Crucifixion, Resurrection and Cryptomania ~ April 2022 ~ In the Rearview
April was a volatile month with many changes afoot and the first must have brought on the foolishness. Easter and Ramadan challenged the faithful and Bitcoin’s arrival unleashed a whole other type of evangelical fervor in CAR.
Rumors spread early on of potential revisions to the constitution, the main one being a change to allow for a third Touadéra term. Around this time Russian was made a third “official” language as well, the little green men have already landed so no matter I guess.?
The Russian war in the Ukraine continued to boil over and roil the world. As sides were taken or not taken and allegiances become more than mere theater going forward, pressure mounts and frustrations old and new come to bear. The Russian excursions in Ukraine shoved the sheer violence of their despicable character front and center and Russian involvement in any country became suspect. Globally eyes began to wander and widen in aghast wonder at the other atrocities that can be chalked up to their presence. Those familiar with CAR these last couple years are likely not surprised with the horror stories emerging out of Ukraine since it has been disgustingly routine in some corners for far too long already.?
The hot mess that has been Bangui basketball as of late got hotter and a whole lot messier with a fire and a round of firings. The Palais des Sports went up in flames in what has been a spate of market fires the last few months. Ostensibly the national basketball stadium, the Omnisport facility had turned into a mall of sorts lately, which is actually an ingenious multi-use repurposing, there should probably just be a bit more regulation and attention paid to safety. I’m all for safety third, but not when it comes to electricity. If that weren’t enough the CAR basketball federation has been under fire themselves with embezzlement and mismanagement so rife FIBA gave them an ultimatum to sort it all out or else.?
The security situation like every month had its ups and downs but the depressing downs seemed to be on the uptick this month unfortunately. It could be read as more of the same but there had been hopes of progress and the unabated nature of the violence tends to feel like a back slide.?
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The Special Criminal Court got off to an inauspicious start with delays right from the beginning as defense lawyers staged a boycott of the proceedings. The fits, starts and walk outs have defined this process since the outset so this is just how it will go it seems. In what could be a nefarious twist or possibly a tragic mishap a judge on the Constitutional Court died under mysterious circumstances with food poisoning being called the culprit.?
April showers turned into a deluge that caused quite a bit of damage in Bria and surrounding areas.?
If there were any thoughts the war in Ukraine might distract Russia from its missions of mayhem elsewhere they were dispelled quite nastily. A laundry list of atrocity after atrocity poured in all month, some too horrible to even contemplate. The brutality and impunity are off the charts at this point, there’s not much else to say.
Touadéra is going all in with the Kremlin it would appear and Russia is going all in on Central Africa as a whole. Rumors of a military base in CAR and another in Cameroon ran rampant as consolidation of the neo-czarist influence zone continued. Cameroon for its part though while encouraging the entreaties from Russia set about cutting CAR off. In a move to stem inflation and assure their own supply chain exports of many key products were halted.
The biggest news came late in the month, biggest at least as far as attention grabbing goes anyway, the announcement that Bitcoin would now be an official currency set Twitter a titter. Being only the second country in the world, and the first after El Salvador’s shaky attempt at implementing such a scheme, it drew quite a bit of focus from the financial community. The rocket ship to the moon got off to an oddly sputtering start though with one outlet at first making the announcement but by the next day that had been hedged and walked back but then a couple days later it was confirmed by decree CAR would be joining El Salvador on the Bitcoin bandwagon.?
The Bitcoin true believers hailed it (surprise surprise) as bullish proof that the train is rolling along, while the skeptics cast a suspicious side eye. Sure, one way to look at it is as a progressive gambit and clever rebuke to the colonial CFA franc and the CEMAC. Another would be to wonder how in a country with so little electricity outside a few cities and very little internet use this helps the average citizen. There are basically no remittances to CAR so it will not be of use to the unbanked really. Asking who actually benefits here is key, with sanctions on Russia looking like the new normal and their vow to evade them using Bitcoin. Then given the quick adoption by CAR of BTC as fiat, that would certainly have to be a red flag for the cynics and even the longtime hodlers alike. Enabling the elites to continue their quotidian corruption and the sanctions on Russia to be evaded don’t feel like the utopian use cases Nakamoto supposedly envisioned, but hey maybe I just don’t understand blockchain yet or am filled with too much fud and loathing. Maybe I don’t know blockchain but I do know basketball and if you want to get a rebound you better box out.