Monthly Archives: September 2022

New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Thursday drew a line between poverty and backwardness created through centuries of oppression while hearing petitions challenging the economically weaker sections (EWS) quota, saying reservations are meant to tackle only the latter.

The Supreme Court observed that poverty is not a permanent thing, adding that the economically weaker sections among upper castes could be aided through various affirmative actions at the threshold level like scholarships instead of the 10% quota in government jobs and educational institutions.

It said the term reservation has different connotations such as social and financial empowerment and is meant for the classes that have been oppressed for centuries.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit said reservation has been given to those stigmatised for centuries due to their caste and vocations and the EWS among the forward classes could have been given facilities like scholarships and free education without the government getting into the reservation issue.

When it is about other reservations, it is attached to lineage. That backwardness is not something which is temporary. Rather, it goes down to centuries and generations. But economic backwardness can be temporary, said the bench.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, defended the 103rd constitutional amendment, saying the 10% quota for the EWS has been provided without disturbing the 50% reservation available to SCs, STs and OBCs, and the parliamentary wisdom, leading to a constitutional amendment cannot be set aside without establishing that it violated the basic structure of the constitution.

The other side is not denying the fact that people, who are struggling or who are poverty-stricken in that unreserved class, needed some support. There is no doubt about that, the court said.

What is being submitted is that you can try to elevate that class by giving them sufficient opportunities at the threshold level, say at the 10+2 level Give them a scholarship. Give them the freeship so that they get the opportunity to learn, to educate themselves or to elevate themselves, said the bench which also comprised Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S. Ravindra Bhat, Bela M. Trivedi and J.B. Pardiwala.

The court said reservation as a traditional concept has different meanings and connotations and it is not just about financial empowerment but social and political empowerment.

It enables the disadvantaged class to be part of the apparatus of the government. So, the reservation has various other facets to it not just trying to improvise the economic situationBut, here is only one facet which is to improve the economic status of a man or a woman of the general class. You could have done anything else. Why do you have to indulge in this reservation issue, it said.

The solicitor general argued in detail on the states power to take affirmative action to elevate the poor among the general category and said the constitutional amendment furthers and strengthens the basic feature of the constitution and its validity cannot be tested on grounds of some statistics.

While analysing the basic structure, the principle guide is the preamble. Considering the preamble of the constitution, the amendment does not destroy the basic structure, rather it strengthens it by giving justice economic justice to those who have not been the beneficiaries of affirmative action like reservation, the law officer said.

When a statutory provision is challenged, then it is often said that it violates a particular article of the Constitution, but, here Parliament has inserted a provision of the constitution itself and hence its validity cannot be questioned, he added.

The constitution is not a static formula and Parliament can always take a decision to cater to the aspirations of the nation and, if some action has been taken without disturbing the quota for SCs STs and OBCs, then it cannot be set aside, he said.

At the outset, Mehta said the constitutional amendment made by Parliament by exercising its powers make the job difficult for those who are challenging it like any other statute.

He said the income figure of Rs 8 lakh per annum to grant the EWS quota has been arrived at after a detailed study.

The bench reiterated its stand on socially and economically backward classes (SEBC) above the creamy layer being denied the opportunity of availing reservation that is due to the EWS from the upper classes.

So now that person (above the creamy layer) is from SEBC but still not getting any benefits (of reservation). For them you are reducing the pool from 50-40%, the bench said.

It said, moreover, there has been no anthropological study to show that there are families who have suffered for generations from poverty, if they are not from a socially backward class.

Poverty is not permanent which will go down from generation to generation, the bench said.

One idea which is getting projected is that you are creating the EWS reservation for the general category candidates on the premise that they are from the weaker sectionwhen it comes to SCs, STs, you are not giving equal treatment to them, it said.

Senior lawyer V.D. Makhija supported the EWS quota on behalf of some general category poor students from Uttar Pradesh, saying the classification on the sole economic criteria for grant of reservation is valid because this is an enabling provision.

The bench would resume hearing on September 27.

On Wednesday, it had posed a slew of queries to the Centre on the grant of 10% quota in admissions and government jobs to the EWS category, saying the slice of cake of 50% open general seats available to OBCs above creamy layer now stands reduced to 40%.

(With PTI inputs)

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Poverty and Backwardness Through Centuries of Oppression Not Same: SC on EWS Quota - The Wire

Last week, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly while visiting Tehran. At the police station, she fainted from a brain injury caused by police battery during her arrest. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she was in vegetative state, and her heart stopped beating a few days later. This incident sparked yet another round of mass protests in Iran. The provincial capital city of Sanandaj, Mahsas Kurdish-majority hometown, was the center of the protests this time, and the internet there was disconnected soon after. As the protest spread to the rest of the country, users began losing connection en masse in other cities too, including Tehran.

A quarter century ago, President Bill Clinton promised that the internet would bring freedom to the world. His prediction of the internets ineluctable, liberal triumphNow theres no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet. Good luck!led to American complacency that ceded the internet to tyrants. The Chinese government wasnt lucky; it was determined: It heavily censors what its people can see online and uses the internet to track and arrest dissidents, collect intelligence, control the society, and prevent or suppress protests. Others did the same.

Disconnecting the internet has been a relatively recent tool of oppression in Iran. In 2019, the Islamic Republic witnessed a popular uprising, the most threatening to the regimes survival (so far). After violence alone failed to end it, the regime disconnected the internet nationwide for a week. That did the trick. People had no means of communication, mobilization, and organizing. Since then, the regime has made a habit of disconnecting the internet whenever and wherever there are protests, and it has worked every time.

The regime in Iran has mulled implementing a national interneti.e., an intranet, disconnected from the internet and only accessible inside Iran. Other dictatorships are toying with similar ideas. There are even concerns of an eventual internet bipolarity: two internets, disconnected from each other, one for the free world, and one (or several) for the unfree one. Russia has considered RuNet, a bid to show that the countrys online infrastructure could survive even if disconnected from the rest of the world. China, while coy about establishing an intranet, uses its Great Firewall to control the internet, and its Internet Plus project was designed to integrate all new digital technologiesthe internet, quantum computing, cloud data, etc.to serve the state and its mercantile policy.

To many in the United States, especially technocrats under the influence of Silicon Valley, the idea of decoupling the free worlds internet from the autocratic intranets is unfathomablebut they should fathom it, because it may happen soon, and they have no control over it. But it can be preempted.

To appreciate how important the free flow of information is to dissidents, one need only consider the lengths dictators go to censor the internet. Iran has an entire cabinet ministry increasingly devoted to digital contentand another concerned with digital repression. Other unfree countries behave similarly. Last year, Cuban protesters were forced to resort to all kinds of tricks to bypass internet censorship. The investment both tyrants and protesters make in internet technology indicates how important an open internet is.

The decoupling between free and unfree networks might happen in the medium-term future. Or it might not. If it doesnt, it will likely be because dictators from Havana to Moscow to Tehran to Beijing figure its not worth the expense, given how easily they can control the internet now. Far from being the libertarian super-highway it once appeared, the internet has been serving tyrants.

As much as we might anthropomorphize it in everyday speech, the internet is an inanimate thing. Free countries rely on open access to information, which makes regulating the internet difficult and uncomfortable. Dictatorships dont have this problem, and they censor and surveil with abandon. The best counter-practice for free countries is to ensure that the enemies of freedom fail in restricting access. This would redound to the benefit of the United States, as well as those it would help get online. American support of VPNs to help Russians circumvent the Kremlins censorship is a good start, but a small oneand it wouldnt help if Russia or another tyranny decided to cut access to the internet altogether. We have yet to see the potential of Starlink to maximize access to the internet, but its use in Ukraine is a good case to study (which was also financed by the U.S. government). And Elon Musk recently requested a waiver from sanctions to give access to the Iranians, which the Treasury Department quickly approved. A day later, green spots in Iran began popping on the Starlink tracker Satellite Map.space, proving that people were already using Starlink in Iran. Other technologies such as internet balloons show promise. Investing in such technologies is now a matter of foreign policy necessity for the United Statesand it is worth remembering that the internet itself is a DARPA product.

The U.S. government needs to begin serious investment in technologies that would assure access to the internet before the great internet schism occurs. More than that, once a solution is found, there needs to be investment to ensure the reach of that technology to peoples living under tyranny. Dictatorships keep telling us what they fear. It is only natural to give them exactly that before its too late.

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The Internet Is a Playground for Tyrants - The Bulwark

LAHORE - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Monday called former finance minister Ishaq Dar the biggest cheater of Pakistan and attributed his homecoming to an underhand deal.

Over here, thieves are involved in deals. Ishaq Dar left Pakistan for London. Ishaq Dar could not justify his assets, which is why he absconded. He is returning under a deal, Imran said

Addressing a political event at the Government College University (GCU), Lahore campus here, the PTI chief said that the country could not move forward because of the thieves who were offered deals and given NROs here in Pakistan.

He said this was the reason that thefts would not end, and the money laundering would go unabated. Khan said Ishaq Dar had left the country on the PMs plane because he had no answers to the questions of the National Accountability Bureau about his assets. He said Dar fled the country under the pretext of getting treatment, but many would not know what treatment he was seeking abroad.

He urged the people not to watch this, what he called, a theatre like goats and sheep and rise against oppression and injustice. Borrowing a quote from Aristotle, Khan said the great philosopher had said 2500 years ago that if there was oppression and injustice in a society, all the sections of society would rise against it except the cowards and the selfish.

He also cited the oft repeated example of the people of Kufa who did not side with Imam Hussain (RA) out of the fear of Yazeed despite knowing that he [Imam Hussain (RA)] was on the right path. Giving these two examples, Khan concluded that this was how they become a slave.

When a person bows down before a fear, he commits shirk, he said and added that this was why the God Almighty had made Jehad obligatory to fight against oppression. Talking about the recent audio leaks, Imran said that the story had unfolded with Wikileaks followed by Dawn leaks, and now comes the audio leaks. He said it was quite evident from the audio leaks that the current chief election commissioner was the house servant of the Sharif family.

He said that he had struggled hard to introduce electronic voting machines (EVMs) for free and fair elections, but the chief election commissioner opposed the move at the behest of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari. If he has even a fraction of shame, he should resign now; and if he does not, we will force him to resign. He predicted that more audio recordings of the present rulers will come to surface soon. The former prime minister also asked the students of the Government College University, to whom Donald Lu was addressing in the cipher to remove my Govt? Students replied neutral neutral. The PTI chairman appreciated them by saying you passed the first test.

Addressing the gathering at Government College University (GCU) in Lahore, Imran also said that the audio leaks had made it apparent that CEC Raja was a servant of the Sharif household.

In the audio leaks, Nawaz is telling him [CEC] who should be disqualified and when to hold elections, the former premier said. After the audio leaks, the CEC should resign if he has even an ounce of shame, he said. But he doesnt [have any shame], so we will have to make him resign. Turning his guns on Maryam, the PTI chief referred to one of the audio recordings purportedly featuring a conversation between PM Shehbaz and an unidentified official about the possibility of facilitating the import of Indian machinery for a power project that was linked to the PML-N vice presidents son-in-law.

Lambasting the PML-N, particularly PM Shehbaz, Imran said that his government had ended trade ties with India after New Delhi had revoked occupied Kashmirs special autonomy in August 2019.

There are still no ties, but Maryams son-in-law [intends] to procure machinery from India, Imran continued, adding: And what is prime minister cherry blossoms response? He suggests that they bring the machinery via another country instead of telling them not to import it at all.

Originally posted here:

Imran claims another audio of Maryam Nawaz will surface soon - The Nation

Putin has been rattling his saber, making threats and calling for mobilization. Just last week the news and social media were full of stories and images of torture, killings and mass graves.

In the face of mobilization, there are protests on the streets across some cities in Russia while many more men are trying to flee the country.

And while all this is happening in Russia, there are also protests on the streets of Iran.

At first glance, it appears the Iranians are far braver than the Russians. It has been noted, for instance, that Iranian protesters aggressively protect each other in their struggles against government enforcers, while many Russian protestors hang back to protect themselves.

Of course, theres nothing brave about men who flee the country instead of taking to the streets.

But even with all that said, I think the comparison between the current situation in Russia and Iran is flawed. In fact, I think it is better to compare the Iranian situation to the situation in Ukraine, and to consider the Russian situation as a completely different beast.

First, the Ukrainians and the Iranians are both fighting the same enemy; an oppressive government. Its true that the Iranians are fighting their own government and the Ukrainians are not; but lets not forget that if Putin had his way the Russian government would be tpresideding over the Ukrainian people as well.

For the Russian protestors, it is a very different set of circumstances. Even though they are clearly oppressed, their protests today are not against oppression. They are against mobilization. They are fighting against a specific circumstance; they are not fighting for freedom and against tyranny, as the Ukrainians and Iranians are.

Even if you think back to the protests in Russia immediately after the invasion, you realize those protesters were not fighting for freedom against tyranny either. Rather, they were fighting against the specific circumstance of the invasion. This is why such protests often dont last and dont bring about meaningful change.

Its no secret that I am a Russian who has devoted himself to bringing about an end to Putin and Putinism, and bringing democracy to my Russian motherland. But I know democracy will never be possible in Russia unless the Russian people are willing to risk their lives and fight the way we see the Ukrainians fight.

Ironically, Russians must fight tirelessly against the same enemy the Ukrainians are fighting against.

But what is it going to take to get my fellow Russians to fight against their government for freedom the way the Ukrainians are fighting for theirs?

The obvious but unhelpful answer is: the future.

Its a redundant answer because while it sounds and feels good, its been the same answer forever in Russia, and it has never actually brought about any change.

But today, some very important things have changed in Russia:

1. Thousands and thousands of soldiers have gone to Ukraine. They were told they were liberators, but they found out they were invaders.

Lesson: I cant trust my government; my government lies to me.

2. These soldiers expected to be greeted with flowers. But instead, they were greeted with bursts of automatic gunfire and deadly shots from Javelins and Stingers.

Lesson: My government neither cares about me nor protects me, its protecting itself.

3. These soldiers were told Ukrainians live like animals. Then they saw with their own eyes how much better life is in Ukraine than it is in Russia.

Lesson: Ive been tricked. Everything I have been told about my country and my way of life is false.

4. These soldiers see beautiful cities and parks and homes in Ukraine; their own cities and parks and homes are embarrassingly poor in comparison.

Lesson: My government must be keeping all the wealth for itself.

5. These soldiers will eventually return to Russia (a country with strict gun control laws, for obvious autocratic reasons) with both weapons and training, and they will be armed with the knowledge that life in Russia is neither better nor more righteous, as has been fraudulently pounded into their heads by the Putin-controlled media.

Lesson: I dont want to live like a Russian. I want to live like a Ukrainian.

And another lesson: Ukrainians have a country they are proud of. A country they know is worth fighting for. A country and a life with a bright shiny future, even in the middle of an invasion. I want to have a country I am proud of. I want to have a country worth fighting for. I want a country and a life with a bright shiny future.

If youre that Russian soldier, you can now envision the possibility of the kind of future that you and I live for in the West, instead of the bleak future that Putinism promises. You and I know our futures are worth fighting for. Now these Russian soldiers know what that future might look like, too. And theyre going to take that new-found vision of the future back to their homes and families and friends. They will share what they saw in Ukraine and that vision of the future with others. They will infect others with that vision of the future. And they will have weapons and training and experience fighting; only now they can fight for themselves, for their families, for their friends. For their freedom.

The Ukrainians are often telling us during this war that they are fighting Russia for every free country in the West. I wholeheartedly agree with this. But I think what is overlooked is that the Ukrainians are also, ironically, fighting this war against Russia for the Russian people, too. Or to say it another way, the Ukrainian people and the Russian people share a common enemy.

After all, a future in which Russia remains an enemy of the West, an existential threat for much of the rest of the world, is a terrible future for everyone. For Ukrainians and other Eastern European nations, as well as for Russians who remain at home. Russia as a democratic nation and trusted partner with shared values benefits both Russians and most of the rest of the world.

Yes, it is up to us as Russians to stand up to Putin and Putinism and to fight for our freedom and democracy. Our victory will be the worlds victory, just as Ukraines victory against Putin will be the worlds victory.

The beginning of a revolution in Russia is already happening. Every day in the news you can see evidence of this if you know what to look for; its just a matter of understanding how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

It is the New Russian Revolution with two very clear goals:

I and many other Russians have been preparing for this moment for many years. And now, the moment has arrived.

Ilya Ponomarev is a is a leader of the Russian democratic oppostion. A former member of the Russian Duma, he was the only deputy to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which then forced him to go into exile.

The views expressed in this article are the authors and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.

See the article here:

The New Russian Revolution Is at Hand - Kyiv Post

The Kings College hosted economic philosopher and author Dr. Rachel Ferguson to discuss her new book Black Liberation Through the Marketplace on Thursday, Sept. 22 in the City Room. Ferguson presented her research, specifically by observing the extreme division in Americas thought processes concerning race. She also asked students to have a more open view of exploring and understanding the forces at work behind both sides of race-based issues in the U.S.

If I use the phrase classical liberal, do you know what I mean? asked Ferguson. The audience was silent. She went on to list three major factors that developed her ideology on the issue: private property rights, freedom of contract and equality of law. These principles led Ferguson directly into the history of oppression inside slavery.

Ferguson started her lecture by delving into the founding themes of America. The students in attendance followed her speech through the reconstruction of the southern states, Jim Crow laws and modern-day America. However, according to Ferguson, one thing remained constant throughout history: extremism on both sides hindered the process of creating change.

The Bob Jones curriculum, a right-leaning homeschooling syllabus, and the 1619 Project, a left-leaning revisionist history project, both came up during the Q&A portion of the event. Both have been commonly recognized for radicalistic ideas on how the issues of race and slavery have shaped our nation. The Bob Jones Curriculum does not lend any weight to the idea of race shaping America, whereas the 1619 project believes slavery to be the principal issue of America and its founding.

This information led freshman Rehannah Tejiram to ask, What do you think is the rationale behind the 1619 Project?

There seems to be a neo-Marxist train of thought a pedagogy for liberation, said Ferguson. It seems to be a critique of an American conservative tradition. [The intention was] a lot more government control, a lot more regulation of the way corporations are run, and you have an extremely thick welfare state. She supplied a multitude of reasons behind this agenda, specifically the increase in progressives leaning towards Marxism as well as Nicole Jones personal beliefs informing the project.

Ultimately, the 1619 Project did not correspond with Fergusons views, specifically the agenda clashing with the classical liberal values she set in place at the beginning of the lecture.

After the Q&A, Ferguson had much to say about the Bob Jones school of thought. The Bob Jones curriculum is really bad on slavery, said Ferguson. It's way too happy. It's never a fun experience to have someone claim to own you.

Her dialogue eventually led to discourse about the benefits and costs of having an extremist view. This is a very controversial statement, Ferguson said. Lets take critical race theory as an example. Philosophically, I do not core align at all(sic), but because they are focusing on the history of race and the system of oppression they do end up paying attention to real episodes of oppression in history We can gain things from ideas way over there because they draw our attention to something new.

According to Ferguson, she remains steadfast in her faith in neutrality. Her views correspond to her idea of a classical liberal constantly examining the issue through the lens of private property rights, freedom of contract and equality of law.

In regards to an optimistic point of view like the Bob Jones curriculum, Ferguson commented, They draw advantages to some of the American system and Constitutional thought, and produce students that read James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and really know those founding documents really well.

Colton Taussig is a freshman at The King's College majoring in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. He is an avid film-lover and takes great pride in his home state of Missouri.

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Mediating the Extremes Dr. Rachel Ferguson Discusses Issues on Race in America - Empire State Tribune

Five Venezuelan men walked together in the dark, trying to find the address US immigration officials had given them. It was almost midnight in downtown Sacramento, a city they had never heard of and an unexpected destination.

One of them, Juan, 29, who asked for his real name to be withheld out of fear of jeopardizing his asylum request, had expected to end up in New York. Hed spent more than a month on the journey from Venezuela to the US-Mexico border.

But right then, he just wanted a roof over his head something an immigration agent promised him before his release from a detention center in Eagle Pass, Texas.

The group spotted the address but before they could even knock on the glass door, a tall man in a blue uniform stopped them. It was Derek Smith, a 36-year old security guard, and Juan quickly showed him the government documents that included the address. Smith didnt speak Spanish, but he recognized the despair in their eyes, he said.

I pulled out my translator and I went from English to Spanish. I wrote, This is not a shelter, this is an office building. They responded, Yes, but we were sent here and kept showing me their paperwork, Smith said.

So I told them, Come back by 7am and Ill have more information.

He indicated a nearby park. So they walked there, where dozens of unhoused people slept on the ground or in dirty tents.

At that, one of Juans exhausted group fell to his knees and cried. They roughed it, but Juan couldnt sleep and asked himself all night what he was doing there.

Other asylum seekers are being bussed to New York without that necessarily being their choice, or Chicago, or Washington or Marthas Vineyard, in moves by the Republican governors of Texas, Arizona and, lately, Florida to make a statement about immigration.

But Juan mystifyingly ended up in the California state capital. Hes part of a mass exodus fleeing danger, hunger amid economic collapse, political oppression or all of the above in Nicols Maduros crisis-torn, authoritarian Venezuela.

His journey started, he said, at his home in Tchira, in north-west Venezuela, when he refused to join the rebel National Liberation Army, a Marxist guerrilla group that operates along the border with Colombia.

Armed guerrillas threatened to harm his family if he didnt leave Tchira within 20 days, so on 7 August, he said goodbye to his 14-year old daughter, other friends and relatives and set out for the US with the equivalent of $80 in his pocket an amount he said he struggled to make in three months.

Juan went by bus to Medelln, Colombia, then north by bus and boat until he braced himself to walk across the mountains of the infamous Darin Gap, roadless jungle connecting Panama with South America that tens of thousands of migrants risk their lives each month to traverse.

Its hell. You see cadavers. Desperate people steal food from other people. At night, when you are camping, you hear people screaming for help, Juan said.

After a stretch of four days without food and money, Juan earned some money by cleaning restrooms to pay for a boat ride from Panama to Costa Rica. It then took him about two weeks to reach Guatemala City, where someone helped him buy a bus ticket to southern Mexico and from there he eventually reached Nuevo Laredo, on the border with Texas in late August.

We were practically about to cross the Rio Grande when we were kidnapped, he said. Drug and smuggling cartels prey on migrants near the border, often shaking them down for money. He was let go after two days, threatened with death if he came back into town, he said. He fled further back into Mexico, then clung to the top of a freight train known as La Bestia and ended up back at the border 100 miles further west, where he safely crossed the treacherous river and surrendered to US authorities at Eagle Pass.

There, he exercised his legal right to seek asylum. For the next three days, Juan slept underneath a Mylar blanket inside a frigid border patrol cell that migrants often refer to as a hielera, or ice box, before being transferred to a detention center then bussed to a shelter in San Antonio.

On 15 September, Juan was told by city officials at the citys migrant resource center the same place the Venezuelans taken to Marthas Vineyard earlier this month said they were lured from that there was a plane to board.

They [immigration officials] asked, Where do you want to go? I said, New York. But when they gave us the paperwork, it said Sacramento, Juan said. Out of money and options, he took the ticket.

On the plane, Juan and the other four Venezuelans hed met were discussing how they would get from the Sacramento airport into town. All were broke. But a female passenger overheard the conversation and, Juan said, offered all the cash in her purse: $24. It was enough for a bus ride, 11 miles to downtown Sacramento, where they ended up in the park.

At 6.50am the following morning, the men went back and Smith, the guard, who was about to end his shift, gave them another address.

After traversing seven countries, walking three more miles in shoes riddled with holes was okay, and the address turned out to be the Sacramento food bank & family services non-profit. There was breakfast available. And someone turned up from NorCal Resist, a group of activists who offer legal, educational and housing services to immigrants.

This was the first time having people show up in Sacramento with paperwork for a shelter that doesnt exist, said Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer attorney helping with asylum claims.

Juan was baffled about why the very last stretch of his journey had been so stressful.

We were trying to do things right, like the paper says, but we found out that the address was not right. Why would they do that to us, if we come with such good intentions? Juan told the Guardian.

NorCal Resist put Juan up in a hotel, the safe, warm bed at last. He told the Guardian that, whether he ends up in New York or staying in Sacramento, he is optimistic about his asylum claim. Gonzalez concurred that Juan has a strong claim.

Go here to read the rest:

No money or options: a migrants unexpected journey to California - The Guardian US

Delhi: Now I get to speak about what is happening to the freedom of expression in India, Meena Kandasamyan anti-caste feminist, novelist and poettold us during an interview, after becoming the winner of the 2022 Hermann Kesten Prize, announced by the German chapter of the PEN International writers association.

The award, instituted in honour of the 20-century renowned German novelist, Hermann Kesten, recognises and honours individuals who defend the rights of persecuted writers and journalists.

Kandasamywhose work primarily revolves around the themes of gender, caste, sexuality, and ethnic subjugationjoins a group of renowned individuals who PEN regards to be champions of free expression, including German novelist and social critic Gnter Grass, British writer Harold Pinter, assassinated Russian journalist Anna Politkowskaya, Chinese writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo, and exiled Turkish journalist Can Dndar.

Speaking out, Kandasamy said, comes at a cost for anyone speaking against the government in todays India, but it is, she added, worse for women.

It is just that when you happen to be a woman writer these attacks get very personal, said Kandasamy, who confessed to worrying about her two children. They have a template: they attack your looks, they attack your character, they attack your personal life, they threaten and your children with rape and death.

In 1985, on the occasion of the 85th birthday of German novelist and dramatist Hermann Kesten as its honorary president, the German chapter of PEN presented the first Hermann Kesten Award medal. Since then, it has recognised individuals whose work has supported persecuted writers. The medal was awarded annually beginning in 1993 after previously being awarded every two years. It was renamed the Hermann Kesten Award in 2008.

Born in 1984 in the capital of southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to parents who were university professors, Kandasamy, 37, has been writing poetry and translating books by Dalit writers and leaders into English as early as the age of 17. A fierce critic (here, here and here) of Brahmanical oppression and narratives of caste and gender segregation, the author uses her writing to deconstruct trauma and violence.

Some of her notable works include The Gypsy Goddess (2014), When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife (2017), Ayaankali (2007), and poems including Touch (2006), and Ms Militancy (2010).

Referring to Ms. Militancy, vice-president of the German PEN Centre, Cornelia Zetzsche, called her a fearless fighter for democracy and human rights, for the free word and against the oppression of landless, minorities and Dalit in India; not a Ms. Pleasant, rather a Ms. Militant.

Kandasamy has used poetry and prose as tools of political dissent and her novels have been shortlisted for various literary awards, such as, the Womens Prize for Fiction, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Hindu Lit Prize. In July 2022, she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) of the United Kingdom. She also released a collection of essays in 2021 titled The Orders Were to Rape You: Tamil Tigresses in the Eelam Struggle.

Kandasamy has been vocal against the persecution and detention of notable writers and poets, including poet-activist Varavara Rao and former Delhi University professors GN Saibaba and Hany Babu from Delhi University, under the current far-right regime of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).

In August, 2018 the Pune Police arrested Rao on charges of making incendiary remarks at the Elgar Parishad gathering on 31 December 2017, at Shaniwar Wada in Pune, leading to rioting at the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day. Saibaba and Babu have been detained since March 2017 and July 2020, respectively, in the Nagpur and Taloja central jails in Maharashtra.

Saibaba and Babu have also been accused by the government of belonging to the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) and participating in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These activists are among prominent public intellectuals and leaders in India who have been critical of the government and as a result detained under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act or UAPA, an anti-terrorism law that makes it almost impossible to get bail.

Crimes against Dalits increased by 6% from 2009 to 2018 with over 391,000 reported, according to a study by the National Dalit Movement for Justice based on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. The latest NCRB data, released on 29 August 2022, said atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis rose by 1.2% and 6.4% respectively in 2021 compared to 2020. Indias most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, home to 16.5% of Indias population, accounted for more than 25% of cases, more than any other state.

Hate crime against the religious minorities have increased manifold after Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in May 2014: in 2018, IndiaSpend reported that as many as 90% of religious hate crimes since 2009 occurred after 2014.

As a result of increased violence against minorities and a crackdown on dissidents in the course of the eight years that the BJP has been in power, multiple international reports have downgraded Indias rankings on social and personal freedoms.

It (India) is not a place where some discourse is happening, said Kandasamy. It's a place where people are just getting charged with draconian laws, framed by the establishment and picked up.

India ranked 46 (an improvement from 53 in 2020) of 165 independent countries, in the 2021 Democracy Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, down from 27th rank in 2014, the year Modi was elected.

India was counted among the top 10 autocratising nations according to the latest report of the V-Dem Institutewhich referred to India as an electoral autocracy, in the company of, among others, El Salvador, Nigeria, Tunisiaat the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The Freedom In The World report by Washington DC-based Freedomhouse, which produces research on issues related to democracy, political rights and civil liberties, pegged India as partly free.

The situation is that its not just ranks [in which India is getting] downgraded, said Kandaswamy. ...its also because there is so much dependence (of the media) on the government for finances, and, so, a lot of newspapers and media outlets are afraid of going all out against the government.

How do you feel about winning this prize and what is its significance, especially, in the current political scenario of India?

When I heard news of the prize, beyond my initial shock and disbelief, my thoughts were: Okay, now I get to speak about what is happening to the freedom of expression in India. I get to talk about how some of the most brilliant minds of our country, whether Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, G N Saibabab or Hany Babu, have been unfairly incarcerated.

You have been vocal about minority rights and atrocities against them. What do you think, why is there so much hostility and increasing violence against religious and caste minorities?

I think part of whats happening is that there's vast religious polarisation. And this polarisation is part of the fundamentalist right-wing BJP and RSS regime. They want this, the othering of Muslims, the othering of minorities. Because this is one way for them to consolidate Hindu vote banks but some of it is because ideologically that's where they're headed. Though this is a regular left argument, it really deflects them from the serious economic crisis that we are witnessing in the country. At this point, we have a record-breaking unemployment level, growth rates are dropping and so many serious things are happening.

Despite increasing caste-based atrocities, how has the current establishment still managed to use caste for their vote bank?

I think that there is something very intrinsic to Hindutva, which is the consolidation of caste identities. And this is a very interesting process because what they want to do is they want to consolidate everyone as Hindus but on the other hand, they want to sharpen the caste divide among the intersectional groups of Hindus. So they want all the others to identify themselves as allall Naidus as Naidus, all Chettiars as Chettiars etc. So, the caste structure becomes stronger and stronger. And at the same time, they broadly identify as Hindus.

Because it's only through these consolidation and strengthening of caste and the casteist mindset that they're able to engineer hate, they're able to keep the system in place, because once you consolidate caste, they also become easily tappable vote banks.

India has been downgraded from free to partly free in the US-based Freedom House's annual report Democracy under Siege and the human rights situation is also deteriorating in the country. Your comments?

India has very poor ranks on so many indices. There's also a Reporters Without Borders ranking that talks about how Indias fallen many places (150 from 136 over five years). The situation is that its not just ranks [in which India is getting] downgraded. Also, who owns the media? So, there's so much privatisation of media, as well as a single owner (she would not say who) controlling literally vast sections of media.

Then there's all these cases being filed against journalists and independent news media portals. And its being done to frighten them. Amnesty India closed down. The attacks on Peoples Watch in Tamil Nadu. Last week, there was even a raid on the Centre for Policy Research and Oxfam India.

Many human rights organisations are in such vulnerable conditions because most of these organisations are NGOs. And as NGOs, they have to survive on voluntary funding. There's no state funding. You cannot raise these funds on the ground itself so they're dependent on funding from western democracies and then this kind of crackdown just makes them unable to function. So, they become reliant on corporate social responsibility funds, (CSR), but then CSR funding is not going to go to any of them because again, companies are also fighting, they wouldn't want to face the ruling regime. So, it's such a tough situation to be in.

How difficult is it to be a (female) writer in today's India? What are the challenges that you personally go through?

I think that all writers who are not allied with Hindutva today are facing the heat. It is just that when you happen to be a woman writer these attacks get very personal. They have a template: they attack your looks, they attack your character, they attack your personal life, they threaten and your children with rape and death.

For example, the most fierce intellectuals have been picked up whether it's Anand Teltumbe, Varavara Rao or Hany Babu. Not many people talk about Hany Babu, but he was very instrumental in fighting for reservation and social justice politics. He's very different from the rest of prisoners because they are kind of left oriented but Hany Babu was quite vocal about social justice for it takes courage to fight for reservation policy in universities and all of this.

So, once you pick up all of these key voices, it often silences everyone because you see the professor of your university was just put in prison. So a lot of the academics start thinking, should I be opening my mouth next time. It's a kind of shock tactic. Because you just realise what can I do? Should I be able to speak when someone as famous as that, as important as that is in jail? All these people are being used to serve as examples, to silence others.

Also the arrest of Rona Wilson, which I always think is a really peculiar case because this guy was running a committee to release political prisoners and then he himself became a political prisoner. So, the thing is then who is going to remain and run an organisation. Talking about the right political business, you speak and then you're joined in the jail. It's a really vicious circle.

I'm a young mother. And I speak out about all of this, but at the same time, I'm also a human being, I have two little children. Who's going to take care of my two preschoolers if something happens to me?

So, all these people also have this kind of compulsion because at this point it's not like if somebody objects to a viewpoint, they're just going to write another article. If the State objects to a viewpoint, it's not like somebody's going to sit down and explain why we do what we do. It's not a place where some discourse is happening. It's a place where people are just having cases filed against them, getting charged with draconian laws, framed by the establishment and picked up.

(Jyoti Thakur is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. Hanan Zaffar is a reporter based in South Asia. He has reported for, among others, VICE, Al Jazeera, DW News, Newsweek.)

Originally posted here:

'Now I Get To Speak Out About What Is Happening To The Freedom Of Expression In India' Article 14 - Article 14

A stone monument with a portrait of late journalist Kenji Nagai and a design representing his video camera is seen in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Mainichi/Yasutoshi Tsurumi)

IMABARI, Ehime -- Sept. 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the day Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai was shot dead in Myanmar by the military regime's security forces while he was covering a protest.

The Myanmar military has still not offered an apology to the family of Nagai, who was aged 50 at the time of his death in September 2007, and his video camera also remains confiscated. In Myanmar, the military seized power following a coup in 2021, derailing the country's democratic transition. Meanwhile, the truth behind the fatal incident is yet to be uncovered.

In early September, Nagai's younger sister Noriko Ogawa, 62, quietly put her hands together in prayer at a cemetery in the west Japan city of Imabari, Ehime Prefecture. "It has become an age where many young people do not know you. As long as I'm alive, I will not give up getting to the bottom (of your death)."

Ogawa said that for the past 15 years, she "lived while suppressing anger." Her mother Michiko Nagai, who passed away in 2013 at age 80, had demanded that the Myanmar government "immediately return the camera gripped by 'Kenbo' (nickname for 'Kenji') until the end."

Pro-democracy forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi formed a new government in 2016, and Ogawa hoped this would lead to progress on her brother's case. She sent a letter via an acquaintance, but did not receive a clear answer. The situation took a turn for the worse following the military coup in February 2021. In July 2022, four pro-democracy activists convicted of political crimes were executed. Ogawa said, shoulders drooping, "My brother's situation is utterly hopeless now." She showed sympathy toward documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota, who remains detained by the Myanmar military's security forces after covering a demonstration against the military. Ogawa said, "I pray that he can come home safely."

Meanwhile, Win Kyaw, 57, who escaped from Myanmar to Japan in 1989 and attended Nagai's funeral in Tokyo in October 2007, praised the late journalist's efforts, saying, "There are many Burmese people who know Kenji Nagai even today. His death directed the world's attention to Burma. He continues to live within me as a hero."

Win Kyaw uses social media during his free time to collect information on the Myanmar military's acts of oppression against the people following the 2021 coup. He has been sending videos and photos showing the military's violent and brutal acts to the United Nations.

On Sept. 27, the anniversary of Nagai's death, the state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was held. The Japanese Foreign Ministry invited delegates from Myanmar, a gesture effectively extended to only the military, excluding the pro-democracy side. Win Kyaw criticized the Japanese government, and commented, "Many citizens of Burma are fighting without yielding to the military's violence in order to restore democracy. Inviting the military contradicts the state funeral's principle of protecting democracy (claimed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida)."

According to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, 2,316 people have been killed and 12,464 people remained in detention by Sept. 23, 2022, amid military crackdowns since the coup in February 2021.

According to the BBC and other sources, state guests from Myanmar were not invited to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 19.

(Japanese original by Yasutoshi Tsurumi, Matsuyama Bureau)

Here is the original post:

Family still seeking truth 15 years after killing of Japanese journalist in Myanmar - The Mainichi - The Mainichi

Numerous books and articles published in recent years have deplored the condition of American higher education. On the one hand, costs keep outpacing inflation by a wide margin. On the other, questions are increasingly raised about the quality of what students and parents are getting for their money. Outside the STEM fields, in which our colleges and universities continue to excel, newspapers regularly highlight students who, having majored in subjects broadly called the "humanities" at prestigious and costly schools, find themselves unable to obtain gainful employment in their field of interestand hence to repay the hefty loans they may have taken out to finance their education (at least without the benefit of Joe Biden's federal bailout). Finally, a large proportion of our institutions of higher learning have succumbed to politicization: Many faculty use their courses as occasions for partisan indoctrination, syllabi are subject to censorship or "trigger warnings" for potentially offending various designated "minorities," visiting speakers are harassed or disinvited if they express dissenting points of view, and students report being "canceled" by their classmates for violating politically correct taboos.

In Part I of The Death of Learning, John Agresto acknowledges the force of each of the foregoing criticisms. But the greatest value of his book lies in its second part, devoted to the theme of "Redeeming and Reconstructing Liberal Education." While scolding the snobbery of societal elites toward fellow citizens who don't pursue a college degree, instead entering the working world directly, Agresto aims to defend the value of a genuinely liberal education, not only for the individual who receives it, but for his country. But to do this requires reconceptualizing the nature and meaning of liberal education.

Agresto is uniquely qualified to undertake this task. Having taught political philosophy at several prominent colleges and universities and authored five books (some dealing with the American constitutional tradition and the role of the Supreme Court), he held a senior position at the National Endowment for the Humanities before serving as president for 11 years at St. John's College in Santa Fe (one of two campuses of America's premier "great books" school). He capped his formal academic career by serving as senior adviser for higher education to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, where he held the positions of dean, provost, and chancellor of the American University there.

In his preface Agresto identifies several incidents that provided the impetus for this book. The first was his dissatisfaction with the contributions to a volume he once edited on the "uses" of the humanities. Those essays suffered from the "conceit" that "the liberal arts have no uses'" and lack any purpose than themselves; that they have no role, in particular, in promoting good citizenship; and that "true" humanistic scholarship must be "narrowly focused and academic" rather than broadly accessible. A second impetus was the widely publicized 1998 dismantling of Stanford University's Western Culture curriculum (required of all freshmen) in favor of a new course "capitulating to the self-aggrandizing demands of student radicals," the content of which would conform to the dicta of "ethnic and gender proportional representation." A third was a challenge the author received from William F. Buckley on his Firing Line television show to the notion that all young people, whatever their intended vocation, "should be given the opportunity to be exposed to great literature," science, and history (since some find those studies neither interesting nor useful).

But the final stimulus Agresto mentions suggested the opposite of Buckley's position as well as that of the art-for-art's-sake humanities scholars and Stanford radicals: a question posed to him by three freshmen at the Iraqi university he helped to found, who had been studying Thucydides'History of the Peloponnesian War: Were the Americans "Spartans" rather than "Athenians"that is, would they betray their allies as the Spartans had done? The students' challenge exemplified the way that a serious education in the humanities may benefit all young people, regardless of their nationality, their ethnic, economic, religious, or racial background, or their likely future careers, that might not arise without the study of classic, transhistorical texts, and which might be crucial to their enjoyment of a meaningful life and their role as thoughtful citizens.

Agresto summarizes the reasons for the growing loss of respect for liberal education in America in two phrases: the "denigration of the high" and the "stigmatization of the ordinary." The first phrase refers to the suicidal destruction of the liberal arts by "radicalized" teachers of fields like history, literature, philosophy, and classics who, in the name of "equity," replace nonideological courses on the history of Western civilization or American history with those devoted exclusively to the history of the oppression of women and minorities; allow arts requirements to be satisfied by courses on rock and roll; and incorporate courses devoted to comic books ("graphic novels") into the literature curriculum (I offer the last two examples based on personal observation).

To add to Agresto's point, I would note the replacement of the political and diplomatic history that used to constitute the core of the history curriculum with "social" issues focusing not only on oppression but more generally on how ordinary people lived, as in their diets and clothing fashions. This change illustrates a point made by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America: Whereas in aristocratic times, historians emphasize and even exaggerate the influence of great individuals in shaping events, democratic historians adopt the view that history is determined by impersonal forces operating on the masses. Tocqueville's aspiration was to encourage democratic people to think more highly of their capacities, rather than succumb to fate.

By the "stigmatization of the ordinary," Agresto means the view common among today's academics "that it is not merely the highest expressions of our culture that need to be toppled but this culture's more ordinary manifestations the common views of right and wrong" held by most people, including national pride and the ethical beliefs that are supported by "conventional Western religious understandings."

In response to the disparagement of most Americans as bigots and racists by academic movements like "critical race theory," Agresto observes that people "across the political spectrum," regardless of their race, ethnicity, or economic status, regard "slavery and racism as betrayals of our founding principles of liberty and equality," while also believing "that merit, achievement, moral responsibility, and character are all to be assessed" on an individual basis, not any "collective identity," and that "no special status, no entitlement or punishment, should be bestowed simply by virtue of identity-group membership."

In the second, affirmative part of his book, Agresto opens with a chapter titled "Liberal Education in Its Fullness," which addresses the benefits a true liberal education offers for the individual's happiness as well as that of others. From the outset he stresses that his defense of the liberal arts will be "tough-minded," not a mushy one that promotes qualities like sensitivity and humaneness. As he observes, most of the great Western writers were "tough-minded and challenging" rather than (usually) "sentimental."

Agresto is himself no sentimentalist when it comes to the recent prehistory of liberal-arts instruction. Citing C.S. Lewis (he might have added Nietzsche), Agresto objects to the tendency of the professariat to focus on the historical context or biography of a great writer rather than assessing the truth of an authorial claim. By rejecting "the opportunity to see the world as a great author saw it," we make the study of his writing not only valueless, but boring. Agresto adds, "Only second-class books are truly captives of their times," rather than having transhistorical value. (As an example, he cites the way that Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter was written not for the sake of historical analysis, but to raise fundamental issues of "character and morals" for readers to contemplate.)

The plausible, nonhistoricist assumption that great writers from antiquity onwards made that "human nature doesn't change all that much over time" entails that they may raise major questions we might not have contemplated from within the intellectual confines of our own society. (Recall the query posed by those Iraqi students.) At their core, as Agresto puts it, "the liberal arts are a way of understanding the most important human questions through reason and reflection."

Turning, more specifically, to the reasons for studying "Western civilization and its American annex," Agresto first answers: "Because that tradition is ours." Regardless of one's country of origin or ethnic background, if you live in a Western nation, you become part of a common culture, shaped by a common set of great and good bookswhich is not incompatible with also studying works that are specific to your specific religious or ethnic background.

A particularly astute insight of Agresto's is his challenge to the often-asserted claim that the value of liberal-arts instruction lies in encouraging "critical thinking." As he observes, "too often radical questioning" of the sort espoused by today's "politicized professariat" is just an excuse not for learning but rather for "dismissing" books that don't agree with the current conventional wisdom. As Hegel and Nietzsche had observed, professors who approach great books, or historical figures, in this way are really just "puffing [themselves] up": Even if I'm not as wise as Socrates, the professor is saying, at least I'm free from his (supposed) prejudices. Rather than rely on a scholarly tradition or current doctrines to tell us how to read classic books, Agresto urges a return to "an older understanding of the liberal arts as the home not of sophistication but of naivet," or open-mindedness.

In contemplating the value of the liberal arts for the individual, Agresto acknowledges that while studying classic books may help engender the virtues of intellectual courage (in "grappling with some of the greatest minds") and humility (knowing that we are seekers more than possessors of knowledge), there is merit to Cardinal Newman's point (and Aristotle's) that knowledge cannot in itself engender the sort of "command over the passions" that moral virtue requires. But he emphasizes another virtue, much undervalued by political partisans today, that liberal education can also generate: moderation, reflecting awareness of the limitedness of our knowledge, in contrast to the "elitist sanctimony" toward other people's moral, religious, and political beliefs that underlies much of the public's alienation from the liberal arts. Properly taught, the great books "can keep us from being ruled over by slogans," and even to confront secondhand (not only firsthand) "the baser parts of our nature," as well as its nobler potentialities.

At this point Agresto shifts focus from how liberal education benefits the individual to how it serves his country. As he observes, such learned members of America's founding generation as Jefferson, Madison, and Princeton's John Witherspoon would not have accepted the claim that such education serves no purpose beyond itself. He concludes that as the recipients of the learning of men like Shakespeare and Milton, we can repay them only by keeping their thought alive.

In his concluding chapter, "Where Do We Go from Here?" Agresto cites several promising models of the sort of education he has proposed. These include (besides St. John's College) the Core Texts program at Assumption University; the Jack Miller Center, which "has built a community of professors and teachers dedicated to teaching American history, principles of democratic government, and constitutional law and history"; and the "comprehensive" American University of Iraq, founded only 14 years ago in the Kurdish area (but with an enrollment that has grown from 45 to over 1,600). Its curriculum and mode of instruction, he observes, are the direct opposite of the narrow curriculum and "draconian" emphasis on memorization that prevailed under the Saddam Hussein regime.

While spreading this liberal-arts model will be costly, Agresto, ex-college president, has useful advice on how to address the costs, citing the multiple donors to the soon-to-open University of Austin; offering adult education in the great books to supplement regular tuition, including the Summer Classics and Executive Seminars programs at St. John's; and the need to recruit allies in graduate programs in medicine, law, and the sciences to the cause.

Limits of space prevent me from discussing the six useful appendices to this volume, which address (among other topics) Lincoln's self-education in the classics; the case for studying Latin and Greek; and "The Politics of Reading." The book concludes with "messages" to high school teachers and principals and to high school seniors preparing to choose a college.

This is a splendid book that deserves to be read by every professor and academic official who seeks to restore liberal education; by every student (and prospective student) sharing that interest; and by the parents who'll be paying the tuition. In fact it should be read by every public-spirited citizen.

The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do About Itby John AgrestoEncounter Books, 256 pp., $30.99

David Lewis Schaefer is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.

Excerpt from:

Oh, the Humanities! - Washington Free Beacon

Vladislav Starodubtsev: Thank you for inviting me. Its great to see you here.

Bill Fletcher: I want to just start with, what is the current situation? We get various reports in mainstream media, and Im interested both in terms of your look at the war, but also whats happening within Ukraine itself with the Ukrainian government?

Vladislav Starodubtsev: Okay, I will probably start from afar. Once the war started, actually the day before, Russian officials called to the Ukrainian parliament and said that they want a complete surrender of Ukraine to Russia. Ukrainian officials said to them that we will wait a few months for the complete surrender of Russia. On the next day, there was a parliamentary brief where Zelevsky gathered all the politicians of all parties, all the military personal and high government officials, and they were preparing for the invasion the next day.

Russians tried to capture Ukraine for a week, and US and European officials, at the day of the invasion, were calling Zelenskyy and people in parliament and asking them to leave to safety and abandon Kyiv, but as we see now in the six months after the invasion, nothing like this happened, and all the Western governments that were saying that Ukraine will fall in three days just completely failed and cannot understand what to do now.

In this situation, Ukraine still fights and resists Russian occupation, and today theyre starting a new counter-offensive to liberate [inaudible] from the occupation. Its a lot more Ukrainians are doing a lot more than people from the West and general politicians expected from them. Actually, we are showing great resistance to the occupation.

But of course the war creates a lot of problems, a lot of social problems, a lot of political problems that we need to be honest with. What the Zelenskyy government does is absolutely awful and creates a lot more social instability [inaudible] in times of war by using the situation as a pretext for attacking the rights of trade unions, of the people who are in precarious conditions, attacking of housing rights, of social rights, depriving of basic social securities for the needs of advancing their market fundamentalist ideology.

This creates a lot of social tensions in Ukraine. A few weeks ago, there were a few laws adopted that just completely harm the rights of trade unions to defend their workers, and a few laws that introduced zero-hour contracts that actually deprives the right of eight-hour working days and the right to have minimum wage and stable working conditions.

At the same time, they are progressing privatization laws. They are even privatizing the [inaudible] industry, so in times of war, where war economy is needed and social dialogue and social stability is absolutely necessary to enforce, they are pushing for awful neoliberal reforms.

Bill Fletcher: Well, let me ask you this. It may be a naive question. But picking up on your last point, at a point where this invasion remains underway, why is the Zelenskyy government carrying out policies that, in effect, will destabilize Ukraine?

Vladislav Starodubtsev: I think its more ideological. They believe that theyre doing good stuff, that this policy should be done in times of war, and even before the war. They have this very market fundamentalist worldview, that everything could be solved by the market hand, and if you just let the market do everything, it will be done. Of course its absolutely not working. Its actually collapsing the country in real time. Theyre doing tax cuts, prioritization, and cuts to the workers rights, but theyre trying to push for their agenda to the final. Theyre actually using the situation of the war to push for the most horrible reforms in economic democracy and trade union rights that were introduced a few years ago, that they failed to push at that time. For them its a possibility to achieve their vision of Ukraine. I wouldnt say that its a pretty good vision, especially in times of war. Its absolutely compromising the Ukrainian defense.

Bill Fletcher: Now, as you know when the Theres been what I think to be a sort of strange response to the Russian invasion on the part of many leftists and progressives in the West, including but not limited to in the United States. When the Russians invaded Ukraine, I thought it was obviously a settled question that the Russians were the aggressors and everybody should oppose that and support the Ukrainian resistance. But a different set of different views began to surface. Im curious how you and other Ukrainians look at this phenomenon within different left and progressive circles in the West, of some people actually supporting the invasion, others essentially adopting the point of view of Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, and insisting on what the terms of a settlement should be. Very different points of view about whether the United States or anyone else should provide arms to Ukraine, and people are all over the place. Im wondering how you and your organization and others view this phenomenon.

Vladislav Starodubtsev: I would say that 99% of the left and general Ukrainian society have only one opinion on all of these issues. Theyre, of course, supporting Ukraine for the fight to total victory, and for the, of course, sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, to Ukrainian resistance, because its a question of survival. Its a question of their democratic rights, of their national rights, and of their lives in general, of being able to live a peaceful life, not in the horrible fascist occupation.

Of course, all these debates, theyre just awful. A few days ago, I think yesterday, there was an event organized by Democratic Socialists of America, these very random people that have no legitimacy to talk about Ukraine, that were talking the same thing about peace negotiation, about US aggression, proxy war, that actually just denigrates any opinion of the Ukrainian population and what we are thinking, and tries to speak over our heads to ensure their word views and political agenda. Its, of course, absolutely awful.

This situation, I would say, is very colonial thinking, that only the US has some subjectivity in world politics. Even Russians cannot do it, or the Russian state, cannot do anything without their subjectivity. Theyre only reacting to the actions of the US government or other Western governments. These views denie a possibility of states to do independent politics and be imperialist without any relations to the US, and kind of justifies those aggressions on the US. But of course, its absolutely untrue.

Such people are actually arguing for peaceful settlement with Russian imperialism, thinking that if theyre compromising with the fascists, they will build a more progressive world order. Theyre, for some reason, thinking that building the world based on the rule of the strongest and based on the multipolar imperialists [inaudible] for world power. Its actually a more progressive and democratic world that we have right now, but there is nothing progressive in the multipower world of multiple imperialism. Theres nothing progressive in the world where a status quo can be destroyed by the rule of the strongest against the weakest nations. There is no anything progressive or democratic, and that these beliefs and views are the same as Henry Kissinger should tell something to the left, especially the American left.

Bill Fletcher: One of the principal arguments that you hear is that the NATO expansion into Eastern Europe was what provoked Putin, and that had there not been a NATO expansion and had there not been discussions within Ukraine about the possibility of entering NATO, that none of this wouldve happened. How do you respond to that?

Vladislav Starodubtsev: There was a NATO in Chechnya, but no, of course, but Russia still went to war with the Chechnyan people and so destroyed their countries, actually two times, and they werent needing any NATO expansion for this. But for some reason for now, everyone believes that Russia is a peaceful actor that only defended itself from, I dont know This image of NATO expansion is absolutely untrue.

Ukraine actually never, ever after its independence, had any war. It didnt have an army and didnt have any aggressive ambitions against Russia or any other countries. Ukraine even gave its nuclear arsenal Its the second country in the world that denuclearized all their nuclear arsenal just to show that its a peaceful country that doesnt want any conflict, while Russia attacked Georgia, attacked Chechnya, and now attacking Ukraine from 2014, and theyre using different explanations for all of this.

Chechnya, for example, was an integral part of the Russian republic. Georgia was a [inaudible] people. Ukraine was actually the A multiplier argument. Thats Ukrainians nation shouldnt exist, that Ukrainians are As an ideology. Theyre talking about Ukrainians as ideology, not as a nation Is hostile to the ideal of Russia, that Russian people are somehow oppressed in Ukraine and so on and so on. Theyre using multiple arguments just trying to appeal to any authors they can possibly do. To the far right, to the far left, to centrists, and so on and so on.

But the fact of what theyre doing now, theyre doing complete justification of occupied cities.

Theyre prohibiting any Ukrainian [inaudible] of occupied cities. Theyre the stronghold of Ukrainian [inaudible] and all Ukrainian teachers that are teaching in Ukraine are prohibited in occupied regions. Theyre doing [inaudible] and oppression, killing people for engaging in Actually their [inaudible] of their democratic rights. Their repressing trade unions and so on, is the reaction to the [inaudible] itself. Its really a country that wants to defend itself and would attack and enforce their culture, enforce radical assimilation politics, and kill thousands of people to defend itself. Is it really a realistic argument? Is this? I think no.

Bill Fletcher: Putin has made a number of threats, implied and, actually quite explicitly, regarding nuclear weaponry and the potential use of tactical and maybe even strategic nuclear weapons. There are those that say that US military support to Ukraine simply prolongs this conflict and brings us closer to a nuclear exchange. How would you respond to that?

Vladislav Starodubtsev: I would respond very easily, that if you always compromise with fascist powers and dictators, you will come to the period that there will be nothing to compromise left. If you want to stop a fascist terrorist state that is engaged in genocides, just by feeling that it could continue to do horrible things and completely continue to do aggressions, they will continue to do this. They will have all carte blanche to go for the other countries, to go for Poland, to go for Baltic states, and just expand farther and farther. This argument that says that if you want to stop Russia, if you will give weapons to Ukraine, that it could promote nuclear war and escalation and problems and conflicts, it just shows that people want to compromise with fascist states and compromise their Actually not their, but freedom of other people, to appease the dictatorship and the fascist regime that have as its ideology expansion and occupation of foreign territories. With such compromises, itll be giving a very strong signal to the world that any state can expand and attack any state that they want if they have nuclear weapons.

Is it a correct argument for abolishing nuclear weapons? It just gives a lot more privileges to the states that already have them. It creates the world order, as I said, based on the rule of strongest and based on the rule of the countries that have nuclear weapons. Its actually not helping to de-escalate everything. It only gives a carte blanche for continuing such actions for forever. Because if you dont give any answer to this, these powers will just continue to invade and show other countries that there is such a possibility to attack bigger states.

Bill Fletcher: Let me ask you one final question, and its something thats been rolling around in my head since I interviewed professor Noam Chomsky a few months ago. In effect, he said that, while he opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that there was very little that we in the United States, progressives, could do to influence Putin, but what we could do is influence the Biden administration, the United States government, and put pressure on them to not expand the war. That was essentially his orientation. It led me to wonder several things that went beyond what he was raising, and one is, what is it that you and other Ukrainian leftists would recommend? What would you like progressives, liberals, leftists in the United States to be doing now that theyre not doing to support Ukraines right to existence?

Vladislav Starodubtsev: Theres been a war going on already for six months. A lot of people in the West are tired of speaking about Ukraine over and over again. Theyre thinking that their countries or their governments already sent too much weapons, gave too much help to Ukraine, and that its a settled question, but in reality, the Ukrainian army is absolutely, the Soviet army has some equipment dating to the 50s of the last century. There are some artillery shells made during Stalin times. And of course such an army couldnt effectively resist the second largest army in the world.

What the left should do, its actually what left all throughout history did. Its supporting oppressed people and oppressed nations, and giving them the right to resist and to fight against the oppression. In this situation, the most empowering and emancipational thing is to demand sending more weapons to Ukraine, heavy weapons, artillery, tanks, planes that are empowering Ukrainian people, a weak nation, oppressed nation, to fight for their rights for existence, and to put an end of the world order that is based on the rule of the strongest, of imperialism, and of military aggressions.

Defending Ukraine, at the moment, is defending democratic rights in all of the world, and actually defending the world order, because if Ukraine will fall, and there will be no strong answer from any of the world powers, it means that any other country could do something like this. Turkey can destroy all its opponents, continue invasion to [inaudible] and so and so on, and continue their military aggression in all other states, for example. China can do something [inaudible] Taiwan, Serbia, and Kosovo. So it creates a carte blanche for the world to be a lot more dangerous and a lot more authoritarian than it was ever before. Practically, the left wing should oppose this and do everything for Russia to lose this war. It includes sending weapons and adopting the most heavy sanctions on the Russian state that will hamper the war economy and wont allow the Russian state to pay wages for their military personnel, for the workers that are working in the plants that are producing tanks and other military equipment.

The most important thing to do is to agitate for the weapons and agitate for the sanctions, to continue pressure from the grassroots organizations and popular movements, and for the government to adopt such positions. The fact that governments are still supporting Ukraine, its not because theyre very altruistic, very democratic, and so on and so on. Its because popular opinion is with Ukraine. They cant just ignore this issue. All of their governments, US, even Britain, wanted to sell Ukraine. They didnt adopt any strong sanctions in 2014 and they didnt provide any help, practical help, in 2014. The first [inaudible] Ukraine, absolutely imperialist Minsk agreement, and continued business as usual with Russia. They are trading arms with Russia, theyre doing their capitalist cooperation, and now theyre just waiting for any possibility to continue this cooperation. For there to be any possibility at all, trading with fuel and gas with Russia, trading arms with Russia, and so on.

The things that the left should do is to pressure, from the popular movements, their governments, the same governments that wanted to sell to Ukraine in the first three days of the invasion and were calling Zelenskyy to move to leave and just to [inaudible] war, to pressure their governments to support Ukraine, and continue to support until the Ukrainian people will have their total victory.

20 September 2022

Source: The Real News Network.

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One Ukrainian democratic socialists opinion on the war - International Viewpoint