Debenhams plc: The Rise and Fall of a High-end Draper

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Commerce & Business, Economics and society,

The lethal force of the Covid-19 outbreak unleashed on the world in 2020 has killed to date in excess of seven million people globally (worldometers.info). In addition to this great toll of human life the pandemic and the ensuing commercial lockdown had a deadly effect on struggling businesses. One such victim is Debenhams plc, a retailing national institution with a continuous history centuries old. The British high street retailer went into liquidation and irrevocably out of business in May 2021, drawing the curtains on a trading lifespan extending back nearly 243 years.

Debenhams: Oxford Street (London) flagship store (photo: Debenhams plc)

Debenhams, the world’s oldest department store, was an iconic brand with a trusted reputation, a staple for household goods, beauty brands and clothing. The department store titan was bought out of administration by online fashion retailer Boohoo for £55m with the purpose of its famous brand being reinvented as an online bazaar – which is an ironic outcome given that Debenhams’ reluctance to refocus its sales strategies around the online platform (see below ).

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Debenhams stores across the UK

Debenhams was founded by William Clark in 1778 as a drapers’ store in Wigmore Street, London. In 1813 Clark partnered with investor William Debenham, trading as Clark and Debenham in London and Cheltenham. After Clark retired Debenham partnered with Clement Freebody in 1851 (under the name Debenham and Freebody). Into the 20th century the company was still in the hands of William Debenham’s descendants and in 1920 acquired upmarket Knightsbridge department store Harvey Nichols. Debenhams experienced a business crisis in the late 1920s involving its subsidiary Drapery Trust, the fallout of which forced then owner Ernest Debenham to sever his family’s connections with the retail chain that still bears his name…as a result the company went public.

Era of expansion: The 1930s and 40s saw considerable expansion for Debenhams, becoming the biggest department store chain in the UK by 1948, with takeovers in several British cities (in 1950 there were 110 stores in the UK). In the 1970s Debenhams found itself in more volatile waters, having to fight off takeover attempts, culminating in it being acquired by the Burton Group in 1985 (subsequently the two demerged in 1998). From the 1990s the retail company took on an international profile with stores opening in 18 countries. Debenhams stores spread to Ireland as well as acquiring the Danish department store chain Magasin du Nord, plus a raft of widespread franchises encompassing the Middle East, Asia, Malta, Russia, Australia and elsewhere.

Debenhams’ Belfast (NI) store: closing sale (photo: news.com.au)

Profits decline while debts inflate: The Covid pandemic put the shutters on Debenhams’ retail existence but the decline of the household name in British retailing can be traced to business failures and wrong strategies over the preceding two decades. The decline had been precipitous, in 2016 the 166–store strong chain had been worth £900m, just three years on, this had plummeted to £20m. Retail analysts attribute Debenhams’ demise in part to its failure to read the future, to embrace change in consumer preferences resulting from the advent of the iPhone and online shopping. Simon Reynolds, a branding consultant, skewers management for neglect of the company’s historic brand – missing in Debenhams was a “clear brand proposition for its customers…it couldn’t demonstrate what made it different to its competitors and it lacked relevance to younger customers”. Debenhams’ expansion plans in 2006, its stated intention to double the then 120 stores it operated𖤓, added an additional cost burden§ which failed to be offset by a sales revenue boost (sales remained static in fact). This down-spiralling trend, according to retail consultant Richard Hyman, demonstrated that Debenhams had lost its relevance in the competitive retail environment (‘Debenhams: Three things that went wrong’, Rebecca Marston, BBC News, 09-April-2019, www.bbc.com). The end was nigh.

 

𖤓 in 2017 when it should have been closing underperforming stores, and just one year before a record loss toppled Debenhams into administration, the company inexplicably was still opening new stores! Poor store placement was a negating factor as well, opening new stores in small population areas like Stevenage or too close to existing Debenham stores was symptomatic of the injudicious path taken by the retailer (‘One ‘reckless’ decision that killed UK retail giant Debenhams’, Benedict Brook, News.com.au, 21-May-2021, www.news.com.au)

§ a combination of prime-site large properties, big rents and long leases, high rates and large staffing needs

Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, a “Twin Cities” Odd Couple on the Sino-Russian Border

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Inter-ethnic relations, International Relations, Political geography, Regional History, Regional politics

Image: Moscow Times

The greater part of the boundary separating Russia from China comprises a 2,824-kilometre river – known as the Amur to the Russians on the northern side and Heilongjiang (meaning “Black Dragon River”) to the Chinese on the southern side. At the river’s confluence with the Zeya River is a curious juxtaposition of urban settlements on the border of the two great Asian powers – Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, facing each other across the river, two small cities similar in size and separated physically by less than 600 metres of water.

Image: russiatrek.org

Heihe, a prefecture-level city within the province of Heilongjiang, only came into existence as recently as 1980 (an earlier town called Aihui or Aigun was located in the vicinity, some 30 km south of contemporary Heihe). Blagoveshchensk«𝓪» is the capital of the Amur (Amurskaya) Oblast in Russia’s Far East with a controversial back story. Cossacks built the first Russian outposts here (then called “Ust-Zeysky”) in the 1850s, on land that under the terms of the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk between the Russian tsar and the Qing Dynasty that Russians had been evicted from. Blagoveshchensk (or ‘Blago’ as it is often shortened to) came into being after an opportunist Russia forced China to acquiesce to the inequitable Treaty of Aigun in 1858…the Qings lost over 600,000 sq km of territory in Manchuria including the Amur River site of the future city of Blagoveshchensk. The resentment felt by the Chinese at the unjust 1858 Treaty was magnified in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion when the Russian authorities in Blagoveshchensk forcibly deported the city’s Chinese community resulting in around 5,000 of the fleeing refugees losing their lives in a mass killing. In modern times Heihe/Blagoveshchensk has been the scene of violent confrontation between Soviet and Chinese troops. In 1969 the two countries fought a battle close to the ”twin cities” over a disputed island in the Amur/Heilong river – at the cost of hundreds of casualties.
Amur/Heilong River (Source: worldatlas.com)


By 1989—the year in which the border between the USSR and China reopened after being closed for much of the century—Heihe was still a small village. During the following thirty years Heihe has witnessed the rapid growth and accelerated development associated with many Chinese cities (eg, Shenzhen), a flurry of commercial activity with mercantilist purpose, a flourishing of modern high-rise apartments and even some greening of the city. Conversely Blagoveshchensk, older and more settled, looks “sedate and almost stagnant” by comparison…seemingly resistant to the modernising example of its nearby neighbour. [Franck Billé, ‘Surface Modernities: Open-Air Markets, Containment and Vertilcality in Two Border Towns of Russia and China’, Economic Sociology, 15(2), March 2014, www.repository.cam.au.uk].

Blagoveshchensk tertiary institution
Spatial contrast in architectural styles ༄࿓༄
Heihe and Blagoveshchensk over contemporary times have evolved diametrically different urban landscapes. Blagoveshchensk’s taste in architecture tends toward a kind of “horizontal functionalism” (Franck Billé). It’s structures which includes some classical public buildings as well as surviving grey concrete remnants of the Soviet era adhere mostly to a flat, horizontal form«𝓫». Urban planning is faithful to a rigid grid format and retains a “Roman fort” quality. Heihe, on the other hand, in its modernisation projects the iconic vertical model of the Chinese mega cities to its south (high-rise on overdrive, modern shopping malls, etc). Structures like the large Heihe International Hotel sit jutting out prominently on the riverside promenade (Billé).

Heihe lightshow (Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)
Light and dark ༄࿓༄
Heihe’s vibrant exterior can be viewed as a pearl set against the beigeness of Blagoveshchensk’s static oyster. At night Heihe’s waterfront becomes a glittery cornucopia, a spectacular colour light show advertising itself to the other side. The stark contrast between the two towns is reminiscent of a similar chiaroscuroesque nocturnal effect observable with the northern Chinese city of Dandong and its barren ill-lit North Korean neighbour 500 metres across the Yalu, Sinuiju. While Heihe’s edge sparkles, Blagoveshchensk’s riverbank remains largely underdeveloped. Notwithstanding the drabness of Blagoveshchensk many of its citizens remain unimpressed by their showy twin’s persona. Blagoveshchensk skeptics describe Heihe as a “Potemkin village”, a flash exterior hiding a poor and dirty reality below the surface, and the evening light show a transparent bait to lure Russian visitors and their roubles from across the Amur [Joshua Kucera, ‘Don’t Call Call Them Twin cities’, Slate, 28-Dec-2009, www.slate.com].

Sculpture of a kiprichi (Source: Indian Defence Forum)
The “suitcase trade”
༄࿓༄ The proximity between the Russian and Chinese towns has led to patterns of interaction, especially after the 1989 border opening when Blagoveshchensk day-trippers began making shopping expeditions to Heihe to buy cheap consumer goods, clothing, the latest electronics, etc. Some Russians segued this into a nice little earner, commuting to the Chinese side, buying in bulk and transporting the goods back to Blagoveshchensk in suitcases to resell at a profit. They were known as kiprichi, also acquiring the less flattering nicknames of “suitcase traders” and ”bricks”. The bottom fell out of this two-way trade however in 2014 when the value of the Russian rouble disintegrated against the yuan. The suitcase trade was no longer profitable for Russians, finding their main source of trade with Heihe had disappeared down the gurgler. The devaluation also had a deleterious effect on many Chinese traders who had set up business in Blagoveshchensk (Kucera).

Russian dolls in Heihe (Photo: Zhang Wenfang/chinadaily.com.cn)
The kiprichi aside, the Russian side of the river has showed marginal if any interest in forming grass-roots connexions with Heihe…most of the running has fallen on the Chinese side to try to create a welcoming “Russian feel” of sorts in Heihe. Street signs in the Chinese city are written in Cyrillic as well as Chinese, but other attempts have been less convincing, eg, the erection of faux-Russian architecture and shop decor; the appearance of matryoshka doll garbage cans on the street (a counter-productive innovation as it caused offence with some Russians).

Mutual development?
༄࿓༄ The potential for larger scale cross-border exchange between the two cities has been slow to take root, not for lack of commitment or effort on the side of Heihe. Blagoveshchensk has repeatedly dragged its feet on initiates for joint commercial and industrial projects proposed by the Chinese, this is despite China being the Amur region’s largest trading partner! A case in point is the highway bridge connecting Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, essential to expand north Asian trade by integrating the two sides’ road networks. First mooted in 1988, the Russians procrastinated and procrastinated regarding committing to the project which it was envisaged would increase the flow of goods and people between the two towns exponentially…work only commenced in 2016 and construction finalised in late 2019 (still not opened in 2022 due to the ongoing pandemic). Heihe city became a free trade zone in 1992 and boosted by funding from Beijing as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has strived to forge local (Dongbei/RFE) economic integration with it’s Russian twin town (even tying it to Moscow’s Siberian gas pipeline plans) [Gaye Christoffersen, ‘Sino-Russian Local Relations: Heihe and Blagoveshchensk’, The Asian Forum, 10-Dec-2019, www.theasianforum.org ].

Russian Far East demographic vulnerability ༄࿓༄
Blagoveshchensk’s reluctance to wholly engage with Heihe as partners in joint developments tap into prevailing Russian fears and anxieties about its giant southern neighbour, with whom it shares a porous 4,200-km border. With the Russian Far East being population poor and resource rich, Russian concerns about the possibility of future Chinese future designs on the vast, sparsely-populated territory—including the perceived threat of ‘Sinicisation’«𝓬» (being culturally overwhelmed by the far more numerous Chinese), Chinese expansionism and the balkanisation of the RFE—are never far from the surface. Concerns which are made sharper by awareness of the persisting sense of injustice felt by China at the 1858 Treaty (Billé).

Image: http://gioffe.asp.radford.edu/

Postscript: Siberian exports, casino tourism ༄࿓༄
Over the last several years there have a few optimistic signs that Blagoveshchensk is tentatively opening itself up to more trade with Heihe. In the last decade Amur Oblast’s exports (mainly soy, timber, gold, coal and electricity) to China have risen by 16% , and in the same period Chinese visitors to Blagoveshchensk increased tenfold aided by the hosts putting more effort into creating a more attractive environment for tourists, eg, the introduction of casinos in Blagoveshchensk to cater for Chinese gambling aficiandos. Of course, as with the new cross-border bridge, COVID-19 has stopped all of these positive developments dead in their tracks for now [D Simes Jr & T Simes, ‘Russian gateway to China eyes ‘friendship’ dividends after COVID’, Nikkei Asia, www.asia.nikkei.com ].

——————————————————————-———-—

«𝓪» = “Annunciation”, literally meaning in Russian, “city of good news”. The traditional Chinese name for Blagoveshchensk is Hailanbao

«𝓫» with some exceptions such as the 65-metre tall, hyper-modern Asia Hotel

«𝓬» Kitaizatsia in Russian

Coronavirus 2.0: Déja Vu Europe – Post-Summer Fallout, Relaxing of Controls and Self-Control, Emerging New Hotspots

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Medical history, Public health,

Late September, COVID-19 has reached the inevitable, undesired milestone of the one millionth death worldwide from the disease. With the summer holidays behind them, Europeans on a trajectory to winter are facing the backlash of a resurgence of the coronavirus. Many countries in Europe are already in the grip of what is to all intents and purposes the second wave of the 2020 pandemic. In early September infection rates in Europe as a whole passed that of the season benchmark, the USA [‘Europe overtakes U.S. as COVID-19 hotspot as infections surge’, (Thomas Mulier & Bloomberg), Fortune, 10-Sep-2020, www.fortune.com].

Pop-up statue honouring Madrid health care workers (Photo: Getty Images)

The familiar patterns are there and yet inconsistencies exist from country to country. Several countries such as Montenegro❋, North Macedonia, Albania, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria are seeing higher case numbers now than they experienced early on in the outbreak. This shouldn’t be altogether surprising as one clear explanation for such a jump simply points to the increased levels of testing now being conducted. [‘Coronavirus second wave: Which countries in Europe are experiencing a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases?’, Euronews, 29-Sep-2020, www.euronews.com].

Daily case numbers in Europe and the UK are spiking again in cities with high urban density—especially Madrid, Paris, Marseille, Brussels, Amsterdam and The Hague—leading the way◰ [Netherlands among Western Europe’s biggest Covid hot spots’, (Jasper Bunskoek), NL Times, 28-Sep-2020, www.nltimes.nl].

Paris Central (Photo: AP: Kamil Zihnioglu)

Authorities have put the recent surge down to a general relaxation over summer of measures to curb infection. Workers returning to work in many European cities after the break are suspected of dropping their guard against the pandemic. Health officials have also pinpointed young people being a significant factor in flouting the rules (noting the existence of a recorded spike in new European cases for those aged 25 to 49)[‘Coronavirus: How it all went wrong (again) in Europe as 2nd wave grips continent’, (CNN) (via 9 News), 30-Sep-2020, www.nine.com.au].

The current upward trend of infections has placed governments in a dilemma. To try to rein in the burgeoning case numbers, the unwelcome prospect facing them is the need to reintroduce unpopular restrictions on communities and gatherings. In this light one thing governments are desperate to avoid at all costs is to go back to a national (or even sectional) lockdown scenario and expose their country to a redux of the crippling effects on the economy. In Madrid the Castilian authorities have already relented and opted to introduce selective lockdowns in certain urban districts [‘Europe’s coronavirus hot spot Spain to introduce selective lockdowns in Madrid’, Daily Sabah, 16-Sep-2020, www.dailysabah.com].

On the positive side mortality rates from COVID-19 being recorded now in Europe are a fraction of the death tolls of six months ago, weekly averages in September are around 13% of the peaks recorded during April (CNN/Johns Hopkins University). Having long ago parked the idea of eradication until the emergence of an effective vaccine, governments and health authorities plumped for suppression…a reality check in this “second wave” is an understanding of just how difficult it is to keep a lid on community outbreaks, let alone stamp it out entirely (Mulier/Bloomberg).

Odessa (freepik.com)
Endnote: Odessa – beautiful one minute … hot spot the next
As summer was ushered in at this much-in-demand Ukrainian resort spot on the Black Sea, people flocked to the sanatoriums and beaches. Similarly, nightclubs and restaurants in the city were packed with vacationers. The folly of flagrantly disregarding social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines resulted in an entirely foreseeable outcome – over 12,000 virus cases erupting in the city, ⅔ of which are tourists and visitors, some of these compounding the predicament by then carrying the virus back with them to their home cities and towns [‘In Ukraine’s Odessa, summer crowds ditched their masks. It’s now a hot spot in Europe’s “second wave”’, (Natalie Gryvnyak and Robyn Dixon), Washington Post, 28-Sep-2020, www.washingtonpost.com].

𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪𝄪

❋ Montenegro catapulted to the top of hotspots on the continent with 305.4 cases per 100,000 people infected in the week of 14-20 September [‘Coronavirus: Where are Europe’s infection hotspots?’, Sky News, 24-Sep-2020, www.news.sky.com]

◰ right through this month France and Spain have vied with each other for the ‘gong’ of worst-performing country in Europe for virus hot spots. Italy conversely is one country that has managed to buck this trend, so far resisting the pandemic’s resurgence – attributed to a more concerted adherence to government health guidelines this time [‘As Covid-19 Fatigue Fuels Infections in Europe, Italy Resists Second Wave’, (Eric Sylvers & Margherita Stancati), Wall Street Journal, 22-Sep-2020, www.wsj.com]

“We’re All Individuals!”: “Living Persons” in the Bubble of their Own “Sovereign Nation“ Speak Out

Posted on by Bonza Rottwheeler
Inter-ethnic relations, National politics, Politics, Popular Culture, Public health,, Society & Culture

Who’d have thought that it’d take a pandemic to bring to light just how many cynics and crazies are out there? Before COVID-19 we only had the climate change deniers and the occasion conspiracy peddler to cope with. Since the virus first descended, coronavirus deniers have been coming out of the woodwork, a contagion not confined to the USA.

Human rights or human life?  
Recently, a new phenomena has popped up on social media and TV screens – from the “Republic of Covididiocy”. Provocateurs have taken to filming themselves confronting police and retail shop personnel during  lockdown – provocatively refusing to wear masks, not giving their personal details and declaring loudly that their human rights were being transgressed. The extreme position adopted by these protesters connects them to conspiratorial views held by fringe extremists in the US✱.

Conspiracy heaven ⍌

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A universal scofflaw mindset
These individuals are part of a loosely-organised movement of people who call themselves “Sovereign Citizens” (or “Sov-Cits” or just ‘Sovereigns’, for short), whose purpose is to assert some set of existing natural rights which, they purport, places them outside of the jurisdiction of the government and the law. In a climate of pandemic-induced restrictions many of these people may just be (over)reacting to the state’s clampdown on their freedom of movement and activity, a knee-jerk libertarian impulse. However the concept of Sovereign Citizenry long pre-dates the current pandemic as a conspiracy-driven stratagem, with its origins, unsurprisingly, found in America.

The world according to Sovereign Citizens
“The Sovereign Citizens Movement promotes the tantalising fantasy that anyone can declare himself or herself above and beyond the jurisdiction of the government by invoking arcane legal terminology”.
~ Southern Poverty Law Center

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(Source: www.radicalisationresearch.org)

In the 1990s the SCM picked up the earlier Posse Comitatus movement’s baton of unrelenting enmity towards the federal government, portraying themselves as the “true defenders of the Constitution”. Sov-Cit beliefs rest on the same premise as that established by Posse Comitatus. They believe that the US government is illegitimate…it is, they say, a corporation that  has duped ‘natural’ citizens (read “Sovereign Citizens”) into an unlawful contract. Sovereign theorists cite the 14th Amendment in 1868 and FD Roosevelt’s 1933 abandonment of the gold standard as a back-up to the paper currency as historical ‘proof’ of federal deception.

Gurus and methods
The SCM is a loosely organised group of litigants, commentators, tax protesters/deniers and financial scheme promoters…leadership comes from “redemption gurus” who advise Sovereigns to use ‘legal’ phrases to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of government (BBC).

Prison recruitment, outreach and education  Gurus and other Sovereign ‘mentors’ incarcerated for fraud or for not paying taxes have found prison an ideal environment to indoctrinate and recruit new adherents. Imprisoned drug dealers and embezzlers were particularly willing recruits to the cause, jumping at the chance to put Sov-Cit theories into place in the hope of getting out of jail, or to retaliate against the public officials and law enforcement officers who put them there! The pseudo-legal strategy employed by Sov-Cits (again following Posse Comitatus) is based on the ludicrous “Theory of Redemption”—a secret (and mythical) fund of money created for everyone at birth by the US government—which Sov-Cits can supposedly redeem or claim to pay debts [‘Sovereign Citizens Movement Resurging’, Southern Poverty Law Center, Spring Issue 2009, 26-Feb-2009, www.splcenter.org].

“American National”, the preferred nomenclature for Sovereigns  ⍌

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Before the advent of the internet training of Sov-Cits took place at seminars held at remote extremist compounds. Now recruits learn via online videos and forums (like You Tube and MySpace) which disseminate SCM doctrine and tactics. Some Sovereign groups sell booklets like “The Prison Packet” which purports to guide inmates towards the realisation of their freedoms. Religious outreach, through the agencies of numerous Christian fundamentalist fringe organisations in the US, is another avenue for recruiting Sov-Cits into the fringe fold (Southern Poverty Law Center).

Paper terrorism
Sovereigns employ what are saturation methods, submitting countless bogus court filings containing hundreds of pages which are virtually indecipherable. The purpose? “To punish, to harass and mislead public officials”. The paper terrorism may take the form of elaborate scams, the generation of fake letters of credit or tax forms, frivolous law suits or other faux legal documents [‘Understanding the sovereign citizen movement: a guide for corrections professionals’, The Free Library, www.thefreelibrary.com/].

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Law-enforcement officers in the Sovereigns’ cross-hairs
Some Sov-Cits are out and out “con artists”, transparently pure 100% charlatan, but as Michael Barkun warns, others are politically-motivated anti-government extremists⧆…and dangerous! In 2010 a Sov-Cit duo, father and son, killed local police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas. A New Hampshire shootout in 1997 resulted in the death of five people including the Sovereign provocateur acting as a “lone wolf”❂.  Cop killing by Sovereigns is not confined to America – in 2016 a Reichsbürger, the German version of the Sov-Cit, shot dead a policeman in that country. The FBI has declared some Sovereign Citizens to be domestic terrorists. Often inmates utilise the Sov-Cit strategies from within the prison system to carry out protracted vendettas against judges, IRS officials, prosecutors and local sheriffs (Southern Poverty Law Center).

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(Source: www.bbc.com/)

The lengths a Sov-Cit will go to
Your dedicated Sovereign is not adverse to creating fake car licence plates or printing his or her own currency and then trying to pass it off as real money. One SCM provocateur in Florida, in acrimonious conflict with his local Bank of America branch, sent it a bogus foreclosure notice and even barricaded the branch during opening hours (SPLC).

Francis: “It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression”
Reg: “Its symbolic of his struggle against reality”
~ Monty Python’s Life of Brian

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Sovereigns don’t believe they need to hold a licence in order to drive (or to fish for that matter). When stopped by police patrols they have been known to deny that they are driving and affirm rather that they are in fact merely travelling⚅ (Dr Kaz Ross, interview, ABC Radio). And travelling, Sovereigns insist, is “a God-given right”. Some Sovereigns go even further than just mouthing the mantra that they are outside of federal jurisdiction, proclaiming to be citizens of other entities, eg, the Montana Freemen, the “Republic of Texas” (The Free Library)✫.

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Anti-government protest in Oregon ⍓
(Source: http://m.dk.com)

Endnote: Sovereign Citizens are one of a panoply of Alt-Right, conspiracy-obsessed fringe hate groups in the US which might loosely be subsumed under the umbrella term “patriot movement”. There is a lot of blurring of the lines between SCM, QAon, the Three Percenters, the Boogaloo Bois, the Proud Boys, the Anti-Vaxxer groups and various others of a similarly contrarian ilk. In particular, the Sov-Cits’ emphasis on the duality of US citizenship echoes the philosophy of another group – the Freemen-on-the-Land movement. The latter proclaim that “with special knowledge and careful language, we can circumvent these laws and regulations and live freely as an alternative vision of ourselves under our own ‘natural‘ laws” (a virtual identikit image of the SCM’s credo and tactics) [’What is the ‘sov cit movement?’, BBC News, 05-Aug-2020, www.bbc.com; ’The seriously weird belief of Freeman on the Land”, (Shelley Stocken),  News, 09-Jul-2016, www.news.com.au].

xxxx

PostScript: Black separatism
On the surface you might think Sov-Cits would be an exclusively Caucasian phenomena, given its links to White Supremacist outfits like Christian Identity. But there is an African-American separatist subset that adheres to the Sovereign Citizens credo. Given their disproportionate representation in US prisons, Black inmates not surprisingly have been attracted to the SCM ideology. A clique of African-American drug-dealers on trial for murder in the 2000s in Baltimore employed its obstructionist ploys to delay proceedings for years [‘Too Weird for The Wire’, (Kevin Carey), Washington Post, May/June/July 2008].

↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼↼

✱ the great danger here “is when fringe beliefs and proponents begin to slip into the mainstream”, eg, President Trump’s spruiking of alleged coronavirus cures which are not scientifically proven and possibly harmful, ‘The threads that don’t connect: Covid gives Australian conspiracy theorists a home’, (Michael McGowan), The Guardian, 02-Aug-2020, www.theguardian.com.au]
⊞ a right to hold possession of property owned by another until they discharge the debt (www.lexico.com/)
⧆ Barkun describes them as “a stubbornly resilient sub-culture, a community of the alienated”
❂ many Sovereign groups are thought to be aligned with militia groups
⚅ ‘driving’, they assert, is what a truck driver or a taxi driver does for a living
✫ it’d be stating the obvious to say that Sovereigns have a cockeyed notion of the rule of law, one based on the false premise that an individual can choose which law they consent to, and which they don’t (SPLC)