I think today's events warrant an early round up.
Today at the Winter Olympics Singapore born and British raised Vanessa
Mae has been representing Thailand. Presumably because she's got her own
skis. As Ms Mae is already internationally famous as a classical
violinist Thailand decided that the attention this brings provides a
fantastic opportunity to have its ongoing political crisis discussed
internationally.
As such Thai police moved into to further break up the Born to Rule
protester camps in the capital Bangkok. Rather predictably this was met
with a violent response that so far has left three dead and at least 50
injured. At roughly the same time it was announced that Thailand's
embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is to face criminal charges
of corruption relating to a government rice subsidy program. This
juxtaposition of the apparatus of state moving in to control the
protests alongside allegations that the Prime Minister is corrupt is an
attempt to make things appear as less like a Monarch led coup. The idea
being to portray the apparatus of state (the police) as impartial while
suggesting that there are legitimate grounds to doubt the integrity of
the government. Of course what is actually happening is that the
Monarchy is delaying its overthrow of the government until such a time
as the widely popular Prime Minister's credibility has been eroded
enough for the public to tolerate a coup.
Although I doubt that Olympic politics played a role Ms Mae's
performance in the Super G event was disappointing at best with her
finishing a lowly 67th. As one commentator on Twitter put it; "She beat
everyone who fell down but none of the people who didn't."
Thailand's attempts to have their political situation discussed fared
pretty much the same as Ms Mae's attempts to win a medal with the Thai
political unrest being quickly replaced by political unrest in Sochi's
neighbour Ukraine. Here anti-Russian protesters have attempted to storm
the Parliament building while changes to the constitution were to be
debated. So far five people have been reported killed amid clouds of
tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and petrol bombs.
The political unrest in Ukraine has been very long running and dates
back to the Cold War when NATO countries led by the US funded, trained
and directed nationalist groups to cause unrest in an attempt to
destabilise the Soviet Union. This latest phase in this long running
saga began in November 2013 when the European Union and the Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovych conspired to allow Ukraine to withdraw from
EU membership talks in order to ease tensions between Russia and the EU.
This made the US furious because it is in their interests to keep the
EU and Russia at each others throats. Also instability in the Ukraine
provides the US with a way to exert pressure on Russia over Syria.
Therefore the US seems to be leading today's violence in an effort to
show the world that it is punishing Russia for the collapse of the
Geneva II talks on regime change in Syria.
Also though the unrest in Ukraine provides the US with a much needed
distraction from Thailand's efforts to have their political unrest
discussed at the Olympics. Despite the fact the Thai Monarchy have never
been exactly comfortable with the idea of an elected government they
have remained close allies of the US providing a bulwark against South
East Asian Communism during the Cold War and especially during the
Vietnam war. As such the US decided to reward Thailand by granting them
not one but two surprise visits by Rihanna during the third leg of her
2013 Diamonds World Tour. The idea was to give Thailand an advantage
over its neighbours - particularly China. As it turns out this went
spectacularly wrong with Rihanna's visits to Thailand actually weakening
the nation to the point where they were glad to get rid off her. The
current coup attempt is a direct consequence of Rihanna's trip there so
is something that Rihanna's CIA handlers are extremely sensitive about.
In spite of all this it looks like the big story of the day at the
Olympics is going to be the arrest of two members (Maria Alyokhina and
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova) of the band "Pussy Riot" in Sochi on suspicion
of theft. Along with Yekaterina Samutsevich Alyonkhina and Tolokonnikova
rose to international prominence in February 2012 when the were jailed
after performing quite an offensive song in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ
the Saviour in what they termed a protest against Vladimir Putin. This
latest arrest though seems to be a response to the antics of a Italian
former MP who has been making quite the exhibition of herself in and
around the Olympic park.
On Sunday (16/2/14) Vladimir Luxuria (possibly not her real name) claims
she was arrested on the streets of Sochi for waving the Rainbow flag
that symbolises gay pride/rights. Nobody witnessed this arrest and the
police certainly have no record of the arrest. However having got her
name known by a few members of the press on Monday (17/2/14) Ms Luxuria
decided that she would harass people as the entered the Bolshoi arena
for the evening's women's ice hockey game. Dressed as though she's been
vomited on by a Drag Queen and followed around by a scrum of reporters
Ms Luxuria spent a couple of hours screaming and shouting at the top of
her lungs. Eventually Olympic security removed Ms Luxuria from the venue
and she was stripped of her credentials meaning she is unable to
re-enter the Olympic park.
The important thing to remember about Ms Luxuria is that she is a
lunatic attention seeker. That is to say she probably suffers from a
mild form of narcissistic personality disorder that means she is only
happy when people are talking about her and she is the centre of
attention. Beyond that I suspect she is keen to be seen protesting for
gay rights in the hope of picking up support amongst the LGBT community
in her native Italy ahead of an attempt to relaunch her political
career.
However the way that she has been able to gain Olympic accreditation
appears to be the result of a co-production between Italy and the UK to
curry favour amongst Russian homophobes by highlighting the fact many
gay rights protesters (few of whom are actually gay) are indeed
suffering from a form of mental illness. The UK has today followed up Ms
Luxuria's antics with a pre-planned announcement demanding that the
mentally ill are no longer locked up in police cells. The message is
quite simply; "Here in the UK we think that homosexuals are mentally ill
but maybe Russia should try treating them rather then locking them up?"
This allegiance between Italy and the UK has actually become something
of a story of the games itself. That's because it seems to have been
tested to breaking point by the acrimony between Britain's Elise
Christie and Italy's Arianna Fontana in the women's speed skating. Today
Christie managed to both stay on the track and avoid crashing into any
other competitors in her 1000m heat meaning that she will go through to
Friday's (21/2/14) final. The Italian Prime Minister who presided over
Italy and the UK's pre-Olympic planning has fared less well and Enrico
Letta stepped down last Friday (14/2/14). I hope that this doesn't
become too much of hindrance to Italy's political left because it's
quite clear that Italy's main problem is that as with Greece the Italian
Establishment contains far too many actual fascists.
The way that Alyonkhina and Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot fame have
provided Russia's response to Ms Luxuria's antics is actually quite
interesting. While they have been sort of elevated to hero status by
much of the western media Pussy Riot have actually been subject to a
very different narrative within Russia - something along the lines of;
"When will these silly girls grow up?"
Pussy Riot's Cathedral stunt occurred during a wave of protests that
followed the 2011 Russian elections. In the west these were widely
labelled as "Anti-Putin protests." However being inspired by the
"Occupy" protests they were more protests against everything that is
wrong with modern Russia. Many of the protesters demands mirrored
perfectly a series of seven articles published in various Russian
newspapers that highlighted Russia's political problems and put forward
credibly suggestions of how to solve them. The author of those articles
was Vladimir Putin. Alongside the very strong opening ceremony to the
Sochi games this paints a picture of a nation that it acutely aware of
its faults and is calling on its people to pull together to work towards
a better future.
As such I do genuinely hope that Alyonkhina and Tolokonnikova did decide
to commit the theft in order that they could be arrested to allow
Russia to respond to Ms Luxuria's antics. That's because I think it
would be a rather positive end to Pussy Riot's personal "journey" if
they decided to start working for change in Russia rather then
constantly trying to fight against it.
Vladimir Luxuria's strange behaviour is an (not very good) example of
the sort of spontaneous, unilateral protest that the US and others were
trying to encourage through the Principle 6/1.2.6 campaign. The idea
being that these small protests suddenly spring up causing the Russian
organisers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a lot of stress
as they try to deal with them. However because they are intended to be
just individuals acting on their own it is quite difficult to track them
back to a specific nation.
By lionising the Pussy Riot girls pretty much since they emerged but
especially in the run up to the Sochi games the US has been trying to
build them up in the hope of inspiring Russian spectators at the games
to stage this Luxuria-type of unilateral protests. That would be
particularly embarrassing for the Russians because at first glance it
would look like the Russian authorities trying to stamp out domestic
protest.
As such the Russians used the Pussy Riot girls as their response to Ms
Luxuria in order to highlight the strategy behind the Principle 6/1.2.6
campaign. That has the added effect of highlighting the major flaw in
Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws because if Russian adults aren't
allowed to help Russian youngsters come to terms with their
homosexuality those youngsters will instead turn to the Internet where
they can fall easily victim to western agitators in much the same way
the Pussy Riot girls have.
(Originally Posted on 18/2/14)
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