Daily Archives: May 14, 2020

Chris Christie, a Trump supporter and a former New Jersey governor, pleaded with Americans on May 5 to risk disease and death by returning to work. Everybody wants to save every life they can, he said, but weve got to let some of these folks get back to work. Otherwise were going to destroy the American way of life in these families.

The American way of life is shaping up to be a battleground.

On one side is the working class. From Amazon warehouse workers to striking sanitation workers in New Orleans, there are limits to what ordinary people are willing to endure to secure their employers bottom line. Resistance to oppression and exploitation is a familiar experience for millions of workers in this country. And when workers have not found justice or relief in mainstream politics, they have turned to more combative ways of mobilizing to secure it.

On the other side is the Republican Party, led by the Trump administration, which has accelerated its call for states to reopen the economy by sending people back to work. While President Trump admits that some people will be affected badly, nonetheless we have to get our country open.

Public health experts disagree. Instead, they argue that testing rates must double or triple and that we need a more intense regime of contact tracing and isolation. This has been the established pattern in countries that managed the coronavirus with success. But without these measures, forecast models predict a sharp rise in fatalities. A conservative model that in mid-April predicted a ghastly death toll of 60,000 by August now estimates 147,000 fatalities by August. Just as the rate of infection drops in cities like New York and Detroit, new outbreaks threaten to emerge elsewhere where restrictions are being relaxed.

But if we expect tens of millions of people to stay at home for even longer, that is possible only if people have access to income, food, stable housing and reliable health care. If people cannot work, then these things will have to be provided by the federal government. It is that simple.

For Republicans, the American way of life as one with big government social welfare programs would be worse than the pandemic. At the core of their vision of the United States is a celebration of supposed rugged individualism and self-sufficiency where hard work is valorized and creates success. Of course, the contrapositive is also believed to be true, that when people have not been successful it is because they did not work hard enough.

Buried within this is the false notion that the U.S. is free from the hierarchies of class. Instead, Republicans and most mainstream Democrats would argue, America has fluid social mobility where a persons fortitude determines the heights of his or her success. This powerful narrative has motivated millions to migrate to this country. But for tens of millions, this view of the American way of life has no bearing on their lives.

Typically, the contradictions of our society are buried beneath the American flag, suffocating hubris and triumphalist claims of exceptionalism. But the pandemic has pushed all of the countrys problems to the center of American life. It has also highlighted how our political class, disproportionately wealthy and white, dithers for weeks, only to produce underwhelming rescue bills that, at best, do no more than barely maintain the status quo.

The median wealth of a U.S. senator was $3.2 million as of 2018, and $900,000 for a member of the House of Representatives. These elected officials voted for one-time stimulus checks of $1,200 as if that was enough to sustain workers, whose median income is $61,973 and who are now nearly two months into various mandates to shelter-in-place and not work outside their homes. As a result, a tale of two pandemics has emerged.

The crisis spotlights the vicious class divide cleaving through our society and the ways it is also permeated with racism and xenophobia. African-Americans endure disproportionate exposure to the disease, and an alarming number of videos show black people being brutalized by the police for not wearing masks or social distancing, while middle-class white people doing the same things are left in peace. In New York City, 92 percent of those arrested for violating rules regarding social distancing and 82 percent of those receiving summons for the same offense have been black or Latino.

Our society imagines itself to be impervious to the rigidities of class, but it is overwhelmed with suffering, deprivation and hunger. Food banks across the country report extraordinary demand, producing an almost shocking rebuke of the image of a country of universal abundance. According to one report, a food bank along the affluent New Jersey shore has set up a text service allowing people to discreetly pick up their food.

Elsewhere, the signs of a crisis that looks like the Great Depression are impossible to hide. In Anaheim, Calif., home to Disneyland, cars formed half-mile-long lines in two different directions, waiting to pick up free food. In San Antonio, 10,000 cars waited for hours to receive food from a food bank. Even still, Republicans balk at expanding access to food stamps while hunger is on the rise. Nearly one in five children 12 and younger dont have enough to eat.

That way of life may also begin to look like mass homelessness. Through the first five days of April, 31 percent of tenants nationwide had failed to pay their rent. And while more people paid in May, continued payments seem unsustainable as millions fall into unemployment. Forty-three million households rent in the U.S., but there is no public rental assistance for residents who lose the ability to afford their rent. With only a few weeks left on many eviction moratoriums, there is a thin line between a place to shelter in and homelessness for tens of millions of Americans.

Many elected officials in the Republican Party have access to Covid-19 testing, quality health care and the ultimate cushion of wealth to protect them. Yet they suggest others take the risk of returning to work as an act of patriotism necessary to regenerate the economy. This is duplicitous and obscures the manipulation of U.S. workers.

While the recent stimulus bills doled out trillions of dollars to corporate America and the financial sector, the smallest allocations have provided cash, food, rent or health care for citizens. The gaps in the thin membrane of a safety net for ordinary Americans have made it impossible to do anything other than return to work.

This isnt just malfeasance or incompetence. Part of the American way of life for at least some of these elected officials is keeping workers just poor enough to ensure that the essential work force stays shows up each day. In place of decent wages, hazard pay, robust distribution of personal protective equipment and the simplest guarantees of health and safety, these lawmakers use the threat of starvation and homelessness to keep the work force intact.

In the case of the meatpacking industry, there is not even a veil of choice, as those jobs are inexplicably labeled essential, as if life cannot go on without meat consumption. The largely immigrant and black meatpacking work force has been treated barely better than the carcasses they process. They are completely expendable. Thousands have tested positive, but the plants chug along, while employers offer the bare minimum by way of safety protections, according to workers. If there were any question about the conditions endured in meatpacking plants, consider that 145 meat inspectors have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and three have died.

The statements of the two senators from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, vociferously opposing the extension of $600 supplemental payments to unemployment insurance, offer another stark example of how workers are being compelled to return to unsafe work environments. Mr. Scott referred to the supplement as a perverse incentive to not work. He and Mr. Graham argued that the payments were more than some workers salaries, which is an indictment of the jobs and the companies, not the employees.

This is not the first time Southern politicians have complained that government aid to poor or working-class people would undermine their perverse reliance on low-wage labor. During the Great Depression, Southern leaders opposed new systems of social welfare over fear it would undermine the civilization to which we are accustomed, as a newspaper in Charleston, S.C., described it. The crude version came from an official in Alabama who insisted that welfare payments to African-Americans should be lower because, Negroes just dont want to work. The logic was that if you could pay black men a nickel then white men would celebrate being paid a dime. Meanwhile, the prevailing wages elsewhere were significantly higher than both. This is why wages are still lower across the South than elsewhere in the country.

American progress means that Mr. Scott, an African-American senator from South Carolina, now voices these ideas. But then as now, complaints about social welfare are central to disciplining the labor force. Discipline in the U.S. has always included low and inconsistent unemployment and welfare combined with stark deprivation. Each has resulted in a hyper-productive work force with few benefits in comparison to Americas peer countries.

This is at the heart of the conflict over reopening the country or allowing people to continue to shelter-in-place to suppress the virus. But if the social distancing and closures were ever going to be successful, it would have meant providing all workers with the means to live in comfort at home while they waited out the disease. Instead, they have been offered the choice of hunger and homelessness or death and disease at work.

The governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, made this painfully clear when she announced that not only was Iowa reopening, but that furloughed workers in private or public employment who refused to work out of fear of being infected would lose current unemployment benefits. She described these workers choices as a voluntary quit.

The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services is also instructing employers to report workers who refuse to go to work because of the pandemic. Part of whats going on is the crush of people filing for benefits means state funds are shrinking. This is exacerbated by the reluctance of the Trump administration to bail out state governments. That the U.S. government would funnel trillions to corporate America but balk at sending money to state governments also appears to be part of the American way of life that resembles the financial sector bailout in 2008.

This cannot all be laid at the feet of the Trump administration, though it has undeniably made life worse for millions. These are also the bitter fruits of decades of public policies that have denigrated the need for a social safety net while gambling on growth to keep the heads of U.S. workers above water just enough to ward off any real complaints or protests.

The attacks on welfare, food stamps, public housing and all of the attendant programs that could mitigate the worst aspects of this disaster continue to be bipartisan. The loud praise of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, in contrast to the poor performance of President Trump, has overshadowed protests against his $400 million cuts to hospitals in New York as the virus was raging through the city.

There will be many more examples of Democrats wielding the ax in response to unprecedented budget shortages in the coming months. With the increasing scale of the crisis as unemployment grows to an otherworldly 36.5 million people while states run out of money and contemplate cutting Medicaid and other already meager kinds of social welfare the vast need for government assistance will test the political classs aversion to such intervention.

During the long and uneven recovery from the Great Recession, the warped distribution of wealth led to protests and labor organizing. The crisis unfolding today is already deeper and much more catastrophic to a wider swath of workers than anything since the 1930s. The status quo is untenable.

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The American Way of Life Is Shaping Up to Be a Battleground - The New York Times

Utilizing cutting-edge technology, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is perfecting the religious oppression of millions at home and exporting the same capabilities abroad. The CCP's ongoing abuse of Christians, Muslims and Buddhists lays bare the stakes for human freedom in the United States' great power competition with China.

In its annual report released last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concluded that the CCP is "engaging in systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations." Thanks to Western media investigations and courageous Chinese whistleblowers, many outside China are familiar with the CCP's deplorable persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang. In the past year, Muslims have suffered "torture, rape, sterilization and other abuses," and authorities have "destroyed or damaged thousands of mosques."

Christians, who make up roughly five percent of China's population, have fared little better. Chinese officials "raided or closed down hundreds of Protestant house churches in 2019." Local officials continue to offer cash bounties for information on underground churches. Chinese authorities have burned unauthorized Bibles, ripped down crucifixes and replaced likenesses of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary with images of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Tibetan Buddhists continue to suffer "forced assimilation and suppression." Monks and nuns unwilling to subordinate their faith to the CCP's dictates have been "expelled from their monasteries, imprisoned and tortured." As an extraordinary sign of the hopelessness and desperation the CCP's oppression has caused, USCIRF noted that at least 156 Tibetans have self-immolated since February 2009.

While authoritarianism and religious persecution are sadly not new, the CCP leads the world in the abuse of advanced technologies to carry out its religious cleansing. In an update last September, USCIRF noted that authorities have often forced religious minorities to provide "blood samples, voice recordings and fingerprints." Government officials then employ "advanced computing platforms and artificial intelligence to collate and recognize patterns in the data on religious and faith communities." Surveillance cameras, sometimes installed inside places of worship, utilize advanced facial recognition software to assist these efforts.

Some may want to dismiss these concerning facts as the unfortunate but isolated plight of Chinese civilians struggling half a world away. But that would miss the true extent of the CCP's global program.

According to USCIRF, "China has exported surveillance technology and systems training to more than 100 countries," allowing them to "target political opponents or oppress religious freedom." With the technology in hand and international opprobrium still at a whisper, repressive regimes will see little downside to following suit.

Some have already made that calculation. The report notes that in August 2019, "Uzbek authorities forced approximately 100 Muslim men to shave their beards, claiming that the beards hindered Chinese facial recognition technology used by the government."

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) summed up the stakes in February. "China is exporting authoritarianism. And they are giving everyone a packageI mean a literal tech package," he said. "The surveillance cameras, the artificial intelligence, the databases, the ways to control a society, just like they do at home."

The technology is hardly safer in democratic hands. Some U.S. allies and partners already use CCP technologies, clinging to dangerously outdated notions of a Chinese private sector. The reality is that no "private" Chinese company will refuse a dictate from Beijing. As free nations become increasingly reliant on Chinese hardware, they give the CCP potential points of access into security infrastructure and sensitive information.

Additionally, the more reliant nations, companies and individuals become on Chinese technology for critical services, investments and trade, the more reluctant each becomes to criticize Beijing's foreign or domestic policiesexpanding Beijing's ability to act with impunity. Some of America's closest European allies are already beginning to suffer from this affliction.

An effective response begins with documenting and disseminating Beijing's violations of religious liberty. The U.S. has taken positive initial steps. In October, the administration imposed restrictions on Chinese companies and officials abusing minorities.

But meaningful relief for China's religious minorities will come quickest if the U.S. recruits other nations with the economic and diplomatic firepower to stand together against Beijing.

This requires buy-in from America's partners. It also means tireless engagement with international organizations and the difficult diplomatic work of coalition-building. If Washington neglects these partnerships or vacates these international fora, Beijing will simply fill the vacuum.

As the USCIRF report makes clear, the competition between the U.S. and the CCP is about more than fleeting economic or political primacy. Hanging in the global balance are the protections of minorities, of conscience, of worship and of a private life beyond the reach of government.

If Beijing displaces the United States as the leader in shaping international rules and norms, one need not wonder the direction they will take: China's minorities already know.

Bradley Bowman is senior director for the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Mikhael Smits is a research analyst.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

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Beijing Hones and Exports Religious Oppression | Opinion - Newsweek

Health and government officials around the globe are slowly and ever-so-tentatively moving to relax lockdowns due to coronavirus.

In Canada, where the possibility of health-care collapse seems to have been averted (for the time being), some are beginning to ask questions other than when will the pandemic end? Instead, theyre turning towards how will we move forward?

Young people have some answers that warrant our attention. Over the past five years, through my collaborative ethnographic research with 250 young people in drama classrooms in Canada, India, Taiwan, Greece and England, I have gained remarkable insight into these young peoples experiences and assessments of the world.

I found crisis after crisis being shouldered by young people. Through their theatre-making, they documented their concerns and hope, and they rallied around common purposes. They did this despite disagreement and difference.

Beyond simply creating art for arts sake, or for school credits, many of the young people I encountered are building social movements and creative projects around a different vision for our planet. And they are calling us in. This is an unprecedented moment for intergenerational justice and we need to seize it.

I have had an up-close look at how seemingly disparate crises around the globe are deeply connected through divisive systems that dont acknowledge or respect youth concerns. I have also learned how young people are disproportionately affected by the misguided politics of a fractured world.

In England, young people were burdened by the divisive rhetoric of the Brexit campaign and its ensuing aftermath.

In India, young women were using their education to build solidarity in the face of dehumanizing gender oppression.

In Greece, young people were shouldering the weight of a decade-long economic crisis compounded by a horrifying refugee crisis.

Read more: Solidarity with refugees cant survive on compassion in crisis-stricken societies of Greece and Italy

In Taiwan, young people on the cusp of adulthood were trying to square the social pressures of traditional culture with their own ambitions in a far-from-hopeful economic landscape.

In Toronto, youth tried to understand why the rhetoric of multiculturalism seemed both true and false, and why racism persists and, in so doing, they spoke from perspectives grounded in their intersectional (white, racialized, sexual- and gender-diverse) identities.

They embraced the reality that everything in popular culture may enter a drama classroom. But they responded to current news stories like the 2016 presidential debates in the United States by saying that they had different and more pressing concerns, like mental health support and transphobia.

Todays young people are a generation that has come of age during a host of global crises. Inequality, environmental destruction, systemic oppression of many kinds weigh heavily.

I found a youth cohort who, despite many not yet having the right to vote, have well-honed political capacities, are birthing countless global hashtag movements and inspiring generations of young and old.

These marginalized youth are aware that their communities have been living with and responding to catastrophic impacts of crises of injustice and inequalities long before now.

How do these youth live with their awareness of global injustices and what these imply for the years ahead? We learned some disturbing things: as young people age and move further away from their primary relationships (parents, teachers, schoolmates), they feel less optimistic about their personal futures.

But in terms of hope, we learned something very recognizable to many of us now: many young people practise hope, even when they feel hopeless. They do this both in social movements they participate in and in creative work they undertake with others.

This is something we can all learn from. In Canada, we are maintaining social distancing as a shared effort. Acting together by keeping apart is how we are flattening the curve, as all the experts continue to tell us.

We know that in communities around the world, government leadership matters enormously. But citizens, social trust and collective will matter at least as much.

In this pandemic, institutions, like universities, businesses and individual citizens have stepped up remarkably in the interests of the common good and our shared fate.

However, Jennifer Welsh, Canada Research Chair in Global Governance and Security at McGill University, argues that the defining feature of the last decade is polarization, existing across many different liberal democracies and globally.

Along with this, the value of fairness has been deeply corroded because of growing inequality and persistent historic inequalities we have failed to address, like Indigenous sovereignty and land rights in Canada.

Read more: The road to reconciliation starts with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

In the context of the rise of populist politicians and xenophobic policies globally, and also the rise of the most important progressive social movements in decades, my research has taught me that in this driven-apart, socio-economic landscape, the social value of art has never been more more important.

People are making sense of the inexplicable or the feared through art, using online platforms for public learning. Art has become a point of contact, an urgent communication and a hope.

But some are still without shelter, without food, without community and without proper health care. The differences are stark.

Arundhati Roy has imagined this pandemic as a kind of portal we are walking through: we can walk through it lightly ready to imagine another world. We can choose to be ready to fight for it.

Read more: What is solidarity? During coronavirus and always, it's more than 'we're all in this together'

Its time to put global youth at the centre of our responses to crises. Otherwise, young people will inherit a planet devastated by our uncoordinated efforts to act, worsening a crisis of intergenerational equity.

We should of course develop a vaccine and, in Canada, stop underfunding our public health-care system. But we must also flatten the steep curves we have tolerated for too long. For a start, we could act on wealth disparity and social inequality.

But our response to the pandemic could also illuminate new responses to fundamental problems: disrespect for the diversity of life in all its forms and lack of consideration for future generations.

Youth expression through theatre and in social movements are valuable ways to learn how youth are experiencing, processing and communicating their understandings of the profound challenges our world faces. How powerfully our post-pandemic planning could shift if we changed who is at decision-making tables and listened to youth.

Continued here:

After coronavirus: Global youth reveal that the social value of art has never mattered more - The Conversation CA

A book has hit Kazakhstan like a storm and is exposing the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party there. Turarbek Kusainov, the leader of the independent human rights organization Demos, has just publishedGloom: Sunset on East Turkestan, exposing the CCPs lies on the dreaded transformation through education camps. This is the first, exclusive interview with the author for an international media outlet. The interviewer is Serikzhan Bilash, a leading human rights activist in Kazakhstan.

What is the purpose of your book, exactly?

My book is not a literary work, it is a documentary analysis, characterizing and revealing the ultimate culprit of the brutal repressions the CCP is perpetrating. It is aimed at the forcible destruction of the language, religion, national customs, and traditions of the peoples that have inhabited present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since ancient times.

The inhuman conditions of detention in the Xinjiang transformation through education camps, which are really concentration camps, the bullying of the inmates, the unspeakable horrors are shown through the real stories of former prisoners thrown into camps for long periods without any court verdict.

Thus, the story of the physical and mental suffering experienced by the prisoners of concentration camps is revealed, and the purpose of the criminal CCP policy is exposed. In addition, on the basis of evidence, the situation of total horror that has developed outside the walls of concentration camps, as well as the current predicament of Xinjiang residents, whose rights are unceremoniously violated, are analyzed.

We all know very well that repression is taking place in Xinjiang. The title of the book itself is bleak, one might even say tragic. And the conclusion of the analysis ends on a terribly sad note. Dont you think that such a book, and even its title, was unexpected in Kazakhstan, which is a country on friendly terms with China?

Everything has its own specific name. The Xinjiang region, now considered a Chinese province, until recently was the eastern edge of the Turkic world. Therefore, I personally believe it should be called East Turkestan. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communists are trying to erase the national uniqueness of the peoples that have inhabited this region for several thousand years, and thus finally destroy East Turkestan.

Let me be clear on one point, however. Even the representatives of the Turkic-speaking people who have become the object of severe pressure in Xinjiang that I know of do not call for a violation of the territorial integrity of the PRC, nor for the separation and creation of an independent state.

No one of those I interviewed has any separatist intentions. Neither do I. The main issue is human rights. You cannot prosecute a person for her national characteristics and religion, or for her political views. This principle is written down in international conventions, and even in the constitution of the Communist PRC. Nevertheless, the Chinese Communist authorities repeat the atrocities of Nazi Germany that shocked the world eighty years ago, as well as of the Stalinist repression.

As for the countries of the Turkic world and the Arab countries, where the overwhelming majority of the population is professing Islam, they are completely under the political and economic influence of China, and pretend that they do not see and do not know about the genocidal policy in Xinjiang.

There are two main minorities in Xinjiang, Uyghurs and Kazakhs. We know that the ethnic Kazakh population is less numerous than the Uyghurs, yet the territory where they are living takes almost half of all the Xinjiang territory and includes some of the best lands and pastures. How did you describe in your book the position of oil-rich Kazakhstan, which is a neighbour of China, towards the ethnic Kazakhs who are living and are persecuted in Xinjiang?

The book clearly describes the position of the authorities in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan. Kazakhstan is in the sphere of political and economic influence of China. In the early 1990s, to improve its internal demographic situation, Kazakhstan turned to the Kazakh diaspora abroad, with an appeal that they return to their historical homeland. A law on migration was adopted specifically for this.

However, this law has now been sacrificed to Sino-Kazakh economic relations. Moreover, there are a lot of cases when former residents of Xinjiang, who received citizenship of the Republic of Kazakhstan, were detained in the transformation through education camps and subjected to bullying. Several Kazakh citizens still cannot return to their homelandthey are being held under house arrest in Xinjiang. The government of Kazakhstan knows this but did not even send a note of protest to China.

Kazakhstan found itself in a miserable situation, being unable to get out of the influence of China, and also to properly fulfill its obligations to protect human rights. Of course, all this will negatively affect the international image of Kazakhstan.

When, in your opinion, will the repression end?

It will not end. I think the Chinese authorities already took their final decision regarding the fate of the Turkic populations of East Turkestan. Whatever the pressure from international organizations, the plan to force Xinjiang to be sinicized will be implemented in a short time. Some experts believe that at least 400,000 ethnic Kazakhs will try to escape from China, no matter how great the risk.

In general, the CCP repression in Xinjiang will have a negative impact on the socio-economic situation and on the life of the Kazakh people as a whole. Kazakhs wishing to leave China are deprived of their business, they are not given the opportunity to sell their real estate and other property. As a result, those who manage to escape from China join the ranks of the socially vulnerable segments of the population in Kazakhstan. This will undoubtedly aggravate anti-Chinese sentiment in Kazakhstan. All these circumstances will increase the destabilization of the region.

Despite all the above, the reader should pay attention to the positive points noted in the book. Its about the potential of the Kazakh society. Your own human rights organization established in Kazakhstan revealed the truths on human rights violations in Xinjiang and offered evidence, putting this burning issue on the UN agenda. Kazakh society now knows about the existence of concentration camps in Xinjiang and the pursuit of a policy of genocide by the CCP, associated with repression against the local population in order to erase its national identity. This is a big success for human rights activists.

The next step should be legal action: every person who suffered in a concentration camp should apply to Kazakh courts and demand compensation from the Chinese government for moral and material damages, and these cases should also be brought before international courts. Only then will the monstrous intent of the CCP be finally exposed.

This interview has been republished with permission from Bitter Winter.

Excerpt from:

Telling the truth about China's oppression of Uyghurs MercatorNet - MercatorNet

Regulation of online content has received little attention amid a global health crisis. But violent extremist activity has not stopped, and we need to get our response right, writes Anjum Rahman.

Today marks the first anniversary of the Christchurch Call, a response to the mass murder at two Christchurch mosques last year, a massacre livestreamed by the killer.

For the first time, in Paris on May 15 2019, technology companies and governments made a commitment to work together. Hurriedly, civil society organisations were invited to meet and be part of the Call. This was formalised in the creation of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network, of which, for full disclosure, I am one of three co-chairs.

The wording of the Call provided a narrow focus on areas that were less likely to be disputed. There has been general agreement that livestreaming of a mass murder is not desirable. Tech companies signed up to the Call have been successful in preventing sharing of livestream video footage of other mass murders.

The Call aims to eliminate terrorist and violent extremis content online. Defining who is a terrorist and how that is different from a violent extremist very much depends on ones viewpoint. The cynic in me thinks terrorism has become solely associated with attacks perpetrated by Muslims and the term violent extremist seems to be designed to keep it that way. Do white supremacist or incel killers not have a political agenda? They do seek to change behaviour and perceived power structures, along with terrorising the target population.

Resistance to state oppression has often involved violence. All countries recognise war heroes who fight for the state. Sometimes we recognise those who have fought against oppressive or enemy states the French resistance, anyone? We havent come to any global consensus of when violence is or isnt justified and calling armies peacekeepers cant hide that they commit violent acts.

Some of the governments that have signed up to the Call have engaged in problematic activities in the online space. Whether its the misuse of Facebook users data, posting of inflammatory material, or other breaches of human rights.

Violence can be perpetrated by words and by moving and still images. In the domestic violence sphere, we recognise the impact of emotional abuse and harm. Depictions of violent acts can be traumatising, though they can also be evidence of crimes. Hate-filled language excludes and silences those who are subject to it, whether they are individuals or communities. Even moderators suffer the consequences.

Violent acts offline are preceded by violent speech, much of which is spread online. Mass murderers described as lone wolf attackers have significant histories of belonging to online chat groups, with like-minded members egging each other on. Dealing with expressions of online hate must be part of any successful counterterrorism effort and needs to be factored into the work of the Call. To be meaningful, the work has to move beyond livestream videos.

Along with the blocking of violent content, the achievements of the Call have included the development of a shared online crisis response protocol, and growth in the number of countries who have signed on. A major announcement in New York last September was the restructuring of the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism (GIFCT).

While the move to independence is a positive one for GIFCT, in that it will now be an organisation with its own staff and director, it is still an organisation funded and governed by tech companies. The additional of an Independent Advisory Committee will give the forum access to the views of government and civil society representatives, those representatives have no voting powers or any effective way to exercise accountability other than through public and media channels.

Decisions made by the GIFCT have major impacts globally, both online and offline. There is a huge need for transparency and accountability in the way content moderation decisions are made. There have been concerns about the lack of transparency in the selection process for the Independent Advisory Committee. Individual platforms continue to have issues with their approach to fake news, bots, and the unwillingness to take down accounts of politicians and public figures who post content clearly in breach of the platforms stated community standards.

The pressure for moderation of online violent extremist content can and will be used by governments to suppress opposition voices in their own countries. While the supporting governments of the Call are required to sign up to certain human rights commitments (notably, the United States is missing), there are limited policing mechanisms for those who breach those commitments.

All of this is why it is important to have a power sharing structure, where civil society organisations are effective in holding government and tech companies to account. Currently, the Christchurch Call framework has the greatest potential for civil society to have a meaningful input in the way technology is regulated, and to keep a watchful eye on the activities of the GIFCT. However, there remain challenges.

The Christchurch Call Advisory Network has no funding and is reliant on member organisations donating time and resources. Civil society organisations cannot match the profits of tech companies nor do they have the power to raise funding through taxation. There is still work to be done to ensure that there is adequate consultation, and mechanisms are put in place to ensure that the voice of the network is not simply ignored.

Regulation of online content moderation has not received much attention while the world is gripped by the global pandemic of Covid-19. Terrorist and violent extremist activity, however, has not stopped and marginalised communities continue to be at risk in almost every country. Technological developments have advanced at a much greater rate than governments and communities ability to respond to the dangers posed. This is why the work of the Call is urgent, and why it is so important to get the structures right.

The Spinoff Daily gets you all the days' best reading in one handy package, fresh to your inbox Monday-Friday at 5pm.

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A year on, the Christchurch Call must go beyond dont livestream mass murder - The Spinoff

Shortly after the Iraqi parliament voted to endorse Mustafa Al-Kadhimi as the countrys new prime minister after midnight on 6 May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo picked up the phone to congratulate the former chief spy on taking the new post.

Pompeo also joyfully broke the news to Al-Kadhimi of Washingtons decision to grant Iraq a 120-day sanctions waiver enabling the country to import gas and electricity from Iran to meet its dire power needs.

That was welcome news for the many who thought that Iraq would need the worlds support to leave its government deadlock behind and for others who feared that Iran was exploiting the political turmoil to consolidate its power in Iraq.

To many Iraq watchers in the US media and think-tanks, Pompeos gesture was an indication of support for the new Iraqi premier after hiccups in US-Iraqi relations caused by Al-Kadhimis predecessor Adil Abdul-Mahdi and his pro-Iran policies.

Some observers may even have assumed that Al-Kadhimis success in forming a new government could amount to a foreign policy victory for the US Trump administration over Iran amid a continued US-Iran standoff.

But these rosy assessments are without foundation. Contrary to such beliefs, Irans influence in Iraq may be increasingly challenged, but the Islamic Republic is still a dominant power in Iraq and the American ability to cause Irans influence in Iraq to wane is still in question.

What is obvious is that Iraqs new government will be entangled in the US-Iran conflict and that there will be a lot of questions as to whether it will be able to chart its way to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

In order to put things in perspective, one needs to assess the balance of power and influence between the US and Iran in Iraq and how that could impact Al-Kadhimis government and its ability to insulate the country from regional turmoil.

Nearly ten years after it pulled most of its combat troops out from Iraq following the 2003 invasion, the United States still maintains a powerful military and a leading political role in Iraqs institutions.

Iraq hosts a massive US force, with the official number of US troops in the country estimated at up to 5,000. They are deployed in military bases around the country with contingents of tanks, warplanes and military equipment.

After fighting the Islamic State (IS) group along with the Iraqi armed forces in the 2014-2017 war to expel the militants from Iraqi territory, the Americans have continued their mission which they have seen as ostensibly to prevent the groups resurgence.

Their counterterrorism mission has also included training the Iraqi armed forces and providing them with badly needed intelligence in deterring future attacks.

Yet, US military power in Iraq is about much more than the number of troops and equipment it has in the country and corresponds to the influence it can exercise in the fields of command, control and communication over Iraqs military.

Today, the United States maintains a remarkable political and diplomatic influence in Iraq with an unequaled network of domestic, regional and international partners.

With its numerous assets permanently or temporarily deployed to various spheres and sectors in the country, its advantages surpass Iraqs ability to disengage without paying a heavy political price.

A closer look at the work of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and other UN agencies and organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose help for Iraq is indispensable shows that US support for Iraq is unmatched by other international players.

In addition, the United States has the edge in influencing Iraqs economy through the power its oil companies can exercise in both production and marketing, thus impacting sales of the commodity.

Washington can also play a role in shaping Iraqs financial and monitory systems through its control of US-run petro-dollar mechanisms as well as its ability to engage the international finance institutions that are engaged with Iraq in providing loans and guarantees.

Moreover, the United States enjoys tremendous political influence among different Iraqi communities, political elites and social strata. It has maintained a strategic friendship with the Kurds in the north, and more recently it has consolidated ties with Sunni political leaders either directly or via its Arab Sunni allies.

Washington has also been able to reach out to large segments of the Shia community by making friends and influencing people in political, social, tribal and business elites, exploiting their needs to balance Irans influence.

It has dedicated enormous resources to build on its strengths of soft power in order to promote its interests in Iraq. Much of this soft power rests on thousands of people working in the bureaucracy, security forces, business community and civil society in Iraq.

Another source of American soft power can be found in members of the Iraqi community in the United States who are connected to US interest groups, think-tanks, the media and the academy and who network with political leaders and institutions in Iraq.

Reports and rumours have long suggested that activists among these expatriates have been involved in efforts to form previous Iraqi governments and probably this new one too.

However, this power should not be misunderstood. The United States does not have the upper hand in Iraq, or at least not yet. Iran also has significant political, security, economic and cultural assets in Iraq that it can mobilise to sabotage US efforts to win back Iraq.

In a sense, Iraq has become a pilot project for Irans attempts at regional hegemony. For 17 years, the Islamic Republic has had a free hand to experiment in Iraq on how to spread its influence in the region.

Since the fall of the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran has been deeply immersed in its western neighbours affairs such that it is now being seen as the dominant force in Iraq.

Tehran has employed a variety of outrageous stratagems and canny tactics to consolidate its political, economic, religious, security and cultural interests in Iraq.

Over all these years, Iran has expanded its influence in Iraq, and it has effectively had free rein across the key institutions of the state, security forces, political leadership and civil society.

Soon after Saddams ouster, Iran began asserting itself in Iraq, using aggressive tactics and proxy groups to pave the way to trying to turn Iraq into its sphere of influence.

Through allied Iraqi Shia politicians and paramilitary groups and a range of anti-Saddam opposition groups it had hosted, Iran emerged as the dominant force after the US-led invasion.

Beyond its political and security efforts, perhaps the most visible consequences of Irans influence have been its commercial, business and investment ties to Iraq.

Iraq is now a major consumer of Iranian goods, as trade between the two countries reached $16 billion in 2019 and there are plans to boost bilateral trade to $20 billion. Tehran is also a major energy and power supplier to Iraq, with plans for the construction of a railroad network linking Iran and Iraq with Syria.

Irans influence peaked after the rapid advance across Iraq by the IS terrorist group, which threw the country into chaos and led Baghdad to seek Tehrans help to kick the group out of Iraqi cities.

In its attempts to play a non-zero-sum game with Washington, Tehran turned its support to Iraq in fighting IS in order to gain greater influence in the war-torn nation and advance the rise of its proxy Shia militias and turn them into a political force.

In addition to its hard-power geopolitical, military, security and economic instruments, the Islamic Republic has also utilised religious, social and cultural ties as important soft-power tools to intervene in Iraq.

If the election of Al-Kadhimi now somehow shifts the balance of power and reshapes the strategic environment in the country, with the new prime minister starting to clip Irans wings in his country, Iran will likely start to lose some of its influence and probably its supremacy in Iraq.

Hit by the raging coronavirus pandemic, US sanctions and cheap oil, Iran may now be much weaker than it was and less able to play the same game with the United States. There are increasing signs that its proxies in Iraq are losing ground, and many of them are facing an uncertain future.

Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled that the Islamic Republic may be ready for a compromise with the United States, which he has always dismissed as the Great Satan.

Imam Hassan acted in such a way that genuine Islam, which couldnt continue to be a government, moved on to be a great revolutionary movement, Khamenei tweeted on 9 May.

He was referring to the Shias second revered imam, who ceded the caliphate to a contender without a fight in a 7th-century peace treaty that many historians saw as a surrender but that the Shias have defended as a necessary protection of their faith and their lives.

Due to his actions, Islam remained a religion that is against oppression and is uncompromising, undistorted and genuine, Khamenei wrote.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 14 May, 2020 edition ofAl-Ahram Weekly

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Iraq's new government in the Iran-US crossfire - World - Al-Ahram Weekly - Ahram Online

I wake in disbelief. I cannot leave my house except for essential items because I could spread or catch coronavirus. I have limited ability to conduct business or recreational activities. Anti-lockdown rally organizers may face criminal charges.

To me, these are freedom of speech and gathering issues. Prisoners are being set free even though prisoners are always susceptible to diseases while in prison. I must be dreaming or am I living in the Middle Ages? How can this be happening in the 21st century? It is hard to believe this is my country, the United States of America, where freedom was so freely given to each citizen, until now.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has made many American citizens worried and anxious beyond what any of us have ever known, and some were already concerned. Constant coverage in nearly every media outlet coupled with the political response has led many to near hysteria in this country. Stay at home, wash your hands and practice social distancing are key phrases.

Please do not let me hear another politician or doctor tell me to wash my hands. I learned this basic life survival skill from my parents and during my grade school education when I was a child. I have adhered to this basic principle long before this pandemic crisis to keep myself healthy through my first 65 years of life.

Why is government imposing stringent restrictions upon the citizens of this country? Let us step back and look at the facts in their entirety to gain a different perspective, and you may see another path to freedom.

As of this week, more than 80,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Looking at the total population in the United States, this equates to a death rate of less than 0.025% and the death rate in San Diego County where I live is about 0.005%. Early 2020 has not brought a significant increase in the number of deaths in San Diego County compared to recent years.

Read more about coronavirus restrictions and protests in San Diego County:

Many coronavirus victims have had no or mild symptoms, although data on this is limited so far. Over 75% of the deaths are from Americans aged 65 or older. Why not let those at risk for death (elderly, immunocompromised people, etc.) decide to isolate themselves? Why continue to quarantine everyone when the few are at greatest risk?

The national debt is $25 trillion and climbing, with nearly 40% of the federal budget spent on Medicare and Social Security. While older Americans have paid into the system, they have not paid enough to cover the bill. Federal spending on Americans 65 and older is estimated to be seven times what is spent on those 18 and younger. Will older people pay their fair share to help?

Unfortunately, we all know the answer to this question, and sadly it is no. We leave our young people burdened with a great financial deficit to resolve. The biggest con job in the history of the world is taking place right before our eyes.

Now, look at the coronavirus crisis, we ask the young to stay home, impinging on their basic freedom. These are the young, the strong, the future, and we are taking their freedom away. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the coronavirus crisis, the young and healthy should be allowed to get out and earn, to go to school and to help our country begin to recover.

There is no question we need to protect those groups most vulnerable who may succumb to the virus; however, a lack of common sense and a high level of reactivity has been applied to this situation. Besides a loss of freedom, we are experiencing new highs in unemployment, economic turmoil and general instability in society.

Coping with coronavirus

The pandemic sweeping the globe has changed everyones lives, and we want to hear how its changed yours. If youd like to write an op-ed for us on a subject related to the virus, make it 700-750 words and send it to us with your name and a phone number so we can reach you.

Is America spending the large U.S. government relief money about $3 trillion in a reasonable manner? No. Heres an example: My 101-year-old mother died in January. Guess who received a $1,200 stimulus check deposit from Uncle Sam? My mom. However, I predict my small business will have a 75% income loss in 2020. Will I receive any compensation for my losses? No. Any loan does not erase the losses.

Its time for President Donald Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom, the county supervisors and Mayor Kevin Faulconer to wake up. Please release us from the coronavirus oppression. The numbers supporting the lockdowns of freedom in America, California and San Diego County do not match the risk. Lift the restrictions. If you want to stay home or be in isolation during the coronavirus crisis, go for it.

Let people choose their own path. Let freedom ring again in America.

Stiglich owns an engineering consulting company and lives in Fallbrook.

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Commentary: Message to Trump, Newsom and Faulconer: 'Please release us from the coronavirus oppression' - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Graffiti that reads "Capitalism is the virus" is seen on an information station at Ballard Commons Park in Seattle, May 4, 2020, where a homeless encampment was being cleared. | Ted S. Warren / AP

Historians have long discussed the concept of turning points in historythat is a moment when things change in a significant way from what they had been. Over the centuries, scholars have described periods of human development and assigned dates for their beginning and end.Therefore, dates such as 1492, 1776, 1865, 1877, 1929, and 1945 have long been considered turning points in U.S. history.Of course, these dates are not set in stone; historians often differ in their interpretations and categorization of the past. In other words, there is often wide disagreement as to what constitutes a turning point.

Let us make the assumption that at various points in the passage of human civilization observers conclude that many things in a society changed radically from what they used to be. It could be changes in how people produce things, in belief systems, or in the relationships between different countries. Wars and revolutions often bring about these changes. But they can happen in more peaceful ways, too.

Might we be at such a turning point in 2020? Not so much because there have been major changes in society, but because of what may take place in the years ahead.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has exposed in the starkest terms a society with numerous serious problems. They did not suddenly appear along with the virus, but stem from developments that grew over the last several decades. Foremost among these is the close connection between the power of economic elites and their influence on all levels of government, best described as the rise of the neoliberal system that came to the fore with the election of Ronald Reagan.

This has led to inequities in government policies, a marked increase in social inequality, a decline in democracy, and an imbalance in who in our society wields power.At the same time, the United States has not accepted the fact that this is no longer the post-World War II era where it exercised a dominant role in world affairs.

The efforts of those opposed to these policiesworkers, people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and Indigenous peoplehave led to many victories, but the beast has yet to be tamed.

As a result, unchecked social and economic tensions continued to fester and now have come to a boiling point. The list of problems that have been laid bare by the pandemic is too long to enumerate here. But one must mention the lack of a national single-payer health system (Medicare for All), which has impacted the lives of millions and contributed over the last two months to the deaths of more than 85,000.

The impact of COVID-19 has been worsened because of a serious shortage in essential medical supplies, such as ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE). This is the direct result of the priorities and malfeasance of the federal government.

The whole nature of work in this country has changed over the last several decades. As the most extreme sectors of capitalism have consolidated their dominance, the power of labor unions has been weakened and severely undermined. The percentage of workers organized in unions has dropped to levels not seen in a century. As a result, the number of workers employed in dead-end jobs with no benefits and no job security has skyrocketed. The growth of the gig economy, contracting, and contingent work has become commonplace.

The effects of endemic and systemic racism, which people of color have been fighting for centuries, are now manifested in the highly disproportionate number of African Americans and Latinx people contracting and dying from the coronavirus. This is the direct result of living in substandard housing and holding jobs that, in addition to all the problems they have faced for many years, now endanger their lives.

The obscene spending on the military budget and the huge tax breaks given to the mega-rich over the last 75 years did a great deal to drain valuable resources that rightfully belong to the working class and the poor, no more so than now.

There are many other serious weaknesses in our social order that are too numerous to mention. It is not hard, however, to see them no matter where we lookfrom child care, to education, to the digital divide, and care for the elderly.

When the day comes that we beat the pandemic, many are questioning whether we will ever return to normal, that is, to the way things were before. A growing number of observers, however, are talking about a new normal, with the understanding that the way life was will never return. Change is not only inevitable; now it is imperative. The question is, what will the new normal look like?

It could be a society where there is greater individual security, especially in the areas of health, jobs, housing, and food. The great extremes in wealth can be reduced. Protections against racism and all the other forms of oppression and violence can be strengthened. We can live in a world of peace and greater mutual understanding and respect. In other words, the excesses that emerged in U.S. society can be addressed, reduced, or eliminated.

To a large degree, it will be up to the people of the United States to shape that future. Many things need to be done to assure a more just and equitable society (particularly in case another pandemic ever appears). It will be a major struggle; the forces of reactionbe they big capital or white supremacywill not give up with a fight.

Among the things that need to be done immediately are:

Where could it end? No one knows, but it is safe to say that if we begin the reform of so many areas in our society and economy, strengthen democracy, and advance a peoples agenda, we will turn our society into a more decent and humane one. That would truly be a turning point in history.

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Turning point: What will be the post-pandemic 'new normal'? - People's World

Amy GoodmanLive and Let Die

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Dine/Navajo people hard, inflicting the highest per capita infection rate in the country after New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the country, larger than West Virginia, straddling Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. Half of the over 300,000 enrolled members reside on the reservation. Navajo President Jonathan Nez has issued some of the strongest stay-at-home measures in the country, including a weekday evening curfew and a complete, stay-at-home curfew for the entire weekend. Nearby Gallup, New Mexico, with a large Dine population, has enacted a complete lockdown, with the National Guard prohibiting entry.

As of May 5, despite these efforts, there were 2,559 confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Navajo Nation and 79 deaths. Among the victims, 28-year-old Valentina Blackhorse, a beloved champion of Navajo culture and a community leader. She left behind her partner, Robby Jones, and their 1-year-old daughter, Poet.

She really loved her familyher parents, her sisters, her nieces and nephews. She loved her elderly. She loved children, Jones said Tuesday on the Democracy Now! news hour. She was a kind and hardworking lady, and she was warmhearted. She would do anything for her family.

Jones is a detention officer with the Navajo Department of Corrections, and contracted COVID-19 at work. When she was taking care of me, I guess she contracted it, he said. She started showing symptomsshortness of breath, body aches, loss of taste and smell. By the time I started feeling better thats when she started feeling sick.

Blackhorse tested positive for COVID-19 on April 22. She died the next day. She had won numerous pageants, being named Miss Western Navajo and Miss Dine College, among others, and hoped to run for office in the Navajo Nation government one day.

Dr. Michelle Tom, a member of the Navajo Nation, is a family physician in Winslow, Arizona, just across the Navajo reservation line.

Its a reflection of what were going through as a people, and it correlates with what this virus can do to our young and someone who was very motivated, loved our culture, spread our rich and strong culture, and our language. Thats what were trying to fight for, she said, adding, She was going to lead our next generation. It was a hard loss for our community.

The Navajo Nation, along with the nearby Hopi, Pueblo, Zuni, and Gila River indigenous communities, have endured despite centuries of genocide, oppression and systemic racism and poverty. The novel coronavirus pandemic is afflicting them disproportionately, as it has African American and Latinx populations across the U.S. Access to water is challenging on the Navajo reservation.

Thats from a long state of histories with treaties and our relationship with the [federal] government, Dr. Tom explained. Our infrastructure for water has never been at the capacity where we can provide water for everyone on the reservation. So, youre telling people to wash your hands for 20 seconds, and yet people are trying just to get water just to drink and to cook with.

President Donald Trump made a rare trip Tuesday, visiting an Arizona N95 mask factory, where he ignored factory rules by not wearing a mask. Guns N Roses blared from a factory sound system, playing the song Live and Let Die. Its not clear if it was a coincidental music choice or not.

Trump also met with elected officials, including Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer. The Navajo Nation joined a lawsuit filed by numerous native tribes against Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for his abject failure in disbursing $8 billion promised to Native American tribes in the CARES Act.

The amount of money thats being sent to Indian country, as we call it, is the largest amount in the history of the U.S. And you deserve it. And youve been through a lot, Trump said to VP Lizer. The Navajo Nation will soon receive over $600 million. Thats a lot. Should I renegotiate that? Can we renegotiate that? (Laughter.)

There was no laughter back on the Navajo reservation. Today, the federal government announced that they intend to release a portion of funds appropriated by Congress over one month ago to tribes to help fight COVID-19, but Ill believe it when I see it, President Jonathan Nez, who himself tested positive for the virus, replied. We couldnt sit around and wait for those dollars, so weve had boots on the ground in nearly 20 communities giving out food, water, firewood, protective masks and other supplies We lost many of our beloved relatives and family members to this virus, but our teachings also tell us to move forward. We will and we are.

Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now! Denis Moynihan contributed to this column.

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Live and Let Die - Cascadia Weekly

With thousands of migrants who had left Uttarakhand for greener pastures returning amid the Covid-19 lockdown, the state government is trying to convince them to stay on and rebuild their lives there, offering interest-free loans, subsidies and free electricity to set up eco-tourism and micro-enterprises. The state government has added an additional budget for employment-generating schemes such as the Veer Chandra Garhwali Yojana, which offers micro credit aimed at creating sustainable employment opportunities in tourism and establish facilities to run taxis, buses, restaurants and tourism info centres.

However, migrants say it is too soon to decide, and point to a bevy of problems that made them leave in the first place, including inadequate public healthcare and education; low productivity in agriculture and damage by wild animals; and poor infrastructure.

Let the government first set up a successful model of a venture and run it successfully to evoke confidence, said Bhupender Singh Rawat, 37, who worked in Zambia in an agrochemical firm for nine years, and is now back with his wife, children and parents in Pauri Garhwal districts Buakhal village.

Over the years, Uttarakhand has seen a large exodus of people to the plains, other parts of the country and abroad as poor development in the hills created few opportunities. Now, the widespread closure of manufacturing units, hotels and other businesses elsewhere has forced them to return.

As of April 23, a total of 59,360 people had returned to the 10 hill districts in the state, according to government records and officials. Of these, 12,039 are from Pauri Garhwal and 9,303 from Almora the two districts most affected by migration, according to an interim report released by the states Rural Development and Migration Commission, or RDMC, on April 23.

Around 350,000 residents were estimated to have migrated from the state between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, leaving 1,048 villages totally uninhabited. Of nearly 16,800 villages in Uttarakhand, as many as 734, mostly in the hilly areas, have become uninhabited after 2011. Such ghost villages with their houses lying in ruins and fields overgrown with vegetation abound in Pauri district, where 186 districts turned uninhabited since 2011.

The return of migrants, and their staying on, could help the hill state rectify its socio-economic imbalance and repopulate deserted villages that are perched along a strategic international border, experts say.

Pauri Garhwal district magistrate Dhiraj Singh Garbyal told IndiaSpend that villages are looking lively again as many have begun ploughing their fields to utilise the free time. Of the sizeable number who have returned, 60%-65% have come back from states like Haryana, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Tamil Nadu; 25%-30% from urban pockets in Uttarakhand such as Dehradun, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar; and the remaining from countries like Dubai, Australia and Oman, the RDMC report said.

Most of the returnees are 30-45 years old and work largely for the hospitality sector at low pay. Life is hard. It is very difficult to live in cramped one-room rented accomodation with three others, said Puran Bisht of Badait village, who works as a helper in a spice store in Dehradun. I want to return to my parents, wife and children in the open and healthy environment of my village, for good, provided the state government helps me in earning a decent livelihood.

The out-migration had improved the sex ratio, with 1,037 women for every 1,000 men in the hills as against 900 in the plains and 963 across the state, according to an April 2018 RDMC report. However, researchers say that the men leaving exchanges one form of oppression for another.

If the son migrates to the city, then his wife has to bear a higher workload to take care of his parents, children, land and cattle in the village, Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Uttarakhand-based researcher who conducted a comparative study on migration in 2016, told IndiaSpend. If she accompanies her husband to the destination, she becomes much more dependent on him, lacking in the local support structure and partial independence that she was able to rely on in the hills.

The elderly, women and children left behind in the villages live without basic amenities such as healthcare, education, piped water, electricity and, most importantly, livelihood opportunities, said Aranya Ranjan, a social worker based in Khadi in Uttarakhands Tehri district. They feel disinterested in taking up agriculture due to the problem of wildlife damaging their crops, Ranjan added.

Earlier, people would allow animals to eat away a part of their crops, said Mahendra Kunwar Singh, founder of Dehradun-based Himalayan Action Research Centre, which works with several self-help groups to grow 89 types of organic produce for sale in smart packages in markets across the country.

Monkeys were declared vermin in 2019, and wild boar in 2016 and 2018, allowing local authorities to cull these animals, which were ruining crops, reports show.

Trepan Singh Chauhan and Gopalakrishnan are credited for launching Ghasiari contest, a competition in Tehri Garhwal in 2016, in which the woman who proved fastest at cutting grass was awarded Rs 1 lakh prize money. The contest was aimed to impart dignity to the work of women who go out into the jungle to bring back fodder for the cattle and firewood for the kitchen.

Besides the workload, women also face attacks by wild animals such as leopards and bears when they go out in the fields to graze cattle, Geeta Gairola, an activist from Bhatti village under Aswalsyun Patti of Pauri Garhwal, said.

Women must battle on every front without the menfolk around to help, said Malti Devi, a resident of Badait village, I urge the state government to facilitate employment for our men so that our families can reunite and we can work together to develop our hills.

A report that recommends steps for the states economic revival, such as rural job creation in the hills to stem out-migration and lure migrants to return, is due to be submitted this month, Indu Kumar Pandey, head of the states post-Covid-19 economic revival committee and chairperson of the Uttarakhand Finance Commission, told IndiaSpend.

It is a great opportunity for the state government to reach out to thousands of its skilled and experienced migrants who have come home these days, said Sharad Singh Negi, Vice-Chairperson of RDMC and Finance Secretary. However, he said, As of now, 70% of them have declined to stay back. Some have shown interest in starting their own small ventures.

Meanwhile, every district administration has prepared a profile of each migrant. The RDMC has submitted an interim report after conducting an online sample survey on April 23. After talking to migrants, I have made some recommendations to the state government in my interim report which include laying down provisions for interest-free loans, heavy subsidies and free electricity for people to set up new ventures in sectors like eco-tourism or for micro enterprises, Negi said. Additional budget for employment generating schemes like Vir Chader Gadhwali Yojana too have been suggested.

Other recommendations of RDMC include setting up a new cell for migrants by the Rural Development Department, a helpline to resolve their problems and a database on their aspirations. The commission is trying to fix the issues responsible for out-migration, as described in the RDMCs interim report cited above.

A new report with an action plan for 15 blocks under three districts, Pauri Garhwal, Almora and Pithoragarh, has been submitted to the state government, Negi said. The action plan includes establishing new schools, primary health centres and road networks wherever required. The government has allocated an additional Rs 50 crore in the state budget to implement this action report, Negi said, adding that the lockdown had temporarily halted the release of funds but it would be resumed soon.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Trivender Singh Rawat too has called upon the migrants of Pauri Garhwal through an open letter on April 24, in an emotional message, he implored the migrants that the land their ancestors had cultivated through hard work to feed their families now lies barren and neglected.

I have recommended [a] one village-one cooperative culture, where all the small landholdings of one village are pooled to grow one kind of produce and sold through a smooth supply chain, said Pandey of the finance commission. We will encourage value addition for all our enterprises like agriculture, cultivation of herbs, dairy and poultry farming for the rural sector which will give a boost to the income of villagers. Decentralisation and micro-economy through self-help groups will be supported.

Experts also agree that migration has damaged the rural economy and aspirations of the simple hill-dwelling family. Out-migration from villages along the international border poses serious national security concerns, according to the RDMCs 2018 report, corroborated by reports of territory marking in Baharoti village in Joshimath.

Anil Joshi, proponent of the Gaon Bachao campaign, has recommended the development model of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, which has a similar topography. Himachal Pradesh has generated a booming economy with intense agriculture and horticulture, Joshi said. The same model, if replicated in Uttarakhand, will not only generate employment but will also enrich the ecology.

Farmers could do wonders with the fertile land and natural resources in the hills and the problem of wild animals would also disappear if people worked in the fields, said Kunwar Singh of the Himalayan Action Research Centre.

The biggest chunk of people, 43.6%, work in the agriculture sector, followed by 32.2% in labour in Uttarakhand, according to the RDMCs 2018 report. In Pauri and Garhwal, this figure is 38.8% and 38.7%, respectively, according to the RDMC report.

Life for most of the migrants working in low-paying jobs is no better than in the village, said Binod Khadria, director of Migration and Diaspora Studies Project in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Across the Himalayan belt in the world, the hill communities suffer the worst working and living conditions in the urban areas while working for low-paying jobs. So migration has its own side effects.

Khadria recommends that the state government form an advisory board of consultants and stakeholders to devise innovative solutions for reverse migration through sustainable development in the hills, where families live united and take care of their jungles and other natural resources.

Paramvir Rawat, 24, who returned to Raidul village from Dubai on March 20, days before the nationwide lockdown was enforced, said he would wait for infrastructure to improve. Livelihood and opportunities have to get better on the ground for us to return, he said.

Over the past decade, Uttarakhand has also seen an influx of people from outside many have left successful careers to settle in the serene and pollution-free life of the hills. Many have also fostered local communities. Roopesh Rai, 40, a top executive with a five-star hotel in Delhi, quit his job and turned abandoned houses into home-stays in many villages such as Raithal and Kanatal. He also set up the non-profit Green People. The common tendency of red tape and intrusive approach to create hurdles in order to extract money from entrepreneurs needs to stop, he said. Secondly, the government should focus on large dynamics like creating mega infrastructure for adventure tourism rather than targeting individuals through schemes.

Anand Sankar, 38, Bengaluru-based photojournalist, brought the nondescript Kalap village of Mori tehsil in Uttarkashi, situated at 7,800 feet, into prominence, after settling down there in 2003. With his Kalap Trust, he set up a school and hospital in the village, which had none.

For short-term pragmatic measures to tide over the impending recession, he suggested, the government can help in setting up food processing units in the hills for people to make pickles, spices, juices, and growing vegetables and also stuff such as chillies and ginger which are not eaten by wild animals. In the winter, they can make warm apparel and woollen to sell, for which the government needs to take the marketing initiative. Hopefully, after that the religious tourism season pertaining to the Char Dham will pick up.

Some migrants are tempted to stay on. Pankaj Bisht, 26, a resident of Paidul in Pauri Garhwal, who works as a chef in a Delhi-based eatery, says his euphoria of being with family has been diluted with the concern of losing his income as he came home with just Rs 3,000. Given an opportunity and financial assistance, he would start a computer lab in his village as now he is wary that such a pandemic might recur, and he feels safer in his village than in the city.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

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Free power, easy loans: How Uttarakhand is trying to hold back locals who have returned from cities - Scroll.in