A 2012 article about the Canadian Citizen Lab reveals the extent to which authoritarian regimes have been mobilizing the web as a potent weapon. The Hungarian government's current persecution of George Soros and the Open Society Institute can be taken in context of its original mission and the threat it poses to open societies:
In 1984, on the eve of glasnost, George Soros, the Hungarian American financier and philanthropist, struck a deal with the increasingly bankrupt Hungarian government. The country had only a dozen photocopiers, which were inaccessible and heavily monitored. Soros said he would provide hundreds of photocopiers to institutions such as libraries, on the condition that they be open and allowed to be used freely. As the wily billionaire no doubt expected, the deployment of the new copiers “helped the underground press tremendously,” a friend told BusinessWeek magazine. Five years after Soros initiated the project, the Hungarian government collapsed.
That episode underscores the relationship between political power and information technology. Copyright law traces its origins to efforts by European monarchs and states to license the printing process as a means of limiting the dissemination of seditious information. In the modern era, authoritarian regimes have always sought to tightly control the airwaves and the telecommunications networks, seeing them as both tools of repression and channels for state propaganda. Those restrictions brought a technological counter-response, sometimes in the form of journalism, sometimes propaganda. BBC's powerful radio signals transmitted information about the Allied war effort throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America played a similar role in piercing the Iron Curtain’s information blackout.
Boris Falikov describes the Russian culture wars as embraced by Putin and propagated by the Russian Orthodox Church over the past five years. Just in case you were wondering why American leaders of the Christian Right keep showing up at conferences in Russia:
The natural conservatism of the ROC became part and parcel of this ideology of returning to ‘traditional values’ rooted in the glorious past of great Russia.
That’s how an informal concordat was formed between state and church in Russia. I call it ‘informal’, because the separation clause remained intact in the constitution. However, in reality the authorities did everything possible to support ROC initiatives and Orthodoxy started to function as an important source of the new state ideology. Certainly, some of the Orthodox mythologemes were secularized during this process. For example, the idea of the ‘Russian world’ first formulated by Patriarch Kirill was based on the historical fact that Kievan prince Vladimir baptized the ancient Slavs in 988. The patriarch used this to show the original unity of three Slavic nations based on their common faith and to prove the right of the Moscow Patriarchate to function in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. But the Kremlin used this to justify the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Another example of secularized usage of Orthodox teaching by the government was its anti-abortion stand. For the church, it was a moral issue but for the authorities it was a way to solve the demographic crisis. However the ROC didn’t mind the secularization of its teaching by the government as long as it helped to strengthen its beneficial ties with the state. Besides, the ROC could always rely on the authorities if it felt threatened. Indeed, after the ‘punk prayer’ performed by the band Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, article 148 was amended so that offending religious feelings became a criminal offence.
Obviously, Russia is in pretty good shape given its desgination as "leader of the global Christian Right". The rest of us, however, might be tired of those friendly, clueless American evangelicals.
Marta Zarzycka suggests the photography of terror creates a sense of "anxious anticipation":
Terror trades in images—it needs spectators to feed itself. It is commonplace to say that atrocities like the terrorist attacks in Manchester, London, Brussels, or Boston are “unspeakable”—whether to indicate that words are inadequate to describe such an act or that using words in this way is somehow, in itself, a form of violence. While these attacks may be unspeakable, they were most certainly not un-picturable: On the contrary, they generated a great number of images. These images mobilize shock, disbelief and repulsion, as well as gratuitous voyeurism. Becoming prime mediators in interrelationships between the targeted local communities and global audiences, they deploy a visual force that releases the impact of terror to the world at large.
Although piercing, images of terror are becoming more and more disconnected from the context in which they take place—all too often, photographs of mayhem, wounded bystanders, and destroyed buildings could have been taken almost anywhere in the world. No longer novel, photographs of terror now seem to create a sense of déjà vu or anxious anticipation.
Thor Halvorrsen, founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, betrays his libertarian funding sources in a strange anti-Chavez rant that stops before touching anyone unassociated with leftist populism:
Halvorssen asks me how Norwegian journalists, ‘who defended this regime which caused so much destruction, are able to look at themselves in the mirror’. He lists journalists who defended Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. I am keen to know where Halvorssen stands in relation to the Venezuelan opposition, who now demand a new election or the removal of President Maduro, who recently attempted to close down the national assembly through changes to the Constitution. Does Halvorssen support Julio Borges, the leader of the National assembly, or the presidential candidate for the opposition, Henrique Capriles? ‘No, I am not involved in Venezuelan politics other than in general. Otherwise, people would immediately react and say: “Oh, so you are from Venezuela, you must have money invested there!” I do not like the candidates, nor the politics of those you mention. No, my focus is on other countries such as North Korea, Ecuador and Singapore, where I cannot be accused of having investments. Instead, I am interested in explaining dictatorships.’
Annnnnd Cloudfare offers me the following screen when trying to access and link a great article by Andrea Callanan on poet Suzanne Buffam's post-mothering pillow book. I guess the Canadian journal, The Walrus, has become a security threat. Stretch your google muscles...
