You judge a society by its prisons, not its dictator's bullshit fake "resistance" to Western imperialism.
I’ve been writing about prisons and criminal justice for years. Despite knowing a decent amount about the US legal system for a non-lawyer (thanks to all my lawyer friends and sources), I’ve never focused on international systems of incarceration.
So I had 0 idea about the Israeli detention centers. Then news began to emerge of children sent to detention camps; of years without trial. When several guards literally raped a detainee on camera they became folk heroes.
Then, while I vaguely figured that yeah, Assad’s prisons were awful, I’d had no idea how unimaginably, unfathomably horrific the infamous Sadanaya is, before staring aghast at what we’re all staring at: footage of medieval torture dungeons; some prisoners liberated, others still pacing around in their cells with rescuers unable to reach them. There’s the “pressing machine,” which if you don’t know about it already, I highly recommend you don’t look it up. The little kid, most likely a product of rape by a guard, who’d never seen the sky and doesn’t know what “bird” means.
It’s weird that in the first quarter of the 21st century we’re doing and seeing what the world’s most imaginative, insane, schlock movie director would never come up with in a million years. The Saw franchise has really got to up its game.
For an (alleged) book I’ve been doing research into the Bulgarian gulags, inspired by Stalin’s gulags, but somehow worse. Anne Applebaum (I know, I know) wrote that at least the Soviet gulags, ostensibly, served a purpose: to provide labor for Stalin’s 5-year-plan. The Bulgarian camps, as I recall Applebaum writing, 1 were merely designed for psychological and physical torture. My grandfather spent 4 years in one. His stories and other horror stories in survivor memoirs are nearly impossible to believe. The men, nearly starved to death, at raw water snakes and frogs. The guards beat men to death on a whim. Unlike some trauma survivors who suppress their emotions, my grandfather never stopped talking about the fucking gulag and other prisons. Like, at the breakfast table, he’d eat a tomato and go, “Once they were marching us and a man tried to steal and eat a tomato and a guard shot him.” Good morning to you too, Grandpa!
But, we’ve gotten used to the unbelievable horrors that took place in the 20th century, when human brutality began an unfortunate relationship with advanced murder and torture technological advances. We learned about it in history class—it’s History. Once I made the unfortunate decision in college to take a class on the Holocaust and Native American history in the same semester and man, did I cry a lot in the library bathroom.
It just feels anachronistic and unbelievable that such horror and sadism is perpetrated now, with all our “International World Order” and “All people are equal” and “all human life has equal value” stuff. “Jesus Christ haven’t you read history?” my mom said exasperated once at my shock at some horrid atrocity.
Ah the tankies. How are they doing? Clearly wishing that all sorts of sectarian and international horrors are unleashed upon the Syrian people so that, you know, they can be right on Twitter.
My rage against these people knows no bounds. At least the Cold War tankies had an ideological commitment to Communism. These assholes just went on fun press junkets to Moscow and Damascus. And I’ve always thought it was profoundly racist that it never occurred to them that Arabs and Russians would be smart enough to manipulate them into falling in love with the respective people and places—much like Israel does with Birthright trips.
They’ve spent years denying things like the chemical attacks on Douma, with a creative array of conspiracy theories. But … what do they say about the live-stream of the prison? I’ve written about a man who starved to death in US solitary. I’ve seen sick shit in the US prison system for sure. But this, oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like this.
I’ve written before that you judge a society by its prisons, not its rainbow flags, in regards to Israel and the US. The point is, yes, inclusivity and liberalism around identity are important — I’m not a pronoun naysayer — but it’s really the prison system that reflects the humanity or inhumanity of a country.
Among the segment of “The Left” (scare quotes) Assad is viewed as some kind of bulwark against U.S. imperialism. Sorry. You judge a dictator by his prisons, not vague assurances about like idk the rise of the global south or whatever.
Addendum: I wrote earlier about a refugee friend whose family is homeless after their house was blown up recently, as a parting gift from Assad and the Russians. “I am very happy,” he replied. “But I will be much more happy when I make money to get a room for my family.”
If you please can donate something I’ll pass the money along (and obviously show proof that it gets to him).
tganeva@paypal.com
Zelle
The info is: 1-310-422-6840
I didn’t buy her book, see, just screenshot the Bulgarian part at City Lights in San Francisco (“Steal This Book” etc). As readers know I have criminal tendencies, and while I support her Cold War history writing, I can’t support her neocon war humping in the Atlantic.
I lost patience last fall when someone was talking about the “vandals” at Columbia during the protests and how they should all be thrown in jail.
I pointed out that historically, most of the people she would recognize as societally “good” were the jailees not the jailers. It infuriated her.
It is not a perfect heuristic, but you can get a good bead on a political conflict by noting who is building tunnels and who is building jails.