Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

The Statutory Meetings of the West African Monetary Agency (WAMA), the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) has ended in Freetown on a positive note. The meetings held at the Bintumanai International Conference Centre from 3rd-10th February, 2017 included the 40th Meeting of the Technical Committee, the 34th Meeting of the Committee of Governors and the 37th Meeting of the Convergence Council. Sierra Leone, being the host country of the Statutory Meetings, had her officials elected to head various Committee Meetings taking over from the sister country of Guinea. These include: the Development Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Mr. John Sumaila was elected Chairman of the Technical Committee of the WAMZ, the Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, Dr. Kaifala Marah, elected as Chairman of the Committee of Governors and the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr. Momodu Lamin Koroma was elected as Chairman of the Convergence Council. All three elected Sierra Leoneans will hand over their baton of responsibilities at the next Statutory Meetings of the WAMA and WAMZ in Monrovia, Liberia later this year. The overall objective of the meetings is to gauge and assess progress of member countries in the drive towards the establishment of a Common Central Bank and the introduction of a Single Currency, with a view to achieving monetary integration to ensure rapid socio-economic development through harmonized and sound fiscal and monetary policies in all member countries which include, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. At the opening of the 40th Meeting of the Technical Committee, the Director-General of the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), Dr. Abwaku Englama noted that Sierra Leone did not comply with three of the convergence criteria namely, the inflation, the fiscal deficit and the central bank financing. However, the Chairman, Mr. John Sumaila, Development Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development reaffirmed Sierra Leones commitment to the WAMZ project, noting, Our resolve to reach the desired goal is still as strong as ever despite the serious global and regional challenges confronting us. He assured Sierra Leones commitment to implementing sound economic policies to ensure economic stability and compliance with the WAMZ convergence criteria. He however lamented on the twin shocks of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and the collapse in global price of the countrys lead export, the Iron Ore, which he noted, had negative impacts on the economy generally thereby undermining the countrys macroeconomic stability and poverty reduction goals. He informed the Technical Meeting that prior to the twin shocks, Sierra Leone was making significant progress in the areas of macroeconomic stability and poverty reduction, with the recording of double digits economic growth of 15. 2 percent in 2012 and 20.7 percent in 2013, with a projected growth rate of 11.3 percent in 2014. He said inflation was contained at a single digit while the exchange rate was relatively stable with interest rate on government securities declining significantly. With all of these, Mr. Sumaila was confident to report that Sierra Leone had achieved all four primary convergence criteria in 2013. All of these, unfortunately, were squashed by the unprecedented Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and as government battled with that emergency, then came the other shock of a dwindling price of the countrys leading export commodity, Iron Ore. Besides these challenges, Mr. Sumaila elucidated the numerous macroeconomic measures adopted by government to address the situation and pledged the commitment of the country to also carry out reforms recommended under the ECOWAS Protocol to promote regional integration. Mr. Sumaila expressed optimism for a bright medium term prospects for Sierra Leones economy, which he estimated to have recovered by 4.9 percent in 2016, and a projected growth of 5.4 percent in 2017 and 6.1 percent in 2018. He went on to assure that inflation will return to a single digit in 2017, with the countrys gross foreign reserve averaging at 4 months of import cover in the medium term, and that the exchange rate is expected to stabilize as exports increase combined with the implementation of prudent fiscal and monetary policies. We are therefore hopeful that Sierra Leone will satisfy the convergence criteria and become a member of the ECOWAS Monetary Union in 2020, Mr. Sumaila assured. During the 34th Meeting of the Committee of Governors of Central Banks of the WAMZ, the Vice Governeur of the Banque Centrale de la Republique de Guinea, Mr. Gnanga Komata Gounou on behalf of Dr. Lounceny Nabe, the outgoing Chairman of the Committee of Governors, pointed out that the global economic environment was fraught with uncertainties emanating from persistent economic slowdown that is exacerbated by the Brexit and the elections in the United States of America. These he maintained are challenging for the regional integration project in the sub region. He therefore called for further reflection that will bring about credible and realistic options that would ensure informed decisions in the WAMZ. He lauded the contributions of WAMI in the areas of payments system development, promotion of trade related issues and strengthening the financial sector in the region. Dr. Kaifala Marah, newly elected as Chairman of the Committee welcomed delegates to the meeting and conveyed fraternal salutation from President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, and the Government and people of Sierra Leone. He paid tribute to outgoing Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Lounceny Nabe for steering the affairs of the WAMZ over the last six months, particularly highlighting his exemplary leadership and commitment to the goals of the WAMZ. Dr. Marah reaffirmed Sierra Leones commitment to the WAMZ integration agenda. He highlighted the challenges faced by the country at the domestic front, pointing out that the country was contending with hikes in prices of basic commodities as a result of exchange rate depreciation and domestic food supply shocks. He also noted that the recent upward adjustment of domestic prices of petroleum products has also brought in its wake additional pressures on domestic prices of goods. He however expressed his determination to get the inflation under control and achieve exchange rate stability. He went on to note that until 2016, Sierra Leone had been consistently achieving the three primary convergence criteria, but that due to the challenges encountered in 2016, performance on the primary convergence scale deteriorated to only one criterion. Despite these challenges, we will pursue policies to re-establish compliance with all four primary criteria, while improving performance on the secondary convergence scale. He assured his colleague Governors of the countrys commitment to the proposed WAMZ Commission, and indicated that broad consultations would be held with relevant stakeholders to discuss the study done by WAMI and make their considerations known. Dr. Marah reechoed the several common challenges facing Member States that include, weak infrastructure and the attendant financing gap for infrastructure development and underscored the importance of addressing them collectively. According to him, one of the ways of tackling infrastructure financing gap is through the use Pension Funds of Member States of the WAMZ which he expressed belief, has worked in other economies. The Director-General of WAMI, Dr. Abwaku Englama in his statement to the Governors indicated that from the latest assessment of Member States performance on the primary convergence criteria (end June 2016), he maintained that only Liberia satisfied all four criteria, with Guinea and Nigeria satisfying three each; Ghana satisfying two while The Gambia and Sierra Leone satisfied one each. With regards the secondary convergence criteria, Dr. Englama noted that Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone satisfied all, while Nigeria, The Gambia and Guinea satisfied one criterion each. Dr. Englama recalled that the study on the establishment of the WAMZ Commission was initiatied by the Convergence Council of the WAMZ at its 34th Meeting held on July 17, 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria, following the abandonment of the Two-track Approach to monetary integration. Meanwhile following thorough deliberations on the issues under discussion, the Convergence Council decided on the following, inter alia: Adopted the report on the macroeconomic development and convergence in the WAMZ as at end June 2016 and urged Member States to: Endeavour to diversify their economies so as to minimize the impact of shocks, domestic or external, as well as stimulating their economies through targeted spending in growth-enhancing sectors for employment generation and poverty reduction; Strengthen fiscal consolidation through expenditure rationalization and revenue mobilization measures. Tax administration must be strengthened, including enforcement strategies aimed at curbing tax evasion and excessive duty waivers in a bid to enhance revenue collection and consequently improving on the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio; Restrain the rising wage bill in some Member Countries through the development and implementation of the Public Financial Management Reforms; Member States that are yet to commence implementing the CET should make efforts to resolve issues hindering the take-off as those countries which have implemented the CET have not suffered any revenue losses; Directed WAMI to undertake a study on the implications of fragility and vulnerabilities of Member States economies on the convergence process with implementable recommendations at the next statutory meetings; Directed WAMI to finalise and represent the paper on Managing Commodity Price Shocks in the WAMZ: The Role of Fiscal Monetary, and Exchange RATE Policies at the next Statutory Meetings; Endorsed the transformation of WAMI into a Commission based on Scenario 2(the lean structure) with an estimated cost of US$6.166,831.51 for the first year as against Scenario 1 with a cost estimate of US$12,121,949.30; Approve the roadmap leading to the establishment of the proposed WAMZ Commission, including the preparation of a project document, proposals for the amendment of the WAMZ Agreement and the convening of WAMZ Heads of State Summit to consider and approve the establishment of the Commission; Urged the beneficiary Member States to fund, on equal basis, the shortfall of US$86,796.20 on the WAMZ Payments System Project arising from the exchange rate losses due to appreciation of the US dollar against Unit of Account; Directed WAMI to prepare a proposal and seek funding for the WAMZ Payments and Settlement System (WAMZPASS), which will establish among other functions, an inter-linkage between the RTGS of the WAMZ Member States via SWIFT to facilitate cross border trade through efficient and safe transfer of funds and also serve as a platform for quoting and trading in WAMZ national currencies; Noted the report on the progress made in capital market integration in West Africa and urged Member States to redouble efforts to address the inhibiting constraints to deepen the process in the WAMZ; Directed WAMI to establish three sub-committees i.e. Legal and Institutional, Payments System and Operations, to facilitate the work of the Expert Committee on Quoting and Trading in WAMZ national currencies; Noted the Report on the 8th Forum of WAMZ Trade Ministers and urged Member States to implement the recommendations of the Forum to accelerate trade integration in the Zone and the wider ECOWAS region; Noted the Report on the newly constructed WAMZ Trade Integration Index and directed WAMI to update and publish it annually; Noted the progress on the implementation of the extended ACBF Capacity Building Project and tasked WAMI to explore other financing sources for capacity building for the achievement of the goals of the WAMZ; Approved the WAMI Work Programme and Budget for 2017 in the sum of US$4, 894,674.31 with additional US$65,000.00 to reinforce the activities of the CSWAMZ, bringing the total budget to US$4, 957,563.54. Member States contribution amounts to US$4,301,666.54, a surplus of US$635,897.00 and interest income of US$20,000.00; Directed WAMI to update the staff Manual and submit it for approval; Directed WAMI to submit periodic internal audit reports to the Committee of Governors; Approved the implementation of Provident Fund Scheme for the few non-seconded WAMI staff; Approved the Statutory Retirement Age at WAMI to be sixty years, and; Approved the extension of contracts of those who have attained the age of sixty prior to this recommendation to end-June 2017. Under any other business, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia, Mrs. Oumie Savage-Samba, on behalf of the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and the Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia, conveyed the sincere thanks and appreciation of the people and Government of The Gambia to His Excellency, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, for his role in the resolution of the recent political impasse in The Gambia. Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Sierra Leone, Mr. Momodu L. Kargbo recognized the significant contributions of Heads of regional integration institutions, i.e. ECOWAS Commission, WAMA, WAMI WAIFEM to economic integration and capacity building in West Africa. This was acknowledged and accepted by Dr. Abwaku Englama, Director-General of WAMI on behalf of his colleagues. The next meeting of the Convergence Council would be held in Monrovia, Liberia at a date to be communicated to Member States in due course. By Sayoh Kamara, PRO MoFED Friday March 03, 2017

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Sierra Leone News: STATUTORY MEETINGS OF WAMZ AND WAMA END IN FREETOWN WITH RENEWED ... - Awoko

With all its emphasis on materiality, physicality and corporeality, as the prime origin of all conceptualities, historical materialism is, first and foremost, a concept, that is, a philosophy. No matter how much it claims otherwise and continuously stresses the importance and objectivity of materiality as:

A priori and prima causa for all ideas, perceptions and consciousness, historical materialism always resorts to language, philosophy and concepts in order to elucidate its principles, its conclusions, and in addition, in order to validate its fundamental premises etc. In actuality, historical materialism is a theory of history that relies principally on a material conception of history, namely that it is the material conditions of a society that shape historical development, whether these developments are political, legal, religious, technological and/or philosophical etc. As Marx states, intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed.

It is the manner by which a society produces and reproduces human existence that fundamentally determines its organization and its historical development; i.e., its history and its ruling ideas. Subsequently, for historical materialism, it is the unity of the productive material forces and the social relations of production that are organized around these productive material forces that shape, initiate and guide historical developments and ideational developments.

Historical materialism puts forward the notion that the primary causes of all historical developments, ideas and all social changes within civil society are the products of the means by which humans, within this particular society, collectively produce and reproduce the necessities of life. According to Marx, the initial author of historical materialism, all collisions in history have their origins in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse [i.e. the social relations of production]. It is from the fundamental conflict of the productive forces and the social relations of production that all social changes emanate, initiate and develop from. In fact, Marx goes so far as to state that it is from the union of productive forces and relations of production and/or the disunion between the productive forces and relations of production that all societal, all ideational and all historical developments and/or breakdowns germinate. As Marx states, describing historical development itself:

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production Then begins an era of social revolution[whereupon] the changes in the changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

For Marx, everything is predicated upon material production, all ideas, all philosophies, all religions, consciousness etc., whatever, are all manifestations derived from the manner in which humans enter into specific social relations with each other so as to exploit the forces of production, that is, their productive capacity for producing the necessities of life. For Marx, the superstructure; i.e., the state etc., is exclusively the product of the economic base of society and nothing else, while, on the other hand, consciousness itself must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. As a result, for Marx:

Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousnesshave no history, no development [except in that it is] men, developing their material production and their material intercourse [i.e. relations of production, that] alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. [Material] life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by [material] life.

Consciousness, within the historical materialism framework, is the product of material labor, that is, labor engaged in the production and reproduction of the necessities of life, confined to specific social relations, based on this production, which as well produce consciousness. There are no pre-conceived ideas prior to material and/or social labor. It is through developing their material existence, that humans acquire consciousness. Consciousness is a by-product of the shifting contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production etc.

However, in order to arrive at historical materialism, Marx must project his consciousness, that is, his conscious conceptual idea/philosophy of historical materialism, back onto material life as the initial cause for this conscious conceptual idea/philosophy, even though it is beyond a doubt that it is Marxs own rational thinking apparatus that has manufactured this conceptual idea/philosophy called historical materialism. This incongruity in historical materialism points to an important paradox in historical materialist thinking in the sense that how can one labor without having an initial pre-conceived idea of labor itself, or what constitutes productive material labor, or for that matter what constitutes materiality, namely without the initial thought/consciousness of labor, of materiality, of needs, of nature etc. there can be no material labor whatsoever. One must have a plan and a structure of concepts prior to the execution of any effective material labor. In fact, contradicting his own earlier historical materialist thinking, Marx readily admits in Das Capital (Volume One) that:

What distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees [in constructing things] is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement.

Consequently, contradicting his own earlier writings on historical materialism, thinking and consciousness is prior to the labor-process and not necessarily a product of the labor-process, or more importantly, a set of conflicting contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production. In this instance, humans clearly have consciousness prior to material production and, in fact, consciousness, ideas, concepts, planning etc. inform material production as much as material production informs consciousness, ideas, concepts, planning etc., it is not a one-sided process as historical materialism would have us believe, but a dialectical process that is brought forth via the rational thinking apparatus.

In fact, to push this glaring contradiction in Marxs writings to its limit, there is no such thing as materialism in the sense that materialism is first and foremost a type of conceptualism; i.e., a type of conceptualism that has an added degree and [conceptual] element of physicality. Meaning that, humans must have a whole set of concepts and linguistic structures systematically organized in their minds, before any productive material labor can transpire, before any determinations on what constitutes labor, productive labor and/or unproductive labor, can transpire. As a result, it is clear that consciousness precedes material and physical productivity, and more importantly, all perceived divisions and contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production.

Despite Marxs overwhelming emphasis on materiality, specifically material production as the end all and be all of historical development and consciousness itself, Marx invariably relies on conceptualism to make his point. He resorts to an abundance of concepts, ideas and pre-conceived suppositions in order to outline the historical materialist manner of thinking. And he does this, only to absolve himself of its responsibility and its inherent subjectivity by arguing that this intricate abstract philosophy, called historical materialism, is purely derived from a set of unthinking chaotic productive forces in conflict with an arbitrary set of productive social relations, which only he is privy to have discovered. It is evident that Marx does this so as to give historical materialism a sense of scientific objectivity by nullifying and denying historical materialisms roots in subjective philosophical speculation.

For all his bravado, that philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; [and that] the pointis to change it, Marx readily puts forward a philosophical interpretation of his own via historical materialism that can only be fundamentally conceptual, a conceptual idea, devoid of material objective validity. Due to the fact that the tenets of historical materialism are clearly derived from the rational thinking apparatus of Marx rather than any generalized conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production. Whether it is as product of the material contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production, or a product of material production itself, the historical materialist idea presupposes many philosophical assumptions, which ultimately rely first and foremost on the verity and existence of materiality itself, a materiality which is ultimately unsullied, completely detached from language and human beings, and yet is objective, external and scientifically knowable, devoid of all doubts. Indeed, for Marx:

Language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse [or social relationships] with other men. Consciousness [like language] is from the very beginning a social product.

The presumption made by Marx is that humans are more or less lumps of clay that are incapable of thought prior social productivity and whose thoughts, if these lumps of clay should have any, are merely the product of their social relations in conflict with the forces of production. From the Marxian perspective, language develops from the practical necessity for overcoming the conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production and so does consciousness. In essence, for Marx, humans are social products, they are completely determined by and at the mercy of their social environments, their thinking is completely confined to their social relations of production in conflict with the forces of production and nothing more. Historical materialism, presupposes that material labor precedes consciousness/language, when, in fact, humans cannot labor, materially and/or conceptually, without a certain level of consciousness and conceptual awareness; i.e., a certain set of preconceived, predetermined ideas and capacities, such as the capacity of linguistic expression, prior to any material productivity. Fundamentally, humans must have the consciousness of thinking and being alive, prior to materially laboring to support and magnify consciousness and their rational thinking apparatuses.

Despite claiming that all ideas stem from the material contradiction between productive forces and relations of production, Marxs idea, which denies its origin by placing its origin outside the mind so as to project the illusion of scientific objectivity, is nonetheless ideational and conceptual, first and foremost a product of the mind, regardless of outside influence. Historical materialism is an interesting concept, but a concept nonetheless, produced and grasped by the mind, which must possess a whole host of conceptual and linguistic suppositions in order to understand this materialist theory. However, by over-extending himself, Marx seeks to validate the mental conception of historical materialism by projecting it onto outside socio-economic phenomena, phenomena which is conceptualized, comprehended and perceived initially by the rational thinking apparatus.

Consequently, Marx fails to realize that materialism and/or materiality itself is inescapably a concept, produced by the rational thinking apparatus, which can never grasp materiality itself as an objective finalized fact, but can only conceives the existence of materiality as a type of concept that has a certain physicality. At best, materiality, including historical materialism itself, is a type of concept/theory that has the added characteristic of solidity, despite being completely conceptual, meaning everything is abstract, conceptual to the end; reality, materiality, is but variations in degrees of conceptual-abstraction, meaning that materialism is a form of conceptualism, grasped in the mind as a concept that has corporeality.

What this means is that historical materialism, despite favoring and placing emphasis on the concept of materiality and the conflict between productive forces and relations of production as the catalysts for the creation of consciousness, the intellectual productions of consciousness and history itself, historical materialism is nonetheless fundamentally a concept/theory based on concepts and a whole series of conceptualism, which includes its reliance on the imagined conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production, a perceptual conflict structured as well via concepts in the mind. As Ludwig Wittgenstein states in the Tractatus, the limits of my language mean the limits of my world in the sense that we cannot step outside of language and consciousness, language disguises thought, so much so, that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of thought beneath it.

Thus all materialist conceptions, no matter how much they are deemed to be based on physicality, objectivity, hard science etc., are nothing but systematic conceptual structures, ideational comprehensive frameworks, through and through, right down to their fundamental armature. Materialism, historical materialism etc., is a conceptual apparatus; i.e., an ideational comprehensive framework, with a set of in-built assumptions, concepts and ideas that manifests an artificial ideational reality, a framework of ready-made automatic ideas, [perceptions], opinions and answers to all socio-economic phenomena. Despite professing materiality, material production and the conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production as the driving force of history, historical materialism cannot escape its own conceptual apparatus; i.e., the fact that it is in the end always an ideational comprehensive framework, a framework that can only manifest a universal sense of scientific validity when all its underlying assumptions/suppositions are presupposed on faith alone, without rigorous critical analysis.

In the end, the critique and collapse of historical materialism leaves many open questions as to what is history or the logical process of history, if it is not materialistic? The answer to these questions is self-evident in the sense that history, the process of history, is more or less the logical progression of conceptualism. History and logical process of history is mental and physical activity combined and in conflict, materialism and immaterialism combined and in conflict, thinking and doing combined and in conflict, all informing one another, underpinned only with the fundamental realization that materiality, like immateriality, is first and foremost a concept, a concept with the added conceptual characteristic of physicality. Notably, materiality is a conceptual idea that humans increasingly define and refine with exactitude the more humans experience the pluralities of sensations that comprise this conceptual idea that has a material quality.

Ultimately, it is clear that the concept of materiality precedes materiality itself, materiality with the added characteristic of physicality. For example, someone afflicted with a mental disease such as Alzheimers, slowly loses consciousness over time, the rational thinking apparatus loses its conceptual linguistic structures, and simultaneously begins to lose all grasps on reality, that is materiality. The disintegration of the conceptual linguistic structures results in the disintegration of materiality itself, not the other way around. As a result, the fundamental importance and hard fact that consciousness and conceptualism precedes materialism. Without any conceptual apparatus; i.e., a complex structure of concepts, prior to materiality, all radical fluctuations and conflicts between the forces of production and the relations of production, that Marx presupposes, will not ignite any new ideas, new thoughts and/or a new consciousness in a rational thinking apparatus afflicted with advance Alzheimer.

Therefore, materiality; i.e., material reality, is the product of consciousness; i.e., the rational thinking apparatus, prior to any and all material productivity. If the opposite was the case, then any rational thinking apparatus afflicted with Alzheimer would still retain a physical sense and the idea of an outside material reality, including the importance of material production, due to the fact that the very concept of materiality and material production would not reside inside the mind but outside the mind in the contradictory material structure between the forces of production and the relations of production. The rational thinking apparatus afflicted with Alzheimer would retain such a sense and such ideas because, according to historical materialist thinking, this sense and these ideas like materiality, including the importance of material production, would not be contained in the mind and/or be the product of the rational thinking apparatus, but, in fact, would be contained in an outside material reality. An outside material reality would be always exerting its dictatorial influence on the sick mind, pressing the concept of materiality upon it and into it, holding the concept of materiality in place, regardless whether the mind was sick or not.

The fact that humans can gradually lose consciousness, lose their linguistic capacities, lose their iron grip on reality is testament to the verity that ideas, concepts, consciousness is not solely based on material production, material labor and the material conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production as Marx stipulates. If the tenets of historical materialism were true, as long as material labor persisted and the contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production remained and continued their conflict, then, any rational thinking apparatus afflicted degenerative mental diseases would still have ideas and an inkling of materiality, no matter how sick or conceptually fragmented the rational thinking apparatus became.

Subsequently, contrary to Marx, historical conceptualism, and not historical materialism, is the manner by which history evolves, involves and revolves, that is, moves onward. As historical conceptualism acknowledges the productive reciprocal relationship between material physical labor and immaterial mental labor as essential processes by which change, history and consciousness move and develop onwards. It is as Marx suggests, that, for historical conceptualism, revolution is [as well] the driving force of historyof religion, of philosophy and all other types of theory, but revolution, contrary to Marx, can be both corporeal and incorporeal, mental and physical, material and immaterial, meant to establish a new set of governing concepts and ideas over another set, which ultimately organize productive forces and relations of production, both mental and physical, into new social formations and new ways of thinking.

In this regard, historical conceptualism encompasses both the tension between all material relations and all conceptual relations combined and in conflict, in addition to the tension between all material forces and all conceptual forces, all of which, interacting with each other, move history/consciousness onward, whether positively and/or negatively. This historical movement may not necessarily be progressive; it can be regressive, but this all depends on the ideational comprehensive framework which initiates, develops and analyses the specific historical movement. As Thomas Kuhn states in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, nothing makes it a process of evolution toward anything. For historical conceptualism, history is the artificial narrative of [the] will to power, a convergence of mental and physical forces pitted against one another in a multiplicity of fluctuating antagonistic and/or mutual-aid relationships vying for supremacy. History is the aftermath [of] this fiery molten crucible. As Kuhn suggests, it is a process that [moves] steadily from primitive beginnings but toward no goal. Hence, for historical conceptualism, history, consciousness etc., is not guided, like Marx argues, by material conditions, per se, although material conditions can be a factor. Instead, for historical conceptualism, history is guided by a multiplicity of material and immaterial factors combined and divided that are both predictable and unpredictable, foreseeable and unforeseeable, which finally achieve a crescendo, whereupon everything is torn asunder in order to make way for new formations out of the old. Historical conceptualism agrees with Marx that a ruling mental and physical formation, like capitalism, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers in the sense that the same formation prepares the ground for its own disintegration, itself. As Marx states, in reference to capitalism, this is the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, a self-abolishing contradiction, which presents itself prima facie as a mere point of transition to a new form of production.

Nevertheless, history and consciousness is not like Marx theorized, a matter of a shifts and conflicts within the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production. For historical conceptualism, history and consciousness is the product of the tensions between material relations, conceptual relations, forces of production, forces of consumption, forces of distribution etc., including the tensions between relations of production, relations of consumption and relations of distribution and other unnamed material and immaterial factors as well etc. The point is that material conditions are informed by conceptual conditions and vice versa, universality is informed by particularities and vice versa. And ultimately there is not a singular factor or cause that stimulates radical social change; i.e., revolution, whether mental or physical. Instead, it is a multiplicity of factors, material and/or immaterial, colliding and/or synergizing, held in tension and/or in disintegration, which finally result in radical change, a revolution. A revolution, whether mental and/or physical, is usually an amalgamation of predictable and unpredictable factors, atop of serious antagonistic socio-economic conflict of various types and kinds, spread-out across the stratums of everyday life, the social superstructure, the economic base and in consciousness itself.

All the same, historical conceptualism is a theory of sudden movement, where fluctuating antagonistic and mutual-aid relationships, both mental and/or physical, positive and/or negative, suddenly move history and consciousness onwards, up and down, side to side, in and out, both as an expression of total nothingness and as an expression of a new concept/theory, filled with a new set of material and immaterial facts and fictions. To paraphrase Kuhn, historical conceptualism is the logical yet anarchic process by which a logical paradigm becomes a universal all-encompassing paradigm while another is forced into dead obsolescence because:

Competing paradigms[manifest] different worlds. [Each is] looking at the world, and what they look at has not changed. But they see different things, and they see them in different relations one to the other. Before they can hope to communicate fully, oneor the othermust experience a paradigm shift. It is a transition between incommensurables [and] the transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic. Like the gestalt switch, it must occur all at once (though not necessarily in an instant) or not at allThe transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is conversion experience that cannot be forced. Conversion will occur a few at a time until, after the last holdouts have died, the whole [society]will again beunder a single, but now a different, [mental and/or physical] paradigm. [Such is the process of historical conceptualism].

Bibliography:

Michel Luc Bellemare is the author of The Structural-Anarchism Manifesto: (The Logic of Structural-Anarchism Versus The Logic of Capitalism) Read other articles by Michel Luc.

This article was posted on Saturday, March 4th, 2017 at 7:58pm and is filed under Communism/Marxism/Maoism.

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Historical Materialism Versus Historical Conceptualism - Dissident Voice

Americas hysteria over Russian President Vladimir Putin is mounting, and theres no reason to think the fever will break anytime soon. At this point its only tangentially related to the accusations that Putin has made President Donald Trump his puppet or that Trump or Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or any number of other administration officials is in cahoots with Russian oligarchs.

Perhaps youve heard about the sudden death of Russias U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin? Its all nefarious Kremlin intrigues or so were told. In fact, a lot of Russian diplomats have died recently isnt that suspicious? And dont look now, but while you were fixated on Russias subversion of American society through psychological warfare, you may have missed that Russias expanding its influence in Syria. And provoking Japan. And meddling with Britain. And its sowing chaos in the Balkans. And the Baltics. And Ukraine. And may invade Belarus. And Finland. And if that werent enough, Putin has a master plan for overthrowing the entire European and world democratic order. We might as well give up: Russia runs the world now.

With such bombast dominating American political discourse, citizens and pundits rightly worry about the potential for geopolitical competition from Russia. But is Putins regime really as threatening and omnipresent as it is cracked up to be?

Western commentary on the Kremlins foreign-policy ambitions tends to fall into two opposing camps, each with different starting points: One begins with Russias foreign policy, the other with Russian domestic politics. Both are prone to hyperbole in their appraisals and conclusions, albeit in different directions. And neither is useful for understanding, or responding to, the reality of Russian ambitions.

I call the first camp Putler, a mashup of Putin and Adolf Hitler, the two leaders whom Western commentators seem most fond of pairing. Largely a result of Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea and intervention in the Donbass, this lens portrays Russia as the foremost threat to liberal democracy: a scary, aggressive, expansionist, revanchist reincarnation of the Soviet Union, equating Putin with the worst excesses of authoritarianism. Rooted in 20th-century historical analogies, specifically World War II, this camp implicitly prescribes military confrontation: Anything less, including economic sanctions, is weak-kneed, Chamberlainesque appeasement, to evoke the Hitlerite comparison.

Another favored historical analogy for Putler adherents is the Cold War. For many observers, it is a given that we are already grappling in a life-and-death Cold War 2.0 (just without, they neglect to mention, the ideology of communism, the nuclear arms race, realist power balancing, global competition for proxies, or any of the other elements that defined the original Cold War). House Speaker Paul Ryans recent reference to Russia as a global menace led by a man who is menacing falls squarely within this school of thinking, along with his rejoinder that President Barack Obamas sanctions followed too much of an appeasement policy.

Turning from geopolitical ambitions to Russian domestic policy, the Putler worldview tends to highlight Putins consolidation of autocratic control, fraudulent elections, his harassment and murder of opposition journalists, curtailing of civil liberties, and his use of disinformation through state-run media to disorient and control the public. It is a portrait of Putin as an unrestrained totalitarian, intent on weaponizing absurdity and unreality. Such appraisals often border on the hysterical, but one imagines they draw a lot of internet traffic.

At the other end of the spectrum from the Putler worldview is the Dying Bear camp. This approach is dismissive of Russia as a threat; its adherents instead presage stagnation, corruption, and decline. The term originated with demographers, discouraged by Russias dim health prospects, but could reasonably include its political, social, and economic limitations as well. To be sure, Russias health and demographic statistics lag far behind those of Western Europe and the United States, with relatively high mortality rates, relatively low fertility rates, and average life expectancy on par with impoverished African countries. In the medium and long term, that means demographic decline: Fewer Russians means fewer taxpayers, fewer conscripts, and fewer state resources; all exert downward pressure on Russias growth potential. There are a bevy of other limitations on Russias potential for future economic growth: an undiversified economy cursed with an overreliance on resource extraction; a lumbering, systematically corrupt, and growing state bureaucracy that impedes entrepreneurship; technological backwardness; and a kleptocratic political system that rewards cronyism and penalizes development. Without economic diversification and freedom, were told, Russias economy has hit rock bottom. Groaning under the weight of Western sanctions and low global oil prices, Russias own Economic Development Ministry is forecasting no real improvement in living standards until 2035.

For some in the Dying Bear camp, Russias foreign-policy aggression including its incursions into Ukraine and Syria is just Putins attempt to distract patriotic Russians from the misery of their own existence and have them rally around the flag of patriotism, since he cant deliver the performance legitimacy associated with the economic growth of the early 2000s, driven by sky-high global oil prices. While the Putler perspective calls for confrontation, Dying Bear prescribes management or marginalization, if not disengagement: Why bother taking Russia seriously if its doomed anyway?

President Obamas dismissive public statements about Russia being at best a regional power, or a weaker country that doesnt produce anything worth buying except oil and gas and arms, and that its international interventions are borne not out of strength but out of weakness are all reflective of the Dying Bear position.

The reality, of course, is somewhere between these extremes. Russia is not nearly the global menace that many fear, nor is it doomed to collapse. Russias geopolitical strength is indeed constrained by its demographic, economic, social, and political weaknesses, but those arent as catastrophic as theyre often made to be. Russians today are healthier and living longer than they ever have. Though having ever fewer women of childbearing age presages long-term demographic decline, with births outpacing deaths, Russias population has recently registered natural growth for the first time since the collapse of communism.

Economically, the ruble has stabilized following the collapse of late 2014, and the recession of 2014-2015 is statistically over. However, Russia isnt out of the woods, with low oil prices leading to dwindling state revenue, and little private investment for the foreseeable future, which will inevitably mean stagnation and low growth. Russias economic performance is so intimately tied to public spending that any curtailment of spending despite dwindling oil receipts would reverberate throughout the economy. And the economy ultimately constrains its political options. Although Putins geopolitical gambits in Ukraine and Syria can boost his approval ratings, they come at the expense of increasing poverty and unpaid wages, which are fueling a notable rise in labor protests nationwide. While presently manageable, the Kremlin will need to address these socio-economic issues in order to maintain domestic tranquility, limiting its resources for foreign adventurism in Syria, Ukraine, and beyond, to say nothing of investments in health care, education, science, and infrastructure. Russia cant have it all.

So, despite its high-level meddling in American affairs, for the foreseeable future, Russia is poised to continue to muddle through, with economic and demographic stagnation constraining its lofty geopolitical ambitions. Unsurprisingly, the Russia of 2020 will look more like the Russia of 2012 or 2016, rather than the expansionist Soviet Union of 1944 or the collapsing Soviet Union of 1991. Accordingly, American foreign policy toward Russia should not be given to the militarization and conflict of the Putler camp, nor to the marginalization of the Dying Bear view, but rather a respectful engagement, recognizing the interconnectedness of Russias varied strategic interests, which may conflict with Washingtons own.

The problem, though, is that stasis isnt a particularly sexy prognosis, which means it is not a frequently made one. There are two reasons for this. First is a lack of nuanced understanding of Russian governance. Most experts know what liberal democracy looks like and if we believe democratization scholarship (and there is good reason for skepticism, especially in the Trump era) that once consolidated, democracies are robust and durable. We also understand that autocracies can be reasonably stable, too: just look at the longevity of Fidel Castros reign in Cuba or the Kim dynasty in North Korea. But we have a harder time understanding a polity like present-day Russia, which is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. For a long time, democratization theorists have struggled to understand this sort of neither/nor illiberal democracy or competitive authoritarian regimes like Russia that combine democratic and nondemocratic elements. If liberal democracy is understood to be the optimal endpoint, then it is understandable to assume that Russia is just stuck in transition, rather than having achieved something of a stable equilibrium in its own right.

Second, still haunted by Kremlinologists fabled inability to foresee one of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union Russia watchers now appear to be hypersensitive to any economic or social clue that may portend trouble for the Putin regime. When the global financial crisis rocked Russia in 2008, we were told it was the end of the Putin era. When popular protests opposed his re-election in 2011-2012, experts called it the beginning of the end of Putin. The Euromaidan revolution in next-door Ukraine likewise allegedly portended the end of Vladimir Putin. As it turns out, competitive authoritarian regimes in general, and Putins Russia in particular, tend to be surprisingly durable.

With Russias new prominence in American political discourse, it is necessary to have a sober assessment of the countrys capabilities and limitations. Russia is neither the juggernaut nor basket case it is varyingly made out to be. A well-reasoned Russia policy begins by quelling ones hysteria long enough to recognize this and then engaging it accordingly.

Photo credit:HARRY ENGELS/Getty Images

Read more:

Vladimir Putin Isn't a Supervillain - Yahoo News

World Calls for civil resistance against the rise of right-wing populism have emerged. But political activism is more than taking to the streets.

US residents in Mexico protest against President Donald Trumps foreign policy towards Mexico. Credit: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

From Brexit to the Trump presidency and Marine Le Pens campaign-trail successes in France, right-wing populism is sweeping across the West.

Analysts and scholars have expressed concerns that this movement could threaten the fate of liberal democracyand its hard-fought triumph over other contesting political ideologies since the end of Cold War.

In other words, the End of History, as described by USpolitical philosopher Francis Fukuyama, may come to an end.

The rise of right-wing populism may also open a Pandoras box for demagogues to promote a xenophobic agenda, as evident in Donald Trumps controversial travel ban.

Calls for civil resistance

There is deep fear that populist leaders such as Trump advised by the right-wing ideologue Steve Bannon will eviscerate democratic checks and balances in the pursuit of consolidated power.

As a response, activists are calling for civil resistance against authoritarianism, and street protests are being staged to remind the enthroned populists of people power.

Safeguarding democracy through civil resistance is necessary. But it is important to acknowledge the fact that many of these leaders are democratically elected and supported by large segments of society.

We may choose to believe that voters for right-wing populist parties share chauvinistic and nationalistic opinions with their strongmen. However, the popular appeal of these leaders has much to do with the socio-economic decline that some constituents in the West have experienced, and this needs to be addressed if we want to efficiently counter authoritarian regimes.

Dignity deficit

The increasing oligarchisation of liberal democratic societies set a stage for a dignity deficit, especially among white, non-urban and working-class population.

In recent decades, the middle class in the West found their lives unprecedentedly precarious due to increasing unemployment and a lack of social security. The post-Cold War era ushered into force neoliberal dominance.

The speed of economic globalisation means that manufacturing jobs have been lost to countries offering cheap labour, while austerity policies resulting in cutback in social expenditure imply that most of the time, individuals are left on their own to finance their increasingly expensive healthcare and education, to name a few necessities.

Automation and immigrants looking for high- and low-skilled jobs in economically advanced countries have raised many questions about the future of employment for the American and European middle classes. These were left unanswered.

Against this backdrop, the well-off have reaped the benefit of globalisation. So have the cosmopolitan urbanites who have caught up with changing socio-economic landscape.

Meanwhile, political elites in Washington, Paris and London are perceived as having ignored this crisis of surging inequality, as they continue neoliberal policies that hurt the working class people who often consider themselves the backbone of their societies.

For instance, a series of free trade deals have been advocated by governments to be a brainchild of liberal democracy. However, rather than improving work conditions and life chances for common people, many of these deals have strengthened global corporations, contributing to greater inequality.

A good example is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which potentially radicalises corporate deregulation, challenging states judicial sovereignty, and imposes fiercer standards of intellectual property.

Think tanks also point out that the signed and ratified TPP can result in job losses and declining wages.

Anti-establishment rhetoric

Right-wing populism is a symptom of society polarised by economic injustice and the collapse of liberal democracy, which has enhanced the distance between political elites and their constituents.

Populist figures such as Trump and Le Pen can mobilise popular support sufficiently to contest other liberal or centrist candidates because of their anti-establishment rhetoric.

They acknowledge the injustice and humiliation inflicted on their constituents through the loss of jobs and neglect of the political class.

Often popular anger is being diverted toward immigrants, who are portrayed as a threat to economic and cultural security, resulting in the proliferation of xenophobic attacks. Scapegoating immigrants becomes the expression of fear and vulnerability.

The increasingly precarious livelihood of this section of the population has led to a general perception that their idea of a great nation is in danger.

Populist slogans such as Make America Great Again or Take back our Country respond to this perception and collective emotion attached to it.

Lacking other political alternatives, people find hope in right-wing populist discourse, even when the candidates push forward radical agendas.

In this sense, the social divide runs parallel to the crisis of liberal democracy. Tackling right-wing populism requires not only resistance against leaders with authoritarian traits but also comprehension of why a vast number of people view populism as a hopeful alternative to the existing system.

Addressing social bifurcation

Resistance in the form of street demonstrations and boycotts remains an important tool for defending democracy. Nevertheless, it does little to address ongoing social bifurcation.

It is difficult to imagine that supporters of right wing-populism, who despise the so-called political correctness and see the liberal agenda as irrelevant to their livelihood, would participate in progressive demonstrations such as the Womens March.

Does this mean that protests end up constituting an echo chamber where the progressive agenda circulates among those already convinced by the progressive ideas? Does it imply that while liberals resist Trump with various methods of nonviolent action, they have so far failed to understand the underpinning causes of populist trajectory, and have thereby missed the chance to communicate with those electing populist leaders?

Is it possible that protests can contribute to dividing society even more as protesters at times claim to hold higher moral ground than their populist opponents?

Rethinking resistance

It is high time to rethink how nonviolent resistance can help counter right-wing populism.

Nonviolent resistance is more than taking to the street. It is political activism in the sense that it offers analytic tools to understand pillars of support of the ruling government, which normally include electoral constituents, bureaucratic bodies and the media.

Well crafted messages should convey to the general public the elites legitimacy deficit, and at the same time show the availability to political alternatives.

The messages amplified through persistent campaigns should be conducive to the eventual realignment of allies. Shifting alliances especially the defection of electoral supporters of the government will allow activists to increase political momentum in the pursuit of social and political change.

The implication is that those committing to nonviolent resistance not only resist the powers that be they also analyse how the ruling powers discourses resonate with popular resentment, which in effect helps galvanise support to sustain its ruling legitimacy.

This understanding allows activists to design campaigns that show empathy to groups across political affiliations.

In the wake of right-wing populism, these campaigns need to address the structural underpinnings of a collapsing political establishment and offer a genuine platform for debating alternatives based on economic redistribution, reconfiguration of power relations between the political class and the people and political reconciliation of groups with different aspirations.

Communicating with those you disagree with instead of reinforcing an echo chamber is the key to achieving all this.

Communicating across the aisle

The ideas laid out above are not completely novel.

Examples of communicating across the aisle appeared during US Civil Rights campaigns where African-American leaders tried to appeal to white consciousness, extending their political messages to convince white priests and white constituents to endorse the course of the black struggle.

In ousting the Slobodan Miloevi, the Butcher of the Balkans, Serbias pro-democracy movements launched campaigns in Miloevis rural footholds, areas that had initially endorsed his ethno-nationalism.

Their success lived in the campaigns association of healthy patriotism with the downfall of Miloevi, and the creation of peaceful and democratic Serbia. The campaign message sought to unite Serbians whose political opinions were once split along the fault line of pro or anti-Miloevi.

Beyond overthrowing a dictator, a well-run campaign can bridge the perception gaps that divide a nation, reminding us of the importance of constructing the future together based on the idea of dignity, justice and inclusiveness.

This article is adapted from a blog originally published on Cafe Dissensus.

Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Assistant Professor, Thammasat University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Categories: World

Tagged as: Donald Trump, EU, European Union, Marine Le Pen, no-donate-link, Steve Bannon, TPP, Trump, United States, US, US President Donald Trump

The rest is here:

Rethinking Nonviolent Resistance in the Face of Right-Wing Populism - The Wire

2017-03-03 12:13

Lizeka Tandwa and Jenni Evans, News24

Johannesburg - A section of a dental clinic at Johannesburg's Charlotte Maxeke Hospital has been cordoned off because part of a ceiling that collapsed in January has still not been repaired, according to two sources.

Speaking on condition of anonymity after Thursday afternoon's ceiling collapse at the hospital entrance, staff said a section at the dental clinic had already collapsed in January.

One worker said Gauteng Infrastructure MEC Jacob Mamabolo's statement that the rest of the building was safe, was false.

A worker said that, when staff arrived at the dental clinic on January 23, they found a part of the ceiling had caved in. The clinic is run by the University of the Witwatersrand.

Gauteng infrastructure department spokesperson Theo Nkonki could not immediately confirm the incident, but said Mamabolo was due back at the hospital on Friday to assess the situation.

A section of the roof at the large hospital in Parktown, Johannesburg, collapsed around 14:30 on Thursday. Seven people were injured, three of them seriously, Johannesburg emergency services said.

Shoddy workmanship

Speaking at the site on Thursday, Mamabolo alleged that shoddy workmanship by contractors who were waterproofing the roof had played a role in the collapse.

"The way they were removing the concrete stone, we could see they did not do a proper check on the strength of the building or the roof itself."

Mamabolo said the contractor had removed concrete stones and placed them on a thin roof that could not handle the weight, resulting in the collapse.Private construction workers were repairing a leak at the time.

The contractor was removed from the premises and an investigation was started.

The FF Plus believed the entire health infrastructure in the province was collapsing. It urged the infrastructure department to be more thorough with checks on contractors to avoid future catastrophes.

'There must be accountability'

The party said committees in the Gauteng legislature were often told of work not done properly, or jobs left unfinished because the contractor was either unqualified, or had ran out of money.

"Construction work comes to a standstill while the provincial government must go to court to get contracts suspended and to appoint new construction companies," said FF Plus MPL Philip van Staden.

DA MPL Jack Bloom called for an urgent infrastructure check at the hospital. A report dated 2012 had contained warnings of structural problems in the building, he said.

He wanted to know how the contractor was appointed, and recommended that future maintenance should be made the responsibility of the hospital's management.

"There must be accountability for this terrible tragedy that should serve as a wake-up call to give a far higher priority to maintenance and repair of our hospitals."

According to the infrastructure department's website, the Gauteng government planned to spend R42bn on socio-economic infrastructure programmes in the next three years.

A "maintenance crack team" had already implemented a pilot project of revitalising the Orlando Clinic dental ward.

24.com encourages commentary submitted via MyNews24. Contributions of 200 words or more will be considered for publication.

Read more:

First ceiling collapse at Charlotte Maxeke in January already, claim staff - News24

From Brexit to the Trump presidency and Marine le Pens campaign-trail successes in France, right-wing populism is sweeping across the West.

Analysts and scholars have expressed concerns that this movement could threaten the fate of liberal democracy, and its hard-fought triumph over other contesting political ideologies since the end the Cold War.

In other words, the End of History, as described by the American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama, may come to an end.

The rise of right-wing populism may also open a Pandoras box for demagogues to promote a xenophobic agenda, as evident in Donald Trumps controversial travel ban.

There is deep fear that populist leaders such as Donald Trump advised by the right-wing ideologue Steve Bannon will eviscerate democratic checks and balances in the pursuit of consolidated power.

As a response, activists are calling for civil resistance against authoritarianism, and street protests are being staged to remind the enthroned populists of people power.

Safeguarding democracy through civil resistance is necesary. But it is important to acknowledge the fact that many of these leaders are democratically elected and supported by large segments of society.

We may choose to believe that voters for right-wing populist parties share chauvinistic and nationalistic opinions with their strongmen. However, the popular appeal of these leaders has much to do with the socio-economic decline that some constituents in the West have experienced, and this needs to be addressed if we want to efficiently counter authoritarian regimes.

The increasing oligarchisation of liberal democratic societies set a stage for a dignity deficit, especially among white, non-urban and working-class population.

In recent decades, the middle class in the West found their lives unprecedentedly precarious due to increasing unemployment and a lack of social security. The post-Cold War era ushered into force neoliberal dominance.

The speed of economic globalisation means that manufacturing jobs have been lost to countries offering cheap labour, while austerity policies resulting in cutback in social expenditure imply that most of the time, individuals are left on their own to finance their increasingly expensive healthcare and education, to name a few necessities.

Automation and immigrants looking for high- and low-skilled jobs in economically advanced countries have raised many questions about the future of employment for the American and European middle classes. These were left unanswered.

Against this backdrop, the well-off have reaped the benefit of globalisation. So have the cosmopolitan urbanites who have caught up with changing socio-economic landscape.

Meanwhile, political elites in Washington, Paris and London are perceived as having ignored this crisis of surging inequality, as they continue neoliberal policies that hurt the working class people who often consider themselves the backbone of their societies.

For instance, a series of free trade deals have been advocated by governments to be a brainchild of liberal democracy. However, rather than improving work conditions and life chances for common people, many of these deals have strengthened global corporations, contributing to greater inequality.

A good example is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which potentially radicalises corporate deregulation, challenging states judicial sovereignty, and imposes fiercer standards of intellectual property.

Think tanks also point out that the signed and ratified TPP can result in job losses and declining wages.

Right-wing populism is a symptom of society polarised by economic injustice and the collapse of liberal democracy, which has enhanced the distance between political elites and their constituents.

Populist figures such as Trump and le Pen can mobilise popular support sufficiently to contest other liberal or centrist candidates because of their anti-establishment rhetoric.

They acknowledge the injustice and humiliation inflicted on their constituents through the loss of jobs and neglect of the political class.

Often popular anger is being diverted toward immigrants, who are portrayed as a threat to economic and cultural security, resulting in the proliferation of xenophobic attacks. Scapegoating immigrants becomes the expression of fear and vulnerability.

The increasingly precarious livelihood of this section of the population has led to a general perception that their idea of a great nation is in danger.

Populist slogans such as Make America Great Again or Take back our Country respond to this perception and collective emotion attached to it.

Lacking other political alternatives, people find hope in right-wing populist discourse, even when the candidates push forward radical agendas.

In this sense, the social divide runs parallel to the crisis of liberal democracy. Tackling right-wing populism requires not only resistance against leaders with authoritarian traits but also comprehension of why a vast number of people view populism as a hopeful alternative to the existing system.

Resistance in the form of street demonstrations and boycotts remains an important tool for defending democracy. Nevertheless, it does little to address ongoing social bifurcation.

It is difficult to imagine that supporters of right wing-populism, who despise the so-called political correctness and see the liberal agenda as irrelevant to their livelihood, would participate in progressive demonstrations such as the Womens March.

Does this mean that protests end up constituting an echo chamber where the progressive agenda circulates among those already convinced by the progressive ideas? Does it imply that while liberals resist Trump with various methods of nonviolent action, they have so far failed to understand the underpinning causes of populist trajectory, and have thereby missed the chance to communicate with those electing populist leaders?

Is it possible that protests can contribute to dividing society even more as protesters at times claim to hold higher moral ground than their populist opponents?

It is high time to rethink how nonviolent resistance can help counter right-wing populism.

Nonviolent resistance is more than taking to the street. It is political activism in the sense that it offers analytic tools to understand pillars of support of the ruling government, which normally include electoral constituents, bureaucratic bodies and the media.

Well crafted messages should convey to the general public the elites legitimacy deficit, and at the same time show the availability to political alternatives.

The messages amplified through persistent campaigns should be conducive to the eventual realignment of allies. Shifting alliances especially the defection of electoral supporters of the government wil allow activists to increase political momentum in the pursuit of social and political change.

The implication is that those committing to nonviolent resistance not only resist the powers that be they also analyse how the ruling powers discourses resonate with popular resentment, which in effect helps galvanise support to sustain its ruling legitimacy.

This understanding allows activists to design campaigns that show empathy to groups across political affiliations.

In the wake of right-wing populism, these campaigns need to address the structural underpinnings of a collapsing political establishment and offer a genuine platform for debating alternatives based on economic redistribution, reconfiguration of power relations between the political class and the people, and political reconciliation of groups with different aspirations.

Communicating with those you disagree with instead of reinforcing an echo chamber is the key to achieving all this.

The ideas laid out above are not completely novel.

Examples of communicating across the aisle appeared during US Civil Rights campaigns where African American leaders tried to appeal to white consciousness, extending their political messages to convince white priests and white constituents to endorse the course of the black struggle.

In ousting the Slobodan Miloevi, the Butcher of the Balkans, Serbias pro-democracy movements launched campaigns in Miloevis rural footholds, areas that had initially endorsed his ethno-nationalism.

Their success lived in the campaigns association of healthy patriotism with the downfall of Miloevi, and the creation of peaceful and democratic Serbia. The campaign message sought to unite Serbians whose political opinions were once split along the fault line of pro- or anti-Miloevi.

Beyond overthrowing a dictator, a well-run campaign can bridge the perception gaps that divide a nation, reminding us of the importance of constructing the future together based on the idea of dignity, justice and inclusiveness.

This article is adapted from a blog originally published on Cafe Dissensus.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

View original post here:

Rethinking Nonviolent Resistance In The Face Of Right-Wing Populism - Huffington Post

The Upcoming Economic Recession Could Be Far Worse Than the Great Recession of 2008

The United States. is heading toward another economic recession in 2017. If the U.S. enters a recession, it wont be long before the rest of the world follows suit. There is an unusual level of uncertainty because the dark years of the Great Recession, or the 2008 recession, that started in 2008 have given way to real growth.

Global growth predictions stand at three percent. But in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, including the U.S. and Germany, gross domestic product (GDP) could hit just below two percent. In some once-leading economies like the U.K. and Italy, growth might reach one percent. In countries outside the OECD, GDP growth might be just above four percent.

Overall, after the last recession, these figures should have been much higher. Instead, the economic recovery is lukewarm at best. Its not enough, then, to speak of an upcoming recession. The world never came out of the last recession. Even China has been forced to revise its GDP growth expectation downward.

China expects six to 6.5% growth in 2017. It could be as low as 5.5% in 2018. The next four years will feature several new terms that all begin with the word Trump. Trumponomics is one of the key terms that will help define the next era. What defines Trumponomics or, if you prefer, Donald Trump policies?

By the new U.S. presidents own description, infrastructure development will play a significant role in driving economic recovery. Infrastructure will serve as the base for Trumps America First policy. But America First represents a much bigger disruption to the current globalist system. More than infrastructure, the America First policy brings back mercantilist policies.

This is not altogether bad. But it might be altogether impossible to achieve. Trumps program is mercantilist because it wants to reduce Americastrade deficit by using its geopolitical clout to curb surplus from its main trading partners. Thus, Trump has essentially put China, Mexico and, evidently, the European Union (EU) on notice.

The problem is that the world has moved away from mercantilism over the past few decades. It has been moving away from that model, in fact, since the end of World War II. To promote greater security and lasting peace, states gradually lifted trade restrictions. In mercantilism, however, the state is solely dedicated to the promotion of its own national wealth.

Mercantilism wants to protect local products from external competition, while aggressively promoting exports and industrialization. It was a policy that found its most aggressive expression in the 16th17th centuries. It was the result of capital influx in the form of precious metals mined in colonies to build up bullion rather than the multilateral free/freeish trade of the present.

The classic mercantilist state was Imperial Spain. The Spanish crown sought to accumulate a maximum of precious metals as a source of national wealth. The Trump administration would not reach that level of mercantilism. It would not pull out of international trade altogether, but it would tend to generate inflation and, therefore, higher interest rates.

Of course, it is the job of every state to protect its national interest. But the current global approach stressed that states could obtain the best compromise between growth and security through cooperation. Thus, looking out for the benefits of trade groupsor trade agreementsbecame the norm.

Apart from the EU, perhaps the most advanced example, there are important trading blocs such as ASEAN in Asia or Mercosur in Latin America. Agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were the latest such effort and one of the most ambitious where the United States was concerned.

Not surprisingly, one of President Trumps first executive actions was to pull the United States out of the TPP. That was the first big mercantilist signal. The problem is that the rest of the world does not seem ready to go back to that model. Thats why there is no certainty that such a move improves the U.S. economic outlook 2017.

Indeed, because the U.S. seems to be the only economic power willing to exhume mercantilism from the tomb of dead economic theories, it will face resistance. In reality, the Trump administration cannot pull away from global trade. That would kill American business. Trumps policies might favor local production and tax certain imports from China, but Trump may face challenges.

Trump wants to cut imports but promote American exports. He has not shown any sign of discouraging American industrial output. On the contrary, he wants to increase it. But the idea that America can both defend its domestic market from imports while encouraging exports around the world doesnt work. The rest of the world operates through trade blocs and agreements, and substitutes for American industrial products exist.

In addition, by pulling away from globalization, Trump would be doing a major disservice to the United States. Perhaps the point became lost during the presidential campaign, but no country, not even China, has gained as much from globalization as the United States. American technology has spread worldwide.

Global entrepreneurs have invested in the United States; they have listed their companies on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The world invests in U.S. real estate and lives and breathes U.S. culture. Mercantilism may backfire, should it defy logic and socio-economic evolution, to become popular again.

Rather, while increasing the chances of a global economic recession, Trumps neo-mercantilism puts the U.S. economy at greater risk. Yet, many rightly wonder, givenall the risk of Trumps policies, where are the signs of aneconomic recession?

It seems not a day goes by that Wall Street doesnt hit a new record. The performance of the stock markets, and Wall Street in particular, speaks for itself. It was Dow 20,000 in December 2016. Two months later, the Dow seems headed for 21,000. But the stock market is detached from the real economy. Therefore, is the U.S. heading toward economic recession?

Dont let the Dow Jones fool you. Trumponomics does have a special appeal for free markets. In theory, it promises fewer taxes, fewer regulations, more investment, and more spending on infrastructure. The effect of what Trumps policies might unleash on the American economy should not be underestimated.

President Trumps mercantilist and nationalist stance presents risks for the American and global economy. Simply put, the U.S. is still deeply intertwined in worldwide financial and economic affairs. A radical change of approach will therefore cause disruption. Perhaps, in time, some economies will recover, but the effects of the 2008 recession remain.

In other words, while there has been a financial recovery, the real economy remains in a recession state. The much-heralded recovery has not yet completed its course, if it ever began. One of the reasons is that investment has slowed down without recovering.

In this context, there is a pessimistic probability. Good political sense, reinforced by economic history, suggests that should Trump truly unleash a mercantilist and protectionist economic policy, he would trigger an equal escalation in the opposite direction. Its not quantum physics, its basic mechanics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Yes, you recognized that as Newtons Third Law of Motion. It doesnt just apply to physics. Trumps economic aggression against China and Germany, and also Mexico and Japan, could backfire. These are the biggest exporters of the planet. They have considerable external surpluses.

The United States cannot afford the luxury of protectionism. Not in this world and not now. Trump has claimed that Chinas trade surplus is the result of a deliberate policy of devaluing its currency, the yuan. Nothing could be further fromthe facts. China has tried its hardest to stem capital flight. Thats what has caused the yuan to fall.

Trump has accused Germany of manipulating the euro to its sole benefit at the expense of its EU partners. He may be more correct on Germany than on China, given what many Europeans say, but such logic also has flaws. Trumps mercantilism would promptly crash with harsh reality.

The United States is much more involved in world trade than in the golden age of American supremacy, in the immediate aftermath of the world war. Trades share of GDP has more than tripled since 1950, from four percentthen to 13% in 2016. More significantly, the peak in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has been declining since the 1950s.

When Trump speaks of bringing back manufacturing jobs, he seems to neglect some basic facts. In the 1950s, manufacturing jobs accounted for about 30% of the total. By 2016, the share had dropped to eight percent. (Source: Tough talk on trade will not bring jobs back, The News, February 6, 2017.)

When you add the protectionism that Trumps mercantilist policies will generate, it seems impossible to achieve that kind of leap into nostalgia. Trumps policies would surely achieve one thing: a drop in world tradewhich is already sluggishand an economic recession worldwide. All the while, the higher Fed interest rates would exacerbate that risk, while boosting the value of the dollar, making U.S. goods less competitive.

As a result, the recent market euphoria and the Trump effect are more the products of the American economic recovery that began a year ago. The stock markets are feeding themselves, surprised that general consumer appetite has not dwindled. But, this is short-term.

Trumps protectionist policies would enforce duties of up to 35% on foreign goods. This would certainly achieve the goal of making imported products more expensive. But, it would drastically reduce consumers purchasing power. It would also cut the competitiveness of American companies, which depend on the imported components.

Meanwhile, China and Europe could also increase tariffs as a reaction. This would result in an all-out trade war. The whole global economy would suffer severely from the resulting isolationism. The first effect would be the loss of millions of jobs worldwideand the United States would not be spared. The result is depression, not even recession: total economic collapse.

The markets are not interpreting Trumps policies as much as what the president has said about his policies. There is a difference. Trumps policies do not represent anything new, much less revolutionary. They are a mild version of basic mercantilism. Under Trump, America expects to grow by promoting as much economic activity as possible within its own borders.

Trump has already shown he plans to protect American industry through tariff barriers. Trump plans to increase spending on the military, which is good for defense sector stocks. But a bigger military might be needed to enforce the kind of political power relations to support exports. Of course, a bigger military and ever more expensive equipment require taxes.

Trump has not indicated where the money to fuel this kind of economy would come from. He wants to reduce taxes. In any economic outlook 2017, Trump has generated risks linked to protectionism, populism, anti-Europeanism, anti-China sentiments, and immigration.

As for the latter, the economic success of the U.S. is strongly dependent on the knowledge and experience of immigrants. Innovation would suffer. Many experts, scientists, and academics, would tend to avoid visiting the U.S. because of doubt about their status. Lets not forget that the leaders of the U.S. atomic program or the space program were immigrants.

Trump has overshadowed the more pressing issues of an aging population and the technological/digital revolution, which will make much of current work redundant. Robots are ready to replace many human functions. These factors, left unheeded, have dangerously become less pressing, even if they are much more destabilizing.

Trump might try to mitigate the effects of his protectionism. He will likely dissuade the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen from raising U.S. interest rates to keep the dollar competitive. If Yellen doesnt comply, Trump would find an old trick from his The Apprentice handbook: Youre fired, Janet!

To protect yourself against the risk of the almost inevitable recession on the horizon, there are solutions. Learn what you can now, while others revel in the fragile safety of the markets.

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The Upcoming Economic Recession in 2017 Has Already Begun - Lombardi Letter

Thursday March 2 2017

Qualified staff need minimal supervision and enable a company to do a good job, and within the stipulated time. GRAPHIC | NATION

Ms Lillian Ashioya could not hide her joy when she was presented with a certificate after successfully completing a one-month course in masonry.

I want to thank everyone who has taken part in my training. You all know how hard it is to get a job nowadays without skills, and this has made many youths suffer. I now have skills, said Ms Ashioya, addressing fellow graduates and guests at the graduation ceremony held in a tent on the grounds of Garden City shopping mall on the outskirts of Nairobi last Friday (February 24), amid loud cheers from her classmates.

Before the training, Ms Ashioya, who is married with three children, had taken up several menial jobs at construction sites around Ruaraka on the outskirts of Nairobi before landing a cleaning job at Garden City shopping mall.

I am delighted that I will now be able to not only mop floors of buildings, but also participate in their construction with my newly acquired skills, said an elated Ms Ashioya, who graduated with a masonry level one qualification.

A total of 130 students from underprivileged backgrounds selected with the help of community-based organisations in the surrounding area graduated during the event, touted as the first ever graduation ceremony to take place in a shopping mall.

The free training was facilitated through a partnership between Actis, the developer behind Nairobis landmark shopping complexes Garden City and The Junction, and ArcSkills, an international skills development institution. The programme is in its sixth month and aims to equip about 300 youths with skills in masonry, carpentry formwork, plumbing, tiling, scaffolding and plastering within a year.

While regulatory bodies such as the National Construction Authority have standards to ensure that only qualified and registered professionals such as architects, engineers and contractors take part in construction, little attention is given to middle-level workers and artisans like Ms Ashioya, who constitute the bulk of the workforce in the construction industry.

Indeed, the conventional way of hiring such workers at construction sites around the country is based solely on what impression the foreman has of a persons capabilities. So what happens is that a group of job-seeking young men and women present themselves at a construction site in the morning, and the foreman decides, usually on the basis of a persons physical build, who among them will join his or her team for the day.

Ms Shami Nissan. PHOTO | DELFHIN MUGO

Ms Shami Nissan, head of responsible investment at Actis, noted that this lack of skills among the lower cadres of workers is to blame for problems dogging the construction industry, such as structurally unsound buildings, which end up collapsing.

We feel the pinch when that happens, she said. We have been investors in real estate for eight years now in Kenya. We would like to improve the quality of workers skills, which will translate to quality work in the industry.

Ms Nissan said that training leads to quality workmanship, which means fewer lives are likely to be lost as a result of buildings collapsing.

But less extreme than loss of life, due to poor workmanship, developers are rebuilding over and over again as a result of shoddy work. It costs more money to do that, she added.

Besides, Ms Nissan believes that there is a strong commercial case that should compel construction companies to consider incorporating an artisans training programme, not just as a corporate-social responsibility, but for the benefit of the company as well. as the

If you are a construction company, you will have every day at your gate a long queue of people looking for work. And they will not be skilled. If you have a programme like this on your side, you will have world-class quality training of personnel with certificates, which gives you a long list of qualified artisans to choose from, instead of those waiting at the gate with no skills. So it gives you a pool of people for your site who have more skills and are more qualified, which means you can build better quality buildings in good time and save money, Ms Nissan offered.

Meanwhile, speaking to DN2 after the graduation ceremony, Mr Peter Kimurwa, the chief executive officer of ArcSkills, said the success of a project depends on three things: time, quality and cost.

He went on to explain that, as a developer or a contractor, when you are working with untrained artisans, you have very little control of these three critical elements.

He added that that that is why training is important because it imparts skills and positive behaviour. For instance, when artisans are conversant with their roles on the construction site, they need minimal supervision but will do a substantial amount of work.

Trainees during their graduation ceremony. PHOTO | DELFHIN MUGO

So, since training equips artisans with the requisite work ethics, the contractor will not have to worry about workers reporting to work late, materials disappearing from the site, or workers skipping work after being paid, something Mr Kimurwa said was common among casual labourers.

Then there is the issue of certification.

When you train people and certify them, you provide a means of benchmarking. So, if you have 10 workers who hold, say Level One certificates, you know beforehand what to expect from each one of them in terms of output. Without training, it is a herculean task assessing them, Mr Kimurwa added.

But certification is a double-edged sword for, besides enabling the employer to assess a workers output, the certification gives the employee the right to demand a certain wage.

If you dont have any papers, your employer can decide you are worth Sh100 a day but with standardised training and certification, one can argue a strong case for remuneration based on qualification, Mr Kimurwa noted.

Citing the case of Ms Ashioya, now a cleaner-cum-mason, Mr Kimurwa pointed out that training acts as a stepping stone for such underprivileged people to go up the social ladder to attain better socio-economic welfare.

Another important aspect the training tackled had to do with the health and safety of workers and those neighbouring a construction site.

Ms Nissan said that training creates awareness of how to be safe while working at a construction site, not just for the workers, but also for the surrounding community.

Mr Peter Kimurwa, ArcSkills CEO. PHOTO | DELFHIN MUGO

Mr Kimurwa concurred, adding that, As a contractor, the last thing you want on your site is an accident, because that spells doom for your project in terms of time and cost since you might be required to compensate the injured worker.

He, however, pointed out that there is only so much a contractor can do to ensure that the workers are safe.

The contractor can provide a safe working environment, but it is upon the employee to wear safety gear such as a helmet, a dust mask or a reflector jacket, he noted, adding that training helps create awareness of the importance of wearing safety gear and mitigates the effects of accidents.

Besides ensuring safety is upheld at a construction site, training also helps break the language barrier between local workers and their foreign employers.

In this regard Mr Kimurwa cited as examples some of the major construction projects going on in the country, which are being carried out by European, Indian or Chinese contractors.

The only way workers can take and execute orders precisely from supervisors or contractors who do not understand the local languages is by exhibiting good communication skills, he said.

For young people, the training programme could not have come at a better time, given that the countrys unemployment level is at an all-time high.

Encouraging young people to take up such training opportunities when they come along, Ms Nissan said, helps one to scale the ranks faster. She cites the case one of their former students as a case in point.

The trainee, who started at the lowest level, has scaled the heights pretty fast and is now a foreman in the construction company that absorbed her, said Ms Nissan.

During the ceremony, local training institutions that offer technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes came in for some harsh criticism for what was perceived as their theoretical approach to training.

It is interesting to learn the chemical qualities of paints and the history of paints but that will not help you secure a job, said Mr Kevin Doyle, a representative of The Permanent Working Group of TVET in Kenya.

Acknowledging that there is a lot of stigma associated with working as an artisan since the education system and parents have prejudiced us to believe that only mainstream careers such as law or medicine can take us places, Mr Doyle added: We in the industry need to show that we value this level of training by paying these artisans a decent amount of money. That is the only way we will motivate more young people to seek the training.

He added that if similar programmes were adopted by all players in the property industry, it would not only solve the problems dogging the construction industry and equip youths with skills they can use to earn a living, but also be a partial solution to the worrying unemployment problem among the youth.

Mr Kimurwa concurred and went on to add: But we need to train the higher level employees as well. These include supervisors, managers, subcontractors, all the way to the contractor, to equip them with work ethics and help bring sobriety to the industry.

He said the reason buildings collapse is because contractors and workers cut corners to make some money on the side, knowing well that this compromises the integrity of the building. For instance, a the contractor might deliberately use low-gauge steel bars when they know they should be using high-gauge bars.

However, while training might help instill some ethics into such contractors, strict regulation, supervision and control by government agencies would go a long way in curbing such unscrupulous behaviour.

Mr Kimurwa said the students they admit to their training programme undergo 70 per cent practical training and 30 per cent theory.

He added that the training went beyond matters directly related to construction to include life skills, so besides the core training say, in masonry or tiling, the learners are taught how to conduct themselves during interviews in order to maximize their chances of getting hired. They arealso given lessons in punctuality, hygiene and personal grooming to help them cope once they are hired.

And particularly notable is that they are taught how to start saving and investing as part of inculcating positive life skills in them.

Worker shortage slows down economic growth

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the key drivers of the countrys gross domestic product are forecast to be services (finance and ICT) and construction.

Even though the output of the countrys construction industry has risen on average by 13 per cent annually since 2014, there is an estimated gap of about 30,000 engineers, 90,000 technician and 400,000 artisans, with the shortage of mid-level technician and artisans hampering the prospects for economic growth.

Mr Torbjorn Caesar, a senior partner at Actis, believes that the critical shortage of this calibre of personnel is to blame for slowed economic growth.

Speaking during the graduation ceremony of 130 artisans at Garden City Mall last week, Mr Caesar said there is a need to bridge that workforce gap if the country is to realise its full economic potential.

Electoral body head says they are up to the task and will just have to print longer ballot

Beatings and weird induction nights on Form Ones by prefects with teachers blessings.

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Skilled workers key to the success of any construction project - Daily Nation

It is a rare event in modern history that a country has been at war for over a decade without being able to identify who the enemy is. Pakistans 15-year involvement in the global war on terror has turned the country into a primary theatre of this conflict, with immense costs in terms of loss of lives and adverse impact on the economy. Yet, it still remains a daunting task for us, both as a society and a state, to clearly articulate who is responsible for this carnage, let alone propose solutions to this perpetual nightmare.

The recent tragic-comedy of the blasts in Lahore, where we remain unsure even on whether it was a terrorist attack or a work-safety incident (the latter itself an outrageously regular occurrence in the country) shows that we might just be regressing in terms of providing political and intellectual clarity.

What has infuriated many progressive commentators is how in the aftermath of deadly attacks that are ripping apart our social fabric, popular opinion tends to become entrenched in existing certainties and prejudices rather than demanding a break from the status quo. Popular explanations for the attacks have ranged from hinting at government collusion to distract the public from Panamagate, to the hysterical accusations against Afghan involvement, not to mention the widely-held belief that our eastern neighbour was involved due to petty jealousy over our ability to host as grand an event as the PSL final in Lahore! In these narratives, it is the world against Pakistan.

Yet, while much has been written on the obvious vacuity of such assertions, our task should be to interrogate the structural reasons that continuously reproduce such opinions at a mass level. Primarily, such a task requires us to break from a theological belief in the power of tragedy to make the situation more transparent, not to mention induce a desire for a rupture from the status quo. In fact, tragedies, including terrorism, natural disasters and economic-political turmoil, far from posing a threat to the powers that be, have become an essential tool in the armoury of modern states for further enhancing their grip over socio-economic life. This point was made a decade ago by Naomi Klein in her celebrated book, The Shock Doctrine.

Klein argued that a docile citizenry, frightened and disoriented in the aftermath of tragic events, is deemed ideal by state authorities for carrying out far-reaching reforms that benefit ruling elites, without much popular opposition. Her examples included the devastating economic reforms in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union that allowed the formation of an economic oligarchy, and the hysterical response to the 9/11 attacks in the US that paved the way for public support for a more aggressive American intervention in the Middle East, much to the delight of the military-industrial complex.

We can clearly see how this method of control is currently being practised in Pakistan. The fear induced by terrorist attacks spontaneously leads to an outcry for revenge, without much discussion on who should be the subject of this revenge. It is precisely at this point that powerful apparatuses, including the government and the media, enter the fray, to harness the feelings of fear and disorientation. It begins with the customary sensationalism in the live coverage of the event, where the pressure to drive up ratings means that the reporting is intended less at conveying information about the tragedy, and more at emphasising the magnitude of the tragedy, lest anyone consider changing the channel. Such manipulation of our sensory experience was on display after the latest Lahore blasts, when news channels were reporting two or three terror attacks in Lahore, perpetuating panic across the city.

This panic is often followed by official and media analysis of the events, recycling the list of the usual suspects (India, the West, Afghanistan, etc), without any coherent narrative in which all of them can be placed together. The haphazardly cobbled together list of external enemies does little to inform the frightened multitude, and more to disorient their imaginary, instilling a feeling that the nation is under siege, without fully elaborating by whom and more importantly for what reason.

The next stage is a desperate attempt to overcome the feeling of collective emasculation by a search for a protective patriarch. It is here that the coercive apparatus comes into force, dazzling the public with immediate action, followed by creatively chosen names for impending military operations. Statistics of terrorists killed and arrested start making the rounds, with the anonymity of those purportedly targeted wilfully ignored by a public in search of some solace. Moreover, exceptional measures, such as the institution of military courts, are enthusiastically accepted by a population ready to cede its democratic rights for a vague feeling of retribution.

We must emphasise that a tragedy is never a neutral phenomenon, and all discourse of not politicising a tragic event often permits only the state to extract political mileage out of it. This is the key to unlocking why traumatic events do not in themselves produce a progressive discourse. In moments of absolute fear and helplessness, people tend to gravitate towards recognisable ideological frameworks, as well as coercive apparatuses, in a frantic search for stability. The biggest casualty of this drama is public debate, with dissent immediately equated either with cowardice, or in a more sinister vein, with a foreign conspiracy.

It is for this reason that the recurrent tragedies we face must be openly debated in the public domain if we are to break the cycle of fear, anger and docility. For example, in order to win this war, it will be pertinent to interrogate the previous military offensives to see what parts of the strategy worked and where lie the persistent failures. Moreover, while hundreds of anonymous terrorists have presumably been killed, it is important to ask what is stopping us from extending this bravado to more clearly identifiable, and globally notorious, groups openly preaching hate throughout Punjab, not to mention inside the federal capital itself.

On the ideological terrain, the violence permeating our daily lives ought to be mobilised for another scandalous proposition regional peace. With a number of officials admitting (including recently, General (r) Musharraf) Pakistans involvement in destabilising our neighbours, is it not time to recognise that we can neither relocate the country to a geography of our liking, nor can we over-run our neighbours? This entails having a bold discussion on how to create a path to normalising relations with our neighbours, as enmity has historically provided legitimacy to outfits that have had little success in over-powering India, but have inflicted irreparable damage to Pakistani society.

Finally, in an increasingly militarised society, historically marginalised communities often bear the brunt of the violence aimed primarily at soothing the fears of the dominant groups. Consider the rather pathetic attempts of racial profiling of Pakhtuns reportedly currently being practised by the Punjab police. It is ironic that state officials who curtail dissent in the name of national unity would so blatantly sow divisions in society through primitive techniques of controlling populations based on identitarian predicates. This example more than any other reveals how knee-jerk reactions to tragedies, no matter how universal their language, only end up intensifying existing cleavages in society, rather than offering a credible way out of the impasse.

Thus, under the carefully crafted impulse of fear, the public becomes more divided, notwithstanding official claims of unity, unconsciously lending support to the entrenchment of deep ideological, political and military structures against an anonymous enemy. Caught in the vortex of immediacy, we demand easy answers and swift revenge. However, more than a panic-induced search for solutions, we need to ask whether we are posing the right questions. Such a task requires courage, not only because it may disrupt our own deeply held views, but because it may also remove us from the (false) satisfaction provided by the hysterical jingoism consumed by a docile public after every terror attack.

Posing the correct question, then, requires sacrificing our individual and collective certainties about the world we inhabit. If the alternative is authoritarianism, social disintegration and perpetual terror, this shift from fear to courage is a sacrifice worth making.

The writer is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge and a lecturer at the Government College University, Lahore.

Email: [emailprotected]

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Facing tragedy with courage - The News International

Looming Black Swans Could Hurt 2017 Stock Market Forecast

The current social and political conditions could lead the world economy to disaster. The financial markets have never been more susceptible to disruptive events. Yet the stock market forecast for 2017 has not taken the biggest risk into account.

This is nobodys fault, because no stock market forecast can possibly foresee the biggest risk. Most everybody can make a correct market prediction, even without knowing a thing about a stock, but nobody can predict a black swan event. The very nature of a black swan is to elude everyone, including Nostradamus himself.

The black swan theory, or the theory of black swan events, is a metaphor. Its a term to describe the concept that a heavy-impact event comes as a surprise to the observer. Once that happened, the event is rationalized in retrospect. The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the weaknesses of such things as a stock market outlook or a stock market forecast.

High-impact events such as a black swan are not just rare and difficult, if not impossible, to predict. They play a disproportionate role compared to normal expectations in the context of history, science, technology and finance. A black swan event can only be recognized after the fact.

Heres what this means for where the stock market is headed. Geopolitics is key. Thus, it is important to increase the awareness of firms operating in international markets today, even more than in the past.

In 2017, the Venezuelan default and the growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran could be traumatic, leading to a potential collapse of oil prices and another war in the Middle East. Raw materials could be subject to extreme fluctuations in 2017.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran and the risk of a default in Venezuela may push up oil prices, possibly to unsustainable levels for emerging economies. Further, the situation in Ukraine and Russia is even more difficult to predict now.

During the Barack Obama presidential administration, it was clear that Washington sided with Ukraine, but President Donald Trump wants to improve ties to Moscow. That could encourage the latter to turn the situation back in its favor. Such tensions could boost the prices of industrial metals, given the strong role both countries have in mining.

Barclays Bank PLC has come up with a chart outlining some of the potential black swan events, as summarized below. Note, the threat type is what is affected by the potential black swan event. So, in the case of oil, its price would go up if the U.S. and Iran clash. The black swan in that case would be the spark that leads to the clash.

There is no way to assess the probability of such periodic rare events using scientific methods. By definition, a black swan event has a very low probability of occurring. Iteludes mathematics and statistics. Thus, an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center on September 1, 2001 was a black swan event.

Arguably, the discovery of how to make fire was a black swan, as was the big bang of the Big Bang Theory. In the purely financial context, black swans are rare. The 2007/2008 financial crisis was not a black swan, for example. It was all too predictable to those who had access to the information, or those willing to consider it.

Yet, most investors who work 40 hours a week have little time to check every detail that could affect their portfolios and retirement savings. To themthat is, to most peoplethe 2008 subprime crash certainly had the impact of a black swan. By stretching or altering the definition of black swan, we can analyze them to see where is the stock market headed.

A true black swan will make mincemeat of any stock market prediction. But the more liberally defined black swan event, described above as a heavy-impact event, can be very useful.

It turns out that 2017 will be a year dense with such heavy-impact events.

The first of these foreseeable black swans concerns the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It took years to negotiate and achieve, but it also took just one signature from Donald Trump to terminate the U.S.s participation. That was no black swan, however. Trump said he would scrap the deal during the election campaign.

The scrapping of the TPP will have consequences; it could spark a cascading chain of high-impact events. Given the global impact of these events, they will affect the stock markets. They can also produce a black swan, but we can only examine and predict events as the conclusion of ongoing processes.

To be clear, the end of the TPP is a hugedeal. Major investment banks like Goldman SachsGroup Inc (NYSE:GS)and the World Economic Forum (WEF)which just met at Davos a few weeks agofeared this. The reason for their worry is that, at the stroke of a pen, Trump has inaugurated a new era of protectionism.

Protectionism will be a major threat to the world economy in 2017. The risk that Trump would ditch the TPP agreement was well known months before the U.S. election. The TPP is such a threat because it compounds the effects of the Brexit which, while not a black swan per se, are unclear. Its not even clear whether the U.K. will go along with it.

The TPP and Brexit are mere reflections of the protectionist trend that should concern all investors. They reflect the fact that populist movements are strengthening. Yet, all the while, the migration crisis continues and the risk that many fear is another series of terrorist attacks. Again, these are not black swans in themselves, but they provide the basis for one.

Meanwhile in Asia, there is another known risk that could produce predictable and unpredictablehence black swanrepercussions. Chinas economy could implode because of unsustainable levels of debt. The Chinese debt bomb could slow Chinas economy and become an obstacle to global economic growth.

The geopolitical realm has within it the seeds of many risks for humanity in 2017. These include terrorist attacks and the inter-state conflicts resulting from the rising problems of regional and global ungovernability. International institutions will need to negotiate and work together to solve geopolitical and economic problems in 2017.

The geopolitical litany of risks with black swan potential is unprecedented in 2017. The closest period like this that comes to mind is World War 1. The worlds superpowers were experiencing a protectionist-fueled suspicion of each other. Meanwhile, rapidly changing technology on one hand and rapidly advancing revolutionary social movements on the other mixed to create economic and political TNT.

The black swan component that nobody could have predicted was a young man in Serbia called Gavrilo Princip. He murdered the archduke Franz Ferdinand, sending the spark that set off the TNT. That event on June 28, 1914 was unpredictable, and its timing and context produced World War 1, the risks of which had become rather obvious in the first decade of the 20th century.

That odd sensation that many investors get every day now reflects a similar scenario today. The next Black Swan event might be that one that sparks World War 3.

In 2016, Russia, South Africa and many other countries have withdrawn from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Meanwhile, China has refused to accept the ICCs verdict on the territories in the South China Sea.

Trump has threatened to terminate the contract with Iran. Even if an agreement is reached over Syria and ISIS is defeated, the sentiment that produced the latter movement and the tensions in Syria remains. It will not simply vaporize.

ISIS might be gone, but its ideology has the advantage that anyone can adopt it. The mixture of dissent and mistrust that is brewing among the world powers has already paralyzed the United Nations (UN).

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU), which was formed after World War 2to act as a guarantee that no such war could break out again, has began to disintegrate.

Among the factors contributing to geopolitical tension is a deficit of trust. Countries accuse each other of interfering in their internal affairs. Look no further than the allegations from the U.S. Democratic Party that Russia interfered in the November presidential election to ensure that Trump would win.

In effect, nobody has proven that Russia was behind the WikiLeaks release of the John Podesta e-mails. But the media, many Americans, and others around the world have blamed Russia, fueling the mistrust among nuclear superpowers. In such an atmosphere, any number of events could turn out to be black swans for the next major international conflict.

Black swan events would only reveal themselves in retrospect after analysis of the one cause that sparked it. That is, if any analysts live to study it. Such black swans may result from the socio-economic risks like mass migration, the critical increase in inequality, and the polarization of society along ethnic, religious and cultural factors that could seriously complicate the situation in 2017.

The results of the U.K. Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election have shown that such factors seriously affect the situations in different countries. Then there is an escalating arms race involving the United States, Russia and, now China.

The risk of a black swan in the arms race context could certainly play on the explosive geopolitical context. The current arms race involves military robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Drones are merely an early generation of the military-technological evolution.

Robot soldiers are no longer the figment of a science-fiction writers imagination. In 2017, we are already bombarded by technological risks. Consider cyberattacks alone. These can take the form of fraud and data theft, defects in software that can cause a failure in the energy sector (nuclear reactor meltdown), transport, communications, etc.

Moreover, the rapid development of new technologies and robotics will make human labor increasingly obsolete. The fact that this coincides with an ever-growing population presents huge risks for unemployment and social instability. Therefore, it is the perfect storm for massive social unrest.

On top of that are otherrisks, such as natural disasters. These are virtually impossible to avoid. For all other risks, we can study processes and developments, trying to make sense of them. At best, we can predict what systems could be affected by a black swan event, although nobody knows what form this will take.

The very unpredictability of black swans is the stuff of intense philosophical debate. The unexpected is what moves the world forward (or backward). The advent of the Internet was a black swan. Designed as a military communications and security tool, nobody could have foreseen the role it has come to play in modern life and business.

Life rarely works exactly as you plan it. We must learn to live with uncertainties and deal with the unexpected. Black swans are reminders that, despite the combination of technological wonders, forecasting tools, and organizational devices, we are not able to defeat nature and chaos.

Therefore, its impossible to have an accurate stock market forecast based on black swans. But we can still analyze and pay attention to the kinds of risks from where black swans might arise, or where they may have an impact.

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