Monthly Archives: February 2021

On June 24, 1978, Sydneys Gay Solidarity Group responded to a call for an international day of protest put out by gay and lesbian activists from San Francisco. They went on to organize the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

A thousand people attended the festival and march from Kings Cross to Oxford Street. Halfway through the event, Sydneys police force suddenly withdrew their permit, pushing the crowd into Hyde Park. Instead of dispersing, the marchers fought their way to Kings Cross, where the police arrested fifty-three people. Since then, the Mardi Gras has been held annually, in defiance of homophobia and police persecution.

Today, the Sydney Mardi Gras (MG) parade and festival held on March 6 has grown to become one of the citys most prominent cultural attractions. As with similar pride events worldwide, the Sydney establishment has come to see it as a significant driver of rainbow tourism. In 2018, Forbes magazine calculated that investment from the New South Wales Government in the Sydney Mardi Gras, between 2009 and 2017, has produced an estimated return of more than AU$265 million ($205 million) in visitor spend.

Theres another clear parallel with pride events elsewhere. In recent times, Mardi Gras has increasingly kowtowed to the will of sponsors and corporate spokespeople, compromising the spirit of solidarity that was at the heart of the original march. Its time we started reviving and reclaiming that spirit for the present.

As Sasha Soldatow argues in a seminal pamphlet, What is This Gay Community Shit?, even before the first Mardi Gras, there was a tug of war in progress within the movement between a radical wing and a pro-capitalist one:

So-called community aspirations were taking over from the preceding debates of sexual politics, debates that involved both women and men attempting to renegotiate and reinvent the temperament of gender. Simply put, the whole gay community thing was twaddle; it was a matter of emerging gay capitalists smelling the dollars.

Over time, LGBT business interests the pink dollar have gradually subverted Mardi Grass once-participatory model. In order to attract investors and sponsors, MGs current leadership has strategically built a membership that is apolitical, conservative, or hyper-focused on personal identity at the expense of real solidarity.

They have also given more space to the police, non-radical NGOs, and corporations eager to showcase their commitment to diversity. As the organizers have made room for costumed allies including former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull leftist and radical queer organizations have found themselves marginalized and excluded.

Apart from the obvious political problems raised by prioritizing police and business, these moves have reduced space for grassroots participants. Publicly, Mardi Gras claims to allow for an equal balance between corporate and grassroots floats. However, the organizers neglect to mention stipulations that allow corporate floats to carry a hundred people, while grassroots ones are limited to twenty.

The Pride in Protest (PiP) coalition has stood against this transformation, pushing to rebuild MGs commitment to solidarity. In 2019, PiP won a breakthrough when member and local communist Charlie Murphy was elected to the Mardi Gras board. Other board members cite their many years of association with businesses, the law, or marketing firms, but Charlie describes herself as being passionate about Mardi Gras no longer answering to corporate power and status quo institutions.

PiPs argument is gaining ground. In 2020, another PiP member, Alex Bouchet, was elected alongside Charlie. This coincided with a push at the 2019 annual general meeting, as grassroots Mardi Gras members argued that the parade should cut its ties with drug manufacturer Gilead, in response to price gouging of HIV prevention drug PrEP in the United States.

PiP pushed further, arguing that MG should also sever ties with ANZ, one of Australias four major banks, and Qantas, Australias major airline carrier, for its role in deporting refugees. Members have raised similar concerns about companies like the retail giant Woolworths and the Star casino.

To date, MG has only seriously considered divesting from Gilead. Indeed, MG is so protective of its corporate ties that consultations with its sponsors occur completely behind closed doors, often unseen even by board members.

In any other popular organization a trade union, for example this would be unheard of. Within Mardi Gras, its par for the course. The majority of the MG board defends the practice as being entirely legitimate for a company, in the process both erasing the organizations membership and redefining its purpose.

A similar battle is also playing out over the involvement of the New South Wales (NSW) Police and Corrective Services in Mardi Gras. The NSW Polices history of persecuting LGBT people has not ended at the 2013 Mardi Gras, a Sydney police officer bashed Bryn Hutchinson and fined his sister for screaming during the assault. According to PiP, between 1970 and 2010, the NSW Police failed to investigate ninety suspected gay hate murders.

Aboriginal LBGT people are disproportionately at risk, as a result of racialized policing and high rates of incarceration and death in custody. In 2009, NSW Police arrested Veronica Baxter, an Aboriginal transgender woman, detaining her on remand at Silverwater prison, in an all-male facility.

Prison guards found Baxter dead in her cell two days later. Although evidence showed that she had used an emergency intercom in her cell multiple times the night before her death, prison guards did not record the calls and claimed not to remember taking them.

PiP also argues that Mardi Gras has a broader responsibility to stand in solidarity with other movements such as Black Lives Matter that oppose bigotry and institutional violence. The 2020 MG annual general meeting (AGM) voted down a motion by Indigenous PiP members Keith Quayle and Lungol Wekina barring a NSW Police float at MG. Nevertheless, their motion attracted 44 percent of the vote, the closest MG has come to banning law enforcement from the march.

Reclaiming Mardi Gras also means democratizing its membership. Naturally, MG markets itself as inclusive. As the MG website declares, its vision is to be a global leader in the promotion of diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice through culture, creativity and partnerships.

The boardroom jargon should give you a hint about the MG boards priorities. They have rejected proposals to open up membership, for example, by reducing the joining fees.

At the same time, MG has strategically depoliticized membership. Today, its focus is less on democratic participation and more on coupons. MG rewards its members with discounts at shops like Daly Male and fitness supplement stores, or with reduced entry at Sydneys famous Stonewall bar.

Of course, muscle queens and business gays are perfectly welcome 2020 was the year of the himbo, after all. Yet by implicitly prioritizing a narrow subset of LGBT people, who also happen to be the target audience for key LGBT businesses, the Mardi Gras board undermines its claim to represent the citys entire LGBT population.

In 2019, PiP won a small victory for democracy. They successfully passed a motion on the MG board to establish an ethics charter that would ensure broader consultation about preferred sponsors at the MG annual general meeting. Shortly after this victory, recently elected PiP MG board member Alex Bouchet reported discovering that Mardi Gras had already been busy consulting only with sponsors instead of the community.

In response to pressure, MG has made some positive changes for example, by placing a First Nations float front and center at the parade. But efforts like these will appear cosmetic and tokenistic so long as the MG board is effectively closed, with no Indigenous representatives.

This points to a broader issue with representation. PiPs Charlie Murphy is the only out transgender board member and one of the few to have been elected, despite continual involvement of trans people within MG since its inception. The exclusivity of MGs internal culture ensures that this kind of disproportion remains entrenched.

The conservative evolution of Mardi Gras represents a sharp break with its radical, working-class traditions. If you start digging into the marchs history, before long, youll find yourself talking with Ken Davis, lifelong socialist and one of the lead organizers of the first three festivals. Ken still clearly remembers these parades, almost wholly organized and led by gay and lesbian workers.

This began to change when, after an initial debate, small businesses were included. Over time, the Right used this as grounds to justify the inclusion of big business, too. Similarly, they argued that if public-service workers and civil servants were included, police floats should also be allowed to participate.

These moves had consequences. Previously, as Ken explains:

Unions and groups of out queer workers have been in Mardi Gras since the first night in 1978 for example, teachers, postal and railway workers, telephonists, nurses, flight attendants, firefighters.

Today, prioritizing business floats often forces workers to attend under the banner of their employers. And corporate floats are judged worthy for the parade on the basis of whether they are good employers to LGBT people. Its a label that Ken who has been a proud Trotskyist since he was fifteen finds offensive, as would any other socialist or trade unionist who understands labor relations to be inherently exploitative.

Mardi Gras has also strategically defanged the political content of the original parade. As Ken explains, the Right used the rise of gay and lesbian health services and NGOs to justify further diluting the marchs politics:

With AIDS in the mid 1980s, there was a change, with large numbers of heterosexual volunteers in the parades with community AIDS services contingents, and then municipal councils and relevant government departments started to promote their services in the parades.

The end result was a victory for for-profit consultancies that run diversity programs and reward big corporations for being queer friendly.

To remain relevant, Mardi Gras needs to recapture and update the spirit of the 1970s, when radical movements against war and oppression converged with the workers movement. At the forefront was the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF), whose green bans achieved global renown.

Its not so well known that the BLF was the first union in Australia (and one of the first worldwide) to extend solidarity to gay and lesbian people. In one famous instance, the union placed a pink ban on Macquarie University. In response to the expulsion of Jeremy Fisher, treasurer of the universitys Gay Lib club, on explicitly homophobic grounds, the BLF halted building works until the administration readmitted him.

As Ken Davis explains, union members felt little sympathy with vice chancellors and had experienced more than a few run-ins with police. It was natural that they would extend solidarity to gay and lesbian students. And in the 1970s, the Sydney police were not so concerned with presenting a tolerant, diverse public image:

Early gay pride protests saw scores of arrests. Lesbian and gay activists faced police repression in environmental, indigenous, peace, and feminist protests. There was great concern around corrupt inner-city police stations, prisons, and their sexist, racist, and heterosexist violence. In 1978, before the first Mardi Gras, on the night of June 24, we already used the chant: Stop Police Attacks, on Gays, Women and Blacks.

Today, the marketing has changed, but the social role played by corporations and police forces has not.

There are two possible futures for Mardi Gras. If LGBT businesses stay in control, it will remain a corporate-sponsored street party and wont meet the standards of inclusivity it promises. Alternately, if MGs membership is empowered, it may draw in new generations of LGBT people, and once more become a festival of resistance against oppression and corporate power.

Read more:

Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Should Stand for Solidarity With the Oppressed Not With Cops and Corporations - Jacobin magazine

The United States of America was founded on a conspiracy theory. In the lead-up to the War of Independence, revolutionaries argued that a tax on tea or stamps is not just a tax, but the opening gambit in a sinister plot of oppression. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were convinced based on "a long train of abuses and usurpations" that the king of Great Britain was conspiring to establish "an absolute Tyranny" over the colonies.

"The document itself is a written conspiracy theory," says Nancy Rosenblum, a political theorist emerita at Harvard University. It suggests that there's more going on than meets the eye, that someone with bad intentions is working behind the scenes.

If conspiracy theories are as old as politics, they're also in the era of Donald Trump and QAnon as current as the latest headlines. Earlier this month, the American democracy born of an eighteenth century conspiracy theory faced its most severe threat yet from another conspiracy theory, that (all evidence to the contrary) the 2020 presidential election was rigged. Are conspiracy theories truly more prevalent and influential today, or does it just seem that way?

The research isn't clear. Rosenblum and others see evidence that belief in conspiracy theories is increasing and taking dangerous new forms. Others disagree. But scholars generally do agree that conspiracy theories have always existed and always will. They tap into basic aspects of human cognition and psychology, which may help explain why they take hold so easily and why they're seemingly impossible to kill.

Once someone has fully bought into a conspiracy theory, "there's very little research that actually shows you can come back from that," says Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge whose research focuses on ways to combat misinformation. "When it comes to conspiracy theories, prevention is better than cure."

Counting conspiracies

When Joseph Uscinski began studying conspiracy theories a decade ago, he was one of only a handful of scholars mostly psychologists and political scientists interested in the topic. "No one cared about this at the time," says Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami in Florida. American Conspiracy Theories, the 2014 book he cowrote with political scientist Joseph Parent, became a landmark in conspiracy theory research.

To investigate how conspiracy beliefs have changed with time, Uscinski, Parent, and a small army of research assistants analyzed more than 100,000 letters to the editors of the New York Times printed between 1890 and 2010. Among these, they identified 875 letters that dabbled in conspiracy talk that some group was acting in secret to steal power, or bury the truth, or reap some other benefit at the expense of the common good.

Many of the letters alleged geopolitical conspiracies: In 1890, it was England and Canada conspiring to take back territory from the United States, and in 1906, Japan was supposedly sending soldiers in disguise to prepare to seize Hawaii. Others focused on domestic political conspiracies, such as President Harry Truman covering up Communist infiltration of the government in the 1950s, and the idea that the 9/11 attacks were coordinated by the U.S. to smear the Saudis. Still others were just bizarre, such as a 1973 letter claiming that lesbianism is a CIA-inspired plot.

Read the rest of the article at Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

Read more:

The enduring allure of conspiracies - The Week Magazine

Eid Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is on its way in Iran. But Irans rule has made Eid a mourning for the people, especially the workers and the poor.

This is at a time when the coronavirus is spreading like wildfire in Iran, and government agents are depriving workers of their wages, forcing workers to come to work at the risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus.

In these circumstances, workers are left looking for their wages. Despite the poverty line of 10 million Tomans, their wages do not provide their basic needs. But government officials also refuse to pay these meager salaries.

In this regard, February 18, a group of workers of Shahriar Municipality held a protest rally in front of the city council to protest the non-payment of their salaries for two months.

In a video interview, three of the protesting workers described their problems as follows:

Worker: We came here and gathered for the salary increase. They did not pay us for two months.

Reporter: How much is your salary?

Worker: My salary is 2.45 million and 150,000 is the end of service bonus. You, Mr. mayor, can you live with 2.6 million? And make a living?

Reporter: Do you have a problem with the mayor or with the contract and service company?

Worker: Mr. Contractor says the mayor should give it to me then I can give it to you.

Another Worker: Im like him too. My salary is low. And now I have not received my salary for two months.

Is Poverty in Iran the Result of Sanctions or Plundering?

The conditions of all workers are complicated, their life cycles do not change, a group of workers in Mahshahr went on strike for the third day on February 15, to protest the dismissal of their colleagues from the South Tehran Company.

February 15, a group of HEPCO workers held a protest rally in protest of their problems and demands along the Arak railway.

The state-run daily Kar-o-Karegar wrote in acknowledging the dire living conditions of the workers: The cost of living basket for a working family with a population of 3.3 people is 10 million tomans, while the minimum wage received by workers, eventually reaches 3 million tomans. However, due to high inflation, purchasing power has fallen sharply and the workers table has become empty. (Kar-o-Karegar, February 9)

And on February 15, the same daily, quoting a government official, the head of the Supreme Chamber of Trade Unions, wrote:

Workers wages and benefits will be determined unilaterally and to the benefit of the employer in collective agreements. Under the current circumstances, workers will see their minimum wages violated. For example, the job nature of brick factory workers is one of the hard and harmful jobs. This group is not only deprived of the rights because of the hard work, but the news indicates that the situation of this group is not good, and they are deprived of the minimum. Not only is the employer reluctant to negotiate in the true sense of the word, but it simply violates the workers rights.

But why arent peoples problems solved? The situation is so difficult and indisputable that the state media has also admitted it.

The state-run daily Mostaghel on February 20 wrote: None of the social classes of the Iranian people have a real representative in the government structure. Workers and other lower classes in Iran who are worse than other sections of society. The workers do not even have a real union. They also do not have a media. Their voices do not reach anywhere. (Mostaghel, February 20).

The Arman daily on February 15, with the headline Lets not fill the workers patience bowl, acknowledged the oppression and exploitation by the government and its institutions. It further acknowledged the workers impatience with all this oppression and exploitation and expressed its concern and wrote:

This is not the right path that has been chosen (by the government) for the workers and their lives and livelihoods, and it may reach critical points. Once we reach that dangerous situation and cross that critical point, no one can solve the problems that have arisen. It should be noted that all the problems will explode like a volcano and at the same time, we will not see good results on the day when the tolerance of the majority of the society, i.e. the workers, is exhausted and their patience is exhausted.

It is very clear that the main problem and concern of the author of this article is not that oppression and exploitation of workers, but his main concern is about the clear conditions for the uprising of the people, including the workers.

Of course, such conditions of oppression and exploitation by the government are not limited to the working class, but all the poor sections of society are in such a situation that the media and government experts, while acknowledging it, are worried about their patience and revolt. An uprising that is sometimes called the uprising of the hungry.

See the rest here:

Irans New Year (Eid-E-Nowruz) and the Empty Baskets of Its Workers - Iran Focus

With Swiss voters set to decide on a contentious burka ban on March 7, Anila Noor and Maria Khoshy explain why they as Muslim feminists and refugees oppose the idea.

Anila Noor & Maria Khoshy

We are feminists, womens rights activists, and leaders in our communities. We are also Muslims. One of us is a recent refugee from Pakistan to the Netherlands. The other fled to Switzerland from Afghanistan when she was thirteen years old.

In our countries of origin, our governments mandated what we wore in an effort to restrict our basic human rights. We do not want the same to happen in Switzerland, a democratic nation which prides itself on its respect for human rights and the rule of law. It is time that the government and people in power stop telling us how to dress.

Keep your duppata (headscarf) on your head properly, wear your hijab! These are words I grew up with in Pakistan. Conservative groups often invoke a famous saying to impose the hijab or burka: the proper place of a woman is in her chadar aur char diwari meaning veiled and within the four walls of her home. In Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan, many women have been killed in the name of honour or in retaliation for asserting our basic womens rights as human rights.

We left our homes to flee oppression, including gender-based persecution. So, it is deeply ironic that we find ourselves now fighting against violations of our human rights in our place of refuge. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now in Switzerland, the government is under pressure from conservative forces to restrict womens basic autonomy and freedom of dress.

That Switzerland would consider joining other European countries in banning forms of dress is particularly ironic given its strong commitment to neutrality and the freedom of religion. It is also ironic given that only a few dozen women in a country of almost nine million people wear the burka.

It is hurtful to us that people claim that the initiative protects womens rights without bothering to ask the women most directly affected by the ban Muslim migrants to Switzerland, visitors and tourists from certain Middle East countries, and Muslim feminists and advocates for gender equality. New Women Connectors brings together refugee women across Europe, many of whom fled repressive regimes in the Middle East or war-torn Syria. Some of the Muslim women in our group wear the hijab; others do not. It does not matter, as it is their choice. As Muslims in Europe, we do not tend to wear bikinis to the beach. We do not tattoo our arms or faces. However, we do not object to other peoples freedom to do so.

If a woman who prefers the full burka were to join our group, we would welcome her with open arms. We personally do not wear burkas or niqabs, but as feminists, we are not threatened or bothered by those who do. More fundamentally, we are deeply concerned about what will happen to the small number of women in Switzerland who do wear the burka or niqab. Will the threat of fines force them to stay indoors, and what impact will this have on their mental health and the mental health of their children?

During the Covid-19 crisis, we asked ourselves why womens clothing has garnered so much attention when there are so many more pressing issues facing refugee women in Europe, including Switzerland. The pandemic has had a devastating economic toll on many sectors of society, but women have been the hardest hit.

As community leaders and organisers, we know the systematic barriers to equality and inclusion faced by refugee women in Switzerland: labour market restrictions, employment discrimination, and even access to opportunities. We face lack of respect or recognition for our educational accomplishments or professional skills, simply because we built our careers in developing nations. We face social ostracisation.

We face limitations on our ability to access education, to get loans to start businesses, and to find affordable childcare for our children so that we can work. We face accusations that we are not willing to learn the local language when in fact we work very hard at it, and we have already demonstrated our ability to master several other languages. We often face domestic violence at home and threatening or insulting behaviour on the street. We face stereotypes in the news media that portray us as passive victims of oppression rather than as the courageous human rights defenders that we are. We face the accusation that our values are somehow at odds with those of Europe, when we are the ones who fled our homes to have a shot at justice and freedom here in Europe. We fight for European values like freedom of religion, autonomy, and gender equality even more fiercely than do many Europeans, if only because we know what it is like to grow up under oppressive regimes.

It is hurtful to want to belong and yet to be perennially treated as the other blamed for our own integration failuresExternal link when we, just like European women, are working so very hard. Hateful initiatives like the burka and niqab ban are just one more reminder that no matter how hard we try, we will never fully belong; we can never really become Swiss.

By advocating for the right of refugee and migrant women to have a seat at the table, we also seek to advance gender equality for our European-born colleagues. Institutional and structural barriers to gender equality like labour market discrimination, domestic violence, and lack of affordable childcare affect Swiss-born women too. Switzerland ranks 26th of 29 in the Economists glass ceiling index: these issues affect native Swiss women as well as migrants. Our interests are not opposed to those of Swiss women: we are on the same side.

Anila NoorExternal link, a human rights activist, TEDx SpeakerExternal link and refugee to the Netherlands from Pakistan, is an expert in gender and migration issues, part of the European Commissions Expert GroupExternal link on views of Migrants, and the co-founder of GIRWLExternal link and managing director of New Women ConnectorsExternal link. @nooranila

Maria Khoshy is a commercial studies student and a refugee representative and activist in Switzerland. @mariakhoshy

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of SWI swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch publishes op-ed articles by contributors writing on a wide range of topics Swiss issues or those that impact Switzerland. The selection of articles presents a diversity of opinions designed to enrich the debate on the issues discussed. If you would like to submit an idea for an opinion piece, please e-mail english@swissinfo.ch.

View post:

'We don't want the government restricting our freedom of dress' - swissinfo.ch

In January, the US government officially determined that Chinese government actions against the Uyghur people constitute genocide. As a candidate, Joe Biden was there first.

Uyghur Americans felt a surge of hope when Bidens team condemned the oppression of our people in August, saying the unspeakable oppression that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered at the hands of Chinas authoritarian government is genocide and Joe Biden stands against it in the strongest terms.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has affirmed that he shares his predecessors judgment that Chinas crimes constitute genocide. His commitment to Americas role in upholding international human rights is deep. He has spoken about his stepfather, who survived the Holocaust after finding safety upon encountering American GIs: Thats what America represents to the world, however imperfectly, he said.

The totalistic nature of the crimes against Uyghurs is horrifying to contemplate. However, Chinas outsized role in the global economy means that companies and countries around the world are reluctant to speak out.

Take surveillance technology. My entire homeland of East Turkistan has been transformed into a high-tech police state, complete with Muslim-tracking software touted by Chinese tech firms such as Huawei, Dahua, and Hikvision.

Their surveillance cameras, used to monitor Uyghurs inside and outside so-called reeducation camps, are still sold worldwide. Beijings model of total surveillance is already being exported globally.

Blinkens team should get to work immediately on its commitment to work with allies to end tech complicity. The worldwide tech industry, including giants such as Amazon and Google, must no longer be free to cooperate with companies helping to conduct Chinas racial profiling and 24/7 digital surveillance of Uyghurs.

At one stroke, the State Department can also provide a safe haven for Uyghurs at risk in third countries by designating Uyghurs as Priority 2 refugees. Priority 2 will remove a critical choke point by eliminating the need for UNHCR processing, given the UNHCR track record of failing to protect Uyghurs from Chinas extensive reach.

Incredibly, even many Uyghurs who have reached the US are still in limbo. States Citizenship and Immigration Services under Biden must expedite Uyghur asylum applications pending for as long as five years.

The previous administrations action to ban imported products manufactured with forced-labor and sanction perpetrators remains inadequate.

The January 13 ban on cotton and tomato products, while impactful, was hardly proportional to the massive scale of Chinas state-organized program of modern slavery. The Biden administration needs to go further, enacting a full regional ban on all products from the Uyghur Region and imposing criminal penalties on companies attempting to evade the ban.

What must come next is a multilateral approach. Uyghurs around the world look to the US as the only country that can lead a global response to the genocide. Bidens focus on global relationships based on shared democratic values is exactly whats needed, and his commitment to multilateral approaches gives him tremendous credibility in bringing Europe and other allies on board.

Only the US has imposed Magitsky-style sanctions on the perpetrators of these human rights abuses. America must invest in diplomacy to persuade other countries that expressions of concern are empty without targeted sanctions.

No government should allow companies to import goods made through the forced labor of Uyghurs. Measures under consideration in Australia, Canada, and the UK should be taken up by other countries. American diplomacy needs to put the question plainly to allies in Europe, Asia, and beyond: are you going to continue to sit on the sidelines while your companies profit from state-organized modern slavery?

As the US re-joins the UN Human Rights Council, Uyghurs expect Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to mobilize a long-overdue multilateral response to Chinese atrocities. The International Labor Organization and the UN Security Council have remained completely silent to date. This has to change.

Chinas ongoing crimes against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples are rightly recognized as one of the most severe campaigns of ethnoreligious persecution since World War II.

There is no time to lose. Rescuing the survivors of Chinas genocide will not be up to American GIs this time. Its up to Mr. Biden and his team to lead a global response.

Read more:

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide - The Globe Post

Book review by Peter Lackowski

In 1781, the Bolivian indigenous leader Tupac Katari led a rebellion in which La Paz, the Spanish colonial capital of Upper Peru, was besieged for 109 days. The siege ended with the arrival of a Spanish army. Katari was captured, he and his wife, Bartolina Sisa, were gruesomely executed, and thousands of indigenous people were massacred. For many years this was treated as a minor event in history books, but in the latter half of the twentieth century Katari and Sisa have been celebrated as symbols of the resistance to oppression by the indigenous majority, and as martyrs in a national revolution whose time has finally come.

The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia, by former Towardfreedom editor Benjamin Dangl (AK Press), is the story of decades of work by organizers, activists, intellectuals, and politicians to turn this story of indigenous resistance to oppression into the symbol of national liberation. It follows the way social movements have related to the question of indigenous identity, and their efforts to organize and focus its power, up to the point of electing an indigenous president. It is a story of decolonization, of people freeing themselves from the mental and political structures that were imposed upon them by imperial powers.

In 1952 the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) led a revolution that made historic gains with expanded rights for workers, land reform, and national economic sovereignty. It was supported by miners, workers and peasants, but it was led by a white and mestizo middle class who saw the indigenous majority as primitive, people who needed to be modernized, assimilated, and brought into the economy as workers and capitalist farmers. This implied giving up communal economic forms, traditional clothing, using Spanish, and finding their place in a capitalist society.

While peasants welcomed the land reform, cultural change was resisted.

Many indigenous people benefited from improvements in their rights and education, but as their conditions improved they became more aware of how racism was limiting their advancementit was not just poverty. By the 60s Aymara, many of rural origin who had got into the university, were forming Katarist circles that promoted a powerful, liberating ideology. In the words of Luciano Tapia, a protagonist in the movement, I understood that, far from feeling as though I were a beggar and foreigner in my own ancestral land, rather, I should instead feel proud of being a descendant of the great and glorious civilizations from this part of the world. From this comes the reason to maintain that beyond being a simple campesino class. We are fundamentally a living historical reality, a people made of flesh and bone, a real Nation.

Honoring a History of Resistance

Kataristas looked back at a time when Andean people lived in a society that was superior in its values and organization to 20th century Bolivia. That society was not a Utopia, it was a living reality that their ancestors created. Their country hadbeen violently taken from them and they had been enslaved. However, there is a history of resistance to be proud of, not just the rebellion of Tupac Katari, but many others who are being rediscovered as the stories of the elders are compiled. Dangl tells how indigenous thinkers and activists deepened and popularized these ideas, turning them into a political force.

The revolution of 1952 had empowered a government sponsored peasants union, but a series of subsequent coups eroded its gains after a few years. Kataristas went to work to take control of the state-dominated union, using their message to build morale and solidarity. One of their early leaders spoke of analyzing things with two eyes, that is, that exploited campesinos were members of the wider oppressed working class of Bolivia and also exploited as indigenous people. By 1979 they created a new peasants union that was affiliated with the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the national union of miners and industrial workers.

Bolivia has relatively few roads, and they run through areas with concentrations of campesinos. Road blockades have been a key tactic for indigenous struggles all the way back to Tupak Kataris time. Katarist ideology enhanced this strategic asset, raising morale and determination by enabling people to see their actions as part of a historic continuity. Dangl skillfullyembeds these stories of campesino resistance in a concise account of Bolivias tumultuous history of those times.

Aymara students at the university in La Paz in the 1970s found themselves in an environment in which they were expected to abandon their indigenous identity, even to the point of having to adopt a Spanish sounding surname. They also learned that there was virtually no information at all about the history of their people. Two chapters of the book are devoted to their response: the Andean Oral History Workshop (THOA), a project in which the students worked collaboratively with indigenous communities, often the ones they grew up in, to collect memories from elders. They were able to reconstruct historical struggles and biographical information about Aymara leaders who worked for justice, and they turned them into widely distributed books, radio programs other media. The chapters on the work of THOA provide a fascinating story of a nation discovering its own history by reassembling the fragments stored in the living memories and family stories of its people.

Ayllus were the basis of pre-Columbian society in the Andes.They are communities typically consisting of two or more settlements at different altitudes to take advantage of the different ecological zones for a greater range of produce. Dangl explains how they function on the basis of reciprocity and mutual obligation, sharing not only produce but also the risks that come with adverse weather, arranging labor parties for tasks like harvesting, and observing decision-making by consensus. Leadership responsibilities rotate routinely among members among members; governance is egalitarian and participatory.

The ayllu is stable enough to have survived long after the conquest in more remote areas, but the Spanish and their creole successors had other uses for allyu lands and populations, and by the middle of the twentieth century they were gone. But in the 1980s people began to advocate for their revival, and by the nineties a national network of ayllus was well under way. Dangl traces this expanding reconstructive effort and its complicated relationships with successive governments, the campesino union, and other groups.

This book was written at a time when Evo Morales was nearing the end of his third term. It was clear that while Bolivias first indigenous president had been in officefrom 2006 to 2019the county had undergone substantial economic expansion, and that those who had benefited most notably were the poorest, that is, mostly the indigenous. Not only were they better off economically, they had also developed a new understanding of their place in their own country.

The symbols of Tupak Katari and Bartolina Sisa evolved as the MAS (Movement for Socialism) understandably, adopted them wholeheartedly, but more in their role as political leaders and less as revolutionaries. But the MAS government has been criticized for some decisions that are inconsistent with the vision that the Kataristas articulated. As an astute observer, Dangl alludes to some of those contradictions, but to analyze them in depth would be outside the scope of the book.

The Kataristas presented an idealized pre-Columbian society, outlining a socialist vision that many Bolivians would like to make a reality. The ideas of national liberation and communal society have taken root. Benjamin Dangls book tells how that came about; it will be a valuable resource in understanding what is to come.

Peter Lackowski is a retired Vermont school teacher who has been visiting and writing about Latin America, including Bolivia, since 2004.

View original post here:

Bolivia's Five-Hundred-Year Rebellion - Toward Freedom

The 6 January storming of the US capitol caused outrage amongst a large number of world leaders. Some of these dissenting world leaders, however, are now using the event as a central tactical argument to shore up their authoritarian regimes. Whilst there was a consistent display of shock and outrage from many governments, two of Americas principal rivals took a particularly different approach to the event. Both China and Russia have used the event as an instrument of propaganda at a time when stirring xenophoic and nationalist sentiment are important tools in Xi and Putins tactical arsenal.

Russian media was quick to capitalise on the chaos that unfolded on January 6th 2020, using the violent storming on Capitol Hill to discredit not just America, but the idea of democracy. State media immediately highlighted that the American electoral system is flawed, outdated and prone to various violations and irregularities.

Indeed, a spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Ministry remarked [w]e would point out that the electoral system in the US is archaic and doesnt meet modern democratic standards, creating the possibility for various violations. The argument that the US has no right to criticise Russias electoral system, which has consistently been labelled as being prone to fraud and various other issues, was a central element.

There has also been emphasis on how the Washington events have invalidated the US right to promote and push for democracy in other parts of the world. Konstantin Kosachev, chair of the Russian Senates Foreign Affairs Committee, announced [t]he celebration of democracy is over . . . America no longer forges that path, and consequently has lost its right to define it. Much less force it on others.

Some news outlets in Russia pointed to another instance of perceived hypocrisy, highlighting that many US lawmakers and political commentators initially were supportive of revolution in former Soviet states, where people have stormed government buildings and tried to overturn electoral results.

As former politician Sergei Markov put it, [t]he same politicians, experts, and media who only recently justified the seizure of government buildings in Ukraine, Belarus, and the street riots against Trump by supporters of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, now are categorically condemning the storming of the Congress.

The Russian narrative around these events has been enormously convenient for, and is directly linked to, Russia gearing up for their own state Duma elections in September of this year. Particularly in the lead up to these, Russia will be able to use the events that occurred in Washington to further silence dissent.

Given that previous Russian elections were reported to have had mass violations, Russia can use the siege to discredit any criticism from the US in the lead up to, or after, elections, in which the United Russia party is expected to win. The storming of the Capitol very much played into Russias hands, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling it the biggest gift to President Putin.

Russian political figures have drawn an additional parallel. Following the permanent suspension of Donald Trump from Twitter, one lower house legislator remarked, [s]ocial networks must work under strict rules within a legal framework because absolute freedom of information is becoming a weapon in the hands of extremists. This suspension bolsters certain autocracies practice of censoring their citizens and social media platforms. This is, once again, something that the US, after condemning other countries for using such a practice, have now done themselves.

This observation was also made in the Chinese media. The Chinese government and media reactions have greatly mirrored those of Russia, being keen to highlight US hypocrisy. However, China has been a bit more specific in their own grievances.

The stories of hypocrisy in Chinese state media specifically compare Westerm media and governments quick condemnation of protesters rioting and occupying the Capitol with their contrasting media coverage of Hong Kong activists when they stormed the Legislative Council building in July 2019.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, argued, [e]veryone may remember how some US politicians and media described the riots in Hong Kong, but look at their choice of words today. The US mainstream media have unanimously condemned todays event, called it violent and shameful and described the protesters as rioters, extremists and thugs. But do you remember what they said about Hong Kong rioters?

Again, in line with the Russian view, Chinese state media were keen to highlight the events as an undermining and discrediting of the democratic process, and to discredit the USs title as the leader of the free world. The Global Times tabloid called the episode a sign of internal collapse and degradation of the US political system not easily reversible.

Another state broadcaster, CCTV, noted, [t]he United States, which has always promoted democracy and human rights, is now the country of riots, conflicts and curfews. Many Chinese internet users mirrored sentiments expressed by Russia, commenting that the chaos unfolding in America was revenge and karma for its double standards.

Chinese reporters were in fact provided with instructions on what to emphasise in their reporting of the Capitol siege. Examples of the themes encouraged were other foreign leaders concerns about their alliances with the US, and the angle that democracies can be hijacked by the uneducated if allowed to.

Some Chinese netizens even mocked the Five Demands that were famously called for during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, reframing them to fit the US context. Indeed, the Capitol siege could not have occurred at a better time for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On the eve of the siege, Hong Kong law enforcement were arresting 53 political activists, including one American human rights lawyer. Such activity would usually make headline news, but as a result of the Capitol riots, went largely unnoticed.

The violent, criminal behaviour of the Capitol rioters provided Beijing with an almost perfect narrative to claim that censorship is a superior type of governance, a particularly useful and timely narrative at a time when they are attempting to clamp down on Hong Kong.

A similar story is unfolding in Russia, with citizens becoming increasingly unhappy with the United Russia Partys offering. The events of January 6th have the potential to play a part in solidifying the oppression of these two peoples, as well as others around the world. Iran, Turkey, Belarus, Zimbabwe and Venezuela are other nations that have spoken out, with similar evaluations of what the riots have laid bare about the fragilities of democracy. The Capitol riots appear to have come at an almost opportune time for two autocratic powers that are keen to tighten their grip on power in 2021.

Whether this insurrection may in fact spook Xi and Putin is another, less likely, possibility. Both leaders placing a high premium on continuity and stability, the events on Capitol Hill might have spooked them both. After all, if such a popular uprising can take place in the home of Western democracy, it can happen anywhere.

See the article here:

The Capitol Riots: How Have Americas Two Biggest Rivals Reacted? - Global Risk Insights

John Jays celebration of Black History Month traditionally culminates with our annual Malcolm/King Awards Breakfast, which pays homage to the two Civil Rights giants, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while also recognizing the incredible talents of our student award winners and present racial justice visionaries. While this years celebration may be a little different, the vigor in how we honor their legacy remains the same. In anticipation of this years virtual Malcolm/King Awards Breakfaston February 26, 2021, we spoke with the student award winners to understand what Black History Month means to them and to learn how they hope to advance the goals of justice and equality for all.

Jonathan Arias 22, a Political Science major from Queens, New York, has dreams of becoming a public official where he could help reimagine the current policies and practices that currently disadvantage African-Americans. The system were currently living in was designed to hold back minorities, he says. A month to celebrate Black excellence and African-Americans pushing past this unequal system doesnt seem like enough.

The system were currently living in was designed to hold back minorities. Jonathan Arias

What goals do you have for advancing equality and fairness for all peopleespecially African-Americans?I plan on finishing my Political Science major and then try to make an effort politically. There is so much unfairness in this world, especially in this country, that it seems almost impossible to overcome. As a public official, I would try to right historical wrongs, or die trying. There is so much that I want to tackle. I want to negate the impact of redlining, fight the school-to-prison pipeline, eliminate private prisons, and implement the proper distribution of funds for schools to all communities. Whether as a congressman or even as the future President of the United States, I plan on making a positive impact for all underrepresented communities.

There is so much that I want to tackle. I want to negate the impact of redlining, fight the school-to-prison pipeline, eliminate private prisons, and implement the proper distribution of funds for schools to all communities. Jonathan Arias

If you could talk to Malcolm X or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., what would you ask them? What would you want to say to them?I would talk to Malcolm X about his Ballot or the Bullet speech; it is one of my all-time favorites. In his speech, it is the white man who is the common enemy. He specifically said he is not anti-white but rather anti-exploitation, anti-degradation, and anti-oppression. I would like to ask him his stance on politicians since Im a Political Science major who is interested in becoming one. Due to the speech, I know his perspective on politics and politicians, but what if my intentions were good-hearted? How do I make an impact then? Would I gain his respect then?

Dr. King once famously said, Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. As a student at a school focused on justice, what does that quote mean to you?The quote means that we shouldnt lose hope. Even though minorities have been suffering due to hatred and oppression, we are meant to have justice sooner or later. Our sense of equality and fairness may not come within our lifetime, but it is bound to happen. In my political life, I hope to continue the work toward achieving true equality and that moral universe.

The last 12 months have been challenging, with a global pandemic that has disproportionately affected our Black and brown communities, and a national reckoning on systemic racism. What steps can we take to move forward as a society and a country to make equality for all achievable?One of the few things that need to happen is delivering the second round of stimulus checks to people. There have been many minorities who have lost jobs, lost their homes, lost lives, lost family members, and can barely afford to live life. These people were struggling before the pandemic, so imagine now. Beyond the second round of stimulus checks, the government also needs to grant tuition relief for the past year, especially for public and state universities.

If I cant change the world, I can change the life of the kid who will change the world. Jonathan Arias

If everything goes according to plan, where do you see yourself in 10 years?I see myself with a masters degree in Political Science. I hope to be giving my all for my constituents as an elected official. If Im not able to make a change politically, I could see myself becoming a professor or a teacher. If I cant change the world, I can change the life of the kid who will change the world.

See original here:

Malcolm/King Award Winner Jonathan Arias '22 Sets His Sights on a Political Career to Tackle Inequality | John Jay College of Criminal Justice - John...

By Martin Fey| For The Bulletin

A decade following Americas victory over the British in the War of 1812, running from 1815 until 1825, is known as The Era of Good Feelings. Americans found little to disagree about, the existing political parties atrophied, and the once powerful Federalist party of George Washington vanished. President James Monroe, elected in 1816, announced that it was his intent not to reconcile Federalists and his own Democrat-Republicans but to exterminate both parties as threats to democracy. He was re-elected unopposed in 1820.

That unanimity is hard to imagine today. The foremost reason is the lust for power. In the early 1800s the federal government was a small, poorly financed institution, its authority severely constrained by the Constitution and considered inferior to that of the states. Today the federal government is playing with over $6 trillion a year, an unimaginable treasure trove that Democrats and Republicans struggle to control. The U.S. government freely dictates to the states by heavily taxing their citizens and then doling the cash back along with encyclopedic conditions and minus a hefty bureaucratic brokerage fee.

The second reason is ideology. Historically Americans have eschewed political schools of thought, but the incessant push toward socialism, which started with the New Deal, has created an atmosphere similar to that which existed prior to the Civil War, when irreconcilable differences split the nation. From the 1960s to the year 2000, left-leaning Democrats pushed mainly for more social-welfare spending. They were countered by ostensibly more fiscally-conservative Republicans, epitomized by President Ronald Reagan. It was a Yin-Yang tussle that supposedly kept things in balance.

Todays leftists want more than welfare programs. They want to redefine America, starting with rewriting history so that American exceptionalism is replaced with the idea that we are a nation forever stained with the original sins of slavery and colonialism. We and particularly our children are being indoctrinated with the idea that racism is the most important issue facing us, that it is as virulent and systemic as ever, and that the only solution is to reject the past and embrace the ever-changing moral standards set by the left. There must be common sense gun control, but no common sense abortion restrictions. Free speech is a fundamental right, but only if that speech doesnt irritate sensitive liberal minds. The Constitution is sacred, but not when it stands in the way of the progressive agenda.

Prosperity is the biggest obstacle to socialism, so it must be restrained. Prosperity is one of the reasons the left hated President Trump. Miniscule unemployment and real increases in wages made people feel self-reliant; socialism needs government dependents. That is why the Biden administration is so eager to grant citizenship to anywhere between 16 and 22 million illegal aliens (see recent Yale study), most of them financially needy. The middle class, another obstacle to socialism identified by Karl Marx, must be made more dependent through heavy taxation and loss of jobs via globalization.

Unlike the countries of Europe and Asia, Americas are not bound by common DNA and long history but by ideals born less than 250 years ago. When we stop agreeing on those ideals we will forever move away from any era of good feelings and instead toward division, turmoil and oppression.

Martin Fey is a member of the Quiet Corner Tea Party Patriots.

See the original post here:

View from the Right: When we stop agreeing on ideals we will forever move away from any 'era of good feelings' - Norwich Bulletin

Question: Should governments be able to create laws that prevent people of a particular faith from entering their borders?

Julia McKay - Unitarian Universalist

Rev. Julia McKay is the minister of High Plains Church Unitarian Universalist and a professional spiritual companion dedicated to embodied life practices that enhance our deepest ways of knowing.

Does it make a difference if the government has a state-endorsed religion or a preferred but not officially sanctioned faith?What aboutnations with no official religion? Or those adverse to religion? A state religion is often about who is granted civil rights, e.g., who has legal status, what in group is granted benefits over others.Christianity was usurped by Constantines Roman Empire only when the faith began to gain massive social power.So, was the contemporary ban on Muslim travelers to the U.S. because Islam is the faith most often backed by governments worldwide?Isnt the deeper question really about what dangers we face when the power of government aligns with the power of faith?

Sarah Bender - Buddhist

Sarah Bender is a Roshi (senior teacher) in the Koan Zen Buddhist tradition. She is a resident teacher for Springs Mountain Sangha, a Zen community in Colorado Springs (smszen.org).

More than 7,874,965,825 people inhabit Earth. There are 197 sovereign nations (193 United Nations members) and 4,300-plus religions. The International Human Rights Declaration (UN, 1948) affirms the right to seek a safe place to live and the right to believe what we want; and one of the Covenants on Human Rights calls for prohibition by law of any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. Barring people on the basis of their beliefs, instead of behavior, violates international agreements; it harms not only those wishing to enter a nation, but also the people national laws are intended to protect. Fanning religious fear and intolerance produces internal violence, where healing and understanding are essential to our survival.

Ray Hendershot - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Ray has served on a mission to England, has been a bishop, and has held other key leadership positions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Currently, he works with other faiths to provide service to our community.

We believe in the right to worship God according to our conscience and allow all people the same privilege. Freedom of religion is a fundamental right in the United States and is protected by our Constitution. As citizens we are responsible to obey the laws of the country wherever we live or visit. People of faith who honor the laws of their country and desire to visit another country should not be prohibited, if they are willing to honor the laws of the country they want to visit. God has directed us to love our neighbors. People of faith should set examples of high moral standards and treat others as loving neighbors, as we are all children of God.

Bryan Garner - Ceremonial Magician

Rev. Bryan Garner is a published author, Ninjutsu instructor, lecturer and western ceremonial magician. He is currently pursuing ordination into the Apostolic Gnostic Priesthood of the Apostolic Johannite Church.

The issue really boils down to the individual believer. In religions where sacred texts require or encourage the suppression, oppression or obliteration of people of differing beliefs, this becomes unacceptable, especially for a believer that decides to follow these teachings literally. Without a doubt, imposing governmental restrictions could lead and has led to unfair discrimination against certain peoples. However, disregarding potential threats in favor of inclusion and acceptance alone has its risks. The government might be viewed as corrupt and bigoted for several reasons, many valid, but people killing other people over belief is unfortunately a long-lasting tradition in the history of humankind.

Join the conversation at InGoodFaith.org.

Read more here:

Opinion: Should governments be allowed to ban people of a certain religion? - Colorado Springs Independent