Category Archives: Government Oppression

Leaders of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and Awami National Party (ANP) on Saturday criticised what they said ongoing discrimination against certain citizens in Sindh regarding issuance of domiciles and computerised national identity cards (CNICs).

The two parties were of the view that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) could not make residents of Sindh its slaves.

A delegation of the PSP led by its central leader Syed Hafeezuddin met ANP leaders, including Sindh Secretary General Younas Bunariee, at the latters provincial headquarters to discuss the controversial law on local government bulldozed by the PPP government in the Sindh Assembly despite opposition by all the major opposition parties in the province.

Hafeezuddin said the PSP and ANP had same views against what he called a black law on the chapter of local government in Sindh. He added that the PSP had opposed the controversial bill and condemned the reduction of powers and authorities of the city government setups.

ANPs Bunariee said that all opposition parties had the same opinion on the recently passed local government bill but they were following their own course of action. Opposition parties must first come to the same page so that they all together fight for an empowered local government system that is necessary for resolving the citys civic issues, he said.

Earlier on Friday, PSP chief Syed Mustafa Kamal said it was high time that the people should come out of their homes and stand against the perpetual tyranny of the PPP as silence was no longer an option. Silence on oppression is tantamount to supporting and strengthening the oppressor, he said while addressing a meeting with the partys office-bearers of District East.

The PPP will make it difficult for those who remain silent in oppression to survive. We believe that those who remain silent will have to suffer in this world and in the hereafter, Kamal said.

From Karachi to Kashmore, Sindh is a victim of the PPP's democratic terrorism, he said. The PPP wants to make Sindh the personal dynasty of Asif Ali Zardari which will be thwarted together with all the patriotic Pakistanis.

The PSP chairperson said the Sindh LG Amendment Act 2021 was a conspiracy against Pakistan. Such laws were not made by India in the Occupied Kashmir and by the British in the occupied Subcontinent, he said.

Read the original here:

PPP cant make Sindhs residents its slaves, say PSP and ANP - The News International

On December 7th, the United States announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing which begin on February 4th. Although the government will still support U.S. athletes who compete, no American politician will accompany them. The Chinese government has pledged resolute countermeasures and retaliation against the U.S, while claiming that American politicians were never invited. Since the announcement, Australia, Britain, and Canada have joined the boycott and will not send officials to the games. The U.S and subsequent countries made their decision in protest over the treatment of Chinas Uyghur Muslims throughout the Xinjiang region.

Almost a year ago on January 19th, the U.S. declared the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) treatment of its Uyghur Muslim population a genocide. Although this declaration is recent, the horrific acts committed against Xinjiangs residents are not. As an atheist country, the strong religious affiliation of the Uyghur population is seen as a threat to the Chinese government. More specifically, Islam is seen as extremism and any alignment with its ideology could be considered terrorism. In what it has termed a counterterrorism effort, the CCP has not only restricted Muslims freedoms in daily life, but forcibly relocated large numbers of Uyghurs into re-education camps throughout Xinjiang. The Council on Foreign Relations predicts that upwards of one million individuals have been detained just since 2017.

Since 2017, the world has begun to notice Chinas Uyghur population, whose plight remained largely invisible until recently. This year, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy published a report confirming that Chinas actions violate every provision of the United Nations 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Chinese atrocities breach not only international human rights law, but the Chinese constitution as well. Within the region itself, Chinese authorities prohibit any outward display of Islamic religiosity, such as attending mosques, participating in traditional religious ceremonies like marriages or burials, or even adhering to Islamic dietary restrictions.

Those who are imprisoned within the concentration camps experience even worse: women are subject to forced sterilization and often assaulted by men in power; prisoners are forced to deny Islam in exchange for loyalty to communism and the CCP; and inmates are subject to forced labor conditions and even torture. The Chinese government has repeatedly denied all allegations, branding the facilities voluntary vocational training centers, but refusing access to any foreign organizations or governments. Despite international awareness and condemnation, however, the U.S. is still the only actor that has declared these acts a genocide. Even the United Nations has remained silent, likely due to Chinas prominent position on the Security Council.

The inhumane treatment of Chinas Uyghur Muslims constitutes obvious human rights abuses and has been compared to Nazi action during the Holocaust. The recent boycotts are primarily responding to this exact violation, however, it is not the first time China has been accused of human rights violations. The Chinese governments intense criminal punishments, restrictions on citizen freedoms, and treatment of Tibetan individuals have long been sources of condemnation among human rights groups and the international community. Internet censorship and limited freedom of expression are some of the most cited offenses.

Given the long-term tension between China and the rest of the world, it is also not the first time countries have protested Chinese Olympic Games or attacked the International Olympic Committees (IOC) relative disregard for human rights. In 2000, Beijing was denied its bid to host the summer Olympics, with many believing this was a result of its human rights abuses and negative pressure from NGOs. However, the summer Olympics were awarded to Beijing eight years later. While many countries did not attempt to boycott these games, believing it would be counterproductive, many of the same human rights groups accused the IOC of turning a blind eye to the plight of Chinese citizens and endorsing government abuses. This accusation has continued against the IOC even outside of China and into this year.

Many believe that the IOC should not allow countries like China to host as it is seen as an approval of their corrupt actions. Others have argued that it is the very act of putting these countries in the public eye during the games that could promote change by opening them up to scrutiny. In response, the IOC has repeatedly argued it is an apolitical organization that does not consider human rights or development when choosing host countries. In reference to this year, IOC President Thomas Bach told The Guardian: [E]xpecting thatOlympic Gamescan fundamentally change a country, its political system or its laws, is a completely exaggerated expectation. The Olympics cannot solve problems that generations of politicians have not solved. However, the IOC also claimed to respect the U.S. and others boycott, affirming that individual political bodies can make autonomous political decisions when it comes to the Olympics.

Aside from the granting of the Olympic bid to Beijing, critics have attacked the IOC for being a bystander in other ways leading up to February. Over the last three weeks, the international community has worried about the safety of three-time Olympic tennis player Peng Shuai, who disappeared for weeks after she accused a Chinese official of sexually assaulting her. The IOC then undertook what they are defending as quiet diplomacy, by facilitating a phone call with Shuai to prove that she was safe. Many believe this call was created as a ploy by Chinas government to ease the publics fears and now see the IOC as complicit in its ruse.

Additionally, although it upholds the IOCs apolitical stance, Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter which bans any athlete protest has been very unpopular. The IOC slightly modified it this year to allow demonstrations before play begins, but many athletes still see the rule as overly restrictive on personal freedom of expression. Finally, even in host countries without a history of human rights violations, the IOC has historically been criticized for the negative impact the Olympics has on local populations. The large amounts of infrastructure and funding needed to put on the Olympics often displaces many low-income individuals, causes significant environmental concerns, and can be used by governments as an excuse to violate essential human freedoms.

With all of the backlash against the IOC, the U.S. and its allies could be admired for taking a stand on human rights. In reality, though, can this boycott inspire meaningful change? U.S. press secretary Jen Psaki claimed that a U.S. government presence would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRCs egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang. Still, some political experts claim that this move is more about U.S. optics since many countries often do not even send government officials, a move even more common with increasing coronavirus risks. Human rights groups are pushing for powerful global corporations to also boycott, to make a real impact.

While all athletes should still be allowed to compete, the U.S. government and other protestors should also combat Chinas actions. In addition to imposing sanctions on Chinese officials, as the U.S. has already done, boycotting countries should push harder to gain access to Uyghur camps and put increasing pressure on China by refusing to engage in political diplomacy. Some Olympic boycotts have been successful, such as in South Africa amidst its apartheid, while others like the U.S. Cold War boycotts against Russia remained symbolic. Given that the Uyghur oppression is not legally codified or as public as what happened in South Africa, this optical boycott will not be enough to make a difference.

The IOC must also begin to take responsibility for its global role. While the actual Games may remain apolitical, the lead up and execution of them will never be. If the Olympics continue, the IOC needs to begin defending individuals over individual countries and using the power it holds positively. The selection of host countries is already biasedalmost all Olympic Games were held in the Global North. Therefore, selections should reflect the ability and worthiness of a country to host, while also working to make the Olympics as least disruptive to local communities as possible. The Olympics serve as a valuable arena for sports diplomacy and global unity, but have continually divided nations instead due to politics and injustice. The IOC must take action now to create a more unifying event if it hopes to survive.

The world promised to never let something like the Holocaust happen again, yet here we are watching history repeat itself. The Uyghur Muslims in China are undergoing oppression that violates every right to life defended by the UN and all 193 member countries. It is the responsibility of every global actor (including the U.S. and the IOC) to take a significant stand against this form of persecution, regardless of the negative impact it may have on their interests.

Excerpt from:

Beijing Olympics Boycott: What It Says About China, The International Olympic Committee, And Human Rights - The Organization for World Peace

THEY were trying to escape from them, Mohammad says as the Kurdistan Regional Government announced that the bodies of 16 people who drowned in the channel in Novemberwere being returned home.

Now it is the Barzanis that are bringing them back. Even in death they cannot get away from them, he tells me, his voice tinged with sadness.

His best friend is one of the thousands who have fled Iraqi Kurdistan in recent months, desperate to escape a brutally oppressive regime and deepening poverty that has blighted the region.

Having made it from Belarus to France via Germany, his friendis one of the many Kurds camped in Dunkirk waiting to make the crossing.

He didnt make the boat. They had to wait because of the waves. But he says he is still going to try, he tells me. I tried to talk him out of it, told him it is not safe. He will not listen.

Mohammad was one of many I spoke to in Iraqi Kurdistan and was part of the student protests that erupted across the semi-autonomous region in early December.

Their action, which was met with a violent crackdown from Kurdish authorities including allegations of torture, is symptomatic of the deepening crisis across the region.

Many students approached me to say they planned to leave as soon as they could, hoping to make their way to Europe, with London a favoured destination.

I want freedom. This country is like a prison, the people here arent free, one of them explained as they blocked the road outside the university on the outskirts of the city.

I trained as an engineer, a female student says as she walks past. I will be lucky to work in a kitchen.

They feel a sense of hopelessness in a region where there are severe electricity and water shortages and public-sector workers have gone for months without being paid.

Last year at least 13 people, including children, were shot dead during similar protests which saw party offices set on firein anger at a corrupt and undemocratic political system.

Britains Home Secretary Priti Patel says that the country needs to eradicate the so-called pull factors that she insists are the reasons migrants risk their lives on flimsy boats.

What sheand many others continue to ignoreare the many push factors that see thousands of people fleeing Iraqi Kurdistan in sheer desperation.

The region is a war zone, a powder-keg waiting to explode. In the northern Duhok province thousands of villagers have been forced from their homes due to an eight-month bombing campaign by Turkey.

The Nato member state has established around 80 military bases and a military airfield from where it launches drone strikes and missiles that terrorise the local population in an occupation that is aviolation of Iraqs sovereign territory.

Iranian forces are waging war against a US troop presence, launching missile attacks against its compound close to Erbilinternational airport, along with other targets.

Isis has made a resurgence, with security forces telling me that there are thousands of cells taking advantage of instability in the areas contested between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The village of Liheban near Kirkuk was recently evacuated because of the renewed threat from the jihadists, whichsecurity forces told me was linked to Turkeys increased presence in the region, which has expanded roughly 20 milesinto Kurdish territory.

Added tothe toxic brew is a brutal internal regime under whichdissent is not tolerated and government critics are jailed, disappeared or even killed.

Once heldup as a beacon of stability and regarded by many liberals as perhaps the only success story of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq which ousted Saddam Hussein, the reality of life under the grip of the Barzani family is very different.

Far from being a model for the rest of the Middle East, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq has become a deeply divided society riven with corruption and divided into two spheres of influence ruled over by just two families.

The Barzani familys Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) dominates Erbil and Duhok provinces in the north, along with the Kurdistan Regional Government, while the Talabani-run Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) rules in Sulaymaniyah and Halabja.

Both parties operate a feudal-style system of patronage. Jobs in both the public and private sector depend on loyalty to either clan and a corrupt political system that has enriched both families leaves no room for democratic reform.

The media is also controlled by the main parties. Rudaw and Kurdistan 24, the main news sources, are owned by the Barzanis while others are owned by the PUK, with any critical media organisations pushed to the margins.

Those that report on alleged government corruption face closure while their journalists are jailed on spurious charges.

Last week the New Generation-affiliated NRT TV reported 441 million attacks on its website after interviewing US journalist Zack Kopplin following his report on alleged corruption by Masrour Barzani.

It is frequently targeted by the authorities, with its offices even burned to the ground in 2013, and it is often taken off air on spurious grounds and its headquarters stormed by security officials.

At least 81 government critics known as the Badinan activists and journalists were handed lengthy prison sentences earlier this year on espionage charges based on secret evidence and confessions extracted through torture, with the trials slammed by human rights organisations.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Kurdistan Region is the fourth-worst jailer of journalists in the world per capita.

If the Baathists were to stand today, they would win around 80 per cent of the vote, 95-year-old former communist peshmerga leader Abdul Qadir tells me as we sit in his Darbandikhan home in Sulaymaniyah province.

It is a bold claim, I tell him, especially in a region that suffered so much under Saddams tyrannical rule at least 185,000 Kurds were killed in his Anfal campaign alone.

Under Saddam Hussein we had jobs and roads, he says. Now we dont even have those. We are only left with the oppression.

I remember being shocked when I first heard similar sentiments in Halabja earlier in the year.

The town close to the Iranian border is best known in the Western world as the site of a gas attack in which 5,000 Kurds were killed in 1988.

Then, as now, a brutal regime continues to be propped up and supported by Western governments who continue to turn a blind eye to the internal oppression which they tolerate or even encourage for their own interests.

It was certainly these push factors that led the family of Rizgar Hussein to attempt the perilous crossing from France to Britain last month. It was a journey that ended in tragedy.

My wife, my sons and my daughter all drowned. They left because life here is so bad with no electricity, no jobs and no salary.

He first met his wife Khazal Hussein in a refugee camp just outside the city of Kermanshah in Rojhilat, the name for Iranian Kurdistan.

They married and moved to Darbandikhan in Iraqi Kurdistans Sulaymaniyah province in 2004 where they had their children; daughter Hadia who was 22, son Mubin, 16, and younger daughter Hasti who was just seven.

She was my best friend, he says tearfully. As were my children. Every day with them is now just a happy memory.

He has been living with his father-in-law in the southern city of Kalar since the tragedy and thinks about his family every day.

Left with nothing after selling his house he has had no contact from the Kurdistan Regional Government nor the French authorities where the bodies of his loved ones were held in a morgue.

Rizgar did not even know the fate of his family, waiting anxiously for news but fearing the worst after his daughters mobile phone lost signal and eventually its battery.

But he knows they waited for hours in the freezing cold water of the Channel for someone to rescue them and had been rebuffed by the British authorities despite a number of phone calls pleading for help.

He shared images showing the location of his family in the boat when they called the British coastguard. His daughter was told while the cold gripped their bodies that they were not their responsibility.

Officials allegedly insisted that they were in French waters and Rizgar says that they were simply left to drown.

They were not in French waters, Rizgar said. You can see clearly that they were close to Britain. Someone should have rescued them.

This has been confirmed by the only two survivors from the fateful trip along with geolocation data shared by other passengers.

His anger is directed at both British and French authorities and he wants them to be charged with neglect a case was lodged by an NGO on behalf of two of the families earlier this week.

He is waiting to be reunited with his loved ones, never imagining that he would never see them alive again after they began the journey to start a new life.

But nobody would help him other than the Foundation for Refugee and Displaced Affairs who asked him for a sample of DNA to match with the bodies that had been recovered.

I tried to go to France so I could see my family and identify them, he explained. But they refused to give me a visa.

In this country [Kurdistan] visas are only for the rich and corrupt people, not for the poor like me.

He begged the British people to hold the government to account and show support for the people of Iraqi Kurdistan, especially those who lost so much in the freezing waters of the Channel.

The silence of the all-party parliamentary group for Kurdistan is perhaps not surprising considering its history of funding by Barzani-linked oil companies, which pay tens of thousands to provide secretarial support.

That tale of corruption is a story for another day.

But while it acts as the regimesmouthpiecein Westminster it will be up to the people of Britain to be the voice of the Kurds on the streets and in their communities.

It will be here that the fight for justice for Rizgar and those that drownedwill be won.

Read more:

'My wife, my sons and my daughter all drowned. They left because life here is so bad with no electricity, no jobs and no salary' - Morning Star Online

Many politicians often cite their motives as focused on protecting historically marginalized groups from exploitation and oppression. I dont think anyone objects to this goal. The question is not if we should attempt to maximize opportunities for minorities, but rather if government is a suitable mechanism for achieving those aims. It is no coincidence that minorities often struggle the most in domains of social and economic life where the government is most involved.

The public education system has always been structured as a disservice to minorities. Public schools used to be completely segregated by law, and, although those laws have since been repealed, many school systems are largely segregated due to residential segregation. Since a students zip code determines which public school they go to, residential segregation translates into educational segregation to a large extent.

Similarly, there is still a large racial gap in achievement for students of all ages. The achievement gap is caused by a variety of factors. However, one important factor is the concentration of low-income students within public schools. To be clear, this is not a funding issue. Charter schools and private schools utilize much less funding than public schools yet consistently outperform them. The issue is that schools with high proportions of low-income students have less access to social capital and less of an ability to attract good teachers. Furthermore, public schools offer little incentive for teachers to innovate and perform above the bare minimum requirements arbitrarily set by government bureaucrats.

The public education system has always been structured as a disservice to minorities.

The reason I have been talking about schools with high concentrations of low-income students instead of minority students is because the former is an accurate proxy for the latter. In 58 of the 100 largest U.S. cities, 75 percent of non-white students attend schools that are mostly low-income. In 54 of the 97 largest U.S. cities, 80 percent of black students attend mostly low-income schools.

Instead of forcing minority students into segregated, low-income public schools, different forms of school choice can liberate them from forced educational mediocrity. Seven out of the eight rigorous studies that examineschool choice effects on racial integration find positive effects. Unsurprisingly, the public schools with high proportions of racial minorities are disproportionately the most underperforming schools in those districts. Its no wonder that 75 percent of Latino Americans and 72 percent of black Americanssupport school choice.

Allowing students to choose the establishment that provides their education is not only philosophically moral but will provide an escape route for minority students from oppressive conditions of the inner city. The only entities standing in the way are teacher unions and the government officials who rely on their support.

The minimum wage is also a coercive mechanism that further marginalizes racial minorities. Largely unknown to the public are the racist origins of the minimum wage and its known effects of pricing minorities out of the labor force. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was supported by construction companies in the north that used unionized white workers precisely because southern construction companies using non-unionized black workers were underbidding them for contracts. Imposing a minimum wage prevented southern construction companies from keeping labor costs low. This protected the high incomes of white unionized workers from the competition of non-unionized minority workers.

Although outright discrimination against minorities no longer plays a role in the support for minimum wage laws, the disastrous economic outcomes for minorities persist. An economic study of the effects of the minimum wage on employment finds that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage was associated with an overalldecrease in employment for 16-to-24-year-old males without a high school degree of 2.5 percent; the corresponding statistic for black males specifically was 6.5 percent.

The minimum wage is also a coercive mechanism that further marginalizes racial minorities.

In 2016, Seattle raised the minimum wage from $11 to $13 per hour. A University of Washington study commissioned by council members of the Seattle city government found that this increase in the minimum wage directly decreased the earnings of low-wage workers by$1500 per year. Since the minimum wage only affects the incomes of low-wage workers, and black and Hispanic individuals aretwice as likely to be low-wage workers, the negative effects of the minimum wage on working-class incomes will disproportionately affect minorities.

Initiated by the Nixon administration in 1971, the War on Drugs has served as a proxy for the targeting, criminalizing, and incarcerating of impoverished minorities throughout the country.

Despite using and selling drugs at approximately equal rates as whites, in 2000,80-90 percent of the drug offenders imprisoned in seven states were black. Similarly, 15 states imprisoned black men at a rate20 to 57 times that of white men. Minorities are forced to sell drugs to feed their families because the minimum wage locks them out of the labor force, and, after being targeted by the War on Drugs, their criminal label reinforces their inability to find work, creating a systemic cycle of poverty that disproportionately affects minority communities.

The effects of the drug war extend far beyond the direct targeting of minorities by law enforcement.

The effects of the drug war extend far beyond the direct targeting of minorities by law enforcement. The War on Drugs has created significant gang violence within the inner-cities that are mostly populated by minorities. Imagine kids trying to focus on their education while simultaneously worrying about avoiding gang violence both inside and outside of school. Even the most well-intentioned, self-disciplined student of an inner city public school would have a difficult time staying completely detached and unassociated with people involved in controlled substances.

Invariably, the negative externalities of utilizing political mechanisms to achieve desirable goals have disproportionately affected, and sometimes directly targeted minority communities. The attempts to provide equitable education, increase working-class wages, and eradicate drug abuse and distribution have all been pursued at the cost of the economic and social oppression of minority communities.

If we want to have a serious discussion about the systematic oppression of minorities and their mass incarceration, we need to address the main source of this oppression: the government. Tyranny of the majority is the result of a majoritarian democracy mixing with an unconstrained government, so it should not be surprising that government overreach leaves minorities with the short end of the stick.

Original post:

3 Government "Solutions" That Harm Minority Communities ...

To many Uyghurs and Tibetans in exile, a July letter sent by several climate, environmental, and anti-war organizations to the Biden administration confirmed their worst suspicionsthat the climate and environmental movement did not care about them or their causes.

That made us upset, said Omer Kanat, director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project. We felt they were sacrificing Uyghurs to convince China to come to the table for climate change.

The letterin which CODEPINK, an organization pushing genocide-denying content, joined environmental organizations Friends of the Earth, the Union of Concerned Scientists, 350 Action, Earthworks, and the Sunrise Movementargued U.S. President Joe Bidens confrontational approach would harm climate change action. It made no mention of the reason for some of that confrontationthe situation in Xinjiang, Tibet, or Hong Kongimplicitly making the argument that silence on human rights was an acceptable cost for climate action.

To many Uyghurs and Tibetans in exile, a July letter sent by several climate, environmental, and anti-war organizations to the Biden administration confirmed their worst suspicionsthat the climate and environmental movement did not care about them or their causes.

That made us upset, said Omer Kanat, director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project. We felt they were sacrificing Uyghurs to convince China to come to the table for climate change.

The letterin which CODEPINK, an organization pushing genocide-denying content, joined environmental organizations Friends of the Earth, the Union of Concerned Scientists, 350 Action, Earthworks, and the Sunrise Movementargued U.S. President Joe Bidens confrontational approach would harm climate change action. It made no mention of the reason for some of that confrontationthe situation in Xinjiang, Tibet, or Hong Kongimplicitly making the argument that silence on human rights was an acceptable cost for climate action.

I do believe that many of those groups signed because they really were kind of ignorant of the issue, said Pema Doma, campaigns director for Students for a Free Tibet. But the organizations that are leading it are definitely aware and making an active decision to put the voices of white climate activists above the voices of actual Tibetan and Uyghur front-line, impacted communities.

This isnt just a fringe issue. Theres been a continuing argument within the Biden administration about how to handle Chinaone in which U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has been accused of leading the argument that silence on human rights is needed to get climate cooperation. Kerry denies that claimbut at the U.N. climate change summit (known as COP26) now taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, it seems those arguing in favor of silence won. As more than 100 world leadersthough notably not the head of state of the worlds largest greenhouse gas-emitting countrygathered along with representatives from major climate and environmental groups, there wasnt one word about the Xinjiang camps, the fact that 53 civil society groups have disbanded due to government pressure in Hong Kong, or the fact that Tibet remains closed off from the world.

Thats a stark contrast from the way major global environmental organizations are increasingly taking a human rights approach in other countries. Greenpeace supports labor and Indigenous rights around the world while the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has released statements in support of Black Lives Matter. Friends of the Earth International has released several statements in support of Palestinian rights, and the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) even called on the United States to treat Haitian refugees better. Its part of a global shift, in which nongovernmental organizations that traditionally focused on protecting the environment have increasingly embraced environmental justice and well-documented interconnections between human rights abuses and environmental degradation.

Yet, theres no mention of human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong by the NRDC, Greenpeace, or Friends of the Earths websites or social media. The NRDC, 350 Action, and Friends of the Earth International declined to speak with Foreign Policy about their positions on human rights issues in China, while Sunrise Movement didnt respond to repeated attempts to reach them. Other groups were only willing to speak off the record. The one exception was the Union of Concerned Scientists, which stated they were unaware of the other signatories until the letter was released and stand behind their belief in using peaceful and diplomatic means to address global challenges.

Our call for diplomacy should not be conflated with enabling or condoning bad actions by the Chinese government, said Rachel Cleetus, policy director of UCSs climate and energy program, adding they condemn human rights violations anywhere in the world, including in China.

For Pema Doma, this is not enough. She points out that UCS could have easily found videos denying the Uyghur genocide linked to the letters leading signatories after it was released. She hopes in the future, UCS and other climate groups would do more due diligence and reach out to front-line communities, including Tibetans and Uyghurs, before making such dramatic statements that have real-life consequences on human rights.

Earlier this year, Pema Doma recalls trying to engage with another group that signed the July letter. They had a meeting where they expressed their concerns about the situation in Tibet and offered to educate members about what was happening. But in the end, they were told that because conservatives were regularly calling out China (for reasons more political than for genuine human rights concerns), they didnt want to.

What does it matter what other people are talking about? If Tibetans themselves are reaching out to you and taking the emotional labor to share about the issue, isnt it at least worth it to listen? Pema Doma asked. But that was the end of the discussion. They ghosted me, and they never spoke to me again.

In fact, only one Western environmental group released public statements on human rights in China and was willing to speak on the record: the California-based Breakthrough Institute (BTI). In a blog post responding to the July letter, BTI called out the hypocrisy in speaking up for Indigenous people elsewhere but not Uyghur forced laborers in solar supply chains and called on climate groups to consult more with Asian and international human rights or pro-democracy movements when determining their positions on China.

We didnt want to self-censor, so we made a decision that were not that interested in having access to Chinese officials or academics or trying to develop a Chinese audience, said Seaver Wang, BTIs senior climate and energy analyst and author of that blog post. Breakthrough has traditionally been outspoken and willing to make points that we believe need to be made.

Of course, BTI has just 19 staff members, all in the United States, whereas several environmental NGOsincluding Greenpeace, the World Resources Institute (WRI), the NRDC, Environmental Defense Fund, and othershave offices around the world, including in China. They mostly opened back in the 2000s and early 2010s, when the space for civil society and press was more open, assuming they were mostly silent on issues like the 3 Ts: Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen. But they still have staff there, both foreign and Chinese, potentially at risk.

For many years, [environmental NGOs] were able to say, oh, if I dont speak about Tibet, I can still speak about these other issues, and that way, China will be happy and theyll commit to a couple of extra points that we want, Pema Doma said.

But these small compromises added up over time, turning from a trickle to a wave, especially after 2013, when Xi Jinping came to power. Although the situation was never good for human rights under Chinese Communist Party rule, it has gotten much, much worse.

Broadly speaking, it was the right decision for these nonprofits to open in China, but with Xis turn towards repression and Beijings growing assertiveness, its become more and more difficult for [organizations] to maintain presences in China and [keep] their values intact, said Isaac Stone Fish, founder of the firm Strategy Risks and author of a Washington Post opinion criticizing the July letter. People often forget the costs of maintaining that access.

With Amnesty International announcing the closure of its Hong Kong office at the end of Octoberunlike environmental groups, it was never able to operate in the mainlandperhaps its time for climate groups to reconsider their operations with the Chinese government. For Kanat, the answer is obvious.

They shouldnt have business as usual with China, Kanat said. Climate organizations that are saying that they respect human rights, they close their eyes as if they dont see anything and have [a] normal relationship with a country that is committing genocide.

This brings up a larger question, also not asked at the U.N. climate change summit. What kind of world do we want? Climate change is a major global issue, one that will affect low-income communities and developing countries disproportionately. That includes Tibetans and Uyghurs, whose homelands are located in sensitive regions at high risk of climate impacts. Justice is central to a cleaner future. But what does that mean in a world where authoritarianism and nationalism are rising?

If China does make positive decisions for the climate, that does positively benefit humanity. But if we have genocides that we leave unspoken, what are we even fighting to protect? Pema Doma asked.

Theres another option, one rooted in the transition the environmental movement has made over the past decade: understanding that people are as important as the planet not only because theyre impacted by climate change but because they are part of the solution. If so, why are we putting so much effort into hoping un-elected, unaccountable authoritarian leaders committing wide-scale human rights atrocities will do the right thing on climate?

Theres a risk that all the pageantry at [COP26] legitimizes Chinas system of government, Wang said. Everyone pretends that China is just another normal world government. Its very important to recognize that it is a very abnormal system.

The same organizations that claim they want people, especially the most vulnerable, protected [and] their human rights safeguarded and are fighting to protect human rights defenders, defenders of territories and their communities, should be the ones highlighting the plights of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and others in China at COP26. Perhaps they could even sign a letter?

Instead, no one is bringing up human rights in the halls where the future of global climate is being debatednot environmental groups and not governments. The returns are suspect as well. Despite these organizations best attempts, China sent a small delegation, opted out of setting up a pavilion, and has been notably absent from statements around methane emissions and deforestation.

A widely praised pledge to end financing of overseas coal power announced by Xi in September is still lacking details and may have loopholes, as it didnt stop a state-owned enterprise from joining a consortium to invest in a coal-to-methanol project in Indonesia earlier last month. It also has no effect on domestic coal plants, of which China initiated five times more capacity than the rest of the world combined in 2020.

What exactly have Greenpeace, WRI, NRDC, and others gained from engaging Xis China and opting to stay silent on Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong? The world might not even get a good climate deal from China out of it.

The rest is here:

At COP26, Green NGOs and Government Silent on Oppression ...

Oppression comes in diverse forms. It is synonymous with domination, coercion, cruelty, tyranny, subjugation, persecution, harassment and repression. It could be political, economic, social, cultural, religious or domestic. The variations of oppression manifest to varying degrees in every society. In Nigeria, oppression in all its naked diversity is rampant and even seems to have become a way of life. When the state or the government, through its agents, happens to be the oppressor inflicting agony on its own citizens, then we are inevitably sliding back to a dark past when people lived subhuman lives under colonial masters.

If one is not mistaken, Nigeria exited the era of human slavery and colonialism a long time ago. Unfortunately, Nigerians themselves are still held in the shackles of what is called internal neocolonialism. It is state oppression by another name. It is a dystopian state where the government, at federal, state and local levels, subjects the citizens to untold harassment, persecution, subjugation and exploitation. By and large, we are in a pathetic dilemma in this depreciating country.

The dilemma is such that we have criminal elements operating freely all over the country and making life hell for us through ceaseless killings, kidnappings and armed robberies. At the same time, we contend with state agents also making existence unbearable for law-abiding Nigerians through harassment, brutality and extortion by uniformed men, deprivation of basic human rights by intimidation and repression, and undue frustration of private businesses with excessive taxes and levies. If citizens are oppressing fellow citizens, matters may be resolved either judicially or extra judicially. But if citizens are being oppressed by their own government, who will rescue the oppressed?

Already, with almost everything in a mess in Nigeria, most Nigerians have lost faith in the ability of government to make the country a better place for all. We citizens just want an environment where we can at least breathe some air of sanity and freedom to go about our daily business. But as reminiscent of the sad case of African-American George Floyd who cried; I cant breathe while his life was being snuffed out under the oppressive knee of a white cop Derek Chauvin in the US last year, Nigerians are finding it increasingly hard to breathe in their own country. The very socio-economic air that we breathe is so choking and toxic with systemic oppression!

For instance, being a business man in this country is like living in Afghanistan under a repressive Taliban regime. Setting up and running a business in our environment is hard enough, with the abnormally high operating costs and lack of government incentives. Yet, to the officials of our government at the federal, state and local levels, business owners are crooks or milk cows who must be subjected to all manner of bureaucratic intimidation, subjugation, exploitation and frustration. These days, visiting any government agency for one business purpose or the other is always a frustrating experience as in a case of master and servant.

Public officials who should be civil servants turn themselves into public masters by looking down on citizens and dilly-dallying on doing their job except they receive some gratifications. And nowadays when all levels of governments are said to be suffering acute revenue shortfall, private businesses are bearing the brunt with multiple, excessive taxes, levies and fines. The situation has now become a matter of baboon dey work, monkey dey chop. Entrepreneurs struggle to make money, while the government routinely shows up taking all the profits with excessive taxes and levies! Finally, killing private businesses seems to have become an official state policy in Nigeria. If this is not oppression, what then is it?

As state oppression haunts and hurts our businesses as citizens, so also it encroaches on our social lives and everyday rights. Citizens cannot freely express their grievances through peaceful protests without being arrested or shot dead by security agents. People cannot lodge peacefully in hotels without their privacies being invaded at unholy hours of midnight by EFCC operatives allegedly hunting for Yahoo-Yahoo boys. And Nigerians cannot move freely on the roads without some government convoys with security escorts and blaring sirens intimidating innocent motorists off the way.

Now, it is even difficult to drive around in any of our major cities in Nigeria without running into mischievous traffic traps set up for extortion by government agencies and agents. This is most evident in Lagos. If LASTMA and the police are not violently pouncing on unlucky motorists, task force and local council agents are terrorizing and extorting others. In all this, it is a relief when two Lagos courts recently ruled against the government on alleged traffic offences. In September 2021, an Ikeja high court ordered Oshodi local government area of Lagos state to pay the sum of N1 million as compensation to a motorist, Louis Idahosa, for extorting him of N28,000 for allegedly driving against traffic.

Then, this December, a magistrate also ordered the release of a vehicle impounded by officials of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit (Task Force), over an alleged traffic offence. Certainly, we need more of such judicial interventions to rescue innocent Nigerians from executive state oppressors! If the government cannot secure lives and property, make the environment conducive for business, provide citizens opportunities for a better life, it should not make life more miserable for us through its oppressive agencies and agents. Nigerians need to breathe!

Olabode can be reached via [emailprotected]

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The state as an oppressor of citizens - TheCable

I choose to re-appropriate the term feminism, to focus on the fact that to be feminist in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.

bell hooks in Aint I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, 1981

THE world lost a trailblazing thinker and feminist last week. Professor and social activist Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen-name bell hooks, passed away at the age of 69. She leaves behind a legacy of work that challenged status quo thinking on gender roles, black femininity, class, and capitalism.

Her family issued a statement that hooks died Wednesday in Berea, Kentucky. The iconic educator was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky to a working-class African-American family. She was one of six children born to Rosa Bell and Veodis Watkins.

Her father worked as a janitor while her mother was as a maid in the homes of white families. hooks would go onto complete her doctorate in English at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1987 with a dissertation on another prolific black woman author, Toni Morrison.

Even before completing her doctorate, hooks was creating work that challenged oppression in the late 1970s. Her poetry collection, And There We Wept, was released in 1978, with her first published book, Aint I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism, debuting in 1981. The author took on the name bell hooks as a tribute to her maternal great-grandmother. She explained that the deliberate usage of lower-case was a symbolic choice to de-centre the author and put more focus on the work. She was quoted as saying that the importance was to be placed on the substance of books, not who I am.

In 1992, Publishers Weekly correctly named Aint I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism, one of the 20 most influential womens books of the past two decades. In the book, hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage up to the 1970s.

She argued that the combination of racism and sexism during slavery contributed to black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in US society.

This approach of looking at intersectionality the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group would become a central focus in hookss extensive bibliography.

In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College in Kentucky. hooks was an advocate for prioritising communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and think critically), as she felt without those skills within the feminist movement, people might not grow to recognise gender inequality in society.

The author and educator also made headlines for her refusal to stay silent in the face of injustice even when it ruffled feathers. In 2002, hooks gave a commencement speech at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, in which she drew controversy for the topic she decided to speak on. In her speech, she criticised every imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal nation on the planet for teaching citizens to care more for tomorrow than today. She also addressed students in the audience who might have spent their college years indulging in the basic violence of self-betrayal going along to get along, going along with the crowd, [and] conforming.

Instead of a speech indulging in over-hyped American exceptionalism often shovelled at graduates set to join a workforce where their labour will be exploited (unless they are children of the wealthy), hooks decided to zero in on the many ills of society, such as government-sanctioned violence and oppression. She experienced backlash and criticism for her choice to do so, but it spoke to the spirt of a woman who knew that addressing injustice is not always easy or convenient, but always necessary.

Like her contemporaries, such as Angela Davis, Elaine Brown and the late Audre Lorde, hooks spent much of her life and career shaping intersectional analysis while giving voice to the struggles of black women. This was crucial work back when she started in the late 1970s, and it remains so today.

When hooks first began her journey in activism, it was during what is known as the Second Wave of the feminist movement. During that time, women were fighting for things such as abortion rights and access to contraceptives that increased womens control over their bodies.

While many strides have been made since then, we still find ourselves fighting for these rights today. That is because we live in a time when a womans right to choose is still under threat, as states like Texas aim to strategically do away with Roe v Wade. Thankfully, we have the work of hooks as a vital resource to recognise the oppressive sexism we still live under.

This can also be said for the struggle of black women in particular. Great strides have been made, but more needs to be done to empower a group that is so crucial to the betterment of society as a whole. Black women still deal with being undervalued and criminalised under a system laced with sexism and racism. Great educators like hooks are part of a legacy charting a way forward.

There is much to be done, but we can take solace in the fact that we dont fight these battles blindly. That is because someone like bell hooks existed, and leaves behind a body of work that society can look to and learn from.

She didnt just talk about the problems of the present, but also the hope of the future. The author said it best in her book Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, published in 2012: The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is its to imagine what is possible.

We know what is possible for tomorrow, because of the work bell hooks, Gloria Jean Watkins, left behind for us today. May she rest in power.

This article appeared in Peoples World.

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bell hooks changed how we think about black femininity, class and capitalism - Morning Star Online

SIMONKOLAWOLELIVE! BY SIMON KOLAWOLE

Do you know how many bakeries I have shut down today? That was the sadistic boast of an official of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on an inspection visit to a bakery in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) some years ago. To her, it is a lifetime achievement to shut down peoples businesses, rupture an economic vein and render people jobless. To be clear, I am not saying standards should not be enforced. Rules are rules and should be obeyed. The regulations are designed for order, health and safety. They are not for window dressing. A bakery should operate to the highest standards. No one can sustain an argument to the contrary.

However, more often than not, government agencies are only after one thing: revenue. It is not strictly about enforcing regulations. And government officials are mostly after one thing: extortion. Rather than work day and night to aid the development and growth of businesses for the greater benefit of the Nigerian economy and millions of Nigerians, government officials are better at using their positions to extort, intimidate and oppress entrepreneurs. Only God knows how many businesses have gone bankrupt because of the tyranny. Tragically, we do not appear to understand that there is a direct link between government policy actions and the sad state of the nation.

On Monday, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the chairman of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), touched on a subject dear to my heart: creating the environment for Nigerian businesses to flourish. At the yearly review of how federal government agencies relate with the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), Osinbajo reminded them of their duty: to support the hustle of entrepreneurs. People need the right environment and that is what our role is: to ensure that we understand that it is to facilitate and make it easier, not to become a stumbling block or a tollgate, he told officials of NAFDAC, SON, FIRS and other principalities in the room.

I was putting this article together when the Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria (PBAN) protested at the Lagos State House of Assembly over multiple taxation and over-regulation. They said the following state MDAs regularly swoop on them in the name of regulation: the Lagos State Safety Commission, the Ministry of Transport, the Lagos Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), the Lagos State Fire Service, the Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS), the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Ministry of the Environment, and the Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA).

They further listed all the 57 LGAs/LCDAs as charging them separately for mid-year papers and yearly papers, in addition to collecting daily toll all over the state. Then, there are the well-established federal headaches: NAFDAC, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Ministry of Labour and Productivity, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSTIF), and so on. Bakeries in the federal capital also have to contend with the Abuja Municipal Council Area (AMAC) and Federal Housing Authority (FHA) who both charge for fumigation in addition to all kinds of fees, including a special levy for the use of vans for bread distribution. That is the country that says it wants to create jobs.

If you are unfortunate to go into water production in Lagos state, there are many gods to appease, apart from NAFDAC and SON. They are: Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission (LSWRC), LASEPA, Lagos State the Ministry of Environment, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Lagos State Fire Service, Federal Fire Service, Local Government Environment Service, Local Government Health Department, Local Government Fumigation Department, Local Government Food Department and the health office nearest to the factory. SON inspects four times a year. The ministries of health and environment do theirs twice. Mind you: for every inspection, there are official and unofficial costs.

I repeat: I am not suggesting that businesses should not be regulated, inspected or asked to pay taxes. These are the functions of the state. But, for the life of me, how many levies should an MSME pay in an economy that badly needs millions of more MSMEs? How many regulators should an MSME face? How can businesses thrive under this suffocating hand of government? Does the government federal, state or local ever assess the heavy-handedness and how it impacts on the economy? When will someone up there realise that it is in the best interest of government to seek first the prosperity of businesses and bigger tax revenue will inevitably be added to it?Osinbajo put it pointedly: This is a country where people want and desire to work the constraints are what we have to address. Unfortunately, he was talking to a wall. MDAs are in a different world. That is why the NAFDAC official would be boasting about having shut down so many bakeries in one day. To her, that is the purpose of power. In his newly published book, The Arc of the Possible, Waziri Adio, former executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), posits that as a people, our conception of power remains that of instrument of oppression, not as a means of protecting the rights and dignity of the ordinary person. Word!

The way we have turned regulatory agencies into revenue-generating bodies has created a perverse incentive for extortion and oppression as we can also say about the general drive for IGR. This is further worsened by the concentration of power in regulatory agencies, enforced sometimes with the muscles of law enforcement agencies and even blood-thirsty thugs. There is a lack of checks and balances. When an agency abuses its powers to devastating effect on businesses and the economy there is hardly anywhere for MSMEs to seek redress. In advanced countries, regulators focus more on helping MSMEs to comply and grow. They have no interest in shutting them down.

A major failing of policy design in Nigeria is the lack of basic checks and balances on regulators. Anywhere you give people power over others, especially in a place where people are besotted with using power to intimidate and oppress, you have to think about the tendency for abuse and how to check that. It is common sense. Another major policy design error is that there are no one-stop centres where MSMEs can access all regulators with ease, avoid multiple taxes/levies, and even have compliance officers to guide them. A true appraisal of governance in Nigeria will reach a sad conclusion that the leadership at all levels is neither sincere nor strategic in its policy thinking.

Recently, when Mrs Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, promised that 40 million poorest Nigerians would be paid N5,000 monthly when petrol subsidy is removed, I told myself: the government still doesnt get it. An average Nigerian can generate N5,000 daily if only the government would not make life unbearable for him or her. Sure, they will collect the N5,000. Who rejects free money? But that is tokenistic and unsustainable. The Nigerians I know north or south are entrepreneurial. Dont give them fish. Just allow them to use their hooks and nets under the right atmosphere. Stop sending thugs to hamper their hustle. Stop taxing them to hell. They will catch fish by themselves.

Here is my point. Any government that is going to pull millions of Nigerians out of unemployment, poverty and disease, tackle insecurity and propagate peace and prosperity will first have to understand that it has to create a conducive environment for business. Nigerians need their government to support them with infrastructure and incentives. When we say government should create jobs, we are not saying it should set up more parastatals. How many millions can government employ? We are saying government should create an environment for businesses to germinate. Most of these jobs will be in MSMEs. That is the engine room of every economy in the world.

There is a stark lack of understanding in government on how the wheel of economic progress is oiled. The government-erected obstacles are just too many. Generally, it is as if government deliberately wants to kill the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians. I am not talking about MSMEs alone. Some of the biggest demons tormenting businesses in Nigeria today are in the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). The extortion and blackmail are incredible. Any government that genuinely wants the Nigerian economy to prosper will focus on reforming Customs. We shouldnt even be debating this. With the way they behave, you would think the mandate of Customs is to destroy enterprise.

You would expect an import-dependent country like Nigeria to at least instil efficiency at the ports to save its own life. But you are expecting too much of the government. We depend heavily on imports to meet strategic and critical needs. We import all sorts milk, wheat, poultry, fish, medicines, name it. We import virtually every piece of paper and every yard of textile. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), our trade deficit was N5.81trn in the first half (H1) of 2021. Our export was valued at N7.99trn while import was N13.8trn. In fact, H1 2021 imports were 22% higher than H1 2020 and 60.7% more than H1 2019. When we had trade surplus, it was all thanks to crude oil!

To reduce Nigerias chronic import dependency, is it not common sense for us to improve local productivity and incentivise export? But what do you say when we charge $1 million just to process a licence for a special economic zone (SEZ)? The whole of $1 million for a piece of paper! Years ago, I read of a state government that had to bribe federal government officials with millions of dollars to get the necessary documents for an SEZ. You go from one government agency to the other and discover that the actions and attitudes of the officials are completely at variance with our openly stated goals of promoting economic development. Why are we like this? What is wrong with us?

As we prepare for 2023, you would expect issues such as ease of doing business, reform of Customs and other agencies, efficiency at the ports, and other germane matters of economic development to form the basis of campaigns and debates. At least, let us set the tone for a robust electioneering. But many Nigerians, particularly on social media, are only obsessed with tribe and tongue as if that is what is going to bring down the price of garri. It is said that in a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve. I think we need to break this vicious cycle. All the signs around us point to the fact that if we dont start doing things differently and urgently Nigeria will be doomed. Eternally.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGSAKANDES PARTICIPATIONSChief Bisi Akande, former governor of Osun state and former deputy governor of the old Oyo state, recently released his memoir, My Participations, to wide condemnation. Most of the responses so far accuse him of being timid with the truth and fiddling with the facts. Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the Afenifere leader, and Chief Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Akandes successor in Osun state, have both strenuously pooh-poohed Akandes claims in the book. Akande mysteriously left out the fact that he was jailed for corruption by the Buhari military government. I used to respect and idolise Akande a lot, but I think this book has altered my view of him. Silence can be golden at times. Duplicity.

MENTAL HEALTHAbdulrahman Odunare Olamilekan, a young Nigerian, reportedly jumped into the lagoon at Epe, Lagos state, on Tuesday. His body was found two days later. His widow, Rufiat, told the media that he had been talking about committing suicide for days but, as it is typical of us, people around him scoffed and said he was on drugs. I suspect that he had lapsed into depression. Unfortunately, we still do not take mental health seriously in this society. I doubt if there is any helpline for people to report cases such as Olamilekans. Even if he was on drugs, what he needed was help, not ridicule. Lets hope Olamilekans case would rekindle public interest in mental health. Imperative.

SUBSIDY STRIKEThe Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has announced that rallies will be held nationwide to protest against the plan to remove petrol subsidy. The rallies will take place in the 36 states on January 27, followed by a national protest in Abuja on February 1. This has always been the case anytime government increases the price of petrol, although, to be fair, there were no protests in 2016. Unions always oppose fuel price increases because of the immediate impact on transportation costs and the effects on food prices. However, there are bigger issues around the current petrol pricing regime and the oil sector which the unions must rigorously interrogate beyond holding rallies. Deep.

BUHARI AT 79On Friday, President Buhari clocked 79. When he leaves office in 2023, he will be 80. He is easily the oldest man to have ruled Nigeria. He was 72 when he was elected in 2015. No Nigerian leader has hit 79 in office. The closest record is held by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was 62 when he was elected in 1999 and left at 70. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was 75 when he ran, unsuccessfully, in 1979. The youngest-ever leader remains Gen Yakubu Gowon, who was 31 when he became military head of state in 1966. He was overthrown in 1975 when he was 40. That record is unlikely to be broken: you have to be 35 and above to run for president. Lest I forget, happy birthday to the president. Cheers!

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How Not to Kill the 'Hustle' of Nigerians - THISDAY Newspapers

CHICAGO (Project Syndicate)The return of the state is a phrase seemingly on almost everyones lips nowadays. Given the global challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, the argument goes, it is governments, not markets, that should be responsible for allocating resources.

The neoliberal revolution started by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher has apparently run its course. New Deal-style state intervention is back.

Mariana Mazzucato: From vaccines to moonshots, governments can succeed if they focus on accomplishing the mission

But this opposition of state and market is misleading, and it poses a major obstacle to understanding and addressing todays policy challenges.

The dichotomy emerged in the 19th century, when arcane government rules, rooted in a feudal past, were the main obstacle to the creation of competitive markets. The battle cry of this quite legitimate struggle was later raised to the principle of laissez-faire, ignoring the fact that markets are themselves institutions whose efficient functioning depends on rules.

The main divide is not between the state and markets, but between procompetitive and anticompetitive rules.

The question is not whether there should be rules, but rather who should set them, and in whose interest.

In the 21st century, this state-market contrast is obsolete. State intervention canpromotemarkets.The portability of mobile-phone numbersthat most developed countries have introduced has spurred competition among cellular providers. Federal Aviation Administration safety regulations persuade passengers to trust new airlines, thereby encouraging new entrants and competition in the sector. Not only didOperation Warp Speedaccelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, but it also promoted more competition among vaccine producers.

Is one companys ability to edit the news for three billion people an indicator of freedom?

But while some rules foster competitive markets, many others interfere with them. In some cases, like therestrictionson the resale of N95 face masks at the start of the pandemic, the interference is justified on the basis of higher principles. In many others, such as limits on the number of places in medical schools, interference simply reflects the influence of vested interests trying to distort the market.

The main divide, therefore, is not between the state and markets, but between procompetitive and anticompetitive rules. And within the universe of anticompetitive rules, the key distinction is between those that are justified by a higher principle and those that are not.

In the 19th century, the laissez-faire principle was also abused in order to block welfare programs, in the name of a misguided social Darwinism. But social welfare schemes are not inimical to the functioning of markets. In fact, asRaghuram G. Rajanand I argued almost two decades ago in our bookSaving Capitalism from the Capitalists, such schemes might help markets become more resilient.

So, the choice is not between state and market, but between welfare programs that promote markets and programs that distort them.

During the 19th-century battle to liberate markets from feudal rules, it was easy to associate markets with freedom and the state with oppression. The 20th-century identification of state-led economic planning with Soviet-style socialism made this link even stronger.

Today, however, this association no longer necessarily holds. In a world of digital monopolies, laissez-faire enables disproportionate power to be concentrated in a few hands. This fuels oppression, not individual liberty. Is one companys ability to edit the news for three billion people an indicator of freedom? Conversely, is state regulation that protects our privacy from constant surveillance a tool of repression?

Another crucial trade-off, therefore, is not between state oppression and market freedom, but between the oppression resulting from the existence of monopolies (whether private or state-controlled) and the freedom to choose offered by competitive markets.

The battle nowadays is not over more state or more market. It is instead partly a struggle to ensure that market power does not interfere with the states ability to carry out the functions it performs best. The state, for example, has a comparative advantage in dealing with negative externalities such as air and water pollution. But corporate lobbying is severely hampering governments ability to address such externalities with ad hoc taxes or regulation.

It is no less important to ensure that the state does not interfere with the markets ability to do what it does best. For example, markets are generally better than state bureaucracies at allocating capital. But state governments in the United States keep imposing rules on who should be financed. For example, Arkansasrequiresits public pension funds to invest between 5% and l0% of their portfolios in Arkansas-related investments.

In sum, we should strive to achieve a better state and better markets, and to contain each within its respective spheres.

And yet the facile state-versus-market narrative lives on, because it greatly benefits vested interests. Digital monopolies can use itfalselyto present themselves as champions of individual freedom. Small-government advocates can use it to oppose welfare programs in the name of so-called free markets. And policy makers and business lobbyists can wheel it out to spin corrupt corporate subsidies as enlightened state intervention against evil markets or evil foreigners.

But the state-market antagonism is a trope that has had its day. The sooner we rid ourselves of this post-feudal relic, the sooner we will be able to use states and markets to address todays real challenges.

Luigi Zingales, professor of finance at the University of Chicago, is co-host of the podcastCapitalisnt.

This commentary was published with permission of Project SyndicateBurying the Laissez-Faire Zombie

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The debate over markets versus the state is silly, obsolete and harmful to solving today's challenges - MarketWatch

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MAE SOT, THAILAND In the lead up to the French Revolution a dogged group of scribblers, satirists, and cartoonists banded together to pillory the Versailles aristocracy. Despite facing massive censorship and attacks on the press, this group of journalists, writers, and artists conquered the streets of Paris with their words and images, often in the form of underground pamphlets. Over time, their efforts to undermine power combined with the sentiments of the broader public to bring down a tyrannical and oppressive regime.

Though sometimes it looks like the media world has been turned upside down by social media in the 21st century, todays media tactics being used in the fight against authoritarianism still convey satire and irony in words and images. In Myanmar, a country much of the world still knows as Burma, the media is determined to get the news out and, in doing so, make the iron-fisted military junta look cruel and ridiculous.

Myanmars latest revolution and the war of ideas it has engendered began in February, when the military junta ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and her civilian backers, who had been working with the military, but who were ultimately seeking to sideline its role in government. For several years before the de facto coup detat, the media had begun to flourish and adapt in an increasingly open environment characterized by free speech, access to wifi and mobile internet, and a public embrace of all things multimedia.

Yet, in the past year since the military takeover, the oppression of the media in Myanmar must be ranked as the worlds worst. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists noted last week that China and Myanmar together hold a full 25 percent of a global total of 293 media workers in detention. Thats not the most useful comparison since China, holding 50, is a country of over 1.4 billion and Myanmar, holding 26, has a population of under 55 million. (In that sense, Vietnams 23 media detainees in a country of 93 million provides a more useful comparison with Myanmar.)

Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.

Inside Myanmar, as well as here on the Thai-Myanmar border and in India, Europe, and North America, Myanmars free media organizations strive daily to get the story out and avoid the censorship and oppressive arm of the junta. Indeed, the nations media workers manage this with a special humor, tenacity, and aplomb.

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Though Facebook has come under withering legal attacks for its unwillingness at times to tackle and remove the so-called hate speech that helped spark what the U.N. has called a military-led genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority group starting in 2017, the U.S.-based media giant also has played a less direct but crucial role on an almost daily basis in helping Burmese media workers spread the word.

A New Approach to Reporting

In the case of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), whose multimedia channel hosts livestreams daily on Facebook and on other platforms, this has led to some serious run-ins with the junta, which has used arrests, beatings, and significant jailtime to stifle its reporters and editors.

Though DVB is edited and managed outside of Myanmar, the media outlet, like many others in Myanmar, maintains dozens of reporters and stringers inside the country. Some of these have worked for over a decade with DVB, which was founded in 1992 with Norwegian assistance. Old and new reporters have been trained in the stealth art of reporting from inside the country. Presently, most of them work on the fly, often on motorbikes and with a cover, posing or doubling as delivery boys (and girls), taxi drivers, and street food servers.

Kyaw Maung Zaw* is an enterprising DVB reporter assigned to southern Myanmars thin strip of land bordering on the Andaman Sea in Myeik City. He was arrested this year after he videotaped soldiers looting homes and upending peoples belongings in an alleged effort to expose enemies of the state. Though Zaw videotaped the military home invasions from a distance, he followed up with lengthy interviews of residents who had been robbed by soldiers. This story, which Zaw documented carefully, infuriated the top commanders in charge of a key air force and army base in his region on the southern panhandle.

The story turned ugly for Zaw himself when a top major general sent some 200 soldiers in trucks to surround his home and take him into custody. In a videotape of the scene, which was streaming on Facebook Live at the time, soldiers can be seen shouting to Zaw to come down from his second-floor balcony while, at the same time, using slingshots to break his windows. The bizarre livestream from Zaw expertly exposed the militarys bumbling approach to stamping out free speech.

Zaw, who laughs now as he shows the video of the attack on his house, said he was astounded that the junta would send such a massive force to take down a single reporter. It was surreal: I was shouting at them, asking on what grounds they were attacking the free press, said Zaw, sitting now in a caf alongside the Moei River, which looks from Thailand into Myanmar. After that, they drove me around in a truck with a plastic bag over my head, beating me and threatening me with death if I did not unveil my editors and sources.

Zaw recounts his tale today as though the beatings and eight months of jail time didnt surprise him nearly as much as the excesses of that attack on his home. When he was finally released from jail, Zaw made a special effort, he says, to mine the Facebook account of the major general who had him arrested. Zaw eventually posted the pictures of the general fishing and drinking beer as Myanmar continued its descent into chaos. He is a ridiculous person and I wanted to make him look that way, he said, holding up one of the photos of the commander on his cell phone.

George Orwell, who would go on to write the classic 1984, which helped predict the strange and often oppressive world we live in today, also ridiculed slothful and incompetent British and Burmese colonial officials in his earlier book Burmese Days. But even Orwell couldnt imagine the designs and devices Big Brother a term he coined would go to in modern Myanmar to combat the free media and twist the truth.

Since the junta also has control and oversight of almost all the wifi and other modes of communication in Myanmar, it can muster these resources to spy on and attack the press. Journalists are often caught through their messages, even when they send them over encrypted platforms. The military, when it raids a home, makes a point to seize smartphones and gather files before they can be erased.

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But these tactics have backfired. Trust in the independent and free media has increased significantly with the crackdowns, but also because the junta-controlled media do not tell the truth, thus tarnishing the armed forces as the least respected institution in Burma, said Richard Mookerdum, a former U.N. media official whose family owned the legendary Smart & Mookerdum bookstore in Rangoon (todays Yangon) in the 19th and 20th centuries, which was mentioned by Orwell as a favorite venue.

The U.S. Treasury Department, in an acknowledgement of the juntas manipulation of information and fresh killings of civilians, slapped harsher sanctions on the military last week, stating that the junta was misusing technology to spy on the public and facilitate human rights abuses and repression.

Fighting to Keep the News Flowing

Than Win Htut, 52, DVBs director of current affairs, who worked closely with Zaw when he was inside Myanmar, said the young reporters ability to think on his feet may have saved his life and prevented him from spending more time in jail. When under attack that day, Zaw was able to quickly reset his phone to its blank factory settings when he was surrounded by soldiers, instantly deleting damning content that might have led to a longer sentence and further beatings.

Htut described the nuanced work of DVB in exile, which is now editing and producing content obtained inside Myanmar. As with other non-state news organizations, reporters send dispatches daily, often in the form of eyewitness accounts via hastily-made and narrated video clips, including from battle zones. Once the materials are collected, editors decide what they can package and use, and what they can try to livestream based on assessments of security and timeliness.

The methods of filing and distribution are changing daily. Undoubtedly, Myanmars proactive media certainly has more tools than we did during the uprising in 1988, which I covered for several U.S. media outlets, including the Washington Post and CBS News, from inside the country in August and September of that year. News stories, at that time, were sent out over antiquated telex lines, often with a telex machine operator agreeing to surreptitiously print out a telex tickertape in advance and destroy it immediately after sending as a way to erase any lasting record of the communications.

I was a student at that time and hundreds were gunned down in the streets, said Htut, a classic chain-smoking old school journalist, who sports a French beret reading So What!

After the 1988 crackdown, which left hundreds of dead in the streets of Rangoon (the English name was changed to Yangon by the junta the next year), an armed effort opposing Myanmars military sprung up in the jungle along the Thai-Myanmar border, just as it has done today.

Except that, this time, the armed effort and resistance is seriously bigger and has gone on nearly 10 months, said Htut. It is partly driven by the Gen Z kids, who understand the new tools of reporting and are it must be said extremely talented. They ride motorbikes to escape, switch out SIM cards often, and work in every region of the country.

That said, it is also increasingly difficult to cover this story because of the relative black outs and black holes, he added. There are more clashes now and there are more deaths in detention during interrogation. So many of these incidents are impossible for us to properly document since we require concrete evidence.

Even with that, Htut said the militarys systematic tactics to crush the voices of common citizens are often the same as in 1988. They use electric shock, beating, hot water and cigarettes among other devices to torture and interrogate reporters, said Htut, who lived briefly Paris in exile before returning to Yangon for the Myanmar Spring in the 2010s.

From February until May, most of the bodies, I mean corpses, were being released to families. Now, there is nothing coming out of the prisons. The junta will often say that so-and-so died of heart failure or an unexplained illness in jail.

The other distinct difference Htut sees between the 1988 uprising and 2021 is that this time, despite the mounting horrors, this brutality is not scaring Gen Z, whose members have popularized the three fingered salute of the Hunger Games movie series to demonstrate their defiance of military rule.

They have vowed to fight with words and guns until they take down the junta, he added.

* For reasons of personal security, the journalists name has been changed.

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Myanmar's Media Adapts to the World's Harshest Oppression - The Diplomat