Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Slavery was officially abolished in Qatar in the 1950s but in 2010, when the resources-rich nation won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, human rights groups were quick to point out the country's shiny new venues were still being built with"slave labour".

A decade on and with only a year to go before itstagesone of the world's mega events, Qatar has undergone significant change, although for some of the critics it is still not enough.

Having qualified to compete in Qatar next November, Denmark says it will use its training kit to show human rights messages critical of the host nation, "to take advantage of the fact that we have qualified to work for more change in the country", chief executive of Denmark Football Jakob Jensen said.

Nations who make it to Qatar benefit from a qualification payment of more than $10 million.

Denmark's protests would probably mean more if they agreed to donate their fee to a human rights NGO of their choice.

Qatar is the only Gulf nation to have scrapped the widely used Kafala system under which migrant workers are sponsored by employers who provide travel, accommodation, and low wages.

The sponsorship system left workers with next to no rights and exploitation was rife.

Next to the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup brings unrivalled and often unwanted scrutiny of host nations that can either carry on as normal hoping when the show gets underway the focus will turn to the sport or respond.

On several fronts, Qatar has done the latter.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) points to the significant changes made to Qatar's labour laws, which were made all the more urgent because of the high rate of construction-related deaths in the country.

"Ten years ago we were absolutely in opposition to this country's lack of labour laws, so we campaigned for five years to say to the government you must change your laws," ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow told The Ticket.

"I walked those labour camps.There's no doubt that workers were victims of modern slavery. They were dependent on one other person for everything in their life.That's slavery.

"They were housed too often in squalid conditions with poor food, often no cultural respect for the differences in food and accommodation, and it was a disaster.

"But when the government decided they would negotiate with us and the ILO [International Labour Organisation], then the labour laws changed. It was a three-year process first of all bedding the agreement, then three years of implementation and monitoring.

"Now we are at the stage where compliance is still an issue because of a cultural resistance by some companies, but it's not the laws. The Kafala system of modern slavery is dead."

Transparent contract arrangements are now in place and labour courts are operational for employees with grievances.

"We have helped train those judges.In fact, I asked former commissioners of the Australian system to come and help train those judges, with other countries, and it has worked," Ms Burrow said.

"Is the system perfect? No,because there's still a huge cultural shift. You don't go from a system of slavery, to introduce laws, to a perfect, mature industrial relations system overnight. But now the laws are such that you have normal industrial disputes.

"The other big thing we must give them credit for is that these laws and the minimum wage actually applies to domestic workers that's a first around the world."

Change is not only being noticed from the outside.Shifts are also being noticed within.

Of the 2.9 million people who live in Qatar, less than 15 per cent are Qatari nationals, and the median age is 31.5 years.

The past decade has seen an investment of around $400 billion worth of infrastructure programs that centre on the sport, education, and culture sectors.

Not long after winning the World Cup bid, officials sat down to discuss the development of a heritage quarter in downtown Doha.

During the planning phase, one of the discoveries made was the former residence of a slave owner.

Bin Jelmood House is now a slavery museum that charts a history not previously discussed or taught in the region.

Prior to oil and gas wealth, Qatar was mainly shaped by the pearl diving industry.

Slaves were bought from northern Africa, which is where the Bin Jelmood exhibition begins.

It traces thejourney through to modern-day slavery and people trafficking, and there areplans to include an exhibition on the story of racism possibly ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

"Qatar in that [pearl diving] period was not a very wealthy country and so it was expected that enslaved people worked alongside their masters at the time," exhibition manager Fahad al-Turky said.

"It was a very harsh environment but also it was particularly more brutal with the collapse of the industry. We talk also about the role of the British in the region and then finally we talk about the forces that led to the abolition of slavery both internally and externally."

Domestically, the museum has become a place of learning and a research centre for both school and university students, but it's the international reaction that has surprised them most.

"Internationally, everybody was amazed Qatar had the courage and bravery to talk about this aspect none of the countries [in the region] tried or dared to go to this area," Msheireb Museum's director, Hafiz Abdhullah, said.

The group is now working with UNESCO and advising others on the development of their own museums.

Secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy of Qatar 2022, Hassan al-Thawadi, told Bloomberg earlier this year it would be wrong to think the huge changes in the country all came down to external pressure.

"We've had trade unions that have come and protested in Qatar, we've had NGOs that have come issuing their reports criticising certain elements and aspects," Al-Thawadi said.

"What I'm saying isit's not been done in a vacuumand we've developed throughout the years, and the one thing I think people can attest to is that we are an open society."

While admitting the country was conservative, al-Thawadi said it was also progressive.

Qatar is a constitutional emirate ruled by the Al-Thani family.

Two-thirds of the government's advisory council are democratically elected, with the remainder appointed by the Emir.

The justice system is complex, combining aspects of shariah law, Ottoman law, European civil and common law.

As well as a sports hub with world-class facilities such as the Aspire Academy and the Aspetar sports medicine clinic, some of the world's top universities have opened campuses in Education City.

Currently, Qatari women outrank men three to one in university enrolments.

According to Paul Brannagan of Manchester Metropolitan University, theauthor of an upcoming book on Qatar 2022 and the FIFA World Cup, there is one word that defines Qatar:ambition.

"You have here the third-smallest country in Asia, one of the smallest countries in the world, really looking to use various tools, whether that be the World Cup, be that mediation [with the US and the Taliban], be that overseas investment, really to punch above its weight," he said.

"But also, I think, perhaps on certain occasions [it] has perhaps realised that it's maybe bitten off a little bit more than it can chew."

He saidQatar sawsport as a perfect tool to make a mark globally through "niche politicsor niche diplomacy" in the way a nation like Switzerland hadused finance and banking.

"Qatar really wants to see itself as a global sporting hub," Dr Brannagan said.

"So, sport really is absolutely essential in everything Qatar is trying to do but also put Qatar on the map as a serious, serious player in global and international affairs."

While some outside the country still doubt the legitimacy of Qatar's hosting of the World Cup, Dr Brannagan saysthere arealso some inside who wonderwhether the costs and the negative attention the eventhas brought will be worth it.

"From a political perspective, sport makes sense to the policymakers in Qatar but part of the sense I got [speaking to locals] was, 'Well, it's not that we're an unsporting nation. It's that when we think of sport we don't automatically think of these Western versions of sport such as football, rugby, cricket.'

"They are much more interested in the local, Indigenous sports of falconry, horse racing, [and] camel racing.

"Some Qataris outside of the policy and political spectrum in Qatar are sort of scratching their heads as to, 'Well, does this country really need such a big event?' And of course, that's only been amplified given all the negative scrutiny Qatar has received since being awarded the World Cup in regards to human rights et cetera."

Two things are certain with one year to go: Human rights organisations will be ramping up their focus on the country, while the organisers themselves will be hoping time flies when kick-off will swing the attention to football.

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Can Qatar reshape its image on the back of the 2022 FIFA World Cup? - ABC News

By David M. GreenwaldExecutive Editor

Davis, CA For a moment it looked like the UC Davis police station was engulfedfortunately it was just smoke from a flare and a cardboard pig. The graffiti on the sign and sidewalk were real enoughif the police knew what was going on, they wisely stayed inside and avoided any confrontation with the students.

The overall event marked the 10th Anniversary of the day in 2011 when Lt. John Pike and Officer Alexander Lee pepper sprayed a group of seated protesters. Only two of those actually pepper sprayed were on hand on Thursday to commemorate the event.

The speeches touched on a combination of anger but also celebration at progress, and most were pushing for the abolition rather than the reform of police.

We are gathered here today because 10 years ago, a number of students seated right here on the quad were attacked by police, said one of the organizers. So brutally, so horrifically, so casually that it scandalized the globe.

He mentioned that they were in here in solidarity with the movement for police abolition that continued last summer with the George Floyd uprising.

We are in solidarity with that movement, he said. but we are also here in solidarity with the students who were attacked in 2011. And we remember that they were not protesting the police in specific.

They were fighting for a free university. They knew that the university was a debt machine, a work machine, an exclusion machine, a way to reproduce an unequal society. They knew that it could never truly welcome the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable, the dispossessed.

He added, We are here to get cops off campus.

Valeria Cantor, Racial Justice Now Campaign Chair, said their goal is to abolish the school to prison pipeline and empower students of color during their time at any UC campus. This campaign also strives to serve historically underrepresented students, including those who have been formerly incarcerated and support them in their pursuit of higher education.

Cantor is an immigrant, having grown up in Costa Rica, and she was in culture shock and one of the most shocking things she saw was to see a cop car at a high school. She said, Theres no law enforcement allowed on institutional educations in Costa Rica. So, coming here, I was really confused. I was baffled. I really could not wrap my head around it.

She went down a list of problems with cops on college campuses, including the pepper spray incident at UC Davis.

The presence of police on campus, its unwarranted, she said. I read an article that included an opinion, and this student was talking about how they would feel less safe without the police on campus.

She added, The presence of police officers that could cost me my life does not make me feel safe.

James Martel, a professor of Political Science from SF State University and the San Francisco president of the California Faculty Association, spoke as well.

He described his frustration trying to deal with police abolition on their campus.

In this neoliberal times, the police departments on various campuses know that were onto them, that were after them. So they have managed, theyve learned the language of equity and diversity and all that, Martel said.

He noted that one thing they are trying to do is have police not deal with people who are having mental health issues.

Currently with somebody whos having a psychotic break on our campus, the police take them to the mental hospital, he said. We have this whole crazy conversation. And what they forgot to tell us is that when the police take people having a psychotic break to a mental institution, they handcuffed them and they stick them in a squad car.

Dorian was one of the student who has pepper sprayed in 2011.

He said that she couldnt think of anything salient to say, and kept it brief, saying, now more than ever f- the cops, f- the admin, and abolish the police in the UC System and powers to the indigenous people of California.

Kristin Koster, a PhD from UC Davis, was on the quad that day, providing emergency medical assistance to the students.

Its nice to see this many people out, she said. I think 10 years ago, right around this time of day, this is about how many people we had out, who decided to sit down when riot cops showed up with pepper spray.

She said, We have a lot of freedom we really have the ability to do a lot thanks to the people who sat here on this quad and were pepper sprayed 10 years ago right now.

She said, Make the legacy of the pepper spray, the abolition of police from all UC campuses and then its, itll spread.

An undergrad in Native American Studies Adnan noted that the UC Board of Regents are all millionaires, several multi-millionaires, at least one billionaire.

The number of undergrads is increasing. Tuition is increasing. Number of faculty per student is decreasing.

Although the number of lecturers is increasing, he said. Which isnt that convenient because they get paid less.

He said if you Google the University of California origin, they use the word revolutionary to describe themselves. They say that the whole point of the institution was to make it accessible to all. Apparently by accessibility they mean pocketing students tuition. And by all, they mean a handful of high level people in the university system.

Ian Lee is a union organizer with SEIU 1021 and was pepper sprayed 10 years ago.

I didnt want to talk about my trauma for awhile. The pepper spray incident was profoundly traumatic for me and traumatic for many, many years, he said. Ive since healed. The pepper spray incident no longer affects me emotionally, and Ive grown past it. In fact, for the last seven years, Ive been working as a union organizer and Im proud to say Ive successfully helped thousands of workers, organized labor unions at the workplace.

He offered two thoughts.

First, he said, in the passive memories that most people (have) within this region, the pepper spray incident is remembered as a misuse of police force or ridiculous overreaction from the police to a student protest.

Id like to challenge this interpretation, he said. As youve seen all too clearly, over the last 10 years, these misuses of police force are a pattern. They target working class communities. And in particular, they target working class communities of color.

He noted, Ive sometimes wondered if that, if that was one of the reasons that the video of us being pepper-sprayed went so viral well-to-do white folks were just not able to believe that police assaulted students that was often perceived as a middle-class white university.

He noted at the time, the Occupy Movement: The key signature of the occupy movement was that hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world were building these tent cities in public areas to protest economic inequality.

At UC Davis, the regents were proposing an 81 percent tuition hike for students.

We knew that was unacceptable, he said.

He noted, I venture if we were at the UC Davis Outdoor Adventures, I doubt dozens of riot police would have been called on us.

Lee said, Ultimately, the root cause of the pepper spray incident was the UC Regents privatization plan, privatization of the UC and police violence are linked. One enforces the other. And this is true at UC Davis as well as society at large. It is no coincidence that the most policed neighborhoods are also the most impoverished. The police are the enforcement mechanism of capitalist interests.

His second thought, We were definitely victims on November 18th, 2011. It took years of my life to fully process and heal from UC Davis police assaulting me and my friends.

He said after the pepper spray and many of them being taken to the back of police vans, the crowd became pure rage. It was so obviously f-ed up what just happened.

Everyone, he said, came together and the crowd was able to successfully push the cops off the quad. He said, We were victims that day, but we also transformed into a military force. We made the cops afraid of us. And for a short while, at least, we held the power. We held this quad in the days following the pepper spray incident.

He said he learned a key lesson that day: When normal working people come together, we build a power. When normal working people come together, we can confront the structures above us and we can become more powerful than them. We can scare them and we can win.

He said they followed it up by getting US Bank off the campus.

He said, Following the pepper spray incident, my fellow student organizers and I blockaded the entrance of a US Bank that used to be at the center of the MU, a bank that was paying a million dollars a year to UC Davis to entrap students in predatory private student loans.

We organized mass student support behind our black tech blockade of the bank, and ultimately forced the UC Davis administration to cut its million dollar contract with US Bank. With our united student power we forced US Bank off campus.

Following the speeches, the students and other protesters marched with the cardboard pig down to the police station. By the time the group had reached the police station, the crowd grew to over 300 people.

The march

The UC Davis Police Station

See more here:

Students Remember the 10th Anniversary of Pepper Spray, and Then Storm the Campus Police Station (Reader Beware Photos) - The Peoples Vanguard of...

And so, as replacement goal-kicker Rhys Priestland split the posts from close range in the 82nd minute of the Australia-Wales Test match at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, that was it for Wallabies season 2021.

And all there remained was to pore over the entrails of the Covid-affected carcass of Australian rugby in which we, the sports fan, were (mostly) up and (occasionally, as usual) down in terms of feeling for our national rugby union team.

As Vinnie Jones said at the end of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: Its been emotional.

For the Wallabies play was, despite a 3-nil clean sweep by the All Blacks and the worst European tour in Australian rugby history, actually, mostly, pretty good, at least in relative terms to the last few years.

Promising colts bounded about, the Giteau Law was bent like a quaint notion from another time, and a former hot-stepping pole-cat came back to pilot the Good Ship Wallaby to wins over Argentina, France, Japan and the world champion Springboks.

The series loss to New Zealand was not unexpected (if infuriating) while you could suggest that if England, Scotland and Wales toured our hemisphere at the end of their season missing players the results would swing diametrically.

For all that, for mine, there was more upside than down.

Hunter Paisami had a breakout year capped by a super game in the No.12 against Wales. Deft grubbers, soft hands, stepping and/or bullocking running lines as required, he could be something indeed. He could be Samu Kerevi and we will talk more of him.

(Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

Len Ikitau outside Paisami looked good too, and they appear to have a tidy, burgeoning, incisive combination. Dave Rennie looks to have imbued both men with a mandate: have a go, express yourselves, enjoy your talents.

Another colt Noah Lolesio looks a tad raw while veteran James OConnor appears a serviceable, safe option in the No.10. For mine, though, the flyhalf for Australia must be the irrepressible Quade Cooper who has parlayed more modest, yet more effective five-eighth play into tantalising possibilities, the best kind of possibilities.

Whod have thought? Indeed had you suggested early this year that Cooper would make a comeback much less appear the Great Redeemer and Missing Link in the headless chook of the Wallabies back division youd have been laughed out of assembly at Rugby School.

And yet, here we are.

Yes, yes, yes, he will turn 34 in April of 2022. But he remains fit as a trout and a better player a better five-eighth, anyway than he was ten years ago when he was smoking up the joint as the demon spawn of Benji Marshall, Carlos Spencer and Zebedee the Spring from the Magic Roundabout. (Google him, kids.)

Comeback stories abounded. Will Skelton came back. Rory Arnold came back. Izack Rodda came back. And thus with crazy-eyed colt Matt Philip, the Wallabies have big options in the lineout, big bodies standing midfield and repelling hard charges.

Theyll tell you size doesnt matter but they would not know what theyre talking about.

And they would not have seen the thunder thighs of Samu Kerevi bullocking up guts for Australia. That a No.12 could give a team such go-forward is testament to his skill, balance and toughness, operating as he does in the cloistered central channels.

And whatever further tweaks, bending or outright abolition of the Giteau Law are required to get Kerevi in Wallabies gold whenever Rennie wants him, youd say: make it happen, Suits.

Giteau Law? Come 2023, at least, for mine, its toast. Coach Rennie will want Australias best players to play in Australias best team. Notions of preserving the sanctity of the Super Rugby competition, and the relative strength of the provinces, franchises, whatever we call them, well what for?

The flagship team for rugby in this country needs to win.

And thats just it.

Rugby in Australia needs winning Wallabies. It needs a gutsy, passionate, entertaining showing in a Rugby World Cup semi-final at the absolute very least in France in 2023 to bring in sports fans, bandwagon jumpers and the greater public.

Australia may not have massive depth in terms of world-class rugby players but there is enough. Marika Koroibete didnt go to Europe, one of a glut of players who didnt play Test matches to welcome new children.

Suli Vunivalus hamstrings must come good, surely, though is he any lock with the form of Andrew Kellaway? Or does Kellaway go back to fullback or is it Reece Hodge, Tom Banks or another 32-year-old and reclaimed man of the sea, Kurtley Beale?

Or maybe theres another NRL star who might fancy himself auditioning for the crazy Frenchmans coin in Biarritz

Discipline, though, remains an issue. It killed the Wallabies in Cardiff. Rob Valetini rushed up on Welsh lock Adam Beard to put that team-lifting big shot on. And he did. But as with any slightly reckless manoeuvre, there was risk to himself, to the other guy, to the team.

And the head clash that followed was, according to the rules of engagement under which Valetini was operating, illegal. And off the field he went.

Valetini has much in his game that youd suggest he dont go changin. I like the hard charges, the tough work in tight, the big hair. But the tackling style, it just cant be. He must go lower. Bend knees, aim guts, work up to sternum. Channel Ili Tabua, human skewer. Google him if he must.

Because with that same style, hes a liability. And will cost Australia Test matches.

Almost forgot Taniela Tupou! The prop was nicknamed Tongan Thor while wreaking havoc in schools rugby and hes living up to the moniker now.

(Photo by Kenta Harada/Getty Images)

His hard charges into the meat of the Welsh midfield, along with ballast in the scrum and all the rest of the dark arts the mans among the most valuable men in gold, or in green as was the case Saturday night in Cardiff.

The Wallabies scrum was as good as anyones. It won crucial penalties with scrum-popping beast moves. The lineout throwing, as ever, needs work, though hitting Paisami over the back is a cracker of a party move.

But then every Test team needs work. The Wallabies remain a work in progress as do the Welsh. And English. And French, All Blacks, Boks, all of them.

And we do judge our national team harshly, particularly given New Zealand lost two on the trot and South Africa lost to England and beat Young Wales by just three.

And here we are, Little Australia, a small fish in a big pond punching above our weight given the athletes who gravitate to rugby league and Australian rules and whatever else.

And, right now, on the world rugby stage, its actually a pretty open field. Its a Melbourne Cup with six to eight favourites from $6-$12.

Value everywhere.

And, best team on the park, theres value in Australia.

More here:

It's been emotional. But much more good than bad for Wallabies in 2021 - The Roar

Dedicating time and attention to diversity topics is an important step toward creating more inclusive spaces for all. When it comes to Black History Month, schools often use the opportunity to educate students on the past while creating awareness around current issues and what they can do to contribute to a more equitable society.

Throughout October 2021, Repton School, and a number ofother HMC schools marked Black History Month in the UK with dedicated programming and lessons. The result was a broad variety of programming, discovery, and discussion to create awareness and promote inclusivity across schools and communities.

A Brief History of Black History Month in the UK

While Black History Month may be more well-known globally as a February commemoration in the United States, the UK followed close behind in the establishment of its own celebrations. The U.S. officially established Black History Month in February 1976 during the American Bicentennial. In the UK, Ghanaian Akyaaba Addai-Sebo led the call for a British commemoration in 1987.

Black History Month is used, in part, to call attention to the contributions and achievements of Black Britons throughout history and present-day movements. This extends to the deep history of British people of both African and Caribbean descent, given the United Kingdoms impact on the slave trade and colonisation efforts. Notably, Black History Month was also established on the 150th anniversary of the Caribbean emancipation, marking the abolition of slavery and apprenticeship across the British Empire.

Repton School Encourages Student Leadership in Diversity Studies

From traditional faculty-led classes to exploratory student cohorts, Repton School emboldens its pupils to engage with topics in ways that create discussion and personal discovery. Their programming around Black History Month this year was no different. Student-led programmes were designed to help create awareness across the campus as well as celebrate diversity across the student body. Their chosen theme for this years activities was also Proud to Be, tying into the work done with other HMC schools.

Learning by doing, the students created a timeline of Black History events displayed in the main Repton School theatre. Walking visitors through events across over 60 important dates in both US and UK history, the exhibition encouraged conversation about both countries roles in the African diaspora and the impact this had on individuals then and now. The student-written publication, The Repton Historian, also took on a Black History Month theme with a number of articles on historical figures, pop culture, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Students also incorporated storeys from more minor figures in Black History into prefect-led Chapel Services. Pupils selected the individuals for discussion and shared both historic and personal details of how impactful these figures have been. The students were encouraged to do their own research and share what made each person meaningful to them.

HMC Schools Across the UK Highlight Black History Month

With such a long history of both adversity and diversity to explore, additional participating HMC schools explored a variety of subjects during month-long curricula. From student-led forums to guest speakers, the focus was placed on representation, influence, progress, and equality in all its forms.

The portrayal of race in British cinema and how history affects interpretation of race and art took centre stage at Cheltenham Ladies College, where Baroness Lola Young was a featured speaker. A theme of Proud to Be directed student research and discussion at Ashford School, where English, History, and Religious Studies curricula were redesigned for the month around African and Caribbean cultures. Students studied the impact of these cultures on British life while also learning more about how European colonisation forever changed the lives across the globe. The same theme also permeated celebrations at Latymer Prep and Upper Schools.

Repton School was not the only institution to encourage student-led programming. Pocklington School hosted student-run assemblies for pupils of all age groups. Awareness spread regarding the Bristol Bus Boycott as well as civil rights movements beyond those in the U.S. Royal Grammar School Newcastle students took part in independent studies with access to content from the Historical Association. The result was a bevy of posters, articles, and discussion activities that increased understanding and appreciation for the past across the school.

HMC schools like Repton School will continue to commemorate Black History Month with new and engaging ways to expand student horizons. Approaches such as sharing quotes with one another, themed reading lists, and guided study into lesser-emphasised historic events to create awareness and expand perspectives can all help students today create more inclusive communities in the future.

About Repton School

Repton School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils aged between 13-18. Promoting equal opportunities is fundamental to the ethos of Repton School. The School welcomes applications from pupils of any race, nationality and ethnic origin. Learn more about Repton Schools Equal Opportunities Policy and student life:https://www.repton.org.uk/school-life/pastoral-care

Read more:

Repton School and HMC Students Put the Focus on Black History Month - London Post

Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman.

Some years ago, I learned that our local mosque refused to allow women to serve on the board. This sexist practice was also entrenched in the bylaws of the British Columbia Muslim Association for nearly four decades. Only Muslim men, it turned out, could be elected to the board, and only by Muslim men. When I asked the mosque and the BCMA if they would change their policies, they unequivocally refused.

But when I began to prepare a column about the issue, a lawyer reached out, asking me to refrain from speaking out. Why? There was concern that then-prime minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government would use this information to go after mosques. Not now give us time, came the plea.

So, once the Liberals are elected, mosques will open their boards to women? I asked. We both knew the answer.

Rather than address the discrimination within, some organizations have found it easier to simply ignore internal criticism, while silencing whistle-blowers with emotional blackmail: Youll hurt the community by airing dirty laundry. The problem is that the laundry is piling up and the stench is getting unbearable, while those who can access the washing machine continue to refuse to do their chores.

The situation is especially acute for victims of violence and abuse. They are often pressed to keep matters quiet, and not file charges, so that the community wont look bad in the eyes of the public. Meanwhile, there is little accountability of perpetrators. Those who do speak out are shamed as traitors, enablers of Islamophobia, or worse, as self-hating Muslims. Often, it is the voices of women that are silenced by these heavy-handed tactics. Consequently, justice is thrown under the bus of community self-censorship.

Its why well-meaning institutions overreach in their attempts to stamp out a quantum of Islamophobia. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), for instance, has yet to decide whether it will allow teenaged girls to participate in a book club event featuring Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was enslaved, tortured and raped by members of the Islamic State. This courageous young woman refused to remain silent, and has even won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to seek justice for her people. That she was assaulted by sadistic individuals acting under the cover of an inhumane interpretation of Islam is part of her truth, as is the fact that Muslims worldwide repudiate the Islamic State. The TDSB apparently fears that impressionable teens may not be able to distinguish between an extremist group and ordinary Muslims who are their friends and neighbours.

But heres a thought: The Muslim community can simultaneously fight Islamophobia and address the ills within it. It is not, and should not be, a zero-sum game. Just as Muslims desire from others safety, freedom from discrimination, access to justice and the opportunity to thrive, they should work hard to ensure the same principles apply to those who are themselves Muslims. One cannot make demands and then plead indifference when asked to fulfill those same demands. As the Quran states in the chapter titled Women: Oh you who believe. Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even though it is against yourselves, your family, the rich or the poor.

Heres another thought: Muslim women have the agency to improve their own lives. Their own history is replete with illustrious paradigms, including that of Khawlah bint Thalabah, who challenged a cruel marital custom in 7th-century Arabia when no one else dared; her courageous stand led to its abolition. She is known as al-Mujaadilah, or the woman who pleaded, in the 58th chapter of the Quran. For 14 centuries, Khawlah has been a model for unwavering commitment to justice within.

In the coming weeks, the Mujaadilah Centre founded on the noble example of Khawlah will be launching. Its goal is to unapologetically address harms faced by Canadian Muslim women within their communities. This will include an in-depth analysis of the gender make-up of mosque boards across the country. And in 2022, the centre will address the controversial practice of polygamy here in Canada, by providing new legal research of the Criminal Code along with documentation of harm suffered by women and children.

There is hope on the horizon. A new generation of Muslims is demanding greater accountability of leadership. They will not turn a blind eye to discrimination and abuse within, since they understand that wrongdoings left unaddressed will only lead to worse outcomes. Too many lives have been destroyed for this to continue. This cohort is taking the lead on addressing taboos head-on. They will make a difference for the better.

In the meantime, lets all strive for a better society standing up for what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, across all communities.

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Continued here:

Opinion: Muslims can improve our communities on our own. We just have to be willing to speak out - The Globe and Mail

The podcast, produced by the Detroit Justice Center, highlights how organizers are engaged in the hard work of abolishing police and prisons, and offers a counter-narrative to mainstream media reports.

More than a year after the mass uprisings against racist police brutality that roiled cities across the United States, many media outlets havedistortedor dismissed asunrealistic specific demands by racial justice organizers to divert funding from massive police budgets toward city services. Casey Rocheteau, communications manager at theDetroit Justice Centerand co-host of a new podcastFreedom Dreams, calls it a backlash in mainstream media when it comes to what people are seeing as a new demand to defund police.

In fact, calls to reduce police fundingcan be foundmuch earlier than 2020. One example isthis 2010 reportthat found a correlation between increased police funding and incidents of police brutality in Washington, D.C., that took place at the same time that funds for social services were cut. And, in the wake of the Ferguson uprising in 2014, some advocates for police reformsuggested cutting police fundsas a way to remedy state violence.

To remedy the misinformation in many corporate media outlets, Rocheteau, together with Amanda Alexander, founder and executive director of the Detroit Justice Center, decided to create a platform to share powerful and inspiring stories of how organizers are challenging the way police budgets are determined, demanding an end to state violence, and advocating for a significant reduction in incarceration levels.

When people are calling the police, the police are telling people, We cant help you because weve been defunded, says Rocheteau. Such an absurd claimshared by a Seattle-based organizer in a forthcoming episode ofFreedom Dreamsmakes the case for a podcast that sets the record straight. In fact, neitherSeattlenorDetroitpolice have been defunded.

Watch Rocheteau and Alexander explain why they created their new podcast.[EMBED VIDEO]

Coming at these issues from an abolitionist perspective that aims to dismantle policing and incarceration,Freedom Dreamsfirst episodespotlights an effort to close the Atlanta City Jail. It is an inspiring story of how a coalition of formerly incarcerated women, transgender and queer organizers, and undocumented activists have chipped away at the size of the jailed population from more than a thousand to just a few dozen.

The podcast creators, feeling that the story had not gotten nearly as much attention as it deserved, spoke with organizers Marilynn Winn and Xochitl Bervera about their campaign to replace the jail with a Center for Wellness and Freedom.

Its been important for us to think about not just what were tearing down in terms of policing and jails and prisons, but also focusing on what were building up, says Alexander.

Alexander describes her organizations communications strategy as intentional in spotlighting the problems and, more importantly, the movement builders who are already resisting, that we can be learning from.

Although the podcasts focus is on Detroit, where the hosts are basedprimarily because, as Rocheteau says, Detroit is a very fertile ground for this kind of [abolitionist] work, where social services arechronically underfundedthe creators make a concerted effort to draw connections between similar struggles and solutions in other cities, such as Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and others.

Alexander hopes to attract young listeners, in particular who took to the streets last summer but have not yet taken the next step beyond protesting what we dont want, to asking the question, What can we learn from people who are building up what we do want?

Find out more about the Freedom Dreams podcasthere.

Not only do most reports of policing and incarceration miss stories like the closing of Atlanta City Jail thatFreedom Dreamshighlights, but Rocheteau worries there are also alternate narratives being presented that do a disservice to communities most directly impacted by policing and mass incarceration.

For example, mainstream media analysis of policing and mass incarceration often serves up dense facts informed by crime statistics and the complexities of city budgeting, all while making the assumption that policing is the only way to tackle crime.

A case in point is this extensive report in TheNew York Timesthat Rocheteau cites about the battle over police funding in Dallas, Texas. The reporters barely scratch the surface of what might becausing crime in the city of 1.3 million residents, and, subsequently, there is no effort to spark a conversation about why the abolition of police is a matter of racial justice. Instead, there are myriad statistics of how the number of homicides and police officers have changed over time.

Yes, its important to know those statistics, says Rocheteau. But presenting people with that information often leaves them in a position of feeling like, What do I do about that?

WithFreedom Dreams, Rocheteau and Alexander hope to inspire action by showcasing how people across the country are engaged in abolition work. In cities across the country, there is this move to say, We need to stop building jails, we need to understand why people are there, says Alexander. We need to start meeting peoples actual needs in other ways besides policing, and prosecuting, and jailing people.

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A New Podcast Aims to Shift the Narrative on Police Abolition by Centering Movement Voices - YES! Magazine

In the summer of 2020, Boris Johnsons understanding of probity and public ethics was highlighted by his governments nomination of 36 new members of the House of Lords. It remains one of the defining acts of his premiership: there were peerages for such Brexit supporters as the former cricketer Ian Botham, the Johnson friend and former Telegraph editor Charles Moore and the erstwhile Revolutionary Communist Claire Fox, as well as the prime ministers brother Jo, and the Evening Standard proprietor and social gadabout Evgeny Lebedev.

Eighteen months later, one name from that list has renewed significance. Johnsons first tranche of new peers included Michael Spencer, also known as Baron Spencer of Alresford (its in Hampshire), who finally made it to the Lords after David Camerons past efforts to make him a peer had been repeatedly frustrated. Spencer made his fortune through electronic trading on the financial markets, spent three years as the treasurer of the Conservative party, and has donated an estimated 6m to Tory funds. Thanks to work by the Sunday Times and Open Democracy, we now know that he is at the centre of a very vivid political story: the fact that 15 of the last 16 Tory treasurers have been appointed to the Lords, all of whom have donated at least 3m to their party.

Over the last week or so, this revelation has been rather overshadowed by the huge tangle of jobs, interests and questionable financial arrangements woven into the professional lives of Conservative MPs, and stories focused on the tireless former attorney general Geoffrey Cox, transport minister Grant Shapps, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and more besides (over the weekend, all this reached a new peak of awfulness with fresh news about Johnsons involvement in the business interests of his former lover Jennifer Arcuri).

But the Lords is as central as the Commons to the latest outbreak of sleaze headlines, something also highlighted by a prime ministerial spokespersons initial refusal to rule out smoothing the exit from the Commons of the disgraced MP Owen Paterson by making him a peer. The Lords element of the story, moreover, has an even clearer underlying plotline: the survival of a part of the British state that has long been absurd and corrupt and the sense that, as our established institutions are constantly disrupted and disgraced, the public might at last be persuaded to support the idea of doing something about it.

Viewed from any reasonable perspective, the Lords resembles one of those Hogarthian pictures conjured up by the online satirist Cold War Steve. There are 92 hereditaries still sitting in the chamber, and all of them are men. Since Johnson became prime minister, about 100 new life peers have been appointed, taking the total membership of the upper house to about 800 which makes it bigger than the European parliament. If the prime minister really wants to give someone a peerage, his or her patronage powers seem to be basically unfettered: in late 2020, the House of Lords appointments commission objected to the nomination of the Tory donor and former party treasurer Peter Cruddas, who had offered access to Cameron and other ministers in exchange for party donations; but with echoes of his waving away of advice about his involvement in Arcuris business affairs when he was London mayor, Johnson ignored the usual protocol and did it anyway (three days after he took his seat, Cruddas gave the Conservative party another 500,000, taking his total donations to well over 3m).

Involvement in reviewing, amending and delaying legislation thereby extends to tweed-wearing squires, former advisers, MPs and ministers, and a mind-boggling array of bit-part players who take the Lords into the realms of the surreal. Botham and Lebedev are obvious examples, but there are plenty of others. Six years ago, for example, the peers who voted in favour of George Osbornes cuts to tax credits included such experts on the welfare state as Andrew Lloyd Webber, the JCB diggers tycoon Anthony Bamford, the former athlete Sebastian Coe and the lingerie businesswoman Michelle Mone.

After whole centuries of calls for its abolition, plans for change that have gone nowhere, and very occasional spurts of reform, why is such a ridiculous anachronism still here? Prime ministers of both main parties have used the Lords as a convenient human dumping ground and a means of repaying favours, and even a relatively recent splurge of controversy did not end such habits. In 2008, I interviewed Tony Blairs fundraiser Michael Levy onstage at the Hay festival, about a year after the so-called cash for honours scandal had ended with the Crown Prosecution Service deciding not to bring any charges. When a member of the audience asked whether rich people could improve their chances of getting a peerage by making political donations, he did not demur: Look at the facts, he said. They will tell you whats going on. Of course its true. Thats self-evident.

MPs reluctance to radically change the upper house is often traced to a wish to keep the Lords illegitimate and compromised, so that the primacy of the Commons is never questioned. Politicians who could lead calls for the Lords abolition cite the lack of public interest in supposed constitutional issues. But does that really add up? Brexit and Scottish independence are constitutional issues, and they do not exactly leave people cold. The passions those causes have aroused, moreover, have been partly about peoples distance from power and their mistrust of cliques and coteries at the top both things the Lords embodies. Thanks partly to what the internet has done to politics, ours is an age of irreverence and mistrust, and the upper house will surely face similar scandals in the future. And therein lies an opportunity.

Ideas for an alternative have been rattling around for so long that they have become cliches. We could create the kind of senate of the nations and regions the Labour party put in its manifesto in 2015, with members either appointed by the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the new mayoral regions of England and the city and local government, or elected along comparable lines. As the musician and activist Billy Bragg suggested in 2001, seats could be apportioned on the basis of a secondary mandate, whereby votes in elections to the Commons would have two functions: electing an MP to the Commons using the current first-past-the-post system, and being used to proportionally divide seats between parties in the upper house using regional party lists. Or we could just take the simplest option and have a single legislative chamber. The main point, for the time being, is to start talking about abolition, and what it might entail.

As if to prove that such ideas are hardly confined to the political fringes, the last few days have seen loud calls for abolition from such well-known revolutionaries as the Spectator publisher and TV host Andrew Neil, and the ex-Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman, who thinks the upper house is like a bad smell that has been left by history. But in Westminster, the signs are not exactly positive.

For obvious reasons, the Conservatives seem perfectly happy with things as they are. During his campaign for the Labour leadership, Keir Starmer seemed to commit himself to abolishing the Lords and replacing it with an elected chamber of regions and nations. But earlier this month, he merely said that the Lords needs change. The state of this swollen, rotten assembly demands a lot more than that. And if not now, with everything in play, then when?

This article was changed on 15 November 2021 after an earlier version was launched in error

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The Lords is a scandal in plain sight. If we wont abolish it now, then when? - The Guardian

Just as slavery couldnt be reformed and had to be ended, policing cant be reformed and has to be abolished, say leaders of modern-day abolitionist movements.

The mass protests that broke out across the United States in 2020 ushered in a new wave of nationwide activism against state violencespecifically police killings of Black and Brown peoplewith a majority of the public, at least initially, embracing the basic tenet that Black lives matter. Now, a newly awakened generation of activists, incensed by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others are demanding a change to policing. The efforts theyre exploring range from minor reforms all the way to the abolition of policing and prisons.

By definition, abolition is a rejection of reformist approaches to improving policing. Reforms make police polite managers of inequality, human rights lawyer Derecka Purnell wrote in a 2020 article in The Atlantic, explaining the reason for her recent transformation into an advocate of police abolition. Abolition makes police and inequality obsolete.

And advocates for abolition literally mean just that.

Our charge is to make imagining liberation under oppression completely thinkable

Our charge is to make imagining liberation under oppression completely thinkable, to really push ourselves to think beyond the normal in order for us to be able to address the root causes of peoples suffering, organizer, educator, and author Mariame Kaba writes in her book We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice.

Project NIA, where Kaba is the executive director, is among a growing crop of organizations embracing the tenets of abolition. Project NIA (nia, which means purpose in Swahili) takes aim at youth incarceration and the juvenile justice system. It has adopted the slogan community over confinement and is redefining the idea of justice and security as relying on community-based safety responses rather than policing and incarceration.

Other groups supporting abolition include 8toAbolition, which centers its work on the idea that, We believe in a world where there are zero police murders because there are zero police; MPD 150, which describes itself as a community-based initiative challenging the narrative that police exist to protect and serve; and No Cop Academy, a campaign endorsed by numerous organizations, targeting a massive police training program.

Critical Resistance is one of the oldest groups embracing the abolition of prisons and police. Co-founded in 1998 by notable abolitionists Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, and Dylan Rodriguez, it has the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.

In an interview, Rodriguez, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California, explains that it is a mistake to see law enforcement as part of a criminal justice and policing apparatus exclusively. Instead, he views carceral and policing systems as tools of warwar against people of color and Black people specifically. Rodriguez maintains that those who are policed by anti-Black state violence are casualties of a generally one-sided structure of normalized warfare.

Parallels between historical movements to abolish slavery and the contemporary struggles to abolish modern-day policing are rooted in the similarities between slavery and policing. Some analysts have reframed the institution of American slavery as a historic state-sponsored war on African Americans just as modern critics like Rodriguez and others have cast policing as a war on Black people.

Viewed through such a lens, the contemporary manifestation of law enforcementwhich stemmed from slave patrolsmight be seen as an extension of this historical state-sponsored war. Indeed, the disproportionate arrest, brutalization and incarceration of African Americans today underscores the parallels between then and now.

Abolitionists of the past were not in universal agreement about how to end the war of slavery, and there were cleavages within the movements along racial lines. The Library of Congress section on The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, explains that while Black and White abolitionists worked alongside each other to end slavery, their demands differed in significant ways because [B]lack Americans tended to couple anti-slavery activities with demands for racial equality and justice.

Today, there are echoes of those transformative Black-led historic demands in the Movement for Black Lives vision for change, which is an explicitly broad call for justice. That vision includes reparations, economic justice, and political power.

Abolitionist movements against modern policing see a split similar to their historic counterparts between reformist and transformational approaches.

Abolitionist movements against modern policing see a split similar to their historic counterparts between reformist and transformational approaches. Campaigns like #8CantWait are pushing for short-term policy changes, such as bans on chokeholds, which organizers believe will immediately reduce police brutality. But, as veterans of abolition movements of prison and policing have noted, reforms have been tried and have simply not worked.

Although Rodriguez delights in the fact that more people than ever are embracing abolitionist viewpoints on policing, he worries about expropriation by the abolition-curious. Rodriguez says hes even seen some people take to using the term incremental abolitionism, which he sees as ultimately counter-abolitionist.

Rodriguez decries the fact that even among those who have embraced the idea of defunding the police, there is a reformist tendency to see law enforcement as a necessary, if less important, part of society. There is a kind of stubborn loyalty, he says, to viewing law enforcement and incarceration as among those forms of power that actually provide social order.

Like their historic counterparts, Rodriguez and other abolitionists want to broaden the currently accepted mainstream definition of justice and security. There are persistent systems of discrimination in access to food, housing, health, and education along racial lines, and yet governments at every levelfederal, state, and localhave often invested more heavily in policing and incarceration. Those investments only serve to reproduce the historic power dynamics this nation has seen in centuries past between enslavers and those enslaved.

Instead, says Rodriguez, the idea of security, which is what we are told policing and the carceral system provides, needs to be redefined to include basic needs such as housing and food security, health and emotional security, and recreational and educational security.

If you look at the long history of abolitionist movements, he says, thats in part what people were struggling for.

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Abolition Through the Ages: Reform Versus Transformation, Then and Now - YES! Magazine

Dianne Wiests new TV series is not just another role for her.

Mayor of Kingstown, which premiered Sunday on Paramount+, tackles the subject of incarceration in America, something near and dear to the actress heart for a long time.

Just last month, Wiest was at a rally outside Rikers Island, joining the growing protests against the deteriorating conditions inside the New York City jail.

It was the culmination of years of prison justice activism, working with groups like the California Coalition of Womens Prisoners and Survived and Punished, a grassroots prison abolition organization that works to free imprisoned survivors of domestic violence.

The 73-year-old Oscar winner can rattle off the stats: the number of people incarcerated in the United States, a rate higher than any other country, how much of the furniture used by the University of California college system is built by prisoners.

I had become interested in what in America we do with people who are different or poor, and it seems we put them in jail, Wiest told the Daily News.

Then Taylor Sheridans script for Mayor of Kingstown came across her desk.

The dark drama revolves around the McLusky family of Kingstown, Michigan, a town entirely reliant on its prison. Incarceration is all the McLuskys know. Brothers Mike (Jeremy Renner) and Mitch (Kyle Chandler) work within the system from the outside, fixers who will do anything as long as theres a favor repaid on the other end. A third brother, played by Taylor Handley, is a police officer.

Wiests McLusky matriarch, Miriam, looks over it all with a mixture of disgust and sadness. Locking people up is the family business, but she always hoped for more.

So Miriam teaches history to imprisoned women.

(Miriam) has to believe that shes making a drop of difference, Wiest explained.

If the inmates arent with her, then theyre sitting in their cells doing nothing. If its only for an hour or two hours a week, at least theyre getting out of their cells, whether they listen consciously or subconsciously or not at all, something is going in thats going to give them some thought other than am I going to stay alive?

Story continues

Miriam wanted her sons to get out. When they didnt, she stayed in Kingstown to protect them. But shes still sticking around, even though her sons dont need help.

Wiest is keenly aware that while her character can walk out of prison at the end of the day and go home, the reality for those really behind bars is starkly different any term can be a life sentence.

If youve got felon on your resume, good luck. No matter what your sentence is, you cant expect to do anything much with the rest of your life because no employer will go near you, Wiest said.

Its a life sentence regardless.

Mayor of Kingstown has no good guys, Wiest said. There are people who commit crimes and get caught and people who commit crimes and havent been caught and people who look the other way when crimes are being committed. Only some of those groups, though, profit off the system.

We clump, Wiest explained. Throw everybody in prison. Solve the poverty question. Solve the mental health question. Solve the race question. Solve the illegal immigration question. Just lock them up, for heavens sake. And then we dont have to deal with it.

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Prison is the family business in Mayor of Kingstown - Yahoo News

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., walks past a screen displaying early vote totals at an election party in McLean, Va., Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. | Steve Helber / AP

On Nov. 2, Virginia and New Jersey had important state elections. In the case of Virginia, the elections were for a new governor, lieutenant governor, and state attorney general, and for all 100 seats in the House of Delegates, the lower house of the state legislature, or General Assembly.

Under Virginia law, an incumbent governor cannot run for re-election, so the present Democratic Party governor, Ralph Northam, was excluded from the race. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, also a Democrat, decided to run for governor. The Democratic attorney general, Mark Herring, opted to try for re-election.

The House of Delegates went into the election with a majority of 55 Democrats to 45 Republicans. So all three executive positions and the majority of both houses of the General Assembly were held by Democrats. This was the high point of a growing Democratic Party ascendency in this once very conservative state. And in the 2020 presidential election, Virginia went for Biden with a substantial margin of votes over Trump. In 2020s congressional election, the Democrats held on to all seven of their Virginia congressional seats, while the Republicans held all of their four seats.

Within the Democratic Party, there was some friction over some key goals. Although the abolition of Virginias death penalty was a major progressive achievement, only incremental advances were made in some other progressive goals. Once more, the effort to repeal Virginias Right to Work statute was stymied by the opposition not only of the Republicans but also of Gov. Northam and more conservative Democrats in the legislature. Criminal justice and police reform also stalled due to the alignment of the same forces. So the situation was set up for some conflict within the Democratic Partys ranks in this years elections. Yet earlier in 2021, it looked as if the Democrats would retain what they had and perhaps make more electoral advances.

At the outset, the Republican Party appeared to be in disarray. The Trumpite assault on the more traditional Republican Leadership led to a situation wherein primaries were replaced by caucuses. This stymied the gubernatorial aspirations of the most flamingly Trumpite candidate, State Sen. Amanda Chase. In the end, the Republicans named former Carlyle Group mogul Glenn Youngkin for governor, Jamaican-American Evangelical Christian Winsome Sears for lieutenant governor, and right-wing Cuban-American law-and-order hardliner Jason Miyares for state attorney general.

On the Democratic side, the first to announce for governor was progressive African-American delegate Jennifer Carrol Foy, who resigned her legislative seat in order to run. Incumbent Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, also African American, decided to run too, as did Jennifer McClellan, a more centrist African-American state senator from Southern Virginia. And the most left-wing member of the Virginia General Assembly, socialist Lee Carter, decided to run for governor while at the same time trying to retain his seat in the House of Delegates. But the hearts of the supporters of all three of these candidates sank when ex-governor Terry McAuliffe threw his hat into the ring, too. McAuliffes name recognition (plus major campaign support from funders and big-name endorsers) clinched the McAuliffe victory in the June 15 Democratic Primary, with Carroll Foy coming in a distant second, while McClellan, Fairfax, and Carter were further behind.

There was also a third-party candidate, Princess Blanding, who launched her candidacy to protest the lack of action by the major parties in dealing with police brutality. Her brother, Marcus-Davis Peters, was murdered by Richmond police in 2018, and she had participated in efforts to get strong police reform. A watered-down bill was passed, and to add insult to injury, was called the Marcus bill. At the signing ceremony, Blanding denounced the whole charade and thereafter decided to run for governor.

Through most of the ensuing months, it looked as if the Democrats would continue their willing streak in Virginia. But as election day neared, polls began to show Youngkin and the other Republican candidates closing the gap, and by Nov. 2, most polls showed a dead heat.

After the post-election dust settled, it turned out that the Democrats had suffered severe losses. Republican Youngkin defeated Democrat McAuliffe by 50.7% to 48.61% for governor (Blanding got 0.7%). For lieutenant governor, Republican Sears beat Democrat Ayala with numbers almost identical to those in the Youngkin-McAuliffe matchup, and for attorney general, Republican Miyares beat incumbent Democrat Herring 50.36% to 49.55%. Although the results of a couple of challenges in the House of Delegates races are not in yet, it appears the Democrats lost their majority there, too.

This setback set up the usual feeding frenzy of half-baked interpretations by various politicians and pundits. Many voices blamed the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for the results, for being too leftist. The names of right-wing Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., were invoked as the kind of politicians the Democrats should support if they ever want to win an election again. Black Lives Matter got blamed for supposedly causing racial division, and so forth.

But there was something off-key about this chorus of howls of woe.

First of all, the margins by which the Republicans won were razor thin, as the reader can see by the statistics cited above. Secondly, most of the progressive Democratic delegates won their seats again, and at least one outstanding new one was added.

The main explanation for the Republican advance lies in a very high turnout from the most conservative white and rural areas of the state, compared to similar off-year elections in the past (by off-year is meant that there was no federal election to jazz things up in 2021). These are voters who, for whatever reason, like Donald J. Trump very much. The weaponization of school board controversies and discontent with vaccines and face masks was a key tactic in Republican agitation, and it bore fruit.

The Republican candidate for governor, Youngkin, tried to appeal to the Trumpite extremist base while also trying to behave like a responsible statesman toward voters in the suburbs.

And what did the Democrats do? They heavily emphasized a Youngkin equals Trump campaign strategy and talked very little about what actual policies McAuliffe would enact as governor. One could find McAuliffes actual policy plans if one looked hard enough online, but the average voter statewide only heard the message that Youngkin had been endorsed by Trump, coming both from the Trump promotors and from the Democrats!

A large percentage of the vote for Youngkin came from counties which include many very poor white households, which are suffering from scarce jobs, low pay, and lack of services, such as health care. The Democrats did not really try to challenge the idea among such rural and small-town white workers that Trump and the Republicans are their true friends; instead, they wrote them off completely. They did not effectively challenge the racist and other backward ideas which are such a big part of the mix in those communities (even in Appalachia, by the way, most of the cities voted for McAuliffe).

One of the most revealing pieces of McAuliffe campaign literature illustrates this mistake. The Democratic Party repeated announcements that Trump had endorsed Youngkin very likely served to bring out droves of Trump followers to vote for the latter. So clumsy was this tactic that many people seeing the piece probably thought it was Republican campaign literature. The idea was to shock Trumps detractors into voting for McAuliffe, but it is likely this backfired.

In addition, through several campaign cycles, it appears that the Virginia Democratic Party has forgotten to have a ground game. The emphasis is often on raising money from well-off individuals and corporate supporters so that expensive television and online advertising can be paid for, instead of canvassing and shoe leather. This marginalizes blue-collar and especially lower-income voters, who have nobody to explain their concerns to in the campaign context.

Whether the Democrats can learn from this mistake will soon be seen, in the context of the 2022 midterm federal elections. Will they continue to scapegoat progressives and marginalize eloquent voices for justice like those of Princess Blanding?

At any rate, for the left, the lesson is clear: Dont rely on the wisdom of the Democratic Party leadership to defend working-class interests; get out there and organize, in every workplace and in every community, and build the base for a far better politics than either of the bourgeois parties currently offers.

MORE ON THE VIRGINIA ELECTIONS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR 2022:

> Democrats can avoid midterm election disaster by running on their actual agenda

> Things Youngkin didnt mention about the history of education in Virginia

> Election 2021: Republicans make some major gains but not everywhere

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Virginia elections: The spin vs. the reality - People's World