Jihad crowdfunding: as in Kuwait, are thrown off to war in Syria

Over the past two years in Kuwait, individuals have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the armament and training of groups fighting the forces of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And this is in a country with a population of no more than 3 million people!







Let us leave aside the question of what is good / bad for the British ophthalmologist of the Alawite dictator, you better appreciate the scope: in the evening of August of this year, Hamad al Matara, a former member of parliament, collected $ 350 thousand from his friends over tea! Yes, he was surprised no less than me: “I thought that I would collect a couple of thousand dollars. Never had so much money in my hands . ”

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The collection of money is mostly unorganized and not controlled from above - this is a real initiative from below. There, of course, friction between the Sunnis and Shiites inside the country (Sunnis raise money for insurgents, Shiites for loyalists) contributes - but I'm not a theologian, and I won’t understand the differences between the two Islamic movements. But Shiite supporters of Assad can also collect a serious sum: in 2012, for example, during one of the meetings, it turned out to scrape together $ 81 million to send to the Syrian government.



Here it will be much more interesting to note that the rates of charges directly depend on the situation at the front: the greatest amounts are obtained during the period of particularly hot battles or during the transition of one of the parties to the offensive. In one case, $ 14 million was collected in just 5 days .



At the beginning of the conflict (several years ago) donations were rather modest and rare, but as the violence escalated, Twitter and YouTube flooded announcements about the creation of new NLFs (illegal armed groups - although they are not yet winning the war), where even called the names of donors from the Gulf countries. Even the "charity marathons" began , where Kuwaiti groups are competing in who will arm and support the rebels. The matter has become so massive that now all politicians in Kuwait are forced to participate in maintaining their status. This year, the government raised $ 300 million in humanitarian aid to Syria, and with private donations it was possible to raise the amount to $ 483 million.





Sinbad Dad, Dad Sinbad,

Behind us is Istanbul, Cairo and Baghdad!

Scimitar is whistling, Gazavat is walking,

Next, damn it, dad Sinbad!



Organizers of fees already post pictures of sold jewelry and cars. As with any self-respecting crowdfunding resources, there are certain obligations to the users, determined by the size of the donations. They gave you $ 800 , and “your” mojahed will receive a T-shirt with your RPG name shells. At $ 2,500, you can equip a single fighter.



In one of my previous posts, I suggested that the viewer has more weight for TV than, actually, the television studio and TV channel. Now I see that the thought of eliminating the "mediator" and the direct impact on the processes taking place came to mind not only me, but many other people. Which, unlike me, pretend that the consequences of the “user choice” would change the very material reality of themselves. Even the situations are similar: here the TV channels, by their bickeringness, prevent viewers from enjoying watching their favorite TV shows, so the Government of Kuwait is trying to ban the “terrorist donat.”



Of course, I don’t want to equate two phenomena from different areas (I somehow don’t really approve of street battles and building explosions outside Call of Duty), but the situation in Kuwait is a clear signal: the time of “middlemen” (in all industries and areas) ) leaves, personality and groups of individuals will henceforth be actors much more powerful than, say, in the XIX and XX centuries. In other words, welcome to cyberpunk .