Category Archives: Rebellion and Resistance

Evangelical Enemies of the state in Bulgaria

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Concentration Camps, Evangelical Christianity, Rebellion and Resistance

 

There was another aspect of these concentration camps that interested me and was not discussed on the CBC radio show. They had some very peculiar enemies that included, of all people, Christian Evangelical Pastors. How could they possibly be dangerous?

 

The Belene labour camp located on an island in the Danube River in which we sailed, had about 2,323 inmates at the height of the repression in 1952.  Most of them were men, but about 75 were women. The prisoners included Bulgarian Turks who resisted the official policy of forcing the Turks to change their names and surnames to Bulgarian names. Go figure. The Bulgarians wanted the Turks to be assimilated, much like Canadian educational authorities wanted Indigenous boys and girls to be assimilated in Canada’s residential schools. Probably, just as in Canada, the authorities thought they were doing this for their own good.

 

From 1949 on, in Bulgaria, Evangelical Christian pastors were also targeted as “enemies of the State.” There was an infamous trial in which 13 such Pastors were tried at a Show Trial, convicted, and sent to the Belene concentration camp in the Danube River.

 

One of them, was Haralan Popov who survived the experience later and founded a mission called “Door of Hope International” to bring Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. He published his autobiography in a book called Tortured to Death for His Faith. I am not sure why he called it that, since he survived to write about it. Its Bulgarian title was The Bulgarian Golgotha. I guess he thought he was Christ-like.

 

But why would they attack pastors?  According to a Google AI search, it was “because their faith and activities were seen as “a challenge and alternative to the official state ideology of atheism and communist control.”  Again, according to Google AI, “In essence, any form of independent association, loyalty to an authority other than the state (God or foreign church leaders), or independent thought was perceived as an existential threat to the communist regime’s absolute control over all aspects of society.” Apparently, some of the pastors were even tortured to induce them to confess their sins against the state.

 

Authoritarians don’t like rebellion and invariably deal with it harshly.  Rebellion is always a threat to the regime. Even from pastors.

The Most Dangerous Man in America

Extinction, Rebellion and Resistance, Right-wing Extremism, World of ideas

 

The clarion call of the new right-wing was all about liberty and freedom. This was, according to Justin Ling, in his podcast aptly called The Flame Throwers, “the language of revolution.”  1998 was time for a New Tea Party. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich saw themselves as right-wing revolutionaries. In fact Gingrich invited Limbaugh to come to Washington to fire up the new troops that had been elected. This was going to be the politics of extremism with no holds barred.

Limbaugh advised the newly elected Congressmen in 1998. “This is not the time to be moderate, this is not the time to be liked, this is no time to seek to gain the approval of the people you have just defeated.” American politics had entered the age of extremism where there was no room any more for moderation, reasonableness, or humility.

The incoming class of Republican Congressmen and women presented Limbaugh with a plaque that said, “Rush was right.”  They also assured him that there was not a single Feminazi in the bunch.  The right in America was nothing if it was not hyper- masculine. Only wimps would give in to feminists. Women were one of Limbaugh’s most consistent targets of verbal abuse.

At the time Limbaugh’s radio shows were shown on more 600 stations in the USA. He had a television show on another 225 stations. As Ling said, “Tens of millions of Americans were hanging on his every utterance. He now basically runs the Republican Party.”  This was a role later taken over by Donald Trump. As much as he loved being adored by the Republican party, there was one endorsement that he treasured above all others—he got a personal letter from Saint Ronald Reagan himself. He was in heaven. Not only that it was the best heaven of all—Republican heaven.

This is what that blessed epistle from the Saint of the Right said:

“Thanks Rush for all that you are doing for promoting Republican and conservative principles. Now that I have retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you have become the number one voice for conservatism in our country. I know the liberals call you the most dangerous man in America, but don’t worry about it. They  used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear the way things otta be.

Sincerely, Ron”

In many ways, Rush Limbaugh was in fact the most dangerous man in America. He was ready to blow it up—in the world of ideas of course. Though it would have ramifications beyond that.

 

The Religious  Mob

Classic Books, Extremism, Fear, Freedom, Politics & Religion, Rebellion and Resistance

 

In the amazing novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when it is discovered that a slave has escaped from his master, a mob of white people—mainly good Christian white people—got excited and gave horrific chase to the slave aided and abetted by his young white friend. These were good ordinary citizens of America. They believed it was their religious duty to give chase to an escaped black slave and return him to his owner. Of course, it helped that they might reap a $40 reward from the owner. Is that all it takes?

 

Azar Nafisi was a Muslim woman living in Iran who taught Huckleberry Finn to young Islamic men and women.  By and large these students were respectful of the tyrannical regime in their country. Like good American citizens, they were good citizens and good Muslims? What would they think of Huck Finn?

The book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is as I have been saying a book about freedom and resistance to authority.  Those are both characteristics that have usually been absent in Iran. At least that was true until recently, when there have been some rebellion led by young women resisting the authority of the government to impose dress requirements upon them, as well as other even more important impositions on their freedom. The women have demonstrated uncommon bravery in the face of that tyranny. A number of them have been killed by the government for their opposition.

Mark Twain in that brilliant book showed how an uneducated white boy and his black slave friend revolted against the “conscience” of the nation. Most people in America, at the time, believed in the racial superiority of whites and in their absolute right to do as they saw fit with the inferior black race in their midst.

Nafisi said this about the book:

“It looks at how ordinary decent people, or outcasts like Huck and Pap, could abandon their hearts and take the easy road, embracing ugly thoughts and prejudices when they are sanctioned by society. Could such horrors as slavery or the Holocaust happen without the complicity and voluntary blindness of decent, ordinary people, those who go to church and volunteer for good works and yet can easily turn, as they do in Huck Finn, into a murderous mob? It might have been the question that gave Huck such a dramatic sense of urgency when I taught it in those violent revolutionary days in Iran”.

 

How can good people wreak such havoc on other more vulnerable good people? Is a $40 reward all it takes?

Yet the young students of Iran largely supported the rebellious position of Huck. They applauded his actions in refusing to return the slave to the master.

Even though they were good Muslims, they did not support the religious mob! I found that interesting.

Self-defense?

criminal Justice, Rebellion and Resistance, Vigilantism

 

 

David French described Kyle Rittenhouse’s conduct this way in his illuminating article in The Atlantic:

“He didn’t impose order. He didn’t stop a riot. He left a trail of bodies on the ground, and two of the people he shot were acting on the belief that Rittenhouse himself was an active shooter. He had, after all, just killed a man…without any meaningful training, he was engaged in remarkably dangerous and provocative conduct. But that dangerous and provocative conduct did not eliminate his right of self-defense, and that self-defense claim is the key issue of his trial, not the wisdom of his vigilante presence. But that brings us to the danger of Kyle Rittenhouse as a folk hero. It is one thing to argue that the law is on Rittenhouse’s side—and there is abundant evidence supporting his defense—but it is quite another to hail him as a model for civic resistance.

It was frankly to be expected that an American jury, composed mainly of people who appeared to be white, would acquit a young “brave” hero, as Trump described him, who wanted to protect them from the black hordes. It would have been surprising had they not done that. It is also not surprising that the jury accepted the claim that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense, even though he created the dangerous conditions by showing up where he did not belong with an automatic rifle. Did his victims not have the right to use self-defense to protect themselves against him? That’s how the law, especially in the United States, works when the police and justice officials are also infused with the same mythology. As a result, the law in its majestic manner arranged for Rittenhouse to walk away a free man while 2 men were left to die on the street as a result of his highly unreasonable actions.

 

Mythology of the Vigilante

Rebellion and Resistance, Vigilantism

 

The problem in the Rittenhouse case is that the prosecutors had to contend not only with a very limiting self-defense law in the United States, but also a deep and very real mythology of the vigilante. That mythology has justified some of the most astonishing acts of violence conceivable. That was nowhere more clearly displayed than Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant book Blood Meridian which described acts of nearly unimaginable violence involving vigilantes on the Mexican border. That mythology has been reinforced in recent decades by the Marvel comic universe where every young boy is allowed to be a defender of the people. I thought Rittenhouse was astonishingly foolish in bringing the danger upon himself, but in law, people are allowed to be foolish. As David French pointed out in The Atlantic,

“The narrow nature of the self-defense inquiry is one reason people can escape responsibility for killings that are deeply wrongful in every moral sense. Take, for instance, cases in which bad cops create danger and confusion through incompetence or excessive aggression, and then they respond to the danger or confusion they created by using deadly force.”

  

The power of the right to self-defense, particularly in the US, much more so than in Canada, was evident a couple of years ago in the case of Breonna Taylor. In that cases cops with a “no-knock warrant” in hand, without warning, in the middle of the night, crashed into her apartment she was sharing with her boyfriend. Unsurprisingly, in the dark of night he fired a shot at the police in self-defense and they fired an incredible volley of shots into the apartment in return, but still also  supposedly in self-defense. Even though the police had foolishly and dangerously created the incident that mothered the ensuing violence, the Grand Jury refused to authorize charges against the police.

Rittenhouse was just as foolish and just as much the author of his own misfortune, but none of that mattered in the law of Wisconsin.  Even though 17-year old Rittenhouse inserted himself into a potentially violent situation, swinging an AK-15 style automatic rifle and elicited a reaction by the protesters/ rioters to defend themselves, when they chased Rittenhouse to such an extent that he feared for his life, in effect the jury called shooting his pursuers self-defense.

A man, or even a boy, with an AR-15 assault style weapon cruising the streets of America looking for damsels or others in distress has become part of this vibrant mythology. These are American patriots, even though they unleash inevitable violence and seldom perform the magic they have learned in their FantasyLand to expect.

Even if they leave a trail of dead bodies in their wake, accomplish absolutely nothing to bring about law and order, protect no one, they can become instant  heroes invited by right wing politicians to be their aides and a former president call them “brave”.

The mythology of self-defense is so potent it can turn vinegar into wine.

Patriot or Martyr

criminal Justice, Extremism, guns, Polarization, Rebellion and Resistance, Vigilantism, violence

 

I understand that the jury has still not rendered its verdict in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse and will resume deliberations tomorrow.  Yesterday I posted about why I thought there was a good chance he would be acquitted and made a hero.  Today I want to talk about the less likely  chance that he will be convicted and made a martyr. If he is a patriot for his actions as his supporters allege and many on the right believe to be the case, then if he is convicted  he will be hailed as a martyr. Which is it?

Personally, I don’t think a young man who travels from out of state carrying an automatic AR-15 style rifle  to an area of heated dispute   that some call riots and others protests, depending on which side of the great divide in America (and Canada) they lie, is a hero so should not be welcomed as a hero if successful  or a martyr if not.  Instead, he was a foolish young man who took a dangerous chance while endangering the lives of many others that led in fact to the deaths of 2 Americans while injuring a third.  He was not trained for this job and took it upon himself as a vigilante to “help” the police to do their job. He made things much worse as the trail of devastation behind him made clear. It is part of their belief that “the system” cannot be trusted and only private vigilantes or warriors can be trusted.

I realize that many young American men have been raised in the Marvel FantasyLand where such actions are encouraged. They think they can stand up to the evils of a corrupt or inept system that fails to protect American citizens.

Rittenhouse should not be valorized. He was hardly a peacemaker. No one should encourage other young American men (and they are largely men who do this) to take such foolhardy and dangerous actions. Such actions are not helpful. They are pouring fuel onto an already raging fire.

Rittenhouse may or may not be guilty of murder or the other crimes he was charged with, but he is neither a hero nor a martyr.  And he might be much worse.

 

Kenosha: What happened?

Rebellion and Resistance, Vigilantism, violence

 

A very interesting trial is going on in Wisconsin that is dividing the country.

In the summer of 2020, the city of Kenosha Wisconsin became the site of large and active protests after Jacob Blake, an African American man was wounded by Wisconsin police officers. The protests got carried away with widespread fears expressed on the internet that businesses might be looted and destroyed. Kyle Rittenhouse drove to Kenosha from his home in Antioch Illinois. He took with him two things one would not normally expect to go together. One was a medical kit and the other was a rifle.

Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, which apparently what is called murder in Wisconsin, and as well attempted first-degree intentional homicide for the man who lived, and first-degree reckless homicide; reckless endangering; and illegal possession of a weapon by a person under 18.

All serious charges. Was he a murderer as many on the left alleged or was he a public warrior/defender as many on the right claim? This issue has captured national attention.

The protesters included many whites and blacks. Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot. The jury, which appears to be mainly white, will make the decision. Inevitably, a large part of the US will be upset while another large part will be jubilant. It is guaranteed that many people in the US will not agree with the decision of the jury. The judge was adamant that this would not become a political trial, but many think that is exactly what it became.

Rittenhouse  said he was going there to protect businesses that had been ransacked the night before. The rifle, he claimed, was for self-defence. Rittenhouse was white, but so were the 3 men he shot. 2 of them died from the gunshot wounds. As the Associated Press reported,

“The case has stirred fierce debate over vigilantism, self-defence, the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and the unrest that erupted around the U.S. over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other police violence against Black people.”

 

That is a very important issue. Throughout American history vigilantism has been frequent, violent, and controversial. This case is no exception. It will be very interesting to learn what the jury thinks of the case.

 

In the Age of Anger loud Voices Prevail

Epidemics/Pandemics, Rebellion and Resistance, The Sleep of Reason, True Believer

 

Melissa Martin is a very good writer working for the Winnipeg Free Press.  Talking about Covid-19 and the antivaxxers and anti-mandaters, she said she found “Sadness amid the Madness.”  Why was that?

Specifically, she wrote an interesting piece about a man and woman with a child at one of the innumerable Covid-19 protest rallies in Winnipeg, who held a sign that read, “It’s my choice. Live with it. I will.” These people had gone to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, thinking there was protest rally there. One had been held there a few days earlier and the protesters disrupted health services. Some health workers were afraid to go to work to help others in desperate need. Not just Covid-19 patients either.  Not really the best place for a protest rally. So, organizers, sensing a lack of public support for a rally there, changed the location at the last minute and this man and his wife and young daughter were not aware of it. They were wandering around largely by themselves. Martin said it was sad.  She also said,  “Anti-vax protests point out a tragic societal fracture that seems beyond mending.”

I think she is right because this is no longer a health issue. It has probably never been a health issue. It is a political issue. In fact, it is a theological issue.  People hold anti-vax and anti-mandate views as they hold religious views.  They are held so tightly that no evidence and no reason can change minds anymore. Just like religion.

The family seemed lost and deflated. As Martin said,

“Imagine what led you there. Imagine what vicious rhetoric you’ve consumed that would allow you to see a hospital entrance as an appropriate place to make your stand. Imagine waking up that day ready to protest outside a hospital, only to find your family arriving alone, sign dangling from your hands.”

 

Martin also saw, what I have been seeing—the same type of people appear at anti-vax rallies as showed up at pro-Trump rallies and worse,  at places like the riot on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 6, 2021.  The people at the hospital rally, or the Winkler rally or the Steinbach rally, were not rioters, but they appeared angry. After all, as Pankaj Mishra said, “this is the age of anger.”  People are angry. When they get angry they get mean and nasty. And thoughtfulness flies out the window. Lately, we have seen this in Winkler and Steinbach as I blogged about earlier.

As Martin said,

“It could have been worse. A lot worse. Since the start of the pandemic, one of the animating factors in resistance to public health orders and, now, vaccines has been rage, the same combustible rage that drove far-right protesters to storm the U.S. Capitol in January. It’s driven by many of the same players. It shares the same characteristics.

On Twitter, one woman responded to a video of an Ontarian People’s Party of Canada candidate firing a rifle, and said the candidate should “bring that bad boy to tomorrow’s raid on Toronto General Hospital,” because protesters would “get inside and show the world that COVID is fake.”

They didn’t go into the hospital. Yet while one shouldn’t put too much stock in the hot air a random person spews on Twitter, the naked aggression is alarming, and the threat has precedent. Last year, self-appointed “truth seekers” entered hospitals to “prove” the virus was a hoax; it’s entirely possible it will happen again.”

 

People are so angry that they feel it is legitimate to try to intimidate our over-worked health care workers who have not done anything to impose the mandates on them. They are just ordinary health care workers doing their heroic work to save lives during a pandemic. Anger directed at them is frankly much worse than sad. It is not surprising that some of them revolt. One frustrated hospital worker in a Calgary hospital put up a sign in a window that read, “Go intubate yourself.”

These protesters don’t believe science which they think is a hoax. Yet they believe  government officials are trying to impose health mandates to control us. again I have heard this personally. Others think doctors are hiding real cures like horse de-wormers. Yet as Martin said,

“When the numbers show that hospitals are in crisis and vaccines are both safe and effective, they are dismissed as “manipulated.” Everyone on Facebook anti-vaccine groups knows a guy who knows a guy whose cousin is a nurse and swears ICUs are empty; when ICU nurses speak about what they’ve endured, that information is disregarded.”

 

I know this too as I have been told the same thing. Martin acknowledged that there are reasonable questions about Covid-19. One of my cousins last week told me there is evidence that people who are vaccinated can spread Covid-19 as easily as those who are not vaccinated. If that is true it blows a major hole in the case against mandatory vaccinations. More on that later.  There is room for reasonable discussion. Science is not crystal clear. People are suffering from the restrictions in business and in mental health. But it is very difficult to have reasonable discussions when people harass health care workers. Or shout absurdities.

Martin summed up the problem this way:

“The problem is, none of those concerns can be given a fair hearing, when the loudest voices in opposition are tied up in threatening health-care workers, propagating conspiracy theories and potentially deadly misinformation, and thunderously insisting that the only relevant consideration is “personal choice.”

That’s the thing about a pandemic. It puts light on the error in the main ideological streak underpinning these most aggressive protests: the idea that anyone lives as an island, our choices not affecting others. A pandemic is a virus infecting society as one body; it requires the co-ordinated response of the whole body to fix it.

“It’s my choice,” the man’s sign said. “Live with it.” That’s exactly the problem: we already are. What’s sad is, he cannot see it.”

 

As I have been saying, Goya is right, “the sleep of reason brings forth monsters.” And we have to fight them.