In describing Vladimir Putin and his inside circle, I’ve usually considered a comment by John Maynard Keynes about Georges Clemenceau, French prime minister through the first world warfare: that he was an totally disillusioned particular person who “had one phantasm — France”.
One thing related may very well be stated of Russia’s governing elite, and helps to elucidate the appallingly dangerous collective gamble they’ve taken by invading Ukraine. Ruthless, grasping and cynical they might be — however they don’t seem to be cynical concerning the concept of Russian greatness.
The western media make use of the time period “oligarch” to explain super-wealthy Russians typically, together with these now wholly or largely resident within the west. The time period gained traction within the Nineties, and has lengthy been critically misused. Within the time of President Boris Yeltsin, a small group of rich businessmen did certainly dominate the state, which they plundered in collaboration with senior officers. This group was, nonetheless, damaged by Putin throughout his first years in energy.
Three of the highest seven “oligarchs” tried to defy Putin politically. Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky have been pushed overseas, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed after which exiled. The others, and their quite a few lesser equivalents, have been allowed to maintain their companies inside Russia in return for unconditional public subservience to Putin. When Putin met (by video hyperlink) main Russian businessmen after launching the invasion of Ukraine, there was no query of who was giving the orders.
The drive that broke the oligarchs was the previous KGB, reorganised in its numerous successor providers. Putin himself, in fact, got here from the KGB, and a big majority of the highest elite underneath Putin are from the KGB or related state backgrounds (although not the armed forces).
This group have remained remarkably secure and homogenous underneath Putin, and are (or was once) near him personally. Underneath his management, they’ve plundered their nation (although not like the earlier oligarchs, they’ve stored most of their wealth inside Russia) and have participated or acquiesced in his crimes, together with the best of all of them, the invasion of Ukraine. They’ve echoed each Putin’s vicious propaganda towards Ukraine and his denunciations of western decadence.
As Russia plunges deeper right into a navy quagmire and financial disaster, a central query is whether or not — if the warfare is just not ended shortly by a peace settlement — Putin may be eliminated (or persuaded to step down) by the Russian elites themselves, with a purpose to attempt to extricate Russia and themselves from the pit he has dug for them. To evaluate the possibilities of this requires an understanding of the character of the modern Russian elites, and above all of Putin’s inside core.
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By means of illustrating the depth of the Russian disaster of the Nineties and figuring out with all those that suffered from it, Putin has stated that at one stage he was lowered — whereas nonetheless a serving lieutenant colonel of the KGB — to moonlighting as a contract taxi driver with a purpose to complement his revenue. That is believable sufficient. In 1994, whereas I used to be working as a journalist for The Occasions in Russia and the previous USSR, my driver within the North Caucasus was an ex-major within the KGB. “We thought we have been the spine of the Soviet Union,” he stated to me bitterly. “Now have a look at us. Actual Chekists!”
Regardless of amassing immense wealth and energy, Putin and his inside circle stay intensely resentful of the best way the USSR collapsed
“Actual Chekist” (nastoyashchy chekist) was a Soviet propaganda phrase referring to the qualities of ruthless self-discipline, braveness, ideological dedication and honesty supposedly attribute of the Cheka, the primary Soviet secret police shaped by Lenin and his associates. It grew to become the topic of many Soviet jokes, however there may be little doubt that Putin and his high elite proceed to see themselves on this gentle, because the spine of Russia — although Putin, who’s something however a revolutionary, seems to determine rather more strongly with the safety elites of imperial Russia.
An attention-grabbing illustration of this comes from Union of Salvation (Soyuz Spaseniya, 2019), a movie concerning the radical Decembrist revolt of 1825, made with the assist of the Russian state. To the appreciable shock of older Russian mates of mine who have been introduced as much as revere the Decembrists, the heroes of this movie are Tsar Nicholas I and the loyal imperial generals and bureaucrats who fought to protect authorities and order towards the rebels.
Though they’ve amassed immense energy and wealth, Putin and his rapid circle stay intensely resentful of the best way wherein the Soviet Union, Russia and their very own service collapsed within the Nineties — and nice energy blended with nice resentment is likely one of the most harmful mixtures in each home and worldwide politics.
As Putin’s autocratic tendencies have grown, actual energy (versus wealth) throughout the system has come to rely an increasing number of on continuous private entry to the president; and the variety of these with such entry has narrowed — particularly because the Covid pandemic led to Putin’s drastic bodily isolation — to a handful of shut associates.
5 of Putin’s inside circle
Sergei Lavrov, 71, overseas minister
Sergei Naryshkin, 67, overseas intelligence chief
Nikolai Patrushev, 70, secretary of Russia’s safety council
Igor Sechin, 61, chief govt of Rosneft
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Sergei Shoigu, 66, defence minister
In his first years in energy, Putin (who was a comparatively junior KGB officer) may very well be thought to be “first amongst equals” in a high elite of mates and colleagues. Not. More and more, even the siloviki have been publicly lowered to servants of the autocrat — as was graphically illustrated by Putin’s humiliation of his overseas intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, on the televised assembly of the Nationwide Safety Council on the eve of warfare. Such contemptuous behaviour in direction of his rapid followers may come again to chunk Putin, because it has so many previous autocrats.
These males are recognized in Russia because the “siloviki” — “males of drive”, or even perhaps, within the Irish phrase, “laborious males”. A transparent line ought to be drawn between the siloviki and the broader Russian elites — giant and really disparate and disunited congeries of high businessmen, senior officers exterior the inside circle, main media figures, high generals, patriotic intellectuals and the motley crew of native notables, placemen and fixers who make up the management of Putin’s United Russia occasion.
Amongst a few of the wider Russian elites, unease on the invasion of Ukraine and its penalties is already obvious. Naturally sufficient, this has begun with the financial elites, given their deep stakes in enterprise with the west and their understanding of the catastrophic affect of western sanctions on the Russian economic system. Roman Abramovich, his discomfort clear sufficient as he sought patrons for Chelsea Soccer Membership, discovered the sale halted this week when his UK belongings have been frozen. Mikhail Fridman, chairman of Alfa Group (already severely hit by western sanctions) and one of many surviving former “oligarchs” from the Nineties, has known as for an early finish to the warfare, as has aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska.
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If there is no such thing as a peace settlement and the warfare drags on right into a bloody stalemate, the economic system declines precipitously and the Russian individuals see a steep fall of their residing requirements, then public unrest, state repression and state makes an attempt to dragoon and exploit enterprise will all inevitably improve radically, and so will the unhappiness of the broader elites.
These, nonetheless, lack the collective establishments and, maybe extra importantly, the collective identities that might permit them to mix simply to unseat Putin. The Duma, or decrease home of Russia’s parliament, was succinctly described to me by a Russian good friend as “a compost heap full of varied rotten greens”. This can be a bit too unkind — the Duma does include some first rate individuals — however it might be futile to look to it for any sort of political management.
The military, which elsewhere on the planet could be the standard establishment behind a coup, has been determinedly depoliticised, first by the Soviet state and now by Putin’s, in return for large state funding. It’s also now dedicated to navy victory in Ukraine, or a minimum of one thing that may be introduced as victory.
However, Putin’s ruthless purging of the higher ranks of the navy, together with the obvious incompetence with which the excessive command has steered the invasion of Ukraine, may result in appreciable future discontent within the military, together with lower-rank generals. Which means whereas the navy is not going to itself transfer towards Putin, it is usually impossible to maneuver to save lots of him.
A few of the best strain on Putin’s elite might come from their very own youngsters. The dad and mom nearly all grew up and started their careers within the last years of the Soviet Union. Their youngsters, nonetheless, have in lots of circumstances been educated and lived largely within the west. Many agree, a minimum of in non-public, with Elizaveta Peskova, daughter of Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who protested towards the warfare on Instagram (the submit was shortly eliminated). Dinner conversations within the Peskov household should be attention-grabbing affairs lately.
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The siloviki, nonetheless, are so carefully recognized with Putin and the warfare {that a} change within the Russian regime must contain the departure of most from energy, presumably in return for a promise that they’d not be arrested and would retain their household’s wealth (this was the assure that Putin made along with his predecessor Yeltsin).
I believe one purpose [the siloviki] steal on such a scale is that they see themselves as representatives of the state, and really feel that to be poorer than a bunch of businessmen is a humiliation, even an insult to the state
But this variation could also be a very long time coming. The siloviki have been precisely portrayed as deeply corrupt — however their corruption has particular options. Patriotism is their ideology and the self-justification for his or her immense wealth. I as soon as chatted over a cup of tea with a senior former Soviet official who had stored in contact along with his outdated mates in Putin’s elite. “You realize,” he mused, “in Soviet days most of us have been actually fairly pleased with a dacha, a color TV and entry to particular outlets with some western items, and holidays in Sochi. We have been completely comfy, and we solely in contrast ourselves with the remainder of the inhabitants, not with the western elites.
“Now at this time, in fact, the siloviki like their western luxuries, however I don’t know if all this colossal wealth is making them happier or if cash itself is an important factor for them. I believe one purpose they steal on such a scale is that they see themselves as representatives of the state they usually really feel that to be any poorer than a bunch of businessmen could be a humiliation, even a type of insult to the state. It was once that official rank gave you high standing. Now you must have large quantities of cash too. That’s what the Nineties did to Russian society.”
The siloviki are naturally connected to the concept of public order, an order that ensures their very own energy and property, however which additionally they consider is crucial to forestall Russia falling again into the chaos of the Nineties and the Russian revolution and civil warfare. The catastrophe of the Nineties, of their view, embraced not only a catastrophic decline of the state and economic system however socially harmful ethical anarchy — and their response has been not not like that of conservative American society to the Sixties or conservative German society to the Nineteen Twenties.
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On this, Putin and the siloviki have the sympathy of very giant components of the Russian inhabitants, who stay bitterly resentful — each on the manner they have been betrayed and plundered within the Nineties and what they understand because the open contempt proven in direction of odd Russians by the liberal cultural elites of Moscow and St Petersburg.
On one memorable event within the mid-Nineties, I used to be requested to offer an after-dinner speak at a convention held by a number one western financial institution for western traders and Russia’s monetary elite. The dinner befell at a well-known Moscow nightclub. Once I ran out of time, there was no query of a well mannered observe from the chairman; as a substitute, a jazzed-up model of a Soviet patriotic tune began blaring, and behind me on the stage appeared somebody in a bear costume waving the Russian navy ensign and main a line of dancers clad in very abbreviated variations of Russian nationwide costume.
The siloviki and the Russian official elite typically are totally, irrevocably dedicated to the concept of Russia as an ideal energy
Confronted with this competitors, I didn’t even attempt to keep on with my rigorously thought of summing-up, however retired bemused to my desk. Then, nonetheless, I started to get a distinctly chilly feeling. I remembered a scene from the 1972 movie Cabaret, set in a nightclub in Weimar Berlin not lengthy earlier than the Nazis’ rise to energy, wherein dancers carry out a parody of a parade earlier than a laughing viewers to the tune of a well-known German navy march. I puzzled whether or not in Russia, too, there was going to be a horrible invoice to pay for all this jollity — and I worry that Ukraine, and Russian troopers, at the moment are paying it.
One of many worst results of this warfare goes to be deep and long-lasting Russian isolation from the west. I consider, nonetheless, that Putin and the siloviki (although not many within the wider elites) welcome this isolation. They’re changing into impressed with the Chinese language mannequin: a tremendously dynamic economic system, a disciplined society and a rising navy superpower dominated over with iron management by a hereditary elite that mixes large wealth with deep patriotism, selling the concept of China as a separate and superior civilisation.
They could properly need the west to push Russia into the arms of China, regardless of the danger that it will flip Russia right into a dependency of Beijing. And naturally they consider the warfare in Ukraine will consolidate patriotic feeling in Russia behind their rule, in addition to letting them interact in intensified repression within the identify of assist for the warfare effort. This repression has already begun, with the closing of Russia’s final remaining impartial media and legal guidelines punishing as treason any criticism of the warfare.
Above all, for deep historic, cultural, skilled and private causes, the siloviki and the Russian official elite typically are totally, irrevocably dedicated to the concept of Russia as an ideal energy and one pole of a multipolar world. If you don’t consider in that, you aren’t a part of the Russian institution, simply as if you don’t consider in US international primacy you aren’t a part of the US overseas and safety institution.
Ukraine’s place on this doctrine was precisely summed up by former US nationwide safety adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: “With out Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” The Russian institution totally agrees. They’ve additionally agreed, for the previous 15 years a minimum of, that America’s intention is to scale back Russia to a subservient third-rate energy. Extra not too long ago, they’ve concluded that France and Germany won’t ever oppose the US. “To the west, we now have solely enemies,” as one institution mental instructed me in 2019.
The Russian institution sees encouragement of Ukrainian nationalism as a key aspect in Washington’s anti-Russian technique. Even in any other case calm and affordable members of the Russian institution have snarled with fury when I’ve dared to counsel in dialog that it may be higher for Russia itself to let Ukraine go. They appear ready, if needed, to combat on ruthlessly for a very long time, and at immense value and threat to their regime, to forestall that occuring.
Anatol Lieven is a senior fellow of the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft and creator of ‘Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry’
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It was the image that launched a social media sensation: football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi hunched over a chess game set atop Louis Vuitton’s signature luggage.
That 2022 campaign image broke the record at the time for most likes on Instagram. Now the world’s biggest luxury house, with more than €20bn in annual sales, is looking to capitalise once again on one of the sporting world’s biggest duos in a new campaign featuring rival tennis virtuosos Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
The pairing is a coup for Vuitton chief executive Pietro Beccari. It has been just over a year since he took on one of the luxury sector’s biggest jobs with a mandate to further grow the LVMH-owned brand — which had its origins as a 19th-century luggage-maker — by transforming it into a cultural juggernaut.
“There is no household in the world that doesn’t have [contact with] Louis Vuitton products,” Beccari tells the FT in a video interview from Paris. “There are not a lot of brands that can say they enter the lives of people like we do.”
We are already active in lifestyle and believe we need to be about much more than just buying bags’
Beccari is not just talking about sales of handbags and ready-to-wear fashion — though those more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates from HSBC. Now, under the guidance of LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault and Beccari’s leadership, Louis Vuitton is further pushing back luxury’s boundaries in a bid to reach an ever-wider audience.
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“We are in books, in writing, in editing. We are in music,” the 56-year-old Italian executive says. “We are very much in sports . . . so we are very much covering a spectrum of life that interests people. It is like a magnet for them to become attracted to the brand.”
For Beccari, however, weaving a deepening web of overlaps between popular culture, entertainment and brand identity is strategic and key to the megabrand’s future: “For every show Pharrell has done so far, we have always had new songs coming out” — the latest of which was produced for Miley Cyrus and played for the first time at Louis Vuitton’s latest autumn/winter 2024 menswear show.
Within the same season, “Pharrell also launched the cowboy hat and now you’re seeing that in the US just about everywhere. Even Beyoncé has an album supporting cowboy culture [for which Pharrell has also written a few songs]”, says Beccari. “These are examples of our brand in luxury, not just in selling bags, but having an influence on culture.”
However, the increasing ubiquity of Louis Vuitton presents its own challenge as the brand attempts to balance accessibility against losing the veneer of exclusivity that is essential to commanding the prestige and price points of luxury. “We’ll see if I’m good at it or not in two to three years . . . but this is an eternal dilemma,” says Beccari.
Louis Vuitton’s control of its distribution network and policy of never discounting its products are another advantage, according to Beccari. He also points to its care system, which allows customers to bring back products purchased from the brand to be repaired.
“We need to preserve our desirability despite our visibility and that’s the biggest challenge that we have,” Beccari says. “We are making sure that the levers we put in place will pay off in the long term, and I believe that this campaign [with Nadal and Federer] will help increase the desirability of the brand in the long run.”
Still, taking Louis Vuitton to the next level is being made more challenging due to a sector-wide slowdown in luxury sales following a multi-year boom during the pandemic. Brands with a broader, more aspirational client base such as Louis Vuitton have been hit harder by the slowdown than competitors like Hermès, which cater to the top tier of wealthy clients.
The darkening outlook in the key Chinese market, which fuelled growth for much of the past decade, also presents a challenge to the sector as a whole. “Beccari comes at a pretty difficult time because the industry is going through quite a bit of a slowdown, and notably the rebound in Chinese consumption is not at the level most industry managers would have hoped for a few months ago,” says Erwan Rambourg, global head of consumer and retail research at HSBC.
We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that’
Beccari, however, has a naturally competitive nature, having previously been a professional footballer in Italy’s second division in his early life, as well as a coach. Born in a small town in Italy’s Parma region, Beccari was recruited to LVMH from mass market shampoo-maker Henkel in 2006.
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He quickly rose through the ranks at the luxury group, first leading fashion brand Fendi before being appointed CEO of Dior, the group’s second-biggest brand by sales, in 2018. Under his leadership, Dior’s sales quadrupled, according to HSBC estimates, by expanding its market share across women’s and men’s fashion, leather goods, jewellery and homewares. He also oversaw the renovation of Dior’s flagship at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, which includes a museum, restaurant and private suite.
Beccari has similar ambitions to leverage Louis Vuitton’s pedigree to expand its offering in hospitality. It already operates an airport lounge in Doha and restaurants in Osaka, Chengdu and Seoul. A large-scale project on Paris’s Champs Elysées, still currently under construction, is widely expected to include a Louis Vuitton-branded hotel.
With Federer and Nadal, Beccari is making good on a project he first conceived back in 2007, when he was executive vice-president of marketing and communications at Louis Vuitton, with Antoine Arnault, Bernard Arnault’s eldest son and then-director of communications at Louis Vuitton.
It is a revival of the Core Values campaign that first began in 2007 and ran into the 2010s. The latest iteration shows Federer and Nadal, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, trekking through the jagged peaks of Italy’s Dolomites mountain range, both sporting branded backpacks (Federer in a classic monogram Christopher style and Nadal in a monogram Eclipse version).
Was it difficult getting the two superstars together? “Not at all,” insists Beccari. “They are good friends and see each other privately. It was a rivalry that became a friendship. They are proud of it and I think they set an incredible example.”
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“We sell excellence, quality, success and optimism. In a way, the notion of travel and adventure in life is a mirror of that,” Beccari continues, and the driving force behind LVMH’s sponsorship of this summer’s Paris Olympics.
For the executive, Nadal and Federer epitomise the Olympic spirit. “I think nobody more than them represents this extreme, ferocious competition that becomes friendship, which is exactly what sports should be.”
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Pro-Palestinian students locked arms as they braced for New York Police Department officers to raid Columbia University’s campus to dismantle encampments and remove protesters from Hamilton Hall on April 30.
Seyma Bayram/AP
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Pro-Palestinian students locked arms as they braced for New York Police Department officers to raid Columbia University’s campus to dismantle encampments and remove protesters from Hamilton Hall on April 30.
Seyma Bayram/AP
At Columbia University, word was spreading among the student protesters who’d defied the university’s order to take down their pro-Palestinian encampment on a central lawn. Police were gathering outside the school’s locked gates. Arrests seemed imminent. It was the evening of April 30.
Allie Wong, a doctoral student, was off campus when she heard what was happening. She rushed there and found a way to sneak in.
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Before the night was over, Wong would be one among nearly 300 protesters arrested at two New York City colleges. NPR spoke with six of them about their choice to risk arrest, discipline from their universities, and possibly their academic and professional futures.
Allie Wong said she knew what she was getting into.
“I ran like a bat out of hell,” she said, “and sprinted to Hamilton Hall,” the building that a group of students and people unaffiliated with the university had occupied the previous night in an escalation of their protest against Israel and the war in Gaza.
Wong linked arms with other students in front of the building. They were singing songs about peace when the police arrived to force their human chain apart.
Several blocks north, Bashir Juwara arrived at the City College of New York driven by a similar sense of responsibility. He’s the student body president at Hunter College, another campus within the City University of New York system. Hunter students were participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment at City College, and as their president, Juwara wanted to show support. He was live streaming the scene outside the school’s gates when police arrested him, along with 172 others there that night.
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In the two weeks since, police have made some 4,000 arrests at pro-Palestinian encampments on dozens of college campuses across the country.
The arrests have rattled academia to its core, inviting criticism that schools are using force to repress the most significant student movement in recent history, but also support from people who see some aspects of the anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.
After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Columbia University graduate student Aidan Parisi got a tattoo — a watermelon slice — symbolizing Palestinian solidarity.
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After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Columbia University graduate student Aidan Parisi got a tattoo — a watermelon slice — symbolizing Palestinian solidarity.
Keren Carrión/NPR
Wong, Juwara, and the other arrested students NPR spoke with all said they were conscious of the potential consequences of defying their universities. But they characterized their punishments as minor compared to the suffering that the Palestinians of Gaza are enduring. They all allege Israel is carrying out a genocide that they say they have a moral obligation to try to stop.
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Israeli officials reject the genocide accusation, saying the intent of their military operation is not to wipe out Palestinians, but to wipe out Hamas and prevent a repetition of its Oct. 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 soldiers and civilians. Israel blames Hamas for the Gaza death toll — 35,000 people killed, according to local health authorities — saying the militant group embeds itself among civilians.
Some of the students NPR spoke with said they believed if they could force their universities to agree to their main demand — divestment from companies doing business with Israel — other institutions might follow, putting further pressure on Israel to end the war.
At Columbia, president Nemat Shafik refused to divest. She said the pro-Palestinian encampments had created a hostile environment on campus. Some Jewish students said they no longer felt safe because of explicit antisemitism that some student and non-student protesters had expressed. When Shafik asked the police to dismantle the protests on April 30, she said it was because they had turned destructive after students took over Hamilton Hall. At City College, Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said he called on the police because protesters – many of whom he said were unaffiliated with the university – had also tried to break into campus buildings, “creating an emergency situation.”
Student protesters insist that being critical of Israel does not make their movement antisemitic. And they say that accusation is aimed at tarnishing a peaceful anti-war movement.
Among the six Columbia and City College students that NPR spoke with after their April 30 arrests, two suffered injuries. Two of the Columbia students have either been suspended from their university programs or notified of the university’s intent to expel them. All who spoke to NPR said they have no regrets.
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Here are those six students:
Allie Wong’s tattoo is of a sculpture titled “Non-violence” that stands outside New York’s United Nations Headquarters. It depicts the knotted barrel of a gun. “I’ve never experienced that kind of violence,” she said of the way NYPD officers carried out their arrests of Columbia University student protesters.
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Keren Carrión/NPR
Allie Wong’s tattoo is of a sculpture titled “Non-violence” that stands outside New York’s United Nations Headquarters. It depicts the knotted barrel of a gun. “I’ve never experienced that kind of violence,” she said of the way NYPD officers carried out their arrests of Columbia University student protesters.
Keren Carrión/NPR
Allie Wong, 38, doctoral student at Columbia Journalism School.
Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing.
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Wong said she had attended a few campus protests in the months after the war started, but was not very active. A turning point came when Columbia’s president called on the police to clear protesters’ first encampment on April 18. Wong was outraged. She got more involved, and eventually decided she was willing to risk arrest facing off with police in front of Hamilton Hall. Her trespassing charge was dismissed this week.
“You know, I have a lot of things to contribute to this movement, but physical might is not one of them. So, at no point did I fight back. At no point did I resist. But it didn’t matter. The best way I can describe it is that feeling when you’re at the beach and you get hit by a wave that makes it so that you are no longer in control of your body. When they approached us, it was immediately using batons and shields to break us apart, as well as fists and arms. The first thing that I remember, especially in the context of my injuries, is getting pummeled in the head with an object. I don’t know what the object was. But I remember getting hit in the head and kind of taking a dizzy step back to regain my composure. And twice, I was thrown to the ground.
“I am privileged enough to know that what I risk by being arrested is nothing compared to what my peers risk… I’m not 19. I’m 38 years old and I already have had a career. If I am expelled from Columbia, if I am no longer allowed to get my Ph.D., I’ll be okay. Whereas other people, it might ruin their career. So perhaps that’s naïve of me, but that was the risk I was willing to take.
“The central message that’s important to me and important to those who were arrested and were protesting is that this is not about us, this is not about making us the story. It’s about putting the focus back on what is happening (in Gaza) and doing everything in our power with our voices to make that the central message.”
Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week.
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Basil Rodriguez was arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall, but said the arrest had strengthened their resolve to continue protesting. The trespassing charge Rodriguez faced was dismissed this week.
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Basil Rodriguez, 24, Columbia master’s student in American Studies.
Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing.
Rodriguez is Palestinian-American, and has been protesting the war in Gaza since October. Rodriguez, who uses they/them pronouns, said they were angry at Columbia’s refusal to divest from companies doing business in Israel. They narrowly avoided arrest when police cleared students’ first encampment on April 18.
“That day, 108 students who I love, who I consider like family and friends, were arrested. I had been at the encampment since day one, and actually left the morning of those arrests to go feed my cat, and was on the train back when I started getting notifications that the arrests had started. I had this intense survivor’s guilt for not having been there with them. I felt like I had abandoned them. So that’s when I was a lot more conscious of the fact that I couldn’t leave the (second) encampment anymore until they arrested me. And I fully knew all of the risks of arrest. I really believe in this cause and I really believe it’s a just cause. And I was also prepared to face expulsion or suspension because to me, that’s an honor. To give anything up for my people is an honor because they are paying with their lives on the daily.
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“This arrest has really emboldened me to continue to speak up for Palestine and for Palestinians — to continue to speak up against the ongoing genocide. Even when I was in the jail cell and reflecting on what I had done to get there, I had zero regrets. I wouldn’t change what I did at all. And I will continue to protest and continue to face whatever consequences are thrown at me, because this is bigger than me. This is bigger than any one of us.”
After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Aidan Parisi is facing expulsion from Columbia.
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After being arrested inside Hamilton Hall, Aidan Parisi is facing expulsion from Columbia.
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Aidan Parisi, 27, master’s student at the Columbia School of Social Work.
Arrested inside Hamilton Hall. Charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Facing expulsion.
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Parisi has been a visible leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, at times leading protests. In early April, Parisi, who uses they/them pronouns, was suspended after refusing to cooperate with the university’s investigation into an event that the university said featured speakers “known to support terrorism and promote violence.” The event was hosted by the student group that has been calling on Columbia to divest. Parisi is a member of that group, but told NPR they did not organize the event, and that they believe in non-violence. Despite being restricted from campus, Parisi was a regular presence at the pro-Palestinian encampments. But they said they avoided actions that might bring further discipline. On April 30, Parisi changed their mind, and was among the students who occupied Hamilton Hall.
“I was just not really seeing where I belonged in the movement. I was worried that I wouldn’t bring anything to it. I was kind of having an existential crisis. And then I saw a video online, just like many of the videos I’ve seen over the past seven months, of children brutally bombed and murdered by Israel. And something just clicked in my mind and I realized that I could give a little bit more and I could risk a little bit more.
“This expulsion is not going to be the end of my studies. This is not going to be the end of my career. I hope to go to law school and deal with situations just like what’s going on in Gaza, with humanitarian law, or even looking into protest law. And I’m definitely going to fight my expulsion. I mean, I don’t want to waste the $40,000 of student loans I’ve already taken out. No matter what, I will fight this. I’ll fight my suspension, my eviction, my potential expulsion. I will fight all of this to set the precedent that Columbia cannot silence our voices, that they cannot silence a movement — and not just our movement, but any future movements. And that’s why I’ve remained adamant about fighting.”
Bashir Juwara said that as a student body president, he felt a responsibility to advocate for his classmates’ right to protest.
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Bashir Juwara said that as a student body president, he felt a responsibility to advocate for his classmates’ right to protest.
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Bashir Juwara, 24, Hunter College undergraduate student body president.
Arrested at City College. Charged with trespassing and walking in the roadway.
Juwara live streamed the scene of the protest at City College, approaching NYPD officers blocking the entrance to campus and peppering them with questions about why they were there. As a student body president, he said he felt a responsibility to ask. When the arrests began, an officer knocked his phone out of his hand in the middle of his broadcast.
“I actually had a conversation with the cop that arrested me. He was asking, is it really worth it? I said, is it really worth it? Is that a genuine question that you asked? But then I described to him why I did what I did, because I believe that students should be protected. Students should have a right to peaceful protests and assembly. It’s their constitutional rights.
“CUNY gave me an opportunity that not many schools gave me. When I first arrived, I was undocumented. CUNY offered me a scholarship at a community college. And then by the time I transferred to Hunter College, I had my legal documentation. CUNY gave me the opportunity to develop as a student leader. This is something that I am incredibly grateful for. But when I was arrested, I had to rethink. Does CUNY actually support students that learn things in the classroom and try to use what they learn to stand up for what they believe in? After I was arrested, some of that I had to rethink.
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“As a student leader, I’m trying to get students that were involved in the encampment to have a meeting for negotiations with the chancellor’s office, because I don’t think the negotiations should be scrapped just because the encampment has been destroyed by brutal force by NYPD. I think that is really important — to show that we can still find a way to negotiate. That is my next step.”
Laith Shalabi was arrested linking arms at the encampment at the City College of New York.
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Laith Shalabi was arrested linking arms at the encampment at the City College of New York.
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Laith Shalabi, 22, first-year student at the CUNY School of Law.
Arrested linking arms at the City College encampment. Charged with trespassing.
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As a Palestinian-American with family in the West Bank, Shalabi said he’s always felt deep guilt over the privileges he enjoys that his family there does not. Last fall, a passerby recorded a video of Shalabi tearing down fliers on his campus featuring the photos of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas. He told NPR that he did it in “a moment of frustration” over the many Palestinian children killed by Israel’s bombardment, and the many others that Israel has held without charges but whose detentions he said have historically generated less public sympathy. He said he doesn’t regret removing the fliers, but said he wouldn’t do it again. After the video was shared online, Shalabi was doxxed, and said he and his family started getting threatening emails and phone calls.
“I’m still a student. I still have a home. I have somewhere to sleep at night. I have food. I’m privileged. I’m 22, and 22 is an age a lot of Palestinians don’t reach. And so for us over here with these protests, we are fighting for people who are our age. There’s not a single university left standing in Gaza. They’re all destroyed. Thinking about each one individually, on a human level, and that each university had a student body. Each university had a system of professionals and academics ready to transform these kids’ lives to contribute amazing things to society – to become doctors, become engineers, become lawyers, become whatever their hearts desired. And now these vehicles of life have been taken from them. My arrest is an extremely small price to pay in comparison.”
Marie Adele Grosso, 19, a sophomore at Barnard College, was arrested twice. First at the Columbia encampment that police dismantled on April 18. And again outside Hamilton Hall on April 30.
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Marie Adele Grosso, 19, a sophomore at Barnard College, was arrested twice. First at the Columbia encampment that police dismantled on April 18. And again outside Hamilton Hall on April 30.
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Marie Adele Grosso, 19, sophomore at Barnard College, Columbia University.
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Arrested linking arms outside Hamilton Hall. Charged with trespassing. Suspended.
Grosso spent time as a child living in the West Bank, where her mother worked as a legal advocate and her father researching food access. She was arrested at Columbia’s first pro-Palestinian encampment on April 18. The university suspended her for that, but lifted the suspension. She was suspended again after her second arrest on April 30. Her trespassing charge was dismissed this week.
“I have several injuries as well as bruising all over my body. My shoulder dislocated. But I was able to put it back in, so I didn’t really need to go to the hospital for that. I have a wrist injury that’s a little undefined and then I have some form of back injury.
“With the charge, I will likely not be able to do one of the jobs I was hoping to do this summer. That’s substitute teaching. They have a policy for the protection of kids, obviously. I’m disappointed, because I love the kids, trying to help them learn. I love watching them grow. But it’ll be okay. I have other jobs.
“We’re watching a genocide unfold on social media, and in a lot of ways, we’re helpless. And it’s a moral obligation to do everything and anything we can to stop it. I can’t imagine watching it and being able to sit by.”
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NYPD officers clear the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University on April 30.
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NYPD officers clear the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University on April 30.
Taiwan’s incoming president Lai Ching-te will start his first term on Monday under pressure to raise social spending and tackle deepening economic inequality while at the same time meeting US demands to shore up defences against an increasingly assertive China.
Every Taiwanese leader since the start of free, direct presidential elections in 1996 has taken office with a message aimed at Beijing, which claims the island as its own and threatens to annex it by force if necessary.
But against the backdrop of soaring tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the demands on Lai to balance Taiwan’s security risks with assurances of safeguarding its independence are greater than on most of his predecessors.
“There have been extensive exchanges about his inaugural address with Washington, and the US has been communicating some guidelines,” said a person familiar with the discussions.
Washington is keen to ensure that Lai will stick to the China policy line of his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen, who won broad international support for her cautious handling of often turbulent cross-Strait relations, several people in Lai’s Democratic Progressive party (DPP) said.
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A US official said the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s quasi-embassy in Taipei, has been in contact with officials in Taiwan about Lai’s inauguration speech and to underscore long-standing US policy on cross-Strait issues.
Lai will seek to reassure the US with a commitment to decisively strengthen Taiwan’s defences, including raising military budgets, revamping its military force structure and focusing on cost-effective and mobile weapons systems and more robust civil defence.
But he is also keenly aware of the need to address burning economic concerns among many Taiwanese, especially the young. While Lai’s government intends to raise the defence budget from 2.5 per cent of GDP this year to 3 per cent, members of his team said his top priority would be domestic reform.
Decades of economic policy have focused on supporting Taiwan’s globally leading high-tech industries such as chipmaking, leaving other parts of the economy behind. This has led to growing inequality, with 68 per cent of the population below the average income, a senior DPP official said.
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“We need to explain to the US the importance of social solidarity for the sake of our national unity,” the official said.
Lai is likely to struggle building such unity from day one. He was elected with just 40 per cent of the vote in a three-way race in January and lacks a DPP majority in the legislature.
Lai’s policies include a reform of the underfunded national health insurance, an expansion of subsidised childcare and care for the elderly. Beyond social spending, he will also seek to shift economic policy from incentives for certain industries to creating more service sector jobs and stimulating domestic consumption.
“To give these people a sense of wellbeing and security, we need to focus on social investment and build a more universal social security system,” the DPP official said. “There will not be too much pushback against that from the opposition — they may even want to outdo us on spending on that.”
Lai has recruited a number of private-sector executives into his cabinet, most prominent among them JW Kuo, an entrepreneur and chair of semiconductor industry supplier Topco, a departure from Tsai’s preference for academics.
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But in the sensitive areas of China policy, national security and defence, the incoming president has retained almost Tsai’s entire team. Her foreign minister Joseph Wu will head up Lai’s National Security Council while NSC head Wellington Koo will become defence minister.
This personnel continuity will offer stability, DPP officials hope, as China has escalated military manoeuvres close to Taiwan’s waters and airspace in recent weeks.
But Lai is also expected to restate principles outlined by Tsai that Taiwan is committed to its democratic system, that the Republic of China — its official name — and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other and that Taiwan will resist annexation or encroachment on its sovereignty. Taiwan’s future must be decided in accordance with the will of its people, Lai will add.
Despite maintaining Tsai’s national security personnel and approach to China, some observers believe Lai’s tenure could look very different in practice. He has shown a penchant for political battle during his 28-year career in politics, in stark contrast to Tsai, a controlled, soft-spoken former trade policy official.
“As we deal with the challenges we face, we will also have to find our own voice”, said a senior member of the incoming administration, adding that Lai would “lay out his vision in his own words”.
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As mayor of the municipality of Tainan, Lai’s insistence on abolishing slush funds for city councillors triggered a revolt in the local legislature.
On a visit to Shanghai in 2014, he told Chinese scholars that Taiwanese independence was not an idea that originated with the DPP but a long-standing aspiration of the Taiwanese people, and that only if Beijing understood could the two sides find common ground — a bluntness unheard of from other visiting Taiwanese politicians.
In 2017, then Tsai’s premier, he infamously described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”.
“Lai’s brain is not Tsai’s brain,” said a person who has known the incoming president for many years.
Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
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