Hello, and happy Friday! Remember what I said about hoping that 2021 would be a decidedly average year … at best (inshallah) 🧿 ? Well, so much for that.
Within its first two weeks, 2021 has given us: A mob of Trump loyalists, QAnon conspiracists, and white supremacists storming Capitol Hill in a deadly (and, ultimately, fruitless) effort to subvert democracy; the American president being booted from Twitter and other social media platforms; another new variant of COVID-19; that video of Arnold Schwarzenegger comparing the strength of American democracy to a sword.
For those of you observing dry January this year, I salute you. It’s my birthday month, so I’ve never felt the need to partake and goodness knows I won’t be starting now. What would I like for my birthday, you ask? You encouraging your friends (or foes!) to subscribe to Foreign Correspondence would be more than enough 😊
In other news: I joined the aptly-named Oh God, What Now? podcast to chat about the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, impeachment, and more. You can tune in via your favorite podcast app (or by clicking here).
What I’ve written
In the aftermath of last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol, President Trump’s allies near and far spoke out to condemn the violence taking place at the seat of American democracy. Nigel Farage, Matteo Salvini, and Marine Le Pen were among the chorus of populist and nationalist figures expressing distress and alarm at the scenes playing out on news broadcasts around the world.
For my first piece of 2021, I wrote about why those who regard Trump as something of a global champion have chosen to distance themselves from him now. This, after all, wasn’t an ideological break with the president; though perhaps it was a practical one. Keep reading here
What I’ve read
This essential deep dive into The Epoch Times, a newspaper born out of a religious movement that has become the top purveyor of pro-Trump disinformation (not to mention the most popular Apple newspaper app in the country):
But conventional descriptions of The Epoch Times don’t adequately capture the singular mix of straight news, religious belief, conspiracy-peddling, Sinophobia, science denialism, legitimate grievance, and political expediency at the heart of the institution—a mix that, despite the paper’s mysteries, makes it a strangely fitting poster child for this unsettled moment.
Ben Smith’s latest column on how his former BuzzFeed colleague became one of the far-right activists storming the U.S. Capitol (and the role that social media played):
Mr. Gionet’s story isn’t quite the familiar one of a lonely young man in his bedroom falling down a rabbit hole of videos that poison his worldview. It’s the story of a man being rewarded for being a violent white nationalist, and getting the attention and affirmation that he’s apparently desperate for.
We spent a lot of time at BuzzFeed thinking about how to optimize our content for an online audience; he optimized himself.
This harrowing first-person account of years spent in a Xinjiang concentration camp:
We were ordered to deny who we were. To spit on our own traditions, our beliefs. To criticise our language. To insult our own people. Women like me, who emerged from the camps, are no longer who we once were. We are shadows; our souls are dead. I was made to believe that my loved ones, my husband and my daughter, were terrorists. I was so far away, so alone, so exhausted and alienated, that I almost ended up believing it. My husband, Kerim, my daughters Gulhumar and Gulnigar – I denounced your “crimes”. I begged forgiveness from the Communist party for atrocities that neither you nor I committed. I regret everything I said that dishonoured you. Today I am alive, and I want to proclaim the truth. I don’t know if you will accept me, I don’t know if you’ll forgive me.
How can I begin to tell you what happened here?
What I’m thinking about
This surreal interview with a Trump supporter from Jupiter (the city, not the planet—though as Sky News presenter Adam Boulton notes, you’d be forgiven for presuming otherwise). Keep an eye on that bookcase.
Until next time,
Yasmeen