16 minute read
Navalny Has a Lesson for the World
from The Fake Syrian Elections
by المجلة
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Navalny Has a Lesson for the World
By Anne Applebaum
When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the plane, who have since joined demonstrations in his name. So did the leaders of Russia, including the country’s dictator and president, Vladimir Putin. This, Navalny was telling all of them, is what courage looks like. Navalny is Russia’s most important opposition leader, and he was flying home from Berlin after spending many weeks in a hospital there, following
A worker paints over graffiti of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in Saint Petersburg on April 2021 ,28. The inscription reads: “The hero of the new times”. (Getty) the second or perhaps the third attempt on his life. He’d survived because a German NGO had sent a plane to Omsk to take him out of Russia, because the Novichok nerve agent used to poison him doesn’t always kill you right away, and because the Russian hospital had agreed to let him go, probably on the assumption that he would never return. (For the record: One of the doctors who treated him for poison has since died under odd circumstances, and a hospital official who refused to attribute Navalny’s illness to poison has been promoted to regional health minister.) Unexpectedly, Navalny recovered. Not only did he recover, but he emerged well enough to star, once again, in one of the videos that have made him and his team of researchers famous. He has often targeted members of the Russian elite, picking apart their elaborate webs of corruption, making fun of their money and their taste. In January he targeted Putin himself, revealing the details of the dictator’s lush palace on the Black Sea: an indoor ice-hockey rink, a hookah bar, extensive vineyards, an “aqua-discotheque,” and an elaborate shakedown scheme that paid for it all. That two-hour exposé was released just as Navalny flew back into Russia and was placed under arrest. It circulated as he sat through a “trial” so ludicrous that he mocked the judge out loud, telling her she needed to take more legal courses. The video is still circulating now, as Navalny lies in a prison hospital where he may once again be close to death. As of this writing, it has 116 million views. Nothing is secret about the poisoning, false trial, or harsh imprisonment of Navalny. Like the multiple attempts to murder him, these things are playing out in public, in the open, for everyone to see. While they unfold, Russian prosecutors are seeking to outlaw the organizations he leads, on the grounds that investigative reporting and defense of citizens’ rights are “extremist.” Putin’s overt attempt to destroy a political opponent has a logic: If Navalny is showing his countrymen how to be courageous, Putin wants to show them that courage is useless. This kind of behavior is nothing new: A similarly brazen logic lay behind Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2014, his subsequent annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and his continuing pursuit of a low-level war that still In January he targeted Putin himself, revealing the details of the dictator’s lush palace on the Black Sea: an indoor ice-hockey rink, a hookah bar, extensive vineyards, an “aquadiscotheque,” and an elaborate shakedown scheme that paid for it all.
smolders in eastern Ukraine. These aggressive military actions followed a series of prodemocracy, anti-corruption protests that persuaded Ukraine’s dictatorial, pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country. Putin’s response was part old-fashioned nationalism— the Ukrainians had undermined his vision of a new Russian empire—and part domestic politics. It was intended to show not just Ukrainians but Russians that democracy leads to violence, that anti-corruption protests will be crushed, and, above all, that courage is useless. In fact, once you understand this logic—once you understand that Putin’s main concern is his own survival—many of his otherwise inexplicable actions make sense. They also help explain why he is slowly seeking to dismantle what remains of independent media in Russia, including his decision to make it impossible for the journalists of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to function in the country any longer. The news service, backed with American money but editorially independent of the U.S. government, has operated out of Moscow for 30 years, ever since Boris Yeltsin invited its reporters in following the collapse of the Soviet Union; soon its Russian service may once again be broadcasting from abroad. Jamie Fly, RFE/RL’s president—recently restored to his job after the Trump administration forced him out—told me that this is happening just as the radio’s journalists are getting more traction with Russian audiences. RFE/RL reporters were on the ground during the demonstrations in Belarus last summer, were with Navalny on his flight back to Moscow, and have covered every aspect of
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his trial and imprisonment. Until recently, Putin diplomatically left the news service alone—after all, the United States tolerates the presence of much more heavily controlled Russian state media, including the channel RT—but now Putin cannot tolerate any real journalism at all. The need for regime preservation even helps explain why Russian troops and tanks are once again gathering around the borders of Ukraine. Just as the attempted assassination of Navalny was carried out in the open, this apparent preparation for a new war is happening in the open too. Photographs of Russian missile launchers and tanks, sitting on railcars or standing by the side of the road, are circulating on the internet. Two large warships, and a host of other ships, have arrived in the area as well. According to Janes Defence Weekly, the recent buildup of Russian soldiers in Crimea, as well as in the territory just to the east of the Ukrainian border, represents the largest “unannounced redeployment” of Russian troops since the previous invasion of Ukraine. Russian television hosts, the cutting edge of Kremlin propaganda, are talking up the hoary idea that Ukraine is preparing for war, spurred on by the “Anglo-Saxons”: “The West is preparing for nothing less than war with us” is how one state-TV presenter put it. Putin himself gave a deliberately ominous speech declaring that “the organizers of any provocations threatening the fundamental interests of our security will regret their deeds more than they have regretted anything in a long time.” Presumably this applies whether the “provocations” are real or imaginary. Russia experts on both sides of the Atlantic, not to mention experts within Russia itself, disagree about whether this military accumulation means that an actual invasion is imminent. Many think Putin is simply playing a game, putting on a show to prove to the Ukrainians and everyone else that he could carry out another bloody invasion if he wanted to. Some believe that he is serious, that he wants to finish the job he started in 2014 and occupy much of southern and eastern Ukraine. Wild and foolhardy though this sounds, Putin might have strategic reasons to take this kind of risk: Road access and water supply to Crimea would be bolstered, Ukraine could lose much of its coastline and ports, and Russia would dominate the Black Sea. Assuming that Putin could take control—and Ukrainians would mount a major response, conceivably including a protracted guerrilla war—he could then turn much of Ukraine into yet another unstable, disputed, lawless territory, permanently
Russian President Vladimir Putin talks during a concert marking the 7th anniversary of Crimea annexation, on March 18, 2021 in Moscow, Russia. Tens of thousands of people gathered at Luzhniki Stadium to watch a patriotic concert called “The days of Crimea”. (Getty)
dependent on the presence of Russian troops, much like the “Donetsk People’s Republic” that runs a small slice of eastern Ukraine. The maps of Novorossiya—the new state that Russia could carve out of southeastern Ukraine—that were published back in 2014 are probably still lying around the Kremlin, ready to be used. Another possibility is that Putin himself doesn’t yet know what he wants, or that he will decide as events unfold. If Navalny dies, and if Russians launch mass protests—a spontaneous one was staged in Moscow this week—Putin may need a war to distract them. If Navalny dies, and the U.S. reaction is tougher than he expects, Putin might want a war in Ukraine to prove to the Russian public how little he cares what Americans think. Alternatively, he might just want to test President Joe Biden, regardless of what happens to Navalny. Whereas Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all believed they could get along better with Russian leadership than their predecessors, Biden is the first president since the Cold War who did not arrive in office planning to “reset” relations with Russia. Biden has already described Putin as a “killer.” Putin, ever mindful of the home audience, may want to see how much Biden really intends to push back. Biden’s team hasn’t yet spelled out what it would do in response. If the U.S. has a scheme to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine, Biden hasn’t announced it. Nor has he announced any planned response, other than more sanctions, to Russian disinformation campaigns in the U.S. and Europe, Russian cyberattacks, or Russia’s use of poison, assassination, and sabotage, not only at home but in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and Germany, among other countries. If Biden has any long-term intention to respond in kind, or perhaps to block the completion of one of Russia’s most important investments—the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which lies under the Baltic Sea—he hasn’t said. So far, the only person who has a coherent strategy for dealing with Putin is Navalny. He described it in a handwritten note he sent to Yevgenia Albats, a Russian journalist and close friend. “Everything will be all right,” he told her. “And, even if it isn’t, we’ll have the consolation of having lived honest lives.” He has already shown his compatriots that it is possible to live an honest life in a dishonest political system. It’s an invitation for others to follow. Dictatorships survive because most people are not willing to pay that high a price.
This article was originally published on The Atlantic Online.
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India Seeks Gulf Support to Battle Deadly Covid- 19 Second Wave
Troubled Economy Threatens Over 10 Million Indians
By Meera Ravi
On Thursday evening last week, a Sikh prayer house (called gurudwara) in the New Delhi suburb of Indirapuram announced that it would provide free oxygen to Covid19patients until they could be admitted to a hospital. As news spread, people came in their cars, on foot or rickshaws, desperate for the life-giving gas that the whole of India is desperately short of. By Friday, the pavements and streets around the gurudwara were overflowing with gasping patients,
Oxygen tankers being airlifted on an IAF plane in Dubai. The Indian Air Force had airlifted a total of 12 cryogenic tanks from Dubai to West Bengal over Monday and Tuesday. “Our Indian Air Force team is back in Dubai. They have airlifted the remaining 6 cryogenic tanks to India today. (PTI) supported by frantic family and friends. Sikh gurudwara worldwide are well-known for their community kitchens called ‘langar’ which feed wholesome food to anybody who comes there. These langars become especially important at times of calamity. As India grappled with the clawing horror of a deadly second-wave surge of Covid19, this gurudwara put volunteers to work, checking oxygen levels of newly arrived patients and hooking them up to oxygen supply. Most hospitals in India aren›t equipped with independent plants that generate oxygen directly for patients, primarily because they require an uninterrupted power supply, which is a rarity in many states. At the gurudwara, volunteers and donors are keeping the supply going with cylinders purchased or sourced from all over the city and brought there.
PREMATURE DECLARATION OF VICTORY
For the past couple of weeks, shocking videos and photos of scenes of utter chaos in India’s hospitals, morgues and cemeteries have captured global attention. Many countries had been led to believe that India had acted decisively and swiftly to beat back the virus. In January 2021, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi even addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos virtually, announcing rather prematurely, that India had circumvented the worst of the pandemic by developing a Covid-specific health infrastructure and trained its resources to fight the virus. For some time, Modi’s words even seemed true. Almost exactly a year ago, in April mid2020, India announced and delivered bulk supply of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and paracetamol to United Arab Emirates and Jordan, as essential Covid- 19 drugs. With his penchant for the clever phrase, Modi called India the “pharmacy to the world”, even sending a corps of 88 doctors and nurses to UAE in May 2020 to support its fight against the virus, a 15 -member army medical team with supplies to Kuwait and supplies of HCQ to Bahrain. India was also in the news for its large-scale donation of vaccines as the country is one of the global hubs of vaccine manufacture. India-manufactured AstraZeneca vaccine is being administered in the Gulf countries, which early on bought consignments for use in their vaccination campaign External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla were, at that time, in constant touch with their Gulf counterparts.
RETURN OF GULF NRI
At some point in mid2020-, Indian missions in the Gulf started registering non-resident Indians or NRIs who wished to return home and this ultimately saw a rush of over 870,000 expats returning to the Southern state of Kerala alone. Of them, as many as 5,67,138 officially cited loss of job as the reason for returning, according to the department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA). The flip side of the coin is that, appalled by their lack of control over health resources, many expats are either coming back to the Gulf or delaying their return to India. One Bahrain-based businesswoman wept as she described how her millionaire ex-Army father was left gasping for lack of oxygen and later, how they had to guard his body in an overcrowded cremation site to prevent it being unceremoniously shoved into a pile. “Ordinarily, he would have received a war veteran’s flag-draped send-off but we were reduced to hastily cremating his remains in
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a place as crowded as a railway station,” she said. S Irudaya Rajan, an expert on international migration and the chair professor at the Ministry of Overseas Indian affairs research unit on international migration at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, says although returning numbers are high, NORKA estimates are way too high. “There were about 10 million Indians in the Gulf nations and at best 500,000 of them would have returned, although even that will make it the highest in the past 50 years,” he says, “Moreover, the situation is fluid - tens of thousands have already gone back to their places of work, some of them even with new jobs.”
GCC TIES TO RESCUE
From being a benevolent Big Brother on top of the pandemic game, dispensing drugs and free vaccines, India has swiftly slipped to urgent crisis-level similar to what Italy and New York went through in 2020. At this point, PM Modi’s careful wooing of the energy-rich West Asian neighbourhood has borne fruit in tangible and intangible ways. Besides the now-cliched lighting up of the Burj Khalifa in the Indian flag colours as a show of support, even the Abu Dhabi Bourse was lit up in tricolour to symbolically show the economic and commercial links between both countries. Although they kept travel corridors warily open, Gulf airlines were swift to demand additional tests and health certification from travellers to and from India. India has sought help from various countries under ‹Oxygen Maitri› to replenish its dwindling oxygen stock. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Ministry of Defence (MoD) have identified several countries for procurement of high capacity tankers and oxygen gas cylinders. The Government is coordinating with Singapore and UAE to lift high-capacity tankers by Indian Air Force transport planes. The governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait have pledged support and already sent the first batch of aid
In a New Delhi suburb, a gurdwara management has promised to provide free oxygen to patients until they can be admitted to a hospital. Teams of volunteers check oxygen levels of newly arrived patients and provide what they need. (AP)
to struggling India. Saudi Arabia is shipping 80 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen to India, in cooperation with the Adani group and British multinational company Linde. Last week, India sent a military aircraft to the UAE to transport oxygen containers back for use in its hospitals. The aircraft flew six empty cryogenic containers from Dubai according to media reports in India. The containers will be used to store liquid oxygen that will go on to be used to help patients with Covid19- to breathe. The Indian diaspora in the Gulf, which usually throws itself into relief operations, has been somewhat sluggish this time, largely because of very strict money transfer laws governing charity drives. However, this has not stopped the Abu Dhabi Hindu temple, which is the first of its kind and the Dubai Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara from leading efforts of Indians in the UAE to send oxygen support for Covid19- patients back home. The BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi is working to create a supply chain of oxygen tanks and cylinders which will provide upwards of 440 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen per month starting last Wednesday. “This oxygen will be provided to the needy through the government and BAPS’s own network of Covid hospitals,” stated Swami Brahmaviharidas. He said the first round of relief being sent this week will include 44 metric tons of liquid oxygen, 30,000 litres of medical oxygen gas in 600 cylinders and 130 oxygen concentrators. “Logistical support for these humanitarian efforts is being provided by the Transworld Group via air and sea.” The Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara is also pitching in with a monthly supply of 10 oxygen containers, said Surender Singh Kandhari, chairman of the Gurudwara. “We have already organised it. Our first shipment will go on Saturday or Sunday,” he said. “We are going to support the people who need oxygen in Delhi and Punjab.” Keenly aware of its status as a newlyinfluential and powerful player in West Asia, the Indian government has turned down all offers for cash donations. A spokesperson of the Indian Consulate in Dubai clarified that India has not asked for cash donations. He said the mission has directed those who expressed interest to support with oxygen to the Indian Red Cross Society, which is working with the health ministry in India for the distribution of medical oxygen.
