It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, May 21, 2021
THEY ARE NOT CURRENCY THEY ARE BITS AND BITES
Powell Seeks Input as Fed Digs Deeper Into Digital Currencies Craig Torres Thu, May 20, 2021 Powell Seeks Input as Fed Digs Deeper Into Digital Currencies
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell turned up the volume in the U.S. digital dollar debate, announcing the central bank will publish a research paper and seek public comment as it weighs issuing one in the future.
“We are committed at the Federal Reserve to hearing a wide range of voices on this important issue before making any decision on whether and how to move forward with a U.S. CBDC,” he said in a statement on Thursday, referring to central bank digital currencies. “To help stimulate broad conversation, the Federal Reserve board will issue a discussion paper this summer outlining our current thinking on digital payments, with a particular focus on the benefits and risks associated with CBDC in the U.S. context.”
The announcement, during a week of intense volatility in cryptocurrencies, launches a Powell-style consensus-building exercise on the topic of a U.S. digital dollar, which until now has mostly been a technological project based at its regional branch in Boston. The approach of canvassing outside voices has been a hallmark of Powell’s leadership.
Powell said he wants the Fed to play “a leading role” in the development of international standards. Central banks around the world -- most notably the People’s Bank of China -- are moving ahead with digital currencies which could give them a head-start in how standards develop partly because they have actual experience.
“It is hard not to view today’s statement in the context of China and what is happening in the private crypto markets,” said Derek Tang, an economist at LH Meyer/Monetary Policy Analytics in Washington. “There is a little bit of complacency at the Fed saying, ‘We are the reserve currency.’ That is shifting now.”
Tang said China’s digital currency is aimed at exerting more control over the domestic financial system but also for projecting soft power into the global trading system with yuan digital payments. “Those efforts have been accelerating perhaps more quickly than the U.S. was expecting,” he said.
A key issue for Powell and other Fed officials is how such technology would fit into the current U.S. banking system, which already provides electronic payments in a variety of ways.
Critics of the current system say it locks out many low-income people and charges them fees for basic services that people with high account balances don’t suffer. Digital currency accounts held by individuals could serve as a form of competition. Still, the banking system offers high protection for depositors, including insurance, that a less regulated system may not offer.
‘Fix the System’
“The problem is that we are over-reliant on the central bank’s payment system, which fails to deliver,” said Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Long check-cashing settlement times can lead people in under-banked communities to use so-called pay-day lenders who charge high fees for money advances. “The answer is to fix the Fed’s system and move society to a better payment system,” he said.
That may not mean digital currency, but something more like FedNow, a separate project the Fed is building that will compete with banks on same-day settlement, Klein said.
U.S. central bankers want to be clear about what problem they are fixing as they assess a digital dollar.
“Our key focus is on whether and how a CBDC could improve on an already safe, effective, dynamic, and efficient U.S. domestic payments system,” Powell said. “We think it is important that any potential CBDC could serve as a complement to, and not a replacement of, cash and current private-sector digital forms of the dollar, such as deposits at commercial banks.”
Powell said that “to date, cryptocurrencies have not served as a convenient way to make payments, given, among other factors, their swings in value.” He also said stable-coins, or digital currencies tied to the dollar, will attract more scrutiny from regulators.
He said he hoped the paper would represent a thoughtful process.
“Irrespective of the conclusion we ultimately reach, we expect to play a leading role in developing international standards for CBDCs, engaging actively with central banks in other jurisdictions as well as regulators and supervisors here in the United States throughout that process.”
(Updates with comment from analysts Tang and Klein in fifth and ninth paragraphs.)
A massive malware campaign pushed the Java-based STRRAT remote access trojan (RAT), known for its data theft capabilities and the ability to fake ransomware attacks.
In a series of tweets, the Microsoft Security Intelligence team outlined how this "massive email campaign" spread the fake ransomware payloads using compromised email accounts.
The spam emails lured the recipients into opening what looked like PDF attachments but instead were images that downloaded the RAT malware when clicked.
"The emails contained an image that posed as a PDF attachment but, when opened, connected to a malicious domain to download the STRRAT malware," Microsoft said.
"This RAT is infamous for its ransomware-like behavior of appending the file name extension .crimson to files without actually encrypting them."
Image: Microsoft
As the Microsoft Security Intelligence team mentioned in their tweets, the STRRAT malware is designed to fake a ransomware attack while stealing its victims' data in the background.
G DATA malware analyst Karsten Hahn said in June 2020 that the malware infects Windows devices via email campaigns pushing malicious JAR (Java ARchive) packages that deliver the finally RAT payload after going through two stages of VBScript scripts.
STRRAT logs keystrokes, allows its operators to run commands remotely and harvests sensitive information including credentials from email clients and browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Foxmail, Outlook, and Thunderbird.
It also provides attackers with remote access to the infected machine by installing the open-source RDP Wrapper Library (RDPWrap), enabling Remote Desktop Host support on compromised Windows systems.
STRRAT infection chain (G DATA)
However, the thing that makes it stand out from other RATs is the ransomware module that doesn't encrypt any of the victims' files but will only append the ".crimson" extension to files.
While this doesn't block access to the files' contents, some victims might still get fooled and, potentially, give in to attackers' ransom demands.
"This might still work for extortion because such files cannot be opened anymore by double-clicking," Hahn said.
"Windows associates the correct program to open files via their extension. If the extension is removed, the files can be opened as usual."
As Microsoft found while analyzing last week's massive STRRAT campaign, the malware developers haven't stopped improving it, adding more obfuscation and expanding its modular architecture.
Nonetheless, the RAT's main functionality remained mostly untouched, as it is still used to steal browser and email client credentials, running remote commands or PowerShell scripts, and logging victims' keystrokes.
SERGIU GATLANSergiu Gatlan is a reporter who covered cybersecurity, technology, Apple, Google, and a few other topics at Softpedia for more than a decade. Email or Twitter DMs for tips.
The New Football War: How capitalist greed and a democratic deficit are killing the beautiful game
A game is played at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the home ground of Real Madrid. The Spanish club have historically been one of the richest and most dominant in world football and were one of the of the clubs to sign up to the European Super League. Photo Credit: Vienna Reyes/Unsplash
In 1969, a football match between the national teams of El Salvador and Honduras sparked a four-day military conflict among the teams’ respective governments. Bilateral tensions had been simmering for some time and a hotly contested World Cup qualifier precipitated fighting that left thousands dead. Ever after, this conflict became known as the Football War and stands testament to the unquestionable influence of the sport on politics, identity, and society. In 2021, a new conflict inspired by football is taking place, this time not over territory, but for the soul of the game itself.
In April, twelve of Europe’s elite clubs announced the formation of a new European Super League (ESL) that would have dwarfed all existing leagues in terms of wealth and exposure. This sparked outrage across the sport, with major fans’ protests held at Chelsea FC and elsewhere, while governing bodies of the sport like UEFA prepared sanctions for clubs taking part. Eventually the proposal collapsed under the weight of this pressure. Nevertheless, even following the ESL’s failure, demonstrations continued such was the level of anger, with a match between Manchester United and Liverpool having to be abandoned as fans invaded the pitch.
For those who do not follow football, this may seem a trivial issue, irrelevant at a time when there are many more pressing problems like inequality, economic disempowerment, and wilting democracy. Yet these issues are at the heart of the anger felt towards the ESL, which is only the latest symptom of the huge democratic deficit in the world’s most popular and lucrative sport; between the fans who give their loyalty to their club and the owners who give theirs to their bank balance.
Modern football was born in Britain’s industrial heartlands during the late-19th century. It had previously been the reserve of gentlemanly amateurs, but the sport increasingly became popular as an escape for overworked factory labourers suffering under the unregulated conditions of 19th-century capitalism. A final break from the aristocratic amateur culture came with the professionalisation of the sport, whereby the factory workers who became the stars of their day were allowed to be paid, albeit modestly, by their clubs, to support themselves and compensate the loss of earnings they incurred by playing. From these humble origins, football spread to become the world’s most popular sport in the 20th-century. Yet for the majority of its life, despite its successes, football never lost its working-class and democratic roots. Clubs remained tied to their local communities. The majority of players and supporters came from everyday walks of life, and many of the players never earned enough to be able to retire upon completing their careers. My own ancestor, Norman Smith, a stalwart of Charlton Athletic in the 1930s, sometimes went without pay while taking his club to league success.
Something began to change in the 1990s, however. Football became a product in the newly globalised economy. The English Premier League, which attracted new-found riches through lucrative TV-rights deals, inspired a new type of success that meant money could transform middle-ranking clubs into global powerhouses, which could then accrue even greater wealth for their owners. With this, came a new type of owner, one who runs a club as a business.
As money became the decisive voice in the game, left behind were the supporters. Owners who are universally reviled by their club’s fans are able to stay in post despite their unpopularity. Newcastle United, an English club with a large fanbase, have for years been run by a detested owner who has exploited the club as an advertising mechanism for his company and the lack of voice given to fans has led a group of them to attempt to buy back some of the club and place it into fan-ownership. Their mission is folly; they can never match the riches of the owner; but their anger highlights what is central to the problems within the game: an undemocratic culture. Many things are wrong with the game, but fans are unable to take action in a sport that priorities money. The ESL was just the latest extension of the pattern, as it aimed to promote already rich clubs over national leagues and televised exposure rather than real participation at games.
Canada and China play at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. Women’s football has enjoyed growth recently, but COVID-19 has had an unequal impact compared to men’s teams and the ESL would have further hindered its development . Photo Credit: IQRemix, licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0
This is not to idealise the history of the game, however. There have always been callous owners and corruption. But the fans’ ability to do something about either issue seems more restricted than ever before given the unequal distribution of wealth. Furthermore, the ESL was announced at a time when two of football’s most serious problems, racism and the unequal position of the women’s game, are only just beginning to receive due attention from the footballing authorities. In a sport where racism is highly visible, among both supporters and professionals, and women’s football is still unfairly underdeveloped and financially undernourished, to announce a new elite competition sent the wrong signal about the level of priority these issues hold within the sport and the ESL would have in fact diverted resources away from the development of European competitions for women’s football.
What can be done to fix football’s democratic deficit? First, a mandatory quota of fans on clubs’ boards and those of international confederations. Second, a minimum percentage of clubs’ shares should be in fan ownership. Something similar is familiar to German football fans to ensure consensual decision making, with the majority of shares at clubs in the hands of supporters (with a few exceptions). This would prevent ownership changes being made without a say from the fans. The unregulated manner in which clubs can be bought and sold in Britain has led to the complete breakdown of clubs, a process which the pandemic has only accelerated. Bury FC was famously run into the ground by its incompetent owners.
The infrastructure which supports provincial clubs like Bury, whose homes are often small, economically struggling towns, are vital to the wider well-being of the urban areas football clubs are located in. With fans on boards, the prosperity of their local communities could be defended and kept in the equation, rather than disregarded by owners who have no connection to the place. And in the bigger picture, the ease with which large, multi-million pound assets such as football clubs can be purchased and misrun, reflects a larger problem whereby international moguls can acquire national assets, like housing, with little regard for people’s economic well-being and the national security of the countries where they invest.
Some of football’s greatest clubs have seriously damaged their relationships with supporters through their part in the ESL saga. It has forced all of those committed to the sport to take stock of the state of the game and realise that it is not healthy. Hopefully, this can be a formative moment for football, one where the sport decides to finally get its whole house in order. Because, disruptive and painful as the ESL announcement was, as former player and anti-racism campaigner Clinton Morrison has said, it is regretful that the ESL prompted a greater level of action than the many calls to tackle racism in the game. If clubs and governing bodies can work together to defeat the ESL, why not the same for eliminating racism in football? Perhaps the energy present within the sport now can be redirected in constructive directions towards solving the sport’s problems
James Brown is a PhD candidate in history at Northumbria University. His focus is on Soviet dissidents and their use in the politics and international relations of the Cold War. He previously studied at Glasgow University, doing a Master’s in East European, Russian, and Eurasian studies. During this time he studied Russian and wrote his thesis, ‘Returning to Machiavelli: Giving Belarus-Russia relations the Original Realist Treatment’, which received the prize for best dissertation from the Centre for East European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at Glasgow.
James is a Staff Writer at Strife.
Changing the Patriarchal Mindset: Combatting Rape as a Weapon of War in Tigray
Photo Credit:Rod Waddington, licensed under Creative Commons
The Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, once the core of the Aksumite Kingdom, is now witnessing a grinding civil war. Of grave international concern is the fact that this crisis has turned into an act of ethnic cleansing, whereby Ethiopian and Eritrean forces are using rape to cleanse the Tigrayan bloodline, and hence gradually eliminate the Tigrayan ethnic group from the region. Therefore, rape is being used, in effect, as a weapon of war. However, despite the scale of these atrocities, society has tools at its disposal to halt them and prevent their reoccurrence in the future. The answer lies, not in mere condemnation, nor in the use of force, but in a deep-rooted social change driven by the empowerment of women and the education of men in gender (in)equality matters. Only in this way, will Ethiopia be able to rise above this patriarchal violence and become a less gendered society.
Currently the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are employing rape as punishment towards those linked to the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), a former political party which dominated Ethiopian politics before Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s Prime Minister in 2018. Since Abiy came to power, hostilities have been constant between his government and the leaders of the TPLF due to the latter not being recognised as an official Ethiopian party and being excluded from the ruling coalition government. Such enmities culminated with the TPLF going to war with the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments in November 2020. This is a conflict, which according to Abiy, has now ceased. However, violence continues to assail the region. The government’s forces keep on not only attacking the Tigray Defence Forces Armed movement (formerly TPLF), but also pursuing the systemic annihilation of the Tigray ethnic group. Civilian attacks have become a constant in the region, with women being the preferred target. Sexual violence against this demographic is rife, despite being prohibited under international humanitarian law and human rights laws, and the practice being condemned by the Ethiopian government itself.
A United States Institute of Peace special report on wartime sexual violence has concluded that a quest for power is the main motive behind sexual violence. The Ethiopian army uses this method to advance its quest to overthrow the Tigray Defence Forces, and exert its regional dominance. Army members have been attacking, beating, and raping civilians in a bid to demonstrate their power. For instance, allegations have surfaced of women coerced into exchanging sex for basic commodities due to their need to provide for their families. Moreover, a UN report confirmed that official soldiers have been forcing individuals to rape their own female family members in exchange for their lives. To make matters worse, most victims are part of those 735,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) who were forced by the outbreak of war to flee their homes. Thus, these purposeful, humiliating acts, are empowering the perpetrators whilst leaving the Tigray populous feeling vulnerable as they have no place where they can live in safety.
Nevertheless, the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are not the sole offenders of such violations; the Tigrayan forces have also been accused, albeit on fewer occasions, of similar sexual crimes. However, irrespective of allegiances, sexual violence is plaguing Tigrayan society and is unlikely to decrease any time soon. A coordinator of a gender-based violence crisis centre in Tigray told CNN reporters that rapes in the area have grown from averaging one a week prior to the outbreak of the conflict to more than 22 daily cases. However, the number of cases is probably even higher, as many go unreported due to most of victims keeping these atrocities to themselves.
Sexual violations are generally treated as a taboo topic, with many victims not reporting them due to fear, shame, or even guilt. As seen with the Tigray War, this sentiment only intensifies in conflict zones, where insecurity is the norm. Such insecurity has prevented countless women from seeking help and reporting their experiences. Many have sought to become less noticeable, using head coverings and long skirts, out of fear of being assaulted. Therefore, Tigrayan women need protection and education to empower them to fight for their freedom and to escape from the victim role which they are being forced into by the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers.
However, as stated by the International Committee of the Red Cross in a report on sexual violence in conflict zones, the protection of civilians against sexual crimes in these environments is very complicated. Sexual violations in conflict are not carried out in isolation but are normally accompanied by other unlawful violations, ranging from looting to civilian killings or child recruitment. For instance, in early March 2021, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported how Eritrean soldiers massacred more than one hundred civilians in Tigray, including children, in November 2020. These more visible war crimes overshadow the cruelty of sexual violations, a more silent and difficult crime to detect, but one that still leaves deep wounds in the victims, their families and communities. International Law, International Humanitarian Law, and Human Rights Law all deem acts of sexual violence unlawful, providing societal frameworks and conventions aimed at preventing such actions from occurring, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Furthermore, powerful institutions that condemn these violations exist, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), yet, sexual violence is still very much present, with the Tigrayan atrocities attesting to this.
A major hurdle to addressing the sexual abuse currently taking place in the Tigray War is the abundance of deliberate misinformation and contradicting reports being released from the conflict zone to mislead external opinions over the conflict. Although numerous recent reports and allegations about the possible atrocities taking place against the Tigrayan population have surfaced, much is still flying under the radar. The invisibility of these massacres has also been fomented by the Ethiopian government, which has imposed severe restrictive access measures for journalists and humanitarian workers, making it challenging to corroborate survivors’ stories. Thus, it is almost impossible to estimate the multitude of offenses that are taking place and who, in reality, is to blame. So, the opaque nature of the experiences of locals, together with the feelings of shame or fear are preventing the reporting of such actions, hindering the possibility of intervention to halt such cruelty.
Even prior to the present civil war, in Ethiopia, sexual and gender violence has been a common social problem for decades, with 35% of married women in 2016 reporting some sort of sexual violence. This number has dramatically increased in the Tigray region since the war broke out, with more than 500 cases officially reported in March 2021 in that region alone (with real numbers likely being much higher). This is occurring despite the Ethiopian government ratifying many women right’s conventions such as the CEDAW, and including women’s rights provisions and policies in its 1995 Constitution. The Ethiopian administration has also endeavoured to treat gender-based violence survivors with the establishment of more shelters and programmes to reintegrate them into society. However, gender inequalities are ingrained in the daily lives of women and girls, leading them to have a greater likelihood of living with violence in their homes compared with men. Combined with a lack of control over their bodies, this ensures they are more prone to violations of their sexual and reproductive rights; hence, why nationwide progress on gender equality is needed.
It is not enough for a country’s leaders to state their position against sexual violence, just like those in Ethiopia have done, whilst their own army is simultaneously executing such appalling actions. Thus, on top of halting hostilities, investigating into the grave violations committed and condemning the perpetrators of such acts, the latter being a process that has now been initiated through international communal pressure and headed conjunctly by the UN’s High Commissioner Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHCR), a more educational and cultural change is needed. As stated by the 48th Session of the Commission of Status of Women (CSW), to achieve that change towards gender equality, men need to engage in conversations around sexual health, gender-sensitive behaviour and toxic masculinity. Also, it is essential to break gender stereotypes, and to instigate a reconstruction of the concept of masculinity to allow for men’s patriarchal and violent mindsets to, with time, decrease. Likewise, women empowerment programmes can provide great value to sexual violence survivors and to the community itself. These can change participants’ beliefs and increase their self-confidence, making women more participative within their own communities. Furthermore, they can also make women more willing to support and educate others on gender violence, sexual assaults, and mistreatment of women. The damaging effects of these acts can include sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, psychological effects like PTSD (between 17% and 65% of women sexually assaulted in adulthood display symptoms of PTSD), self-harm, and relational and social adverse effects, such as loss of trust, isolation or fear of intimacy. Developing a nurturing community can thus assist in overcoming these devastating physical, psychological, emotional, and social consequences of gender violence. Hence, in Ethiopia, this more holistic approach to this challenge, engaging both men and women in the process of change, will not only help to prevent actions of sexual violence from occurring again but will also empower communities and the coming generations to speak out and defend human rights for all, forming and sustaining more equal and inclusive societies.
Unfortunately, changing mindsets and bringing about cultural change takes time. As efforts continue, strong prosecution and condemnation of sexual crimes remain essential to keep offenders in line and prevent future waves of atrocities like those currently taking place in Tigray. Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law must not be breached merely to wield power. Rape and other sexual crimes must not remain as tools of war in Tigray, nor anywhere else. Thus, the Ethiopian Government, its Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed (a Nobel Peace Prize winner) and the international community must denounce and take action to prevent such cruel tactics from continuing to be used. The Tigrayan population, and especially its women, deserve to feel safe again.
Cristina Romero-Caballero Cuttell is a part-time MA International Relations student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research interests are around the topics of Migration, Climate Change, Gender and Human Rights. She is a Spanish Red Cross volunteer in the Canary Islands helping aid the migrants currently arriving at its shores and also a remote intern with VolNepal helping implement a Women Economic Empowerment Programme in Nepal.
An example of military propaganda. The Tatmadaw has long portrayed itself as the sole protector of Myanmar’s interests. Photo Credit: Immu, Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
On 27th March, Myanmar’s powerful military (commonly known as the Tatmadaw), killed over 100 civilians protesting its 1st February overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government. The Tatmadaw has reacted forcefully against demonstrators since the start of the protests, and this was not the first time it had killed civilians. However, the crackdown was unprecedented in its brutality. Despite the bloodshed, protestors defied the military by returning to the streets the very next day, and over a month later the protests show no sign of fading away.
The foundations of the chaos in Burma run deep. During colonial rule, the British governed the minority dominated periphery regions as self-governing frontier areas, separate from Burma proper. This divide and rule strategy saw ethnic minorities heavily recruited into the colonial army while the Bamar majority was excluded. The legacy of ethnic division was compounded by the founding of the modern Burmese state, which was largely built around the Bamar dominated army of the Burmese nationalists. The Rohingya crisis of 2015, which saw Suu Kyi, the symbol of Myanmar’s democracy, taking a nationalist line in defence of the Tatmadaw’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, emphasises just how deep ethnic divisions lie in Myanmar. Successive military regimes have exploited this ethnic dimension to remain in power, casting themselves as the defenders of the Bamar majority and promoting ethnic nationalism. Following decades of military rule, the military generals came to see themselves as the only ones who knew what was good for the country. However, the question remains, what prompted the Tatmadaw to seize power this time, and given the widespread public opposition to the coup, has it overplayed its hand?
Why did Myanmar’s military believe a coup was necessary?
The military has denied it carried out a coup and has instead claimed that it acted in defence of democracy, citing fraud and discrepancies in the 2020 general election, although the extent to which it genuinely believes this is debateable. Consequently, there are other theories as to why the Tatmadaw seized power. Its support for the democratic transition has always been contingent upon its ability to retain a high degree of influence in the country’s political system, Myanmar’s constitution reserves 25% of seats in parliament for the military and has a threshold of 75% for any constitutional changes. However, the landslide 2020 election result for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy was seen as providing a mandate for constitutional reform and increased the pressure on the military not to stand in the way. It is no coincidence that the coup occurred the day the new parliament was due to be sworn in. It has also been suggested that powerful military chief General Min Aung Hlaing was acting to protect his personal interests. The General was due to retire in 2021 and, faced with the potential threat of international prosecution for genocide against the Rohingya, may well have acted to extend his immunity.
Why has the coup faced such resistance?
Myanmar has changed since being put on the path back to civilian rule. Reform has been slow, but Myanmar’s large young population has experienced greater personal freedoms and better access to education, information, and the rest of the world. After experiencing these freedoms, this new generation has little desire to live under the restrictive military rule of previous decades. This attitude can be seen in the prominence of the three-finger salute in images of the protests. The symbolic gesture has been widely used by young activists across South East Asia as a sign of defiance against authoritarianism. Believing it can reimpose military rule as if nothing has changed represents a significant gamble by the Tatmadaw. It is an even greater gamble to do so having just removed a popular democratic government. Aung San Suu Kyi holds a revered status in Myanmar, and further endeared herself to the people by risking her international reputation to defend Myanmar (and by extension the Tatmadaw) against accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. This despite her previous long imprisonment at their hands. Suu Kyi’s landslide election victory not only demonstrated her and the NLD’s enduring popularity amongst the people, but also highlighted Myanmar’s growing rejection of the Tatmadaw. The military’s proxy party won only 33 of 476 seats. Even those activists who turned away from the NLD as a result of their inaction over the Rohingya crisis have proven willing to stand alongside them in opposition to the coup.
What does this mean for Myanmar?
In the short term, the Tatmadaw is under increasing pressure from both inside and out. The regime’s initial support from Russia and China, who blocked condemnation of the coup at the UN, has waned as the crackdown has grown increasingly bloody. On 10th March both countries backed a unanimous statement from the UN Security Council denouncing the Tatmadaw’s violent response to protests. ASEAN, the regional group of Myanmar’s neighbours, is divided over the issue. However, Malaysia and Indonesia have been heavily critical, and the group has pressed Min Aung Hlaing to commit to an end to the violence. With the regime increasingly isolated internationally, Western powers have been ratcheting up the pressure. In the days before the recent crackdown, the US and UK imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar’s two vast military conglomerates. These sanctions will hurt, but it is domestically where the military faces a greater reckoning. The coup and the brutal crackdown that followed has tarnished the Tatmadaw’s image. If anger towards the military continues to rise then a growing number of people in Myanmar may begin to aspire to a future without it. Nevertheless, the Tatmadaw is unlikely to change course. For all the pressure it faces, the military has shown itself ready to use force to put down protests, and likely knows that China, although displeased, will not go as far as to abandon it internationally. Therefore, there is a good chance the military can ride out the protests and succeed in its initial objectives. Min Aung Hlaing could delay his retirement and the Tatmadaw avoid the prospect of major constitutional reform which curtails its power.
However, the generals do not appear to have considered the long-term consequences of their actions. For one, by gambling on a coup to improve its position the military has thrown away a political situation which remained immensely favourable to it, and once it reaches its self-imposed deadline for new elections in 2022, it is difficult to envisage a scenario in which it benefits. If it holds a free election, it will almost certainly lose, and face an NLD or unity government which will be empowered and unlikely to compromise following the events of the coup. On the other hand, if it attempts to retain power, it will erode what little respect and legitimacy it has left.
More significantly, by choosing to overthrow Suu Kyi’s popular and increasingly nationalistic government, the Tatmadaw has set itself at odds with its core constituency, Myanmar’s Bamar majority. For an institution which derives a large degree of legitimacy from its role as the protector of the Bamar ethnicity, the brutal suppression of the predominantly Bamar protestors makes such a mantra ring increasingly hollow. The chaos of the protests and widespread disaffection with the military unleashed by the coup has also emboldened and reenergised the country’s various ethnic militias, several of whom have stepped up their offensives, with increasing success. This is not the only way in which the Tatmadaw’s grip on power has been weakened by the effects of the coup. The military takeover and accompanying crackdown have revealed to many Bamar the true extent of the Tatmadaw’s brutality, which has had the effect of facilitating a growing understanding of the plight faced by Myanmar’s minorities. The consequence has been tentative cooperation between the Bamar dominated anti-coup movement and several of the ethnic groups fighting the military. Any reconciliation, even if limited for now, will serve to diminish the Tatmadaw’s ability to divide and rule.
In short, the February coup may well have preserved the Tatmadaw’s immediate political interests, but it has also had several major consequences for the military’s long-term prospects of retaining its entrenched position within Myanmar’s state and society. In fact, by prioritising short-term gain over long-term strategy, the coup has significantly undermined several of the key aspects which make up the Tatmadaw’s claim to legitimacy, and as a result could end up costing it far more than it stood to lose in the first place.
Charlie Lovett
Charlie Lovett is an MA student in International Conflict Studies at King's College London. His main interests are humanitarian intervention, human security, and the liberal world order. Currently he is focusing on researching topics in International Relations which look set to dominate the forthcoming decades, one of which is the conflict between democracy and authoritarianism in the Indo-Pacific region.
In Israel’s Mixed Jewish-Palestinian Towns, Old Frustrations Boil Into Violence
A Palestinian member of Israel’s Knesset writes that dispossession, discrimination, and occupation cannot be swept under the rug.
May 20 2021 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a meeting with Israeli border police in the central city of Lod, near Tel Aviv, on May 13, 2021. Photo: Yuval Chen/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
SEVERAL MIXED TOWNS in Israel looked like war zones over the past two weeks. In these communities, such as my hometown, Akka, Jewish Israelis and Palestinians like me live near each other. Recently, small numbers of young Palestinians, enraged by Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and plans to evict Palestinian families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes, clashed with police and attacked local businesses. Hundreds of other Palestinians, myself included, attempted to calm the situation down.
The clashes were part of a much larger picture: Thousands took to the streets protesting against Israeli aggression, but the violence was what captured international — and Israeli — attention.
In the days that followed, as Israel began bombing the besieged Gaza Strip, extreme right-wing Jews called on their supporters to come armed to mixed towns. Unlike the spontaneous outbursts of Palestinian rage, these fascist thugs came with a clear political agenda, organized lynch mobs, and assaulted Palestinian civilians. They were emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brazen assault on civil liberties and human rights, as well as his wanton racist incitement against Palestinians.
Netanyahu ignited this latest round of violence with deliberate provocations in Jerusalem — at the height of Ramadan — in what can only be seen as a bid to remain in power. Israel has been stuck in a political gridlock and, after several elections, Netanyahu had been unsuccessful at forming a government during a monthlong mandate, which expired May 4. His rivals among the Jewish parties were in the process of trying to put a coalition together.
Sadly, though not atypically, when Israel began shelling Gaza, many in the purported opposition to Netanyahu actively supported the campaign. Netanyahu’s cynical ploy to hold on to power might prove politically successful, but Jewish and Palestinian civilians are paying the price.
Bleak as the current situation might seem, we simply don’t have the luxury of giving in to cynicism and despair.
It is incumbent upon us all to do everything within our power to prevent intercommunal violence from rearing its ugly head again. Overcoming the dark forces of bigotry and hatred that Netanyahu and his extremist allies have deliberately unleashed will be a daunting task, but I do not accept that things cannot be different. Bleak as the current situation might seem, we simply don’t have the luxury of giving in to cynicism and despair. Instead, we must examine how we got here and where we need to go. Whose Status Quo?
In light of the unprecedented wave of intercommunal violence, many have in recent days bemoaned the loss of Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel’s mixed towns, urging a return to the “status quo.” Yet we should remember that the status quo in places like Yaffa and Lydd — towns whose majority Palestinian population were made refugees in 1948, forming a large portion of Gaza’s population today — includes settler-backed organizations “Judaizing” neighborhoods. The remaining Arab populations in these towns suffer from deliberate abandonment, crumbling infrastructure, and poverty.
There cannot be true coexistence under the nation-state law, which codifies a racist doctrine of “separate and unequal,” and as long as Palestinian citizens of Israel — a fifth of the country’s citizenry — are treated as second-class citizens, their very existences threatened by forced expulsions, police violence, and discriminatory legislation. Palestinian and Israeli residents of the coastal city of Yaffa, near Tel Aviv, raise placards as they take part in a rally on May 15, 2021. Photo: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
As a recent report by Human Rights Watch meticulously documents, aiming to maintain “Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land,” Israel has systematically — on both sides of the Green Line that demarcates the occupied Palestinian territories — “dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians.” It is an attempt to curb the so-called demographic threat that the very existence of Palestinians poses to Jewish supremacy.
We cannot ignore Israel’s state-sanctioned violence and hypocritically condemn violent Palestinian resistance to occupation, segregation, and discrimination. No one should act surprised that people whose voices are systematically silenced — whose mass protests are met with silence from the international community and brutal repression by Israel — resort to violence in their desperation. As Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Palestinians are being told the same thing as Black folks in America — there is no acceptable form of resistance.” Related Can Palestinian Lives Matter?
Consider the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, inside Israel. Amid attempts to expropriate their lands, the villagers’ homes were destroyed — razed, and rebuilt, 186 times. When the people protested, they were beaten and jailed by a militarized police force, sent to terrorize an Indigenous community into submission. When Sheikh Jarrah residents protested against the ethnic cleansing of their neighborhood, they were met with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. When Gazans protested by marching toward the barrier that holds them in an open-air prison, Israeli forces shot and killed 214 demonstrators.
As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently asked: “[W]hy do we seem to take notice of the violence in Israel and Palestine only when rockets are falling on Israel?” Equality Is the Answer
As Israel continues its brutal bombardment of Gaza, with clashes raging in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel alike, the atrocious violence of the past two weeks reminds us of the tragic price civilians pay. There is a festering frustration over decades of humiliation and discrimination that boils over and ignites both our communities — to everyone’s detriment.
These events are a sobering wake-up call for anyone working under the delusion that the Palestinians’ decadeslong dispossession can be comfortably ignored and “managed,” that a colonial occupation can be swept under the rug, and that international efforts like the “Abraham Accords” with Gulf petro-monarchies that don’t address Palestinians’ grievances will bring about peace.
The violence of these past weeks should serve as a stark warning that things cannot go on as they have.
We have also learned that Palestinian citizens of Israel will not silently stand by as the occupation deepens, the siege of Gaza continues unabated, and Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line are displaced, only to be replaced by Jews.
Above all, the violence of these past weeks should serve as a stark warning that things cannot go on as they have.
We must do everything possible to secure a ceasefire and bring security to our communities. Yet we must not return to the status quo, for a return to so-called normalcy means normalizing occupation, siege, and segregation. It will only serve as a Band-Aid on a deep wound that is bound to, sooner or later, reopen again with yet more bloodshed.
For far too long, the world has turned a blind eye to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. To prevent continued bloodshed, the international community must act decisively to end Israeli impunity, ensure Israel meets its obligations under international law, and respects the human rights of all people, irrespective of their nationality or religion. A true democracy will only be achieved when Jewish supremacy is replaced with full equality for all of us.
Today, as we mourn the unimaginable loss of civilian lives, it is a moral imperative and a political necessity to hold Israel to account, end the occupation, and establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel on the 1967 borders. We must continue to work shoulder to shoulder — Jews and Arabs alike — to build the just and equal society we all deserve. There is no other choice.
