RUSSIA: EVERYTHING CHANGES AND EVERYTHING STAYS THE SAME…

Russia has in the last 12 years changed almost unrecognisably from that grim, despairing place following the fall of communism. The turning point was, in many respects, when Vladimir Putin took over from the vodka-sozzled rule of Boris Yeltsin. Yet 12 years on it’s clear now that Putin is the natural successor, not to Boris Yeltsin, but to Leonid Brezhnev. In many ways it is like other westernised societies in its big cities and the lifestyles of their inhabitants, but in other ways Russia appears to be going back to its cold war past.

Inwardly state brutality is now employed as the response to those who do not do its bidding or who criticise its ways, as seen early on with the murder of journalist Anya Politkovskaya.  Its rule of law is used by the State to crack down on its opponents in any shape or form as with the utterly pointless and heartless imprisonment of 3 harmless members of punk rock outfit Pussy Riot. The intimidation of businessmen and the targeting of opposition politicians like Yevgenia Chinikova and Alexie Navalny, illustrates that Putin’s Russia is increasingly a place of political intolerance.

Laws have been passed aimed at curtailing freedoms and preventing the free exchange of ideas not in synchrony with the state’s own desired version of the world.. Corruption is rampant and foreign enterprises are increasingly reluctant to invest in or relocate to Russia, as BP is finding out to its peril.

Then there are its vast security apparatus. The KGB was always a chilling embodiment of the dark security state. It would be wrong to say it is now back for it never really went away; it’s just emerging from the shadows with a changed acronym – the FSB. Like the KGB before it, and the NKVD, OCPU, GPU and Cheka before that, the FSB is increasingly the hammer used by Putin’s state to beat, smear and intimidate its opponents into submission.

The FSB’s lineage is long and sinister; stretching back to Lenin and his director of secret police, “Iron” Felix Dzerzhinsky, his notorious remark “We represent in ourselves organized terror” embodied Communism’s legalized murder of untold millions of its citizens.  Whilst it would be wrong to equate modern Russia as currently being organised and run through a comparable level of state terror, its direction of travel over the past few years is not towards a more tolerant and open society, but instead back towards where this past lies.

Externally too, Russia under Putin, is steadily becoming more intransigent and bitter. Its invasion of tiny Georgia bore all the hallmarks of a crass, bullying and arrogant regional power. It’s blocking of any moves to deal with the situation in Syria verges on political perversion. It is as if there is no limit to the cost in blood it will see others pay if it means snubbing the West or holding on to its naval facilities in that ruined country.

 

Like all politicians, Putin plays to his home gallery. Although suspicions are that he rigged the last election, it is one he would still have won, relying upon a vast non-urban vote which sees him as having brought, with some legitimacy, stability and a measure of prosperity to their vast country. Yet, not unlike a paranoid dictator, nothing can be left to chance, the outcome to the game of democracy must be guaranteed beforehand.

 

When Putin came to power in 2000 there was a sense of optimism; here was a man to lead Russia into the modern age out of the chaos of the post-communist era. To an extent this has been done by the ruthless exploitation of Russia’s vast natural resources. Yet there has been minimal investment in the modern technological and industrial infrastructure to support a long term economy. Perhaps this is not something to worry about today. Tomorrow, though, will come.

 

But Putin has other plans. With his KGB background Putin has more in common with the old USSR. For him, democracy is at best a tool to legitimise the exercise of central power, at worst a frustrating threat to the ruler’s prerogative to do as he pleases for as long as he likes. Putin’s problem though, is that now too many Russians are part of the modern world, especially those in its cities, and scorned as liberals and elitists. Russia’s urbanised citizens are increasingly part of a new, challenging world the state cannot control, cannot banish by decree and does not appear to understand.

 

Earlier this month tens of thousands demonstrated against the Government on the streets of Moscow. They are part of the wave of the future that threatens to wash away the huge, crumbling dam wall of state control. Yet unlike the demonstrations elsewhere in Europe, where angry mobs vent their fury at the austerity they knew was coming and which has been introduced by the Governments they voted into power, the demonstrators on Russia’s streets require real, true courage. They do not have legions of lawyers and barricades of human rights legislation to ensure their safety. Russia’s demonstrators show their resolve in the face of a state machine that cares not for their rights or well-being; their only shield being their access, still in place, to social media, the internet and the world's savage media spotlight of which even Putin must for now remain as least slightly wary.

Russia’s history of the last 100 years is unique in terms of the terrors visited upon them by their rulers. It is now at a cross roads. Putin would drag them back towards the past. Those on its streets are engaged in a brave and high risk attempt to stop him from doing so…………….

 

 Also see "Putin - Not a punk rock fan"

2012 STARMAP OF DOOM: ALIENS, ASTEROIDS AND DOOMSDAY: ITS ALL IN THE MIND

The date is the 21 December 2012. That is when an event, momentous in its implications for the human race, is due to occur and which will entail a catastrophe in 2013 and 2014.

This is according to a “researcher” and author of these sorts of doomsday scenarios, called Marshall Masters, who used to work for CNN. Along with several books, Masters has produced a slick video viewable on line, in which he talks through his predictions and beliefs. Briefly, in his video Masters seems to be claiming, that a comet or sort of rouge nomadic planet called Planet X (or the Destroyer, Hercobulus, Nibiru amongst other names), is heading towards us and will pass earth in a sort of “near miss” on 21 December this year.

This near miss will apparently cause a sudden shift in the earth’s pole which will result in all sorts of terrible things happening (that part of the prediction would no doubt be true). Although Masters doesn’t give much detail in his video, this is a pretty well-worn doomsday scenario that mistakenly assumes that there would be a very sudden pole reversal which would momentarily leave Earth without the magnetic field that protects us. We would be left to the mercy of solar flares and sun storms and that would toast anyone wandering around without sunscreen, or not hunkered down in a bunker.

As he goes on to explain, the confirmation that this is all imminent is drawn by Masters from his analysis of a crop circle in 2008 near Avebury, which is not far from Stonehenge in the UK. If you stand at Avebury on 21 December then, so Masters believes, a second sun will appear in the sky. This is the arrival of our rogue Planet X.

In his video he talks of friendly and hostile aliens. Masters says he believes the Avebury crop circle was created by an alien intelligence to warn us of this event. These aliens are apparently the good guys, because they are warning us about the alien “bad guys” who will return at the time of this event. These bad guys are known as the Anunnaki, and apparently live on Planet X and are a reptilian super race.

There is cross over here with David Icke, who also has his reptilian fixations. Both think we are a genetically engineered slave race created by these Alien bad guys.  These doom-filledpredictions appear to be broadly drawn from the ancient creation myths of Babylon and Mesopotamia.

Masters call on others to support his contentions. Not scientists or astronomers, who would add some weight to his wild theories if they could confirm the approach of planet X on or about 21 December 2012. Instead Masters falls back on the predictable like the Mayan calendar. The Mayan Calendar also been used to claim 21 December is a special date.  Masters doesn’t mention that the Mayans believed a year was 360 days long and did not know about leap years. However the Mayan calendar already has great traction with new agers and Doomsday scenario junkies – indeed, the current theories to do with the arrival of Planet X may have been cast so as to conveniently dovetail with the Mayan’s calendar to add more weight to the theories.

Masters also resurrects the ghost of infamous American psychic Edgar Cayce in building support for the 2012 doomsday event. Cayce made lots of predictions, most of which never came true. Cayce never spoke specifically about 2012, but rather his predictions were supposedly going to happen by the year 1998. Perhaps he was being advised by mischievous spirits who deliberately confused him. Anyhow, being 14 years too early is not a matter to bother Masters and he merrily quotes Cayce as evidence for his 21 December theories.

Masters unfolds his prediction in his video, which comes complete with the normal pseudo-scientific trapping, such as pictures of shining pyramids and spaceships flying over them and the drawing of conclusions based upon the most circumstantial and flimsy of “facts”; the sort of stuff to get any conspiracy theorist’s pulse racing.

Inevitably, he discovers “evidence” of a Government cover-up (in the form of no real evidence of it – a sort of logic that is equivalent to saying that invisible teapots must exist if you can’t see them (paraphrasing Bertram Russell for a moment), taking the adverse inference to almost cosmic lengths. He claims that incontrovertible evidence of this was that an internet site hosting pictures of the Avebury crop circle site vanished (that’s the evidence of Government interference) and then reappeared again without explanation. It’s all very mysterious to the goggling Mr Masters but not to casual observers.
Masters voices over all this in clear, unemotional tones which lending some respectability to the incredulous predictions he makes. Bespectacled, balding and with the air of a lecturer, he intones like a scientist talking about his research into DNA.  For all that, Masters is genuine in what he believes yet is but one of many taken in by the tantalizing attraction of the pseudo-scientific.  Mixing ancient creation myth with selected extracts of modern science (in this case what would happen in the “almost impossible” scenario of a very sudden polar shift or the terrifying consequences of a major earthquake along the San Andreas Fault line say) a superficially compelling alternative is put forward to the normal scientific narrative.

Masters is “sure” of a government cover up. With a mind set in lock down on this point, Masters would see any attempts to argue there wasn’t as confirmation of his views. In one unintentionally hilarious quip, he sanctimoniously tells “religious fundamentalists” that they have got it wrong, believing that his fictions trump theirs.

Whilst much of it is so obviously far-fetched to make serious questioning all but a waste of time, there were 2 questions that intrigued me.

 
1. Why would aliens communicate via Crop circles? Why not just land your space ship on the White House lawn, and hold a press conference. That, or some other similar display of power, would leave no room for doubt.

2. Why haven’t astronomers and scientists noted the approach of Planet X? It must be well within their range by now if it’s got to be here by 21 December. After all, it was amateur astronomers (not Governments) who, back in 1994, discovered that the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was going to collide with Jupiter. Presumably astronomers would spot incoming Planet X.

I’ve asked this question more than once. Why do people believe this stuff? What neurological or psychological constructs in our minds predispose us to accept as a form of reality those scenarios which, with a little clear though and analysis, we would soon see through?

Is this some residue from our most primitive past? As we developed the capacity for thought and as our brains and minds developed, so too we would have started to dream. For primitives confronting visions and scenes that seemed very different to the grimness of the short brutal lives we lived in those early millennia, this must have been difficult to understand or explain. How did we make sense of those dreams, how did we link them to our realities? Perhaps, therein is the basis of our earliest beliefs, myths and original religions as we sought to explain these strange nightly visions. It may be that we are not just naturally gullible then – perhaps, neurologically, in a way we don’t yet understand, we can’t help ourselves but naturally want to believe these fantastic tales.

Scientist Carl Sagan wrote an excellent book about the compelling power of pseudo-science, which he called the Demon Haunted World. Whilst he is long gone now, he would be saddened to know that, even in the 21 Century, demons, aliens and monsters still seemingly remain alive in our minds to walk with us all the days of our lives.
 

Marikana Murders: A strange form of Justice

Following the Lonmin mine shootings in South Africa, where around 34 miners were shot by the police, the public prosecutor has now arrested those responsible for the shootings. The police who shot the miners, you might well have thought?  Nope – actually, several hundred of the miners who the Police didn’t have time to get round to shooting dead are the ones who have now been arrested for the murder of their colleagues, including several wounded by the police (I wonder if they will be charged with causing GBH to themselves). Not unpredictably, this has caused an uproar. Cooler heads in the ANC Government are now wondering if this has been, perhaps, handled in a rather provocative manner.

Apparently the Prosecutor is relying upon some arcane piece of legislation from the dark days of Apartheid when some fevered mind dreamt up a piece of “legislation” that seems to imply that, in this case the survivors of a riot, because they were not the ones shot, are therefore to blame for the deaths of the others and thus the guilty parties. After all, the Police were, presumably, only following orders.

What it does demonstrate, in halogen bright light, is the inherent hypocrisy of Governments. When in exile the ANC spent its time in a state of perpetual moral outrage at the excesses of the apartheid Gov’t. Upon getting into power it seems to have decided certain aspects of the former state's laws were not perhaps as awful as it made out. As a result, it has retained various pieces of the previous regime’s odious legislation on the books…”just in case, for a rainy day, you never know when….” But its not really different to any other Government in terms of what is says it will do when in opposition, and what is does when in power.

Obama railed against the last Republican Govt over Guantanamo Bay and how, when he was President, it would be closed down once and for all. Well, Obama is running for re-election, and Guantanamo Bay is still open for business. Apparently, once in power he realised it was easier to keep it open than to close it down. Far more convenient to keep your enemies locked up in another country than have the bother of keeping them on your home turf where they could claim all sort of annoying rights. 

Elsewhere the Socialists in France went bright magenta with moral outrage when former President Sarkozy tried to tackle the problem of the eastern European Gypsies in a robust manner. Now in Government, their leader, Mr Hollande, faced with the same problem, is reacting just like the man who he vilified when in opposition.

The only surprising thing about all of this is that we continue to be surprised by it. But then again, hypocrisy is the great leveller - it seems to apply to politicians one and all, regardless of political leaning left or right, race, gender, age or any other characteristic.....

Julian Assange: Endangered Species

The President of Ecuador today surprised his countrymen by according protected species status to the rare Assange toad. It was a quite extraordinary move for President Correa, who is well known for his intense dislike of chirping amphibians. However, in a speech that critics believed was to assure his country of his pro-amphibian credentials, Correa declared that in Ecuador the rare toad, which goes by the full name of the Much Lesser (these days) Spotted “Julianne Assange” would henceforth be a protected species. Botanists pointed out that in Ecuador there are currently no Assange Toads and that this gesture was therefore largely symbolic and playing to the amphibian gallery.

Correa gave as the reason for this move his suspicion that CIA agents were trying to abduct the Assange and exterminate it for being a dangerous propagator of malicious information and unpleasant odours.

However, what is most extraordinary is that, at the moment, the Assange toad is hiding in a small box in a building in London, unable to make its way to Ecuador to enjoy its protected status. Ominously for the toad, between it and the nearest airport is a thin blue line of toad catchers, desperate to apprehend the Assange.

The Assange Toad is indeed a rare amphibian, with its origin in the Antipodes. It is currently located in northern Europe, although it is said to have an extreme aversion to Scandinavian climates, especially that of Sweden.

 It can easily be recognised by its loud and self-righteous croak. It is of rather a pale, pusillanimous appearance, and is said to be extremely harmful to the female of its species. Of late it has reportedly taken on a rather clammy appearance, having scalded itself by intentionally getting into very hot water.

……………..to be continued

Gutter Politics and the waning of Democracy

It’s probably fair to say that one of the most competent Governments in Europe, if not the world today, is Italy’s. Never minds its chronic economic woes, Italy’s actual Government is skilled, professional, sensible and focused…and it’s unelected. Following the circus that passed for Berlusconi’s rule, Italy is now governed by a Brussels imposed state of technocrats with (thus far) seemingly no political ambitions, but charged only with trying to stop the country from disappearing down the southern European plug hole. This situation follows the embarrassing reality that, by following a normal democratic process, Italians could not have elected even a demi-semi sensible set of politicians. Their democracy has become and remains broken.

It’s nearing that point in Greece too. They have a chaotically riven and weak coalition of the corrupt and discredited to see them through an economic crisis that seems destined only to end it absolute failure. Whether modern democracy in the world’s “oldest democracy” will survive in the short term is no longer certain. Their crisis is, in significant part, a failure of a corrupted and abused electoral system.

Elsewhere democracy stumbles and trips to a different tune. In the USA, the quadquennial mudslinging begins, where electoral success, and the triumph of democracy has a near direct link with the most successful fund raiser and telegenic candidate.  It’s a case of who has the most money to stoop the lowest to conquer. Arguably its democracy in action, yet the current contenders plumb new depths. Obama perhaps ranks first amongst those who promises-to-delivery deficit is the greatest in American history – a case perhaps of “Yes, I can’t”. It is by no means certain either that, should Romney win, he would fare any better. 

In the UK democracy faces a different challenge. Our media hungry politicians are being devoured by the beast they have sought out and invited into their lives. Britain’s highly politicised media apply relentless, microscopic, high volume scrutiny to their every breath and twitch. All of it is amplified through the dark prism of their bias and manufactured to feed the morning headline diets of their readers, sowing despair and confusion in equal measure. But therein lies part of the problem – for politicians now, every day is an election campaign and a contest to secure good ratings.

A case in point is Prime minister’s weekly question time. Embarrassing broadcasts originally meant to demonstrate accountable democracy in action, instead reveal what could pass for an oversized cage of shrieking monkeys. Shouting obscenities, pulling faces and displaying, in a sense, their private parts for an increasingly disenchanted electorate to behold, it’s no surprise that politicians are held in such low esteem.

Elsewhere the ghosts of democracy haunt the political landscapes of less fortunate countries. Russian democracy seems only to exist to elect President Putin or one he has anointed to look after him and his business cronies. The same applies in Zimbabwe which is a democracy that has only ever had one or two free elections in over 40 years. In democratic terms, Mugabe is the absolute “President with no clothes” threatening his impoverished people with “another 5 years” of grinding despair and famine. Elsewhere, Iran’s rulers unsuccessfully seek to apply a green tinged veneer of respectability to a theocratic dictatorship.

In South Africa, the ANC says it is a staunch supporter of democracy. However, just how staunch it would feel about this noble principle if its election prospects were ever called in doubt by another party is questionable. A predictable change of heart and re-ordering of priorities could well be on the cards, after all it has said it will stay in power till the second coming of Christ. Whilst this might please its (optimistically expectant) Christian supporters, what is left unspoken is what it might do if any other parties threaten its holy reign before the much awaited event comes to pass, currently outstanding 2000 years and counting….

It seems we are all part of the scam, where with electoral nods and winks, we listen to the lies we are told by the campaigners. They know that we know that they cannot fulfil their promises, but we all "know"it’s the best option around. As Churchill said in 1947, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.

Yet the world has become incredibly more complicated. The challenges that face a nation and its leaders are much more complex that they were in Churchill’s time. We look back at great leaders like him, and wonder why they are none of that calibre today. However, perhaps faced with the world’s incredible complexity today, Churchill would not have fared much better that his current contemporaries.

Our politicians seem to be raised as a special breed, without enough of them having graduated from the school of hard knocks, or being absolute stars in their field. Italy’s unelected prime minister appointed himself as unelected minister of finance and the economy. Nobody minded, because he is also a Professor of economics; perhaps there was relief that the post was finally filled by an expert on the subject, a rare event in politics.

National and international events move at great speed. The financial and economic structures that underpin a country’s prosperity are now so complicated, interwoven and out of control, it’s questionable if anyone truly understands the forces at work, least of all the politicians. It’s an increasingly interconnected world too, of shifting nations, peoples and wealth that have long bypassed the rhetoric of lazy politicians trying to sell the illusion of keeping promises made in past years but now rendered void by a changed world.

Added to this is a phenomenal new feature of the 21 century – the digital revolution, which given its exponential rate of change, will ironically always seem to be in its infancy. One of the most potent manifestations of this revolution is the internet, where reality and truth have been so spun and twisted in the centrifuges of mass, instant and near-infinite on-line identities, that it’s impossible to know what is believable or real any more. Politicians are being rendered obsolete, slow and reactive to events beyond the control of governments or nations.

This is just a snapshot of the challenge. Our world is one of rapidly accelerating technological sophistication, perhaps now already beyond the comprehension of us as individuals. So, whilst there is no alternative acceptable to democracy, our current concept of democracy increasingly resembles a tiger-moth biplane in a race of supersonic jet fighters. And, unless we find some way to upgrade how democracy and governments function in the new age, then, like the tiger moth, they will more probably than not be doomed to “museumhood”……

PUTIN - NOT A PUNK ROCK FAN?

Recent events must be striking a rather sour note for Russian president Vladimir Putin. Having recently “won” a second term, it’s not all going quite according to the script. In fact, it’s all going a bit pear shaped.

First time, Putin cast himself as the strongman bringing stability and prosperity to Russia after the drunken chaos of the final Yeltsin years.  After two terms he had to stand down, so he orchestrated it that his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, replaced him. After a bothersome few year languishing as PM, Putin prepared for his comeback. And that’s when script and reality parted ways.

First Vlad launched his comeback campaign with a bit of PR. Bad move. To start with, Vlad unintentionally albeit hilariously, turned himself into a gay icon by posing bare-chested atop a fine stallion ostensibly whilst on holiday (the intention of striking a heroic tough man pose falling flat). This was followed by further silly gaffs – Vlad the Black Belt winning a Karate competition as competitors conveniently fell over their own feet, Vlad the mean Hell's Angel riding a harley, and Vlad the ping pong demon, beating the hapless Medvedev at table tennis. This was topped off with a ridiculous stunt where Vlad the Diver discovered two ancient Greek urns whilst diving in the Black Sea. A beaming Vlad posed, emerging from the water, with his two chipped and broken old jugs, not dissimilar to those mass produced large faux-Grecian flower pots available at most garden markets. Not very presidential…

Next came the 2012 presidential election. Putin on the campaign trail alternated between the maudlin shedding of tears and wittering on about how much he loved Russia and appearing stony faced in response to the massed demonstrations against him by…er… thousands of others who loved Russia.

This would not do - clearly the masses were getting above themselves. So, as soon as he was re-elected, Vlad embarked upon a banning frenzy. An Orwellian sounding new "Law of Strengthening the Fight against Extremism in the Information Space", to tighten the rules for evil foreign publications (i.e., clamping down on any view not an echo of his own), is apparently being planned. A ban on internet alcohol advertisements is coming in (nope, thats not made up). A ban on unsanctioned public demonstrations (those in favour of Vlad of course being sanctioned) is already in place.

Vlad must have felt well pleased with all his handiwork. No foreign or unacceptable views on the internet, no public demonstrations against him and no more adverts for drunkenness. But then, earlier this year, a punk rock band went and spoilt it with an act of outrageous public indecency. The band, Pussy Riot (que gasps of shock in the Kremlin), sang a rude ditty about Vlad playing' uninvited we can assume' in the Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church. It took the form of a punk prayer, asking the Holy Mother rid them all of Putin. Pussy Riot also took a pot shot at the Orthodox Patriarch, Krill, one of Vlad's toadys. Krill called the performance “blasphemous” – well, it’s certainly a bit disjointed and discordant, but there again, its punk. Perhaps Krill, like Vlad, doesn’t like Punk very much. Quite what the outraged Patriarch must have made of the band’s name, history hasn’t yet related although we can probably guess.

Putin’s answer to this challenge is to put them in the dock and then, no doubt, apply some pressure to the court to have them locked up for about 7 years, all for singing a song. Why Putin objects so much to Pussy Riot is a mystery. Perhaps it’s because their name offends his conservative sensibilities. Perhaps it’s because, as an ABBA fan, he finds it all a bit hard on the ear (by contrast Mr Medvedev is a Deep Purple fan–no argument about who wins the macho musical contest there then). No – it’s more likely because, like anyone else who publically annoys him (oligarchs, businessmen closing factories, small neighbouring countries etc.), Putin’s default response is to crush and humiliate.  Dealing with a couple of naughty girls singing rude song was going to be small beer. But, it’s not going to plan like it would have even just a few years ago.

Firstly, thousands of the Church’s followers, other believers and atheists signed a petition to Patriarch Kirill, asking him to stand up for the girls. Then the whole thing has gone viral online, on TV and in the international print media. Predictably, it’s getting millions of hits on YouTube, the following being a small selection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uptv4ubOr_k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdcyDZ4bsY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uptv4ubOr_k&feature=related

Putin seems incapable of grasping just how the world is changing. He is being globally humiliated by sticking by his murderous chum in Syria. He is despised by more and more of his own people. He doesn’t understand how the world has become interconnected and what this means both for individuals and nations in terms of liberty, information and the virtual dissolution of borders. He tries to ban views dissenting from his own - he may as well ban the sun from rising.

His Russia is fast disappearing. It is no longer a docile, subservient union, silently going along with the abuses of its leaders. A new, restive Russia is growing in its place in which there is no place for leaders longing for the days of the cold war, wishing they were “back in the USSR”. Putin is fast becoming a man out of his time and a nasty reminder of a fading era.

There is much talk about the Arab spring, but Putin may have inadvertently turned Pussy Riot’s song into the soundtrack of Russia’s own spring.

Taliban Justice

A few days ago horrific footage of an Afghan woman being shot dead by the Taliban was broadcast on television and the internet. Her alleged crime? Adultery. Whether she had any trial (or what kind of sordid excuse for a hearing this takes under Taliban law) is irrelevant.  Perhaps all that was required was for a bearded accuser to make an allegation?

There she knelt, or crouched, in a final pose almost too painful to watch, bent in the dirt and the heat before her merciless executioners. She was the wife of a local Taliban leader. Or something. It scarcely matters. Some of the turbaned heroes were caught on film, pitiless smiles, grinning. A crowd had gathered, perhaps in expectation of some light entertainment to relieve the monotony of another long, hot and pointless day in a world trapped in the intellectual dark ages.

A couple of Kalashnikov shots rang out. Footage swept quickly over a crumpled form, motionless in the grainy dust. Some more smiles and another execution. She was not the first by a long way. There will be many more.

It is quite difficult to describe the people who live by this sort of code where a defenceless, probably innocent woman, is shot for something only slightly more than sport. Without resorting to pointless expletives, they are despicable and barbaric. They are intellectually diseased. They are poisoned by a kind of viral psychosis, imprisoned in a twisted wicked philosophy that defies the modern world and which is frighteningly resilient. They have been bombed, shot, “droned” and hunted down. Yet, like some deadly tide, they wash back, like a mutating virus resistant to all attack, they reappear.

At roughly the same time a mega conference was being held in Japan about the future of Afghanistan. Deep pocketed worthies (or at least big talking worthies) pledged support to poor Afghanistan as it writhed in its agony of being torn between worlds that are centuries apart. The US Secretary of State pledged the US to stand side by side with its new best friend in the glowing future of the years ahead. What else could she say?

And with those fine words comes that horrible juxtaposition – the twisted body of an executed woman in the bloodied dust and the echoes of the fine words and ghostly platitudes of fading “friends”, heading for the exits.

Afghanistan will, once again be left to its fate. Its future, more likely than not, lies in its past. Once again, the long shadow of the dark ages prevails.

See earlier blog The long shadow of dark ages.