Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

In June 2021, three activists Rob Callender, Daisy Pearson and Ben Wheeler, also known as the Westminster Three were charged with criminal trespass under Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Policing Act (2005) before a London court. Seven months earlier, on a cold November morning, they had peacefully climbed up the scaffolding on the corner of the UK Houses of Parliament to hang a ten-metre tall letter written by Africans to the people of the UK. It was a courageous effort to amplify voices from the Global South.

Africans Rising, a Pan-African movement of people working for Justice, Peace and Dignity, created the letter for their #ReRightHistory campaign, which calls for honest acknowledgement of the harm and human cost of slavery and colonialism, the legacies of which continue to have negative influence on the economic and political trajectory of countries across Africa, whilst undermining its ecological sovereignty. The text also demanded reparations to the victims of slavery and colonialism and the establishment of truth and healing commissions to enable full acknowledgement of the legacies of slavery, colonialism and ongoing systemic racism.

Rob, Daisy and Bens action was a reminder to the British government the largest former coloniser in Africa and across the globe and a central player in deriving profit from human enslavement of its responsibility in the process of restorative justice. On October 6, they will be acquitted or sentenced for their part in a renewed attempt to hold the UK accountable to the truth.

Legacies of colonialism and slavery.

Today, we all agree the dark chapter of human history marked by slavery was brutal. Enslaved people were deemed the property of other human beings, incapable of comprehending dignity and rights, thus undeserving of both, and subjected to untold deprivation and suffering. It is estimated that at least 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic ocean and into slavery in the Americas and Caribbean between the 16th and 19th centuries one of the largest enforced movement of humans recorded in history.

Conservative estimates place the number of African people who lost their lives during the trans-Atlantic crossing at 1.5 million. Many died from horrific conditions on slave ships, others threw themselves into the ocean and drowned in desperate attempts to avoid subjugation. Ships also capsized during voyages, and the ocean floor remains littered with bones that bear stories of pain, anguish and unimaginable suffering. Countless skeletons have already been eroded by the sea, disappearing from the reach of history. But every other day new records and scars of slavery are being unearthed, like the oldest known wreckage of a slave ship, discovered in 2005 on the floor of the English channel.

The abolition of slavery saw the extractive capitalist system renew plans to colonise the African continent, beginning around 1895 when European countries convened the Berlin Conference. This self-justified colonialism further augmented the economic base of Europe by allowing countries like Britain access to raw materials, cheap or forced labour, and overseas markets for processed commodities. The trade, shipping and banking empires of Europe and America owe a huge part of their development to the historical epochs of slavery and colonialism, periods of fast and sustained economic growth in European history.

The letter that Rob, Daisy and Ben now face up to six months imprisonment for attaching to the Palace of Westminster was written in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on May 25, 2020 a killing which stemmed from deep-seated systemic racism that every day confronts African people (and people of colour) in the diaspora. His last words I cant breathe gave voice to protests and marches against present and historic injustice. In that moment, demands by #BlackLivesMatter and allied movements calling for racial, climate and gender justice and economic equality reverberated across the world.

Today, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimates that Africa loses $50-80 billion annually to illicit financial flows (Actual figures are much higher). Multinational companies, many born in Britain, Europe or the US, register to tax havens, often using British or American-made legal instruments, in order to shift profits and obfuscate where tax is due. Left in weakened financial positions, African countries have, over decades, borrowed huge sums of money under bilateral and multilateral arrangements that disproportionately serve the interest of the wealthy. More recently, African countries have been borrowing from private financial institutions. The long-term effects of this behaviour are now, again, becoming clear.

Two weeks after the Westminster Three climbed the UK parliament, Zambia defaulted on debt service payments. In the past, shocks like this have destabilised regimes and impoverished millions of people. It is a reminder that poverty in the neo-colonial economies is manufactured it does not fall from the sky.

The ongoing legacy of colonialism and empire is today made even more visible through the WTO TRIPS agreement which needlessly and callously denies impoverished countries in the Global South waivers on intellectual property rights that would enable them to develop vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Humanity, territory, resources and movement

Throughout history, our species has moved towards and settled around resources. Early humans settled on lands that were capable of producing and sustaining life. Later, changing patterns of land ownership, economic conditions and the search for sustenance herded many of us into cities which had a higher concentration of industry and financial resources and more opportunities for work.

It, therefore, isnt surprising that more than a century after the abolition of slavery, thousands of African lives are still being lost at sea. Every day African youth risk their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean and search for better prospects in Europe, victims of forces both internal and external to Africa.

Countless more now flee hardship and deprivation caused by the changing climate that has rendered rich farmland into dry and unproductive soil. In certain parts of Africa, environmental changes have forced whole villages to relocate into cities where conditions are even direr.

The young Africans risking or losing their lives crossing the Mediterranean are literally running away from the legacies of colonialism and imperialism that inform their wretched conditions in hopes of accessing Europes concentration of wealth and opportunities. How many more lives does Africa have to lose? Is the ocean floor not tired of African skeletons?

You can arrest activists, but you cannot arrest the truth

A few weeks after the Westminster Three were arrested, the UK parliament debated the Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts Bill, in a hall not far from where the Africans Rising letter had been. If passed, this legislation will curtail freedoms of expression and protest and other rights and is so draconian that Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently made the disgusting comment that his Conservative home secretary in charge of policing, Priti Patel, was turning the UK into the Saudi Arabia of penal policy. Outrage over the Bill immediately sparked a campaign to stop it: #KillTheBill.

The Westminster Three put their lives and freedom on the line in a defiant show of solidarity with the oppressed people of Africa. They posed no danger, and harmed no one. They simply spoke truth to power. They are on the right side of history. That they are being tried at all reminds us that what is legal and what is right are not always the same.

We applaud their courage and comradeship in our collective pursuit for justice, peace and dignity.

A luta continua!

This article was first published on Progressive International.

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In Defence of the Westminster Three - The Wire

Commemorative plaques on the facades of Britains buildings are an unlikely source of joy. Especially during the pandemic, when urban inhabitants have been more than usually reliant on foot power to get them around, a flash of ceramic sky blue the colour favoured by English Heritage, which runs the most authoritative and well-known plaque scheme on the streets of London can mean a momentary invitation to consider distant lives. Passing her house in Holland Park, for instance, one can imagine Radclyffe Hall weathering the scandal of the publication of The Well of Loneliness, her (suppressed) lesbian novel. Gay film-maker and activist Derek Jarman is commemorated by a plaque erected by Islington council to mark his home in the late 1960s. He has his English Heritage blue plaque, though, in Shad Thames, Southwark, London, where he lived and worked in the 1970s and, incidentally, won the first Alternative Miss World competition, judged by a panel that included David Hockney.

Or take Ira Aldridge, the African American actor who settled in the south London suburb of Upper Norwood, we learn from his blue plaque, in the 1860s. What would he have had to say to the great composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who later lived not far away in South Norwood? The composer of The Song of Hiawatha was the first black person to be given a plaque under the English Heritage scheme, in 1975.

Commemorating history is now, more than ever, a contentious issue. A recent analysis by the Guardians data team found that only 2% of the blue plaques in English Heritages scheme commemorate black people. That rather pitiful figure, though, may somewhat obscure the fact that the charity, which took over the then 120-year-old project in 1986 after the abolition of the Greater London Council, has made important strides towards changing the balance. A working party, set up in 2016, has been specifically encouraging nominations for plaques commemorating black and Asian historical figures, as well as women and those from working-class backgrounds. The result is that for the past two years a quarter of the plaques unveiled have commemorated notable black and Asian people. The age of an exclusive focus on dead white men is over.

If progress seems frustratingly slow, that is partly the nature of the process: after nomination by a member of the public, there will be rigorous historical research to confirm the association of a person with a building or buildings; the putting-forward of the proposed plaque to a selection panel; the not insubstantial task of gaining permissions from property owners and councils; and then the work of designing and making the beautiful ceramic roundels. This can take three years. Historian David Olusoga (who sits on the Scott Trust, which owns this newspaper) has made some sensible suggestions about the possibility of adjusting the criteria to make it easier for black people to be commemorated by plaques, by marking significant locations for meetings or events rather than just dwelling places. These ideas should be taken seriously and the charity encouraged to redouble its efforts so that those who pound the streets have yet more invitations to pause, to marvel, and to imagine.

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The Guardian view on blue plaques: time to redress the balance - The Guardian

New Delhi, Oct 7 (UNI) Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday condemned the killing of two civilians by terrorists in Srinagar and said, It is our national duty to protect the minorities in Jammu and Kashmir.

On Thursday, terrorists shot dead the Principal, Supinder Kaur and a Kashmiri Pandit teacher Deepak Chand at a government school in the Eidgah area of Srinagar.

Both the deceased belonged to the minority communities.

Talking to reporters while participating in an outreach programme in Budgam, the Minister said, These terrorists are trying to hamper the development work in Jammu and Kashmir but they will not succeed in their sinister design,

It our national duty to protect the minority communities in Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Naqvi has said, evil forces will not be allowed to succeed in their nefarious designs to hijack the atmosphere of peace and prosperity in Jammu-Kashmir through terrorism and violence.

After abolition of the Article 370, rights of the people of Jammu-Kashmir and Leh-Kargil regarding trade, agriculture, employment, culture, land have been provided absolute Constitutional protection and safe-guard, he said.

Calling the incident unfortunate Naqvi said, ``those who are indulging in such activities are the enemies of the development work carried out by the Modi government.

There was no development for the past 70 years but with the coming of the Modi government the region has seen development, he added.

The Minister said that the Government has ended caucus of corruption from the power corridors of Delhi and now the Government has made Jammu-Kashmir also free from corruption of clan

Jammu-Kashmir, Ladakh have been moving forward on the path of inclusive development by demolishing the web of dynasty,

He said after several decades, people of Jammu-Kashmir, Ladakh have become an equal partner of transparent democratic and development process.

As a part of the outreach program in Jammu and Kashmir, Union, Mukthar Abbas Naqvi inaugurated T20 Tourist Accommodation and parking area at Doodhpathri in Budgam.

He also laid the foundation stone of District Veterinary Hospital at Budgam and met with senior administrative officials to review various development projects.

He also distributed sanction letters and cheques to beneficiaries of different welfare schemes.

During the programme the Minister also interacted with peoples representatives, delegations of prominent people from education, health, social and cultural fields at Tenger.

UNI JA SHK2116

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Naqvi condemns killing of two teachers in Srinagar; says it's govt's duty to protect minorities - United News of India

Today, more than two hundred years since the dramatic events that began in 1789, the story of the French Revolution is still relevant to all those who believe in liberty and democracy. Whenever movements for freedom take place anywhere in the world, their supporters claim to be following the example of the Parisians who stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789.

Whoever reads the words of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen published in August 1789 immediately recognizes the basic principles of individual liberty, legal equality, and representative government that define modern democracies. When we think of the French Revolution, however, we also remember the violent conflicts that divided those who participated in it, and the executions carried out with the guillotine. Likewise, we remember the rise to power of Napoleon, the charismatic general whose dictatorship ended the movement.

When I began my own career as a scholar and teacher in the 1970s, the memory of the worldwide student protest movements on university campuses in the 1960s was still fresh. Those movements inspired interest in the French Revolution, which seemed to stand alongside the Russian Revolution of 1917 as one of the great examples of a successful overthrow of an oppressive society.

Ironically, in those years of upheaval, the understanding of the French Revolution seemed largely fixed. Virtually all historians agreed that it resulted from the frustrations of a rising bourgeois class determined to challenge a feudal old order that stood in the way of political and economic progress. However, by the time I participated, along with researchers from all over the globe, in commemorations of the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989, the situation had changed drastically.

The communist regimes in Eastern Europe were tottering, and the fact that the French Revolution had been viewed by the Soviets as an inspiration was now a reason to ask whether the upheaval in France in 1789 had foreshadowed totalitarian excesses more than social progress. The polemical essays of a dynamic French historian, Franois Furet, challenged the orthodoxy that had dominated study of the Revolution; among other things, he appealed to scholars in the English-speaking world to turn to the subject with fresh eyes.

The decades since 1989 have brought new questions about the French Revolution to the fore. In 1789, the French proclaimed that all men are born and remain free and equal in rights but what about women? At the start of the American Revolution, John Adamss wife, Abigail, famously urged him in a letter to remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. In revolutionary France, the issues about womens rights and relations between the sexes that still preoccupy us today were openly debated in the press, in political clubs, and even in the nations legislature.

Mary Wollstonecraft, recognized as the pioneer of modern feminism, wrote her trailblazing Vindication of the Rights of Women in revolutionary Paris, but a French reviewer commented that women there had already shown that they could do more than even Wollstonecraft imagined. Some of the women of the period the playwright and pamphleteer Olympe de Gouges, the novelist and salon hostess Madame de Stal, the backroom politician Madame Roland, and the unhappy queen Marie Antoinette became prominent public figures and left ample records of their thoughts.

Others took part in mass uprisings or exerted influence through their daily grumbling about bread prices. Under the new laws on marriage and divorce, some women welcomed the possibility of changes in family life; others played a key role in frustrating male revolutionaries efforts to do away with the Catholic Church. A history of the French Revolution that does not remember the ladies is incomplete.

In todays world, the confrontations of the French revolutionaries with the issues of race and slavery also command attention they did not receive in the past. On the map, the scattered islands of Frances overseas empire in 1789 looked insignificant compared to the holdings of the British, the Spanish, and the Portuguese, but their importance was out of all proportion to their size. In 1787, the colonies provided 37 percent of the goods imported into France and took 22 percent of its exports. One French colony alone Saint-Domingue, todays Haiti provided half the worlds supply of sugar and coffee.

These profits came from the labor of enslaved black men and women. In 1789, the eight hundred thousand slaves in the French sugar islands in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean outnumbered the six hundred fifty thousand in the thirteen United States, and the number of Africans transported to the French colonies reached its all-time peak just as the revolutionaries were proclaiming that men are born and remain free and equal in rights.

The colonies and their slaves were far away from Europe, but they preoccupied the minds of thinkers in France. The abb Raynals History of the Two Indies, a multivolume work with passages condemning colonialism and slavery, was a bestseller throughout the prerevolutionary years. In 1788, Marie Antoinette authorized the gift of a gilded watch for Jean-Pierre, Madame de Boisnormands mulatto, a playmate of her son.

The question of how to reconcile the principles of freedom with the economic importance of the colonies preoccupied revolutionary leaders throughout the 1790s. After much controversy, they voted to abolish slavery and to grant full rights to people of all races, but only after they were faced with historys largest slave uprising, the beginning of a Haitian Revolution that ended in 1804 with the creation of the first independent black nation in the Americas. A history of the French Revolution that gives this previously neglected topic the attention it deserves changes our understanding of the movements meaning.

The events of the first decades of our century, which have led to widespread questioning of traditional political institutions, also send us back to the French Revolution. Revolutionary-era protests against economic globalization and the consequences of free trade often sound eerily similar to present-day movements. Because they argued that government needed to represent the will of the people, the French revolutionaries were the forerunners both of modern political democracy and of modern anti-elitist populism, and the events of the 1790s in France vividly demonstrate the conflicts that can arise between the two.

As the world attempts to cope with a resurgence of militant nationalism, the ways in which the French Revolution turned the word nation into an explosive force demand new attention. The Revolutions violent debates about the proper place of religion in society and the powerful resistance to its efforts to introduce secular values foreshadow conflicts of our own time.

Like people today, participants in the French Revolution had the feeling that they were experiencing a transformation of the communications media. The proliferation of newspapers and pamphlets, for example, made it seem as though time itself had sped up, and difficulties in distinguishing between political truth and false rumors were a constant of the period.

Finally, in an era in which disruption has become a political program, the history of the French Revolutions experiment in deliberately demolishing an existing order has never been more relevant. Our own experience of disruption also lends new relevance to the revolutionaries efforts, in the five years between the end of the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon, to stabilize their society without undoing the positive achievements of the movement.

In what follows, I will discuss two episodes of striking contemporary relevance: the decision of the Parisian revolutionary leaders to impose restrictions on the free market in the name of popular welfare, and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies under pressure from the slave revolt in Haiti.

Despite the turbulent atmosphere in Paris and in the National Convention during 1793, the revolutionary deputies did not forget that they were supposed to be drafting a new constitution. Maximilien Robespierre used the resumption of the debate on the subject on April 24 to give a powerful statement of his political ideas. In a bow in the direction of populism, he proposed to include in the new constitutions Declaration of Rights an article stating that any institution that does not postulate that the people is good and that magistrates are corruptible is vicious.

In sharp contrast to Nicolas de Condorcet, who had made an emphatic defense of absolute property rights and free enterprise in his draft declaration, Robespierre proposed a very different definition of the right of property. Even as he assured his audience that he only wanted to make poverty honorable and promised that he would not advocate a redistribution of property, he dismissed the rich as mud-stained souls who only value gold, insisting that the extreme disproportion of fortunes is the cause of many evils and many crimes. Whereas the revolutionaries of 1789 had considered the wealthier strata of the population to be the more enlightened and virtuous citizens, Robespierre clearly thought the opposite.

Robespierre proposed to consider property legitimate only if it did not prejudice the security, or the freedom, or the existence, or the property of our fellow men. Among other things, this justified measures to force grain merchants to sell their stocks at prices fixed by the authorities. From his principles, Robespierre also drew the consequence that citizens whose income was at or below the subsistence level should be entirely exempt from taxes, a suggestion Condorcet had already made in his proposal.

Robespierre added that tax rates on those with more wealth should be progressive. The wealthy should fund welfare programs, which Robespierre considered an obligation of those who have a surplus. Whereas the militant agitators in the streets emphasized the issue of bread prices, Robespierre wanted to assure that they would be able to earn enough to support themselves.

He hoped to accomplish this by incorporating into the Declaration of Rights an article stating that society is obliged to provide for the subsistence of all its members, either in providing work for them, or in assuring the means of existence to those who are not able to work. This basic principle of modern welfare states had been foreshadowed early in the Revolution by the proposals of the National Assemblys welfare committee, but Robespierre now proposed giving it constitutional status.

Claiming to be outlining eternal principles, Robespierre was in fact keeping a close eye on the political situation that surrounded him. His proposed Declaration of Rights was a weapon against his Girondin foes and an invitation to the popular militants to help the radical Montagnard deputies defeat them. One of the Girondin arguments against the petition of the Paris sections demanding their expulsion from the Convention was that no one section of the country had the right to speak for the citizenry as a whole.

Robespierres draft declaration conceded that only the entire people was sovereign, but it insisted that every assembled section of the sovereign should have the complete liberty to express its will. Going beyond the original declarations reference to a right of resistance to oppression, Robespierre defined what constituted a pretext for such resistance and added language stating that when rights were violated, insurrection is . . . the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties. This made it clear that he, and by extension the rest of the Montagnard party, would accept a popular uprising to eliminate the Girondins from the Convention.

Outside the Convention, protests of all kinds multiplied. On May 1, 1793, women from Versailles angrily complained to the deputies that every day, mothers, weighed down with families, are forced to stand at the door of a bakery from four in the morning until ten and reminded them that our husbands are fighting for the salvation of the republic.

On the same day, representatives of the always restive faubourg Saint-Antoine demanded that a maximum price be set for grain; they also wanted all unmarried men, including priests, to be drafted into the army, plus an emergency tax on the rich. The burden of the revolution has so far been borne only by the class of the poor, they complained. It is time that the rich and the egoists also become republicans. They threatened to stage an insurrection if their demands were not met.

Pressed by the demands from the women and the faubourg Saint-Antoine militants, on May 3, 1793, the Convention reluctantly approved an emergency measure to establish a maximum price for grain. It also instituted procedures intended to compel farmers and grain merchants to put whatever supplies they had on the market. The decision meant abandoning the liberal economic principles that most of the deputies, Girondins and Montagnards alike, held as articles of faith.

A little-known deputy, Jean Desvars, protested the decision in a way that amounted to a textbook summary of free-market principles. I want to avoid government intervention in matters concerned with subsistence, and searches of private property, equally dangerous for liberty, he insisted. Respect property, because it is the first law of societies. The problem was that the market was visibly not functioning, and even Desvars conceded that a system of price controls was needed. A Girondin, Franois Buzot, agreed, although he also criticized the weakness we have shown in not sticking to the principles of free transportation and commerce.

For the more radical deputies, those principles were precisely the problem. The unconstrained freedom of the grain trade allows free rein to the insatiable greed of the merchants, one of them contended. Recognizing that it was politically impossible to wait for the natural course of things to reduce the price of goods, as another Girondin deputy wanted, the Convention endorsed the maximum and the state intervention in the economy it implied.

In the midst of tense maneuvers between the political factions in Paris, the colonial question and the issue of slavery, the greatest contradiction of the revolutionary claim to be defending liberty, suddenly resurfaced. The news of the destruction of Saint-Domingues largest city, Cap Franais, had helped inspire the Parisian journe of September 5, 1793. The Convention initially accepted the proslavery colonists version of that event, blaming the revolutionary officials Lger Flicit Sonthonax and tienne Polverel and their Girondin patrons for this disaster.

Robespierre himself had endorsed the accusations of the white colonists against Sonthonax and Polverel in a major speech laying out the Committee of Public Safetys foreign policy on November 17, 1793. The alliance of the Paris revolutionaries with the slaveowners was threatened in late December, when word arrived that the remaining white colonists in Saint-Domingue had allowed British forces to occupy positions on the colonys western coast. The colonists representatives in the capital persuaded the Montagnards to accept their argument that the whites were forced to choose between death or subjection to the king of England.

On January 23, 1794, however, the colonists were jolted by the news that three men from Saint-Domingue a white ally of Sonthonax and Polverel, a black man, and a man of mixed race had appeared in Paris with documents showing that they had been elected as the colonys deputies to the Convention. Their mission was to get the assembly to endorse the emancipation of the slaves that Sonthonax and Polverel had carried out.

The white colonists managed to get their allies on the Committee of General Security to issue arrest warrants for the members of this tricolor delegation from Saint-Domingue, but before they could be imprisoned, the men met with several members of the Committee of Public Safety, which ordered them released. Bertrand Barre, always a barometer of the way the wind was blowing in that committee, stunned the proslavery lobbyists by telling them that he now realized that the whites are aristocrats in that colony and that the men of color and the Negroes are patriots.

Having never previously shown much interest in the question of slavery, the embattled followers of Georges Danton suddenly embraced the cause and persuaded the Convention to accept the credentials of the Saint-Domingue deputies. The African-born Jean-Baptiste Belley, a former slave, and James Mills, a mixed-race planter, became the first black men to sit in the legislature of a European country, preceding by more than seventy years the black senators and representatives in the United States elected during Reconstruction.

On February 4, 1794, one day after they had been admitted, Louis Dufay, the white member of the group, delivered a three-hour speech to the Convention. He justified the actions Sonthonax and Polverel had taken in Cap Franais the previous June and promised that your colony of Saint-Domingue, cultivated by free hands, will be more flourishing . . . it will soon dominate the entire archipelago of the Gulf of Mexico.

Dufay was careful to justify the measures Sonthonax and Polverel had taken as expedients to deal with a crisis rather than casting them as the fulfillment of the Revolutions principles of liberty and equality. He did not have the support of the Committee of Public Safety: although it had freed him and his colleagues from prison, none of the committee members were even present to hear his speech. Instead, they were holding an emergency meeting with the representatives of the white colonists, who pleaded with them to head off any attack on the slave system.

As the lobbyists exited the meeting, they learned that it was too late. Fired with enthusiasm by Dufays words, the deputy Ren Levasseur immediately moved to decree as of this moment that slavery is abolished throughout the territory of the Republic, insisting that I want all men to be free, without distinction of color. The Dantonist Jean-Franois Delacroix told the assembly not to dishonor itself with a longer discussion and in a matter of minutes the institution that had been fundamental to the creation of Frances overseas empire was struck down.

Not only were the blacks declared free, but they were immediately granted full rights as French citizens. A wave of emotion reminiscent of the night of August 4, 1789, when the National Assembly declared the feudal system abolished, ran through the room: the deputies had finally faced up to the greatest contradiction of the principles of liberty and equality in the French Empire. The Conventions president embraced the two black deputies as other members cheered.

Even longtime supporters of abolition were shocked by the suddenness of this shift. Henri Grgoire, a consistent advocate of racial equality in the Revolutions early years, feared that Levasseurs motion would be disastrous . . . the political equivalent of a volcano. Perhaps aware of the unease many deputies felt about the radicalism of their action, Danton let his allies push the motion through before demonstrating, for one final time, his uncanny ability to combine daring and caution.

He predicted that, thanks to the Conventions actions, as of today, England is dead: the slaves in its colonies would surely rise in revolt and disrupt its economy. But he urged the deputies, some of whom wanted to send the news to the colonies immediately, to leave the decrees implementation to the Committee of Public Safety. It was his last significant intervention in revolutionary politics before his arrest.

Perhaps Danton hoped the Committee would be grateful to him for upholding its authority. The Committee did in fact decide against sending the decree to the French colonies in the Indian Ocean, fearing that the plantation owners there would simply turn the islands over to the British. And one prominent committee member remained unreconciled to the decision.

A few weeks later, while debating what charges to bring against Danton at his trial, Robespierre tried unsuccessfully to have him specifically blamed for the passage of a decree whose likely result was the loss of our colonies. It was a measure of how thoroughly obsessed he was with the idea of a foreign conspiracy against French interests.

Far different was the reaction of Toussaint Louverture, the black general who had rejected the offer of freedom from local revolutionary officials in Saint-Domingue in August 1793. When news of the Conventions proclamation reached Saint-Domingue, he broke with the other leaders of the black movement and their Spanish backers and announced his conversion to the republican cause. His soldiers became the core of the French army that kept the colony from falling into the hands of the countrys enemies.

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The French Revolution Was the Beginning of the Modern World - Jacobin magazine

The Modi Mantra of a 20-year-long success story is, Though Im miles away from you, I can feel your problems and difficulties. Narendra Damodardas Modithe winning charm of the BJP, who wrote the victory story by serving the nation for the last 20 years. Several top political guns across the globe lost power due to anti-incumbency. But in the case of the Modi regime, the story is completely different. His popularity is rising with each passing day. Moreover, he has set an example that one can hold the top political position by constantly serving the motherland.

Narendra Modis miracle journey continues. First, he successfully served as the chief minister of Gujarat for 13 years. Now, he has completed seven years as the Prime Minister of India.

I have keenly observed the working styles of CMs and PMs for several years as a journalist. As an editor of a business channel, Ive visited Gandhinagar several times. During this period, Modi was the CM of Gujarat. Without any hesitation, I can say that no leader today can match Modi when it comes to efficiency in work. Achieving the top post is definitely a tough job. But the mammoth task is cementing your position for such a long period. The country has seen a number of CMs and PMs but they are no match for the one-and-only warrior: Narendra Damodardas Modi.

The public doesnt tolerate a non-performer. Voters dont take much time to show the door to such leaders. To remain in the Prime Ministers seat, one has to face the ballot battle on several fronts. Modi has conquered these fights and has faced tough tests in his political journey.

On October 7, 2001, then chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi did not have even a single days experience in governance. He had not served as a minister before taking the CMs post. The opposition leaders had raised questions regarding his capability. But he gave a befitting response through impressive governance. There is no one leader in modern politics who can compete with Modi.

Modis strength lies in his administrative skill and a brilliant track record in efficient governance. In a democratic system, public support and faith is the supreme power for any leader. And only a performer can enjoy citizens endless support.

Because of Modis governance, the BJP achieved more than two-thirds majority in Gujarat for three consecutive terms. At the central level too, the BJP won majority in two back-to-back elections in the name of Modi. He rode to power with more seats and public support, every time.

Narendra Modis administrative model works at six levels, which are:

1. Facilitating public

2. Practical approach

3. New technology

4. Accountability

5. Transparency

6. Improvement in peoples standard of living

He often says there should be flexibility in government schemes. When Modi was the chief minister, he used to say that each state in India is a separate social and geographical unit. Therefore, we cannot implement the same rules and norms across all states. Schemes or projects for hilly states such as Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh cannot be the same as those for states in the plains, like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

After taking charge as the Prime Minister, he launched several schemes for states, keeping an eye on state-specific factors. He instructed officials to design the projects by adopting a practical approach. With his determination, commitment, passion and performance, Modi has proved that political hurdles cant be excuses for not making fundamental changes for development.

I think Prime Minister Modis biggest achievement is peoples growing faith in the system. Citizens were fed up with decades-long corruption, nepotism and dynasty politics. Modi has proved that elections can be won with firm decisions and better governance.

Despite being a strict administrator, Modi is flexible when it comes to resolving peoples problems. Modi has travelled to almost every state, and therefore, has ground-level understanding of peoples problems. After taking charge as Indias Prime Minister, Modi has made endless efforts to rid the country of corruption. For this mission, he has utilised technology on all the fronts.

Jan Dhan Bank Account: Modi decided to help the public through direct deposit of the subsidy amount to their accounts. He launched the zero-balance Jan Dhan bank account scheme for the poor and underprivileged. Modi himself monitored the implementation of the scheme. In a short span, more than 45 crore Jan Dhan bank accounts were opened across the country. The subsidy under a government scheme is now directly transferred to the accounts of the beneficiaries. The biggest outcome of the Jan Dhan Yojna was controlling corruption and checking leakage of government funds.

Mudra Yojna: PM Modi has realised the problems of the small traders and shopkeepers. He knows that they are skilful but are not able to grow their businesses because of lack of sufficient capital. Keeping this in mind, he launched the Mudra Yojna wherein one can get a loan of up to Rs 10 lakh without any guarantee. In the last six years, nearly Rs 15 lakh crore worth of loans have been disbursed. These two schemes have helped a lot of Indians prosper.

First in Gujarat and then across India, Modis prime agenda is development. You can see it getting reflected in his speeches, which emphasize development and governance. Good governances Gujarat Model has gained huge popularity among citizens. Consecutive election wins have proved that political power can be gained through good governance. As a result, a number of chief ministers have followed in Modis footsteps. A healthy competition has started between states on development and good governance. We can give credit to PM Modi for the healthy competition between states to attract investments and launch development projects.

After becoming the CM of Gujarat, Modi started working on a different model of development. He invited investors from all over the world to invest in Gujarat. For this, the Vibrant Gujarat Summit was held in 2003. After this, Vibrant Gujarat became an annual opportunity for investors and industrialists from all over the world to invest in Gujarat.

Sanand in Gujarat became the auto hub of India overnight, because of quick decision-making and an end to red-tapism. Many foreign companies that have been operating in India for a long time were surprised that a state government could work in a fast and efficient manner. As an editor of a business news channel during that period, I frequently interacted with businessmen and industry leaders on growth and investment. During these discussions, many industrialists admitted that it was probably the effect of the Gujarat model that many states were now competing to attract investors and industries.

As part of the good governance model, PM Modi focused on making Gujarat a power surplus state. Within a few years, 24-hour electricity supply was ensured in every village in Gujarat. Power companies were enabled, power theft was stopped by improving distribution, industries and farmers started getting electricity 24 hours a day. End result: Along with industrial growth, Gujarat also witnessed rapid growth in agriculture. The increase in farmers income played a big role in increasing the prosperity of the entire state.

The key feature of Modi style of governance is that it is public-centric. If a decision is causing trouble to the people, the government knows how to rectify it immediately. The biggest examples being the decisions on demonetisation and GST implementation.

Demonetisation: Symbol of Modis Trust in People

The decision on demonetisation showed how much the people of the country trust Modis cause. After the implementation of demonetisation, people had to face difficulties for a long time. They stood in queues outside banks for several hours. But despite these difficulties, their faith in Modi was intact. People openly said they have faith in Modi, and believe that he has acted in public interest. This trust is the result of Modis performance on governance.

According to Modi, the purpose of demonetisation was to rid the country of black money and corruption. The billions and trillions of rupees that the corrupt had hidden away would be brought into the system and used for development. Although a tough administrator, he understands when people face problems. When he realized that people were suffering due to demonetization rules, he immediately made necessary changes to reduce their troubles.

Implementation of GST: Revolutionary Decision Like Demonetisation

GST can be called the most revolutionary decision in the history of Indias taxation policy. It changed the entire system of taxation. But the road to this change was difficult, the implementation of GST was like a bitter pill. Politically, implementing GST was a very risky decision. But Modi knew that this would benefit everyone in the long run and would make doing business much easier.

As soon as Modi realized that businessmen were facing some practical problems, he took the initiative and made necessary amendments to GST. Slowly, the glitches were resolved and people adopted the new system. Now, the GST system in the country has been overhauled to a great extent and there are record collections every month.

For any politician to be perceived as an effective leader, it is necessary that he takes a stand on social issues. PM Narendra Modi has the courage to speak openly on the flaws in the system and also does not shy away from calling out social evils. He is different from other leaders in this matter. Remember campaigns like Swachh Bharat Mission, International Yoga Day, Fit India, Open Defecation-Free India, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Ujjwala scheme.

Earlier, only the well-to-do had access to technology. But Modi has opened the highway for benefits of technology to reach the poor. He challenged the myth that people in poor and backward areas do not need technology. The success of Aarogya Setu and CoWIN in checking the spread of the coronavirus is the biggest example of good and effective use of technology. With the help of CoWIN, 90 crore COVID vaccines have been administered; the platform has been highly appreciated globally.

Evidence of how a large section of population today uses technology can be seen in over 55 billion real-time digital transactions that take place annually. According to estimates, India has become the largest digital payment system in the world.

Due to the Modi model of governance, villages across the country are getting electricity for more than 20 hours a day. Similarly, ambitious schemes like toilets in every house, tap water and housing for all are proof that the government is committed to improving the standard of living of everyone.

The political leadership of our country has always tried to stall disputes so that they can reap political benefits. But during the seven years of Modis tenure, the disputes that had been raging for years ended, like the removal of Article 370 from Kashmir, abolition of hundreds of non-essential laws, and the resolution of the Ram Mandir issue.

Prime Minister Modis signature is clearly visible in every policy decision. Let me explain with three examples.

1) Economic Policy i.e. Modinomics

2) Foreign Policy

3) Direct communication with administrative officers

Economic Policy (Modinomics): The credit of mainstreaming economics in Indian politics must go to Narendra Modi. Before Modi, elections were usually fought on purely emotional issues. To bring the countrys economy back on track, Modi started taking big institutional decisions. Post that, rapid economic recovery began. Modi says the governments job is not to run hotels or airlines. Only private companies can run them in better and effective ways. The job of the government is only to keep a watch.

The reason for fast development in the infrastructure sector is the successful public-private investment model. Infrastructure is being rapidly developed for road, rail, water and air transport. The work on providing air services to the small towns is on the right track. The disinvestment of Air India, which has been running in huge losses for decades, is in the final stages.

The result of all these decisions is that Indias ranking among business friendly countries is improving every year, leading to a record increase in foreign investment.

Redefining Foreign Policy: Modi is in the drivers seat on foreign policy, and as a result, the countrys international standing has only improved. If India can hold eye-to-eye conversations with China, then big powers like America and Russia would also want to take Indias side.

The biggest feature of Modis administration is his extensive international engagement. India has been recognized as an international leader that helps countries by rising to the occasion in a crisis. Indias outreach during the pandemic was appreciated internationally and it helped in raising Indias status and prestige.

Modis approach to foreign policy is completely different from previous governments. Modi knows that to be an effective global power, India has to be strong, both financially and militarily. Therefore, along with Atmanirbhar Bharat, the Make in India campaign was also implemented.

Direct connection with Bureaucracy: Modi believes in direct communication with officers. As the CM, he used to take direct information from the DM and SP of every district of Gujarat. While this ensured accountability among the officers, it also made him aware of the political difficulties they faced.

After becoming the Prime Minister, he started connecting directly with collectors and police officers across the country. Modi takes suggestions from officers regarding practical problems in administration or implementation of government schemes, so that necessary changes can be made.

During the pandemic, this initiative helped a lot in fixing the shortcomings of the system. This is also the result of Modis out-of-the-box style of working.

The credibility of leaders in India has so far been low, and this is because they pitch new ideas and grand promises but never try to turn them into reality. But Modis record is different. After taking oath, PM Modi gave the slogan of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. Even his biggest opponents, both privately and publicly, believe that different thinking, new methods, transparency and novelty make Modi style unique.

The list of the achievements of 20 years of Modi is very long and it is not even possible to sum them up in one article. Although he has been working at the top for 20 years, his zeal has not diminished.

For those in the corridors of power, staying stain-free is next to impossible. But the track record of Narendra Modi, even after being in power for almost 20 years, remains unblemished. The reason, as he puts it, is that politics is a way of improving peoples lives, not a means of self-fulfillment.

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Modi Model: 20 Years of Efficient and Effective Governance - News18

Hulls Whitefriargate is the inspiration for a new poem, The Constant Parade, that has been unveiled on the historic street as part of National Poetry Day 2021.

Vicky Foster, Whitefriargates poet-in-residence for 2021, has written a new poem, drawing on the streets rich history and its long-standing role in the story of the city and the people who live and work there.Hulls High Street Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) partnered with Humber Mouth literature festival and Wrecking Ball Press to commission the poem.

Vicky said: It was important to me to write a poem that captured a sense of both the history of the street and the spirit of the people whove built that history. But also, that the poem ended with the idea of possibility and thinking about what might come next, because history and identity are constantly changing and we get to make choices about what happens next and how we take care of our places.

Two short films made by Wrecking Ball Press have also been released for National Poetry Day one of Vicky reading the poem, which is available to watch in Trinity Market, and one of her talking about the inspiration behind her poem. Both films can be found online via the Humber Mouth website after 7 October.

Councillor Rosemary Pantelakis, portfolio holder for culture at Hull City Council, said: Whitefriargate is a key part of our heritage. The historic street is one of the most recognisable and much-loved places in our city, so its fantastic to see projects like this unearthing stories and celebrating its rich history.

Whitefriargate has been at the heart of the historical, cultural and contemporary life of Hulls people. Whether this relates to the city refusing entry to Charles I in 1642, its part in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Wilberforces role in the abolition of slavery, or the various fashion trends and pop cultures of the swinging sixties, punk rock or house music eras.

The project has been funded by Historic England as part of Hulls High Street Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) and delivered in partnership with Humber Mouth literature festival and Wrecking Ball Press and forms part of the Community Engagement Plan.

Whitefriargate has benefitted from 1m from the Humber LEPs Humber High Street Challenge Fund and secured 1.75m from Historic Englands High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) programme.

Hull City Council has also been awarded a 100,000 grant from Historic England as part of the Whitefriargate High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) to create and deliver community-led cultural activities on the high street over the next three years.

Originally posted here:

Poem unveiled on Whitefriargate for National Poetry Day 2021 - Hull CC News

Last week, The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson took the Harper Joy Theatre by storm: a feminist political comedy based somewhat in reality and packed with controversy, drama and death.

Starring a cast of four, the leading ladies were Lucy Evans-Rippy, Zoe Schacter-Brodie, Lola Bloom and Monica R. Harris. Each of the women portrayed (except Marianne Angelle) were historical figures brought to life. Evans-Rippy acted as the feminist playwright Olympe de Gouges, who was beheaded for her seditious scripts, Schacter-Brodie played Charlotte Corday, the woman who assassinated Jean Paul Marat (a leader of the Reign of Terror) and Bloom embodied the infamous Marie Antoinette. Harris performed the role of Marianne Angelle, a spy and a metaphorical representation of the many free Black women who helped lead the Haitian Revolution but whose stories were never told.

Set in Paris during the Reign of Terror in 1793, these bold women feel left behind by the French Revolution and go on to take matters into their own hands. Before they attend their own executions, they decide to write a play about womens rights. Ultimately they struggle to finish it before they are beheaded, the real tragedy of this comedy.

Most of the play takes place in Olympe de Gouges study, the setting as intimate as the characters in it, and the actresses tell the story through almost exclusively private conversations. No big opening number, no huge set, cast or costume changes, just four actresses with no room for forgetting lines.

The play is set up to make a powerful statement about the women whose histories have been forgotten, despite their roles in shaping it. Coming out of the first act though, this message was muddied by stereotypical representations of women, tone deaf dialogue and performative activism.

The script attempts to show these women as feminine and strong, but when portraying their feminine sides, it repeatedly makes them the butt of the joke. The character Marie Antoinette is perhaps the most egregious example of this. Made out to be ditsy, annoying and vain, she comes across as too silly to fully grasp the horrors of slavery. As a form of comedic relief, both Olympe de Gouges and Charlotte Corday will collapse on the floor in a fit of childish emotion, or get worked up in a frenzy of hysteria (bear in mind, Marie Antoinette is 37 and Olympe de Gouges is 45, but in this play they are both supposed to be 38).

Women overreacting as a form of comedy is as old as it is sexist. The word overreacting implies that the actors emotions are disproportionate to the situation because they are naive to the reality of it. Furthermore, and perhaps more insidious, is that in order to convey the naivety of the actor, the emotional outbursts are often portrayed as childish and cute. This only works because it plays into the assumptions that women are generally naive and more emotional. As much as we try to distance ourselves from these assumptions, they remain prevalent, reinforced by our experiences with doctors, dealerships and drama.

Whats interesting to watch is how in the first part, the ladies biggest reactions happen as a response to the smallest things. Thats the joke. Olympe de Gouges is woefully self absorbed, Charlotte Corday is worried about looking crazy and Marie Antoinette is concerned about her reputation. However, in the second part, the women are going through hugely traumatic events with measured vulnerability and poise. No emotions feel out of place or proportion. As a result, every conversation in the second half feels more real, as if they evolved from capricious prima donnas in part one to middle-aged women who handle high stakes and complex emotions with grace in part two.

Perhaps this was done with the intention of allowing these women to exist as women without all the pressures that face them in the second half, but this would only further emphasize the need to get it right, and not portray those feminine sides as the punchline.

To make matters worse for the first half, the only woman who didnt overreact was Marianne Angelle. Her character embodies the strong Black woman trope, characterized by a no-nonsense, justice-driven, stern yet nurturing figure who has overcome incredible adversity in her lifetime. According to The Take, She has a strong moral compass and holds others accountable. This would be a perfectly appropriate character to write for someone like Angelle who is living through the Haitian Revolution, if it wasnt one of the most prominent archetypes written for Black women already. An article by My Met Media called Unbreakable and Superhuman explains, By adopting and reproducing the icon of the strong Black woman [we] help craft an expectation that they should be autonomously responsible and self-denying caregivers in their homes and communities. We cant continue to expect our young Black women to be the pinnacle of strength and dedication.

The character description in Gundersons script says it all, introducing her as A badass Black woman in ParisTough, classy, vigilant, the sanest one of them all. She seems to exist almost solely as a tool to help the other three overcome their struggles and push them to be better people, as well as being the only character who is not based on a real historical figure, despite the many Black women who helped lead the Haitain Revolution, such as Suzanne Blair, Ccile Fatiman, Marie-Claire Heureuse Flicit, Marie-Jeanne Lamartinire and Victorian Montou to name a few. She is a white womans ideation of a Black woman.

Further perpetuating these uncomfortable dynamics, Gunderson has Marie Antoinette (described in the script as being totally unaware and unintentionally rude) make racist comments about slavery to Angelle, and then has Angelle angrily respond to the comments, with little to no help from the other two women in the room. Antoinette enslaved many people but in this play seems unapologetic and even apathetic to that fact. This sets up a dynamic where later in the play, it is on Angelle to forgive Antoinette and recognize her ignorance in order for their relationship to progress, and at no point does Antoinette come to her senses and apologize, nor does the play further explore ideas around slavery, racism and class.

Act one fell flat because of its lack of depth. While the characters repeatedly have conflicts over privilege and the importance of storytelling, those concepts arent explored beyond frustrated exchanges, and neither are the characters personalities. These big ideas like class and slavery are mentioned, but only to score cheap political correctness points with the audience, before never addressing the issues again. Angelles concern for this entire first half is that Olympe de Gouges wont write about the abolition of slavery, and then they both completely forget about that by the end of the play. Act one gets two stars, because the skilled actresses managed to give the shallow dialogue some depth.

In what is perhaps the greatest redemption arc since Zuko, act two was phenomenal. Character development, intimate conversations and philosophical explorations about storytelling brought the idea behind the play to center stage.

The mid 2010 girlboss feminism that Gunderson brought into the first act has mostly dissipated, in its place is a sobering humanization of the women in the study. Marie Antoinette exits stage by decapitation with as much poise and dignity as one can, and Olympe de Gougess relatable cowardice turns to solemn bravery as she is able to chronicle Antoinettes death, knowing that she too will be taken to the scaffolds.

The importance of Olympe de Gougess play is magnified in this second half as the guillotine looms overhead and the script remains unwritten. The end of the performance is in sight but these womens lives have yet to be recorded. This suspense is made worse by the connection the audience has formed with the characters, who are vividly portrayed by their respective actresses.

Evans-Rippy does a really wonderful job playing Olympe, who is both passionately arrogant and deeply sincere about her work. Every mannerism is expressive and draws attention to her feelings in each moment. Her character arc is meticulously rendered and truly convincing. She is simultaneously genuine, overzealous and a little bit conceited.

Schacter-Brodie absolutely killed it as the brave assassin Charlotte Corday. Young but practical and driven, Corday is focused and just, the quintessential Gryffindor. A mix between certainty and self-doubt, she beautifully executes the roleand Jean Paul Marat.

For all the critique of Antoinette, Bloom pulled off the pompous pink haired queen flawlessly. Despite the script, she comes off as oddly endearing in her worst moments and positively regal in her best. She has multiple layers to her glitzy-ditsy personality, and Bloom manages to balance all of them, creating a dynamic, nuanced and consistent character.

While Angelle as a character is controversial, Harris brings the genuine idea behind her to life. If she is supposed to embody the many free Black women who helped the Hatiain Revolution, Harris plays her as if Angelle knows what she symbolizes. Dignified and tenacious, Angelle is given a personality of her own through Harriss deeply ardent and vulnerable performance.

Once the play abandoned its clunky humor and started to focus on character development, the emotional scenes became real and intimate. The actresses were incredible, each of them inseparable from their characters, and their inevitable fate at the guillotine is made all the more impactful by their performances. We finally learn that the whole production was what Olympe de Gouges supposedly thought up just a few minutes prior to her beheading. This is Lauren Gundersons homage to the real de Gouges, a play about a playwright writing a play about the incredible women around her who will never be remembered. Thank God Gunderson wrote this to remember them by. Act two gets four stars.

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The Revolutionists in review Whitman Wire - Whitman Pioneer

What started as a typical Monday night in Lawrence quickly evolved into something much bigger when thousands gathered outside the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house to protest the chapter amid a reported drugging and sexual assault.

The protest on our campus occurred just weeks after students at the University of Nebraska staged a similar protest at the Phi Gamma Delta house following gruesome details of a sexual assault investigation emerging.

As a member of the Greek community, I cannot fathom why universities across the country allow Greek life to continue operating; it is time to enact significant change within the Greek system or abolish it altogether.

The current allegations surrounding Phi Psi at KU and FIJI at Nebraska are just two of the numerous sexual assault allegations against Greek letter organizations across the nation.

The statistical connection between Greek life and sexual assault is damning, too.

Men in fraternities are 300% more likely to commit rape, and women in sororities are 74% more likely to be raped than other college women. Why are universities still supporting Greek organizations when this is the data that exists?

Now, I understand why some people do not want to punish the entirety of Greek life for the behavior of a few. However, temporary punishments such as probation or suspension minimizes the survivors trauma not to mention it promotes a mentality to these organizations that they can do whatever they want as long as they do not get caught.

And to those who point out the extraordinary philanthropic contributions Greek organizations make to the community, there is no denying that they do good work. But there are plenty of service opportunities on campus, like the Big Event, where students can make a difference in the community without perpetuating rape culture.

Substantive, systemic change or even abolition of Greek life should not just be a reaction to a single sexual assault. It should also address other perennial concerns such as hazing. The KU chapter of Pi Kappa Phi was recently removed from campus last year for hazing allegations. Sigma Alpha Epsilon faced a four year suspension from the university. These fraternities are just two of the many across the nation removed for hazing.

The year 2020 was the first year in 60 years that did not register a hazing related death on any U.S. college campus. As great as that is, should we not be concerned Greek organizations held a deadly 59-year streak?

To make matters worse, Greek life is saturated with racism and minority exclusion. Not much has changed since the 1700s when the first Greek letter organizations mostly composed of white, wealthy, Christian men got their start.

Obviously, that is not the case anymore; however, 95% of the members in historically white fraternities and sororities are white. Again, I ask universities across the nation why they are supporting historically exclusionary organizations?

Initially, I was happy to join my fraternity one whose history is vastly different than those fraternities highlighted recently in the news. I am far from home and wanted to be part of a community, including all the friendship, support and service that comes along with it. And I still am grateful for it because I know I have a group of guys who will stick with me for the rest of my life. But, as fraternities nationwide continue garnering headlines, it becomes more difficult to support the Greek establishment, especially whilst being on the inside.

It is clear the Overton window is shifting in regards to Greek life. To those who believe decisive, punishment-that-fits-the-crime action against the perpetrators is too radical, what more will need to occur to make Greek life no longer acceptable?

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Should the abolition of Greek life be considered? - The University Daily Kansan

The names James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge, and Augustus Washington may not be widely known, but each man was a pioneer from the dawn of the photographic era, and each produced images that tell a story of Black life before the Civil War, as well as the role artists played in abolition. For 45 years, a collector named Larry West searched for the works of these three Black daguerreotypists who were active in the 1840s in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New England, respectively. The Smithsonian American Art Museum recently acquired Wests 283-piece collection, which also includes one-of-a-kind images of abolitionists and early examples of photographic jewelry, and plans to debut it to the public in 2023 in a new gallery dedicated to early American photography.

Atlas Obscura spoke to museum curators John Jacob and Eleanor Jones Harvey about the importance of preserving the work of these Black photographers, what they can teach us about the Underground Railroad, and the hardest thing to photograph in the 19th century.

John Jacob: The story of the democratization of portraiture is one that Ive always been interested in because we all say photography democratized portraiturethat is, it made portraits available to a wide audience. But wheres the evidence for that? At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, we have a vast collection with more than 450 portrait miniatures, which gave us the ability to tell one part of that story, the transition from [painted] portrait miniatures to early photography. But it immediately became clear that I couldnt tell the whole story because in order to show the democratization of portraiture, we would have to have photographs by non-white artists, and we only had one in the collection from the daguerreotype periodthe first 10 years of photographyand we would have to have photographs by women photographers and we only had one.

This collection, everyone at the museum agreed, was exceptional material that would let us tell the story of this transition from painted miniature to case photography, but it would also let us tell the story of African-American artists at the very birth of American photography.

Eleanor Jones Harvey: These images from studios run by Black artist-entrepreneurs who had a clientele that is partly African-American positions us to tell a story that does not get told in mainstream art museums.

Jacob: We know that each of them started their own business within a couple of years after Matthew Brady [one of the earliest photographers] opened his first studio. And we know that not only were these men entrepreneurs, but they were also innovators. In the collection, theres a great example of a patent-pending ambrotype process that was used by both Brady and Goodridge. These men were following the technology. They were invested in it. They were experimenting. And thats a really interesting story to tell.

And we also know that each of them was an abolitionist. Goodridges studio in York, Pennsylvania, was a site of the Underground Railroad.

Harvey: One of the three photographers in this collection is James Presley Ball, who was in business in Cincinnati with a leading black painter, Robert Seldon Duncanson, and weve never entirely understood the extent of the collaboration, whether or not there was a political side to it. We do know that Ball, with his business partners, produced a moving panorama on the history of slavery and we know when it was displayed in Cincinnati, Duncanson had five or six of his paintings on view in that room. Cincinnati was the hotbed for abolition, and we know from [collector] Larry Wests research that a number of the patrons that Duncanson had in Cincinnati were also active in sewing circles that created the clothing that let people on the Underground Railroad pass for locals. So there are definitely angles to be deepened as we go into the research on this.

Jacob: I mentioned the ambrotypes. I love those pieces. Goodrichs ambrotype is a portrait of his wife, and it is an exceptionally beautiful photograph. I also have to say that while everyone is very excited, and rightfully so, about the work of these three African-American photographers, the collection of photographic jewelry included this acquisition is second to none. Theres one that is a bracelet with a daguerreotype of a boy. The band is hair. Is it his hair? His mothers hair? His sisters hair? We dont know. Theres a story there asking to be told.

Harvey: I have two. The first is a spectacular photograph of a young African-American man in a suit who could walk out of that photograph and you could have a conversation with him. He is that modern-looking. Theres a slight blush to his cheek, theres a slight smile playing around his eyes and his mouth, and he is just about to tell you his life story. I would love to be able to give that back to the worldeither his personal story or the stage set of when this man was alive.

Thats the serious one. The other is: Goodridge took a picture of a dog. Remember, with early photographs, these were 10-, 20-, even 50-second exposures. The reason there are no pictures of battles is that at some point the photographer would have had to say, Dont move! The dog doesnt move. He just sits there on the chair. I love that dog. I love the fact that Goodridge did it. I love the fact that it was successful and I love that it survived.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Continued here:

A Stunning Archive of the Work of Early Black Photographers - Atlas Obscura

KARACHI: The Hari Welfare Association (HWA) has expressed grievance over the governments negligence and ignorance of economic and physical abuse of workers engaged in cotton production and cultivation in Sindh.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the association said that exploitation of workers was detrimental to sustainable agriculture practices in the cotton supply chain.

The HWA stated that of Pakistans total cotton production area, 35 per cent was in Sindh where millions of peasants and workers were regularly engaged to grow and pick cotton. It added that except Kamber-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad and Kashmore, cotton was cultivated in all the areas of Sindh, including the Karachi division.

The major cotton growing districts in the province include Khairpur, Ghotki, Sukkur, Shaheed Benazirabad, Naushero Feroz, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Matiari, Badin and Tando Allah Yar.

HWA President Akram Khaskheli bemoaned the fact that labour and child rights laws such as the Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act, Sindh Child Protection Authority Act, Sindh Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, and Sindh Industrial Relations Act were not implemented to ensure the rights of workers in the cotton production process in the province.

He said that due to the non-implementation of laws, most of the workers in cotton farms worked in unsafe and vulnerable work conditions. He went on to claim that cotton producers and pickers families face physical abuse and sexual violence along with abusive working conditions, including low wages and excessive working times.

The HWA president recalled that in 2021, Sindh fixed the minimum wage at Rs25,000 but in cotton picking, women and children were not paid the minimum wage and they were remunerated for how much cotton they collected. He said cotton pickers were paid as little as 500 rupees per day for 40 kilogrammes of cotton and it was widespread low-wage labour.

The absence of mechanisms to ensure the minimum wage in the cotton sector was also a cause of child labor as low incomes push families to force children to work, Khaskheli said, adding that religious minorities and migrant workers were prone to labour exploitation in Sindh where minority communities like Kolhis and Bheels routinely migrated from one district to another during cotton production.

The statement read that cotton harvesting was mainly done by women. It added that cotton picking was the only job for which cash was paid in Sindh on the same day in general as no other work in the agriculture sector paid cash remuneration to women.

The HWA president lamented that due to poor socio-economic status and lack of education, women did not have the bargaining power to negotiate per kilogramme rate for cotton picking. He also expressed grieved over the fact that cotton-growing communities suffered numerous obstacles, challenges and health risks in Sindh and Punjab.

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HWA demands end to exploitation of workers engaged in cotton production - The News International