Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Versailles in the jungle is what President Mobutu Sese Seko called his palace in the mud-and-straw village of Gbadolite in Congo, complete with Carrara marble terraces, art, sculptures, two swimming pools and ersatz Louis IV furniture. Liveried waiters served roast quail on Limoges china and poured Loire Valley wines, properly chilled against the equatorial heat, a reporter recalled. The chef was flown into the village on a chartered supersonic Concorde, landing on a purpose-built three-kilometre runway.

In a sermon at Kinshasas football stadium in the summer of 1976, Mobutu made this generous offer to his people: If you want to steal, steal a little in a nice way. The president re-instituted the right to deflower virgins, once exercised by tribal chiefs. For a time, his education minister considered replacing icons of Jesus with those of the messiah in the leopard-skin hat.

Then, three decades after he seized power, the world turnedand Mobutu was forced into exile, where he would die of cancer.

Ever since the Pakistan Army staged its first successful coup dtat in 1958, and became the countrys most important institution, it has operated with the certain knowledge that the house never loses. Like Mobutu, the Generals have granted themselves gargantuan estates, captured corporate empires and engaged in excesses that rival those of the Roman emperor Caligula. The thing is, the house does sometimes losehollowed out by traitors or the merely incompetent, or simply because of the fickleness of the goddess of fortune.

Last weeks attacks by mobs of former prime minister Imran Khans supporters on the homes of top Pakistani officialsand the frontal confrontation between army chief Asim Munir and the former prime ministermany are beginning to wonder if the military can remain the hegemon that guides the nations fate.

Also Read: Pakistan is imploding. A failing neighbour will be a nightmare for India and the world

Even if images of rioters stealing peacocks and frozen strawberries from Lahore corps commander Lieutenant-General Fayyaz Ghanis home might seem to belong in the realm of the darkly amusing, rather than catastrophic, many experts see them as symptoms of a wider breakdown within the steel phalanx. Lieutenant-General Fayyaz is reportedthough not officially confirmedto have been relieved of his command, in what is being interpreted as a cautious purge against supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) inside the army.

Leaked audio messages from one of Lieutenant-General Fayyazs relatives suggest the family escaped from their burning mansiononce owned by Pakistans founding patriarch Muhammad Ali Jinnahinto a house owned by a relative of chief justice Umar Ata Bandial. The audio message, obtained by ThePrint, suggests Lieutenant-General Fayyaz was opposed to the army chiefs policy of confrontation with PTI chief Imran Khan.

Three important commandersLieutenant-General Asif Ghafoor, Lieutenant-General Saqib Mehmood, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chair General Sahir Shamshad Mirzaare also believed to have cautioned General Asim against a showdown, arguing that pitting ethnic-Punjabi and ethnic-Pashtun soldiers against the population could have terrifying consequences. The Pakistan Army has struggled to contain jihadist influence among its ranks ever since 9/11, and involving the military in civil conflict could accelerate the process.

Families of serving army officers were seen joining protests against the government, in social media videos, an indication of the political zeitgeist among younger officers. Former military officers like Lieutenant-General Tariq Khan, a hero of Pakistans war against jihadists in its north-west, have publicly supported Imran. Lieutenant-General Amjad Shoaib, another supporter of Imran, was arrested on charges of inciting violence.

General Asim has begun the process of appointing hand-picked officers to key positions, promoting Rahat Naseem Khan as Lieutenant-General to lead the National Defence University. Khan replaces, Lieutenant-General Raja Nauman Mehmood, a one-time rival of Asim to lead the army. In September, Asim will have the opportunity to promote several more loyalists to Lieutenant-General, former intelligence officer Rana Banerjee has noted.

The Government hopes Asim can ensure peace through the summer, as key pro-Imran figures leave office at the end of their termamong them, President Arif Alvi, and chief justice Umar Ata Bandial. Then, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hopes, the Army will be able to ensure Imrans defeat in electionsjust as it helped secure his election.

Even six months ago, there would have been little reason to doubt that this well-tested script would play to planbut the deep political fissures in the army give reason to question if that will be the case.

Also Read: More than Imran, its jihadist influence on Pakistan army thats Gen Asim Munirs headache

Lacking effective party structures and mass legitimacy, historian Maya Tudor has written, politicians in Pakistan struggled from the outset to create a functional polity. Leaders of the Pakistan movement, it has often been noted, had little influence in the new nation. The prospect of ceding their power to elected politicians led the military and administrative leadership, Grazyna Marcinkowska notes, to stage the countrys first coup in 1958. The military would stage successive coups to keep its institutional primacy and financial privileges.

Fractures in political elites led to the consolidation of military-led systems in many parts of the world. Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in the last century, the Republican Peoples Party of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk ruled until 1950. Fear that the Islamist-leaning politics of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes would undo Kemals secular legacy led the military to stage the first coupand execute the politicianin 1961.

Though each subsequent period of military rule in Turkey was short, Brazil plunged into a decades-long military dictatorship in 1964, followed by Chile in 1973. Argentina went the same way in 1976. For decades, dictatorship appeared to be the natural order of things. The economic crisis in the 1980s, and the end of the Cold War, led the United States to withdraw support for dictators, thoughleading jackboot regimes to collapse.

Even though Mobutu expanded his military power, doubling the size of the army in his decades in power, the corruption and politicisation of the regime meant it abandoned him at his moment of crisis. Like many other despots, Mobutu feared a unified and professional officer corps could end up deposing him.

The dictators problems deepened, scholar Kisangani Emizet observed, after the United States and France withdrew the carte blanche they had extended to the anti-communist Mobutu during the Cold War.

Also Read: The soured love affair between Imran Khan and Pakistan Army is a ticking time bomb

Even though the mob attacks on Pakistan military institutions and homes are unprecedented, the crisis isnt. Anti-army slogans have been a part of Pakistans street culture since the time of dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The scholar Aqil Shah observed that, for all its modernising pretensions, General Pervez Musharrafs regime had mired Pakistan in an economic crisis and civil war against jihadists.

The Lawyers Movement which deposed General Musharraf, among other things, birthed Imran and the judiciary which has insulated him from assault by General Asim.

Earlier crises have seen the army find successful instruments to overcome these challenges. General Zias regime successfully instrumentalised Islam to grow its legitimacy. Following the tarnishing of the militarys image under General Musharraf, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate engineered 26/11, rallying the public through a crisis with India.

All power, though, depends on illusionand the end of despots like Mobutu shows that illusion shatters more easily than we imagine. Imran is taking Pakistan into profoundly unpredictable terrain, likely with consequences that cannot yet be imagined.

The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)

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Pakistan Army won't bounce back easily this time. Imran Khan ... - ThePrint

Since the phrase MeToo hit the zeitgeist in 2017, Tarana Burke has earned a global platform. But as she tells theGrio, her focus on Black communities and survival has never wavered.

Editors note: This is the first of a two-part interview with Tarana Burke in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the #MeToo movement. The second installment will be published on Sunday, Oct. 16.

It only took a hashtag to forever change Tarana Burkes life as she knew it. Five years ago, the veteran activist and community organizer was already over a decade into her lifes work, having made the decision in 2006 to focus her advocacy on Black and brown girls, women, and femmes whose lives had been disrupted by sexual violence. A survivor herself, she named her movement for a phrase she both wished shed said and heard in the aftermath of sexual assault: Me too.

Tarana Burke attends the red carpet event for She Said during the 60th New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on October 13, 2022, in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for FLC)

On Oct. 15, 2017, that phrase hit the zeitgeistnot in reference to Black and brown communities but a predominantly white cadre of actresses in Hollywood speaking out about sexual violence at the hands of one of its most powerful figures, Harvey Weinstein. Encouraged to find solidarity through the use of the hashtag #MeToo, the phrase spread like wildfire across social media unidentified with the woman who had long been utilizing it to empower survivors. That is, until Black women roundly sounded the alarm, forcing a correction: Tarana Burke was the creator of the #MeToo movement.

Within months of that recognition, Burke was a national figure, memorably attending the 2018 Golden Globes alongside Best Supporting Actress nominee Michelle Williams. By the end of that year, Burkes platform was global, as her November 2018 TEDTalk, Me Too is a movement, not a moment, went viral.

Five years later, Weinsteins crimes are still making headlines; Burke has become a two-time bestselling author and in-demand speaker, whose name has become ubiquitous in the fight against sexual violence, and #MeToo has become both a global movement and organization. For better or worse, it has also become a catch-all for conversations about sexual abuse and assault across the spectrum, regularly used in political discourse and popular culture alike. So, five years after #MeToo became a global phenomenon, how does Tarana Burke feel about the movement she launched now?

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Well, I feel a lot of ways, she told theGrio ahead of the hashtags fifth anniversary. I feel like the ways that people traditionally measure movements like this dont work for something like #MeToo because were talking about peoples lives being impacted in ways that are hard to understand. And so the way I talk about the last five years is not in terms of what #MeToo has doneyou know, not in terms of the cases that have been won, or the laws that have been passed. I think about what #MeToo has made possible.

I feel like we had this moment that helped propel the movement into the mainstream has made so much more possible [in a short time] than what would have been possible probably in 20 years with just our hard work and tenacity, Burke continued. Again, thats not to say that theres not a lot of work to do, but it would have taken us a lot to move the needle in the way that its been moved over the last five years. And I think thats really exciting.

Nevertheless, Burke would be the first to acknowledge the ups and downs and ins and outs and back and forth of building, sustaining, and protecting the public integrity of a movement on the scale of #MeToo. That, of course, includes the backlashthe struggle that we face in trying to get people to see this [movement] for what it is.

[#MeToo] is not about so much of what people have tried to make it about,said Burke. Its been reduced to a verb. People have tried to water it down to a gender war. People have said its anti-Black. People have said its anti-male. People have said its cancel culture. Everything except an opportunity for us to expand the conversation; to build on the work of ending sexual violence, she added.

I think people forget that the millions and millions of people that said #MeToo have never really gotten an adequate responsewe dont think about what we owe them. And so part of our work is about what do we owe the folks who said #MeToo?

TaRANA burke

We live in a country where theres a newa newact of sexual violence every 68 seconds. That is a real number that happens to real people in America. Thats not a global number, thats just in this one country, she noted. So we literally dont have the time to have these kinds of ridiculous conversations that do not advance the cause. Its exhausting.

While grateful to lead a platform that provides a point of empathy and validation for survivors, Burke cant ignore how #MeToos now-global scope has made the movement she created constantly vulnerable to misinterpretation and appropriation, often pulling its focus far from the community she initially intended to serve.

[P]eople feel like they have ownership of it, she said. I have one way of thinking about and looking at this movement and there are people who define it differently, who think about it differently, and thats really difficult. So that when we dont show up in a particular way, or I dont show up in a particular way, people think of it as, Oh, well, youre not doing a good job with the #MeToo movement. And Im like, No, Im doing a pretty good job. You just define it differently than I do.

[Y]ou think you have a right to define it differently because its so big, she continued. Its like when a new slang term or something comes out; people take it and they say, Well, it means this in this part of the country, but it means that in that part of the countryPeople take ownership of it and they make it mean what they want it to mean. And I cant really do anything about that.

Case in point: Burke has always maintained that the movement she built both preceded and far exceeds the hashtag that made it famous. However, it is still largely identified by the hashtag, both in public discourse and by the media, which overwhelmingly adheres to an AP Stylebook recommendation that references to the movement be styled as a hashtag, even when not explicitly describing tweets related to it. (Editorial note: theGrio also adheres to AP Style.)

What five years of being in the zeitgeist have taught Burke is that #MeToo must define itself for itself and the communities it intends to serve. To that end, the fifth anniversary of #MeToo kicks off a yearlong initiative the organization has titled Beyond the Hashtag. It includes the launch of its social and political framework, which has been nearly five years in the making. Opening with a letter to survivors and ending with an urgent message to those in the field, the #MeToo framework launched this week and is now available to view on the organizations website.

[W]eve spent the last two years really sitting down and taking stock in what is it we do, Burke explained. So much has changed in the last five years, I wanted to make sure we were able to articulate clearly for people who we are, what we do, and what we can be accountable for. What can people hold us accountable for?

Were putting out our own framework that helps people understand what #MeToo actually is, what our work is, what it means to say the #MeToo movement, what it means to do the work of the MeToo movement, she continued. And that will quiet some of the #MeToo is dead; #MeToo is failingyou know, all of that kind of stuff that people say. If you understand who we are, who we say we are, and what we do, we are right on track. Were doing our work just the way we said we would.

She may now be a global figure, but Burke still keeps community as her personal focusand is careful not to conflate #MeToo with the global fight against sexual violence. Theres a movement to end sexual violence, which is very broad, very vast, and has existed for many, many decades. I did not start it, and I wont end it, she made clear. And then, theres the #MeToo movement, which is very, very much something that is very specific and got blown up with the hashtag. But the movement and the work itself is something that I created, and so I feel very comfortable in creating definitions inside of thatBut also, I think I can never put the genie back in the bottle.

Still, she says, theres so much more to #MeToo. Most importantly, were trying to build the response to survivors. I think people forget that the millions and millions of people that said me too have never really gotten an adequate responsewe dont think about what we owe them. And so part of our work is about what do we owe the folks who said #MeToo? We think that we owe them safety. We think we owe them resources. We think we owe them action and healing. And thats whats next.

Read more from #MeToo founder Tarana Burke in the second part of her interview with theGrio on Sunday, Oct. 16.

Maiysha Kai is theGrios lifestyle editor, covering all things Black and beautiful. Her work is informed by two decades experience in fashion and entertainment, great books and aesthetics, and the brilliance of Black culture. She is also the editor-author ofBody (Words of Change series).

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. TheGrios Black Podcast Network is free too. Download theGrio mobile appstoday! Listen to Writing Black with Maiysha Kai.

The post Five years since #MeToo, Tarana Burke is looking beyond the hashtag appeared first on TheGrio.

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Five years since #MeToo, Tarana Burke is looking beyond the hashtag - Yahoo News

A few months ago, Florence Pugh rocked a bright pink sheer Valentino dress in an act to free the nipple. The look went viral and the conversation around the free nipple movement came back into the zeitgeist. Now, Olivia Wilde is also speaking up in support of the movement, after she appeared on the cover of Elle wearing a top that covers half her chest.

This all comes after the drama surrounding Dont Worry Darling, which was a film that stars Florence Pugh that Oliva Wilde directed. Even though the stories of alleged issues behind-the-scenes took over the internet (none of it has been confirmed), they are both clearly in support of women wearing whatever they want. As you can see from Wildes post, she is all for freeing the nipple:

Wilde has been an advocate for womens rights and expression for a long time. Back in 2021, she spoke to Vogue about this exact topic. The journalist brought up a viral breastfeeding photo that the actor/filmmaker had posted and asked if Wilde supported the #FreetheNipple movement. The actress responded saying,

Absolutely. Its culturally specific because obviously in other countries theres less of a fear of the nipple. I think that we can all really benefit from making sure that we dont allow the stigmatization of womens bodies to infect our own perspective of ourself. If we are allowed opportunities to celebrate our body, it has an effect. It has an effect on how we treat one another and how we treat ourselves. I wish that in this country we werent so terrified of womens bodies in the way that we are. We have this kind of puritanical perspective on nipples. I think its really silly. [Laughs.] Im someone who breastfed two kids, and its funny [because], honestly, when youre breastfeeding you have a different relationship to your breasts and the rest of the world. And its really hilarious to navigate this societys fear of womens bodies, even though without them we wouldnt be here.

Wilde is a mother of two and has posted about breastfeeding. As she said, she is trying to break the stigma around freeing the nipple. As mentioned, she posted a photo on her Instagram back in 2016 of her breastfeeding her child and added the caption #neverunderestimatethepowerofawoman.

Both actresses have been loud and proud about their support of womens rights, especially when it comes to what they are allowed to wear. However, there are also lots of critics who have spoken out against these fashion statements. Florence Pugh has said that there are people who were aggravated by her fashion choices. The Little Women actress also said it was alarming how mad people got over her outfit.

Since then, Jessica Chastain defended Pughs dress, and lots of other celebrities have spoken out in support and rocked the sheer look. The Midsommar actress has since worn another sheer pink look, and she wore a nude see-through dress at Paris Fashion Week.

Florence Pugh and Olivia Wilde's movie Dont Worry Darling is one of the most-talked about films on the 2022 movie schedule, and Pugh has another movie coming out later this year. Im sure well be seeing more amazing fashion statements from both women in the near future.

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After Florence Pugh Freed The Nipple, Olivia Wilde Supported The Movement On New Magazine Cover - CinemaBlend

Commentary

Radical gender ideology has as its principal goal the queering of norms that are foundational to healthy societies. Queer theory (QT) argues that we need to deconstruct all social binaries: male vs. female, heterosexual vs. homosexual, nature vs. culture. To accomplish this, all human-constructed boundaries must be transgressed with freedom and without consequences. Queering is accomplished through the manipulation of language. Thus, a woman is no longer an adult human female, but anyone who feels that he or she is a woman.

Non-ideologues keep making the mistake of assuming QT followers can be reasoned out of their logic-free dogmas by pointing to the disparities in fairness and safety for actual women that such reasoning creates. QT ideologues would respond that the obliteration of boundaries liberates women from the oppression caused by the gender binary. In eliminating the boundary, you eliminate the oppression, see? The old dictum springs immediately to mind: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.

QT has normalized the erasure of the biological binary. But normalization makes sex-boundary pushers restive. The thrill is, after all, in the transgression. The sexual age binary is the current challenge. Advocates for pedophilianow laundered into demurely neutral Minor Attracted Persons (MAPs)are very keen stakeholders in the queering movement. They aim first to cast off societally imposed shame for their paraphilia, and then to achieve the freedom to act on it without censure or legal consequence.

Radical gender theory created a useful infrastructure for them: school curricula, LGBTQ clubs, trans-affirmative medical associations. Pedophiles read the receptive cultural room and began a successful campaign to colonize the system. Drag Queen Story Hour is now a fixture in schools, libraries, and even churches. Several stories on drag queens with records of sexual offences against children have been uncovered, but the response has been a massive shrug of indifference.

A Family Sex Show in Bristol, England, billed for ages 5 and up, which featured full-frontal adult nudity and hard-core queer-theory themes, was cancelled recently after vigorous protest, but the more pertinent question is why it had been funded by Arts Council England. Its associated website instructed invited children to search the internet for images of animals that masturbate and to draw them. (Critic Kathleen Stock acted on this proposed task, and was directed to a video of a zoo-keeper manually stimulating a dolphin.)

The pedophile charm offensive has, however, hit a roadblock.

Britain-based Mermaids is a powerful, high-status charity devoted to support for trans children and their families. It has been enthusiastically endorsed by queer theorists and credulous celebrities.

A few weeks ago, it was announced that Mermaids was being investigated by the Charity Commission following reports that it offered chest binders to teenage girls without parental consent and encouraged puberty blockers for clients.

Then it was announced that a Mermaids trustee, Dr. Jacob Breslow, had resigned following disclosure that in 2011 he had spoken at a conference hosted by B4U-ACT, an organization that promotes services and resources for those who are sexually attracted to children and desire such assistance. His views seem to not have changed since then. Breslow is currently writing a book on the queer lives of childrens desires.

Breslows talk to B4U-ACT was an example of the cognitive legerdemain some employ to dehumanize children and, by elevating the discussion to the realm of theory, airbrush out their experience. Breslow compared children to a shoe used for masturbatory purposes, using as part of his argument (too inappropriate to fully repeat here) that the act would require a rethinking of both the child, which we have just begun, and of the person for whom the child is a sexual fantasy or partner.

Rethinking the child is to disembody the child. And partner implies consent, which children cannot give. But those with deviated minds want children to have sexual agency to soothe their conscience.

Some go further. They portray the child as the aggressor and themselves as a passive target. In a 2020 column in these pages on the topic, I wrote about Frances May 1968 student revolution leader Danny Cohn-Bendit, who published an article about his erotic contacts with some of the 20 children in his care at an alternative kindergarten in Frankfurt. He wrote: Certain children opened the flies of my trousers and started to tickle me. I reacted differently each time, according to the circumstances. But when they insisted on it (my emphasis), I then caressed them. (The article, and the book in which it appeared, Le Grand Bazar, appeared to critical acclaim.)

When Florida governor Ron DeSantis passed a bill precluding schools from teaching radical gender theory and LGBT pride to children under the age of 8 (falsely nicknamed the dont say gay bill), progressives took to the fainting couch, betraying their QT acculturation. But DeSantis was only reacting as a responsible leader should to the overt grooming of children into too-early consciousness of sexuality and too-early introduction to psychologically destabilizing gender concepts even adults have trouble comprehending.

The yearning for boundaryless sex, including with children, is a timeless human story I have dubbed orgasmic utopianism. The drive to shift the rules for discussion from a morality-based paradigm to a science paradigm in which it is simply another form of sexual desire to be studied with neutrality has preoccupied a certain cadre of psychoanalysts and sexologists for more than a century. The common theme amongst these utopians, as conservative cultural critic Theodore Dalrymple put it, is that sexual relations could be brought to the pitch of perfection either by divesting them of moral experience altogether, or by reversing the moral judgment that traditionally attached to them; all [orgasmic utopians] believed that human unhappiness was solely the product of laws, customs and taboos.

The Mermaids scandal should be a hopeful sign that the guardrails of laws, customs, and taboos are still shakily in place. But the movement bent on normalizing a rethinking of pedophilia will see this embarrassment as a temporary setback, because they believe the cultural zeitgeist is with them. It is.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Barbara Kay is a columnist and author. Her latest writing project is co-authorship with Linda Blade of the book Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport.

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Barbara Kay: The Movement to Normalize Pedophilia Hits a Roadblock, but We Mustn't Let Our Guard Down - The Epoch Times

In the digital age, we are well-acquainted with data, a crouton-esque word tossed into conversations, ingrained in the morning rush like half-caf cappuccinos and spreadsheets. Conceptually, data feels benign, necessary, and totally absorbed into the zeitgeist of the 21st century (alongside Survivor, smartphones, and Bitcoin). Data conjures up the census; white-coat scientists and their clinical trials; suits and ties; NGO board meetings; pearled strings of binary code; bar graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, pictographs, endless excel rows and columns, and more rows and more columns.

However, within the conversation of global health, researchers and laymen alike would more often than not describe data collection, use, and sharing as critical for resource mobilization, disease monitoring, surveillance prevention, treatment, etc. (Look at measles eradication! Polio! Malaria! Line graphs A, B, and C!)

Thanks to the internet, extracting health data is also faster, easier, and more widespread than ever . We have grown increasingly concerned, and rightfully so, about data ownership and data sovereignty.

Who is privy to data? Who can possess it? Can you possess it? As you can see, the conversation quickly becomes convoluted, philosophical even.

Dr. Wendy Prudhomme OMeara, moderator of the Data as a Commodity seminar on Sept. 29 and associate professor at Duke University Medical School in the Division of Infectious Diseases, discussed bioethical complexities of data creation and ownership within global health partnerships.

We can see that activitieswhere data is being collected in one place, removed from the context, and value being extracted from it for personal or financial benefit has very strong parallels to the kind of resource extraction and exploitation that characterized colonization, she said in her introductory remarks.

Data, like other raw materials (i.e. coffee, sugar, tobacco, etc.), can be extracted, often disproportionately, from lower-middle income countries (LMICs) at the expense of the local populations. This reinforces unequal power dynamics and harkens to the tenets of colonialism and imperialism.

This observation is exemplified by panelist Thiago Hernandes Rochas research which focuses on public policy evaluation and data mining. He acknowledges that global health research, in general, should prioritize the health improvements of the studied community rather than publications or grant funding. This may seem somewhat obvious to you; however, though academic competition often fosters nuances in the field, it also contributes to the commercialization of global health. Dont be shy, everyone point your finger at Big Pharma!

Though Dr. Rochas data mining technique refers to pattern-searching and analysis of dense data sets, I find mining to be an apt analogy for the exploitative potential of data extraction and research partnerships between higher income countries and LMICs.

Consider the British diamond industry in Cape Colony, South Africa, and the parallels between past colonial mineral extraction and current global health data extraction. Imagine taking a pickaxe to the earth.

Now consider the environmental ramifications of mining, and who they disproportionately affect. Consider the lingering social and economic inequalities. Of course, data is not a mine of diamonds (as your Hay Day farm might suggest) nor is it ivory or rubber or timber. Its less tangible (you cant necessarily hold it or physically possess it) and, therefore, its extraction also feels less tangible, even though this process can have very concrete consequences.

Data as a power dynamic is a rather recent characterization in academic discourse. Researchers and companies alike have pushed the open data movement to increase data availability to all people for all uses. You can see how, in a utopian society, this would be fantastic. Think of the transparency! Im sure you can also see how, in our non-utopian society, this can be exploited.

Dr. Bethany Hedt-Gauthier, a Harvard University biostatistician and seminar speaker, described herself as pro open data in a world without power dynamics an amendment critical to understanding research as a commodity itself.

She justified her stance by referencing the systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa that she conducted in collaboration with others in the field. They found that even when sub-Saharan African populations were the main sites of study, when partnered with high-income, elite institutions (like Duke or Harvard), the African authors were significantly less likely to be first or senior authors despite the comparable number of academics on both sides of the partnership.To what can we attribute this discrepancy?

Dr. Hedt-Gauthier describes forms of capital that contribute to this issue, from cultural capital (i.e. credentials) to symbolic capital (i.e. legitimacy) to financial capital; however, she poses colonialism (and its continuity in socioeconomic and political power dynamics today) as the root of this incongruity from which the aforementioned forms of capital bud and flower like poisonous oleander. In recent years, institutions, including Duke, have increased efforts to decolonize global health to achieve greater equity, equal participation, and better health outcomes overall.

Dr. Hedt-Gauthier briefly chronicled some of her own research in Rwanda at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within her research partnerships, she recollected slowing down, thoughtfully engaging in two-way dialogue, and posing questions like the following: Who is involved [in the partnership]? Are all parties equally represented in paper authorship? If not, how can we share resources to ensure this? How can we assure that the people involved in the generation of data are also involved in the interpretation of its results? Who has access to data? What does co-authorship look like?

Investing time and energy into multi-country databases, funding collaborative research infrastructures, removing barriers within academia, and training researchers are just some of the methods proposed by the speakers to facilitate equitable partnerships, data sharing and use, and continued global health decolonization.

Dr. Osondu Ogbuoji, the final panelist, puts it best: We should ensure that the people in the room having the discussion about what values the data has should be as diverse as possible and ideally should have all the stakeholders. In our own research, sometimes we think we have an idea of what data to collect, but then we talk to the country partners and they have a totally different idea.

Though the question of data ownership may feel lofty or intangible, though data legality is confusing, though you may feel yourself adrift in the debate of commodity and capital, the speakers have thrown you a buoy, grab on, and understand that generally:

It is necessary to engage with data in a communicative and critical manner; it is necessary to build research partnerships that are synergistic and reciprocal; and, finally, it is necessary to approach global health via these partnerships to advance the field towards greater equity.

Post by Alex Clifford, Class of 2024

Watch the recorded seminar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmFzif8a1c

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Is it Time to Decolonize Global Health Data? - Research Blog - Duke University

Five years after the #MeToo movement went viral, Women Talking has found new ground to discuss.

The star-studded ensemble film starsRooney Mara,Claire Foy,Jessie Buckley,Frances McDormand, Judith Ivey, and Sheila McCarthy as members of a remote religious community who are forced to debate next steps after their community is plagued with sexual assault.Based on Miriam Toews novel, Women Talking is written and directed by Sarah Polley.

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I dont think theres ever been a film made like this before, actress Foy told IndieWire during the films New York Film Festival premiere. It exists in its own world. Its a fable. It invites real conversation with an audience. I have never been a part of a film that has such conversation around it, and the conversation is really interesting.

Emmy winner Foy continued, Its not zeitgeist-y. Its not been made because of a particular time. This film could not have been made 10 years ago, but that does not mean that its only been made now because its latching onto something. This story is basically as old as time, unfortunately.

Foy credited writer-director Polley for having a conviction and being so clear-sighted about the films message.

Mara echoed that Women Talking inspires difficult, nuanced discussions and asks a lot of questions that I think some people are maybe scared to ask.

Co-star McCarthy explained, I think a lot of the #MeToo movement is experienced by women alone, and I think what this movie is about is women coming together and sharing their stories together and then being collectively able to change their lives and move forward. That is the important lesson for anybody: We are not alone. This movie is living proof that if you come together and share as a community, change can happen.

Story continues

McCarthy praised Polleys vision, calling her a master in directing who was loyal to the story and never compromised.

Polley enlisted sexual assault trauma therapist Dr.Laurie Haskell to be on set at all times since the film deals with sensitive subject matter that could be emotionally triggering.

I think its great if youre dealing with subject matter that can bring up a lot of stuff for a lot of people, like the subject in this film brings up stuff from people of all genders on our set, so just having that container and somebody who really knows how to create a safe space for things to come up and deal with productively I think is a really great idea, Polley said. So my gut would be, its not a bad idea to have a therapist on set generally. On almost every shoot Ive been on, it can definitely be utilized by cast and crew at all times.

Additional reporting by Vincent Perella.

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Claire Foy Doesnt Think Women Talking Could Have Been Made Before #MeToo - Yahoo Entertainment

Unlike standard detective novels, Gabriel Garcia Marquezs Chronicle of a Death Foretold is not a whodunnit. It does not investigate the murder Santiago Nasar by the Vicario twins, which is made clear from the first sentence. Instead, the mystery revolves around why the whole town allowed the murder to take place, making only half-hearted attempts to stop it.

Likewise is the death foretold of Indias Grand Old Party, the Indian National Congress. Though many liberal-minded Indians want the Congress to survive, the partys own leadership is making only half-hearted attempts, at best, to stop its imminent death.

As writer Ramachandra Guha pointed out in his essay The Long Life and Lingering Death of the Indian National Congress, the party is unique in the Indian political constellation:

The Congress is a party that led the movement for freedom, the party that united India and brought people of different religions and languages into a single political project. Its finest leaders were not confined by national boundaries; they had universal vision. And they were men and women of high personal integrity.

Guha notes that the Congress today would shock anyone with a sense of history, given the chasm between the partys past and present. The Congress of today is a Brobdingnag the fictitious land of giants invaded by Lilliputians.

The Congress leadership has failed to learn from history and is repeating mistakes of the past.

The partys reigning dynasty resembles the later Mughals, a shadow of their forebears. Congress nobles are busy building their fiefdoms while the Sangh Parivaar, like the East India Company in the 1700s, is expanding its clout by leaps and bounds. Many are hand in glove with the Company Bahadur, a continuation of the vestiges of Mughal rule but under British control, waiting for the right time to switch allegiance.

In the early 1900s, the British wondered if the moderate Congress would be a sitting duck for its guns. The Congress is tottering to its fall, and one of my greatest ambitions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful demise, declared the viceroy, Lord Curzon.

The political opponents of the Congress today have similar Curzonian dreams of a Congress-free India and await its peaceful demise.

In-fighting and factionalism is a part of the Congress DNA. Its most heated intra-party elections resulted in internal strife and sometimes led to splits in the Congress.

In 1905-07, for instance, two groups in the party the Moderates and the Extremists were engaged in a war to gain control of the Congress. In 1907, the Extremists led by Aurobindo Ghose, felt that that time had come to part company with the Moderates and push them out of the leadership.

If the Moderates could not be deposed, they wanted to split the organisation. The Moderates were led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale while the Extremists by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

At the partys Surat session in 1907, the Extremists objected to the election of Rash Behari Ghose as Congress president. It ended in a tussle between the two groups and the party split. Viceroy Lord Minto wrote to the Secretary of State for India Lord Morley that the Congress collapse at Surat was a great triumph for the British.

In the early 1920s, the Congress was again split between the Changers and No-Changers. The Changers, led by CR Das and Motilal Nehru, formed the Swaraj Party in 1923 to overcome the slump in the freedom struggle after the Non-Cooperation Movement was halted by MK Gandhi in 1922 following the Chauri Chaura incident, when police fired on protesters killing three. Enraged, the protesters set fire to a police station, resulting in the death of 23 personnel.

The Swaraj Party members and the No-Changers were engaged in a fierce political struggle, but were determined to avoid the disastrous experience of the 1907 Surat split. On the advice of Mohandas Gandhi, the two groups decided to remain in the Congress but to work separately.

Then, in 1939, the Congress witnessed one of its most heated presidential contests. Gandhi had chosen Pattabhi Sitaramaiah as his candidate, but incumbent president Subhash Chandra Bose wanted to contest again. Gandhi was opposed to this. Bose, who went on to become a leader of the Indian National Army, had always held radical views.

When the votes were counted, Gandhis candidate Pattabhi Sitaramaiah had garnered 1,375 votes to Boses 1,580. In 1939, however, Bose resigned as Congress president and founded the Forward Bloc.

The splits and in-fighting in the Congress weakened the party, but often helped it stay in sync with the zeitgeist.

In the current party election, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor holds charisma and appeal, like Bose. He is up against Mallikarjun Kharge, who seems to have the backing of the Gandhi family. Tharoor may not win the race, but he may perhaps capture the mood for change. He should create a sphere of influence of his own, either within the party, like CR Dass Swaraj Party, or outside like Boses Forward Bloc. Without such a positive outcome, the partys election would be an exercise in futility.

It is said that when Napoleon Bonaparte was fighting with a Roman Catholic cardinal, the French military leader said: Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church? The cardinal is said to have replied: Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.

The cardinals of the Congress, too, have been doing their best to bring down their party. But the Congress is a microcosm of India and the Indian laity does not want the Grand Old Party to succumb to its death foretold. Because, as Guha concluded, future historians shall record that while it lived and before it died, the Indian National Congress helped make India a less divided, less violent, less hierarchical, less patriarchal, less intolerant and less unequal unfree society than it might have otherwise been.

Faisal CK is an independent researcher.

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Why the messiness of the Congress election offers a glimmer of hope for Indian democracy

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Can the Congress rewrite its chronicle of a death foretold? - Scroll.in

As the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crisis festers, former presidential aspirant of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prof. Harry Iyorwuese Hagher, has said that the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike is gambling with his political future.

In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Prof Hagher, who served twice as a minister and an ambassador and also a former senator, stressed that party chairmen cannot be changed like a pawn in a chessboard. in reference to Governor Nyesoms insistence that Iyorchia Ayu, the PDP national chairman, must resign, for peace to reign.

The presidential campaigns have started. What are your expectations?

I believe the three major contestants Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Bola Tinubu did not wait for the whistle to blow before they started. They emerged from their primaries and choice of running mates to capitalise on the momentum of their followers. They have traversed the country and participated in state elections and held mega rallies, like in Osun State. They met with traditional rulers and attended birthdays, installations, and wedding ceremonies, all to gain visibility. But now that the dateline has arrived, I expect to see each candidate present their manifestos and tell us what contract they wish to engage with the Nigerian public. Nigerians have suffered greatly for 23 years since post-military democracy. They have expectations and need urgent answers to several existential problems. The candidate who provides the greatest hope for all Nigerians will deserve to be elected.

Prior to the campaigns, we saw the campaign spokespersons engage in brickbats. What should be the campaign issues?

The topmost issues that the campaigns should converge on are who can best unite and secure Nigeria. This is the existential need and most pressing agenda. Our lives and property are circumscribed by imminent terror. Our country is ruined by virulent tribalism such as has never been experienced before. Ethnic and religious wars have polarised the people. Diversity has been sidelined by exclusion and nepotism. We expect all the campaigns to focus on how we can engage in nation building. We need to have a country first, even before we secure its borders and build the institutions of state to secure property and guarantee freedoms.

How do you think the presidential candidates should approach these issues?

All the three candidates have the misfortune of being defined by ethnic affiliations, geography and religion. They must prove to us that we are stronger together, and not collapse like the 1964 elections that led to the 1966 military coup, by pulling outside their ethnic enclaves and congregating pan-Nigerianism. We need a strong nationalist as president. Atiku Abubakar must prove that he is a different Fulani man from Buhari and win the confidence in being a Nigerian (Fulani) president like Shehu Shagari and Yar Adua, and most certainly not like Muhammadu Buhari, who did not know or care that he became a Fulani rather than Nigerian president. Peter Obi must prove to Nigerians that he was not just another Igbo great hope to be president and capture Nigeria for Biafra. His constant reference as Igbo candidate robs him of his national credentials.

In the same way, Bola Tinubus campaign must be freed from the caves of Oduduwa and Islamic fundamentalism. He needs to try harder to win the confidence of nationalists, who desire religious tolerance and plurality. His Muslim-Muslim ticket is an albatross and aberration from the traditional norm. He and his running mate are at pains to prove that, like the time of Abiola, religion does not matter while they are all the time playing religious politics. This duo must understand that 2023 is a referendum on the seven years of APCs broken promises and misrule. They must navigate the maze of insecurity, corruption, and brazen ethnic racism.

Generally, a presidential candidates health should be a trivial pursuit of the campaign. In this campaign, however, the health condition of Tinubu is visible. It has brought the issue of the candidates health to the front burner. His incoherence and tremulous legs and hands do not inspire anybody. The experience of the late Yaraduas ill-health and death in Aso Villa and President Buharis near death scare have made the presidents health a critical campaign issue. We need a president who can work long hours and be available for Nigerians. Such a physically robust president will be expected to rise to all occasions to address the needs of Nigerians.

PDP is still unsettled as there is a gulf between the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike. Dont you think it may affect the opposition party that had dreamed of taking over from APC?

In 2015, some PDP governors and senators demanded that President Jonathan drop the partys secretary as a condition for them to remain in the PDP. Jonathan rejected their demand, and they promptly left the PDP and swelled the APC votes which won a landslide in 2015. Today, Governor Wike and his supporters are making similar demands as conditions for supporting Atiku Abubakars campaign. It is much more worrisome now that the failed ruling party, the APC, looks like the likely beneficiary again. But I believe that 2023 is slightly different. In 2015, the break-away faction of the PDP that helped the APC to victory was not acknowledged or recognised by President Buhari and the APC. The case of former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, is an excellent example of APC ingratitude, and how this PDP faction equally deserted the ruling party and came back to the PDP.

Wike and his group are better in the PDP if they hope to be relevant in the future. History does not clone or repeats itself precisely. Wike is gambling. The Wike saga is also a challenge to Atiku and a test of his ability to build a united PDP as precondition to building a united Nigeria.

Wikes group is insisting that the National Chairman of PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, must vacate office for a southerner for peace to reign. Whats your view on this?

This smells like vendetta to me. It feels like demagoguery. We cant change party chairmen like pawns on a chess board. It is too whimsical!

I feel it is time the parties sat together and amicably resolve the matter. It is possible and can be done. The press seems to be weighing in and expanding cleavages to make reconciliation impossible! The principal actors need to reconcile. It is time to reconcile, forgive the past injustices and march on.

The presidential candidate of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is still battling with ripples arising from his choice of a Muslim running mate. Some Northern Christians also remain angry. How should he pacify the Christian community?

I frankly dont know how he can pacify the Christian community and animists. It is too late to drop his running mate. He knows what to do. He can find out what the needs of other faiths are. He could assure other faiths of government enhancement of freedom of faith and protection from violence from Islamic extremists, without the Muslims feeling he is conceding too much.

If a Fulani Muslim succeeds Buhari, assuming Atiku wins, does it not send message to other ethnic groups? Is it not a situation like this that breeds mutual suspicion, and agitations in the country?

If Atiku Abubakar wins, he will have the onerous and arduous responsibility of uniting the country. Rwanda has proven that good leadership that unites a diverse populace under common goals makes the citizens blind to identity politics and tribal racism. I am looking forward to the time in the future when asked which tribe we belong to when we can say we are just Nigerian. There are practical steps we can take in fostering unity. For instance, we can eliminate asking people what tribe they belong to by filling official forms now.

Before now, not many people believed that the contest was among APC, PDP and the LP, but we are seeing what political pundits described as a Movement from the Labour Party, and which they say may spring a surprise. Whats your take on this?

The Obidient Movement has added colour and spice to political campaigns. They will definitely spring a surprise. They already have. However I personally see the movement as a rehearsal for future relevance. If the APC and PDP fail to win at the first ballot and there is a re-run, the Labour Party will become very important. Any party it aligns with at that stage will win the presidential elections in 2023. That is, if there is a re-run. It is easy to gather mammoth crowds today and march through cities causing a great din. This shouldnt cause any political upsets. Curiosity and hunger are major motivations. But if the crowd of Obidients begins to organise door to door campaigns, penetrate the polling booth, and become an organised movement for political action, then I will know the Labour Party has captured the zeitgeist of Post-Buhari Nigeria.

The Southern and Middle Belt Forum (SMBF) has insisted on a power shift to the South. Do you align with them?

I never heard of them. I know that, in general, the Middle-Belt Forum had been a cheer-leader for a power shift to the South. No, I do not align with them. I have gone past the North-South dichotomy. It is a ruse, a political redherring, alienation and amorphous device in which the South-South and South-West oppress the South-East and the North-West dominates the North-East and North-Central politically. I believe that we have transcended this 1914, Amalgamation, North-South Lugardian umbrage. I have transcended the colonial mentality that is holding us down. Let the zones stand alone! The North-South dichotomy is a creation of colonialism cooked up from the boiling pots of hatred and defended by powerful politicians, who benefit from this colonial mentality, and who continue to reproduce this imaginary ruse to feed unsuspecting populace to become ignorant and hateful.

In a country where ethnicity plays a great role, surprisingly, Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural organisation has declared support for Peter Obi, the LP candidate, instead of Tinubu. They are insisting that, for the sake of equity, fair play and justice, that South-East should produce the presidency. Whats your position on this?

The Afenifere leadership is composed of the crme-de-la-crme of Yoruba land. They have reasoned beyond tribalism and their usual Yoruba proclivity. But they might do better to also accept North-Central and the North-East as requiring equity, fair-play and justice to produce a vibrant president. These zones have never produced a president in post-military Nigeria. This is a tradition that has taken root and become hallowed. The Northern elders, in the run to the PDP presidential primaries, had properly asked the North-Central and North-East candidates to contest, and required the North-West to sit down and wait since North-West had been president twice and vice-president. Atikus emergence as the North-East, Nigerian presidential candidate of the PDP, is a deserved choice and not a usurpation of the South-West, South-South, or the South-East slot.

What is your advice to Nigerian politicians during this campaign period?

Watch your words. Be respectful and civil to one another. The elite class is so small, and we will keep bouncing into each other. We should listen to Martin Luther King Jr. that We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Let us focus on the pains of saving Nigeria and focus less on individual pains.

See the article here:

We need a strong nationalist as a president - Daily Sun

Today, Christopher Columbus is calumniated as a harbinger of disease, death, and enslavement of indigenous peoples. In the riots of 2020, his statues were pulled down across the nation amidst increasing calls to cancel the federal holiday in his honor. Meanwhile, a petition circulated around Columbus, Ohio to rename the city Flavortown in honor of local celebrity chef Guy Fieri.

Given the current zeitgeist of hostility towards the great Admiral, you might be surprised to learn that Christopher Columbus was once proposed for canonization. The story goes back to the golden age of Italian immigration, between 1875 and 1914. Columbus was a powerful symbol of Italian-American identity, venerated as a Catholic Italian immigrant hero. It was during this era, in 1882, that Connecticut priest Fr. Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus to attend to the temporal needs of Catholic immigrants, many of them Italian.

In 1879, French historian Count Roselly de Lorgues published an exhaustive biography of Columbus that refuted various calumnies against his character, highlighting the evangelical motives of Columbuss voyages. Lorguess book was instrumental in proposing Columbus as a role model of supernatural virtue. Drawing on primary sources, Lorguess work emphasized the personal virtue of Columbus as exercised in the various trials he underwent over the course of his life.

Recognition of Columbuss personal virtue was not confined to Catholics. American Protestant historian William Prescott also spoke glowingly of Columbuss personal virtues:

Whatever were the defects of his mental constitution, the finger of the historian will find it difficult to point to a single blemish in hismoral character. His correspondence breathes the sentiment of devoted loyaltyto his sovereigns. His conduct habitually displayed the utmost solicitude for the interests of his followersHis dealings were regulated by the nicest principles of honour and justice. His last communicationto the sovereigns from the Indies remonstrates against the use of violent measures in orderto extract gold from thenatives as a thing equally scandalous and impolitic

[His exploration], the grandobjectto which he dedicated himself, seemed to expand his whole soul and raised it above the petty shifts and artifices by which great ends are sometimes sought to be compassed. There are some men in whom rare virtues have been closely allied, if not to positive vice, to degrading weakness. Columbuss character presented no such humiliating incongruity. Whether we contemplate it in its public or private relations, in all its features it wears the same noble aspect. It was in perfect harmony withthe grandeur of his plans and their results, more stupendous than those which heaven has permitted any other mortal to achieve.[1]

Nineteenth century Catholics tended to view Columbuss discovery as the work of God, and the Admirals life as guided by divine providence. His personal virtue was evident in the tale of his life. The patience Columbus exercised despite considerable trials, the forgiveness and generosity he extended to his enemies who were utterly unworthy of it, and the charity he demonstrated in the face of royal ingratitude are so astonishing as to be heroic. When we stop viewing Columbus as a representative of various -isms and start considering him as an individual, it is not difficult to appreciate the mans strong character.

His personal virtues being clearly established and manifested to an exceptional degree, many Catholics began calling for Columbuss beatification. Cardinal Donnet, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, wrote a letter to Pope Pius IX in 1876 speaking of general support amongst the episcopate for raising Columbus to the altars. Particularly noteworthy are Donnets comments that many bishops had signed a petition to open the cause of Columbus and would have presented it at the First Vatican Council had they not been prevented by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War:

moved by these revelations of history, which invest the celebrated navigator with a supernatural splendour. The facts and documents on which the impartial historian has based his account are so numerous and so conclusive that they have carried conviction to the mind even of writers separated indeed from Catholic unity, but guided by the love of truth alone. This conviction, Holy Father, has become in a short time so strong, thata large number of the Fathersof the VaticanCouncilhave voluntarily affixed their signatures to the petition for the introduction of the cause. The solemn expression of their desires would have been presented to the Council itself had not the grave events which have agitated Europe supervened to cause the suspension of the labours of that august assembly.[2]

The Sacred Congregation of Rites made a thorough inquiry into the merits of Columbuss cause. The year after the letter of Donnet, the Congregation issued a judgment against proceeding with the cause. The intelligentsia of the United States applauded the decision, as raising Columbus to the altars would complicate his status as a hero of rugged Protestant individualism. Columbus could be a Catholic saint, or a hero of Americas civic religion, but he could not be both. An article from the Sacramento Daily Union exemplified this attitude:

A dispatch [from Rome] states that the Sacred Congregation of the Vatican has pronounced against the canonization of Columbus. This is perhaps somewhat hard upon Columbus, but really we find it much easier to perceive why he should not be canonized than why he should be. It is even openly questioned, in these days of doubting, whether he is entitled to whatever credit may be due the man who discovered a country which had been settled for ages by highly civilized races; and if he did not discover America it would be hard to make out a claim for him. But at the best there seems no traceable connection between Columbus and Canonization, unless we are to accept as such the fact that they both begin with the same letter. We have no doubt that Columbus himself would have modestly declined any such posthumous honors, for he was not a saint, and he did not pretend to be one. We could understand the proposition better if he had been suggested for canonization in the scheme of August Comtes Religion of Humanity, but with regard to Catholicism the case is different. It would have been awkward, too, to have had to call him Saint Christopher, because there is already a Saint Christopher, and supplications to either of them would have been in danger of going to the wrong address, and all sorts of confusion would have resulted. On the whole it is better as it is..[3]

In 1892, the quadricentennial of Columbuss first voyage, American Catholics reopened the matter by petitioning Rome for canonization. That same year Pope Leo XIII issued the famous encyclicalon the great navigator entitled Quarto Abeunte saeculoin commemoration of the anniversary. Therein Pope Leo called Columbuss exploits the highest and grandest which any age has ever seen accomplished by man. [4] The pope also emphasized the fundamentally religious nature of Columbuss voyages: Since [Columbuss] Catholic faith was the strongest motive for the inception and prosecution of the design, the whole human race owes not a little to the Church. [5] The pope was not interested in reversing the 1877 decision of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, but he did offer some consolation in a special decree authorizing the clergy of Italy, Spain, and the American continents to celebrate a solemn Mass on October 12th of that year in commemoration of Columbuss landing.

While historians continue to debate the long-term consequences of European colonization of the Americas, Catholics can and should honor the man whose voyages represented the highest and grandest which any age ever seen accomplished by man, to quote Pope Leo.

You can find this discussion and much more about the great Columbus in a fantastic book I was privileged to edit, Christopher Columbus by John OKane Murray, first in his series The Lives of Catholic Heroes and Heroines of America.

[1] William H. Prescott, The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (Cambridge, U.K.: Folsom, Wells, and Thurston, 1838) III: 245

[2] Letter of Cardinal Ferdinand-Franois-Auguste Donnet to Pope Pius IX, published in The Tablet, August 19th, 1876.

[3] Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 3, Number 188, 4 October 1877

[4] Pope Leo XIII, Quarto Abeunte saeculo, 1

[5] Ibid., 2

Image: The Departure of Columbus from Palos, Spain, in 1492 by Emanuel Leutze (public domain)

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The 19th Century Movement to Canonize Columbus - Catholic Exchange

Cue the bells.

The 50th anniversary of the Royal Oak has been cause for celebration at Audemars Piguet, which has launched a slew of new models in its iconic range. This fall, the line further expands with some colorful new variations on technical pieces, which blend cutting-edge technology with au courant style all while preserving the iconic 1972 design that Swiss watchmaker and artist Grald Genta famously sketched out in a single evening.

Making its debut in September as a US exclusive (before expanding its reach around the world), the limited-edition Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon is an evolution of the 50th Anniversary Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon launched earlier this year in steel, titanium and 18-karat pink gold, powered by the brands latest-gen Calibre 2950 and fitted with a 50-year winding rotor. Limited to 50 pieces without the commemorative rotor, the new titanium special edition flaunts a little more pizzazz with a vibrant, smoked blue-green Grande Tapisserie dial, set with baguette-cut diamonds to mark the 12 oclock hour.

Designers also dressed up the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in a sleek, 41 mm blue ceramic case, fitted with a matching satin-finish ceramic bracelet. Even the Grande Tapisserie dial and subdials go all-in on the cool, 50-shades-of-blue vibe. Using lightweight, scratch-resistant ceramic in an elegantly slender case endows the age-old perpetual calendar with 21st-century modernity and sport-chic appeal.

The automatic Calibre 5134 is a classic perpetual calendar that automatically adjusts for months of varying lengths, theoretically until 2100.

Artisans in Le Brassus, Switzerland, meticulously hand-finish each ceramic component in the same fashion as metal, in order to accentuate light play on the multifaceted surfaces. Showcased through the clear sapphire caseback, the automatic Calibre 5134 is a classic perpetual calendar that automatically adjusts for months of varying lengths, theoretically until 2100. (So long as your descendants keep it continuously wound and running.)

Royal Oak also served up the shade du jour in high-end watches with a new iteration of the 44 mm Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon GMT in sandblasted titanium, now outfitted with a bezel, crown and push-piece in green ceramic. Even the black architectural movement, showcased through the dial and sapphire caseback, features matching green inserts, putting a fresh spin on the Concepts technical aesthetic.

Black is anything but basic when it comes to the smoking hot, all-noir ceramic 41 mm Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph. Its powered by the brands automatic Calibre 4401 and equipped with an integrated flyback chronograph function, designed for split-second accuracy that allows wearers to instantly stop, reset and restart the chronograph timing function all with a single push. And were still reeling from the spell cast by last summers black-magical Selfwinding Carolina Bucci Limited Edition 34 mm, with a laser-engraved sapphire dial appointed with pink-gold accents.

Last springs 39 mm Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Extra-Thin RD#3 50th Anniversary the first Jumbo with an automatic flying tourbillon certainly caused a sensation. For fall, Audemars Piguet pushed the technical envelope even further, downsizing it to 37 mm for thinner wrists, thanks to its latest ultrathin, self-winding, flying tourbillon movement: the Calibre 2968, which measures a mere 3.4 mm thick. The watchmaker also switched out the signature blue Petite Tapisserie dial for an unconventional and intriguing shade of regal plum.

Theres no doubt that 2022 has been a banner year for the iconic watch, with a remarkable array of new models that embody the evolution of the collection over half a century. And while Audemars Piguet has introduced advanced movements and subtle tweaks to cases, bracelets and dials, it has also carefully preserved the enduring 1972 codes that made Royal Oak the legend that it is. Long may it reign.

Call it a tale as old as time. Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet and the luxury publishing house Assouline have teamed up to tell the story of the first 50 years of the brands flagship model in regal fashion with the milestone book Royal Oak: From Iconoclast to Icon.

Author Bill Prince, an award-winning journalist and former deputy editor of British GQ, brings a broader cultural context to the history of Royal Oak, which caused a stir among watch purists when it was unveiled at the Baselworld trade fair in 1972.

At the time, the traditional, mechanical watch industry was reeling from the advent of inexpensive, superaccurate quartz watches. Like other struggling brands,Audemars Piguet needed to shake things up to survive.

Designed by the legendary Grald Genta, Audemars Piguets revolutionary Royal Oak set a new paradigm, combining a 39 mm hand-finished, stainless-steel case with an octagonal bezel fixed with eight hexagonal screws, an integrated link bracelet and a blue dial engraved with a Petite Tapisserie grid pattern. Inside beat the beautifully finished automatic Calibre 2121, the thinnest automatic mechanical movement of the time.

Nicknamed Jumbo, the Royal Oaks unprecedented fusion of rugged steel and elegant horology reflected its transformative midcentury moment, while laying down a marker for the future of watchmaking.

We had to invent a model both sporty and stylish in spirit, suitable for evening wear and for the daily activities of todays man of taste, explained Georges Golay, Audemars Piguets managing director from 1966 to 1987, who is quoted in the book. Today, that description sums up the most popular and coveted watches in the world, including the Royal Oak.

The weighty volume highlights key models in the Royal Oaks evolution, including this years anniversary collection, interwoven with archival materials discovered by the brands Heritage department. Theres also imagery of the groundbreaking art, architecture, fashion and music that has influenced the cultural zeitgeist of the past six decades.

Prince also introduces the voices of Audemars Piguets notable fans and ambassadors, including celebrities Kevin Hart, Elle Macpherson and Serena Williams to name a few. According to the book, this Generation Royal Oak aficionados who came of age during the models reign represents a group of movers and shakers whose refusal to follow the crowd echoes the enduring spirit of their favorite watch.

Prop stylist: Alex Brannian.

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Audemars Piguet toasts 50 years of Royal Oak with new watches, book - New York Post