Kim Campbell-McLean is the executive director of the AnnauKatiget Tumingit Regional Inuit Women's Association. (Submitted by Kim Campbell-McLean)

When I heard the Newfoundland and Labrador government decided it was no longer appropriate to have a holiday celebrating John Cabot, I was shocked and ecstatic, both at the same time.

Needless to say, as an Indigenous woman, I have never celebrated Discovery Day.

In June, Premier Dwight Ball announced that the government will no longer call the holiday nearest June 24 "Discovery Day." For now, it will be called "the June holiday."

Ball also stated that in the spirit of reconciliation, the government will consult with Indigenous governments and organizations before a new name is chosen.

I am excited for the prospect of a holiday we all can celebrate and enjoy as a province, and I was shocked because the issue finally got the attention it needed to bring about positive change and reconciliation.

I thought about my ancestors.

I thought about the oppression they went through and how strong and resilient they were.

The writings of my great-great-grandmother, Lydia Campbell, came flooding through my mind like from a burst dam.

She wrote about the first race of Inuit people and how tall and beautiful they were. She wrote about how many Inuit families there used to be and on her travels seeing 20 or more sealskin tents all together. She wrote about seeing the Innu in their beautiful red birchbark canoes paddling beautiful Lake Melville, with the Innu men steering from the back, the women helping by paddling, and the children in front singing songs in their mother tongue.

She wrote about seeing Inuit after they returned from a world's fair, and how much they had changed. They no longer spoke Inuttitut and no longer dressed like Inuit.

She went on to write that over the years there was only one kayak left in the bay and hardly any Inuit or Innu around like there used to be. In her published diaries, she blames the European settlers for their demise.

I reflected, and then I whispered, "This one is for you."

I quietly thanked two very strong women who made a major influence on my life while growing up. They taught me that when you go forward in life with the purest of intentions for the betterment for all, profound change can happen.

It was with that teaching in mind, when I agreed to contribute my thoughts to Maclean's magazine last year. A reporter was working on an article last summer about Discovery Day.

That experience led me to write Premier Dwight Ball, who is also minister of Indigenous and Labrador affairs, just days later, officially asking for the name of the Discovery Day holiday to be changed.

After all, it was the premier himself who stated that if he received an official request to change the name of Discovery Day, his government would be open for discussion.

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on CBC Radio's CrossTalkto talk about this very issue once again. The timing of the show was as profound as the message:the need for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the need to decolonize our province.

Three days later, the premier announced that indeed, the holiday would be changed as of at that moment. Humbly, I have to wonder: did I help to make that change happen?

Well, folks, this is what reconciliation looks like in the year 2020. Decolonizing, one step at a time.

As a society, it is up to us to bring about reconciliation. It is up to us to look at and call out systemic racism for what it is and to advocate for change. The colonialistpolicies that make up government structures and institutions in our province and within Canada need to be challenged, by us.

It is up to us to do the work and hold our government accountable.

It is up to us.

Over and out.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

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This is what reconciliation looks like: Why Discovery Day needed to go - CBC.ca

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What is the way forward for progressives in a time when it seems both centrism and authoritarianism are resurgent? What should be the character and scope of a national program that progressives in and outside the Democratic Party can and should embrace? There are many places to look for answers to these questions, and no doubt the answers will have many inspirations.Ad Policy

One of the most incisive articulations of an American progressive alternative is that of Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard Law professor, philosopher, and former Brazilian politician. He has written over two dozen books addressing an unusual diversity of topics, including critical legal theorywhich he helped developeconomics, philosophy, and religion. Given this range, it would be unfair to reduce Ungers work to one core idea. But perhaps the major theme of his work is summed up in his argument that society is made and imagined, that it is a human artifact rather than the expression of an underlying natural order.

What this means is that nothing in our societythe economy, liberal democracy, the legal order, etc.is predetermined toward some definitive end. They are human creations, artifacts whose forms can therefore be challenged, transcended, and ultimately reoriented for the purpose of greater human liberation, individually and collectively.

What makes Ungers progressive vision of society unique are its religious and prophetic elements. He sees human beings as having a divinelike capacity to transcend their societal circumstances to achieve greatness. What prevents them from doing so is the false assumption that there can be no substantial alternative to inherited political institutions. His work exposes this false necessity while providing progressive social, political, and economic alternatives to it. In this regard, his work can offer progressives key resources for exposing the false necessity of the American liberal status quo and thinking constructively about a different progressive vision for the United States.

The Nation recently spoke with Unger about his proposal for an alternative progressive track for American politics. Along the way, we discussed racial injustice in the United States, Donald Trumps election, democratizing new technologies, the future of education, and progressive taxation. Of pressing importance is the topic of structural economic and political change, and in turn, whether Ungers vision is impractical. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: Right now the streets are filled with protesters demonstrating in the aftermath of George Floyds brutal killing by Minneapolis police. Progressives have long struggled to confront and overcome racial injustice in the United States. You have criticized their approach, the dominant approach, to racial oppression. What is your understanding? And what is your proposal?

Roberto Mangabeira Unger: To grasp the meaning of this moment for the future of the country, it is useful to begin by distinguishing the immediate backgroundthe failure of the established approach to racial injustice in the United Statesfrom the larger context of which this failure forms a part: the disorientation of American progressives and the long-standing absence in American politics of any program responsive to the needs, interests, and aspirations of the working-class majority of the country, white or black.

The prevailing response to racial injustice in the United States has been the integrationist orthodoxy. It treats racial injustice as a threshold issue, to be addressed before all problems of economic equality and opportunity. Its signature expression is affirmative action. It has done little for those who most require protection, the vast number of black people who languish in prisons and dead-end jobs. This approach has offended the white working-class majority, who believe themselves to be victims of a conspiracy between sanctimonious white elites and the representatives of black workers. And it has provided a model for the identity politics that has addressed legitimate demands for respect and recognition only by diverting the country from engagement with its structural problems.

There is an alternative. The alternative is to distinguish individualized racial discrimination from the advancement of the unequipped, the excluded, and the impoverished. Individualized racial discrimination should be criminalized, as it is in many countries. Social advancement should be predicated on real disadvantage or exclusion, wherever it is found. Racial stigma should serve as only one of the standards that, together with other forms of disadvantage, trigger such advancement. Race should be combined with class rather than separated from it.

DSJ: How did the country arrive at its present situation, with the presidency in the hands of Donald Trump, after decades in which millions of working-class voters abandoned the Democratic Party? MORE FROM Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

RMU: The principal vehicle of American progressives, the Democratic Party, failed to come up with a sequel to Franklin Roosevelts New Deal. The sequel would have had to be very different from the original, which focused on economic security rather than economic empowerment and offers no model for how to bring more American workers into the good jobs of the most productive parts of todays economy.

Let us look coldly at what has happened since then. Having begun under Lyndon Johnson by treating the poor as an insular minority in need of support and blacks as another insular minority in need of rights, progressives offered nothing to the working-class majority of the country other than later to dissolve them into a series of group identities and special interests. Conservatives responded with the formula by which, under Democratic as well as Republican administrations, they won and wielded power for half a century: combining material concessions to the moneyed class with moral concessions to the moneyless classes. For this whole period, the United States has had no economic growth strategy other than cheap money, delegated by the federal government to the central bank, and productivity growth has stagnated. The majority of American workers have feltand beenabandoned.

Into the expanding vacuum that resulted from these successive abdications came the plutocratic populism of Donald Trump: a big fat hoax, given that it has done nothing for the abandoned majority other than to wage war against low-skill immigrants while continuingit must be acknowledgedto get high employment, with relatively few good jobs, on the basis of the cheap-money policy. What an opportunity for the progressives, if they had a program. They dont.

DSJ: What, then, should be the character of a national alternative that progressives in and outside the Democratic Party can embrace?

RMU: The progressive program the country needs would address the supply as well as the demand sides of the economy, production as well as consumption. It would seek to innovate in the economic, educational, and political arrangements that shape the primary or fundamental distribution of advantage and opportunity rather than devoting itself solely, as the humanizers of the supposedly inevitable have, to the after-the-fact correction, through progressive taxation and redistributive social spending, of market-generated inequalities. More generally, the individual should be secured in a haven of capability-assuring educational and economic endowments and of safeguards against private and governmental oppression. Society all around him, however, should be opened up to contest, experiment, and innovation. In that storm, the individual, once safe and equipped, can move unafraid. The storm does not arise spontaneously. It needs to be arranged.

The true aim of the progressives should be a deep freedom, achieved by changing the structure of social life, rather than a shallow equality. The struggle against entrenched and extreme inequality is subsidiary to the larger goal, to become bigger together. And the method should be structural changethe criterion of depthchange in the established institutional arrangements and ideological assumptions. Real structural change is not the replacement of one indivisible, predetermined systemsocialism for capitalismby another. It is fragmentary but cumulative. The goal of shared empowerment and the refusal to take the established institutional form of society as an unsurpassable horizon are what together oppose the progressive to the conservative.

These generalities mark a direction. They do not excuse us from proposing the initial steps by which to begin to move in that direction in a particular society and time. A combination of innovations in the economy, education, and democratic politics would start to give shape to the alternative that the country lacks.

DSJ: You have argued in your most recent book, The Knowledge Economy, that progressives need an approach to the supply side of the economy. What does such an approach entail for the future of the American economy and the situation of American workers?

RMU: At the heart of the economic part of a progressive program must be the attempt to develop a socially inclusive form of todays most advanced practice of production, the knowledge economy, informed by science and devoted to perpetual innovation. It exists in every sector of the American economyin intellectually dense services and even in precision agriculture, as well as in the high-tech industry with which we tend, too narrowly, to identify it. In every sector, however, it appears only as a fringe, a series of insular vanguards of production excluding the overwhelming majority of businesses and workers. Practices, more than technologies, are what set the knowledge economy apart. These practices bring production closer to discovery. The insularity of the knowledge economy results in both economic stagnation and economic inequality. It causes economic stagnation by denying the most advanced practice to most economic agents. And it roots economic inequality in a lengthening chasm between the advanced and backward parts of production.

To move toward an inclusive knowledge economy, the country needs to develop a 21st century equivalent to the 19th century system of agricultural extension by which it created, on its agrarian frontier, family-scale agriculture with entrepreneurial attributes. That would require establishing between the government and the producers an intermediate cadre of support centers, with wide autonomy and professional management and financed by a combination of subsidies and fees, to give a wider range of small- and medium-size enterprises broader access to advanced practice and technology, as well as to capital, and to identify and disseminate best practice.

But it is not enough to lift up businesses. It is also necessary to reach out, by analogous means, to people who have little or no relation to business organizations. The best place to begin is the middle part of the job structurethe part most hollowed out by the economic changes of recent decadesimproving the equipment and skills of people such as machine repair technicians and nurse practitioners. The goal would be to turn them into technologically equipped artisans. From there, it is possible to move, with similar methods and intentions, both up and down the job hierarchy.

This second wing of the productive uplift effort in turn merges into initiatives designed to strengthen labor in its relation to capital. No dynamic of inclusive rise in productivity can flourish against the background of low-wage and insecure labor. In the United States, as around the world, stable employment is ceasing to be the norm. More and more jobs are temporary, part-time, or otherwise insecure. The reality of labor performed under decentralized contractual arrangements, rather than as part of a stable labor force assembled in large productive units, cannot be reversed. It results from changes in the forms of production. But it can be mastered by the law to prevent flexibility from meaning insecurity. The free-for-all gig economy must not become the rule. The counterpart to productive uplift is new labor lawto organize, represent, and protect unstable labor.

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DSJ: Progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and progressive academics like Thomas Piketty have emphasized the role of redistributive taxesincluding taxes on wealthin diminishing inequality. Why do you resist? And what do you see as the proper place of taxation in a progressive program?

RMU: No progressive program is feasible without a substantially higher tax than the United States now implements. Comparative fiscal experience reveals the truth about taxes. Structural or institutional change reshaping the fundamental distribution of opportunity and advantage decisively overshadows anything that can be achieved by retrospective redistribution through tax and transfer. Moreover, in determining the overall impact of the budget on both its revenue-raising and spending sides, the aggregate level of the tax take and how it is spent count for more than the progressive profile of taxation. A tax that is neutral toward relative prices may make it possible to raise much more public revenue with much less economic trauma, as the European social democracies do through heavy reliance on the avowedly regressive value-added tax, and then to spend it on redistributive public services.

That is not a reason to reject the steeply progressive taxation of both individual consumption and wealth, so long as we understand that the redistributive effects of these taxes are likely to be modest unless we have the power and will to radicalize them and to tolerate the resulting economic disruption. Evidently, many progressive politicians prefer pietistic gestures to transformative effects. Bereft of a structural program, they simply want to show on whose side they are. And some of them are now distracted by the pleasant thought that, regardless of special circumstances, they can evade the whole problem by printing money instead of raising it.

DSJ: The economic changes that you propose, including a socially inclusive knowledge economy, seem to have far-reaching implications for education. What are they, and how can they be reconciled with a class divide that is also an educational divide in America?

RMU: The United States suffers from a severe form of educational dualism. Its schools are some of the best and the worst among high-income countries. There are two tasks. The first task has to do with the institutional setting of the school system. In this vast, unequal country, organized as a federation, the priority is to reconcile the local management of the schools with national standards of investment and quality. Such a reconciliation is incompatible with the exclusive dependence of the schools on local public finance. And it requires cooperation within the federal system to take over failing schools and school systems, fix them, and return them fixed.

The second task is to recast education on a model of teaching and learning that gives primacy to the acquisition of analytic and synthetic capabilities over the mastery of information. That does so by preferring selective depth to encyclopedic superficiality in dealing with content. That puts teamwork among students, teachers, and schools in the place of individualism and authoritarianism in the classroom. And that deals with every subject from contrasting points of view. This approach is no less suitable to practical, vocational training than to general education, once the focus of such training shifts from job-specific and machine-specific skills to the higher-order capabilities required by the knowledge economy and its technologies. But it does depend on the creation of a nationwide teaching career through cooperation within the federal system.

The school under democracy should not be the instrument of either government or the family. It should be the voice of the future and recognize in each young person a tongue-tied prophet.

DSJ: Can these alternatives in the economy and in education advance unless we remake our political institutions? Our democracy was not organized to facilitate structural change unless crisis forces transformation.

RMU: A deepening of democracy must accompany, in a progressive project, the economic and educational changes for which I have argued: Political institutions set the terms under which change in all other areas can happen. The mark of such a deepening is to strengthen our collective ability as citizens to master the shape of society rather than to have it imposed on us by history or necessity. As a result, it diminishes the need for crisis to serve as the enabling condition of change and weakens the power of the past to determine the future.

Here there are three major focal points for institutional innovation. The setup of the government, as defined in the Constitution, which powerfully shapes our ability to change society through politics: the pace of politics. The arrangements that influence the level of popular engagement in political life: the temperature of politics. And the relation of the national government to the states and towns: the federal system.

A defining feature of the constitutional architecture of the United States is its combination of a liberal principle of fragmentation of power with a conservative principle of the slowing down of politics, expressed in Madisons plan. Americans believe mistakenly that these two principles are naturally and necessarily bound together. They are not. They are connected by design to inhibit the transformation of society by politics. We can reaffirm the liberal principle but repudiate the conservative one, for example, by allowing either of the political branches to call early elections for both branches in the presence of an impasse. But it is futile to raise this issue in the United States now. The constitutional setup is revered as part of the national political identity. Those who have dissented from this view, beginning with Thomas Jefferson, have gone unheard.

Of the other two areas of possible innovation in the arrangements of democracythe level of participation and the reshaping of federalism, progressives have given priority to the first and dismissed the second as marginal to their aims. The initiatives that would raise the level of organized popular engagement in political life would reform the relation between money and politics, the terms of free access to the means of mass communication by political parties and organized social movements, and the electoral regime. They are indispensable to a progressive program. Placing them first, however, is a misjudgment. All are highly contentious, legally as well as politically. By contrast, the reenergizing of federalism has immense potential appeal, cutting across divisions between left and right and offering a wonderful device for developing the economic and educational alternatives the country needs.

Cooperative federalism, vertically among the three levels of the federal system and horizontally among the states and municipalities, can serve as the initial stage of determined and broad-based experimentation in American public life. Contrary to common prejudice, strong initiative by the national government and the empowerment of state and local government are not opposites. It is possible to have more of both at the same time, so long as we define clearly which responsibilities of each part of the federal system are exclusive and which are concurrent. Later on and within limits designed to prevent oppression and abuse, parts of the United States should be able to diverge from the predominant policies and arrangements in the country and create countermodels of the national future. Without such a dialectic of dominant and dissident solutions, no vital democratic experimentalism can take hold.

DSJ: Arent you demanding and expecting more than political reality allows? Cant your views be dismissed as utopian? For a leftist or any sort of progressive, isnt there a choice in the end between inadequate reform and impossible revolution?

RMU: I am a revolutionary by conviction as well as by temperament. I believe it is likely that I am living in a counterrevolutionary interlude in a long revolutionary period in the history of humanity. I am determined that my thoughts and actions not be controlled by the biases of the interlude. But I understand that revolutionary change today must differ in form and method as well as in substance from what it was in the past. For any program, the direction and the choice of the initial steps are crucial. It does not matter that the steps are longer or shorter. It matters that they be the right moves in the right direction. My criticism of the American progressives is not that the steps they take are too small. It is that they are steps in the wrong direction, taken under the influence of bad ideas about the future, the present, and even the past. The notion of a sudden leap into another regime of social life is a fantasy. Its practical role today is to serve as an excuse for its opposite. Once its fantastical nature has been exposed, what remains for the disappointed fantasists is to sweeten the world that they have despaired of reimagining and remaking.

DSJ: For the alternative you defend to advance, step by step, it needs a social base, a coalition, that doesnt yet exist. What base does your program imply? And how can it become a majority coalition without winning support from groups, such as the small-business class, that have been mainstays of American conservatism?

RMU: Every consequential agenda for change in society builds its own base over time. But that effort has to begin by engaging the classes, communities, and forces that exist. It must move them to revise, little by little, their imagination of the possible as well as their understanding of their interests and identities. A program like the one that I have outlined must go in search of a transracial progressive majority. That convergence needs to include large parts of the blue-collar and white-collar working class, of the racially stigmatized underclass, of the small-business class, and even of the restless aspirants of the professional and business class. Such a majority is within reach. Nothing in the alternative direction that I have described is incompatible within any part of this majority. The single most dangerous bias of the left is its prejudice against the small-business class, which has always had an outsize influence on the countrys self-understanding. That class now shades into the growing legions of the self-employed. To give up on it and on them is to prepare defeat.

DSJ: Even when you deal with economic and political practicalities, your ideas have a prophetic undertone. Another recent book of yours is called The Religion of the Future. The country has had its prophets. Does it really need new ones?

RMU: When politics is most serious, it is also about who we are and what we can and should become. It turns into a struggle over consciousness as well as over institutions. The message of the American prophetsincluding Emerson, Whitman, and Lincolnwas that the individual shares in the divine attribute of transcendence over context and becomes more human by becoming more godlike. Under democracy, which puts its faith in the constructive genius of ordinary men and women, this idea comes down to earth and informs the organization of society.

It is not good enough to say that the message has failed to be enacted and that the country should return to its founding ideals. The message itself should be rethought. From the outset, it bore a double taint, which compromised and corrupted it. It misrepresented the relation between self-construction and solidarity, failing to do justice to the presence of the latter within the former. As a result, it tempted Americans to think of themselves as little self-crowned Napoleons. The second stain on the prophetic teaching was to exempt American institutions from the reach of challenge and change and hold them up as the definitive form of a free society. The exemption amounted to a species of idolatry, for which the American republic has paid and continues to pay a terrible price. The prophetic voice must speak again in the United States. In breaking its silence, it must also correct its message.

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Roberto Mangabeira Ungers Alternative Progressive Vision - The Nation

On July 18, we remember and celebrate the life and achievements of a great leader Nelson Mandela.

But rituals of memorialising are hollow unless we ask ourselves the question, why do we recollect this and not that leader?

Nelson Mandela led the struggle against an inhuman political system in South Africa, and he skilfully piloted the transition from apartheid to democracy despite dire predictions that the country would descend into civil war. There is however much more to Mandela; a man of extraordinary courage, tremendous generosity, and remarkable vision.

Mahatma Gandhis doctrine of non-violence influenced Mandelas political strategy to some extent. In an essay on his political guru in The Time magazine of December 31, 1999, Mandela wrote of Gandhi who advocated non-violence when the violence of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had exploded upon us.

Both Gandhi and I, wrote Mandela, suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilised our respective people against governments that violated our freedom. I followed, accepted Mandela, Gandhian strategy as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle.

On December 16, 1961 Umkhonto cadres launched five bomb attacks on power stations, and government buildings in Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg. Mandela and other leaders were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trials.

Umkhonto weSizwe founder Nelson Mandela, receives military training at an Algerian FLN camp in Morocco, 1962. Credit: South African History Online

In the 1980s the apartheid regime had begun to negotiate with the African National Congress. In South Africas dreaded prisons Mandela began to conceptualise peace for his tortured land. The question that now confronted him was: how do social groups that a perverse history has locked into roles of the oppressor and oppressed learn to live together as fellow citizens?

A political community cannot be founded on the empty language of legal entitlements; it has to be based on reciprocal obligations.

Mandela had entered prison as a rebellious young man. By the 1980s reflection transformed him into a wise leader who was to steer his people through the valley of shadow into the sunlight of freedom.

As his release date drew nearer, he recognised that after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre his country had changed. Violence had been unleashed by some groups. Settlers began to demand an assured place at the high table of power. International commentators prophesied civil war. Given the context, Mandelas speech on his release in 1990 is incredible.

During my life time, he said, I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. My ideal is a democratic and free society in which persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve, but, if need be, an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Also read: When Nelson Mandela Said Viva Fidel!

This was an amazing statement from a man who had suffered imprisonment for 27 years.

A free South Africa for Mandela had to be a compassionate country. People had to understand the frailties and the ambiguities of the human condition. Though his jailers in the three prisons were Afrikaners, he realised that their ideologies were not freely chosen. The sensibilities of human beings are shaped by the society they live in. That society is fashioned by state power. South Africa would see no peace until the whites realised they had to forsake their ambitions of domination, and unless the blacks recognised that Afrikaners could not be banished; they had nowhere to go.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, right, and African leader Nelson Mandela gesture during the celebration of the Day of the Revolution in Matanzas. Credit: YouTube

In a second significant speech, Mandela established the foundations of a democratic political community. On April 10, 1993, one of South Africas most beloved leaders Chris Hani, was murdered by a Polish immigrant Janus Walus. Walus was connected with a white right-wing group opposed to majority rule. Hanis assassination sparked off major protests, arson and violence across the country. He had been a popular leader of the South African Communist Party, and the Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Hani possessed great moral authority and played a crucial role in the multi-party negotiations that cleared the way to democracy. It was generally accepted that Hani would succeed Mandela as President in 1999. Anthony Sampson in his Mandela, The Authorised Biography observed that the assassination deepened perception among whites, and some blacks, that Mandela would not be able to control the tide of violence that threatened to swamp South Africa, let alone establish and head a stable government.

In the days following the assassination, cadres of the African National Congress tried to restore peace and calm passions by holding rallies and demonstrations. Mandela, determined to end the spiral of violence that could dislodge negotiations and the enactment of a Constitution, stepped into the charged atmosphere.

Today, he said in a speech broadcasted by the South African Broadcasting Corporation on April 13, 1993, an unforgivable crime has been committedThe calculated cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani is not just a crime committed against a dearly beloved son of our soil. It is a crime against all the people of our country.

Mandela took care to register that grief affected each inhabitant of the country white, black and coloured. What has happened is a national tragedy that has touched millions of people across the political and the colour divide. Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who from any quarter wish to destroy what Chris Hann gave his life for, freedom of all of us.

A woman flies a South African flag during the Nelson Mandela: A Life Celebrated memorial service at Cape Town Stadium December 11, 2013. Credit: Reuters

Mandela adeptly turned the raging debate between white and black into one that pitched peace against violence. This is a watershed moment for all of us. Our decision and actions will determine whether we use our pain, our grief and our outrage to move forward to what is the only lasting solution for our country-an elected government of the people, by the people, for the peopleWe, must not let the men who worship war, and who lust after bloodwhen we, as one people, act together decisively, with discipline and determination, nothing can stop us.

Mandela emphasised that all mourned Hanis death, all were overcome with grief irrespective of the colour of their skin, each citizen sympathised with her fellow citizens. Now it is the time for our white compatriots from whom messages of condolences continue to pour in, to reach out with an understanding of the grievous loss to our nation to join in the memorial services and the funeral commemorations.

The speech takes us right back to the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith spoke of sympathy as a bond that united humanity in his famous Theory of Moral Sentiments. People possess the ability to feel pain because they can imagine themselves in the position of others. In the same mode Mandela said:

Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know and bring to justice, this assassin.

He turned the political discourse of racism upside down. Human nature cannot be seen in essentialist terms. We can connect to each other because we have the gift of imagination and sympathy. This is the foundation of society, this is the foundation of common citizenship, and this is the foundation of solidarity.

Students of South African history and politics suggest that this was the day when Nelson Mandela was accepted as the undisputed leader of the country by the blacks, the coloured and the whites. This was the time that South Africans begin to walk on the path that led to healing, and peace through reconciliation.

Also read: Your Ideas Have Spread Like Wildfire: A Letter to Dr Anand Teltumbde on His Birthday

In a third momentous statement Mandela outlined his vision for a democratic South Africa. This was in the aftermath of the first all-race elections on April 27, 1994, and the victory of the African National Congress under his leadership. In his inaugural speech Mandela said.

The time for the healing of wounds has come, the moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come, and the time to build is upon usWe know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people for national reconciliation, for nation-building, for the birth of a new world. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans both black and white will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity-a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

Under Mandelas stewardship South Africa initiated the project of reconciling with the past rather than retributive justice. The logic of reconciliation is that the past, howsoever harrowing it might be, cannot be forgotten or set aside. In order to know where we are at the present moment, we must know where we have come from. We cannot understand the present, or plan for the future without knowledge of history and awareness of roads taken and roads not taken.

Forgetting, in sum, is not an option for history has a way of relentlessly intruding into collectively induced amnesia. Someone, somewhere, will recollect past injuries and pain. Someone, somewhere, will deploy these memories to light a conflagration, and punish the descendants of groups who committed these horrific crimes. If conflict in history is not addressed and accepted, memories of violence will continue to fester and deepen the wounds of the body politic.

The Freudian assumption that suppressed trauma will inevitably remerge in destructive ways has to be taken seriously. Societies that cannot come to terms with the past, or those who prefer to forget the past are fragile, ready to burst asunder at the mention of a pain-wracked history.

We never know when violence will break out around some or other grievance of wrongdoing and injustice. Societies can be set on fire if they fondly believe that they have forgotten, a mere spark is enough to do so. They have to acknowledge and accept that there is need to move on. Members may not forget, or forgive, but they should be able to accept the history of their country as irreversible.

A scene from 2009 film Invictus, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon played President Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar, captain of rugby team, respectively. The film speaks of the aftermath of the apartheid and how one sport united the country. Photo: IMDb

Notably the process of reconciliation does not offer a magic mantra. The process is attended by a great deal of trauma and anxiety. Yet a number of theorists have advocated and supported the concept. The very realisation that perpetrators of human rights violations have conceded that they did wrong, has proved, in recent history, a therapeutic process. Victims feel that their pain, their humiliation and their trauma has been recognised or simply that they count.

At the core of the concept of reconciliation is the centrality of human rights, what should not be done to people, and what should be done for them. Reconciliation does not provide comprehensive solutions to the problems of the past; it seeks to change attitudes to historical injustice. Forgiveness may not be a key issue in reconciliation, it is more important to accept that wrong has been done, that the wrongdoer has accepted his crime, and that societies should now carry on. This was the lesson Mandela taught humanity. For this he should be remembered.

The process of reconciliation was set in place in South Africa under the leadership of Mandela, and guided by the same principles that he had expressed publicly, his earnest desire and his determination that South Africa belonged to all irrespective of race and class. The transition from apartheid to democracy was largely peaceful in as much as there was no open civil war or large-scale bloodshed as international commentators had forecast.

This is the genius of Mandela; this is why we remember him.

Neera Chandhoke is former professor of political science, Delhi University.

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Remembering Nelson Mandela, Who Honoured the Power of Reconciliation - The Wire

The British just system has taken over 1,000 years to evolve into the one we recognise today. Its foundations and principles have been retained by so many countries that 30% of the worlds population live under its rule[1], and for those who are not fortunate enough to be governed by such, I suspect, envy those who are.

Yes we have miscarriages of justice and as a Barrister I dont dismiss these lightly but we have to accept, that no system, built by humans for humans, can ever be perfect. However, as a person of colour, I think I would rather hedge my innocence being proven through the balance and checks of our legal system than one from, say, in Guangzhou, China or perhapsMinneapolis, USA, but am I right to feel this way?

China is well versed in the criticisms levied against it by the world for inhumane treatment of particular ethnic groups in its society. In United Nations findings, 2018, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Amnesty Internationals Deputy East Asia Director Lisa Tassi said:

The Committees findings highlight the systematic oppression of ethnic minorities in China, including the mass arbitrary detention of Chinese Uighurs and others in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)

The Committee found that the Chinese government were mass detaining certain groups under the pretext of countering terrorism, with the estimated number of those being detained ranging from tens of thousands to the unimaginable number of a million. Because of the broad way in which terrorism has been defined in legislation, this has meant that an act of peaceful or religious expression could be defined as a threat to the state, having the effect of targeting particular ethnic and religious groups.

In the USAs report of the same year (2018) to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, this report also made some troubling findings.

In 2016 (the last figures), Black Americans made up 27% of the prison population, double their share of the total population. The USA criminal justice system caters for the largest prison population in the world (2015, over 6.7 million people were incarcerated). The figures collated in this report provide a clear picture of the disparity between the races.

African Americans were more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, were more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos compared to one of every seventeen white males.

This report concluded that the impact of systemic racism was a broad reason for the above findings, however, that deprivation also played a part where the USs legal system ran a two tier system one for the rich and one for the poor, essentially, if youre rich, you can buy your way to freedom. There is an over representation of individuals from poor areas in the criminal justice system who tend to come from ethnic groups.

In attempting to evidence its findings, the report compared and contrasted those arrested for drugs. Use rates of drugs in the States are largely comparable, and yet if you are African American, you are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested than a white person. The same disparities arise when you consider the USs equivalent to stop and search.

Closer to home, in France, the justice system based on the principles of freedom and fairness is also under scrutiny. French state policy rejects any references to a person being identified by his nationality, racial, ethnic, religious or linguistic difference. Anyone in contact with the State is faceless and cannot be judged on who they are or what they look like, purely for the deed they are being accused of committing.

This starts off well doesnt it? However, the experience of ethnic groups is very different. They describe themselves as being ignored, suffering racism (both direct and indirect) at community and state level, but with little clear path to seeking redress, because as is often the case, it is very hard to prove the causative reason for an act, merely that the act has occurred.

The French government refuse to conduct research on the experience of those that may be linked to their race. For example, it doesnt know how many of its people follow the muslim religion or identify as a member of an ethnic group.

Legally, the constitutional principle of equality has been interpreted as prohibiting the government from collecting data or statistics on the racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds of its citizens, in any context. This means for example that the socioeconomic status of groups across any indicators based on racial, ethnic, religious or other grounds is unknown, and that the national census does not include any questions about race or ethnicity.

So the French government, and its citizens, have no idea whether one group is suffering from discrimination, or to consider a more positive slant if the state is getting it right for all its citizens. There are few anti discrimination laws, but of the ones that exist there are even problems identified within those. In particular they refer to immigrants, even when the person who is attempting to rely on the protective law is a second or third generation French national and member of society.

In 2017, David Lammy MP undertook an 18 month review of ethnic groups and their contact with the English criminal justice system. Im sure you wont be surprised at what he discovered: Just 3% of people in England & Wales are Black, and yet 12% of our prison population is Black. Going further, 25% of our prison population, and over 40% of our youth prison population, come from ethnic minority backgrounds. That compares to 14% of the overall population, and for those facing imprisonment and identified as Asian or Black, were associated with a 50-55% increase in the odds of imprisonment, compared to those self-reporting as White.

You may also be familiar with the figure that a black male is twice as likely to die during an arrest than a white male and that he is 47 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

Clearly, my feeling that I would fair a better chance navigating my way through the criminal justice system in this country than any other is not based on the empirical evidence.

However, I take hope: in 2019 the EU undertook research into the experiences of racism suffered by black and other ethnic groups in the member states. It found that the level of racism experienced in Britain was relatively low in comparison to the other member states and even in the US.so maybe my feeling, although not completely justified, should at least be hopeful?

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A view from the Bar: Race and the British justice system - Open Access Government

In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art acquired one of Tania Brugueras most famous works, Untitled (Havana 2000), which debuted at the 7th Havana Biennial. The theme of that exhibition was Closer to One Another, an exploration of mass communication since the new millennia. The artist had set up her presentation inside amilitary vault within the Cabaa Fortress, which had historically been a site where Cuban counterrevolutionaries were imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases even killed. Visitorswere met with a quietly explosive piece: a vast, darkened space, its floor lined with milled sugarcane.

As viewers made their way through the darkened space, they would discover nude male performers seeming to scratch themselves while a video of Fidel Castro played on a tiny monitor. With its provocative critique of the strange power dynamics that guide life in post-revolution Havana, the work embodies Brugueras practice, which often involves provoking viewers into considering visible and invisible means of governmental oppression.

Bruguera was born in 1968 in Havana, Cuba, where she observed failings of the Cuban revolution, which gave way to economic hardship, creative censorship, and unchecked forms of power for officials. At the age of 12, she enrolled at the Escuela Elemental de Artes Plsticas in Havana; her mother, according to Bruguera, believed it would keep her daughter out of trouble. Brugueras early work focused on her own body as a site for social critique, often by subjecting herself to physical pain. In the 1996 performance, titled Studio Study,a nude Bruguera stood atop a high pedestal while pinned to the wall by metal restraints buffered by cotton. In her hands were slabs of raw meat.

In time, Bruguera expanded the definition of performance art into participatory events. Her audiencessometimes unknowinglybecame her collaborators. She has staged elaborate performances with institutions that have garnered her a Guggenheim fellowship in 1998 and a showcase at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In 2003 she developed the notion of arte til, roughly translating to useful artart that transcends representation to offer practical solutions to social issues. Art and ethics cannot be separated in this practice, Bruguera once said. They are interdependent, they define each other.Such art has invited backlash from the Cuban government, who regularly curtail her performances. Bruguera was arrested three times between December 2014 and January 2015, and was detained most recently last month en route to a Black Lives Matter protest in Havana.

Below is a guide to some of Brugueras most incisive performances.

Tribute to Ana Mendieta (Homenaje a Ana Mendieta), 198596

Among Brugueras most provactive early works are her site-specific reenactments of performances and unrealized projects by Ana Mendieta, the feminist Cuban artist who fell to her death in 1985 at the age of 36. Bruguera started by producing these reenactments for her thesis at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, and she continued doing them for the next 10 years, re-creating works such as Mendietas famed series Siluetas (Silhouettes), from 197381. Mendietas practice centered the spiritual marriage of abstract female forms and earth, and in the Siluetas, she left imprints and made carvings of her body into the earth, decorating the silhouettes with natural materialssuch as twigs, flowers, fire, and even animal hearts.

Bruguera performed her tribute to Mendieta in Havana, during a period where a heightened number of Cubans were immigrating to the United States. The act symbolically reclaimed Mendieta, who experienced a traumatic migration to the U.S. as a child and who has traditionally been considered largely with respect to U.S. art history, for Cubas artistic heritage.

El peso de la culpa (The Burden of Guilt), 1997

Bruguera debuted this performance in 1997 at her home in Havana as part of the series titled Memorias de la posguerra (Memories After the War). During the performance, which spanned roughly an hour, a nude Bruguera slowly consumed native soil mixed with salt water meant to symbolize tears. Throughout, a headless lamb carcass hung around her neck. The act was an allusion to the myth that, during the Spanish colonization of Cuba, Indigenous people ate nothing but dirt, a choice of death over captivity.

Eating dirt, which is sacred and a symbol of permanence, is like swallowing ones own traditions, ones own heritage, its like erasing oneself, electing suicide as a way of defending oneself, Bruguera said of the performance. What I did was take this historical anecdote and update it to the present. In later versions of the performance, a Cuban flag woven from human hair hangs behind Bruguera, a literal representation of the audience.

Desierro (Displacement), 199899

Much of Brugueras early work used her body to emphasize physical strain as a catalyst for political action. In Desierro, she encased herself in a suit of layered Cuban earth in the likeness of Congolese Nkisi Nkondi, mystical idols which, according to legend, housed spirits tasked with hunting wrongdoers and oath-breakers. The power figures became common among Afro-Caribbean religious practices. In Brugueras performance, the Nkondi becomes metaphors for the unfilled social and economic promises of the Cuban Revolution.

Untitled (Havana, 2000)

Artists participating in the 7th Havana Biennial were expressly forbidden to present work that criticized Fidel Castros regime. When Bruguera first proposed Untitled (Havana, 2000) to the biennial, she withheld plans to include in the work a looped video of the dictator unbuttoning hismilitary uniform to reveal that he is not wearing a bulletproof vest. All the while, Castro is smiling. Bruguera looks to highlight the dictators act of bravadofeigned vulnerability made possible only through his privileged position and military-grade protection.

Surrounding the video are nude male performers who stand atop mounds of sugarcane mash, Cubas most lucrative export. The video was not played until the Biennials opening day, when lines formed outside the dank military vault for a glimpse. In response, the exhibitions organizers shut off electricity around the vault, leaving the entirety of the biennial in darkness. Ultimately, the power was turned back on, but Bruguera wasnt allowed to show the video.

Department of Behavior Art (Ctedra Arte de Conducta) 200209,

In the early 2000s Bruguera founded Ctedra Arte de Conducta, a public artwork that also functioned as a participatory art school. The goal was to foster a new generation of less commercially-driven, more politically active artists of the sort that did not typically appear at Cubas traditional art schools, few of which taught performance art. Department of Behavior came about shortly after Bruguera returned from Kassel, Germany, where she showedUntitled (Kassel, 2002) at Documenta 11. The artist felt that, because the exhibition was so crowded, she was unable to activate the works message, and thus it was unsuccessfulbut it led to a breakthrough.

I started thinking about appropriating the structure and the resources of power as my medium, as my material, she toldTom Finkelpearl, author and New York Citys former cultural affairs commissioner. Instead of representing them, I wanted to put them in action; that would be my work. The curriculum focused on art as a tool for political and social action. The school opened in her home in January 2003 as a two-year program comprising weekly workshops on Behavior Art and discourse. In 2009, believing that the work had served its purpose, Bruguera closed the school.

Tatlins Whisper #5, 2008

For the performanceTatlins Whisper #5, visitors to Tate Moderns Turbine Hall were confronted by two mounted police in uniform, who aggressively patrolled the space, at times using crowd-control tactics such as closing off gallery entrances and corralling small groups into tight circles. Notions of power are the core of the workits title refers to Constructivist artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, who designed the Monument to the Third International, an abstract structure meant as a tribute to Communist power. The performance, which occurred at unannounced times, was contingent on the participation of the museums visitors, many of whom did little to resist the officers. The piece was an attempt to bring lived realities of some oppressed communitiespolice brutality, riot suppressioninto an art space.

Immigrant Movement International, 201015

This five-year project, presented in partnership with New Yorks Queens Museum and Creative Time, asked a simple but heady question: What makes a person in the United States an immigrant?For the first year of the project, Bruguera shared a a small apartment in in Queenss Corona neighborhood with five undocumented immigrants and their six children. During that time, she lived on a minimum wage, without health insurance, to better understand what many U.S. immigrants went through daily. Another aspect of the project saw volunteers offering educational programming, including language, nutrition, dance classes, and free healthcare and daycare services from a beauty shopturnedart space.

10,148,451, 2018

In 2018, Bruguera returned to Tate Modern to stage 10,148,451 for its Turbine Hall Commission. The number, which was stamped in red ink on each visitors hand, referred to the amount of people who migrated between countries in 2017, plus those who died during their journeys that year. Like many of Brugueras later works, 10,148,451 turned viewers into participants, inviting them to leave impressions on a heat-sensitive floor or to step inside a room next to the Turbine Hall pumped with an organic compound that induced tears. The commission also included the creation of the group Tate Neighbors, a group of 21 people tasked with imagining how the museum could be in dialogue with Londons local community. In response, they renamed Tate Moderns main building after local activist Natalie Bell. The change was originally intended to be temporary, but the name was formally adopted after the performance concluded.

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Tania Brugueras Most Famous Works: How the Artist Has Challenged Oppressive Forces with Incisive Performances - ARTnews

Three decades ago, driven by a quest to reclaim their sovereignty and recalibrate the power relations between the state and society, the people of this country went to the streets to push for political and constitutional reforms, a major inflection point in the history of our nation. Through a protracted, peaceful struggle by Kenyans in the country and in the diaspora, the country finally transitioned into a multi-party democracy.

The struggle is not over; Kenyas politics have taken a backward trajectory, moving towards dictatorship in the midst of an intra-elite succession struggle that could descend into violent conflict, chaos, and even civil war.

Kenya is a fake democracy where elections do not matter because the infrastructure of elections has been captured by the elites. There is a danger of normalizing electoral authoritarianism, where the vote neither counts nor gets counted. The judiciary is under constant attack and disparagement by the executive while parliament is contorted into a body increasingly unable to represent Kenyans and provide oversight over the executives actions.

The security services are unleashed on the poor and the dispossessed as if they are not citizens but enemies to be hunted down and destroyed.

A range of constitutional commissions are in a state of contrived dysfunction while our media business model is failing, accelerated by political interference. Grand corruptionperpetrated by a handful of families and by the elites collectivelyhas been normalized and the fight against corruption has been politicized. In the creeping descent into dictatorship, civilian public services have been militarized and the 2010 Constitution that was in many ways a culmination of the struggle that started on July 7, 1990 when the late Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia called for a meeting at the Kamukunji grounds in Nairobi, is being deliberately undermined.

We have a duty and a responsibility to defend Kenyas constitution; to resist efforts to undermine devolution in particular; to resist those determined to continue looting an economy already on its knees; to stand up against efforts to brutalize, dehumanize, and rent asunder the essential human dignity of Kenyans as a people.

Three decades is a generation. The generation that voted for the first time in 1992 is a venerated demographic that is 48 years old today. It is the generation of freedom (the South African equivalent of the born-frees), and a significant part of the cohort that participated in the struggle as teens or young adults.

It is the generation that bore the brunt of the struggle for freedom but which has been denied the opportunity for real political leadership. That part of its membership that has had access to state power is drawn from the reactionary wing of the groupthe scions of the decadent YK92 and drivers of the NO campaign against a new constitution.

Despite having successfully fought for a new constitution, three decades after Saba Saba, the frustration felt by this generation and its children runs deep. Why? Power is still largely imperial, exercised in a brutal and unaccountable manner, as institutions flail and falter.

The country is still ethnically divided, the fabric of our nationhood is fraying and its stability remains remarkably and frighteningly fragile. Foreign domination, exploitation, and oppression is still with us. Poverty and inequality still reign as a tiny economic aristocracy consolidates wealth at the top, while a large pool of the poor underclass expands at the bottom. Why is this the case? Why, after three major successful transitions over three decadesmultipartyism in 1992; power transition in 2002; and a new constitution in 2010are we still being frustrated by our politics and economics? Why is our quest to advance Kenya as a prosperous, democratic and stable country floundering? I see five main reasons why Kenyas democratization and development have been stymied.

First, and most importantly, is the moral bankruptcy of Kenyas elite. It is the loyal facilitator of our continued colonization by the imperialism of the West and the East. We have a political elite whotogether with their acolytes in the middle classesview this constitution as inconvenient and who have in the last decade taken every step to undermine it, now even audaciously threatening to overhaul it.

This mythmaking of how the constitution doesnt work for us; or how it is expensive (despite analytical evidence to the contrary), or how it does not promote inclusivity, is basically political mischief-making that must be roundly denounced and firmly rejected.

But this hostile attitude by the political class towards the constitution should not surprise us. The constitution was imposed on them by the people through a people-driven process. And we must remember that they proposed more amendments to it on the floor of the House than there were articles in the constitution. To be sure, when the political class finds a constitution, a law or an institution to be an inconvenience, that is a clear indicator of success.

We must actively resist the schemes by the political class to hijack, mangle and wreck the constitution, and thus remove the checks that make the exercise of political power onerous. The constitutional product is only as goodand as secureas the process that creates it.

And whereas we must salute the decision of Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga to stop the grandstanding and step back from the brink to save lives, the framework for dealing with the issues that created the problem in the first place (such as electoral theft right from the party primaries to the general election, ethnicity, police brutality, and vigilante massacres) should have been broader, more structured, and more inclusive than the present process which is private, exclusionary, unstructured, and partisan.

The moral bankruptcy of the political elite is pushing us into a false choice between dynasties and hustlersa very superficial and shallow narrative masquerading as a class-based political contest yet it is merely a joust between gangs. It is a (mis)-framing that obscures the underlying forces that create underdevelopment, instability and violence and those who benefit from the end result.

We must not buy into this misframing of our political choices, whose guile in placing a confederacy of familiar surnames on one side, and a well-known economic rustler of public assets on the other, seeks to hide the common denominator of those two groups: the plutocrats within the state that are the beneficiaries.

Both are extractive and extortionist, only distinguished by the differences in their predatory styles and their longevity in the enterprise of shaking down the Kenyan public. This is a club, a class of state-dependent accumulationists and state-created capitalists united by a history of plunder of public resources and unprincipled political posturing, and only divided by the revolving-door cycle of access to the public trough.

My second argument as to why, despite the many progressive political and constitutional transitions the country still feels restless and dissatisfied, has to do with the performance and the posture adopted by parliament. Whereas the judiciary has emerged as an effective and consequential arm of government since 2011, simultaneously playing defender and goalkeeper of the constitution, parliament, has since 2013, and even more so now, acquiesced as an adjunct to the executive. In a complete misreading of the presidential system, parliament sees itself as an extension rather than a check on the executive.

The senate is even worse; instead of playing its constitutive role of protecting devolution against the excesses and encroachment of the national government, senators got into the most parochial contest of egos with the governors, bizarrely siding with the executive to stream-roll and undermine devolution. It took the judiciary, through a number of bold decisions, and the public, who rallied around devolution, including in the ruling partys backyard, to save devolution from an early collapse.

Third is the suboptimal output from devolved governments. Devolution has been good but is not yet great. Because of a hostile national government and endemic corruption in the counties, devolved governments have not performed optimally although, compared to the central governments record of the last 50 years, they have made a big difference in peoples daily lives.

Although devolution has been revolutionary, a combination of frustration from the top (especially from the Treasury, the Devolution Ministry (particularly the first one) and the Provincial Administration) and the extremely poor and corrupt leadership of some governors have delayed the devolution dividends.

I dare say that without the strong backing of the judgesa raft of decisions by the High Court and two decisions by the Supreme Court on the Division of Revenue Billdevolution would long have unraveled. These decisions are part of the reason for the animosity towards the judiciary that we have witnessed in the last decade.

Fourth, political parties have not been operating optimally. Political party primaries have been heavily rigged and violent, which has undermined peoples faith in the democratic process. Further, the Political Parties Fund is operated in an opaque manner, with the size of the allocations to some parties being equal to the allocations that are given to some counties.

The disorganization and privatization of parties is nurturing a feeling of despondency and a lack of belief in parties, yet our constitution envisages a party-based constitutional democracy.

Fifth is the countrys economic collapse due to mismanagement. This economic failure preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. Never before has the country witnessed such a spectacular mismanagement of the economy. There is absolute incoherence and inconsistency in the public policy priorities.

From a glitzy manifesto that has been honored more in the breach than in the observance, to the Big 4 Agenda, the Nairobi Regeneration Team, the Anti-Corruption, we are all over the place, and are now consumed by succession politics. We have a ballooning debt that is unprecedented in stock (over Sh6 trillion), in composition (much of it expensive commercial debt); and in impact (Eurobond monies are yet to be accounted for).

In this context, it would be extremely foolish to think that individuals who have been partners in this mismanagement could be plausible alternatives. The authors of the last seven years of corruption, debt, and underdevelopment are known and so, if the country is to stand a chance of realizing the benefits of the transitions that it has undergone, then it would be utter tomfoolery to consider parading any of these characters as the agents of that change.

Our constitution is not defective. The quality of our elite isfatally so.

The problem is not in the structure of power as expressed in our constitutional architecture, but in the exercise of power in the conduct, choice and decisions that leadersand to some extent the massesmake.

The structure of power does not command us to have a President, Speaker, Prime Minister (that is what the Majority Leader would be in a parliamentary system), Attorney General, Chief of Defense Forces, Director General of Intelligence, Head of Kenya Police, Director of Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Governor of Central Bank, Commissioner General of Kenya Revenue Authority, and Auditor General, all from one region.

It is the exercise of that power, both by the nominating and confirming authorities, that allows for this construction of an ethnic hegemony at the heart and in the commanding heights of state affairs. This is not to question the competence and patriotism of these compatriots; it is to question the effect of this apparent singular concentration of competence in one ethnic identity on the fabric of our nationhood.

The absolute necessity for diversity and inclusion in public positions and policy cannot be gainsaid. That is how you create a strong and united nation. The argument that changing the constitution will, ipso facto, foster inclusivity is a false one. With an already expansive government of 22 ministers, over 40 Principal Secretaries, parastatal chiefs, and an expanded leadership in both Houses of Parliament, how come we are still not able to be inclusive?

Vuguvugu la Mageuzi (VUMA) or Kongomano la Mageuzi. These are possible names of a transformative movement made up of all the social movements that exist in the country and that, going forward, would tackle a number of issues.

First, the middle class civil society must reactivate its engagement and build strategic and effective alliances with grassroots movements and the over 40 social justice centers countrywide to keep both national and county governments in check and create a strong central defense for the constitution. Indeed, the countervailing power of the civil society must be strengthened.

VUMA should be the crucible for the development of alternative leaderships drawn from such movements as The Artist Movements of cartoonists, film makers, singers, poets, and song writers; 100 Days of the Citizens Assemblies; Congress for the Protection of the Constitution; DeCOALonise; Friends of Lake Turkana; Inuka Kenya Ni Sisi, Okoa Mombasa, Kenya Tuitakayo Movement, and SwitchOffKPLC.

There are many others in formation: the movement to protect the rights of tea workers in Kericho; the movement to protect the cane farmers in western Kenya; the movement to protect devolution in the NFD; the movements that defend community land from commodification; farmers revolts against crony capitalism in the Rift Valley and central Kenya; and the movement to withdraw our troops from Somalia, among others.

Second, the movement must give voice to and support the Council of Governors demands for the arrears in development funds that the national government continues to refuse to disburse.

Third, this is a good moment for the emergence of an alternative leadership for Kenya. The political elites are in fear of each other and there is a hurting stalemate in their relationship and negotiations. We need to invest in the rupture of those negotiations.

Fourth, we need to support a principled and fair fight against corruption, both at the national and county levels, and establish whether public policy and the law have been used for public good or private gain.

Fifth, we also need to set up at least three judicial commissions of inquiry, the first one being on the public debt incurred since independence so that we can establish the rationale, basis, terms, impact, and beneficiaries of these debts. This includes Ken-Ren, Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, SGR, Eurobond, and other scams. The second one should investigate all government technology projects from IFMIS to OT-Morpho, to Huduma Number to E-Citizen. The third should target police brutality and the vigilante and police massacres of 2017, especially in western Kenya and in the slums of Nairobi.

Sixth, we should revisit all the solutions devised by the Saitoti Report; the Akiwumi Ethnic Clashes Report; the Ndungu Land Report; the InterParty-Parliamentary Group Report (particularly its unfinished business); the Truth and Justice Commission Report; the Kreigler Report; the Kroll Report; Kofi Annans Agenda 4; the Waki Report and all the reports developed by the civil society as solutions to our societal problems. That rich and robust material should be debated and refined for implementation.

Seventh, we must undertake mass civic education on the contents of the 2010 Constitution with a view to triggering the citizenry to demand its implementation;

Eighth, we must form a united front with political parties that are against imperialism and baronial rule and their respective narratives.

Ninth, we must nurture a political party or political parties that will contest for political power in the interests of the motherland.

And lastly, we must ensure that the failure of the ruling elite to secure the social and economic rights of the Kenyan people as provided for under the constitution (the right to food, housing, water, education, health, social security, and employment) during the ongoing pandemic is an important lesson about the kind of leadership this country should not have.

The future of the constitution and our democracy will depend on the quality of leaders the country elects. That is when the full dividends of Saba Saba and 2010 will be fully realized. As the United States has shown, even constitutions, institutions, and customs that have been nurtured over hundreds of years can come easily undone by a rogue leadership and a pliant public.

Dr Willy Mutunga is a public intellectual and former Chief Justice of Kenya

First published in The Elephant

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30 Years After Saba Saba - The Citizen

I am proud of how so many people in my town in rural West Wales have rallied around the Black Lives Matter protests. Fighting for civil rights brings out the very best in some people. Activism has taken the form of marches, protests in towns, petitions, and a plethora of informative Twitter threads, online videos, and shared educational posts. Many people across Wales have been active in their support, as everyone should be.

However, as with any civil rights movement, there are some humans who display very little humanity as they condemn BLM and everything the movement stands for, even when this is done unwittingly. Entrenched, narrow-minded views permeate the mindsets of so many people in smaller, rural, Welsh communities around where I live and beyond. The fact that people feel compelled to criticise a movement with its foundations in equality makes it very clear that perspectives need to be changed. And it is the Welsh school system that lies at the heart of the problem. A complete overhaul of the curriculum we are taught in schools has never been so necessary; if we dont know where were going wrong in what were saying and doing, we cant bring about the radical change that is needed.

Over the centuries, the British government has consistently neglected and suppressed Welsh identities. In the mid-19th century, Welsh was demoted to the language of the crass and the uneducated by the British government in Wales schools. To improve pupils knowledge of English (considered the language of the educated middle class), some schools in Wales employed the Welsh Not system. The Welsh Not was a piece of wood on a string (often etched with W.N. or Welsh Not) given to a child who spoke Welsh in school to wear around the neck to dissuade children from speaking their native tongue. At the end of the school day or week, the child wearing the Welsh Not would be punished, often with a beating. Though not in place in all schools, and not official government policy, its use was prevalent enough to be considered convention in the late Victorian era. To this day, remnants of the idea of the superiority of the English language persist.

The oppression experienced in Wales by the English is not solely confined to the Welsh language, nor is it confined to 19th century schools. Capel Celyn, a small rural community in the Tryweryn valley in North Wales, was flooded in 1965 to provide the city of Liverpool with water for industry. In displacing the residents of Capel Celyn, the flooding displaced an important, traditional, solely Welsh-speaking community. Forcing the residents to relocate undermined the value of the Welsh language and its heritage and subordinated the small community as well to the needs and whims of the larger nearby English city. This happened despite 35 of the 36 Welsh then-MPs voting against it (the 36th did not vote). The fact that Parliament directly opposed and overturned an effectively unanimous Welsh-MP decision not to flood the valley has become a national disgrace, and when it happened back in the tumultuous 1960s, it paved the way for the advancement of the fight for Welsh devolution. Today, there is a mural on a ruined old stone wall in Ceredigion, West Wales, stating Cofiwch Dryweryn (Remember Tryweryn). The murals overtly political overtones mean that it has been subject to multiple instances of vandalism. In 2008, the words were altered to Angofiwch Dryweryn (spelt incorrectly, but meaning Forget Tryweryn).[2] It was daubed over in black paint and covered by the word Elvis in February 2019.[3] In April 2019 it was partly demolished. These are only a few examples of such instances. Each time, it has been repainted and rebuilt to retain its original form and message, to remind those who see and hear of it of the injustice suffered.

However, on the 30th June 2020, the mural was vandalised with a swastika and a white power symbol painted over the motto.

Undeniably aresponse to the international BLM protests, a vandal saw fit to denounce theCofiwch Dryweryn motto, itself a reminder of historical injustice, withsymbols pertaining to racial supremacy and domination. It is an inherentlyparadoxical act which Elin Jones, Ceredigions Member of the Welsh Senedd (theWelsh Parliament), described very well as disgusting, sinister anddangerous.[4]

This is not an isolatedevent concerning race. Prior to the defacing of the mural, a black familyliving in North Wales suffered racial abuse in the form of a swastika paintedon their garage door.[5]Since moving to the area 13 years ago, Margaret Ogunbanwo and her family havebeen subject to racial hatred in the form of damage to their property awindow in their house has been smashed and their car keyed.

In a similar vein,a caf in my town of Cardigan (in Ceredigion, West Wales south of the mural)came under fire on social media for displaying Black Lives Matter and MaeBywydau Du o Bwys (the Welsh translation) posters in their window. The ownershave defended their stance against numerous locals who state that they will notvisit the caf again as a result of its public display of support for BLM. Themajority of the social media condemnation of the business is based on themisunderstanding that the Black Lives Matter movement undermines the value ofall other lives. This is the fundamentally flawed argument behind the trendinghashtag All Lives Matter.

But where humanityhas shown its very worst, there have also been positives. Protests and marcheshave been held in the very same towns and villages that have witnessed racialhatred. Margaret Ogunbanwos business was flooded with orders as people showedsupport following her familys ordeal. Similarly, in Cardigan, the caf hasbeen inundated with positive messages of support. However, instead of positivereactions to incidents of hate, we should be quelling these instances in thefirst place. Racism is so entrenched in our societies that we dont realisethat acts of racial hatred shouldnt have to happen in order for the subsequentpositives to manifest.

Wales is lessethnically diverse than any area or region in England as per the 2011 census.[6]The smaller population and lower percentage of ethnic minorities as a fractionof the whole population drove the ONS to draft the original 2021 census with nooption to tick Welsh & Black or Welsh & Minority Ethnic backgrounds;those identifying as both Welsh and BAME would have had to choose British astheir nationality because Welsh was only paired with white ethnicity. This hasnow been changed, but small acts like this, undermining the identities of BAMEindividuals, contribute to perpetuating systemic and covert racism in Wales.

The education system merely facilitates this erasure as it lacks any depth in matters of racial diversity, past or present. Parts of the Welsh curriculum within individual subjects address racial issues in America, for example, but these are always historic references. Coupled with the low racial diversity, this means that it is very easy for Welsh communities to announce that there is no racism in Wales simply because they are not directly faced with it every day. This is not, of course, confined to Wales, but applies to any country or community where there is little racial diversity. In such circumstances, it is easy to proclaim that I am not racist when, in reality, that proclamation is rarely tested. Its a misconception that racism doesnt exist in these instances, and if we look hard enough through the white veil under which we are taught in school, we must accept that we are complicit in covert and systemic ways.

Cardiffs bay area, now named Mermaid Quay was rebranded from the previous Tiger Bay as part of the areas redevelopment and gentrification at the turn of the millennium. According to a Wales Online article, Tiger Bay was a symbol of racial, ethnic, religious and ecumenical harmony[7]. Cardiff is home to nearly half of Wales BAME population, but its recent rebranding has stripped the area of its multicultural heritage and history. Its population had been so diverse because Cardiffs docklands welcomed an influx of immigrants in the 1950s to support the coal-works and the active port. When the docklands became derelict as coal trade diminished, systemic and entrenched racism did not allow for the retraining of Tiger Bays ethnic residents into other lucrative job sectors; instead, ethnic minorities were pushed out as part of its rebranding.[8] The gentrification of the entire area attracted mostly white residents and visitors at the expense of its historically diverse communities as house prices rose beyond what the previous communities were able to afford. To this day, this gentrification continues, resulting in a mass scattering of BAME groups in Cardiff from the areas in which they historically settled and made a living. After the coal trade slumped, its undeniable that the area was crying out for redevelopment; its old, empty warehouses were ugly, derelict reminders of its former booming industry. But in the redevelopment plans, there was no parallel desire to better the lives of the multicultural population already living there. Instead, a rich and white population was enticed to move in, displacing the previous residents that had kept Tiger Bay booming in its heyday.

We arent remindedof this every day because we dont learn about it in school. White people arentreminded of it because they arent living its ruthless reality. And so long aspredominantly white Welsh communities remain unaware and uninformed of therealities of the past and present, these racial injustices will continue to flyunder the radar. This is especially the case if, like in cases of Tiger Baysgentrification, the racially charged changes are creeping and covert ratherthan overt abuse and violence.

The swastika andthe white power symbol were swiftly removed from the Cofiwch Dryweryn mural,with the repainted motto restored to its original glory, serving as a reminderof the injustice served to the rural community of Capel Celyn. However, it isnot so easy to wipe away the racism prevalent in many Welsh communities.Pressure washing painted slurs off a mural is one thing; dismantling years ofprejudice and lack of awareness of systemic racism is quite another. Whenever Isee the Cofiwch Dryweryn mural, it instils in me a nationalistic anger ananger derived from years of historic injustice served to the Welsh. After itsbeing vandalised with a swastika and a symbol of white power, I will now bedoubly enraged whenever I see it. Cofiwch Dryweryn will always remind me ofinjustice done to the Welsh community of Capel Celyn by Liverpool CountyCouncil. However, the mural and its message will now also remind me of theinnumerable injustices served to black communities. The prejudices and hatredtowards black communities and individuals are ones which the systems by whichwe live can all-too-easily perpetuate and repeat.

Our educationsystem needs to change to reflect the fact that Wales has played its part inbeing complicit and active in perpetuating racism. When we discuss Patagonia, theWelsh colony in Argentina, it is with wonder and delight at there being anotherWelsh-speaking area in the world other than Wales itself. Because Welsh is aminority language, this is something to be celebrated. But we often dontconsider why Welsh is spoken by Patagonians. We dont learn about the Welsh ascolonisers, and we actively avoid the word colonialism; we learn of thesettlement in Patagonia as peaceful, virtuous and legitimate. We forget that peacefulcolonialism is still colonialism. What Lucy Taylor calls the myth offriendship[9]between the Welsh and the Patagonians glosses over the realities of howcolonialism limits the livelihoods of those being colonised. Just because theWelsh have been oppressed by the English does not mean that the Welsh cannotactively and indirectly promote oppression over others. In light of currentevents, in light of current atrocities, and in light of past truths that haveresurfaced, we would be wise to remember this.

Plaid Cymru has highlighted in the Senedd that education on Welsh and BAME history should be a compulsory part of the new curriculum being introduced in Wales, rather than subjects that can be taught at the discretion of individual teachers and schools. Teaching future generations about BAME history, and the systemic racism of Wales and Britain, is even more fundamental given the report commissioned by the Welsh Government examining the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the BAME communities. The report suggested including BAME and Commonwealth history in the new National Curriculum for Wales in 2022 for primary and secondary students to promote anti-racist behaviour and attitudes and encourage cultural understanding.[10] A comprehensive study of the history of BAME communities and the Commonwealth in schools among the younger generations will go a long way in dismantling the structural racism in which white Welsh communities are complicit. Plaid Cymrus argument is that Welsh and BAME history must be made compulsory because leaving the specifics of the teaching to the discretion of teachers and schools means that not every pupil will be able to learn about matters essential to shaping understanding citizens, essential to the makeup of a fair and equal society.

Welsh history goes beyond Wales being a part of Britain. We should think of Wales as a nation that has been oppressed, and as a nation that has oppressed. In the future, it should be neither of these things. Remembering Tryweryn and remembering Tiger Bay are not mutually exclusive. We shouldnt make a choice to remember one; rather, we should remember both. Changing the course of history is impossible if we dont acknowledge what we did wrongly in the past. A push to implement educational inclusivity and diversity in Welsh classrooms is the first step needed to dismantle narrow-minded views within our communities.

(Image rights: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61744436 by Dafydd Tomos)

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/language_education.shtml

[2] (Anger over memorial wall attack. BBC. 13 May 2008.),

[3] (Drowned Tryweryn village slogan replaced by Elvis.BBC. BBC News. 3 February 2019.)

[4] (https://nation.cymru/news/cofiwch-dryweryn-mural-vandalised-with-swastika-and-white-power-symbol/)

[5] (https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/swastika-painted-outside-black-familys-18416970)

[6] ONS,Ethnicity and National Identity in England and Wales 2011, 2012,p.8

[7] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/why-tiger-bays-diverse-history-16088764

[8] https://exchangehotelcardiff.co.uk/blog/tiger-bay-history-cardiff-bay/

[9] Lucy Taylor(2019)The Welsh Wayof Colonisation in Patagonia: The International Politics of MoralSuperiority,The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,47:6,1073-1099

[10] https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/53241866

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"Cofiwch Dryweryn": A Welsh History of Oppression - Cherwell Online

At the height of the Cold War in 1959, Congress established Captive Nations Week to show the American peoples solidarity with the hundreds of millions suffering under communist regimes. Scheduled for the third week of July, the occasion gave rise to annual parades and rallies in major American cities, with thousands of people taking to the streets, supported by governors, mayors and officials at every level of government, to demand the liberation of communist-controlled nations.

Sixty-one years later, Captive Nations Week which began Sunday is all but forgotten. Yet the phenomenon of communist subjugation of free people is real and growing, and 20 percent of the worlds population still lives under single-party communist dictatorships more than in 1989. If ever there were a moment to bring back Captive Nations Week, this is it.

In creating this week, Congress specifically called out the imperialistic policies of the Soviet Union. Today, this phrase is just as easily applied to the Peoples Republic of China, which dominates a growing number of lands and peoples, and aggressively seeks to add more to the list.

Hong Kong is the latest proof. Beijing has violated international treaty obligations with its passage in June of a so-called national security law that effectively ends the one country, two systems policy. The law empowers authorities to arrest anyone deemed to be subversive or secessionist, which in practice means anyone criticizing the Communist Party or advocating democracy and freedom ideals that are antithetical to Beijings socialism with Chinese characteristics. Hong Kong is now a captive city.

Yet Hong Kong is hardly the only place that Communist China has overrun. Congress noted the subjugation of Tibet when establishing Captive Nations Week, and to this day, Beijing seeks to stamp out Tibetan culture and the regional Buddhist faith. The regimes favored tools include the destruction of monasteries as well as the kidnapping and torture of Tibetan activists, which has led the Tibetan government-in-exile to warn of a Chinese-led cultural genocide. The apparent successor to the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was kidnapped at age 6 by the Chinese Communist Party in 1995 and remains captive to this day.

Beijing also is perpetrating a demographic genocide against the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang. A June investigation by The Associated Press found that Chinese authorities are taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs, including forced abortion and sterilization. The regime has shunted as many as 3 million Uighurs nearly a third of the Uighur population into modern-day concentration camps, which Beijing calls Vocational Education and Training Centers. These tyrannical actions give new meaning to captive nation in the Chinese context.

Now China is signaling its intention to conquer Taiwan. The Chinese military recently held drills simulating the capture of Taiwanese territory, and communist officials and military officers have threatened war repeatedly with Taiwan in the past few months. Considering that Beijing spent more than two decades telegraphing its eventual takeover of Hong Kong, America and the world would be foolish to ignore Chinas clear desire to make Taiwan its captive.

Captive Nations Week was created precisely to draw American attention to situations such as these. While Communist China is far and away the most aggressive nation that embraces a Marxist ideology, there are several others. Communist Cuba essentially has taken Venezuela captive, and it has tried to do the same with Nicaragua. So, too, are Laos, North Korea and Vietnam still beholden to communist tyranny. This week should be a time for Americans of all backgrounds to express our sadness at the plight of the more than 1.5 billion people who still live in communist regimes.

Is it too much to ask to bring back Captive Nations Week? It may be too early to ask for the spontaneous street parades seen in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. But its not too soon for policymakers to rally around this annual event. It could and should become a central theme of U.S. foreign policy, especially with the growing realization on both sides of the political aisle that America is now forced to counter the global ambitions and predatory behavior of China.

What would that look like? Captive Nations Week would be an excellent time to roll out new sanctions against individuals and companies that participate in Chinese oppression. It also could provide an opening to announce new trade and economic measures that prevent Beijing from profiting from the places and people it dominates. By tying these actions to the concept of captive nations, policymakers would give their policies the kind of moral foundation that often has been missing in recent years. It would reaffirm that Americas pursuit of its national interests is inherently linked to the defense of universal ideals such as freedom and democracy.

Captive Nations Week once signified exactly that. Although it has been largely forgotten, its symbolic power remains as strong as ever both for the American people and those who are oppressed around the world. The U.S. has nothing to lose, and something to gain, by bringing it back.

Marion Smith is executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @smithmarion.

The rest is here:

It's 'Captive Nations Week' here's why we should care | TheHill - The Hill

Colton Michael of Lawson, Mo., said the former owners of his house couldnt believe it when he called to tell them that their dog, Cleo, had shown up on Michaels front porch, about 50 miles away from her owners new home in Olathe, Kan.

Juan Martinez, a former Arizona prosecutor known for winning a conviction in the Jodi Arias murder case, agreed to be disbarred in an ethics case in which the State Bar of Arizona accused him of leaking the identity of an Arias juror and sexually harassing female law clerks in his office.

Jacquavious Great-house, 29, of Auburn, Ala., was sentenced to 90 years in prison in the deaths of 27-year-old Sedric Lewis and 31-year-old Derris Harris, who were inside a house that was peppered with multiple gunshots from a rifle and a pistol.

Nina Bussek, a spokeswoman for prosecutors in Vienna, said an investigation is underway, and police officials said eight officers have been suspended after a video surfaced that appeared to show police beating a Chechen man in the Austrian capital last year.

Sharon Morrow, a homeless advocate in St. Louis, is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a federal lawsuit accusing two St. Louis police officers of slamming Morrow to the ground and arresting her because she recorded others being arrested.

Jean Camacho-Morales, a corrections officer in Bexar County, Texas, was fired and faces counts of official oppression, tampering with government records and aggravated assault, after authorities said he stood by while six inmates beat another and allowed the assailants to clean up before he called for help.

Kerwin Pittman, a coordinator with Emancipate North Carolina, said it only made sense that the group and other organizers should pay for a sign reading Black Lives Matter on a billboard next to a Confederate flag outside the town of Pittsboro.

David Sidoo, a Vancouver businessman and former Canadian Football League player, told a U.S. judge he was deeply ashamed during a hearing in which he was sentenced to three months in prison for hiring someone to take the SAT in place of his two sons.

Chance Harrison, 32, of South Riding, Va., was arrested and charged with stabbing of two men, including a pastor, and injuring the Fairfax County police chief during a Bible study class at a church in Chantilly, according to police.

Print Headline: In the News

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In The News - NWAOnline

Andrzej Duda has won Polands presidential election after results released on Monday morning gave the incumbent 51.2 per cent of votes with almost all the ballots counted. His liberal challenger, Rafa Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, trailed with 48.8 per cent.

Duda's populist campaign was built on a number of favoured policies, such as vowing to defend the generous and well-received social welfare program introduced under the Law and Justice party; pledging to improve Poland's stability and prosperty through upholding "tradition"; and, notably, anti-LGBT+ bigotry.

Despite his victory in the Polish presidential elections however, which reportedly had the highest turnout since the fall of communism in 1989, the narrow results of yesterdays election show at least 50 per cent of voters dont want to live in a society based on hate. Its time to act accordingly. Without action, homophobia and transphobia will increasingly become normalised parts of life for many people, starting with the space allotted for projects Duda announced during his election campaign.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

There's the ban on same-sex couples adopting kids; the so-called "homopropaganda" ban in public spaces mentioned in many of Duda's public statements, an idea based on the president's belief in protecting children from LGBT+ ideology, which he sees as harmful for young people. Both ridiculous ideas which suggests anything other than an anti-LGBT+ stance will encourage perversion, or lead to corrupting children with unsavoury ideas. The Law and Justice party together with right-wing NGOs often connect homosexuality with paedophilia and use such ideas to undermine LGBT+ rights.

That's not all. In May, the ministry of the environment started work on a plan to declare the financing of NGOs. Under this plan, NGOs will be obliged to state that they are being financed from abroad. Laws like this in Hungry and Russia, which label NGOs "foreign agents", could now be introduced in Poland against LGBT+ NGOs and their fight towards equality. But the LGBT+ community are not foreign agents we are Poles fighting for human rights and a better place to live for everybody.

In my documentary Article 18, released in 2017, I highlighted the struggle of the Polish LGBT+ community which has been fighting for equality for years. The previous liberal government did nothing to protect us. There was no push for civil unions nor marriages or anti-hate-speech laws. Subjects concerning LGBT+ topics were usually labelled by liberal politicians as substitute subjects (red herring) in public debate; the economy, taxes and highways seened far more important to them. And so in Poland, we remain not only unprotected but doomed to be used as hate campaign tools.

During Pride month and election time in Poland, president Duda and politicians among him attacked LGBT+ minorities many times. He made a campaign pledge to defend children from LGBT+ ideology, which he has claimed could be even more destructive than communist ideology. As LGBT+ people navigating this discriminatory system, we are losing hope.

The climate of hate speech is rising and we need to be aware of the signs. Under Duda's leadership, this could very well end up in bloodshed. And it already has, with the murder of pro-LGBT+ Gdask mayor Pawe Adamowicz and the Bialystok Pride hooligans who threw stones at participants.

We have observed as the high number of places designated as LGBT+-free zones increase, as pushed under the 101 anti-LGBT+ resolutions created and implemented by local governments. Among other things, these abhorrent declarations include protecting families from LGBT+ ideology, kids from "perverts" who want to introduce sex education in schools, and to protect people from soliders of political correctness. A number of these bills have been sent to court by Polish Ombudsman Adam Bodnar and still await a court decision on the practice of excluding LGBT+ people from local communities in Poland. With Duda's new mandate, the issue will only grow, leading to the further exclusion of LGBT+ citizens from Polish society.

Trump and Polish president Duda connect over disapproval for 'fake news'

After years of leadership under Duda, Polands rank has plummeted to the bottom of the list in terms of LGBT+-friendly countries in the European Union, according to the latest ILGA-Europe index, cooming in at 41 out of 49. Still, the European Union resolution against LGBT-free zones'' in Poland from last year has been ignored by the Polish government. Even when the EU commission issued warnings to cut funds to regions declared LGBT+-free, local governments largely remained silent. Clearly, the EU needs to go further to show Polish government that homophobia will not be tolerated as official government policy.

Who is most vulnerable to homophobic hate-speech? Young LGBT+-teenagers. The latest statistics show an increase in mental health problems among young LGBT+ people. In 2016, as many as 70 per cent of young LGBT+ people had suicidal thoughts. Currently, it is 84 per cent. The increase is also visible in suicide attempts among LGBT+ teenagers. In 2016 it was 30 per cent and just four years later, it has climbed to 45 per cent. All this while politicians and the Polish Catholic Church remain indifferent and cynically use homophobia to further their aims.

The LGBT+ struggle in Poland will continue but we won't give up. Last year we saw the largest number of Pride marches across Poland. Young people do not believe in the primitive propaganda of the Law and Justice party. The youth climate strikes, Pride parades and rainbow protests in small and big cities give us hope that young Poles will be the change we desperately need to see.

Bartosz Staszewski is an LGBT+ activist from Poland and director of documentary Article 18

Originally posted here:

For victims of state oppression in Poland, Dudas election victory is an undeniable sign of darker times to come - The Independent

In The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates famously described Trumps politics as white supremacy made evident because of the election of a Black president. Although the writers of the More Specific Letter dont mention Trump by name, theyre building on Coatess argument: Trumpism is the brutal manifestation of inherited power. Thus, the notion that it could be a malady that transcends lines of class, race, gender, and ideologyexpressed not only by Republican politicians but by people of color in newsrooms and on campusesis nonsense. As the writer Jeet Heer has argued, Trumpism is the culmination of the GOPs decision to make itself white Americas vehicle for opposing racial equality. So there cannot be a Trumpism of the left.

Today, the argument about the meaning of Trumpism is taking place in intellectuals letters. But if Trump loses, it will migrate to Washington. Democrats insistent on dramatic change will collide with conservatives able to block it. Progressives will then demand, as they have already begun to do, structural changes that would let them override the rights veto. Such demands could take the form of sweeping new executive actions, alterations to the structure of the Supreme Court, efforts to abolish the filibuster, and moves to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Some of the people who define Trumpism as intolerance will view such moves as a progressive form of Trumpismthat is, as an assault on the rules of fair play. In 2018, Obamas former White House counsel Bob Bauer warned that if liberals expanded the size of the Supreme Court, they would emulate President Trumps contempt for democratic institutions and the rule of law. If Trumps Democratic successor imposes policies of the far left via executive order, my colleague David Frum argued last year, it will be a sign that neither side abides by the rules of democracy.

David A. Graham: Donald Trumps lost cause

The progressives who define Trumpism as oppression will reject these claims as absurd. They will argue that certain aspects of Americas system of government undemocratically entrench the privilege of historically dominant groups; by this logic, structural changes that allow progressives to bypass conservative opposition constitute not an attack on democracy but the removal of barriers to it. Making Washington, D.C., a state, The Weeks Ryan Cooper has argued, would enfranchise 700,000 peoplealmost half of them Blackwho are currently treated like quasi-colonial subjects. Eliminating the filibuster, Cooper maintains, would end a practice that, historically, has been primarily used by racists to stop civil rights legislation.

Schlesingers vision of a vital centercomposed of liberals and conservatives who made common cause against both the undemocratic left and the undemocratic rightdominated American politics in the years after World War II because there was no leftist movement powerful enough to challenge it. In the late 1960sunder pressure from the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, and the movement for Black freedomit lost its intellectual hegemony. The problem for Schlesingers successors today is that they are trying to constitute a new vital center at a time when the activist left is strong enough to challenge their control over the terms of debate. One way that challenge will unfold is through an effort at ideological guilt by association, in which each side will accuse the other of being Trumpisms rightful heir.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Trumpism Is the New McCarthyism - The Atlantic

The issues putting pressure on the U.S.-Iraqi relationship are daunting. The confrontation between Iran and the United States frequently plays out on Iraqi streets. COVID-19 is spreading at alarming rates and overwhelming Iraqs beleaguered healthcare system. The collapsing oil market has the countrys finances on the brink. Washington has focused its support to Baghdad on much-needed economic and political reforms, while also encouraging the governments more assertive stance against Popular Mobilization Forces militias operating beyond the states control. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has sought to help the Iraqi military maintain pressure against the remnants of ISIS while continuing to reduce the number of American troops in the country.

Given everything happening in the bilateral relationship, why was a historical archive based in California on the agenda of the recent U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue?

The State Department is currently in the process of returning to Iraq some 6.5 million pages of documents from Saddam Husseins regime. The archive in question, currently at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, contains mountains of seemingly mundane paperwork generated by the bureaucracy running a single-party state. But it also includes sensitive material pertaining to the membership files of the former ruling Bath Party, regime informants, and information gathered by the security services on prominent political figures and ordinary citizens alike.

The U.S. governments longstanding relationship with Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraqs new prime minister who is deeply familiar with the issue of the documents, offers a valuable opportunity for cooperation on this matter and a number of related historical and archival issues. Although improved cultural ties will not mitigate the severe fiscal, public-health, and political challenges facing Iraq, positive developments on this front may create a better environment to address other issues as well. Increased American political support for ongoing diplomatic efforts should help strengthen U.S.-Iraqi relations, foster an increasingly positive relationship between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, and continue to safeguard an important part of Iraqs historical patrimony for all of its citizens.

History of the Bath Party Archive

Secured as a result of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bath Regional Command Collection, also known as the Bath Party Archive, will be the final Saddam-regime collection of documents returned to Iraq that were transferred outside the country during the 1991 and 2003 wars. The documents have been in the possession of the Iraq Memory Foundation, a non-governmental organization registered first in Washington, D.C. and later Baghdad, since 2003. In 2005, with the approval of Iraqs interim government, the Defense Department airlifted the documents out of Iraq for safekeeping in the United States. At the time, the security situation in Baghdad was rapidly deteriorating as the country descended into civil war. Pentagon officials under then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz supported the airlift on the grounds that the documents were useful for understanding the predominantly Sunni-based insurgency battling U.S. troops in central and western Iraq. Upon arriving in West Virginia, Defense Intelligence Agency personnel completed the digitization of the documents, a process that had begun in Baghdad.

The removal of the archive from Iraq was vocally condemned by then-Director of the Iraqi National Library and Archive Saad Eskander, along with archivists and academics abroad. American and Canadian archivists criticized the move as a possible act of pillage and called for the immediate repatriation to Iraq of all records held by U.S. institutions. After a potential deal with Harvard University fell through, the Bath Party Archive was subsequently moved and has been held at the Hoover Institution since 2008. Upon returning to Iraq, the archive will join the much larger collection of Saddam-regime documents an estimated 100 to 120 million pages along with audio and video records quietly returned to Iraq by the Pentagon under the Obama administration in May 2013. In the long story of the documents first secured by Iraq Memory Foundation activists, recent developments in Iraqi politics have been central to the final chapter covering the return of the documents to the country.

A New Day and a Final Chapter in Iraq?

Mustafa al-Kadhimi Iraqs former spy chief and one of the three co-founders of the Iraq Memory Foundation became prime minister in May. His political rise has expedited discussions between U.S. and Iraqi officials about the repatriation of the Bath Party Archive and several other cultural issues. For instance, the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue in early June announced, On the cultural front, the two governments discussed plans to return important political archives to the Government of IraqThe two sides also discussed artifacts and plans to return the Baath Party archives to Iraq.

Kadhimi co-founded the Iraq Memory Foundation shortly before the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, and after years working in exile as a democracy and human rights advocate in opposition to Saddams regime. In this capacity, he worked alongside Kanan Makiya and Hassan Mneimneh, both of whom had worked to document the atrocities of Bathist rule dating back to the early 1990s at the U.S.-based Iraq Research and Documentation Project.

Their successor organization aimed to help Iraq come to terms with the legacies of dictatorship through the creation of a museum, a public outreach initiative working with primary and secondary school teachers and students, preservation of the former regimes records, and a research facility that would ultimately be linked to Iraqs university system. Kadhimi served as the Baghdad-based director of the foundation from 2003 to 2010, where he led its oral history initiative, which sought to put a human face on the suffering often dryly documented in Bath-era records. The resulting Iraqi Testimonials Project interviewed a wide cross-section of Iraqis about their experiences of oppression under Saddams regime. The oral histories subsequently aired on Iraqi television in four seasons between 2005 and 2008.

Kadhimi is not the only Iraqi leader with a longstanding interest in the documents of Saddams regime and Iraqi historical patrimony. In 1991, it was Barham Salih, Iraqs current president, who informed Makiya about the existence of large quantities of regime documents in the possession of the Kurdish Peshmerga, secured in the course of the uprising against the Bath Party in the wake of the Gulf War. Salih also served as Jalal Talabanis personal envoy in talks with U.S. Senate staffer Peter Galbraith about the future of the documents. Both the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdish Democratic Party turned over the documents in their possession for safekeeping in the United States in the early 1990s, where they were moved to the University of Colorado Boulder in 1998. The Justice Department quietly returned the documents to Iraq in 2005, in preparation for trials against Saddam and his inner circle. The documents have remained in the custody of the Iraqi High Tribunal and Ministry of Justice in Baghdad over the past 15 years, contrary to inaccurate reports in the Iraqi media earlier this year that they were in North Carolina.

Beyond documenting Bathist rule over northern Iraq, the archive contains evidence of the 1988 Anfal campaigns, in which Iraqi forces killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds and thousands of Assyrians, Turkomans, Yazidis, Shabak, and Kakais. Against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and domestic insurgency waged primarily by Kurdish rebel groups, the Bath regimes counter-insurgency efforts escalated into a series of systematic campaigns using chemical weapons and village destruction to alter the physical geography and demographic composition of northern Iraq.

A Role for the Documents in Advancing Peace

U.S. officials should encourage Kadhimi to return the Bath regimes records documenting the Anfal campaigns to northern Iraq. This would be an important goodwill gesture to improve increasingly positive relations between Erbil and Baghdad. Pending the future establishment of a Kurdish national library and archive, the collection could be transferred to the Kurdistan Regional Government or in consultation with all concerned parties, to a non-governmental institution, such as the Zheen Archive Center, which already holds a digitized copy of the documents.

As a human rights advocate who personally interviewed survivors of the Anfal campaigns, Kadhimi is well-aware of how emotional the subject remains for Iraqi Kurds in particular. Erbil- and Baghdad-based officials should support initiatives to help the families of all victims, while encouraging the study of Iraqs past in a way that helps defuse ethnic and sectarian tensions in the present. Although not his responsibility, Kadhimis gesture would make good on the initial agreement between the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Kurdish parties for the safekeeping and future restitution of the records to Iraqi Kurdistan, which a Justice Department task force knowingly or unknowingly abrogated when it transferred custody of the documents to the central Iraqi authorities in Baghdad.

U.S. officials should also work closely with their Iraqi counterparts to ensure that the Bath Party Archive documents remain safe upon their return to Iraq, and that Iranian-backed and sectarian political actors do not take possession of them. In his previous role as director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service starting in 2016, Kadhimi helped oversee the interagency effort charged with safekeeping the 100 to 120 million pages of documents returned to Iraq by the Pentagon in 2013. He was widely recognized for depoliticizing and professionalizing the agency during his tenure as director. Nevertheless, U.S. officials should also encourage Kadhimi to investigate to what extent the documents repatriated to Iraq in 2013 were exploited by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the security services loyal to him, efforts that likely exacerbated sectarian tensions as Iraq was sliding back into chaos and ISIL was ascendant. While looking into the Maliki governments actions may be challenging politically, its essential to discover the truth of what happened.

In light of the fact that recently replaced Iraqi National Security Advisor Falih al-Fayyad signed the Relinquishment of Possession for the records the Pentagon repatriated to Iraq in 2013, his subsequent involvement with the documents should be closely scrutinized. Fayyad has enjoyed close ties to highly sectarian and Iran-backed figures, such as Hadi al-Amiri, Qais and Laith al-Khazali, and the late Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Fayyad as one of the Iranian proxies responsible for abetting the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad last December. When I informed a former U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Iraq that Fayyad signed on behalf of the Iraqi government in 2013, he remarked, It is a pretty good assumption that if Falih al-Fayyad had custody of the documents, they were used for sectarian purposes.

The United States should organize a final repatriation ceremony that includes American diplomats and military officials and their Iraqi counterparts. Such an event should take place after the documents are all securely back in Iraq. While an official ceremony runs the risk of drawing unwanted attention to the documents, media coverage and public awareness may make it more difficult for them to be exploited. Neither the Iraqi nor the American public was informed of the 2005 and 2013 repatriations. Based on conversations I have had with American policymakers, it appears that although U.S. officials stopped tracking the whereabouts of the records formerly in the Pentagons possession upon their return to Iraq in 2013, they continued to receive queries from some of their Iraqi counterparts who were themselves unaware of the repatriation.

Beyond potential sectarian exploitation of the documents, the broader historical and social import pertains both to studying the past and awareness of the degree to which the Bath Party eventually intruded into practically all aspects of daily life during its rule over Iraq between 1968 and 2003. As Kanan Makiya explained to me in a recent phone conversation, The true sensitivity and horror of the documents come from the ways in which ordinary people were caught up in the system. As such, the Bath Party Archive and other documents from Saddams regime will be of interest to Iraqis who were alive then, along with those too young to remember or born after the end of Bath Party rule.

None of the documents repatriated to Baghdad in 2005 and 2013 have been made available to researchers in Iraq, although these records and the Bath Party Archive should in theory be subject eventually to legislation passed by Iraqs parliament in 2008 and 2016. Digitized copies of records in the Pentagons possession were made available to researchers in Washington, D.C. at the Conflict Records Research Center from 2010 to 2015, a project that awaits being rebooted or transferred to another institution. The digitized copy of the Bath Party Archive, along with other digitized collections in the Iraq Memory Foundations possession, have been available to researchers at the Hoover Institution since 2010. Since the closing of the Conflict Records Research Center, the Hoover Institution has hosted the only archives of Saddams regime open for research anywhere in the world.

Due to Iraqs fiscal crisis and the persistent problem of institutional capacity, a partnership with the Hoover Institution or other American academic institutions could be an effective means for supporting future research by Iraqis in Iraq. Such an initiative would be in keeping with efforts to increase the capabilities of Iraqi universities mentioned in the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue. The template may prove to be The ISIS Files, formerly in the possession of the New York Times. In addition to launching a website for research featuring documents and studies based on them, George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism has formed a research partnership with the University of Mosul.

Although very different with respect to geopolitical circumstances, the 2005 to 2020 repatriation of the Saddam-regime archives to Iraq will have transpired over a timeframe comparable to the post-World War II repatriation of captured Nazi records to the Federal Republic of Germany between 1953 and 1968. Historically, although generally not at the top of meeting agendas, the repatriation of archives has nevertheless been an important step in improving diplomatic relations between countries in the aftermath of armed conflict. In the case of U.S.-Iraqi ties, given Kadhimis personal involvement with the history of the Bath Party Archive, his plan of leading the Iraqi delegation that will meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo in the next round of talks in the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue should offer a chance for U.S. officials to speak with him directly on the issue. Last but definitely not least, increased attention to the subject of Iraqi archives more broadly may facilitate additional positive steps on top of those already made by U.S. and Iraqi officials toward a final arrangement for the Iraqi Jewish Archive. Such a deal will address the concerns of the Iraqi Jewish diaspora, international Jewish groups, and Iraqi political leaders, academics, and citizens.

The Future of the Bathist Past Lies in Iraq

Three decades of conflict have intertwined the histories of Iraq and the United States on numerous levels. Continued efforts to help safeguard Iraqs historical patrimony are a low-cost and responsible means to strengthen U.S.-Iraq relations, expand the working relationship with Iraqs new prime minister, and encourage warming ties between Baghdad and Erbil. The return of the Bath Party Archive to Iraq may be the final chapter in the story of the repatriation of records captured from Saddams regime, although their future in the country remains to be determined. The same is true with respect to uncovering the full story of, circumstances surrounding, and consequences stemming from the quiet repatriation of records to Iraq in 2005 and 2013.

Iraq has a young population and more than 17 years have passed since the toppling of Saddams regime. Nevertheless, Iraqs older political elites experienced the Bathist period inside the country, in exile, or in some combination of both. Events during the Bathist period were formative in shaping the ideological and political worldview of most if not all of them. At the same time, the legacies of dictatorship combined with the consequences of the U.S.-led invasion have cast a long shadow over Iraqi politics since 2003. Historical memory of the Bathist period continues to hold potential for either political weaponization or reconciliation. At long last, the remaining balance of official documentary sources for either endeavor will be back in Iraq.

Michael P. Brill is a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where his research focuses on Bathist Iraq.

Image: Wikicommons (Photo by U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby)

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Setting the Records Straight in Iraq - War on the Rocks

When they come to write the history of the Unions demise, there will be three guilty men. Tony Blair was a transformative prime minister, but he nodded through devolution after allowing himself to be convinced that it was an administrative change, rather than an unravelling of the United Kingdom. Many believe Iraq to be the blot on his legacy but contracting out the rewriting of the constitution to the Scottish Labour Party would cut against anyones greatness.

David Cameron has no claim to greatness, but he deserves to be the toast of Scottish nationalists. The Conservatives had opposed devolution as a one-way ratchet towards separation, but once in government failed to advance a policy of their own; preferring to accelerate and grant permanency to New Labours experiment. Cameron conceded a referendum and transferred not one, but two tranches of powers making him arguably more culpable than Blair.

The third guilty man will be Boris Johnson, unless he recognises the gravity of the moment and the urgency of the threat. Brexit, levelling up, civil service reform all may be vital but all are subordinate to the continued existence of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, his ministers and his advisers should not delude themselves: the stakes really are that high. Its not simply that safeguarding the Union is more important than the Johnson-Cummings agenda; losing the Union would severely impair or outright impede much of that agenda.

The hint of a Conservative backbone can be glimpsed in Michael Goves appointment as chair of a Cabinet subcommittee on Union policy alongside the more robust line over the proper balance of powers between Westminster and Holyrood. However, these measures are insufficient given the electoral context (support for secession tipping into the majority and the SNP polling at 55 per cent) and the political, economic, diplomatic and national security consequences of Scexit.

Since Downing Street are yet to apprehend many of these consequences, we can only hope the recent outburst from a senior SNP minister will jerk the Prime Ministers Office out of its lethargy. Mike Russell, Nicola Sturgeons minister for constitutional relations, emerged from a meeting with Gove on Thursday and headed straight for the nearest loudhailer. Downing Street published a white paper on the internal market post-Brexit, aiming to secure frictionless trade between all parts of the UK and outlining which powers currently held in Brussels will be transferred to Holyrood and which will go to Westminster. Food standards is one area where the government want regulation to be carried out by UK ministers, and here the nationalists spy an opportunity. The English want to put a chlorinated chicken in every pot.

Russell branded the proposals a blatant attempt at a power grab, claiming they would strip responsibilities from the Scottish Parliament and undermine the very basis of the devolved arrangements, denouncing the plans as the biggest threat to devolution since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999. As such, the Scottish Government would recommend that MSPs deny legislative consent while seek[ing] alignment with EU standards instead.

He concluded: We will actively oppose the UK Governments proposals at every opportunity, including at every legislative stage, and pursue every avenue to challenge the Bill should it pass no one should be in any doubt about our determination to defend the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the founding principles of devolution.

Russell is given to eschatological hysterics about the parliament whose creation his party scorned, but his tantrum was not an off-script moment. He was sent out to behave as he did. Ten months before the next Holyrood elections, the nationalists dearly want a fight with an English Tory prime minister, but they also want to lay down a marker: give them what they want or they will use the parliament Labour built to obstruct and wreck.

Downing Street thinks it is being terribly clever with its internal market strategy. Having only lately come to the realisation that devolution in its present state undermines the Union, ministers eye the repatriation of powers from Brussels as the chance to do a patchwork job on the constitution. I cant tell whether they are using the cover of Brexit because they deem it tactically wise or because they are embarrassed by the modesty of the remedy they propose. It ought to be the latter.

The task of preserving the United Kingdom is at its most daunting stage in three centuries and it will not be saved by tinkering with regulatory frameworks. The flaws of devolution were created by successive Scotland Acts and, at minimum, they will require another Scotland Act to correct. The object is not the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, contra the fervid fantasies of the oppression-seekers, but a Scottish Parliament that respects both the 1997 referendum result and the sovereign integrity of the United Kingdom.

The SNP has been emboldened by rising public support for secession, the weakness of the Holyrood opposition, and the Supreme Courts rebuke to the government over prorogation. They see ways electoral, legislative and legal to frustrate and humble the Johnson administration. The nationalist view is that theirs is Scotlands sole legitimate government and Westminster a decrepit colonial ruler staggering through its final days in charge. Boris Johnson can surrender to that view or he can dispel it by reforming devolution to maintain the Union. He is either Prime Minister of the entire country or merely Prime Minister of England with his remit occasionally extended northwards on the indulgence of Nicola Sturgeon.

It comes down to the question it always comes down to: who governs? Only Johnson can answer that and on his answer hangs his country and his place in history. He will be known for courage or for culpability.

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The continued existence of the United Kingdom is now at stake - Spectator.co.uk

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that the rising number of U.S. deaths from the coronavirus is what it is, defended his management of the pandemic with a barrage of dubious and false claims, and revealed his lack of understanding about the fundamental science of how the virus spreads and infects people.

Making one of his biggest media appearances in months an hour-long, sit-down interview with Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace Trump was visibly rattled and at times hostile as he struggled to answer for his administrations failure to contain the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 137,000 lives in the United States.

On a range of other topics, including the racial justice movement and the Confederate flag, the president positioned himself firmly outside the political mainstream. And Trump suggested he might not accept the results of Novembers general election should he lose he predicted without evidence that mail-in voting is going to rig the election.

In a season of remarkable public appearances by a politically wounded president, the Wallace interview was still extraordinary, in part because of the volley of false claims by Trump and aggressive, real-time fact-checking by his questioner.

Trump whom aides say no longer attends coronavirus task force meetings because he does not have time showed himself to be particularly misinformed about the basics of the virus that has been ravaging the nation for more than four months.

Confronted by Wallace with a chart showing that the number of coronavirus cases last week more than doubled from the spring peak in April, Trump replied: If we didnt test, you wouldnt be able to show that chart. If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.

By the presidents logic, that assumes people contract the virus only if they test positive, ignoring the fact that many people are asymptomatic carriers and unknowingly spread the contagion without taking a test or being reported.

Wallace later explained to Trump that the number of tests has increased by 37% but that the number of cases has shot up by 194%. Trump replied, Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. Many of them dont forget, I guess its like 99.7%, people are going to get better and [in] many cases, theyre going to get better very quickly.

Although people in their 20s and 30s, who make up a growing portion of cases, have been hospitalized at a lower rate than older people, many still have suffered severe illness and some have died.

Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, reacted to Trumps interview in a statement Sunday: The past six months have proven again and again that its Donald Trump who doesnt know what hes talking about when it comes to COVID-19. . . . When it comes to the coronavirus, you cant believe a word he says.

A growing number of Americans disapprove of Trumps handling of the pandemic. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 38% approve of his performance and 60% disapprove. The same survey found Biden leading Trump by double digits nationally, 55% to 40%.

In an attempt to regain their political footing, Trump and his aides recently have sought to divert attention from the soaring number of coronavirus cases by focusing on the rate of deaths. In the Fox interview, Trump falsely asserted, I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.

Its not true, sir, Wallace replied. We had 900 deaths on a single day just this week.

Trump shouted to aides hovering nearby: Can you please get the mortality rates? White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany quickly presented Trump with data she said was from Deborah Birx, a physician and the White House coronavirus response coordinator, backing up his claim.

Number one low mortality fatality rates, Trump claimed.

At that point, Fox interrupted the taped interview for Wallace to explain to his viewers that according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States ranked seventh among 20 countries in mortality rate, higher than Brazil and Russia. The White House relied on European data showing Italy and Spain doing worse than the United States but Brazil and South Korea doing better. The White House chart did not include Russia and other countries doing better, according to Wallace.

When Wallace pointed out that coronavirus deaths in the United States were still about 1,000 a day, Trump said: It came from China. They shouldve never let it escape, they shouldve never let it out, but it is what it is.

Trump then hypothesized that the case count in Europe was so much lower than in the United States because they dont test, as opposed to a sign that the virus was not as rampant there because their countries had largely contained it.

By conducting mass testing, Trump said, We are creating trouble for the fake news to come along and say, Oh, we have more cases.

Trump reiterated his long-held theory that the virus would somehow disappear, a claim not grounded in scientific fact.

I will be right eventually, Trump told Wallace. You know I said, Its going to disappear. Ill say it again. Its going to disappear, and Ill be right. . . . You know why? Because Ive been right probably more than anybody else.

Trump used his Fox interview to continue the White Houses remarkable assault on some of the scientists and public health professionals leading the governments response. The president called Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert, a little bit of an alarmist. He noted that Fauci had argued internally against restricting travel from China, which Trump ordered in late January, and had initially said all Americans did not need to wear masks, before there was scientific evidence that doing so would help slow the spread.

Trump also challenged the assessment of Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who again warned last week that the pandemic could worsen this fall when flu season begins, reflecting widespread scientific consensus. I dont think he knows, Trump said of Redfield.

Trump sought to draw a hard line on the coronavirus relief bill, saying it must include a payroll tax cut and liability protections for businesses, as lawmakers prepare to plunge into negotiations over unemployment benefits and other key provisions in coming days. Republican leaders are largely dismissive of the idea of cutting payroll taxes, which fund Social Security, while siding with Trump on the liability issue.

Wallace engaged Trump on a wide range of other topics, including the race and justice issues that convulsed the country. Trump declined to say whether he found the Confederate flag offensive and defended what many Americans view as a symbol of slavery, racial oppression and treason.

When people proudly have their Confederate flags, theyre not talking about racism, Trump said. They love their flag. It represents the South. They like the South. People right now like the South.

Wallace followed up: So youre not offended by it?

Well, Im not offended either by Black Lives Matter, Trump replied. Thats freedom of speech. You know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we cant cancel our whole history. We cant forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that, otherwise well end up fighting again.

Trump also teased the possibility that he might not accept the election results if he were to lose, jeopardizing Americas tradition of a peaceful transfer of power between presidents.

When Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a good or gracious loser, the president replied that he does not like to lose. Then he added, You dont know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.

For weeks, Trump has claimed without evidence that the rise in voting by mail in many states makes voting susceptible to widespread fraud.

Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election? Wallace asked.

No, Trump responded. I have to see.

Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results, Trump again declined to say. I have to see, he said.

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded to Trumps remarks in a statement: The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.

Trump sought to portray Biden as mentally vacant, telling Wallace that he did not want to characterize his opponent as senile but positing that Joe doesnt know hes alive and is mentally shot.

Trump then challenged Biden to a cognitive test, which the president characterized as exceedingly difficult. During a physical exam in 2018, Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment which includes animal pictures and other simple queries aimed at detecting mild cognitive impairment such as dementia and has regularly boasted about it since.

Wallace told Trump that he tried the test himself after hearing the president brag about passing it. Wallace said its not the hardest test, adding that one of the questions on the version he took was to properly identify a picture of an elephant.

Ill bet you couldnt even answer the last five questions, Trump said. Ill bet you couldnt. They get very hard, the last five questions.

Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven, Wallace said, adding: Ninety-three.

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Trump defends handling of coronavirus with falsehoods and dubious claims - Seattle Times

Decades of neoliberalism, declining rates of class struggle and defeats for the left have had a profound impact on our ability to imagine an alternative to the current system. Because of this, the immense scale of destruction that capitalism is inflicting on the natural world is, for many people, as much a cause for passive despair as a spur to action. The lack of any real alternative being offered within the political mainstream reinforces this it appears as though the best we can hope for is to tame capitalism, rather than overthrow it.

With each passing year, however, the case for revolution grows. A vast gulf exists between what scientists think is necessary to avoid a civilisation-threatening climate and environmental breakdown, and what the capitalist class and its political servants think is necessary to preserve their system. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) 2018 report, authored by 91 scientists from 40 countries, argued that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, starting immediately. Yet even the most minor changes fought for by environmentalists are resisted by those in power.

The urgency conveyed by the IPCC contributed to a rise in climate activism around the world. Millions participated in the School Strike for Climate movement. Tens of thousands joined in the disruptive direct actions of Extinction Rebellion. None of this has been enough, however, to force any significant change of course from a ruling class determined to push on with the destructive (and highly profitable) status quo. Even the vastly inadequate targets agreed at the 2015 Paris climate conference now seem out of reach. Emissions continue their steady rise, and new temperature records are set on an almost monthly basis.

Despite the scenes of devastation and horror during Australias bushfire crisis, and despite tens of thousands of people mobilising to demand urgent action, neither the governing Liberal-National Coalition nor the opposition Labor Party have agreed to anything more than cosmetic changes to their existing policies. Much has been made of Labors commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. But this was merely a recommitment to the policy they took to the last election, and theyve refused to say whether theyll maintain their shorter term goal of a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030.

Limiting global temperature increases to the 1.5 degrees that the IPCC regards as the upper limit to avoid devastating, runaway warming requires emissions cuts of 7.6 percent every year for the next decade. Clearly, neither of the prospective parties of government in Australia are preparing to do this. And their refusal to increase their emissions reduction targets for the domestic economy is only one side of the story. Both major parties support the continued expansion of Australias booming coal and gas industries, the massive exports from which, when burnt, produce significantly more emissions than the entire domestic economy.

The COVID-19 crisis doesnt appear to have changed any of this. The government has indicated that a major expansion of Australias already booming gas industry will be central to its post-pandemic recovery plan. If they get their way, this will lock-in further emissions increases for years, if not decades to come. And if Australia does it, why wouldnt other countries with significant fossil fuel reserves follow suit?

Our political leaders would prefer we all forgot about the country burning around us the people huddling in boats and on beaches to escape the wall of flames consuming their homes and communities, the more than a billion animals that died, the millions of hectares of forest and precious ecosystems destroyed so that Australias fossil fuel-dependent economy can profit unhindered. If we care at all about the future, however, we cant allow ourselves to succumb to the illusion that everything is under control, that relatively minor tweaks to the existing system and gradual emissions reductions will be enough and that our society can continue on its current path without any significant change.

The 2018 IPCC report was on the conservative end of the spectrum of scientific opinion on the projected impact of global warming. Increasingly, scientists are talking about the potential for devastation so significant and widespread as to trigger the collapse of entire societies and the unravelling of the global social order in the space of a few decades.

In a widely cited paper from 2018, for instance, Jem Bendell, a professor of sustainability at the University of Cumbria in the UK, argued that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war. Anticipating that people in developed countries such as Australia might not take this projection seriously, he added: When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldnt have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You wont know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.

This might seem far-fetched. After Australias summer of fire, it shouldnt. For people in the most severely affected areas, such as the South Coast of New South Wales and the Gippsland region of Victoria, there were weeks when Bendells vision of the future climate apocalypse could easily have been taken as a description of contemporary reality. Think of the thousands of people, for example, who at the height of the bushfire crisis, with their communities ringed by flames, were ordered to evacuate. Think of how they must have felt sitting for hours in cars on highways clogged in both directions, not knowing whether theyd make it through before the inferno once again blocked their escape.

For people in many parts of the world, this kind of scenario so shocking and exceptional to Australians is already a reality. Already, millions have been forced to flee their homes, in many cases permanently, due to droughts, floods and other extreme weather events. Already, low-lying coastal areas home to hundreds of millions of people around the world are threatened with inundation by rising seas. Already, climate change is contributing to an intensification of social conflicts and an increase in the frequency of wars. And already, were seeing the poorest and most vulnerable people abandoned to the elements while governments focus on providing security for themselves and their wealthy sponsors.

The ruling class may well be able to adapt to a future of runaway warming and environmental breakdown. They can, in a worst case scenario, retreat to well-guarded enclaves and pay desperate people to maintain them in the conditions to which they are accustomed. For most of the worlds population, this isnt an option. In the future our rulers envisage, we will be left to burn.

In the German Ideology, Karl Marx wrote that revolution is necessary ... not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew. To these two reasons for revolution we need to add a third: its only via revolution that we can hope to achieve the scale and pace of change needed to avoid the kind of catastrophic social collapse that Bendell foresees.

The idea that capitalism will self-correct and put us on a path to sustainability is a pipe dream that fits very nicely with our rulers desire to continue with business as usual whatever the cost. Periodically, were informed by pro-capitalist environmentalists that the reduced cost of renewable energy, combined with changing attitudes among investors and other decision makers, means were already in a sustainability revolution that will rapidly fix the problem. But while its true that investment in renewable energy has grown significantly in recent years, it hasnt been nearly enough to put a dent in the overall upward trajectory of global emissions.

Even if investment in renewables keeps growing rapidly and if the 60 percent fall in investment in large scale renewable energy in Australia in 2019 is anything to go by, thats a very big if when you factor in the growth in overall demand for energy, its going to make up only a fraction of the supply for decades to come. Reflecting this, and contrary to what so-called green capitalists might have you think investors are hardly running for the exits when it comes to fossil fuels. Global investment in renewables may be running at over US$300 billion annually, but total annual investment in energy is around US$1.8 trillion, with over US$700 billion being spent on the oil and gas supply alone. Investment in fossil fuels may be declining as a proportion of total investment in global energy capacity, but in absolute terms the industry is still growing and is projected to continue growing for decades to come.

What hope is there that we can win the change we need through the proper channels of our existing political system? The experience of the past few decades has shown how thoroughly corporate power has corrupted the institutions of capitalist democracy. The fossil fuel industry is bound to the capitalist state by a thousand threads. Its influence comes not only through political donations and an army of lobbyists, but through the shared outlook of corporate executives and the politicians and bureaucrats who run the state. When the latter talk about serving the national interest, what they mean are the interests of big business and the rich.

When challenged by even the mildest of reformist parties or movements, the capitalist class and its servants in the political establishment do everything in their power to protect the status quo. We saw that with Bernie Sanders in the US. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party establishment pulled out all the stops to prevent him winning the partys nomination for president. They succeeded. But even if Sanders had, against the odds, actually won the nomination and then the presidency, he would have been stymied at every turn not only by the Republicans, but by the majority of his own party, as well as the vast entrenched power of the unelected bureaucracy, the military and so on.

In The Civil War in France, Marx concluded, based on the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes. In The State and Revolution, Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin built on this insight, highlighting the need for the working class to smash the existing, hierarchical and oppressive capitalist state entirely. In light of the active connivance of governments everywhere whether democratic, authoritarian or anywhere in between in the ongoing destruction of the planet, we can only conclude that similarly extreme measures will be necessary to make the kind of rapid, radical changes we need to tackle the climate crisis.

A crucial part of the neoliberal project has been the inculcation of a sense that any attempt to radically alter the structure of society can end only in disaster. If we dont hold fast to the existing order, were told, the result will be chaos and violence. What we must realise, however, is that its the existing order of capitalism that is itself the main driver of chaos and violence. Beneath the facade of order and respectability is the reality of a system already bringing death, destruction and suffering to people everywhere a system careening out of control towards its, and our, demise.

What, then, might a revolution look like? Theres no shortage of examples from history for us to learn from. Again and again since the dawn of capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, workers and the poor have revolted against the established order and the regime of exploitation and oppression on which it is based. The Paris Commune was among the most prominent early examples. Since then weve had the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the German revolution of 1918, the Spanish revolution of 1936, the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and many, many more.

For Marxists, the working class is key to the success of any revolution. Workers are, as Marx famously described them, the gravediggers of capitalism for the simple reason that theyre the ones who carry out all the labour that keeps the system running and the profits flowing. The exploitation of workers under capitalism encourages organisation, and when workers organise collectively to withdraw their labour, they can bring the system to its knees. Think of how quickly society would grind to a halt if workers in just a few crucial industries, such as transport, energy and construction, all stopped work at once.

The potential power of workers to disrupt the operations of capitalism is one side of the story. The other is the potential for them to develop institutions of direct democracy that can provide an alternative form of order to that maintained by the capitalist state. In the examples of revolutionary situations mentioned above, institutions such as soviets (Russia), workers councils (Germany) and shuras (Iran) have sprung up as the need for coordinated action across industries became clear. The furthest development of these institutions occurred in Russia in 1917, where, following the October revolution against the undemocratic provisional government, the soviets assumed state power.

Workers power in Russia was ultimately crushed through years of civil war, foreign intervention and, ultimately, internal reaction from a new class of state bureaucrats under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. But the example provided by the brief period of genuine soviet democracy in the years immediately following October continues to provide inspiration for those fighting for a better world today. The great achievement of the Russian workers was to show that it was possible to have a society in which decisions are made collectively and democratically, in the interests of human need, rather than everything being geared towards the profits of the wealthiest few.

Revolutions arent something to be afraid of. What might seem like chaos from the perspective of the capitalists and their political servants will feel like liberation to those of us on the other side of the class divide. Not for nothing did Lenin call revolutions festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. You get a small taste of it every time youre part of a big, lively protest on the streets: the feeling of collective power the sense that if you all just unite, you can achieve anything; the joy at momentarily being liberated from the routine drudgery of daily life under capitalism; the feeling of participating alongside others in something meaningful and worthwhile, where your contribution matters. Revolutions make us fit to found society anew in part simply because they instil in us the confidence in our ability to run society for ourselves.

Walter Benjamin put it like this: Marx says that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by the passengers on this train namely, the human race to activate the emergency brake. The time for attempting to tinker with capitalism is long gone. Were in an emergency, and for the sake of our own lives and the lives of future generations, we need to pull the brake.

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Without a revolution, we'll have climate catastrophe - Red Flag

Lisa Nandy said the Government should freeze the assets of Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses (BBC)

3 min read19 July

Labour is urging the Government to freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in the oppression of the Uighurs.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy also said safeguarding national security has got to be the "plank" upon which all policy is based.

It comes amid worsening relations between the UK and Beijing after high-profile rows about Huawei and Hong Kong.

And on Sunday it was reported the Chinese media giant TikTok is ditching plans to open a global headquarters in London due to the "wider geopolitical context.

Speaking to Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Nandy said she is "appalled" at alleged human right abuses by China against the mainly Muslim minority ethnic Uighur group.

"One very concrete thing the UK could do is freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses in China," she added.

"The UK should not be a haven for people who abuse human rights overseas.

But Chinas ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaomingdismissed such claims, saying every ethnicgroup in China is treated equal.

Speaking on BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show he was shown footage appearing to show Uighurs being blindfolded and loaded onto trains, and an interview with a woman who said she was forced into a sterilisation operation.

He replied by saying: "I do not know where you got this video tape.

Sometimesyou have a transfer of prisoners, as in any country."

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stopped short of decribing the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide, but told the BBC it was "clear there are gross, egregioushuman rights abuses going on".

He added:"The reports of the human aspect of it - from forced sterilisation to the education camps - are reminiscent of something we have not seen for a long, long time.

"This from a leading member of the international community that wants to be taken seriously and in fact who we want a positive relationship with. But we cannot see behaviour like that and not call it out."

On the wider issue of relations with China,Labour frontbencher Ms Nandy said: "We've got to be in a position first and foremost to safeguard our national security.

"And whilst Chinese investment is very welcome in the UK, there are serious concerns, which I've been raising actually for four years now.

"I was the shadow energy secretary who raised concerns about Hinkley Point nuclear power station, that we shouldn't be handing over large chunks of our key infrastructure to Chinese Government-backed firms here in the UK.

"And that's what has prompted the row about Huawei. For several years now, we've been saying to the Government that this is a high-risk vendor.

Three consecutive Conservative prime ministers have been told by their own security services that this is a high risk vendor and yet have done nothing to try and reduce their reliance in this company in our 5G network.

She added: "It doesn't help Britain's economic prosperity to have failed to safeguard national security, that's got to be the plank on which we base everything else.

"If we'd acted sooner, if the Government had paid heed to the warnings, not just from Labour, but from Conservative backbenchers as well and from our own security services, then we wouldn't be in a position now where the roll-out of 5G is delayed and where the costs have increased because we just didn't have a plan.

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Government should freeze assets of Chinese officials involved in oppression of Uighurs, says Labour - PoliticsHome.com

NEW YORK: The universal values of freedom and peace are under assault in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan has said, and he called for ending New Delhi's "egregious human rights violations" in the disputed region.

"India has occupied the region and brutally oppressed its people since 1947," he said in an opinion piece published in Newsweek, a leading American weekly magazine, pointing out that random and senseless killing remains a fact of life in Kashmir. "The international community, particularly the United States, cannot let India get away with its brutal oppression of the Kashmiri people under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic," the Pakistani envoy wrote.

Last year, he said, the spirits of millions of Kashmiri people were lifted when President Donald Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute, when he met Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington. "The president recognized that peace in South Asia would remain elusive until Kashmiris are able to choose their own destiny," he said, adding, "This would not be possible without US leadership."

But, Ambassador Khan said that in August 2019, India unilaterally annexed Jammu and Kashmir, making a mockery of international law and the reams of UN resolutions that recognize Kashmir as an international dispute, violating bilateral agreements, as well as its own commitments to the Kashmiri people. Even before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, he said, Kashmiris were reeling under an oppressive lockdown. "Instead of easing restrictions, India doubled down on its lockdown and oppression in Kashmir."

Imagine having no internet access, no information, no contact with your loved ones, while a pandemic rages outside," the Pakistani envoy added. "As if that was not enough, we also witnessed a rise in fake encounters, extrajudicial killings and intensified crackdown on the media, and renewed internet restrictions in Kashmir, duly documented by credible international organizations. Eight million Kashmiris would have lived a full year in a state of complete lockdown this Aug 5, turning Kashmir into the largest prison on earth.

Most ominously, he said India, through a recently promulgated ordinance, wants to change Kashmir's demographics by force, turning its majority into a minority. This domicile law, for those of us who still care about international law, is a blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which expressly forbids an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into a disputed territory.:

Highlighting the present Indian government's agenda, Ambassador Khan said, "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once banned from entry into the United States because of his role in a 2002 religious pogrom that left more than 1,000 people dead in the Indian state of Gujarat," noting that his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is the political arm of a Hindu paramilitary organization that promotes an ideology of racial purity.

The BJP wants to remake India into a Hindu Rashtra (a Hindu nation), with no place for religious minorities including Muslims, Christians and others, he wrote. Referring to the Citizenship Amendment Act, which granted citizenship rights to several minorities while specifically excluding Muslims, the Pakistani envoy said, "Large detention centers have been constructed across India to house minorities who would be stuck off the National Register of Citizens in a drive reminiscent of ethnic cleansing that the world saw in the late 20th century."

Underling that Kashmir is a burden on the conscience of the international community, he wrote, "The world cannot remain a bystander while systematic attempts are underway to deprive Kashmiris of their identity as well as fundamental rights through stealth and deceit." The world must join the United Nations and other international human rights organisations in demanding an end to India's egregious human rights violations in Kashmir."

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Pakistan urges world to push India to end oppression in IOK - The News International

While many of Americas founders are justifiably famous, others have received too little attention. St. George Tucker is one.

Born July 10, 1752, in Bermuda, Tucker was a militia colonel in the American Revolution, who even wrote Liberty: a Poem, on the Independence of America that George Washington said was equal to a reinforcement of 10,000 disciplined troops. Afterward, his service included his appointment to the 1786 Annapolis Convention that led to the Constitutional Convention, and his opposition, with Patrick Henry and George Mason, to adopting the Constitution in the absence of a bill of rights.

Tuckers greatest service to posterity, however, involved the law. Not only was he a law professor and judge on three different Virginia courts, historian Clyde Wilson noted that,

St. George Tuckers View of the Constitution of the United States was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. Published in 1803 by a distinguished patriot and jurist, it was for much of the first half of the nineteenth century an important handbook for American law students, lawyers, judges, and statesmen.

David Kopel wrote, St. George Tucker is perhaps the preeminent source of the original public meaning of the Constitution. His 5-volume American edition of Blackstones Commentaries was by far the leading legal treatise in the Early Republic.

Tom DiLorenzo summarized it as laying out the Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution, which was replaced by the centralizing, big governmentinterpretation after 1865. The fact that the Supreme Court has cited Tucker 40 times illustrates the importance of his work.

Today, with St. George Tuckers commitment to limited government, states rights, and the judiciarys role of preventing government oppression a too-dim memory, his insights into liberty and the original understanding of government under our Constitution are worth revisiting.

St. George Tucker searched for the criterion that distinguishes laws from dictates, freedom from servitude, rightful government from usurpation.

And Clyde Wilson suggests that his answer is best summarized in his statement that, It is the due [external] restraint and not the moderation of rulers that constitutes a state of liberty.

Given that today, the federal power to oppress has clearly increased at the expense of Constitutional restraints, we should give Tuckers understanding as much serious thought now as our forefathers did when our great experiment in liberty began.

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39 Quotes on Liberty, Power, and the Constitution From America's 'Preeminent' Originalist | Gary M. Galles - Foundation for Economic Education

Washington, DC -Tragically, hundreds of millions of people around the world continue to suffer under repressive regimes. During Captive Nations Week, we condemn the cold grip of tyranny that holds nations under unjust rule, and we reaffirm our commitment to allwho are fighting to overcome oppression. We renew our deep devotion to the principles of liberty, justice, and the rule of law, and we know the United States will continue to shine as an unparalleled example for all nations.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower first proclaimed Captive Nations Week in 1959 to declare our Nations steadfast support forpeople throughout the world who are denied fundamental rights by their governments. The belief that a just governments powers are derived from the consent of the governed is sacrosanct in our country, but it is not shared universally. In many countries, citizens who peacefully speak their views, practice their religion, or strive to hold their governments accountable for abuses experience reckless disregard for their rights. Recently, authoritarian regimes have used the coronavirus pandemic to justify increased restrictions on individual human rights. These regimes have suppressed the free flow of timely and accurate information about the pandemic by censoring or imprisoning people who dare to share unapproved information or opinions. The most notable example today is China, where the virus originated and government suppression led directly to this global pandemic. In addition, theChinese government has seized upon this opportunity to snuff out freedom in Hong Kong, which had been the only bastion of liberty in that captive nation.

The United States encourages all nations to respect individual liberty, uphold the rule of law, and be accountable to their people through consent-based governments. Authoritarian regimes that donot respect the inherent dignity of every individual hold the dreams and potential of their people captive, enabling poverty, repression, and anguish to flourish as they deny their people their God-given rights. We will never waver in our firm belief that liberty, justice, and the rule of law unleash the fullness of life that God intended for everyone. This week and always, we stand with all people who yearn to live freely, securely, and prosperously under rights-respecting, transparent, and accountable governments rooted in the consent of the governed.

The Congress, by Joint Resolution approved July 17, 1959 (73Stat. 212), has authorized and requested the President to issue aproclamation designating the third week of July of each year as Captive Nations Week.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the UnitedStates of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim July 19 through July 25, 2020, as Captive Nations Week. Icall upon all Americans to reaffirm our commitment to supporting those around the world striving for liberty, justice, and the rule of law.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of July, in the year of our Lord twothousandtwenty, and of the Independence of the UnitedStates ofAmerica the twohundred and forty-fifth.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Link:

Proclamation on Captive Nations Week, 2020 - Imperial Valley News

COMMENT | Malaysia is full of non-Malay parents who complain about how the government has been very oppressive with the New Economic Policy (NEP). As a result, they made it their life's mission to send their kids overseas and told them not to return to this racist country.

But in the process of doing so, many of them (not all) robbed their kids of not only the joy of childhood but also the experience of living and growing up in Malaysia.

These children may have been growing up in Malaysia physically but they have not a clue about what being Malaysian is really like. Their worldview is mainly shaped by books written by Westerners instead of by their lived experiences of growing up in Malaysia.

Worse still, they grow up despising anything they see around them that does not "measure up" to the Western standards they have read so much about from their books. They know more facts about the states in America than any well-read New Yorker.

And yet they know nothing about the states of Malaysia other than the one they live in. Or maybe just their home district within their home state. All they know about Malaysia is nasi lemak, teh tarik, and maybe kuih lapis.

And when they finally get to live abroad, they realise that so many things there are so familiar - just like what they read in books or watched on TV. But eventually, as time goes by, they begin to discover that no matter how familiar the Western world may seem to them, they somehow do not fit in. They somehow feel like aliens to the people they heard so much about.

They may think they are more Westernised than the new Chinese migrants who speak broken English but to the Westerners, both Johnny Teoh (from KL) and Johnny Zhang (Beijing) are the same because they look the same.

Banana or not banana, the westerner can't tell if you are white or not on the inside. Maybe when you open your mouth, then they can tell the difference. But as long as you don't speak in English, the only difference between these two Johnnies is the spelling of their names.

This unfortunate consequence was caused by their parents, not them. In trying to give their children more options by equipping them with Western education in Malaysia, parents have inadvertently robbed their kids of a culturally rich experience growing up in a multi-racial country.

Worse still, they harbour a very unhealthy aloofness, ignorance, and even hatred against people from races other than their own.

They also look down on members of their own race by prohibiting their kids from playing with their "not-so-educated" neighbours. To them, that means people who can't speak proper English. It does not matter if you can speak perfect Beijing Mandarin, Maharaja's Telugu, or classic Vedic Sanskrit. No English means "not educated"!

This is so wrong.

The saddest part of the story is this. Their children end up as strangers in their home country and later as unwelcome guests in their adopted countries in the West which they thought they could just fit in like fish in water. It's still water but highly toxic. Too much fluoride and chlorine in it.

In giving your children an "advantage" of good English, don't rob them of the opportunity to learn other Malaysian languages well, such as Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese (and other dialects), Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi, and whatever languages your children will naturally pick up in the process of growing up in Malaysia. Only then, you can pride yourself in genuinely giving your children more options.

Equipping children with the Queen's BBC English at the expense of other languages and cultures that are readily accessible in Malaysia is not giving them more options nor more freedom. You are merely replacing the ultra Malay oppression with an equally ultra Anglo-Saxon form of oppression.

In truth, the oppressors are not those of other races but those in the government and the people who wrote and implemented oppressive policies - regardless of what race they may belong to.

Those politicians and policy-makers oppress under-privileged non-Malays as much as they oppress under-privileged Malays. I know it's hard to agree with me on this, but trust me. If you are Chinese Malaysian, you only know how you're being oppressed as a Chinese Malaysian but you cannot know enough how other races are being oppressed, including the Malays.

Do all those kiasu parents out there get what I'm saying? If you know one, just explain to them. No need to share this post. They won't agree with me anyway. Nor do I need their approval. But they will be doing their children a big favour, if only they would consider looking at things from their children's point of view.

Being successful in life is not only about being able to speak fluent English or being Westernised. It's also about being yourself, being able to accept everything about yourself.

If you were born and grew up in Malaysia, you need to understand what being Malaysian really means - more than just understanding intellectually. Being Malaysian is more than just loving nasi lemak and teh tarik.

More importantly, it is experiencing what being Malaysian truly feels like, in your heart, gut, and soul!

KEN SOONG is a Malaysian living in Australia since 2004.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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COMMENT | More than just nasi lemak and teh tarik - Malaysiakini