Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Some of my friends (who aren't communist) are constantly talking about the American conspiracy to spread liberalism and secularism and hollywood (also anti-Irani propaganda) in Iraq since the defeat of isis. Ostensibly it is American plot after Sistani's fatwa and the Hash'd al Shabi defeated their isis plots.
Is this something you have seen? I feel like every Shi'i I know in the world is complaining about the spread of US liberalism in their country/community and I'm interested in leftist perspective on it.
I get their perspective and think it's true to some degree, but it's not the whole truth either imo. Yes, the American NGO-industrial complex is very visible in the country and many young people get dragged into liberal brainworms via these organisations. They undisputedly helped fund the 2019 protests and I'm sure that a lot of the "liberal" influencers in the country are paid off. At the same time, I feel like a lot of Shia Iraq, especially the PMU-aligned people, minimise their own role in the creation of the pro-American youth movements in the country. Iran despite our very important support for them right now is a power that projects religious fundamentalism in the regions that it's influential in. All the restrictive laws, all the anti-personal freedom movements, all the sectarian undertones comes from pro-Iran parties and politicians. This is not sustainable inside Iran itself, let alone outside of Iran. Like right now the PMU party are gathering signatures for a law that guts a woman's rights within marriage and restricts marriage to archaic religious laws, despite Iraq having some pretty progressive laws about marriage right now. They wanted to kill and imprison homosexuals a few months ago. They can't be surprised that a generation of atheist liberals grows up under these conditions.
I see. Similar to a lot of places then: US cultural soft-war technologies are countered by response that unfortunately creates more division which then further strengthens the enemy.
I appreciate your perspective on this. Thank you akhi.
Is there any memory of secular left pan-arabism now in the younger kids?
It's joever, secular left Arabism is just tiktok edit content, you'll get Saddam and Nasser clips in sigma males edits
I guess this is a really broad question that isn't about Iraq specifically (but a part of the specific exists in the whole and vice versa
) but what is the vision for the future in the eyes of young Arabs? If not pan-Arabism, what kinds of change can they envision? Arab EU?
Tbh it's the same lack of direction and goals as in Western zoomers. Pan-Arabism died out slowly, and classic Islamism in both Muslim Brotherhood flavor and Salafist flavor died out because there is no one funding it anymore. There's still a dominating feeling of "we're one people" which is visible when it comes to major Arab Ws in stuff like football, but there's no language to express this politically. No one has a project nor a vision, everyone is sitting and waiting for something big to hop on
How has the crisis in Palestine shaped youth opinion that you have seen? I live in the States around a lot of diaspora communities and see kids and young people who would've stayed apart talking and rallying around Palestine.
I don't think that it has had a major impact in Iraq tbh. Yeah most people want Israel to disappear, but people in Iraq are so desensitized to even the most extreme forms of violence that no atrocities can actually move their emotions at this point. Youth are way more energized in Lebanon for example because it's just closer, and we have actual pro-Israel freaks that need to be pushed down. Iraq has no pro-Israel section of society or anything, so there's no need to "prove" your support for Palestine. People in Iraq just have no appetite for any conflict I think, it's hard to get invested in more war when you've seen so much already. I think that the genocide has been important in shaping youth opinions in the diaspora, as it has reminded a lot of Arab and Muslim youth of their actual worth in the eyes of westerners.