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.
Iraq COTW? Let's GO!
Free Iraq AMA for the news mega today. My wife is Iraqi and I've spent more time there than in Syria and Lebanon in the last 5 years. I pretty much know about the situation there more than Syria, I had to impress her dad.
What's your coolest fact about Iraqi-particular traditions/customs?
One traditions that I really respect in the older generations is their borderline obsession with hot tea or more specifically, Iraqi Chai. It's 50 fucking Celsius in the summer, but you'll always find an old dude sitting outside downing "istakans" of blazing hot tea with like a ton of sugar. This tradition is slowly getting carried over to zoomers, because the largest growing chain in Iraq now is Ridha Alwan, an old style coffee and tea house where the menu is an old style newspaper.
Russian word!
Is having it with Kleicha a thing that's jumped to the zoomers yet, or more of an older generation thing still. The father of a guy I used to work on refugee projects would never let me leave without having chai istikan and kleicha.
Kleicha making skills haven't really carried over to zoomers sadly, they just buy those mass-produced Saudi maamouls instead which sucks. My wife's mom still makes Kleicha for Eid every year, but the tradition is sadly dying.
That's a shame.
What are one or two things you said that impressed your father in law the most?
I watched all the political shows possible before the 2018 election, because her dad is one of those old newspaper dudes who loves arguing about an obscure Arabist party that died out in 1967 or something. So I remember a much younger me sitting with him one day and I was almost an expert on Muqtada Al Sadr's alliance with the communists and the rebranding of the Supreme Islamic Council to Al Hikma. I kept rambling on about seat totals and possible government formations, after a few mins he looked at me and basically said "how do you know this you Lebanese freak", which confirmed that he respected me.
Did you bring him a dowry of news to win his daughter's hand?
Large endowry -
Showing up with a treasure chest full of archival news clippings and radio interview transcriptions.
Average newshead moment
Whats a type of guy that you find in Iraq?
Religious shia young man who attends all the rituals, but is kinda openly gay and styles himself in a way that signals that. Very poor always.
The old man who goes "damn I wish that Saddam is still alive"
I wonder if "queer lgbt kid who is devout even though that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense" is a universal human thing.
You're probably not far off the mark. Competing religious traditions often evolve in such a way as to incorporate heterodox and orthodox social practices as a means of spreading and improving group cohesion. The shia groups evolved as heterodox communities for pretty much all of islamic history.
In my region of Brazil the rise of Neopentecostalism turned what was a historically elitist and bigotted institution - the Catholic Church - into a community that seems and likely is relatively fine with LGBTQ people. Sure, most queer people I know are part of other religious minorities, but more than you'd expect are unironically Catholic.
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.
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?
I feel this. One of the reasons I learned about Soviet era Bulgaria-Macedonia relations and how to drink a lot of rakija without falling off my chair.
What is the secret? Tape yourself to the chair? Start out on the ground?
Tuck it in tightly, rest my arms on the table, drink plenty of water, get him on tangents about petty office politics when he was a working in embassies across different bits of the USSR when I needed a breather as he'd often forget to constantly refill our glasses when he was really into telling long, hard to follow stories that often ended in jokes I didn't understand about the quirks of how various Soviet states fucked up paperwork in unique and stupid ways.
It's a very light question but what are your and her's favorite Iraqi:
Main dish: grilled iraqi shish kebab with a fuck load of tandoor bread
Side dish: I love those iraqi "muqabillat" plates that have like 6 sections and are filled with random side dishes. You'll find everything there and every place you go to are different
Dessert: the Kurdish areas produce something that Iraqis call "minn al simma". I have no idea what it's called in English, but it's some sort of paste with pistachios in it. Heavenly sweet
Mina al-sima is basically torrone (Italian pistachio nougat).
You wouldn't have a recipe for that Shish Kebab would you?
I'll ask the wife when she wakes up, but search this on YouTube and you'll probably find a gem by a woman that has 1273 views:
وصفة شيش كباب عراقي
Say an Iraqi was at a cafe, striking up a conversation with a fellow Iraqi who is a stranger but in every way is a typical Iraqi (let’s say they’re both 30 years old). Let’s also say the conversation politely turns to politics, and one says to the other that they are a communist. How would the typical non-communist Iraqi respond to this?
Most would be quite positive actually. Communists have an incredible reputation in Iraq as the most educated well-read people in the country. Older communists have the "drunkard" reputation, but younger communists have a good reputation and the most common response is "damn this nerd reads books"
How do younger Iraqis feel about recreational drinking?
It exists, but not in a big cultural way. Shisha is the replacement for drinking socially and dirt cheap
I can't be the only one who pictured Hakim in my head for this scene
I too pictured a red, featureless Lenin sitting at a cafe in Iraq
"بايسّد"
In what ways has Iraq surprised you?
In many ways, both positively and negatively. The first impression is that it's really ugly and dirty with all due respect, Syria despite the absolute destruction looks better and is cleaner. At the same time it's really alive, Baghdad just oozes life everywhere you go. The people are amazing, but that wasn't really a surprise. There's this strange sense of optimism that I didn't feel at all in Syria and Lebanon, there's so much construction going on and I could really feel the standard rise between visits there.
Did you manage to impress her dad?
Critical Hexbear Gossip Question; how do I impress Iraqi dads?
Speak Arabic, just talk a lot, and depending on the socio-economic position of her dad, either praise or criticise Saddam
Is it true that nobody is planning to pay taxes despite the gov's best efforts?
It's true lmao, all the private enterprises just bribe the tax man. When it comes to government workers, the government just started cutting a part of their salary because no one would voluntarily pay
What are the most common type of brainworms in Iraq? Any uniquely Iraqi types?
The tribal clout brainworms is pretty unique to especially southern Iraq. You have a bunch of 40 year old dudes who wear exclusively tribal clothing while starting beef with other tribes because one guy from tribe B ran over a chicken or a lamb that a guy from tribe A owns. So these self-appointed tribal leaders from tribe A go and basically extort money from tribe B. These guys pretend that they're some type of fucking medieval princes or something.
Another type of brainworms is Kurdish nationalism in the style of "there are too many Arabs in Erbil we need to kick them out". This one is really funny, like how the fuck are you guys complaining about people from another city in the same country living in a slightly wealthier place. The even funnier component of this are the ones complaining about Arab tourists ruining Kurdistan. Yeah it's Ahmed and his three friends from Hilla visiting for three days that drove prices up in Erbil, not systematic corruption and monopolistic policies by the Barzani crime family.
Iraq also has the "one more lane" brainworms of course, they're more visible these days as Baghdad prepares for a Metro megaproject.