Daily Archives: June 5, 2022

The month of June is always a favorite time for celebrations. Its the heart of the graduation season and a time to spend with loved ones on Fathers Day. For our family and many others, this is also a cherished month to celebrate Juneteenth, which will be observed on June 19.

Juneteenth is one of the nations oldest celebrations of the abolition of slavery. Its a time to recognize how our nation rose above a painful chapter in our history, while further reminding us how much work remains in the name of social justice and equity.

Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1866 more than a 150 years. Though the Emancipation Proclamation became official in 1863, many enslaved Africans lived in states where slavery continued or where they didnt know they were free.

On June 19, 1865, more than a quarter-million slaves in Texas learned from Union Col. Gordon Granger that they were free. The first celebration of Juneteenth followed a year later, and it endures to this day. In 2021, Juneteenth was established as a federal holiday.

In these difficult, modern times, Juneteenth encourages us to join together in the name of freedom, justice and the power of community. It inspires us to reflect on the contributions and achievements of African-Americans, past and present.

We think of courageous leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X and others who dedicated their lives toward civil rights and social justice. We think of trailblazers like Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman astronaut, and Lewis Howard Latimer, who became a draftsman and helped patent the light bulb and the telephone.

Juneteenth reminds us that we have the power to persevere. We can do that by coming together as a community, by taking the opportunity to learn about and learn from one another. We can make progress by embracing the full spectrum of diversity and working to find common ground among our vast experiences and heritages.

At UC Davis were guided by our Principles of Community, which reinforce our commitment to diversity and inclusion. It means we recognize that UC Davis is made stronger by its variety of ethnicities, faiths and perspectives. It means we strive every day to create a culture of mutual respect and caring.

We will observe Monday, June 20, as a university holiday in recognition of Juneteenth.

Here in Davis, were starting the celebrations early. On Sunday, June 5,UC Davis will host the Yolo Juneteenth Festival, which is back in person after going virtual last year. This festival is held ahead of June 19, to avoid competing with other regional events scheduled that day.

On Sunday youll find a variety of activities and entertainment at the UC Davis Conference Center and our Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. These are geared for the entire family, and includes musical performances, dance, art works and inspirational speakers.

I hope you and your families can join us. No matter how you choose to observe, LeShelle and I wish you a happy, healthful and joyful Juneteenth.

Read more here:

CHANCELL-ING: Joining Together for Joy and Reflection - University of California, Davis

To attract the "brightest and best" early in their careers, the United Kingdom will offer work visas to graduates from the world's best universities, including India. The move is said to be the expansion of the UK's post-Brexit immigration system. Under a new visa scheme, graduates from the world's top 50 non-UK universities can now come and work in the country through a new High Potential Individual (HPI) visa route, which was launched in London on Monday (May 30). Notably, applicants must have been awarded degrees not more than five years before the date of application. Rishi Sunak, who is the finance minister of the UK, mentioned that such policies would help the country to grow as an international hub for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

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To be applicable for the same, a person must have graduated with a bachelor's or master's degree from the top 50 universities, which appeared in the top 50 of at least two of the following: Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings or The Academic Ranking of World Universities. The appearance in the top 50 must be in the year in which they graduated.

The applicants can opt for a two-year work visa and those who receive doctorates can apply for a three-year visa. It is mentioned that they will be allowed to bring family members with them. The government said that the successful applicants will then be able to switch to longer-term employment visas.

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Sunak said, "We want the businesses of tomorrow to be built here today - which is why I call on students to take advantage of this incredible opportunity to forge their careers here."

"This new visa offer means that the UK can continue to attract the best and brightest from across the globe. The route means that the UK will grow as a leading international hub for innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship," he added.

A benefit to Indian students?

Meanwhile, international students, including Indians, who are studying in the UK at any of the top universities are already eligible to stay for up to three years through the Graduate visa "popularly referred to as a post-study work visa" opened in July last year, India-based news agency PTI reported.

The Guardian cited a survey to report that international students would be more likely to "consider studying in the UK if they were allowed to stay and work for three years instead of two".

The report added that such an extension would be especially appealing to Indian students. It was also noted that the number of Indian students choosing to study in the UK fell dramatically after the abolition of the two-year post-study work visa in 2012. The numbers have quadrupled since it was reinstated, which is a huge difference.

Post-Brexit scenario

Since leaving European Union (EU), Britain has ended the priority given to EU citizens. The nation has introduced a points-based immigration system that ranks applicants on everything from their qualifications and language skills to the type of job offered to them.

But the country has faced a tight labour market for several years, which has gotten worse due to Brexit and COVID-19.

The companies in manufacturing, logistics and the food sector have urged the government to loosen the rules for entry-level jobs.

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New UK visa option for graduates, including Indians, from world`s best universities - WION

Throughout the primary election cycle, news outlets and universities hosted several debates to feature a handful of candidates running for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 2022 primary election. Despite the 12 candidates on the ballot for mayor in primary, only five candidates were invited to debates at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and California State University - Los Angeles (CSU-LA) and only three candidates were on the stage at a KCRW-hosted debate.

The first mayoral debate took place on Feb. 22 at LMU, with candidates Karen Bass, Kevin De Len, Mel Wilson, and former candidates Joe Buscaino and Mike Feuer onstage. The candidates discussed their plans to address the homelessness crisis, with four out of the five naming it the number one issue impacting the city currently.

If we can move heaven and earth to build football stadiums and basketball arenas, we can sure as hell do the same thing to get our students, our veterans, and people of color out of encampments and into housing now, De Len said.

The candidates then shared their platforms on funding the police and laid out the steps they would take to increase public safety. Candidates proposed increasing the number of police officers, from an additional 200 officers proposed by Bass to 1500 officers from Wilson.

Ninety-nine percent of the police officers are good, Wilson said. Theyre hardworking, they want to come home safe that night. We need to help them. We need to help ourselves.

Several protestors disrupted the debate by shouting at the candidates, criticizing their willingness to increase police funding and their inaction on addressing homlessness. One of the protesters attempted to rush the stage before being escorted out by security.

On May 1, the CSU-LA Pat Brown Institute (PBI) of Public Affairs and ABC 7 hosted a debate between Bass, De Len, Buscaino, Feuer, and businessman Rick Caruso. The candidates shared their plans to solve L.A.s homelessness epidemic and expand public transportation, among other issues.

Absent from the debate stage were candidates Gina Viola, Alex Gruenenfelder Smith, Craig Grewe, and former candidate Ramit Varma, who all stood outside the theater doors during the debate. Violas support as first-choice for mayor at 2% was 1% ahead of Buscaino in an April 2022 University of California-Berkeley poll. She described the decision to not invite her as a speaker in the May 1 debate as voter suppression.

Its not fair to voters when they get their ballot and they open them on June 7, Viola said. Theyre going to see 12 names on it, and theyre only going to recognize five of them.

Before the debate, police forcibly removed professor Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matters Los Angeles Chapter and the former chair of Pan-African Studies at CSU-LA, from the theater. An officer approached Abdullah and informed her the debate was a ticketed event. In response to him, Abdullah said that she had a right to attend the event as a professor at the university.

The group of police officers then grabbed Abdullah and dragged her from her seat to remove her from the premises. Theyre hurting me, she said. Theyre hurting me, this is a public university.

Later in the event, all the candidates onstage affirmed their plans to expand policing. Former candidate Buscaino attacked Violas abolition platform.

What we're not going to do is one candidate that's not here, we're not going to demolish and decimate the police department, he said.

Buscaino and Varma dropped out of the race on May 12 and May 24 respectively, both endorsing Caruso, while Feuer dropped out on May 17 and throwing his support behind Bass.

On May 20, KCRW hosted a discussion focusing solely on homelessness at the Annenberg Performance Studio on the Santa Monica College (SMC) Center of Media and Design campus. Karen Bass, Kevin De Len and Gina Viola were the only candidates in attendance, with LA Times columnist and host Gustavo Yano mentioning that Caruso was invited several times, but declined to attend. There was a tight police presence, with no protestors outside.

The discussion began with a yes or no question asking if housing is a human right, with all three candidates agreeing that it was. Mutual agreement between candidates deviated when the discussion touched upon the use of tiny homes as transitional housing in De Lens City Council District 14 and in other districts. For a human being whos been living on the streets every single day for years if not for decades, its a godsend, De Len said.

Viola characterized the tiny homes as a prison cell. I know people whove been in them for a year in CD15. I know people who have been in them for a year, she said, remarking on councilmember Buscainos district. Theyve been sexually assulted there, theyve had their belongings trashed, the sheds flood.

Viola then pointed out that the city budget under Mayor Garcetti for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) increased 52 percent in the last 10 years. That's all that the city has prioritized over housing, over health care, over things that truly do keep us well and keep us safe, she said. There's nothing in this budget that says housing is a human right. So if we're not starting there, we'll just keep spending.

Karen Bass talked about uniting fronts with all governments working together to find solutions to different aspects of homelessness. She said while the goal is permanent supportive housing, issues leading to homelessness such as substance abuse, mental illness, and other factors need to be considered in the response as well.

In this atmosphere right now, people are lumping the unhoused together as a monolith, as people who are service resistant, don't want to be inside. We have to break that mentality. Bass said. She urged the need for the county and the city to unite and work together on the issue rather than being disjointed in its approach.

According to a May 2022 poll by FM3 Research of likely primary voters, frontrunners Caruso and Bass are in a dead heat, polling at 37% and 35% respectively. De Len polls at 6%, and other candidates poll at a combined 6% as well.

See more here:

Disruption and Division on Display at Mayoral Debates The | Corsair - The Corsair

Last week, delegates at the national conference of Frsa, the public service union, unanimously backed a motion for paid leave for the victims of domestic violence.

At the conference, Ann Collins, an employee of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said her office had seen a massive increase during the pandemic of files concerning domestic violence and gender-based violence.

A birds eye view of last weeks news stories in Irish newspapers throws up the following.

In the Dublin criminal court, Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill spoke of her cold sense of dread and concern for her personal safety at receiving messages from Gerard Culhane including nude pictures and videos of a male masturbating.

At a meeting of the Irish Womens Parliamentary Caucus, which is a cross-party forum for Irish women parliamentarians to discuss and campaign on issues predominantly affecting women, Senator Fiona OLoughlin, the Fianna Fil chair of the caucus, spoke of parking her car near a bright light when attending political meetings at night.

She also spoke of the fear of intimidation and harassment including sexualised threats that female politicians are subject to.

The Labour leader Ivana Bacik, another member of the womens caucus, said that she believes that female politicians are subjected to more abuse than their male counterparts and that there is a particularly nasty gendered aspect to it.

She said: Its not just about women in politics but about women getting harassed online in a more general setting, in workplace or school settings as well.

Elsewhere, it was reported that a senior official at Garda Headquarters who helped to expose the misclassification of homicides has threatened legal action against the force over its alleged failure to address her complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination.

Lois West, deputy head of the Garda Siochna Analysis Service, has been on sick leave for six months after complaining about the forces refusal to deal with her complaints.

In 2018 West and a colleague Laura Galligan told the Oireachtas justice committee that they were belittled and treated poorly after exposing failures in the way garda were recording homicides.

The BBC journalist, Aileen Moynagh, was interviewed about her ordeal of being subjected to what a judge called horrific sustained online harassment and threats from a young man who was just 16 when the abuse began.

Cyberflashing

Emily Clarkson, an English female social media influencer, daughter of the personality and columnist Jeremy Clarkson was reported as calling for the toughening of online flashing laws. She spoke of being cyberflashed relentlessly on Insta. I get dick pictures all the time.

She also gets regular rape threats, death threats.

On the surface, what ties these six different women is that they each have a public profile and/or a degree of professional power.

Michelle Butler, a criminologist at Queens University says that male sexually aggressive behaviour running the gamut from lewd remarks to sexual assault may be interpreted as stemming from a need for power and control.

In January, the senseless, brutal killing of Ashling Murphy triggered both a public outpouring of anger and a national debate about male violence against women and how to tackle it.

In the last five years since the establishment of the #metoo movement, toxic masculinity has been consistently on the slate.

A recently introduced Labour Party private members Bill proposes the abolition of state-funded single-sex schools within 15 years.

Labour TD Aodhn Rordin says that the bill addresses the legacy of single-gender schools tackling gender inequality and toxic masculinity.

In the past, He has previously spoken of the link between increased levels of domestic violence in Ireland and the warped sense of power that he believes is fostered in some single-sex male schools.

Last week, Fine Gael senator, Regina ODoherty, speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality, which is examining the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on norms and stereotypes in education said that if she had a magic wand, every school would have to have both sexes and it would be a gender empowering environment.

However, she also said that her daughters in their co-educational school wouldnt be continuing with the subject of metal and woodwork for Leaving Cert, because the culture and the environment in the class was male toxic.

Education Minister Norma Foley told a committee that she would not support the Labour bill abolishing single-sex state schools, saying that while it was positive that two-thirds of our schools are currently mixed-gender schools, it benefits society when we have every possible benefit of choice available in terms of parents choices in choosing the educational path for students.

People Before Profit TD, Brd Smith, accused the minister of not answering a question about religious ethos influencing the teaching of sex education in certain schools.

In response to a question from FG spokesperson for equality Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (mentioned above) on whether every child will receive an identical [sex] education with no opt-out for parents or schools in accordance with the curriculum, Minister Foley answered that the curriculum will be followed as laid down in our schools.

Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris was adamant before the committee that he would defend to the death the right of a parent to decide the ethos of the school they choose to send their child to.

He was less clear on how he might achieve what he identified as the urgent need to deliver impartial sex education from primary school upwards while being undecided about whether legislation was needed to oblige all schools to provide this sex education.

And frankly, therein lies the nub of the matter.

Education Act

Currently, under the Education Act (1998), schools may determine what they consider to be appropriate sex education in line with the characteristic spirit of the school.

It is known that many religious schools opt out of teaching sensitive topics on grounds of their ethos.

So, while age-appropriate, impartial, fact-based information on sex and consent may be on Mr Harris wish list, as he almost certainly knows, its not going to happen in schools who exercise their right to derogate unless they are legally forced to comply.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) is currently reviewing the curriculum and is due to produce a draft sex education curriculum for the Junior Cycle age group which will address issues like male violence, consent and gender-based violence which is to be welcomed.

However, once more a derogation from this curriculum will be permissible based on school ethos.

Orla OConnor, director of the National Womens Council of Ireland has spoken of the need for a core curriculum to tackle misogyny and gender-based violence. Presumably, she means one that cant be opted out of.

At the very basic level, there is a question in Irish schools about how we tackle gender-based violence.

In May 2021, the ombudsman for children Niall Muldoon told a joint Oireachtas Committee that the Department of Education has persistently chosen not to ask about sexual bullying. In 2022, the State will have to account for itself again to the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and confirm that no progress has been made on the collation of sexual violence data in schools.

In 2021, the problem of rape culture and sexual abuse was found to be rife across both state and private English schools being designated by Scotland Yard as a national issue.

This prompted one feminist writer and human rights activist Natasha Walter to write on Twitter that although she was ashamed of her reaction, having read of some of the accounts of abuse in co-ed schools, she was relieved that she and her daughters had gone to single-sex secondary schools.

Outdated models

In Ireland, the views of educators on the merits of single-sex schools are a mixed bag with many calling for the abolition of what they view as a harmful outmoded form of education, others extolling the merits of educating particularly girls separately, and some saying the key issue is not whether a school is single-sex or co-educational but rather whether a school is good with teachers doing their job and with happy pupils.

In America, research on different learning styles between the two genders is apparently resulting in more public schools contemplating single-sex schools.

The belief is that by educating them separately, gender gaps that leave girls behind in maths and boys behind in literacy can be narrowed thereby undoing seemingly entrenched gender disparities.

This volte-face is also founded on the hope that the pervasive problem of boys generally falling behind in comparison to their female counterparts could be addressed.

Schools are a crucial piece of a bigger more complicated societal picture. Taking one random example, anybody who has raised teenage boys will know of the eye-wateringly misogynistic and often violent lyrics of rap songs where women are reduced to harmful archetypes and their value is essentially the sum of their sexuality.

Im not suggesting some Tipper Gore style censorship Irish mothers against rap campaign but I do think that deconstructing these songs for impressionable boys would be useful.

Ditto grasping the nettle of porn, and grappling with its warping effect on young peoples notion of sexuality, bodies, and relationships.

This should be done in a core subject on respecting girls and women, one that couldnt be opted out of by any school.

Drawing a direct line between single-sex schools, misogyny, and toxic masculinity seems overly simplistic.

Many European countries with predominantly co-ed schools have not been exempted from the out-flowerings of toxic masculinity in their schools; France is a case in point.

How our children are educated about consent, sex, and sexual violence regardless of whether the school is single-sex or co-educational goes to the heart of the matter.

Dismantling misogyny so deeply embedded in our culture will take a group effort.

Government, educators, parents, and campaigners need to work together to fight the ingrained and endemic misogyny, abuse and harassment that exists both online and in the real world.

The media reports above culled from one weeks reportage put this beyond doubt.

More:

Sarah Harte: Male violence and the opt out from sex education - Irish Examiner

Eight major companies including Toyota Motor Corp. have started a joint project to support foreign workers in Japan.

Officials said the project will provide counseling services to non-Japanese citizens working at the participating companies or their business partners on the difficulties they face at their workplaces, such as rights violations.

These services will help give the companies and workersa grasp of the reality and seek solutions.

There has been no end to allegations that many foreigners are being forced to work under wretched conditions, and the issue has been raised internationally. The situation should be promptly rectified.

Technical intern trainees, who dont have the freedom to switch their workplaces, are facing particularly tough circumstances.

An out-of-court settlement was reached recently in a case wherein a male Vietnamese technical intern who worked for a construction company in Okayama, the capital of Okayama Prefecture, complained that he had been physicallyabused by his colleagues.

Both the construction company and a supervising organization, which arranged for his placement with the company, apologized and paid him settlement money.

The man enlisted the help of a labor union based in Fukuyama, a city in neighboring Hiroshima Prefecture.

The union obtained a video showing how he was physically abused and presented the recording as proof of the misconduct during its collective bargaining with the company. The labor union also brought the inhumane practice to the attention of the public.

Technical intern trainees have been harmed physically and mentally by a succession of irregularities, such as violations of safety standards, illegal overtime, unpaid wages and abuses of authority.

Labor unions have helped rescue some of them in other cases as well. They should work with local governments, bar associations and employers alarmed about the current situation to step up their efforts.

The Organization for Technical Intern Training (OTIT), an authorized corporation founded five years ago, is tasked with supervising, and giving guidance to, training program implementers and other parties. Still, more than 5,700 violations of labor standard laws and regulations were recognized in 2020 alone.

There have also been frequent reports of cases, like the one in Okayama, wherein a supervising organization, which is supposed to provide assistance to technical interns in matters of their lives and livelihoods, has failed to fulfill its role. Many supervising organizations have seen their licenses rescinded.

The OTIT itself has not been spared from criticism.

It was learned recently that an official with the OTIT Sendai Office emailed a trio of female Vietnamese technical interns to call on them to secede from a local labor union that they had joined. Labor minister Shigeyuki Goto last month expressed regret over the matter in the Diet.

Training program implementers, supervising organizations and the OTIT are all facing the question of whether they understand that they are tasked with giving just treatment to foreign workers, who are essential supporters of society, and defend their livelihoods and human rights.

The Asahi Shimbun has called for, in its editorials, prompt abolition of the technical intern training program, which is serving as a means for securing access to cheap labor despite the programs stated goal of having foreigners acquire professional skills in Japan and take them back to their home countries.

A specified skilled worker program was introduced in 2019 to allow foreign workers who fall under the corresponding category to change jobs and, under certain conditions, also bring their families to Japan.

There were, however, only about 64,000 specified skilled workers in Japan as of March, less than one-quarter the number of technical intern trainees in the country. And those who are working under the new framework have been voicing the same old complaints about their workplace environments and the way they are treated.

A study group was set up under the justice minister early this year to discuss the pair of frameworks--the technical intern trainee program and the specified skilled worker program--and study what they should be like in the future.

Political leaders should recognize this as a pressing matter and responsibly end the abnormal situation we are facing.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 30

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EDITORIAL: Technical intern program needs prompt review by government | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis -

For many years, Lois Ahrens has been pushing to change the nations prison system. The Northampton activist, who heads the Real Cost of Prisons Project, has worked with fellow activists, artists, researchersand incarcerated people to try to end extreme sentencing such as life imprisonment without parole and to improve conditions for people behind bars.

Ahrens has corresponded with hundreds of incarcerated people over the years. But in one of her more unusual exchanges, in 2005, she sent 50 blank sheets of music paper to a man named Tiyo Attallah Salah-El, a jazz saxophonist and composer serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison.

Later that year, Salah-El sent back to Ahrens an extended series of compositions on those music sheets, with melody lines, basic chords and some harmonies. For years afterward, Ahrens tried to find some performers who might bring that music to life and now its finally happening.

After recording an album of Salah-Els music last fall with three other players, jazz saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles will bring his ensemble to the Bombyx Center for Arts & Integrity in Florence June 11 to play Tiyos Songs of Life, a rich mix of blues, swing, bop and ballads thats also a testament to Salah-Els own efforts to reform the prison system.

Salles, who lives in Florence and teaches jazz and African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said he was drawn to the project not just for the music but because of his own concerns about mass incarceration, both in the U.S. and other countries. Salles, a native of Brazil, says harsh sentences are also a problem there.

Social justice has been a component of some of his own music. A few years ago, Salles composed and produced a large ensemble jazz piece, The New Immigrant Experience, which was based on interviews he conducted with several Dreamers, the young immigrants granted legal status in the U.S. after being brought to America and raised by undocumented parents.

I was really struck by Tiyos music and by what I learned about him as a person, Salles said. As part of his preparation for recording the music, he read the 2020 book Pen-Pal: Prison Letters from a Free Spirit on Slow Death Row, which features many samples of the correspondence Salah-El had with different people during his 40-plus years serving a life sentence, including Ahrens and the late historian Howard Zinn.

He was someone who remained positive and engaged in life, engaged in music and committed to changing the prison system, Salles said. He didnt let prison destroy him. As much as I admired his music, it was the social justice aspect of this project that was really important to me.

People who commit serious crimes must face consequences, Sallesacknowledged. But he also noted, If the prison system is only set up to punish people, how does that make us better as a society? Why not give [incarcerated people] a chance to improve themselves, to get an education, to evolve?

Ahrens says Salah-El, who died in prison in 2018 at age 85, earned an undergraduate degree and a masters while imprisoned and was also a teacher, a bandleader, and a writer. In 1995, he also reached out to scholars and activists to form a group called Coalition for the Abolition of Prisons (CAP).

He had a great writing style, Ahrens said. He could be funny and philosophical, but also very serious about what it was like to be incarcerated.

About 15 years ago, Ahrens arranged with the late Rob Cox, then the head of Special Collections at UMass, to have many of Salah-Els papers stored there; a summary of his life thats part of the collection provides some basic background on him. He was born David Riley Jones in 1932, in West Chester, Pennsylvania and fought in the army during the Korean War; afterward he played music part time and worked in his fathers plumbing business.

Salah-El he changed his name when he converted to Islam in the 1960s tangled with the law after getting involved with drugs through his nighttime music life; at one point he served six years in prison for aggravated assault, according to the UMass summary. In the 1970s, he was sentenced to life for other drug-related charges and for his conviction in a murder he said he did not commit.

Ahrens says Salah-Els prison activism likely worked against him ever getting a chance for parole, as did Pennsylvania law for certain crimes. She also notes that the U.S. prison population has mushroomed from roughly 200,000 people in the 1970s to 2.2 million today: Its an industry the growth has been exponential.

Ahrens says Salah-El, who she visited in prison a few times, didnt request that she try to get his music recorded or heard when he sent his compositions to her in 2005. I think he just wanted to write it, to have it be part of his legacy, she said. But I really wanted to hear what it sounded like.

She talked to a number of saxophonists over the next several years about performing the music, but those efforts fell through. Then one player, Berhani Woldu, who in 2018 had agreed to perform some of Salah-Els music at a UMass event but had to back out at the last minute, suggested Ahrens contact Salles, Woldus former teacher.

Salles couldnt do anything immediately, either; he had plenty of his own commitments, including his work on The New Immigrant Experience. But he was intrigued enough to meet with Ahrens and hear more. I was curious the best way to grow is to learn something new, he said.

The pandemic caused further delays in playing the music live, but it also gave Salles time to review Salah-Els compositions in depth. He had written them as lead sheets, with basic guidelines for melody, meter and chords, but no scoring for specific instruments. Salles arranged the music for saxophone, piano, bass and drums and made other adjustments as needed, including changing the meter of some tunes or combining a few compositions.

My idea was to arrange it in a way that would honor the traditions of the music Tiyo played while giving it a more contemporary feel, he said.

Salles enlisted another musician with UMass connections, bassist Avery Sharpe, and a friend and former fellow music student, Zaccai Curtis, on piano; Curtis in turn recommended drummer Jonathan Barber for the project. Salles says those three players made sense not only because of their shared roots with the style of music Salah-El composed but also due to their own commitments to social justice.

Sharpe, for instance, has composed a number of works that honor historical African American figures including Sojourner Truth and Jesse Owens; more recently he recorded 400, a musical exploration of four centuries of African American history.

The ensemble rehearsed a few times at Salles house last fall before recording about an hours worth of Salah-Els music in a one-day session in a studio in Acton (the album is on Tapestry Records of Colorado). Salles says they had plenty of material to choose from: Tiyo wrote a lot of music. I picked out [compositions] that I thought would be good examples of what he did.

Salles says hes indebted to his fellow musicians for making the project a reality it was funded through a grant Salles received and by funds that Ahrens raised and Ahrens says shes indebted to Salles for taking on the project and seeing it through. Both are pleased as well that the music will debut at the Bombyx Center, based at the Florence Congregational Church, which was an important meeting place for local abolitionists and free thinkers when it opened in 1861.

It feels wonderful to have Tiyos music here, with the legacy of the church and of Florence being such an important part of the abolition movement, Ahrens said. It feels like were completing a circle.

Tiyos Songs of Life will take place at 8 p.m. at the Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity. Tickets are $20 in advance ($25 at the door) and can be ordered at bombyx.live.

More here:

Freeing music from prison: Florence concert to debut jazz composed behind bars and finally seeing the light of day - GazetteNET

Saving Kashmir from separatists is our civilisational goal and we are winning. But India is up against a dark and violent adversary who will stop at nothing. Knee-jerk responses, loud jingoism, and lapses in patience resolve can break that winning streak

Pakistan-backed separatists lost the war in Kashmir on 5 August 2019, when Article 370 which gave it special status was revoked. Nearly three years later, they are fighting a bloody but defensive battle to salvage domination and demographics.

The terrorism ecosystem has its back against the wall, but mistakes at this point will cost India dearly and undo much of its work in the last three years.

A spate of killings of Hindus in the last few weeks has already shaken up the sense of security the state has been trying to create for the states historically savaged and persecuted minorities. The killing of Kashmiri Pandit (KP) teacher Rajni Bala in Kulgam or of government employee Rahul Bhat in Chadoora have made hundreds of KP families start fleeing again. For the community, such violence instantly brings back memories of the 90s genocide and ethnic cleansing.

File image of Rahul Bhat.ANI

That makes them easy targets and high-profile advertisements for jihadis who want all non-Muslims to keep out of the Valley, which they view as an Islamic state.

In a statement dated 2 June, terror group Kashmir Freedom Fighters (KFF), which claimed responsibility for bank manager Vijay Kumar in Kulgam, said: Anyone involved in the demographic change of Kashmir will meet the same fate. So, its an eye-opener for all those non-locals who are living in fools paradise that the Modi-led government will settle them here. Its nothing but just an illusion for them and they should not understand the reality that will cost them their lives. Think. Its not too late, otherwise the next turn will be yours.

This threat reeks of fear among the killers themselves of impending doom.

So, what have been the chief driving factors for the latest wave of Islamist violence? These are the three Ds domicile, delimitation, and disempowerment.

Domicile

Just before the second anniversary last year of scrapping Article 370, the Jammu and Kashmir government listed its successes in a 76-page booklet titled Jammu and Kashmir Marching To A New Era.

The report had a startling figure. It said 41.05 lakh domicile certificates had been issued in J&K including 55,931 certificates to West Pakistani refugees, 2,754 certificates to Valmikis and 789 to Gorkhas. In the last one year, that figure may have doubled.

A domicile certificate makes one eligible for recruitment in J&K. All former permanent residents are automatically eligible.

This set off panic among the Pakistan-backed Islamist ecosystem in Kashmir.

Is the demography protected so far by guns and a special status which robbed migrants, women, Dalits, and LGBT+ citizens of their rights being rapidly and systemically changed?

If Kashmirs demographic sanitised of non-Muslims through violent ethnic cleansing gets balanced or inverted, what will happen to Pakistans design of making it an Islamic state separated from India?

Interestingly, KFFs missive begins by mentioning that slain banker Vijay Kumar had a domicile.

Acres of oped space in local and national newspapers have been taken up by columnists who do not speak a word about forced demographic change happening in Bengal or Assam, or the missionary conversion sprees in Punjab, Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh.

Delimitation

Adding to demographic fears, came delimitation. The number of Assembly constituencies in Jammu, the BJPs stronghold, increased from 37 to 43. But seats in Kashmir only went up from 46 to 47. Nine seats have been earmarked for the Scheduled Tribes six in Jammu, three in Kashmir so no Muslim candidate can contest from these constituencies.

Kashmirs separatists and parties that relied mainly on the Muslim vote reacted with alarm. The reorganisation may end the anti-minority politics of the state and give the BJP an edge.

Besides, the Central government has started settling non-Muslim populations in safe enclaves. Instead of shifting Kashmiri Hindu employees to Jammu, the government has decided to create eight safe zones in Kashmir where they will be relocated. To begin with, 177 teachers posted in Srinagar downtown and other vulnerable areas have been shifted to secure zones.

Coupled with domicile given to migrant labour, delimitation may change the electoral fortunes of the Valley itself. A 2019 study by the International Scientific Research Organisation for Science, Engineering and Technology shows that of the 7 lakh-odd migrant labourers, most were concentrated in Anantnag, Srinagar and Pulwama. With the opening of Kashmir and massive issuance of domicile, the electoral fate of some pockets in the Valley may have changed.

Disempowerment

The biggest disempowerment of the jihad ecosystem came with the scraping of Article 370. The main tool of separatism was removed.

With it, all 890 central laws were made applicable to Jammu and Kashmir, 205 J&K state laws were repealed and 130 state laws were modified. The Centre repealed the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act and has started treating all property sold by Kashmiri Pandits after 1989-90 as distress sale, overturning such transactions and making local Muslims who took over those lands now liable to surrender these.

In places like Ganderbal, people from outside the state now own large tracts of land. Only fair, since Kashmiris own a fair bit of property in the rest of India.

Taking away of statehood has shrunk the political space and delimitation has ensured that brute Muslim majoritarianism cannot return when the political processes are restored.

While that may be good, the over-dependence of the people on an unelected and often indifferent bureaucracy instead of elected leaders to solve their problems can be frustrating. Also, the daily inquisition of Kashmiri Muslims on national media and not enough acknowledgement that thousands of local Muslims who stood by the Indian state and Pandits during the bloodiest years also paid with blood gives rise to hurt and anger.

The Indian state, agencies and media will have to tread very sensitively. Changes have to be done in a nuanced way instead of hype. The might of the Pakistani establishment is at work to destabilise efforts and tap into local resentment.

Saving Kashmir from separatists is our civilisational goal and we are winning. But India is up against a dark and violent adversary who will stop at nothing. Knee-jerk responses, loud jingoism, and lapses in patience resolve can break that winning streak.

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Terrorists fear of these 3Ds is behind killings of Kashmirs non-Muslims - Firstpost