What the Voyager space probes can teach humanity about immortality and legacy as they sail through space for trillions of years

James Edward Huchingson, Professor Emeritus and Lecturer in Religion and Science, Florida International University
Sun, August 13, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

Scientists expect the Voyager spacecraft to outlive Earth by at least a trillion years. NASA/JPL-CalTech

Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. After sweeping by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it is now almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth in interstellar space. Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their Golden Records. These messages in a bottle include spoken greetings in 55 languages, sounds and images from nature, an album of recordings and images from numerous cultures, and a written message of welcome from Jimmy Carter, who was U.S. president when the spacecraft left Earth in 1977.

The Golden Records were built to last a billion years in the environment of space, but in a recent analysis of the paths and perils these explorers may face, astronomers calculated that they could exist for trillions of years without coming remotely close to any stars.

Having spent my career in the field of religion and science, I’ve thought a lot about how spiritual ideas intersect with technological achievements. The incredible longevity of the Voyager spacecraft presents a uniquely tangible entry point into exploring ideas of immortality.

For many people, immortality is the everlasting existence of a soul or spirit that follows death. It can also mean the continuation of one’s legacy in memory and records. With its Golden Record, each Voyager provides such a legacy, but only if it is discovered and appreciated by an alien civilization in the distant future.

Many religions espouse some form of life after death.

RubberBall Productions/Brand X Pictures via Getty Images

Life after death

Religious beliefs about immortality are numerous and diverse. Most religions foresee a postmortem career for a personal soul or spirit, and these range from everlasting residence among the stars to reincarnation.

The ideal eternal life for many Christians and Muslims is to abide forever in God’s presence in heaven or paradise. Judaism’s teachings about what happens after death are less clear. In the Hebrew Bible, the dead are mere “shades” in a darkened place called Sheol. Some rabbinical authorities give credence to the resurrection of the righteous and even to the eternal status of souls.

Immortality is not limited to the individual. It can be collective as well. For many Jews, the final destiny of the nation of Israel or its people is of paramount importance. Many Christians anticipate a future general resurrection of all who have died and the coming of the kingdom of God for the faithful.

Jimmy Carter, whose message and autograph are immortalized in the Golden Records, is a progressive Southern Baptist and a living example of religious hope for immortality. Now battling brain cancer and approaching centenarian status, he has thought about dying. Following his diagnosis, Carter concluded in a sermon: “It didn’t matter to me whether I died or lived. … My Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death. So I’m going to live again after I die.”

It is plausible to conclude that the potential of an alien witnessing the Golden Record and becoming aware of Carter’s identity billions of years in the future would offer only marginal additional consolation for him. Carter’s knowledge in his ultimate destiny is a measure of his deep faith in the immortality of his soul. In this sense, he likely represents people of numerous faiths.

Secular immortality

For people who are secular or nonreligious there is little solace to be found in an appeal to the continuing existence of a soul or spirit following one’s death. Carl Sagan, who came up with the idea for the Golden Records and led their development, wrote of the afterlife: “I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than just wishful thinking.” He was more saddened by thoughts of missing important life experiences – like seeing his children grow up – than fearful about the expected annihilation of his conscious self with the death of his brain.

For those like Sagan there are other possible options for immortality. They include freezing and preserving the body for future physical resurrection or uploading one’s consciousness and turning it into a digital form that would long outlast the brain. Neither of these potential paths to physical immortality has proved to be feasible yet.

The Voyagers and legacy

Most people, whether secular or religious, want the actions they do while alive to bear continuing meaning into the future as their fruitful legacy. People want to be remembered and appreciated, even cherished. Sagan summed it up nicely: “To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever.”

With Voyagers 1 and 2 estimated to exist for more than a trillion years, they are about as immortal as it gets for human artifacts. Even before the Sun’s expected demise when it runs out of fuel in about 5 billion years, all living species, mountains, seas and forests will have long been obliterated. It will be as if we and all the marvelous and extravagant beauty of planet Earth never existed – a devastating thought to me.

Voyager 1’s path, in white, has taken the craft well past the orbits of the outer planets into interstellar space, where aliens may someday come across the relic of humanity. NASA/JPL via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

But in the distant future, the two Voyager spacecraft will still be floating in space, awaiting discovery by an advanced alien civilization for whom the messages on the Golden Records were intended. Only those records will likely remain as testimony and legacy of Earth, a kind of objective immortality.

Religious and spiritual people can find solace in the belief that God or an afterlife waits for them after death. For the secular, hoping that someone or something will remember humanity, any wakeful and appreciative aliens will have to do.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: James Edward Huchingson, Florida International University.

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Space photo of the week: Hubble captures one of our galaxy's oldest objects

Jamie Carter
Sun, August 13, 2023

Dense starfields of sparkling globular clusters.

What is it? NGC 6652, a globular cluster containing some of the oldest stars in our galaxy.

Where is it? 30,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

Why's it so special? This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals a star-studded globular cluster called NGC 6652 located about 6,500 light-years from the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Thought to be 13.6 billion years old, according to a 2020 study in the journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, it’s one of the oldest objects in the Milky Way.

Globular clusters are dense groupings of tens of thousands to millions of ancient stars that are between 10 billion and 13 billion years old. (For comparison, the age of the universe itself is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old.) About 150 of these clusters have been found in the halo of the Milky Way so far. Studying them helps astronomers to research the early stages of the galaxy and the wider universe.


Globular clusters may have evolved a few hundred million years after the Big Bang around supermassive stars that only existed for a couple of million years, according to a study published in May in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

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Hubble's image of NGC 6652 shows countless pale blue stars, with redder stars in the foreground. Like all globular clusters, NGC 6652's stars are tightly packed in a spherical core as a result of intense gravitational attraction.

The spectacular new image is the result of two teams of scientists combining their data using separate cameras on Hubble — the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3. One team was researching the age of globular clusters in the Milky Way, while the other was trying to measure the amount of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in globular clusters like NGC 6652, to better understand the composition of the stars contained there.

How to see it in the night sky?

Globular clusters are best seen from the Southern Hemisphere, or during June and July in the Northern Hemisphere when the center of the Milky Way is visible from north of the equator. They're a beautiful sight in a small telescope, but they rarely rise high enough above the horizon to be easy to spot from north of the equator. That's also the case with NGC 6652, which is found between the star Kaus Australis in Sagittarius and the M70 globular cluster. By far the easiest globular cluster to see during summer from the Northern Hemisphere is the Great Hercules Cluster — or M13 — in the constellation Hercules, which looks a lot like NGC 6652.

For more highlights from Hubble, check out our collection of the 25 most dazzling nebula images ever taken.

What's the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas?

Charles Q. Choi
Sun, August 13, 2023 


Nomads travel the desert using camels

The arrival and establishment of humans in the Americas was a key step in humanity's trek across the planet, but exactly when this milestone was achieved remains hotly contested. According to the evidence we have now, when did the first humans arrive in North America?

Based on stone artifacts dating to about 13,000 years ago, archaeologists for most of the 20th century suggested that the prehistoric Clovis culture was the first to migrate to the Americas. However, the site of Monte Verde in southern Chile, first discovered in 1975, was found to be about 14,200 years old. If people made it that far down in South America by that point — either after their ancestors crossed over the Bering Land Bridge that once connected Asia and North America, or traveling in watercraft along Pacific coasts  — then earlier sites must exist in North America, Michael Waters, a geoarchaeologist at Texas A&M University, told Live Science.

Starting in 2009, archaeologists began excavating deposits at the Cooper's Ferry site in Idaho. Radiocarbon dating of human projectile points in these deposits revealed that people found their way inland into North America by about 16,000 years ago, Waters noted. Cooper's Ferry may be the oldest strong evidence of human settlement of the continent yet, and unpublished research from 2023 describes slightly older evidence; stone tools next to animal teeth dated to 18,000 years ago in Oregon. However, scientists recently found controversial signs of even older sites in North America.

In 2020, archaeologists digging in Chiquihuite Cave in the Astillero Mountains of central Mexico unearthed about 1,900 stone artifacts. Radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating of the objects suggested that humans might have occupied the area 31,000 to 33,000 years ago.

Later, in 2021, scientists tested 60 human footprints embedded in an ancient lake bed in what is now White Sands National Park in south central New Mexico. By using carbon-dating methods on seeds found in sediments within the prints, they suggested that people occupied the New World between about 21,000 and 23,000 years ago.

However, there are problems with the claims made at both the Chiquihuite and White Sands sites, Matthew Des Lauriers, an archaeologist at California State University, San Bernardino, told Live Science.

When it comes to Chiquihuite, even the scientists who excavated the site noted that others might argue that the oldest stone objects discovered there are not of human origin but are merely "geofacts," or normal rocks that look artificial. A 2021 study from an independent group indeed made that argument.

As for White Sands, the footprints are clearly human, Waters noted. But he noted that ancient plant samples used to date the footprints may seem older than their true age.

"The footprints have real problems with the dating," Des Lauriers said. Waters estimated the prints may actually be only about 15,000 years old.

A number of claims based on stone artifacts discovered in Brazil suggested that humans may have reached sites there, such as Pedra Furada, about 35,000 years ago, Waters noted. However, a 2022 study revealed that these artifacts may actually have been created by capuchin monkeys as they used rocks to break open nuts, he added.

Related mysteries

—What is the oldest-known archaeological site in the world?

—What was the longest-lasting civilization?

—How did ancient people store food before refrigeration?

But other evidence is emerging of early human occupation in South America. A 2023 study found 27,000-year-old sloth bones crafted by humans into pendants from Brazil.

New ideas often come and go about the people of the Americas. For instance, "a few years back, it was suggested that people came from western Europe to the Americas, the 'Solutrean hypothesis,'" Waters said. However, "recent genetic work on Solutrean human remains shows that they are not at all related in any way to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Thus, this hypothesis can be discarded."

All in all, "the public needs to know that archaeology is a process," Waters said. "Science follows a course — publication of new data, vetting of that data, more testing, and acceptance or rejection of ideas. This is a slow and careful process."

ROBO NIGHTMARE
San Francisco's North Beach streets clogged as long line of Cruise robotaxis come to a standstill

Russ Mitchell
Sat, August 12, 2023 

Cruise AV, General Motor's autonomous electric Bolt EV, is displayed in Detroit in 2019. Autonomous vehicle taxis have been given the green light to operate in San Francisco. (Paul Sancya / Associated Press)

One day after California green-lighted a massive expansion of driverless robotaxis in San Francisco, the implications became clear.

At about 11 p.m. Friday, as many as 10 Cruise driverless taxis blocked two narrow streets in the center of the city’s lively North Beach bar and restaurant district. All traffic came to a standstill on Vallejo Street and around two corners on Grant. Human-driven cars sat stuck behind and in between the robotaxis, which might as well have been boulders: no one knew how to move them.

The cars sat motionless with parking lights flashing for 15 minutes, then woke up and moved on, witnesses said.

Aaron Peskin, who represents North Beach on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, fears what could happen when a major fire or other life-threatening emergency breaks out with multiple robotaxis blocking the way. "Our houses in North Beach are made of sticks," he said. Peskin was flooded with texts, emails and videos from constituents as the robotaxis, programmed with artificial intelligence software, sat unresponsive. In one video, zeroing in on a robotaxi’s “driver” seat, a man says “this is what our country has come to.”

Cruise blamed cellphone carriers for the problem. At 11:01 p.m. Friday, Peskin sent a text message to Cruise government affairs manager Lauren Wilson. At 8:25 a.m. Saturday, she texted back: “As I understand it, outside lands impacted LTE cell connectivity and ability for RA advisors to route cars.” Outside Lands is a three-day music festival held in Golden Gate Park, four miles from North Beach.

Read more: Massive expansion of driverless robotaxis approved for San Francisco despite public safety concerns

The situation is loaded with irony, as the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday voted 3 to 1 amid great public controversy to allow a massive robotaxi expansion. The vote allows General Motors-owned Cruise and Waymo, owned by Google’s Alphabet, to charge fares for driverless service and grow the fleet as large as they’d like. Cruise has said it plans eventually to deploy thousands of robotaxis in San Francisco.

City officials in San Francisco, from the mayor’s office down, have been fighting the move, with officials saying the robotaxi industry needs to fix problems that endanger the public first before further expanding the business. The city’sFire Department has logged more than 55 cases of robotaxis interfering with first responders. Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson has repeatedly said Cruise and Waymo are getting in firefighters’ way and their technology is “not ready for prime time.”

Read more: San Francisco's fire chief is fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks. And L.A. is next


The CPUC decided to go ahead anyway. One of the three yes votes was cast by Commissioner John Reynolds, who served as head lawyer at Cruise before appointed to the CPUC by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The no vote came from Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma, who said the companies should explain the problems and how they plan to fix them first.

Peskin said city officials are pursuing “every means” to have the CPUC decision reversed, and are discussing whether to seek a court injunction. Another option: fining Cruise and Waymo thousands of dollars for each robotaxi road blockage.

The CPUC, and Gov. Gavin Newsom, in Peskin’s view, are putting big money ahead of basic public safety. The CPUC “has not been held in high esteem by the people of California for a very long time,” Peskin said. All five CPUC commissioners were appointed by Newsom, including the former Cruise attorney.

“If you’re looking for an example of regulatory capture, you’re seeing it now,” Peskin said. "It's unethical and immoral but legal," he said. “Bottom line, this all goes to Gov. Gavin Christopher Newsom.”

Representatives for Newsom and the CPUC could not be immediately reached for comment. In a Twitter post Saturday, Cruise said, “We are actively investigating and working on solutions to keep this from happening again.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Palestinians, Israel differ on significance of new Saudi envoy

Dan Williams
Updated Sun, August 13, 2023 


Flags of Saudi Arabia and Israel stand together in a kitchen staging area as U.S. Secretary of State Blinken holds meetings in Washington

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel ruled out on Sunday any eventual physical mission in Jerusalem for the first Saudi envoy to the Palestinians, even as they cast his appointment as endorsement of their goal of a state that would include part of the city as its capital.

Saudi Ambassador to Jordan Nayef Al-Sudairi on Saturday expanded his credentials to include non-resident envoy to the Palestinians. A social media post by his embassy said "consul-general in Jerusalem" was also now among Al-Sudairi's duties.

The move came after Washington said there had been some progress in its efforts to mediate a forging of formal relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia - which had previously ruled out such a pact until Palestinian statehood goals are addressed.

Signalling that they felt sidelined by the stepped-up indirect talks, the Palestinians voiced hope earlier this month that Riyadh would hear their concerns and coordinate with them.

They sounded more upbeat after Al-Sudairi's appointment.

"What does it mean to also say (he is) 'consul-general in Jerusalem'? It means a continuation of the positions of Saudi Arabia," Palestinian Ambassador to Riyadh Bassam Al-Agha said.

Interviewed on Voice of Palestine radio, Al-Agha further interpreted the appointment as a "rejection" of the U.S. recognition in 2017 of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Palestinians want a state in territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as their capital. U.S.-sponsored negotiations with Israel on achieving that stalled more than a decade ago.

Among the hurdles have been Israeli settlement of occupied land and feuding between Western-backed Palestinian authorities and armed Hamas Islamists who spurn coexistence with Israel.

Another sticking point is Jerusalem, which Israel deems its indivisible capital - a status not widely recognised abroad. Israeli authorities bar Palestinian diplomacy in the city.

Al-Sudairi presented his credentials to the Palestinian mission in Amman, indicating the Jordanian capital would remain his base.

"This (Al-Sudairi) could be a delegate who will meet with representatives in the Palestinian Authority," Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM.

"Will there be an official physically sitting in Jerusalem? This we will not allow."

Israel's hard-right government has played down any prospect of it giving significant ground to the Palestinians as part of the potential normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia.

"What is behind this development (Al-Sudairi's appointment) is that, against the backdrop of progress in the U.S. talks with Saudi Arabia and Israel, the Saudis want to relay a message to the Palestinians that they have not forgotten them," Cohen said.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-MughrabiWriting by Dan WilliamsEditing by Bernadette Baum and Frances Kerry)

Israel will not allow Saudi Arabia to open Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem

Abbie Cheeseman
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Eli Cohen, Israel's foreign minister, made the announcement on the country's Radio 103FM on Sunday morning - DUMITRU DORU/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Israel has said it will not allow Saudi Arabia to open a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem after their first-ever ambassador to Palestine was appointed on Saturday.

The appointment comes despite Saudi talks with the US about a delicate deal to normalise relations with Israel.

The Israeli foreign ministry was bypassed as the credentials for Nayef al-Sudairi, the new ambassador, were presented to the Palestinian Authority at a ceremony in Jordan.

The non-resident envoy, who is the ambassador to Jordan and a cousin of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will also become the non-resident Jerusalem consul general.

The use of Jerusalem in his title is a direct nod to Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, not Israel.

Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, told the country’s Radio 103FM on Sunday morning that they would “not allow” the new Saudi Arabian ambassador to Palestine to open a consulate in Jerusalem.

No normalisation between Saudi and Israel

Saudi Arabia has long been a key supporter of Palestine and their desire for statehood. The appointment of an ambassador is widely being viewed among analysts as a way to show that they will not bow to Israeli concessions over Palestinians as part of a potential normalisation deal that the US has long been trying to broker.

Palestinians have expressed their concerns that a potential normalisation between the two powers would be a death knell to their hopes for future statehood.

“Saudi Arabia will not take formal steps towards normalisation with Israel that would undermine Saudi Arabia’s own declared commitment to the issue of Palestine,” said Lina Khatib, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute. “The appointment of a Saudi ambassador to Palestine is a signal that this commitment continues.”

While a complex Saudi-Israel normalisation deal still appears to be far off – particularly on the back of Saudi’s recent rehabilitation of Iran – some analysts have speculated that the ambassador’s appointment could be a way of laying out early their own demands for any future deal.

In negotiations with the US, the Saudis are asking for significant concessions from Israel toward the creation of a Palestinian state, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. There are also concerns over Saudi’s growing relationship with China.

Senior members of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-Right coalition are expected to draw the line at any concessions toward Palestinians.

QAnon's weirdest obsession: Why does the radical far right fear the Masons?

BECAUSE THEY CONFUSE THE AFAM WITH THE GRANDE ORIENTE

Robert Guffey

SALON
Sun, August 13, 2023 

QAnon Sean Gallup/Getty Images

In my most recent nonfiction book, "Operation Mindf**k: QAnon & the Cult of Donald Trump," I focused extensively on a "QTuber" named Rick Rene, because I viewed him then and now as the perfectly imperfect microcosm of the entire messed-up QAnon universe, which perceives the Democratic Party as an elaborate cover for Satanic/Masonic pedophiles seeking to transform the Earth into a "one-world government."

In an email he sends out to all new subscribers, Rene relates his superhero origin story: "I'm a dad and a Christian and love the Bible. I used to fill my time teaching Bible classes at my church and coaching my kids in sports." Then his son, he says, started sending him links to various online right-wing conspiracy theorists. They "seemed pretty out there," Rene writes, definitely not material he was seeing "from the Mainstream Media or the News Apps on my phone." But the more he listened, Rene says, the more he "became intrigued enough to research these 'crazy theories,'" or, in the now-familiar phrase, to do his own research. Rene claims he didn't vote for Trump in the 2016 Republican primary (another familiar theme) but soon had "taken 'the red pill,'" which in QAnon speak means choosing to believe that everything Donald Trump says is true, along with a lot of other implausible things Trump doesn't quite say.

Rene no longer teaches Bible classes at his church. Instead, he advocates for the destruction of American intelligence agencies. In his Sept. 30, 2021, episode, Rene casually said of the FBI that we need to "blow it up and start over again from scratch!" On July 6, 2021, he waxed poetic about what he hoped would be the imminent destruction of the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty.

Why would a purportedly churchgoing, God-fearing Texas patriot pray for the violent destruction of such American landmarks? Because he and thousands of other evangelicals believe they were secretly constructed by Freemasons, who are essentially Satanists, and therefore must be obliterated.

This rhetoric has led not just to increased threats against such landmarks but to actual acts of destruction. On July 6, 2022, a curious monument known as the Georgia Guidestones (often referred to as "America's Stonehenge"), one of that state's most popular tourist attractions, was largely destroyed in a late-night bombing under the cover of night. That came just a few weeks after Republican gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor (whose red, white and blue campaign bus was emblazoned with the slogan "JESUS GUNS BABIES") had announced that destroying the "Satanic" guidestones was a key element of her platform.

An AP news report on the Georgia bombing quoted Katie McCarthy of the Anti-Defamation League observing that conspiracy theories "do and can have a real-world impact. These ideas can lead somebody to try to take action in furtherance of these beliefs. They can attempt to try and target the people and institutions that are at the center of these false beliefs."

Rene could barely contain his exuberance while commenting on the Georgia bombing in his podcast the next day. It was "exciting," "amazing" and "awesome," he declared, and despite security camera footage showing a man placing an object at the base of one of the stones, it might not have been a bombing at all.

Guys, this is, to me, just awesome, particularly if this ends up being lightning or something natural versus a bombing to show that God is not putting up with this. He told us he's going to take these down, and He is going to. … This is the blessing, guys. We see these [prophetic] words coming true. … I believe the Stonehenge of Europe will be on the horizon as well, the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty, and many, many other things in the D.C. area will be destroyed.

Let's try to untangle the logic here, if that's even the word for it. Stonehenge was built by pagans; therefore, it's Satanic and needs to be destroyed.

The Washington Monument was built by Freemasons; therefore, it's Satanic and needs to be destroyed.

The Statue of Liberty was built by the French; therefore, it's Satanic and needs to be destroyed.

Ironically enough, the Georgia Guidestones were apparently conceived by an Iowa doctor with far-right beliefs about race and religion. QAnon folks like Rick Rene and Kandiss Taylor either don't know that, don't believe it or don't care. No one has ever accused extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists of being good at understanding actual history.

* * *

Rick Rene's obsession with eliminating "Masonic monuments" is by no means unique. I'm not exaggerating for effect or trying to be funny when I say that people who believe as Rene does think that Freemasons are perhaps the most destructive and poisonous influence infecting America today. Anti-Masonic prejudice, while a 19th-century hangover in many ways, is still common among certain strata of evangelical Christians, and this fear is being actively stoked by the QAnon movement. Those who hold antisemitic beliefs are often anti-Masonic as well, since they believe that Kabbalism, or Jewish mysticism, is a central pillar of Freemasonry.

Adolf Hitler explicitly attacked "Jewish Freemasonry" in his infamous manifesto "Mein Kampf," and according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Nazi policy toward the Freemasons moved rapidly from discrimination to outright elimination. It was at first limited to merely excluding those who refused to sever their Masonic connections but soon ramped up to far more aggressive measures. By 1935, even conservative Masonic lodges that had promised loyalty to the regime had been dissolved and had their assets confiscated.

Nazi propaganda continued to link Jews and Freemasons; Julius Streicher's virulent publication Der Stürmer (The Assault Trooper) repeatedly printed cartoons and articles that attempted to portray a "Jewish-Masonic" conspiracy. Freemasonry also became a particular obsession of the chief of Security Police and SD, Reinhard Heydrich, who counted the Masons, along with the Jews and the political clergy, as the "most implacable enemies of the German race." In 1935 Heydrich argued for the need to eliminate not only the visible manifestations of these "enemies," but to root out from every German the "indirect influence of the Jewish spirit" — "a Jewish, liberal, and Masonic infectious residue that remains in the unconscious of many, above all in the academic and intellectual world."

The Nazis mounted anti-Masonic exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere in occupied Europe. Wartime Nazi propaganda claimed that a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy had provoked World War II and was behind the policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

To this day, conspiracy theorists such as Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman essentially believe that the Freemasons are the puppet masters of the New World Order, the Jews are the puppet masters of the Freemasons, and both groups worship Satan. Satanism is, of course, running rampant in the modern world.

More than 20 years ago, I ordered one of Hoffman's self-published pamphlets about a series of alleged assassinations he blames on the Masons. The supposed victims were Capt. James Morgan, an anti-Masonic writer who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1826; Joseph Smith, founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons); and Edgar Allan Poe. I was somewhat able to follow Hoffman's fractured account of the first two alleged murders, but his accusations regarding Poe's death are another story. His central evidence seemed to be Poe's famous story, "The Cask of Amontillado," in which a man named Montresor bricks up a drunken man named Fortunato, evidently an old friend, behind a wall of masonry. According to Hoffman, the Freemasons interpreted this parable as an affront and decided to get back at Poe by murdering him three years after the story was published.

I wrote Hoffman a letter asking him to explain this evidently unhinged notion, claiming that I was a professor at Cal State Long Beach and that my academic colleagues were skeptical about his claims. That wasn't true. I wasn't even a student at the school then — but ironically enough, I actually am a professor there now. I suppose I shouldn't have bothered, but Hoffman's response was instructive: He wrote back an extended rant about the stupidity of college professors and claimed he had adequately explained the whole thing and no further elaboration was necessary. He did not, of course, offer any concrete evidence that the Masons had murdered Poe.

If you're thinking that someone like Hoffman is a fringe character at the outermost edge of the far right, well, sure. But the fact of the matter is, such people are not as fringe as they used to be. Once upon a time, this kind of quasi-Nazi paranoia was only found in DIY 'zines and on the dark web. QAnon changed all that, galvanizing the lunatic fringe and propelling its views into the mainstream of the Republican Party. Threats of violence against Freemasons, and acts of vandalism against their lodges, have increased considerably all over the world during the last few years. Consider these examples, all drawn from an eight-month period:

On July 10, 2022, a Tennessee firefighter set a Masonic lodge on fire. Two weeks earlier, on June 27, a man broke into the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Houston and held two men hostage, claiming, according to a local news report, that "he wanted to talk to them [the Freemasons] about their belief system."

Less than a month before that, on June 2 or 3, two large sphinx sculptures located at the entrance of the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, D.C., were "severely damaged" and smeared with "filth."

The Masonic temple in San Bernardino, California, was heavily damaged in an arson fire on March 13, 2022 — after nearly being destroyed in another arson attack just over a year earlier. A few weeks earlier, on Feb. 18, a man was arrested for vandalizing Masonic lodges across central Illinois, causing "massive damage."

In an especially instructive example across the Atlantic, on New Year's Eve of 2021, someone tried to burn down the Grand Lodge of Ireland. Anti-vaccination graffiti was spray-painted on the sidewalk directly outside. According to the Irish Times, "The graffiti is understood to be a reference to mRNA, the technology used in some Covid-19 vaccines." Philip Daley, grand secretary of the lodge, told the newspaper that there had been previous demonstrations by anti-vaccination activists outside his hall and other Masonic halls in Ireland. "The view is that we created the virus and we are part of the new world order and we have to be stopped," he said.

* * *

Christopher Hodapp, author of "Heritage Endures" and other books about Masonic history, has expended considerable effort on tracking perpetrators of anti-Masonic crimes as well as professional agitators who spread anti-Masonic propaganda. In a Feb. 15, 2022, blog post, Hodapp wrote about Pastor Greg Locke of Tennessee, "who regularly urges his audiences to 'destroy everything Masonic,'" and had recently held a book-burning event in Florida, "consigning 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight' books to the flames (along with, by the way, 'Fahrenheit 451,' with absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever). Declaring Freemasonry to be Satanic … his anti-Masonic rant from that event has been endlessly forwarded" on social media.

As a Religion News article explains in depth, Locke also claimed he had identified a group of "full-blown, spell-casting" witches within his church, two of them members of his wife's Bible study group. "In recent years Locke has used his sermons to attack LGBTQ people, accuse Democratic politicians of child abuse, spread claims about election fraud, denounce vaccines and claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is a hoax," the article continued.

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All of this brings us to perhaps the main reason Freemasons and Democrats are so often accused of being pedophiles by these unhinged conspiracy theorists. As I wrote in "Operation Mindf**k," "Among corporations and intelligence agencies — not to mention certain high-profile political figures — it's standard operating procedure to accuse your opponents of offenses you yourself are committing." For the sake of completism, I should have added "churches" to the list.

Considering the massive scale of the sexual abuse scandals within the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention — by far America's two largest religious denominations — I find it strange that thousands of supposedly devout Christians are so concerned about Freemasons and Shriners and "the Illuminati" molesting their children. How many documented cases of child abuse involving Freemasons are there, and how does that compare to the documented cases of child molestation among the Protestant and Catholic clergy? If you're one of those God-fearing, churchgoing "digital warriors" who yearns to help Q and his cohorts wipe out all the demonic pedophiles behind the U.S. government, you are statistically far more likely to find a pedophile abuser preaching the gospel behind a pulpit on Sunday morning than among the modest crowd eating potato salad in a Masonic Lodge on a random Monday night.

To be fair, not all the anti-Masonic perpetrators and agitators mentioned above can be identified as white racists or Christian nationalists. That's part of the genius of QAnon, from a propaganda standpoint. This particular conspiracy theory has successfully repackaged hundreds of years of antisemitic and anti-Masonic disinformation into a secular religion that extends its influence among all sorts of people who would never spend 10 seconds listening to a religious fanatic like Pastor Locke.

In a recent interview with the Times Union of Albany, New York, historian Mitch Horowitz, author of "Occult America" and "Uncertain Places," observed that "with the advent of QAnon, we may be a whisker away from a new Satanic Panic":



That movement swept the United States and Britain in the 1980s and early '90s on account of a cultural myth and canard that child-sacrificing Satanic cults were at work. In time, and after some really tragic and disruptive criminal trials and false accusations, media coverage exposed the Satanic Panic as a widespread hoax and a kind of cultural spasm. It may have been a reaction against changes in the workforce and the economy, in particular women entering the workforce en masse, and people turning to childcare centers and other alternative forms of daycare.

This theme has reasserted itself through the work of Alex Jones and people adjacent to the QAnon movement, and it's now commonly encountered online. And despite the news coverage and the widespread debunking of the Satanic Panic, we seem to be going through this cultural amnesia in which we're revisiting it.

* * *

Every weekday afternoon, on the Los Angeles talk-radio station KFI, a pair of conservative hosts named "John and Ken" take to the air to berate what they perceive to be the ultra-liberal views of "hack, snowflake Democrats." I've listened to John and Ken intermittently for the past 20 years, and I've never heard John admit to being wrong about anything.

Sometime in August of 2020, when my five-part series about the madness of QAnon began appearing on Salon, John expressed frustration and confusion as to why anyone would waste time writing about the subject. The people who had burrowed deep into QAnon conspiracy theories, he said, were basement-dwelling "morons" who couldn't have any effect on the real world and certainly not on national politics.

On Jan. 7, 2021, I heard John admit that he had been badly wrong about that one.

In the months before the 2020 election, pundits on both the left and the right were encouraging "reasonable" people to ignore QAnon. Among the many comments posted by Salon's readers in response to my initial articles were numerous pleas that I should stop drawing attention to all this silly, right-wing gooney-bird nonsense. Didn't I know I was just giving voice to a despicable cause?

Not long ago, I received a message via my website directed to "the dude who wrote 'Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form,'" which would be me. The correspondent was concerned that "the PTSD of the Trump Admin sure seems to have driven you into the arms of DNC group-think conformity" and went on to claim that Q followers were "victims of state abuse, their good intentions weaponized against them, and they should be pitied for their gullibility and lack of media sophistication. The belief that they represent our national demons, or god forbid a domestic terror threat, is a divisive tool that distracts from the actual powers that threaten the Bill of Rights, among many other things."

While I agree with this person's concluding claim that "sh*t is not normal," the message was accompanied by a link to a nonsensical 20-minute video that attempted to convince its viewers that Ashli Babbitt's death during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots was "a charade staged by law enforcement actors." The windows of the Capitol building, according to the video, were made of "Hollywood glass" — they broke far too easily after being smashed by hordes of enraged Christian patriots! — and the blood seen on Babbitt's face after she was shot could only have been the result of "a Hollywood squib."

This was very likely another example of a conspiracy theorist getting lost in the ethereal hall of mirrors known to many students of the genre as "Chapel Perilous," a hazard I warned my readers about in the introduction to "Cryptoscatology," the same book this correspondent had apparently enjoyed. Had this person trapped themselves in a labyrinth with no exit? I wouldn't be surprised. QAnon has been a dead end for many "digital soldiers," the five-star roach motel of embittered conspiracy buffs.

* * *

Full disclosure: I became a Freemason in 2002 and a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Freemason in 2004. Ever since, I've been amused and bemused by the emotions that people display when the subject comes up. First of all, most people have never heard of Freemasonry, but those who have generally react as if they've just discovered I was a member of House Slytherin. Either they know almost nothing about the subject, or what they think they know has been so distorted by misinformation and disinformation that it might as well be fantasy.

According to Jay Kinney, co-author of "Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions," "Freemasonry as it evolved in the 18th century was influenced by the Enlightenment and … incorporated the emerging ideas of brotherhood, freedom of thought, and freedom of association." Maybe that's a simple explanation as to why so many authoritarians and outright fascists have been so hostile toward Freemasonry and its traditions throughout the years.

Several years ago, a woman asked me with complete sincerity if Freemasons really controlled the world from behind the scenes. One of my students told me that he'd always assumed Freemasonry was connected to white supremacy. I told him that well over 90 percent of my lodge were people of color. I don't think he believed me. But after Donald Trump was elected president, I began to notice a radical tonal shift in these anti-Masonic attitudes.

In 2015, I interviewed my friend Richard Schowengerdt, a longtime Mason who was a Defense Department engineer for more than 50 years. Where did the intense bigotry against Masons come from, I asked him? After all, the supposed "secrets" of Freemasonry haven't been secrets for a long time; you can read about them in any number of books and online sources. Richard told me that



The governments of many countries were afraid of Masonry because it openly taught freedom and the concepts of the Renaissance, freedom of thought and all of this, and I'd say more than 50 percent of it was political. The leaders of these countries were afraid of Masonry, that it would take away their power and eventually they would crumble, you know? Through the Renaissance and the upheaval of Protestantism, through Martin Luther and all that, Freemasonry changed the world. Masonry and a lot of the esoteric groups were associated with people like Martin Luther and anyone who might upset the Roman Catholic hierarchy. … [T]he other half of it was, there were some fears such as you've mentioned: the occult and practices that were considered to be devilish, but almost all of this was fabricated by people who were dead set against Masonry and wanted to discredit it in any way they could find.

The most paranoid anti-Masons I've encountered, either online or in the real world, have never bothered to speak to a Freemason. Their attitudes are based on misinformation they've absorbed through the internet thanks to extremist platforms like 4chan and 8kun, where QAnon and other 21st-century right-wing ideologies were born.

One of my creative writing students at CSU Long Beach — who admitted that he spent much of his free time burrowing into internet rabbit holes devoted to dubious conspiracy theories — told me that he and two friends had attempted to attend a Masonic Lodge meeting despite not being members. They had even rented tuxedos in hopes of slipping past the imaginary dragons at the gate, but even so their infiltration was not well planned. When they arrived, they were informed by the sole Mason in the building that monthly meetings were still being held remotely. He then gave them the code for the Zoom meetings, so they could follow along from home.

"So we went home and managed to enter the Zoom meeting," my student told me in hushed tones. "It was incredible! These Masons kept talking about a 'chili cookout' they were planning in some remote park out in the middle of nowhere. We knew 'chili cookout' had to be code for something else, but we couldn't figure out what. That's why that old Mason guy gave us the code to crash the meeting. He knew we couldn't figure it out! We think it had something to do with Pizzagate, like maybe 'chili cookout' was code for some weird pedophilia ritual. What do you think?"

I didn't even bother to tell him that I was a Mason, and that sometimes — in fact almost always — a chili cookout is only a chili cookout. He wouldn't have believed me anyway.

Read more

from Robert Guffey on the secrets of QAnon

The deep, twisted roots of QAnon: From 1940s sci-fi to 19th-century anti-Masonic agitprop


Making sense of QAnon: What lies behind the conspiracy theory that's eating America?


Decoding QAnon: From Pizzagate to Kanye to Marina Abramovic, this conspiracy covers everything


What are the true goals of QAnon? It's the 21st century's ultimate catfish scheme

CATHOLIC ANTI MASONRY

Masonry, Atheism and Catholicism | EWTN

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MASONS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FREEMASONS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: American Fairy Tale 

CHUTZPAH
As GOP attacks Bidens, Rep. Jamie Raskin promises report on ‘foreign government emoluments’ to Trump

Shant Shahrigian, New York Daily News
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America/TNS


Amid GOP howls over the Hunter Biden case, lawmakers are scrutinizing former President Donald Trump’s business dealings during his time in office, Rep. Jamie Raskin said Sunday.

The Maryland Democrat promised a new report on cash that foreign governments gave to Trump businesses, though he did not go into detail.

“We’re going to release a report about all of the foreign government emoluments — millions of dollars — we can document that Donald Trump pocketed at the hotels, at the golf courses (and) business deals when he was president and that his family got,” Raskin told ABC’s “This Week.”

The comment came amid a series of questions to Raskin about GOP and federal probes of Hunter Biden. Republicans in Congress have been investigating whether the troubled son inappropriately benefited from his powerful father, among other accusations that remain unproven.

Raskin said his Republican counterparts should look closer to home.

“During the Trump administration, we saw the development of a completely new public philosophy, which is that government is not an instrument of the common good in the public interest,” he said.

While a frequent news subject during the Trump years, the former president’s business dealings with foreign governments drew no legal consequences. In 2021, the Supreme Court ended lawsuits accusing the president of taking illegal payments, saying they were irrelevant since he was out of office.

But Raskin accused Republicans including Rep. James Comer of Kentucky of having a double standard by probing the Bidens while ignoring Trump and his family.

“We have said, let the justice system run its course. They’re not saying that about Donald Trump,” Raskin remarked.

While Trump has been one of the loudest voices accusing the Bidens of corruption, he faces a swath of unprecedented prosecutions himself.

On top of his existing multiple indictments, a Georgia district attorney is reportedly set to present evidence in an election interference case against Trump to a grand jury this week after witnesses give testimony.

Raskin compares Trump White House to Putin’s Kremlin

BY LAUREN SFORZA - 08/13/23

Greg Nash
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is seen during a House National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing to discuss Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.


Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Sunday compared a “public philosophy” he says was developed by former President Trump’s administration to a model similar to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“During the Trump administration, we saw the development of a completely new public philosophy, which is that government is not an instrument of the common,” Raskin said on “This Week,” ABC’s Sunday show. “Government is an instrument for private self-enrichment for the guy who gets in, his family, for his private businesses.”

Raskin noted that he does not approve of this model, saying “That’s what Putin is doing.” He called on House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to conduct an analysis of what the laws should be about moneymaking in government.

Raskin was responding to a series of questions in which he was asked whether foreign business dealings by President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, concerned him at all. He deflected and instead addressed his concerns about former President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during the previous administration.How a start-up is using AI to write fundraising emailsGOP sees turnout disaster without Trump

“And I’m concerned, not just about public officials like Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, but even family members who go along for the ride, and I’ve been begging my colleague, Chairman Comer, for us to do a serious analysis of what the laws should be about moneymaking,” he said.

Trump’s business dealings during his time as president had been the subject of investigations by House Democrats. Raskin criticized Republicans for their focus only on the Biden family business dealings and not of the president of their own party. Comer is leading the congressional investigations into Biden family business dealings.

“And we’re gonna release a report about all of the foreign government emoluments — millions of dollars — we can document that Donald Trump pocketed at the hotels at the golf courses to business deals when he was president and that his family got,” Raskin added. “But they’ve not laid a glove on Joe Biden. As president, they haven’t been able to show any criminal corruption on his part — what they’ve got is Hunter Biden.

The West’s ‘see no evil’ approach to Serbia’s Vucic is destabilizing the Balkans

Analysis by Christian Edwards, CNN
Sun, August 13, 2023 

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and European Union accelerated their pivot towards Serbia. Rather than juggling the contradictory demands of pluralistic and fractious Balkan states, Western capitals focused the bulk of their efforts on a singular target.

Their policies had two aims. First, to bring Serbia into the Western fold, away from Russia. Second, to allow their respective administrations to focus more fully on supporting Ukraine.

Traditionally one of Moscow’s closest allies in Europe, Belgrade has long tried to tread the line between its historical ties to Russia and a potential future of closer European integration. Western diplomats have sought to pull Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic from the orbit of his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, by pledging a swifter path to EU membership while simultaneously warning of isolation if they break rank.

But, 18 months on, some observers say the current approach has been all carrot and no stick, and as a result is failing to achieve both of its aims.

Serbia has refused to participate in all rounds of EU sanctions against Putin. And Serbia has continued to pursue its own interests in the region with diminishing accountability, stirring conflicts abroad to distract from discontent at home, safe in the knowledge they will not be rebuked in the West.

The effects of this have been felt most keenly in Kosovo, which achieved independence from Serbia in 2008, after the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s. But Belgrade – and many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo’s north – still refuse to recognize its sovereignty, straining relations between the neighbors.

CNN spoke with several experts, as well as locals in Serbia and the north of Kosovo, who are rankled by US and EU attempts to court Serbia into the Euro-Atlantic community, and contend that their continued pursuit of the policy risks alienating democratic allies and increasing security concerns in the region.

A Kosovar local waves a US flag as thousands celebrated the announcement of the independence of Kosovo, in February 2008. - Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images/File
‘A Russian Trojan horse’

Western governments have long treated Serbia as the indispensable Balkan voice, sometimes at the expense of more peripheral players, some observers say.

“Their belief is that Serbia is the Balkan state, as they see it. Serbia is the one that, if you can bring them on side – whatever that might mean – everything will be easier,” Jasmin Mujanovic, a political scientist specializing in the Western Balkans, told CNN.

While consecutive US administrations have tried to bring Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) “in from the cold,” these efforts “have become especially brazen” since the war began in Ukraine, Mujanovic said, and have not achieved the US’ objectives.

“They seem to believe that they are bringing Serbia closer towards the EU and towards NATO and towards Western thinking and away from Russia… But that isn’t something I would say is being reflected on the ground,” Alicia Kearns, a British lawmaker and chair of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told CNN.

Vucic has long maintained a cozy relationship with his Russian counterpart, Putin. Speaking after a National Security Council meeting in February, Vucic justified his decision not to sanction Russia because it was “the only country not to have imposed sanctions against us in the 1990s.”

“They supported our territorial integrity in the United Nations,” he added, referring to Russia’s refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Serbia lost control of Kosovo after a NATO bombing campaign in 1999, which ended the massacre of ethnic Albanians – who make up more than 90% of Kosovo’s population – by Serb forces.

Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic, left, and Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti, right, at an EU-facilitated meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on May 2, 2023. - EU Council/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Despite EU-supported efforts toward energy transition, Serbia remains heavily dependent on Russia, having sold a majority stake of its oil company to Russia state-owned giant Gazprom.

The result is that, despite Serbia’s professed hopes to join the EU, Vucic has continued to walk a tightrope between Moscow and western powers. Though he has joined UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Serbia’s leader has shown little willingness to join western sanctions.

In April, the Serbian government denied reports that it sold weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, after a leaked Pentagon document emerged claiming otherwise. Serbia said at the time that it maintained its policy of neutrality, though some Western officials took the reports as proof that their policy was working.

Several analysts told CNN that Serbia has had to do very little to win praise from American and European officials, and that in reality Vucic has left a trail of broken promises.

“When we had his [Vucic’s 2020] re-election, we were all told, just wait until after the election, you’ll suddenly see that he becomes very Western- and European- oriented,” said Kearns. “It didn’t happen.”

“We were told he would join sanctions and show that he is genuinely on our side. It didn’t happen. We were told he wouldn’t get closer to Russia. He signed a security agreement with Putin in September. Time after time, he laughs in the face of the West. And when I ask Western officials, ‘why are you so determined to let Vucic play you?’ they say he is the best option,” said Kearns.

Kearns has been one of the few Western figures to criticize Serbia publicly. But it has come at a cost. After she spoke to CNN, Vucic issued an apparent threat to her during an address on state television, claiming that “if the government of Great Britian is not willing to react” to her criticisms of Serbia, “We will be forced to react.”

Given such behavior, some question whether the whole project of Serbian integration is viable, under its current government.

“Assuming we somehow miraculously bring Serbia into the EU, with this sort of regime, you are practically bringing another Russian Trojan horse into the EU, like you have in the shape of [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban,” Majda Ruge, a Balkan expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN.

“Yes, you may affect enlargement, but you’re certainly not going to neutralize Russian influence in the region – you’re just going to import it into the EU.”
Kosovo and the rule of law

The effects of the West’s forgiving approach to Belgrade are felt most keenly in Kosovo, which has depended on Western support since declaring independence. While more than 100 countries recognize its sovereignty, Serbia does not, viewing it instead as a breakaway state. Attempts to normalize relations between the two countries – overseen by the US and EU – have been fraught and occasionally violent.

The fiercest flashpoint came after mayoral elections Kosovo’s four northern municipalities in May. These elections often pass without fanfare: Around 90% of the population in this region are ethnic Serbs, and so, under ordinary circumstances, they elect ethnic Serbs as their mayors.

But these were not ordinary circumstances. In November, mayors from the Belgrade-backed Serb List party, which dominates the four municipalities, simultaneously resigned. They were followed by ethnic Serb police officers, administrative staff and judges in the region.

Their resignations triggered new elections, due to be held in December. Serb List said it would not participate in the elections, after Serbs in the region boycotted them, with Vucic’s full support. But, given the tensions, Kosovo agreed to postpone the elections until April – a decision that was praised by the Quint, an informal group comprising the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy.

With Kosovo Serbs not participating, ethnic Albanian candidates ran unchallenged. Election officials said only around 1,500 people voted across the four municipalities – a turnout of just 3.5%. Some mayors were elected with scarcely more than 100 votes.

But while the elections were by no means representative, for Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the issue had come to represent nothing less than the rule of law itself.

“We have four mayors whose legitimacy is low. But, nonetheless, there is no one who is more legitimate than them. We have to have the rule of law. We are a democratic republic,” Kurti told CNN in May.

However, the prime minister’s stance has been criticized as hardline and uncompromising. His allies accused him of forcing entry to the mayor’s offices on May 26, when many were surrounded by protesters, against explicit instructions.

“The US did tell Kurti – and this is where he’s at fault – they told him not to install them in the municipal buildings. And this is where Kurti ignored the specific direction,” said Edward Joseph, a foreign policy lecturer at Johns Hopkins University who served for a dozen years in the Balkans, including with NATO.

A Pristina government official told CNN that they did not want to “surrender” official government buildings to protesters. “The mayors entered their offices… Serbia had urged Serbs to boycott the elections. Now they wanted no one to enter those buildings. But then, the question is: If the mayors should not enter the building, who should?”

But while Kurti may have taken an uncoordinated action, the response to this was not inevitable. The worst of the violence came not on the day the mayors entered their offices, but three days later, in the town of Zvecan – when the mayor was not even in the building.

The violence was extreme. Dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured after they were attacked by ethnic Serbs. Some injuries were severe: Three Hungarian soldiers were shot; one had his leg amputated.

Kurti told CNN these were not “peaceful protesters,” but a “fascist militia” known to operate in Kosovo’s north, “who are being paid and ordered by Belgrade.”

The Serbian government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

NATO peacekeepers clash with local Kosovo Serb protesters in Zvecan, May 29, 2023. - Laura Hasani/Reuters

Others agree with Kurti. Kearns told CNN that British troops stationed in Kosovo had found “weapons caches hidden in churches and ambulances by Serb militia in the north of Kosovo. We heard about grenades outside people’s doorsteps if they refuse to support Serb militia.”

Despite this, much of the diplomatic response has focused on Kurti’s actions, for which Kosovo has paid a heavy price. Since the fallout from the elections, Kosovo has been disinvited from joint military exercises with the US, excluded from European infrastructure projects and slapped with sanctions that the Kosovar Business Alliance says could cost its economy €500 million ($550 million) by the end of this year.

Kearns criticized the “unbalanced” response from the West, saying it ignored the true cause of the troubles. “The start of the crisis was the Serbian government committing foreign interference in domestic Kosovar affairs, where they told Kosovar Serbs not to vote in the local elections. That is foreign interference,” she said.

Kurti has tried to proclaim Kosovo’s sovereignty against the twin forces of foreign interference and organized violence, to which, according to Mujanovic, the US and EU have responded: “No. That is not appropriate in these circumstances.”
‘The Zelensky of the Balkans’

Given Kosovo’s reliance on Western backing, some fear Kurti’s intransigence is frustrating his allies and weakening his country. Some are calling for a complete change of tack.

“He’s trying to be the Zelensky of the Balkans,” Shqiprim Arifi, mayor of the southern Serbian region of Presevo, told CNN. “He is using rhetorically, and in a populist way, the argumentation of the rule of law. He wants to be the Zelensky of the Albanians.”

Serbia’s Presevo Valley represents the flipside of the north of Kosovo. Whereas Kosovo’s north is populated mostly by ethnic Serbs in an Albanian-majority country, the Presevo Valley is populated mostly by ethnic Albanians in a Serb-majority country.

The best way to improve the situation, Arifi said, is for Kurti to do as Western allies demand: Work to create as “Association of Serb Municipalities” (ASM) in the north of Kosovo.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti during an interview at his office in Pristina, August 24, 2022. - Ben Kilb/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File

Kurti has been accused of preventing the implementation of self-governing municipalities for Serbs, as outlined in the 2013 Brussels Agreement aimed at normalizing relations between the Balkan neighbors. Under the agreement, Serbia could create the ASM in northern Kosovo, which would operate under Kosovo’s legal system, with Kosovar police remaining the only law enforcement authority.

A decade on, these municipalities have not been created, leaving disputes to fester over the degree of autonomy for Kosovo Serbs.

But there are doubts as to whether this solution – now being forcefully pushed by the US and EU – will ease tensions.

“Trust me, it won’t be the best solution,” Dusan, a Serb living in Leposavic municipality, told CNN. “Maybe, in the first couple of months, it will be a relief. Maybe, ‘Oh look, we finally got something.”

But it would be a false dawn. “From an economic aspect, our lives will not be improved, but it will be worse,” he said, since residents would have to start paying for services and taxes currently covered by Kosovo’s government. CNN is withholding Dusan’s real name, since he feared that his comments could affect his livelihood.

There are also concerns that the ASM could beckon more geopolitical tensions.

“We don’t know what these municipalities will be,” said Kearns. “Will it just be that the local municipalities are responsible for their own water and electricity and taxes? Or is it that it is going to be a new Republika Srpska? The reality is, I don’t think anyone wants another Republika Srpska.”

Republika Srpska, one of the two entities comprising Bosnia and Herzegovina, proclaimed independence in 1992 and was formally recognized under the Dayton Agreement of 1995. In recent months, its pro-Russian President Milorad Dodik has tried to pave the way for its secession from Bosnia.

Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik at his office in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, January 19, 2022. - Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In June, Republika Srpska lawmakers voted to suspend rulings by Bosnia’s constitutional court, in a move described by experts as “legal secession” and a grave contravention of the Dayton Agreement. The US condemned the move, saying it threatened Bosnia’s sovereignty.

“The folks in Pristina and Kurti have made it very, very clear that they see in the autonomous municipalities a new Republika Srpska. And they don’t see in that model a solution for Kosovo. They see a new version, a new generation of crisis for Kosovo, and ultimately the region as a whole,” said Mujanovic.
The wrong horse?

Throughout the recent months of tensions, the US and EU have continually reiterated their commitment to the cause of bringing Vucic on side. But Serbia has acted with increasing abandon, representing what Kearns called “a failure of deterrence diplomacy.”

One damaging episode came in Ohrid, North Macedonia, in March when, after months of negotiations brokered by the US and EU, Serbia and Kosovo finally accepted a bilateral agreement aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries. But, while this was heralded as a breakthrough, Vucic left the negotiations without having signed the document, claiming in a TV address that he was unable to do so: “I have excruciating pain in my right hand… that pain is expected to continue for four years.”

Vucic speaking at Ohrid, North Macedonia, March 18, 2023. - Boris Grdanoski/AP

Another came when Serbian authorities detained three Kosovo police officers, which it claimed were “deep inside the territory of central Serbia” and preparing to commit “an act of terrorism.” But Kosovo insisted that the officers had been “kidnapped” within Kosovo’s borders and that Serbia had committed and “act of aggression.”

The US and EU were slow to respond to this incident. KFOR, NATO’s Kosovo Force, issued a statement 48 hours after the officers were reported missing. The US issued a statement three days later, claiming that the arrests were made on “spurious charges.”

Joseph told CNN that the Serbian account of events was hard to believe – and that the wording of the US statement suggested their officials likely weren’t buying it, either. “If the US were genuinely unsure about whether the Kosovo police were in Serbia, then why use such a categorical term [as “spurious”], which pre-empts the purview and judgement of the Serbian court?”

And yet Serbia was not punished for the detentions. The officers’ release was secured two weeks later – not by Western allies, but by Viktor Oban.

After such episodes, Joseph told CNN that the “see no evil” approach to Vucic’s regime may be starting to crack.

“The question here is: Who in the Biden administration still believes that Vucic is this partner?” he said, pointing to the recent sanctioning of Aleksandar Vulin, director of Serbia’s intelligence service, as evidence that the Biden administration “is no longer captive to fear and illusion about Vucic.”

But whether this translates into a change of policy is unclear.

Red Star fans display a tifo with the Serbian flag, a tank T-84 and an inflammatory message, July 26, 2023. - BETAPHOTO/SIPA/Shutterstock

In the meantime, Vucic has raised the stakes. In response to the sanctioning of Vulin, Vucic banned arms exports from Serbia for 30 days, claiming “everything must be prepared in case of aggression against the Republic of Serbia.”

“He’s basically saying ‘we’re going to go into conflict, we have to stop all of the weapon exports right now, because we need it for our national security.’ He’s literally threatening war. I’ve never seen him so explicit before,” said Ruge of the ECFR.

And the president’s message has been taken up by some Serbian citizens. At Red Star Belgrade soccer match last month, nationalist Serb fans held up a banner reading “When the army returns to Kosovo.” Vucic attended the match, according to local media.

“The situation is clear who the bully of the Balkans still is,” Meliza Haradinaj, Kosovo’s former foreign minister, told CNN. “Time will prove that this ‘investment’ of appeasing Serbia will go in vain.”

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