Monthly Archives: January 2021

Advertisement

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge have left deep and lasting scars on the land, the people, and the culture. The ultra-communist government killed nearly 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, including most of the countrys intellectuals and artists. As a result, those who initially documented these lasting effects were foreign photographers, but this has slowly begun to change, with Cambodian photographers producing increasingly singular work, often in spite of the lack of access to resources and formal education. How has this change come about? And why is it significant?

The Early Years: Cambodia Through a Foreign Lens

For all its impact on Cambodia and its people, the Khmer Rouge regime has overwhelmingly been framed by images taken by international photojournalists. Seminal work, such as Roland Neveus The Fall of Phnom Penh, captured the entrance of the Khmer Rouges black-clad soldiers into the capital Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. And there was John Burgess, who found himself on assignment in 1980 with the Washington Post. His images show the rebirth of Phnom Penh, offering a snapshot of the countrys resilience after four years of hell.

Nic Dunlops book The Lost Executioner stands out in its evolution beyond the image. The book chronicles the rise and fall of Comrade Duch, the notorious head of the Khmer Rouge prison S-21. Dunlop weaves a historical account with his own journey to find Duch, who melted back into the Cambodian countryside after the fall of the regime in January 1979. His search for Duch was aided by a photograph of the elusive official, which he showed to individuals as a prompt to conversation. As an image maker, Dunlops use of this portrait as a catalyst to his investigation, rather than a narrow focus on the frame, offers a poignant example of the limitations of photography to convey complex historical narratives.

Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.

In 1989, about 10 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, John Vink entered the country on his first assignment for the French newspaper Liberation. Vink would end up dedicating 16 years to living and working in Cambodia. Vinks work, rooted in an unfaltering drive, has seen him publish a range of books, such as A Question for Land, which covers his in-depth reportage on land rights issues. Indeed, much of his work has been about the question of land, which can be traced back to the Khmer Rouge abolition of land titles and now related to Cambodias politics. I think every aspect I covered after that in Cambodia can somehow be related to those issues, Vink says.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

The Rise of the Cambodian Photographer

Vink is also well-known for the support he has given to the development of young Cambodian photographers like Vandy Rattana, whose work Bomb Ponds show the scars of the land resulting from the illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Rattana is one of the new generation of Cambodian photographers, some of whom have banded together in emerging collectives, such as the multidisciplinary Sa Sa Arts, which offers photography courses alongside more established institutions such as the international Angkor Photo Festival. Despite not receiving the benefits of formal training in photography, this young generation has found alternative ways to address through their work the complex issues facing contemporary Cambodia.

One major contrast with foreign photojournalists is that their work is not centered in documentary. Instead, it skips with ease across and beyond photography. Unbound by genre or codes of production, their work feels more immediate.

For example, Lim Sokchanlina responds to a range of questions in both his practice and teaching of photography. His deep interest in how people live and work, and how political decisions change their environment, have fed into the production of his recent work National Road Number 5, an extended series of photographs of houses which have been cut in half to clear the way for a road-widening project. Lina is acutely aware of what has been lost and notes the impact of the Khmer Rouge on Cambodian image making. Its still important to talk about the Khmer Rouge through photography, he says. Its part of who we are and where we come from. I say it through my work but not directly, its far behind the stories but not disconnected.

The Limitations of Education

Education is a significant part of the development of photography in Cambodia. In 2019, when I launched Buried, a collaboration with a Cambodian-American family and their archive of photos taken before and after the Khmer Rouge period, Lina spoke to me about the legacies of the regimes deleterious effect on education. Our arts education was killed, he says today. We have a fine art school in Phnom Penh, but its very formal and traditional. They use photography as a reference to paint from; photography is not taught as a medium itself.

Cambodia offers several opportunities to study photography, including the Angkor Photo Festival, which started in 2005. Festival director Jessica Lim sees the significance of education being driven by participants in the workshops:

Our evolution has been undoubtedly strongly influenced by the demand of the people we serve and this is through an emphasis on storytelling, but without the formal structures of documentary. When I first joined in 2010, 70 percent of the work being made at the festivals workshops was quite heavily focused on reportage, but now its shifted. We support the photographers through rigorous advice and questioning about themselves, their approach, what they want to express. We give them the space to experiment with storytelling, and a lot of it is about the process. We work with the philosophy of not being consumers of photography but meaningful creators and embrace the idea of individuals being the artists they want to be.

Angkors workshops are clearly working, with photographers such as Kim Hak, whose ongoing series Alive has received both national and international recognition, as well as Neak Sophal, who attracted attention through his compelling and collaborative approach to portraiture.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

And then there is the aforementioned Sa Sa Arts, which was founded in 2008. The collective runs three education programs, including one in photography. Lina teaches the majority, with additional contributions from both Cambodian and international photographers.

Its important that we share knowledge, I teach you what I learn and we all learn from each other, he says. I ask people from a range of artists and makers, so we see how those who are interested in Cambodia and how they reflect on Cambodia.

Trapped Within Ideas

Lina notes that there here has been a recent decline in the number of international photographers coming to Cambodia. He also mentions a great similarity among Cambodia-based foreign photographers and their views of the country. For example, many get trapped in depicting the reality of poverty. But this is not all there is to Cambodia. I dont see this reality of poverty as Cambodia, he says. You need to look at the range of work to gain context on Cambodia.

Linas argument is compelling, but theres no level playing field between Cambodian and foreign photographers. Maybe in part this is what makes the work of Cambodian photographers so intriguing.

While Vinks and Dunlops works stand as examples of an evolving practice, these approaches are lacking in the prevailing tropes of most international image makers in Cambodia.

Its more difficult in the current atmosphere for Cambodians to publicize work which could be critical, the expat photographers fill in the slot and run away with the few assignments that are available, Vink says. Many of the expat photographers I know do give back to the Cambodian photographers. But still, I feel the expat and Cambodian photographers are functioning in two parallel bubbles.

The situation is further complicated by the repetition of visual tropes, as Lina notes.

The discussion of the Khmer Rouge is still important, but the approaches to the subject have been limited. An example of this is Slawek Pliszkas self-published S21, a book of grainy black and white photographs of the Tuol Sleng prison museum, the killing fields of Choeung Ek, portraits of Khmer Rouge victims, and piles of clothes from the mass graves. To some, it perpetuates the victimhood of the portraits, which were taken by Khmer Rouge photographer Nhem En.

There has been much debate on the use and recontextualization of the S21 portraits, such as the Killing Fields book by Chris Riley and Douglas Niven, which published Ens images and has received much criticism. Pliszkas work appears to lack the contextual knowledge of what has come before him, and current debates in photography, specifically about the representation of the Khmer Rouge era.

Nic Dunlop reinforces this point. Time and again, Western photographers fell back on the same visual tropes; the mug shots from Tuol Sleng, the stacks of skulls from Choeung Ek, and portraits of survivors. This was understandable for parachute photographers on deadlines. But this approach didnt invite new ways of thinking about the Khmer Rouge period, he says.

Cambodias Complexities

Making work in and about Cambodia is a complex process which often places a photographer on the fringes, feeling their way through space, history, and memory. Stepping outside Cambodia has always been important for the evolution of my work, as is long-term dialogue, which can occur in any space. But being defined by genre and purely commercial activity does not add to the debate. The current state of representation from international photographers residing in Cambodia is lacking, and an imbalance of possibilities for education, together with the increased ability of international photographers to easily move in and out of the country (at least before COVID-19), has placed local photographers at a disadvantage.

That being said, the ability to speak beyond and around the subject has meant that work like Linas is visually more engaging and a more intelligent representation of what is taking place beneath the surface of a country that, for all its problems, has come a long way since the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge. It also offers a wake-up call, one which could evolve through asking the most basic of questions for Western photographers working in Cambodia, and, indeed, other foreign countries: what is the function of my practice?

Charles Fox is a photographer whose practice centers on Southeast Asia. He currently lectures in Photography at Nottingham Trent University.

Read more:

Framing the Khmer Rouge The Diplomat - The Diplomat

The student-led Black Coalition Against Policing hosted a virtual town hall on policing and policy enforcement with Duke representatives Wednesday night.

In a brief introduction, Dean of Students John Blackshear and Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost and vice president for student affairs, said that university officials had been meeting with BCAP since July, when the group initially released their demands to disclose, divest and disband.

We are appreciative of the work of [the students], McMahon said. We have a lot of work to do to make the student experience meaningfully inclusive and equitable, and were eager to do that work.

The panel was moderated by Young Trustee Trey Walk, Trinity 19, and featured John Dailey, chief of the Duke University Police Department; Deb LoBiondo, interim dean for residence life; Jeanna McCullers, senior associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards; and Stelfanie Williams, vice president for Durham and community affairs.

DUPD is in the business of student support, Dailey said.

Dailey said that he was disgusted by the police brutality he observed during summer 2020 and that the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others have been discussed internally. He admitted to being surprised that some students felt unsafe around DUPD officers and that his goal for the department is to identify what safety and security look like for different people.

He added that there should be an easy way for people to have their concerns addressed and said that generally, he believes the University is very open to hearing complaints about systems that arent working. Additionally, he said that sharing information with DUPD, even anonymously, would help the department identify trends. The department receives about 44,000 calls each year, he said.

Dailey asserted that DUPD plays an important role on campus and that being armed is necessary, citing a variety of incidents that have occurred near campus or Duke University Hospital such as robberies and armed individuals. It would certainly be great to be in a place where officers would not need to be armed, he said.

When asked about his stance on police abolitionone of BCAPs goals laid out in its initial statementDailey said that it is not his goal and that he is against police abolition. While he acknowledged that there needs to be changes and that people have been treated unfairly, he underscored the need for policing.

Until society is such that people arent harming each other and that we dont need people to try to resolve difficult situations ... there is work to be done by people like me, Dailey said. Theres certainly other people that can do different types of work. I know violence interrupters were looking at for different things in Durham. Absolutely, we should do that too, and we should all come to the table.

Dailey said many people feel students are safer dealing with the DUPD than the city police. He said that he would hope its better for students to end up in the Office of Student Conduct as opposed to being criminally charged.

Signup for our editorially curated, weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.

He also said DUPDs relationship with the Durham Police Department is very good and that there is a strong partnership between them.

Dailey also told the panel that DUPDs use-of-force policy was consistent with the reform policies set forth by #8CantWait, a campaign to reduce police killings. The eight policies are de-escalation, creating clear policies on weapon use, banning the use of chokeholds and strongholds, requiring a verbal warning before shooting, not shooting at moving vehicles, intervening in excessive force situations, exhausting all alternatives and comprehensive reporting.

Dailey told The Chronicle in a December email that there have been seven uses of force during an arrest by DUPD officers within the last five years, with most being a push or a grab. During one arrest, he wrote, an officer used pepper spray after being bitten by the person under arrest.

In the end, we are here to support this institution and this institutions mission, he said at the town hall. Duke does not exist to have a police department. It exists for education, research and healthcare.

He said the department has been working to increase data collection to build trust. The department currently has 160 employees, with 46% being people of color and 30% being women, Dailey said. In 2019, DUPD stopped 82 people in traffic stops, of which 50% were white and 32% were Black. Dailey asserted that within those stops, the department does not disproportionately stop Black people for minor reasons and that he is comfortable with those numbers.

There were no arrests involving use of force in 2020, Dailey wrote in December. Additionally, the department has used dashcams since 2005 and body cameras since 2015, Dailey wrote.

Dailey acknowledged at the town hall that there were certain situations where armed officers did not need to respond, such as EMS calls, noise complaints and student disputes.

My transition into [being director of OSC] was very much framed by issues of race, identity and equity, McCullers said. She adopted her current role June 1, and her goals are to increase consistency in adjudicating cases, revisit how campus partners engage with students and be more proactive.

McCullers said that one shortcoming of OSC is boxing ourselves into what we think student conduct is, and that it should first and foremost be a source of student support. She pointed to the fact that out of 2,000 student conduct cases in the previous academic year, under five went through the formal conduct process.

Instead, most students go through adaptable conflict resolutions, which involve reflection and conversation. Most commonly, students referred to OSC go through faculty-student resolutions. In the case that a resolution fails or conduct is more severe, the student will go through the formal conduct process.

In comparison, the most recent statistics from 2017-18 published by OSC state that 71% of cases of alleged misconduct were handled via these informal means. Before this process even begins, the office attempts to identify interim interventions, such as providing support or taking reactive measures like suspension or no-contact orders.

McCullers added that students of color are not disproportionately represented in OSCs aggregate data, making up around 10% of overall reports. She said that every year, the office partners with an outside organization that sends a survey to students to help the office revamp its policies and practices. However, McCullers acknowledged that OSC doesnt have data on whether there is disproportionality in how students are affected by disciplinary measures.

McCullers emphasized that OSC is always looking for where there is discretion in the process and establishing checks and balances to that discretion. For example, she said that OSC is thinking about bringing more diversity of voices and thought into the Student Conduct Board selection process, as well as increasing data sharing and transparency with campus partners.

Wherever theres discretion, theres potential for bias, she said.

McCullers touched on the process of responding to hate and bias, which is the same as other violations but with additional measures. When a hate incident is reported to OSC, campus entities including the Office of Institutional Equity, DUPD and HRL are notified.

One area where students can weigh in, she said, is determining how to deal with systemic community harm.

I dont have to have seen the incident or been present to experience it in the same way that someone else may have, she said.

McCullers also addressed Dukes pickets, protests and demonstrations policy, which a student, in a question to the panel, claimed criminalized student activists who wish to better the University. She said that OSC has not held any student accountable under the policy under her tenure or even probably before then.

Were fully aware of the tension between what the university policy is in our book versus what students may want to do and how they express themselves to national events, she said. What they should know is that were right there with them.

Dailey added that there is a balance to be struck between allowing protesters and allowing others to have the opportunities provided by the University.

When something interrupts that, something has to happen, he said. What we hope happens is different levels of control, starting with self control, next might be peer control, administrative control and the last thing we want is police having to be involved.

Dailey cited the example of police intervention during students protesting Palantir Technologies at the 2019 TechConnect career fair. He said that neither self nor peer control worked, and when administrative response by Student Affairs also didnt work, police had to get involved to allow university operations to continue.

McCullers added that this semester, OSC is putting together a policy review committee composed of students, staff and faculty for the Duke Community Standard to look and revisit our policies and practices. Students who want to weigh in about the pickets, protests and demonstrations policy should reach out to her, McCullers said.

Dailey said that he hopes the policy review process may allow for a more satisfying response next time.

LoBiondo said that one of her goals upon arriving at Duke in 1996 was to enhance the diversity of the housing team, and this remains one of her goals today. Increasing diversity among graduate residents, resident assistants and residence coordinators is one area that LoBiondo believed could be improved.

HRL also relies on a cultural fluency committee, created after a 2015 incident in which a noose was hung on the Bryan Center Plaza.

This is in addition to incorporating core values of intersectionality and equity into the housing experience, which includes the introduction of the Foundations of Equity training for first-year students and improvement of the RA training model.

RAs undergo exercises during initial training and throughout the semester to ensure theyre properly equipped to handle a variety of issues, LoBiondo said. This includes being aware of social justice issues, white privilege and microaggressions.

Students raised concerns about RAs being in a position to police other students, and LoBiondo said that RAs are taught to engage with students in an authentic way but to avoid putting themselves in danger. She stated that RAs only contact police if there are health and safety concerns.

We dont want our undergraduate RAs put in harms way, she said. The police is an important partner for us particularly as it relates to health and safety and higher-risk things.

The Next Generation 2.0 Living and Learning Committee is also a vehicle for equity in housing, LoBiondo said, as it aims to decrease the footprint of Interfraternity Council and National Panhellenic Conference housing on Abele Quad and create greater inclusivity in housing.

Weve never had gathering spaces for our [National Pan-Hellenic Council] or [Multicultural Greek Council] groups, she stated. The National Pan-Hellenic Council is the umbrella organization for historically Black fraternities and sororities.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. had a living space previously, LoBiondo said, but lost it after being unable to fill beds. In contrast, IFC and Panhel organizations have consistently had more space.

She also briefly commented on the random roommate policy for first-years, saying that the policy was wonderful but that housing hadfallen short in ensuring students were prepared to have authentic conversations with people of different backgrounds.

Williams said its so important that during a students tenure at Duke, that they have to be involved and a part of Durham so they get to experience it for themselves. She emphasized the importance of getting to know Durham for ourselves and to contribute positively to Durham.

We are residents of the Durham community and we can join together with the members of the broader community who have lived experience and expertise to share as well, she said. The skills and understanding that you will gain from being involved in Durham will serve you for the rest of your lives.

She added that many of the contemporary leaders in Durham are affiliated with Duke, demonstrating the connectivity and the opportunity that students have to contribute.

Addressing Dukes complex relationship with Durham, Williams emphasized that Durham and Community Affairs works through neighborhood partnerships to support the interests of residents in particularly the twelve neighborhoods that surround the University. The goal is to recognize issues that residents see as a priority and to identify resources or other ways Duke can convene the right folks around the table to solve issues, she said.

Go here to read the rest:

Finding 'the right folks around the table': BCAP town hall discusses future of Duke policing, housing, student conduct - Duke Chronicle

Listen here to our interview with Brandon on WBAI.

You might also like: Meet New York Citys Newest Neighborhood: Abolition Park.

Abolitionist Mariame Kaba famously stated, Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. Following her words, I can only comprehend what we have endured in 2020 as a calling to radicalize, to rethink ineffective public safety policy and to revitalize our communities by defunding the police.

2020 was a year that felt like a decade, a time of deep stress and distress, challenges beyond measure, and enormous personal tragedy. I saw my home, New York City, fall into a series of crises, I lost friends and relatives to the pandemic, and I, along with millions of Americans, watched black men murdered on video.

West says it would be pretty easy for City Council to cut the NYPDs annual budget by $2 billion per year.

Beginning in June, after months of lockdown, I was in the streets fighting for Black lives and for the end of the carceral state. I organized with the Free Black Radicals and members of VOCAL-NY at the Occupy City Hall encampment to defund the NYPD. Months later, and only days after a white supremacist insurrection in the capitol, the NYPD brutalized peaceful protestors on MLK Day in that exact same location.

But when I feel despair, as I did during almost the entirety of 2020 and already many times since the start of 2021, I know it is time to turn to action. Whenever asked why Im running for City Council, I speak about my experiences fighting against over-policing and the carceral state. I tell voters that Im running to defund, and to abolish, the NYPD. Having the experiences of an organizer on the streets and as an analyst in the NYC Office of Management and Budget and City Council Finance means that I know it is possible to do these things and to radically re-envision public safety.

So how do we do it? Defunding the NYPD requires being bold and standing up in the budget process and also, critically, to articulate a vision of community safety that is not carceral. We have to do both, and the latter is harder than most people think. We are so used to treating the police and policing as the solutions that they most clearly are not. Even conversations with progressives and leftists, its hard to shake the language and framework around incarceration. But I know we can do it if we are intentional and clear about how we want to do this work.

First, there is a lot we can cut in the next budget. Its pretty easy to make reasonable cuts and hit $2 billion. There is no reason we couldnt hit at least $1 billion last year. Its a shame the outgoing council didnt. Communities United for Police Reform put out a well-researched report last summer showing just how easy it is to slash NYPDs budget by over $1 billion. This includes over $200 million in a hiring freeze and cutting the cadet class, $100 million in removing NYPD from schools and social service-related roles, almost $300 million in for police misconduct settlements/judgments and not firing abusive officers, at least $219 million by reducing the NYPD uniform headcount to FY2014 level, and almost $400 million in cutting bloat like surveillance technology and overtime. Not to mention that if you include all the fringe benefits associated with these positions, it adds up considerably. Critically, it doesnt mean we abandon workers like school safety officers or traffic officers, who are often BIPOC folks. We can and will engage in a just transition as we decarcerate jobs that should never have fallen under NYPDs purview. Police do not keep people safe, but community services and economic stability does.

The other part of this work is creating the vision for the alternative. Many people I talk to cite victims of violence as a rationale for the brutal incarceration of those who engage in forms of violence. But deterrence is just punishment, our basest instinct, and it doesnt work. Incarcerating peopledestroying peoples livesresults in only devastated communities, not safe communities.

No single person can design a perfect system to eliminate violence in all aspects of life in New York tomorrow. But many have done this work for years and we must empower them to begin to build this alternative. In December 2020, Brownsville engaged in a pilot program where the community removed beat cops and instead had community members present in the streets, including non-profits and city agencies setting up booths to offer city resources for folks. There wasnt a single 911 call during that stretch of time. This pilot was just that: a pilot; it was a bubble within the world of a carceral state, with the normal over-policed stretch of the city a few blocks away. But it was a start, and seemingly a success, and we need to engage and fund programs like these and see to it that they are successful.

If we are not laser-focused on Defund and making it the goal of the next class of councilmembers and the next budget, we will not get there. We absolutely can to build on the work that was already done to get to this vision. I have often remarked that if 2020 didnt radicalize you, then you cannot be radicalized. It is for my fellow radicals that I run for City Council in District 39 and why I run to defund the police.

Brandon West is running for City Council in District 39 which encompasses Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and parts of Sunset Park. He is a member of the 6-candidate DSA for the City slate.

Please support independent media today! Nowcelebrating its 20th anniversary,theIndypendentis still standing but its not easy. Make arecurring or one-time donationtoday orsubscribeto our monthly print edition and get every copy sent straight to your home.

Here is the original post:

We Can Defund The PoliceHere's How - The Indypendent

In the endless catalogue of British imperial atrocities, the unprovoked invasion of Tibet in 1903 was a minor but fairly typical episode. Tibetans, explained the expeditions cultural expert, were savages, more like hideous gnomes than human beings. Thousands of them were massacred defending their homeland, knocked over like skittles by the invaders state-of-the-art machine guns. I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, wrote a British lieutenant, though the Generals order was to make as big a bag as possible. As big a bag as possible killing inferior people was a kind of blood sport.

And then the looting started. More than 400 mule-loads of precious manuscripts, jewels, religious treasures and artworks were plundered from Tibetan monasteries to enrich the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. Countless others were stolen by marauding troops. Sitting at home watching the BBC antiques show Flog It one quiet afternoon in the early 21st century, Sathnam Sanghera saw the delighted descendant of one of those soldiers make another killing 140,000 for selling off the artefacts his grandfather had come across in the Himalayas.

Its a characteristically instructive vignette in Empireland, Sangheras impassioned and deeply personal journey through Britains imperial past and present. The empire, he argues, still shapes British society its delusions of exceptionalism, its immense private and public wealth, the fabric of its cities, the dominance of the City of London, even the entitled and drunken behaviour of British expats and holidaymakers abroad. Yet the British choose not to see this: wilful amnesia about the darker sides of imperialism may be its most pernicious legacy.

Among other things, it allows the British to deny their modern, multicultural identity. Moving effortlessly back and forth between history and journalism, Sanghera connects the racial violence and discrimination of his childhood in 1970s and 80s Wolverhampton with the attitudes and methods previously used to impose empire and white supremacy across the world and still perpetuated in British fantasies of global leadership.

Along the way, he tackles the racist myopia that allows present-day Britons to fantasise that black and brown people are aliens who arrived without permission, and with no link to Britain, to abuse British hospitality. On the contrary, imperial citizens have been enriching British life for centuries. The pioneering author and entrepreneur, Sake Dean Mahomed (1759-1851), invented the curry house. William Cuffay, the child of a freed West Indian slave and a white woman, helped lead Londons Chartist movement for greater democracy then, after being transported, became a political organiser in Australia.

Millions of others fought for Britain in the second world war alone, 200,000 Indian soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured while serving in allied campaigns. More than 10% of the UKs current population (including a staggering 44% of the NHSs medical staff) is non-white. All this is because for centuries white Britons colonised nations all over the world proclaiming their intimate, familial allegiance while invading, occupying, plundering, humiliating and killing their peoples on a massive scale to benefit British wealth and self-esteem. We are here because you were there.

Without getting bogged down in definitions, calculations or complicated comparisons, Empireland also manages to convey something of the sheer variety of imperial experiences over four centuries, and the limits of broad-brush explanations. Most of Britains wealth probably came from non-imperial trade. Imperial control was made possible by the collaboration of indigenous rulers and groups. Other nations have similarly problematic histories. And theres a long history of Britons themselves criticising, not celebrating, the full, gut-wrenching horror of imperial violence and racism.

But to make too much of such qualifications would be to miss the essential point. Both deliberately and unconsciously, the empire was one of the biggest white supremacist enterprises in the history of humanity, and it still corrupts British society in countless ways. Sangheras unflinching attempt to understand this process, and to counter the cognitive dissonance and denial of Britains modern imperial amnesia, makes for a moving and stimulating book that deserves to be widely read.

So does Padraic Scanlans engrossing and powerful Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain, a detailed exposition of how Britain profited from slavery for 200 years, and then used its abolition to justify another century or more of imperial violence and capitalist exploitation.

Its a different kind of book: straight history, no memoir, a scholarly rather than a journalistic argument. Yet its propelled by a similar, urgent frustration with the amnesiac myths of Britains supposedly glorious imperial heritage.

In the popular imagination, Britains abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and of slavery itself after 1833, was a great victory of good over evil, a national sacrifice that wiped out the stain of its slaveholding past. By voluntarily casting off the sin of slavery, the empire was transformed into a beacon of righteousness, and flourished thereafter as a global leader of antislavery and free trade, not bondage.

In the age of Brexit, thats the proud, inspiring history that many Britons love to rehearse. As Scanlan shows, its not a recent invention: its rooted in the vision of the antislavery movement itself. But its deeply misleading. Inspired by the classic West Indian critiques of CLR James and Eric Williams, and synthesising a mass of recent scholarship, Slave Empire presents a series of much more uncomfortable truths.

For one thing, the mass enslavement and exploitation of Africans by Europeans was never incidental or separable from the rise of global trade and empire: it was one of the central mechanisms through which these things were achieved. Slavery itself was an ancient practice. But there had never been anything like the vast slave plantations created in the Americas, especially on the islands of the Caribbean. By the late 18th century, these enormous, brutal, ecologically destructive enterprises had become the hub of a huge, profitable, interdependent web of money, commerce, power and territory, stretching both eastwards across the Atlantic, to Europe and West Africa, and north and south, into the mainland colonies of America.

From the forced labour of the millions of enslaved people who were worked to death on such factory-farms, white Britons and other Europeans created not just a booming international market in sugar, tobacco and rice, but a heavily capitalised imperial economy of shipping, banking, insurance, manufacturing, commodity trading and military expenditure. Even the fine white sugar that Jamaican planters themselves consumed was the product of raw materials grown and processed in the Caribbean, shipped to London, refined by sugar bakers in England, and then transported all the way back across the ocean to be retailed in the West Indies.

Nor did slavery die just because enlightened Britons turned against it. The abolitionist vision was deeply hierarchical, racist and paternalist freedom was something to be gradually earned by blacks and benevolently bestowed by whites. Enslaved people themselves had very different ideas. Long before white Britons took up their cause, they fought fiercely and unremittingly against their bondage.

All over the West Indies, throughout the later 17th and 18th centuries, large numbers of escaped and rebelling slaves waged continual guerrilla warfare on white settlers. In the early 19th century, three major insurrections in Barbados in 1816, British Guyana in 1823, and Jamaica in 1831-32 helped force the hands of the British. Abolition was partly an attempt to prevent black people from emancipating themselves and capturing valuable British territories by force as the rebel slaves of Frances main colony had done when they established the free republic of Haiti in 1804.

Whats more, ending slavery didnt stop the gigantic system of trade and exploitation it had spawned. On the contrary, it was meant to enhance it. The British government paid out colossal sums to compensate slaveowners but nothing to enslaved people themselves. Instead, the law abolishing slavery forced them to continue to labour for years on their existing plantations, as unpaid apprentices.

Abolitionists presumed that freed slaves would work harder, making plantations more profitable. When the price of Caribbean sugar fell, it was their laziness that was blamed. When they had the temerity to demand better wages, thousands of other dark-skinned workers were shipped in as indentured labourers from China, India, and Africa, to take their place as they were to countless other new British plantations around the world. Free labour and free trade were incompatible with slavery, but not with the continued exploitation and global trafficking of low-paid workers.

As Scanlan points out towards the end of this rich and thought-provoking book, 19th-century British capitalists continued to invest heavily in slaveholding enterprises overseas. They funded and insured many of the banks, railroads, steamships, and plantations of the American south. Britains cotton industry grew into its largest and most valuable industrial sector by processing much of the raw material produced by Americas slaves. At one point, the livelihood of nearly one in five Britons depended on it. In almost every respect, the free trade empire was less a repudiation than a continuation of the empire of slavery. Its time to embrace a more honest understanding of its manifold legacies.

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Satnam Sanghera is published by Viking (18.99); Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain by Padraic X Scanlan is published by Robinson (25). To order copies go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

View original post here:

Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera and Slave Empire by Padraic X Scanlan review - The Guardian

They say fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag and a bible, so I dont see why socialism couldnt be the same.

The branding for leftist ideas absolutely sucks. Mostly due to the fact that ideas like socialism and welfare have been demonized in this country. Socialism isnt the Soviet style communism that its popularly equated to nor does welfare just mean unemployment and food stamps.

Socialism is an economic school of thought and social theory that advocates for heavy regulation of industries along with a strong working class through unions and other organizations. Other examples of bad branding are in the buzzwords and phrases used such as defund the police.

The phrase defund the police is extremely aggressive and pushes people away from the movement. The phrase makes it seem like leftists would just remove the police from existence and have the people fend for themselves. This is a far cry from the police reform leftists would advocate for. While we would divert most of the police funding toward things like education spending and investments in the communities directly, it wouldnt mean that the police system would be abolished. The police system Id advocate for would have higher requirements to join, such as a minimum of one year of police training and a focus on community engagement rather than militarization. However, the branding surrounding defund the police only serves to push people away from a cause theyd otherwise agree with.

This is why I propose leftists ditch terms that have bad branding like socialism and communism and instead create new ones so we can dupe people into voting for policies that would fall under these namesakes. Instead of calling it socialized healthcare, call it PatriotCare: providing healthcare to all the patriots in the country free of charge.

I have to give props to Andrew Yang for the branding of his campaign. He wanted to implement a universal basic income, which seems like it would be a socialist policy, but he didnt get labeled a socialist. This is due to the fact that, instead of calling himself a socialist, he called himself a human centered capitalist and advocated for human centered capitalism which is just socialism that sounds more American. The only reasons his campaign didnt take off was due to his relative obscurity and the fact that he didnt capitalize on his endorsements. How do you get Donald Glover to endorse you and I dont hear about it?

Therefore, I think the future of branding for the Democratic Party is to use the Yang strategy. That is to say branding oneself not as a socialist, but as a super-capitalist. Instead of trying to change the stigma around words such as socialism and communal ownership of the means of production, they should instead disguise it as the future of capitalism and so much private ownership that everyone privately owns part of their business. Its much easier to explain to a steel mill worker, Hey, under super-capitalism you would own a part of the steel mill you work for, as opposed to having them unlearn American Cold War propaganda by getting them to read 30 books written by dead Russian dudes.

This way, you could advocate that youre so into the free markets that youd seek the abolition of service-based industries from market forces such as transportation and healthcare. You could provide things like free public transportation and socialized healthcare due to the fact that their industries just dont work in a free market. The supply and demand curves are inelastic, so they would actually obstruct the free market. Were actually promoting capitalism in order to sneak in socialist policies. This way we could minimize the amount of people pushed away by buzzwords with garbage branding. Instead, I encourage leftists to advocate for the same policies weve been trying to pass, but instead make sound super patriotic and capitalistic.

The future for the democratic party isnt socialism its Super Capitalism

Like Loading...

Continued here:

The Lefts biggest issue is branding - Xavier Newswire