Category Archives: Government Oppression

Last Monday, workers at Google and other companies under the umbrella company Alphabet formed a minority union, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). This Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) claims it aims to include workers of all job descriptions at Alphabet, including temps and contractors, who are normally excluded from union activities recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. These workers have explicitly said why they are unionizing: thousands of workers at Alphabet companies have been organizing for years to end forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment and assault, to end company cooperation with state-sponsored campaigns of violence, and to stop managements retaliation against workers who have spoken out against its monopoly power. Recently, a leading AI researcher named Timnit Gebru, critical of Googles large-scale AI initiatives and their failure to fight bias, said she was fired for speaking out. In an op-ed for the New York Times, the AWUs newly elected executive chair and vice chair stated,

Our bosses have collaborated with repressive governments around the world. They have developed artificial intelligence technology for use by the Department of Defense and profited from ads by a hate group. They have failed to make the changes necessary to meaningfully address our retention issues with people of color. We joined Alphabet because we wanted to build technology that improves the world. Yet time and again, company leaders have put profits ahead of our concerns.

While all workers have a strategic role to play in the struggle of the working class against capital, some are more strategically positioned than others. Technology workers, and these workers in particular, hold an enormous amount of power: they control large parts of the communications and business capabilities of a huge swath of the economy. Alphabet products include not only the portal through which 88 percent of the world accesses websites, but also the software for 84 percent of the worlds cellphones, 29 percent of all ads served over the Internet, and 7 percent of the worlds cloud computing services, as well as the physical infrastructure for the delivery of Internet and television services through Google Fiber, among other tentacles that wind their way into our everyday lives.

It is not hyperbolic to say this could be world-historic: the establishment of a strong, militant union within one of the worlds most powerful companies, whose products touch nearly every part of American life and extend into the lives of workers across the globe (whether through direct use of Alphabets products or because of the influence that Alphabet products and company decisions have on American government and geopolitics). It would, however, be hyperbolic to say that the AWU may be able to exercise this power anytime soon: as of January 5, the AWU had collected 530 signed union cards. For reference, in March 2019, Google had 102,000 full-time employees and worked with about 121,000 contractors.

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A minority union (also sometimes known as a solidarity union or a noncontract union), like the one formed by the AWU, is a union that does not represent the majority of the workers of a given employer and does not explicitly (with much legal precedent) have the right to compel management to bargain with them.

Minority unions differ from majority unions, which in the United States do have legal bargaining rights with bosses, in how they are created. To form a majority union, the kind most Americans are familiar with, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) requires that workers first collect signed union cards from at least 30 percent of the eligible employees of a workplace. This period of organizing convincing coworkers to demand union representation and the right to bargain with management over their working conditions is often done one-on-one and in secret, so as not to incur union-busting tactics by bosses. After collecting enough of these signed cards to meet the 30 percent threshold required by law (but often much higher than this, to protect their majority against the attrition associated with union busting), worker leaders can submit them to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and request an election. After unions go public, but before their vote (a waiting period that can take months), bosses frequently engage in union-busting tactics, either by themselves or after hiring a union-busting law firm to do it for them. To win, workers must muster yes votes out of 50 percent plus one of all votes cast by the time the NLRB vote comes around. Once they win, workers in a majority union win the exclusive representation in their workplace for all eligible workers. This means that the workers can elect members of a bargaining committee and send them to negotiate with their bosses on a contract.

In contrast, the AWU is not held to the same standards of organizing a majority of workers in their workplace. Auni Ahsan, a member of AWUs executive council and software engineer at Google, said, We didnt need our boss or the government to tell us we could have a union, we have a union because WE say we do and because were hundreds of workers ready to fight in solidarity to make a change. The power that workers hold by organizing is not granted by the state via the NLRB; it is granted by their strength in numbers and opposition to their bosses. The mechanisms for safety are exactly the same for any union: collective power, exercised by striking (or the credible threat to do so), said Google organizer Laurence Berland. There is no safety without power. You can organize for power in any union structure, and you can fail to do so in any structure. The closer you are to being able to exercise that power through strike, the safer you are. The boss needs our labor, and we can choose the terms under which we give it. Thats the only real safety there is.

That is not to say that there are not some things that might be easier to do with a majority union: a majority union can theoretically use the NLRB to force its bosses to negotiate a contract. The union can do this without striking. It is unclear if minority unions in the United States have the legal authority to compel their bosses to bargain. They likely do not have the authority to bargain with their bosses on behalf of all workers at their company, but they might have the right to bargain on behalf of their members only.

Regardless, the AWU will likely use its public status for the legal protection that its full-time members now have against retaliation for organizing and recruiting in the workplace. Such protection is granted by the NLRA (and is the same protection the union would have as a majority union), and is crucial, since Google is known for firing organizers. AWU members now have some semblance of safety in numbers, some legal protections, and an organized structure for future workplace activism.

It is a great thing that white-collar workers (who make up some, but not all, of AWUs membership) are identifying as members of the working class (and they are, without a doubt, workers), in opposition to management, and are showing solidarity in a wall-to-wall union that includes workers in all departments, job titles, and employment statuses. Google employs workers and contractors in the U.S. and around the world, workers whom U.S. labor law does not allow in a bargaining unit international solidarity with workers for the same company in other countries is possible with a strong domestic bargaining unit, but would be built-in with a solidarity union, which would directly include workers around the world. These workers will not be covered by the NLRAs protections for full-time employees in the United States, but because those full-time employees are explicitly including international workers in their organization, the entire organization will benefit from the increased power of strength in numbers, power that will protect those international workers.

According to some common union-busting messaging, tech workers, and white-collar workers in general, do not need or deserve union power. These messages have begun making the rounds in reaction to the AWUs launch. Contrary to popular belief, the most skilled workers have always played a big role in organizing. From the craftsman guilds to the American autoworkers of the 1930s, who were some of the most well-compensated workers in the industrial world, skilled labor has a long history of organizing and winning fights against capital. All workers deserve unions, regardless of their compensation and perceived proximity to capital the actual control of that capital is what separates the working class from our bosses. All members of the working class have a role to play in the struggle against the exploitation of our labor, and the reason union-busters claim that skilled labor shouldnt be included in our unions is that their inclusion makes us stronger.

But the formation of a union that includes only Alphabets white-collar workers would have failed to fulfill the revolutionary potential of such organizing. A real workers movement, organized against exploitation and oppression, must include and organize the sectors of the working class that are historically most oppressed: less specialized or skilled workers, as well as contractors, who are more likely to be members of historically oppressed groups. These members of the working class, even more than the rest, have been victims of a decades-long divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at reducing worker solidarity by encouraging identification among white-collar workers with management. Organizing together would not only build solidarity among different sectors of the working class; it would also, if successful, more than double the number of eligible members of this union at Alphabet, further increasing its power to stop work and make demands.

We must remember the particular workplace these workers are organizing. The rank-and-file spokespeople of the AWU have stated that their reasoning for organizing includes pressuring their bosses to treat workers with equity, stop biased and unethical AI research, improve diversity among the workforce, and stand up for their contracted coworkers. Few of these issues involve bread-and-butter wage and benefit demands, and none are issues that would classically (or could potentially even legally) be included in the bargaining of a contract. Nor should the AWU be focused only on those issues collective action by unions should not be limited to improving material conditions just within their own workplace, or just within their own sector.

If we, as socialists, must consider our goal in every move that we make, we need to consider the immense power that these workers have to stop surveillance, the spread of far-right propaganda and populist messaging, AI-driven incursions on civil life, and the empowerment of state violence that is enabled by big tech companies like Alphabet. As workers, we will have to defeat these aspects of bourgeois society if we are going to be able to overcome bourgeois oppression at all.

It is exciting that we are seeing activity in the labor movement that is not obviously or immediately associated with small economic sectoral- or workplace-specific gains. We are seeing, both in the fact that this union will not (anytime soon) be able to force Google management to the bargaining table, and in the language used by the workers themselves in public op-eds and interviews, that these workers are focused on making changes that will affect not only their own working conditions but also those of workers around the world.

The particular role that these workers hold in the wider strategy against capitalism is evident in an analysis of where worker power comes from. Work stoppages at Google would take down large swaths of the Internet we have seen in accidental outages of Amazon Web Servicess cloud computing systems (which are similar to Googles Google Cloud Platform cloud services) that many businesses, news outlets, e-commerce sites, and more are taken down when cloud computing systems go offline. An organized faction of these tech workers could significantly disrupt commerce worldwide and interfere with the profit collection of not only Google but also myriad more corporations. This is, of course, a scope of power that is not exclusive to tech workers workers in the manufacturing, transportation, telecom, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and energy sectors could win big, but only if they fight.

* * *

Any formation of a new union is an opportunity to meet workers in their local struggles, a sign that workers across the world are organizing themselves to fend off their bosses, and, particularly in this case, a glimmer of hope against the deepest darkness of the Silicon Valleypowered surveillance states, right-wing propaganda machines, and tools of technological oppression that Google and its affiliates compel their workers to build.

What remains to be seen is if 530 AWU members, now that their organizing effort is public, can organize enough of their coworkers to wield enough power to realize their potential. They are protected in word only by both federal law and the CWAs legal team, and they are up against Alphabets notoriously anti-union and historically well-funded general counsel, as well as what we can only assume will be the best union-busters money can buy. At the end of the day, protection for them comes from power on the shop floor. For the sake of our collective struggle against the state and the ruling class, we can only cheer them on and hope that they will succeed.

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New Google Union Will Help Build Labor Struggle Against Technological Oppression - Truthout

NEW DELHI: China has engaged continuously in silencing the voices of dissent under its oppression and the most recent name in this manhunt initiated by the Chinese government is Uighur doctor and rights activist from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Dr. Gulshan Abbas. China has sentenced Dr. Gulshan Abbas to 20 years in prison after branding her a terrorist. Abbas reportedly disappeared in 2018, shortly after her sister Rushan Abbas participated in a panel discussion on China and its internment camps in the XUAR. After her location remained unknown for the past 27 months, her family was confirmed about her sentencing by the CCP government in March 2019. Her family came to know about this on December 25, 2020 by reliable inside sources.

As the cloud around the disappearance of Gulshan Abbas has cleared, China has been caught off-guard on the geopolitical stage of the world. Major human rights organizations have started to gather and press for the demands of unconditional release of Dr. Abbas. Campaign for Uyghurs an advocacy organization campaigning for Uighur human rights, has shared the statement of the Commissioner of the United States Council on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Nury Turkel, who has appealed to everyone to write to the Chinese ambassador in their respective regions, even if the letters are ignored by them. He has further asked everyone to build a movement for immediate and unconditional release of Dr Gulshan Abbas. Turkels arguments were reiterated by the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy . Human Rights and Labour, Robert A Destro, while voicing out his demand for immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas on Twitter. He highlighted CCPs practice of hunting down activists for speaking out against its repressive policies.

The campaign for Uighurs along with Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC),organised a press conference on 30th December 2020, CFUs Executive Director Rushan Abbas , who happens to be the sister of Dr Gulshan Abbas , informed about sentencing of her sister of 20 years by the CCP government. The event was joined by many prominent human rights advocates including CECC Chairman and parliamentarian Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Tom Suozzi, Rep. Chris Smith,

Ambassador Kelly Currie from the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues, and USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel. The speakers in the event unanimously put forward the demand for immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas by the CCP government.

Jim McGovern strongly condemned the action of the CCP government to imprison and punish the innocent and helpless people from the region. He appealed to the government of the United States to prioritize the passage of the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act during discussions with Officials of the CCP government. Rep. Tom Suozzi strongly denied the charges on Dr. Abbas, while calling out the merciless abuse of the Uighurs by the CCP. His thoughts were reiterated by Rep. Chris Smith, who also called out on American corporations for their biased portrayal of human rights values. and keeping silence on the Uighur rights issue. Ambassador Kelly stated that human rights crimes of such stature need to be repulsed with unanimity, where the US Congress and administration jointly need to pursue this matter, seeking early and unconditional release of Dr. Abbas. USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel is the immediate testimony of the fabrication of charges on Dr. Gulshan Abbas. Citing his personal cordial relations with her, he pointed out the cowardly policy of the CCP government of going after mothers, grandmothers, and professionals all in the name of muzzling the voices against oppression from the region.

Rushan Abbas and Dr. Rishat Abbas , siblings of Dr. Gulshan Abbas have kept the lanterns of Uighur rights and liberation of Gulshan Abbas burning. In the fight towards CCPs abuse of Uighur rights, they have been bravely demanding China for the release of their sister and checking CCPs abuse of human rights in XUAR. The horror of Uighur families can be felt in the statement of Gulshan Abbass daughter , Ziba Murat , who could not reveal the source of information about her mothers detention in China due to the security reasons. She further stated that her mother , being a doctor has helped people all along her life. But her cruel sentencing of 20 years by the Chinese government in her old age is an inhuman torture.

Such arrests have emerged as a new paradigm by the CCP regime, where it subjects the relatives of the exiled activists to various kinds of tortures and forcibly disappears them. Subjecting the people to harsh

punishments, enforced disappearances, and relocation to internment centers are few arrows in the quiver of Chinese government. According to World Uyghur Congress, China has adopted the most inhumane policies in its genocide against the Uighurs. China has not only forced the Uighurs to work in the labour camps, but it has also banned the Uighur language, separated Uighur families and sterilized the Uighur women in an attempt to bulldoze a cultural identity completely.

The press conference organized by Campaign for Uyghurs and CECC has brought the notice of the world on the gross injustice inflicted upon the Uighurs. Resulting in brewing of a movement by the Uighur rights activists,media houses around the world have started taking notice of this issue. Meanwhile, Twitter has started to flood with the hashtag #FreeGulshanAbbas , bringing in the attention of Twitter

community on this issue. The Uighur cause has also started to gain momentum and support in India. Red Lantern Analytica (RLA), a New Delhi based international affairs observer group has issued a statement of solidarity with Dr. Gulshan Abbas, wherein the organization has condemned the inhumane sentencing of the activist and extended support to the movement demanding immediate release of Dr. Abbas from the Chinese prison. This moment of solidarity was duly welcomed by Gulshan Abbas sister Rushan Abbas and daughter Ziba Murat and campaign for Uyghurs, all of them retweeted the statement from RLA from their respective Twitter handles. Campaign for Uighurs thanked RLA for their active support to the cause and sharing the truth about the crackdown on Uighurs by the Chinese regime . The tweet was further retweeted by Ziba Murat and Rushan Abbas . The whitewashing of the Uighur issue by the Chinese government handles and their propaganda operations. With the awareness of people on the issue of Uighur right abuses , a hopeful future awaits for those who have been oppressed for long by the CCP government in XUAR.

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Pressure builds on China to release Uighur doctor Gulshan Abbas, who is sentenced to 20 years in jail - Zee News

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri says he is going forward with his objection to the Electoral College results from Pennsylvania. However, he denounced the violent breach at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. (Jan. 6) AP Domestic

Chances are, youve seen George Orwells name thrown around a lot in the past week on social media, either by conservatives invoking his name with sincerity or by liberals poking fun at conservatives for its misuse.

On Friday, when Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trumps Twitter account, his son Donald Trump Jr. was quick to invoke George Orwell. We are living Orwells 1984, he tweeted. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and whats left is only there for a chosen few.

When Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., lost his book deal with Simon & Schuster afterWednesdays Capitol Hill riot and his widely perceived role in helping incite it, he had some words for what he called the woke mob at his would-be publisher. This could not be more Orwellian, he tweeted in a statement.

Cheeky Twitter users have been quick to criticize the invocation of Orwell from people who, like many of us, probably havent dusted off a copy of 1984 since high school.

As we all remember, Orwell's 1984 is about an old man who gets banned from a bird-themed social media site after regularly encouraging violence, tweeted the progressive think tank Gravel Institute.

Starting a Go Fund Me to buy conservatives some Orwell books, wrote @ClueHeywood.

My son just described having to clean his room as positively Chorewellian, tweetedTV writerGennefer Gross.

1984 rose to the top ofAmazons top-selling book list over the weekend. On Monday, it reached the No. 1 spot. Not bad for a book published in 1949. Too bad few people citing the books dystopian horrors in earnest seem to understand the usage.

The term Orwellian has become lazy shorthand for exercises of authority with which one disagrees. When a publisher drops your book because your brand has become toxic, its Orwellian. When an internet platform enforces its terms of service and kicks you off, its Orwellian. When a store has you removed from the premises for refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic, its Orwellian.

More: Sen. Josh Hawleys book dropped by Simon & Schuster following Capitol Hill riot

It tends to be a kind of catch-all for repression, says David Ulin, associate professor of English at the University of Southern California and former book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He hasread and studied Orwells works extensively, and he finds Hawleys and Trumps Orwell name-checking not just inaccuratebut ironic.

Theres a real irony in the fact that someone who paid such attention to clarity in language Orwells whole thing was about transparency in language, that language needed to be absolutely clear like a pane of glass that a writer like that becomes a rhetorical tool for the people who would have been at the point of his lance, Ulin says.

Its actually almost counter-Orwellian, says Pallavi Yetur, a practicing psychotherapist with a master's degree in creative writing whose critical thesis was on Orwell and how his life experiences formed the way he thought about government. In fact, Donald Trump Jr.s tweet is Orwellian because he is using language as a way to control peoples opinions about something thats happening in his favor, and thats propaganda.

Orwellian is probably the most widely used adjective derived from the name of a writer (Kafkaesque mightcomeclose), yet so many are using it wrong. It helps, first, to understand who Orwell was and the deeply held political convictions that fueled his writing.

George Orwell, author of "1984."(Photo: AP)

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it, Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay handily titled Why I Write. That was the year Orwell joined a leftist militia to fight in the Spanish Civil War against fascist Francisco Francos military uprising in Spain.

Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell was his pen name) was born to British civil servants in India, a member of what he called the lower-upper-middle class. A deeply moral thinker and writer, Orwell didnt sit comfortably in his privilegebut was a committed democratic socialist, along the lines of a Bernie Sanders, as Yetur describes him. He was also, Ulin says, a brilliant critic of pre-World War II British liberal isolationism.

So when war broke out in Spain, Orwell saw it as his moral duty to get involved. When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct, Orwell wrote. He was shot in the throat by a fascist sniper and nearly died.

His experience in the Spanish Civil War also wised Orwell up to thefailures of Soviet communism, whose tactics of oppression and obfuscation mirrored those of the fascists the communists were fighting despite existing on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The opposing ideologies were two sides of the same totalitarian coin, each flavor of undemocratic authoritarian control intolerable to Orwell. He was very wary of totalitarianism from the left as well as from the right, Ulin says.

Orwells experience in the Spanish Civil War crystallized his politics, which formed the literary fabric of everything he would write thereafter.

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Sales of the dystopian classic '1984' have soared since Donald Trump's inauguration.(Photo: Signet)

Newspeak. Doublethink. Thoughtcrime. Big Brother.

1984 is often reduced to its base components, the catchphrases and slogans of the fictional government in Orwells dystopian allegory for Soviet totalitarianism. The takeaway is often: Oppression bad, liberty good.

But Orwells book is much more sophisticated. Orwell was interested not just in communicating the badness of totalitarian regimesbut also dissecting how they succeed through the manipulation of language.

He was really most concerned with language and how language was used in a propaganda type of way or as a means of control, Yetur says.

Orwell observed that totalitarian governments, whatever their ideologies, cannot simply impose their wills; they must indoctrinate. Their success requires complicity. Hes really sharp on the ways in which people get indoctrinated, Ulin says.

Which brings us to the term Orwellian. If Hawleys book deal getting canceled and Trump getting booted from Twitter arent Orwellian, what is?

'Orwellian, in the most orthodox way, is about language as a means of control, Yetur says. A Nazi propagandist like Leni Riefenstahl, that would be very Orwellian, because thats somebody whos using words to invoke feelings, to invoke allegiances, to discredit enemies."

Orwellian is not just applicable to the fascists and communists of Orwells era, though. Ulin believes 1984 is relevant to our political moment. There are aspects of the novel that are quite reminiscent, interestingly enough, of Trumpism, even though (Trumps) right-wing, Ulin says. Things like the dissemination of false information, the use of information to obfuscate rather than illuminate.

He also sees shades of 1984 in social media. In the book, Orwell invents Two Minutes Hate, a daily event in which video of the enemy is publicly screened and the audience is encouraged to stir itself up into a froth of rage. That kinds of reminds me of what we see in terms of social media mob mentality, and this extreme QAnon type of conspiracy theorists, Ulin says, working on peoples most negative and virulent emotions and using that as a way to control them but also to make them feel as if they are being heard.

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1984 and Animal Farm are Orwells greatest hits and certainly worth revisiting (or reading for the first time; we wont judge). But Orwell was also a prolific essayist, literary critic, journalist and columnist, and much of his best work is in his less flashy nonfiction. If you want to expand your understanding of Orwell and better appreciate the philosophy of one of our most enduring modern political writers, these works are good starting points.

Homage to Catalonia: Published in 1938, this personal account of Orwells experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War is essential to understanding every work that followed. If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: To Fight against Fascism, Orwell wrote, and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: Common decency.

Down and Out in Paris and London: Orwell lived in purposeful poverty for a time in Paris and London, two of the worlds wealthiest cities, and wrote about his experiences in this 1933 memoir. He made the choice to go to Paris and London and work low-end jobs and live that life, to immerse in it, because thats where his sympathies were, says Ulin.

Politics and the English Language:This 1946 essay is a short and essential read on the importance of clarity of language. It was central to both Orwells writing and politics, because he saw the two inextricably linked. Corrupt language, Orwell wrote, can also corrupt thought. Political language and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

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You may be using the term Orwellian wrong. Heres what George Orwell was actually writing about - USA TODAY

Written by Neha Banka, Edited by Explained Desk | Kolkata | Updated: January 13, 2021 10:22:05 am

Last Saturday, Pakistans Hazaras finally ended a protest and agreed to bury the bodies of 11 coal miners from the community killed by the Islamic State on January 3. The stir came to an end only after Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the mourners in Quetta and promised compensation for the dead.

However, persecution of the Shiite Hazaras is nothing new in Pakistan or neighbouring Afghanistan. They have been frequently targeted by Taliban and Islamic State militants and other Sunni Muslim militant groups in both countries.

James B. Minahan, in his book Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia (2014), says this targeting might have started around the 18th century.

Around 1773, the mountainous region of Hazarajat in modern-day central Afghanistan was annexed and made a part of the territories of Afghan Empire under Pashtun ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani. The Sunni Muslim majority under the Pashtun ruler resulted in further marginilisation of the Shiite Hazara community, to the extent that in the 18th and 19th century, they were forced to leave fertile lowlands in central Afghanistan and make the dry, arid mountainous landscape their new home.

Research indicates that their unique identity, ethnicity and religion always made the Hazaras stand out among the other communities. Hazaras speak Hazaragi, which is close to Dari Persian, the official language of modern-day Afghanistan. The community also shares physical similarities with the Mongols and their speech, specific terms and phrases, reflect strong Central Asian Turkic influences, setting them apart from their neighbours in Pakistan and other communities within Afghanistan.

According to Minahans research, in the 19th century, the Hazara community constituted approximately 67 per cent of Afghanistans total population. Since then, primarily due to violence, oppression and targeted massacres, that number has come down to a little as 10 to 20 per cent of the population now. But Minahan explains that these figures are only estimates due to a lack of census statistics.

The attacks reached a crescendo in 2013, when three separate bombings killed more than 200 people in Hazara neighbourhoods of Quetta. In the aftermath of this incident, the Shia community in Pakistan had erupted in anger over the Pakistani governments lack of protection of the city and had refused to bury the dead till the government made steps to improve security. The Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed one of the three deadly attacks.

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Explained: Why the Hazaras have become regular targets in Pakistan - The Indian Express

Experts Assessing Cybersecurity Fallout After Raid on Capitol

The rioters that raided the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday, breaking windows and doors, ransacking offices, and damaging statues, also stole electronics, including at least one laptop from Senator Jeff Merkleys (D-OR) office. They also stole a laptop from Representative Nancy Pelosis (D-CA) office and were able to view the email inbox of one of her staffers. Though none of the devices that the rioters are believed to have accessed contain classified material, other sensitive information from emails and unencrypted files could have been compromised. "This is probably going to take several days to flesh out exactly what happened, what was stolen, what wasn't," said acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin. It could have potential national security equities. If there was damage, we don't know the extent of that yet.

Trump Bans U.S. Transactions on Eight Additional Chinese Apps

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. transactions on eight additional Chinese software applications, including the Alipay payment platform. A senior Trump administration official said in a briefing that the order was intended to prevent the personal data of Americans from falling into the hands of the Chinese government and fueling its mass tool for global oppression. Despite the forty-five-day timeline for the order taking effect, the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to identify specific prohibited transactions before President-Elect Bidens inauguration on January 20. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying responded to the ban by calling the U.S. government hypocritical and ridiculous, while U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross endorsed President Trumps commitment to protecting the privacy and security of Americans from threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Anne Neuberger Tapped for New NSC Cybersecurity Role

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On Wednesday, Politico reported the Anne Neuberger, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, will be named deputy national security advisor for cybersecurity on President-Elect Bidens National Security Council (NSC). Neubergers hiring is another sign that the incoming Biden administration plans to elevate cybersecurity as a major national security priority after President Trump eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator position on the NSC in 2018. Among her first responsibilities is likely to be coordinating the federal response to the SolarWinds hack, which is still under investigation. One congressional staffer remarked that Neubergers experience is needed now more than ever at the highest levels of government, especially in light of recent events and the shifting cyber threat landscape.

U.S. Extradition Attempt for Assange Fails

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CFR experts investigate the impact of information and communication technologies on security, privacy, and international affairs.2-4 times weekly.

On Monday, a British judgedenieda U.S. extradition request for WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, due to concerns over his mental health. Assange, who has been indicted on seventeen espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks' publication of secret military and diplomatic documents, has been held in a London prison since the Ecuadorean embassyrevokedhis political asylum in 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice plans to appeal the ruling. If extradited, Assange faces up to 175 years inprison.

After the ruling was released, the Mexican government announced that it was prepared toofferAssange political asylum. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Assange deserves a second chance,grantedhe does not interfere in the political issues of any country.

Digital and Cyberspace Update

Digital and Cyberspace Policy program updates on cybersecurity, digital trade, internet governance, and online privacy.Bimonthly.

Singapore Reverses Course on Contact Tracing Data

Singaporean officials revealed on Monday thatdatafrom Singapore's COVID-19 contact tracing program, TraceTogether, can be used to assist with criminal investigations, contradicting previous assurances that the data would only be used for contact tracing. The program uses Bluetooth signals from smartphones and wearable tokens to determine who individuals that have tested positive for COVID-19 have been in contact with.To encourage enrollment, the Singaporean government repeatedlystressedthat the data would "never be accessed unless the user tests positive" and would only be accessible to a small number of contact tracers.Nearly 80 percent of Singaporeanshave adopted the TraceTogether contact tracing app and wearable token to date. Digital Rights Watch expressed concern about the Singaporean governments decision, saying it was the worst case scenario that privacy advocates have warned about since the start of the pandemic and will erode public trust in future health responses and therefore impede their efficacy.

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Cyber Week in Review: January 8, 2021 - Council on Foreign Relations

Years ago, I covered a rally that turned into a riot.

It was in the mid-1990s. A motley collection of white supremacist groups from around the Midwest had decided to gather in Indianapolis.

After some legal wrangling, they secured a permit to meet on the west side of the Statehouse. They drew crowds not only of their own faithful, but also of counter protesters.

Tensions rose as one speaker after another trooped up and tried to make himself they were all angry white guys heard through a small, antiquated sound system. The two crowds taunted each other.

Then something snapped.

The gathered white supremacists moved like a snake. As a group, they attacked some photographers before turning to assault anyone who crossed their paths. They swung signs, bags, belts and fists in all directions.

The police restored order in a hurry, but not before many people were left battered and bruised.

And shaken.

Ground we thought was safe even sacrosanct had been turned into a battlefield.

A symbol of a free people determined to govern themselves had been soiled with blood and sorrow.

I thought of that long-ago day of riot and ruin when I watched the mayhem at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a day, to echo FDR, that now will live in infamy. I watched a gang of my fellow citizens my fellow Americans lay waste to one of our temples of freedom.

I saw them try to deny the right of a free people to choose their own leaders.

Somehow, they thought they were patriots when they were desecrating an American shrine.

They thought they were the good guys.

They thought they were defending freedom.

They werent, of course, but its easy to understand how they came to be so mistaken.

The fuse that led to the Jan. 6 explosion has been a long one. It was lit more than two generations ago when ambitious politicians first discovered that the path to victory at the polls could be paved by inveighing against government.

Although Republicans were the most egregious offenders, politicians of both parties argued that government could not do anything right.

That government was evil.

That government was the enemy.

The problem with that argument is that in a self-governing society such as ours, government isnt something foreign or removed from us. Government is the expression of our will as a community, a state, a nation a people.

To echo Pogo, we have met the government and the government is us.

When we wage war on the government or on the outcome of elections, were fighting an opponent we cannot possibly beat. We are waging war with ourselves.

It is tempting to blame all of this on Donald Trump, but the reality is that he is the symptom, not the disease the worst manifestation so far of an ailment that has afflicted us for far too long. The disease is something we fostered and spread ourselves.

At that long-ago rally that became a riot, I was struck by how much the rhetoric of the speakers resembled that of mainstream political leaders. Their language was less polished and their manner more strident than a presidents or a governors or a senators, but their message was similar.

Their will, their needs, their grievances always should take priority and any law or government body that asked them to compromise or consider another point of view was an instrument of oppression.

We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.

This road took us to the horrors of Jan. 6. If we continue to follow it, it will lead to places that are even worse.

In the hours that followed the assault on the Capitol, I found myself thinking of the words of a great American, my late friend U.S. Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr.

Andy once told me it pained him to hear political candidates say they would fight for an issue, a concern or a constituency. He said he didnt like thinking of people who disagreed with him as adversaries or even enemies when they really were his neighbors and fellow citizens.

Why cant we just say, well work for you or, better yet, well work with you? Andy asked.

It was a good question then.

And even better, more important one these days.

John Krull is director of Franklin Colleges Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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John Krull: The long fuse to the attack on the Capitol - Terre Haute Tribune Star

Many in the rabid mob who stormed the US Capitol yesterday came armed with a portable and potent weapon: a flag. There were large election banners, battle colors from the American Civil War, neo-Nazi flare, Christian symbols, and a smattering of national and state flags. Seen as a whole, they serve as a twisted ideological quilt for those who believe that the US election was stolen from incumbent president Donald Trump.

Of the various flags paraded around the seat of the US legislative branch, the most incendiary was a battle pennant from the Confederate army. Widely appropriated by white supremacists as a hate symbol, the Southern Cross never has been paraded publicly inside the Capitol before, historians point out.Its an outright affront to the government in its entirety, says Antaeus Edelsohn, a University of Richmond law student and vexillology enthusiast.

The ensign featuring St. Andrews cross with 11 stars was designed to identify Confederate soldiers through the mist, fog, and gunpowder in the battlefields, Edelsohn says. Its purpose is specifically to stand out and say we are against the United States; we are against the union.

Laura Scofield, a graphic designer and member of the North American Vexillological Association, contends that flags are the most powerful artifact ever designed. Graphic marks, she explains, instantly gain emotional weight when emblazoned on a piece of cloth. Theyre powerful because theyre visible symbols of our identity, Scofield says. More than a cardboard sign, flags are dynamic. They communicate ideas quickly especially when hoisted to the heavens. This contributes to the effect of a bigger, more unified rally behind a cause.

Surveying the footage, artist-activist Mirko Ili recognized several neo-Nazi symbols in the crowd. As curator of the Tolerance Project and a scholar on white supremacist iconography, he says watching the mayhem at the Capitol felt a bit like dj vu. This is how things started in Yugoslavia, notes Ili, who was born in the former socialist republic. White supremacists cling to fascist iconography because Hitlers army demonstrated how potent flags can be when seen en masse, he explains.

In my opinion, branding was truly invented by Nazi Germany. It was total design, Ili says.We have to be vigilant about these symbols because theyre like tea leaves. You can see the future.

We took a closer look at the array of flags seen in this AFP photograph by Roberto Schmidt, which we obtained via Getty Images:

And thats just a small sampling of the flags on display. For more detail on what we spotted in coverage of the insurrection, read on.

Trumps succinctly articulated foreign policy stance, immortalized in his 2016 inauguration speech, has been adopted by a band of white nationalists and far-right activists spearheaded by 22-year old political commentator Nick Fuentes. They identify as Groypers or America First boys

An early version of the US flag, it has a circle of 13 stars in the corner, representing colonies that fought for independence during the American Revolution. Though not strictly a white supremacist symbol, it has been used by some extremist groups as an emblem of a more traditional (read: white and male-dominated) America.

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

This flag was adapted from a decal featuring a bastardized version of the character Calvin, from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Watterson.

A symbol of defiance created by a band of Texans who resisted Mexican forces in 1835, the flag features a slogan that has been co-opted by gun rights activists, abortion rights advocates, marijuana enthusiasts, and even McDonalds. But the phrase was originally a battlecry for Texan independence.

This flag was used by militias around the town of Culpeper, Virginia, during the American revolution, when minutemen (troops ready for duty in a minutes warning) got their name. The groups rattlesnake flag bear the words Liberty or Death and Dont Tread on Me

The yellow flag, with a coiled rattlesnake and the words Dont Tread on Me, has origins before the American Revolution, but has recently been used by the tea party movement, militia groups, and even in sports branding. Now, the flag tends to symbolize opposition to restrictions and government oppression.

This symbol, used by ancient Christians, has been adopted by several conservative, religious groups supporting Trump. (Several protestors also held up a Trumpian pirate flag with the words Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President.)

Flags bearing the capital letter Q signal believers of the discreditedfar-rightconspiracy theorythat a group of Satan worshipers are plotting to take down Donald Trump.

This flag first appeared in 4 Chan in 2017, as a symbol for the made-up sect who worship Kek, the ancient Egyptian deity of darkness.

Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

Used by South Carolinian naval fleets during the American Revolution and the Civil War, it features a rattlesnake against a field of 13 stripes.

This flag features the battle cry for the right-wing conspiracy theory that falsely posits that there was widespread fraud during the 2020 US presidential election.

For some, the black and white US flag with a blue line through the center is a symbol of police solidarity. However, it has also been flown by white supremacists at gatherings like the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

The Three Percenters are an American-Canadian faction described by the Anti-Defamation League as anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement. Their name is derived from the unproven claim that only 3% of Americans fought for independence during the American Revolution. Their flag is similar to the Betsy Ross flag, with III (the Roman numeral for three) in the middle of the circle of stars.

An enormous Trump campaign banner was the most visible flag draped in front of the US Capitol. Several protestors also held up Trump 2024 flags, alluding to Trumps suggestionthat he may run for office again.

No man, no woman, no commie can stump him. A cheesy incarnation of Trump as Vietnam vet John Rambo, from the movie franchise starring Sylvester Stallone, this flag was a common fixture at Trump rallies during the US presidential campaign.

This is a reference to a threat by Sidney Powell, a member of the Trump legal team contesting the results of the US election. She was citing a line from the movie Clash of the Titans, where Zeus orders a monstrous a giant squid to destroy the city of Argo.

The US Flag Code stipulates that this can only be used in cases of dire distress and extreme danger to life or property.

Several protestors hoisted the red pennant of the US Marine Corps. A majority of military veterans voted for Trump, but his popularity among younger, active-duty personnel dipped during the last election cycle, according to a recent poll.

This is the banner for an anti-immigration alt-right sitefounded by British-born columnist Peter Brimelow. Its lion motif is traced back to a quote from Benito Mussolini that Trump tweeted in 2016. It also has been used by the Lion Guard, a civilian group formed to protect Trump and his supporters.

This battle pennant first used by Confederate generalRobert E. Lees troops in northern Virginia is often mistaken as the official flag of the pro-slavery Confederacy (it wasnt). The Ku Klux Klan began using it as a symbol in the 1940s. The state of Mississippi removed it from its official state flag in 2020.

Gays for Trump showed up at the Capitol. Despite the presidents numerous attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, gay support for the Republican agenda doubled from 2016 to 2020.

The flags of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam were spotted in the mob. Its unclear why many of these flags appeared, though a number of the white supremacist and militia groups that were present have international chapters. For example, the presence of the Canadian flag could have been because the white nationalist group the Proud Boys was founded by a Canadian.

Georgia, Maryland, Texas: Several state flags were present. There was perhaps some confusion about the official state flag of Georgia, as the symbol of the Republic of Georgia. also was spotted on the scene.

Karen K. Ho contributed research to this story.

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Decoding the pro-Trump insurrectionist flags and banners - Quartz

The recently passed federal omnibus bill included $900 billion in COVID-19 aid, with loans for businesses and direct payments to Americans, $1.4 trillion to fund the government and on page 5,090 support for Tibetan independence.

The package, signed into law by President Donald Trump in late December, includes pro-Tibet legislation originally introduced by Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, who represents the 2nd Congressional District.

The legislation updates the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 and addresses the ongoing oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese government, a press release from McGoverns office reads.

Communist Chinese troops invaded Tibet in 1950, which it claimed as part of its territory, and the region has since been rife with accusations of human rights abuses. Spiritual leader Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled Tibet to northern India in fear for his life in 1959.

Its important that we stand up for human rights not just halfway down the block, but halfway around the globe, said McGovern, chair of the House Rules Committee and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

McGovern and Chris Smith, R-NJ, introduced the legislation and it passed in the House early last year, before being attached to the omnibus bill.

Under the legislation, China cannot create any new consulates in the U.S. until a U.S. consulate is created in Lhasa, Tibets capital.

That was welcome news to Thondup Tsering, a Belchertown resident who just finished his term as president of the Regional Tibetan Association of Massachusetts.

I think this is really critical for U.S. citizens planning to visit Tibet to have access to the consulate and the consulate is able to render timely, appropriate assistance and help to American citizens, Tsering said. Likewise, to journalists and diplomats visiting Tibet.

He added that it would serve as eyes and ears on the ground inside occupied Tibet. Right now, Tibet is closed to the outside world.

The legislation also creates U.S. policy on the succession of the Dalai Lama. Tibetan Buddhists believe that when a Dalai Lama dies, he is reincarnated as a child and is identified through a search traditionally spearheaded by the Panchen Lama, a spiritual authority whose reincarnation is in turn identified with help from the Dalai Lama. In 1995, the 14th Dalai Lama identified Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a 6-year-old boy, as the Panchen Lama. However, the Chinese government rejected the appointment and arrested the child and his family, who have not been seen since.

The Chinese government then named Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama, who critics fear will select a Dalai Lama loyal to the communist regime. The Dalai Lama has strongly criticized this move and said, as a result, he will either not reincarnate or will do so in a region not under Chinese control.

The legislation reads: It is the policy of the United States that decisions regarding the selection, education and veneration of Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders are exclusively spiritual matters that should be made by the appropriate religious authorities within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and in the context of the will of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism.

The legislation sends a clear message that Chinese officials who interfere in the succession or reincarnation process will be subject to targeted financial, economic and visa-related sanctions, the statement from McGoverns office reads.

McGovern said he has met with the Dalai Lama and been in touch with Tibetan people in his district.

Its a growing community, a very active community, but one that is very concerned about their heritage, about their language, about their religion, about their traditions, because the Chinese government is trying to erase their heritage, McGovern said.

He added: the Chinese government is insisting on appointing the next Dalai Lama. Well, that is not how religion works. A government does not tell you who your spiritual leader will be.

Tsering said the Tibetan community has been in contact with McGovern and was involved in the legislation.

This bill sends a very strong message to China that the U.S. Congress, the nation, the people, are on the side of human rights, religious freedom, on the side of the Tibetan people, Tsering said. I think this also sends a message to inside occupied Tibet it gives them hope and reasons to be optimistic even though things are difficult.

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McGovern-backed legislation supporting Tibetan independence included in federal budget - The Recorder

When the full story of the 6 January storming of the US Capitol building is told, historians will have to make sense of what might seem an odd footnote. The two most prominent rightwing militia groups that participated in the mob onslaught on Congress the Three Percenters, based in Idaho, and the Oath Keepers, based in Nevada cut their teeth in obscure corners of the American west, where for close to a decade they have threatened violence against federal employees and institutions that steward the nations public lands.

The mob violence that swarmed the halls of the Capitol building and other government offices flows from a series of smaller armed insurrections by domestic terrorists across the west, says Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, a non-profit that advocates for environmental regulation of public lands.

Time after time in Idaho, Nevada and Utah, the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, paramilitary organizations formed in the wake of Barack Obamas election in 2008, have come to the rescue of ranchers, miners and loggers who have violated federal environmental regulations on the public domain but who the militias said were innocent commoners oppressed by a vicious state apparatus.

Brandishing arms and threatening their use against federal officials, the militias have enjoyed spectacular successes with the Capitol only the latest example.

The Three Percenters and Oath Keepers came to public attention in 2014, when they encamped with the notorious anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy. The recalcitrant old cowboy refused to remove his trespassing cattle from public lands around his 160-acre spread in Bunkerville, Nevada.

Holed up in his ranch house, Bundy issued a statement decrying federal tyranny and vowed to do whatever it takes to protect his property, meaning the public land he was utilizing.

He put out a call for militia units. The Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, with other loosely affiliated citizens, arrived from across the nation with assault rifles and Gadsden flags the ones with the coiled snake that says Dont Tread on Me (and which were also seen on 6 January in the halls of Congress). In a sprawl of tents and guard posts ringing Bundys ranch, the militiamen established Liberty Camp. They spoke of Bundy as a modern-day hero of the west, a true-grit cowboy, defiant and free.

Soon a crowd of Bundyites numbering in the hundreds shut down a freeway in both directions, their rifles trained on federal officers gathered behind a line of SUVs. The standoff continued for two hours until the government backed down.

By the morning of 13 April, officials announced that due to threats to public safety it would immediately cease the removal of Bundys cattle herd.

Two years later, the Bundy clan, with Clivens son Ammon Bundy in the lead, memorably stormed and occupied the Malheur national wildlife refuge in Oregon, holding it at gunpoint for 40 days, again in protest of federal environmental regulations and the alleged oppression of local ranchers.

With Ammon were members of the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, armed to the teeth. Federal law enforcement treated them with kid gloves, while Ammon promised a violent response if authorities attempted to remove his crew. The FBI stood back, afraid, and waited Ammon out. Federal authorities allowed the Bundyite militiamen to come and go from the refuge as they pleased, arguing as government officials would later explain that any confrontation would lead to bloodshed. The occupiers were even allowed to receive mail.

Meanwhile, federal employees who worked at Malheur and lived in the nearby town of Burns were being stalked. Having got hold of their street addresses, Ammons militiamen wandering in and out of the government facility they had occupied at gunpoint went door to door issuing threats to the employees, telling them not to return to the refuge. Burns became a terrorized town. At least one Malheur employee was targeted for kidnapping. The refuges 17 employees, traumatized, fled the area, living at government expense in hotels across the state for weeks, a relocation effort that cost taxpayers $2m.

The question lingered of how law enforcement might have acted at Malheur if it had been seized by Black Panthers. Or, more appropriately, by militiamen representing the native and historically oppressed Paiutes.

The siege ended in the death of one occupier, and the arrests of a dozen perpetrators, but in the end, not one member of the Bundy clan was successfully prosecuted, and only a few associates of the militia groups that backed them went to jail.

Today, on the public lands around Bunkerville, Cliven Bundys cows continue to roam freely, trampling the fragile desert landscape, and he has yet to pay the fines he owes. Cliven won with the help of the same militiamen who stormed the Capitol.

As Molvar of the Western Watersheds Project observed: The rarity of arrests and indictments, and the botched prosecutions, that followed in the wake of these acts of terrorism in the west sent a message that law enforcement will turn a blind eye to alt-right lawlessness by overwhelmingly white perpetrators.

In this analysis, years of selective law enforcement have privileged politically motivated crimes from the extreme right against government agencies, public lands and public property. And this has enabled and empowered militant rightwingers like the Bundys, the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers to act with impunity.

Cheerleading the attack on the Capitol from afar, Cliven Bundy had this to say: At Bundy Ranch, we had a job to do, go get it done, and We the People went forward and finished the job.

He added: Today President Trump had hundreds of thousands of people and he pointed the way pointed towards Congress and nodded his head go get the job done.

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Capitol attackers have long threatened violence in rural American west - The Guardian

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Bidens victory, thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. (AP Photo by John Minchillo)

After the attack on the U.S. Capitol Wednesday by right-wing Trump loyalists, something that kept coming into our minds at Berkeley News and that has been echoed by Americans across the nation is that if anyone other than a privileged, predominantly white group of people had stormed the Capitol, the response by law enforcement and other officials would have been much different likely much more violent and extreme.

In the past few years, we have seen overblown, brutal reactions by law enforcement to protesters fighting for their civil rights during the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, the Native American protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the protests by people with disabilities when the Trump administration was poised to eliminate Medicaid. And there are countless other examples from throughout history.

Berkeley News spoke with three scholars Nazune Menka, a tribal cultural resources policy fellow at Berkeley Law; Denise Herd, associate professor of behavioral sciences in the School of Public Health and associate director of Berkeleys Othering and Belonging Institute; and Katie Savin, a Ph.D. candidate in education in the School of Social Welfare about how the attack on the Capitol is a symptom of the larger problem of white supremacy and how we need to embrace our common humanity to move forward as a nation.

Nazune Menka is a tribal cultural resources policy fellow at Berkeley Law. (Photo courtesy of Nazune Menka)

Nazune Menka: Something I found myself saying in 2020 is, Im not shocked, but I am shook. As an Indigenous person, the lens that I view the world through is colored so drastically different from the white lens. For example, Im still trying to learn my Indigenous language that was stripped away from my ancestors through forced Western education, so trying to understand what it is that white supremacists are up in arms about its irreconcilable. Indigenous people are fighting for land back and the simple right to relearn our languages again after centuries of oppression. I cant understand their level of anger.

The United States was founded on racist ideologies and genocide.

Christianity was extremely racist, as was the Doctrine of Discovery, which was used as an excuse to legitimize the taking of Indigenous land. Colonial and imperialist countries convinced themselves it was their divine, God-given right to colonize and Christianize Indigenous peoples. These were the foundational tenets that allowed the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the taking of land.

In trying to understand why the siege on the Capitol occurred, I believe that the shift to more progressive policies, more diverse political representation in Congress, and the growing middle class of BIPOC individuals has some individuals afraid that their last little bit of white privilege is going to be stripped away. It felt like we were witnessing the last bastion of white supremacy rear its ugly head on Wednesday.

Denise Herd is an associate professor of behavioral sciences in the School of Public Health and associate director of Berkeleys Othering and Belonging Institute.(UC Berkeley School of Public Health photo)

Denise Herd: It was unnerving to see iconic representations of American democracy under siege, and people coming in attempting to harm members of Congress. That they were able to do it just wholesale was mind-boggling.

But theres a real white supremacy link here.

There have been a lot of law and order campaigns against Black and other people of color in this country, and also so many things done in the name of preventing terrorism. Campaigns that have painted Muslim Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans and other people of color as threats to our country.

Trump was building a wall to supposedly keep out criminals, but we have criminals right there in the Capitol doing things that are unimaginable in a sophisticated, modern Western nation. So, that, to me, is incredibly disturbing.

Katie Savin is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Social Welfare. (UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare photo by Alli Yates)

Katie Savin: It seemed like they were playing protest like they were going through the motions of what protesters do, yet it wasnt real. I tried to understand what I was watching through the lens of all of the times Ive found myself in front of a police line, marching, holding up signs or chanting. Where was the fear in the eyes of these people who nonchalantly stopped for selfies with police?

I realized that it was not like civil disobedience Id partaken in, because two essential pieces of civil disobedience were missing: There was no real strategy, and there was no sense that the people involved were making a (calculated) trade-off that they were trading their personal safety for a higher purpose. There seemed to be absolutely no risk to their safety whatsoever, which, in a twisted way, made this a very low-stakes event.

Menka: In my mind, its about property and power, and views of threat to property and power. Capitalism is about extracting natural resources for personal profit. Ive seen a shift in the past four years, but also decades the shift towards valuing money and profit and capitalism over humanity. Its a trend thats been occurring for centuries.

In 2016 and 2017, we saw what the police response was to the Dakota Access Pipeline and water protectors. The use of water cannons and rubber bullets on peaceful people at the Water Protector Camp was reminiscent of the police treatment of activists during the civil rights movement in the South.

Berkeley News is examining racial justice in America in a new series of stories.

This summer, we saw what the police response was to the Black Lives Matter movement. The protests that were happening were largely calm. They were respectful, peaceful protests. People came in from out of town to counterprotest, and thats where the clashing and violence came from. I dont think that any of the violence this summer was at the behest of the Black Lives Matter movement. I think quite the opposite these events were targeted to skew the optics in the media to basically demonize people of color even further. Thinking about this in contrast to the police response at the Capitol is heartbreaking to me.

Herd: There is a long history of anti-Black structural racism in American society. Law enforcement has been part of a system that has oppressed people of color and Black people: upholding the system of white supremacy.

Race riots historically have been about police brutality, and that history is filled with instances where Black people were lynched, run out of town and told they were going to be killed. Theres also been this racial terror from groups like the Ku Klux Klan that overlaps with policing forces.

We know that African Americans and other people of color are four or five times more likely to be arrested by the police, and theyre much more likely to be killed. So, we already have a structure in which theyre being targeted as individuals in the society with more police killings, more injuries, more arrests, much more mass incarceration: Thats the backdrop.

So, collectively, youve got the potential for police to act on Black groups of people or protesters in the same way that it happens individually for Black people and other people of color in their communities. That excessive force and police brutality is not seen as prevalent against white people.

Savin: While the militant mob was still taking selfies with Capitol Police inside of the building, I touched base with a disabled friend with whom I had participated in civil disobedience in 2017 when the Trump administration was poised to eliminate Medicaid. We reminisced about how our plans to stage a sit-in in a Reno courthouse, targeting a senator of Nevada, were temporarily thwarted when police came to stop us before wed even finished unloading our small crew of disabled people from the wheelchair-accessible van.

Apparently, they had found online chatter about the event, saw a wheelchair-accessible van full of people carrying posters and (rightly) assumed we were there to protest. We were easily and immediately othered and physically barred from entering the building. We had to advocate for our rights to enter a public building before we could even begin to protest.

How, we wondered together on Wednesday, was this much more visible and much more violent group carrying out this much more plainly and publicly planned event in an area with triple the security presence, not stopped as we had been? There was really only one reasonable answer: The security forces did not want to stop this group. They were not directed to do so. That was never their job.

Menka: We need a better education system. I think our education system has failed. Were not teaching the truth and history of this country. People are allowing themselves to think that white privilege doesnt exist that were over it, were past that. When you start looking at the policies and laws that the government has used to oppress the other, whoevers not in at the time, when we look at these systems, we should ask ourselves, How do we make one another human to one another? To do that, we need to face the truth and history of this country that we are on stolen land, and that slavery built this country, and that capitalism continues to extract and pollute Indigenous lands. When we dehumanize each other, it allows for any amount of hateful crimes to be committed with a blind eye turned.

There are ways forward, but that truth and that healing isnt going to come without some sort of reckoning. And I think were in the midst of that now.

Also, we cant allow for the criminalization of protesters. When states start passing laws that put property and infrastructure over people and the well-being of the local community, thats a problem. Thats something that policymakers need to take a hard look at. I think theres tons of model legislation the United Nations has really great human rights efforts underway. That leadership is what we need because, you know, the U.N. was created after World War II and the rise of Nazism. I mean, were still fighting that, in the sense that white supremacy and racism are still very prevalent.

Herd: I think its going to be important to try to get down to the human level and address some of the pain that people are in. And I think its been very difficult because of misinformation and the spread of lies: People are not well-informed.

I think the new administration is really going to be trying to bridge some of the divide and work on some of the real core problems that weve got in the country. I think one of the biggest core problems that we have right now is were in a pandemic, and building bridges around those kinds of things is going to be necessary.

With that kind of focus on taking care of people, and coming together in terms of all of us having some of the same basic rights, will be very helpful.

Menka: Clearly, there should have been more security. I mean, if the president of the United States is supporting these people, saying he loves them, why is he going to send in the National Guard? So, that was a failure at the highest level, as was the lack of leadership from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

The response was slow, but when they did move them out, yes, that was the way to do it right to slowly walk forward to clear the area. It was a very metered response for people who were behaving like that I mean, literal terrorists. I couldnt believe it. They were armed, they had homemade bombs. You cannot have a conversation about Wednesday without talking about race.

Herd: I think its terrorism. They need to definitely be deterred and be treated according to what the law says. There are penalties for defacing public property, there are penalties for attacking other people and for threatening violence under those sorts of circumstances. But this was even worse because its a group of elected officials.

This wasnt a protest. It was a mob, and it was an attack. So, I think there are penalties that need to be explored, and people need to be arrested, and they need to be charged.

Savin: I dont think that fairness looks like everyone being treated with the violence and repressiveness that BLM protesters, disabled protesters and many groups of marginalized folks experience daily. I think that during this coup, we all were exposed to some of the vulnerability that marginalized groups and individuals experience on a regular basis a vulnerability born out of the realization that security systems are not designed for our safety, but to uphold the status quo of white supremacy and patriarchy and ableism, etc. The issue is that the police are not here to protect everyones safety, they never have been since their origins in the first slave patrols, and they never will in the current system.

Menka: I really want people to read more. I want people to be engaged. I want people to be civically engaged be on city council, to know whats happening on the community level. And I also want us to start caring a little bit more. I dont want us to only have church as our level of community or to only have a university as our level of community. We promote this individualistic idea of what being an American is like we build fences around our houses. Im done with the fences and walls. Those separations, they need to come down. There are ways forward, and one person can make a difference.

Herd: People are going to have to give up structural racism. It doesnt work. Its very, very oppressive to people of color, but it also dilutes people and hurts the body politic. Theres a lot of suffering, and I think the focus needs to be on eliminating that suffering and supporting people and to stop feeding the public lies.

Savin: For many people of color, LGBTQ+ and disabled people, this understanding of police representing selective safety comes from their experiences being targeted. The other side of this coin is what we saw on Wednesday: the safeguarding and shepherding of white people committing criminal acts of violence. I think this can bring us closer to a truth that has existed all along that none of us are safe in a white supremacist police state, that none of us are free until we are all free.

As Americans, let this be yet another reminder of whose lives are most at risk when we call the police, so we might continue to create and demand safer alternatives.

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Why were Trump loyalists allowed to storm the Capitol? - UC Berkeley