RSN: Tim Dickinson | Meet the Apostle of Right-Wing Christian Nationalism
03 September 22
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03 September 22
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The new Republican fringe is done with the separation of church and state. William "Dutch" Sheets has been trying to tear down that wall for decades
Revered by followers as a modern Christian apostle, Sheets told a packed crowd at Gas South Arena, outside Atlanta, to pray with him for the GOP congresswoman, who touts herself as a Christian nationalist, and appeared onstage in a bright-red dress.
“We say she is covered by the blood of Jesus,” Sheets said. “She will not be taken out by evil forces,” he insisted, adding: “We take authority over that in Jesus’ name. And we cover her now with a shield of prayer and faith and say, ‘Be strong! Be blessed! You are highly favored! You will not fail,’ in Jesus’ name.”
Sheets, 68, is one of America’s most influential Christian voices demanding an end to the separation of church and state. He’s been at the forefront of that movement for 20 years, but now the Republican part has come to him, with a growing contingent that’s embracing his end-times vision of America as Christian theocracy. At this July 1 worship event, Sheets told the crowd, “We must marry these two arenas — the civil and the sacred. They are not separate in Scripture,” he added, then insisted, “God never intended for it to be separate.”
Christian nationalism has long been an undercurrent of GOP politics. But with the rise of the MAGA movement and the Republican party’s lurch toward authoritarianism, its proponents have burst into the foreground. Representatives like Greene and Lauren “the church is supposed to direct the government” Boebert have embraced Christian nationalism in Washington, while far-right-media figures like Andrew Torba — the CEO of the platform Gab.com — embrace it as the answer to conservative setbacks in the culture wars, insisting: “We are going to take power in this country, for the glory of God.”
The right’s new hunger for theocracy is creating an opening for figures like Sheets, who has long preached that Christians cannot only impose their morals on society through the levers of government, but that doing so is Jesus’ most ardent desire.
Inside the arena, Sheets was soon leading the spirited crowd in a recitation of a new document he co-authored called the “Watchman Decree.” It reads like a Christian nationalist pledge of allegiance.
“As a patriot of faith, I attest my allegiance first and foremost to the Kingdom of God and the Great Commission,” Sheets began. (The “Great Commission” refers to the instruction by the resurrected Jesus to his followers to “make disciples of all nations.”) He then led the crowd in a series of theocratic declarations, including:
“We, the Church, are God’s governing Body on the Earth.”
“We have been given legal power and authority from Heaven.”
“We are … delegated by Him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy.”
The audience then read aloud, with Sheets, a list of 13 decrees, including that the three branches of U.S. government will “honor God,” “write only laws that are righteous,” and only “issue rulings that are biblical.” The congregation continued, in unison, “We declare that we stand against wokeness, the occult, and every evil attempt against our nation.”
They concluded with Sheets’ trademark spiritual battle cry: “We decree that America shall be saved!”
The Fight for “Dominion”
William “Dutch” Sheets is a leading figure in a fundamentalist movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, whose followers believe America is anointed by God to convert the world to Christianity — by force if necessary — and they seek to accelerate Jesus’ return and rule over the Earth. This divine mission, as they see it, will be carried out when true believers seize control of the institutions of the U.S. government. Their allies in positions of power include members of Congress, as well as a prominent candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, who is Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pennsylvania.
Christian nationalism is on the rise among the religious right. Many among the fundamentalist faithful seek to live in a country where their biblical views are not just protected, but imposed on others, as a matter of law. The proposition that America should be remade as a theocracy is most popular, according to a 2021 Pew poll, among white evangelicals — that is to say the Republican base. More than a third of this group believes the federal government should “stop enforcing” the separation of church and state and “declare” the United States a Christian nation. A full 29 percent would like to see the federal government “advocate Christian values.” That these are minoritarian views is little obstacle in a Republican party that has grown increasingly contemptuous of democracy and comfortable with MAGA-style authoritarianism.
The NAR movement, in particular, dovetails with the far-right of the Republican party because it blames the nation’s problems on the same enemies — abortion providers, homosexuals, religious minorities, etc. — with the distinction being that NAR followers believe these disfavored groups are literally Satanic. “They use this language of spiritual warfare,” says Steve Snow, a professor of politics who published an academic paper on NAR in the Journal of Religion & Society. “It has inevitably moved over into the political realm — so that your political opponents are demon-possessed.”
The New Apostolic Reformation emerged from the charismatic tradition of Christianity, in which believers seek direct encounters with the Holy Spirit. (In Pentecostalism, for example, this comes in the form of speaking in tongues and other “gifts of the spirit.”) But NAR goes much farther. Its followers believe that, since the turn of the millennium, the world has entered a new age of Christian apostles and prophets: men and women who receive direct revelations from God and visions for His will on Earth. (The movement is controversial even among evangelicals. Many believe the NAR movement is contrary to scripture — even heretical, full of false prophets and bunk revelations. One critic calls its teachings “utterly false and spiritually devastating.”)
The founding apostle of NAR was C. Peter Wagner, who didn’t look the part of a zealot. Wagner was a soft-spoken, avuncular figure with white hair and a Colonel Sanders goatee. Yet his theology was extreme: He infamously believed that the emperor of Japan had fornicated with the sun goddess — an embodiment of the shape-shifting Satan. This unholy union, Wagner maintained, disgusted (the one, true Christian) God, who then removed his protection from the island, precipitating the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima.
For Wagner and his followers, the bible is the story of the struggle for “dominion” over the Earth. God granted Adam dominion over the world, which he promptly squandered to Satan, in the form of the serpent in the garden. Jesus, to NAR followers, is the “Second Adam” who granted his followers a new chance to wrest dominion of the world from demonic forces.
The NAR faithful take literally the command given by the resurrected Jesus to his followers to “make disciples of all nations.” They view Christianity as a missionary faith with a manifest destiny to conquer the planet. If that work won’t be fully completed until the second coming of Christ, NAR followers believe it’s their duty to prepare the planet in the meantime, making it as biblical as possible. “Jesus delegated establishing His kingdom to us — to you and to me,” Wagner preached in 2014. “We are the ones who are supposed to bring this about,” he insisted of the Second Coming, calling on his followers to “speak and act on Jesus’ behalf as if Jesus himself was doing it.”
The New Apostolic Reformation doesn’t have a formal church structure. Rather it comprises a network of self-styled apostles who cultivate their own followings — and also lend one another an air of authority through mutual recognition of their divine gifts. “It’s sort of like al Qaeda in the sense that anybody can pop up anywhere and say that they’re al Qaeda,” says Snow, the Wagner University politics professor who has studied NAR.
The religious movement is extraordinary, Snow says, in that it is “hyper-politicized” and literally demonizes its opponents. If you’re not an advocate for their theology, you’re on the side of Satan. They view those who stand in opposition to Christian nationalism as afflicted by demons, and they view their struggle to impose biblical order as “spiritual warfare.” Far from praying to be raptured to heaven, as many other evangelicals do, NAR adherents anticipate reigning alongside Christ — as wealthy and favored “kings and priests” — during his long, heavenly rule on Earth.
“An Appeal to Heaven”
Sheets is a first among equals in the world of NAR. He was Wagner’s top lieutenant and protégé. Wagner died in 2016, but in his late years, he touted “Apostle Dutch Sheets” for his “clear, practical vision” to lead America in “giant steps toward seeing our land reflect the kingdom of God.”
Sheets preaches — against the historical record — that America was founded as a Christian nation, and he views the United States as God’s essential weapon for advancing Christianity across the globe. And when Sheets speaks of warfare for Christ, he seems to want to bring the battle out of the spirit realm and into the physical world. (Sheets did not agree to speak for this story. His ministry stated in an email: “Dutch does not do interviews.”)
Sheets has a round face, close-cropped brown hair, and often sports a trim goatee. He preaches that the American Revolution was divinely guided, pointing to a war flag that featured a pine tree and the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven,” which was flown at times by George Washington and the Continental Navy.
There’s a secular history to the flag. Colonists were battling the Crown over a decree that the tallest timber pines in New England were reserved for British ships. The flag’s slogan, “An Appeal to Heaven,” was lifted from the philosopher John Locke, who argued that when governments abridge man’s natural freedoms it’s appropriate to fight and let God sort it out. “Where there lies no appeal on Earth,” the philosopher wrote, “they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.”
But to Sheets, and other Christian nationalists, this flag has a secret biblical meaning. In a 2015 book An Appeal to Heaven, and a series of sermons on the same topic, Sheets contends that the pine tree, in fact, symbolizes an evergreen planted in Genesis and stands for an “everlasting covenant” with God. “I figured out that this symbol of the evergreen tree didn’t go back just to the founding fathers in America,” Sheets preached in 2019, “it went all the way back to Abraham!”
In Sheets’ telling, God helped the colonists vanquish the British in order to establish America as an instrument of Christian power — a “vessel” that can “reach all around the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Grasping the pine-tree flag like a holy shroud, Sheets changed his tone from pastoral to fire and brimstone. “We decree over America that you had plans for us Lord.” Sheets told the crowd. “I decree over us that You’re going to finish what You started.”
For America to be the nation God intended, Sheets insisted, it must end religious tolerance. “Lord we refuse to give this nation to another God; we refuse to give this nation to demons,” Sheets preached, citing “Hinduism” and a “pluralistic mindset” as examples of the evils he despised.
“We decree over this nation that the spirit of Islam will not take over America,” he said. To the contrary, Sheets insisted, “We say that Christianity will invade Islam.” Darkly, Sheets implied that violence will be necessary: “We decree and declare that, though it may require the blood of many martyrs, [God] will have his way.”
In Sheets’ vision, Christians will take over Washington, D.C. “We believe you’re going to raise up constitutional judges,” Sheets said. “We believe you’re gonna put somebody in the White House that we’ll say, ‘Oh, yes, we are Christian nation!’”
While Sheets isn’t the only proponent of reviving the pine-tree flag, he’s certainly the most prominent. And this coopted symbol of Christian nationalism has been adopted by a host of Republican politicians. Few parade the flag as prominently as Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who often sits in front of the banner during Facebook internet chats.
In the days after Jan 6. — an insurrection Mastriano attended — Mastriano posted the revolutionary symbol on Twitter, without comment.
Mastriano did not answer questions from Rolling Stone. He was first linked to NAR by The New Yorker, which reported Mastriano attended movement events after winning a seat in the statehouse. Mastriano has denied working directly with the NAR. But he filmed a 2020 interview in his Harrisburg office with a NAR pastor, Abby Abildness, a close associate of Sheets who preaches that Pennsylvania was the “holy seed of a nation” and that founder William Penn was a prophet of “His wisdom and principles of governance.”
For his part, Mastriano’s own rhetoric is hardly out of step with Sheets’ teachings. In radio comments in 2018, Mastriano insisted the Constitution is not compatible with Islam because the founding document reflects a “Christian-Judeo” worldview — declaring that “not all religions are created equal.”
Decades of Influence
Sheets has kept a low national profile that belies his influence on our national politics, where his influence stretches back decades. Reflecting on her pivotal role in the 2000 presidential recount of Florida, former Secretary of State Katherine Harris told Charisma magazine that Sheets was a godly mentor to her, adding that “everything I do politically is animated by my faith,” because her “marching orders” come from God.
Sheets has also shared stages with national, theocracy-minded Republicans, including an appearance with then-Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas in 2007. During the Obama administration, Sheets propagated lies about the first Black president. In one recording, Sheets insisted, “We have a Muslim president.” Sheets argued that “this is a part of the judgment” of God, who, in an effort to “discipline” America, had “turned our country over to our enemies for a season.”
Sheets has never soft-pedaled his theocratic beliefs. He told a crowd in 2012 that it wasn’t realistic for Christians to “take over everything and rule the Earth completely for the Lord,” but that “we’re supposed to try.” Sheets added, “Our assignment, until He comes, is to bring His kingdom rule into the Earth, so that our region looks like heaven again.” Sheets counseled followers to “divide and conquer,” calling on God to “raise up kingdom warriors who are willing to do whatever it takes to bring forth Your kingdom rule in the Earth.”
That kind of divisive talk ingratiated Sheets to Newt Gingrich, who named Sheets to his “Faith Leaders Coalition” during his 2012 presidential run.
In 2015, Sheets shared a message about Christian nationalism he said was directly from God: “The Lord has confirmed to me that the door to the governmental arena — and to Washington, D.C., specifically — is again wide open,” he wrote, insisting that “this invitation … has not only been extended to me, but to the entire body of Christ.”
In videos posted earlier this year, Sheets decried the notion that Christians should pray for God’s will to be done, but not involve themselves directly in politics as “one of the greatest deceptions Satan has ever visited on the church.” He calls government “God-created” and insists Christians must “accept our God-given calling to extend His influence through it.” The alternative, Sheets insists, is “allowing evil to rule over us.”
Preaching Christian nationalism is a boom business. Dutch Sheets Ministries is not a church, but a 501(c)3 nonprofit. In paperwork filed with the IRS, Sheets has declared nearly $9 million in revenue since 2016, and has assets approaching $4 million. (Sheets and his wife, the VP of the ministry, jointly earn nearly $230,000 a year from the operation.)
Sheets has cultivated a huge following. He has an Apple app called “Give Him 15,” where he offers short, daily sermons, often promoting Christian nationalism. The app, he’s bragged, has been downloaded more than 600,000 times. He cross-posts these videos to YouTube and Rumble, often gaining hundreds of thousands of views at a time.
“God Wants to Give Trump Eight Years”
Nonprofits like Dutch Sheets Ministries risk losing their tax exempt status if they enmesh themselves in electoral politics. But Sheets was all-in for Trump, going so far as to stage an “Appeal to Heaven” conference at the Trump Hotel in 2018. Despite Trump’s manifestly sinful life, Sheets saw him as a divine instrument, in particular for Trump’s stated opposition to abortion, which Sheets has characterized as “blood sacrifice that empowers demons.”
In 2018, Sheets shared a prophesy that Trump was going to have “an encounter with God … that’s going to transform him,” he said. “I believe He wants to make him a father in this nation.” Sheets continued, “He’s going to know God and he’s gonna realize this God put me here, and I’m gonna do everything possible to follow His leadership, His will, and do for Him what He wants for this nation.”
Like many other NAR preachers, Sheets prophesied that Trump would be reelected. And in the aftermath of Biden’s victory, Sheets didn’t admit error. Rather, he insisted, the result was fraud perpetrated by Satan that would not stand. “We have prophesies, dreams that God wants to give Trump eight years,” Sheets insisted on a podcast with Charisma magazine. Sheets insisted that the election result was “going to be overturned, and President Trump is going to be put back in office for four years.” Sheets warned, however, that followers would “have to push this thing through,” insisting: “I believe there’s a remnant army out there that is not going to let this go. And we’re going to make sure that God’s will is done.”
Sheets continued to use metaphors of war and violence through the runup to Jan. 6. On a Nov. 9 podcast titled “God Is Not Finished with President Trump,” Sheets asked his listeners, “Are we gonna fight or not? Is Trump God’s choice or not?” He exhorted, “We must make a stand right now,” and to “war and get God’s will and God’s person back in office.”
By late December, Sheets was invoking the Black Robed Regiment, a group of colonial preachers who were instrumental in the Revolutionary War, and asking God to “fight for us as you did our founders.” Sheets decreed that “there is coming a great partnership of the church and government,” and asked his followers to “war with me for our great nation.”
In a Jan. 2 message to the faithful called “Why We Fight”, Sheets insisted that the coming war was for the “spiritual soul and God-given destiny of our nation” against two enemies. First and foremost, there was “Biden and those on the left who do not want biblical principles morals and ideals controlling America.” But Sheets also listed Republican foes who “are unwilling to stand up and fight in this battle.” He called them “self-serving cowards” with “no understanding of … God’s purpose for America” or the “God-given vision of our founding fathers.” These turncoats, he insisted, had “traded patriotism for privilege, and Christ’s cause for a career.”
By Jan. 3, Sheets appeared on camera wearing a 1776 sweatshirt and seemed to have a clear vision of the unrest that was about to unfold. Citing the “thousands of patriots who will descend on Washington D.C.,” Sheets implored his followers to pray “that they’re kept safe,” warning: “It is likely to be a very tumultuous week.”
These videos were inflammatory — and appeared to border on incitement. But they were also, unintentionally, revealing. As he spoke, Sheets exposed himself as a hack, without any special understanding of American politics. He stumbled through regurgitations of half-digested right-wing talking points, rambling that if Trump were denied victory, “You can forget about justice taking place in the deep state, the false FISA warrants, the lies on the Russian-conspiracy thing, the wrong, false impeachments — all the things they make up — you can forget justice coming to any of that.”
In the aftermath of Jan. 6 and Trump’s final defeat, many fellow evangelical preachers also believed that Sheets and his ilk, who spoke prophetically about the certainty of Trump’s reelection, had been exposed. A stark open letter signed by dozens of charismatic faith leaders in May 2021 insisted on “the need for prophetic standards in the church.”
The letter didn’t name names, but it sought to address the “fallout” of fake prophesies that foretold of a Trump victory. “We recognize that true prophetic words can be faith-building,” the religious leaders wrote, “but we reject the idea that prophets can use Old Testament texts about believing the prophets in order to gain blanket support for their words, as if everything a prophet utters today must be believed.”
The letter reserved judgment for the worst offenders. “We do not believe that a sincere prophet who delivers an inaccurate message is [necessarily] a false prophet,” they wrote. But the letter also offered a stark warning to fellow charismatics that the sword of fundamentalism cuts both ways: “Those wanting to use Old Testament prophetic texts to exercise influence or authority over their followers should remember,” they wrote, “that inaccurate prophecy under that same Old Testament standard was punishable by death.”
In his recent speech, Joe Biden criticized MAGA Republicans in unsparing terms. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
While broadcasters typically air a prime-time address by the president, they determined that this speech was more ‘political’ than newsworthy for live coverage
As Biden spelled out his objections to former president Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans,” NBC was broadcasting a rerun of “Law and Order.” CBS skipped the speech to show a rerun of “Young Sheldon.”
The networks’ rejection of Biden’s speech — delivered in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, washed in dramatic red lighting as Marines stood guard — marked an unusual moment in the long relationship between the White House and the nation’s most powerful broadcasters.
Presidents rarely make speeches during prime TV viewing hours, and typically only do so to address a national crisis or matter of exceptional urgency. The networks, in turn, typically carry presidential speeches when the White House requests the time and after previewing the president’s remarks.
However, they have passed on speeches that were part of campaign rallies or events, or when the subject was deemed insufficiently important or newsworthy. The networks, for example, decided not to carry a speech on immigration reform by President Barack Obama in November of 2014.
People involved in negotiations over Thursday’s address said the networks deemed Biden’s remarks as “political” in nature and therefore decided not to televise it. These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions, cited the speech’s criticism of Trump — who may run in the Republican presidential primaries in 2024 — and its timing two months before the midterm elections.
White House officials had earlier tried to counter the impression of partisanship, with one telling NBC News that it was “not a speech about a particular politician or even about a particular political party.”
In the Thursday night address, Biden argued that Trump and his supporters “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Using the acronym for Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan, he said, “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.” He also referenced the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, saying, “We can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible.”
Biden’s speech was carried live on CNN and MSNBC, but it was not aired on Fox News, the most-watched of the cable-news channels. Fox stuck with its usual 8 p.m. Eastern time program, a commentary show hosted by conservative pundit Tucker Carlson.
Representatives for the broadcast networks as well as the White House declined to comment for this story.
The networks’ decision not to carry the speech all but ensured that Biden’s remarks will reach a far smaller audience than the millions of viewers who typically watch live presidential addresses on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Some commentators criticized the networks for declining to air the speech. “The networks refusing to cover Biden’s speech (presumably because it was going to be critical of Trump and/or not newsworthy enough) is precisely the problem” democracy faces, tweeted Dartmouth University political scientist Brendan Nyhan, in one of a number of tweets calling attention to the networks’ decision.
But George Washington University professor Frank Sesno, a former CNN anchor, said in an interview that the speech “was framed in very partisan, political terms, and though that may reflect reality, in strictly editorial terms it makes this a close call as to whether networks should interrupt regular programming and provide the White House 30 minutes of airtime.”
Sesno added that while he personally believes that all Americans should be concerned about “the influence of a people and a party that deny reality [and] seek to undermine elections,” he also thinks that networks have to make their coverage decisions “based on the newsworthiness of the speech and whether it’s a true ‘address to the nation’ or primarily political in nature.”
The non-coverage stands in contrast to the three networks’ decision in June to preempt their entertainment programs to air the first hearing of the House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
That hearing occurred during prime viewing hours, just as Biden’s speech did on Thursday, and was covered as a news event, with the networks’ leading anchors introducing and analyzing the proceedings. Fox News skipped the hearing, choosing to air its prime-time opinion programs instead.
Mikhail Gorbachev. (photo: CNN)
Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked with the late Soviet president for 37 years and was at his side at numerous U.S.-Soviet summits, spoke to Gorbachev a few weeks ago by phone and said he and others had been struck by how traumatised he was by events in Ukraine.
"It's not just the (special military) operation that started on Feb. 24, but the entire evolution of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the past years that was really, really a big blow to him. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically," Palazhchenko told Reuters in an interview.
"It was very obvious to us in our conversations with him that he was shocked and bewildered by what was happening (after Russian troops entered Ukraine in February) for all kinds of reasons. He believed not just in the closeness of the Russian and Ukrainian people, he believed that those two nations were intermingled."
President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what he called a "special military operation" which he said was needed to ensure Russia's security against an expanding NATO military alliance and to protect Russian-speakers.
Kyiv says it posed no threat and is now defending itself against an unprovoked imperial-style war of aggression. The West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow to try to get Putin to pull his forces back, something he shows no sign of doing.
In photographs of 1980s summits with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the bald, moustachioed figure of Palazhchenko can be seen time and again at Gorbachev's side, leaning in to capture and relay every word.
Now 73, he is well placed to know the late politician's state of mind in the period before he died, having seen him in recent months and been in touch with Gorbachev's daughter Irina.
Gorbachev, who was 91 when he died on Tuesday from an unspecified illness, had family connections to Ukraine, said Palazhchenko. He was speaking at the Moscow headquarters of the Gorbachev Foundation where he works, and where Gorbachev kept an office dominated by a giant portrait of his late wife Raisa whose father was from Ukraine.
CONFLICTED ON UKRAINE
While in office, Gorbachev tried to keep the Soviet Union's 15 republics, including Ukraine, together but failed after reforms he set in motion emboldened many of them to demand independence.
Soviet forces used deadly force in some instances in the dying days of the USSR against civilians. Politicians in Lithuania and Latvia recalled those events with horror after Gorbachev's death, saying they still blamed him for the bloodshed.
Palazhchenko said Gorbachev, who he said believed in solving problems solely via political means, had either not known about some of those bloody episodes beforehand or "extremely reluctantly" authorised the use of force to prevent chaos.
Gorbachev's position on Ukraine was complex and contradictory in his own mind, said Palazhchenko, because the late politician still believed in the idea of the Soviet Union.
"Of course in his heart the kind of mental map for him and for most people of his political generation is still a kind of imagined country that includes most of the former Soviet Union," said Palazhchenko.
But Gorbachev would not have waged war to restore the now defunct country he presided over from 1985-1991, he suggested.
"Of course I can't imagine him saying 'this is it, and I will do whatever to impose it'. No."
While Gorbachev believed his duty was to show Putin respect and support, his former interpreter said he spoke out publicly when he disagreed with him such as on the treatment of the media. But he had taken a decision not to "provide a running commentary" on Ukraine beyond approving a statement in February that called for an early end to hostilities and for humanitarian concerns to be addressed.
Gorbachev's relationship with Ukraine has sometimes been difficult. Kyiv banned him in 2016 after he told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper he would have acted in the same way as Putin did in 2014 in annexing Crimea.
"I’m always with the free will of the people and most in Crimea wanted to be reunited with Russia,” Gorbachev said at the time, referring to the outcome of a referendum which Kyiv and the West called illegal.
Some Ukrainians also blame him for the initial Soviet cover-up of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
HISTORY'S VERDICT
While conceding that some Russians and people across the former Soviet empire held extremely negative views of Gorbachev for the economic and geopolitical tumult that followed the 1991 collapse of the USSR, Palazhchenko argued that Gorbachev's legacy was still substantial.
He had not only helped end the Cold War and reduced the risk of nuclear war, he said, but had voluntarily dismantled totalitarianism inside the Soviet Union and given Russia a chance for freedom and democracy.
"I think that he did remain optimistic about Russia's future," despite his own legacy being "mangled" and what he regarded as "unfair criticism", said Palazhchenko.
"He believed that the people of Russia are very talented people and once they are given a chance, maybe a second chance, that that talent...will show."
Palazhchenko, who reminisced about Cold War U.S.-Soviet summits and chatting in a limousine with Gorbachev after White House talks, said he and his colleagues now faced the task of going through Gorbachev's papers and books at the late politician's state-owned dacha outside Moscow as there was lots of material that had not yet been systematically catalogued in his archive.
Visibly angered by criticism of Gorbachev since his death by some people on social media whom he called "haters", Palazhchenko said his former employer thought history would judge him rightly.
"He liked to say that history is a fickle lady. I think that he believed and that he expected that the final verdict will be positive for him."
Deforestation near Humaita, in Amazonas state, Brazil. (photo: Bruno Kelly/Reuters)
New paper issues ‘warning to humanity’ as it calls for urgent action to protect world’s 60,000 tree species
A new paper predicts severe consequences for people, wildlife and the planet’s ecosystems if the widespread loss of trees continues. “Last year, we published the State of the World’s Trees report, where we showed at least 17,500 tree species, about a third of the world’s 60,000 tree species, are at risk of extinction,” said Malin Rivers, lead author of the paper and head of conservation prioritisation at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). “Now we want to highlight why it matters that so many tree species are going extinct.
“Without acting now, it will impact humanity, our economies and livelihoods. Ecologically, it will have a catastrophic impact on the planet.”
The joint warning from BGCI and the Global Tree Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s species survival commission (IUCN SSC) is backed by 45 scientists from more than 20 countries, including the UK, the US, India and Haiti, with calls for action signed by more than 30 organisations, including botanic gardens, arboretums and universities.
According to the paper, the world’s forests contribute $1.3tn (£1.1tn) to the global economy. Timber is the most valuable commodity, but non-timber products, such as fruit, nuts, and medicine, create $88bn in global trade. Of the fruit available for global consumption, 53% comes from trees.
Globally, more than 1.6 billion people live within 5km (3 miles) of a forest and rely on them for jobs and money. In developing countries, forests provide up to 25% of household income.
“Some people live in the forest and use it for subsistence, for food, shelter and medicine,” Rivers said. “Many more people use forests for their income, to sell things they collect or make from the forest. All those people will be directly impacted by tree losses. A lot of trees also have special spiritual or cultural meaning. When those tree species are lost, that cultural heritage is also lost, like the dragon’s blood trees in Yemen, or baobabs in Madagascar.”
The large-scale extinction of tree species would lead to major biodiversity losses. Half of the world’s animal and plant species rely on trees as their habitat, with forests containing about 75% of bird species, 68% of mammal species and as many as 10 million species of invertebrates. Forest-dependent species have already declined by about 53% since 1970. “When we look at extinction risks for mammals or birds, underlying that is habitat loss, and habitat loss is often tree loss,” said Rivers. “If we don’t look after trees, there’s no way we can look after all the other life there.”
The extinction of a single tree species can significantly alter an ecosystem, causing a domino effect in its ability to function. When eucalyptus and dipterocarp trees are destroyed, for example, forests are more at risk from fire, pests and disease.
Forests provide 50% of the world’s carbon storage, so further tree extinctions would reduce our ability to fight climate breakdown. “The new thing in this paper is that it’s the diversity of trees that is so important,” said Rivers. “We’re showing that diverse forests store more carbon than monocultures. That’s true for many of the ecological functions, not just carbon capture, but providing habitat to animals, soil stabilisation, resilience to pests and diseases, resilience to storms and adverse weather. By losing tree diversity, we’ll also lose diversity in all organisms: birds, animals, fungi, micro-organisims, insects.”
More than 100 tree species are already extinct in the wild, but despite their importance, billions of trees are still being lost each year to pests, disease, invasive species, drought, climate breakdown and industrial-scale deforestation for wood, cattle-farming, palm oil and other agriculture, from tropical islands to species-rich areas, such as the Amazon and Borneo.
Ahead of the UN’s Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal this December, the scientists behind the paper are calling for more protection for the world’s trees, including strengthening the role of trees in environmental and climate policy at state level.
“We want to see action,” said Rivers. “We can all take responsibility for the beef we’re eating and where it’s coming from, and making sure tree products are sustainably sourced. But we also want to see governments take responsibility, so there’s joined up thinking on biodiversity, climate change and other issues.”
Doug Mastriano, Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor. (photo: Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)
GOP candidates in states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona are laying the groundwork to challenge an unfavorable result.
But this year, according to recent Washington Post reporting, 54 of 87 GOP candidates running for positions with power over the way elections are certified in presidential battlegrounds have falsely claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and say they would have done things differently. The next time a presidential candidate seeks out help overturning an election, they could find willing accomplices in these candidates.
Though there are candidates who have peddled Trump’s election lies in every projected 2024 battleground, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona present three scenarios for how bad actors — as secretaries of state or state attorneys general, in governors’ mansions or in state legislatures — could abuse their power over certifying elections to subvert a result they personally disagree with. Here’s how they could do it:
Wisconsin: A campaign to seize power from a bipartisan elections commission
How Wisconsin’s election system works:
The success of an effort to put Wisconsin’s elections in partisan hands would require cooperation from officials up and down the ballot there. Because of the checks and balances the state has put in place, overturning an election would mean getting sign-off from the winners of the secretary of state and gubernatorial races, as well as continued GOP dominance in state legislature contests.
What the GOP is doing:
Trump allies are targeting the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which administers elections and has the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of election laws. It was established in 2015 by the Republican-controlled state legislature and was intended to function similarly to the Federal Elections Commission, with three Republican and three Democratic appointees.
The commission has significant discretion over how elections are conducted, and plays a role in certifying election results. In 2020, after Republicans sought recounts in the large, heavily Democratic counties of Milwaukee and Dane based on false claims of fraud, the commission determined that President Joe Biden had won.
State Republicans have since called for the dissolution of the commission, whose policies, they falsely argue, led to fraudulent votes that cost Trump reelection.
“The problem for Republicans is that the Wisconsin Elections Commission was pretty scrupulous. It did not tilt elections towards Republicans like they thought it would,” said Jay Heck, executive director of the democracy group Common Cause Wisconsin.
State Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, the Republican nominee for Wisconsin secretary of state, is one of those Republicans seeking to dismantle the commission and to re-empower the secretary of state’s office to preside over the state’s elections for the first time since the 1970s. (Before the commission, there was the Government Accountability Board, which also ran elections.)
If a Republican secretary of state presided over elections, they could tighten up rules around voting, from identification requirements to who could cast an absentee ballot and where they could drop it off — policies that, individually, might not cause a huge drop-off in voting, but together, amount to “death by a thousand cuts,” Heck said. And, if the secretary of state did assume the commission’s current power to certify the election results, they could try to disrupt that process as well.
Republican legislators introduced a bill expanding the secretary of state’s powers earlier this year, but it didn’t go up for debate before the end of the legislative session. State Republicans also fast-tracked a package of bills earlier this year aiming to strip the Wisconsin Elections Commission of its power and resources and force it to answer to the state legislature. So long as Republicans maintain their big majorities in both chambers, as they’re expected to, voting rights groups warn that these measures are likely to pass.
The legislature isn’t expected to have a veto-proof majority, however, and that makes who becomes governor important.
Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has supported the Wisconsin Elections Commission, is one of the most vulnerable incumbent governors across the country this year. His GOP opponent, construction magnate Tim Michels, has repeatedly echoed Trump’s election lies and has said that he’s open to decertifying Biden’s 2020 win in the state, even though there is no legal means to do so. The Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.
How bad it could get:
Essentially, Heck said, “Republicans are trying to weaken the Wisconsin Elections Commission for 2024 so that, when Trump runs again and Wisconsin will again be a very closely divided state, the election apparatus would be able to make decisions that would be very favorable for a Republican presidential candidate.”
Pennsylvania: Where the governor can unilaterally shape elections
How Pennsylvania’s election system works:
The biggest threat to the 2024 election in Pennsylvania is state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for governor.
Mastriano’s an ardent MAGA Republican who bused hundreds of people to Washington, DC, and was outside the US Capitol on the day of the January 6, 2021, insurrection. He was also a key figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. Mastriano organized a state Senate hearing featuring Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, an unauthorized audit of voting machines that ultimately cost him a committee chair position, and a scheme to send fake electors who were favorable to Trump to Congress.
If elected, he would have the power to appoint Pennsylvania’s top election official, the “Secretary of the Commonwealth.” He hasn’t named who he intends to appoint if elected, but he’s indicated that it would be an individual who shares his philosophy on elections.
“As governor, I get to appoint the secretary of state. And I have a voting reform-minded individual who’s been traveling the nation and knows voting reform extremely well,” Mastriano told Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for Trump, in an April interview. “That individual has agreed to be my secretary of state.”
Elections in Pennsylvania are decentralized, with county officials holding most of the power over how elections are conducted. But the secretary of state still plays a key role, largely by issuing guidance; in 2020, for example, they gave county election boards direction on how to interpret a new law that allowed vote-by-mail statewide.
How bad it could get:
Mastriano has indicated he’s interested in a secretary of state who would use that power to restrict access to voting. He notably proposed making everyone re-register in an effort to purge voter rolls of dead voters and those registered to nonexistent addresses — an action that he claims the secretary of state could take unilaterally.
Secretaries of state in Pennsylvania can also choose to participate in defending challenges to election law. And they have to certify the voting machines selected by each of Pennsylvania’s counties. (Mastriano has suggested that he would decertify all of the state’s voting machines “with the stroke of a pen” via his secretary of state.)
Finally, they gather the election results from the counties and certify them. No one has ever refused to certify them, but that’s what watchdogs worry Mastriano’s pick for secretary of state would do.
“If you refuse to do that, you’d run into a situation where there would be litigation, but it would certainly throw a wrench into the process,” Jessica Marsden, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit focused on preserving fair and free elections, said.
Also worrying to pro-democracy experts are the ways Mastriano’s shown that he can activate supporters; his involvement in January 6 in particular has put voting rights groups on high alert for political violence.
“He has an ability to galvanize people to turn out in person and [do] harm,” said Salewa Ogunmefun, executive director of the voting rights group Pennsylvania Voice.
Arizona: A state that could be completely led by election deniers
All of the Republican nominees for the top three statewide offices in Arizona — state attorney general nominee Abraham Hamadeh, secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem and gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake — have made Trump’s 2020 election lies central to their campaigns.
None of them say they would have certified the results, suggesting that they might challenge an unfavorable result in 2024 if given the chance. Lake even preempted her own primary win by saying that she would challenge the results if she lost because it would have indicated “there’s some cheating going on.”
How Arizona’s election system works:
Each would have a role to play in the election certification process in 2024. Every county in Arizona has to separately certify their election results via the county board of supervisors; those results then get transmitted to the secretary of state. On the fourth Monday following a general election, the secretary of state canvasses the certified results from the counties in the presence of the governor and the state attorney general.
It’s not clear what the legal implications might be if the governor or attorney general didn’t show up for that step, and that could present a potential opportunity for Lake or Hamadeh to delay or undermine the certification, Marsden said.
The secretary of state is then supposed to formally certify the result, and the governor has an additional responsibility to sign the certificate of ascertainment that names the slate of electors, and send it to Congress. The governor could theoretically refuse to sign the certificate or sign a certificate with a slate of electors that didn’t match up with the popular vote.
How bad it could get:
If elected, Finchem would also have some control over the basic rules of how the election is conducted. Among other proposals, he wants to eliminate early voting entirely.
“That would certainly disenfranchise lots of voters and also potentially cause a lot of chaos in an election system that has for years relied on a substantial number of people voting earlier,” Marsden said. And Finchem has, as a state lawmaker, backed legislation that would allow the GOP-controlled state legislature to overturn the results of a future presidential election, allowing it to instead award delegates to its chosen candidate.
Should Hamadeh, Finchem, and Lake try to exploit their offices to overturn the election results, Marsden said, “There would certainly be litigation that would follow … But I think it would certainly increase the chance of a major election crisis.”
Even if they aren’t successful in materially impacting the results, they could still do significant damage to voter confidence. State officials “have really crucial megaphones to either bolster or cast doubt on election results,” Marsden said.
A Yemeni woman and her grandson in 2021 visit the grave of her late son in Sana'a. (photo: Yahya Arhab/EPA)
The horrors of this conflict, and the lives it has taken, must not be kept hidden. As the bombs continue to fall around us, I have gathered these witness testimonies as a memory against forgetting
Hadi fled the country on 25 March. That same day, a military coalition organised by Saudi Arabia in support of Hadi and against the Houthi uprising began airstrikes. (The coalition also included the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Senegal, Sudan, Qatar and Morocco.) At 2am on Thursday 26 March, Arab coalition fighter planes suddenly cut through the Sana’a sky and war became a reality. What’s engraved in my mind from that morning isn’t the roar of the explosions, or the horrifying thunder of planes piercing the sound barrier, or my anxiety over the trajectory of missiles hitting targets further than I could see, or the sounds of war that I had grown accustomed to. Rather, it is the shock of how war was conjured, how life collapsed in one fell swoop – civil infighting, the humiliation of hunger, the indignity of it all, our generation’s lost dreams.
We have returned to precivilisation. All cities are without electricity: we live by candlelight and the gas lanterns our ancestors used. When the gas runs out at home, families resort to cutting down trees to burn in wood stoves. There’s no clean water to drink. Every day, children and elderly people line up with pots at tankers donated by some doer of good. You see poverty wherever you turn: citizens have lost their jobs and livelihoods, impoverished to the point where they don’t even question the meaning of war. Women and children fight over scraps from rubbish piles. Families sleep outside. People are relocated to miserable camps on the outskirts of cities and left there, abandoned by the world, forgotten.
Amid this complete misery, a different world emerged: one of new villas whose cement boundary walls span several streets, lavish highrises glittering in dusty backstreets, sprawling malls, new petrol stations, currency exchanges, private schools and hospitals – all financed by stolen national revenue. This is the world of the new war-rich, the war profiteers, the hidden market tycoons, the relatives of the Houthi militias and of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Elites enrich themselves at the expense of the millions starving in Yemen. This is precisely why they are so keen for this war to last as long as possible.
As I write, the roar of explosions swells, our windows shudder. These explosions that rob people of their sleep, and sometimes of their lives, have become the backdrop to my writing about victims of war. It is as if time has stood still since I began writing and recording the testimonies of victims’ families.
The scars of war don’t go away. They stay in our souls and our memory. They remain alive in the memory of all those who have experienced war and suffered its destruction, those who have lost their loved ones. You cannot forget the horror of this war or our tragedy simply because the world wants to pull the curtain down over it, to hide the victims and reward the executioners. So, then, these witness testimonies, their voices, are a finger in the eyes of the murderers and the hunting dogs they hide behind. They are a memory against forgetting, against feigning ignorance, against indifference. They are comfort and peace for the souls of all of those who have been killed and the loved ones who are left behind with nothing but memories.
‘In every house in this city, there is a story that must be put to bed’
As told by Sumaiyya Ahmed Saeed, from the city of Taiz in Yemen’s south-west. On 20 August 2015, at 4.30pm, the Houthi militia targeted a group of children playing next to a shop that belonged to Sumaiyya’s husband, Muhammad Qasim Rashid al-Khadami, in Taiz’s al-Dhaboua neighbourhood. Three of their children – Usaid Muhammad Qasim Rashid al-Khadami (8), Rahma Muhammad Qasim Rashid al-Khadami (6), and Ezzedine Muhammad Qasim Rashid al-Khadami (2) – were killed, as was Sumaiyya’s father-in-law, Ahmed Ali Ahmed al-Khadami (50), and a number of other children from the neighbourhood.
A week ago, I was blessed with a boy; I named him Usaid [she bites her nails anxiously], after my firstborn, who was killed. I wish I didn’t remember what happened. In the early days, we would remember our children and cry – then, after some time we would each grieve alone. When Muhammad’s mind wanders and his vision glazes over, black, I know very well in those moments that he’s missing them. He doesn’t talk about the children, and when I ask him about them, he goes quiet. I cry, and he becomes sad and withdrawn.
As time went on, I convinced myself that it was better not to mention the children in front of him. I leave my sadness inside, lock it up in my heart. A pain has grown between us, one that has come to occupy a giant space in our lives. Even so, I didn’t want to make life harder for him – he was struggling to forget. What happened is still there in his injured eye, his glass eye, which contains it all. [I told her that when I interviewed her husband, he collapsed crying, so I stopped recording.] Whenever someone would visit me, I’d wail uncontrollably, not knowing who I was any more.
The thing is, I don’t have the kind of mind that can forget. I stay silent; Muhammad grows sadder. When we hear the bombs, I say: “The shells will kill us this time.” But when they pass over us, I think of the house the shells destroyed. I think of corpses, dead children, grieving mothers. That’s when I wish we lived in a room underground, so I wouldn’t hear the bombs or the news of death. I lost my baby in the first months of the war, when I was still in my first month of pregnancy. My children were killed after. [She cries.]
But what makes my story special? It’s the same for thousands of women who have lost their children to war. In every house in this city, there’s a story that must be put to bed, one that no one should reawaken. [She looks off into the distance.] I’m tired. I’ve been in this room overlooking the alleys the whole time, and from this low window I’ve heard the children’s squeals and shouting, my children’s friends playing, carrying on as if nothing has changed. Life goes on around me, indifferent to me – me, whose children were taken by war, with nothing left but my memories of them. I remember my son Usaid and my daughter Rahma playing in the neighbourhood while I tidied up the house and prepared lunch. They raised their voices to let me know they were nearby. Such things would comfort me. But what’s the use of remembering now?
When I think of them being killed, I lose it. [She cries.] I remember my last words with my uncle – I was standing in the basement room we used to live in, my children playing around me like always; I was reassured by their racket. My uncle picked up my son Ezzedine and said: “I’ll take him outside with me to get some fresh air.” I didn’t think that would be the last time I’d ever see them. [She cries.] I felt a tightness in my chest – I couldn’t breathe, and asked myself: “Why is the basement so hot today? Why is it so dark, even though the lights are on?”
As Muhammad was getting ready to go out, he said: “The resistance has freed the al-Qahira Castle! The world is safe again, let the children play outside.” Hearing what her father said, Rahma took her twin sister and went out, with the others following behind. I don’t know why I let them go out. [She weeps bitterly.] The basement walls crumbled under the force of the blast – the world around me grew dark. I called out to Muhammad to bring the children inside, but he didn’t answer. Then I heard a scream, like the sound of an animal being slaughtered. It was Muhammad. The world began to spin. I ran outside into the street. [She cries and bites her nails. She fans her fingers out and looks at them.] I called out to my husband again, not paying attention to the blood flowing from his eye. Looking at the corpses, he grew pale and fainted.
I ran around the courtyard screaming and screaming, seeing my children’s bodies. Blood covered my uncle’s face, but he was still breathing, choking out his words. He pointed at my children. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I was running from one edge of the courtyard to another, then I stopped. When my eyes landed on Usaid and Ezzedine, I lost all control. They told me afterward that Usaid had been playing the helicopter game with him, carrying his brother in the air to make him fly when the missile hit them both. The bodies of my children – Usaid, Ezzedine, and Rahma – were next to their grandfather’s. I only saw my children. I couldn’t even hear the voices of those injured around me seeking help. I stood next to my children – Usaid was lying lifeless, Rahma had a huge gash in her back. An elderly man carried Ezzedine in front of me. I couldn’t look at him. My other daughter, Mawadda, was injured – she had been with her twin, Rahma, when the missile hit. Her sister flew through the air right before her eyes.
Mawadda is still in shock. She has lost her twin, her lifelong playmate. She was pierced by shrapnel and still hasn’t got any better – she’s always in her own world. When she sees a stranger in our house, she hides. She doesn’t want her sister’s name to be said in her presence, and when she plays with the children in the neighbourhood she avoids anyone who mentions Rahma. She refuses to go to the school where she and her sister studied together. The one day she went, she came home in tears.
I visit my children in the cemetery whenever I get the chance, but I’m still not convinced they’re dead. Living in memories is painful, because you realise that no matter what you do, they’ve become just that – memories, no longer real life. My husband hid their photos. He doesn’t want me to see them because I’ll cry, and that will be the end of him. But I was able to get some from a friend and have hidden them away. I’ll never forget my children. Every day I curse the militia – they’ve robbed me of my children and now I only see them in my dreams. I don’t want anyone to visit me. I just want to cry alone.
‘I dream of the moment just before the missile fell’
As told by Ahmad Abdel Hameed Sayf, from al-Qutay, a village in the western governorate of Hodeidah. On 26 January 2017 at 5.40pm, Arab coalition aeroplanes attacked the house of Ahmad’s brother, Fahmi Abdel Hameed Sayf, in al-Qutay. Fahmi’s wife, Asma Abdel Qader Yassin Sharaf (30), was killed, as were three of their children – Muhammad Fahmi Abdel Hameed Sayf (12), Malak Fahmi Abdel Hameed Sayf (3), and Malakat Fahmi Abdel Hameed Sayf (1 1/2) – along with another girl, Nisreen Hassan Zayd Muhammad (10), three women, and two of their neighbour Abdel Kareem Abdel Hameed’s children. Fahmi and Asma’s son Ammar Fahmi Abdel Hameed Sayf (8) was injured and his left leg was amputated. SabaFon, the mobile phone company that was the nominal target of the attack, refused to compensate the families or pay for any treatment.
It had to be a horror movie. It was unreal. A movie with no sound or actors. One that directed itself, only about a second long, and which only I saw: missiles flying, arriving from the west, falling, then hitting my brother’s house. I always pause at that moment, playing it over in my head, speeding it up at times to see for myself what happened afterward. At other times I pause it, then let it play in slow motion until the details are etched in my memory. I interfere in the movie, freezing the missiles and pausing time itself, again and again. The nights when I see my brother sad and silent, and my attempts to console him are of no avail, I imagine that I’d had the power to stop those missiles, or that the universe had stepped in at that very moment with an earthquake or a hurricane, something bigger than us all, making those missiles explode in midair before they had the chance to destroy our lives.
But now I think about how missiles don’t just fall from the sky. There’s a mind behind them, a villain who presses the button to lock in a target – my brother’s home – killing women and children. Look around you. There’s nothing here in al-Qutay, nothing. [He falls silent.] Just scattered homes of poor families, a repair shop, a market. No military barracks, patrols, militia or even armed men. For years it’s only been us living here. We’ve had nothing to do with the war, we’ve tried to live in peace. But then they came here with their missiles and killed my brother’s family. [He takes out a cigarette and smokes.]
Some days later I heard what some people were saying and lost it. They were saying that the coalition’s missiles had targeted the SabaFon antenna next to my brother’s house. Liars. Bastards. If that were true then the coalition should have warned the residents: “Listen up you fools, we’re going to blow up this damn useless aerial.” We would have then immediately picked up our children and run away with our families to the desert. But the antenna wasn’t touched – the missile fell on my brother’s house, which had been the target all along.
I don’t know what made me stop at that moment. In the movie in my head, I don’t stop, but what actually happened was different. Fear seized my body when I saw death before my eyes. I froze and thought of what was going to happen. My brother was next to me, but he was looking in another direction. I don’t know where I got the strength. I held Fahmi tight in my arms, so that he wouldn’t see, but when he turned around he saw the explosion and the smoke rising from his house. He struggled against me, I hugged him tighter and let him cry, his body was shaking in my arms. Some friends came and helped me stabilise him. “Keep an eye on him,” I said. “I’ll go and have a look.” I was afraid he’d hurt himself. [He cries and puts out his cigarette.]
I was the first to go into the house, alone. I didn’t think about the roof, which could have fallen in at any moment. What I saw was horrific. I couldn’t get any closer – I stood where I was, in the middle of it all, not aware of what was around me. After some time, a few families arrived together, carrying away pieces of furniture and other things. They were ransacking the house. I couldn’t stop them, I was numb. [He cries.] I didn’t pay attention to Fahmi – I was staring at the burned bodies, the crushed bodies, the dismembered bodies, the distorted bodies, some of which had been flung outside the house because the blast had been so powerful.
First, I saw some neighbours and a child from our area, and then, on the opposite side, my sister-in-law, her young son, Muhammad, and her two daughters, Malak and Malakat. When I saw Malakat dead, her feet and hands missing, my tears started to fall. Oh, Malakat! Oh darling, I wish I had taken you with me. That day she wouldn’t leave my side. She had told me: “Ammu, take me with you.” I carried her with me and took her out to the shop, then dropped her off back home. The missile hit minutes later. [He cries bitterly.] My brother’s screams that day, the missile whistling in the air and then falling on his house, the smoke, the burned bodies. These are the images that have kept me awake for months. Sometimes, I dream of the moment just before the missile fell, and in those dreams I always manage to stop it. My brother is still tormented – he can’t sleep, he can’t forget. He’s preoccupied with finding treatment for his injured son.
I carry my brother’s sorrows. I enter the house and the memories come rushing back. I remember my brother’s children and his wife, their laughter, the noise they would make, our beautiful life together. Damn the coalition and whoever came with them to our country, damn every side that has murdered Yemeni people. They’re all just that – murderers.
Who will bring back Malak, Malakat, Muhammad and Asma to my brother?
Who? Tell me who? Who?
‘I stood silent that day among the rubble, looking at what was no longer there’
As told by Sabah Abda Ahmad Fare, from the Erat Hamdan area of Sana’a. On 2 June 2015 at 5.30pm, Arab coalition aeroplanes targeted Sabah’s house. Two of Sabah’s children – Noura Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Qabali (19) and Shuhab Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Qabali (5) – were killed. Her daughter’s friends Lubna Sultan and Ishraq al-Zaifi were also killed. Four of her neighbor Qaid al-Atmi’s children were killed: Rudaina al-Atmi, Ameera al-Atmi, Abdo al-Atmi and Adeeb al-Atmi. The coalition destroyed Sabah’s house, which her husband, Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Qabali, had built himself.
It was just like any other day, except my daughter’s friends were over. I remember how happy she was to have them there; she hadn’t seen them for months. I looked intently at her radiant face, a mother mesmerised by her only daughter, shortly to be engaged. Two days earlier, her aunt had asked for Noura’s hand for her son. “I’ll think about it,” Noura had said. That day I wanted to give her and her friends some privacy. I told Noura: “I’m going over to Um Lubna’s, make sure to call Shuhab inside if it looks like rain.”
At 4.15pm, I heard the planes overhead and told myself: “Maybe they’ll bomb Jabal Nuqum or Erat Hamdan – the highest points near us – like they have before.” In that moment, I remembered my son Shuhab, and how scared he’d get from the sound of the planes. Whenever he heard them, he’d yank on my neck and I’d get impatient, saying: “You’re choking me Shuhab, you’re choking me ibni.” In his trembling voice he’d respond: “Mama, I’m holding you tight so you don’t get scared.”
My neighbour Um Lubna told me: “Don’t worry, Shuhab’s probably inside now.” Then the windows exploded and shards of glass flew around us. Um Lubna’s house filled with smoke. “I’ll have a look outside and check on Shuhab,” her sister said. And then: “Khala! Your house isn’t there.” [She falls silent.]
Can you imagine? Your house and everyone in it, just gone, swallowed whole by the earth. When I saw the remains of my house through their window frame, I was unable to speak. I don’t remember how I held myself together, how I crossed the few metres to where the house had been, replaced now by a hole 6 metres deep. All I remember are the limbs, the plane circling above our heads, the smoke everywhere, and me in shock, staring at what was left of my home, and of my neighbour’s, which had been partly destroyed.
Faces passed by in front of me. Limbs, corpses. My son Khalid dug to get his siblings out. He held a small foot and my legs gave way. It was Shuhab’s leg – it definitely was. This wasn’t simply a mother’s intuition: I recognised the black trousers and jacket I’d dressed him in that morning.
I walked aimlessly, leaving behind what had been our home. One of the neighbourhood women saw me and took me to a clinic nearby. The clinic was full of injured people. I saw my other neighbour, who had been pulled from the rubble. She was mourning her four children who had been killed. I held her in my arms and repeated to myself the truth of what happened. She was rambling, repeating her children’s names.
I didn’t yell like other mothers who’ve lost their children. I didn’t strike my face in lament. I refused to look at my children’s limbs. I stood silent that day among the rubble, looking at what was no longer there. Steadfastness took root in that moment, washing over me like cool water. In that moment, when I sat in front of the remains of my home, where everything I had was gone, steadfastness forced me to face reality, to remember Noura as I had last seen her, laughing, happy with her friends, and Shuhab, playing, singing, unafraid of the plane that would kill him.
You have no idea how much steadfastness can give you when disaster strikes. Strength, perhaps; maybe numbness, as my sister says. But I dream that one day I’ll be with Noura and Shuhab, and that we’ll be in another beautiful home.
Three days after the bombing, I wanted to see what had once been my home. I just stared at the hole that had swallowed up my family and lost myself in the memories of time past, sheltered by the home my husband toiled for years to build. A place to protect us from the elements, the home that was no longer, the home that had become a hole.
In my mind, I look into the heart of the hole. I remember our life in the disappeared house, and Noura, how happy she was, how cherished she was, how everyone loved her. Her whole life had been in front of her. I remember Shuhab playing in the hallways. I remember life as perfect and complete. Wordless, I go on looking and looking, down into the hole.
"The city and state have already begun distributing bottled water to residents, but the crisis could also disrupt other essential services." (photo: Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)
Nearly 200,000 people in Mississippi’s capital don’t have water to drink, flush toilets, or fight fires.
The city and state have already begun distributing bottled water to residents, but the crisis could also disrupt other essential services. “Until it is fixed, we do not have reliable running water at scale,” Reeves said in the briefing. “The city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to flush toilets and to meet other critical needs.” This week, Jackson has temperatures over 90 degrees and city schools have switched to virtual classes because of the situation.
Heavy rains and flooding from the Pearl River have caused serious complications with one of two treatment plants that provides water for Jackson. With the plant not functioning as normal, raw reservoir water is being pushed into pipes that feed Jackson’s water supply, leading to the governor’s warning. According to a statement from Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who also declared a state of emergency, the shortage is likely to last “the next couple of days.”
Flooding comes amid an increase in devastating climate change-driven floods in Kentucky, Missouri, and other communities across the country. The Pearl River floods are also impacting communities beyond Jackson, including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which issued a boil water advisory on Monday.
The city of Jackson has been dealing with a substandard water system for years. In March 2020, the EPA found the system had the potential for bacteria like E. Coli in the water, issued an emergency order to address the system’s deficiencies, and has been working with the state and city since then to improve the system. After a storm froze pipes across the city in 2021, many residents lost access to clean water for weeks. Last October, lawyers representing hundreds of Jackson children sued the city over water system failures and mismanagement that led to “hundreds, if not thousands” of children to be poisoned by lead across the city. Since July, Jackson has been under a boil water advisory because tests revealed potentially contaminated water.
Local advocates say that the city’s water problems are rooted in a history of racism and neglect. The city suffers from old infrastructure that was designed to support a larger population. After the civil rights movement led to the integration of schools and other public facilities in the 1960s, white people fled the city by the thousands. According to the Jackson Free Press, nearly 20,000 white people left the city between 2000 and 2010. When white people left, the city lost both tax revenue and institutional support. Today, the city is roughly 80 percent Black. Similar circumstances have led to water crises in Flint, Detroit, and other cities.
That history has also contributed to tensions between the city and state governments. Lumumba, who is Black, has clashed with Reeves, who is white, and other state officials over funding and management of Jackson’s water system. In the wake of the 2021 freeze crisis, weeks passed before any coordinated effort between the state and city to fix the situation took place. Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann has previously blamed water issues on Black leadership in Jackson. Lumumba, who has said the issue has always been state funding, was not invited to Reeves’ briefing on Monday.
“We will do everything in our power to restore water pressure and get water flowing back to the people of Jackson,” Reeves said.
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