Ability does not grow in isolation. It is more like a seed responding to soil, climate and season than a fixed label attached at birth. Social norms, technological change and economic demand act as shifting weather patterns, altering which traits flourish and which remain dormant. When certain abilities appear to “bloom late,” it is often not because they were absent, but because the ecosystem had not yet provided the light in which they could be seen. A serious economic understanding of gifted education (specialized teaching for students who are intellectually talented) must therefore hold two ideas at once: Some forms of talent require early cultivation to reach their full height, while others reveal their value only when the landscape evolves.

The true challenge is not choosing between planting early or waiting for later growth. It is designing an educational ecosystem rich enough to sustain both the fast-sprouting and the slow-maturing, ensuring that no season of development is mistaken for the whole story of potential.

Karnes and institutional flexibility

The life and work of Professor Emeritus offer a practical illustration of what it means to design institutions that recognize both early potential and evolving talent. Through the establishment of the Frances A. Karnes for Gifted Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi, Karnes did not merely advocate for gifted children — she helped build a statewide infrastructure that treated talent development as a public responsibility rather than a private accident.

Her role in shaping Mississippi’s Gifted Education Act is especially instructive. By mandating identification in grades two–six, requiring service hours, ensuring teacher licensure and funding instructional positions, the legislation institutionalized early investment in mathematically and intellectually precocious students. In economic terms, this reduced the probability of underinvestment in highly cumulative domains. It recognized that in fields such as mathematics and physics, delay can permanently narrow opportunity.

Yet Karnes’s philosophy was never confined to early selection alone. She rejected the myth that gifted students “get it on their own,” but she also rejected rigid notions of ability tied to age, seat time or arbitrary promotion standards. Her emphasis on appropriate instructional level rather than chronological age reflects precisely the flexibility required in a portfolio model of talent development. Institutional structure, in her view, should adapt to the learner, not the reverse.

Moreover, her commitment to teacher training reveals another dimension often missing in theoretical debates: Talent development depends on intermediary human capital. Identification without educator expertise yields little return. By building educator development programs and research-based practices, Karnes strengthened the complementary investments necessary for sustained growth — precisely the dynamic complementarities emphasized in .

In this sense, Karnes’s legacy exemplifies the integration of the two principles outlined above. Early identification was not an end in itself, but part of a broader institutional ecosystem designed to keep opportunity open, raise the returns to later development and prevent systemic misallocation of ability. Her work demonstrates that the question is not whether societies should invest early, but whether they are willing to build adaptive systems capable of recognizing that ability — like the economy itself — evolves over time.

Karnes’s institutional philosophy illustrates a broader economic insight: Ability is not a fixed signal revealed once, but a trajectory shaped by investment, timing and opportunity. Theoretical work in human capital economics helps formalize this intuition.

The role of changing societal demand

One reason ability may appear to “bloom late” is that society’s demand for particular skills changes.

Economic history provides many examples. Entire categories of talent — software engineering, data science, digital design, AI research — were either nonexistent or peripheral only a few decades ago. Individuals whose comparative advantage lay in these areas could not demonstrate their potential early because the relevant domains did not yet exist at scale.

Endogenous growth theory helps explain this phenomenon. In former Chief Economist of the World Bank Paul Romer’s , the value of ideas depends on their applicability within the production structure of the economy.

As technology evolves, so too does the shadow price of different abilities. Talent that once appeared marginal can become central. From this perspective, late-blooming ability is not an anomaly; it is a predictable outcome of structural change.

In mathematics, physics and certain areas of engineering, early exposure and sustained challenge are often critical. These domains are highly cumulative; later learning depends heavily on mastery of earlier concepts. Lubinski and Benbow’s longitudinal on mathematically precocious youth demonstrates that early mathematical ability predicts later contributions to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, including patents and publications

In such fields, failure to challenge early can permanently foreclose later opportunities. Here, early gifted education plays a uniquely powerful role.

By contrast, fields such as entrepreneurship, leadership, policy design and even some scientific domains rely heavily on integrative thinking, judgment and contextual reasoning — capacities that often mature later. American psychologist and distinguished Professor Emeritus Dean Simonton’s on creativity shows that peak creative output varies widely across disciplines and individuals, with many innovators producing their most influential work well into midlife. Similarly, research on entrepreneurship that successful founders are often older, benefiting from accumulated experience, networks and domain knowledge rather than early technical brilliance alone

These findings underscore a central point: Early gifted education is essential in some domains.

��AI, late bloomers and the expansion — and stratification — of opportunity

In the age of AI, where algorithms increasingly generate optimal solutions at remarkable speed, the meaning of “Gifted Talent” is quietly shifting. In the past, exceptional memory, calculation skills or technical precision were seen as rare forms of intelligence. Today, however, these capabilities can often be replicated — or even surpassed — by machines. What remains uniquely human is not merely the ability to solve problems, but the ability to ask original questions, sense hidden patterns and imagine possibilities beyond existing data. Gifted individuals may therefore matter not because they outperform AI in efficiency, but because they introduce perspectives that algorithms cannot easily anticipate.

Technological progress has always reshaped how society values human abilities. The typewriter, for example, allowed anyone to produce neat and legible text regardless of handwriting skill. In a similar way, AI now “standardizes” analytical tasks, making high-level outputs accessible to a broader population. As technical barriers fall, the traits that stand out most are intuition, creativity and the courage to challenge established assumptions. Gifted Talent, in this sense, is less about superior processing power and more about cognitive flexibility — the capacity to connect distant ideas and redefine the problem itself.

Rather than competing with AI, gifted individuals may play a complementary role. As machines handle optimization and pattern recognition, human value shifts toward ethical judgment, interdisciplinary thinking and visionary insight. The question is not whether gifted students are necessary, but how their abilities evolve in a world shaped by intelligent tools.

In an era of algorithmic precision, Gifted Talent may represent the expanding frontier of human originality — the space where imagination, ambiguity and intuition continue to guide innovation beyond what optimization alone can achieve.

Premature closure or portfolio development

Educational systems are most effective when they function not as sorting machines, but as environments for sustained cultivation. Different forms of talent grow at different speeds. Some abilities develop rapidly and benefit from immediate acceleration. Others deepen gradually, gaining clarity and strength as experience, maturity and context evolve. The objective is not to identify once and finalize, but to design conditions under which talent can continue to expand.

Early identification can be valuable, particularly in cumulative fields where foundational skills compound over time. But the true strength of a gifted system lies in its capacity to support growth beyond initial signals. Talent is not a single moment of recognition; it is a trajectory. Systems that allow individuals to re-engage, redirect and accelerate at multiple stages create more opportunities for high-level development.

In periods of rapid technological and economic change, flexibility becomes an asset. The domains that will define the next generation of innovation may not yet be fully visible. Educational structures that remain open to evolving strengths increase the likelihood that emerging forms of excellence will be recognized and cultivated. Rather than narrowing pathways early, forward-looking institutions build layered opportunities that enable talent to compound over time.

A developmental portfolio approach, therefore, strengthens gifted education. Intensive early challenge in highly cumulative disciplines remains essential. At the same time, broad intellectual enrichment expands exposure, adaptive pathways enable renewed acceleration and lifelong learning systems allow new expertise to crystallize. Such an approach does not merely avoid lost potential — it actively maximizes the probability that exceptional ability, whenever it becomes visible, can grow into sustained contribution.

Structural constraints��

An example of the ways that current educational systems limit opportunities for gifted students comes in the format of the assignment of for credits toward high school graduation. Because this system is primarily based on spending a specified amount of time in a particular course, most high school experiences are detrimental to advanced students, who must either languish in a course for much longer than they need to.

On the other hand, if they are allowed to move more quickly, the accelerated courses they take receive fewer Carnegie units, meaning that the students must complete twice as many courses to obtain the same number of hours toward their graduation. Without proper training in working with gifted students and recognizing their needs, educators cannot appreciate the extent of the devaluation gifted students experience at the hands of educators.

Case illustration

One example of these concepts that comes from the Karnes Center focuses on a young man who attended the Summer Program for Academically Talented Youth (AT Program) in the early 2000s. The AT Program, as it was then known, was a forerunner of dual-credit programs currently prevalent in most high schools today and provided an intensive academic immersion experience over the course of three weeks. One of the most popular courses was advanced mathematics. On the first day of the course, students were tested to see which mathematics skills had already been mastered and which skills they were ready to learn.  

At that time, the young man in question tested in a way that indicated his readiness to begin Algebra I. Most students who took the course finished one high school math credit during the three-week period. This young man, however, when given the opportunity to explore mathematical concepts at his own pace, flew through not only Algebra I, but also Algebra II and Geometry in the three-week time frame. When his transcripts were presented to his high school, they were reluctant to acknowledge the credits he had earned. The path toward graduation at his school required that students take one math course in each of the four years of high school, and because they did not have an appropriate number of even more advanced courses for him to take during his junior and senior years in high school, they wanted to force him to stay in the lower-level courses that he had already mastered. 

Misalignment across educational levels

This is not uncommon and is not limited to high schools. Even students who attend accelerated high schools must advocate for their placement in higher-level college courses as freshmen, rather than, say, taking an introductory course in biology for nonmajors when they have already taken courses such as Human Infectious Diseases or Microbiology at their advanced high school. It is extremely important to advocate for appropriate alignment agreements between secondary and tertiary schooling entities if gifted students are to be appropriately recognized without penalty for transferring more than the appropriate number of credits into the university program.

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Shock therapy: the “startup university”

Friedman begins by recounting the moment his university abruptly dismissed roughly 30% of its staff. Administrators locked the campus, summoned faculty into brief meetings and informed them of their termination. He watched colleagues emerge from five-minute sessions in tears, before going in himself and returning to finish his lecture.

The episode reflects what Friedman calls a “startup type of management mentality.” Universities, he argues, are increasingly run by professional managers rather than educators — leaders trained to optimize processes, pivot quickly and prioritize efficiency. In this model, institutions once conceived as public goods begin to resemble corporations, guided by short-term metrics and quarterly logic rather than long-term intellectual commitments.

Campani presses him on whether management theory has colonized academia. Friedman agrees. A broader neoliberal framework, he explains, has seeped into universities, nonprofits and public administration. Executive boards operate with the mindset of CEOs, treating education as a system to be streamlined. The result is speed over deliberation, flexibility over stability and performance indicators over intellectual mission.

From classroom to TikTok

After Friedman’s dismissal, a student proposed making a TikTok video. Within days, one clip reached 40 million views. What began as a protest became a new pedagogical experiment.

Anthropology, he notes, is traditionally slow. Classroom learning unfolds over semesters; intellectual transformation takes years. Social media operates in flashes. Yet Friedman sees value in these brief interventions. He does not aim to replicate the seminar room, but to create of recognition.

If a 30-second clip helps viewers grasp two ideas — that others experience the world differently, and that we share common ground despite those differences — then it succeeds. “If I can provide more questions than answers,” he says, “I always feel I’m being an effective educator.”

Contrary to his expectations, he finds online exchanges often earnest and constructive. He has not had to block anyone. Social media becomes for him a form of participant observation — anthropology conducted in a digital field site.

The humanities under pressure

Campani raises a familiar critique: Disciplines like anthropology are impractical and ill-suited to the job market. Friedman defends liberal arts education as preparation for a lifetime of adaptability. Its strength lies in breadth — the ability to connect politics and economics, history and culture, rather than remaining confined within hyper-specialized silos.

He traces the rise of academic specialization from the late 19th century onward. Over time, disciplines fractured into increasingly narrow domains. Scholars often write for a few hundred peers worldwide. Promotion systems reward peer-reviewed output over teaching or public engagement. This emphasis, he says, “detracts from anthropology itself,” narrowing its impact.

Department closures across the United Kingdom and the Netherlands illustrate the consequences. Programs are gutted; students find their degrees destabilized midstream. Even tenure, once designed to protect intellectual independence, no longer guarantees security. Friedman himself was tenured when dismissed. Becoming a public intellectual now carries risk, particularly in political climates where universities fear losing funding.

The fight for relevance

Friedman distinguishes between academic anthropology, applied anthropology and what he calls public anthropology. The first seeks to understand what it means to be human. The second applies anthropological tools to specific problems, sometimes in corporate or governmental contexts. Public anthropology, by contrast, aims to insert anthropological perspectives into public debate.

Why, he asks, are anthropologists absent from conversations on immigration, climate crisis or geopolitics? Why are these debates ceded to politicians and economists alone? A discipline that examines culture, power and meaning should have a visible voice in news media, schools and even popular platforms.

The stakes are existential. If anthropology fails to demonstrate relevance beyond conferences and journals, its future dims. Friedman acknowledges cyclical crises in the field’s history but believes this moment demands greater outward engagement.

A slower future?

Campani and Friedman end the conversation on a note of cautious optimism. Friedman senses that many young people are questioning perpetual growth and transactional logic. They seek meaning, reflection and a slower pace of life.

Universities, he argues, should embody that slowness, and be places where long-term thinking survives in a culture obsessed with immediacy. The destruction of knowledge infrastructures, from department closures to shrinking archives, threatens not only academic careers but society’s capacity to remember and reflect.

The task ahead is modest but vital: generate recognition, spark curiosity and cultivate better questions. In a profit-driven global system that rewards speed and efficiency, the humanities may endure precisely by insisting on depth, context and the complexity of being human.

[ edited this piece.]

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The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has set the ambitious goal of increasing the GER from 26.3% in 2018 to by 2035. Achieving this target will require an unprecedented expansion of India’s education system. For the international community, this is not just India’s challenge; it is a global opportunity. Western higher education systems can benefit by partnering with India in ways that are mutually transformative.

A growing demand fueled by aspirations

India has over school-going children, representing the largest cohort of future learners anywhere in the world. Yet, only one in four students makes it to higher education. This narrowing of the pyramid is not due to a lack of interest, but due to limited capacity in India and the consequent lack of opportunities. As family incomes rise and aspirations expand, more Indian parents are willing to invest in education on a global scale.

The numbers are telling. In 2022, over Indian students went abroad for higher studies, a big jump compared to 450,000 in 2017 and 260,000 in 2020. Furthermore, India surpassed China as the top source of international students in the US in 2022. Indian families are projected to spend nearly annually on foreign education in 2025. These numbers underscore both the pressure on India’s system and the enormous opportunities for international institutions.

This outflow is no longer confined to the urban elite. Families in Tier I and Tier II — this is a classification of urban areas on the basis of factors like the size of the population and economic development — are increasingly investing in overseas education. For international universities grappling with declining enrollments at home, India offers an unrivaled opportunity to service a huge demand for higher education. India not only offers sheer numbers to these institutions but also the opportunity to offer diverse disciplines, interdisciplinary training and innovation-led learning experiences.

Partnership models for a sustainable future

Expanding India’s system to meet a 50% GER by 2035 will require doubling the number of students in higher education. No country has attempted such a massive in such a short time. Partnerships with international institutions will be critical to meeting this challenge. Given the long-term nature of higher education, these partnerships cannot be transactional. Both international and Indian institutions must work together to build sustainable ecosystems that serve both India and the global community.

One such pathway is the pioneered by Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani and other forward-looking institutions. In this model, students complete the first two years of their undergraduate studies in India and their next two at a partner university abroad.��

“This model gives students international exposure while being more affordable than a foreign degree.. It also gives them both an academic grounding in India and a global exposure. Even international universities benefit. The 2+2 model reduces the cost of student recruitment for these universities as well as gives them a steady flow of well-trained Indian students.

Joint PhD run by both Indian and Western institutions represent another area of promise. Training PhDs is resource-intensive, often requiring significant investments in infrastructure and faculty time. Through joint PhD programs, Western institutions can share costs with their Indian partners and leverage expertise across geographies. Students can benefit from access to world-class labs abroad while working on problems relevant to India. For global universities, such collaborations create bridges to fast-growing research ecosystems and open up avenues for innovation-led partnerships.

These models also address a deeper challenge: creating financial sustainability in higher education. Undergraduate tuition can subsidize doctoral training when designed carefully. By linking undergraduate pathways with doctoral opportunities, universities can build systems where costs are distributed, risks are shared and outcomes are amplified. Industry in both partner countries will also find value in these collaborations, since the research projects can be aligned with their innovation pipelines. 

In joint PhD programs, faculty members from two universities engage in guiding the same student, thereby creating deeper academic linkages. With shared supervision, access to dual infrastructure and sponsorships that are jointly supported, the financial burden on individual institutions or students is often significantly reduced. Joint programs are not only viable for India; they can serve as a global template for sustainable higher education PhD student financing.

Scaling research and innovation through global coalitions

India’s researcher density remains among the lowest in the world. With fewer than per million people, India lags far behind advanced economies. The US has more than 4,000 researchers per million, Germany over 5,000 and South Korea above 7,000. This disparity explains why India’s contribution to high-impact research is still modest relative to its population size and economic potential. Bridging this gap requires building a robust research culture and scaling the pipeline of trained scientists.

International collaborations are the most effective way to accelerate this process. Joint research centers, co-funded PhD programs and collaborative grants can pool resources and expand impact. Undergraduate programs linked to international research pathways in top institutions such as Cambridge, MIT and Caltech have ensured a regular supply of motivated students entering doctoral training. From experience, we know this integration works. In fact, it creates a virtuous cycle where education and research feed into one another, sustaining long-term growth.

Global universities also stand to gain. Many Western institutions face declining domestic enrollments, financial pressures and rising costs of research. Partnering with India provides access to a vast talent pool, opportunities for cost-effective collaboration and entry into one of the world’s most dynamic markets. For India, these partnerships help build the critical mass of researchers required to compete globally in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, climate science and health technologies.

India as a global anchor for higher education

India’s higher education system is poised for a historic transformation. The aspirations of its young population, the willingness of families to invest and the urgency of scaling the system create both challenges and opportunities. For international institutions, the message is clear: engaging with India is no longer optional; it is essential. The models of collaboration Indians are developing, including my institution, BITS Pilani — 2+2 undergraduate programs, joint PhDs and shared research initiatives — are not only solutions to India’s problems but also global innovations in higher education.

If India succeeds in reaching a GER of 50% by 2035, it will add tens of millions of students to its higher education system. This will be the largest expansion of higher education in human history. No single country can achieve this alone. It will require a coalition of global partners who see education not only as a national priority but as a shared global mission. Investing in India’s educational growth means investing in the future of global knowledge itself.

[Members of 51�Թ�’s Young Editors Program collectively edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In light of the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overruled Roe v. Wade, the need for federal and state Equal Rights Amendments (ERAs) has become increasingly crucial. The decision emphasized that federal constitutional protections extend only to rights deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions.

However, by grounding reproductive rights in the right to equality rather than privacy, the federal ERA’s incorporation into the Constitution would help protect these fundamental human rights from being denied. Using the 14th Amendment and its substantive due process clause, which has traditionally been used to argue for privacy rights, including reproductive rights, has proven to be precarious. This approach relies on the often-debated and fluctuating interpretation of substantive due process by the Supreme Court. By instead anchoring reproductive rights in the federal ERA, which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sex, these rights would be more robustly protected as fundamental aspects of equality.

There has been a distressing regression in women’s rights in recent years. In v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal constitutional right to an abortion. In , a long-dormant restrictive abortion law was reintroduced and then reversed, leaving women and girls uncertain about their reproductive health rights. These decisions have eroded women’s ability to access sexual reproductive health services and maintain bodily autonomy equally across the nation.

In 2024, women’s rights activists had some victories in and , where limitations for state health insurance-funded abortion care were struck down by district and state supreme courts, respectively, offering hope. 

These developments underscore the Equal Rights Amendments (ERA) at the federal and state levels. Only constitutional entrenchment of gender equality will establish irrefutable protections for us all. 

What is the ERA and what does it have to do with abortion rights? 

The federal ERA is a simple constitutional amendment. It seeks to end sex discrimination and guarantee the rights of all people within the most important legal document in the United States.

The main simply and eloquently states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

The initial decision by the allowing for the possibility of the reinstatement of a draconian law from 1864 severely restricting abortion access underscores the vulnerability of these rights without explicit constitutional legal protections. The court’s decision stated, “Because the federal constitutional right to abortion that overrode [this statute] no longer exists, the statute is now enforceable….”  

The positive application of state-level equal rights amendments has led to protecting reproductive rights, particularly for economically vulnerable people, and to state-level accountability.

recent judicial ruling striking down limits placed by the state on Medicaid for abortion provides reassurance, demonstrating the power of state constitutional equality provisions to serve as a defense against state agency overreach and limitations on reproductive rights. Similarly, striking down the discriminatory legislation that restricted Medicaid coverage of abortion is a testament to the vital importance of state-level protections that can be derived from an equal rights amendment. 

This election year, with just a handful more co-sponsors needed to to a vote in Congress affirming its validity, it is time to take action to help secure reproductive rights and substantive equality. We also need to ensure that any sex-discriminatory acts will be challenged and reviewed with at the judicial level. 

Working as a lawyer across the globe has reinforced my understanding that legal frameworks, including international treaties, national constitutions, and customary law, play a crucial role in safeguarding fundamental rights. The protection of all women’s human rights, including the right to sexual and reproductive health and rights, requires a multi-faceted approach that encompasses both state and federal levels. 

The US has international legal obligations to guarantee equality and reproductive rights.

Women’s struggle for reproductive autonomy is not confined to any one nation, and must reflect international human rights law and standards, including the right to sex equality, broadly defined.   

At the end of 2023, for example, the UN Human Rights Committee that the United States, which is a State party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “should redouble its efforts to guarantee protection against sex and gender-based discrimination in its Constitution, including through initiatives such as the Equal Rights Amendment.”  

The Human Rights Committee also strongly recommended to the US that it “should take all measures necessary at the federal, state, local and territorial levels to ensure that women and girls do not have to resort to unsafe abortions that may endanger their lives and health.” The Committee elaborated that specific measures the US should take should include providing legal, effective, safe, and confidential access to abortion throughout the US territory, ending the criminalization of abortion – including for medical staff, eliminating inter-state access bans on abortion, and expanding access to medication abortion. 

It’s time to prioritize equality in the US.

Every year, the United States hosts an annual international gathering at the United Nations to discuss the state of gender equality worldwide. Ironically, without constitutional equality or full access to sexual reproductive health, the US is noncompliant with international standards and must implement these measures to finally be on par with where these measures already exist. 

Next March, at the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), we should be able to proclaim to the global community that the US is moving towards compliance. This includes states considering measures on Equal Rights Amendments (ERAs) and reproductive rights, such as my home state of , where the ERA will hopefully remain on the ballot this November. These strides will bring the US closer to meeting international standards and shedding its outlier status.

I urge lawmakers and advocates to prioritize the incorporation of the federal ERA and adopting and implementing state ERAs to help ensure that sex equality and reproductive rights, as universal human rights, are upheld throughout the United States. Anything less would be a disservice to and a violation of the principles of equality, non-discrimination, justice, and human dignity that we strive to uphold globally.

[ edited this piece.]

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Recently, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights iris scans in refugee camps and artificial intelligence-driven installed at international borders. Social media is being used to refugees and citizens. from the US Department of Homeland Security uses an AI called Babel X, which connects a person’s social security number to their location and social media. , autonomous robots that can move on four or even two legs, are being as force multipliers on the Mexico–US border. These are just a few of the unregulated, uncontrolled experimental initiatives that are quickly taking root. Technological advancement makes migration more nightmarish than ever before.

Frontex aerial highlights the life-saving potential of drones and aircraft, which can help those in maritime crises. Saving lives at sea ought to be the priority; a startling 25,313 have perished in the Mediterranean since 2014. As it turns out, however, these deaths were caused by Frontex’s , which “is in service of interceptions, not rescues.”

More than 7,000 international students may have been unjustly due to a flawed algorithm by the UK government. They were erroneously accused of cheating on English language exams, with no evidence provided against them.

How can human rights professionals improve the dignity of individuals crossing international borders? How can they expose the reality of this terrible situation? How do migrants oppose these experiments? This piece examines some of the profound effects of ABG technologies on human rights with a human rights-based (HRBA).

ABG militarization and border AI

Racist and xenophobic sentiments against , asylum seekers, migrants and stateless persons are increasing. These can be fuelled by the AI-driven of borders and border governance. This involves tactics and policies that violate human rights, like pushbacks, extended immigration detention and refoulement. are operations that prevent people from reaching, entering or remaining in a territory. is the practice of detaining migrants, especially those suspected of illegal entry, until immigration authorities can decide whether or not to let them through. is the practice of deporting migrants, often refugees or asylum seekers, back to their country or another.

UN agencies provide a wealth of information about the grave injustice and threats to human rights that migrants at international borders. Threatened rights include freedom of movement, prohibition against collective and , the right to seek and many others. In these situations, borderless algorithmic are used to further security goals. They highlight and create new avenues for human rights problems.

The goal of ABG must be to respect human rights. This strategy should be based on two main objectives. First, it should comprehend how poorly-planned algorithmic of border movement management may result in unprotected human rights. Second, it should evaluate how newly-emerging technology may exacerbate pre-existing issues.

States use new algorithmic to identify individuals in transit near land, maritime and external borders, such as the and the . This technology includes ground sensors, surveillance towers, aerial systems, drones and video surveillance. AI has enabled tasks like movement detection and between people and livestock. New ABG initiatives have repurposed technology for military or law enforcement applications, creating robodogs. States and regional bodies are using AI to forecast migration , processing information from social media, Internet searches and cell phone data.

However, these efforts are primarily focused on stopping border crossings rather than assisting migrants. This has raised among civil society groups, academia and international agencies. When used in a securitized to border regulation, these AI could potentially human rights, like the right to asylum or the ability to leave one’s country of origin. The UN Working Group suggests that for maritime can help detect and maintain a safe distance from search and rescue activities, allowing to reach secure harbors.

In 2021, the on the human rights of migrants released a highlighting the use of as a form of punishment, deterrent or targeting system. Migrants face significant danger at borders due to pushback policies, , physical barriers and advanced monitoring technology. EU-funded pilot like focus on automated deception detection , face-matching tools, biometrics and document authentication apparatus. The program offers real-time behavior that could uncover hidden intent through on-site observations and open-source mining.

Internalized borders and algorithmic risk assessments

As part of a goal to borders, some states are attempting to identify individuals with irregular through digital . This can happen years after the individual’s initial entry into the nation. Investigative journalists show that some immigration agencies have databases of other state institutions, which are typically protected from law enforcement by firewalls. These agencies have attempted to identify people with irregular immigration statuses, putting them in danger of or .

Certain states allegedly utilize data brokers to obtain information about things major and minor: prior employment, marriages, bank and property records, vehicle registrations, even phone subscriptions and cable television bills. Academics and civil society organizations have demonstrated the chilling that digital border may have on individuals exercising their rights. These include rights to housing, healthcare and education. If they are discovered, migrants may face severe repercussions.

According to , many migrants abstain from using record-keeping services that are essential to their family’s wellbeing, including child welfare, and legal systems. They avoid these out of concern that law enforcement may access their information and use it to detain, prosecute and deport them.

Algorithmic risk are used in border , such as assigning higher risk to applications and referring them to human . These assessments are also used in states to decide whether to detain migrants. Concerns about human rights arise when AI are applied in detention decisions.

Algorithms need large datasets to train. They may contain and information due to overrepresentation or underrepresentation of certain groups, particularly the categories of , race and ethnicity. The ’s weighting of input data and the results it generates also contribute to algorithmic . Researchers in the US have found that some may lean toward high-risk classifications in detention , potentially leading to the detention of low-risk migrants. This is because algorithms’ apparent impartiality and scientific character may corroborate human officers’ prejudices, which can lead to against certain groups and stereotypes.

States may use technology like and reporting software, digital ankle and electronic to substitute traditional methods. However, the on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families notes that these automated may have unfortunate consequences. They could further stigmatize migrants, lead to burdensome requirements, cause detentions and prompt a growth of algorithmic detention . Specific methods may impede people’s freedom of movement and enhance monitoring, even if they are not considered confinement.

Role data and the future

AI technologies and those employed generally in the ABG context rely heavily on . Input data is entered into them directly, and additional data is produced as a byproduct of its deployment. The data many states store and use include and obtained for and ; data from social media accounts; automated border control like and smart tunnels; monitoring health data; educational records and employment status. Commercial corporations, international organizations and other states too may gather shared data.

The to Regulate Artificial Intelligence aims to exclude current on criminal records, immigration and from the usual safeguards offered for high-risk AI . Access to these facilitates immigration databases with data gathered for criminal . This raises several potential human rights risks, like violations of the rights to equality, privacy and freedom from discrimination. Rights to life, liberty and security are in jeopardy as well if indiscriminate leads to detention and deportation.

There are few formal regulations governing the design and deployment of digital used at borders. AI is broadly unregulated as well. Despite this, the use of ABG technologies does not occur in a regulatory vacuum. States must uphold international human rights law. Governments and businesses must abide by the .

However, when using digital border , noncompliance with these duties creates protection . Firsthand accounts of those impacted by ABG technologies must be prioritized when implementing an HRBA framework for migration and ABG technology regulation. There need to be discussions between affected communities and policymakers, academics, technologists and civil society about the risks of using new technologies that protect human rights. Mobile communities should continue to have conversations about creating and using digital border technologies — before their deployment, not after.

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The move to drop the tests can actually be to a time before the pandemic, but it was accelerated by students being to travel to testing sites during the lockdowns. Further, the mass racial justice of the summer of 2020, prompted by the killing of George Floyd, pressured elites into embracing ideas rooted in equity.

Many the spurning of tests as the right direction for institutions that have ensured the maintenance of white supremacist patriarchy since their inception. But as elite universities such as , and recently reneged on the promise of leveling the playing field by returning to test requirements, are those celebrations premature?

Standardized testing is racially discriminatory

Research has confirmed and that requiring students to take the SAT or ACT weeds out women, people of color and other marginalized groups. As a physics and astronomy undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, I participated in efforts in the early 1990s to address how such tests undermine women’s entry into STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). I was a perfect example: a straight-A student whose academic record had only one stain — a mediocre SAT score which severely narrowed my college options.

As Robert Schaeffer, director of public education at FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing, one of the leading advocacy groups against required SAT and ACT testing, The 19th, “Despite the fact that young women get lower scores on the test than young men, they earn higher grades when matched for identical courses in college than the boys.”

Black and Latino students routinely on the SAT’s math section compared to whites and Asians. This is not evidence of a racial difference in educational ability and intelligence. Scientists that there is none. Rather, it is evidence of racial bias in the test.

There is a similar bias based on class. Wealthier students routinely do on the test than low-income students. This is no surprise, given the built on test preparation, helping students navigate the notoriously tricky test in exchange for of dollars. The fact that SAT scores are used to determine many a student’s for scholarships further entrenches class bias.

Indeed, because of the SAT’s racial and class bias, the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that officials at the University of California were convinced “that performance on the SAT and ACT was so strongly influenced by family income, parents’ education and race that using them for high-stakes admissions decisions was simply wrong.”

Standardized testing is regrettably back, but not everywhere

By 2021, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Compton Unified School District, the entire University of California system tests as requirements for admissions. The move seemed to herald a new era in higher education, and indeed, data from the few years that this experiment has been in place in opening up higher education to historically excluded communities.

But, as advocates of racial, gender and economic justice painstakingly chipped away at the exclusivity of higher education, conservatives predictably pushed back. A wave of right-wing attacks in recent years has at affirmative action admissions policies, the of Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion campus .

It was only a matter of time before elite institutions such as Harvard, Yale and Caltech backslid on their commitment to equity by reverting back to SAT requirements. Opinions of elite commentators such as The New York Times education editor David Leonhardt helped validate this decision. Leonhardt , “Standardized tests have become especially unpopular among political progressives, and university campuses are dominated by progressives.”

He highlighted a 2023 by an organization called Opportunity Insights to justify reinstating test requirements. The paper concluded that “SAT/ACT scores and academic ratings are highly predictive of post-college success.” It was precisely the ammunition elite institutions were waiting for. Harvard specifically the paper in its reversal on testing.

But, according to Schaeffer, the conclusions that Opportunity Insights comes to are flawed. He The New York Times, “[W]hen you eliminate the role of wealth, test scores are not better than high school G.P.A.” In a responding to Leonhardt and Opportunity Insights, FairTest accused researchers of omitting student demographics such as “family income, parental education, and race/ethnicity.” They found that when accounting for these critical demographic markers, the SAT fails to predict academic merit and that students’ grade point averages (GPA) in high school are better markers.

Aside from GPA, public school educators have backed the idea of “” as a better alternative to the SAT. Such assessments measure the totality of students’ expertise, achievements and ideas. They are, by design, complex and varied — just as human beings are — and are based on interaction and collaboration — just as society functions in real life.

The SAT is largely a multiple-choice test. It is an individualistic assessment designed for an individualist mindset and is therefore an exceedingly narrow measure of a person. Aside from its essay section, each question has only one correct answer embedded in an array of wrong answers. There is no room for complex thinking and ideas. to FairTest, “Using the SAT as the gatekeeper for higher education turns out to test one thing above all else: existing station in life.”

Standardized tests, and the idea that universities may revert back to using them, are a source of undue on students and their families. Thankfully, of universities and colleges remain test-free or test-optional

Ultimately, only a tiny sliver of the nation’s students will be able to attend the institutions that steadfastly cling to elitist practices. If anything, the decision by some to insist on outdated racist, sexist and classist standards is a further indication of how irrelevant they are to modern American society.

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There is a steady stream of Western academic research exploring, describing, and defending human rights. Western governments present themselves as the ultimate protectors of rights of all kinds and frequently introduce new policies and laws aimed at shaping society to reflect these rights. One might argue that the unconditional defense of freedoms and rights cannot go wrong. Or can it?

Rights cannot exist without duties

There is a deafening silence in Western education, social life, and political discourse about the need to first fulfill human duties if any rights are to be obtained. It is surprising and disturbing that there is no “Universal Declaration of Human Duties,” even though it is the fulfillment of duties, not rights, that provides the foundation upon which an individual can grow and a society can flourish.

The establishment of most rights is viable and sustainable only if a set of duties is first addressed. Rights are the spontaneous result of the fulfillment of a series of duties. 

To illustrate the pernicious consequences of unconditionally granting rights without first requiring the fulfillment of a set of duties, let me use the right to freedom of opinion and expression, one of the rights on the UDHR list and one of the most popular rights in the West.

Freedom of opinion and expression is one of the socio-political cornerstones of Western societies and is unconditionally granted to every citizen. Yet it is obvious that, in order for an individual to make a valuable contribution to society, he must first have a thorough understanding of the issues on which he is expressing an opinion. Therefore, to exercise this right in any meaningful way, one must first fulfill several obligations. These obligations include gathering sufficient information about the issue under consideration, having the necessary background information and skills to analyze the information and spending sufficient time analyzing the information to draw sound conclusions. Only after these three obligations have been met can the individual form an opinion and, if he wishes, share it for the benefit of the community. 

However, if these three obligations are not fulfilled first, the individual perspective cannot be considered an opinion, but rather mental noise, and its expression will be detrimental to the public understanding of the issue. This is truer today than ever, given the ease and speed with which (mis)information can be spread. Society, education and governments should therefore emphasize the obligation to be sufficiently informed and to understand the relevant issues before exercising the right to express an opinion.

How to achieve a proper emphasis on duties

By overemphasizing people’s rights and neglecting their duties, individualistic societies become fragile and prone to fractures between various self-serving, short-term values and goals. Western societies seem to have forgotten that most progress occurs when individuals focus on fulfilling their duties and that rights are the spontaneous outcome of this progress.

In the collectivist societies common in Asia, the interests and needs of the community come before those of the individual, and individual duties take precedence. From an early age, children are taught that they have duties to family and society and that they must sometimes sacrifice their personal interests and rights for the greater social good. Individuals are taught that they have a duty to learn, rather than a right to study, and that they have an obligation to work hard, rather than the right to a good job.��

Prioritizing duties also leads individuals to perceive authority as something legitimate and necessary, and, consequently, to be more inclined to follow its directives. Accepting authority and following its directives, even if one does not fully agree with its purpose, is fundamental for the effective management of societies, making them more prosperous. This does not mean that individuals in collectivist societies do not enjoy rights. On the contrary, they may enjoy more rights than in individualistic societies, but these rights are contingent upon, and the natural outcome of, the fulfillment of a set of duties.

Western societies should move away from ignoring the need for their members to focus on their duties. Instead, they must re-emphasize the vital importance that individual duties play in fostering personal growth and ensuring the well-being of societies. In this sense, the West can find inspiration in collectivist societies that prioritize the community over the individual and accept significant levels of authority. After all, personal growth and social prosperity can only be achieved if each of us focuses on fulfilling our duties. Rights will follow spontaneously.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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I am proud to have had the opportunity to study at an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). At the age of 16, I was completely transformed by this intellectually challenging and life-building experience. Afterward, I built a successful career in the US for over forty years. I have now returned home and begun making a contribution to improve our country’s Human Development Index by contributing to many worthy causes. These include helping to improve primary healthcare, education and equipping Indians with skills to build careers. With some colleagues, I have set up a platform that helps how these program interventions can have measurable outcomes. Mirroring the United States, I ask if we can adopt affordable technology and most importantly, sustainable funds for our projects. In order for our country to get a seat at the UN Permanent Security Council or a Seat at the G7 (+1), we cannot have living on less than $ 2/day. We cannot have 35% of our children under 5 years stunted. We cannot have a Global Hunger Index ranking of . And we cannot have of adolescent women suffering from anemia.

I heard your speech at the India Today Annual Conclave in Delhi. It reminded me of when I heard your speech at the 54th Convocation of IIT Kanpur on December 28, 2022. Hearing your intervention back then made me nostalgic for my experience at IIT. But I was surprised at some of your statements. You said that no general development took place in India during the first 25 years after independence. You claimed that our country made no effort to rebuild itself after 200 years of being pillaged by Britain. I am sure the young graduating students must have believed what you said about our country. I am concerned about how your words may affect their perspectives. I give you the benefit of the doubt since this seems to be an error on the part of your speechwriters. If you could hand over this letter to them, as a guideline for your next speech, I would be grateful. After all, one cannot erase history.

I was even more shocked when I heard your speech at the Conclave. You said that whilst your government has done more for India’s development in its eight years of governance than in the entire 75 years since independence, you enumerated the first 75 days of 2023. The highlights were winning an Oscar and the Women’s Under-19 World Cup in cricket. In fact, you made me wonder if we perhaps had gained independence in 2014 and you were the lone freedom fighter. Very few leaders in the last 100 years have single-handedly taken the credit for the success of their country on a global platform except for a few who should not be named. This to me seems like a questionable and audacious move.

Here are some stellar examples of the solid foundation laid down by our visionary leaders:

1. The of the famous dam Bhakra Nangal began in 1948 and finished in 1964. The dam’s irrigation provided the backbone of the Green Revolution which allowed our country to have surplus food grains. The Food Corporation of India was established on January 10, 1964.

2. Five IITs (one in every region of the country: Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, and Delhi) were started from 1950 till 1964. There are now 23 IITs that produce engineers who work at the world’s leading corporations and academic research institutions. 

3. Three were started in the first 25 years, providing post-graduate studies in business administration. They operated on par with Harvard Business School and University of California, Berkeley. There are now 20 IIMs that provide senior leaders to the world’s largest corporations.

4. Many prestigious national laboratories for fundamental scientific research were started during the infancy of the republic, like the National Chemical Laboratory, the Indian Institute of Science, the Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research Institute Jamnagar and the Physical Research Laboratory.

5. Atomic research started with the establishment of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center under the Atomic Energy Commission. Thus, we became self-reliant in atomic energy.

6. Crucial research laboratories like the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Armament Research and Development Establishment, Akron Rubber Development Laboratory and the like were started with a vision to make our country self-reliant in defense.

7. Many companies and organizations of strategic importance were started. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bharat Electronics, Central Electronics Limited, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Hindustan Antibiotics Limited, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Telephone Industries Limited and many more were established in the first 25 years of independence.

8. The Indian Space Research Program was launched and the Indian Space Research Organisation was established during this period. This has paid rich dividends to our country! We are now not only Aatmanibhar (self-reliant) in all our space missions, but we also provide this service to other nations.

9. The Indian Council for Medical Research was established in 1948. Many research and medical institutes set up under the Council in various areas of health sprouted across the country during the first 25 years. India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi was set up in 1956.

Sir, the list goes on and on. Our democracy invested its energy, blood, sweat and toil in the first 25 years to lay the foundation of this country. All this was done in spite of being raped by our colonial rulers. Poverty (75%), illiteracy (72%), lack of primary health care, a short life expectancy (27 years), epidemics and natural disasters leading to famine of the Indian people and continue to the present. Hats off to the vision of our freedom fighters and leaders of our young country who made great strides despite the odds. As Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, as the clock struck 12:00 midnight on August 15, 1947: “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.”

I don’t know what to make of it. All I know is, without exception, everyone seems to be afraid, afraid of the outcome of the upcoming elections. Emotions are everywhere. What will happen to our lives if you retain power? When you do not respect the truth of India’s history, you really make a mockery of our intelligence.

As Indian citizens, let us recall the opening sentence of our constitution: “We the people.” India is the world’s largest functioning democracy. Our leaders should know this, and we will remind them of it collectively, lest they forget.

Prime Minister, I must speak my mind. To call it what it is. Even if I am labeled unpatriotic or an anti-national, I say this with confidence: I am really, truly proud to be Indian!

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Why we need to change the focus of education from productivity to personal growth

The current productivity of developed societies is more than an greater than it was prior to industrialization, far beyond what is needed to provide a comfortable life to its members. Productivity has only to increase as technology improves. Today, automation and AI are rapidly rendering most human contributions to their own survival , to the point that humans will soon no longer need to be productive anymore.

Because of this, the central objective of the education system no longer needs to be increasing productivity. Instead, we need to provide an environment in which each individual can explore their own interests and strengths. The problem is that the current educational system is still defined by the original productivity-oriented paradigm.

Despite living in hyper-productive and wealthy societies, outdated educational systems are impeding certain sections within these wealthy societies from improving their well-being to the fullest potential the developed societies can achieve. Schools in economically advanced countries continue to use the factory model of education. This model was developed over a hundred years ago for the needs of a society that was significantly less productive than it is today. This model stifles much of the personal growth potential of young people in order to assimilate them into a homogeneous, efficient, productivity-oriented society.

To remove the educational barriers to personal growth, it is necessary to create a new educational paradigm, one that empowers and motivates individuals to explore their potential at every stage of life. Describing how to accomplish this transformation of the educational model is a complex and lengthy task beyond the scope of this article. However, it is possible to explore what the goal of the new education model should be.

How to make the educational model transition

The new educational paradigm should provide the right environment to transform the powerful curiosity-driven cognitive and sensory explorations that are innate in young children into interest-driven ones in adults. Some argue that one should maintain curiosity throughout their life. But neurologically, this is not an option. Let me try to explain why this is the case by clarifying the difference between curiosity and interest.

is an involuntary “state of increased arousal response promoted by a stimulus high in uncertainty and lacking in information.” Once “curiosity has been aroused, the organism engages in a process of exploration to reduce the state of arousal.” Curiosity is also triggered by uncertainty and is only maintained only until the uncertainty is resolved.

In contrast, leads to a voluntary, continuous engagement in the search for information in order to increase knowledge. Interest is also generated voluntarily and can be sustained even after the initial uncertainty has been resolved by engaging and re-engaging with relevant content over time. In summary, curiosity is dominated by a short-term effort to close a knowledge gap, whereas interest is a medium- to long-term “ state in which individuals are engaged in learning more about a subject in general.”

Curiosity-driven exploration is essential for young children to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become independent individuals, and involves taking energy-intensive cognitive and physical risks. Once the individual has acquired the knowledge and skills necessary to survive, curiosity gradually reduces, most often in the late teens. Thus, to facilitate continued personal growth into adulthood, it is necessary to replace productivity-driven learning with interest-driven exploration that allows individuals to test their potential and lead more meaningful and fulfilling lives.

Therefore, in order to go beyond survival and achieve personal growth throughout adulthood, it is critical that the educational system nurture students’ interest in cognitive and sensory exploration, even as innate curiosity wanes. Because of the scarcity of resources, a century or two ago, people could only strive to survive. Today’s hyper-productive societies offer the vast majority of people unprecedented opportunities that go far beyond mere survival. 

In older times, the standardized curriculum of the factory model provided the knowledge and skills necessary for society to progress. Today, it unnecessarily inhibits personal growth throughout adult life. It is imperative that developed societies recognize the need to replace this outdated model with one that prepares the youth to explore the vast opportunities that hyper-productivity offers humanity. The education system should be fundamentally revamped to become the starting point from where innate curiosity-driven exploration is transformed into long-term interest-driven learning. This will not only benefit the individual, but society as a whole.

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Oh, and there’s also a first American edition of E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End. On the flyleaf, she inscribed this note: “Stolen by Suzanne Gordon.” As the bookplate on the cover’s interior indicates, it was indeed stolen from (or at least never returned to) The Free Library of Philadelphia. When did this bit of larceny occur? It would certainly have been after she married my dad in 1949, when she acquired his surname Gordon, so probably sometime in the 1950s. The good news is that the Philadelphia library still has several copies of Forster’s book on its shelves today, along with audiobooks and film DVDs of the work.

The bad news is that it’s among the books on the American Library Association’s list of most frequently banned classics.

Of course, the all-American penchant for banning books didn’t begin in the Trump era. Just ask almost anyone who the Red Scare days of the 1950s (not to speak of the first Red Scare of 1917–1920). But the last few years have seen a remarkable of attempts to keep certain books off the shelves of public and school libraries. The American Library Association an almost fourfold increase in the number of banning attempts between 2003 (458) and 2022 (1,269), most of that increase coming between 2020 and 2022. That this new passion for book banning coincides with the rise of Donald J. Trump, MAGA Republicanism and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s failed “anti-woke” presidential campaign is no accident.

The most benign Institution

Name any public institution — the US military, say, or a county welfare office – and it’s bound to have its negative aspects. Maybe you appreciate that the military is one of the racially integrated bodies in the country. At the same time, perhaps you’re distressed by its recent to US universities as a locus for the development of A.I.-powered autonomous lethal weaponry. Perhaps you appreciate that your county welfare office helps people get access to benefits they’re entitled to, like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits or health insurance. At the same time, you may not admire the mental and emotional the welfare system places on people working to secure those benefits, or the racial animus and disrespect they may encounter in the process.

I’d like to argue that there is, however, one institution that’s almost entirely benign: the public library. As I wish one could say about our medical system, it does no harm (though many right-wingers disagree with me, as we shall see).

What could be more wonderful than a place that allows people to read books, magazines and newspapers for free? That encourages children to read? That, these days, offers free access to that essential source of information, entertainment and human connection, the Internet? It’s even a place where people who have nowhere to live — or who are regularly kicked out of their homeless shelters during daylight hours — can stay dry and warm. And where they, too, can read whatever they choose and, without spending a cent use a bathroom with dignity — no small thing.

Free public libraries first appeared in this country in the late 1700s or early 1800s, depending on how you parse the institution’s defining characteristics. It’s generally , however, that the first dedicated, municipally funded public library in the world opened in 1833 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. A century earlier, Benjamin Franklin had the Philadelphia Library Company, a private, subscription-based outfit funded by members who paid annual dues.

While members of such libraries would indeed pay annual dues or even buy shares in them, libraries — some operated by publishing companies, others as stand-alone profit-making businesses — charged the public rent on individual volumes. At a time when books were very expensive, circulating libraries made them available to people who couldn’t afford to own the ones they wanted to read. Such libraries were especially attractive to female readers, the main audience for the expanding universe of fiction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Private-public partnerships

I’m lucky to live less than a block from a branch library located in a classical-style two-story stone building. With almost floor-to-ceiling, deep-set windows, thick walls and a hushed interior, the Mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library is an island of peace in the choppy waters of my vibrant neighborhood. In many ways, the Mission is contested territory. Here, the children and grandchildren of Latin American immigrants compete for cultural and commercial space with a new group of migrants — the tech workers who love the Mission District for its edginess, but whose comparatively high earnings are pushing up rents for older residents and, in the process, sanding off some of those edges.

Still, the library serves us all without fail. It has children’s story hours, a bank of Internet-connected computers and shelves and shelves of books, including a substantial selection of titles in Spanish. Many mornings, I see snaking lines of tiny kids waiting for the library to open so they can listen to stories and exchange last week’s books for a new selection.

Public branch libraries as we know them might never have existed if it weren’t for the munificence of a single obscenely rich private donor. Like more than 2,500 others built worldwide, my branch is a library. It was constructed in 1916 with funds provided by the Scottish-American robber baron and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.

Like every community seeking Carnegie money, San Francisco had to satisfy his specific requirements. It had to demonstrate the need for a public library. It also had to guarantee that it would provide an appropriate building site, salaries for a professional staff, operating funds once it was open, and services for free, as well as (perhaps most importantly) use public money (in addition to any private donations) to support the library. Carnegie believed that communities would only value and maintain their libraries if they were collectively supported by taxpayers. He also thought that libraries belonged in local neighborhoods where potential readers would have easy access to them, so early on he stopped funding the main libraries in cities in favor of neighborhood branches.

Almost 1,700 of these, along with about 100 university libraries, were built in the United States with his money between 1886 and 1929. Carnegie also funded them around the world from Canada and Great Britain to Mauritius, Fiji and New Zealand, among other places. In the Jim Crow South, Carnegie did nothing to oppose racial segregation but did at least apply the same approach and standards to the construction of libraries in black neighborhoods of segregated cities as in white ones.

In an age when today’s robber barons are investing their money in fantasies of personal survival, whether through or riding out climate change in luxurious in New Zealand or , it’s hard not to have a certain nostalgia for Carnegie’s brand of largesse. I don’t know whether Peter Thiel’s New Zealand “apocalypse insurance” will still be there a century from now, but my library is already more than 100 years old and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were still offering whatever the equivalent of books might be, assuming no ultimate apocalypse had occurred, 100 years from now.

Threatening the benign institution

You might think that an apparently harmless public good like a library would have no enemies. But in the age of Trump and his movement to Make America Grotesque Again, there turn out to be many. Some are “” outfits like the not-even-a-little-bit-ironically named for Liberty. M4L, as they abbreviate their name, was founded in 2021 in Florida, originally to challenge Covid-era mask mandates in public schools. They’ve since expanded their definition of “liberty” to include pursuing the creation of public school libraries that are free of any mention of the existence of LGBTQ people, gender variations, sex or racism. In effect, the freedom they are seeking is liberation from the real world.

You won’t be surprised to learn that M4L’s members have Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 2022 and 2023 “Don’t Say Gay” laws, which outlaw any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, while making it extremely easy for parents or other citizens to demand the removal of books they find objectionable from school libraries

Other states have since passed copycat laws. In Tennessee, a school district MAUS, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum, thanks to eight now-forbidden words and a drawing of a naked mouse. (In doing so, it also the book back onto national bestseller lists.)

One Florida school district chose to play it especially safe, not limiting itself to removing commonly banned books like Push by Sapphire, the 1970s anti-drug classic Go Ask Alice and Ann Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. , “Also on the list are ‘Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary,’ ‘The Bible Book,’ ‘The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places,’ ‘Guinness Book of World Records, 2000,’ ‘Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus for Students,’ and ‘The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary.’” I guess the book banners don’t want to risk kids encountering any words they disapprove of in a dictionary.

Contemporary book-banning efforts extend beyond school libraries, where reasonable people might differ (a little!) about what books should be available to children, to public libraries, where book banners seek to keep even adults from reading whatever we choose. EveryLibrary, an anti-censorship organization, keeps a running total of active “legislation of concern” in state legislatures that relates to controlling libraries and librarians. They maintain a continually updated of such bills. (The number of active ones changed just as I was exploring their online list.) At time of writing, EveryLibrary highlights 93 pieces of legislation moving through legislatures in 24 states as varied as Idaho and Rhode Island.

In 2024, they are focusing on a number of key issues, including “bills that would criminalize libraries, education and museums (and/or the employees therein) by removing long-standing defense from prosecution exemptions under obscenity laws and/or expose librarians to civil penalties.” In addition to protecting libraries and their employees from criminal prosecution for stocking the “wrong” books, they are focusing on potential legislation that could restrict the freedom of libraries to develop their collections as they wish, as well as bills that would defund or close public libraries altogether. Sadly, as those 93 active bills indicate, in all too many states, libraries are desperately under attack.

Legislation pending in Oklahoma offers an interesting example of the kinds of bills moving through statehouses around the country. The proposed “ to Marxism and Defense of Oklahoma Children Act of 2024,” unlike some bills in other states, is not concerned with excising specific offerings from Oklahoma’s library shelves. Rather, it focuses on a key organization, the American Library Association (ALA), which, since 1876, has existed to promote and support librarians. One of the ALA’s most important activities is the accreditation of library schools, where future librarians study their craft.

Oklahoma’s “Opposition to Marxism Act” would outlaw all cooperation with the ALA, including a previously existing requirement that public librarians have degrees from ALA-accredited library schools. In this context, “opposing Marxism” means opposing the main professional organization for librarians and its Oklahoma affiliate. I imagine this has something to do with the ALA’s for “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” which any MAGA adherent will assure you is just another code word for Marxism.

Like mother, like daughter?

I’ve loved libraries since I was a small child. I used to regularly ride my bike to our local branch and return home with a basketful of books. With my mother’s permission to borrow books from the adult section, I had the run of the place. She brooked no censorship in my reading life (although I do remember her forbidding me to see the movie West Side Story because she thought it would be too sad for me).

I seem to have inherited my mother’s regrettable tendency to hold onto library books past their due dates. Or at least I blame her for that terrifying evening when I was perhaps 10 years old and heard the doorbell ringing. My mother called me downstairs to greet the two people on our doorstep. They were probably college kids but, to me at the time, seemed all too grown-up. They were there on a mission: to reclaim seven overdue library books. Fortunately, I knew where in my messy bedroom each one could be found and was able to round them up in a few minutes.

These days, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my overdue books reclaimed that night wouldn’t even be found on library shelves in some states. (After all, I do remember that my mother introduced me to E.M. Forster when I was still pretty young.)

The tendency to hold onto books past their due date has, alas, continued to this day. Just this morning I received an email reminding me that I needed to return one that was squirreled away in my backpack. So, off I trundled to my neighborhood library, silently thanking Andrew Carnegie and the good people of San Francisco that I still have a library to go to and promising myself not to let any MAGA-minded fools take it away.

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As it happened, Nixon did win in 1968, and none of us moved to Canada. Still, I suspect my father’s confidence that, if things got too bad here, we could always head somewhere else (Canada? Israel?) was a mental refuge for him that fit his own background very well. It was, after all, what his father had done in 1910, when his family was attacked by Cossacks in what is now Ukraine. His parents had him smuggled out of town in a horse-drawn rig under bales of hay. He then walked across a significant part of Europe and took a boat from Antwerp, Belgium, to New York City. There, he was met by a cousin who brought him to Norfolk, Virginia. Eventually, my grandfather managed to bring his whole family to Norfolk, where he became, among other things, the president of his local Zionist club, fostering his dream of refuge. My father grew up in the haze of that dream.

In the shadow of the world wars

In fact, my father’s reliance on the guarantee that he could go “somewhere else” accorded well with the post-World War II international consensus that people in danger of persecution where they lived had a right to seek refuge in another country. Shortly after the formation of the United Nations, that view was codified in the 1951 Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The convention consolidated various treaties created by European nations to address the desperate situation of millions of people displaced by the two World Wars. It defined a refugee as a person who:

As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

More recent regional agreements have that definition to include people subject to external aggression, internal violence or serious disturbance of public order — people whose lives, in short, have become unsustainable thanks to various forms of systemic violence. The convention also laid out the obligations of nations receiving refugees, including providing housing, work permits and education, while recognizing that receiving countries might need assistance from the international community to meet those obligations. It also affirmed the importance of maintaining family unity (something blatantly violated by the Trump administration under its of family separation at the US–Mexican border).

With the phrase “events occurring before 1 January 1951” the Convention’s framers alluded to the two world wars of the preceding decades. What they didn’t foresee was that millions more refugees would be churned up in the second half of the twentieth century, much less what humanity would prove capable of producing in this one.

The trajectory was clear enough, however, when, the year before Nixon was elected, the to the convention removed limits on migration-producing events occurring after 1951 and geographical restrictions of any sort. No matter when or where people became refugees, they were now subject to protection in all 148 nations that signed on, including the United States, which signed and ratified both the original Convention and the 1967 Protocol.

Refugees everywhere

Twenty-first-century conflicts have already created millions of refugees. In fact, by mid-year 2023, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) put the at 36.4 million worldwide, a number that has doubled in just the last seven years. Three countries alone — Syria (6.5 million), Afghanistan (6.1 million) and Ukraine (5.9 million) — accounted for 52% of all external refugees in 2023.

And keep in mind that those 36.4 million refugees only include people officially registered with the UNHCR (30.5 million) or with UNWRA, the UN Works Relief Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (5.9 million). UNWRA was created in 1952, specifically to serve people displaced in the formation of Israel in 1948. Unlike the UNHCR, it provides direct service to registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza.

And that figure doesn’t even include the majority of people fleeing war and other systemic and climate violence who are “internally displaced persons.” They are not counted as refugees in the legal sense because, while they’ve lost their homes, they still remain inside their own national borders. There were — take a breath — 62.2 million internally displaced persons when the UNHCR issued that mid-2023 report.

Where do we find the majority of internally displaced persons? More than 90% of them have been uprooted by events in seven key countries or regions: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, various Latin America and Caribbean countries, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Ukraine.

Which countries are taking in refugees? According to the UNHCR, “Low- and middle-income countries host 75% of the world’s refugees and other people in need of international protection.” Furthermore, “the Least Developed Countries provide asylum to 20% of the total.” Despite Donald Trump’s about asylum-seekers pouring into the United States and “poisoning the blood” of this country, the United States is not, in fact, a major recipient of international refugees.

Nor is the United Kingdom, whose Tory government has come up with a perverse scheme to potentially any asylum seekers approaching Great Britain by boat to Rwanda for “processing” in return for financial support of various kinds. (In November 2023, that country’s supreme court the plan, but in December the government a new agreement with Rwanda, which it claims will satisfy the court’s objections to the agreement.)

In fact, Americans may be surprised to learn that the two countries taking in the most refugees at the moment are , at 3.4 million each, followed by Germany and Colombia at 2.5 million each and Pakistan at 2.1 million.

Let me highlight just two areas where, at this very moment, refugees are being created in enormous numbers with no apparent end in sight. One of them people around the world just can’t take their eyes off right now (and for good reason!), while the other seems almost entirely forgotten.

The first area is Gaza. Since Hamas’s vicious and criminal October 7 attack on targets in Israel, the world has focused intently on events in Israel-Palestine. The UNHCR’s 2023 report was compiled before the attack and Israel’s subsequent and ongoing of Gaza, which has seen the deaths of more than Gazans (a of them women and children) and the of more than half of its housing stock and of its 36 hospitals.

In one sense, Gaza’s residents are not new refugees. More than 85% of its pre-war population of 2.3 million are now “merely” considered internally displaced. Yes, they have been , deprived of and , by bombs and missiles falling on homes and temporary shelters from one part of that 25-mile-long strip of land to the other, and forced into an ever-shrinking area near Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Still, for now they remain in Gaza with nowhere else to go.

It’s no secret, however, that the Israeli government intends to change that. On Christmas Day, 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu the Israeli newspaper Hayom Daily that he is seeking the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza. A week earlier, Trump’s former UN ambassador and now rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, had that “the Palestinians should have gone to the Rafah crossing and Egypt would have taken care of them.” Even if Egypt were willing to accept more than two million displaced Gazans — which it is not — it would be hard to see such a migration as anything but a forced population transfer, which international law considers a .

The second area is Sudan. While the world has watched Gaza’s decimation in horror, an even larger refugee crisis in the African nation of Sudan has gone almost unremarked upon. In 2019, a massive nonviolent movement of Sudanese civilians led to a military coup against longtime dictator Omar Bashir. While the military initially agreed to hand power over to civilian rule in two years, by October 2021, its leaders had to remain in power, while the United States, despite rhetoric supporting civilian rule, stood idly by. Since then, war between the military government and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, 4.5 million or more within Sudan, while another 1.2 million have fled to neighboring countries.

Good “refugees” and bad “economic migrants”

Human beings have always moved around the world, beginning with our first forays out of Africa 60,000–70,000 years ago. However, it is only within the last two centuries or so that countries have attempted to control human transit across their borders. International law concerning refugees is even newer, first forged, as noted, in the critical period immediately following World War II.

One perhaps unintentional consequence of those laws, created half a century ago to protect refugees, is the relatively new distinction between them and “economic migrants.” Refugees able to demonstrate a “well-founded fear of being persecuted” have the right to seek asylum in any country that’s signed the UN refugee convention. Anyone else, however economically desperate or deeply endangered from, say, increasingly fierce climate-change-induced weather extremes, has no actual right under international law to move to a safer country.

That legal reality hardly makes the existential desperation of such migrants any less genuine, as evidenced by the fact that they risk — and lose — their lives daily in or thousand-mile treks like the one that passes through Central America’s deadly in a bid for survival. At present, however, international law offers them no special protection.

This will have to change, and quickly, as global warming makes ever more parts of the world increasingly uninhabitable, often in the very areas that are for the actual burning of fossil fuels. We all live on one planet, and no country or , no matter how rich, can hope to remain insulated from the ever more devastating effects of the of fossil fuels and the desperate overheating of our planet.

Bad news at the border

My father was pretty sure that the Canadians would be glad to receive him and his kids in the event of Nixon’s election. I don’t know what the rules were back then, but today Canada “Express Entry for skilled immigrants,” presumably including people from the US wishing to cross that country’s southern border.

It’s not so easy, however, for immigrants, skilled or otherwise, hoping to cross the southern border of the United States these days. Despite our signature on the convention on refugees, people seeking refugee status in this country now face almost insurmountable barriers. And those designated mere “economic” migrants have little hope of ever gaining legal residence in the United States.

Despite his to take “immediate actions to reform our immigration system,” three years after his election and the defeat of the man who had promised to build that “big, fat, beautiful ” on our southern border, President Biden has done little to alleviate the situation. While he did end the Trump family separation plan and Covid-era restrictions on migration to expire, he’s kept in place a version of another Trump policy: in the United States to migrants who fail to first request it in another country they’re passing through on the way to this one.

So, as many as 10,000 immigrants a day now into the United States. Since May, almost half a million of them . At time of writing, 11,000 are living in camps on the Mexican side of the border, having applied for asylum using the Biden administration’s cell phone app. No one knows how long they will be there while this country’s overburdened asylum system limps along and election 2024 fast approaches (along with Trump’s proposed plans to create vast border ).

To be fair to Biden, with the exception of President Obama’s creation of a for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status for immigrants who entered the US illegally as children, no administration or Congress has done much of significance over the past 40 years to address immigration issues in this country. What institutions do exist, including immigration courts, remain desperately underfunded, leading to staggeringly lengthy waiting times for asylum applicants.

The situation at the frontiers of wealthy countries like the US will undoubtedly only get worse. Nations like ours can’t hope to keep the human urge for survival forever bottled up on our borders.

My father said he’d go to Canada if Nixon were elected. Recently, I’ve heard a few friends echo that intention should another dangerous authoritarian — Donald Trump — regain the White House in January 2025. If that were to happen, people around the world, citizens and migrants, the sheltered and unsheltered alike, can expect things to get so much worse. For us in the United States, emigration won’t be an option. Like it or not, we’ll have to stay and fight.

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Boys struggle in Afghanistan’s new educational environment

The Taliban have received international criticism for preventing women and girls from attending secondary schools and universities. Still, their severe on boys’ education in Afghanistan have received less attention. Due to the Taliban’s harsh educational , which have resulted in the exodus of qualified teachers and regressive curriculum modifications, boys are too. There is a greater fear of going to school, a decline in attendance and a loss of optimism for the future. Consequently, the Taliban run the risk of producing a lost generation.

Since assuming power, the Taliban’s impact on boys’ education in Afghanistan is detailed in the Human Rights Watch entitled “Schools are Failing Boys Too.” The report highlights regressive curriculum changes, an uptick in corporal punishment, and the dismissal of female teachers, posing a threat to Afghan boys’ education. While global attention has focused on the Taliban’s bans on girls’ and women’s secondary and higher education, the substantial harm inflicted on the male education system has garnered less notice. The report’s author contends that the Taliban’s actions seriously undermine both boys’ and girls’ education in Afghanistan, potentially leaving behind a lost generation without a quality education and the nation’s educational foundation.

Between June and August 2022 and March and April 2023, Human Rights Watch remotely five parents and 22 boys in grades 8 through 12 across the provinces of Kabul, Balkh, Herat, Farah, Parwan, Bamiyan, Nangarhar and Daikundi. The Taliban, in a sweeping move, dismissed all female teachers from boys’ schools. This action left many boys with instructors or no professors at all. Boys now a surge in physical punishment, including public beatings for minor infractions like owning a cell phone or getting a haircut. The Taliban’s removal of subjects like athletics, English, the arts and civics has led to a decline in educational quality.

Worsening economic and humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan are forcing boys to and aid their families. In a landscape with mental health care, boys experience rising anxiety, and other mental health issues. Though the Taliban hasn’t explicitly barred boys from school beyond the 6th grade, their actions still the education of all children. Afghanistan’s of international law, specifically the right to education for all children, is evident. The Taliban’s systemic discrimination against women and girls adversely affects boys, reinforcing negative gender stereotypes and intensifying financial pressure to support their families.

Women and girls’ right to education from an Islamic perspective

The Taliban have made education worse for all children. Still, their exclusion of women and girls from post-primary education is particularly abhorrent.

In Islam, women’s education is as a fundamental and sacred right, aligned with key principles in the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the Islamic Council of Europe on September 19, 1981, this declaration upholds the sanctity of various rights, including life, property, religion and the intellect. Rooted in the Holy Quran and international human rights law, these cardinal rights, particularly the right to education, are essential to the deen (faith). The Quran emphasizes the significance of intellect (al-aql) as a divine endowment, allowing individuals to make moral decisions and strive for harmony (Q 17:70, 95:4, 2:30–34, 33:72). Reason serves as the basis for distinguishing right from wrong. For girls, education is not only integral to their faith but also pivotal in expanding knowledge, fostering critical thinking, and molding them into exemplary Muslims and community members. It empowers women and girls to harness the blessings bestowed upon them by Allah.

Education is a divine for both genders. The Quran and Hadith leave no doubt that women, like men, must pursue knowledge. With over 800 references to ilm (knowledge) and its derivatives, the Holy Quran underscores its value. Allah commands both men and women to seek knowledge and punishes ignorance. “Read” (iqra) is how the very first revelation to Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) begins: “Read in the name of your Lord, who formed humanity from a blood clot (Q 96:1–5) A basic of Quranic interpretation is that when a commandment is revealed, the feminine gender is likewise encompassed by it, regardless of whether the masculine version of the word is employed. Ignoring this principle undermines fundamental Islamic for women, including prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and almsgiving. The Hadith and Sunnah affirm the obligation for men and women to pursue higher education. By keeping women and girls from going to school, you are stopping them from carrying out Allah’s sacred mandate and interfering with their eternity.

The Taliban’s educational policies violate international law

The Taliban not only defy the laws of Allah, but they also violate the laws of man by denying education to their citizens. The Taliban regime must not overlook its international obligations under international human rights law and customary international law. Afghanistan became a party to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 2003. According to this convention, countries must eradicate stereotypes about gender roles from all levels of education and society.

Corporal punishment in schools also children’s rights, causing dehumanization, needless suffering and detriment to their growth, academic performance, and mental health. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child every child’s right to an education in a violence-free environment, and international law prohibits all forms of corporal punishment. Afghanistan, having adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, is committed to ensuring children’s rights to safety, education, and protection from violence.

There are relatively few policy options to deal with the Taliban’s stringent restrictions or prompt behavioral change. The group has shown resistance to international pressure. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Muslim-majority countries have the Taliban to lift their bans, but no tangible changes have occurred, and the likelihood of increased OIC involvement remains uncertain.

International sanctions, thus far, have yielded no apparent results. Afghanistan’s dire situation struggles to garner attention amidst the international focus on issues in Ukraine and Gaza. It’s crucial for the global community to persist in highlighting the Taliban’s mistreatment of oppressed Afghan women and girls.

If the international community is not more forceful, options for Afghanistani children are indeed slim. For example, while offers a secure option for studying at home, millions of Afghan women and girls in remote areas lack internet access.

Governments concerned about the matter must exert pressure on the Taliban to lift their discriminatory ban on women’s and girls’ education and cease depriving boys of a safe and high-quality learning environment. The Taliban cannot flout Quranic directives on the right to education while adhering to an un-Islamic and regressive interpretation. Concrete steps, such as rehiring all female teachers, aligning the curriculum with international human rights law standards, and prohibiting corporal punishment, are indispensable.

The repercussions of the Taliban’s assault on the educational system are palpable now and will cast a long shadow over Afghanistan’s future. The urgent need for an international response to Afghanistan’s education crisis demands both swiftness and effectiveness.

[ edited this piece.]

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Unfortunately, one million children in Lebanon are deprived of a quality education today in addition to incomplete school terms in each of the past four years.

Lebanon’s economic crisis is an entirely caused by corruption. The World Bank has referred to Lebanon’s economic crisis as the worst the world has seen since the mid-19th century. The depreciation of the Lebanese Lira has understandably seen public school teachers go on strike for higher salaries, which amount to around $90 per month.

The pain felt by teachers is evident in a recent Centre for Lebanese Policy Studies survey, which findings that 73% of Lebanese teachers plan on leaving the education sector and three out of four plan on leaving Lebanon altogether.

However, even before the depreciation of the Lebanese Lira and the strikes, there were still issues getting teachers into classrooms. For example, teacher absenteeism was a widespread , and even the average work week under normal circumstances less time dedicated to classroom instruction — 10 to 15 hours — than the international benchmark, which is 20 hours.

Lebanon needs a vision for its education sector

Lebanon has been without a president for over a year, and the current prime minister and cabinet are only caretakers. Lebanon’s lack of government means it is unable to tackle meaningful reforms in education.

In a of Lebanese parents with students enrolled in public schools, 43% noted that schools lacked multipurpose rooms and 30% reported that schools lacked laboratories. This reflects a need for greater government spending on school infrastructure.

There are straightforward reforms that can make education more cost-effective and support better learning for students. For example, the adoption of solar energy could lower operating costs. Right now, electricity can sometimes cost up to of a school’s budget.

out of ten children in Lebanon also face high acute food insecurity, and so the provision of food and water at school also has great potential to improve the quality of learning.

Support from the international community is needed

The biggest challenge for Lebanon’s public sector is getting both teachers and students back to school. The biggest obstacle is the funding mechanism, given that teachers’ current salaries cannot even cover the cost of their commute to work. For this reason, a donors’ conference should assemble to coordinate both financial assistance to the education sector and to identify reforms to improve the sector. It could include both states and non-governmental organizations, civil society groups and diaspora groups.

Western countries should also understand the significance of private schools to Lebanon’s education sector. The of Lebanese students — 60% — are enrolled in private schools, and while Lebanon is home to some very elite private institutions, many private schools provide a quality education to disadvantaged students across the country with tuitions of only $150–$300. 

While many private schools have religious affiliations, they are committed to respecting Lebanon’s religious diversity and do not proselytize students from different backgrounds. For example, many Catholic schools educate predominantly Muslim student bodies who are exempt from the religious instruction offered by those institutions. The private sector has to be seen as a partner for the international community.

This should be treated as a priority for Lebanon and the region

Lebanon is faced with the prospect of a “lost generation.” Where will the one million youth go who do not have an education today?

The future of Lebanon cannot be held hostage to the country’s political elite, and the international community should not condition additional support for the country’s youth to political reform. Lebanon’s youth are victims of a failed system, and they are owed access to a quality education.

The Lebanese government and international community must prioritize the plight of Lebanon’s youth. A “lost generation” of over one million young people would have disastrous consequences for Lebanon and the wider region for years to come.

This article excerpts findings and recommendations from the recently released policy “How to Prevent Lebanon from Experiencing a ‘Lost Generation,’” published by the American Task Force on Lebanon.

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Scores of misconceptions surround the nine-century-old university. Sometimes, these misconceptions are merely about appearances — for example, photographs capturing the city’s architectural grandeur abound, to the exclusion of sleek modern buildings. Other misconceptions have to do with matters of real substance, such as the admissions process.

The things you don’t need to worry about

I have been an interviewer for the English course over the years, and I know firsthand that prospective applicants and teachers alike can fall prey to misinformation about the interview. Recently, I went on to create a few short, accessible videos about better and worse ways to prepare for the Oxford interview. In one of them, I spoke about four things that students should not be focusing on as they prepare.

The video received a lot of attention and, naturally, sparked a series of questions. Since social media platforms favor brevity over detail, I will take the space here to expand on these much-discussed pointers: 

1. You don’t need to dress formally.

“What’s wrong with dressing formally?” followers chimed in the comments section of my video. The answer is, nothing. The point of the matter is that there is no expectation that the interviewee should do so, even though this runs against common belief. You might feel that formal dress puts you in a more professional or academic mindset, and in that case, you should follow that instinct. But it is not a requirement, and it should not come as a surprise if an interviewer shows up in a hoodie, either.

2. You don’t need to prepare for questions like, “Why Oxford?” or, “Why this college?”

The interviews are an important part of the admissions process because they help academics appreciate applicants’ enthusiasm and aptitude for a particular subject. Interviewers have no interest in the reasons behind your choice of Oxford University as one of your five university choices. Further, interviewers are often not aware of which Oxford college you put down as first choice on your Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) form, or if you submitted an open application. This makes preparing for such questions entirely superfluous; they will never come up. However, tutors do pay a lot of attention to why a candidate wants to study a particular subject, and in a way, this is the entire point of the Oxford interview.

3. You don’t need to research tutors’ academic interests.

There is nothing wrong with reading up. However, it is unlikely that looking into a tutor’s specific interests will help your interview performance. Firstly, it is impossible to predict who exactly will be conducting your interview. Tutors are often on research leave, and candidates may sit up to five different interviews, each made up of a new interviewing panel. Additionally, the interview materials are agreed upon in advance by tutors working in different areas. Therefore, the problem, piece of work, artifact or dataset that will form part of the interview discussion could be drawn from any area or period.

4. You don’t need a final question.

At the end of an interview, the panel will inquire whether you have any questions for them. This is not part of the assessment, but a gesture of reciprocity. The final question is extended to the interviewee as a reminder that the interview is an academic discussion, not a one-sided interrogation. But you should only take the opportunity if you have a genuine question that you cannot easily answer online. In all other cases, not having a question to ask is perfectly acceptable.

Why did I choose to focus on these four points? During my access work with schools in the West Midlands, I learned that a lack of information could put students at risk of wasting a significant amount of time and energy on things that are not part of the interview assessment. This takes time away from the things that matter.

The things you should focus on

So, what are the things that matter? I made this the topic of a different video.

Here are some tips on how to prepare.

1. Practice expressing your thoughts out loud.

Interviewers are trying to understand how a student thinks, so it is best to avoid being silent.

2. Take advantage of digital resources.

You can find Oxford-produced mock interviews on Youtube. One way to practice is to pause a video and practice responding out loud. Then, you unpause and listen to the answer of the mock interviewee. Notice a difference? Do some research on the topic and take notes.

3. Remember that it is ok to change your mind during the interview.

Interviewers may provide you with new information that could change the way you see a topic. Flexibility of thought is essential. The interview is an exercise in working through a question or problem with an expert in the field, not an inquisition during which students are expected to offer up facts and perfect, preconceived responses.

4. Carefully reread your own personal statement.

Interviewers may use your personal statement to form incisive questions about your prior engagement with the subject you are applying for. So, make sure that you are prepared to discuss anything you have mentioned there. Remember, however, that these questions will be academic. Any non-academic questions asked at the beginning of an interview are merely ice-breakers and do not form part of the assessment.

5. Remember that your interviewer is a person, too.

Tutors at Oxford are people who spend their time teaching and researching a subject. Their prime concern is that students thrive in their courses and enjoy their time at Oxford. This is the only thing they are looking for during the interview.

Remember that the interview is only one part of the admissions process. It is always evaluated alongside other admissions data. My best advice to all those preparing for the interview, now or in the future, is this: Think critically and in-depth about your chosen field of study and engage with it as much as you can outside school.

Finally, try to enjoy the interview itself — it is a unique opportunity to talk about something you are passionate about with experts who share the same passion.

[ edited this piece.]

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The best data we have reflects the reality of this increased risk: , , and threats are all on the rise. With the mass normalization of hateful, extreme and conspiratorial views through the political system—at the time of writing, there are active anti-LGBTQ Bills in the US—these trends will not improve on their own.

Schools are in a unique position to help young people build up resilience against radicalization. Not only do they have regular access to students, but, for reasons I will lay out below, many already implement programs that indirectly develop resiliency skills through social and emotional learning (SEL). To illustrate this, we need a working understanding of extremist mindsets.

Why do youth hold radical beliefs?

In recent years, radicalization research has made significant strides in understanding what differentiates extremists from non-extremists. Key to this has been what are called “structures of thinking.” Structures of thinking relate to , rather than simply what one thinks: the ways we process and organize information.

Extremist beliefs have been linked with lower levels of , such as a tendency to see the world in terms of black-and-white, and of , which is one’s ability to reconcile conflicting viewpoints. Extremist beliefs have also been linked with an inability to update views following and a preference for intuitive (and emotionally reactive) thinking rather than .

While it is unclear whether these factors are direct causes of extremism, the important point is that extremists—irrespective of ideology—tend to possess specific structures of thinking alongside the beliefs themselves. Developing and maintaining healthy habits of thinking presents a direct way to build resiliency against extreme ideological messaging. 

A potential solution: learning techniques

It will come as no surprise for those familiar with SEL that it has the potential for developing positive structures of thinking. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) five focal competencies of SEL: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. 

Each of these factors addresses the ways in which people think. By developing social awareness and relationship skills, it is easier to identify and validate different points of view, and by extension to reconcile them—i.e. to achieve integrative complexity. Integrative complexity, as mentioned above, reduces the propensity to hold radical beliefs. 

SEL works, and it is supported by years of data. In one study, for example, schools saw both short and long-term decreases in and after two years of SEL implementation.

Social and emotional learning techniques can shed light on mental habits that encourage extreme thinking. These techniques limit school violence by enabling students to protect their own minds against violent impulses. We can take the same techniques which schools have been using to counter bullying and apply them to ideological extremism as well.

There are significant reasons to prefer SEL over other counter-radicalization proposals. Instead of developing new and untested programs, we can take advantage of something we already know how to use. SEL is already in schools, it already works, and teachers are already trained to implement it.

Moreover, schools are much better set up for prevention than counter-terrorism programs run by law enforcement. Law enforcement has shown itself poor at identifying problem youth, using profiling techniques that have proved not only ineffective but discriminatory, thereby of radicalization.

Perhaps most importantly, developing positive structures of thinking builds long-term resiliency through tools that can apply to any radical ideology, not just the ones which law enforcement may be especially concerned about at any given time.

Bridging the gap

The case that building SEL competencies can mitigate risks of youth radicalization is strong. However, there are valid concerns about how equipped we are to harness this potential.

First, teachers will need new training to identify different types of online extremist rhetoric so that they have relevant examples to instruct on. Training teachers themselves in SEL will also be key. Teachers need to lead by example to reinforce these positive structures of thinking daily.

Second, SEL programs need to explicitly address online literacy. Since the Internet is where the majority of ideological messaging takes place, students need to know how to apply SEL competencies there. Social psychologists are developing that could be helpful online.

Can We Build Social Trust in an Online World?

Third, we need new data on what kinds of SEL best build resiliency against radicalization. While these are likely similar to the ones that have proven effective in violence prevention, there will be differences. Radicalization and education researchers who traditionally do not work closely need to come together to learn from each other.

All the above steps will require significant effort. However, as I hope to have demonstrated, the increased risk of youth radicalization and the repercussions this could have make it more than worth it. If we hope to challenge youth radicalization, we will need innovative change. But we are not running blind: SEL curriculums provide a welcome toolbox to build resilience competencies en masse.

[ edited this piece.]

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Meanwhile, China has engaged in intense diplomatic negotiations with the Myanmar military junta, urging them to address the Rohingya crisis to avoid potential repercussions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Myanmar faces charges, brought by the Gambia, of genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minorities. The UN described the genocide of the Muslim Rohingya as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” which Myanmar has repeatedly denied.

An exodus of millions

The genocidal campaign sparked the worst refugee crisis in South Asia, forcing a million to flee from the restive Rakhine state in Myanmar. Bangladesh has struggled to shelter 1.2 million Rohingyas in squalid camps in the southeast of the country.

The Rohingya: When the Land You Love Burns

An estimated 3.5 million Rohingya have dispersed worldwide, of whom a large percentage are in Bangladesh. Others are in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. An estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State are victims of the Myanmar security forces’ , deliberately confined 140,000 to guarded camps and villages without freedom of movement, and access to adequate food, health care, education, and livelihoods for more than 10 years.

Bangladesh, unfortunately, does not recognise these stateless people as refugees and instead describes them as “forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.” Dhaka has yet to ratify the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which protects the rights of asylum seekers. HRW has that Bangladeshi authorities are also intensifying restrictions on work, movement, and education, creating a coercive environment designed to force people to consider premature returns.

Myanmar’s “all-weather friend” China stands beside the regime as it tries to weather a series of economic sanctions from the West, which slammed it after its persecution of Rohingyas and ouster of the country’s former democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since the military coup in February 2021.

China has been pushing the junta to initiate a so-called “family-based repatriation” project, aiming to repatriate nearly a thousand refugees in the first phase.

Myanmar has an untrustworthy plan

Myanmar’s military junta wishes to appear as if it has undergone a sudden change of heart, ostensibly displaying compassion by committing to repatriate 6,000 Rohingyas by the end of the year. Myanmar has deemed these individuals foreign intruders or “illegal migrants,” denying them citizenship and subjecting them to abuse and discrimination.

In March, a delegation of Myanmar officials visited refugee camps in Bangladesh to conduct interviews and carry out a “verification” process for the pilot repatriation initiative.

“The figure of 6,000 Rohingya is a drop of water in an ocean,” says Asif Munier, a Rohingya refugee expert. The repatriation is a face-saving project of Myanmar amid country-wide embattlement with ethnic rebellions and economic crises that have worsened after economic sanctions by the United States, Canada and several European countries.

A delegation of Rohingya refugees, along with Bangladeshi government officials, toured the Hla Poe Kaung transit camp and Kyein Chaung resettlement camp in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw township on May 5. After the day-long “go and see” visit, the delegation expressed their dissatisfaction over the arrangements and facilities made by the Myanmar authorities.

Rohingya and Bangladeshi representatives seem to have two different interpretations of what they saw there. Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, who led the delegation, opined that “repatriation is the only solution to end the refugee crisis.” Rahman said Myanmar authorities did indeed prepare settlements for Rohingya under a pilot project. There are homes, employment opportunities and schools for Rohingya children as described by Myanmar officials.

The junta claims in the booklet that the UN Development Program, the UNHCR, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be involved in the pilot project  Altogether 3,500 Rohingya will be accommodated in 15 villages, says Rahman.

The delegation, however, found that their villages have been erased from the map and instead security forces occupied their lands and erected military and police barracks, outposts and check-posts. The authorities “even changed the name of my village in Rakhine,” a frustrated member of the delegation complained. Rohingya refugees are reluctant to return to Myanmar to “be confined in camps” again. They will only repatriate voluntarily if their security is guaranteed and they will be granted citizenship.

The Other Ethnic Crisis in Myanmar

Rohingya don’t want to return to their country to be placed in glorified cages. They want to return to their own villages, from which they were forced to flee during the ethno-religious strife of August 2017. “Myanmar is our birthplace and we are citizens of Myanmar and will only go back with citizenship,” said refugee Abu Sufian, 35, father of three children told Reuters. It is not enough to move the refugees from one temporary camp in Bangladesh to another, concrete one in Myanmar. Without freedom of movement and guarantees of citizenship rights, the program is a non-starter.

Second-class citizenship for Rohingyas, if that

Refusing full citizenship to the ethnic minority, the authorities offer the Rohingya a consolation prize: a national verification card (NVC), which Rohingya refugees regard as insufficient protection. The draconian Citizenship Law of 1982 requires individuals to prove that their ancestors lived in Myanmar before 1823, and refuse to recognize Rohingya Muslims as one of the nation’s ethnic groups or list their language as a national language.

“We don’t want to be confined in camps,” Oli Hossain, who was among the refugees who visited Rakhine State in early May. He said they will never accept the NVC, which would effectively identify Rohingya as foreigners.

“Myanmar officials said that the confirmation of citizenship is a long process and would take more time to complete. Therefore, Myanmar won’t provide citizenship to the Rohingya people who want to repatriate under this pilot project,” Rahman told Turkish news agency Anadolu.

The booklet “Resettlement of Displaced Persons on their Return under the Pilot Project,” dated April 2023 and written in Burmese, English, and Bangalee, states that returnees will be housed at the Hla Poe Kaung transit camp for up to two months, then relocated to one of two resettlement camps with prefabricated houses or a land plot in one of 15 “designated villages,” where they can build a home through a cash-for-work program.

Since the crisis, Bangladesh has been trying to repatriate displaced Myanmar citizens with rights and dignity. Several attempts to repatriate the refugees fell flat in 2018 and 2019. After the failed attempts, Bangladeshi authorities echoed the UN Refugee Agency catch-phrase of safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable repatriation of 1.2 million Rohingyas.

In April, in a crucial tripartite parley between senior Foreign Minister officials of Bangladesh, China and Myanmar in Kunming, China, the parties decided to expedite the repartition process to avoid further . Whether this will see any effects on the ground remains to be seen.

An official team from Myanmar arrived in Bangladesh for the second time in three months to build confidence among Rohingyas in early June. After the return of the Myanmar delegation from the camps in Cox’s Bazar, the refugees have been agitating to cancel the piecemeal plan, calling instead for ensurance of a dignified and sustainable repartition.

The UN Refugee Agency, after the visit of diplomats from eight ASEAN countries including Bangladesh to Rakhine State last March, said that “conditions in Rakhine State are currently not conducive to the sustainable return of Rohingya refugees,” adding that no refugee should be forced to return. Bangladesh’s hopes that the UN may be able to bring about a quick solution to the quagmire by going along with Myanmar’s pilot plan have been frustrated due to ongoing western sanctions against the military regime.

Why Joe Biden Must Act on Myanmar

In a flurry of diplomatic consultations in Dhaka in early May, Bangladesh’s foreign minister sought the opinion of several European and North American diplomats, as well as the UN Refugee Agency. The diplomats insisted that Myanmar should restore the citizenship of Rohingya and ensure safety, security, and access to livelihood, education, healthcare and freedom of movement which were restricted after they were declared “alien” more than 40 years ago.

Western, Bangladeshi, Myanmarese, Chinese, and UN officials are all pushing for a resolution to the crisis, but the path forward remains unclear. What is certain is that no one wants a resolution more than the Rohingya people; still, they will not sacrifice their safety, liberty, or dignity for the sake of speed.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The New York Times has its own concerns with education. It is now yanking the alarm cord on a crisis that has remained under the radar for too long. NYT’s education reporter, Sarah Mervosh reports that, like a tsunami, this new is “sweeping” everything in its path. “A revolt over how children are taught to read, steadily building for years, is now sweeping school board meetings and statehouses around the country.”

We learn that the movement has a name, and one that we should take very seriously. “The movement, under the banner of ‘the science of reading,’ is targeting the education establishment: school districts, literacy gurus, publishers and colleges of education, which critics say have failed to embrace the cognitive science of how children learn to read.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Science of reading:

Principally in the United States, the name of a realm of human knowledge invented to allow researchers and campaigners to lobby for the adoption of specific methods they believe can be formalized to the point of standardization, the implicit ideal applied to everything in US education.

Contextual note

Mervosh provides no definition of the science. The remark cited above about what she refers to as “the movement” specifies not what it consists of, but who it is “targeting.” We should take this as a clear indication that the social phenomenon she is describing should be thought of as closer to a marketing operation than an area of intellectual inquiry. In other words, it doesn’t appear to be what we would traditionally categorize as a “science.” But in an age when people, and the media in particular, swear by the “science of marketing,” why shouldn’t we welcome a science of reading? So long as the traditional scientific community doesn’t rise in revolt against what Mervosh has describes as a “revolt,” it’s probably best to let ride the issue of whether the movement is a science or a sales campaign.

The closest the article gets to leaving the impression of its being a science appears in a sentence that alludes to a body of research, an activity we do generally associate with science. Here is how Mervosh explains, not so much the science itself as the need it addresses: “Research shows that most children need systematic, sound-it-out instruction — known as phonics — as well as other direct support, like building vocabulary and expanding students’ knowledge of the world.”

That sounds reasonable, but what does it mean in terms of educational practice? The article tells us, fatalistically, that: “Many children are not being correctly taught,” as if we should be surprised or even revolted. It also tells us triumphally, that after drawing “support across economic, racial and political lines” mobilizing a diversity of “champions,” success is nigh. “Together,” we learn, “they are getting results.”

In other words, the home team –  let’s call them the “Scientists” – appear to be winning. At one point, Mervosh even reports the score. “Nearly 60 percent of third graders are now proficient in decoding words, up from about 30 percent at the beginning of the school year, progress Mr. Palazzo [the principal of a low-income school] hopes will translate to state tests this spring.”

The problem with the article is that by the time we get to this and a few other anecdotal instances of failure or success, we still don’t know anything about the science itself – its fundamental principles, its strategic orientation  – and even less about how it works. For example, the case of Mr Palazzo begins with a bit of history. “His school had been using a reading program by the influential educators, Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, whose work has been questioned by science of reading advocates.” Fountas and Pinnell then seem to be on the bad team, since they have been critique by the “scientists.”

But we then learn that they too claim to be scientists. “Dr. Fountas and Dr. Pinnell pointed to research supporting their program and said ‘countless schools’ had achieved positive results.” “Countless” means that it was a rout. There’s no reason even to report the exact score.

In the following paragraph we learn that Palazzo’s school “used grants, donations and Covid relief money to buy a new phonics curriculum. The school also recently added 40 minutes of targeted, small-group phonics at the end of every day.” We can only deduce that Fountas and Pinnell were guilty of neglecting phonics and that their neglect prevents us from considering whatever they did – it is never described – as scientific.

Much later in the article – after more than 50 paragraphs – we receive a serious warning. “There is also the danger of overemphasizing phonics.” We still have no idea, despite the cascade of paragraphs, of what phonics is and how it works other than the idea that when it is employed, language is voiced out loud. Now, after being told it is the secret to scientific success, we must be careful not to overemphasize it.

Historical note

The New York Times has historically cultivated its own particular type of “serious journalism” designed according to the dictates of US culture, where “big is better,” “size matters” and quantity can always serve as a substitute for quality. Throughout its history, NYT has produced numerous examples of solid, impactful and sometimes game-changing journalism that, in the best cases, has had the power to mold Americans’ perception of issues and events. The tradition continues, but a parallel tradition that relies on an accumulation of data to mask a dearth of insight has grown up alongside it.

The hallmarks of any of the great NYT articles of the past have been the engagement of the reporter present on the terrain as events play out and sufficiently immersed in the topic to produce a convincing thoroughness of treatment. The great articles are always lengthy in order to justify the claim of being comprehensive. The author expects the reader to leave with the impression that the journalist has left out nothing essential to understanding the issues.

Unfortunately, when the substance is lacking, the clever strategy designed to create the illusion of thoroughness risks producing an impression of chaotic confusion. The accumulation of factoids and random remarks produces an effect of dancing around an issue about which the journalist has no clear idea. This inevitably leaves an impression of overload and unnecessary complexity. Tolerant readers may blame themselves for not having the capacity to understand the subtle reasoning of the journalist and the multiple experts cited. But a closer examination reveals that, in these boilerplate “in depth” articles, the cumulative effect serves to hide not just the lack of an insightful message but also the journalist’s capacity to produce any.

Despite its length, this article that claims to address the serious issue of literacy never defines the nature of the problem that provoked the “revolt” it describes.  Nor does it point even vaguely in the direction of solution. Paragraph after paragraph, it presents random observations and dissociated judgments. The consistent lack of any kind of logical or stylistic transition between paragraphs is endemic. It appears to be NYT’s way of saying we’re not leaving anything out, even if we have no idea how all these things connect.

This failure of journalistic strategy may, in the end, be a deliberate game of smoke and mirrors. The method now routinely infects an increasing number of  NYT articles. In my analysis of articles related to Russiagate, Havana Syndrome and other purely political themes, I have regularly noted how NYT journalists often forget — but more likely hide — what any true investigator would signal as the basis of an original insight or an undiscovered truth. In the most cynical cases, the journalist will conveniently “bury” the most salient element in the story inside a trailing paragraph lost somewhere in a string of unconnected observations.

It is legitimate to wonder why the Gray Lady continues with this practice. The simple answer is that… it works! Readers expect it. It stands as a sign of the paper’s seriousness. Which leaves us with one more question to ask: What does this say about a society that considers such journalistic practices normal?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.

Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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First, let’s crunch some numbers. In the United States, 57% of sex trafficking victims are under the age of 18, and approximately 300,000 children are at risk of some sort of sexual exploitation. The average age of entry is 12-14 for girls and 11-13 for boys. And the life expectancy of a human trafficking victim is just seven years. One-third of all minor runaways are lured into sex trafficking within the first 48 hours. According to figures from the Family Youth Services Bureau, 1.5 million US juveniles run away from home yearly. And another little-known fact: trafficking a victim is lucrative, generating approximately $300.000 a year, and less risky than the drug trade. DiGirolamo’s book is based on experiences through the eyes of victims, criminals, clients, social workers, and law enforcement personnel in the Denver, Colorado metro area.

Creating awareness through storytelling

Some sex trafficking victims become survivors. And it’s these stories in the book that will provoke the reader.  DiGirolamo provides some breathtaking and horrific examples of the worst of the worst in human behavior.Readers are introduced to various characters, like Ronald, who works for a  law enforcement task force. Compelling case files are brought to life through an insider’s view into the sex trafficking underworld and how criminals are brought to justice. Or take Angela, a girl that was sex trafficked by her pedophile grandfather from the age of five, who miraculously survived and recovered.  Now at the age of 53, she is devoted to sharing her story to empower others. Some victims rarely leave their homes out of fear of getting lured into  sexual slavery and, often, drug addiction. Such is the case with Tessa, who is from an unstable home and is contacted by a trafficker through the video game Minecraft.

One of DiGirolamo’s goals in writing the book is to educate citizens and professionals on how to keep an eye out for signs of human trafficking in daily life.

Valuable tips to recognize and stop human trafficking are shared at the end of It’s Not About the Sex. The book is a must-read for anybody interested in the subject and should be mandatory literature for professionals.

(We have edited this transcript lightly for clarity.)

Philip Fokker: Your daughter is a police officer, inspired you to write your first book, It’s Not About the Badge, correct?

John DiGirolamo: That’s correct.

Philip Fokker: What made you write your second book?

John DiGirolamo: When I was interviewing police officers for my first book, I asked them to tell me about a day at the job they’ll never forget. Also, to make them feel at ease during the interview, I asked them: ‘What would you do when you win the lottery?’ I will never forget one of the law enforcement officers who replied: ‘I would quit my job and hunt down traffickers.’ I knew then that was the direction I wanted to go with my second book. And soon, I realized I knew very little about sex trafficking and figured others were ill-informed on the subject as well. So, I decided to delve into the topic and tell the real story behind the people involved.

Philip Fokker: You quote from Rico’s and Carlo’s [two traffickers in the book – PhF] conversations. How did you gain this information?

John DiGirolamo: I based this on testimony by the police officer involved in the case and other cases he had worked on. What I did, from the book’s perspective, is to take these criminals and create characters from them. The dialogue is not direct but creates a dramatization based on real case files.

Philip Fokker: Did you have access to other law enforcement materials?

John DiGirolamo: Most of it was verbal. I did some research on my own. I needed to operate carefully because the police officer involved is still active and I didn’t want to blow his cover. I would take various case files and combine them in a plot. Most of them were collected through verbal inquiry and I used publicly available court documents as well. The law enforcement perspective was important, but also the flipside, the stories of the criminals involved. So next to court files, I used psychological files on criminals convicted of trafficking. Lastly, I talked to victims of human trafficking, to validate that this is indeed the way these criminals talk and operate.

Philip Fokker: You write that trafficking can generate up to $300,000 a year for a criminal and that the risks are much lower for them than being involved in the drug trade. In your opinion, should law enforcement switch priorities when it comes to these crimes? 

John DiGirolamo: In a sense I do, because we are talking about people. With drugs, you produce it and sell it and it’s done. With people, you traumatize them over and over. But there is a relationship there, these criminals are most of the time also into gun and drug sales. On many occasions, they get their victims hooked on drugs to control them.

Philip Fokker: I find the way you switch perspectives a powerful tool in your book. The bus ticket saleswoman Bethany and the Greyhound clerk in Kiyra’s [a juvenile runaway – PhF] story, make the reader realize that they should be more vigilant. Was this the goal you had in mind while applying this style? And also: did these two eyewitness accounts come from police files?

John DiGirolamo: Those were specifically in the story, to demonstrate that the average person could see something being off. Many people look over the fact that a situation they come across is suspicious. If people don’t understand these signs, trafficking will remain mostly unnoticed, under the radar in society. I got that information by doing research and talking to some of the advocates. An average person that is aware of the signs involved with sex trafficking, could make that one phone call and save a life. Part of the point of this book was to create awareness. The bullet points at the end of the book are included to raise consciousness about the subject

Philip Fokker: What is needed to prevent certain ‘behavior to fall through the cracks of bureaucracy’, as you put it in your book?

John DiGirolamo: I mean, it starts with education. Hopefully, people become aware and be motivated to solve this problem worldwide. One of the NGOs I spoke to said that a lot of times a victim could see a person during the time the abuse was taking place, without them noticing anything being off. People need to be diligent. Next to that, I believe that the elephant in the room is the current culture. Contemporary cultural influences make it look ok to pay for sex. If there would be no demand for this, there would be no crime.

Philip Fokker: Potential clients should be more aware of the pain and misery they inflict on these trafficked people, do you mean? Or do you think that in the US – where prostitution is mostly illegal – citizens that pay for sex are already morally adrift? What would raise awareness among people that are potentially willing to pay for sex?

John DiGirolamo: In some cases, and some states, people will just be given a ticket when getting caught. But if law enforcement arrests somebody, they are being interviewed and put in the system, making repetition less attractive. One of the things that came out of my research is that some people who ‘buy’ another person for sex, are already dehumanizing themselves and the victim. 

Dehumanization of both the victim and the client plays a large role in the transaction of sex trafficking. Victims tell me that they have to shut off mentally during the abuse. And through researching the psyche of the clients, I found that they dehumanize the victim to deal with possible feelings of guilt. Most of the clients are what we would call ‘normal people’ who, according to law enforcement, are trying to make their crime sound ok, coming up with excuses for themselves such as: “I’m not doing it to my daughter, I’m doing it to a stranger.”

And like I said before, modern culture feeds these trends: the rise of pornography usage for example. The individualization of society makes intimate relations less deep and meaningful and sex, in many cases, pure physical. Our culture worsens trafficking, with people reenacting scenes they have seen online. I mean: It’s a lot harder to be mean to somebody face-to-face than while behind a keyboard. It’s this kind of removal from reality that is also being applied by clients paying for sex.

Philip Fokker: Do you have any idea in how many cases a trafficker gets convicted?

John DiGirolamo: I don’t have an exact number. But people in law enforcement tell me it’s hard to get these criminals prosecuted, because of two reasons: many victims don’t want to come forward and a lot of manpower is needed to successfully close a case. One law enforcement officer from the Denver area told me that they work 100 cases a year, adding that they could be working on 1,000 if they had the manpower. 

In Colorado, they recently made the laws on trafficking much tougher. Because of this, one criminal received a 400-year conviction. But, as I mentioned before, convictions take multiple witnesses and a lot of resources. Sadly, the “defunding the police” trend from the last few years, does not help victims, to say the least. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 658 persons were convicted of a ‘federal human trafficking offense’ in 2020.

Philip Fokker: Erlinda’s case, in which a mother and her daughter fall victim to traffickers, is very well researched and should maybe be mandatory reading for every police officer in training, in my opinion. How did you research this case?

John DiGirolamo: This particular case was brought to my attention by a police officer and especially shows the ruthlessness of these criminals. By murdering in front of the petrified women, they showed them that they were not bluffing when it came to their threats. Sadly, both the mother and daughter were killed violently by the criminals later on. Again, setting an example for other girls that witnessed the murder. 

Philip Fokker: On a more hopeful note: the stories of Angela Rae and Jessica are very empowering. What can you tell us about these stories and why did you choose to include them in the book?

John DiGirolamo: So, I definitely wanted the stories of survivors and not only victims in the book. And I wanted somebody that was not too young, someone who went through a long recovery and healing process. Angela’s story is about persevering in the face of adversity. Her story tells how someone can deal with even the most horrific abuse. When I talked to her, she had just come out with her story. She was 53 and had the perspective and experience I was looking for. With her experience, she could voice the needs of survivors. 

Hopefully, other victims and survivors feel that they as well can overcome the heartache and nightmares. Angela found that in the end, being able to forgive her grandfather, who pimped her out to fellow pedophiles as a child, was for her own good. When I spoke to her, she told me that she had a nightmare about the abuse two days before. And that in the past she would be upset about this for a day, and now only for about ten minutes. Her lesson: it never leaves you, but you can learn to manage the trauma.

Jessica’s story comes from a whole other perspective. What I wanted to show with her story is how certain aspects of our culture promote sexual relations with underaged children. One of the girls in her story is forced to pose in a Hello Kitty outfit, for example. That’s how some pornography is now portrayed. This fuels a certain desire in the people watching it. If you look at studies on pornography, most kids are about ten years old when they first encounter pornography. 

It’s not like finding an old Playboy magazine, like in the pre-internet era. Getting exposed to hardcore porn at a young age rewires the brain. It distorts the view of people that are depicted in porn as if they are just there to please the viewer. So, Jessica’s case is really about culture. Also, I liked her coming back to God. Going down the bottom of the barrel before being able to lift yourself. She is now very open about her time as a porn actress, madam and prostitute, and a spokesperson against pornography and trafficking.

Philip Fokker: What are you currently working on?

John DiGirolamo: I’m working on various stories, with the theme ‘people who fight evil’. I just finished the story of a police officer that poses as a 12-year-old girl online and meets guys that want to hook up with her at a hotel. So, you can imagine this officer has some compelling stories to share.

Philip Fokker: Any last thoughts?

John DiGirolamo: Some more statistics, which I hope help raise awareness: 60% of sex trafficking cases happen through someone within the kids’ social network. Only 5% of the cases involve kidnapping. Predators nowadays are operating mostly online, like the girl in my book that meets a guy playing Minecraft. These kids are obsessed with reaching 1,000 followers or ‘friends’. And society doesn’t see this as a problem. But maybe that’s just because the average parent does not realize that out of these 1,000 “friends,” some are predators. 

[Readers can buy this book on .]
[ edited this interview.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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During these protests, some have chanted slogans in favor of the Pahlavi dynasty. Sadly, these protesters do not realize that both father Reza Shah and son Mohammad Reza Shah would have shot them dead or arrested and tortured if they were in power.

Why are Young People Protesting in Iran?

In our previous article, we analyzed Mohammad Mosaddegh and the golden age of Iranian democracy. For a 12-year spell from 1941 to 1953, Iran experienced freedom, reforms and the exercise of popular sovereignty. Mosaddegh cleaned up corruption and improved the economy. He invested in health, unemployment insurance and infrastructure. Mosaddegh also initiated programs to address women’s rights. However, this Iranian statesman is most noted for leading the nationalization of the oil industry.

The British Strike Back

The British had a monopoly over Iran’s oil since its discovery in 1908. Nationalization of the oil industry made Mosaddegh their worst enemy and British agents began working to oust him. They used every possible means to undermine his policies and question his competence. They resorted to disinformation, bribery, blackmail, murder and riots.

In June 1953, the British succeeded in winning over American support by painting Mosaddegh to be a socialist. By now, the US was about the spread of communism. The British also promised Americans a share of the oil. Nationalization was also a bad for other countries and went against the interests of American oil companies. The US was also disappointed that Mosaddegh did not show any in the formation of the Baghdad Pact, yet another anti-Soviet military alliance of the Cold War.

Hence, the US agreed with the British to launch “.” Its goal: remove Mosaddegh from power. Now, the CIA dispatched one of its stars to Tehran. This swashbuckler was and he worked with close coordination with MI6 for regime change in Iran. 

Together, the Americans and the British bribed politicians, military officers, government officials, warlords, and reporters. They also hired mobsters and hoodlums to pretend to be communists. These fake communists attacked people, broke into stores, torched buildings and used profanity as part of their shock and awe tactics to discredit Mosaddegh.

These tactics did not quite work. Mosaddegh remained wildly popular. When this Iranian statesman called for a referendum to dissolve the Majles (the Iranian parliament), he got of the vote. However, the British and the Americans were infiltrating many powerful interest groups in Iran. The plot against Mosaddegh was thickening. In August 1953, even as Mosaddegh remained popular, he was unaware that many of his , including some in his own party, were conspiring with the British and the Americans to oust him. 

Revolution Erupted in Iran Because of Mohammad Reza Shah

One Coup Fails but the Second Succeeds

On August 16, 1953, the Shah dismissed Mosaddegh. He appointed General Fazlollah Zahedi, a , as prime minister. Some close associates of the Shah have the view that this was unnecessary. Mosaddegh would have resigned had the Shah asked him to do so.

Zahedi and his cronies began arresting Mosaddegh’s top aides. Mosaddegh saw Zahedi’s appointment as a military coup and refused to step down. The prime minister summoned loyal military officers to his defense. They arrested the party Zahedi had sent to capture Mosaddegh.

The Shah fled the country and Zahedi took refuge with the CIA. The CIA-led, MI6 first attempt miserably failed. Mosaddegh felt so confident that he did not take the opportunity to to the nation about the coup. This turned out to be a historic blunder.

The CIA and MI6 did not give up. They carried on their anti-government activities and instigated violence in the streets. Fearing communist attacks, Iranians withdrew to their homes. After three days of rioting, Ayatollah Abul-Qasem Kashani reportedly Mosaddegh about a coup attempt to oust him.  Mosaddegh dismissed the warning with his aloof reply, “I am supported by the Iranian nation.”

The very next day, large crowds suddenly appeared in the streets in support of the Shah. On this historic day of August 19, 1953, Mosaddegh was caught unawares. The second coup attempt succeeded. Zahedi came out of hiding and arrested Mosaddegh. On hearing about Mosaddegh’s fall, the then British prime minister said that after a long time he finally slept well.

After the coup, Mosaddegh was put on as a traitor in a military court. Fearing popular reaction, Mosaddegh’s statements in his defense were all censored. Mosaddegh was sentenced to solitary confinement to begin with and then house arrest for the remainder of his life. At the age of 84, he died in 1967 while still in house arrest. 

In the , he said, “Yes, my sin – my greater sin – and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire…. This at the cost to myself, my ; and the risk of losing my life, my honor, and my property.” Then, he continued, “I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chain of slavery and servitude to colonial interests.”

After the coup, the weak, narcissist and debauched Shah returned to Iran. From now on, he wielded absolute power. Tutored by US advisers, he became a cruel despot just like his father. He crushed all political movements. The opposition went underground, discontent simmered and eventually led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Personal Memories and Consequences of the Coup

One of the co-authors still remembers the day of the coup. He was with his father running errands in central Tehran. At midday, everything seemed peaceful. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. People appeared in trucks chanting, “Death to Mosaddegh, long live the Shah.” The co-author’s father instinctively cursed the British for engineering this ruckus. The very next day, Iranians such as the co-author’s father, friends and family knew that the CIA and MI6 had engineered the coup because Zahedi thanked the US for its support.

In the US and in Britain, the people did not realize the role the CIA and MI6 had played for years. They assumed that organic street protests led to Mosaddegh’s fall. One co-author has been in the US since 1965. He is married to an American. He has had numerous discussions with fellow Americans who resolutely believed that the US could never do as dastardly a deed as overthrow a democratically elected government through a coup.

The US mass media took the same line as uninformed American citizens. In 2003, The New York Times supported the Iraq War. In 1953, this venerable publication supported the coup against Mosaddegh. went further and claimed that “this was no military coup, but a spontaneous popular uprising.” 

In 2013, such claims were proved patently false. The CIA that it carried out the 1953 coup with the approval of the highest levels of the US government. The British have yet to issue a mea culpa but numerous retired MI6 and CIA officers have remarked to the other co-author that this coup turned out to be a historic blunder. These officers maintain that this 1953 coup had unintended consequences and led directly to the 1979 revolution.

It turns out that the coup was planned, coordinated and directed by Cyprus-based MI6 agent . The CIA’s Roosevelt merely executed Darbyshire’s plans. The 1953 coup was the CIA’s first exposure to covert operations that caused regime change. Since then, the has replicated it in numerous other countries.

The dissolute Shah rewarded the US generously for installing him on the throne. In October 1954, Iran signed the , giving the “US, British, and French oil companies” 40% ownership of its nationalized oil industry. The management of the consortium was led by American oil companies for 25 years and many consider it to be “the ever put together.”

Surprisingly, the took over the country in February 1979 about 7 months before the agreement was due to expire. In January 1979, one of the major concerns of the world leaders at the summit was the flow of oil from Iran as revolution erupted in the country. The US and Britain had profited handsomely from the 1953 coup and the 1979 revolution was an unnecessary headache.

Why MI6 and the CIA Succeeded

Given Mosaddegh’s popularity, a question recurs repeatedly: why did the coup succeed?

Mosaddegh was unlucky. The communist Tudeh Party was at least as powerful as Mosaddegh’s National Front. Tudeh could have come out on the streets to prevent the unrest and the coup. However, Joseph Stalin’s death in March 1953 left Tudeh in . Just as the Shah was the lackey of the West, the Tudeh Party was controlled directly by Stalin. With the Soviet strongman dead, Tudeh was rudderless and useless.

In addition to bad fortune, Mosaddegh himself was to blame. He was an idealist who could be exceedingly naïve when it came to realpolitik. Mosaddegh believed deeply in democracy but failed to realize that many of his enemies did not. When he was informed about legislators, officials and military officers plotting a coup, Mosaddegh’s reaction was to ask for proof. Naturally, such proof was hard to come, which lulled this venerable Iranian statesman into a false sense of complacency.

Mosaddegh’s championing of freedom of religion annoyed many conservatives. In particular, it strained relations with his most powerful religious and patriotic supporter . This support was crucial for Mosaddegh because Kashani commanded a powerful base that could have countered those plotting a coup. To make matters worse, Mosaddegh ignored Kashani’s warning a day before the coup.

Mosaddegh lost some of his secular supporters because they feared communism. Furthermore, some parliamentarians were upset with the prime minister for dissolving the Majles. A few switched sides and supported the coup.

Mosaddegh fatally did not seize the moment after the first coup. This attempt was reported on the radio but the prime minister did not give a public address disclosing all the facts. He did not summon the masses to his defense. Mosaddegh was a sick man during much of his premiership and, particularly, at the time of the coup. He had lost touch with the masses, key interest groups and many members of his own party. Mosaddegh also failed to realize that success today gives no guarantee of success tomorrow.

Mosaddegh was a touch too credulous in trusting the US. He expected Uncle Sam to be an honest broker between Iran and Britain. During his visit to the US, the then president Harry Truman arranged for Mosaddegh’s medical care. Relations between the US and Iran continued to be even when Dwight D. Eisenhower became president. 

As fear of communism rose in the US, Eisenhower turned against Iran. The sweet prospects of access to Iranian oil also facilitated this change of heart. Given the US stress on capitalism and securing oil for its energy-hungry economy, it was inevitable that Washington would look extremely unfavorably upon nationalization of the oil industry. Mosaddegh did not realize the stakes on the geopolitical chessboard and was unprepared to counter the foreign powers.

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The campaign grabbed the attention and endorsement of some Iranian celebrities and athletes like Ali Karimi but drew silence from well-known anti-regime Iranian diaspora activists Nazanin Boniadi, journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, actress Golshifteh Farahani and activist Hamed Esmaeilion.

However, many ethnic peoples and political representatives with other democratic forces in the opposition were alarmed by this unilateral and unseemly campaign. Many took to social media to reject Reza Pahlavi, and his supporter’s attempt to hijack the revolution and assume leadership. 

Revolution Erupted in Iran Because of Mohammad Reza Shah

In Balochistan, many protesters held stating, “No to Mullah and Shah, no IRGC terrorists, Yes to freedom.” Another well-known revolutionary slogan chanted on city streets across Iran is “Death to the oppressor, whether he is the shah or the supreme leader.” If Reza Pahlavi and his supporters truly cared about democracy and human rights, they surely could not have missed the voices of the people facing guns and bullets on the streets in Iran. 

show protesters chanting other common slogans that reject the objectives of the Pahlavi campaign like “no monarchy, no leader (supreme leader), democracy and equality.” Even more direct was a held up by protesters in Zahedan, Balochistan that reads, “Reza Pahlavi is not our representative, understand that we have our representatives.” 

It would be incorrect to say that Reza Pahlavi does not have supporters. Nevertheless, most Iranians do not want to sacrifice their lives in a revolution to overthrow the theocratic state of the ayatollahs only to have it replaced by the son of a previous dictator overthrown by a revolution in 1979. The Ayatollahs and Pahlavi have had decades to govern Iran but both have been impediments to democratic movements throughout Iran’s history. This among many other factors demonstrates the absurdity of the Pahlavi campaign.

Why the campaign does more harm than good

Anyone advocating for Reza Pahlavi’s leadership through this campaign is truly not in touch with reality and knows little about the law or how political processes work. The titled, “Prince Reza Pahlavi is my representative,” states, “Considering the revolution that is going on in Iran and considering that Reza Pahlavi asked the people of Iran to give him power of attorney to lead this movement.” There is no legal basis under domestic or international law to give someone such power. The entire premise of the campaign has no grounds in democratic processes or legal code. The campaign illustrates that Reza Pahlavi and his supporters are zealous to monopolize the revolution and secure power for themselves. 

The Dirty Secrets About How Reza Shah Destroyed Iran

Having the Shah’s son serve as interim leader in a transitional government if the revolution successfully overthrows the Islamic Republic sends the wrong signal to people inside and outside of Iran because the people do not want to go back to the days of the monarchy. They are also firmly against the theocratic system of the Ayatollahs. The people in Iran have learned from the last revolution that getting behind a self-declared messiah (Khomeini) may lead to another authoritarian system.

If Reza Pahlavi supports women’s rights then he should step aside and let a woman lead. If monarchists want to establish the monarchy on the backs of the women and men who have died or are being tortured and imprisoned in this globally recognized women’s revolution, then I propose that one of Pahlavi’s sisters campaign for leadership. It would be quite progressive but the Pahlavi monarchy is gender biased.   

Having a campaign for leadership at a time when the revolution has not succeeded in overthrowing the theocracy illustrates the immaturity of the prince and his supporters. They claim to be for democracy yet attempt to arbitrarily impose upon the people an exiled Pahlavi seeking to continue a family legacy of assimilation, forced homogenization, and authoritarianism under the guise of freedom and modernity. 

Reza Pahlavi is not a unifier but a divider

In a recent interview with Manoto TV, Reza Pahlavi makes it clear that he has no democratic solution for Iran’s multitude of problems nor does he propose any governing structure that can guarantee the rights of Kurds, Baloch, Azeri and Ahwazi Arabs. 

Why Do You Need to Know About Mohammad Mosaddegh?

The journalist asks Pahlavi about how he views the demand by ethnic groups in Iran who say that they are ready to be a part of the coalition and an exile government if Pahlavi and others recognize them as distinct nations in a multinational Iran. His response, applauded by his supporters, shocked many others.

Pahlavi responds, “Any democratic force that believes in democratic institutions and political transparency can be a part of the political coalition that we are demanding but they must believe that the territorial integrity of Iran is a red line. Anyone who does not believe in the unity of Iran’s territory cannot be a part of the political coalition and this is our clear message for all parties.”

His dismissal of the rights of such nations as mere demands of separatism and a threat to Iran’s territorial integrity indicates that he does not believe in democracy. He seeks to hijack the Jina Revolution like Khomeini did with the 1979 Revolution and impose homogenization and assimilation much like the Islamic republic has been doing and his father before them. 

Despite living in the West and having connections with many western governments, he has done little to investigate the power-sharing institutions and principles that maintain social and political cohesion in democratic countries that could serve as plausible solutions to the demands of the different nations in Iran. He resorts to the Khomenian tactics of appealing to fears and accusations instead of diplomacy and cooperation.

Is the separatist label fact or fiction? 

In his recent Manoto TV Pahlavi goes on to say, “Tell me what Iranian would want his country to be divided into pieces? Those who talk about separatism need to know that the chants inside Iran are nationalistic and not local or specific to any ethnic or religious group. The people want one Iran.”

None of what Reza Pahlavi says is true or helps to unite the diverse peoples who inhabit Iran. When Jina Amini died, the revolution for women, life, and freedom began in Kurdistan in her hometown and spread all over Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran blamed the Kurds, bombed Kurdish opposition parties across the border in the KRG and even came out with statements accusing the Kurds of orchestrating the revolution with the help of Israel. This is because the revolution sparked by the death of a Kurdish girl in a Kurdish town and by a Kurdish slogan started in Kurdistan before spreading to the rest of Iran. 

What the people want in Iran is freedom but that means different things to different people. This is a fact that Pahlavi and other Iranian leaders have not thought about or perhaps have chosen to ignore in favor of a more absolutist governing structure that fundamentally changes little for non-Persian nations or the establishment of a working democracy in Iran.

In the 1940s, Qazi Muhammad, president of the Kurdistan Republic, made efforts to peacefully resolve the Kurdish question through the establishment of pluralistic and democratic Iran. With the help of the Brits and Americans, the last Shah of Iran hanged Qazi for establishing an autonomous Kurdistan government and advocating for democracy in Iran. 

In the 1980s, the Kurdish leader Abdul Rehman, who once said that “we will not allow anyone to claim that they are more Iranian than us Kurds,” and who made famous the slogan: Democracy for Iran, Autonomy for Kurdistan, was assassinated in Vienna by regime agents while negotiating with the Iranian state. 

Similarly, his successor Dr. Sadiq Sharafkandi was assassinated in Mykonos while meeting with Iranian opposition leaders to unify opposition against the Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic of Iran justifies the murder of the Kurdish leaders with the same argument that Reza Pahlavi makes, that they were separatists or a threat to the territorial integrity of Iran. 

In addition, The of Nationalities for a Federal Iran have articulated similar demands. The of Nationalities for a Federal Iran which is an alliance of political parties and advocacy groups campaigning to replace the current Islamist government system in Iran with a secular, democratic, federal government has also rejected these allegations of separatism. 

None of these nations demand independence or separation from Iran, yet, monarchists like Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic both continue this rhetoric of separatism and territorial integrity because they do not want to share power and build a tolerant and pluralistic democracy in Iran that recognizes the fundamental rights of all nations in Iran. 

It has been 72 years since the establishment of the Iranian nation-state. The Kurds and others continue to struggle for their rights as nations yet Iranian leaders like Reza Pahlavi and the Ayatollahs continue to label them as threats to territorial integrity. 

The separatism accusation illustrates that Iranian leaders in the monarchist and Islamist camps continue to hold outdated views about demands for self-determination and democracy that make them unfit to lead Iran.

If Iran fragments into separate states like the former Yugoslavia did in the 1990s, It will not be because the non-Persian nations did not try to resolve their issues peacefully and democratically. It will be because the Iranian state forced upon the various peoples a policy of assimilation and homogenization to erase the identity of marginalized nations in Iran.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In two forthcoming papers, Low, a professor of business economics and public policy, takes a revealing look at “reproductive capital,” a term she uses to describe the economic value of fertility, and thus the trade-offs that women make when they make time-consuming educational and career investments.

In her first , “Pricing the Biological Clock: The Marriage Market Costs of Aging to Women,” forthcoming at the Journal of Labor Economics, Low designed a unique online dating experiment to determine how both men and women fare in the marriage market as they get older and fertility declines.

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“You always hear people talking about the biological clock and how influential it is in women’s lives. But what’s been missing from the literature is this idea that if men also want to have kids, then it isn’t just a personal trade-off for women, it’s an economic trade-off,” she said. “Who you marry is one of the most significant financial decisions you can make. It’s a big deal for your financial well-being whether you marry someone who is going to make $50,000 a year or $500,000 a year.”

The experiment recruited real online daters who were asked to rate hypothetical profiles in which the photo was the same, but the age and income varied. The participants were incentivized to be honest in their answers; as compensation, they received customized advice from a dating coach on how to attract the type of partner they rated highest.

The results found that both male and female participants valued a high income in a potential romantic partner, but there was a sharp contrast when it came to age preferences. Men were rated higher as they aged, while women were rated lower as they aged. However, the preference for younger women was only found among male daters who had no children and who were knowledgeable about when female fertility declines. Based on their ratings, for every year past 30, women had to make $7,000 a year more to stay in the romantic running for them.

“These findings indicate that men also hear the ticking of the biological clock. Seeking to marry and have children, they naturally prefer more fertile partners,” Low wrote in the paper.

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More Equitable Policies

Low said she hopes business and political leaders will use her findings to craft more equitable policies that take into consideration this economic trade-off for women. Although women’s education levels have been rising rapidly in the last 50 years, women still make up of Fortune 500 CEOs. Keeping talented women in the workforce isn’t just important in closing the gender pay gap, it’s a key component to a thriving economy, she said.

“You might be paying her more money to stay in this high-pressure job, but she’s losing out on the marriage market, which puts it in different economic terms,” Low said, noting that women’s fertility begins to decline in the 30s, which is the same age that most careers ascend. “Firms need to think about how to alleviate that trade-off and recognize it as the equivalent of costing her money.”

She said change could come in the form of redesigning career timelines so that women can get the full value of both their human and reproductive capital. In law and medicine, for example, women often delay marriage and children as they attain graduate degrees and pursue residency or partnership.

“There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to finish law school, take a fellowship that’s a slower pace for a few years, and then start the partner track when your kids are in kindergarten,” Low said. “People are working into their 70s these days. Why can’t they make intensive investments starting when they are 35?”

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Human vs. Reproductive Capital

While Low’s first study finds a $7,000 price tag on each year marriage is delayed, her second , “The Human Capital – ‘Reproductive Capital’ Tradeoff in Marriage Market Matching,” forthcoming at the Journal of Political Economy, models the real trade offs this consideration creates in women’s school and career investments.

People who are higher income or higher education typically marry partners who are also higher income or higher education. This is a phenomenon economists refer to as “assortative matching.” Low documents a key deviation from this pattern: Throughout the 20^thcentury, graduate-educated women have married poorer spouses than college-educated women, despite being higher earning themselves. Every other education level yields richer spouses.

Why? Education may increase “human capital,” but because it takes time, it decreases “reproductive capital,” especially for educational investments that take longer and are later in life.

Low shows that when you acknowledge this duality in women’s school investments, you can predict that education will be viewed as a positive thing in the marriage market, up to a point, but will start to detract from women’s marriage market “value” when it interferes with fertile years.

Low said her research illuminates how women pay for investing in their careers and education with a “tax on the marriage market.” This makes entering careers requiring lengthy investments, which also tend to be the highest paying, less appealing for women, and may help explain the persistent gap in representation for women at the top of the corporate ladder.

It’s not all bad news, though. Recently, graduate-educated women have started marrying richer men than college-educated women, and also marrying at higher rates and divorcing less.

Low’s explanation: the shrinking American family. Because everyone is having fewer children, graduate women aren’t facing quite the same disadvantage. The preference for smaller families seems to be a bit of an equalizer for women across the board.

“People have documented this phenomenon of a reversal of fortune for educated women on the marriage market — that they used to marry less, get divorced more, have fewer children. And now, things are improving. But I show this has not been driven by college-educated women at all, but rather graduate-educated women, and that’s because of reproductive capital,” Low said. “A graduate degree and the subsequent career investment really do cut into those reproductive years when you want a large family.”

Low’s work further suggests that this marriage market improvement could be leading to a greater willingness for women to pursue educational investments, with women’s graduate school enrollments now outpacing men’s.

Women as ‘Economic Agents’

When asked if she found these studies to be a disappointing indictment about gender in society, Low said it was simply honest.

“There are some real difficulties, and we can build a better society that lets us be more equal by taking account of those differences,” she said. “But we don’t get there by ignoring those differences and gaslighting women that they can just try harder.”

Low, whose research focuses more broadly on diversity, equity, and inclusion, said the two papers are part of her larger agenda to change how women are studied in economics and beyond. She wants society to value women as “economic agents” and treat women’s issues with the same weight as other serious topics. Whether or not to have children — and when to have children — is a fundamental decision.

“If you look around the world, you see not everybody consumes cars or designer clothes, but most people get value in their lives by either having or connecting to children in some way,” she said. “Children are of fundamental economic importance, and I want to treat that with the full seriousness of the economic tools that we have. In doing so, it takes women’s decisions out of this dismissive context and puts it back in the domain of economic optimization, where there are two very important sources of value creation that she’s trading off between.”

[ first published this piece.]

[Shaurya Singhi edited this piece.]

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Indonesia has set a target of in GHG emissions without international funding, and 43.20% with international support by 2030. This commitment is legally binding. This gives judiciaries a pivotal role in achieving this goal. is “an increasingly common and citizen-accessible area of environmental law.” Citizens increasingly use this form of litigation to hold countries and public corporations accountable both “for their climate mitigation efforts and historical contributions to .”

In Indonesia, all climate-related cases are filed in the general court and led by certified judges in environmental law. The future holds increasing ecological challenges due to climate change, making it essential for Indonesia’s government to enhance its jurisdiction in order to mindfully regulate environmental laws.

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In 2019, citizens and activists of Jakarta sued the government for poor air quality in central Jakarta court. This case was critical in the history of human rights in Indonesia as it voiced the citizens’ demands to improve the overall environment. The case reached a verdict after two long years in 2021. The verdict entailed appropriate penalties for the president, three of the ministers, and the governor, in order to implement appropriate actions against air pollution. This case has contributed to the climate litigation progress and movements in Indonesia.

Principles and Practice

This case consists of some principles related to environmental law as mentioned in Article 2, of 2009. These include the principles of pollution pay, sustainable development and the precautionary principle. According to the pollution pay principle, Jakarta’s governor should be stricter in penalizing drivers who do not comply with permissible pollution levels for vehicles, businesses or activities that do not meet emission-quality standards. Due to this case, the governor issued  , regarding the exhaust emission tests of motorbikes in 2020. This added more than 15 air quality monitoring stations, and arranged emission inventory. 

Air pollution negatively impacts health over many generations. Such pollution is not sustainable and violates the principle of sustainable health. Judges argued that the health ministry had violated the law by refusing to share any information regarding the polluted areas and the effect of the air pollution on public health.The health ministry also did not have the statistics about the decline in public health due to the air pollution. This goes against article 14 in presidential . Therefore, there is a need for Indonesia to improve transparency among stakeholders.

Indonesia’s Balancing Act Between China and Taiwan

Keeping in accordance with the precautionary principle, after the forest fires in 2017, the panel of judges requested the president to revise presidential rule 41 of 1999. Though the validity of this act has been questioned for 21 years, it has still not been reviewed by the president, signifying a failure to prioritize the regulations. Despite this, a ray of hope may still lie amongst the citizen lawsuits filed against air pollution in Jakarta. These lawsuits led the government to redesign the Baku Mutu Adara Ambien (BMUA), which translates as the Ambient Air Quality Standard, and could possibly be what encourages the prioritization of the pollution risks. 

Strengthening Climate Commitments

This suit serves as an example for all Indonesians to approach the court of law with citizen lawsuits if their rights to a healthy environment are violated. The right to a healthy environment is a human right, and so, will be considered in court in any environmental case. The court’s decision to consider human rights a supporting element in Perbuatan Melawan Hukum (PMH), and their choice to present human rights experts in court are well-measured moves. 

In addition to this case, the media also plays a crucial role in raising awareness about climate litigation in Indonesia. Presenting more cases and initiating discussions will increase critical thinking and optimism amongst citizens about the environment and their human rights.

The president and the ministries of Indonesia need to be held accountable for any violation of the BMUA rules. Jakarta’s air pollution is getting progressively worse. Along with Hanoi and Mandalay, Jakarta is the city in Southeast Asia. Their citizens’ life expectancy has by three to four years on average.The verdict also probes the ministry of environment and forestry to strengthen the supervising roles of governors. The supervising roles of governors extend to the areas of forming policies on emission limits, management plans (), power station units and other operating industries in each province. In order to further public participation and their faith in the government, there need to be mechanisms to penalize governors if found ineffective. This will showcase the nation and its judiciary’s commitment towards reversing climate change. 

Indonesia continues to face challenges with solving the air pollution in Jakarta. For instance, the country has a limited number of judges specializing in environmental law who can address the potential rise in climate-related cases. Indonesia also needs to stop relying on coal power plants to attain its economic resilience due to its direct impact on air pollution. Furthermore, the public is still largely unaware of the urgency of the climate crisis. 

Since climate-related cases are rising, Indonesia must train its young judges in environmental law. Cases alone will not do the trick and neither will judicial activism. Indonesian citizens have to take an active role in getting their representatives to draft laws to combat climate change. They also have to put pressure on the government to implement these laws through sensible policies. These policies must have goals and targets that can be measured, monitored and evaluated. Only then will Indonesia be able to play its part in combating climate change.

[ and edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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This phrasing may seem normal for most, but it can be a tool of oppression. When used in political discourse or a legal framework, the label “minority” can worsen marginalized people’s social, economic, and political persecution by implying their rights are less significant or deserving of recognition.

The term also leads to a lack of media coverage and priority in policy when people labeled minorities are attacked, arrested, imprisoned, or killed by states. Even when they get media attention, governments fail to address the gross human rights violations committed against them.

The term defined by the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, refers to groups “which constitute less than half of the population in the entire territory of a state whose members share common characteristics of culture, religion or language, or a combination of any of these.”

The words we use can weaken or reinforce oppressive systems. In essay, “Politics and the English Language,” he stated, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.” Thus, a legal system or polity’s language can be problematic if it heavily emphasizes the rights of either the majority or the minority.

How The Term Leads to Oppression

The term “minority” downplays human rights abuse and the psychological trauma experienced by entire populations. As a minority, you constantly fear being imprisoned, killed, bombed, or forced to leave your home country. Even when living peacefully, the worry about who you are and where you come from renders you prone to victimhood and permeates your entire life.

This fear and victimhood is the life of most persecuted people labeled minorities. “Minority” is a word that quantifies human rights and suffering and results in treating such people as lesser than those with membership in the dominant group in society. Using the term “minority”, further marginalizes the rights of ethnic, cultural, and religious groups.

In all instances of its use, “minority” emphasizes insignificance even when that is not a person’s intention. Furthermore, to minimize the severity and injustice of their persecution of these people, states that violate human rights against ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities within their borders employ this same language of insignificance that highlights the problematic term or concept of minorityhood.

Minority-hood is the condition of being treated and made to feel insignificant because you are different from the majority.   

The minority-majority dichotomy serves oppression in every facet of society: political, social, or economic. Thus, to eradicate violence and discrimination against nationalities, ethnicities, and cultural groups, the term, minority, must be removed from international law.

Why The Term should Be Eliminated

Many states are dominated by one ethnic group or another. The concept of minorities contributes to the inequality between groups in diverse polities. It often works to marginalize those distinguishable from the majority while favoring the group in power.

It is more feasible to recognize the rights of all people and the rights of ethnonational, linguistic, religious and cultural groups in international law without referring to them as minorities. Classifying oppressed peoples as minorities frequently results in the assumption — conscious or subconscious — that since a group is a minority the lives of its members are less valuable. 

In no way is this advocating for the policing of language. Freedom of speech is integral in dismantling oppressive rhetoric and structures in society. However, dropping the concept of minorities can help us move away from quantifiable notions of rights to more egalitarian concepts of rights that are not discriminatory.

To protect all life, we must respond with the same shock and effort to the taking of one life as we do to that of many lives. Human lives are not measurable statistics or numbers; they are immeasurably valuable. Eliminating the concept of minorities also eliminates the unspoken notion that human life and rights are only significant based on population size.

[ edited this piece.]

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Peace in our time?

The peace deal was brokered in November 2022 in and. These agreements allowed for a ceasefire, aid flows and the deployment of African Union-led monitors who would oversee the re-establishment of Ethiopian government authority over Tigray.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominates the region, promised to its fighters within 30 days under the agreement. That was signed on November 2. It has still not been completed, at least in part, because the text contained the provision that this would “depend on the security situation on the ground.”

As Patrick Wight wrote, the subsequent Nairobi agreement “states that disarmament of the Tigray Defence Forces’s heavy weapons “done concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-ENDF (Ethiopian National Defence Forces) from the region.” What a “concurrent” disarmament of TDF and withdrawal of Eritrean troops looks like in practice is anyone’s guess. It would be positive if this means the alarmingly rapid disarmament provisions agreed to in Pretoria will be delayed.

It has been the Eritreans that have been holding up progress. At the end of December there were eyewitness reports of Eritrean forces leaving Tigrayan towns. “Eritrean soldiers, who fought in support of Ethiopia’s federal government during its two-year civil war in the northern Tigray region, are pulling out of two major towns and heading toward the border, witnesses and an Ethiopian official,” Reuters.

Others are less certain. Tigrayan refugees that the Eritreans remain in parts of the region. Tigrayans have photographs of Eritreans in Tigrayan cities on Twitter, including Adwa.

Meanwhile, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has been claiming “victory” for his forces over the Tigrayans. “My pride has no bounds”, he said in his New Year. But the Eritrean leader is taking no chances. He is reported to be dissident Ethiopians in case his relationship with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed goes sour.

Afwerki previously used foreign troops to threaten neighboring leaders with the use of force. In 2011, the United Nations reported that Eritrea was behind a “massive” attack on an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, using Ethiopian rebels. It would be wrong to assume that a similar attack is now on the cards, but training dissidents could be a tactic to maintain pressure on Ahmed.

Maintaining tension and instability across the Horn of Africa has been a tactic the Eritrean leader has used consistently since capturing Asmara, the Eritrean capital, in 1991. Since then, Afwerki has led his country into no fewer than eight – from Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

How will Europe and the US respond?

US President Joe Biden has been assiduous in attempting to end the fighting in Tigray. Biden appointed special envoys to the Horn of Africa as soon as he came to office. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went out of his way to Ahmed during the US-Africa summit in December. He raised the question of peace with Ahmed as well as the ending of the Eritrean troop presence in Tigray. Some wags have suggested that the peace agreements signed in Pretoria and Nairobi were so closely linked to Washington’s efforts they should be termed “US solutions to African problems” – clearly, a play on the phrase “African solutions to African problems.”

Who Can Resolve Ethiopia’s Catastrophic Conflict?

The key question now is whether sufficient progress has been made to lift the American and European sanctions against Ethiopia. They were introduced to try to end the war. In the of Jeffrey Feltman, the former US special envoy to the Horn: “The United States and the European Union hoped that, combined with emergency humanitarian assistance, punitive measures such as the threat of sanctions and the withholding of development aid would halt the atrocities and move the parties from the battlefield to the negotiating table.”  While the two parties did come to the negotiating table, it is unclear if the peace in Tigray is sustainable.

After two years of war, Ethiopia’s economy is said to be on the verge of collapse. The country nearly $20bn for its reconstruction. The EU Foreign Affairs Council is due to meet Brussels on January 23 and one of the issues on their agenda is the possible unfreezing of hundreds of millions of euros pledged in aid to Addis Ababa. Since 2021, the EU froze nearly $210m in aid to Ethiopia, following the draconian blockade Addis Ababa imposed on the Tigray region. The money is badly needed and it is not yet clear what strings the Europeans may attach to the lifting of sanctions.

For Eritrea, the picture is clearer: Washington has no time for Afwerki and is likely to keep the president under pressure. Afwerkid is already so isolated that it is unlikely that he cares greatly about western attitudes. He prefers to rely on his Arab neighbors, China and possibly Russia for international support. Eritrea will keep playing its game of promoting Ethiopian rebels to retain relevance in the region. This is bad news for Ethiopia and prospects of peace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Mass protests are highly uncommon in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) keeps a tight lid on society, using mass surveillance, incarceration and economic pressure on recalcitrant individuals. Hence, people are too cowed down to protest.

The current protests reveal the scale of disaffection in China. Xi’s zero-COVID policy has clearly failed. It has imposed economic setbacks and social suffering on millions of Chinese families. The CCP’s reputation for competence has taken a beating and so has Xi’s prestige.

Xi’s failed zero-COVID policy has implications for the rest of the world. It shows that supply chains reliant on China face major risks and vulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, countries are now decreasing investment in China, sourcing imports from other countries and making their supply chains more resilient.

Atul Singh and Glenn Carle make sense of protests in China and what this means for Xi, the CCP and the country.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The commonly known text-to-image applications in the industry are ,     and . Some of these applications are available freely to the public, and others apply an invitation-only access policy. 

I tested these systems with different prompts to understand their potential to create disinformation content for current and historical events. Below are samples of the images I created. 

AI-generated image based on the command: Israeli soldiers storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque

AI-generated image based on the command: Military trucks on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge

Four AI-generated images based on the command: A fire in New York’s Time Square 

These models also have the potential to distort our perception of history and could be used to create many conspiracy theories. For example, here is a photo of Abraham Lincoln.

AI-generated image based on the command: Abraham Lincoln with his black wife

AI-generated image based on the command: Karl Marx in front of the White House

A problem of trust

These AI-generated photos not only produce an erroneous belief about actual past events, they also threaten the confidence an informed public should have in our information ecosystem. When compelling, but fabricated pictures of events go viral, real ones lose value. 

In today’s journalistic culture, photos have become essential elements of news stories. Journalists need a compelling story to interest and persuade their readers that they are presenting news. The images they use tell part of the story and may therefore produce an illusory coherence that is absent from the actual story. 

Given the already well-documented abuse of Photoshop in advertising and promotion, it is easy to imagine an unscrupulous actor circulating an AI-fabricated image on social media and blogs, accompanied by a simple caption to suggest an entirely fictional story. For instance, a journalist who wants to make the public believe in the discredited RussiaGate thesis of the “pee tape” contained in the Steele dossier might show a picture of a pee-stained bed in a Moscow hotel. Together, the caption and the photo can form a visually credible message that is pure disinformation. 

What distinguishes the photos generated by text-to-image from other systems, such as Photoshop and other AI systems, is that the technological barrier is much lower. Any layperson who can read and write and has access to a computer and the internet, even though they possess no design or graphics skills, is capable of creating these images. Other systems require a creator with specialized skills, which may include coding. Some text-to-image photos that are generated with today’s tools, such as those displayed above, may need more finesse to avoid being easily detected as forgeries, but one can expect the technology to improve over time.  

Possible solutions to this problem

To mitigate the risk of  disinformation, creators of these systems could apply multiple solutions, such as preventing the generation of photos associated with known personalities, places, and events and establishing a list of prohibited keywords and prompts. Another approach would be to organize a gradual strategic launch of the app to test it with a limited audience and assess the possible danger thanks to the users’ feedback. Some of the actual vendors, such as and have already established a terms-of-use policy that explicitly prohibits the tool’s misuse. While conducting my research, Dalle. E 2  even suspended my account when I attempted some prompts to generate photos that could be used for disinformation purposes. But in other cases, it did not. The system has now become to anyone after removing the waiting list barrier. 

In the absence of proper self-regulation, governments should start to intervene and consider the threat these systems present to the public. One can easily imagine unscrupulous politicians using these photos during an election campaign to attack an opponent or alter the public’s perception of ongoing events. There is always a tricky balance between enjoying the advancement of such a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, with its promise of radically facilitating how we create artwork, and the risk of recklessly putting such a powerful disinformation tool in the hands of those who abuse it. Media literacy projects should update their educational materials to teach citizens about detecting fabricated images. Fact-checking organizations could also play an important role in detecting and exposing these fake images to the public.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Ten individuals were killed in an in Urumqi, Xinjiang, as their doors were locked from the outside due to lockdown restrictions, which sparked the initial protests. While lifting those limits was the protest’s main objective, it ultimately resulted in calls for Chinese President Xi Jinping to . Using white paper or plain white fabric as an , protesters condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and called for democracy and the right to free speech.

What led to the events?

There are a few things that can be noted from this mass protest. It’s hard to imagine such a large-scale event occurring in China, as the last major protest in China that attracted a military presence took place more than . But these demonstrations are not unique to Beijing. In 2019, a pro-democracy demonstration took place in Hong Kong.

But last month’s protests came after nationwide tension was built when Xi addressed the 20th CCP Congress in October, : “In responding to the sudden outbreak of Covid-19, we put people and their lives above all else, working to prevent the re-emergence of cases arising from within or brought from abroad, and by persistent pursuit of a dynamic zero-Covid policy”.

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This statement illustrates China’s effort to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, including implementing a strict lockdown. However, such efforts led to the frustrations heard during recent protests. Indicating that despite the President’s party reappointment, certain groups still dare to delegitimize the power of Xi and the CCP.

When Xi was by Congress as the CCP’s general secretary. Following was this statement by party delegates, “We must resolutely uphold Comrade Xi’s core position on the Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

It will be interesting to see how this protest develops and what the Chinese government does next. Just days of protests at Tiananmen Square led to the CCP’s decision to use military force to disperse the crowds, which killed civilians and led to widespread arrests. As a result of these actions, China international sanctions, especially from the US and other western countries.

Unlike the crackdown on Tiananmen Square, the CCP’s handling of the Hong Kong protests did not involve using live ammo or the military. Instead, Hong Kong security forces dispersed the protest using water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. With current events, Beijing is mindful that deploying force, as it did in the past, could damage Hong Kong’s reputation as a free zone under China’s “One Country, Two Systems” principle. As a result, with Hong Kong as an economic hub, sanctions will impact China.

Another step to quell demonstrations in Hong Kong is to withdraw the Extradition Bill, which is the direct demand of protestors. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong carried out this action; however, there is speculation that Beijing was behind the decision.

What’s next and impact on Indonesia

Of course, it is too early to tell how these current protests will end. However, even if they escalate, Beijing will likely handle it how they did with the 2019 protest. On the other hand, if the CCP’s actions lose lives and damage the economy, it will lose more respect from Chinese citizens.

Even though these protests may last for some time, Beijing is likely to avoid using military force or violence and may slowly ease lockdown rules to prevent the spread of public sentiment. By doing this, the Chinese government and CCP could both maintain the people’s legitimacy and accelerate economic recovery.

A wave of protests have also emerged in and and may continue to spread to Indonesia, mainly due to the growing negative sentiment towards China.

Based on the Indonesian National Survey Project in July 2022 by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute which interviewed a group of 1,600 diverse respondents directly regarding economic, domestic, and international politics, that almost 25.4% of the Indonesian public believes the rise of China would negatively affect Indonesia. In contrast, only 30% of people believe establishing relations with China will benefit Indonesia.

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The survey also showed positive feelings towards China among Indonesia only reached 66%, compared to 76.7% five years ago. Not only that, many people are also about Indonesia’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project; as many as 41.5% of respondents think BRI can create a debt trap for other countries, including Indonesia. A belief, most likely based on events in other countries, such as the construction of the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, which resulted in economic losses.

Negative perceptions of China also extend to Chinese descendants in Indonesia. As demonstrated by 41% of survey respondents who Chinese descendants are still loyal to China. 

A recent study by LAB45 that the re-election of Xi is a breath of fresh air for countries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. However, the recent protests in China may create obstacles to its continued presence in Indonesia, the closest of China’s ASEAN allies.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Generation Z or Gen Z, defined as those born between the years of 1997-2012, are increasingly involved in their respective countries’ national politics, especially in the US where hot topic issues such as abortion rights are at the forefront of current political discourse. While domestic politics have caught their attention, this generation is not  as engaged in foreign policy and global politics. Much of this stems from the fact that there is little to no comprehensive education surrounding international affairs in public schools. In the US, where the Common Core curriculum is used, there are no specific for international relations courses at the K12 level.

Furthermore, Common Core standards can vary from state to state. Some students may receive a more comprehensive education about global affairs. Oftentimes, global politics or international relations courses aren’t even offered for students to take to fulfill the social studies requirements necessary to graduate high school. The option to take such courses is typically offered to students involved in specialized programs like the International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement programs. This also leads to a lack of equal opportunity, as many of these programs are offered at schools in higher-income neighborhoods. Additionally, to even complete these programs and those similar to it, students have to pay hundreds of dollars for materials and final exams, therefore leaving those who cannot afford it, behind.

Why education now needs to include foreign policy and international affairs

As the rate of globalization and social media/internet use rise in conjunction, young people are best positioned to connect with the global community. Gen Z is more tech-savvy by nature, having been the first generation to  grow up with technology. This means they have an advantage, and a more natural desire to leverage social media and the internet for the benefit of progress and change.

Young people are also usually the ones who spearhead social, political, and cultural movements and uprisings; evident throughout history. For example, the Arab Spring, Romanian Revolution, anti-war movement(s), and the Tiananmen Square Protests were all either initiated or largely carried out by young people. Even today, the recent revolutionary protests in   prove that the youth  typically always play a large role in political and social movements.

Looking at patterns from the past to better understand the future is an aged concept; it’s one of the main reasons we study history. However, as our world becomes more interconnected by the day, the need to be aware of what is taking place on the global stage is becoming increasingly crucial. For a generation that has ‘seen’ the world like no other, and is naturally exposed to political discourse, public opinions and tragedies, not giving them a comprehensive background in its functioning is foolish. For example, knowledge of tactics and weapons used by the Russian government in Syria could have benefitted global understanding of the aggression in Ukraine. It could also alert us to potential strategies they may use, if studied closely. 

Obviously, the first step to becoming civically engaged is being educated, reiterating my original point, the youth needs to be clued into global affairs in their formative years. Beyond education, young people also need to start being actively included in discussions surrounding global affairs. We have ideas, solutions, and the passion to get things done. Broadly speaking, young people always have untapped potential, and it’s important for us to have a seat at the table.

[Aashnaa Shah edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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As it is often the case in conflicts where parties lack empathy for each other, each side of the abortion issue seemed to interpret the Dobbs ruling through the lens of political talking points without exploring the substance of the ruling first. However, when one resists the appeal of simplistic secondary sources that comment on Dobbs (sensation-seeking news reports; alarmist commentaries; and -sadly in our day- memes, sound bites, and tweets) and actually reads the, the 213-page legal analysis makes three things clear to a dispassionate observer:

• Dobbs v. Jackson was not a political decision. It was an act of depoliticization.
• The Supreme Court did not ban abortion. It delegated to state legislatures the authority to regulate abortion.
• Dobbs will not end abortion in America. It may even expand it. 

A Question of Constitutional Authority

Dobbs v. Jackson contributes to depoliticization of the Supreme Court by simply asking if the court possesses the requisite authority to adjudicate the claims. The six justices who ended up constituting the majority opinion approached the abortion issue from a judicial perspective of restraint. Unlike the majorities in the previous two courts that ruled on abortion (Roe and Casey), the Dobbs majority asked whether the Supreme Court has the authority to declare abortion a constitutional right to begin with. Before asking normative questions that inescapably invite political values into judgments (“Should laws treat feti as humans?”, “What abortion restrictions must be imposed in which phase of pregnancies?”, “Should pregnant people have a right to end a life other than theirs?”), these justices asked a fundamental question that our system of checks and balances requires them to ask: Is abortion a constitutional issue that falls within the purview of the US Supreme Court?

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The Dobbs majority concluded it is not a right, given, amongst other things, there is no reference to abortion in the US Constitution. When Constitutional provisions do not explicitly provide a right, such a “right” can be endorsed by the Supreme Court if the practice it supports has a long societal history as a balancing act of conflicting interests that can be settled for the sake of public order. For example, consider, 2015’s expansion of the already-existing right to marry from heterosexual couples to homosexual couples, or, the 1963 expansion of the already-existing right to counsel from capital offenses to all crimes. The Dobbs majority contends that Roe v. Wade’s asserted constitutional right to abortion did not pass this scrutiny. In 1973 when Roe was issued, abortion had never been a common practice in US history, there was no state or federal statute or an academic work that endorsed a right to obtain abortion, and two centuries of American experience had treated abortion as a criminal activity to a large extent. 

In the absence of a legal and historical support for abortion, the Roe majority extracted the right to abortion from the right to privacy (implicitly) recognized by the 1^st, 4^th, 5^th, 9^th and 14^th Amendments, while the Casey court relied upon the notion of liberty advanced by the 14^th Amendment. However, as the Dobbs majority notes, privacy is too broad of a right and abortion a too morally consequential of a procedure for the two notions to be linked to one another in a way that facilitates a fair subjugation of the opposition’s concerns. 

Weaknesses in Roe and Casey’s reasonings were evident in the arbitrariness of the standards they set. Both rulings struck a balance between the competing interests of feti and pregnant people with trimester and viability thresholds, though there is no legal text, principle, or precedence in American jurisprudence to endorse such thresholds. Moreover, Casey’s vague “undue burden” provision made uniform enforcement unpractical. Accordingly, the court’s endorsement of abortion rights had to be overturned as a judicial overreach that was an “egregious wrong on a collision course with the Constitution from the day [it] was decided”.

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The Proper Role of the Courts

The central thesis in Dobbs v. Jackson is that the US Supreme Court is not the proper authority to regulate abortion. Because the US Constitution has no link to abortion, it is not possible for the court to regulate abortion without creating arbitrary notions (such as viability or trimester thresholds). To do so would be an unacceptable usurpation of the legislative branch’s policymaking rights by the judicial branch of the US government. If the US Supreme Court — a court that consists of nine politically appointed, electorally unaccountable justices — were to regulate a subject like abortion under the guise of interpretation, it would strip the American people of their right of democratic self-determination. 

By not formulating federal law vis-a-vis judicial review, the people’s state representatives are now able to exert authority over regulating abortion. Dobbs v. Jackson expands the democratic credentials of the United States as an audacious experiment in decentralized democracy. Consistent with that experiment, the decision may be read as a reversion to the vision the American Founding Fathers had of states as “laboratories of democracy” under the Tenth Amendment. Read in this light, the Dobbs ruling should not be tainted by counterproductive speculations about the motivations of “conservative” justices on the bench or the decision’s likely negative impact on many pregnant people in the short run.

An Unconventional Prediction

Arguably, the Dobbs ruling will lead to an expansion of abortion rights in America in the long run. Turning abortion from a judicially-regulated matter into a legislatively-regulated one authorizes state governments to attach any level of freedoms on abortion they see a fit. Abortion may now be practiced with fewer restrictions in 17 states where both chambers of the legislatures have Democratic majorities, not to mention others where the Republican Party controls only one chamber with a slim margin (such as Virginia, Minnesota or Alaska). While this also means that 29 other states with Republican-majority legislatures can reduce abortion to unprecedented lows –including, conceivably, a near-complete ban in all phases of pregnancies, I foresee a future for abortion in America that is more, not less, liberal than today.

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What convinces me of this admittedly counterintuitive prediction are the common cultural and political histories Americans share. As a country established by liberty-seeking religious conservatives and furthered by opportunity-seeking economic immigrants, the American ethos has always been defined by self-orientation, pragmatism, and displeasure with top-down approaches to society. Throughout US history, blatantly conservative laws sooner or later began to produce adverse economic consequences – sometimes as actual financial costs, and sometimes as opportunity costs of maintaining status quos. This pressure has driven conservative policymakers to reluctantly relax their approaches in an effort to improve their prospects of reelection. Conservative legislatures’ of marijuana in Louisiana (2021), of supply-side tax cuts in Kansas (2018), of death penalty in North Dakota (1973) or of anti-miscegenation law in Montana (1953) are only a few examples of this well-established phenomenon. The Dobbs ruling will turn abortion into a vibrant economic factor in abortion-liberal states. Improved standards of living, job creation and tax revenues in those states will be juxtaposed with troubling news about unsafe abortion substitutes in other states and will eventually compel policymakers in abortion-conservative states to relax their ideological opposition to various degrees. If progressives are to believe their own arguments, Dobbs will have created an America where abortion is practiced more liberally in the decades to come, with fewer restrictions in abortion-liberal states and restrictions similar to the pre-Dobbs environment in most others. The passion abortion invokes (especially in religious and wealthy segments that are influential in state politics) will undoubtedly slow down some of this progress but not enough to reverse it. Conservative ideals will have to yield to pragmatism and the economic imperatives that have always acted as the other “supreme court” in America.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Such unequal mercy would be no surprise from nations like Ukraine’s neighbors Hungary and Poland, controlled by nationalist parties that have rarely welcomed anyone not white and Christian. However, the same thing is happening in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and here in the United States, the very democracies sworn to protect those fleeing war and persecution and that, in the case of America, sometimes turned those people into refugees in the first place. Our Global War on Terror alone has displaced an estimated people since we invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

One of the worst examples of this unequal mercy is taking place in Greece, a major gateway to Western Europe for anyone fleeing the Middle East or Africa. Between February and mid-April of this year, some 21,000 Ukrainians made it to Greece — more in three months than the total number of asylum seekers who entered the country in all of 2021. There, the Ukrainians were instantly granted temporary status, giving them access to medical care and jobs, subsidized housing and food allowances, schooling for their children, and Greek language classes for adults.

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This is an admirable example of how all people who flee danger and war should be welcomed. But I’ve been visiting Greece for years now to research my new , Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece, and I know a lot of refugees there who have found no such generosity. Most are Syrian, Afghan, or Iraqi, but some are Kurdish or Palestinian, while others come from African countries, including Cameroon, Eritrea, Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and the Republic of Congo.

They, too, escaped war, violence, and other kinds of persecution. In fact, the Syrians, just like the Ukrainians, fled Putin’s bombs when he was helping Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, hold onto power. Yet unlike the Ukrainians, these refugees are forced to languish for years in inhumane, slum-like camps, while their children are denied schooling. They are routinely turned away from hospitals, doctors, or dentists, and are all too often treated with disrespect, even hatred, by landlords, employers, and regular citizens. That hurts. As my friend and co-author, the Syrian writer and refugee Eyad Awwadawnan, whom I first met in Greece, put it, “I think the world should do all it can for Ukrainian refugees, but we are getting a clear message from the Greek government that we are worth less than they are.”

Doomed to Helplessness

During my visits to Greece between 2018 and 2022, I witnessed many examples of its appalling treatment of refugees. At one point, in a camp on the Northern Aegean island of Samos, I found more than 3,000 people living in shipping containers or tents in and around an old military base, surrounded by piles of garbage swarming with rats. They had no potable water, the few toilets were broken, the food mostly inedible, and there was no security for women, children, LGBTQ+ people, or anyone else particularly vulnerable to bullying, assault, or rape. Thousands more asylum seekers were similarly trapped on other islands with nowhere to go and nothing to do, while yet others were in Greek prisons for merely exercising their right to seek asylum. In our book, Eyad and I describe the way people are arrested and imprisoned simply for steering their boats to Greece, or for coming from the wrong country.

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Since its New Democracy government took power in 2019, well into the anti-immigrant, Muslim-bashing administration of Donald Trump here in the United States, the Greek government has been ratcheting up its mistreatment of Middle Eastern and African refugees even further. One of its first acts was to evict everyone granted asylum from subsidized housing or camps, while also withdrawing all financial aid. In this way, they were flung into a homeless, jobless void — that is, into forced helplessness. Winning asylum is supposed to mean winning international protected status as a refugee, but in Greece it now means the opposite — getting no protection at all.

Then, in June 2021, just before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the Greek Minister of Migration, Notis Mitarachi, announced that all new arrivals from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syria would be the chance to apply for asylum and deported to Turkey, which he deemed a “safe third country,” a legal term for a safe haven for asylum seekers. Yet as have made clear, Turkey is anything but safe for those in flight from war or persecution. Not only does Turkey refuse to recognize Syrians as refugees, but it never signed onto the part of the U.N. 1951 Refugee Rights declaration banning refoulement, the term used for returning refugees to a country where they may be subjected to persecution. This means that Turkey can legally send refugees back to the nations they fled, no matter what dangers await them there.

Last April 16th, Greece upped its persecution even further by the housing it offers vulnerable people, such as victims of torture, trafficking, and rape, and sending them to live in camps where there is no security at all. 

None of these policies to Ukrainians.

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At sea, matters are even worse. The Greek authorities and , Europe’s border and coast guard agency, have been pushing refugees out to sea instead of rescuing them. They have left families and children abandoned on flimsy rafts or inflatable boats, or on tiny islands without shelter or food. During the pandemic, Greece and Frontex treated some 40,000 refugees this way, causing at least to drown — abuse that’s been by human rights groups. Yet Greece’s immigration minister has that any of this is happening. 

No less shocking is the way Greece has the rescue of refugees at sea. Volunteers who go out to search for and rescue the capsized boats of desperate immigrants are being arrested and charged with human trafficking. Sara Mardini, a Syrian professional swimmer portrayed in Netflix’s new movie , is one of these. If convicted, she faces 20 years in prison.

Hard as it may be to grasp the idea of making it illegal to rescue drowning people, Greece is far from alone in engaging in such behavior. Just this month, Italy, Malta, and Cyprus banded together with that country to call for the European Union (EU) to take against civilian sea rescuers. Of course, the train drivers and airplane pilots who brought Ukrainians into the rest of Europe are never similarly targeted.

The Greek government has justified all this unequal mercy with chilling language, declaring Ukrainians “” and everyone else an “.” In just that spirit, last month, Greek authorities Afghans in a camp outside Athens to cede their housing to Ukrainians and instead live in filthy and derelict shipping containers. 

That government has long that it is not at fault for treating refugees so badly because it lacks the money and personnel to handle so many of them. But the minute those 21,000 Ukrainians arrived, the same officials suddenly found themselves able to help after all.

Greece is not entirely to blame for such violations of international law, because many of them are underwritten by the EU, which has been pumping money into the country to keep refugees out of Western Europe since 2016. Recently, for example, the EU paid to the Greek government to build five remote prisons for asylum seekers. I saw the prototype for them on the island of Samos: , a collection of white metal shipping containers on a bare patch of land in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a double layer of hurricane fences topped with barbed wire and surveilled by closed-circuit cameras. It is hot, bare, and hideous. Such prisons will not, of course, hold Ukrainians.

Breaking Hearts and Laws

Greece is hardly the only country meting out all this unequal treatment. The persecution of non-white refugees seems to be on the rise not just in countries with far-right governments, but in those previously known for their liberality. Along with this persecution, of course, goes the same sort of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric Donald Trump (not to speak of the Republican Party as a whole) continues to use about those crossing our own border.

Take the United Kingdom, for example. The new Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak just offered France to increase its border security by 40% with the goal of arresting more “illegal migrants” and smugglers to stop them from crossing the English Channel.  (An asylum seeker, by the way, is not an “illegal migrant.” The right to cross borders to seek asylum is enshrined in the .) That same $74 million could have been put toward legal and humanitarian services for asylum seekers, helping them find safe ways to apply for protection in either France or the United Kingdom, and so depriving smugglers of business without throwing those refugees into even further danger.

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Within France itself, while President Emmanuel Macron quarrels with the British over who is to blame for the rising number of refugees trying to cross the Channel, Jordan Bardella, the new leader of the country’s increasingly popular far-right party, has rested his entire platform on closing France’s borders to “” immigration. He has made it clear that he’s talking about Muslims and Africans, not immigrants like his own Italian parents.

Meanwhile, in Italy, Giorgia Meloni, the new right-wing prime minister, has just issued a forbidding male refugees from getting off rescue boats or setting even one foot on Italian soil. Similarly, Sweden, once a bastion of progressive ideas, elected a new government this past September that cut its refugee quota from 5,000 people a year to 900, citing the white supremacist trope that non-white, non-Christian refugees will otherwise “” traditional Swedes.

I could go on: France, Greece, Italy, Malta, and Spain are over who will (or won’t) take stranded boats of refugees, pushing those desperate sea goers from shore to shore like so much litter. The Danes are Syrians back to Syria, even after they’ve lived in Denmark for years. Australia is asylum seekers under horrifying conditions in detention centers and on isolated islands. And Britain has locked thousands of refugees in warehouses, passed laws them basic services like health care and housing, and tried to implement a policy of forcibly deporting some of them to .

Here in the U.S., we’re not doing much better. True, President Biden has managed to curtail some of the worst of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, undoing the former president’s Muslim ban and raising the number of refugees allowed into the country every year, but his efforts have been inconsistent. Just this October, shortly before the Democrats barely held onto the Senate in the midterm elections, he expanded the Trumpian Title 42 border policy to include , who, only a week or so earlier, were being welcomed into the country. That policy uses Covid fears to force asylum seekers to stay in dangerous, sometimes deadly camps in Mexico, while rendering it virtually impossible for them to even apply for, let alone win, asylum in the U.S. (Biden originally promised to do away with Title 42 altogether, but the Supreme Court blocked his effort. After declaring that he would continue the fight, he now appears to have course.)

Ukrainians are, however, from this Mexican purgatory as a way of “recognizing the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine” (to quote the Department of Homeland Security). Some are similarly exempt, but only those who worked with the U.S. during our devastating 20-year war in their country. Everyone else is kept for months or even years for their asylum decisions, many of them in detention, regardless of the humanitarian crises they also fled.

All the unequal mercies described here are not only breaking hearts, but laws. A little history: In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt and the newly formed United Nations created the in reaction to the shocks of the Holocaust and the mistreatment of Jews seeking asylum. Three years later, the U.N. held a in Geneva to create a bill of refugee rights, which were ratified into law by 149 nations, including Australia, Britain, Canada, Greece, most of the rest of Europe, and the United States. (Some countries didn’t sign on until 1967.) The idea was to protect the dignity and freedom of human beings everywhere, while never again spurning refugees in the way that had sent so many Jews back to their deaths.

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The Geneva Convention defined refugees as people forced to flee their countries because of “a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group” and who “cannot return home or [are] afraid to do so.” It gave them the right to international protection from discrimination and persecution; the right to housing, schooling, and the chance to work for a living; the right not to be criminalized for simply seeking asylum; and, most importantly, the right not to be subjected to refoulement — and be returned to the countries they had fled.

Thanks, in part, to that convention, when people are driven to flee their countries, they head for the safety and dignity they believe they will find in the West, a belief we are now betraying. To rectify this, the EU’s governing arm, the European Commission, must insist that Europe’s unequal treatment of refugees be replaced with humane, accessible processes that apply consistently to all asylum seekers, regardless of where they come from. The same should be done in Australia, Britain, and the United States. After all, the way we treat refugees today speaks volumes not only about how humanitarian we are, but about how we are likely to act in the future when forces ever more people to flee their homes just to stay alive.

On the other hand, should we continue to favor white Christian refugees over everyone else, we will not only shred the promises and values enshrined in our democracies, but fertilize the poison of white supremacy already festering in the very heart of the West.

[ first published this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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South Africa has been placed onto by the US State Department, which means that it is considered to be a source, transit, and destination country for individuals trafficked for the purpose of forced labour or sexual exploitation. 

Although trafficking in South Africa is not a new issue, the extent of the crime has been growing in recent years. 

According to the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP), the number of people who became victims of human trafficking has more than doubled in the 2021-22 financial year in South Africa. The document revealed that eighty-three people were trafficked, which comes to a shocking comparison with the sixteen  the year before. 

Increasing cases of trafficking in South Africa raise the question of what needs to be done to target the crime more efficiently. 

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The (NFN), which is an organization that establishes connecting players working in the counter-trafficking field in South Africa, underlines that for anti-trafficking efforts to be effective all relevant actors within and across civil society and government need to work together.����

The main vulnerability factors 

Poverty and unemployment are amongst the main causes of high trafficking cases in South Africa. These issues worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic asmore than people have lost their jobs since March 2020. Now, in a country with a population of more than sixty million, the unemployment rate is at almost. 

Those living in impoverished communities across South Africa are vulnerable to trafficking within the country due to limited access to education and few job openings. The same underlying causes affect those who are being trafficked from abroad and who think that South Africa offers more economic opportunities than their home countries. As the financial desperation of the most vulnerable is growing, traffickers lure them in with promises of employment, housing, or education. 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported an increase in false job advertisements which have been used by traffickers as one of the main recruitment methods. Out of all trafficking cases, more than involved this tactic, which is an increase from 20% in the year preceding the outbreak of the pandemic. 

EMBED: /region/north_america/world-trafficking-day-human-sex-traffickers-latest-world-news-32390/

The South Africa Impact Report 2021, by A21, shows that a global organization is fighting to abolish human trafficking. It lists “job and family instability, violence and abuse, lower education, substance misuse, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and isolation” as factors that lead to a higher susceptibility to victimization in regards to trafficking and exploitation. 

The power of collaboration

Human trafficking is a degrading ruthless form of exploitation that traps in modern slavery. Due to the complexity and the hidden nature of the crime, the anti-trafficking response requires a great degree of collaboration. 

This is where the National Freedom Network steps in as it aims to connect all these actors, which are “acting as a link and ensuring that the interaction between the sectors allows for the flow of communication; the sharing of information, resources and best practices,” Marina Reyneke, the organization’s Operations Manager, tells me. And she adds that “strategic collaborations and networking can be highly effective in preventing and combating human trafficking”.

A to Dark Bali, an Indonesian anti-trafficking network, individual organizations acting independently do not have a supporting infrastructure, which is one of the main reasons for them failing. 

Coalitions bring together organizations that share the same goal. By joining efforts, they can learn from each other, get a more detailed overview of the and trends in the sector, and have more leverage when attempting to influence political positions. Consequently, working together allows them to identify major gaps and develop strategies designed to fill them. 

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Regrettably, in South Africa, the implementation of some anti-trafficking measures that require the cooperation of state departments and relevant stakeholders from civil society has been “weak and somewhat problematic”,according to. 

Not only is it important to create a platform where anti-trafficking organizations can act as a united force, achieving better cooperation with government agencies�� proves to also be an important part of the NFN’s agenda.��

Reyneke explains, “Government structures have been established and we need the capacity to continue working closely with these. Our vision is to see all sectors of a society organized and united in their efforts to prevent and combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP).  Our mission is to effectively fight Trafficking in Persons (TIP) through strategic networking, partnership and collaboration”.

The way forward

The NFN has been successful in creating an enabling environment for the many anti-trafficking organizations across South Africa. But to keep the momentum, the network needs funding, which can be challenging to secure.

help equip relevant actors with skills to assist survivors and prevent conditions that foster trafficking. Any kind of financial support can make a real impact and allows the Network to grow and expand its reach and continue its mission. “Our long-term goals are to include much more strategic prevention work as well as ultimately becoming a survivor-led Network,” Reyneke says. 

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The NFN has clearly defined goals and knows what needs to be done to create a more comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy and to better protect survivors. With the help of individual and community donors, the NFN can not only get closer to achieving these aims, but can also ensure the network’s organizational sustainability.��

Looking at the rising trafficking cases in South Africa, it is clear that improvements in the response to the problem are needed. For South Africa to be able to win the fight against human trafficking, the underlying economic, political, and cultural factors need to be addressed and more needs to be offered to organizations such as the NFN that provide a linkage between relevant actors, government, and victims.����

[edited this article]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How to Curb Rising Human Trafficking in South Africa appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In a widely shared of Jina’s funeral, her father cries out, “This is the daughter of Kurdistan, the child of those who demand freedom. She is the symbol of resistance. Today, the women of Kurdistan are a symbol of resistance for the whole world.”

Her death and the words of her grieving father ignited a women and youth-led protest movement in Kurdistan that swept all of Iran and initiated a global solidarity movement for women, life and freedom. The violent response of Iran to the protests has resulted in the death of over 248 protesters and the arrest of more than 12,575 others, reported human rights group on October 23.

Iran Attacks Kurds Yet Again

A few days after the protests began, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took military action across the border by launching missiles and drone attacks against camps. The strikes wounded 58 people and killed 13 others, including children, an infant, and a pregnant mother.

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According to , Iranian officials and state media have justified the brazen attack on the grounds that Kurdish opposition groups are using Amini’s case as an excuse to separate Kurdistan from Iran.

The continued militarization and economic impoverishment of Kurdish cities by Iran and its imprisonment and execution of Kurds are rationalized based on this accusation of separatism.

Many analysts were surprised that Iran was blaming the Kurds and resorting to unjustified military force against them. However, to Kurds, this attack was expected, as it has been their ill-fate to be the target and scapegoat of the Iranian state: a state that continues its onslaught on Kurdish lives through unjustified imprisonment, execution and assassination.

The story of the Kurds in Iran is similar to that of their brethren in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. Being Kurdish in Iran is tantamount to being a criminal. Standing for your identity and advocating for your linguistic, political or economic rights can get you imprisoned and often executed. With few rights and little economic opportunity, the Kurds have few options but to stand defiant against the regime at the risk of death.

A Brave Story of Resistance

The crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the Kurds in Iran are extensive because the Kurds have always been the most outspoken critics of the establishment in Tehran. They have paid heavily with their lives for their stance against the tyrannical rulers in Tehran. They even engaged in a full-scale rebellion against the Khomeini regime after his fatwa against the Kurds in 1979.

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The Kurds defied the regime and stood against Khomeini’s government from the inception of the Republic. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini feared the Kurds so much that in his first week as supreme leader of Iran he offered them over $75 million in to buy their loyalty and ward off a Kurdish rebellion. When the Kurds refused to join his so-called Islamic Republic, he declared a fatwa against them and went to war with Kurdistan.

The shocking part of this tragedy is that this phobia of Kurds that informed Khomeini’s fatwa and war against Kurdistan is a significant part of the Persian psyche today.

Outside of Iran, and even many protesters who struggle for human rights and an end to the regime, share this fear of the Kurds. They often attempt to intimidate and strong-arm Kurds into taking down their , and when Kurds insist on talking about their rights, they are told not to speak of this and to stand in unity. This attempt to silence Kurds even in the diaspora, where freedom of expression and other democratic rights are guaranteed and protected by law, illustrates how irrational but deeply rooted this phobia is in the Persian psyche.

This irrational phobia of Kurds and Kurdistan is very much what governs the Persian perspective on the Kurds in Iran. It is a phobia that oppressors across the Middle East share and use as justification for denying Kurdish rights and identity. This phobia informs the forced assimilation, extrajudicial killings, unlawful detention and increased securitization of Kurdistan.

It is thus, fundamentally important to deconstruct and debunk this phenomenon in order to end the intentional, irrational and unjustified persecution of the Kurdish people. It is only through overcoming this phobia and ending the negative connotations of the label of separatism that Iran’s Persian population can build lasting unity and understanding with Kurds, Baloch and other ethnic communities in Iran. This unity is essential in overthrowing the theocratic state of the ayatollahs and establishing an inclusive and truly democratic Iran.

[ published a version of this piece earlier.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why Does the Islamic Republic of Iran Fear its Kurdish Population? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The answer is even more profound than the US getting there before some other country occupies parts of the moon for lunar resources or the potential minerals we someday may gain from some asteroids. The answer is definitely deeper than the US remaining number one in the space competition. It is also more important than having a place to migrate in case of planetary destruction due to internal or external actors. 

The reason we explore space is is more encompassing and overwhelming.  

Our earth has been around for about four and a half billion years. Multicellular life emerged a billion years ago. During this period, there have been four to five  major mass extinction events like Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and the Cretaceous — best known because dinosaurs were wiped out. 

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Over the years, millions of species have gone extinct. The number may be as high as 50-95%. Yet life has reemerged in new forms. But the most intriguing, interesting, and, as yet, unexplainable thing is that not one single species out of those billions ever made something simple like clothing except for humans. How is that even possible? 

The Magic of the Drake Equation

It turns out that life is mysterious, even magical. And there might be life elsewhere in space. The Drake Equation, attributed to Dr. Frank Drake who passed away very recently, takes a stab at estimating extraterrestrial life. This equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is made up of these terms:

N = R_* f_P * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L

N     =      number of civilizations with which humans could communicate

R_* =      mean rate of star formation

f_P  =      fraction of stars that have planets

n_e =      mean number of planets that could support life per star with planets

f_l   =      fraction of life-supporting planets that develop life

f_i   =      fraction of planets with life where life develops intelligence

f_c  =      fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop communication

L      =      mean length of time that civilizations can communicate

This equation cannot be “solved” or even accurately calculated. Yetit retains considerable utility for discussions about extraterrestrial life and intelligence. If we assign reasonable numbers to each term in the Drake Equation, this yields N equal to anywhere from the thousands to the millions. Remember that this is just for the Milky Way, one of the trillions of galaxies in the universe.

The Fermi Paradox

In the summer of 1950, and co-workers Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York had several lunchtime conversations at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. During one of these conversations, Fermi blurted out, “But where is everybody?”.  Signs of life are hard to see in our observable universe, which has expanded considerably thanks to the Hubble and the Webb telescopes. The question still remains: “Where is everybody?”

Whether the Fermi paradox holds true or not, God, for those who believe, has granted us an immense responsibility: humans must find, connect with and preserve all lifeforms. On the other hand, If the Fermi paradox is false, we must be ready to protect ourselves if needed. In either case, the answer is the same. Space exploration matters.

The Calling: An Intellectual Effort

Humans are special. They have a large brain capable of imagination and exploration. After all, we are the only species to use clothing. Even our cousins, the great apes, do not do so. This does not mean our species is superior to others. However, we must shepherd  earth and all of its lifeforms to continue  evolution—the evolution now in the third dimension. In other words, space or for the nerds among us, the Z direction.

Evolution requires that more intelligent things are done almost continually. That requires that a society finds ways to demarcate and appreciate all life for its potential causes. This is perhaps a higher calling than others such as climate change or even human species survival. This is why devaluing appreciation of merit for other causes may hurt us as humanity, in future. 

An intellectual effort is needed. This includes merit in myriads of fields: from art, literature, science, space, sports, and others. This is what NASA and the space efforts of other countries are exploring. It is not just for the US or humanity, but for the entirety of lifeforms in this observable universe—whether the famous Fermi paradox holds or not!

For example, art produces visions and it assuages. They touch the “not-yet-imagined” part of this equation that we scientists need to fulfill the entirety of progress. We will need help from many strata of society: artists, writers, poets, philosophers, thinkers AND scientists can help realize the next step. We should care for the truly unfortunate, the truly downtrodden, but we should not lose sight of the stars in space above.

[ and edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The post How Space Exploration Can Lead Us to Our True Destiny? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Attention, in the most basic sense, is a creature’s informational-management strategy. We use our attention to determine what matters, where it is, and whether I can trust it? Vertebrate attentional systems evolved over hundreds of millions of years to let a body use and trust its senses. The brain’s hardware learned to squeeze meaning from scenes like the savannah, scenes containing multiple tiny, faint cues. To a sensory system, faint statistical outliers are eye-candy, attractive,like sugar, precisely because they are rare.  Attention works properly only in a world of sticks, stones, sky, people, fauna and flora, and not much else. Man-made things distract and mis-direct human attention even without meaning to.  And now they mean to and are built to do so, automatically and at scale. 

At the finest level, tiny pixels use microsecond tuning to draw our eyes toward interesting things which aren’t there.  Video games anticipate our anticipation in order to dose us with dopamine. Social media synthesizes the illusion of friendship. Search engines synthesize illusions of meaning. Smartphones rule from our pockets.  Smartphones are the grandest intruders, allowing multinational corporations skilled at using science to design what we will see, believe, and love.

They have successfully commandeered and monetized the growing brains of children and are inflicting widespread damage, according to a powerful new book by the psychologist who saw this coming thirty years ago.  Decades ago Dr. Susan Linn was a child psychologist (and puppeteer!) who appeared on the famous US childrens’ show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.   Seeing firsthand the damage done to kids by marketing and monetized play, she founded the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (now Fairplay). It is among the few child-advocacy groups accepting to follow neuroscientific principles, and not accepting corporate money. Now Linn is a professor of psychology at Harvard. 

The best possible book on the topic

With that background Professor Linn is the best possible person to write this book.  And she has produced the best possible book.  While her sentences are often professorial (of course!), there are plenty of cute anecdotes, appearances of charming children, wry observations, and tales of comically misguided products, like the video game advertised to make going to sleep exciting (p. 104).  For a relentless point-by-point compendium of why moneyed interests must be kept away from children’s play, Who’s Raising the Kids still provides a remarkably funny, easy read.  While it employs US examples for a US audience, her reasoning applies outside the US as well, and will probably be easier to act on in those other places.  This book is for the world. 

Most thoughtful people already know that commercial influences are bad for kids, so they don’t need to read this book.  They don’t need its ruthlessly clear thinking and comprehensive, evidence-laden summary of fifty years of scientific study, because their parenting instincts are already fine.  Besides, pondering such depressing content is a grim reward for reading what one already knows.  On the other hand, some responsible officials hoping to make their case may demand even more powerful evidence., Some might even hold out for the formulation of undisputed natural laws to provide them with the clout to successfully rearrange budgets. I’ll give them such laws at the end, since that’s my professional specialty. As a general rule, many parents already have the evidence. They don’t need even the best book imaginable to tell them about the obstacles to raising functional children provided by a market-saturated world. 

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On the other hand, if you are in a position to influence children or guide their experiences—as a superintendent, teacher, nanny, app designer, marketer—you must read this book.  Your ignorance would be a moral hazard when other people’s children are entrusted to your care. And when you finish digesting its contents, to double your investment. Mail your well-thumbed copy to your favorite venture-capitalist or corporate executive, since they need wisdom even more than you do. Ignorance is no excuse when truth is so important, and easily available.

Professor Linn’s barrage of evidence is overwhelming: the wasteful excess of crinkly packaging around toys, kids falling in love with characters from ads, apps designed to spy on kids. Her list of all the easy ways there are to make money from kids’ innocence goes on and on.  Like taking candy from a baby.

After this book, there should be no dispute that markets threaten children’s sanity. Only Self-serving industry will of course gripe about how impractical solutions are to protect the status quo.  Those gripes are true as far as they go, because the only sustainable solution is a tough sell in a pro-capital society. It implies neutralizing market forces present in domains affecting kids. So, in a word, this book is about changing everything.

This book is so good, the best possible review need only use Professor Linn’s own words. Which I will do. No reviewer could add anything more than praise to this magnificent work, except perhaps a commonsense explanation of how this crisis has been mounting for thirty thousand years, and what society must do to save future generations.  

Who’s Raising the Kids, Compressed

Herewith the titles and a few representative lines from each of the thirteen chapters of Who’s Raising the Kids by Prof. Susan Linn (To each quote I append in italics a dense comment using the technical language of trust-formation, to simplify a unification at the end).

Chapter 1: What Children Need and Why Corporations Can’t Provide It

 “The more a toy or app drives the form and content of children’s play and the more the characters or the toys kids play with are linked to popular media properties and franchises, the less children get to exercise curiosity, initiative, creativity, flexible problem-solving, and imagination.” (p. 19)

Comment: Children’s innate learning algorithms need autonomy and real life detail as inputs.  Standardization, broadcast, and synthetic attractiveness undermine those algorithms by restricting freedom and damaging data, and thereby undermine learning and trust.

Chapter 2: Who Wins the Games Tech Plays?

 “Technologies are problematic when they optimize profits at the expense of the health and wellbeing of individuals and the larger society. Yet no independent review of the potential harms and benefits is required before they go to market.” (p. 35)

Humans evolved to capture attention from each other in real life, and to defend ourselves from it. Now cheap and tireless machines capture our attention all the time, everywhere. They are inhumanly designed to dodge our defenses. Accumulated micro-distractions and micro-deceptions erode everyone’s trust and mental function. Yet regulators cannot agree either about how to limit the overall damage, nor even about how to measure it in the first place.

Chapter 3: And the Brand Plays On

 “When commercial values dominate children’s environment, kids are in danger of losing out on exposure to some of the best human values, such as altruism, generosity, nonconformity, and critical thinking.” (p. 69)

Our brains evolved to associate meaningful phrases with actual human values (e.g. Motherhood, God, Country).  When a child’s mind instead locks onto a slogan optimized for attractiveness by a focus group, the child fixates on something slippery which can never teach it trust.

Chapter 4: Browse! Click! Buy! Repeat!

 “When corporate executives talk about reducing friction, some of what they mean has to do with reducing external barriers to buying, but it also means reducing or eliminating our intra-psychic friction—the cognitive and emotional brakes that enable us to set limits on consumption. For that reason, kids are not just fair game for advertisers—they are essential targets.  Their immature capacities for judgment and impulse control render them especially susceptible to marketing messages.” (p. 81)

The younger a child is, the more innocent its brain, apt to believe the propositions it is exposed to, the longer damage to learning will last.  For a child to waste crucial brain-cells learning bad habits and things which are not true is a tragedy, while for a marketer those represent long-term investments.

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Chapter 5: How Rewarding are Rewards?

 “In nurturing environments where there are opportunities to explore the world on their own terms, young children are intrinsically motivated to learn, to gain competence, to strive for autonomy, and to satisfy their curiosity.” (p. 107)

Natural environments (unlike synthesized ones) can be instinctually explored in continuous space and time, exactly what a brain evolved to do. Only interaction with unbiased, natural statistics allows a brain’s zooming algorithm to converge on trustworthy solutions. Alternative statistical profiles, such as artificially “intermittent rewards,” undermine that algorithm by over-stimulating dopamine release.

Chapter 6: The Nagging Power of Pester Power

“Except for the fact that children and families are being harmed, there’s something darkly comic about living in a commercialized culture that thrives on business models dependent on encouraging obnoxious behavior in children. No sane parent would welcome people into their home whose every interaction with children is designed to instill in kids such intense desires that they nag incessantly to get them fulfilled.  Yet that’s exactly the goal of all advertising to children.” (p. 123)

Messages and interactions optimized to produce revenue from children must of course somehow free that money from the family coffers. But using children to communicate a sales pitch inserts family conflict and undermines trust.

Chapter 7: Divisive Devices

 “Whether with reluctance or open arms, we have invited into our homes powerful, seductive entities designed to generate profits by monopolizing our attention. And they don’t give a damn about our family relations or our children’s wellbeing.” (p. 131)

“Like all other nervous systems, ours evolved to forage, not produce. Humankind uniquely produces things that captivate our senses, and now they do” more than ever. (, p. 2334)

Chapter 8: Bias for Sale

 “A society’s material culture simultaneously reflects and influences the values, norms, preferences, and taboos of that society. Stories and toys represent a significant component of the material culture belonging to childhood, and they profoundly influence how children make sense of the world around them, including how they view and experience themselves and others.” (p. 154)

Stories and toys sell better when optimized for pre-existing concepts and stereotypes. Oversimplified ones sell best of all. But when it comes to social values, pre-existing means backwards-looking, and simplified means caricatured. Backwards-looking caricatures describe regressive attitudes like racism, sexism, and mercenary individualism. Those are already built into mass-produced communication, but kids absorb them fastest.

Chapter 9: “Branded Learning”

“Because [corporate-sponsored teaching materials] are often slickly produced, require no up-front cash outlay, and can bypass school boards and be sent directly to teachers, they may appear to be a godsend to cash-strapped schools.” (p. 169)

Corporations have money and underfunded schools have young eyeballs, so an inevitable market-driven (but corrupt) transaction lets corporations disguise their advertising as educational material, offered to schools for free. But there is no such thing as free information. In this case kids and society pay the price.

Chapter 10: “Big Tech Goes to School”

“The value of quality, teacher-driven instruction is well supported by research. There is no credible research supporting industry claims that online, personalized learning programs improve academic outcomes. Test scores do not rise. Dropout rates do not fall. Graduation rates do not improve.” (p. 185)

Human brains evolved to learn from physical objects and physical people in real life.  Pixels and frames on screens are so chopped up, they only carry one millionth of the detail young brains need to trust their eyes, as long-established laws of neuroscience prove. So screen-based inputs of any kind not only don’t help reading and writing, they cause actual harm to seeing itself. 

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Chapter 11: Is That Hope?

 “In the United States, two types of laws would help to stop tech companies from exploiting children.  A national privacy protection law, which we do not have, and adequate laws protecting the rights of children, which we also do not have.” (p. 199)

As long as US law more successfully protects growing capital than growing brains, capital will damage children.

Chapter 12:  Resistance Parenting: Suggestions for Keeping Big Tech and Big Business at Bay

“Six principles of child development to help adults make decisions about introducing tech to young children:

1. Young children live and learn in the context of social relationships.

2.Young children use their whole bodies and all their senses to learn about the world.

3. Young children learn best and benefit most from direct, first hand experience in the world of actual relationships and objects.

4. Young children are active learners who learn by inventing ideas.

5. Young children build inner resilience and coping skills through play.

6. Young children make sense of the world through play.”

(p. 210)

All humans, young children especially, evolved for interaction in the three-dimensional real world, which is our native sensory interface. Synthesized inputs, or even real inputs selected for impact, provide fake data and thus undermine real learning. 

Chapter 13:  Making a Difference for Everybody’s Kids

 “I am for a world where children are universally valued for who they are, not for what they or their parents can buy. Where family and community values no longer compete with commercial values for precedence in children’s lives. Where kids have lots of “in the real world” time with their friends and with the adults who love and care for them. Where their friendships can flourish without interference from, and monetization by, tech and media companies.”  (p. 239)

The environments in which brains grow and learn best are the natural, socially supportive ones for which they evolved.  Because all experience is training data for a growing mind, commercial interference damages learning in often irrecoverable ways.  Monetizing children’s brains means the end of our species. 

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The Battle for the next generation’s sanity

This point summarizes Professor Linn’s book. The sensory and social needs of growing children are actively opposed by the needs of capital. Widespread and growing monetization technologies are already eating the brains of our young.  Legally. And sometimes the young even like it.

Attention is easy to harvest because humans offer it so freely. But that doesn’t make the ethics of attention-harvesting different from those of organ-harvesting. Both attack vital biological systems, and thus share a dysfunctional dynamic which, above a very low threshold, ensures that revenue can only derive from inflicting  harm.  As targets, children provide the easiest profit and suffer the longest-term damage.

In recent years bosses and hiring managers worldwide have privately lamented the latest generations’ poor social skills, low attention span and diminished motivation, to say nothing of their defective team spirit, absence of critical thinking and decline in physical endurance. Young people now don’t simply work as well as earlier generations. Studies confirm these mass deficiencies, which happen to be the same problems this book reveals.  Thus, the decision made decades ago, under US President Reagan, to expand the dissemination of kids’ ads has now exploded into what one should expect: sad, damaged, dysfunctional adults everywhere.  The economy is already hurting from how it abused human brains twenty years ago, long before today’s far more invasive technologies took hold.

Although Linn doesn’t stress this point, the class of guilty parties is obviously not limited to large corporations. .Tiny startups and lone influencers can also do damage as they desperately flail about to attract  revenue and attention. The problems Linn points to are deep systemic ones: How can society neutralize a wide class of market mechanisms which have been optimized for hundreds of years to produce revenue by any available means, including means that  have a damaging effect on  children? Is it reasonable to think we can stop capital from doing what it’s best at? Legislation—like the Five Rights bill in the UK and COPPA2 and KOSA in the US—is a start. But it’s not enough.

As of now, the biggest companies in the world have promised their shareholders money produced by  strip-mining the brain-cells of future generations. Can that be stopped? Seen from the coldly mathematical of information flow through space and time, the problem is even worse than what Professor Linn describes. And the possible solutions will inevitably be more profound.

It Started with Cave Art and Loincloths

Allow me a parable. A long long time ago, in Paleo Paradise, people were only exposed to each other and Nature, and paid attention accordingly.  But human interests are fickle, so to manage them somebody, let’s say a proto-administrator, invented figurines and cave art for people to look at, and loincloths to keep them from looking away. Ever since then, humans have seen less and less of each other and the natural world our sensory instincts evolved for, and more of man-made things which exploit those instincts. In fact as a species we’re proud of those creations. We call them art.  When they make money, we call them entertainment or advertising.

The takeaway message is that attention has long been for sale, but it’s never been so cheap. The ancients had salesmen, but not rack-mounted computers serving a million times the harassing sales pitch for the price of a human salesman and with no qualms about the quality of the message.  A few decades ago new active technologies—radio, television, video, cable, internet—let machines represent live talking people. Recently, the ability of The Machines — designed to micro-monitor, micro-monetize, and micro-prod — increased hundreds-fold thanks to the omnipresence of mobile devices. As a result, machines now capture attention far too efficiently for human sanity and safety.  The open security holes of our nervous systems have been utterly hacked. Human communication is corrupt in every medium but the air we breathe.

Roughly, a species whose intimate, subtle social communications evolved through a million years of live campfire singing, dancing, and group hugs has in a couple generations become thoroughly immersed in ever-more-mesmerizing panoplie of blinking things, whose primary purpose is to capture attention and induce belief.  And those things work. The bandwidth and authenticity of human interaction has been dropping steadily since cave-times. Now humans know less and less how to feel, to move, to see, or to connect with one another in more than caricatured ways. The mechanism at the core of the problem is recordable communication. Things like texts, tweets, likes and videos are not even empty calories in terms of biological signals. They provide no calories at all. Our nervous systems are failing from informational starvation, and trust — the essential cement of human society — is dying by the year.

If you worry about Platform Capitalism and the Rise of the Machines, then think about this:  robot-toys, robo-calls and robo-therapists pretend to be our friends, but secretly they obey their spreadsheet overlords.  

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Grand Projects

Humanity has solved problems this hard before, or almost as hard.  Water-pipes made of lead, exploding boilers, crashing trains and cars, toxic food, fake accounting, risky drugs, filthy restaurants, the list goes on and on of tricks we’ve learned to keep the things we make from killing us. As a general rule, when society realizes that saving or making money here creates danger over there, it makes laws and sets up snap inspections. Think financial enforcement, or health inspectors who check that restaurant dishwashers use water that’s hot enough.

Killing bacteria by turning up a thermostat is straightforward.  Killing the influence of money in communication is far harder, since at present capital owns the major channels and doesn’t want to part with them.  In that light, here are some angles for regulators to use in protecting children from toxic commercial interactions:

Disclaimers don’t work; double-blind does.  Any self-respecting judge, I hope, would laugh out of the room the legal fiction that a printed disclaimer will insulate the unconscious against manipulation. The unconscious doesn’t work that way. Learning requires autonomy, so all manipulation harms it.  Fortunately manipulation can be measured objectively, as advertisers do, using randomized testing (“A/B testing”).  As long as regulators can look over the shoulder of marketers measuring ad impacts, honesty has a chance.

Disgorgement discourages damage.  Ill-gotten data, like ill-gotten money, should poison the well. If for example algorithms are trained on kids’ private profiles, or on racist historical data, not only should the data be purged, algorithms and workflow trained on it should be wiped clean.  As an incentive principle, the ease by which technology violates trust must be balanced by draconian consequences when it crosses that line.

Transparency brings balance.   Trust only works when everyone has the same high-quality information.  So private claims about ad “eyeballs” or behavioral impact — the kind of claims companies use to get money from investors and advertisers — must be equally available to the public and to regulators, because those claims are proportional to the public harm being done.

Health Not Test Results.  Until kids again become happy, energetic, social, curious, and motivated, they should get more music, art, live games, and physical activity, and less of everything else, especially technology.  Written tests of academic performance mean nothing compared to live 3-D tests of nervous system function.

This month, the US Senate is considering two laws which would help the situation enormously: the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).  The Senators who vote should read this book.
In fact, Who’s Raising the Kids should be required reading everywhere, especially in countries (like France) with strong protections for public health. But also in countries (like India and Pakistan) whose advertisers seem proud of teaching kids to nag and pester parents (p. 117).  When well-paid grownups brazenly brag about wrecking kids’ relationships, children are doomed.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How Capital Eats Its Young appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Crimes Against Humanity

The Islamic regime repeatedly continues to perpetrate crimes against humanity. Social diversity and individual and group agency are not taken into account in Iran’s political structure. This has led to a small group of power holders in a government that does not respect international law or human rights. Sadly, the international community, including the UN and EU, give legitimacy to this oppressive government.

The Dirty Secrets About How Reza Shah Destroyed Iran

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The international community has not been listening to the plurality of voices that make up the diverse fabric of Iran. The history of widespread and bloody uprisings continues to be ignored. The voice of the people of Iran does not matter. The rights of the diverse groups are neglected.

The recent uprising, with its new multidimensional and transnational characteristics and the widespread support for Iranians abroad, has finally caught global attention. It is now time for EU countries to show that they truly support democracy, and do not just act out of pure self-interest.

In the streets, Iranians are chanting: “We don’t want an Islamic Republic,” “Down with the dictator”, “Death to the tyrant, whether king or leader.” The message is clear: people don’t want an undemocratic government. The Islamic regime now has no legitimacy. The EU and UN need to be talking not to the regime but to the people of Iran. And these people don’t just include Shiite Fars men.

International Community Must Act

After the 1979 revolution, the international community — instead of recognizing the people’s resistance — recognized the mullahs instead. It cannot repeat that mistake. Until there exists  a truly democratic system, Iran’s government should not be considered  the representatives of all people. The international community must engage with  representatives from various groups that comprise Iran. Together, these groups are shouting slogans that originated from Kurdish society: “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi,” (woman, life, freedom). 

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Unlike the slogans of previous protests, Jin, Jiyan, Azadi has united all oppressed social groups and became their rallying cry. While women and sexual minorities are the most oppressed segments of Iranian society, Iran has become a prison for all its people. All except for the tiny ruling elite, people now see that only by dismantling dictatorial systems, both patriarchal and Islamic, will they form a democratic regime.

The international community must target the Islamic regime itself, especially its representatives abroad. It must isolate the Iranian government, withdraw recognition to the regime and work towards its downfall.

The EU should support the Iranian opposition, especially parties of ethno-national and religious minorities. Non-Fars ethno-nations, when combined in fact constitute the majority of people in Iran. While  some dissident groups such as have a significant  presence in Europe and the United States, they need support to improve their ground game in Iran.

Unlike Fars opposition groups, these minority parties hare no common interests with the Iranian regime. For example, there have been several times that Kurds in Rojhelat (Eastern Kurdistan in Iran) have gone on strike. They heed the call of Kurdish parties that are illegal in Iran. The strikes show that Kurdish parties are the true representatives of their people, not Fars representatives of the Iranian state. The same is true for other ethno-nations as well.

The EU should forge together an opposition that is a coalition of minorities. Diverse democratic forces represented by organizations such as the of Nationalities for a Federal Iran, a coalition of parties that include the Democratic Party of Iran, the Balochistan People’s Party, the Federal Democratic Movement of Azerbaijan, the Turkmen National Democratic Movement and the Democratic Solidarity Party of (Arabistan) among others.

Democracy is the best way forward for the freedom of the people of Iran. Therefore, the best way forward is the establishment of a government-in-exile that helps the people overthrow the oppressive Islamic regime and institute a truly free, democratic state.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Derecognize Mullahs, Forge New Government in Exile for Iran appeared first on 51�Թ�.

But my usual optimism is being sorely tested these days. One glance at international headlines is enough to send anyone into extended binge-watching of online films or some other manner of escapism. At some point, though, one cannot ignore the dark clouds on the horizon, or in some cases directly overhead.

Democracy in Danger

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It’s easy to compare the foreboding circumstances of today’s world with those preceding World Wars I and World War II. Indeed, there are some real similarities: headstrong dictators bent on conquest, tense regional rivalries, distracted democracies beset by internal problems or economic challenges, and restless publics stirred by extremists of all manner. But 2022 presents its own unique conditions that make it very different from the years preceding previous global conflicts. The most obvious looms menacingly over the entire planet: nuclear weapons. Another is the already present danger of climate change and the inescapable need for nations to work together in addressing it, especially the major powers. So, no, today’s crises are not like the previous world wars. The stakes are much higher.

Rising of Totalitarians, Distracted Democracies

The closing of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in which Xi Jingping effectively made himself dictator for life of the world’s most populous country and second largest economy, was at once predictable and ominous. Xi made clear that he isn’t backing off. China’s aggressive and belligerent behavior will continue. Having named sycophants to sit with him on the party’s politburo and its standing committee ensures that he will hear no opposition, no alternative ideas and no dissent to his diktat. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has now moved decidedly from authoritarian to government. That is not only dangerous for the people of China but also for the rest of the world as PRC’s military forces gear up for a potential conflict over Taiwan.

As US and China Clash, Taiwan Moves Closer to the Brink of Disaster

Juxtaposed against that looming threat is China’s “” partnership with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Putin, another autocrat seized with blindly conceived grand ambitions, has already laid his cards on the table, or, to be more accurate, on Ukraine. Granted Xi’s commitment to him was made before Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, but China has yet to back away from its Russian relationship. This is despite the fact that the war in Ukraine has largely been a disaster for Putin. In fact, Putin’s setbacks might have turned Russia into a veritable vasal state of China. Arguably, this is good for Xi (maybe) and bad for Putin. Despite this situation not being good for Russia, what are Putin’s options?

Next on the totalitarian hit parade is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which maintains very good relations with the aforementioned autocrats. Its ruling theocracy governs with comparable iron-fisted policies and a heavy dose of neolithic ideology. As hundreds of thousands throughout Iran take to the streets again at considerable risk of arrest, torture and even death, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with pearls of medieval wisdom: “If we want to prevent our society from being plunged into corruption and turmoil, we should keep women in hijab.”

Protesters show no signs of backing down. So, naturally, the Iranian government needs a distraction. The mullahs blame America. It is the Islamist Republic’s timeless trope, ignored by the vast majority of Iranians for its sheer baselessness. Despite public discontent, Tehran has thrown its lot with fellow autocrat Putin in his unjust war against Ukraine. Iran has joined Russia in attacking the people of Ukraine by sending drones, missiles, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operators and trainers for Russian troops.

Protesters show no signs of backing down. So, naturally, the Iranian government needs a distraction. It has joined Russia in attacking the people of Ukraine by sending drones, missiles and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operators and trainers for Putin’s troops. By throwing in its lot with Russia in a brutal and illegal war against Ukraine, Iran reveals the single-minded obtuseness of Khamenei and the desperation of Putin. Such is the wont of dictators who do what they want. They need not listen to their citizenry and even foreclose the possibility of doing so.

The Dirty Secrets About How Reza Shah Destroyed Iran

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Further down the list of the planet’s wretched leaders, one cannot ignore the head of the model pariah state, North Korea. One would be hard pressed to identify a single policy or manner of behavior that is not repugnant and anathema to the UN Charter and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the helm of the Hermit Kingdom is Kim-Jung Un, aka “dear leader,” (the titles “supreme leader,” “paramount leader,” and “great leader” having been already taken by others). The North Korean economy is almost entirely dependent on neighboring China, which sees the tyrant-ruled nation as a useful nuisance and distraction for the US, South Korea and Japan. Otherwise, were North Korea to fall into the ocean tomorrow, it would hardly be missed by the people’s colossus next door. Kim fulfills his role well, periodically launching intermediate-range missiles menacingly near and over South Korea and Japan. The dear leader has most recently threatened to test nuclear weapons, which it continues to produce in flagrant contravention of numerous UN Security Council resolutions.

Three of these nations have nuclear weapons capable of annihilating millions. The fourth, Iran, seems poised to get them unless the P5+1 negotiators can manage to pull a rabbit from their negotiating hats and conclude reimposition of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons development program. But that agreement seems very unlikely after three months of moribund talks, the growing popular protests in Iran and the Islamic Republic’s decision to join forces with Russia against Ukraine. Even so, many predict, Iran’s eventual acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability within the near-to-medium term is almost certain. Such a prospect would almost assure across-the-Gulf neighbor Saudi Arabia’s rush for its own bomb.

Although Saudi Arabia is nominally led by an absolute monarch, currently King Salman bin Abdulaziz, its effective leader today is his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. MBS, as he is widely known, is an absolutist autocrat but oversees a nation dependent on protection from the US. That dependency relationship could easily change if the kingdom was to obtain or develop nuclear weapons. Unlike North Korea, it has enough oil the world desperately needs to sustain its economy. In fact, Saudi Arabia has so much oil that Iran-like economic sanctions are unlikely. They could lead to a meltdown of the global economy.  

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Given the deteriorating relations between the kingdom and the US and, in particular, between MBS and US President Joe Biden, the world should not discount the prospect of Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons and of MBS finally severing his nation’s dependency on the US, thus empowering one more autocrat with the ultimate weapon. It will require herculean diplomacy on the part of the US and others to ensure that doesn’t happen. Autocrats have their ambitions and are rarely disposed to changing them.

Arrayed against this dangerous lineup of totalitarian states is the US, still considered the world’s premier superpower. Its network of alliances and defense treaties in Europe and Asia give the US formidable military and economic clout. The US and its allies are united not only by treaties and alliances but also and especially by shared values, particularly democracy, liberty, respect for human rights and the rule of law. The aforementioned autocrats see these values as an American imposition on the international order because the US had overwhelming power since the end of World War II.

This anti-American posturing is self-serving. Let us be honest. The problem with these values is not that they are American, the problem with them is that they counter the autocrats’ justification for one-man rule. Antipathy toward the US and toward the values it espouses is what unites the world’s autocrats. There really is nothing more these nations share, which is revealing in itself.

The Global Rest

Left unmentioned is the “global rest,” the large majority of nations in Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia and elsewhere that have avoided choosing sides. Their reasons are several and not always unjustified. Many are former colonies with lingering resentment toward and suspicions of their former colonizers. In addition, many may see getting drawn into the conflict as counterproductive to their own interests, particularly their economic interests. The larger nations of this group —  India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Nigeria — are stressed democracies like Turkey, Hungary and even the US. Despite their flaws, these democracies would find the ruling styles of China or Russia anathema. For the time being, however, they are not threatened directly nor are their interests jeopardized by the current tensions.

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That could easily change, though, and perhaps faster than anyone would want or could predict. An unrestrained Xi might decide to order an invasion of Taiwan, consequently closing the Taiwan Strait, shutting down half of the world’s tanker traffic and sending the global economy spiraling. If Western nations currently supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia were to let up on their support, it would assure a Russian victory. This would empower Putin to plan further expansion in accordance with his revanchist imperial dream of a greater Russia. All of Western and Eastern Europe would be drawn into a resulting continental conflict, also creating conditions for global economic disaster and fertile ground for totalitarian opportunists elsewhere. Overhanging both scenarios is the prospect of nuclear conflict, already broached by a flailing and ever-desperate Putin.

Inability to resurrect the JCPOA nuclear accord would remove any incentive for Iran to shut down its nuclear weapons program. Whether it actually builds a nuclear bomb or not, the mere prospect could set off war in the Middle East as Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia act militarily to foreclose Iran’s nuclear advancement. As we have seen in the past, war in the Gulf is highly destabilizing to both the region and to a global economy dependent on the region’s oil. China alone looks to the region for 40% of its oil needs.

None of this is over-the-top alarmism. All of the autocrats mentioned have at one time or other threatened use of force. What recourse do democracies have against this unprecedented alignment of nuclear-empowered autocrats? Is it even possible to talk a dictator out of carrying out actions seen as indispensable to some grand plan? And if not, then what?

Perhaps the first step is shaking the citizens of democracies, most especially in the United States, out of their domestic political navel-gazing and into an awareness of the enormity of the challenge before them. In their increasingly partisan culture wars, Americans appear to be swatting at mosquitoes as dragons, bears and snakes stalk the neighborhood. They would be wise to follow the advice of Franklin D. Roosevelt in hisMay, 1941 . The 32nd president argued then that defense meant not only a well-armed military force but also “… the use of a greater American common sense in discarding rumor and distorted statement… (and) recognizing, for what they are, racketeers and fifth columnists, who are the incendiary bombs in this country of the moment.” Substitute disinformation and alternative facts for “rumor” and election deniers for “racketeers and fifth columnists” and Roosevelt’s words ring true for America today.

Much More than Congress is at Stake this Midterm

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Roosevelt was facing a major threat to the world’s oldest democracy. In the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, America had withdrawn into its isolationist island, flirting with all manner of “America First,” racist and Nazi ideas, and organizations. Meanwhile Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had begun their march through Europe and Asia, and expansion across the Pacific. Only Japan’s strategic blunder in attacking Pearl Harbor succeeded in breaking America out of its isolationist never-never land and launched it into a war to reestablish global security, and ultimately the international global order we know today. It is this very order that Xi, Putin, Khamenei and Kim-Jung Un seek to undo. Neither the US nor other nations should count on either Beijing or Moscow making a mistake like Pearl Harbor again.

The attention and support of voters well informed of the threats before them are indispensable to successfully confronting Totalitarianism Incorporated of today. The alignment of these dictatorial states could be described by the same words Roosevelt used in his December 1940, an “unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and to enslave the human race.” The totalitarian order is predicated on obedience to a single authority, aka the great leader. It is an order and peace of the dictator. The democratic alternative is an alliance of nations composed of citizens loyal to a set of ideals and principles. It is an order and peace of free people.

Deterrence, Diplomacy and Unity

What then is to be done? Deterrence is critical. And it is also expensive. Yet it is essential because totalitarians respect power. Therefore, democracies will have to arm themselves to demonstrate resolve and a clear determination to resist totalitarian ambitions. Ukrainians prove today that dictators, regardless of level of brutality, can be stopped. It’s an example to all democracies.

Diplomacy is important too. Yet it can only be effective when backed up by unflinching deterrence and iron resolve. Diplomacy may work with dictators when they see the costs of challenging well-armed and resolute democratic states. In the absence of credible deterrence, diplomacy descends into appeasement, enabling the easiest of victories for a dictator.

At the moment, the US and the West have to embark on a vital diplomatic initiative with the rest of the world. Many nations are still unwilling to commit themselves to confronting the totalitarian challenge. They must be convinced that their continued fence-sitting ultimately will undermine their respective national goals, and the very global order that permits their flourishing. The rallying cry must be that in a peaceful, prosperous and secure world, sovereignty, borders and a rules-based international order are the sine qua non of peace. They are sacrosanct. Without an explicit, unqualified embrace of these simple concepts, no nation is safe. Peace and prosperity for all peoples become elusive. Fear and foreboding envelope societies. Liberty evaporates. Human progress is stymied.

That undertaking — the gathering of all nations together to staunch the advance of aggressive totalitarianism — is necessary and urgent. Done successfully, it may be the best way to avoid war and fix a barrier around all those seeking to impose their will on other nations. No nation, regardless of size, should or can afford to be neutral on this matter.

The lessons of the last century’s two world wars and the Cold War taught us that both military power, and principled and determined diplomacy are necessary when confronting totalitarianism. It is time to apply those lessons with renewed vigor today.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Totalitarianism Now Presents an Unprecedented Global Threat appeared first on 51�Թ�.

I have been thinking about this subject matter for some time now and could not help noticing that there are as many International Financial Institutions/Regional Development Banks/Funds as there are SDG’s! That is as inefficient as it is unsustainable.

COVID-19 has to a large degree pushed back the realization of these global goals and slowed down whatever dynamic previously existed. It’s time to get the machine going again and full throttle this time. The long and the short of it is that all the development partners must urgently reconsider deploying their current approach towards the delivery of their development finance work aimed at the recipient countries. This is the only way we can cover the lost ground and hope to achieve the SDGs by 2030. 

The UN must exercise its leadership

The first idea that comes to mind is for the United Nations (UN) to step in and encourage the International Financial Institutions, the Regional Development Banks and Funds to refocus their future country partnership frameworks, strategies and programming priorities. They must move away from the present overstretched exposure and instead zoom in on just a couple of SDG’s. That  means that each IFI/MDB/Regional Bank/Fund should be thinking about taking the lead in targeting at least two key SDGs while studiously avoiding overlap from the others. At the same time it means pulling back and placing less emphasis on the remaining SDGs. This would be a vast improvement over the current muddle in which each International Financial Institution Bank and Funds tries to target all the SDGs at once.

For example, the World Bank Group could take the lead in SDG1 & SDG10. At the same time the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) would focus on SDG2 & SDG15 and so on. These are just examples. But if this is done, each developing country in the world will have a diverse (and a more specialized) set of institutions, banks and funds addressing all its 17 SDGs. This contrasts with the current ineffective way in which everyone is trying to do too much at once and then wondering why nothing is successful! 

Of course, each country will still have the obligation to continue to address all its applicable SDGs. But the International Financial Institutions, Regional Development Banks and Funds need not be distracted by attempting to attain all the development goals of the same country at the same time. When each development institution focuses on what it does best, it has a much better chance of supporting the developing countries in their quest to catch up on what is missing or lagging behind concerning their SDGs.

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Moreover, it would become paramount for all the International Financial Institutions, Regional Development Banks and Funds to meet regularly, preferably every quarter until 2030, which has been designated as the final year set to reach the global goals. This should become the most urgent global development agenda item today. It would be the ideal means of reaffirming the message of seriousness in the pursuit of these goals. We absolutely must redouble all our efforts in the fight against poverty since development partners and developing countries need to be continuously involved in a dialogue permitting them to discuss among themselves and report on progress. More crucially they must decide on the redistribution of the SDGs among themselves, in other words, which partner will be leading, and which one will be supporting which goal.

This in my opinion is a much more efficient way of allocation of scarce resources. It takes into consideration the spirit of the “Paris Declaration” by instilling amongst all the development partners and countries the ‘H.O.R.M.A.’ principles: H=harmonization, O= Ownership, R= Results, M=Mutual-accountability, and A=Alignment.” That is the best way of putting back on the agenda of development cooperation the question of “who is jointly-responsible for which country’s development program and results”.

An SOS call

The above proposal is a “Save Our Ship/Souls” call. It is required since there seems to be no other way today to reach these global targets by 2030 other than seriously rethinking, refocusing and redefining our current process in “delivering development.” This is also an open call for International Financial Institutions, Regional Development Banks and Funds to refrain from their current “keeping up with the Joneses” routine, which has led to many replicating and duplicating each other’s work, with the added effect that they become stretched so thin they accomplish little or nothing at all. As one famous Arabic saying goes, these global goals end up looking a bit like “blood spilt among the tribes” as no single International Financial Institution, Regional Development Bank or Fund can be explicitly held responsible for the realization of any single goal.

How the G7 and UN Can Make Multilateralism Sustainable

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In summary, each development partner would focus on its comparative advantages and what it can deliver best rather than trying to address all the 17 goals or 169 targets under the SDGs. This should also move the current dialogue from being an internal ‘beauty contest’ to an external “global plan for action.” And since the developing countries will always be in the driving seat, the institutions, banks and funds must continue to facilitate this process and shoulder more responsibility with regard to the decaying human condition.

On a final note, we have a UN Security Council that seeks to prevent the killings of innocent people by preventing wars or conflicts. We now urgently need more than ever a similar but Socio-Economic Council within the UN with the teeth to prevent the death of millions of humans who die every day as a result of abject poverty, hunger, and spreading diseases due to the misallocation of scarce natural and human resources. This might be the last chance for the UN system to make a real impact and a difference to unite for peace and development.

I do hope and pray that the SDG’s will be achieved by 2030, but for this to happen, we must all act together and NOW, and embrace with utmost care the delivery of development cooperation.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post When Sustainable Development Goalkeepers Fail To Make A Stop appeared first on 51�Թ�.

This law intends to give parents greater control over their children’s upbringing and comes at the heels of a raging debate around (CRT) and its purported instruction in schools (K-12). Debates around the bill also culminated in the passage of another bill- HB 7:The Individual Freedom bill, which quite ironically curtails speech by prohibiting classroom instruction, curricula design, and workplace training on particular kinds of discussions about race, color, sex, or national origin. Once again, the law does not define what those restricted forms of speech are. The of this law is to crack down on what DeSantis calls “wokeness”.

Advancements in Gay and Lesbian Rights over the Years: What went wrong?

While these two laws are specific to Florida residents, ongoing hysteria over sexuality, gender, and race in American classrooms has a long political and legal history. On the issues of sexuality and gender in particular, the United States has made tremendous progress over the years. Pew research show that three decades ago, nine-in-ten American adults (89%) would have been upset if their child told them they were gay. But by 2015, that number fell to just four-in-ten adults (39%). On the issue of same-sex marriage too, support has meteorically over the years. In 2005, only 36% of adults favored legalizing same-sex marriage, while a much larger 53% opposed it. By 2015, opinions flipped and 57% of adults favored same-sex marriage, while only 39% opposed it. However, this support/opposition was pretty much confined to party lines, with 65% of Democrats and 65% of Independents showing support for same-sex marriage, compared to only 34% of Republicans (as of 2015). At the time of this Pew survey, same-sex marriage was already legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia but wasn’t yet legal nationwide. Yet almost 75% of voters across party lines believed it would inevitably become the law of the land (this indeed occurred in the landmark 2015 US Supreme Court ruling,). So how did the United States go from legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015 to banning certain types of classroom and workplace discussions on gender and sexuality in 2022?

Most of the activism over the past three decades focused on securing rights for gay and lesbian Americans, which meant same-sex marriage was typically the key issue at stake. As far back as 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled in that the US Constitution did not grant homosexuals the constitutional right to engage in same-sex conduct (“sodomy”) even within the privacy of their homes. Further, the Court repudiated a lower court’s ruling that ‘gay rights’ emanated from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Seventeen years later in 2003, this judgment was overruled in, in which the same Court held that the reasoning in Bowers was flawed because the Fourteenth Amendment did in fact protect homosexual people’s liberty to engage in private and consensual same-sex conduct. 

By this time, debates around the (ill)legality of same-sex marriage had also taken center stage in American politics, with Congress the now-infamous Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996. DOMA defined marriage as a “legal union between one man and one woman” for federal purposes (under Section 3 of DOMA) and allowed states not to recognize same-sex marriages recognized in other states if they so wanted (under Section 2 of DOMA). Section 3 of DOMA was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in (2013), and Section 2 fell in (2015). With Obergefell legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, any state ban on same-sex marriage was invalidated, effectively overturning DOMA. 

It should be noted that Windsor and Obergefell were decided by narrow 5-4 margins, and both victories emanated from decades of sustained efforts by gay and lesbian lawyers and activists. Such was the opposition they faced that a detailed 45 page by the Committee on the Judiciary accompanied the DOMA legislation, which cited the need for an Act like DOMA. The report spelled out the fear that legalizing same-sex marriage, even at the state level, would “divide people unnecessarily” and adversely affect governmental interets. These interested were not confined to “defending and nurturing” heterosexual marriage but encompassed a fear of state sovereignty “subversion” and the “impingement” of scarce government resources. 

At that time, no state in the US had yet recognized same-sex marriage. However, in May 1993, the Hawaiin Supreme Court held in that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples may constitute discrimination on the basis of sex. It was this ruling in Hawaii that then-Congressman Charles Canady and others called a “significant threat to traditional marriage laws,” leading to multiple same-sex marriage across the length and breadth of the US over the next three decades, with DOMA being just the beginning.

While gay rights activists may have ultimately won the same-sex marriage debate, new and unfamiliar issues now animate voters, specifically conservatives. These issues include the rights of transgender people and those beyond the lesbian and gay sexuality spectrum (i.e. those beyond the “L” and”G” of LGBTQ+). Since 2017, have considered passing “bathroom bills” that would prohibit transgender and gender non-conforming people from accessing multiuser restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated facilities of their choice. Instead, these laws would compel them to use rooms corresponding with their biological sex. As recent as April 2022, Alabama’s state legislature an expanded “bathroom bill” that would not only limit transgender and gender-nonconforming people’s bathroom access but also prohibit certain discussions of gender and sexuality in classrooms from kindergarten through fifth grade (very similar to Florida’s HB 1557). 

Florida’s law has been named the “don’t say gay” law by because of its vague language proscribing classroom discussions on gender and sexuality in any manner not conducive to state standards. Moreover, parental notification rules in the law have raised speculation by critics that teachers may be compelled to “out” LGBTQ+ students to their parents under this law. Conservatives, however, have pushed back on these claims, arguing instead that the law “protects” children from sexual predators and ““. By re-defining this law as an “anti-grooming” law, conservatives effectively draw from age-old tropes about homosexuality, such as the idea of a “”- one that popular American evangelical commentator and theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. once as “propaganda for immorality” and “poisonous to Christian morality.” He was, however, referencing the increasing representation of gay and lesbian characters in Hollywood. Nonetheless, the is applied by conservatives today to address gender and sexuality in school pedagogy. 

What lies ahead?

Ever since Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to the NCAA swimming title, conservative media has run a series of non-stop against her, which included multiple instances of intentional misgendering that eventually ignited a new debate about ‘women’s rights’ and the ‘protection of women’s sports’. have already passed laws banning transgender girls and women from participating in sports corresponding with their gender identity, while have banned gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria. This fixation with ‘protecting’ women and children has now become a common thread in many Republican-backed laws – from, to, to the slew of. The conservatives of today may have made a begrudging truce with same-sex marriage, but they still consider other LGBTQ+ issues a form of “dangerous woke propaganda” that is detrimental to children.

Clearly the path ahead is rocky. While gays and lesbians may have won the hard-fought right to marry, there is still a long way to go. Americans are still uncomfortable discussing sexuality, gender identity, and gender nonconformity, and only time will tell how all of this will play out in the courts and in the upcoming midterm elections.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post With Midterm Elections just days away, LGBTQ+ issues continue to provoke American conservatives appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Compared to a range of other industrial countries, the SGI 2022 shows that the US remains a weak in terms of sustainable policies in general (rank 33 out of 41 nations) and it receives middling scores overall (rank 22) with regard to economic policies – a topic which looms large for almost every US voter. 

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The SGI 2022 US Report explains that “GDP growth bounced rapidly back, returning to robust levels in 2021,” which coincides with the first year of the Biden administration. Massive emergency spending, which had already started under former president Trump, “included payments to individuals and firms, as well as expanded tax credits and unemployment benefits”. Based on the findings on economic performance, while the incumbent president’s party could be vulnerable, slight increases in some policy indicators since the Trump years, especially economic measures, also suggest that the incumbent majority party is unlikely to face a thumping defeat.  

The party polarization indicator of SGI – where the US is ranked as the most country – makes it plausible that both sides of a politically divided voting public feel energized in this election year, albeit for different reasons. Democrat optimism regarding their party’s chances to contain losses is driven by the recent Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended the nationwide constitutional right to abortion that had existed since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. At least initially, the Dobbs decision had a significant energizing effect, especially on women, steering them towards Democratic candidates. In contrast, polls taken until the early fall of 2022 seemed to indicate that Republican-leaning conservative voters in small-town America may have felt complacent after the success of the conservative movement’s decades-long effort to strike down Roe v. Wade. 

The Trump effect

Former president Trump remains a central, and polarizing figure. Trump continues to claim falsely that the 2020 election was stolen and he has remained in the public gaze amid Congressional investigations into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and his handling of classified documents. As a consequence, Democrats’ campaigns focus on perceived threats to US democracy by Trump and his followers. From the perspective of SGI 2022, this strategy is obvious, but not risk-free. While the report states that there is “increasing tension over the conduct of elections”, and “voting rights have become a contested issue, with the Republican party seeking to suppress low-income and minority votes”, it is also true that Democrats have failed to pass a major voting-rights act through Congress despite their majority. The United States falls into the upper-middle ranks (rank 15) in terms of quality.

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Meanwhile, the Republican electorate is reveling in President Biden’s approval ratings of well below 50 percent, though ratings are not as low as it was a few months ago. In the polls, it is inflation, not abortion or democracy, that tops potential voters’ concerns. Recent economic data—which showed ongoing inflation—will keep it there. Nearly every US household is grappling with higher costs, energy and gasoline prices. But only Republican-leaning voters see inflation as the number one issue, blaming it squarely on Joe Biden and the Democrats. For Democrat-leaning voters, however, inflation is important but does not top the agenda, seen instead in the context of global economic disruptions following the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. For these voters, abortion rights for women after the Dobbs decision is the top issue. The number two and three issues for Republican-leaners are immigration/border control and rising crime. For the Democrat-leaning constituencies these topics matter less. For them, a close second after abortion rights is saving US democracy from the perceived attack by MAGA-Republicans, followed by health care.  

It’s the economy, stupid

But the mobilization of white suburban Republican and independent women who may be worried about the cost of living, school decisions or rising crime could neutralize or offset the impact of those who are mobilized by abortion and the threat to US democracy. As a consequence, Republicans aim to focus voters’ attention on crime and immigration and away from abortion. Meanwhile, rising prices and inflation remain a factor everywhere and will ultimately decide at least the House elections. 

In sum, the midterms are more than just a referendum on President Biden. A few weeks before election day, predictions of sweeping Republican gains have been tempered by the changing political climate, thanks in large part to the Dobbs decision, although the Republicans remain favored to take control of the House. In the final weeks, amid economic jitters, elections could turn on how much sustaining energy the Dobbs decision provides for Democrats or whether it fades in the face of so-called “kitchen table” concerns. 

What happens now in 2022 will also lay foundations for the presidential elections of 2024. If Trump-backed Republican Senate candidates like Herschel Walker in Georgia or J.D. Vance in Ohio do badly on November 8, 2022, Trump is less likely to be nominated as their 2024 presidential candidate. If Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is re-elected as governor of the sunshine state for a second term, this will give him momentum for a likely bid for the White House. Conversely, if the Democrats manage to keep their Senate majority and win statewide races for governor and/or the Senate in crucial presidential battlegrounds like Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, it would likely fuel confidence for a President Biden re-election campaign for 2024. On the other hand, if the Democrats fare badly in the midterms and other state elections on November 8, 2022, the current president faces rising pressure not to seek a second term. 

[We thank the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) project of the German Bertelsmann Foundation for this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Cold War may be a thing of the past, but the practice of using romance and sex as tools of extortion and blackmail is still flourishing the world over. The #MeToo movement that started as a chorus of feminist indignation mobilizing long-suppressed grievances has also been frequently deployed as a weapon to bludgeon men into silence or, worse, milk them for all they are worth. 

In India, Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, has been hot on the trail of duplicitous women. Some of them work in groups, regularly blackmailing gullible males into parting with large sums of money after sleeping with them. Their victims are usually married and hold a respectable place in society, making them easy targets for extortion.

Bhardwaj is known for speaking out against the rampant misuse of India’s gender laws, especially section 376 of the 1860-vintage Indian Penal Code (IPC) that addresses rape and sexual violence. Sections 489A and 354 deal with domestic abuse and sexual harassment respectively. The journalist observes, “Increasingly, men in India are becoming victims of systematic abuse through gender-biased laws. Laws where their innocence doesn’t matter, where they are presumed guilty and where a mere verbal accusation by a woman them a puppet in the hands of police and judiciary for years to come.”

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Indeed, the on gender-based violence gathered by India’s National Crime Records Bureau is very revealing. Of the 120,306 total arrests under section 498A in the year 2020, 96,497 were men and a whopping 23,809 of the arrested were women. There are increasing reports of women who, after a few years of marriage, file false cases of domestic abuse in the hopes of winning large settlements. Subsequently the family is summoned and forced to settle the case by paying large amounts of money. Up to 75% of cases are withdrawn because it emerges that the purported victims are exploiting the law. This can only the credibility of genuine survivors of abuse and domestic violence.

I spoke to Bhardwaj about some of the most disturbing cases she has come across, including that of the woman who filed nine rape cases against nine different men at nine different police stations within one year — all in one city, Gurgaon. The journalist told me about the men who have committed suicide because of shame after they were falsely accused of rape. Bhardwaj also revealed the gaslighting and professional sabotage she experienced at the hands of many feminists. She has also shared her views on the hotbutton topic of marital rape and measures that the government could implement to address the misuse of biased gender laws.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Vikram Zutshi: You deliver a perspective on gender rights seldom seen in the media, highlighting both male and female victims of fraud, abuse and extortion. What are some of the most disturbing and unique stories you have covered?  

Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj: The most disheartening story I have covered to date is that of the late Arvind Bharti, which I have covered in my upcoming documentary, India’s Sons. Arvind was first forced into marriage by a woman who threatened to file a rape case against him. He married her and thought life would be smooth but she filed a false dowry case against him within a year of their marriage. Arvind fought those cases for eight  years, studied law to defend himself properly and when he won the cases finally, he still had to settle because the woman wouldn’t let him be. It was traumatizing for Arvind because he had a daughter too from this marriage. But he had to give up on his daughter because of his wife’s constant cruelty. Eventually Arvind got divorced and wanted to move on, but his estranged wife kept defaming him everywhere he went — at his office and his study centers.

She got him thrown out of his job and eventually got him booked under a false rape charge after getting him beaten up brutally and confining him for three days. Arvind was jailed for 15 days. This broke him deep inside. Eventually Arvind ended his life leaving a 26-page suicide note detailing the torture he went through for decades, and writing about how the laws are extremely favorable to women. I  reported on the case, and stood with his family. Eventually, after several campaigns, the woman was arrested for abetment of his suicide.

The most unique story I have covered is that of Ayushi Bhatia who filed nine rape cases on nine different men at nine different police stations within one year – all in one city, Gurgaon. I exposed this girl, which eventually led to her arrest for filing false cases, criminal intimidation, extortion and blackmail. After that exposé, people from across India contacted me writing about women who are filing false rape cases.

I exposed another such woman, Sonia Keswani from Jabalpur, who has filed six rape cases against five different men in the city of Jabalpur over a span of six years. She filed a rape case on the first man she implicated, got married to him and then filed dowry, domestic violence and rape cases against him again. After this, from 2021 to July 2022, she filed four more rape cases against four other different men. 

In both these cases, while Ayushi and Sonia were both married, they kept filing rape cases on other men, claiming they were raped on a false promise of marriage. In my opinion, these two cases highlight how rape laws are being brazenly misused in our country today.

There are several cases I have brought to light involving suicide by men after they were falsly accused of raping a woman. Some of these names include Awadhesh Yadav, Manoj Kumar, Arvind Bharti, Amit Kumar and Rahul Agarwal.

Zutshi: Your film India’s Sons delves into a bizarre tale of deception and fraud set in Jaipur. Tell us about how the legal system was misused by its practitioners to entrap a number of unwitting men. 

Bhardwaj: India’s Sons is about the lives of men who were falsely accused of rape but then were honorably acquitted by the court after years of trial. By then, their lives were totally destroyed by the case. Justice Nivedita Anil Sharma from Delhi once asked, “If the woman who files a rape case is immediately called a rape survivor, then why shouldn’t we call men who are honorably acquitted in these cases after being falsely accused, as “Rape Case Survivors.” This is what forms the tag line of the documentary as well: The Tale of False Rape Case Survivors.

One of the cases discussed in the documentary is that of a honeytrap racket busted in Jaipur by the special operations group of Rajasthan Police. About 44 people including high court lawyers, policemen, two dozen women and others pretending to be journalists were arrested during this phase. These people did a recce of high net worth men, especially those who were married. They sent women to lure them into sexual relationships, gathered evidence of these relationships and then threatened to register rape cases against these men. They made about three million dollars, a whopping 24-25 crore rupees. This racket operated nonchalantly for about three years until it was busted.

I am in Jaipur right now for the screening of my documentary film and, even today, the anti-corruption bureau has arrested a few policemen and advocates for extorting money from a man accused of rape. In all such cases, the legal system has taken for granted that whatever the woman states is gospel truth. No investigation is conducted and, almost always, even if it is found that the woman has lodged cases falsely, she is not punished. In the honeytrap racket, these women casually changed their statements and turned hostile after receiving money from the accused. The legal system ignored such dubious actions and so did the law enforcement authorities.

Zutshi: Do you consider yourself a feminist in the modern meaning of the term? How have India’s usually hyper-vocal feminists responded to your work? 

Bhardwaj: Personally, I am unable to identify myself as a feminist in the way that the term is used in the modern era. More often than not, hyper-vocal feminists have this innate hate for men which I find very annoying. For them, this entire world is against women, and anyone who doesn’t speak their language is a misogynist.

Equal rights and opportunities for all is an absolutely wonderful thought and, even today, there are women and girls who are disadvantaged and need the support from society to realize their true potential. Having said that, life isn’t a cakewalk for every man out there either. They too have their own struggles, challenges, and now even face discrimination especially because of one-sided laws that need to be addressed. But anyone talking about men suddenly becomes an enemy of feminists.

There are many feminists who have attacked my work. One of them started a petition to Netflix, when my documentary was released, to take it off the air. Another one wrote to the organizers of a TEDx talk I was invited to, demanding not to allow me to speak. In contrast, I have received standing ovations at several events. Time and again, I get abused on social media by feminist warriors who often describe me as a “pick me woman”, “misogynist”, “traitor”, and much worse terms, which I can not mention here. However, it no longer impacts me . I can safely say that I have thousands of women supporting my work, and they actively recognise the need for someone to speak up for these men who are also suffering.

Zutshi: What do you think of the proposed marital rape legislation that is currently a hot topic of debate on social media? 

Bhardwaj: This is an extensive topic of debate. I would ask  you to check out my video on this issue, which details my reservations on the proposed marital rape legislation.

To sum the video up, we already have laws that address sexual abuse within marriage. If the current exception in the existing rape laws were to be removed, almost every matrimonial dispute could result in rape charges against the husband. We are already witnessing thousands of unsubstantiated allegations of unnatural sex that is illegal under section 377 of the IPC. These cases will eventually end in settlements whereby the husband will be asked to shell out significant sums of money to save himself. Certain countries have already instituted special provisions against marital rape. Most of these countries have a gender-neutral law, but in India, it would be rendered as yet another weapon in the hands of wives. 

Zutshi: In your opinion, what are the steps that can be taken to address the misuse of section 376 of the IPS on rape and sexual harassment? 

Bhardwaj: The courts should give credence to fair and impartial investigations. They must value evidence, not mere verbal allegations made by women. This could go a long way in addressing the misuse of section 376. Currently, the courts are not punishing women who misuse section 376 to victimize men. Judges need to penalize women who make false allegations of rape. Only then will the misuse cease.

In addition, I think the lawmakers need to differentiate between cases of sexual assault and those that involve false claims of a promise of marriage because they do not belong to the same category. Currently, all men accused of a promise to marry are thrown into jail. Even if it later transpires that no promise of marriage was made and, consequently, the sex was consensual and not rape, the accused has already enormously suffered. The time in jail and the loss of reputation can often drive such men to suicide. The system is not working and must change.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Shining the Light on the Great Indian Honey Trap appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The BBC tells us that women around the world are now their hair to show their solidarity with their Iranian counterparts. Abir Al-Sahlani, a Swedish Member of the European Parliament, cut her hair in the midst of her speech, giving a rallying cry: “women, life, freedom.”

Why are women protesting?

Since 1979, Shia clerics have ruled Iran. They have imposed strict moral codes and restrictive rules on society. Women are supposed to dress modestly and cover their hair in accordance with clerics’ strict interpretations of Islam. As education levels increase, Iranian women are increasingly unwilling to play by such rules.

Irshad can stop and intimidate any woman for the most arbitrary of reasons. Over the years, Iranian women have become highly educated. The percentage of females in higher education from 3% in 1978 to 59% in 2018. Women have entered almost all professions now. Their expectations have risen similarly. Even when there have been no protests, there is a simmering discontent among women about the restrictions they face on a daily basis. Many women hate the morality police. 

So unpopular is irshad that conservative president Mahmoud proposed to parliament to get rid of this morality police but he was shot down by those far more conservative than him, led by Parliament’s members Mutahari and Pizishkiyan. He explained that the police are also young people and they cannot make a correct diagnosis. Overall, Ahmadinejad forcing people to observe the hijab rule. He held that people had rights to choose and they must be given choices so he was accused by ultra-conservatives of supporting indecency. 

While women may have done well in gaining an education, jobs have been hard to find. Glass ceilings remain thick and strong. Few women make it to top positions. They also find it difficult to get married because educated men with good jobs are in short supply. Furthermore, strict rules make it difficult for women and men to socialize. Like women elsewhere, Iranian women want some choice when it comes to their life partners.

Last year, Ebrahim Raisi was elected president. He is a conservative cleric who has to reinvigorate the old cultural revolution. Irshad have stepped up patrols and taken women away for “re-education” because of their supposedly improper dress. A hijab-and-chastity decree bans women without headscarves from posting pictures of themselves on social media. Naturally, women are dissatisfied with the tightening of restrictions and Amini’s death has set off a powder keg.

Why are men protesting?

Not only women but also men have taken to the streets. If Iranian women are dissatisfied, so are the men. They are really frustrated with the lack of opportunities. Many have lost hope in the future. In particular, educated men are most discontented. They are unable to get decent well-paying jobs. This restricts their marriage opportunities.

Young people are increasingly influenced by western media. They think of the US as a land of milk and honey. Alumni of the elite Sharif University of Technology leave the country in the search of a better life. Those who remain behind are frustrated by the lack of jobs in Iran. They access western media and want similar lifestyles to what they see on screen. This exacerbates their discontent.

American sanctions have taken their toll on the Iranian economy. Since 2012, per capita income has stagnated. After the Russia-Ukraine War, inflation has further soared. To make matters worse, Iran is facing an environmental crisis. Rivers have run dry, groundwater is falling, lakes are drying up and farmland is parched. A growing population has led to wanton felling of forests. In turn, deforestation has exacerbated desertification. As in India and China, pollution is choking cities. Young men find it very difficult to be hopeful about the future.

Over 60% of Iran’s 84 million population is under 30. Historically, young single men have been a source of instability in any society. Iran has millions of discontented young men. During the recent protests, unknown assailants have banks, police, ambulances, other government officials, mosques, clerics and religious people. The 1979 revolution may not yet be at risk but Iranian society is volatile and could erupt in a volcanic eruption given the slightest provocation.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why Are Young People Protesting in Iran? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Who Are Germany’s National Minorities?

Four state-recognized autochthonous national minorities live on German territory: the Danes, Frisians, Sorbs, and the German Sinti and Roma. In accord with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), five need to be fulfilled to be granted minority protection by the German government: the minorities’ members are German nationals; they have a distinct identity, consisting of an own language, culture, and history; a wish to maintain and preserve that identity; they have settled in Germany for a long time within traditional settlement areas.

As demographic statistics and socioeconomic data based on ethnicity are historically not collected in Germany due to the Nazi past, the numbers of people belonging to the national minorities are estimates. About 50,000 members of the Danish minority live in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, bordering Denmark, and 50,000-60,000 Frisians live along the North Sea coastline between the Netherlands and Denmark. About 60,000 Sorbs, a Slavic minority, live in the Lusatia region, close to the Polish border in East Germany. The minority of the Sinti and Roma provides an exemption from the criteria of residing in a specific settlement area with 70,000 members living all across Germany.

Instrumentalizing National Minorities

The lack of demographic data on national minorities implicates that no figures are available on the number of eligible voters in the respective minority groups. Despite only making up a small proportion of the German electorate, Germany’s far-right AfD has increased efforts to stage themselves as their true advocates. 

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In November 2020, a speech by Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD Bundestag faction, laid bare the AfD’s attempt to instrumentalize national minorities to stigmatize other ethnic groups in Germany. Storch deliberately misrepresented the federal government’s pledge to protect national minorities. According to Storch, the fact that national minorities are promised protection based on origin, language, and culture, irrespective of their German citizenship, confirms the AfD’s long-held view that national identity cannot be obtained through the acquisition of German citizenship: “If we that ethnic groups and national minorities have a cultural identity that should be preserved, then the same applies to national majorities. You can’t claim that national minorities like the Sorbs, Frisians, and Danes have a cultural identity and at the same time declare that the national majority in Germany doesn’t.”

With this statement, Storch argumentatively and tacitly deprives some German citizens with an immigration background of their German identity as she had openly claimed before: “ is not part of German tradition and identity, and therefore it does not belong to Germany.” Furthermore, Storch misuses national minorities to spread an ultra-nationalistic ideology harbored by large parts of the AfD, according to which there is a national identity of a people that is deeply rooted.

Misusing the Sorbian Minority for Electoral Success

By spreading its nationalist ideology, the AfD is trying to appeal to the strong sense of home and belonging among many members of Germany’s minorities and capitalize on this electorally. Yet, the election results of the last two federal elections do not indicate that the AfD is succeeding in areas with large populations of national minorities – except in eastern German constituencies and settlement areas of the Sorbs. 

During the 2017 federal election, the AfD managed to muster up 40 percent of the votes in the Sorbian-dominated district of Spree-Neiße in southeastern Brandenburg. Despite significant gains, the party still lagged behind the CDU, traditionally voted for by the mostly Catholic Sorbs. In the subsequent federal election, in 2021, the Sorbian village of Puschwitz hit the headlines when the AfD candidate emerged as the victor. Curiously, in the neighboring Sorbian village of Crostwitz the CDU candidate pipped the AfD’s competitor to first place. Hence, it remains questionable whether these two stand-out successes of the AfD in Sorbian counties and municipalities express a seminal affinity of the Sorbian minority to the AfD, especially since the economically weaker eastern German states have been AfD strongholds anyway.

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On the contrary, the relationship between Sorbs and the AfD was strained before these election results. Sorbs have long experienced right-wing extremist hostilities and attacks, but since 2014, with the beginning of the far-right PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicisation of the Occident) demonstrations and the rise of the AfD, the extent has significantly increased. According to Heiko Kosel, an MP of the Saxon state parliament for the leftist party Die Linke, “ on Sorbs are linked to increased xenophobia in Saxony in recent years.” Bilingual street signs were smeared and even graffitied with swastikas. Another example of the AfD’s contribution to the hostile climate toward Sorbs was its resistance to a socio-cultural community center in the East German city of Bautzen, where many Sorbs live, warning against ongoing “ �����澱�Բ�“.

Against this backdrop, an incident during the 2017 general election stirred up the Sorbian community when the AfD once again instrumentalized minority groups to incite xenophobic attitudes toward other ethnic groups. The bone of contention was an election poster that depicted three women in traditional German, one of them in Sorbian attire, with the caption “ diversity? We have it already!” That was unequivocally condemned by the umbrella organization “Domowina,” representing the interests of Sorbs in Germany: “We the use of the Sorbian people to exclude other minorities.”

Overt Racism Against Sinti and Roma

The fact that the AfD’s representation of the interests of national minorities is nothing more than a smokescreen is shown not only by its attempts to play national minorities off against each other but also by its open racism against the national minority of Sinti and Roma. Among Germany’s national minorities the Sinti and Roma occupy a special historic role. During Nazi Germany, they were prosecuted and murdered, resulting in a Genocide of up to 500.000 Sinti and Roma, often referred to as the ” Holocaust.” To this day, Sinti and Roma face discrimination and structural racism. In 2021, authorities recorded antizigan crimes, the year before 128. Antizigan attitudes and sentiments in the center of German society are prevalent. According to a study, 29 percent of the population showed antipathy toward Sinti and Roma. To uncover the dark figure of antizigan sentiment and crime, the German government mandated the Independent Commission on Antiziganism (UKA) in 2019, and an anonymous Reporting and Information Center Antiziganism (MIA) started work in July 2022. In March 2022, the government appointed the first commissioner against Antiziganism and for the life of Sinti and Roma in Germany.

Concerning the Sinti and Roma, the AfD has willingly and repeatedly dropped the covers and counteracted its supposed self-image of being the true representative of the interests of all national minorities. The AfD has been a driving force behind picking up on and promoting antizigan racial prejudice. In a 2019 speech in the German Bundestag about measures to combat antiziganism, the AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier referred to Sinti and Roma as “” („Gypsys“), a racial slur that is condemned by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the main advocacy group representing the interests of German Sinti and Roma: “‘Gypsies‘ is a foreign used by the majority society that is overlaid with clichés and rejected by most members of the minority as discriminatory – because the Sinti and Roma have never called themselves that.” Disregarding this terminological clarification of the people concerned, Frohnmaier contested the designation Sinti and Roma as an “ �ٱ����.”

Evoking Ghosts of the Nazi Past

In June 2018, the Saxon AfD showed no inhibition to evoking the inhumane ghosts of the Nazi past. They did so by submitting a parliamentary request, demanding the collection of demographic data on Sinti and Roma living in . Part of the requested data was the number of German and foreign Sinti and Roma living in Saxony, including their education status. Particularly startling were the queries about irregularities in the compliance with compulsory education and the number of homeless Sinti and Roma. With these suggestive and disparaging questions, the AfD consciously tapped into the persisting circulating prejudices of educational alienation, homelessness, and criminality among Sinti and Roma. With the feeding of false preconceptions and request for a registration of the Sinti and Roma population, the AfD summoned gruesome memories of the systematic genocidal policy of the Nazis against the Sinti and Roma and the Jews, which had also entailed a registration of respective population groups. Hence, collecting population data based on ethnicity is prohibited in Germany.

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Not only the Sinti and Roma were affected by the AfD snubbing this particular lesson from the past. A few weeks after the request for the data collection on the Sinti and Roma, the AfD in the Saxon state parliament also asked for “” on the number of Sorbs in Saxony. Given these efforts, Germany’s National Minority Secretariat, which bundles the interests of the four national minorities, reaffirmed that belonging to a minority is the personal of each individual, which may not be registered, verified, or disputed by the state.

The national minorities in Germany unite in the same vulnerability and need for protection, although their identities and cultures differ. Be it the pitting national minorities against other ethnic groups in Germany, the abuse of national minorities’ symbols for electoral campaigns, open racist attacks against Sorbs and Sinti and Roma, and the disregard for the Nazi past. All these incidents contribute to exposing the AfD’s duplicity and its specious advances toward national minorities for electoral success at the misfortune of others.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The AfD’s Duplicitous Attempt to Target Germany’s National Minorities appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In recent years, radical Islamists have been on the ascendant in a land historically known for tolerant Sufi Islam. Arguably, the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 set in motion an inexorable trend. Now, the separatist movement that wants an independent Kashmiri state has been supplanted in many places by those who want union with or even an ISIS-style .

In such an environment, calling out sexual predators in Kashmir is not easy, especially if perpetrators are Islamists. Victims are often targeted by Islamists for being ‘pro-state’ (read pro-India) and disloyal to the Kashmiri cause.

In this edition of The Interview, 51�Թ� talks to Mantasha Rashid. She is the founder of Kashmir Women’s Collective (KWC), a gender advocacy group. In October, 2018, KWC named “multiple men in Kashmir – from political analysts, media personalities, editors, journalists and bureaucrats, to political workers – of sexually inappropriate behaviour.”

As noted then, “KWC members [were] individually and collectively vilified by a smear campaign, insidiously circulated by the friends of those named.” KWC KWC received a torrent of threatening emails and messages attempting to silence them. 

Here, Rashid speaks about what inspired her to start KWC, its mission and purpose. She goes on to explain the origins of #MeToo in Kashmir, the major milestones accomplished by KWC, patriarchy and religious conservatism in Kashmir, excesses by Indian security forces, the politicization of gender-based violence in Kashmir, and the complications that arise when women speak out.

Vikram Zutshi: What was the inspiration behind KWC and what are key milestones in its journey? 

Mantasha Rashid: KWC is inspired by , a black women’s organization from the 1970s that worked to address racism and sexism against black women in the US through intersectional feminism. 

While doing a master’s program on gender and sexuality in the US, I realized that we needed to have such an organization in Kashmir. We started in 2016 and registered as a trust in 2017.

From the outset, KWC has been providing legal and psycho-social support to victim-survivors of violence in Kashmir. We also do capacity building, training workshops for students, police, teachers and religious preachers on the issues of gender rights, sexual abuse, harassment at workplace etc. Hence, the focus is educational: we provide support services and advocacy on issues pertaining to gender. 

 Zutshi: How did #MeToo start in Kashmir? The journalists and writers in your #MeToo allegations have stayed studiously silent. Is there another list of offenders that KWC plans to release? Also, do you see any chance for due process to take its course and bring perpetrators to justice?

Rashid: #MeToo is not indigenous to Kashmir. As you know, it is a global movement. KWC began after an informal discussion about the #MeToo movement in our KWC office. Volunteers who were young girls revealed some disturbing details. They told us about prominent men hiding their marital status and luring young girls on the pretext of marriage or guidance in career, internships, academic references etc into inappropriate relationships. When we asked them as to why young girls like them did not shame these men in public, they replied that if they revealed their identity, their families would not accept their revelations and, once their experience became publicly known, their families would be shamed. Kashmir is a small, closed and conservative society where social consequences for women who speak out can be serious. On hearing this, we felt that KWC could act as an interface between these young girls and society. It would collect the stories of these girls and publish them while safeguarding the identity of the girls themselves.

We decided that under no circumstances shall we reveal the names of these girls. The girls reposed their trust in us. They gave us their narratives on the condition that we would protect their identities. The status, credentials or political association of these men were of no consequence to us and we can say with certainty that it didn’t matter to those girls either. 

Our #MeToo movement was centered on women’s experiences and did not pay any heed to the accused men’s families, professions or politics. Unfortunately, some people tried to taint us as pro-state and pro-India voices. Had that been the case, the list of names we compiled would not have officers from state and central services, journalists and even a woman who was the aunt of a girl and had abused her since childhood.

When you ask if we intend to release any more narratives, we would say no. We could not release a few narratives because many women were threatened and withdrew their consent. They apologized for letting us down but their wellbeing is our primary concern.

Zutshi: How many cases of sexual violence do you attribute to Indian security forces? Did any of the victims receive justice? 

Rashid: There are some cases in public knowledge like . A few like that of bride have been documented by and in the book edited by Urvashi Butalia’s edited book, Speaking Peace: Women’s Voices from Kashmir. From what I know, no convictions have been made so far in any cases involving Indian security forces.

Zutshi: How is KWC tackling endemic issues like domestic abuse, sexual violence and mental health conditions? How challenging has it been to get institutional support for your efforts? 

Rashid: It is immensely challenging to hear the stories of abuse and violence at any time of the day, through messages and phone calls as well as in person too. Also, we are a network of volunteering women who do their respective jobs and professions. This makes it quite hard for us. Burnout and time management stress are common. 

My PhD is about violence against women and its findings clearly show that these issues are neither recognized nor understood through the lens of gender-based violence. Instead, they are seen as aberrations, or as individual cases in isolation. A larger policy and action framework is missing despite there being a women’s police station in Srinagar. Its functioning will baffle you as the police focus is on mediation even after clear incidents of physical violence in marriage and even dowry.

As far as institutional support for KWC goes, thus far we have never approached any institution for any support. We have not taken any government or private funding. A few of us donate our time and some money to support and run KWC. We are a non-partisan and objective group with absolutely no political or religious affiliation. We have a few lawyers and counselors who volunteer their services for our network. We refer cases that come to our attention from time to time to these specialized volunteers after our primary intervention. 

Zutshi: How does the ingrained conservatism of Kashmiri society prevent victims from speaking out? What could be done to make the process easier for them? 

Rashid: Kashmir is a closed society and the political conflict has only added to social insecurity. Whenever an issue of gender-based violence or the rights of any minority group are referred to in any social context, it is perceived through the regional political binary lens. The nuances and even facts are often stripped out, reducing the issue to a pro-state or pro-separatist view. 

This is dangerous for any discourse. Such a binary lens shrinks the space for any genuine voice of support or advocacy for gender or minority rights. Also, patriarchy is a global reality, just its manifestations are varied and diverse for different cultures. Even in the US, for example, there are different wages for men and women for the same work. For that matter, black, hispanic, and white women have different experiences because patriarchy is often clubbed with racism.

How will things be easy for women in Kashmir? I think through women’s education to begin with and a lot more social change thereafter. You may find it surprising that an SUV-driving woman who earns no less than nearly $1,900 (Rupees 150,000) per month (a relatively high figure in Kashmir) comes to seek support from us at KWC. Her problem is that her husband is uninterested and neglectful, both financially and emotionally. The lady has no option but to seek a divorce. However, she and her parents are in a fix because she has three sisters who are yet to be married. If this lady divorced her husband, that could potentially cause problems for her sisters in finding suitable grooms.We have a big challenge: how do we deal with such societal attitudes? And it is not an isolated case, such archaic stigmas are widely prevalent in Kashmiri society. 

A lot needs to be done both at an institutional level and at the community level by taking major stakeholders on board. It may come as a surprise to you that, even though a shelter home for women in distress is mandated by legislation on domestic violence, it does not exist on the ground. In its absence, we have housed women in our KWC office for months altogether. There’s a lot that needs to be done. 

Zutshi: Finally, what role does the decades-long Kashmir conflict play in enabling predators and what are some possible solutions?  

Rashid: In a political conflict any issue is dovetailed to anti-state and pro-state, anti-freedom movement or pro-freedom movement narratives. It is nearly impossible to break free of these larger regional political narratives and advocate for any social cause. However, we at KWC largely feel that we have achieved our objective. We simply wanted to create a space in public discourse where these sensitive issues of discrimination, bodily violation, and violence against women are accepted, recognized and  addressed seriously.

Whether women  or girls took their cases to courts, received apology, or their allegations were contested was the second step which didn’t directly concern KWC. Our job was just to be a platform for stories of young Kashmiri girls, to shield them and to protect their identity. 

Sadly, the fact remains that no institutional actions were initiated against the accused by their respective offices. They did not even investigate serious allegations and check on their facticity.

#MeToo is not only a women’s issue but a societal issue of dignity and safety of half the population. Data from the (WHO) reveals that “across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner – a number that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade.”

The reason for such alarming WHO numbers is that largely power is disproportionately titled in favor of men. #MeToo was a symbolic gesture of channelizing women’s rage worldwide to tilt this power imbalance, however little its outcome may have been. I strongly feel that #MeToo was necessary and many more such movements are essential for progress.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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From struggles and revolutions for independence during colonization to their role as suicide bombers in terrorism and terrorist groups, women have always participated in conflicts. Women in terrorism captured the attention of the global population from onwards when they were being by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in droves. The figure of the female terrorist presents a conundrum. On the one hand, as one who commits acts of violence, she is a perpetrator of human rights violations against her own gender and others. On the other hand, structural human rights violations increase her vulnerability to radicalization. The female terrorist then seems to be caught between these two positions, where both law and politics are struggling to accommodate such a figure within their ambits.

The problem lies in the fact that women typically have been viewed from the of being victims rather than having political agency. Accounts of men’s violence and terrorism typically are seen as rational and male terrorists are seen as active perpetrators of political violence. In contrast, accounts of women’s participation in terrorism is characterised as . This sets up a false dichotomy that translates to an understanding of agency that is gendered, with women’s violence being seen as exceptional.

Women as Victims, Not Perpetrators of Violence

In international law, the women, peace and security () agenda mainly focuses on victims of sexual violence during conflicts. UN Security Council Resolution in WPS has only one with one sentence that mentions female radicalization: “…to conduct and gather gender-sensitive research and data collection on the drivers of radicalization for women, and the impacts of counter-terrorism strategies on women’s human rights and women’s organizations” (para. 12). This is a fraught area within the WPS Agenda with a confusing wording, where women are presented as both problem and solution in the same sentence. Furthermore, the WPS model falls within heteronormativity—it is heterosexual and heteropatriarchal. The WPS space needs to be recast as something else which does not carry the cultural baggage of gender stereotypes and of these normative frameworks.

Too many have taken a simplistic view of women’s violence as a result of personal failures.  Such a recasting is important because the female terrorist is currently presented without any political agency. The model at present is quite simplistic and reductive, reflecting the way in which women’s violence is generally constructed as resulting from personal failures, lost love and irrational emotionality. Consider the reasons given for women’s radicalization by the of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality: “a sense of duty to defend their Muslim brothers and sisters”, “a sense of adventure”, “the prospect of marriage” (p. 26). These reasons are repeated in several policy reports and papers that have come out over the last few years on this topic. 

The ‘push’ and ‘pull’ that are given for women’s violence are that they are frustrated in their personal lives, have unsatisfactory love lives and are looking for an emotional outlet, while the allure of militancy is that it is an adventure, and that they are rebelling against patriarchal injunctions in their own families. Caron E. Gentry and Laura Sjoberg state in Beyond Mothers, Monsters and Whores that how violent women matter in global politics is typically through “the mother, monster and whore narratives which confine them to vengeance, insanity and sexuality and deny the possibility that they could be choosing their actions” (p.20). 

The female terrorist is then always presented as someone’s wife, partner, mother, daughter, sister. And we keep coming back to the tropes of the public/private when the female terrorist is characterized as such, where the public sphere is seen to be the rational male space, and the private sphere the ‘irrational’ and ‘emotional’ space. Narratives of women and violence then become sensational and stylized, where their private love and sex lives, lack of ideal femininity as well as lack of political agency become construed as the drivers of terrorism and militancy.

This is not to say that all policy reports do this. The UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate’s “Gender Dimensions of the Response to Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters” acknowledges the need to take a different approach. However, this report is one among the few while a majority of the policy reports thus far rehash the stereotypes.

Women’s Agency in Violent Extremism

News reports and coverage of such women popularized the term ‘jihadi bride’ with regards to women joining ISIS, and several scholars have commented on how problematic this is. The connotation of “jihadi bride” is that these women are infantilized as brides and tabloid sensationalism flattens a complicated but necessary debate about political agency.

The flip side to this, however, is that when talking about such women, especially in the context of foreign terrorist fighters where some left to fight in ISIS as young as 15-year-olds, where does one draw the line between vulnerability and agency?  We need to be to the coercion and violence many female members experience themselves.

At the heart of it all is theinability of the broader cultural to conceive that women are capable of being attracted to violence for reasons that are their own. The gendered narratives of women’s violence ultimately leads to women’s invisibility in legal and political narratives of terrorism, where ultimately women then can only be seen�� as victims. Any deviation from this is seen as going down a about what it means to be a woman. This appears to cancel the possibility that women may not always behave in ways that we as a society expect them to, thus giving rise to sensationalized narratives and framing their violence as exceptional.

��[The author is a����on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls with�� who helped publish this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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One way of framing the moral question that so radically divides Americans is to raise a thought experiment in the form of a provocative question: can anyone ever justify detonating a bomb in a building, with massive destruction of property and loss of human lives? The very thought of it seems preposterous.

But, what if the building were, say, the Auschwitz gas chamber in 1944, and the casualties were SS guards? famously wrote a letter to Hitler in 1939. The Mahatma appealed to the Führer for peace. Of course, we now know how naïve Gandhi was on that occasion. Nonviolent resistance worked when facing an oppressor like the British Empire, but the Third Reich was another ballgame. And for that very reason, if anybody ever detonated a bomb in the Auschwitz gas chamber— and in the process some SS guards died—, most reasonable people would have likely agreed that, at the very least, such an action would have been morally acceptable.

The person who detonated the bomb would not have been a terrorist. He/she would have been a freedom fighter. A terrorist targets civilians to advance a particular political point. In contrast, a freedom fighter targets combatants as self-defense. In our hypothetical scenario, the freedom fighter would have detonated a bomb in order to stop an ongoing genocide, and whatever casualties there may have been, they were active perpetrators of the genocide (SS guards), or victims who were about to die in the Holocaust anyway.

A disturbing thought experiment

Now, there are reasonable people on both sides of the abortion debate. But it is important to think about the implications of the anti-abortion view. If the fetus is a person, then in the United States alone, more than half a million persons per year are deliberately killed in abortion clinics. such killings have occurred since Roe v Wade in 1973. While not technically a genocide (in the sense of seeking to wipe out an entire ethnic group), it is very close to it, given the staggering number of victims. This raises the question: whenever someone detonates a bomb in an abortion clinic­ (as it occasionally happens), is that person a terrorist or a freedom fighter?

The overwhelming majority of those who hold anti-abortion views will be quick to say that such bombings are despicable acts of terrorism. But if the fetus is a person, how different is that from the freedom fighter who detonates a bomb in the Auschwitz gas chamber? The purpose in both cases is the same: an attempt to stop an ongoing genocide. Noncombatants are not targeted: in one case, SS agents are targeted; in the other case, active perpetrators of the genocide (abortion doctors and their assistants, women who want to interrupt pregnancies) are targeted. In both cases, innocent victims may be killed (Jews, unborn babies), but they were about to die anyways, and the bombing may actually contribute to save their brethren, by stopping the genocide.

Those who uphold the anti-abortion view may argue that there are legal ways of stopping the genocide, and for that very reason, any violent act targeting abortion clinics is unwarranted. Indeed, Roe v Wade has already been overturned. But at least in the initial phases of these changes, abortion will likely remain legal until six weeks. If the fetus is a person at conception, then even with the overturning of Roe v Wade, hundreds of thousands of persons will still be killed in abortion clinics.

In any case, the legal changes are still part of a long-term strategy. After the overturning of Roe v Wade, there is now a phase of debate amongst legislators at the state level. And while judges and politicians engage in endless debate, each year a large number of persons will continue to be killed in abortion clinics. Perhaps there may have been some diplomatic way to persuade Hitler to stop the killing machine in Auschwitz, but at the rate that Jews were taken to the gas chamber every day, there was no time to wait for nonviolent solutions. Something had to be done immediately. The same reasoning applies to abortion clinic bombings.

Secular humanist philosopher Stephen Kershnar sums up the argument as follows in his book “if the pro-life position is true, then it is permissible to assassinate abortion doctors. My argument rested on two premises. First, lethal violence may sometimes be used to defend innocent parties. Second, if the pro-life position is true, then, sometimes, assassinating abortion doctors is an instance of such defense.”

Can logic solve the problem?

Any reasonable person is presumably repulsed by the idea of approving abortion clinic bombings. But, if the above arguments are valid­ — as I believe they are­ — then only those of us who believe that the fetus is not a person are holding a consistent view. Those who bomb abortion clinics are terrorists ­—not freedom fighters — because they are not attempting to stop a genocide, inasmuch as fetuses are not persons. Nevertheless, those terrorists are more coherent than those pro-lifers whose views imply that there is an ongoing genocide, but somehow shy away from accepting the use of legitimate methods of self-defense to stop that genocide.

Philosophers are very fond of modus tollens. This is a deductive argument, in which we say, “if p, then q; not q, therefore not p”. If it is raining, then it is wet outside; it is not wet outside, therefore it is not raining. As applied to the abortion debate, the following modus tollens argument can be made: if the fetus is a person, then bombing abortion clinics is justified; bombing abortion clinics is not justified; therefore, the fetus is not a person. There are endless discussions about what exactly a person is, when exactly the nervous system has a capacity to feel pain, and so on. Those discussions are important, but in the meantime, this simple — but powerful — argument sheds light on the question of personhood, and it indicates that given the moral abhorrence of bombing abortion clinics, the fetus is not a person. And if the fetus is not a person, then abortion is morally neutral, and it ought not to be outlawed.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In recent years, the Pakistan Army has been trying to stabilize civilian governments instead of destabilizing them. Cynics will of course disagree. They might claim that the military had no option but to cut its losses that prompted its current “neutral” stance. However, this is at best a half-truth and overlooks the fact the military could have intervened decisively as it did in the past. Instead, the military now allows Pakistan’s political, constitutional and judicial processes to run.

Does this mean that the military will stay out of the political domain forever? The answer is that we do not know for sure. A lot will depend on both civilian and military leaders as well as political and economic conditions in the country.

An Unusual General in Pakistan

As of now the Pakistan Army led by General Qamar Javed Bajwa is letting civilian politicians run the country. Imran Khan has been voted out by the parliament and Shehbaz Sharif is the new prime minister in a coalition government. This government is running the country with little interference from the military, which is largely trying to stabilize the situation.

Bajwa was not always so benign to democracy. He interfered with the Nawaz Sharif (elder brother of the current prime minister) government who was eventually pushed into in 2017. Next year, Bajwa favored Khan and helped him become prime minister. Reports reveal that some candidates were pressured to change loyalties, others were persuaded against running for office, elections were manipulated and other dirty tricks employed. After the 2018 elections, independent members were corralled into Khan’s party. The military backed Khan both at the national and the state level. His party won a majority in the state legislature of Punjab, Pakistan’s dominant state. 

From 2018, Bajwa has changed course. The military has not been interfering in politics. Bajwa served Khan loyally and tried to make his government a success. The military fixed many of Khan’s blunders vis-à-vis close allies like China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Even when Khan went against the military’s advice, Bajwa did not act against the elected government. Eventually, Khan lost the confidence of his parliament because he was incompetent and grew delusional over time.

A Step to Normalization and Democracy

Most importantly, the military top brass accepted to the defense budget in 2019 as Pakistan faced economic woes and rushed with a begging bowl yet again to the International Monetary Fund. The military supported the Khan government when it passed to steer Pakistan out of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list. The is an organization that focuses on combating money laundering, a common practice in Pakistan where some of the proceeds are used to finance terrorism.

Bajwa’s biggest achievement has been pushing better ties with India despite Khan’s incendiary anti-India rhetoric. He has called for with India, begun back channel initiatives to kick off trade and negotiated a on the Line of Control that forms the de facto border with India. Most recently, 50,000 of Indian wheat has been rolling through Pakistan for Afghanistan, saving millions of lives. For the first time, there is hope that the military is finally supporting the normalization of ties with India.

Unlike many of his predecessors, Bajwa did not step in when the Khan government suffered a meltdown. He has scrupulously avoided displaying any Bonapartist tendencies in the land of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf. Now, a coalition is in charge and the Bajwa-led military is abiding by the constitution. If the military withdraws from politics and democracy strengthens in Pakistan, Bajwa would have left an enduring legacy for his country.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Controversial Verdict Against Osman Kavala

The court case against the Gezi protests counts as one of the most egregious and partisan prosecutions conducted during Erdoğan’s rule. The defendants were initially acquitted of all charges by a penal court in 2020. However, after Erdoğan’s of the 2020 ruling, the court of appeals overturned the verdict, paving the way to a second trial. The harsh sentences handed down on April 25 mark some of the most severe crackdowns on freedom of assembly in Turkey over the past decade. They demonstrate the total capitulation of the judicial system under Erdoğan’s rule after the country transitioned to a presidential regime in 2018.

On numerous occasions, Erdoğan has attacked Kavala personally, him of being “the Soros of Turkey.” Still, the Gezi trial goes beyond a personal vendetta against Kavala and the other seven defendants. Accusing Kavala of masterminding the Gezi protests allows the government to put the blame for the mass uprising on outside actors. The reality, is that the Gezi protests did not have a leader. They arose spontaneously because of the strength of the Turkish civil society at the time. The Gezi trial comes at a time when Erdoğan’s popularity is waning thanks to the economic downturn and the migration crisis. By pronouncing Kavala guilty of a spurious charge and packing him to prison, the Erdoğan government is seeking  to intimidate government opponents and criminalize any protests.

Peace in the World, Autocracy at Home

The Gezi verdict was announced in the wake of Erdoğan’s efforts for reconciliation with the US and the EU after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In recent weeks, Ankara has been praised by western governments for providing Ukraine with and closing the Bosphorus or Dardanelles to Russian warships. Erdoğan skillfully used the Ukrainian crisis to break his regime’s diplomatic isolation.

The Turkish president has performed a tricky balancing act, supporting Ukraine militarily and diplomatically on the one hand while maintaining cordial relations withRussia. Erdoğan’s attempts at rapprochement in the international arena are in stark contrast to the increasing repression of his critics in Turkey. Last week’s verdict can be seen as an example of Erdoğan’s estimation that the West is too distracted by the Russia-Ukraine War to object to a crackdown on the president’s critics. Faced with increased opposition coordination, Erdoğan faces a tough reelection battle in the upcoming months. As a result, Erdoğan is expected to step up the pressure on his opponents until the next presidential elections due in the summer of 2023.

The Gezi verdict is an ominous warning for others whose political cases are still pending in court. The against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is arguably the most consequential among them. Accused by the state prosecutor’s office of having close organizational links with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the HDP case will soon be decided by the Turkish Constitutional Court. Hundreds of HDP politicians, including the party’s former chairman Selahattin Demirtaş, are already in prison. 

If the constitutional court decides against the HDP, Turkey’s third-largest party will be closed down and hundreds of politicians will face a political ban of five years. Another important case involves İstanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is currently facing several investigations that could result in his removal from office, and even criminal conviction. As the judicial system comes under Erdoğan’s control, these cases will be decided on partisan calculations rather than law.

Lastly, the Gezi trial poses a serious political dilemma for the EU. Turkey’s accession talks with the EU have stalled over the past decade. And yet the two sides continue to enjoy an important working relationship on security issues and migration. Turkey’s geostrategic importance has become even more important after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the Gezi sentencing is poised to push Turkey further away from Europe and complicate the EU’s efforts to cooperate with Erdoğan’s government.

On February 2, reported that the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ voted “to begin infringement proceedings against Turkey is an important step to support human rights protection in Turkey and uphold the international human rights framework.” After Kavala’s guilty verdict, Turkey’s voting rights in the Council of Europe could be suspended and even its membership may be in jeopardy

Germany, France, and the US, along with EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, expressed dismay at the April 25 judgment. found the “heavy politicization” of the trial “deeply troubling” because it exemplified, “once again, the systematic lack of independence of the Turkish judiciary. The Council has repeatedly stated that the targeting of human rights defenders runs counter to Turkey’s obligation to respect democracy and the rule of law.”

 The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock took a stand against  the judicial verdict against Kavala. She it was “in stark contrast to the rule-of-law standards and international obligations to which Turkey is committed as a member of the Council of Europe and an EU accession candidate.”

Erdoğan has become an autocratic strongman who is persecuting his opponents. European policymakers should continue to speak out on human right violations in Turkey and raise the stakes for Erdoğan’s harsh treatment of critics as the country heads into an election year. Turkish democracy is going through a tough time and needs the support of its European friends.

(This text was first published on the SWP website as a “Point of View” .)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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A Descent into the ‘Win At All Costs’ Dark Side

Well before the 21^st century, a steady-state tradition had built up in democracies whereby freedom of speech was often passionate, but nevertheless generally respectful, even when opponents evoked vehement disagreement. Such popular periodicals as Private Eye, Le Canard Enchainé and Charlie Hebdo continue the tradition of satirically speaking truth to power, as do many newspapers, while academics continue to expound their theories and opinions in a variety of academic channels, and sometimes in the popular press. While often controversial, vigorous, and even barbed – and whether impartial or partisan, measured or polemical – the essence of this tradition has been the principle of engaging, debating, analyzing, weighing, informing, and coexisting.  This is all in the public interest, so as to develop and promulgate the most powerful arguments rather than the arguments of the most powerful.

This social contract of normative behavior started to break down noticeably towards the end of the first decade of this century, coinciding with the rise of social media. It has degenerated to such an extent that by now this civil standard is regarded by a significant minority as a contemptible relic that must be abandoned. Increasingly, respect for opposing world-views and opinions has been jettisoned in favor of a shrill determination to crush anyone whose ideas challenge one’s own preconceptions. 

The arguments of the most overbearing and ‘shouty’ now swamp the most powerful arguments with their disproportionate noise and impact. In essence, it is a bullying and bellicose ‘win at all costs’ approach, which might have been taken out of an imaginary ‘Megalomanic Dictator’s Guide to Advancement and Self-Preservation’. According to Ukrainian academic, Anton Shekhovtsov, the claim that Putin is a real – and arguably fascist – is a case in point. Individuals and groups at all levels in society may display remarkably similar characteristics to Putin’s ruthless determination to dominate others with little or no concern about the resulting harm. As Ignazio Silone’s 1930s semi-autobiographies Fontamara and The Seed Beneath the Snow chronicling survival in a fascist society reveal, ‘fascism’ – both in the popular sense of overbearing nastiness and as a political ideology – is characterized in daily life by such mundane personality flaws as envy, greed, vanity, resentment,  inadequacy, entitlement, sociopathy, criminality etc.

The following cases exemplify the new intolerance, including the much abused ‘weaponisation’ of the terms ‘fascist’ and ‘anti-fascist’ by countervailing interests.

Case A: Extreme Commentators and Agitators

The extreme statements by Donald Trump during his 2016-2020 US presidency are infamous. was an avid user of his Twitter social media account and had few qualms about issuing personal rants in undiplomatic – and certainly un-presidential – language against a wide range of individuals and groups that he decried. These included senior US politicians, government officials, judges, war heroes, foreign politicians and heads of state, as well as journalists, film stars, sportspersons, and celebrities, but also Mexicans, Muslims, Iranians, disabled persons, refugees and many other objects of his disdain. 

In Trump’s narcissistic world-view, there is a dichotomy between winners/predators like himself and losers/victims who deserve all their problems and suffering and who, moreover, may be dismissed as unpatriotic, “socialist” (i.e. crypto-communist) agitators. To him, a loser is anyone lacking his personality and world-view or daring to challenge or criticize his ideas or policies, even constructively. Such Trumpian abuses have been widely discussed, for example by Roger Paxman, Kevern Verney, and Alan Waring in and Denis Fischbacher-Smith, Clive Smallman, Antony Vass, and Alan Waring in . As Smallman noted, such “toxic leadership is not ‘luck of the draw’”.

Trump’s combative style has helped to polarize political debate in the US and encourage partisan non-cooperation between the Republican (GOP) and Democratic parties. This has continued into the subsequent Biden administration. Moreover, Trump’s attitude and conduct (most notoriously his ‘dog-whistle’ priming of a radical-right mob to the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021) gave a further green light to an expanding group of radical-right GOP Congress members. 

A growing caucus of such – including Andy Biggs, , Ted Cruz, , , Ron Johnson, Ron Paul, and –has done so, to the extent that the GOP is no longer seen as a ‘one-nation’ conservative party. Instead, it has become a populist radical-right (and potentially far-right) party in which mainstream Republican politicians are increasingly intimidated and marginalized by their more outspokenly extreme colleagues. The of Kinzinger and Cheney are especially instructive here.

Trump (an outspoken of Putin and his aggressive nationalism, with a notable ambivalence towards his Ukraine invasion) and his GOP allies have been joined in their intolerant statements by a bandwagon of like-minded fringe political commentators and agitators. They have been adept at using their media spaces to vilify naysayers and stridently promulgate radical-right opinions – even extreme ones – as well as absurd conspiracy theories (such as ). Among these are , and, at News, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

Until recently, the gigantic and belligerent radical-right megaphone system in the US has not been mirrored by anything similar on the radical left.

Case B: Cancel Culture in Higher Education

In recent years, there has been a trend for some university students to demand that their lecturers must not include any content that these students may find objectionable, and that university authorities should ban lecturers or speakers whose intellectual views they may not like . Students taking part in such have become known derisively as . In some instances, protests have turned .

Student cancel culture runs counter to the primary purpose of university education, which traditionally aimed at developing constructively critical analysis rather than prejudicial rejection. Indeed, intellectual challenge and discomfort is a necessary part of university education as a means of developing understanding and sharpening evaluative skills. 

In considering how to shape academic freedom, especially in the digital age, we have seen undue pressure applied to individual academics who have published opinion pieces causing offense to some readers. Noting that an opinion is typically a subjective and biased view of an issue –even when given by an acknowledged expert, since no one’s world-view is value-free or experience-free– researcher Jaime da Silva : “Pressure-induced retractions of opinions not only stifle academic debate, they also send the message that opinions need to be moderated and standardized to meet a publishing market that is being increasingly driven by legal parameters, political correctness, as well as business and commercial values rather than academic ones.” Yangyang Cheng writing for The Atlantic also concomitant business, commercial and, occasionally, political pressures. Da Silva continued, noting that “the way things are said, tone, and the sensitivity of those that might be affected are given greater weight than the message itself. By cherry-picking parts of the message that detractors or critics might disagree with, the original message may be drowned out by the noise of the objectors.” The requirement for universities to show proper integrity and firmness against such pressures has never been more urgent.

Case C: Counter-Extremist ‘Cancelled’ for Not Being Anti-Fascist Enough

A stout rejection of fascism could be assumed to be a sine qua non for any member of a body comprising doctoral and post-doctoral fellows dedicated to the analysis of the radical right and countering any associated extremism. Indeed, one such body that for years had been proud of such credentials was what I shall call the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Research Group (hereafter RWARG), a pseudonym used here to save any possible embarrassment. All members were required to contribute non-peer reviewed opinion pieces regularly to the RWARG’s flagship online blog. One such member, Dr. Smith (another pseudonym), had been doing so for some years without controversy when unexpectedly his latest article received a blitz of vituperative reaction online from some fellow members.

Their ire had been provoked, it seems, by his observation that whereas most attention was deservedly focused on the radical right, and the latter’s propensity for the use of threats and even violence to achieve their aims, some radical-left supporters were also now advocating similar tactics against the far right. Although he referenced some specific US examples of violent actions, and articles implying, if not specifically advocating, violence from so-called ‘Antifa’ groups, the RWARG’s online blog editorial policy did not require opinion-piece authors to meet the standards of a double-blind peer reviewed academic paper in order to justify every statement. After all, as da Silva observed, an expressed opinion is typically “a subjective and biased view of an issue”, and blog articles are intended to provoke thought rather than necessarily to inform impartially or, indeed, comprehensively. Moreover, this example validates da Silva’s observation that “the sensitivity of those that might be affected [is] given greater weight than the message itself.”

The thrust of Dr. Smith’s piece was thus to challenge the notion that it is ever acceptable to use or advocate violence as a political policy, strategy or tactic, and cited the well-worn heuristic that ‘violence begets violence’. He was debunking the sophistry that it is morally acceptable for anti-fascists (of any hue) to resort to violent tactics, whether reactive or pre-emptive, against radical-right extremists simply because the latter may have a violent predisposition.

The hysterical reaction to Dr. Smith’s piece was orchestrated by a cabal of members and like-minded academics who went on the offensive first by circulating a strident denunciation of the author,signed by over twenty individuals and demanding a radical reorganization “to prevent far-right members from joining and subverting the organization”. After each signatory’s name, the designation “anti-fascist” was added, presumably for the avoidance of doubt. 

The cabal then hastily organized an online fellows’ conference in order to discuss Dr. Smith and his article, as well as to present demands for an overhaul of the RWARG’s editorial policy and a radical reform of the Group. Their apparent objective was to (a) prevent any further opinion pieces criticizing anti-fascist aggression, (b) prevent anyone gaining membership whose views did not fully meet the cabal’s concepts of fascism and anti-fascism, and (c) expel any member who transgressed the cabal’s new criteria. Partisan censorship of articles that offended the cabal had now become a high risk.

To this author – an attendee of the online meeting – the exercise resembled a Stalinist show trial. Apparently, Dr. Smith was neither invited to attend nor informed that he was, in effect, ‘on trial’. Not only was his offending article canceled but so too was his membership.

A further circular from the cabal continued the professional and character assassination of Dr. Smith. However, it also vilified Professor Jones (another pseudonym), the co-founding Director of RWARG, accusing him of complicity in Dr. Smith’s ‘crime’ for defending the rights of members to hold different viewpoints, as well as attacking his personality and character. Unsurprisingly, the Director and a number of members resigned. This cabal thus achieved a successful insurgent coup led by self-righteous and self-validating ‘anti-fascist’ zealots. Although continuing to proclaim its ‘broad church’ membership, the new RWARG would only be tolerating those closely allied to the new illiberal orthodoxy. Those with a liberal or centrist abhorrence of fascism would not be welcome since, like Dr. Smith and Prof. Jones, they would no longer be considered anti-fascist enough.

For the new RWARG elite, ‘fascist’ is primarily an all-embracing term for anyone in the radical-right spectrum outside and to the right of mainstream conservatism, whether or not a true, revolutionary, fascist as traditionally defined. However, their use of the term now apparently also encompasses liberals, centrists and mainstream conservatives. To them, a ‘fascist’ is anyone who is not 100% ‘anti-fascist’ by their standards i.e. not as anti-fascist as the RWARG cabal claims to be. Such widespread overuse and misuse of the ‘fascist’ and ‘anti-fascist’ labels has devalued them to near junk status, whether used by academics-turned-frustrated-anti-fascist-warriors or by audacious hegemons such as using fascist tactics against his enemies while accusing them of being the real fascists. 

Conclusion

Politics and the media share with academia an overriding responsibility to identify and promulgate the most powerful arguments, not those of the most overbearing and ruthless. Nor should counter-extremism be hijacked either by zealots or by those more interested in their self-promotion, intellectual vanity, or performative feelings of superiority. Regrettably, this standard is being increasingly ignored by those who should know better.

Politicization and ruthless pursuit of intolerant ideology are replacing civil dialogue, precluding any engagement with or understanding of other world-views. Audiences are subjected to unsolicited rants and intimidating toxic messaging, while individuals singled out as ideological enemies are treated to aggressive ‘wilding’. Subversive ‘freedom of speech’ defenses are thereby exposed as little more than an excuse by zealots to obliterate other people’s freedom of expression.The ugly tactics of some extreme politicians, activists, commentators and ‘snowflake’ students, as well as some self-styled anti-extremists, all reveal an essential illiberalism and a corrupted spirit. The relentless outpouring of vile invective against anyone expressing a contrary opinion is indicative of a deep-seated paranoia and possibly some level of personality disorder. While there is no magic antidote to all this wickedness, sociologist and democracy activist Moshe ben Asher as an essential starting point the radical revitalization of democracy (especially in the US) through popular assemblies. Moreover, there is a desperate need for greater humanity and mindfulness in our dealings with others, friends and adversaries alike.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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No Story Is Worth Dying For

In most Kenyan media schools, the phrase “No Story Is Worth Dying For” is quite a common saying. However, what happens when you fall in love with your work?

Describing herself as a “product of Jerusalem,” with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shaping much of her life, Shireen Abu Akleh has shown the world what it means to be a journalist and what it means  to tell stories that  affect you as a journalist and your community. In her own words, her only mission was to be close to her people, and within her people she was killed.

“I chose to become a journalist to be close to people. It may not be easy to change reality, but I was at least able to bring their voice to the world,” Abu Akleh said in a taped for the Qatari channel’s 25th anniversary.��

Journalism in Africa Has Become a Travesty

When I was growing up, I listened to Kenya Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Taifa and watched KBC Channel 1 —  that’s what we had at that time and I must say that the type of journalism exhibited was mind-blowing. A type of journalism that can only be compared to Abu Akleh’s.

Today, African journalists have turned their craft into a very ordinary career reserved for cool kids, who spent most of their time in big cities or overseas. After spending time overseas, these cool kids return to their homeland and land jobs in major newsrooms, thanks to their polished English. Sadly, most of them have zero journalism skills or storytelling abilities.

While journalists like Ahmed Hussein-Suale,a renowned investigative journalist from Ghana, was in 2019 for his role in exposing the corruption in his country,and Jamal Farah Adan of Somalia, Betty Mtekhele Barasa of Kenya, and dozens were killed in Ethiopia covering the Tigray conflict, it is very unfortunate that some journalists still find it right to use journalism for fame, power, and build future political careers.

Today, some Kenyan journalists engage in uncalled-for social media wars with critics who point out their lack of skills and unreasonable theatrics for clout chasing.

We have lost the basics of journalism such as good storytelling. Instead, journalists are thirsty for social media numbers, likes, and retweets. We don’t verify anymore. As long as it helps increase the number of followers, it goes for publishing. Right now, distinguishing a professionally trained journalist from a socialite is becoming an uphill task.

African Governments Must Learn from Palestine

Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli forces just eight days after the world marked the World Press Freedom Day on May 3. With such events, African governments need to step up and steer clear of Israeli-like behaviors of gagging the media, and instead, just like Palestine gave Abu Akleh the freedom to tell her people’s story, they should also give the same freedom to their journalists.

In March, Ugandan authorities the offices of Digitalk, an online tv station known for airing critical views of President Yoweri Museveni and his family. Other than confiscating the TV’s production and broadcasting equipment, they also arrested and charged its reporters with cyberstalking and offensive communication. The charges could see them facing up to seven years in prison.��

The killing of this brave journalist who dared to tell the stories of the oppressive Israeli should not kill the spirits of journalists worldwide. Instead, this should be an inspiration to every reporter to work even harder,  to help give voice to the voiceless, uphold justice and make the world a better place for every person whether in Gaza, Tigray, Libya, Syria or Afghanistan among other countries and regions experiencing instability.

(Senior Editor Francesca Julia Zucchelli edited this article.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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For the last 70 years, Tibet has been under China’s thumb even as Hollywood stars swoon at the Dalai Lama’s feet. Many people think of Tibet as a separate nation with a definable history and a specific cultural identity symbolized by the Dalai Lama. Many are unaware of Tibet’s integration into China and its political subjugation by Beijing. In September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping made clear that Tibet was an integral part of China’s “impregnable fortress” as he decried the heresy of “splittism.” The fate of Tibet shines light on a key issue: can political entities bordering a hegemon exercise sovereignty?

We are living in a world where the 1945 postwar order is ending. The collapse of the Soviet Union has been followed by a bloody war between its two biggest successor states. Oil prices are soaring and inflation is skyrocketing. Fertilizers and food are in short supply because the two big exporters Russia and Ukraine are at war. So, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and many other countries could soon be short of bread, if not oil. 

As the current world order breaks down, what will emerge in its place? Will we see a more fragmented world with regional hegemons competing in their spheres of influence? Or will we see a more multipolar world where dispersed power centers will realize there is no way to survive other than mutual respect and creative collaboration?

I spoke to writer and activist Tenzin Tsundue on a range of issues, spanning from his experience as a Tibetan in India to the state of our modern world. 

The transcript has been edited for clarity. Words in brackets are my insertions to provide context and clarity to Tsundue’s words.

Roberta Campani: How do the Tibetans live in India? 

Tenzin Tsundue: There are about 100,000 Tibetan refugees in India, of which three generations are represented: those who left Tibet (as Tsundue’s parents did), their children who are now adults (like Tsundue) and a third generation (children of Tsundue’s generation) who no longer have direct ties to Tibet. There’s also another group, those who came out of Tibet later on, in the early 2000s and up to 2009 and then it became almost impossible to get out of occupied Tibet. There’s a law in India as per which someone who was born prior to in the country is a citizen regardless of the origin of their parents. (Yet most Tibetans have not applied for citizenship to avoid weakening the Free Tibet Movement.) Like other refugees, Tibetans cannot own property nor vote. In fact, Tibetans don’t even have refugee status because India, like most modern nations, does not recognize Tibet as a state or country. 

We are considered foreigners, we have to get a document that lasts one year. This makes it hard to plan long-term, build a house or start a family. Some can get the document extended for five years. But it is hard not to have any stability. On the other hand, the positive side of this situation is that it maintains the impetus to keep working towards going back to our homeland.

Even if India granted us 43 settlements where we have built farms, hospitals, and schools where we are self-subsistent, this was a lot of work. And now the young go to cities and have jobs in IT.

Tibet is known for being the home country of Tenzin Gyatso, now known as the Dalai Lama. He is recognized both as a spiritual and political leader. In 2011, the Dalai Lama gave up his political role and passed it on to the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). 

The CTA was formed in 1959. Some consider it a government in exile. The Dalai Lama’s handing over power to the CTA is historic. He wants Tibetans and Tibet to function democratically. The Sikyong, a figure analogous to a prime minister, and a parliament is elected every five years. 

Apart from 100,000 Tibetans in India, there are another 50,000 in other countries. All of them can elect members of the parliament and participate in activities of the CTA.

Roberta Campani: What can this impetus achieve given the current situation in China?

Tenzin Tsundue: China looks at Tibetan culture and religion as the biggest obstacle to assimilation. The Chinese want to homogenize Tibet and reduce it into Beijing’s backyard. They see that Tibetans are united over their cause. They are also united with Tibetans in exile.

Tibetan culture is very different from Chinese culture. China believes in bombing mountains, making money out of Tibetan minerals and resources, and damming rivers. In contrast, Tibetans believe that there are gods and goddesses in the mountains, and they are sacred for our living. Our environment is not to serve us. We are part of the environment. Philosophically, we look at land and resources very differently from the Chinese. They also look at people as resources to make them do cheap labor and make money for the capitalists. That is not how we look at life. Tibetan nomads and farmers are “rehabilitated” in reservations, kind of artificial villages so they lose touch and connection with their own land.

Tibet lies north of the Himalayas. It is a large high-altitude plateau inhabited largely by Buddhists who brave bitter winters and lead largely simple lives. Known as the roof of the world, historians speak of a geographical Tibet and a political Tibet. There is also a cultural Tibet associated with meditation, spirituality, esoteric practices, mystique and, in our Hollywoodish times, personified by the beatific Dalai Lama.

In May 1951, the Dalai Lama’s envoys were forced to sign a Seventeen Point Agreement with the Chinese. For the first time, an agreement formally recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. This agreement, though, was signed to avoid a brutal military invasion by the Chinese. Beijing has always claimed Tibet to be an autonomous region belonging to the Chinese nation.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims that it has brought progress to benighted and feudal Tibet. The CCP says that it has bettered the lives of ordinary Tibetans by bringing modern technology and economic growth. The question arises whether this progress was worth it given the decimation of Tibetan culture and the destruction of Tibet’s once pristine environment.

Roberta Campani: Can you give us some background about what brought the situation to this point?

Tenzin Tsundue: Tibet had been a free and independent country right from the beginning until China’s invasion in 1951. What is called the western romanticization of Shangri-La is Tibet — 2.5 million square kilometers of land, geographically the biggest and highest plateau in the world. Tibetans have lived in isolation, untouched by western influences  — they have hardly had any relationship with many other countries. Of course, Tibet had relationships with Mongolia in the north, China in the east, India to the south and by extension with other South Asian countries, like Nepal, Burma, Bhutan and Pakistan. And that’s how Tibet lived as an independent country for all these thousands of years. 

And this isolation has also created this very unique language, culture, and identity. In the last 2,000 years, we have received Buddhism from India. It wasn’t Tibetan, it came from India and today, we are keeping that and Buddhism has become the primary identity for Tibetan people. And that’s how we have lived as a free and independent country and that is still existing today.

The Tibetans inside Tibet that are fighting the Chinese attempt to 1. homogenize, and 2. to use Tibet as a colony, which the Chinese mine and make money off. The reason why Tibetans have not been co-opted by Chinese mining and industrialization is because Tibetans have a very different idea of natural resources and the environment and that is a part of Tibetan identity. We look at nature as a larger universe where human beings are part of. We are servants to nature.

This identity comes from a much larger picture of the Tibetan civilization. That civilization, what we are getting to see, is something many countries have lost. We have not. Our Tibetans in Tibet still believe that the country is more important than the people. We are part of the environment. So the continuity of tradition that we are seeing resists the damming of rivers, mining for resources and clear felling of trees in order to make money through all the cheap made in China products.

China is mining and taking all of these natural resources —  lithium, copper, and gold — to make cheap products for the world. See, how China looks at natural resources is very different to Tibet. The China that is emerging today is not even the China of Deng Xiaoping or of Mao Zedong. China has completed a cultural revolution in so many different phases. So many times, China has completely changed. Tibet may have modernized in different ways, but as a civilization, we are continuous.

China-India Clash Wakes Up Tibet’s Ghost of Independence

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Roberta Campani: It seems that this view makes even more sense now that we have climate issues: how could your experience be made useful for the world in general?

Tenzin Tsundue: I don’t want to be condescending by saying we have the best ideas for the world to copy. We will continue our religion, our culture, we have our very unique civilizational beliefs, and if the world, if the international community see that this is of value, they will anyhow take it. 

Roberta Campani: Do you think there is something positive in the “common prosperity” doctrine that China has brought forward these past few years? In particular, if we consider that inequalities and the wider income gap are creating discontent in most of the traditionally democratic countries. 

Tenzin Tsundue: You and I know it very well, it’s all optics. It’s what political parties create to fulfill their own self-interest, like Trump tried to create something for America while pursuing his own interest and Biden is now trying to do that today. The same goes for the propaganda war between Zelensky and Putin. All these optics are for consumption and you cannot just blindly consume that. When China says that it is creating a more equal society by getting rid of the gap between the rich and the poor, we understand it very well. These are political agendas and not social services. 

And as I said earlier, homogenization means that China already has what it calls the Chinese identity and Beijing is trying to impose that on the rest of the people. Homogenization does not mean there is no culture. There is a culture but it’s the majority culture that they are trying to impose on the minorities or the people that are living under China’s occupation. That is homogenization and this is the biggest threat that is happening in Eastern Turkestan, southern Mongolia, and in Manchuria. And the same thing is happening in Hong Kong.

And there is a threat that China may physically, and militarily invade Taiwan in the future. So this homogenization is the main factor why Hong Kong didn’t want to become completely Chinese because the Hong Kong people have their own identity, a social and a cultural tradition there. And they say “we are not like the Chinese in mainland China.” So you see, the Hong Kong people resist because they don’t want to homogenize. They don’t want to be turned into a Chinese backyard.

Of course, physically, Hong Kong is a part of the People’s Republic of China. Still, they have lived separately for almost one or two hundred years. They have their ideas, identity, ways of living, and culture. It’s much more vibrant and democratic there. Now, they are being homogenized. And the international community did not care much about losing Hong Kong.

Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong are not legally recognized as sovereign states. Therefore, other states and the so-called international community cannot take a clear position on them. However, these three geographical and political entities are increasingly in the news.

According to Professor , “Tibet has been an international issue since the 1950s but no serious attempt has been made to address this problem on the main pretext that the status of Tibet was not clear. The lack of clarity on the status of Tibet is not just because of manipulation by the Chinese. The major contributing factor, in fact, was Tibet’s own failure to move along with the tide of the change that was sweeping the world in the 20^th ����Գٳܰ���.”

As per , lawyer and professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton:  “From a legal standpoint, Tibet has to this day not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation.”  

Roberta Campani: What are your thoughts about how the situation could unfold for Tibet? 

Tenzin Tsundue: Today there are many possibilities. I think that the 63 years of exile experience have given us enough sense of resilience and understanding of the world’s political scenario and our own existence. The early shock we got after coming out of Tibet to the outside world where there were already so many scientific advances. For example, when my parents came to India, they were unable to understand what is a bus, what is a car and what is a train. From there we have come to a situation where the third generation is working in IT companies in India. 

So you see this fast-forward advance and experience has given us the understanding that ultimately our freedom struggle is something we have to do ourselves. And we have created enough cultural resistance and even resilience that even if no one helps us today we are still able to maintain our resistance and we’ll come to a point when China collapses we will go back to our country and we will re-establish a free, independent, democratic Tibet. This much confidence is what we have now.

Today, the Tibetan issue is not isolated. More than ever, the issue of the Dalai Lama, who is the reincarnation (of his predecessor), is now more useful to the United States, to the European countries and to India because China has now evolved from a communist country to an industrial nation and a superpower. China is today a threat to the western countries, India, and many other countries that need to tackle China. Now, we have to work with these other countries that might find the issues of Tibet useful to their causes.

Roberta Campani: How could this happen?

Tenzin Tsundue: Look, when we were protesting in 2008, we were saying that China is killing Tibetans and that there is a genocide happening in Tibet, no one cared. Everyone went to participate in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

This year too, in 2022, when the Winter Olympics are happening, suddenly the United States realizes that there are human rights issues with China. That does not mean that they did not know about human rights violations in Tibet and East Turkestan in 2008. This year, 15 countries boycotted — a diplomatic boycott —  these countries are now finding these issues useful for them against China.

This is the understanding we are now getting as Tibetan refugees. Earlier, Tibetans were nothing —  oh, these are just nice, good, goodie people — and the Dalai Lama is non-violent. Now they find the issue of Tibet politically useful. So, how do we have to position ourselves with countries that want to deal with China differently? Are we able to do it? Perhaps, we can even work with China’s pro-democracy activists who would want to see their country as a democracy.

Tibet: A Nonviolent History of War

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Roberta Campani: Are you in touch with people in China who want democracy? 

Tenzin Tsundue: Of course, we are in touch with them but they were themselves persecuted in China and they are now living in foreign countries. 

Roberta Campani: How could this experience that has given you and the Tibetan communities skills and consciousness be helpful? How can you use that experience to raise awareness about other refugees, as it’s a problem all over the world?

Tenzin Tsundue: It is not that the West doesn’t know. It is pretending not to know because its interests up until today have been more into trading with China and not with promoting human rights. We are very well aware of this. As much as we would like to work with western countries on human rights and democracy in China and also freedom for Tibet, we are also aware that the West may be using Tibet today. We would like to work with western countries for democracy in China and freedom in Tibet. 

Roberta Campani: Do you know there is a fascination with Tibetan culture that is actually not so well known?

Tenzin Tsundue: I am not surprised. The consumerism that has taken over the world has, in a way, homogenized entire production units that have centered on easy production. This has come about with big international corporate companies as producers and the rest of the people are just consumers. This model is a danger to the environment and also to human civilization. (That is why there may be a fascination for Tibetan culture.)

Roberta Campani: What is the mission or role that you have chosen? 

Tenzin Tsundue: I am a small activist based here in India. The role I have assigned to myself is that of a writer, I look at certain changing aspects in the Tibetan community, culturally and emotionally, and I write about these aspects. Also, as an activist, an important part of my role is to keep the freedom struggle going, maintaining the restlessness in the movement. And also come up with new ideas on how to deal with the changing political situation in the world and how to guard against certain threats, and, at the same time, look at opportunities that might appear.

So, mine is a very small role. Still, I see it in the larger picture. There is the Tibetan government in exile, there is His Holiness the Dalai Lama, there are members of parliament, there are many other leaders, and as an activist and as a writer, I also play my small role. But in the larger picture, I see that the Tibetan freedom movement up until now has been inspiring both for the international community and us because we have maintained nonviolence as the main thrust of our movement led by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

This has inspired many individuals, people in the West, in India and in many other places. They say that this is one peaceful community and a movement that they would like to support, and of course, we have a huge number of sympathizers and supporters, which is how we have maintained the health of the movement. We are hopeful that we will be able to carry on in this way, and when the opportune moment comes about, we can recreate Tibet as a free and independent state and a democracy. 

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Roberta Campani: How could this happen? 

Tenzin Tsundue: There are three important factors. 

First and the most important are the Tibetan people themselves. As long as we don’t give up, there is always a chance for us to gain freedom. And if we do give up, no matter even if the entire world comes together to support us, there is no cause to support! 

So finally, the ultimate goal, the ultimate authority over the Tibetan freedom movement, is the Tibetan people. This is the most important fact. 

The second factor is China, because it is China who, without any provocation, entered Tibet, plundered Tibet, captured Tibet and, for the past 70 years, China has been maintaining a military occupation of Tibet. There should be a new kind of understanding within China. The Chinese must completely change the way they run their government and reform their entire structure. They are no longer able to maintain the occupation of Tibet.

China’s superpower status comes from how western countries use the country as an industrial factory floor to make cheap “Made in China” products and ship them to the West. That is how the West created China and made it into a monster. Until 1971, China was not even a member of the United Nations. And American intervention replaced Taiwan with China in the UN. That is how China became a permanent Security Council member at the UN and a superpower. Now, China is trying to throw out the United States from the United Nations. 

(So, China will not continue to be the workshop of the world and occupy Tibet forever.)

The third factor is how China is going to maintain its relationships with western countries, and, with that, what are the changes that are about to come about. We have seen in the past two years during the pandemic how the West has started to behave very differently towards China. Issues of human rights are coming out for the first time and the western relationship with China is changing. And I think this relationship will undergo dramatic changes in the next five years. All these things will throw up lots of opportunities for us.

Roberta Campani: Thank you! Are you still hopeful? 

Tenzin Tsundue: I have to be! There is no option. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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