Daily Archives: February 1, 2022

We found that the belief in human agency in ancient Chinese philosophical and religious thought co-occurred with progress. Yukun Zhao et al., Agency in Ancient China

Previously in this series: On Agency

The history of human agency in China one might better say thetribulations of human agency in China is, in its way, more interesting and instructive than the almost-straight-line increase in human agency we observed last week in the Western world.

Unlike in the West, human agency in China was from the very beginning forced to compete with the powerful communal instinct. At the very time that Ancient Greece was emerging from its Dark Ages (but in complete isolation from it), Chinese philosophers began to grapple with the role of individuals versus the role of the community, that is, with the importance of thinking and acting independently versus obligations to family, village, and external authorities and their vast power.

One possible explanation for this difference is that while the Greeks thought and acted in the context of small city-states that were relatively easy to manage, China was from the beginning a vast and rarely unified territory. The largest of the Ancient Greek cities, Athens, was contained within less than a square mile and never boasted a population of more than 200,000 citizens. China, meanwhile, had to contend with 60 million people scattered over almost two million square miles.

The meaning of human agency in China

Given the desperate need to maintain order over a vast and widely scattered population, Chinese thinking from its earliest days right up until the present moment has struggled to balance the importance of human agency with the need to maintain order and discipline across a vast society.

In the West, as weve seen, human agency is focused on the individual person, atomized and more or less unconnected to the broader community, with the capacity to think and act separately from others in the society. Indeed, it is that broader community that ofteninterfereswith a full expression of agency, and in the West it has been a major project to eliminate that interference.

But the Chinese understanding of agency views the individual as fully integrated into a broader community. As a result, expressions or even achievements of individual agency that appear to undermine the broad public good are discouraged. In fact, Classical Chinese had no word for individual in the Western sense.

All that said, most schools of thought in China do in fact emphasize the importance of self-cultivation of individual people. In Confucianism, for example, a premium is placed on the moral education of the individual, which is achieved through study, training, and the reading of appropriate texts. The purpose of this self-improvement, however, isnt simply to improve the person in his or her own right, but to contribute to the moral quality of the overall society.

But some prominent schools of thought in China tend to undermine agency. Taoism, for example, founded by Lao Tzu, advocates following the natural order, dismisses the power of individual agency, and counsels passive acceptance of the world as it is. Thus, no matter how oppressive a government might be (for example), Taoists wont oppose that government or attempt, by the exercise of individual agency, to overthrow it; they will simply accept it.

Indeed, Lao Tzus most prominent follower, Chuang Tzu, advocated literally doing nothing: I cast aside my limbs, discard my intelligence, detach from both body and mind This is called sitting down and forgetting everything.

Legalism, pioneered by Shang Yang, is even more opposed to individual agency. It requires that citizens obey the authorities at all times and at all costs, preventing individuals from acting according to their own judgements, simply because to do otherwise would lead (according to the legalists) to chaos.

Properly handled, Legalism can empower collective accomplishments, leading to powerful central governments that can impose their will on vast lands and peoples. More often, though, Legalism leads to oppression and misery, notwithstanding the accomplishments of the government.

Given the tension between individuals and the importance of the broader community, a useful way to think about agency in China is to distinguish between individual agency on the one hand and collective agency on the other. This approach was proposed by Yukun Zhao et al. in their paper, cited above.

To Western ears, to be sure, collective agency sounds like Newspeak doesnt it simply mean a society dominated by an oppressive and authoritarian government? The answer seems to be yes and no. If, during any Chinese dynasty all that matters is collective agency, that is pretty much the definition of a despotic government oppressing its people.

But during most Chinese eras there has been a balance between the emphasis on individual and collective agency, with some dynasties leaning one way and some the other. Moreover, it is often the case that what a Western observer might see as unacceptable authoritarianism would be viewed by a Chinese observer as appropriate concern for the collective welfare.

In the discussion last week of human agency in the West, I pointed out that societies that highly valued human agency and nourished it outperformed societies that didnt. In China, various dynasties viewed agency quite differently, in effect giving us an opportunity to test my claim that high-individual-agency societies outperform low-individual-agency societies.

Lets take a look (next week) at a few examples of how agency, collective or otherwise, has fared in China and what the implications have been for human progress and wellbeing among the Chinese.

[Shameless self-promotion: Blogs Ive written about interesting people over the years including Andr Heintz (a member of the French Resistance), Lady Jean Fforde, Baron Rothschild, Joe Biden and others have been collected in my recent book,Ten Interesting People, illustrated by artist David Biber. Its now available on Amazon.]

Next up:On Agency, Part III

More here:

China and the Individual - pittsburghquarterly.com

Uncalloused white hands shake brown hands, somewhat reluctantly. A golden lion with a triumphant grip on a sword, emblazoned on a flag, is hoisted high.

Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) celebrated its independence from British rule on 4 February 1948. However, for Tamils and other minorities on the island, the day was just another instance of one oppressor handing the reins to another.

There are four major groups in Sri Lanka. The north and east of the island are the traditional homelands of Tamil-speaking peopleHindus, Muslims and Christianswho make up around 25 percent of the countrys population. Its important to note that while many Muslims are Tamil-speaking, they are a distinct ethnic identity. In the south and west, the Sinhalese dominate. They make up 75 percent of the total population and are largely Buddhist.

Merging the Tamil and Sinhalese homelands together in 1883, the British imposed a unitary state over the entire territory, consolidating historically distinct ethnic and cultural kingdoms into one, under the rule of a white supremacist capitalist force. It was a tried-and-true strategy for coloniser nations and served the British well for more than 100 years.

Post-independence, the unitary structure allowed the Sinhalese majority to control the affairs of the whole island, and therefore the Tamil homelands, without requiring the consent of Tamils. Independence and democracy did not apply equally to all.

Regaining self-determination within our homelands, named Tamil Eelam, has been the key political goal for generations.

In 1956, the government passed the Sinhala Only Act, which made Sinhala the official language of the country. This made it incredibly difficult for Tamil-speaking people to get government jobs and was one of the key post-independence acts that laid the groundwork for ongoing Tamil oppression, as well as creating the conditions for a liberation struggle. It was not long after the passing of this act that regular pogroms (racially motivated attacks against Tamils) began.

My Amma (mother) told me about a riot she witnessed. It was August 1977, and there were severe pogroms across the country, in which hundreds of Tamils were killed, many raped and 40,000 displaced. Sinhalese rioters broke into Tamils houses to loot, kill and burn. One of my Ammas neighbours, a Sinhalese man, helped my family by harbouring them in his house. There are touching accounts of solidarity like this despite the anti-Tamil racism that was sponsored by politicians and Buddhist monks.

Tamils label as black days the most severe instances of oppression and violence. Lest We Forget, a two-part document by the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights, details 149 massacres witnessed from 1956 to 2008.

The most well-known pogrom is called Black July, which was carried out primarily in the south of the island by violent mobs in 1983. Perhaps 3,000 Tamils were massacredmany were burned alive. Tens of thousands more were forced to flee to the north and east.

The pogrom was organised and aided by government officials, who had lists of Tamil houses and businesses. The mass exodus of Tamils resulting from this event displaced families like mine, who fled to countries that often were engaged, in various parts of the world, in the same sort of violence that Tamils were fleeing.

The forced displacement of Tamils and the settlement of Sinhalese populations on our lands, a process called Sinhalisation, is a concerted strategy of the Sri Lankan state. The method was noted in the Oakland Institutes recent report, Endless War: The Destroyed Land, Life, and Identity of the Tamil People in Sri Lanka:

The main objective of this colonization is to increase the Sinhalese population in the north and east to change the demographics of the regions. One clear tactic has been to divide the geographically and ethnically connected Northern and Eastern Provinces and erase the homeland doctrine of the Tamil people. In the 30 years prior to 2009, these areas were under LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] control that prevented land grabbing.

And as the authors of Lest We Forget note:

Massacres were only a part of the ethnic cleansing program carried out by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils. Huge swaths of land that traditionally belonged to the Tamils were settled by Sinhala people who were brought there from faraway places in the Sinhala areas. Tamils were disenfranchised en masse and stripped of their language rights. The list goes on.

Yes, the list continues. Tamils are murdered every year, even thirteen years on from the military defeat of the LTTE and the genocide of more than 140,000 Tamil civilians in government-designed no fire zones. Many refugees living in Australia, some of whom are still stuck in detention, carry the trauma of being subjected to heinous acts, or of witnessing them being carried out against their kin.

4 February will mark 74 years since Sri Lanka gained independence. In this time, the oppression of Tamils by the army, the police, the law and the bureaucracy has evolved. But the fundamentals remain the same.

On Saturday 5 February at 6pm, the Tamil Refugee Council will host an online eventto highlight the ongoing crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government against Tamil speaking people, to demand the pursuit of justice, and to acknowledge the situation facing Tamil refugees worldwide.

Excerpt from:

Commemorating Tamil Oppression Day - Red Flag

Article content

I am a patriot, a Canadian patriot. I am now like the massively growing trend of patriots rising up around the world to defend our freedoms.

Today, I proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with other Timmins Canadian patriots waving and jubilantly cheering on the truckers driving by with their Canadian flags draped on their trucks and automobiles. I felt like all these people were my friends; their faces showed their love and admiration for the cause.

We were all there to fight the oppression and tyranny that we have been put through these past two years. Our fight is not won by violence or disrespect, but with love, perseverance, compassion, courage, and unity.

During the course of exuberant, painful, arm numbing waving, I met an Italian Canadian who thoughtfully commented to me: Isnt it interesting that the humble trucker is the one who has risen up to save our country not the PhD scientist, not the glorified doctor, not the highly educated professor or teacher, no, it is the humble trucker with honour and love in his heart.

Jesus rode in on a humble little burrow,not a glowing chariot with bells and whistles. Our beloved truckers are riding into Ottawa in their big, cumbersome chariots of patriotic courage. I cannot express how humbled and appreciative I am by these wonderful selfless men and women who are standing up to the evil entities in our corrupt government, judicial, medical, education and religious systems. I salute you and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This week, I am driving down to Ottawa in my SUV. I am a senior and have not made a long trip in years, but I want to make my own little footprint into the archives of history no matter how silly or ineffective it seems.

I am bringing some home-cooked hot food to at least a hundred truckers or patriots who have travelled from so far and wide across Canada to be in Ottawa. For the last six months, I saved up what little I had, and stocked up on food like we were warned to do. I no longer want to save this food for me. I am alarmed that GoFundMe is not releasing all the funds to the truckers at this time. Apparently, the truckers will get this money later. A lot of these truckers need money now, not later.

Even though I gave a small monetary donation to the GoFundMe campaign, I am worried that our trucker patriots will not be helped enough when they need it the most. Its like watering a house after it has burned down. I dont know anyone in Ottawa, and I doubt Id find a hotel room somewhere (Im hoping that all the truckers who cant stay in their trucks, do have a hotel room), so Ill be driving back the same day after I distribute the food I want to contribute.

So, Im just trying to tell you, the readers, that no matter how small you think your contribution is to fight this oppressive war weve been in, do something good for your fellow man in this cause. Every little drop of water eventually fills a bucket. To me, its going to be a long and hard trip, but I refuse to be the one who stood by and did nothing, no matter how stupid or useless my effort may appear to be. I am a patriot.

Irena Aleknevicius,

Timmins

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LETTER: 'Patriot' supporting truckers' stance against 'oppression and tyranny' - Timmins Press

One year since the military coup in Myanmar, calls for international action are growing louder, notably from the National Unity Government (NUG), made up of elected politicians who were thrown out of office by the generals.

The world is doing nothing but just sitting and watching, NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung told Al Jazeera.

In the past year, we have seen extreme brutality and atrocity against the population. We have also seen clear determination from the younger generation, a new generation who are saying they will not accept the regime.

Attacks against civilians, protesters and political activists have escalated in recent months.

What began as tear gassing and beatings have now turned into air assaults, the burning of villages, and targeted shootings across the country.

Herself a victim of the militarys political repression, Zin Mar Aung in 1998 was sentenced to 28 years in prison for political activism. She spent nine of those years in solitary confinement and was released after 11 years.

But Zin Mar Aung says the violence today is worse than the dark decades of previous military regimes of the 1980s and 1990s.

Its much worse than what we have seen before. A lot of people used to die in prison and be tortured, she said. The atrocity has not lessened. Now they have escalated they used to do it behind closed doors, but now they do it publicly. Without pragmatic and effective intervention from the international community, this will continue.

More than 1,500 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been monitoring the violence since the start.

Rights group Human Rights Watch says the militarys actions amount to crimes against humanity and include openly shooting 65 protesters and bystanders in Yangons Hlaing Tharyar township, the deliberate ramming of protesters in a car in Yangon, and a Christmas Eve attack on civilians in eastern Myanmar that left dozens dead, including women and children and two staff from the non-profit, Save the Children.

Attacks on villagers are also continuing in the ethnic border regions, in an escalation of fighting that has been taking place for decades and culminated in the brutal crackdown on the Rohingya in 2017 that is now the subject of an international genocide investigation.

Having avoided censure for so long, observers say the military is confident it will continue to do so.

Decades of impunity for the worst crimes have created a mindset that soldiers can brazenly commit such atrocities without fear of being held accountable, Human Rights Watch researcher Manny Maung wrote recently.

But the brutality is increasingly being documented thanks to the preponderance of mobile phones.

Myanmar Witness is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to collate such evidence in an anonymous and safe open source database.

The team uses a variety of verification techniques such as using Google Earth satellite imagery, weather reports and online image reverse searching to verify the accuracy of the footage they receive from witnesses and activists.

Having previously used digital technologies to document abuses in Syria and elsewhere, Investigations Director Ben Strick says that safe and anonymous reporting platforms such as Myanmar Witness are vital to archive human rights abuses.

Its a bit scary at the moment because people are not reporting out of fear, he told Al Jazeera.

So, we are able to really use a lot of these digital techniques to pick out a lot more stories than what is actually being heard out of Myanmar.

Despite the efforts to ensure digital safety for those submitting evidence, Strick worries about the risks involved for those on the ground.

We are able to take a photo and find out exactly where it was taken from. But other people can do that as well, Strick told Al Jazeera. If someone is filming from their apartment and they are filming the military in the street, that can be found both by civilians who support the government but also the government themselves.

Since the February 1 coup, Myanmar Witness has collated more than 4,000 entries, of which 740 have been accurately verified.

The group hopes that the collated evidence will be used by the international community to eventually bring the perpetrators to justice.

I think there is a huge amount digitally that the international community can do and is doing, but there is still a lot more that can be done to chip away at the marble stone that is human rights issues in Myanmar, said Strick.

Despite the growing database of evidence, it remains unclear whether the international community has the political will, or the means, to intervene in Myanmar.

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the coup, United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet condemned the international response as ineffectual saying it lacked a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis.

Bachelet said it was time for a more robust response.

It is time for an urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure that perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account, she said.

UNICEFRegional Director, Debora Comini, meanwhile, said the agency was gravely concerned by the escalating conflict and condemned the reported use of air attacks and heavy weaponry in civilian areas, in particular, attacks on children and NGOs such as Save the Children.

We are particularly outraged about the attacks on children that have occurred during this escalation in fighting across the country.

Fortify Rights, which has been working in Myanmar since 2013, has been calling on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo.

But Ismail Wolff, the groups regional director, says there is no sign of the unified action necessary for such a move with veto-wielding members China and Russia showing a reluctance to act.

Wolff told Al Jazeera that while there have been individual responses from UN member states such as the US, UK, European Union, and Australia, they havent been sufficient to cause enough of an impact on the Myanmar military for them to change their thinking or to try and pressure them into rethinking this coup and whether it is in their interests or not.

The UK could put forward a resolution, but so far weve seen China and Russia specifically the other permanent members of the security council they would veto any resolution calling for a global arms embargo, which is essential to end the oppression of the Myanmar people by this quite heinous regime.

In the absence of concerted UN action, the diplomatic initiative has fallen to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which Myanmar joined in 1997 under a previous military regime.

Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing has so far shown no commitment to implementing a plan to end the violence that he agreed with ASEAN in April last year.

Everyone has to be clear on the limitations of ASEAN, Wolff said. It operates on consensus [and as such] you are not going to see any strong, principled decisions being made on the Myanmar situation that would have enough of an impact for the Tatmadaw the Myanmar dictatorship to reverse course.

In the absence of UN action, some foreign investors, including oil companies Total, Chevron and Woodside Petroleum have suspended business in Myanmar, cutting a major source of revenue for the military which has long operated a sprawling network of businesses.

At Myanmar Witness, Ben Strick says moves such as these can have an immediate effect. His organisation recently documented an arms shipment from Russia.

Fortify Rights Wolff agrees that documenting the evidence is vital and adds that the NUG is currently submitting an application to the UN Security Council to accede to the Rome Statute that would give the International Criminal Court jurisdiction in Myanmar. The UN has continued to recognise Kyaw Moe Tun as Myanmars UN ambassador despite the military saying he had been sacked for his support of the anti-coup movement.

There are also the laws of universal jurisdiction whereby a state can put an individual on trial for crimes against humanity regardless of where the crimes were committed is also an option, as currently considered with regard to Syria.

There are options, said Wolff. The importance here is the documentation and the evidence of these crimes. Because at the end of the day they need to be proven. [The Myanmar military] will be held accountable one day for these crimes.

Amid the lack of international action, the situation in Myanmar appears to be deteriorating.

When we started Myanmar Witness, we were documenting violence against protesters, Strick said. Fast forward now and were very much watching what looks like a civil war environment, he said.

As well as ethnic armed groups, the NUG has established a Peoples Defence Force for those wanting to take more direct action albeit with sometimes rudimentary arms and equipment. State media has described those taking up arms as terrorists.

The people have the right to protect themselves, said the NUGs Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung.

We are not going out to kill the military, but if they attack us we will protect ourselves, our lives, our families and our property. We know the UN is not coming. We appreciate the words, but the words alone will not stop the bullets.

Excerpt from:

World accused of sitting and watching as Myanmar slides to war - Al Jazeera English

PSACisrenewing its call formandatory training that would address systemic racism, harassment, and discrimination in the federal public serviceafter Treasury Board outright rejected the proposalat theCommon Issues bargainingtablein December.

Thistraining for all employees and managers would be facilitator-ledwith an intersectional approach,and coverimportant issuessuch asanti-oppression and discrimination, harassment and violence in the workplace, and Indigenous historythat alignswith the Truth and Reconciliation Commissionscall to action #57.

The employergavetheir decision just daysafterandindirectcontradiction tothe federal governmentspublic apologyfordecadesof sexual harassment,abuse,and workplace harassment at the Department of NationalDefence, andtheirpledgeof$40 billionto Indigenous child welfare.

Treasury Board is being completelydisingenuous,in one breath saying they're committed to doing betterand in the next discounting the value ofemployee and managertraining, saidPSAC National President Chris Aylward. They cant have it both ways. Either they supportthe long overdue needforchange in the public service, or theydont.And disappointingly, based on their blanket rejection of all training proposals,it seems theydont.

In response toourproposals,TreasuryBoardclaimed they already have many resources for employees. The employer also saidthat, despite their strong commitment to these issues, theyhave nointerest in enshriningtrainingintocollective agreements.However, thecourses currently offered by the governmentare often optional andarent taken by all federal public service workers, leaving large gaps in education that canand shouldbe addressedthroughmandatory training for all staff.

Thegovernmentsown2020Public Service Employee Surveyshowsthe importance of more training on these critical issues.Some56 per cent of respondentswerent satisfied with how their concerns or complaints about racism in the workplace were addressed.Of the respondentswhowerevictimsof discrimination,28 per cent experienced race-based discrimination and77per centexperienced it from individuals with authority over them.

Similar resultsemergedfromthe2021PSACMembership Bargaining Input Survey,with35 per cent of respondents who self-identified within an equity groupsayingtheyhaveexperienceddiscrimination in the federal public service,andone-third sayingtheir career progress in the federal public service has been adversely affected by discrimination.This comes as no surprise considering therecent launch of class actionlawsuitsby bothBlackandIndigenouspublic service workers.

The results are clear. The government still has a big problem when it comes to discrimination and harassment in the federal public service, and the optional resources that Treasury Board currently offers employees are not enough to close the gaps.

PSAC will continue to fightto ensure employers actively work to dismantlesystemicracism. Mandatory, intersectional anti-oppression and discrimination training for employees and managers is just one tool we can use to do that. Butit isan important and necessary one, andwewillcontinue to push for it at the table.

TheCommon Issuesbargaining team meets with the employer again February 13, 2022.

See the article here:

Treasury Board rejects proposal for mandatory training on anti-oppression and discrimination - Public Service Alliance of Canada

The Chinese government is using its power to shut down foreign reporting and targeting specific journalists with abuse, censure, physical assault and even expulsion, according to a new report into foreign press freedom in China.

The report warned of unprecedented hurdles facing the countrys foreign journalists as six chose to flee the country in 2021. A further nine said they had been sued or threatened with legal action by sources or government entities.

The country is also allegedly abusing health and safety rules enacted to fight Covid to restrict press freedom, including for reporters covering the genocide of Uyghur people in Xinjiang and those covering the virus outbreak in Wuhan.

The new report, from the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, titled Locked Down or Kicked Out, was based on survey responses provided by 127 out of the clubs 192 members.

The survey suggested there had been little change in Chinese restrictions on pandemic reporting since the first outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019, with correspondents regularly being prevented from visiting key sites in the region.

The main findings of the report were:

In its introduction, the report explained: Foreign correspondents are facing unprecedented hurdles covering China as a result of the governments efforts to block and discredit independent reporting.

As the number of journalists forced out by the Chinese state grows due to excessive intimidation or outright expulsions, covering China is increasingly becoming an exercise in remote reporting.

Growing public attacks reflect an emboldened Chinese government willing to go to great lengths to discredit foreign journalists and their work. Such criticism appears designed to pressure editors and managers at headquarters to dial back objective coverage of China.

It added: Covid-19 has been used frequently by authorities seeking to delay approvals for new journalist visas, shut down reporting trips, and decline interview requests Chinese authorities also appear to be encouraging a spate of lawsuits or the threat of legal action against foreign journalists.

The Telegraphs Beijing correspondent Sophia Yan, who is featured in report, previously told Press Gazette that people that I interview or even meet in passing are routinely detained or harassed, interrogated, sometimes even hacked. She mentioned even being forced to endure fake government roadblocks trying to stop her going down certain streets.

The report contained an array of first-hand accounts from journalists like Yan.

In one case, Georg Fahrio, a correspondent for German newspaper Der Spiegel, was the subject of a five page letter of indignation from the Chinese embassy in Berlin after they reported on allegations of a lab leak being behind the pandemic.

When floods hit Henan province in July, an official regional social media account for the ruling party said people should look out for BBC journalist Robin Brandt and alert the authorities of his location.

One international bureau chief reported being summoned to the Foreign Ministry [many times], including in late November when I was asked that our media [organisation] stop asking the spokesperson publicly about the Peng Shuai affair.

The report also found that Chinese staff and fixers working with foreign journalists faced constant oppression, with 40% of respondents saying Chinese colleagues were threatened or harassed by the government at least once.

Chinese colleagues of foreign correspondents faced everyting from being doxxed (having private personal information leaked), being called traitors and getting called into meetings with state security agents. In one case, a state security agent reportedly threatened a Chinese colleagues family to try to stop them working with foreign reporters. The staff member in question decided to quit their job.

One of the six foreign journalists who chose to flee the country in the last year was the BBCs John Sudworth, who had been reporting in the country for nine years and won awards for his reporting of the Uyghur detainment camps in Xinjiang.

A previous report by Reporters Without Borders alleged that restrictions on reporting on China are so severe they may have been a contributing factor in why the coronavirus pandemic was able to spread worldwide.

The Chinese governments growing use of law suits against journalists to try to stop critical reporting resembles a similar problem now emerging in the UK and USA.

In last years Press Gazette Media Freedom Healthcheck, China was one of ten countries worldwide to receive a red warning classification for press freedom, plurality and media safety.

Read the full report here.

Press Gazette's must-read weekly newsletter featuring interviews, data, insight and investigations.

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Foreign press face "unprecedented hurdles" due to government repression - Press Gazette

Stephany Rose Spaulding is many things a pastor, an educator and now, a congressional candidate, to name just a few of her impressive attributes.

But one thing she is not is here to play games, as the scholarly freedom fighter is laser-focused on her Chicago community while she wages her bid for the 1st Congressional District of Illinois seat that has been held by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for the past 30 years.

MORE: 10 Black Elected Officials Who Are Following In The Footsteps Of Martin Luther King Jr.

Rush who has served 15 terms and is the only person to have ever beaten Barack Obama in an election leaves behind an outsized pair of Congressional shoes that Spaulding, a 43-year-old national spokeswoman for racial justice coalition Just Democracy, hopes to fill.

In a race with a growing number of candidates, keep reading to learn more about Spaulding, a Chicago native, and her plans for the 1st Congressional District of Illinois.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

For our readers who may not be familiar with your background, can you describe your political platform and ideology and the role they play in your Congressional campaign?

My platform and political ideology is rooted in anti-oppression and justice. I am a race and gender scholar by trainingPhD in American Studiesso I have a long professional and public relationship with working to dismantle systems of oppression. I practice the bold politics of love. For me, that means focusing on instilling the tenets of systems that are rooted in faith, compassion, and social transformation. As a Daughter of Chicagos Southside, one need look no further than out the window of my childhood home to see the systemic inequities which still plague us today. The glimmering Chicago skyline acts as the backdrop for one of the most historic Black districts in the country; unfortunately, we have been neglected in areas that have become some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the entirety of Illinois. To fully fund and invest in the neighborhoods I played in as a young girl means to abolish racism. It means coming together as one people and demanding democracy reform by eliminating the filibuster and expanding the courts; environmental justice and sustainability; education, income and housing equity; and universal healthcare that includes hearing, vision, dental and mental healthcare.

You describe yourself in part as a civil rights activist. Please discuss your participation in liberation politics and the freedom movement and how that has shaped your approach to mainstream politics.

I have spent the past two decades fighting on the frontlines of the modern movement for civil rights, working to advance justice for systematically marginalized communities throughout the United States. Whether co-organizing the HipHop Political Movement Convention in Chicago in 2008, the Protect Black Women Rally and March in Washington, D.C., or advocating for voting rights on the national stagedelivering messages straight to members of Congresswith Just Democracy, I have placed the advancement of liberation practices across the country at the core of my political practices. This work has helped me to understand the benefits and flaws of our democratic republic and has committed me to progressively moving our country forward to a place where politicians are genuine public servants. What that looks like: publicly financed campaigns, term limits from federal to local levels, ranked-choice voting and proportional representation.

Youre also an educator as well as an HBCU graduate. Tell us a little about how education has helped to inform your politics.

I grew up with parents who retired as Chicago Public School educators, so the pursuit of education was instilled in me early on as a child. Over the course of my life, I have learned that education is the greatest equalizer in the battle for justice. Having access to quality, equitable education helps drive society towards anti-oppression. Attending historic Clark Atlanta University was transformative for my outlook on life and understanding of what is possible. We need to be working towards a society in which every person has access to tuition-free education so that we begin removing the multi-generational barriers which keep far too many of us from being able to access colleges, universities, and trade schools. Unfortunately, we are not there yet as a nation and the debate over critical race theory is evidence of how far we must go. To begin, the debate is a shadow-debate in the sense that most dont have the requisite grounding in the discipline to debate it. Consequently, it is being used as a gaslight to attack anti-racism work and defund our schools.

Please explain the significance of the prospects of you filling the longtime congressional seat of Rep. Bobbys Rush,a civil rights icon in his own right.

This is the district of hope. Home to a final stop of the Underground Railroad, to Oscar S. De Priest, Ralph Metcalfe, and where State Senator and future President Barack Obama challenged Black Panther Bobby Rush for the House in 2000, its been a shining light of what is thought possible. It is a community rooted in the rich culture, history and people of Illinois. It was home to thousands of African Americans who left the South during the Great Migration. And it remains the home to great American artists, thinkers and innovators today. For many here, its a beacon of faith in a future that still has yet to be achieved. The grocery stores which we patronized as children are gone, shops are boarded up, and small businesses are gone or struggling.That flame of hope, the dreams of a better tomorrow for a generation of young children, thats the First District which I know and its the legacy I will carry with me into Congress, while also forging a new path forward for Illinoisans.

Political candidates often make campaign promises about their plans for Day 1 on the job. What are your priorities for your presumptive first day in Congress?

Our work must start with protecting voting rights across the country, because they are the bricks through which all change will be made. I also look forward to joining the staunch advocates for change who took a bold stand, demanding that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Package and Build Back Better be passed together. Passing the cornerstone piece of this administrations agendaa bill which was already watered-down by Legislators who dont know what it means to need funding like this just to surviveis well overdue and it should be done. I also believe that we cant stop there and be satisfied without full investment in our communities. I will also work to advance HR 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, setting us down the journey towards true, restorative Justice.

The pandemic has especially had an effect on education; in particular, Chicago Public Schools has been in the national spotlight as teachers and students alike protest. Where do you fall on the spectrum of that debate and what do you see as a reasonable resolution, and is there anything you could do from Congress to help them?

Consensus is never reached by staking ones flags at the extremes. We have to have a reasonable option that gets workers of all walks safely back to work, while protecting our childrens best interest. In Congress, we can cancel student debt to keep the economy energized and extend child tax credits so that working families dont feel the financial burden of having to remote work, remote learn, or take off completely if one must quarantine due to COVID. I would also advance legislation that makes testing, protective gear, and sanitation equipment available to businesses and schools for the best safety practices for workers and students.

Speaking of Chicago, please explain the significance of being able to represent the Windy City and especially its Black residents from Congress in the context of Chicagos civil rights legacy.

During the Great Migration, thousands of Black Americans came to cities like Chicago seeking the promises of a nation that wanted our labor, but not necessarily our presence. While sun-down towns remained across the South and rural America, here in Chicago there were neighborhoods where Blacks were threatened with violence if they found themselves after certain hours. We were structurally prohibited from equitable schooling, housing and job opportunities; and yet we came; we persisted; and built thriving communities primarily in Chicagos Southside neighborhoods. Still, the struggle for equal footing in every level of being persisted throughout the city and continues today. Ownership in real estate, as well as mid- to large-scale businesses, is still imbalanced, access to government contracts is disproportionately distributed and the quality of sustainable life pales across racial lines. Consequently, I will bring this history and reality to the legislation that needs to be enacted for true justice and conciliation to take place in our city, state and across the nation.

What do you see as the most pressing issue facing Black Americans right now and how would you use your power in Congress to address it?

The arduous systemic continuation of racism in America is the most pressing issue facing Black Americans. Racism impacts every institution in the nationthe Economy, Education, Housing, Healthcare, the Criminal Justice System and our Climate Crisis.

Youre also an author who has written extensively about topics like racism and whiteness. How have those topics prepared you to be in Congress?

My work has been rooted in the bridging of divides rooted in our society. It is crucial that our Congressional leaders have the ability to effectively communicate the multi-generational traumas and harm caused by even the most well-intending legislation which, when not written with racial justice in mind, can often reinforce systems of oppression, even if unintentionally. It is important for those of us who are privileged enough to be elected to bring the voices and lived experiences of our community to the Halls of Power do so in a way that is constructive. Having the knowledge and skills to show how the issues we face intersect with other communities across the countryand even right here in our own backyard of Chicagos First Districtopens the door to creating legislation that truly puts anti-racism into practice, creating a better society for each and every one of us. As an example, just take a look at President Bidens recent trip to my alma mater of Clark Atlanta University where we saw a long-time Senator standing on the grounds of one of the countrys most historic HBCUs, calling for the abolishment of the filibuster. Thats progress and a beacon of hope for a better, anti-racist future for all.

Finally, you are one of a growing number of Black women seeking national office. Can you discuss 1) what it means to be a part of a historic group of Black women candidates and 2) what it would mean to become a Black Congresswoman in 2022?

Its exciting to be part of a historic group of Black women candidates in 2022. Black women have been the backbones of communities across the nation and it is beyond time that we step into national leadership as well. The diversity of our voices and experiences enriches the national discourse and helps to craft better legislation. Unfortunately, we are still in a season of firsts. Illinois 1st Congressional District has yet to have a woman, let alone a woman of color to represent it, even though demographically the district is predominantly composed of women.

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Meet Stephany Rose Spaulding, The Progressive Congressional Candidate Working To Dismantle Systems Of Oppression - NewsOne

A lengthy investigation published by the New York Times, after working for a year, reveals interesting details about the occupation state's use of Pegasus spyware to gain political influence in the region and the world. The Arabs certainly have the lion's share of involvement in these details.

The investigation confirms that the Pegasus spyware produced by Israel's NSO Company cannot be treated as a purely technical or commercial project, without understanding its close connection with the occupation government. The company was founded and managed by former officers and experts who worked in the Israeli security and intelligence services and licenses can only be sold to countries and governments, only after the approval of the government in Tel Aviv. This means that the company is basically a security and political arm of the government and its intelligence.

The report presents several amazing and shameful details about the occupation's use of the Pegasus spyware to influence the policies of Arab countries and to activate normalisation with these countries.

READ: Jordanian rights lawyer speaks about the Pegasus hacking of her phone

NSO suspended the renewal of Saudi Arabia's Pegasus license after the assassination of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, but returned it after a phone call between Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Netanyahu. Bin Salman agreed in the call to open the Saudi airspace to the occupation air as a price to renew the license, and then Netanyahu pressured the company to renew the Saudi license, despite its initial refusal.

The program played a major role in facilitating the signing of normalisation agreements between the occupation and each of the Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, as Tel Aviv agreed to grant the program's license to all countries that signed the normalisation agreements.

Unrelated to the Arab countries, a conflict is taking place between Washington and Tel Aviv over the program after the US put the spyware program on the blacklist, imposing sanctions on it and banning it from use within the US. Israeli circles are claiming that the US sanctions are part of a conspiracy to control the program, while the Biden administration has responded that the program has become an out-of-control danger after it was used by dictatorial governments to prosecute journalists, human rights activists and dissidents.

This conflict takes place at a time when the US is actually seeking to buy the company that produces the Pegasus virus, so that it becomes subject to American laws and procedures and, of course, to ensure it will not be used by certain countries in a way that does not correspond to American interests.

What concerns us, as Arab nations in this investigation, is that it confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt and gives new evidence on the depravity of the Arab regime policies that most of the nations have become aware of. While the occupation state seeks to benefit from scientific research and technical achievements to expand its influence in the world and influence the foreign policy of the countries of the world and the region, and while Washington enters into conflict with its "spoiled ally" in order to ensure its intelligence superiority in the world, the Arab countries open their doors and lands to the occupation, sign normalisation agreements and makes concessions at the expense of the Palestinian people, just to get a spy program that it uses against its own citizens!

This draws a clear picture of the "deviation" of Arab regimes from their political role as, instead of working to protect their citizens and defend the interests of their people, they are making dangerous political concessions for hostile countries in order to obtain capabilities that allow them to spy on their citizens!

READ: Saudi opened its airspace to Israel in return for access to spyware

In the details of this deviation, two very important issues must be mentioned here: The first is that this investigation exposes the lies of the regimes that signed the normalisation agreements in 2020 and justified this with local political reasons and others related to "supporting the Palestinian people." This investigation confirms that the issue of obtaining spyware and cybersecurity technology are at the core of the goals behind normalisation with the occupation. The second issue is that the Arab countries that bought spyware to spy on their citizens have practically handed over the privacy of these citizens to the occupation state, as all the information obtained by Pegasus goes to the servers owned by the Israeli company.

The investigation also confirms the lie of Israel's democracy and its support for democracies. An occupying country cannot be a democracy, and the occupation cannot support democracy in the Middle East. Rather, it is more concerned than others with the establishment of dictatorships in the Arab countries, firstly because it realises how easy it is to manipulate dictatorial regimes to work for it instead of working for their people and, secondly, because it wants to continue spreading the lie of being the only democracy in the Middle East.

The New York Times investigation may have provided many accurate details about the deals of the Pegasus program and its role in buying influence for the occupation in the region and the world. As for us, Arabs, it did not reveal anything to us, but only confirmed to us what we already know about the miserable policies of the Arab regimes, and about the forbidden love between the racist occupation regime and the Arab regimes of oppression.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

The rest is here:

Pegasus investigation and the forbidden love between the occupation and Arab regimes - Middle East Monitor

My first encounter with that terrible day, apart from seeing it reported on Irish television news, was when, as a 15 year old Dublin lad, I watched a furious crowd of 20,000 people burn the British embassy there to the ground, two days after the massacre. Feelings were running so high that there was talk of the Irish army marching over the border and several British businesses were attacked. For many it was the latest in a long long line of British atrocities in Ireland, which we had all learned about in school.

Bloody Sunday effectively ended the first phase of the struggle of the Irish nationalist population in the North of Ireland against the blatant injustices and apartheid like state which had been established with the partition of Ireland in 1921. It had been a gerrymandered statelet from the first, carved out from the 9 nine counties of Ulster, into a smaller unit of 6, to ensure a Protestant and Unionist majority. James Craig, its first Prime Minister, described it as A Protestant state for a Protestant people. The British state hived it off effectively and not for nothing did contemporary observers in the 1920s compare the police powers there as akin to those of Mussolinis Italy. It was left to the Unionist elite (mostly landowners and large industrialists) to run it as they wished and as late as the 1960s MPs in the British Parliament were unable to put questions about what went on there as it was legally within the remit of the government of Northern Ireland and that regime was given carte blanche to run it as they saw fit. With a gerrymandered voting system and an almost caste system when it came to the allocation of housing, education and jobs, the only recourse for Nationalists who didnt like it was to emigrate. For those who spoke out the brutal Protestant only police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) and their even more brutal reservists, the B Specials would see to it that they were silenced.

The wind of change stirred in 1969 with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement in the US and the student revolts in Paris etc. Most of the leaders were moderate Nationalists, many from a Social Democrat background, like John Hume and Austin Currie. They sought to challenge the status quo through peaceful means and via demonstrations and protests. This was seen as an existential challenge to the sectarian Northern Ireland state and the police and B Specials were unleashed on the demonstrators. Several brutal attacks on the demonstrations followed, along with attacks on Nationalists by Loyalist mobs, as had happened in the 1920s following partition, when pogroms occurred in parts of Belfast and Catholic workers had been driven from the shipyards.

The British government felt forced to act as the scenes of violence in the North of Ireland proved deeply damaging for the UK state, particularly when viewed from the USA, where there was a large Irish population. British troops were dispatched to Ireland, supposedly to support the police and civil powers and to restore order. The British army was supposedly impartial and would act as a buffer between the two communities but in fact Britain was maintaining its old imperial interests in Ireland and many of the regiments sent had deeply sectarian backgrounds and a strong anti-Nationalist and pro-colonial feeling. Some of these troops had been used a few years before to try and suppress anti-colonial struggles elsewhere in Britains empire. Ironically looking back at the centenary of the Irish War of Independence the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries had also been sent to Ireland in 1920 to support the police and end disorder.

Unionism, was in a state of crisis, as it saw the pillars of its sectarian state shaken and called on Britain for support, while allowing its own sectarian police forces full leeway to crush the Civil Rights Movement.

The march and rally in Derry in January 1972 was due to be one of the largest demonstrations yet by the Civil Rights Movement. Many young Nationalists and Catholics had been had been encouraged by the rise of the movement and also by the fact that the world was now watching the North of Ireland in a way which it had not been for the preceding 60 years. There was also real hope and a sense that change was in the air. The Civil Rights Movement had been modelling itself on the one in the US and using anthems such as We shall overcome borrowed from that movement.

The Irish Republican Army, which believed in the use of armed force to drive the British out of the North of Ireland, had been in existence since 1921 but had been a marginal force, sometimes almost disappearing but it re-emerged in 1969 and carried out some small attacks on British forces and police. It had a limited role beside the much larger peaceful Civil Rights Movement, which had the support of the Catholic Church and much of the Catholic bourgeoise.

Britain had introduced internment without trial in an attempt to arrest and detain those Nationalists believed to be in the IRA without access to civil trials, via the Diplock Courts, which were judge only courts, which gave no real voice to those accused. This led to huge resentment in the Nationalist communities and many now turned against the British Army, which some of them had regarded as neutral referees in 1969 when they first arrived. Egged on by the Unionists and Heaths Conservative and Unionist Party government, with all of their ties to the Unionist elite, the British army was turned into an instrument of oppression against the Catholic community.

The march in Derry was to protest against Internment and large numbers were expected. Whole families took part in the protest which was centred in the traditionally Nationalist Bogside area of the city. The notorious Parachute regiment, which we now know had carried out a massacre in Belfasts Ballymurphy a year before and had escaped with impunity, were brought in to support the police and to supposedly ensure that the IRA did not infiltrate the protest and carry out attacks. When the demonstrators being held back by police started to throw stones and petrol bombs the troops were let off the leash and murdered 13 innocent demonstrators in cold blood. The fiction was that those who died had been in the IRA and that the troops had been protecting themselves against IRA fire. This is the line held to this day by the elderly commanding officer of the regiment at the time and some sections of the Unionist community, some of whom flew the flag of the Parachute regiment on flagpoles in Derry this week.

The global outcry after the massacre was immense and the British state had to cover its tracks. It did this, as it had done many times before in its imperial history, by establishing a seemingly impartial legal inquiry which would investigate the incident and acquit British troops of any guilt. This was the Widgery Inquiry which was a farce. Widgery, as expected, cleared the troops of any guilt and claimed that they had been acting in self defence but was unable to find any evidence of the weapons which the victims had been allegedly carrying. Naturally it was denounced as a kangaroo court.

The Civil Rights Movement had achieved one of its main aims, as the Irish journalist, Fintan OToole wrote recently in the Irish Times: The truth is that those methods were in fact successful; by the end of 1972, the Orange State was gone. The unionist monolith would never return to power.

The anger and resentment produced by both the massacre and the cover up moved the Troubles into a new phase that of armed conflict. Many of those killed in Derry had been young men and many of their friends who has witnessed the massacre now joined the IRA. In an interview held in 1992 one of the friends of a victim, who had himself been on the march, described how he and six of his friends had joined the IRA as a result and as he had witnessed how British rule in Ireland will always result in oppression and bloodshed. He had learned the lesson that generations of Irish nationalists had learned before him, that there was no reasoning with British imperialism in Ireland. Many historians now argue that Bloody Sunday was the central turning point in the Troubles and convinced many young nationalists that peaceful protest against Unionism and the British was ineffective.

Decades later the Saville Inquiry which took 12 years and interviewed hundreds of witnesses overturned the Widgery Inquiry and pronounced all those killed innocent and found that the troops had deliberately killed them and that there had been no involvement by the IRA in the march and no attacks on the troops. David Cameron later apologised to the victims families on behalf of the British state. The sting in the tail was that the Saville Inquiry had promised those giving evidence that no prosecutions would follow.

The families of the Bloody Sunday victims still believe that those responsible should be brought to trial, as should all of those state forces who carried out atrocities in the North of Ireland. The current British government is currently wanting to push through legislation which would ensure that this never happens. They want to close the book on the crimes carried out by British forces and their Loyalist paramilitary allies in Ireland.

Only two years ago in Dublin a theatrical event was held to commemorate another Bloody Sunday, that of the massacre of Irish civilians at a football match by British troops on the rampage in 1920. The event recreated the scene and gave voices to the characters of those who had been murdered. The play The White Handkerchief named after the infamous white handkerchief which the Catholic priest, Father Edward Daly, held before him as wounded victims of Bloody Sunday were carried behind him, is being performed both physically and online by the Derry Playhouse, in the city in which the massacre took place.

Two events separated by 50 years in the long line of murderous actions by the agents of British imperialism and colonialism in Ireland. The events of Bloody Sunday are a reminder that there will never be justice for the victims of British violence in Ireland but they also revealed the true nature of the Northern state and Britains murderous role there.

Source Anti*Capitalist Resistance.

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Bloody Sunday 50 years of British injustice in Ireland - International Viewpoint