Monthly Archives: February 2017

Witnessing the Ghosts Of the Past and the Struggles Of the Future in Kashmir – The Wire

Posted: February 28, 2017 at 6:06 am

Books Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016, whichfeatures nine Kashmiri photographers from different eras, is about the personal as well as the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland.

After the fire, Frislan, 2012. Credit: Javed Dar

In a country in conflict, there are journalists who arrive with the rapacious speed of breaking news: they land, they grab what they need, they leave. There are also those who come and stay a little longer, who want to get the story straight and see it unfold. And then there are those who call that place home, those who are there to stay and are part of the story. The different temporality of these presences produces different narratives that have varying degrees of amplification. The voracious appetite for fresh news often turns the shouted headline into the whole story, leaving the whispered expressions of the local people on the ground almost unheard.

Sanjay Kak. Source: Author provided

On the fringe of this race, there are increasingly significant experiences of the autochthonous voices who reclaim the right to their own version of the story. The discourse around daily life in a country in conflict is, in fact, often tinged with a rhetoric of survivalism and resilience, hence placing the observers point of view within the framework of aid and development.

The locals are at the receiving end; they are the objects of attention and of charitable projects, hardly ever the narrators or the active subjects of their own story.

In 2008, I had the privilege of being a part of the initial steps of Metrography, the first independent Iraqi photo agency based in Kurdistan. The aim was to provide a platform to Iraqi photographers irrespective of religion, sect or ethnicity to respond to the omnipresent image of Iraq as a country on the brink.

Focussing on reportage rather than spot news, stories of ordinary life beyond ones of roadside bombs began to emerge. From pilgrimages and community celebrations to fashion trends, from street photography to the documentation of an incipient corporate life, Metrography managed to reveal the simple truth that in spite of war, life goes on.

Editedby SanjayKak Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016 Yarbal Press, 2017

Over the years I saw the same kind of yearning in Palestine and Afghanistan, where artists, photographers and writers have started building a solid and credible counterpoint to the standardised and stereotypical representations.

Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers embodies a similar desire emerging from Kashmir.Witness is a book edited and conceived by Sanjay Kak. It is a 30-year-long journey in the history of Kashmir through two hundred images taken by nine Kashmiri photographers Meraj Ud din, Javeed Shah, Dar Yasin, Javed Dar, Altaf Qadri, Sumit Dayal, Showkat Nanda, Syed Shahriyar and Azaan Shah.

The book is an immersive experience, one that takes days to fully savour and digest. It is comprehensive, yet not encyclopaedic. It gives no explanationbut makes a request to allow for time to look and listen, and thus it opens a window to the backstage of the complex reality of Kashmir. Witness is a project as intricate and elaborate as a piece of kashidakari, an elegant embroidery where each stitch is perfectly calibrated and contains several layers and messages within itself.

There is no single definition that can fully encompass the book: it is a photography book, a history book and a book of personal stories. In its assemblage, Kak produces multiple chronologies and orchestrates a variety of registers. The passing of time is marked by the generational history that organises the sequence of photographers: from the oldest, Meraj Ud Din, to the youngest, Azaan Shah, who is only 19 years old.

Another timeline comes at the end of the book, where the captioned photographs are ordered chronologically. The (political) history of the last 30 years in Kashmir is reconstructed visually, one painful step at a time: ordinary life is inextricably mixed with the struggle for azadi, the shadows of the passer-by mingle with the strive for self-determination. Interspersed among the captions is a glossary of the vernacular of war that characterises the daily life in the Valley counterinsurgency, massacre, militant, stone thrower words that have come to indicate the perpetual state of exception that has become ordinary in Kashmir.

Brothers, Boniyar, 2015. Credit: Showkat Nanda

In this endeavour to build what Kak calls an introduction to public memory, the individual life stories of the nine photographers emerge intimately, as unique and singular, but also as part of a collective and shared inheritance of customs, trauma, anger and defiance. With a subtle but incredibly powerful shift, Witness reveals itself as a book about Kashmiris as much as about Kashmir about the personal as much as about the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland. This is no little change in perspective, considering that the official rhetoric around Kashmir oscillates between a pristine paradise and a restive land a disputed territory where its people are either invisible or troublemakers to be tamed.

As it was withUntil My Freedom Has Come:The New Intifada in Kashmir (2011) the previous book edited by Kak Witness comes as a timely insiders reflection on a dramatic season of unrest.

Pellet-gun injuries, Srinagar, 2016. AP Images / Dar Yasin

In an ongoing conversation with Kashmiri poet and academic Ather Zia, we have come to refer to the 2016 upheaval as the summer of the eye. After the killing of the young rebel commander Burhan Wani in early July 2016, Kashmir erupted and its people took to the streets. This was by no means unannounced as rage had been simmering beneath the surface, but no one could predict that things would escalate to such a level. The Indian military and paramilitary responded to protests and kaeni jang(stone pelting) with an iron fist. Over the course of almost four months, at least 6,000 people were injured, more than 1,000 were hit in the eyes by the infamous pellet shotguns and over 100 of them were left totally or partially blind.

Beyond the metaphor, by hitting people in the eye, the security forces tried to kill the vision of a different future. They tried to remove the possibility to look beyond the present in a fashion that differs from what is envisaged by those in power. Witness is somehow an indirect response to this attempt. It brings to the table a corpus of visual evidence that tells the other side of the story, with its nuances of affection, commitment, mourning and resistance.

In the wealth of imagery that the book offers to the reader, two photographs have caught my attention. The first is a photo taken by Javed Dar in 2015 in a recently vacated paramilitary camp at Kawdor, in Srinagar. In the middle of the debris, children play with the remnants of military equipment; smiling to the camera, a young boy carries a cargo net knotted to a stick as a trailing flag. Three generations have grown up in Kashmir forced to come to terms with the normality of an extraordinary military presence in their daily life in their schools, on the streets, outside their homes, in their playgrounds.

The second photo, taken by Sumit Danyal in 2009, is a dreamlike black and white image of a tree. The tree is blurred and ungraspable and its branches seem to have captured a passing cloud. The caption reads: In the tales of ghosts who want to be set free, what often holds them back is memory.

Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers resides in that space of memory. Kak calls it a marker, a flag planted in contested ground. It is certainly a milestone in the journey towards a recognisable, autonomous Kashmiri voice. It is a testimony to the ghosts of the past and the struggles of the future, it is a testament to what Kashmir is and has been for those children who grew up playing in the leftovers of military camps.

Francesca Recchia is a researcher and writer based in Kabul. Her work focuses on intangible heritage and cultural practices in countries in conflict.

Categories: Books

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Ather Zia, Azaan Shah, Francesca Recchia, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Meraj Ud din, Metrography, military equipment, Palestine, Sanjay Kak, Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016

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Editorial | By any means necessary including dancehall – Jamaica Gleaner

Posted: at 6:04 am

In a 2016 National Public Radio (NPR) article on his book on how to teach in America's mainly black urban schools, Christopher Emdin gave an anecdote of his own experience as a student.

One day in the 10th grade, the classroom door slammed. Young Emdin dived under his desk. His maths teacher marched him off to the principal. The boy, he believed, was being a class clown.

Emdin, however, had perceived real danger. He thought he had heard a gunshot. Days earlier, a shooting had happened outside his apartment building.

The point of the anecdote was of teacher-student (mis)communication, which Emdin addressed in his book White Folk Who Teach in the Hood ... And the Rest of Y'All Too. The essence of his argument was that young people in America's urban environments often have different cultural and linguistic experiences than their white teachers, which affects how they are taught and learn. "People who perceive themselves to be colour blind oftentimes have biases hidden in their colour-blindness," Emdin said in that NRP interview.

There aren't many white folks teaching in Jamaica's schools. But the issues raised by Emdin are not so alien to Jamaica. They manifest themselves sometimes in a social gulf between teachers and their students in inner-city communities. But it is usually more apparent in the ongoing debate over the use/acceptance of Jamaican Patois as a distinct language that ought be taught and used in the island's schools and whether the majority of Jamaicans understand English, the language of pedagogy. The consensus to the latter, among linguists, seems to be no.

Which brings us to two issues: One is the project launched last week in Jamaica by Christopher Emdin and the Jamaica National Foundation; and, second, the use of Patois in schools. Emdin, 39, is now an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, Sciences and Technology at America's Columbia University. His speciality is urban education, with a focus on maths and science.

He worked with the American rapper GZA to develop a hip hop competition in New York, centred on lyrics about maths and science. It has been immensely popular.

Emdin and the JN Foundation have now brought the concept to Jamaica, under a project called Science Genius Jamaica (SCG), utilising Jamaican dancehall music, which, like hip hop, is often grounded in misogyny and nihilism.

But there is no doubt that dancehall is immensely popular. "Almost as soon as you put on a dancehall song, and it's catchy and creative, the young people grasp it," conceded Floyd Green, Jamaica's junior education minister. Promoters of the project hope that will happen in the case of the songs to be composed by the grade nine students. Without the nihilism.

The language of dancehall is mostly Jamaican Patois. Mr Green's, and implicitly the Government's, embrace of this dancehall-meets-education project should be music to the ears of people like Professor Hubert Devonish, who heads the Jamaican Language Unit at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and is often a lonely voice, except for Carolyn Cooper's, pressing for acceptance of Jamaican Patois, the mother tongue, and for bilingual education in the island.

Given global realities, this newspaper insists on all Jamaicans being literate and functional in English. The majority of Jamaicans start at a deficit in this regard. If the bilingual education approach suggested by Devonish et al is a means to this end, so be it!

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Review: ‘Target in the Night’ is punchy, graceful, ambiguous – The Daily Herald

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By Heartwood, Everett Public Library staff

Target in the Night by feted, recently deceased, Argentinian author Ricardo Piglia is a beautifully constructed novel featuring a number of interrelated stories, distinctly individualized characters, and stylish storytelling.

On its surface we have the murder of Tony Durn who came from the U.S. to a provincial town outside of Buenos Aires with lots of cash and a connection to the twin Belladona sisters. Attempting to solve Durns murder is Croce, the quixotic, Holmesian detective who has a long history of butting heads with local prosecutor Cueto.

The murder involved a knifing and the apparent use of a defunct dumbwaiter to lower down cash from the victims hotel room. The latter may also have provided the means of escape for a small person. Indeed the chief suspect is a Japanese jockey by the name of Yoshio, and his alleged act is being called a crime of passion. Other suspects include various members of the Belladona family, and a different jockey, who may have been paid to make the hit as he was in need of cash to buy a beloved, injured horse.

Woven into the story are scenes at the racetrack, the Belladona brothers and their fortress-like factory for cutting-edge automotive prototypes on the outskirts of town, a reporter (Renzi) from the city who has come to report on the murder, and a slowly unfolding history of the town and life on the Argentinian pampas that brings to mind Garca Mrquezs mythical town of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The Belladona family are prominent citizens in the community but are described as being currently at war with each other. We learn of their family history in ways that are fascinating and add layers of intrigue. For example, Renzi has a long talk with the twin, Sophia (eventually leading to intimacy), which unfolds episodically throughout the novel. And Renzi discovers more details about the Belladonna family with the help of the towns efficient archivist, Rosa, revealing a family schism and the attempt to appropriate the Belladona factory and surrounding lands through a corporate takeover.

In addition to all this, Piglias various characters have peculiar interests that include a fascination with language and syntax, dreams and the work of Carl Jung, literature and philosophy, quasi-mysticism, rationalism, madness, perception and the ide fixe. Target in the Night is a wonderful amalgam of detective story and classical tragedy told in voices that vary from Chandler to Pynchon to Bolao. Readers in need of cleanly wrapped up narratives should probably look elsewhere, but for those who are open to ambiguity and enjoy finely realized characters, myriad subject matter, and punchy yet graceful writing definitely give this book a look.

Blanco nocturno (Target in the Night) was awarded the prestigious Rmulo Gallegos International Novel Prize in 2011. For more about the author see the Piglia Dossier in the first issue of the new journal, Latin American Literature Today.

Be sure to visit A Reading Life for more reviews and news of all things happening at the Everett Public Library.

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When a guitar and Sarangi took over Qalandar’s shrine – The Express Tribune

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Courtyard full of devotees didnt care that just over a week ago, a suicide blast killed 88 in that very place

SEHWAN SHARIF:In a world of logic and rationalism, there often occur moments which defy any explanation. Its the moment when a devotee glances at his place of worship, his spiritual guidefor the first time. Its the moment when a thing of beauty comes to life in front of your eyes like watching evolution give shape to the world, or looking into your firstborns eyes moments after birth. I had a similar experience on Saturday night when I visited the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan.

PHOTO:PUBLICITY

It involved neither God nor evolution, but rather something more powerful that abides within us: love and peace. I have lived over two decades with the mind of a cynic, questioning and making sense of the nonsense around me and it has only happened a few times that I stop and just feel things as they are, without any judgment. It happened when I was kayaking in a lake surrounded by mountains in Yeongwol, South Korea. It happened in the mountainous Buddhist temple of Naksan where Buddhas spirit lived in the winter fog and watched over his devotees. And it happened again in the ethereal presence of Qalandar.

Those fuelling anger over Sehwan tragedy accomplices of terrorists: Sindh CM

A courtyard full of devotees who did not care that just over a week ago, a suicide blast had killed 88 people in that very place. I was there, moving to the rhythm of Lal, whose four lamps never extinguish. I was there to light the fifth one.

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Watching people go into a trance to the sound of dhamaal was a moving experience. What followed was a peace jam by Sounds of Kolachi and percussionist Abdul Aziz Qazi, marking the first time any band has performed inside the Qalandar shrine.

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The heart-touching sound of Gul Muhammads sarangi combined with Ahsan Baris guitar, Qazis cajn, and Ahmeds vocals served as a call, an azaan of sorts. In no time, people gathered around to witness the manifestation of a peaceful gesture in the face of fear that had swallowed the world. In fact, it occurred to me that, apart from the tighter security at the entrance, the public did not even worry about the blast anymore. The power of peace had set into them so heavily that it wasnt going to stop them from visiting the pilgrimage site.

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Each musical note and each expression of the people in witness exclaimed, No blasts or killings can conquer peace and love. The shrine was a canal, where musicians took inspiration from the people and gave them back through music an ecosystem, a cycle of peace. Its even more interesting that no person objected to it. Music was a whole another prayer, similar to what the regular devotees did at the shrine. To top it, two local musicians joined in with nagaras of their own like dervishes joining a group of dervishes in the dance of zikr.

In Memory Of Sehwan victims remembered

The performance, which lasted over 40 minutes, saw people even dancing to the rhythm in a trance-like state, as on the path to enlightenment. It reminded me of the Heart Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism, Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Swaha (Gone, gone, gone beyond altogether beyond, Awakening, fulfilled!).

PHOTO:PUBLICITY

It talks about love and mental peace where nothing, no worldly chatter and noise can touch you. One of the most important sutras in Buddhism, it talks of Bodhi, which is awakening. If the entire experience of Qalandars shrine can be summed up in one word, its awakening.

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Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals’ preference deal with One Nation – Whyalla News

Posted: at 6:02 am

13 Feb 2017, 12:34 p.m.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has condemned the Western Australian Liberal Party's unprecedented decision to preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals at the upcoming state election, a deal that has been defended by Mr Joyce's federal Liberal partners.

Prime Minister and Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull with Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop. Photo: Andrew Meares

Trade Minister Steven Ciobo has defended One Nation's record defending the government, while Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has warned the deal could cost the Liberal Party government in WA. Photo: Andrew Meares

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has condemned the Western Australian Liberal Party's unprecedented decision to preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals at the upcoming state election, a deal that is splitting opinion in the federal Coalition ranks.

Striking a different note to Liberal colleagues, former prime minister Tony Abbott agreed with the argument that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was a "better person" today than when she was previously in Parliament but said the Nationals should be preferenced above all other parties.

While Mr Joyce described the deal as "disappointing", cabinet colleague and Trade Minister Steve Ciobosaidthe Liberal Party should put itself in the best position to govern and talked up Ms Hanson's right-wing populist party as displaying a "certain amount of economic rationalism" and support for government policy.

Mr Joyce said the conclusion "that the next best people to govern Western Australia after the Liberal Party are One Nation" needed to be reconsideredand the most successful governments in Australia were ones based on partnerships between the Liberals and Nationals.

"When you step away from that, there's one thing you can absolutely be assured of is that we are going to be in opposition," he told reporterson Monday morning.

"[WA Premier] Colin Barnett has been around thepoliticalgame a long while and he should seriously consider whether he thinks that this is a good idea or whether he's flirting with a concept that would put his own side and Liberal colleagues in opposition."

The deal will see Liberals preference One Nation above the Nationals in the upper house country regions in return for the party's support in all lower house seats at the March 11 election.

The alliance between the more independent WA branch of the Nationals and the Liberals is reportedly at breaking point over the deal, which could cost the smaller rural party a handful of seats.

"Pauline Hanson is a different and, I would say, better person today than she was 20 years ago. Certainly she's got a more, I think, nuanced approach to politics today," Mr Abbott told Sydney radio station 2GB.

"It's not up to me to decide where preference should go but, if it was, I'd certainly be putting One Nation ahead of Labor and I'd be putting the National Party ahead of everyone. Because the National Party are our Coalition partnersin Canberra and in most states and they are our alliance partners in Western Australia."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declined to criticise the deal, stating that preference deals in the state election were a matter for the relevant division who "have got make their judgment based on their assessment of their electoral priorities".

Mr Ciobo joined the Prime Minister and other federal Liberal colleagues in defending the WA division's right to make its own decisions.

"What we've got to do is make decisions that put us in the best possible position to govern," he told ABC radio of the motivations of his own branch in Queensland.

After Industry Minister Arthur Sinodinos called the modern One Nation more "sophisticated" now, Mr Ciobo also praised the resurgent party.

"If you look at, for example, how Pauline Hanson's gone about putting her support in the Senate, you'll see that she's often voting in favour of government legislation.There's a certain amount of economic rationalism, a certain amount of approach that's reflective of what it is we are trying to do to govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way.One Nation has certainly signed up to that much more than Labor."

When in government, former Liberal prime minister John Howard declared that One Nation would always be put last on how-to-vote cards.

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One Nation ‘more economically responsible than Labor’: Steve Ciobo – Southern Cross

Posted: at 6:02 am

14 Feb 2017, 8:09 a.m.

Labor "shouldn't be surprised" to be compared unfavourably to One Nation on economics, Trade Minister Steve Ciobo said.

Pauline Hanson's protectionist One Nation party is "more economically responsible" than the Labor opposition, Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has said.

As the Turnbull government was forced to defend a preference deal between the Liberal Party and One Nation in Western Australia, Mr Ciobosaid the ALP "shouldn't be surprised" to be compared unfavourably to the firebrand minor party.

"Poor @AustralianLabor don't like being told One Nation is more economically responsible than they are. Shouldn't be a surprise to them," he tweeted on Monday.

It came after Mr Ciobo said One Nation's four senators had frequently voted in favour of the Turnbull government's legislation and espoused "a certain amount of economic rationalism" and fiscal responsibility.

"One Nation has certainly signed up to that much more than Labor," he said.

The unprecedented deal between the parties in Western Australia, which will see the Liberals preference One Nation above the Nationals in the upper house in some regional areas, has sparked fresh debate about the role of Pauline Hanson's party in Australian politics, particularly at the conservative end of the spectrum.

Among One Nation's economic policies are taxing foreign companies to the tune of $100 billion, moving away from freetrade agreements such as the doomed Trans-Pacific Partnership and instituting a nationalised people's bank. The tax policy page on One Nation's website cites Banjo Paterson and is highly critical of the Liberal Party.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said the former Labor government had produced "the best economic response in the world" to the Global Financial Crisis and saved the country from going into recession.

"For the Trade and Tourism Minister to be spruiking One Nation's economic credentials is beyond belief," he told Fairfax Media. "His best explanation is that someone hacked his Twitter account."

Other Labor MPs such as Tim Watts and Rob Mitchell pointed out on Twitter that One Nation's policy agenda included the introduction ofa 2 per cent flat tax and zero net migration measures antithetical to the Coalition's economic position which embraces lower taxes and migration to drive growth.

Mr Ciobo'stweet followed a speech in Parliament in which heaccusedLabor leader Bill Shorten of being "more concerned about kale than he is about coal", and ignoring the needs of coal miners in regional Australia.

In the Senate on Monday, Pauline Hanson claimed the QueenslandLabor party approached her with a "grubby deal" on preferences. However,theState Secretary of Queensland Labor said this was"absolute crap".

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie scoffed at the "dirty filthy deals" when she appeared on the ABC's Q&A on Monday night. She said One Nation does not have the resilience to be a "power entity".

"What the Liberal Party up there in Federal Parliament will do to keep One Nation on side, honestly ... it just blows me away," Ms Lambie said.

She said the Nationals in Western Australia were a "puppy dog" that the Liberals had taken back to the pound.

"And they think they're getting something better," she said. "I'll tell you what, when that bites them, come back and see me.

"You've gotta be able to sustain that power and that resilience and that resistance, and quite frankly I don't think One Nation has it."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull maintains the One Nation preference deal is a matter for the West Australian division of the Liberal Party, but reiterated his government works "respectfully and constructively" with the Hanson senators at the federal level.

On Sky News on Monday, Attorney-General George Brandis said the Nationals had given their preferences to One Nation and the Shooters and Fishersahead of the Liberal Party at previous West Australian elections.

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The story One Nation 'more economically responsible than Labor': Steve Ciobo first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

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UT forum discusses free speech on campus – Knoxville News Sentinel

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Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, talks about free speech as an issue on college campuses and in national politics on Monday, Feb. 27, 2017 at the University of Tennessee. Rachel Ohm/ News Sentinel.

Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, speaks at the "Understanding the First Amendment on Campus" event Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, at The Howard Baker Center for Public Policy on UT's campus.(Photo: BRIANNA PACIORKA/NEWS SENTINEL)Buy Photo

A free speech forum at the University of Tennessee on Monday touched on First Amendment issues as they have affected the university over the past year, including a controversial tweet made last fallby a professor of law.

"Free speech is one of the most important topics in America today," said Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and the moderator of Monday's forum at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. "On campus we're seeing dramatic debates about the boundaries between dignity and freeexpression online. We're seeing debates about whether presidents should be tweeting and whether members of Congress should respond. The boundaries of free speech have never been more contested."

The forum also comes as Tennessee lawmakers earlier this month proposed a bill to ensure free speech on Tennessee campuses after the controversial speeches of a former Breitbart News editor spurred protests at colleges around the country.

Two students, two faculty members and an administrator made up a panel that weighed in Monday on various issues related to free speech as they have appeared on the University of Tennessee campus.

Melissa Shivers, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of Tennessee, speaks during a panel discussion at the "Understanding the First Amendment on Campus" event Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, at The Howard Baker Center for Public Policy on UT's campus.(Photo: BRIANNA PACIORKA/NEWS SENTINEL)

The discussion mostly focused on a controversial tweet made last fall by Glenn Reynolds, a UT law professor andcontributing columnist for USA TODAY and the News Sentinel, whourged motorists to run over demonstrators blocking traffic in Charlotte, N.C.; and a letter to the editor that appeared in the student newspaper, The Daily Beacon, last spring that took issue with the idea of "safe spaces" on campus.

Barry Hawkins, a UT senior who penned the letter to the editor and a member of Monday's panel, said during the course of the discussion that he hasn't seen any recent barriers to free speech on campus, and faculty and administrators on the panel also said the issue is one that is taken seriously with an emphasis placed on the importance of free speech on campus.

One faculty member not on the panel, however, did express concerns Monday about a lecture scheduled to take place Tuesday at UT's Alumni Memorial Building entitled "How Killing Black Children is an American Tradition."

Mary McAlpin, a professor of French and member of the Faculty Affairs Committee in the Faculty Senate, said during a question-and-answer portion of Monday's forum that she was concerned that funding from three of the four departments sponsoring the lecture had been pulled because the title was "too provocative."

Amy Blakely, assistant director of media and internal relations for the University of Tennessee, said she "was not sure about the specifics of the funding" but that the lecture would still be held as planned Tuesday.

"The challenges are difficult; the lines are hard to draw," Rosen said during opening remarks Monday. "I know how this campus, like campuses around the country is struggling with these issues, but we can unite around them. We can be inspired and take solace in the beautiful tradition that speech is a natural right and our democracy is stronger if we have confidence that bad speech will be driven out by good speech."

Brittany Moore, president of UT Black Law Students Association, speaks during a panel discussion at the "Understanding the First Amendment on Campus" event Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, at The Howard Baker Center for Public Policy on UT's campus.(Photo: BRIANNA PACIORKA/NEWS SENTINEL)

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Gun rights activists win round in free-speech court case against state of California – Los Angeles Times

Posted: at 6:01 am

Feb. 27, 2017, 4:35 p.m.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Monday against the state for continuing to demand the removal of a blog post that listed the home addresses of legislators who voted for California's newest gun control measures.

The lawsuit is funded by the Firearms Policy Coalition on behalf of one of the groups members, who is listed in the lawsuit under the pseudonym Publius and writes a blog called The Real Write Winger.

Last year, the blog published the names, home addresses and homephone numbers of 40 legislators who voted for a package of gun control measures in June, saying the lawmakers decided to make you a criminal if you dont abide by their dictates. So below is the current tyrant registry.

The Web hosting company WordPresstook the post down after it received a letter from Deputy Legislative Counsel Kathryn Londenberg saying the information putelected officials at grave risk, and citing state law barring the release of such information.

Chief U.S.District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill in Fresno issued an order Monday granting the plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction in the 1st Amendment civil rights lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs are likely to succeed ontheir claims that the state law violates the 1st Amendment.

We are delighted that Judge ONeill saw the statute and the States enforcement of it for exactly what it was: an unconstitutional restriction on free speech, said coalition president Brandon Combs.

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EDITORIAL: Clarify Free Speech Policy – Georgetown University The Hoya

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Georgetown University received a dubious distinction last Wednesday after landing on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Educations list of the 10 worst colleges for free speech.

For a university that has, in the past two years, hosted speakers of every ilk and creed, from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and feminism skeptic Christina Hoff Sommers to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, this categorization seems hyperbolic. Georgetowns Speech and Expression Policy contains provisions that allow any student group to host an event or peacefully protest for demonstrators.

Regardless of if the university deserves the distinction of FIREs worst of the worst list for campus free speech policy, the report spotlights how the ambiguities in the Speech and Expression Policy are sometimes liable to misinterpretation and confusion by administrators and students alike.

According to the report, the ranking is largely predicated by an incident in September 2015, in which the Georgetown University Law Centers Office of Student Life prevented a group of law students from campaigning for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign on campus. The university claimed that its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization precluded the universitys engagement in partisan political activity, but later acknowledged in a February 2016 letter to a congressional subcommittee that the GULC had applied an overly cautious interpretation of the legal requirements governing the use of university resources.

Similarly, another incident cited by FIREs list also stemmed from a misunderstanding, after the Georgetown University Police Department removed condom envelopes from the doors of students volunteering for H*yas for Choice after reportedly mistaking them for vandalism.

These events in the past year do not represent insidious, systemic attempts by the university to muzzle free speech and expression on campus. Rather, the incidents cited by FIRE to justify its ranking all arise from the vague and obscure language of an otherwise permissive and accepting policy.

For instance, even after issuing a swift revision of its policy that clearly permits students to table for campaigns, GULC expressly prohibited the use of university-sponsored resources, including Georgetowns phone system, email lists, computer networks or servers, or postal service, for partisan political campaign activity. But as FIRE points out, other university resources including classrooms, bulletin boards and even campus Wi-Fi are absent from the policy, leaving it to the universitys discretion as to how to enforce expression policy.

These ambiguities persist on the main campus, where confusion abounds among students and administration about the regulation of free speech. In 2014, GUPD removed students tabling for H*yas for Choice in Healy Circle outside a Right to Life event because H*yas for Choice strayed outside the confines of Red Squares designated free speech zone, despite Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson reassuring the group in a Jan. 16, 2014 free speech forum that it was not confined to the area.

The conflicting reports from campus law enforcement, administration and students about free speech rights demonstrate that although the university remains committed to free expression and the exchange of ideas, the exact provisions of the policy remain subject to interpretation. This is easily remediable through the consolidation of a definitive Bill of Rights for student free speech, with specific language about space and resources that administrators can show to students who violate the terms, or, alternately, students can point to when disputing their right to expression.

Despite FIREs ranking, Georgetown will demonstrate its commitment to free speech this week by hosting two contentious speakers, Nonie Darwish and Asra Nomani, who proclaim inflammatory views about radical Islam. At the same time, Georgetowns Bridge Initiative will host a conversation on Islamophobia and anti-Semitism with Rabbi Rachel Gartner and Imam Yahya Hendi. This campus climate is a far cry from FIREs ranking Georgetown as a repressive university for free speech. But in order to assure this continued commitment, the university needs to clearly delineate its expectations regarding free speech for both students and campus officials.

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EDITORIAL: Clarify Free Speech Policy - Georgetown University The Hoya

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Donald Trump is a threat to the press and to freedom of speech – Macleans.ca

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A man wears a shirt reading Rope. Tree. Journalist. as supporters gather to rally with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a cargo hangar at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. November 6, 2016. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

There are few rights more sacred to democracy than freedom of speech. Indeed, the ideas that underwrite our commitment to the notion that one ought to be able to express themselves without threat from the state or the government track closely with democracy as a way of organizing collective life going back to at least the Ancient Greeks.

In the modern era, free speech has become entwined with the right to a free press. The press plays several roles in contemporary democratic societies: it obtains and distributes information about economic, social, and political life that individuals would otherwise be unable to get for themselveswithout great and prohibitive difficulty, at least. The media act as conveyors of opinion (for the purposes of argument) and context (for the sake of understanding). Our ink-stained and computer-strained journalists hold power to accountnot just state or government power, but also economic and social power. Taken together, the media become facilitators of checks and balances, civic discourse, democratic empowerment, and general education. So, when President Trump attacks the press, he is attacking free speech and perhaps freedom itself.

The right to speech is meaningless unless it is underwritten by a public thatknows thingsthat is, an educated public. For the people to hold power to account, they must be aware of what their leaders are up to and they must know for themselves what they prefer those folks be up to and why. Thomas Jefferson captured the spirit of this sentiment when he suggested, If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. A second line of the quotation, attributed to Jefferson but unlikely his own words, continues If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.

MORE:Donald Trumps fake news is the real news at Florida rally

When the president attacks credible news sources as fake news and calls them the enemy of the American people, he encourages his mob of mouth-frothing supplicants to insult, dismiss, and even threaten members of the press. When he attacks journalists who challenge him, he undermines trust in the fourth estate and threatens free speechat least the speech of those who disagree with him (also known as a majority of Americans). The impulse to dismiss the press as biased and propagandistic is authoritarian at its core. The practice is chilling.

It matters very little whether Trump is attacking the press as part of a deliberate strategy to extend his authority, to distract from his failures,orbecause hes a narcissistic ass who cant help himselfor some combination of the three. The effect of his attacks are serious and dangerous. There are malign influences surrounding the president who are prepared to seize their moment regardless of his intent. There are disaffected and angry mobs who support the man and are prepared to harass his enemies and their own no matter what Trump intends. And even if the current occupant of the Oval Office turns out to be a minor infection of the body politic, he mightclearthe way for a much more dangerous pathogen to follow him.

Aclip from a 1962 interviewwith President John F. Kennedy has been making the rounds on the Internet lately. The president sat down for that chat in the Oval Office two years into the mandate he would never finish. Asked about the role of the press in the United States, Kennedy, who was still recovering from the sanguinary and failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, gritted his teeth and said, Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didnt write it, and even though we disapprove, there isnt any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. He also cited the role of the media as an invaluable arm of the presidency as a check really on whats going on in [the] administration.

More thanthree hundred years earlier, the English poet and polemicist John Milton responded to Parliaments pre-publication requirement under the Licensing Order of 1643, which required that publishers obtain permission from the state and submit to registration prior to any printing, by writingAreopagitica. The name of the polemic was carefully chosen, drawing on the Areopagus, a hill in Athens used in Antiquity for various political matters (not always democratic). Milton was writing during the early days of the English Civil War, justasthe form and substance of future government in much of the West was being shaped by bloodshed and argument. Ultimately, Milton, free speech and democracy prevailed.

MORE:Thirty days of Donald Trump

Today we risk abandoning the legacy of the democratic tradition and the rights that have served as its guarantors for centuries. The demonization of the press has coincided with the rise of the euphemistically lazy alternative media, which tends to be little more than echo chambers for the disaffected, whether publications find themselves on the far right or the far left. While some of the messages that resonate within those chambers are perfectly fair, plenty are far from it and the effect (and one imagines, the intent) of their advancement has been to polarize and to create partisan battalions more intent on battle than debate. At the same time, because of the nature of how we seek out our news today, one no longer must contend with or even be exposed to an unwanted idea.

The fracturing of the media landscape by alternative publications, algorithms that curate newsfeeds for us, the proliferation of for-profit fake news, and the deployment of propaganda in the service of partisan interests has allowed Trump to mobilize his supporters against the mainstream media. Trump didnt invent the tactic of declaring war on a biased press; he didnt dream up fake news or propaganda or fringe news outlets. He has merely used them better than others have, as a master carpenter would use a chisel.

We thus face the confluence of several dangerous contemporary realities that leave us vulnerable to democratic retrenchment. The first line of defence against the erosion of democracy is unsurprisingly the one under the most vicious attack from those who would prefer to substitute their own partisan reality for the one we otherwise share; that line of defence is free speech supported by a free and robust press.

Neither a press nor free speech can exist in a contemporary mass democracy without the other. For those who are committed to resisting belligerent sectarianism and leaders like Trump who demonstrate authoritarian tendencies, the troubling news is that our words and arguments and ideas are under attack; the encouraging news is that they remain, as they have for decades, among our most effective means of resistance.

David Moscrop is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a writer. Hes currently working on a book about why we make bad political decisions and how we can make better ones. Hes at @david_moscrop on Twitter.

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Donald Trump is a threat to the press and to freedom of speech - Macleans.ca

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