Franklin Graham, Russia and the ‘Moralist International’

The war in Ukraine has made strange bedfellows of the international religious right.

Franklin Graham, right, meets with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on March 5, 2019. Photo courtesy of the Moscow Patriarchate

March 21, 2022

By 

Mark Silk

(RNS) — Four days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Franklin Graham tweeted, “Pray for  President (Vladimir) Putin today. This may sound like a strange request, but we need to pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”

I think we can mark that prayer down as unanswered. The Holy One’s response, assuming there was one, seems to have been more along the lines of what happened when Moses put the pinch on Pharoah to let the Hebrews go free. According to the Book of Exodus: “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.” 

Since Putin’s heart to date shows no sign of softening — last week he likened his opponents to a plague of gnats — Graham might assume the righteous prophet’s voice. As he did in 2015, for example, when he railed that then-President Barack Obama “has stood defiantly against God. And against his teaching. And the teachings of the Scriptures.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say that to invade a country without provocation and promiscuously kill its civilians is to stand against Graham’s God and Scriptures.

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RELATED: Samaritan’s Purse, Israelis will treat wounded Ukrainians in Lviv field hospitals

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To his credit, Graham has committed Samaritan’s Purse, the relief organization he heads, to providing relief to the victims of Russian war-making. But as for his issuing a prophetic denunciation of Russia, I’m not holding my breath. It would mean disavowing an alliance he has been involved in for years. 

That alliance is the subject of “The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars,” a book by University of Innsbrück sociologist Kristina Stoeckl and Russian scholar Dmitry Uzlaner, forthcoming this fall from Fordham University Press. Stoeckl and Uzlaner show in fascinating detail how the Russian Orthodox Church turned itself into a leading promoter of “traditional family values” inside Russia and on the world stage as part of a “Moralist International” led by the American religious right.

Central to the story is Kirill, the current patriarch of Moscow, who, after the fall of the Soviet Union, seized on family values as a means by which his church could restore its traditional place in Russian society and realize an age-old ambition to supplant Constantinople as the “Third Rome” — the headquarters of Eastern Orthodoxy, if not of world Christendom.

In 2000, then-Metropolitan Kirill wrote a widely read article explaining how Russian Orthodoxy could become a public religion capable of “defining the future face of human civilization.” That meant not only standing against the morally corrupt values of secular liberalism but breaking out of a narrow Orthodox shell that eschewed alliances with conservatives in other faith communities.

Although culture warfare is alien to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Kirill succeeded in having the Russian church embrace it after becoming Moscow patriarch in 2009. Thus, under his leadership Russians began to play an important part in the World Congress of Families, an American organization designed to spread a Christian-right agenda internationally. 

Franklin Graham tweets a photo of meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in April 2017.

It was after Putin was elected president of Russia for the third time in 2012 that he himself signed on to Kirill’s agenda, signing laws that established penalties for offending religious feelings and for displaying LGBT symbols. Putin’s goal of reestablishing the Russian empire dovetailed perfectly with Kirill’s messianic ambition for his church.

Along the way, Graham has been there to facilitate the cause, meeting with Putin in 2015 and with Kirill in 2019, tweeting after the latter encounter, “I’ve been in Moscow this week & had the privilege of meeting w/Patriarch Kirill of Moscow & All Russia. It was also a blessing to meet w/evangelical leaders & other officials while there. Pray for them & for more opportunities to share the truth, hope, & life found only in Jesus.”

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RELATED: How Putin’s invasion became a holy war for Russia

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It seems obvious that, however the war in Ukraine turns out, Putin will have turned himself into an international pariah. The same is likely true for Kirill, who has thus far served as the war’s foremost religious apologist.

At a conference hosted by Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center last week, Stoeckl said she expected that, because of the war, the Russians would be dropping out of the global family values movement — the Moralist International. “They were on the rise to become the leading moral voice,” she said.

As for Franklin Graham, who knows?

'Best enemies list since Nixon': Author basks in pride after Ted Cruz attacks his book during confirmation hearing

Brad Reed
March 22, 2022


During his questioning of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz tried to get her on the record about several books that were on the recommended reading list at the Georgetown Day School, where Jackson serves as a member of the board of trustees.

In addition to attacking the school for recommending the "Anti-Racist Baby" book, Cruz also singled out a book called "The End of Policing," a book that argues for reducing the amount of policing Americans are subjected to by decriminalizing drugs and sex work, among other things.

The book's author, Alex Vitale, found himself surprised and honored to have his book held up by Cruz during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

NOW WATCH: 'Awkward’ Lindsey Graham has now become the ‘drama guy’ at confirmation hearings: former Dem senator

"So that just happened," a surprised Vitale wrote on Twitter after Cruz slammed his work.

Vitale went on to add that being called out by Cruz was akin to being on "the best enemies list since Nixon" and said Cruz's tirade against the book was "the best endorsement yet for The End of Policing."

 Utah's GOP governor explains why he vetoed anti-trans bill: 'Rarely has so much fear been directed at so few'

Bob Brigham
March 22, 2022

Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox (Source: Twitter)

Utah's Republican governor on Tuesday urged those who disagreed with him to read why he vetoed an anti-transgender bill.

"Utah Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls' sports on Tuesday, becoming the second Republican governor this week to overrule state lawmakers taking on youth sports amid broader culture wars as LGBTQ visibility grows," the Associated Press reported Tuesday. "Cox joins Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, who vetoed a statewide ban on Monday. Holcomb said Indiana's Legislature had not demonstrated that transgender kids had undermined fairness in sports."

On social media, Cox posted a screenshot of his three-page veto message.

"I know most won’t read past a headline but please read my veto letter—especially if you disagree with me. The veto will be overridden on Friday and then we will have a special session to fix a few things. Trans sports is a terribly difficult issue. Please be kind to everyone," he urged.

Cox addressed his explanatory letter to Utah state Senate President Stuart Adams and Speaker Brad Wilson.

"I believe in fairness and protecting the integrity of women’s sports. I know both of you are committed to these same ideals and that we have worked very hard together to resolve the many issues surrounding transgender student participation in sports. Unfortunately, HB11 has several fundamental flaws and should be reconsidered," Cox wrote.

Cox warned the bill could bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association (UHSAA) and cited the five numbers that "most impacted" his veto.

"75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports in Utah. 4 transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah. 1 transgender student playing girls sports," he wrote. "86% of trans youth reporting suicidality. 56% of trans youth having attempted suicide."

"Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few," he wrote. "I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly. For that reason, as much as any other, I have taken this action in the hope that we can continue to work together and find a better way."

Nepal artist breathes life into sacred painting tradition

Agence France-Presse
March 24, 2022

Paubha remains a common painting method in Nepal but the austere religious observances once followed by its artists have fallen out of practice 

PRAKASH MATHEMA AFP

With a shaved head and an empty stomach, artist Ujay Bajracharya dips his brush to line the eyes of the deity Tara as a soothing Buddhist hymn warbles in the background.

The 40-year-old is applying the final strokes to his paubha painting, a devotional art form known for its minute detail, intense colours and the strict purification rituals traditionally required of its practitioners.

It took three months for Bajracharya to complete his rendition of the Green Tara, a goddess of compassion revered by Buddhists and Hindus in Nepal.

Before work began, he shaved off his hair and clipped his nails, while a Buddhist priest blessed his canvas and selected a day auspicious enough for the artist to commence his labors.

Bajracharya woke up early each morning and did not eat until his day's work was over, adopting a strict vegetarian diet that also excluded garlic, tomatoes and onion when he broke his fast.

"My body felt light and I felt more focused and motivated to paint," he told AFP.

"Changing my lifestyle was a bit difficult at first but I had the support of my family and friends, so that helped me stay disciplined."

Paubha remains a common painting method in Nepal but the austere religious observances once followed by its artists have fallen out of practice.

Bajracharya's adoption of these rituals began last year, when he approached a museum in the capital Kathmandu about painting another Buddhist deity while adhering to the forgotten traditions.

Rajan Shakya, founder of the Museum of Nepali Art, said that they immediately agreed to the idea of reviving the practice.

"It is part of what makes paubha art unique and valuable. The more people learn about it, the more demand there will be for Nepali artists. And then we know our art will survive, our culture will survive," Shakya said.

Bajracharya has committed to observing these rules for future paintings, beginning with his exacting work on the Green Tara, which he crafted for worship in a private prayer room at his home.

"I felt that we should preserve this method and the next generation should also be aware -- people should know about the spiritual aspect of these paintings," he said.

Paubha artworks use cotton or silk canvases, and colors were traditionally made by grinding minerals and plants into fine powder. Some works even used pure gold and silver.

The oldest preserved paubha painting dates to the 13th century, but scholars believe the tradition is much older, with earlier examples likely disappearing because of the fragile materials used.

Its artists are believed to have inspired trends in thangkas, a similar type of devotional painting in neighboring Tibet that has been recognised in UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.

'A form of meditation'

Priest Dipak Bajracharya -- a member of Ujay's caste but of no relation to the painter -- said that in earlier times paubha artists would stay "pure" to ensure the sanctity of the images they produced.

"The process itself is considered a form of meditation," he said.

While the traditional religious value remains, paubha paintings are now commonly seen as decorative hangings in museums or the homes of collectors.

A growing international appreciation for the craft has proven lucrative for artists, with interested buyers in China, Japan and Western countries.

"Paubha paintings have now become a business, but their aim is not commercial -- they are actually objects of respect and worship," said the priest.


Dipak returned to Ujay's home once the latter's hair had grown back for a final religious ceremony, culminating in a ritual to "breathe life" into the finished painting.

The ceremonial practice invites the Green Tara to reside in the work as a vessel for worship.

"This is not art alone, the faith of Buddhists and Hindus is tied to it," said Ujay Bajracharya.


"If we don't preserve this art form, the faith will also slowly fade away."

© 2022 AFP

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearing is a flashback to how race and crime featured during Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 hearings

The Conversation
March 24, 2022

Thurgood Marshall (Yoichi Okamoto/National Archives and Records Administration)

U.S. Sen. James Eastland posed a question to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Thurgood Marshall during his August 1967 confirmation hearings.

“Are you prejudiced against white people in the South?”

Eastland, a known white supremacist, could not be clearer in conveying his fears about Marshall and race.

Fifty-five years after Marshall’s hearings, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked a similar question of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on March 22, 2022, during Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.

“You have praised the 1619 Project, which argues the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country, and you have made clear that you believe judges must consider critical race theory when deciding how to sentence criminal defendants,” Blackburn said. “Is it your personal hidden agenda to incorporate critical race theory into the legal system?”

Blackburn’s questions, when fact-checked, proved to be as inaccurate as they were inflammatory

However, Blackburn – and other Republican senators – injected race-baiting into Jackson’s confirmation hearings.

President Joe Biden nominated Jackson, 51, on Feb. 25, 2022, to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat, shortly after Breyer announced his retirement plans. Biden had publicly promised during his 2020 presidential campaign to nominate a Black woman to the high court.

Jackson’s confirmation hearings are scheduled to end on March 24. The entire Senate, which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, is expected to confirm Jackson after the proceedings, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote. It’s also possible some Republicans could vote in Jackson’s favor.

As a constitutional law professor who focuses on the Supreme Court, I find it striking that race has surfaced in such a major way in these hearings, more than five decades after Marshall’s nomination. In some respects, there has been progress on racial equity in the U.S., but aspects of these hearings demonstrate that too much remains the same.


Justice Thurgood Marshall, left, talks with former President Lyndon Baines Johnson following Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court in August 1967.
Keystone/Getty Images

Some common ground

Marshall was the first African American man who served on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Jackson will be the first African American woman on the court.

The full Senate’s final vote on Marshall reflected divisions based on racial desegregation and Marshall’s past as an NAACP lawyer, rather than a straight partisan split. President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, nominated Marshall.

But most Southern Democrats voted against him. Sixty-nine senators – 37 Democrats and 32 Republicans – voted to confirm Marshall. Eleven senators – 10 Democrats and one Republican – voted not to confirm, and 20 senators – 17 Democrats and three Republicans – dodged their senatorial voting responsibilities entirely and were recorded as “not voting.”

Widespread predictions of a final Senate vote along party lines bode well for Jackson.

Jackson is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Breyer and other legal experts have routinely praised Jackson’s intellect and legal experience. Jackson has also worked as a federal trial court judge, vice chair and commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, private law firm lawyer and federal public defender. She also served as a judicial clerk for Breyer.

The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Jackson “well qualified,” its highest ranking.

Twenty-seven Republican senators have also previously voted to confirm Jackson for her federal court positions.

But Jackson has faced arduous and sometimes histrionic cross-examination during her hearing. Certainly, partisan hostility and political theater have marked every Supreme Court nomination for decades.

Jackson’s hearings, however, stand out. They have been drenched in questions about race, both obviously and not so obviously, most caustically from Sens. Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and John Cornyn.

On March 22, Cruz questioned Jackson about the teaching of critical race theory at Georgetown Day School, a private school where she serves on the board of trustees.

Jackson, like Marshall, fielded the charged questions in a straightforward manner.

“Senator, those ideas, they don’t come up in my work as a judge, which, respectfully, is what I’m here to discuss,” Jackson said.


Sen. Ted Cruz questioned U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on critical race theory during her March 22 confirmation hearing.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A preoccupation with crime

In addition to the explicit interrogations of Jackson’s views on race, her hearings – like Marshall’s – have featured a preoccupation with the nominee’s views on crime.

Republican senators have repeatedly accused Jackson of being soft on crime – specifically, that she was lenient as a trial judge in sentencing child pornographers.

Fearmongering about crime often carries a racialized connotation, whether blatant or unspoken. Media distortions and carceral inequities fuel the myth that Black and brown men are presumptively criminal.

Jackson’s actual sentencing record reveals no anomalies or disproportionate leniency when compared with that of other judges nominated by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

But Jackson’s hearing was a flashback to Marshall’s August 1967 confirmation hearing, when Sen. John McClellan questioned Marshall and suggested that he did not take crime seriously.

“First, I would ask you if you do not agree with me that the mounting incidence of crime in this country has reached a critical stage,” McClellan said. “How do you plan to deal with it? … Do you think it is reaching proportions where we will have a reign of lawlessness and chaos?”

Marshall answered the questions politely, never hinting at the offensiveness of the implication that he somehow supported crime and lawlessness.
Republicans’ treatment of Jackson

Republicans now sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee have conflated legal representation of criminal defendants with a disregard for the rule of law and public safety.

Republican Sens. Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Cruz, Hawley, Tom Cotton and Cornyn have gone far beyond insinuation to outright vilification of Jackson’s legal representation of criminal defendants.

Blackburn incorrectly said on March 21 that Jackson “consistently called for greater freedom for hardened criminals.”

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

Cornyn incorrectly accused Jackson of using the phrase “war criminal” to describe former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the course of her legal work for Guantanamo detainees.

Cotton incorrectly said she “twisted the law” as a judge in applying the law of compassionate release, in which inmates can be released if they are very sick or elderly, for example. Cotton also suggested that she was “sympathetic” to a “fentanyl drug kingpin.”


U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her confirmation hearings on March 23, 2022.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Transformative change is slow

Like the Dixiecrat senators – Democratic senators from the South who believed in white supremacy – who grilled Marshall about his views on crime, the present-day Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans have repeatedly insinuated that Jackson is soft on crime for performing her job responsibilities as a defense lawyer and trial judge in a manner that has been shown to be well within the mainstream of these legal roles.

This racialized fearmongering brings to mind the divisive political tactics of the Willie Horton advertisement during the 1988 presidential campaign. That advertisement linked crime with African American men, and then linked both to Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, who eventually lost the race to Republican George H.W. Bush.

Marshall’s confirmation was a giant step forward in Supreme Court and U.S. history, but along the way he faced Senate Judiciary Committee questions that were race-baiting, arrogant, irrelevant and picayune.

Jackson’s historic hearings have unfolded in a similar way. In all likelihood, Jackson will become the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, representing another momentous step forward for this country. But it is also another reminder that transformative change on race, while continuing to progress, happens slowly in the U.S.

Margaret M. Russell, Associate Professor of Law, Santa Clara University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

RIGHT TO LIFE HYPOCRITES
Right-wingers are absolutely gushing over South Carolina firing squad executions

Rod Graham
March 24, 2022

A firing squad (Shutterstock)




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A recent press release from the South Carolina Department of Corrections tells us that “the department is now able to carry out an execution by firing squad.”

It is worth reading the execution protocol:

Three firing squad members will be behind the wall, with rifles facing the inmate through the opening. The rifles and open portal will not be visible from the witness room. All three rifles will be loaded with live ammunition...The inmate will wear a prison-issued uniform and be escorted into the chamber. The inmate will be given the opportunity to make a last statement. The inmate will be strapped into the chair, and a hood will be placed over his head. A small aim point will be placed over his heart by a member of the execution team. After the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire.

What’s next? Is the state going to permit tar-and-feathering of convicted criminals? Sew scarlet letters on the shirts of adulterers?

South Carolina is now the fourth state to legalize firing squads, along with three other red states Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.

A nation against the death penalty

The thing most striking to me is not necessarily that the South Carolina legislature authorized death by firing squad, but that this embrace of barbarism is so at odds with the national zeitgeist.

According to Gallup, support for the death penalty is at a five-decade low. One could argue that, at 54 percent, a majority still favors it as punishment for murder. But when Americans are asked if they could choose between life imprisonment with no choice for parole and the death penalty, 60 percent favor life imprisonment.

This is the first time since the 1980s, when polls first asked the question, that Americans have favored life imprisonment over death.

Public opinion is clearly trending away from capital punishment. The number of people put to death has decreased over the years.

According to a brief from the Death Penalty Information Center: “2021 saw historic lows in executions and near historic lows in new death sentences. … Eighteen people were sentenced to death, tying 2020’s number for the fewest in the modern era of the death penalty.”

In 1999, 99 people were executed.

In 2020, 11 were.

Much of the decrease is because states have abolished it or because states are more narrowly defining crimes punishable by death.

We are more aware of the flaws in our legal system.

The racial bias in death penalty sentencing is well documented. Indeed, Washington abolished the death penalty in 2018 in part due to the racial bias in capital sentencing within that state.

We know the state often gets it wrong, too.

The Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files revealed in excruciating detail how our system so often gets it wrong. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, an average of about four wrongly convicted people on death row have been exonerated since 1973.

It is unconscionable for people to be put to death wrongly.

The public is now so anti-death penalty that many pharmaceutical companies no longer provide the drugs used for lethal injection.

GOYA

Conservatives and the death penalty

That brings us back to South Carolina.

South Carolina has 37 people on death row to be executed because the drugs used for lethal injection have become difficult to obtain.

The legislature wants so badly to kill these people, they have reinstated a practice that belongs in the 19th century.

Why is South Carolina moving towards barbarism when it seems so much of this country is trending away from it?

The answer is simple. You probably know what it is.

South Carolina is dominated by conservative policies. According to Gallup, 77 percent of Republicans favor the death penalty. Seventy percent of “conservatives” say they support the death penalty.

The national anti-death penalty trend has not reached the south. No southern state until Virginia last year had abolished the punishment.

One could argue that Virginia is a southern state historically and geographically, but its politics are purple and oftentimes blue.

Indeed, the death penalty was abolished during Democratic Governor Ralph Northam’s administration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets reinstated under the current Republican governor.

Allowing the state to kill people (who we hope are actually guilty) is unconscionable and it surprises me this gets so little attention.

Canada has no death penalty. Australia has no death penalty. The United Kingdom has no death penalty. Indeed, no European country has the death penalty except Belarus.

Even Russia has a moratorium on the death penalty and hasn’t executed someone since the 1990s.

We are the only country in the Americas to carry out executions.

To be fair, the number of executions in the United States is far lower than the big five of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt.

But that’s nothing to be proud of.

So much of what is problematic about our country can be traced back to conservative ideologies that should no longer have relevance to an open, modern, post-industrial and democratic society.

Executions, now by firing squad, is a prime example.

Rod Graham is a sociologist. A professor at Virginia's Old Dominion University, he researches and teaches courses in the areas of cyber-crime and racial inequality. His work can be found at roderickgraham.com. Follow him @roderickgraham.

Azov Regiment takes centre stage in Ukraine propaganda war


By AFP
Published March 25, 2022

Ukraine's Azov Regiment was created in 2014 by far-right activists, but it has since been integrated into the National Guard - Copyright AFP Vano SHLAMOV

Some call them war heroes, others neo-Nazis: Ukraine’s Azov Regiment is at the heart of the propaganda war between Kyiv and Moscow, as Russia claims to seek the “denazification” of Ukraine.

The Azov Special Operations Detachment, previously known as the “Azov Battalion” but now called the “Azov Regiment”, is often targeted in pro-Russian social media posts, including by Russian embassies in Paris, London and elsewhere.

The regiment is currently entrenched in the southern port city of Mariupol that has been the scene of some of the war’s heaviest fighting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used their presence to justify the bombing of a maternity ward there, saying the Azov regiment “and other radicals” were hiding in the building.

The regiment, created in 2014 by far-right activists, was first deployed against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It has since been integrated into the National Guard, under interior ministry command.

Its founders included Andriy Biletsky, a former member of the Patriot of Ukraine paramilitary organisation.

As first mostly volunteers, the battalion’s members wore insignia, such as the so-called “Wolfsangel” (wolf’s hook), that were reminiscent of symbols used by SS units in Nazi Germany.

– ‘De-ideologised’ –

“In 2014 this battalion had indeed a far-right background, these were far-right racists that founded the battalion,” said Andreas Umland at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.

But it had since become “de-ideologised” and a regular fighting unit, he told AFP.

Its recruits now join not because of ideology but because “it has the reputation of being a particularly tough fighting unit,” Umland said.

The Azov battalion, named after the Sea of Azov to Ukraine’s south, became famous for winning back Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists in 2014.

Eight years later, it is again fighting for the city that Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes will give him his first major victory in the Ukraine campaign.

Beating the Azov Regiment could also help him justify the “denazification” claims prominent in Russian propaganda, which also labels Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as leading a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”.

Such attacks try to build on Russia’s collective World War II memory of what it calls the Great Patriotic War, and thus whip up nationalist support for the invasion, experts say.

– ‘Absolute evil’ –

“The terms ‘nazism’ and ‘fascism’ evoke, in the Russian context, absolute evil that you cannot bargain with,” said Sergei Fediunin, a political scientist at France’s National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations.

“The only option is to fight and destroy it.”

Russian propaganda also targets the Ukrainian nationalists who fought Soviet Russia after 1945 and their leader, Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with Nazi Germany.

The Azov Regiment, meanwhile, has joined the propaganda war, publishing victory statements on the Telegram messaging service that are often accompanied by videos of burning Russian tanks, and calling the Russians “the real fascists”.

The Azov now function like other regiments “but with better PR,” said Vyacheslav Likhachev, a research analyst at the ZMINA Centre for Human Rights in Kyiv.

Their stellar reputation attracts plenty of potential recruits, “so they can choose the better ones”, he told AFP.

The unit, numbering 2,000 to 3,000 troops, has kept the same wolf-hook insignia, but Umland said in Ukraine there was little confusion about its links to the past.

“It doesn’t have the connotation of being a sort of fascist symbol anymore,” he said.

Overall, ultra-nationalist political forces have been on the decline in Ukraine since 2014, said Anna Colin Lebedev at France’s Paris Nanterre University.

“One of the reasons is that soft nationalism has now become mainstream since the Russian attack,” she said on Twitter.

Azov’s former commanders, including Biletsky, entered politics after 2014 but their far-right platform never attracted more than two percent of voters.

But since Russia’s invasion some of them have taken up arms again, with the Azov Regiment or other units.

Biletsky, meanwhile, has returned to Mariupol from where he runs an active Telegram account.

Azov fighters are Ukraine's greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat

The battalion's far-right volunteers' desire to 'bring the fight to Kiev' is a danger to post-conflict stability

An Azov battalion soldier stands next to an armoured personnel carrier at a checkpoint in Mariupol on 4 September. 

Photograph: Vasily Fedosenko/REUTERS

This article is more than 7 years old

Shaun Walker in Mariupol

THE GUARDIAN
Wed 10 Sep 2014 

"I have nothing against Russian nationalists, or a great Russia," said Dmitry, as we sped through the dark Mariupol night in a pickup truck, a machine gunner positioned in the back. "But Putin's not even a Russian. Putin's a Jew."

Dmitry – which he said is not his real name – is a native of east Ukraine and a member of the Azov battalion, a volunteer grouping that has been doing much of the frontline fighting in Ukraine's war with pro-Russia separatists. The Azov, one of many volunteer brigades to fight alongside the Ukrainian army in the east of the country, has developed a reputation for fearlessness in battle.

But there is an increasing worry that while the Azov and other volunteer battalions might be Ukraine's most potent and reliable force on the battlefield against the separatists, they also pose the most serious threat to the Ukrainian government, and perhaps even the state, when the conflict in the east is over. The Azov causes particular concern due to the far right, even neo-Nazi, leanings of many of its members.

Dmitry claimed not to be a Nazi, but waxed lyrical about Adolf Hitler as a military leader, and believes the Holocaust never happened. Not everyone in the Azov battalion thinks like Dmitry, but after speaking with dozens of its fighters and embedding on several missions during the past week in and around the strategic port city of Mariupol, the Guardian found many of them to have disturbing political views, and almost all to be intent on "bringing the fight to Kiev" when the war in the east is over.

The battalion's symbol is reminiscent of the Nazi Wolfsangel, though the battalion claims it is in fact meant to be the letters N and I crossed over each other, standing for "national idea". Many of its members have links with neo-Nazi groups, and even those who laughed off the idea that they are neo-Nazis did not give the most convincing denials.

"Of course not, it's all made up, there are just a lot of people who are interested in Nordic mythology," said one fighter when asked if there were neo-Nazis in the battalion. When asked what his own political views were, however, he said "national socialist". As for the swastika tattoos on at least one man seen at the Azov base, "the swastika has nothing to do with the Nazis, it was an ancient sun symbol," he claimed.

The battalion has drawn far-right volunteers from abroad, such as Mikael Skillt, a 37-year-old Swede, trained as a sniper in the Swedish army, who described himself as an "ethnic nationalist" and fights on the front line with the battalion.

Despite the presence of these elements, Russian propaganda that claims Kiev's "fascist junta" wants to cleanse east Ukraine of Russian speakers is overblown. The Azov are a minority among the Ukrainian forces, and even they, however unpleasant their views may be, are not anti-Russian; in fact the lingua franca of the battalion is Russian, and most have Russian as their first language.

Indeed, much of what Azov members say about race and nationalism is strikingly similar to the views of the more radical Russian nationalists fighting with the separatist side.

 The battalion even has a Russian volunteer, a 30-year-old from St Petersburg who refused to give his name. He said he views many of the Russian rebel commanders positively, especially Igor Strelkov, a former FSB officer who has a passion for military re-enactments and appears to see himself as a tsarist officer. He "wants to resurrect a great Russia, said the volunteer; but Strelkov is "only a pawn in Putin's game," he said, and he hoped that Russia would some time have a "nationalist, violent Maidan" of its own.

On one afternoon earlier this week the Guardian travelled with a group of Azov fighters to hand over several boxes of bullets to Ukrainian border guards. During an artillery attack outside Mariupol in the days before, the border guards had come to the rescue of a group of Azov fighters, and the bullets were their way of saying thank you. "Everything in this war is based on personal links; Kiev does nothing," explained the Azov's Russian volunteer, as we sped towards a checkpoint in a civilian Chevrolet; the boot full with the boxes of bullets and rocket-propelled grenade launchers; one of the windows shot out by gunfire during a recent battle.

"This is how it works. You go to some hot spot, they see you're really brave, you exchange phone numbers, and next time you can call in a favour. If you need an artillery strike you can call a general and it will take three hours and you'll be dead. Or you can call the captain or major commanding the artillery battalion and they will help you out straight away. We are Azov and they know that if they ever needed it, we would be there for them."

For the commanders and the generals in Kiev, who many in Azov and other volunteer battalions see as responsible for the awful losses the Ukrainian army has suffered in recent weeks, especially in the ill-fated retreat from Ilovaysk, there was only contempt. "Generals like those in charge of Ilovaysk should be imprisoned for treason," said Skillt. "Heads are going to roll for sure, I think there will be a battle for power."

The Ukrainian armed forces are "an army of lions led by a sheep", said Dmitry, and there is only so long that dynamic can continue. With so many armed, battle-hardened and angry young men coming back from the front, there is a danger that the rolling of heads could be more than a metaphor. Dmitry said he believes that Ukraine needs "a strong dictator to come to power who could shed plenty of blood but unite the nation in the process".

Many in the Azov battalion with whom the Guardian spoke shared this view, which is a long way from the drive for European ideals and democracy that drove the protests in Kiev at the beginning. The Russian volunteer fighting with the Azov said he believes Ukraine needs "a junta that will restrict civil rights for a while but help bring order and unite the country". This disciplinarian streak was visible in the battalion. Drinking is strictly forbidden. "One time there was a guy who got drunk, but the commander beat him in his face and legs until he could not move; then he was kicked out," recalled one fighter proudly.

Other volunteer battalions have also come under the spotlight. This week, Amnesty International called on the Ukrainian government to investigate rights abuses and possible executions by the Aidar, another battalion.

"The failure to stop abuses and possible war crimes by volunteer battalions risks significantly aggravating tensions in the east of the country and undermining the proclaimed intentions of the new Ukrainian authorities to strengthen and uphold the rule of law more broadly," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International secretary general, in Kiev.

Fighters from the battalion told the Guardian last month they expected a "new revolution" in Ukraine that would bring a more decisive military leader to power, in sentiments similar to those of many Azov fighters.

Despite the desire of many in the Azov to bring violence to Kiev when the war in the east is over, the battalion receives funding and assistance from the governor of Donetsk region, the oligarch Serhiy Taruta. An aide to Taruta, Alex Kovzhun, said the political views of individual members of Azov were not an issue, and denied that the battalion's symbol had Nazi undertones.

"The views of some of them is their own affair as long as they do not break the law," said Kovzhun in written answers to questions. "And the symbol is not Nazi. Trust me – some of my family died in concentration camps, so I have a well-developed nose for Nazi shit."

As well as their frontline duties, the Azov battalion also functions as "a kind of police unit", said a platoon commander who goes by the nom de guerre Kirt. A medieval history buff who takes part in Viking battle reenactments and once ran a tour firm in Thailand, Kirt returned to east Ukraine to join the Azov. He took the Guardian on an overnight patrol through the outskirts of Mariupol and the villages around the front line.

Part separatist hunters, part city cops with no rules to restrain them, they travelled in a convoy of three vehicles, all heavily armed. As midnight approached we set off across the bumpy tarmac roads to the outskirts of Mariupol, and soon came across a parked car by the side of the road that the men found suspicious.

Fighters dashed from the front two cars and rushed at the vehicle pointing their guns at it. A startled man got out of the passenger seat, then a sheepish looking woman in a cocktail dress and holding a half-smoked cigarette emerged, smoothing her hair. The Azov fighters apologised, but only after demanding documents and thoroughly searching the car.

As we edged closer to the front line, Kirt and the others scanned the skyline with binoculars, on the lookout for snipers and separatists. Later, fighters sprinted towards a suspicious jeep parked on the beach while the sea was scanned for hostile support vessels, but it turned out that again the men had stumbled upon people just trying to have a good time: a group of women drinking sparkling wine out of plastic cups on the beachfront.

The Azov have been partially brought into the military and officially function as a special police unit. There are discussions that Azov and other battalions could be integrated into the army or special forces when the conflict is over.

Some of them, however, are hoping Ukraine will look very different in the not-so-distant future. And while they may be a tiny minority when it comes to Ukraine as a whole, they have a lot of weapons.

President Petro Poroshenko will be killed in a matter of months, Dmitry said, and a dictator will come to power.

"What are the police going to do? They could not do anything against the peaceful protesters on Maidan; they are hardly going to withstand armed fighting units."

Ex-Togo premier Houngbo becomes first African to head ILO

FRIDAY MARCH 25 2022

Gilbert Houngbo, the former prime minister of Togo, is the incoming head of the International Labour Organisation, and will become the first African to lead the UN agency. 

Gilbert Houngbo, the former prime minister of Togo, was on Friday elected the next head of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and will become the first African to lead the United Nations agency.

After two rounds of voting, the ILO's governing body elected the 61-year-old to succeed British trade unionist Guy Ryder, who steps down at the end of September, after 10 years in the job.

"You have made history," Houngbo told the governing body after the election.

"I am deeply and absolutely honoured to be the first representative of the African region to be selected to lead the ILO after 103 years."

Houngbo was chosen from among five candidates and had been seen in a strong position after the African Union threw its weight behind him.

Currently head of the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), he also enjoyed strong backing on the labour side.

He has previously held several high-level positions within the UN system, such as finance director at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and deputy director-general of ILO itself, from 2013-2017.

His opponents in the race were former French labour minister Muriel Penicaud, South Korea's ex-foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha, South African entrepreneur Mthunzi Mdwaba, and ILO deputy Greg Vines of Australia.
'Rich symbolism'

Houngbo's win marks a dramatic shift for the ILO, which since its founding in 1919 has been led by men only from Europe or the Americas.

The oldest specialised UN agency has 187 member states, which are, uniquely in the UN system, represented by governments, employers and workers.

The organisation's governing body counts 56 members, with half of them representing governments, and a quarter each representing employers and workers.

The vote took place by secret ballot behind closed doors.

The ILO said Houngbo received 30 votes in the second-round voting, securing the majority. Penicaud received 23, Kang two and Mdwaba one.

After the first round, Vines was eliminated.

In his first address after the vote, Houngbo hailed the outcome.

"The outcome of this election carries a rich symbolism," he said, adding that it "fulfils the aspirations of a young African, a young African boy whose humble upbringing turned into a lifelong quest for social justice."

Houngbo will take the ILO helm on October 1 and will have his work cut out as the organisation strives to adapt its norms to a world of work rapidly transforming due to evolving technologies.

The Covid-19 pandemic has only sped up those changes, leading to the rapid uptake of virtual technologies to enable remote working.

"My election as director-general takes place during a troubled moment in history, at a moment of uncertainty for what the future might hold," he acknowledged.

"The world needs an ILO that is capable of solving real-life problems of the working people and the enterprises."

Putin's complaints about 'cancel culture' make him sound like an American conservative: op-ed

Sky Palma
March 25, 2022

In a statement this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a reference to author J.K. Rowling, saying that backlash the Harry Potter creator received for her comments on transgender people weren't unlike the the sanctions being leveled at Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

“They are now trying to cancel our country. I’m talking about the progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia,” Putin said.

Writing in the Bulwark this Friday, Jonathan Last contends that Putin is starting to sound like an American conservative, saying that you can hear the same kind of rhetoric emanating from the American right wing.

"Just something to keep in mind the next time you see the people who were apologizing for Putin up until five minutes ago insisting how they have nothing at all to do with that guy," Last writes.

Invasion of Ukraine: Russia states more limited war goal to 'liberate' Donbass

 In a scaled-back formulation of its war goals, Russia said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation was mostly complete and it would focus on completely "liberating" Ukraine's breakaway eastern Donbass region. FRANCE 24's Rob Parsons tells us more.

Israeli and Palestinian mothers gather for peace by Dead Sea

Israeli and Palestinian women, members of two local peace movements, take part in an inaugural event marking the beginning of their partnership near the city of Jericho, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Friday. (AFP)

https://arab.news/9x34s
AFP
March 25, 2022

Hundreds of activists from the Palestinian initiative "Women of the Sun" and Israeli movement "Women Wage Peace" shared in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

They planted flags on the Dead Sea's shore and vowed to carry on the push for peace

JERICHO, Palestinian Territories: Israelis and Palestinians braved wind and rain to hold a “peace conference” Friday by the Dead Sea bringing together two major women’s movements from both sides for the first time.

Hundreds of activists from the Palestinian initiative “Women of the Sun” and Israeli movement “Women Wage Peace” shared in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, planted flags on the Dead Sea’s shore and vowed to carry on the push for peace despite the stagnation of political talks.

“As women, when we start to sit and speak about our children and about life, we feel like we’ve known each other for a long time,” Layla Sheikh from Bethlehem in the West Bank told AFP.

“We can understand each other’s suffering and share it,” she said.

“I hope that by coming together, we will prevent the loss of live,” said Pascale Chen from Tel Aviv.
“In 10 days, my son will go for military service. He has to do his duty... but still we are mothers all together. We feel we have a role to play in peace,” she said.

Peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have largely ground to a halt.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who opposes Palestinian statehood, has ruled out formal peace talks during his tenure, but says he is committed to expanding economic opportunities for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Ties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas have showed signs of thawing in recent months, following a series of high-level meetings, including Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz hosting Abbas at his home.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is to travel to Israel and the West Bank next week to hold talks with the leadership from both sides.