Category Archives: Government Oppression

On Thursday, March 24 from noon to 1:30 p.m. and Monday, April 4 also from noon to 1:30 p.m., Seton Hall will hold, for the third time the opening and closing events of "Romero-King week (and a half),"honoring two of our greatest representatives of social justice and sacrificial faith St. Oscar Romero (who was assassinated on March 24, 1980 and canonized by Pope Francis in 2018) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was assassinated on April 4, 1968). We will be celebrating both men on both days. Faculty, administrators and students will do readings from St. Romero and Dr. King. We will meet on the green at noon on both days, but you can also join us on Microsoft Teams. Click here to join the meeting.

In the week and a half between the two events, students may watch and faculty can assign any of these films, available to the Seton Hall community:

The collaboration, to honor the two religious figures came after the Academic Expo in 2019, when the MLK Leadership Program developed a vision to look at the intersections of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, as represented by the life and work of Archbishop Romero and the prophetic ministry of social and restorative justice of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Pritchetts vision received the support of Dr. Nancy Enright, Director University Core Program. Dr. Ines Murzaku, Chair of Catholic Studies, also has offered enthusiastic support. Together we planned this event to be celebrated in person, on the green. With the corona virus outbreak in 2020 and then in 2021, we decided not to let this celebration be stopped by having to go remote. However, this year, we are thrilled to offer it in person for the first time (as well as on TEAMS).

Archbishop Oscar Romero, the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture amid conflicts between the oligarchy of the country, supported by the government, and those fighting for economic and political justice. He condemned the violence on both sides, though most of the attacks were by the government-supported death squads, and the nonstop disappearances of the poor and those, like himself, speaking out for human rights. St. Romero was beatified on May 23, 2015 and canonized October 14, 2018. His motivation and inspiration to empower others is seen and summarized in his quote "Each one of you has to be Gods microphone."Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was, as is widely known, a civil rights activist and social justice advocate, who had a great deal of influence on American society in the 1950's and 1960's. His strong belief in nonviolent protest helped set the tone and a strategic approach for the civil rights movement. Boycotts, protests, and marches were led by Dr. King, until legislation passed against racial discrimination, though the struggle in which he fought continues. Dr. King didn't just preach about a comfortable Christianity or a stagnant church. He led the church to action. As a social justice prophet, he denounced not only racial inequality but also wealth disparity and economic injustice. Dr. King was in Memphis when he was assassinated because he was organizing a strike for better pay and working conditions for Negro sanitation workers.

Two of his quotes set the paradigm for this important week and a half honoring him and St. Romero at Seton Hall University.

"Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."Martin Luther King Jr.,Letter from the Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

As Rev. Dr. Forrest Pritchett, Program Director, Martin Luther King Leadership Program, has said, "We honor these two individuals from the Protestant and Catholic traditions who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their God and as they stood to speak against the forces of darkness and oppression. Their sacrifices were twelve years apart, but the communality of their purpose and motivation show them to be brothers of the same spirit and adherents to the truth of the same word. (Rev. Dr Forrest Pritchett, Senior Adviser to Provost for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and the Martin Luther King Leadership Program)

This year, like last year, a copy of an icon depicting "The New Martyrs,"those killed for their faith in modern times, which is on display at the Church of San'Bartolomeo in Rome, will be displayed in the Immaculate Conception Chapel, in the small side chapel dedicated to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. This icon includes among the martyrs both Martin Luther King, Jr., and St. Oscar Romero (in the lower right, depicted together). The icon comes to us courtesy of the Sant'Egidio community, thanks to Dr. Andrea Bartoli, Core Fellow. It will be on display in the Immaculate Conception chapel throughout the Romero-King week and a half. Please stop by and pay a visit to the icon and say a prayer for the ideals represented by these two leaders.

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Inside the Core: Celebrating St. Oscar Romero and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Seton Hall University

In recent years, Hillsdale College, a small private Christian school in Michigan, has quietly become a driving force in America's ongoing fights around education. A "feeder school" for the Trump administration, Hillsdale led President Trump's controversial 1776 Commission and serves as a testing ground for the right's most ambitiousideas: For instance, thatdiversity erodes national unity, that Vladimir Putin is a populist hero and that conservatives should lure so many children out of public schools that the entire system collapses.

Hillsdale has inconspicuously been building a network of "classical education" charter schools, which use public tax dollars to teach that the U.S. was founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles and that progressivism is fundamentally anti-American. In January, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced plans to partner with Hillsdale to launch as many as 50 such schools, which public education advocates fear could be a tipping point in the privatization battle.

In this three-part series, Salon looks at Hillsdale's multifaceted and far-reaching role in shaping and disseminating the ideas and strategies that power the right.In ourfirst installment, we met Hillsdale president Larry Arnn, a Winston Churchill scholar who led Trump's short-lived 1776 Commission and has used his connections to right-wing thought leaders like Ginni Thomas and Betsy DeVos to turn his school into a political powerhouse. He has described education as a "weapon" in the conservative war to reclaim America.

In 2011, Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn began offering slices of his institution's intellectual output to the public with a series of free online courses on subjects like the Constitution, the Bible and, more recently, "American Citizenship and Its Decline."

This open-source continuing ed project, Arnn says, has attracted 3.5 million pupils to date and social media abounds with conservatives energized by what they've learned. Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, sees the courses as a means of popularizing an extremely conservative "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution, in which "a lot of what the federal government does now, including pretty much anything related to the social safety net, is illegitimate."

Imprimis, Hillsdale's publication, churns out essays adapted from speeches given at school events, including jeremiads on such topics as "gender ideology," "the Great Reset" and "The January 6 Insurrection Hoax" (which includes a defense of an Oath Keeper arrested for the Capitol assault). Recent weeks have seen the recirculation of a 2017 Imprimis article, "How to Think About Vladimir Putin" (by "traditional measures," perhaps "the pre-eminent statesman of our time").

RELATED:How this tiny Christian college is driving the right's nationwide war against public schools

In 2018, as much of the world was horrified by the public unfolding of Donald Trump's kids-in-cages policy, Imprimis offered a provocative defense, arguing that the then-president was taking a "stand on behalf of the nation-state and citizenship against the idea of a homogenous world-state populated by 'universal persons.'" Any honest observer must admit, the essay continued, "that diversity is a solvent that dissolves the unity and cohesiveness of a nation."

"This is the same stuff you would hear from Dinesh D'Souza or Ann Coulter, but it seems different coming from this classical institution supposedly committed to the search for the truth."

"The idea that birthright citizenship is wrong used to be a very fringe position," said Montgomery. "Promoting the idea that ethnic diversity is not a strength but 'a solvent' is pretty toxic stuff to be saying when white nationalism and antisemitism are on the rise." But that's where Hillsdale's strength lies, he added: in providing an intellectual veneer to right-wing ideology. "This is the same stuff you would hear from Dinesh D'Souza or Ann Coulter, but it seems different coming from this classical institution supposedly committed to the search for the truth."

Around the same time Hillsdale began offering online courses, it expanded into primary and secondary education as well. The college already ran a private K-12 academy on its campus. According to an old edition of that school's curriculum, students at the Hillsdale Academy memorized Bible verses and attended both weekly prayer services and daily flag ceremonies as part of the school's "advocacy of ceremony and pageantry in transmitting principles, strengthening traditions and making children feel part of something greater than themselves." They were also instructed to stand up whenever an adult entered a classroom and remain standing until they were acknowledged.

Lists of academy-approved books came with a warning to use only original editions, since later versions might "contain revisionist forewords and introductions" that could sway "impressionable children unequipped to recognize and discount the politicization of literary scholarship." Meanwhile, the academy's history curriculum began with the bedrock premise that "The settling of America and the founding of the United States [are] an expression of Christian Intention." (A spokesperson for Hillsdale said the academy's curriculum has since been replaced.)

In 2010, Hillsdale launched a new program, the Barney Charter School Initiative (BCSI), intended to spread that model, adapted to local requirements, nationwide. In the words of the program's head, Hillsdale assistant provost for K-12 education Kathleen O'Toole, BCSI's conception of classical education "is what we used to do in this country back when education was working." Charters launched in partnership with BCSI follow Hillsdale's focus on "the Western tradition," from the Greeks on down, including a heavy emphasis on U.S. founding documents and, somewhat more hazily, an overall "approach to instruction that acknowledges objective standards of correctness, logic, beauty, weightiness, and truth."

RELATED:Republicans' war on education is the most crucial part of their push for fascism

That's common language at Hillsdale, where classes and promotional materials promise an education driven by "the good, the beautiful and the true" rhetoric drawn from Plato and Aristotle, but also ubiquitous in conservative Christian discourse. That ambiguous inspiration is also reflected in BCSI's ostensibly secular approach to teaching "virtue." In place of explicit scripture recitation, BCSI students study the Bible as an example of "Lasting Ideas from Ancient Civilizations." Rather than outright sermons, students are taught, as O'Toole says, "to love the right things" and "spend their lives pursuing the good."

What that means in practice is suggested, at least in part, by BCSI "chief architect" Terrence Moore, who explained in an essay that classical education teaches "students that true freedom and happiness are to be obtained through limited, balanced, federal, and accountable government protecting the rights and liberties of a vibrant, enterprising people" which is to say, a particularly conservative vision of the proper ordering of society.

There are further hints in the BCSI K-12 program guide, which Hillsdale licenses for free to both charters and other schools it considers compatible. In one teaching guide shared online, BCSI offers extensive classroom resources and text recommendations, heavy on Hillsdale professors' work, laissez-faire economics and the conviction that progressives have betrayed America's founding principles. Among the suggested titles are former Hillsdale history professor Burton Folsom's "New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America," Reagan education secretary William Bennett's "America: The Last Best Hope" (Volumes 1-3), and Hillsdale economist Gary Wolfram's "A Capitalist Manifesto."

"There seems to be an agenda behind it, which is not the typical equity that public schools strive for in telling the story of history."

"The concern with the Barney initiative is that it's a stealth way of getting public dollars for 'Judeo-Christian' religious ideology" and a deeply conservative vision of America, said Kathleen Oropeza, founder of the progressive grassroots group Fund Education Now. "There seems to be an agenda behind it, which is not the typical equity that public schools strive for in telling the story of history."

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Journalist Katherine Stewart, author of "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism," says recent years have seen a growing number of complaints about charter schools incorporating religious instruction in various guises particularly through the classical school movement's focus on virtue, heritage and founding principles. One former teacher at a Florida BCSI school told Stewart that his charter had a chaplain teach students that "America is a Judeo-Christian nation" founded on "biblical principles." (A spokesperson for Hillsdale responded, "Because BCSI charter schools by law are not religiously affiliated, we would remind school leaders that no visitors can advocate or present to the student body the truth of one particular faith.")

In 2018, Arizona's then-superintendent of public instruction was so inspired by the BCSI curriculum that she sought to institute it in place of the state's history and science standards, which she derided as "vague and incomplete at best, indoctrination at worst."

"Progressivism was a rejection of the principles of the Declaration of Independence as well as the form of the Constitution," the curriculum argues.

That effort failed, but these days, she might have better luck. Hillsdale's newest K-12 offering, the 1776 Curriculum, has been widely embraced by Republican state and local elected officials. Introduced on Hillsdale's website with the declaration that "America is an exceptionally good country," the curriculum depicts America's founding fathers, even those who owned slaves, as closet abolitionists, while the reformers of the late 19th to early 20th century Progressive era who sought to address symptoms of Gilded Age inequality such as sweatshops and child labor were promoters of "group rights" whose activism was fundamentally anti-American. ("Progressivism was a rejection of the principles of the Declaration of Independence as well as the form of the Constitution," the curriculum argues. "Young American citizens must understand why and how the government of the country they now live in was changed from what their country's Founders originally intended.")

The curriculum also suggests that systemic American racism was effectively ended by the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and that the ideals of that movement were "almost immediately turned [into] programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders." It argues that most diversity policies amount to a "regime of formal inequality" and asks students to ponder the study question, "How are critical race theory and 'anti-racism' discriminatory?" As a recent analysis from Phil Williams at Tennessee's NewsChannel 5 elaborates, the curriculum further suggests that civil rights sit-ins at Southern lunch counters were an unconstitutional infringement on private property, and falsely implies that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't believe in using "the force of law" to achieve equality, but only an appeal to individual consciences.

RELATED:Fighting back against CRT panic: Educators organize around the threat to academic freedom

A Hillsdale spokesperson said that the thousands of pages released to date "are just the first portions of a greater whole," and that forthcoming units of the curriculum "will provide a fuller treatment" of civil rights figures like King. But in a letter to teachers included with the curriculum, O'Toole emphasizes that educators should proceed from the principle that "the more important thing in American history is that which has endured rather than that which has passed."

* * *

Although it's long gone from Hillsdale's website, BCSI's original mission was described as an effort to "recover our public schools from the tide of a hundred years of progressivism that has corrupted our nation's original faithfulness to the previous 24 centuries of teaching the young the liberal arts in the West."

Exactly how Hillsdale defines this corrupting tide is unclear. Partly they're referring to the sort of student-led, project-based pedagogy pioneered by figures like John Dewey in the early 20th century. Although historians describe progressive education as a shift from rote memorization and authoritarian classrooms to more child-centered teaching, a Hillsdale spokesperson described its legacy as having "reduced education to a vocationally focused, utilitarian enterprise that merely equips students with the skills required for future jobs."

But Hillsdale's opposition to "progressive" education also defines an ambitious effort, as Arnn often describes it, to turn back the clock on "a great engineering project that was born in the Progressive era," in which educators like Dewey began to conceive of universities as a means to guide society's evolution through a new elite of university-trained experts and administrators. In Arnn's words, educators decided, "We could be the ones who would plan the future of society. Now we will rule."

With that appropriation of power, Arnn argues, came a relativistic, progressive reinterpretation of America's founding documents, now wrongly construed to empower an activist government commissioned to solve societal problems and establish a new realm of "positive rights" (like the right to food or housing) instead of just the "negative rights" (freedom from government oppression) outlined in the Constitution. And today, Arnn argues, teachers function as "conveyor belts" to feed that top-down progressive ideology to the nation's young.

In other words, Hillsdale understands the foundational conflicts between conservatives and liberals, at least in part, as fallout from changes in educational philosophy.

"The public school is arguably among the most important battlegrounds in our war to reclaim our country from forces that have drawn so many away from first principles."

But they see the solution there as well. As BCSI's original mission statement proclaimed, "The public school is arguably among the most important battlegrounds in our war to reclaim our country from forces that have drawn so many away from first principles." And in that war, "the charter school vehicle possesses the conceptual elements that permit the launching of a significant campaign of classical school planting to redeem American public education."

RELATED:The secret plan behind Florida's "don't say gay" bill: Bankrupting public education

Today that campaign is making significant progress, with 53 schools around the country either operating as full BCSI "member schools" or implementing its curriculum. Arnn says the last two years have created surging demand for all of Hillsdale's offerings; that applications to the college which recruited and fundraised on its lack of COVID-19 restrictions and its anti-"woke" curriculum are way up; that half a million people registered for Hillsdale's online courses in a recent 12-month stretch; and that there's more public demand for BCSI charter schools than they can possibly fulfill. A December "tele-town hall" for Hillsdale supporters drew an audience of some 13,000 people, along with multiple calls from school board members seeking advice on introducing BCSI charters in their districts.

On the call, O'Toole said they'd been contacted by officials from 15 states asking for advice. Most prominent among these, of course, is Tennessee, where Arnn says Gov. Lee initially asked him last year to launch 100 BCSI charters. Given BCSI's extensive hand-holding in launching each school, including spending weeks training charter staff, Arnn committed to a somewhat more modest plan of 50 schools over six years. (A Hillsdale spokesperson said no specific plans have yet been formalized.)

But while Lee assured skeptical local reporters that the charters will be secular schools serving a general population, Hillsdale and its supporters seem to see a higher purpose.

"The war will be won in education."

Last May, Florida education commissioner Richard Corcoran, a close aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis, told a Hillsdale audience, "The war will be won in education. If we can get education right we can have kids be literate and then understand what it means to be a self-governing citizen in a self-governing country we'll win it back."

In a September speech in Tennessee (recently removed from the internet), Arnn went a step further. In answer to an attendee concerned in a month marred by ugly nationwide school board fights that America might not "make it," Arnn counseled, "Go home and read some Winston Churchill." Arnn also believed that the country was facing "the greatest danger I've ever seen in my life," but said distressed conservatives should embrace the cold comfort of Churchill's wartime motto, imagining the house-to-house fighting that might follow a Nazi invasion of Britain: "You can always take one with you."

"Now that's Sparta talk," Arnn said. As though anticipating Donald Trump's call last weekend for conservatives to "lay down their very lives" to fight critical race theory, Arnn continued, "We don't know what our last reserves are; we may be about to find out. But let's say they're insufficient. It is glorious and honorable to give oneself to a beautiful and losing cause. But it is very wrong to think it's going to lose."

Next: Hillsdale's nationwide plan of conquest is the long-term goal to defund the public schools entirely?

Read more of Kathryn Joyce's reporting on the far right:

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Coming to a school near you: Stealth religion and a Trumped-up version of American history - Salon

MUZAFFARABAD: While ruling out any out of the box solution of Kashmir dispute Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi has said that Kashmir is an indivisible entity and only Kashmiris have the right to decide about their own future.

The AJK PM said this while addressing Kashmir rally, which was organised under the aegis of All Parties Kashmir Conference (APKC) here on Thursday. The PM said, The future of Kashmir can only be decided by the people of Kashmir and this decision will be based on the supreme sacrifices rendered by our forefathers.

He made it clear that Kashmir is a single entity and no conscious Kashmiri can even think about the partition of his/her motherland. Partition of Kashmir, he said, was no longer a feasible solution. So far as the freedom of the Indian occupied Kashmir issue is concerned the PM said that the entire leadership and the Kashmiri nation were one and united and every single Kashmiri wants that the issue be solved on the basis of universally accepted principle of right to self-determination.

He said that the people of AJK stand shoulder to shoulder with their Kashmiri brethren and peoples massive presence in todays rally speaks volumes about their commitment and allegiance with Kashmir cause. He said that his government will continue to play its role in highlighting the Kashmir issue both at national and international level.

Hailing Prime Minister Imran Khans clear-cut policy on Kashmir, the AJK PM said that Imran Khan was a powerful voice of Kashmiris who vociferously raised the voice in favour of Kashmiris at every important international forum. Congratulating the APKC leadership for organising such a big rally, he said, It is commendable that the political leadership of Azad Kashmir has always played a positive and constructive role regarding Kashmir.

Referring to the precarious political and human rights situation in the Indian occupied Kashmir, the AJK PM said, India is trying to suppress the voice of Kashmiris through all means of oppression and suppression. Denouncing the Indian governments unilateral decision to strip the region of its autonomy, the PM said, After abrogation of articles 370 and 35A the BJP government was now hatching conspiracies to change the demographics of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The PM also praised the AJK president Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhary for his selfless services for the cause of Kashmir. Lauding the Prime Minister Imran Khans successful anti-Islamophobia campaign, the AJK PM said that the UNGAs decision to declare 15 March as international day to counter Islamophobia was a big success. The UNs landmark decision, he said was a slap in the face of the Indian government that has been blindly pursuing its anti-Muslim Hindutva ideology.

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Only Kashmiris have right to decide their future, says AJK PM - The News International

Under occupation

The southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, which has about 150,000 residents, was captured by Russian troops within hours of the invasion and was the first city to fall. In other parts of Ukraine, Russias advance has been slow and more costly than expected. But Melitopol, which has been occupied for about three weeks, gives a sense of how Russia plans to rule the territory that it seizes.

According to the Melitopol council, Russian forces quickly took over the citys communication network, cutting off access to non-Russian media and intercepting phone calls by city officials.

Russia also reportedly released a fake clip in which residents were seen welcoming the Russian troops. Actually, footage on social media has shown that protesters in the city have held almost daily anti-Russia demonstrations, and have continued to do so even after Russian troops shot a demonstrator.

Last week, Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, defiantly declared on Facebook: We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way.

But Russia has stepped up its efforts to crush dissent.

Last weekend, footage from a local CCTV camera showed armed figures entering a building in central Melitopol and walking away with a man with a hood over his head. The man was reportedly Fedorov, who has not been heard from since. Russia then installed a new mayor, Galina Danilchenko, a pro-Russian councillor who urged residents not to destabilise the city or take part in extremist actions. A day later, footage on social media showed that the protests had continued.

The second city to fall in Ukraine was Kherson, which has about 300,000 residents and was seized around March 2. On Tuesday, Russias defence ministry said it had captured the entire Kherson region. According to a British intelligence update, Russia plans to stage a fake referendum in the region that will vote to form a breakaway republic.

In 2014, pro-Russian separatists held referendums in two regions they had seized in eastern Ukraine. The organisers said about 90per cent of people supported independence. There were no independent observers and the European Union described the vote as a farce. A Pew Research Center poll in 2014 found 77 per cent of Ukrainians including 70 per cent in eastern Ukraine wanted to live in a united Ukraine.

The United States warned this week that China had offered to provide military support to Russia a development that would risk turning the war in Europe into a global conflict.

According to a report in the Financial Times, a US cable said China had signalled its willingness to send arms such as surface-to-air missiles. US officials told other media outlets that Russia had requested military support from China. Beijing dismissed the reports as misinformation.

On Monday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a seven-hour meeting in Rome with Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, warning that Beijing would face consequences if it supports Moscow.

China has refused to condemn the invasion and may already have provided economic support to protect Russia from the impact of Western sanctions. Chinese state media has trumpeted the official Russian position on the war and spread Russian disinformation, including Moscows claim that the US and Ukraine are developing chemical or biological weapons to use against Russian troops.

But Chinas support for Russia has not been entirely unqualified. It abstained from United Nations votes and has insisted it respects Ukraines sovereignty. Yang told Sullivan Beijing does not want to see that the situation in Ukraine has come to this point, according to Chinas Xinhua news agency.

In early February, on the eve of the Winter Olympics, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing and the pair committed to a no limits partnership. Four days after the Games ended, Putin launched his invasion.

Russias military has struggled to seize territory on most of its fronts in Ukraine but has intensified air attacks and shelling.

For residents who have stayed in Kyiv, the capital, pre-war life has been replaced by a citywide effort punctuated by the sounds of sirens, shelling and shooting to prepare defences and keep the wartime economy running. Vitali Klitschko, Kyivs mayor, said the city had been turned into a fortress. We are ready to be in civil defence and defend our homes, he said this week.

Food and other supplies and phone and internet access were still available in Kyiv this week. Trains and several roads leading out of the city remain unimpeded. About half of the citys 3.5 million residents are believed to have fled. The UN this week said that more than three million of Ukraines 44 million residents have left the country.

Elsewhere, in cities and towns that have been surrounded or occupied, conditions have become desperate.

In Mariupol, about 200,000 residents have been trapped for weeks often without water or electricity in freezing temperatures as Russia has encircled the city and blocked aid convoys. Bombs and shells have hit the university, a hospital and apartment buildings. Streets are empty. Shops are shut and have been depleted of remaining supplies. Aid workers said residents have been cutting trees for firewood and melting snow for water. Morgues are overflowing and about 2500 residents were estimated to have died by early this week.

But analysts said conditions in Mariupol and other surrounded cities could yet become worse, noting Russia has yet to unleash the sort of firepower it used against civilian areas in Syria or Chechnya. In Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, Russian troops fired up to 30,000 artillery rounds a day.

Olga Oliker, from the International Crisis Group, told NPR this week: If you look at Syria, if you look at Chechnya, they could do a lot more damage. And my expectation is that they probably will.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that his country will never join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, marking a further sign he is willing to compromise on some of Putins demands.

Before the invasion, Putin insisted Ukraine be barred from joining NATO. He also wants Ukraine to accept Crimea as Russian territory and to recognise the separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.

During talks with Russia this week, Ukraines negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, said that there is certainly room for compromise.

But some of Putins demands may be hard to meet, such as his call for Ukraine to be demilitarised; his suggestion that Ukraines government is illegitimate and must be replaced; and his demand that NATO remove all troops from countries that were former Soviet states.

It is unclear whether, or when, Putin would be willing to compromise. He may not want to end the war while the Russian advance remains stalled and his position appears weak, and he may want to show that he can withstand Western sanctions. Another obstacle is that, for diplomacy to succeed, Western leaders would need to offer concessions that allow Putin to avoid humiliation, even though they do not want to reward him. Writing in The Atlantic this week, the journalist Tom McTague said that the West, Ukraine and Russia should aim for a deal that allows each to save its dignity even though one side does not deserve to have its dignity saved.

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This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper onMar 19, 2022 as "Russia follows invasion with oppression and fake news".

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Russia follows invasion with oppression and fake news - The Saturday Paper

When Tulip Siddiq, a UK Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn, tweeted on Tuesday that one of her constituents, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, might be on the verge of returning home after six years of detention in Iran, she was nervous of the consequences of making the information public. She was urged to do so, however, by Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who was confident that his relentless efforts to publicise every detail of his wife's case would be instrumental to her release. Despite the protests of the British government, which had, over the years, repeatedly asked Mr Ratcliffe to refrain from making a "song and dance", he may have been right.

For six years, Mr Ratcliffe's life has alternated between media interviews, silent vigils outside London's Iranian embassy, hunger strikes and long-distance phone calls to his wife. In that time, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian national, endured a series of trials, held in closed court rooms, on a carousel of increasingly confounding charges. She was accused first of being a spy, then a seditionist and then a propagandist. In truth, she was none of those things; Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker employed in the UK, was arrested in 2016 while accompanying her young daughter on a family visit to Tehran.

On Wednesday, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released from Iranian custody and landed safely in Muscat on a Royal Oman Air Force jet, where she awaited her return to Britain. She was accompanied by another former detainee, Anoosheh Ashoori, a British-Iranian businessman. A third British-Iranian prisoner, Morad Tahbaz, was released on furlough, but remains barred from leaving Iranian soil. The proximate cause of their freedom was, in all likelihood, a deal made by British diplomats. A team of negotiators from the UK Foreign Office was in Tehran in the days before her release.

While the British government has declined to say publicly what exactly was being negotiated, the results are obvious enough. The day after Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's departure from Iran, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced that the UK had agreed, "in parallel", to release nearly 400 million ($525m) of money it owed to Iran for a weapons deal it signed in the 1970s and subsequently reversed in the wake of the Iranian Revolution.

She was accused first of being a spy, then a seditionist and then a propagandist. In truth, she was none of those things

For decades, the British government had resisted paying the money, expressing fears that it could end up in the hands of Iran's notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and be used to further the regime's oppression at home and abroad. But the relentless pressure brought to bear by Mr Ratcliffe's campaign, as well as another by Mr Ashoori's family, has made that position increasingly untenable. In the time since Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested, three British prime ministers have had to face awkward questions about her case. The current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has even been accused of being responsible for her prolonged detention. In a public committee hearing in 2017, when he was foreign secretary, he gaffed by casually stating that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran to train journalists. That remark was used as evidence against her in one of her hearings.

Editorials from The National

When it became clear through leaks from Tehran that the 400m debt was likely linked to the fate of the detained British nationals, the UK government had few options but to pay for their release. Now, the Ratcliffe and Ashoori families' suffering has reached an end. While the wider diplomatic drama may appear to be winding down, there remains cause for concern. Mr Tahbaz, it bears repeating, remains trapped in Iran. And a fourth British-Iranian, Mehran Raouf, remains imprisoned on charges as spurious as those levelled at his compatriots.

If 400m was not enough to see all four prisoners returned home, then the UK, as well as other countries with nationals held in Iran, ought to brace for the idea that Irans hostage game is not over.

Published: March 18, 2022, 4:00 AM

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Iran is winning its hostage games - The National

The Saudi government has also beheaded Murtaza Qureshi, who was arrested at the age of 13 for speaking out for his rights.

Saudi Arabia has killed 81 people in the past two days, including seven Yemenis and one Syrian, the state news agency Saudi Press Agency reported. These individuals have been sentenced to death for their allegiance to foreign terrorist organizations and for having deviant beliefs and among those who got killed was Murtaza Qureshi.

Born on October 24, 2000, Murtaza Qureshi belonged to Saudi Arabias minority Shia community. The Saudi government arrested Qureshi in September 2014 when he was just 13 years old, accusing him of joining a terrorist group and disturbing the peace.

According to CNN reports, at the age of 10, Murtaza Qureshi, along with his peers, was raising his voice against government oppression and raising awareness about his rights by participating in bicycle races with children for his rights.

Murtaza Qureshi was arrested by Saudi authorities at the age of 13, three years after he appeared on a bicycle to protest. According to The Guardian, Murtaza Qureshi was kept in solitary confinement from time to time.

In Saudi Arabia, 81 people, including Murtaza Qureshi, were executed in a single day on Saturday. This number is more than the death sentences given in the last whole year. What was the crime of Murtaza Qureshi other than raising his voice for his rights, however, it is still unclear.

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Who was 13 year old Murtaza Qureshi and why was he killed? - MM News

As Vladimir Putin was preparing to send troops into Ukraine last month, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, warned the UK will open up the matryoshka dolls of Russian-owned companies and Russian-owned entities to find the ultimate beneficiaries within.

Johnsons reflex was spot on, albeit overdue. Anti-corruption advocates have been calling for such measures for years.

To disempower autocrats, kleptocratic wealth must be controlled. Today, though, corrupt money finds a haven in strong rule-of-law countries. Kleptocrats believe these places will protect their assets, just as the law protects other assets. Sadly, theyve been right, at least until now.

Putins war has seen sanctions levelled against him and his elite supporters on both sides of the Atlantic.

We are coming for your ill-begotten gains, vowed US president Biden about Russias oligarchs in his State of the Union address. Were joining with European Allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets.

The amount of wealth held offshore by rich Russians is huge, about equal to the wealth of the entire population inside the country.

Transatlantic cooperation will be reinforced by a Task Force KleptoCapture in Washington and a Kleptocracy Cell in London.

As part of the global effort, Australia has imposed sanctions on over 460 people and entities. And it has joined the US, Europeans, Canada and Japan in a Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) multilateral task force.

But theres a snag in all this: you cant sanction what you cant see.

The assets of corrupt elites are largely hidden behind opaque legal structures the anonymous shell companies and secretive trusts that are the beating heart of an offshore financial system which has been thriving for decades.

Lawyers and other professionals in tax havens and financial centres have willingly supplied the corporate veil corrupt elites use to hide their assets.

The fight against ill-gotten wealth, from Russia and elsewhere, has to be a fight against financial anonymity.

Coupled with its sanctions, Australia should join with others in dismantling the rules and practices that have allowed corrupt elites to shelter their wealth across borders, including in Australia and other liberal democracies.

Corrupt wealth finds its way here from countries in our region and beyond. Structural reform and a shift in mindset is needed to systematically reveal and deter these financial flows which exploit our open markets.

Globally, the tragedy of Ukraine could mark a turning point in unmaking the infrastructure of offshore wealth that has emboldened tyrants, fuelled oppression and entrenched poverty in many societies. Moves by Washington, Brussels, and London in recent days to crack down on corrupt Russian wealth could be midwife to much-needed action to temper illicit finance more broadly.

Australia should play a constructive role in this project. But it does not have a register to ensure regulatory and law enforcement authorities and the public know who truly owns and controls Australian companies.

The government has previously signalled a commitment to this reform, including to comply with multilateral standards. As assistant treasurer in 2016, Kelly ODwyer said a register would make it a lot easier to expose wrongdoing or fraudulent conduct and much easier to disrupt illicit financial flows.

But momentum in Canberra has stalled, even as key partners like the US, UK, and Canada have converged on the importance of this move.

The Biden administration is pushing ahead plans to implement the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act. His Treasurys proposed register has been widely welcomed and not just from activists and law enforcement. BHP, the mining giant, said it presents a real opportunity to not only reduce illicit fund flows into the U.S., but to also send important signals on the need to tackle global corruption.

The UK is starting to close loopholes which have undermined its register, Companies House, with reforms aiming to make the agency a custodian of accurate and detailed information.

Theres much at stake, even beyond geopolitics. Ownership transparency is linked to a fundamental governance question of our time: how to build productive and equitable markets in a globalised world. Progress on transparency would signal the kind of economy we want in Australia: inclusive, well-governed, fair, and oriented towards innovation and productive investment rather than rent-seeking. In other words, wealth creation for the many rather than rigged returns for the few.

Led by the Treasurer, the government can take three steps to embrace this world-making moment.

First, it should legislate a world-leading, public, beneficial ownership register. There should be robust verification procedures and powers to trace complex ownership claims. Australia can also reduce or eliminate the percentage threshold which defines beneficial ownership, ensuring it cant be gamed.

Second, agencies should be properly resourced to use the new register to deter and seize corrupt wealth. Enforcement is key. Agencies such as Austrac and the AFP must have capabilities to actually use the new register, including through dedicated anti-corruption expertise.

Finally, it is crucial that regulatory and law enforcement agencies receive a clear and strong political mandate to prioritise their anti-corruption work. Building on current sentiments at home and abroad, Canberra will have to muster the will to systematically fight transnational corruption, alongside investing in the instruments to do so, elevating it to a top-tier priority.

Much more needs to be done, including to trace the owners of real estate and luxury assets, and to require more transparency of foreign investors. But an effective register for Australian entities is necessary and would make a substantive international contribution.

Corrupt networks and the autocrats they empower are bringing countries and regions to their knees. The harms inflicted on Ukraine today call on us to recommit to a better global order, one that permits citizens to organise themselves as free peoples, without internal or external domination. Australia should seize the moment, and demonstrate that we not only get the kleptocracy problem, but that were serious about confronting it.

Vafa Ghazavi is a Carr Center Fellow at Harvard University and executive director for research and policy at the James Martin Institute for Public Policy.

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Why has the momentum in Canberra stalled to clamp down on kleptocratic wealth? - The Guardian

On the morning of Aug. 21, 1968, Jiri Vnoucek woke to the sound of warplanes.

Vnoucek was 21 then, and had grown up under Communist rule. Hed been born only six months before the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took over the country. His childhood memories were pictures of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, of the red handkerchief he was forced to wear around his neck, of waiting in line for hours so his family could receive only the smallest of rations.

The Czechs could have no heroes, no culture, nothing to call their own. For 20 years, Vnoucek says, all he knew was oppression.

From 48 to 68, we lived in the dark where you were not allowed to say anything. Your view didnt matter. Writers, press people, if they didnt play by the rules they were sent to jail or there was a uranium mine in Czechoslovakia. Thats where a lot of the so-called rebels ended up.

But there was a brief time, less than a year it turned out, when Vnoucek thought change might come.

In January 1968, Alexander Dubcek was named head of the countrys Communist Party. His Prague Spring, as it came to be called, would loosen censorship rules in the country, albeit with the communists still in charge.

The moment was short lived. When Dubcek resisted pushback from Moscow for what it saw as policies that were too progressive, four Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia on Aug. 20, 1968, and entered Prague one day later. Dubcek would resign shortly after, prematurely ending the Prague Spring.

Over a half century later, Vnoucek remembers those days still. He can see, even now, the narrow streets of Prague left filled with cars crushed by Soviet tanks. He remembers the protest when someone threw a flaming rag that exploded a transport truck, how soldiers opened fire on the crowd and a bullet flew by his head.

Now 74 and living in Nelson under the name George Vnoucek, he feels helpless watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Czechs never fought back against their invaders Dubcek had advised against it and in the days after the invasion Vnoucek made the decision to flee his country.

I get emotional about it, he says through tears. I know what they are going through. I dont sleep at night.

George Vnoucek shows off the Czechoslovakian passport he used to escape the country after it was invaded by Soviet Union countries in 1968. The passport shows his Czech name Jiri, which he was advised to change during immigration. Photo: Tyler Harper

Only days after the invasion, Vnoucek and his friends Michael Barnivek and Wassil Pohl decided they would escape Czechoslovakia. Borders were closed by the Soviet Union, but illegal passports were still being handed out by Czechs to their countrymen. A family friend wrote to his aunt in Vienna, asking her to send an invitation for Vnoucek to come for a short visit. She obliged.

The evening before he left, Vnouceks family and friends held a party. His mother had died of a heart attack the previous year, but he would be leaving behind his father and sister. His father encouraged Vnoucek to escape, but his sister didnt actually believe he was going for good.

Vnoucek wouldnt see his father again, he died in 1973, and would go at least a decade without seeing his sister.

On the midnight train to Vienna, Soviet troops checked visas. Passengers who had brought along all their belongings were tossed off, but because Vnoucek and his friends only packed a few shirts and socks there was no reason to believe they werent coming back.

The trio toured embassies in Vienna. They were turned away from the United States because they couldnt speak English and had no university degrees. They were welcomed to Australia, but didnt like the distance from their homeland. Canada promised jobs without any qualms about language or qualifications.

In November 1968, Vnoucek left Europe for Canada. He wasnt sent to Montreal or Toronto, where so many immigrants and refugees before him had arrived at and made their homes. Instead they would arrive in Yorkton, Sask., a then-growing farm town in need of labourers. (The arrival of the Czech refugees was notable enough to garner the notice of the local paper, which published a picture of five Czechs including Vnoucek.)

A small article printed in a local paper about the arrival of Czechoslovakian refugees in Yorkton, Sask., in 1968. George Vnoucek, then just 21 years old, is on the far left. Hes standing next to his friends Michael Barnivek (left) and Wassil Pohl (centre), both of whom escaped with him. The two women sitting were also Czech refugees, but Vnoucek didnt know them.

Ukrainian immigrants had made a home in Yorkton 5,955 residents of the city cited a Ukrainian ethnic background in the 2016 census. Vnoucek, who could speak Russian, found he was able to communicate with the Ukrainian woman who ran the boarding house they lived in. She charged him a minimum to stay, and he found work in the trades with other Ukrainians. It was a kindness he hasnt forgotten.

The only way I could survive on the job was Ukrainian people trying to teach me. They knew I could handle the job but I couldnt communicate.

Meanwhile in Czechoslovakia, authorities didnt learn of Vnouceks escape for five years. When they did, his sister was summoned to a court where she was told Vnoucek would serve seven years in prison if he ever returned.

Still, two early tragedies marred Vnouceks arrival in Canada.

He had been in Canada less than a month when a Czech doctor invited Vnoucek, Barnivek and Pohl over to watch the Grey Cup. On the drive home, their car was hit by a train. No one was killed, but Vnoucek suffered a neck injury when Barniveks body went flying over top of him on the impact. Decades later his neck still hurts from the crash.

They went their own ways. Barnivek left after his wife arrived in Canada. Pohl, who had trained as a watch maker and goldsmith in Czechoslovakia, was sent to northern Ontario to work on a rail road. One day in early 1969 he was washing his coveralls in a pail of gas next to a car when the vehicle exploded.

Vnoucek went to see him in Thunder Bay. I saw him and believe me, it was horrible. He was burned, well I would say 80 per cent of his body. He didnt have a face, he didnt have hair, all his arms, legs were burned crisp.

Pohl underwent several surgeries, but the Canadian government didnt want to pay further for his rehabilitation and he was deported back to Czechoslovakia. Vnoucek never saw his friend again.

Vnoucek also left Yorkton a short time later for Lethbridge, Alta., when the company he worked for went bankrupt. In 1972 he visited Vancouver on the promise of a job, only to find he couldnt get on with the union. But on his way back to Alberta, Vnoucek stopped in Nelson to visit another Czech with whom he had played soccer. Within 24 hours he had a job offer at Kootenay Forest Products and never left.

George Vnoucek and his wife Betty. George landed in Canada in 1968 and eventually moved to Nelson in 1972, where he has lived ever since. Photo: Tyler Harper

In the ensuing years, Vnoucek married his wife Betty and had two daughters. Communism held onto Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution in 1989, and the country was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Vnoucek has returned to his homeland several times since 1989, and avoided prison by virtue of becoming a Canadian citizen.

When Russian troops entered Ukraine on Feb. 24, Vnoucek revisited his own history and found himself haunted by not having fought for his country. The Czechs would have lost to the Soviet Union, he concedes, but Vnoucek wishes they had rebelled as Ukrainians are doing now.

Vnoucek and Betty are retired now, and have six grandchildren. Hes lived a peaceful life.

Yet lately, when he watches the news reports from Ukraine or those in Canada where convoys of people protest COVID-19 mandates, he wonders if the word freedom has lost the significance it held for him and those who once lived in Czechoslovakia.

Please wake up, he says. Wake up. Because you dont know the true meaning of freedom.

If anyone would know, its him.

READ MORE:

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A Nelson man fled Soviet oppression. Over 50 years later, he finds he hasnt truly escaped it - Nelson Star

Despite eight months in power, the Taliban seem clueless about what kind of political space they want to create in Afghanistan. A key factor contributing to this conundrum is the Taliban style of rule: but, without any valid reference in history, this rule can only be assessed through the groups actions and their consequences. In this context, the Talibans unimpeachable orthodoxy, which has no room for freedom of expression, offers little hope.

A brief overview of press freedoms under the Taliban can help understand what Afghanistan has become under the new regime. Six Afghan journalists lost their lives within the first 100 days of the Taliban regime. Over 300 media outlets have reportedly closed so far. Calling radio stations the loudspeakers of America, Taliban foot soldiers burnt down many in the countrys southern parts. Over 7,000 media workers fled the country. All this, and the rulers did not seem at all bothered by it.

Around 200 to 300 died every day under the previous Kabul administration, Sohail Shaheen, the Taliban spokesman, said recently during an interview to a Pakistani TV host. The situation has changed, he maintained nonchalantly. However, as most of these deaths took place in Taliban attacks against the previous government, the dystopian nature of the new regime cannot hide itself behind the term change.

While the Pakistani media provided the Taliban a face saving, Afghan journalists did their bit to question the legitimacy of the orthodoxy. After assuming power, the Taliban central spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, arranged a conference in Kabul in which he announced a general amnesty for all Afghans. An Afghan reporter took the spokesman by surprise: Do you think the Afghans will forgive you too? It was a chilling moment for journalists present in the high-profile event. It happens in war, the spokesman simply replied.

Yet, the war is still on. In Gestapo-style raids, dissidents are regularly targeted. Reporters are beaten black and blue. Women are being assaulted for demanding their rights and a few continue to remain missing. As local journalists cannot freely raise their voice against these abuses, the only option available to them is to network with the Afghan diaspora online.

But sharing information about Taliban atrocities also exposes them to strict surveillance. Consequently, over 500 Afghan journalists have fled Kabul in the last five months. Currently living in neighbouring states, many of them are running from pillar to post to seek asylum in safer Western countries.

I talked to a few of these journalists who told me about their painful evacuation. After sending desperate SOSs to rights organisations, some of them received phone calls. I did not initially share my details, said a journalist who went through a lot of trouble before getting a second chance. Depressed and living in unfriendly conditions in a neighbouring country, these displaced journalists are afraid of the Taliban coming after them. The situation in Ukraine has diverted attention from their plight.

However, these reporters are not willing to stop their struggle no matter where they go to live, and the swelling ranks of exiled Afghan journalists is going to be a serious challenge for the Taliban rule.

Meanwhile, guess who has replaced these journalists back home? Parachute reporters journalists dropped in from the outside with no knowledge of local culture and history. In a country where the rule of law has yet to be defined, power politics prevail over public interests. Access and mobility, therefore, are privileges only a few can avail.

Clarissa Ward, a celebrity CNN journalist, invited the wrath of the Afghan diaspora after she donned an abaya for interviewing the Taliban. For some Afghans, the abaya is not just a dress, its historical association with the Taliban orthodoxy has turned it into a sign of oppression and, therefore, wearing it out of context is equal to endorsing Taliban rule.

In another example, a Kiwi journalist invited tons of media coverage after she appreciated the Taliban for allowing her to give birth to her out-of-wedlock child on Afghan soil. But the irony does not rest in the journalists claim about her own countrys refusal to give her entry due to Covid restrictions: what is unique in the journalists claim is that the Taliban had asked her to keep her pregnancy secret.

What if an Afghan woman was caught in a similar condition? Would the Taliban be gracious enough to relax their Sharia for her? With this double standard intact, the sovereignty of Afghanistan remains in question.

How did this duplicity emerge in the first place? We must go back to 2001, the year the US dismantled the Taliban regime. Taking refuge in Pakistan, Taliban foot soldiers not only fought US troops from across the border, their leadership was also allowed to own private businesses to feed their families. To protect their informal businesses in Pakistan, however, they networked with militant groups affiliated with officially patronised madrasas.

Left by the state to run an informal war economy in ungoverned spaces, this marriage of market and militarisation generated cross-border militancy a jihadi model thriving on the strangulation of local voices. What we see in contemporary Kabul, therefore, is not political rule or government, but an extension of a cross-border militant order meant to control local spaces through total violence.

Soaked in fear and terror, Afghanistan cannot be ruled like a jihadi madrasas a weaponised space with no room for political and cultural rights. What the Taliban need is a step in the right direction: developing the capacity to transform their militancy into political rule.

Instead of looking outside the country for recognition, in other words, the Taliban leadership must respect the history and rights of the Afghans. Otherwise, suppressing local voices, especially womens, or hounding local journalists out of the country will give birth to duplicitous space only a sphere of illegitimate rule lacking a democratic political character. Any such space is not only self-destructive, the Taliban leadership must also know that the power hierarchies which emerge in such a sphere also always run the risk of crumbling under their own weight.

This article first appeared in Dawn.

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Months after assuming power, the Taliban is clueless about turning its militancy into political rule - Scroll.in

With the attainment of multiparty democracy in 1994, Malawi weaned itself from a repressive reign of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Through the Censorship and Control of Entertainment Act, the Kamuzu regime established the Malawi Censorship Board, under whose mandate, art such as music was strictly controlled and artists detained without charge and some exiled (Jack Mapanje as an example).

From the early 1990s, with the end of the one party authoritarian regime, Malawi became open to outside influence and with some Malawians migrating to South Africa and Zimbabwe to work in the mines who secretly smuggled various genres of music back home. As a result, there was an influx of music cassettes and compact discs including Jamaican reggae, South African Kwaito, Black American hip-hope and West African Kwasa Kwasa that changed the music landscape of the country. From these various genres of music combined with Malawian traditional cultures, the country gave birth to its own music which was and still is known as Malawian Local Reggae. The art imbued with Biblical allusions and lyrics of resistance and also a longing for independence and democracy, it became hugely popular which was now an instrument for opposition against government atrocities and oppression.

Malawian artists used music to satirise current affairs and local events, it acted as a mirror on socio-political happenings such as inadequate healthcare, the gap between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, food insecurity and of course government corruption. As some scholars stipulates, Malawian music was blended with religion this was and is because religion is the main matrix of Malawian identity. It is also from this religion; Malawi saw the birth of musicians such as Lucius Banda and Mlaka Maliro of Allelluya Band before branching into their own respective bands. This discussion, therefore, is on Mlaka Maliros newly released song titled There is no wine.

In the absence of a strong opposition in parliament, and media platforms largely connected to or owned by politicians, Mlaka Maliro for example has for so many years used music to provide expression for political resistance against government oppression.

With various sporadic arrests of political activists and whistle-blowers, it can be said that despite Malawi claiming to be a democratic republic, Malawians are afraid to freely express about political and developmental issues.

There has been rumours for example that social media is monitored by government spies to watch those who are vocal against the government (MCP led government) and no wonder some Facebook political activists have been arrested several times based on what they posted on their walls.

Nevertheless, Mlaka Maliro can be said to be a spokesperson, arbiter of public opinion and intermediary for grievances of the poor people to those in power. In the song, the persona takes us into a church and him or her as a preacher.

The congregants of the church need to be appreciated by watching the video of the song; the congregants come from various works of life: lawyers, security officers, engineers and students who cheer to the sermon by the persona but there is a fracas in the church when someone enters the church with an empty bucket and they are told that there is no wine (Vinyo watha).

The sermon starts with a Biblical allusion of the Wedding at Cana in Galilee in the Book of John. The words say Jesus and his mother were invited to a wedding in Cana. At the wedding, Jesus revealed his true divine while saving the hosts reputation (John 2: 1-12) by performing his first miracle of turning water into wine when the host run short of wine for the guests. However, the story in the song changes its direction when the persona says asala ndi masanje usapusisike palibe chilipo. One wonders if the persona is still talking about miracle at Cana or maybe its cryptic to mean something else. The mist is cleared in the next lines as the persona continues

Usakomedwe ndi sweet talk dont be coaxed by butter up language

Mwana wanga chonde please my son

Anthuwa vinyo watha there is no wine

The persona advises his son (Malawians) to be careful with flowery language and mere promises by of course political leaders during campaign time. Coincidentally, on 8th March, the Catholic Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter in their celebration of Lent, commemorating the 30th anniversary of Living Our Faith, a pastoral letter that was authored in 1992 which criticised the Banda regime. Similarily, the current letter reminded the current regime (MCP/Tonse Alliance) about the democratic principle and corruption and also warning political leaders about mere campaign promises without taking steps to fulfil them.

In the same vein, the line anthuwa vinyo watha can be speculatively assumed that the leaders have run out of ideas or solutions to problems bolting the country such as high prices of goods and corruption.

The persona then wonders that amid all these problems but the leaders swagger around with flags hovering on their cars but without any plan to help curb the problems as in the lines akuyenda mwa mdidi, mbendera petupetu. This also comes at a point when there have been a public outcry about the presidents internal and external trips including those he would have attended virtually.

The persona goes on to regret his choice for voting for those in power for mere promises. On this, the persona also alludes to the Biblical story about the Israelites who were rescued from Egypt to Canaan.

Moreover, the persona was also promised that he will be eating thrice in a day but it is not happening as he fails to eat even once a day and he even cry for those days he was able to eat a single meal in a day as in ndikanasala konkuja kumaphula njerwa kumadya kamodzi.

The persona also talks about nepotism by the leaders in the line Kenani munkanena munkanena uja anali wapachibale. It is no hidden fact that the current regime has been in a number of instances criticised for appointing relatives including the presidents daughter and son in law in lucrative public positions but as the persona vinyo watha the leader has turned a deaf eye calling the claims mere political gimmick.

In the line kulalika zikutheka, kunenera molapitsa komatu vinyo watha, Mzimu oyera ukamochoka, umachoka mwa ulemu poti siwusazika, akusatira zozizwa poti uko kulikulu osaziwa vinyo watha, the persona leaves the listener to wonder what he really mean as the listener is left in the dark.

However, some people speculate that the musician who was also an ordained Pastor of Bushiris Enlightened Christian Gathering Chirch (ECG) is at loggerhead with the ECG leader. This is because the musician cum pastor made a shocking announcement that he has resigned from the church few seconds to the release of his song There is no Wine (Vinyo Watha) but insisted that he has only dumped ECG claiming he wants to revive his music career and be with his family and coincidentally he releases the song Vinyo Watha. But he claims he is still a pastor.

Before his resignation, he served as a pastor in several branches of the church in South Africa and rose up to the ladder of the overseer of the ECG main branch in Swaziland (Eswatin).

Currently, the ECG leader boasts to attract huge crowds across the globe with his prophecies and miracles, rides in fancy cars and enjoys local media coverage, claims to have international and local investments amid charges of fraud, money laundering and promiscuity levelled against him by for example the South African government and also for several times he has been accused of making false prophecies and fake miracles.

From this, should we say the persona is talking about the musician relationship with ECG? Is the persona accusing the ECG leader, the musician former boss for nepotism? What about Roland Barthess Death of the Author Theory that holds that the authors intentions and background (including their politics and religion) should have no weight in determining the interpretation of their work as after the release of the work the author enters his or her own death.

We should be ashamed as literary critics to bring in the experiences of the author in the interpretation of the song. The enjoyment of the song needs not to be mixed with the musician life experiences and the song needs to be reviewed on its own right as a piece of art. That said, it has to be noted that Malawian popular art is well known for its camouflage but one can deduce that the lines tries to ridicule Malawian politicians who are customarily religious people but they do not walk the words of what their religions preach because they are easily corrupted by their positions.

In conclusion, the song There is no wine, with its Biblical allusions, is one of those Malawian popular songs which act as a voice for the voiceless to criticise political arrogance, acceleration of public corruption, deteriorating medical standards, low educational standards, the widen gap between the poor and the rich and exorbitant prices of basic things. For one to appreciate the artistry of the song, watching the video is a must to appreciate the nature and the faces of the congregants the persona preaches to.

Read more from the original source:

Biblical allusions in There is no Wine by Mlaka Maliro - Malawi24