute things like winter clothing and rice, which is resulting in endless complaints from the residents," a source in Kangwon Province added.
 
"The authorities are trying to reassure people that they will move to state-sponsored material support (instead of demanding resources from the locals) in April, but nobody believes them."
 
There are also doubts emerging over the ability of the completed project to attract tourists.
 
While residents of the Wonsan area are known to boast of their region's natural beauty and potential to attract tourists, the Kangwon-based source told Daily NK that many on the other hand believe the project is doomed to fail due to an inherent inability to compete in the global tourism industry. 
 
"Developing tourist facilities like this will be a complete waste of time with continued strengthening of international sanctions," he said. "There is an agreement among residents that any tourist money will only go to cadres and administrators, and that ordinary people won't even be allowed to enter the areas."

Meanwhile state media outlet KCNA reported on January 26 that the Wonsan Kalma project represents a "transformative opportunity" to become a "world-class tourist spot," and that the country is moving to complete the project in "the shortest time possible."

Despite the understandable cynicism of the locals, the South Korean government has no such qualms, happily sending their skiers there for joint training and pre-games celebrations at the Masik Pass Ski Resort. They've also offered to supply diesel to the North Koreans resort, in a possible breach of UN sanctions.

In further Pyeonchang news, North Korea has cancelled joint cultural performances with the South that were planned for Feb. 4 at the Mt. Kumgang resort. This was, they say, because of some of the negative coverage from the South Korean media, which "continues to propagate popular opinion that insults the sincere measures we are undertaking in relation to the Pyeongchang Olympics." If this is meant to intimidate the South Korean government into leaning on the media to drop the negativity, well, it's all par for the course. They've already threatened to pull out after protesters in Seoul burnt a photograph of Kim Jong-un. It was also reported that the South Korean government told prominent North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho and others to refrain from criticizing the North during the Winter Olympics lest they spoil the mood. 

Colour wall

Photographer Arthur Meyerson, from his new book The Journey:

Water Wall, Tokyo, 2016. © Arthur Meyerson

Motel, Austin, 2013. © Arthur Meyerson

Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco, 1997. © Arthur Meyerson

This cancerous tumor will be extracted in a few years

There was quite a fuss when, back in 2005, Iran's then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel should be "wiped off the map". A number of commentators, including Juan Cole and the Guardian's Jonathan Steele, argued that this was a mis-translation, and that what Ahmadinejad was really calling for was a change in the Israeli government. It was an argument that Christopher Hitchens had little time for.

I wonder what Cole, Steele et al. would make of this, from Mojtaba Hosseini, Iranian Leader Khamenei's representative in Iraq:

From the transcript:

"The Palestinian cause is a global cause. The Zionist regime was established to be a cancerous tumor spreading in the countries [of the Middle East]. That is why, from the onset, their slogan was 'from the Nile to the Euphrates.' They wanted to take the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. They were not only in a single country – they don't have the right to be even in that one country... They established a tyrannical state, contrary to the will of the people. They did not consult the Palestinians – the Jews of Palestine – on the issue. They came from abroad and imposed their occupation. From the very beginning, [Israel] was founded upon evil, upon strife, and upon the interference in the affairs of other countries. Therefore, from the outset, the Imam [Khomeini] ruled that waging war against Saudi Arabia [sic] is obligatory, even back when he was just a religious scholar in Najaf.

"He issued a fatwa according to which it is permitted to pay the khums tax to the Palestinian people, so they can protect themselves and their land. Since [Israel] is a cancerous tumor, it must be uprooted and removed. Therefore, we anticipate that, as Imam Khamenei said, this cancerous tumor will be extracted in a few years, Allah willing. This tumor will be no more. There will be no Israel on the face of the earth."

Another scandalous mis-translation from those Israeli propagandists at MEMRI? Or further corroboration of what the Iranian leader really has in mind for the "Zionist regime".

China: city and country

A neat juxtaposition from photographer Luca Campigotto:

Beijing, 2016

Campiigotto produces glossy stylised images, notably of cities at night, with long exposure times. He's done New York, with his 2012 book Gotham City. Now it's China's turn.

From his latest book Iconic China:

Shanghai, 2016

Hong Kong, 2016

Shanghai, 2016

Shanghai, 2016

Hong Kong, 2016

[Photos © Luca Campigotto]

If that last shot is familiar, well, it's a popular subject now. Here's almost the same shot, from French photographer Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze. Which confirms my intuiton that where New York was the most photogenic city of the 20th century, Hong Kong will turn out to be the most photogenic of the 21st.

 

A most beleaguered minority

A powerful piece from Melanie Phillips in the Times (£):

The scale of Britain’s problem with Islamic extremism has been graphically illustrated by what happens to Muslims who fight it.

St Stephen’s is a secular state primary school in a largely Pakistani and Bangladeshi community in east London. Its results are among the best in England. Its head teacher, Neena Lall, decided with her chairman of governors, Arif Qawi, that children under the age of eight should be banned from wearing the Islamic headscarf in class. They also stopped children fasting on school premises during Ramadan in case they became unwell.

Lall was alarmed that very few pupils thought of themselves as British. She felt an obligation to teach them British values. So what was the reaction to this admirable stand against religious extremism? Qawi was forced out as chairman of governors and Lall was likened to Hitler. Five local councillors said that the headscarf ban would leave pupils “victimised, intimidated and threatened when practising their faith”. Nearly 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the ban to be lifted. Last week Lall was forced to apologise and reverse the policy.

This surely falls within the remit of Sara Khan, who has just been made head of the new Commission for Countering Extremism. Khan is a Muslim human rights activist and chief executive of Inspire, an organisation she founded in 2008 to fight extremism and gender inequality.

She encourages Muslim integration into British society. She says organisations or preachers promoting extremism or violence must be confronted, and has called for honesty among Muslims about the hateful ideologies and intolerance within their community.

So what’s been the reaction to her appointment from self-professed Muslim moderates? Unbridled horror. Her principal crime, it seems, is to have supported the government’s Prevent programme. Prevent is designed to stop individuals becoming or supporting terrorists. One might have thought that it was appropriate for the new anti-extremism head commissioner to support Prevent. But no. Prevent relies on the Muslim community “informing” on individuals with extremist attitudes before they commit any crime. Many Muslims call this state-sponsored spying. 

The former Conservative minister Baroness Warsi says that Khan is divisive because many Muslims see her as “simply a creation of and mouthpiece for the Home Office”. Yet Khan opposed last year’s doomed counterextremism bill. So she’s hardly a government stooge. No, the real crime committed by the 
anti-extremism head commissioner is that she’s anti-extremism.  [...]

We are repeatedly told that the vast majority of Britain’s Muslims are moderate. We must hope so; but from the way the community has treated Sara Khan and the head and former chairman of governors at St Stephen’s school, it would appear that Muslims who fight extremism are a most beleaguered minority.

 

Punching up at Jews

John-Paul Pagano, in Forward - How Anti-Semitism’s True Origin Makes It Invisible To The Left:

The Anti-Defamation League publishes an annual report on incidents of anti-Semitism in the United States. This year’s audit, made available in November, showed a significant increase in relation to the previous year: 2017 saw a 67% rise in anti-Jewish hate speech, harassment, vandalism, and violence.

It’s a disheartening measure of a terrible phenomenon. Yet in the three months since the audit was released, it’s garnered little attention.

Some public comments hint at why. In a video for Jewish Voice for Peace posted to Facebook in April, the anti-racism campaigner Linda Sarsour addressed the issue. “I want to make the distinction that while anti-Semitism is something that impacts Jewish Americans, it’s different than anti-black racism or Islamophobia because it’s not systemic,” she said. “Of course, you may experience vandalism or an attack on a synagogue, or maybe on an individual level… but it’s not systemic, and we need to make that distinction.”

Underlying this is a pervasive point of view is the notion that Jews, who are often conflated with whites, should “check their privilege,” because anti-Semitism just isn’t as bad as other forms of racism. On campus, where the ADL notes an acute rise in anti-Jewish hostility, alarmed Jewish students are sidelined for being white and middle-class and the Holocaust is trivialized as “white on white crime”. Elsewhere, Jews who protest anti-Semitism are dismissed for failing to ante up sufficient concern about people of color.

This erasure of anti-Semitism isn’t simply callous. It exposes a huge moral failure at the heart of the modern Left. Under the enveloping paradigm of “intersectionality,” everyone is granularly defined by their various identities — everyone, that is, except white Jews, whose Jewishness is often overwritten by their skin color. Not simply a moral failing, this erasure is deeply hazardous, inasmuch as the fight against racism happens by and large in sectors where the Left perspective dominates — the academy, pop culture, and much of the news media.

But this failure of the Left is less a result of malice than unconscious wiring. As I will argue, the Left is doomed to erase anti-Semitism because it’s ill-equipped to understand it.

For in a key sense, regular racism, against blacks and Latinos for example, is the opposite of anti-Semitism. While both ultimately derive from xenophobia, regular racism comes from white people believing they are superior to people of color. But the hatred of Jews stems from the belief that Jews are a cabal with supernatural powers, in other words, it stems from the models of thought that produce conspiracy theories. Where the white racist regards blacks as inferior, the anti-Semite imagines that Jews have preternatural power to afflict humankind.

This is also why the Left is blind to Anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism differs from most forms of racism in that it purports to “punch up” against a secret society of oppressors, which has the side effect of making it easy to disguise as a politics of emancipation. If Jews have power, then punching up at Jews is a form of speaking truth to power — a form of speech of which the Left is currently enamored....

The Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone

In a guest column in the Daily NK, a South Korean expert tries to work out Kim Jong-un's real strategy for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics by combing the North Korean official media. One of Kim's aims, it's suggested, is to promote the "Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone" to international tourists, thereby earning some desperately needed foreign currency:

The January 18 Rodong Sinmun article, the first to mention the Olympics, included the following revelation: "Working-level talks have addressed the logistics of hosting at the Masik Pass Ski Resort and Mount Kumgang joint North-South ski training and cultural events sometime between the end of January and the beginning of February." Kim Jong Un has been continuously focusing on this geographic region of the North ever since his New Year's address, particularly the "Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone," which has been featured heavily in state media.
 
A January 4 article said, "Combining the might of the army and the people, we are constructing the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone within the shortest period of time." Then there was a January 7 article entitled, "Rail transportation sector aiding transport of items needed for Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone,' which stated, "As of January 6, we have created innovations for guaranteeing (completion of) at least 70% of the items and effort required for the construction of the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone." On January 10, one day after the high-level talks at Panmunjom, in an article entitled, "Much cement for the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone coming from the Sangwon Cement Combined Company," the author wrote, "In an effort to provide the full amount of cement needed for construction of the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone within a short time from now, workers are setting new records and a new standard through their fiery fervor for manufacturing." 

On January 19, a day after further working-level talks, in an article entitled, "A new Chosun civilization at the endless, beautiful beach," it is apparent that the regime sees the Olympics as a way to connect to development of the Wonsan Kalma project. Excerpts from the article include: "In the southeast of Kangwon Province, at the endless and beautiful beaches of the Kalma Coast of Wonsan, the beauty and scenery of the area is becoming known," and, "White sand beaches stretch for miles, there are bright blossomed flowers, green pine trees, clear water all year, all under one sky and reminiscent of a painting. And this is all not only for our people, but for foreigners to find as well." This suggests that foreign tourists are a target of the project. It is also a clear sign of the North's intention to stymie the effects of international sanctions.
 
Going a step further, the article adds, "In the near future, people coming here from around the world will open a new civilization in Chosun," revealing an intention to circumvent the nuclear issue through the tourist zone project. The following passages are further proof of this, and show just how important Kim Jong Un considers the project: "There will be multiple levels of enjoyment at the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone, including luxurious hotels and independent businesses along the coast, which will make Chosun and this magnificent tourist spot the envy of the world," and, "Ryomyong Street was a heroic achievement of the construction battle troops, and they are again briskly lending their hand to this construction. The vigor, fearlessness, and high morale of the workers will make the Wonsan Kalma Shore Tourist Zone bigger and even greater in quality than the Mirae (future) Scientists Street."

And now, from South Korea's Chosun Ilbo:

South Korea will ship about 10,000 liters of diesel to North Korea's Mt. Kumgang resort for a celebration on the eve of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, a government official here said Sunday.

But supplying refined oil products like diesel to the North could violate UN Security Council sanctions.

10,000 liters of diesel is, admittedly, not a great deal. This latest gesture though - helping Kim to promote his "magnificent tourist spot", despite the possibility of violating UN sanctions - nevertheless shows with what determination and selflessness the South Korean government is working to ensure that everything goes Kim Jong-un's way in the build-up to Pyeongchang.

Old Mine Office

Photographed by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. March 1940.

"Corner of old mine office, abandoned mines in distance. Virginia City, Nevada."

[Photo: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein]

"Old mine office. Virginia City, Nevada."

[Photo: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein]