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DRESDEN, Germany First vaccine opponents attacked the police. Then a group of them chatted online about killing the governor. And one day an angry crowd beating drums and carrying torches showed up outside the house of the health minister of the eastern state of Saxony.

The minister, Petra Kpping, had just gotten home when her phone rang. It was a neighbor and he sounded afraid. When Ms. Kpping peered out of her window into the dark, she saw several dozen faces across the street, flickering in the torchlight.

They came to intimidate and threaten me, she recalled in an interview. I had just come home and was alone. Ive been in politics for 30 years, but I have never seen anything like this. There is a new quality to this.

The crowd was swiftly dispersed by the police, but the incident in December represented a turning point in a country where the SA, Hitlers paramilitary organization, was notorious not just for showing up at the homes of political rivals with torches and drums, but for attacking and even murdering them.

It was the clearest indication yet that a protest movement against Covid measures that has mobilized tens of thousands in cities and villages across the country was increasingly merging with the far right, each finding new purpose and energy and further radicalizing the other.

The dynamic is much the same whether in Germany or Canada, and the protests in various countries have echoes of one another. On the streets of Dresden one recent Monday, the signs and slogans were nearly identical to those on the streets of Ottawa: Freedom, Democracy and The Great Resist.

In Germany, at least, the merging of the movements has taken an increasingly sinister turn, with a specter of violence that is alarming security agencies. Since December, the threats have only intensified.

Last month the far-right Alternative for Germany party called for another protest outside of Ms. Kppings home. (The police stopped it.) Hospital staff in Dresden, the Saxon capital, have been attacked. A second governor has received death threats. And when the police raided the homes of nine people who had debated ways to kill Michael Kretschmer, the governor of Saxony, on the messenger service Telegram, they discovered weapons and bomb-making ingredients like gunpowder and sulfur.

As the pandemic enters its third year, Germany is emerging from another long winter of high case numbers that are now slowly receding. While the government is preparing to lift restrictions, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is determined to turn a general vaccine mandate into law ahead of the next fall.

The debate about Covid restrictions has energized a far-right scene that thrives on a sense of crisis and apocalypse.

Germanys far right, which in recent years used anger over an influx of refugees and Europes debt crisis to recruit, has seized on the virus as its latest cause.

If the issue is different, the messaging of those organizing the protests is eerily familiar: The state is failing, democracy is subverted by shady globalists and the people are urged to resist.

Now as then, what began with demonstrations against government policy has become personal. The number of verbal and physical attacks on politicians tripled last year to 4,458, according to federal police statistics. It is no longer just regional and local politicians who are targeted. The federal health minister and the chancellors chief crisis manager on the pandemic are among a growing group of officials requiring police protection.

Two and a half years after a regional politician who defended Germanys refugee policy was shot dead on his front porch by a neo-Nazi, security agencies worry that far-right militants want to use the pandemic to unleash another wave of political violence.

Violent resistance to democratic rules is now a frequent demand in the anti-corona protests, Dirk-Martin Christian, domestic intelligence chief of the state of Saxony, said in an email interview. The routine assertion that we live in a dictatorship and under an emergency regime that must be eliminated, and against which public resistance is legitimate, is evidence of the progressive radicalization of this movement.

There is an increasing willingness to use violence in the context of the protests, Mr. Christian added, noting the fantasies of murder targeting Mr. Kretschmer, the Saxon governor, and the SA-style procession outside Ms. Kppings house.

The radicalization of protesters against Covid measures is most visible in the former Communist East, where far-right extremists now dominate the organization of the protests and control the information and disinformation on popular Telegram channels associated with the movement.

Saxony, the most populous eastern state, has a long history of far-right protests, starting with the annual neo-Nazi marches on the anniversary of the Dresden bombing in 1945.

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In 2014, the anti-Muslim Pegida movement short for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West was founded there, then spread to other cities. For years its supporters marched on Monday nights, like the protesters who brought down Communism a quarter century earlier.

We are the people, the slogan associated with Pegida marches, is now popular at the coronavirus protests on Monday nights too.

The parallels are worrying, officials say, because prolonged street protests have proven to be powerful incubators of far-right violence.

Regular protests have the effect of giving extremists the feeling that public opinion is with them and that the time to act is now, said Michael Nattke, a former neo-Nazi who left the scene and has been doing anti-extremism work for the last two decades. It creates its own dynamic.

For intelligence officials, too, its no longer a question of if, but when.

We are very concerned about the possible radicalization of individual perpetrators, said Mr. Christian of the Saxon intelligence service.

One concern is that far-right extremists are tapping into the frustrations and fears of ordinary citizens who march alongside them every week. That regular proximity erodes boundaries.

Something is becoming normalized that mustnt be normalized, said Ms. Kpping, the health minister. Its worrying that you cant distinguish anymore who is on the streets because of vaccines and Covid restrictions and who is already radicalized.

On a recent Monday night in Dresden, eleven different protest walks, which had been advertised on Telegram, snaked their way through different parts of the city before coalescing into one march with some 3,000 people. Some carried candles, like the peaceful protesters who marched against the Berlin Wall in 1989. Others waved the flag of the Free Saxons, a new party that is so far right it considers the Alternative for Germany party establishment.

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In the crowd was Betina Schmidt, a 57-year-old accountant in a red woolly hat. Ms. Schmidt said she was not just protesting government plans for a general vaccine mandate but also a broader conspiracy by powerful globalists to destroy the German nation.

Until a few years ago she voted for the Greens. Now I know they are not green, they are totalitarian, Ms. Schmidt said. What they want has nothing to do with the environment. They want the destruction of Germany.

She stopped watching news on the public broadcaster last summer and is now getting most of her information on Telegram. Like many others here, Ms. Schmidt cited The Great Reset, a book by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which Ms. Schmidt says reads like a script for how a group of powerful globalists plan to destroy the German nation and create a mishmash of people that can be led easily.

I didnt believe it either six months ago, she added.

Matthias Phlmann, the author of Right-Wing Esotericism, a book about the fusion of far-right conspiracy theories with alternative views, said such theories were spreading fast and well beyond the milieu of people traditionally open to far-right ideas.

These conspiracy theories are powerful accelerators of radicalization, he said. If you believe someone wants to erase you, that you live in a dictatorship, violence is justified.

Germanys federal intelligence service, which is known as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, recently created a new category for dangerous conspiracy theorists dubbed delegitimization of the state. It has also set up a special organization tasked with monitoring some 600 channels on Telegram associated with the protest movement.

Security agencies have been caught off guard before. Asked in September in Parliament whether there was a concrete danger coming from the pandemic protest movement, the government denied this, saying only that some protesters showed signs of radicalization and a greater readiness to commit violence.

Ten days later an employee of a gas station was shot dead by a customer after the employee asked him to put on a mask. The attacker had been a regular at the protest marches.

They have been very slow to understand the risk, said Mr. Nattke, who regularly meets with officials about the far-right threat and says he has been warning them for months. It wasnt really until the torchlight procession outside Petra Kppings house that they took it seriously.

In Dresden, the group that fantasized about killing the Saxon governor, and is now under investigation for plotting terrorism, was first discovered by journalists. Now Mr. Christians office has its own team of half a dozen Telegram watchers, who scroll through hatred and disinformation to identify serious threats.

Its frightening how many people are following these calls for mobilization, Mr. Christian said. The erosion of the political center has already begun.

Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.

Read the original post:
In Germany, Threats Grow as Far Right and Pandemic Protestors Merge - The New York Times

Republished: Tribune writer's story still an true to Ukrainian people's thirst for religious freedom

EDITORS NOTE:In 2001, South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits joined a Niles bike builder on a bicycle tour of Seventh-day Adventists churches in Ukraine. They heard stories of religious oppression under communism and saw churches reborn after they gained freedom in 1991.

Here is that story again, republished as it ran on July 9, 2001. It is a snapshot in time. Since then, religious freedom has shifted to some degree, especially in certain parts of Ukraine. But this story is still true to what Ukrainians suffered under communism, plus the religious rebirth they started to experience in their first decade of freedom. It's also true to the enduring generosity of the people.

In 2001, news media spelled the capital Kiev. Today, of course, it is known as Kyiv.

KIEV, Ukraine We rolled out of inky black croplands that look like the Midwest. On the edge of the nation's capital, Kiev, our bikes began to swish and dance around countless puddles on a muddy road into the town of Borispol.

Ukrainians navigated their way on foot and in boxy Ladas, the four-door jalopies made in neighboring Russia.

Rain-soaked foliage almost hid the small homes of concrete, but not the boring, Soviet-era apartment high-rises that flood the nation and that badly need new concrete, new tile, new everything.

Our tires nudged into the garden gate of a Seventh-day Adventist church. It was lunch, and the church folk had been expecting us for a couple of months.

Five cyclists from South Bend, Niles and Buchanan and six other Americans had just begun a weeklong tour of Adventist churches in this former Soviet nation. The generosity of the people humbled us. But so did the price they've paid for their faith. It was easy to find people who've spent years in jail for practicing Christianity. Neither the growth of churches we witnessed nor the tour itself was possible 10 years ago, when communism held its final grip.

The beaming pastor in Borispol showed us his unfinished church building. Exposed bricks held up a roof over a dusty floor cluttered with boards. He's struggling to raise $10,000 to finish the $35,000 project.

The fee for our tour brought a few hundred dollars to that cause. It was time to thank us. Cloth-covered tables were plastered with red borscht, bread, potatoes, salad, sweet rolls and fruit drinks in colorful mugs and plates. We snapped pictures. This surpassed our simple expectations. Then church women brought more goodies cabbage rolls, cabbage pancakes, strawberries and sweet, doughy desserts filled with fruit and cheese.

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Our tummies packed, they led us into the lower-level room that they used for worship and seated us on one side. Church members glowed at us from their seats. More than 5,000 miles and a mountain of riches divided our cultures, and all of that had been reduced to a few feet. As one Ukrainian woman said, "We are brothers and sisters."

They gave each of us a hand-painted wooden container or candlestick.

Such feasts and gifts repeated themselves throughout the tour breakfast, lunch, dinner. We all wished we had something small to give back. In fact, we often laughed while trying to get our translators to explain: "We are not worthy!"

We could have expected divine care on this fund-raising trip. We were ambassadors from the land of milk and honey on a first-ever tour. But, as I found traveling to people's homes after the tour, Ukrainians love having visitors, and they express this by cooking.

Doug Fattic assembled the mid-June trip when he wasn't building or painting bikes out of his Niles home or serving on the finance committee of the Adventist church in Niles.

He worked with Adventist church leaders in Ukraine.

The fee helped to raise money for the churches and for a project to give bikes to pastors. Many of the nation's 500-plus Adventist clergy can't afford cars, yet they have to minister to small communities that are 3 to 15 miles from where they live. So far, the project has gathered 350 bikes, 250 of which were bought from a bike factory in Ukraine, Fattic said. Much of his financial help $30,000 recently comes from his camping buddy, Debbie McKee of the "Little Debbie" snack cakes.

I was among two non-Adventists in the group. I'm Catholic. I came because I love to cycle and see out-of-the-way countries. I knew Fattic from years of cycling with him in a club.

Even the American Adventists were touched by the Ukrainians' devout faith and penchant for prayer throughout the day. Maybe it's the old truth about converts being the most fervent Christians; new religious freedom has drawn thousands of newcomers to the faith.

Or maybe it's because the Ukrainians' faith has endured bloodshed and anguish. Nazis murdered an estimated 700,000 Jews here in World War II, almost half of the Jewish population, and Soviet leaders killed, tortured or imprisoned thousands more for religious reasons.

About 140 years ago, a Catholic priest wrote the melody to fit a poem, "Ukraine Has Not Perished," which the Parliament chose as the national anthem in 1992. It begins:

"Ukraine has not perished, neither her glory, nor her freedom,

Upon us, fellow Ukrainians, fate shall smile once more.

Our enemies will vanish, like dew in the morning sun,

And we, too, shall dwell, brothers, in a free land of our own."

Growing up, the Rev. Michael Skrypkar used to climb into the mountains with other youths so they could escape the eyes and ears of the KGB and learn about their faith. When he turned 19, the army called, and, like all men his age, he was required to enlist. It was 1978. He refused to work on Saturdays, the Sabbath, which Adventists reserve for worship and rest. The army quickly found out and sent him to prison for three years.

The food was terrible, but Skrypkar prayed with many other men who were behind bars for their faith. He said he became a "good friend" to, and converted, a man who'd spent 15 years in prison for killing 31 allegedly corrupt policemen.

Now Skrypkar serves as pastor for the church in Belaya Tserkov, which means "White Church."

In a general sense, his heritage reminds me of the dual life Ukraine had to live under communist atheism. Skrypkar's brown hair and brown eyes, his rounded cheeks and jaw line reveal a Romanian ancestry. He speaks Romanian and enjoys the native food and music at home. But his passport says he's Ukrainian because he's from Chernivtsi, a Ukrainian town on the southwest border, which originally was a part of Romania.

He doesn't seem to mind. Many residents of western Ukraine have a split or mixed heritage because various parts of the area had belonged to neighboring countries.

It's more painfully ironic how communism tried to force atheism on a country that, in fact, had such a rich religious history.

Ukrainian churches go back to the 10th century. Ukraine was the first Eastern region to receive the Christian rites from Constantinople that shaped the Orthodox churches, the most prevalent of the Christian denominations in Ukraine and Russia today.

Kiev's medieval Pecherska Lavra, the "Monastery of the Caves," is a color- and gold-splashed assortment of Orthodox churches and buildings that was the site of many cultural firsts, among them the printing of the first Ukrainian dictionary. The western city of Lviv holds more medieval churches than you can see in one day, including Roman Catholic, Byzantine Catholic, Ukrainian Orthodox and Russian Orthodox.

Communists took direct control of the Russian Orthodox church during their reign and outlawed all other faiths.

Adventists recall how they'd knock out the wall between two apartments to hold Sabbath in secret, and how KGB members would appear at the services. Officials tolerated services but cracked down when the faithful began to teach their children.

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One of our translators, Svitlana Kryshtalska, recalls what happened to children who were found going to church: "Teachers would …gather the whole school and would start shaming you before the whole school audience that you believe in God and are visiting churches," she said. "God was a myth, and the communists were doing everything in order to make people consider it as something ridiculous. …Such things happened a lot of times. But, thank God, it never happened to me."

Kryshtalska, now in her 20s, said her father used to paint icons in Orthodox churches, but he never told her what he did for a living until she was 13 or 14 old enough to keep it a secret. She knows of another man who went to prison for 10 years for doing the same. Yet another was jailed for baptizing too many people.

Every typewriter had to be registered with the government so that, if religious material or counter-propaganda arose, officials could track down the author. Many Christians typed church papers inside closets, where they could muffle the clicking of their keys.

Youths used to go to a wooded camp and building called Bucha on the outskirts of Kiev to learn about communism. Adventists have turned it into an institute of higher education. Our group joined 300 or more young Adventist adults who gathered there in Sabbath suits and dresses for a conference of music, Bible school discussions and talk of church trips and evangelism.

Church buildings are still coming out of their shackles. The government had turned many of them into warehouses and, in one case, a museum to atheism.

There aren't enough old churches to meet the demands of growing denominations. Adventist numbers have tripled from about 20,000 over the past decade. Now there are more than 800 Adventist congregations throughout Ukraine, plus about 375 prayer groups that aren't large enough to be considered congregations, said the Rev. Vladimir Krupsky, president of the Adventist church in Ukraine.

The Adventists are erecting 15 to 18 church buildings in each of the eight conferences in the country, Krupsky said. Four out of the eight churches we visited were still being built. Tour organizers, no doubt, wanted us to see this for fund-raising purposes. But I saw many churches of other denominations being built, too.

Not all of this is for evangelizing. Adventists also talked about meals and clothing they provide for the needy.

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Ukrainians can build a church for the price of a high-end sport utility vehicle in the United States.

The pastor in Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky sold his car to raise money for his church building. It couldn't have been a fancy car; pastors typically make less than $50 a month. Church members bought an unfinished house, and, little by little, they have installed what they can as collections trickle in from the members' also-meager incomes.

Their unfinished building is made of a white, concrete brick. Brick is cheaper and easier to come by than wood. The floor is still dirt, walls and ceiling are missing, but the garden outside is full. The side building has a garage, a small gathering room and a second story for storage that you reach by ladder.

The congregations we met borrowed money from relatively wealthy neighbors. Many people don't trust banks, one young pastor told me, because they have been known to close unexpectedly.

The churches tend to hire a handful of men with versatile building skills who are the ones who slap the cement, pound the nails, run the wiring and do everything else.

The Rev. Krupsky relaxed at his home with Doug Fattic and me to reflect on the tour we'd finished and the prospects for another tour next year. As Adventist president, Krupsky told Fattic that the bike tour would have been unimaginable seven years ago, at least for Krupsky. He and others were still shaking off years of thinking in the old Soviet way. Had Fattic come then, Krupsky said, he would have returned to the United States and warned others, "Never go there, never do business with those people."

The Ukrainians on our trip delighted in our 300-mile adventure, whether they were following in our three support vehicles or riding alongside us on their own bikes. Touring dozens of kilometers a day on a bike was common to us, totally new to them.

They and the pastors we visited took their cues from the Rev. Yuri Kusmenko, the fussy and clever man who masterminded our course. A lean man with raw Ukrainian cheekbones, Kusmenko oversees all of the Adventist pastors in Ukraine. He drove one of the two vans and watched the cyclists like a worried shepherd.

His intensity paid off. Rarely were we off schedule, and when we were, it wasn't by much. Pastors at several churches asked us to forgive their imperfections, whatever those were.

The Ukrainians overcame limitations with ingenuity.

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Take the bad water pressure that plagues the entire nation. Hot water is pumped to some homes, although it often fails or stops at a certain hour. One family's water stopped completely after 10 p.m. Water is expensive, so if you don't live in a high-rise, chances are that you have a pit toilet.

But our hosts built showers just for us. These consisted of two wood-frame stalls wrapped in wood or black plastic. Volunteers climbed a ladder to dump buckets of heated water into a barrel, from which the water flowed into shower heads. In Kaniv, youth group volunteers ran water from the heat of a fire up to the church's second floor, where it flowed from a tank down a long tube to the showers.

Ingenious or hospitable? We had brought sleeping mats and sleeping bags but never got to use them as the faithful cleared room in their churches for beds or mattresses, sent us to a hotel or to members' homes.

Not all is broken. City markets thrive without long lines for food. All of the highways and country roads we rode were paved. City streets are free of litter. Kiev is building a new, modern train station. The city's subways are not only full of art; they help many of the 5 million citizens get around with great efficiency.

Dignity lives in Ukraine, too. Village houses may be small, but they are immaculate and brightly painted. Many live in Soviet-built high-rise apartment buildings, hundreds of which fill Kiev's skyline. From the outside, they shock the eye like old public housing in Chicago. Front steps have holes big enough to catch a child's foot. Poorly lit hallways look like dungeons. Elevators chug along like old cars.

But open the door to someone's home and you find tidiness and warm-colored paint, wallpaper, carpets, lacy curtains and perhaps a book of worship.

Like stepping from hell into heaven.

Follow Outdoor Adventures columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures. Contact him at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

Read more from the original source:
We saw Ukraine churches reborn after communist oppression in this 2001 bike trip - South Bend Tribune

Though Frank Sinatra had more conservative political leanings toward the end of his life, the celebrity was initially liberal enough to pick up suspicion from the FBI. John Wayne was a staunch conservative who disagreed with Sinatras politics. After Wayne made comments about Sinatras ties to John F. Kennedy and a Communist filmmaker, the two men nearly got into a physical altercation.

In the 1940s, Sinatra openly supported various antiracist, antifascist, and internationalist causes. He also served as a board member for the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions (ICCASP). According toJacobin Mag, the ICCASP was a group of influential figures such as Duke Ellington, Albert Einstein, and Eleanor Roosevelt who supported causes like free speech, racial equality and, after the end of World War II, campaigns against the atomic bomb.

Given the national mood during the Red Scare, Sinatras political leanings garnered attention from the FBI. While they compiled a file on the singer that primarily dealt with his alleged mob ties, they also focused on his leftist beliefs.

By contrast, Wayne was a prominent Hollywood conservative. Per theWashington Post, he belonged to the John Birch Society, a right-wing, anti-communism group. He also supported the House Un-American Activities Committee, which kept an eye on Sinatras politics.

Sinatra irritated Wayne in the 1960s when he hired Alfred Maltz, a blacklisted Communist filmmaker, to write a screenplay forThe Execution of Private Slovik. Sinatra worked with Maltz in the 1945 short filmThe House I Live In. The film shows Sinatra decrying anti-semitism and promoting tolerance.

Per theSaturday Evening Post, Wayne responded bitterly when a reporter asked him what he thought of the collaboration.

I dont think my opinion is too important, he said. Why dont you ask Sinatras crony, whos going to run our country for the next few years, what he thinks of it?

With crony, Wayne was referring to Kennedy, who Sinatra publicly supported. The outcry against Maltz was strong enough that Sinatra fired him and canceled the project. Shortly after, Sinatra and Wayne were at the same Hollywood benefit show. Sinatra stalked off the stage when Wayne took the microphone.

What the hell did you walk away from me for? Wayne later asked Sinatra.

Well, you cried, Sinatra said. You blasted off your mouth.

Per theLA Times, witnesses at the benefit said that the two men nearly got into a physical altercation over the comments.

Despite witness accounts that Sinatra tried to square off against Wayne, the actor denied the altercation.

There was no trouble at all, he said just after the benefit. I like Frank. Frank was the backbone of the entertainment that evening. In fact, he kept the show going.

Still, he recounted the tense moment for the Saturday Evening Post in 1962. In this version of the story, however, the disagreement ended calmly.

Duke, were friends, and well probably do pictures together, Wayne explained that Sinatra said. Lets forget the whole thing.

Ultimately, though, the moment did not permanently mar Sinatra and Waynes relationship.

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Read more:
Frank Sinatra and John Wayne Nearly Came to Blows Over Sinatra 'Crony' JFK and Communism - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

In the late 1990s, the issue of the encroachment of Kalapani by India had roiled national politics with the communist parties spearheading protests. That included a somewhat foolhardy, and fortunately not fully realised, attempt to physically dislodge Indian troops from Kalapani with a march by the youth brigade of the CPN-UML to the area. It was around that time that the late Harka Gurung had observed in a keynote address the apparent paradox that our communist parties, the fount of our fabled nationalism consisting mainly of bashing our southern neighbour, were all born in India. Resorting to his well-known sardonic wit, Gurung did not fail to point out the exception of the Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party, which he said had entered via Kodari highway.

The corollary to this paradox is the blind allegiance of our communist parties to China, or rather to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By no stretch of imagination can the CCP still be called a communist party wedded to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism principles. Regardless of its ideological acrobatics to justify the adoption of socialism with Chinese characteristics, China has become more like a run-of-the-mill one-party state as existed, say in Indonesia under Suharto and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and even present-day Vietnam whereby party membership becomes a prerequisite for personal advancement rather than a means to further the common good.

This presumed affinity with the CCP has left many in the political left paranoid about both the imperialist West and expansionist India. An example of this fear psychosis was on full display when the Maoists were on a roll in the late 1990s and early 2000s; many leftist intellectuals sincerely believed the insurgency to be a CIA plot, with Indian connivance, to foment instability in Chinas weak underbelly of Tibet. It mattered nought to them that, at the same time, the ill-informed Indian intelligentsia believed the Maoist movement to be just a proxy battle being waged by China to gain a foothold in South Asia.

It is thus not surprising that the ongoing protests against the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant should come primarily from the left since it is seen as part of a larger strategy by the West led by the United States to encircle China. While it is beyond doubt any attempt by any other country to use Nepal for aggression against any other nation should be opposed, especially when it concerns either of our two neighbours, what beats reason is why our communist parties feel the need to protect China at the cost of our own national interest.

Indo-Pacific Strategy

There are several questions raised about the MCC grant. There is no reason to rehash those arguments since far better and wiser minds have been engaged in deconstructing the agreement. The main question is whether there lurks any sinister design behind the American largesse with Nepal being willy-nilly dragged into what the US has called its Indo-Pacific Strategy. If we go by the MCCs clarifications to some of the objections raised here in Nepal, it has categorically stated that the MCC Nepal Compact is not an agreement under the Indo-Pacific StrategyThe strong relationship between the United States and Nepal long pre-dates the Indo-Pacific Strategy Any decision by Nepal regarding the Indo-Pacific Strategy is separate and independent from the MCC Nepal Compact.

That may very well be the case in principle, except that anyone cognisant of how international affairs are conducted knows that there are usually strategic reasons behind the doling out of foreign aid. American interest in Nepal has always been driven by the spectre of communist China to our north. That was the time the US was principally engaged in preventing what it believed would be the domino effect of Asian countries falling to communism one by one. Thus, at one end, it found itself ensnared in Vietnam for years, while in places like Nepal, it encouraged policies like land reforms as a hedge against the landless peasantry taking up arms in the name of communism.

The 21st century has proved little different except that it is not communism that is giving the US the funk but an ascendant China now claiming parity with it on the global stage. Hence, the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), which, incidentally, is the formulation increasingly being adopted by others, including the European Union, Australia and Japan, with the common aim of furthering partnerships in the region to counter the rise of China.

As for any connection that may exist between the IPS and the MCC, one only has to go through the 2019 US government publication, A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision, to find the following: [T]he inaugural Indo-Pacific Business Forum in July 2018launched new initiatives to catalyse private sector investment in Indo-Pacific infrastructure, energy markets, and the digital economy. To date, support has included $2.9 billion through the Department of State and USAID for the economic pillar of the Indo-Pacific strategy, and hundreds of millions more through other agencies, including the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Nowhere does it say that the MCC is part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, but one need not even read between the lines to conclude that these are different arms of the US government working to achieve the overall American foreign policy goals. Lest we had any doubt about our place in the IPS, it would be immediately put to rest by the image in the same publication of our then foreign minister, Pradeep Gyawali, smilingly locked in a handshake with his American counterpart.

We can debate all we want whether or not we want to or should be part of the IPS. The truth is the USA has already included Nepal along with 23 other countries within its Indo-Pacific Strategy. A Free and Open Indo-Pacific touts the support it has provided to Nepal: i) become more effective in UN peacekeeping; ii) strengthen the legal and regulatory framework for infrastructure; iii) increase capacity for cross-border electricity trade; iv) draft Nepals Energy Regulatory Commission Act; and v) strengthen civil society in contributing to the drafting of legislation. Every assistance from Washington DC would hence be mediated by where we stand apropos the IPS. Is it any wonder that a State Department official (reportedly) hinted at revisiting Nepal-US ties should we find the temerity to reject the MCC grant?

Diversity Visa

Unless we are willing the accept the price of firmly attaching ourselves to China a la North Korea, we have no choice but to continue with our strict policy of equidistance from all. That means the pragmatic adaptation of our vision of the national interest to an ever-changing world instead of being stuck in the mindset from the 1950s and 1960s, and being open to help from every possible source.

Besides the unparalleled clout, the US carries in the world, that it is our largest bilateral donor has been repeatedly mentioned. At a more mundane level though it is also the country to which a huge number of Nepalis aspire to migrate. Nepal consistently features among the top five or six countries with the highest number of applicants for the Diversity Visa lottery. Sadly, there were sure to have been quite a few of the latter hurling stones during the anti-MCC protestsjust because their leaders told them to.

See the original post here:
MCC and the communists - The Kathmandu Post

Alexander Herbert, who the library lists as a member, posted a video of the encounter on Twitter.

Warning: Video includes graphic language

On Tuesday afternoon, Herbert announced plans to host an emergency community forum on Zoom to brainstorm ideas to improve safety at the venue. The meeting will be held Feb. 26 at 11 p.m. It is open to all community members. Guests can register online.

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According to a Providence Police report, officers were informed that neo-Nazis would be at the Red Ink Community Library, 130 Camp St., to interrupt individuals who were inside attending a reading. Dispatchers alerted responding officers that they received calls for a disturbance.

The first officers to arrive said they observed 15-20 individuals, from the neo-Nazi group, standing outside striking the window of the library with their hands, the police report states. Police arrived with emergency lights on and the crowd began to disperse.

Officers did not find any damage to the building. Law enforcement remained on the scene until 8:15 p.m.

Library Executive Director David Raileanu said six or seven people attended the event in person, while another 10 participated online. They were surprised by banging on the exterior windows of the former police substation in the Mount Hope neighborhood.

Initially, it was terrifying, Raileanu said. It was a very stark display of terror and hatred and violence. And the fact that we were in a small enclosed space, and clearly outnumbered, felt like violence was potentially inevitable at that point. It was a difficult emotion to process at that time.

Raileanu estimates 30 people were gathered outside. All of them wore masks, some with skeletons and the numbers 131 printed on them.

At least two library guests spoke back to the crowd. The incident was cleared at approximately 7:15 p.m., Raileanu said.

We did have a chance as a group to talk about what we heard, he said. And we had a quick debrief of what happened. There was a spectrum of emotions. There was fear and anxiety. There were a couple of members who were fired up about confronting these disruptors. There was a range of emotions on how best to address and confront situations like this in the future.

The approximately 500-square-foot space is built against the side of a hill and has one exit.

As a person whose family history goes back over 100 years in the Jewish community of Providence, I was particularly affected, Raileanu said. I know the Mount Hope community and Camp Street has worked diligently over the years to reduce violence in the community. Thats what we hoped to be part of when we moved in.

To be a party to a situation where there was violence on Camp Street, we regret our part in it. We arent going to take responsibility for the actions of violent thugs but we are going to do everything we can to minimize this happening again.

A video of the incident was posted on Twitter by @guateguanaco, who stated that the protesters blocked off the librarys entrance and demanded to be let inside.

He said those inside were outnumbered 5:1.

Politicians and candidates for public office came forward to condemn the neo-Nazi group.

There is no place for hate in our communities or our state, Governor Dam McKee said. The video showing a group waving Nazi flags last night in Providence is unacceptable and disgusting. I stand with those condemning last nights acts.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Mayor Jorge Elorza said, Providence is home to diverse people, cultures, and ideas and our city has no room for hate-filled actions mean to intimidate and cause fear. My administration is committed to making every resident feel safe and protecting the rights of people who are gathering peacefully.

He said anyone with information about the incident involving a swastika flag is encouraged to call the police.

In an emailed statement Congressman David N. Cicilline said, I am absolutely sickened by the image of the swastika waving in the streets of Providence. Hate groups like neo-Nazis and white supremacists have no place in our city.

Groups like these and the hatred they spew have too often led to terrible violence. The rise of neo-Nazis, white supremacy and antisemitism in our country is not something we can afford to ignore. This hatred and last nights attack are a scourge on our community, and we must all condemn it in the strongest terms.

In a statement, The Black Lives Matter RI PAC said: There is no greater threat to Rhode Island than nazism and white supremacy. Yesterday evening, an organized group of Neo-Nazis that have established themselves throughout Rhode Island terrorized Red Ink Community Library in Providence Ward 3.

Adam Greenman, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Rhode Island, said he woke up to text messages from a concerned community.

The Jewish Community Center is located less than a mile from the Red Ink Community Library.

Anytime we see this kind of demonstration by Neo-Nazis, its concerning to us whether it happens in Providence or anywhere in the state, Greenman said. Every community needs to condemn this. This rise in hate is happening more and more often across the country. We are seeing more of this locally than we have seen in years.

We have to stand up and fight it, he added.

On Jan. 15, the FBI killed a man who took four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel, a Jewish synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. The hostages escaped.

Greenman said Jewish synagogues statewide have doubled efforts to keep temples safe since the attack.

The fact acts of hate havent been condemned every single time it happens is one of the things that leads to folks being emboldened and demonstrating in this way, he said. We want to say very loudly and clearly, there shouldnt be any place for this in Rhode Island, a state founded by religious freedom.

Greenman said even though his community wasnt threatened, they need to be prepared.

I would much rather be bringing people together for celebrations or times of joy, he said. The unfortunate reality is that in this day and age we have to come together when incidents like this happen.

The Red Ink Community Library described the group as a crowd of fascists and Nazis and said that the disruption was noticed by several community members who yelled at the group to go home.

One post said, The Nazis continued to put on their show until Providence Police asked them to leave. While we didnt ask for help from the police, it was only the threat of state violence that ended this disruption.

The Red Ink Community Library invited the public to an in-person and live stream reading and discussion of the manifesto on Feb. 13. The reading was to take place beginning at 6 p.m. on Feb. 21, the 174th anniversary of the publishing of the book that spells out Communisms goals, and formed the basis for the modern communist movement as we know it, arguing that capitalism would inevitably self-destruct, to be replaced by socialism and ultimately communism, according to The British Library.

Red Books Day is celebrated by thousands of people around the globe, and commemorates the publication of the book on Feb. 21, 1848.

The library provided free copies of the manifesto to anyone who signed up for the event.

A group outside the library threatened to knock out those inside and began chanting one three one, scumbags, communists, and profanities targeting guests and a female reader.

At least one guest inside the library responded to the grouop, who were on the other side of a glass door. Others recorded the incident on their phones.

The chant one three one could be a reference to the New England-based neo-Nazi group, Nationalist Social Club, which uses the number 131 on its banner.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the NSC New England group in 2021 claimed a six-state geographic region that includes New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont.

After a woman finished reading a passage from The Communist Manifesto, the man who was to read next said, Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Fifty Nazis just descended outside so were going to finish this with a discussion afterward.

He read a short excerpt and the video feed was cut off.

The Red Ink Community Library on Cypress Street has been open since Sept. 4, 2021, and is dedicated to developing, informing and empowering a prominent and energetic working class, according to its website. It is not government-affiliated and accepts no funding from government organizations.

According to Raileanu, the library is a venue that hosts book presentations, film screenings, informational meetings, and light-hearted events like Halloween movie nights and plays. They are also an organizing space that shares space with local political organizations and facilities conversations.

While we knew of and wanted to highlight the relevance and importance of the Manifesto today, we did not want it to be so stark, so ugly, the library said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Carlos Muoz can be reached at carlos.munoz@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @ReadCarlos and on Instagram @Carlosbrknews.

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Providence library booking reading of 'The Communist Manifesto' interrupted by group with Nazi flag - The Boston Globe