Daily Archives: January 14, 2022

Young, I. M. (1990). Five Faces of Oppression. (E. Hackett, & S. Haslanger, Eds.) Theorizing Feminisms, 3-16.

Five Faces of Oppression by Iris M. Young (1990) attempts to create an objective criteria by which we can judge the existence and levels of oppression of different groups. Young argues that oppression is a structural concept, preserved institutionally. In other words, oppression cannot be fought by replacing the ruler, but by overthrowing the system that keeps the ruler in place. Privilege and oppression are two sides to the same coin. For every oppressed group, a privileged group exists that benefits from their oppression, knowingly or not. Oppression is categorized into five different types: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence (Young, 1990). By breaking down each type of oppression, we can demonstrate the State to be an objectively oppressive institution that fosters and benefits from the oppression of its citizens.

Exploitation

Marxs theory of exploitation identifies the injustice of wage labor in that some people exercise their capacities under the control, according to the purposes, and for the benefit of other people. (Young, 1990, p. 6). Not only does the State perpetuate the existence of wage labor, but also the State itself relies on other people exercising their capacities under its control, according to its purposes, and for the benefit of the State.

The State perpetuates wage labor by making it difficult for people to seek alternatives, such as self-employment. State regulations create barriers to entry through zoning laws, licensing requirements, and special privileges awarded to large corporations with large political lobbies. Because the State makes starting and maintaining a business so difficult, those without large amounts of capital or political power have little choice but to work for those benefiting from the States policies.

The State also functions using money taken by force from workers in the form of taxation. When workers contract with their employers or earn money by working for themselves, they do not get to profit fully from their labor, having to hand a portion of their income to the State or face legal penalties. The State, therefore, systematically exploits its citizens in the form of expropriation. Without institutionalized theft, the State would not have the means to continue its daily operations.

Marginalization

According to Young (1990, p. 8), Marginals are people the system of labor cannot or will not use. For much of its history, the State has explicitly excluded marginalized people from citizenship through laws that discriminate against the poor, women, children, racial minorities, and the disabled. Although in the United States many of these laws are gone, the social effects of such laws remain. Groups that have historically been legally excluded from citizenship continue to remain in poverty and are most affected by other forms of oppression (Young, 1990).

This is not to say, however, that legal marginalization ceases to exist. The elderly, the poor, and the disabled rely on bureaucratic institutions for aid, while laws prevent unregistered charities from feeding the homeless or offering other services to those in need. The State forces children to stay in schools reminiscent of prison until their later teen years. Children cannot make most legal decisions for themselves without being emancipated. The mentally ill are involuntarily hospitalized in prison-like institutions when the State considers them to be a danger to themselves or others. The State deports poor immigrants for failing to fall in line with difficult and discriminatory immigration procedures, treating them as no more than criminals. Even today, the State marginalizes and excludes classes of citizens and treats them as less than people.

Powerlessness

Powerlessness, according to Young (1990), refers to the inability of an oppressed group to make decisions about their own lives. The State makes decisions daily for its citizens, removing them from the decision-making process, and rendering them powerless. For citizens who want to get involved in the political process, the only options are voting, lobbying, or running for political office. Voting is ineffective and lobbying and running for political office are expensive, so the average citizen has little ability to affect political decisions.

Those who run for political office are an economic elite. Politics is a career for the haves, not the have-nots. Even political activism takes a person away from their job, making the opportunity cost of getting involved much too high for the average worker. Voting takes very little time itself, but educating oneself on the options takes a substantial amount of time, making rational ignorance much more cost-effective. Government-hired bureaucrats, not elected officials, make many political decisions that affect citizens. Citizens have no say in who the FCC hires or who is in charge of the FDA. They must simply hope for the best.

Violence

Violence is perhaps the most obvious and easy to detect face of oppression. The State thrives on violence against its own citizens and the citizens of other countries. The State relies on violence and coercion to enforce its laws by creating a monopoly of force in the form of police and military. Through violence and the threat of violence, the State maintains its policies, which exploit, marginalize, and render powerless the States subjects.

Police officers are above the law, killing unarmed citizens without any form of recourse. Police get away with murder, assault, corruption, and other crimes in a system of justice designed to protect those in power. Rarely are police examined with legal scrutiny despite rampant misconduct. The State places citizens who commit nonviolent crimes in cages where they are subject to rape and other violence by their fellow inmates and by prison guards. Prisons do nothing to reform prisoners, making them more likely to continue to commit crimes and end up back in prison.

State violence also rears its ugly head in wartime. Even if war were ever justified, civilian casualties are an inevitable result of military action. The U.S. government spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on the military, despite not having declared a war since 1942. The military gives people with a passion for killing a legal outlet, and fosters a community where sexual assault runs rampant.

Cultural Imperialism

Cultural imperialism refers to the universalization of a dominant groups experience and culture, and its establishment as the norm. (Young, 1990, p. 12). The State relies on a dominant nationalist culture to legitimize its practices. Through propaganda and popular culture, the State generates loyalty among its citizens. One of the most obvious cases of the United States cultural imperialism is Cold War era propaganda that made acceptable massive increases in State power such as McCarthyism. After the Cold War, the U.S. continues to use propaganda to generate support for war and other rights violations. In the last four years, the U.S. government paid the NFL 5.4 million dollars to honor soldiers at football games.

The culture of patriotism is a culture that places decision-making power in the hands of rich, old white men in Washington. Cultural imperialism makes every other face of State oppression possible. Patriotism, or loyalty to the government, leads average citizens to accept their own exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and violence.

Overcoming State Oppression

Perhaps the most important takeaway from Youngs essay is the notion that oppression is structural. In other words, oppression is rooted in unquestioned cultural norms and practices, not individual choices. Young says, We cannot eliminate this structural oppression by getting rid of the rulers or making some new laws, because oppressions are systematically reproduced in major economic, political, and cultural institutions. (1990, p. 4). The State systematically reproduces oppression in all its faces, and we must oppose it as an institution. Changing the law or voting in new politicians will not make the State less inherently oppressive, as the State relies on exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, violence, and cultural imperialism to thrive. In order to overcome State oppression, the only option that remains is to overthrow the State.

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Five Faces of State Oppression - Center for a Stateless ...

"The last thing I wanted to do is hurt people. So, it was a very troubling time," Northam said.

RICHMOND, Va. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ran on the promise of moving the commonwealth forward, but quickly realized, he had to first address Virginia's past.

Northam had to respond to the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, just months before taking office and the perpetual protests for racial equality in the wake of George Floyds death at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis.

On top of those issues, the governor had to address his own controversial past.

"The last thing I wanted to do is hurt people. So, it was a very troubling time, Northam said in and interview with WUSA9.

In early 2019, an image surfaced from the governors 1984 medical school yearbook page showing someone in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.

Northam still denies appearing in that photo, but did admit to moonwalking once as Michael Jackson in blackface.

It was a dance contest. I had always liked Michael Jackson. I actually won the contest, Northam said during a press conference in 2019 explaining his past actions.

The eyes can't see sometimes what the brain doesn't know," Northam said. "My brain knows a lot more than it did four years ago and I think that's a good thing and I'm a better person because of it."

If Northams opponents and even his closest allies had their way, the governor would've resigned in February 2019 after the racist image circulated, but, he decided to stay toas he put itlisten and learn.

"Oh, I've learned a whole lot. I'll tell you one thing I've learned. When we talk about racial issues, I've learned Black oppression. We talk about that a lot. It's alive and well, just in a different form," the governor said. "I think a lot of people that look like me think that Black oppression ended with slavery, but then we had Jim Crow, then we had massive resistance and then mass incarceration."

For those lessons, Northam decided to put racial equity at the forefront of his agenda for his remaining time.

He established a commission to bring to light any laws that gave way to racial discrimination.

Northams administration legalized the recreational use of marijuana, repealed the death penalty, and also eliminated holidays and statues honoring Confederate generals.

"The last thing that we need are statues that glorify the people that fought for the institution of slavery, he said. "We don't need them. Not everybody agrees by the way, but they're gone."

Northam also got rid of a few items in the executive mansion and added items to uplift Black history. "When we moved in here, I had a sofa, a TV, a treadmill and some weights and it's all gone."

The governor and first lady began transforming the executive mansion to prominently feature the stories of Virginians of color, along with their contributions to the commonwealth, including the painful tales of those who were enslaved and worked in that house.

"We need to tell the truth," Northam said. "I went back interestingly and looked at my 4th grade history book. There are pictures in that 4th grade history book of enslaved Africans landing on the shores like they were having a big party. Everybody was happy. Well, that's not accurate information. We need to make sure what we're teaching our children is accurate and adequate."

Northam said without question, his administration's agenda concerning race and equality likely contributed to the politicization of Critical Race Theory during the 2021 gubernatorial race.

CRT, more broadly, examines how racism has shaped and impacted public policy, laws and modern life well beyond slavery.

"We will absolutely remove, rid the political agenda that has made its way into our classrooms by banning Critical Race Theory on day one, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) said during a campaign rally in 2021.

Critical Race Theory is not taught in Virginia Public Schools.

"I think the governor-elect and the next administration, they have a great opportunity to build on our progress and also a responsibility, Northam said.

When asked if he believes they will, Northam responded, "If any of what, the progress we've made is taken back, I think that the people will speak and say no, this is not what we wanted."

With hours remaining at the helm of Virginia's government, Northam said his experience leading was humbling. He admits that he and the commonwealth still have a lot more to learn. "I'm glad that Virginians stuck with me."

Northam is a pediatric neurologist and plans to return to his private practice in Norfolk.

Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin, said, A broad coalition of Virginians elected one of the most diverse statewide tickets in Virginia's history. And on Day One, Governor Youngkin will get to work on delivering for ALL Virginians.

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'We need to tell the truth' | How a racist photo lead Northam to reckon with racial injustice as governor - WUSA9.com

A bill to explore reparations for slavery in the United States has been sitting on the floor of the House of Representatives for nearly a year, with no signs that legislators will take it up any time soon. But policymakers in many communities arent waiting for the federal government to take actiontheyre taking matters into their own hands. And a new reparations lab at Northeastern aims to give them the tools to do so.

The Racial Redress and Reparations Lab, a part of the universitys Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), is designed to provide community education and engagement that paves the way for successful repair and recognition projects.

Broadly, reparations represent a system of redress for egregious injustices. So, what would they look like in 2022?

When a lot of people think about reparations, they think only about money, says Katie Sandson, program director for the Racial Redress and Reparations Lab.

Katie Sandson is an attorney and the program director for the Racial Redress and Reparations Lab at Northeastern. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

The money is important: The first instance of reparations in the U.S. was an (unmet) promise of 40 acres and a mule to former slaves as the Civil War drew to a close. And today, the average white family in the U.S. has 10 times the amount of wealth as the average Black family, according to The Brookings Institute. But the systemic oppression of Black people in the nation goes far beyond cash. The federal government redlined Black families out of fair housing opportunities for generations, and excluded Black students from educational opportunities.

From a restorative justice perspective, reparations can be a lot broader than that, Sandson says, although financial compensation can and should be an important piece of it.

Indeed, while H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a 13-person federal commission to study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination in the country and recommend appropriate remedies languishes in Congress, policymakers throughout the country are exploring local options for redress.

In March 2021, city councilors in Evanston, Illinois, voted to make reparations available to Black residents for harm caused by discriminatory housing policies and practices and inaction on the part of the City, according to the program guidelines. Black residents who experienced housing discrimination in the city can apply to receive $25,000 in housing benefits.

The benefit of state or local programs, such as Evanstons, Sandson says, is that policymakers can tailor the response to the particular needs of their communities. She explores how else communities might begin to repair historic inequities in a conversation with News@Northeastern that has been lightly edited for clarity.

Its been pretty well established that state-sanctioned racism in the U.S. dates back to, but certainly didnt end with, slavery. The CRRJ provides a small piece of evidence for that history, with a focus on 1930-1970, particularly the extent of racial violence during this time period and the role of governmental institutions enacting and upholding discriminatory and violent practices.

Even though we at the CRRJ are focused on the southern and border states, we understand that this history is both national and local, and affects communities in different ways. The work by CRRJ provides irrefutable evidence of the wrongs that have been committed and it provides evidence for the legacies of intergenerational trauma and wealth-loss that continue to affect families today.

From a restorative-justice perspective, its important that the same institutions are acknowledging this history and the ways in which it affects the present, but also taking tangible steps toward repair. Reparations, broadly defined, can be an important piece of that restorative process and of our larger national reckoning with that history.

At CRRJ in particular, we approach this idea of redress by drawing on principles from the fields of restorative and transitional justice that center on the affected individuals and communities, and prioritizes accountability, healing, and repair.

I think when a lot of people think about reparations, they think only about money. But, from a restorative justice perspective, reparations can be a lot broader than thatalthough financial compensation can and should be an important piece of it. For example, a reparative project might also include components like apology, acknowledgement, and truth-seeking processes, as well as compensation. Most importantly, reparative processes should be driven by the communities that are most affected.

What were seeing right now is a lot of movement at the state and local levels. Legislators introduced H.R. 40 at the federal level, and state and local efforts are not a replacement for federal action, but they can and should complement these federal efforts. We believe this is something all policymakers can and should be involved in, and what were seeing (and what we hope well continue to see in 2022) is that the urgency of the calls for reparations at the community level is being reflected in the responses by policymakers, and seeing that momentum continue to grow.

One benefit of state or local programs is that policymakers can tailor the response to the particular needs of their communities. For example, were seeing Evanston, Illinois, get a lot of attention as one of the first local governments in the country to move forward with a reparations programtheyve decided that their first initiative is going to target the history of housing discrimination in the city. That doesnt mean its the only thing theyre going to do around reparations, but its where theyre starting because of the particular history of the city.

A lot of these challenges are similar to the challenges that state and local governments face with many other policies these days. Funding is always a big one: Where is the money going to come from, and whats feasible in a given jurisdiction? Political will can be challenging too, especially when youre dealing in a society thats very divided and a topic thats very divisive. Community engagement is a big piece, too: Policies should be shaped by the people whove been most affected by this history and will be most affected by the policies. How can policymakers most effectively get those voices in the room and ensure theyre helping to drive the process?

Calls for repair arent new, they date back to the post-slavery moment, but I think were in a moment now where the topic is gaining unprecedented public and governmental support, and that momentum is playing out in public debate, private institutions, universities, and in government. This is happening all across the countrywere seeing these conversations in big cities, small towns, in the Midwest, the South, the West. Theyre small steps, not all of these efforts have passed or will pass, but its movement, and thats hopeful.

For media inquiries, please contact Marirose Sartoretto at m.sartoretto@northeastern.edu or 617-373-5718.

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Reparations Legislation is Stalled. Can Local Governments Fill the Gap? - News @ Northeastern - News@Northeastern

Our current political vernacular often conflates conservative and right wing.

While these terms have historically been used synonymously, in recent years they have become mutually exclusive in several contexts.Critical Race Theory (CRT) exemplifies this divergence.

Republican politicians across the country have introduced a wave of legislation aimed at suppressing critical race theory. Unsurprisingly, Republican politicians have been swift in introducing their own educational clampdown in the form of HB 18, AN ACT relating to prohibited instruction (and declaring an emergency).

But there is nothing conservative about prohibiting CRT. On the contrary. It flies in the face of bedrock conservative values, undermining the principles of limited and unintrusive government, the free market of ideas in public discourse, and local autonomy. Simply put, banning CRT reflects ideological hypocrisy.

The bills sponsors admit that they want to prohibit instruction of, one (at the time of this writing) particular idea: critical race theory. Two of Americas most venerated thinkers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison strongly rejected this strand of social philosophy. They each denied a role for government in the thought life of our citizenry. Jefferson perhaps said it most succinctly when he stated, the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

Traditional conservatives promote free markets and open market mechanisms. Let the market decide, they intone when it comes to economic issues.

Yet the marketnot the governmentshould determine ideas of policy, too. Thats why Jefferson and Mill argued for the marketplace of ideas.

The merits or flaws of CRT aside, do we as citizens of the commonwealth want members of our General Assembly to assume the privilege of determining which ideas deserve a platform and which should be suppressed? James Madison answered this question unequivocally, Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is danger of oppression. Preventing government from having any role in our thought life will prevent a dystopian future in which lawmakers determine Truth.

Most of us have flirted with, entertained, or even temporarily embraced ideas we later rejected. A notion can seem useful or powerful for a while, but time and argument reveal its flaws. Good and bad ideas come and go. The best ones stand the test of time. Bad ones lose traction and adherents.

We witness the invisible hand of the marketplace of ideas at work, organically. This process lies at the heart of what education is.

HB 18 will deny our young people the practice of assessing and deciding for themselves what may be the best ways to think about Americas racial past. Indeed, this bill will shut down the robust conversations we need to develop strong-minded thinkers who will lead Kentuckys future. These bills and the attitude that produced them do the exact oppositethey set us on a path to create weak-minded automatons, dependent on others to tell them what to think or what not to think.

Those are the practical, real-world effects of government intrusion on the intellectual development and curiosity of Kentuckys students and teachers.

And its interesting how we could see Ronald Reagan, the godfather of Americas most recent style of conservatism, standing in direct opposition to Right Wing Republican legislators attempts to prohibit instruction when he spoke, There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. Constraints and barriers are being erected in Frankfort.

Ironically, Reagan didnt just wax poetic about education in the United States. During his first administration, he sought to eliminate the newly created Cabinet-level Department of Education. The 1996 Republican Party Platform advocated the same. So, you see, conservative thought has sought for decades to remove government from education.

Conservatives prioritize local control. As much as possible, they maintain, difficult issues should be decided at the local level. This is, again, a belief deeply held by our Founding Fathers. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #36 that local citizens are to communicate knowledge of local circumstances to their state legislators. He did not write that state legislators are to inform residents on issues of their common and usual concern.

Sadly, this is one theory of government that HB18 tramples, and HB18 is just one example.

When it comes to an idea that Republican politicians seem to understand poorly, or choose not to take the time to vet thoroughly, they push one-size-fits-all, sweeping legislation. School boards, principals, teachers, and parents are far better equipped to determine the content and direction of instruction in their hometown classrooms across the commonwealth.

The stakes in this legislation are high. They represent fundamental questions about the limited role of government, the free market of ideas, and local autonomy historic building blocks of conservative ideology. Anyone who self-identifies as conservative and who supports this copy-cat legislation is providing us with a teachable moment. They simultaneously define Right Wing and duplicitous.

Tip Moodys past work experience includes the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Dole for President, Vice-President Dan Quayle, and the Republican National Committee.

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Un-conservative conservatism and Critical Race Theory - Winchester Sun - Winchester Sun

A Haitian migrant father shares a moment with his daughter at an improvised refugee shelter in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, Sept. 24, 2021, across the Rio Grande river from Del Rio, Texas, after being denied the right to apply for asylum in the United States. | Fernando Llano / AP

The American understanding of Haiti is stained with poverty, natural disasters, and political turmoil. As a result, some Americans think Haitians just need to figure it out and stop putting their hands out, while others take a paternalistic approach and think the United States should interfere and help even if that is not what Haitians want. These sentiments are bolstered by misrepresentations of Haiti in the media and in academia.

The production of history is shaped by power; Haitian Scholar, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, wrote about this in his book,Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Trouillot suggests that our knowledge and understanding of history is limited and incomplete because a lot of what actually happened is left out, intentionally or unintentionally. This has to do with who has the power to write history. Many Americans find it difficult to accept history as it actually happened, which allows them to view current events with a narrow lens and form opinions that lack historical and factual basis.

On September 17, the last of nearly 14,000 asylum-seeking Haitian migrants who had gathered under an international bridge at the border in Del Rio, Texas were forcibly removed.The injustice at the border became a crisis for President Joe Bidens administration when both the special envoy for Haiti and the State Departments senior legal advisor resigned in protest of the treatment of Haitian migrants.

But lets make this clear: Biden administration officials will go to sleep at night in their beds. Its unlikely they will worry about where their next meal will come from. The true crisis is this: The United States has created the very conditions that Haitians are fleeing from. The American government has tried over and over to wash their hands clean of responsibility for Haitis corruption. Now, President Biden joins the long line of presidents who have turned their back on Haitians when they are facing the consequences of American imperialism.

They say history is written by the victors, but in the spirit of reframing our understanding of history, Ill say this: History is written by the colonizers for the colonial gaze. Its important to keep that in mind when looking at countries like Haiti. And when attempting to understand Haitis current state, we have to go way back.

The history of exploitation in Haiti is extensive and spans hundreds of years. Well have to go back all the way to 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on Hispaniola, the island that would eventually become Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Through trade with the Indigenous people, the Tano, Columbus discovered they had a lot of gold and the following year began colonizing the Caribbean with brutal zeal. The Spanish enslaved the Tano and within 25 years had killed most of the Indigenous people by enslavement, massacre, or disease brought by the colonists. By 1535, the Tano culture and people were nearly wiped out from the island. In 1697, Spain gave up a portion of the island (now Haiti) to the French. This portion of Haiti became Frances most profitable colony because they forced people into slavery to mass-produce crops.

With the Tano people decimated, the French had to look elsewhere for relatively cost-free labor. In less than 100 years, more than 800,000 people were stolen from West Africa and sent to Haiti to work. More than a third of the Atlantic slave trade landed in Haiti. Slavery in Haiti was brutal and severe; enslaved people faced inhumane conditions. Enslaved people in Haiti produced 60% of coffee and 40% of the sugar exported to Europe in the 1780s. The life expectancy for an enslaved person at the time was 21 years.

In 1791, the enslaved population launched an uprising against the French that sparked a 13-year war, resulting in the largest successful revolution of enslaved people in history. When American leaders heard of the revolt, they provided support for the white colonists on the island and allowed them to come to America as refugees with the enslaved people they owned. In 1804, Haiti was declared an independent nation, second only to the United States in the Western Hemisphere, the first Black republic and the first nation to be run by formerly enslaved people.

What was more remarkable and perhaps unknown to most, the first constitution of Haiti was among the first written national constitutions in the modern world. Under their constitution, Haiti was the first nation to permanently outlaw slavery. Out of fear and disbelief, the United States refused to recognize Haiti as an independent sovereign nation for almost 60 years. They feared this would inspire slave insurrections in the States, but they also found it hard to wrap their minds around the fact that the enslaved population had the desire, much less the capacity, to wage a war against the French Army, win, establish their own nation, and have a robust constitution.

The world was silent around the Haitian Revolution. How is it that a groundbreaking revolution, that yielded more liberty and human rights than the American and French Revolution, heard crickets from the international community then and now, too? Its probably not good for the narrative of Haiti as a country of poor Black people who cant govern themselves.

In 1825, after recognizing Haitian independence, France threatened to invade them again if they wouldnt reimburse them for the loss of their propertythe Haitian people themselves and their labor. Haiti paid 150 million gold francs, the equivalent of $21 billion, to France to assure they would never return to slavery. France demanded more money than they knew was possible, causing Haiti to default on the payments and sending the young country into economic decay. Again the world said nothing.

Capitalizing on this silence, in 1915, at the first sign of opportunity, the United States invaded Haiti to advance and promote their economic interests. The U.S. Marines sought to change the Haitian constitution to allow foreigners to own land and also to move Haitis financial reserves to the United States. The U.S. Department of State also made the Haitian Senator Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave the head of state against the popular consensus of Haitians. The United States used Dartiguenave to dismantle any attempts to remove U.S. influence in Haiti. During his presidency, the Haitian Army was disbanded, the legislature was dissolved, and less than 5% of the population voted during elections to change the constitution.

During the occupation, the U.S Marines brought infrastructure, ordering the building of roads, schools, and hospitals by Haitians who were forced to work and paid little to no money. For almost 20 years, the United States occupied Haiti and crushed Haitians who opposed it. Fifteen thousand Haitians were killed for several reasons during this time. In 1934, the United States withdrew from Haiti but still controlled the purse strings and maintained heavy influence.

Haiti was vulnerable and fell under the dictatorship of the Duvaliers from 1957 to 1986. They were a father and son who ruled the island under violence and political and social oppression supported by the U.S. government in order to prevent the island from falling to communism. Nearly 30 years of U.S.-backed political corruption, violence, and terror plummeted the island further into extreme poverty, with 80% of the population illiterate and out of work. This caused many to flee the island.

The U.S. government decided that the Haitians who began arriving in the 1980s, seeking asylum, were not political refugees, but rather economic refugees seeking a better life and better jobs. This made them ineligible for asylum.

During the Carter administration, President Jimmy Carter sought ways to help the Haitian immigrants, making Haitian and Cuban immigrants eligible to apply for the Cuban-Haitian Entrant Program (CHEP) in order for them to be granted asylum, but only if they were in the country before Oct. 10, 1980. If any Haitians or Cubans attempted to arrive after that they would be charged and deported.

When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency, he enforced these rules. The Coast Guard intercepted and seized any ships and boats carrying refugees and sent them back to Port-au-Prince in Haiti. While on the boat to the capital, the Coast Guard conducted interviews to possibly grant asylum to some of the Haitian immigrants. Out of 25,000 applications, only 28 were granted asylum.

In 1990, Haiti had what was considered to be a free and fair election. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected as president with 67% of the vote. Aristide had a hopeful message for Haiti: to end the ethical and economic battles of the poor. This did not go over well because the countrys rich and elite, who opposed him, were forced to pay high taxes. Aristide was ousted by a military coup led by Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, causing over 40,000 people to leave the country. Many of these people fled on makeshift boats, risking their own lives and the lives of their families and children to make it to Florida. Again, there was only silence from the world.

Under Cedras, Haiti sunk further into despair. All the work and promises made by Aristide could not be kept, all those removed from power by the Aristide administration were restored to their previous positions, the army took control over the prisons, and many other aspects of Haitian life. The military created a culture of fear and violence, targeting the poor, women, and anyone who stood in their way. Again, tens of thousands of Haitians fled Haiti in hopes of gaining political asylum.

On May 24, 1992, President George H.W. Bush enacted Executive Order 12807, Interdiction of Illegal Aliens. In this order, he suspended the entry of Haitian immigrants coming by sea to the United States without necessary documentation, to establish reasonable rules and regulations regarding, and other limitations on, the entry, or attempted entry of aliens into the United States and to repatriate aliens interdicted beyond the territorial sea of the U.S. The reasoning given by the Bush administration was that the influx of refugees was causing a dangerous and unmanageable situation. After 18 Haitian people died when their boat capsized on their way to Florida, the Bush administration used the tragedy to halt Haitian immigration under the guise of preventing any more deaths due to the unsafe boat conditions.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that over a thousand Haitians were killed following the coup led by Cedras, so it must have been human rights violations the Haitians were fleeing from. Even so, the Bush administration did not change its mind, and the policy stayed in effect.

When Bill Clinton was running for president, he rebuked Bushs decision to turn his back on the Haitian people and said that he would change things if elected. This promise rang hollow when Haitians who arrived by boat continued to be forcibly returned. Clinton clarified that his plan to help Haitians was not to accept them into the country, but rather to improve the conditions that led them to flee in the first place, leaving countless Haitians who hoped a Clinton presidency would improve chances for asylum with few options.

Shortly after Clinton began his term as president, he made clear his intention to remove the military faction that ousted Aristide to restore a democratically elected leader and rebuild the economy. On Sept. 19, 1994, with the support of the United Nations Security Council, the United States intervened and Aristide was restored to the presidency. Operation Restore Democracy, as it was called, was lauded as a success by the U.S. government, but at great cost to the Haitian people.

In exchange for American intervention, Haiti was bound to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment program, which transitioned the country into a market economy. Haiti suffered under these neoliberal policies that privatized national enterprises. The Clinton administration forced the country to lower its tariffs, which allowed cheap American-grown crops to take over the agricultural markets. Many rural Haitians worked as farmers for a living. Under these new policies, the Haitian government had to remove the subsidies on things people needed to make a living.

Lets also keep in mind that due to centuries of agricultural exploitation starting from the colonial plantation system, less than 1% of Haitis natural forests remain. Haiti is one of the most deforested countries on Earth, causing many types of environmental issues like erosion and species extinction, that ultimately left the soil barren. This created a dependency on imported goods. Haitian businesses could not keep up with the international market. This resulted in a transfer of wealth out of Haitian farmers into the subsidized farmers in the developed world. Many Haitian farmers were pushed off their land.

Haiti has more NGOs per capita than any country in the world, giving it the most privatized social service sector in the west. These unelected organizations are unaccountable to the Haitian people; they call the shots and can profit off of the people they are supposed to help. The phrase NGO is kind of a misnomer because in Haiti they are 70% funded by North American governments.

In 2010, Haiti was rocked by an earthquake that ended a brief period of prosperity. Thousands died, and those who survived faced famine and disease. After the earthquake, when disaster relief money poured in from various organizations around the world, less than one cent of each dollar went to the Haitian government; meanwhile, NGOs got forty-three cents, and thirty-three cents ended up with the U.S. military. Billions of dollars were donated to the Haitian Earthquake Relief, but because of the lack of transparency and accountability for the NGOs that raised all that money, theres no way to know how it was actually spent.

Most of the organizations failed to deliver the long-term promises they made to the Haitian people. Instead, NGOs spent a lot of money on temporary solutions to long-term problems; there were temporary shelters, but no homes, so survivors found themselves homeless again.

The American Red Cross (an NGO) raised $500 million and continued to raise money after they reached their relief goal, but after almost 11 years, people are confused as to where the money went because conditions in Haiti have not improved.

NPR and ProPublica launched an investigation to find out where the Red Cross spent the money. They found a string of poorly managed projects, questionable spending, and dubious claims of success. The Red Cross says it provided homes to 130,000, but records show it only builtsixpermanent homes. They over-promised and under-delivered. They didnt have any real plan for what would actually work for the Haitian people because they did what they thought would generate good publicity, and they were out of touch with the needs and wants of the people they were helping.

In the past several years, political unrest, instability, and violence have become the norm, and last year was no exception. Haitian President Jovenel Mose was assassinated last summer. Weeks later, the country was struck by another earthquake that killed thousands.

The Haitian people are resilient and strong, but they are exhausted. They are carrying centuries of generational trauma with no end in sight. Its time for the United States and the entire world to do right by Haiti. Its time for the people of Haiti to stop paying the price for Liberation.

Bay kou. bliye, pote mak sonjeis a Haitian proverb that means, The culprit forgets, the victim remembers. It is time for us to be honest about Americas role in destabilizing Haiti as punishment for having the audacity to imagine freedom and having the courage to fight for it and win. Its time for us to acknowledge the fact that the United States was largely responsible for the accumulation of migrants at the border in September 2021. Offering Haitian migrants asylum is not just the right thing to do, it is the least that is owed to the Haitian people.

Still, President Biden decided to send people back to a country they did not destroy, where their future is uncertain and bleak. The situation at the border in Del Rio, Texas, may soon be forgotten by the American public and the world. President Biden joins a line of U.S. presidents that upheld the same silence that dismissed and minimized one of the most significant human rights revolutions in history.

There is no quick fix to the issues Haiti is facing right now. There are centuries of oppression to rectify. One thing is certain, until the people of Haiti are given what theyre owed, we will continue to see the same pattern weve seen throughout history.

If you find yourself wondering why people would leave their home with only a bag, cross through multiple countries in South America, risk getting beaten by Border Patrol, risk detention in inhumane U.S. immigrant facilities, endure hunger and thirst, and put their lives and the lives of their families in harms way, remember this quote from Toussaint Louverture, one of the most famous leaders of the Haitian Revolution:

We have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty, we shall know how to brave death to maintain it.

Remember that Haitians fought for 13 years for freedom, remember that they made makeshift boats and braved the sea, remember they packed up their entire lives. We should not make the same mistake of underestimating what people will do for freedom and what they will risk to attain it. The silence must be broken.

This article originally appeared in South Side Weekly. As with all op-eds published by Peoples World, this article reflects the opinions of its author.

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After centuries of oppression, asylum is the least U.S. could offer Haitians - People's World

New York, USA Chinese authorities were committing crimes against humanity as part of a widespread and systematic attack on Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkestan, including mass detention, torture, and cultural persecution. Tibetans continued to be subjected to grave abuses, including harsh and lengthy imprisonment for exercising their basic rights, said Human Rights Report 2022.

On 13 January 2022, Human Rights Watch published the 32nd edition of its World Report 2022, highlighting cases of repression of dissent in Hong Kong, repression of Uighurs in East Turkestan, and oppression of Tibetans in Tibet, as well as attempts to silence those who have exercised their human rights, and propagates disinformation, and tighten the reins on technology giants.

According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) Report 2022, Tibetan areas continue to severely restrict freedoms of religion, expression, movement, and assembly. They also fail to address popular concerns about mining and land grabs by local officials, which often involve intimidation and unlawful use of force by security forces.

Following a November 2020 announcement tightening controls on online communications that undermine national unity, there was a surge of reported detentions of Tibetans in 2021 for alleged online offenses. In particular, Tibetans who communicated with people outside China were harassed and punished, regardless of the content of their communications, the World Report 2022 added.

The (Chinese) government stepped up coercive assimilationist policies. Chinese language classes were already compulsory for school teachers, local officials, and vocational trainees. In July, authorities announced that kindergartens in ethnic minority areas must use Chinese as a medium of instruction. In August, President Xi emphasized the subordination of minority identities to a single national identity at the national Ethnic Work conference, the report stated.

Authorities heightened surveillance and intimidation at all levels, from online to neighborhoods to schools, and have rendered protestssuch as those over the downgrading of the minority language in Inner Mongolia in 2020virtually impossible in Tibetan areas, the Human Rights report said.

At least eight Tibetan prisoners or suspects were released due to ill health, some due to torture, four of whom died soon after, though the true number is unknown due to extreme information controls in Tibet, the Human Rights Watch said.

In Tibet, the authorities stepped up coercive assimilationist policies and heightened surveillance and intimidation at all levels, it stated.

The Chinese governments heightened repression at home, and use of hostage diplomacy and confrontational wolf-warrior diplomacy abroad generated international pushbacks against its human rights record, HRW said.

President Xi Jinpings New Era has not only entrenched him as Chinas leader, but also entrenched oppression across China, said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2022 is 752 pages long and reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries in 2021.

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Tibetans continued to be subjected to grave abuses for exercising their human rights: HRW Report 2022 - Tibet Post International

In the late hours of January 12, 2022, the Nigerian government announced the discontinuation of its Twitter ban seven months after it was placed. According to a statement by the National Information Technology Development Agency, signed by President Buhari, the primary cause for lifting the ban was the social media platforms agreement to open a local office.

Twitter has been a major tool that young Nigerians have used to air their grievances against their government, and foster communities to seek change. The platform served as a strong force during the #EndSARS protests as a virtual protest point, helping circulate important information that peacefully mobilized protesters and secured the release of detained protesters.

"The voices of young Nigerians are often placed in a box by the ruling class, never to be heard," comments journalist Nasir Ahmed Achile. "But the communities formed on Twitter reinforced the idea of strength in numbers and the understanding that were all so alike, facing similar struggles, fighting the same oppression."

It came as a big blow on the 8th of June 2021, when the Nigerian government decided to place a ban on Twitter after the platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, which threatened citizens in the southeast region following destruction of public property.

We are pleased that Twitter has been restored for everyone in Nigeria. Our mission in Nigeria & around the world, is to serve the public conversation. nWe are deeply committed to Nigeria, where Twitter is used by people for commerce, cultural engagement, and civic participation.

So many businesses have been affected by the Twitter ban, small and big alike," says Cosmas Ojemen, the Creative Director of Pith Africa. "Some existing and potential customers stopped using the app altogether because of the extra steps it took to login each time with a VPN. And businesses themselves faced the anxiety of possible government action against them. Im glad its back.

The decision to ban the social network at the time was condemned by many nations including the UK, Canada, the US, and members of the EU, however, the Nigerian government stood firm in saying that the removal of the tweet was disappointing.

According to the government statement, the decision to lift the ban was made after Twitter agreed to meet all conditions set by the Nigerian government. Those conditions include "managing prohibited publication in line with Nigerian law, and addressing issues of operations and tax, CNN reported.

"The new global reality is that digital platforms and their operators wield enormous influence over the fabric of our society, social interaction, and economic choices. These platforms can be used as either a tool or a weapon. Therefore, our action is a deliberate attempt to recalibrate our relationship with Twitter to achieve the maximum mutual benefits for our nation without jeopardizing the justified interests of the company. Our engagement has been very respectful, cordial, and successful," the Nigerian government said in its Wednesday statement.

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Nigeria's Government Has Lifted Its Twitter Ban - OkayAfrica

Associate professor of history Edmund Abaka remembers Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist who received an honorary degree at the University of Miamis 2018 spring commencement.

Only Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu can describe the first voting experience as something like falling in love. This gentle giant was a teacher, Anglican bishop, archbishop, Nobel Laureate (1984), fearless defender of the defenseless, and a voice of the voiceless.

He was an apostle of civil rights when the dogs of war had been unleashed on South Africans of color by a shamelessly white supremacist government that believed in separateness.

If there were a one-line summation of the life and legacy of Tutu, it would be that he opened his mouth for the voiceless who were under the heel of apartheid, a political system of racial discrimination that turned people of color in South Africa into second- and third-class citizens whose rights, if they had any at all, no white person was bound to respect.

What made Tutu an influential world-historical figure was his adherence to the principles of truth, righteousness, and moralityprinciples by which he lived and died. He used those principles to fight against the awfulness of apartheid and the gravy train mentality of the African National Congress, South Africas post-apartheid ruling government.

One surprising thing about Tutu registered vividly in my mind when I had the distinct honor of meeting him at Florida International University a few years back. From newspaper and television reporting of the work of this larger-than-life figure who heroically and courageously confronted the evils of apartheid, one gets the impression of an imposing individual and a commanding presence.

But the revered archbishop was relatively diminutive and often dressed simply in a purplish shirt and a clerical collar, sometimes topped with a suit jacket. The point? The simplicity and humility of so enormously popular an advocate of social justice, of equal rights, of the humanity of people, of a rainbow nation in which people of all races would proudly feel part of, and of the goodness of humanity (while cognizant of the evils of humanity) is overwhelming.

He was against the oppression of black by white and white by black. He personified a worldview animated by a popular African philosophy: I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am. By implication, ours is a shared responsibility and shared humanity. Any injustice or discrimination diminishes us all. That personifies the world champion of the rights of oppressed people that Tutu was.

The smiling archbishopand I call him the dancing archbishop with the wicked sense of humorhas taught us what we can be, in our own right, in our work, and in our lives. He would ask us to see the humanity of people, eschew acts of intolerance, pursue knowledge in areas where we fall shortincluding biasand nurture inclusiveness to make the world a better place for all. It is not for nothing that the University of Miami conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Tutu at the 2018 spring commencement ceremony.

A graduate of the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, West Africa, Edmund Abaka is an associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu was 'an apostle of civil rights' - University of Miami

DetailsBy Williamson Chang & Abbey Seitz - Next CityJanuary 14, 2022

Guest Opinion The discussion on affirmative action usually involves workplaces or higher education, but never housing.Why not? In Hawaii, there is a century-old land and housing program for native Hawaiians, arguably one of the nations longest running affirmative action programs. Despite the lack of national attention this program has received, it offers a hundred years of lessons for any new effort that a city, state or federal government might design to counteract historic and ongoing racial discrimination.

[NOTE: This op-ed originally appeared on Next City, a nonprofit news organization with a solutions-journalism focus that amplifies solutions to the problems that oppress people in cities. It is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.]

Everywhere you look, policy makers are discussing how to address racial inequities, stemming from colonization, enslavement, segregation, and ongoing oppression. A commonly known and controversial strategy is affirmative action, which refers toprograms intended to affirm the civil rights of designated classes by taking positive action to protect them from, in the words of Justice William J. Brennan Jr., the lingering effects of pervasive discrimination.

Most scholars believe affirmative action was not legally established in the United States until the late 20th centurythrough a series of court decisions interpreting the Civil Rights guarantees within the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet, affirmative action policies had already taken hold in Hawaii through a housing and land program for native Hawaiians, created by theHawaiian Homes Commission Act(HHCA), in 1920.

This groundbreaking piece of legislation was born from harrowing events for the Hawaiian people. Pre-Western contact, an estimated 400,000 to over 800,000 people lived in the Hawaiian Islands. However,by 1840, the number of Native Hawaiians had declined by 84%due to disease and displacement by foreign settlers. In 1893,a U.S.-backed group of sugar and pineapple plantation owners deposed Queen Liliuokalani and lobbied the U.S. president for annexationof Hawaii, which occurred in 1898. Leading up to, and following the U.S. overthrow, Hawaiians were forcibly removed from their land, and denied the right to practice their native culture, religion, or language.

To combat this dire situation, in 1920,Prince Jonah Khi Kalanianaoledelivered an impassioned speech to Congress, in which he proclaimed: The Hawaiian race is passingand if conditions continue to exist as they do today, this splendid race of people, my people, will pass from the face of the earth. In response, Congress passed the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which set aside 200,000 acres of land across the islands for homesteading by native Hawaiians. Today, the homesteading program is managed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which provides thousands of beneficiaries with 99-year homestead leases at $1 per year to live on, grow crops, or raise animals.

Full-length books can and should be dedicated to the HHCA to discuss all of its successes and faults, but for now, here are a few major lessons that can be gleaned for future affirmative action efforts, particularly for housing and land programs:

Defining an ethnic, racial or cultural group is difficult, and can lead to division.The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act provides benefits to people deemed native Hawaiians. While not the original intention of Prince Kuhio, when the HHCA was passed, it defined a native Hawaiian as someone with 50 percent or higher Hawaiian blood quantum. This was done because of the influence of plantation owners who understood that as Hawaiians increasingly mixed with foreigners, this blood quantum threshold would reduce the number of people eligible for the program. Then and now, these requirements have caused dividing lines between Hawaiians who qualify as beneficiaries and those who do not, and are seen as less than. (native Hawaiian (lower case n) refers to persons with 50 percent or higher Hawaiian blood quantum. Native Hawaiian (capital N) refers to all persons of Hawaiian ancestry regardless of blood quantum.)

Affirmative action programs must be paired with a plan.Since Hawaiis statehood, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL), has been responsible for managing homesteading. The agency is under scrutiny for its inability to meet the growing housing demand of native Hawaiians. Critics of DHHL highlight the agencys underperformance: Only 10,000 homesteads have been leased since the program began and today over 29,000 beneficiaries are on the DHHL waiting list. This is attributed to bureaucratic constraints, underfunding, limited land and infrastructure, among other factors. Every grand vision, including affirmative action, needs a plan.

Acknowledge the history and meaning of the program.While DHHL is described as a housing lottery program, it represents so much more.Chapter 43 of the United States Codenotes that the United States has a special responsibility for the welfare of the Native peoplesincluding Native Hawaiians, and that the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was intended to rehabilitate a landless and dying people. The dire impacts caused by Western colonization and the U.S. overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was further affirmed in the1993 Apology Resolution, in which President Clinton apologized on behalf of the United States for participating in the removal of the independent monarchy by force.

In Hawaii and abroad, there is little discourse on why this homesteading program was created, or fact that it is a revolutionary effort that aims to correct the wrongs of genocide and colonization. With more public discourse, we could shift the narrative away from what DHHL is doing wrong, to how this program could be improved understanding that land and housing is only one aspect of a much larger toolkit needed for Hawaiians to live and thrive in their homeland.

To broadly characterize the Hawaiian homesteading program as a success or failure seems misguided. Focusing solely on the programs underperformance would gloss over the fact that it has allowed thousands of Hawaiians to stay rooted to their land, an achievement that is invaluable to many indigenous communities. Like many government undertakings with a grand and virtuous vision, the results are mixed.

Despite July 2021 marking the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, it has received no national attention. At a moment when affirmative action programs and similar reparation efforts are beingdiscussed more than ever, we must acknowledge that we have a precedent that is a century in the making, and is still impacting thousands of people at this very moment.

At the very least, this program should encourage policy makers and urban planners toconsider the possibility of implementing affirmative action housing policies elsewhere in the United States. Although Native Hawaiians have faced unique oppression and discrimination, which persists today, the movement to affirm the rights of Hawaiians through access to land and housing provides lessons for reconciling our dark history with Black and Brown communities throughout this country.

By studying this effort, and other similar programs across the globe, we are better equipped to understand the factors that make implementing affirmative action programs so complex, and how, with the right vision and plan, affirmative action can lead to transformative change that our society so desperately needs.

Williamson Chang, professor of law, has taught at the William S. Richardson School of Law since 1976. He has been active in serving the Native Hawaiian community and in 2017 he was recognized as the Native Hawaiian Patriot of the year.

Abbey Seitz is a professional community planner and freelance writer with a masters in Urban & Regional Planning from the University of Hawaii at Mnoa. She foundedPlanning for Community LLC, a housing and transportation consultancy firm.

The truth about Indian Boarding Schools

This month, were asking our readers to help us raise $10,000 to fund our year-long journalism initiative called The Indian Boarding School Project: A Dark Chapter in History. Our mission is to shine a light on the dark era of forced assimilation of native American children by the U.S. government and churches. Youll be able to read stories each week and join us for Livestream events to understand what the Indian Boarding School era has meant to Native Americans and what it still means today.

This news will be provided free for everyone to read, but it is not free to produce. Thats why were asking you to make a donation this month to help support our efforts. Any contribution of any amount big or small gives us a better, stronger future and allows us to remain a force for change.Donate to Native News Online today and support independent Indigenous journalism. Thank you.

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Op-ed: Lessons from More Than a Hundred Years of Affirmative Action in Hawai'i - nativenewsonline.net

The fight between the federal government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) took on a new phase after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed decided to lead the war from the front lines. Moments after Abiy's decision, the government media aired footage showing him wearing military dress while prompting the federal troops. Although it was unverifiable, Abiy appeared to be at the battleground. His decision brought a tangible military gain as the federal troops forced the TPLF to withdraw from the territories they had captured and retreat to their home region as their leadership announced. This swing of the pendulum occurred after months of federal troops being on the back foot and TPLF forces reaching up to a day's drive away from Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia's current conflict goes back to 2018 when Ethiopia's political turbulences saw Abiy ascend to the premiership. To implement his reform agenda, Abiy seems to have been convinced from the outset of the inevitable need to take power from TPLF affiliates and consign them to the margins. Hence, the government embarked on purging Tigrayans from critical positions, particularly military and intelligence posts. Also, the government dissolved the infamous Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that, besides the TPLF, had three other satellite parties under its umbrella. In addition to that, Abiy made a historical rapprochement with the isolated state of Eritrea the staunch enemy of Ethiopia for the last three decades. The opening to Eritrea brought international prestige to Abiy, culminating in his winning of the Nobel prize. On the other hand, it was part of a bigger move aimed at squeezing the TPLF.

The relatively settled down fight as it seems now broke out on November 2020 after the TPLF launched an attack on the Northern Command of Ethiopia's National Defense Force (ENDF). With the help of the Eritrean troops and paramilitary militias from the Amhara ethnicity, the ENDF captured the capital city of the Tigray region (Mekelle) within a few days. According to human rights organizations, the forces that entered Mekelle committed crimes against humanity such as extra-judicial killing, torture and mass rape against Tigray women. Also, the government imposed a total embargo on the region including the suspension of humanitarian aid entering the region. The collective punishment by the federal government sparked a huge international outcry, with some observers even warning of a potential genocide if the violence continued. Part of the fallout of the deadly conflict is the existence of more than 9 million people who are in a dire situation and need urgent humanitarian assistance according to the United Nations.

One thing for sure is that Ethiopia's dilemma isn't a novel one that started with the TPLF. It emerged long before, during the second half of the 19th century when the northern Abyssinians, backed by Europeans, subjugated the southern people for the purpose of exploiting their resources needed by the European entrepreneurs. At that time, European colonizers bolstered the Abyssinians at the expense of the colonized southern people by creating a unique system not implemented in other parts of Africa an internal dependent superstructural colony that served the interest of the Europeans. In their seminal book "The Invention of Ethiopia," Bonnie K. Holcomb and Sisai Ibssa stated that in order for the Ethiopian regime to maintain existence it has had to successfully manage three basic requirements:

Thus, the tight control and oppression policy against the colonized nations have been part of keeping the state together; otherwise, the very existence of Ethiopia would be threatened.

Certainly, the state dominated by Abyssinians failed to embrace other nationalities through a creed-based state project, rather, they sought legitimacy through coercion and tight control. The state harnessed every available brutality to subjugate their colonized populations in the interior, like the Oromo, Afar and Somali people, with the land of the colonized people grabbed and distributed as booty to Abyssinian garrisons sometimes through spurious land-reform justifications.

By the same token, the TPLF regime, which ruled the country for nearly 30 years, followed the same path of coercion and subjugation with uninterrupted financial and technical support from Western powers. Since the turn of the 20th century, successive tragedies revealed the essence of the problem, which was a state project forcefully compelled by certain ethnic groups from Ethiopia's highlands at the expense of the subjugated majority who have been rejecting the project. The West's outcry against what is happening in northern Ethiopia is by no means a sign of goodwill, but only aims to sustain the miserable dictatorial system that serves the West's neo-colonial agenda.

In conclusion, the 13-month conflict achieved nothing and prolonged conflict will only lead to further bloodshed. Hence, the federal government and the TPLF should come to gather at the table of negotiation to prevent a metastasizing hostility. The government's victory over the TPLF could be a starting point for an alternative approach, particularly given the TPLF's announcement that they have pulled back in order to give space for negotiations. An incremental approach should be devised. Hence, a deal that firstly stipulates the cessation of hostilities should be reached so that other daunting issues can be dealt with at a later time.

Surely, reaching a settlement on the Tigray issue is not enough to solve Ethiopia's centennial dilemma, because the country's troubles stem from lack of popular legitimacy and deep resentment. Hence, listening to the voice of the subjugated people and searching for their acceptance is inevitable. Sorting out the current conflict in the north should not be the last object but rather a stepping stone to solving the other complex situations in the rest of the country.

As part of discovering a comprehensive solution, a practical step would be to call for an ambitious truth and reconciliation conference that aims to discuss and fix Ethiopia's future. First and foremost, the results of such a gathering should lead to the recognition of past atrocities committed by the ruling elite (highlanders) and should set the blueprint through which people could determine their destiny if they prefer to be within Ethiopia or not, or if they opt for a federal or confederated Ethiopia. Contrary to that, trying to use force for unity will open a Pandora's box of violence across Ethiopia that will have a negative impact on the stability of the region.

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Ethiopia's conflict and need for comprehensive settlement | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah