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    [post_date] => 2021-05-27 18:10:41
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    [post_content] => A hardwired belief that it couldn't happen here has made it impossible to acknowledge the reality. 

On May 19 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came out against the January 6th Commission, a proposed bipartisan investigation into Republican crimes. Kevin McCarthy, the GOP House leader, did the same on May 18. Thus the Democrats were once again stymied in their efforts to obtain answers under oath about the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and reinstall Donald J. Trump as president. 

These provocations come on the heels of Liz Cheney's removal from her House GOP leadership position for having affirmed Biden's victory and for having criticized the "Big Lie"—i.e., that Trump won the election and the Democrats “stole” it— that led to the January 6th insurrection. It is a lie that the GOP continues to promote, as do the media outlets aligned with the party. Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik replaced Cheney. On Fox News Sunday, Cheney said that both McCarthy and Stefanik were complicit in Trump's lies.  

Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican congressman who also voted to impeach Trump, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was “very disappointed” with his party’s leadership for ousting Cheney, saying: "We're not going to win unless we add to our base, not subtract from our base." 

In a functioning democracy, what Cheney and Upton said might make sense. But if their party’s strategy is to pack the courts, overturn elections, incite mobs, gerrymander, suppress votes, and otherwise harass the vulnerable, then the size of its base is not as relevant a concern. 

Authoritarians don’t want a big tent. They want—demand—a loyal, obedient cult of personality.  Exclusion is their power move. The GOP is an authoritarian party that has been open about its intent to establish minority rule by any means necessary. The Big Lie is going strong, part of a long tradition of racist Lost Causes.

As of April 1, Republicans introduced 361 voter suppression bills in 47 states.  As Jamelle Bouie wrote in The New York Times: If It's Not Jim Crow, What is It? In Florida and Oklahoma, Republicans legalized hitting protestors with cars. Across the country, Republicans are engaging in an all-out legal assault on trans kids and their families. This past week, the Republican-installed Supreme Court agreed to take up a Mississippi abortion case that is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade

Republicans have been on the path toward authoritarianism for more than two decades. Bush v. Gore, Citizens United and Shelby v Holder were way stations on the road to the insurrection. Trump just speeded up the journey and helped them blossom into their worst selves. 

American exceptionalism has distorted our perception of the GOP's turn to authoritarianism. The shocked surprise at each new escalation, the democracy experts Columbusing authoritarian studies—there are so many experts in so many countries to whom one could turn for years of accumulated wisdom if only the association were not considered so deeply offensive. A hardwired belief that “it couldn’t happen here” has made it impossible to acknowledge the reality: it has already "happened here."  

People continue to argue that America can't be fascist, as if semantics will save us from what's to come.  People said it couldn't be a slow-motion coup, and even if it was, that it would never succeed. How cavalier! In November, 2020 I tweeted,  "Not every attempted coup becomes a successful coup, but every successful coup was once an attempted coup. Why the fuck would you ever want to take the chance?"

People desperate for any semblance of the rule of law see principles in Liz Cheney's behavior. Others see her hard right voting record, her continued support for voter suppression laws and last name and wonder what she stands to gain. Her vote to impeach Trump was significant, and good for fundraising. In betting against the party, she must expect to survive long enough to see Trumpism implode. With the help of her backers, she is positioning herself and a few colleagues to pick up the GOP pieces. 

People have been betting since the 2016 primaries that Trump would collapse. What began as "he'll never be the nominee" morphed into "he'll never win"  which led to "he'll resign." By the end we'd hit a low: "he'll leave the White House." The latest version of this magical thinking: "He won't run again." 

Says who? How do they know? Have they met an abusive narcissist, let alone one with a personality cult who's had a taste of nuclear codes? What happens if Trumpism doesn't implode and the GOP further radicalizes? What happens if they regain national power? How much damage are they doing on the state and local level? Can you imagine a Republican Congress certifying a Democratic winner in 2024? 

On the bright side, Trump and the Trump Organization are embroiled in civil and criminal legal action. The Biden administration has shown more openness to unilateral action and structural change than many expected. Biden's stimulus bill was passed without bipartisan support through reconciliation. He's created a bipartisan commission to advise on expanding the Supreme Court. Previously against filibuster reform, Biden has since become open about its abuse and the need for change.  

But the administration has yet to overcome some exasperating hurdles. Senators Manchin and Sinema still oppose ending the filibuster, which effectively gives Republicans the power to block the January 6 Commission,  legislation securing the right to vote, PR or DC statehood, or an expanded Supreme Court. The myth of bipartisanship stands in the way of legislative mobilization to save our democracy.

Americans find it difficult to think of their country as anything other than a democracy. The reactionary backlash to the groundbreaking New York Times Magazine 1619 Project, which questioned how democratic a white supremacist America could truly be, most recently cost journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure at UNC— despite impeccable credentials that include having been awarded a MacArthur “genius” fellowship in 2017 and a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.  

These trends did not arise overnight. America has a long history of legalizing atrocities, corruption and discrimination. Those efforts have been supported by white supremacist, nationalist myths like American exceptionalism and its imperialist predecessor, Manifest Destiny. 

If we're going to save our democracy, we must accept that Trump and the GOP are one, and that they pose a longstanding, violent threat to our democracy and human rights. American exceptionalism isn't real. We aren't special. Rule of law won't save the day. Propaganda works, and can't be easily undone.  

To start, it would help if people stopped expecting authoritarianism in the US to look like some other country’s version of it. We have our own white, capitalist, Evangelical version, built upon what Isabel Wilkerson persuasively calls the American caste system, rooted in indigenous genocide and chattel slavery.  The rest of the world knows it too. The Nazis studied American race laws, both state and federal, in order to write the Nuremberg Laws. In the case of the one-drop rule, even they found America too harsh. 

Too often, news analysis gives the impression that Trump is done and the authoritarian threat is past. But GOP displays of loyalty and escalations on Fox  News suggest otherwise. The base is holding Trump 2024 signs. 

We don't know how this will play out, or when Trumpism will implode, whether in two months or 10 years. But abusers don't quit, and it's a mistake to let our relief at the reprieve fool us into thinking we're free of him. 

 

 
    [post_title] => The fascism is already here, but we can't see it through the lens of exceptionalism
    [post_excerpt] => American exceptionalism has distorted our perception of the GOP's turn to authoritarianism.
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The fascism is already here, but we can’t see it through the lens of exceptionalism

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    [post_date] => 2021-05-18 10:30:12
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    [post_content] => Whether organizations like the UN will meaningfully press China on the issue is not clear.

Humans have a real appetite for mass murder. The twentieth century produced at least eight genocides, and the last 21 years have featured three more. Genocides are now a casual part of politics, unfolding with little consequence or objection. Most troubling is confronting China’s systematic campaign against its Muslim Uyghur population, which is coming to a head after decades of discriminatory and abusive policies. The logic of the American-led War on Terror helped justify a tsunami of abusive policies against Muslims worldwide. The genocide in Xinjiang is only its logical conclusion.

The U.S., U.K. and some European states now confirm that China is committing genocide in Xinjiang. But beyond that are stillness and silence. The silence is loudest from leaders and countries who once professed solidarity for oppressed Muslims everywhere. This is partly a function of the authoritarianism in influential Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey—calling to protect the rights of Muslims elsewhere might give their own populations ideas. And anyway, Saudi Arabia is occupied with butchering journalists and Yemenis, the UAE is busy making peace with Israel (don’t mind the apartheid), and Turkey would rather deport Uyghurs back to China.

The ugly truth is that for all who wonder what they would have done as genocides unfolded in their time, the answer is largely nothing. The videos of Uyghur men shackled and blindfolded and put on trains to unknown destinations, the immense surveillance and detention infrastructure China uses to enforce obedience to Beijing, Uyghur women relating their rapes and abuse in internment camps, the fates of Uyghurs who have fled only for authorities to imprison their family members, the sharp decrease in Uyghur population numbers and birth rates—they are not a secret. Beijing has countered questions and criticisms from other states with unsubtle propaganda campaigns, outright hostility and assertions that it is fighting Islamic extremism.

No one knows how to confront a rising, antagonistic China. Global trade, commerce and financial markets all depend on a stable relationship with Beijing. Multilateral institutions like the United Nations no longer provide a meaningful forum to address vast crises and deal with atrocities like genocide as the UN Charter dictates. In any event, China is committed to a new multilateralism in the Eastern hemisphere where it can shape and influence the work of newer groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and ASEAN. Moreover, through its flagship “Belt and Road Initiative” the Chinese government hopes to forge strong economic and political ties throughout Asia with billions in infrastructure investment. With these layered ties to its neighbors China is looking for more than markets: it needs as many allies as possible in a world where China’s authoritarianism is deepening.

Irrespective of how powerful China is or isn’t at this moment, it is powerful enough that it can subjugate a population of 14 million people, send one million of them to camps, and eradicate their religion and cultural identity without any repercussion from global actors. What’s clearer is that no one is prepared to find a way to end it. Beijing remains impervious, and hostile, to criticism about how its laws and policies violate political freedoms and basic rights, and especially so on Xinjiang. The most successful public campaigns that have managed to highlight an aspect of the Xinjiang crisis is the use of cotton harvested through forced Uyghur labor. As it turns out, major brands including Zara, Nike and Apple have all come under scrutiny for relying on Chinese supply chains that may well be relying on this labor too.

Not that many people are criticizing. Three years ago, the world looked on as Myanmar’s army displaced the country’s entire Muslim Rohingya population into neighboring Bangladesh, committing war crimes so monstrous that the UN deemed the campaign genocide. Despite an international outcry, the operation to push out the Rohingya from western Burma succeeded. Most Rohingya refugees remain in Bangladesh, living in squalid camps that lack basic amenities and infrastructure, without access to livelihoods or any prospect of returning safely to Myanmar.

Noting Henry Kissinger’s facetious and lazy advice not to tangle with China on human rights issues, the enormous question remains: how is the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang going to end? Who will end it? Does it end in mass graves and gas chambers, as with genocides before? Or is there a way, slow but painful, to push China toward a different relationship with is minority communities? Who is willing to make this a priority in state-to-state relations with China?

Perhaps it would be easier if the Muslims of Xinjiang had not been Muslim. Muslims have been the targets of so many wars in the last century that the notion of Muslims dying in far-off places—Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan just in the latter half of the 20th century—is blasé and predictable. Even a state that traffics as aggressively in its Muslim identity as Pakistan has nothing to say about Xinjiang, despite the fact that the beleaguered province sits on the other side of Pakistan’s eastern border.

The US and European states have seriously damaged their own standing when criticizing the conduct of other states. The debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, apart from destroying those countries, set a comfortable precedent for states with total contempt for the concept of human rights. One lesson of those wars was that no one would be held accountable for overthrowing a government, war crimes or any serious abuses, especially if they were from the occupying army. Such reckless disregard for longstanding international norms about how states conduct themselves in war meant that Russia and Iran could act as violently as they chose when intervening in Syria’s war to sustain Bashar al-Assad. The global institutions meant to protect civilians, and investigate and prosecute war crimes, have largely proven themselves useless.

The Chinese government also looks at events like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and concluded its best defense against criticism for its gross human rights violations is to point that China’s opponents have no credibility on these points. This comes alongside a greater confidence that China can engage with the world on its own terms, and one of those terms is that outsiders have no say in China’s domestic affairs. The response to this cannot be silence.

The Chinese government works very hard to shut down any political discussion about Xinjiang, most recently demanding other UN member states not attend a discussion about the province, organized by the U.S., U.K., and Germany. Whether organizations like the UN will meaningfully press China on the issue is not clear. In the meantime, what of the world’s billion or so Muslims? Beyond a few Uyghur diaspora groups, Muslim advocacy organizations and governments are quiet. Confronting China on Xinjiang will have real material costs for states who want to sway Beijing’s policy, but ignoring an ongoing genocide means the destruction of an entire people is acceptable state conduct. That seems a much higher price to pay.
    [post_title] => We are watching real time genocide in China
    [post_excerpt] => No one knows how to confront a rising, antagonistic China. Global trade, commerce and financial markets all depend on a stable relationship with Beijing.
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We are watching real time genocide in China

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    [post_date] => 2021-05-13 21:55:31
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    [post_content] => Is Melinda Gates trying to get ahead of uncomfortable revelations about her husband's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

When I read the news last week that Bill and Melinda Gates were divorcing after 27 years of marriage, my first reaction was empathy. The pandemic has been hard on all couples, I thought, even the ones who happened to have been quarantining in a 66,000-square-foot compound with 18.75 bathrooms called Xanadu 2.0. Melinda told The New York Times in October 2020 that being stuck working from home with her husband, after years of frenetic traveling, “was a piece that I think we hadn’t really individually prepared for quite as much.” This was somewhat relatable. No matter the size of your home, there is such a thing as too much togetherness. 

But then there were questions. Foremost among them: Why now? After all, thanks in part to the efforts of the Gates Foundation, which has donated more than $1.75 billion to Covid-19 research, 130 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the vaccine. As we approach herd immunity, we are slowly emerging from our pandemic hidey holes. Businesses are reopening. People are talking about wearing jeans again. Couldn’t the world’s biggest philanthropists just carry on living separate lives, united by their passion for giving back? We already know that Melinda is pretty laissez faire when it comes to her marriage, allowing Bill to vacation every year with his ex-girlfriend. The couple owns a far-flung real estate portfolio with at least seven properties totaling $170 million. Melinda could take up residence at Xanadu 2.0 while Bill could stay in their $12.5 million home in Palm Desert, California, from whence he signed the divorce papers. Or they could resume traveling around the world, perhaps staying at the Four Seasons, which they own a large stake in through Bill’s firm Cascade Investment LLC. 

A few days after the divorce announcement, we started to get a possible answer to the timing question. The Daily Beast broke the news that Melinda was reportedly “furious” after her husband took her to meet with Jeffrey Epstein at his Upper East Side mansion back in September 2013. The anger is understandable given that one of Melinda’s top priorities at the Gates Foundation is to invest in gender equality and women’s empowerment—and Jeffrey Epstein at the time was a registered sex offender. The Wall Street Journal followed up this week, reporting that Melinda met with divorce lawyers in 2019 after the New York Times published a story detailing the extent of her husband’s relationship with Epstein. The Times reported that Gates sent an effusive email to his colleagues upon meeting Epstein, describing his lifestyle as “very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me.” The Gates PR machine then went into full-on spin mode, telling the Times that Gates “was referring only to the unique décor of the Epstein residence.” Ah, yes, the unique décor

I remember reading that Times article in 2019 and shaking my head. Did I think it was creepy that Bill Gates was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein? Yes. Did I think that Bill Gates was raping girls who Epstein had trafficked? No, I did not. 

Given his wealth, power and involvement in scientific pursuits, Bill Gates has been a magnet for truly wacko conspiracy theories, such as the idea that he wants to use vaccine shots as a vehicle to insert trackable microchips into people’s bodies. Believers in QAnon, the umbrella conspiracy theory that holds that there exists a secret child trafficking ring run by Satan-worshipping Democrats—including President Biden, Hillary Clinton and George Soros–have been having a field day with the divorce announcement, speculating in chat forums that Bill Gates is either about to be arrested or that the breakup is intended to somehow cover up for the fact that both Gateses are dead (don’t ask). I can now see how these types of bonkers narratives had the unusual effect of pushing my mind toward the exact opposite explanation, which is that Bill Gates is a brilliant but oblivious man who, like so many others, unwittingly got swept up in Epstein’s net. 

But now I’m not so sure. Is it possible that Bill Gates’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein went beyond fundraising for philanthropic projects? It is. And the thing that makes me think it is possible is the extent to which Gates downplayed his links to Epstein, both to the press and, apparently, to his wife. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal tied to a Netflix documentary about Gates, he denied having any sort of relationship with the pedophile financier, saying “I met him. I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him. I didn’t go to New Mexico or Florida or Palm Beach or any of that.” This turned out to be a big lie: Not only had the two men met many times over the years, but the Times report revealed that Gates flew on Epstein’s Gulfstream plane, known as “the Lolita Express” from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach in 2013. The New Yorker also reported that Gates made a $2 million donation to the MIT Media Lab in 2014, a donation that was said to be directed by Epstein. 

At the heart of any good conspiracy theory is a twisted kernel of truth. Could it be that there is, in fact, an elite illuminati-like pedophile ring running the world–except that, instead of being controlled by prominent Democrats, the cabal transcends any particular political ideology? If that turns out to be the case, then is it even remotely possible that Bill Gates, in collaboration perhaps with two other powerful Bills—Barr and Clinton—may have conspired to have Jeffrey Epstein murdered in jail, so that their involvement is kept secret? When my brain goes down these (admittedly speculative) rabbit holes, I start to feel like I’m getting swallowed up in the Matrix, until I remember that it’s one thing to be running around spouting nonsense about Pizzagate and frazzledrip, and quite another to see evidence of an actual conspiracy unfolding before your eyes. Because something here really does not make sense. 

We need answers as to why Bill Gates, the fourth-richest man on earth who runs the biggest charitable organization in history, needed Epstein’s “help” with philanthropy, even after his wife expressed serious reservations about interacting with him. We need to understand why the Gates Foundation’s former science adviser, a man named Boris Nikolic, was named executor of Epstein’s estate before he died. We need to know how Melanie Walker, a longtime adviser to Epstein, came to be part of Gates’s inner circle. Then there’s the question of Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer, who, according to Vanity Fair, palled around with Epstein in Palm Beach and Manhattan and was accused by Alan Dershowitz of having sex with one of Epstein’s underage victims. We need to understand why Bill Gates brushed off all these intersections between his orbit and Epstein’s, not to mention why he suddenly stepped down from the boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway last year

And before we let Melinda Gates off the hook, we need to understand what she knew and when she knew it. Any evidence of complicity should disqualify her from being an advocate for women and girls. 

Hopefully soon, we will get some answers. Last summer, Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested at a 156-acre property in New Hampshire and on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan announced that the trial will begin after Thanksgiving. It was originally slated to commence in July, but her lawyers argued that they needed more time to prepare after a new sex-trafficking charge was filed this year that alone carries a maximum sentence of 40 years. If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it is Ghislaine Maxwell. Indeed, she may already be cooperating with investigators in exchange for leniency. 

Suddenly, the carefully coordinated Gates divorce announcement makes more sense as a calculated PR move on the part of Melinda to get ahead of the Epstein narrative and distance herself from its stench. If you are trying to run a foundation that advocates for women and girls around the world, being tied to a global child sex-trafficking ring is not exactly great for the brand. 

There’s no question that the $50 billion Gates Foundation, in its 21 years of existence, has done a lot of good work. Because of their work, the incidence of polio around the world has declined by 99 percent. They have prevented 1.5 billion cases of malaria and donated billions to fighting HIV and AIDS. And of course, the coronavirus. But we cannot ignore the fact that the Foundation has also helped launder Bill Gates’s reputation, transforming him from a ruthless Robber Baron 2.0 who built his success by crushing the competition (and foisting a sub-optimal product on consumers), into a champion of public health, an expert on climate change, a thought leader for the Davos set. As Anand Giridharadas put it in his book “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” the only thing better than being a fox is being a fox asked to watch over hens.

We as a society need to question whether relying on the voluntary largesse of an ascendant billionaire class is the best way to solve the world’s problems. Why should the takers, the hoarders of the world’s wealth, be presumed to be experts on giving? The Gates divorce reminds us that it might be more effective, more conducive to a thriving democracy, to simply raise their taxes. 
    [post_title] => What did Melinda Gates know—and when did she know it?
    [post_excerpt] => If you are trying to run a foundation that advocates for women and girls around the world, being tied to a global child sex-trafficking ring is not exactly great for the brand. 
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What did Melinda Gates know—and when did she know it?

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    [post_content] => No Black mother has ever had the privilege of living in ignorance of the dangers America poses to her children.

While George Floyd took his final breaths under the knee of convicted murderer Derek Chauvin, I was frantically working on my Russian reading skills. I was due to begin my Ph.D. in the fall, and the Russian reading exam loomed large in my head. Then George died.  The police murdered him. My Black life shifted in a way that was, and is, hard to articulate. I did not expect his death to become the symbol of an international movement to show the world that Black lives mattered. But it did.

I do not believe in characterizing George Floyd as a martyr because he did not intend to die that day. He did not choose to give his life to force this country to come to terms with its racism. I was raised Catholic. I know that martyrdom implies agency, willingly giving one’s life for God. George Floyd had his agency and his humanity denied. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Daunte Wright. Adam Toledo. Their names, their lives, their last moments on Earth, taken from them. So, I disagree with Speaker Pelosi, who said, after the jury convicted Derek Chauvin of murder, that George Floyd had sacrificed his life for justice.

George Floyd did not give his life for America to learn or appreciate anything. He was sacrificed to the institution of white supremacy.

I was cynical at the outburst of activism following George Floyd’s state-sanctioned murder. Overnight, everyone had #BLM in their Tweets and Instagram posts. Amazon and Netflix wanted me to know that Black people mattered by enticing me to purchase goods packaged by non-unionized workers who have few labor rights. Suddenly, Blackness was profitable. What struck me—annoyed me—was the outpouring of posts on social media that expressed variations of, “When George Floyd cried out for his Mama, he called all mamas.” That angered me because it showed how white supremacy protected white mothers. Neither my Black mother, nor George Floyd’s Black mother, nor any Black mother has ever had the privilege of living in ignorance of the dangers this country poses to their children.

My younger brother is a shy, powerlifting 19-year-old. His body is seen as a threat. I’ve always known, and my parents have always known this. I did not understand why my parents were so strict with us, but now I do. There was a reason I could drive at night only after I let them know where I was going and what route I was taking. The same rule applied ten years later to my little brother. They needed to know because if anything happened in our small town with the police, they could get there. They could protect us as much as they could. I was not allowed to drive in the city. I could not have more than two additional people in my car. My parents were trying to protect me from a world that wanted to destroy my Black life and body. It is hard to mold these life experiences into a marketable Instagram post, but every week we see a new hashtag dedicated to a Black life the police have taken.

That George Floyd and Daunte Wright cried out for their mothers should not comfort us. It should not be a slogan. It is the damnation of this country and how it ends Black childhood much earlier than white. I am struggling with my own decision to have children. I do not know how Black mothers in this country bear this. Every time my brother gets behind the wheel, I am worried. When he comes over to mow the grass, I watch him buckle up and pull out of the driveway. I call our mom to let her know he just left and should be back within 25 minutes.

I do not know if I can carry a child for nine months—never mind my chances of surviving childbirth as a Black woman—to worry about that child’s life constantly. Black children deserve joy, happiness, a safe childhood. I do not know if I can guarantee that for my child. I recall a quote from one of my favorite films, The Crow.  In it, Eric Draven holds an intoxicated woman’s head up and says to her, “Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.” That quote has stayed with me since I was 13. When I think of George Floyd calling out for his mother (I refuse to watch the video of his murder, or anyone else’s), his name for God, before his last breath, I break down. How can I bring a child into this?

Honestly, Chauvin’s trial was not high on my radar. As I mentioned on my social media, I learned long ago not to expect this country to find guilt in state-sanctioned murder. I remember waiting with bated breath for Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, to be found guilty. Nothing. Eric Garner’s killer? No criminal charges. Michael Brown’s killer? No indictment. As the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. I believe America. I did not expect a guilty verdict. When I saw the verdict was to be handed down while I was in a seminar, I told myself I would check Twitter after, so my anger would not interfere with my processing of the talk. That’s how I cope with the constant anger and grief I hold in this Black body, avoidance and keeping busy. This is not healthy, but it is how I can function.

My phone went off a few times during the talk. My Black friends. “GUILTY.” “WE GOT HIM.” I had to turn my camera off and cry for a few minutes. I cannot tell you why crying was my immediate reaction. Perhaps I felt relief. Finally, they see what they do to us. The jury found him guilty on all three counts, but without the video provided by a 17-year-old Black child, would the verdict be the same? I doubt it. And at what cost did the judgment come? Darnella Frazier is traumatized. I want to shield her from this world that brutally ended her childhood as she bore witness to his murder. This country devours its Black youth.

My joy about the verdict was fleeting. One of the first thoughts in my head, after I finished crying, was, “we need to be careful.” I believe America. I did not expect this triple guilty verdict to go down peacefully. I even tweeted that Black folks need to be careful (as usual) because they (the police) still expect their pound of flesh. I was right. Near the time of the announcement of Chauvin’s verdict, another Black child, Ma'Khia Bryant, was shot to death by the Columbus, Ohio police. I did not expect the pound of flesh to be taken so soon.

In my sociology seminar, my professor had us watch a short clip of Maya Angelou. In it, she quotes another scholar, who says, “I am a human being, and nothing human can be alien to me.” It is impossible to improve on the words of brilliance, but I would say, “I’m a Black American woman, and nothing American can be alien to me.” I believe America. Black people have always believed America. We do not need slogans, nor Kente cloth-clad Members of Congress who maintain the institutions that oppress us. We need systematic, intentional, deep-seated foundational change. Our oppression, our struggle, our humanity must be recognized because it most certainly exists. Most of all, we need everyone else to believe America because it sure as hell sees Black people, and America takes what it wants.
    [post_title] => My joy over the Derek Chauvin verdict was fleeting because I know America
    [post_excerpt] => That George Floyd and Daunte Wright cried out for their mothers should not comfort us. It should not be a slogan. It is the damnation of this country and how it ends Black childhood much earlier than white.
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My joy over the Derek Chauvin verdict was fleeting because I know America

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    [post_content] => Activists and civil society groups are outraged at the prime minister's victim blaming. 

In Pakistan, the first thing a woman thinks of when she steps outside her home is rape. In a country that routinely ranks as one of the most dangerous in the world for women, rape is everywhere. Women live in constant fear of predators, who routinely go unpunished not because the law protects them (it does not), but because attitudes in this deeply conservative culture manifest in a lack of will to enforce them. Recently Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, reinforced this entrenched misogyny when he claimed that vulgarity, temptation and willpower were among the causes of rape.

Before he became a politician, Imran Khan was an international cricket champion and a national hero. Oxford educated, handsome, fair skinned and an eloquent speaker, he embodies the quintessential colonial concept of the “white man” coming to save the damsel in distress Pakistan was made out to be. When he was elected prime minister, the media dubbed him the leader of “naya Pakistan” (new Pakistan).

But this, I knew, was a lie. Imran Khan has a well-documented history of misogyny.

In 2006, he rejected the Protection of Women’s Rights Bill, which amended the 1979 Hudood Ordinances that put the entire onus of proving a rape accusation on the woman. The 2006 Bill did pass a parliamentary vote, no thanks to Khan; but prior to this legislation, a rape victim could be prosecuted and imprisoned for adultery if she failed to produce an adult male witness to her assault.

Ayesha Gulalai, a human rights activist who in 2013 became the first female member of the National Assembly, accused Khan of sexual harassment; according to Gulalai, the prime minister sent lewd messages to her and other women in the progressive Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. For having made this accusation, Gulalai received death threats.

In 2018, Khan said that feminism was “degenerating” to motherhood and called it a “western concept.”

In 2020, he said that the Aurat (women’s) March was culturally divisive.

This year, Khan presented a Pride of Performance award to Ali Zafar, a prominent singer-songwriter who has been credibly accused of sexual harassment by several leading female artists. The prime minister did not even acknowledge an open letter from feminist activists who asked him to refrain from conferring the award, given that one of Zafar’s accusers, singer-actress Meesha Shafi (who plays the protagonist’s sister in the 2013 film The Reluctant Fundamentalist)  was pursuing legal action against him.

In a Q&A session with the public that was televised live in early April, a journalist asked Prime Minister Khan what steps he would take to tackle rape and child abuse. Instead of answering the question, he said: “In any society where vulgarity is prevalent, there are consequences.”

Vulgarity is a broad term. What’s vulgar for one person, might not be for the other. But in this case, Khan was using the word to blame the victims. Over the past three years, Pakistan has seen a spike in widely publicized, extremely violent rapes. One of the victims was 6 year-old Zainab Ansari, whose body was found in a rubbish dump in 2018; she had been raped and strangled. In another notorious case that made international headlines last April, a woman was gang-raped in front of her children after she stopped at the side of a highway just outside of Lahore because her car had run out of fuel.

During the same televised Q&A session, Khan held women responsible for the behavior of men, saying they should remove “temptation” because “not everyone has willpower.” He claimed the high rape statistics were a consequence of “increasing obscenity.” Bollywood films and an infatuation with Western lifestyle were to blame, said the prime minister.

With those words, Khan diminished every person who has stood up against rape, every victim who came out with their story; and every woman, trans and non-binary individual that marched against rape. By saying that women should take “purdah” (cover themselves from head to toe), he reiterated the notion that the onus is upon women to protect themselves. There will be no safety in Pakistan, no justice. There will simply be women constantly berated for taking up space.

In 2020, 11 rape cases were reported every single day in Pakistan. But only 77, or 0.3 percent, of the accused have been convicted. According to government statistics, fewer than half the women who report having been raped end up pressing charges; police estimate that the actual number of rapes could be closer to 60,000 annually. Women are instantly labeled liars when they press charges against their rapists. Sometimes the consequence is more fatal, as seen in cases of so-called “honor killings,” whereby the male relatives of an unmarried rape victim take her life because she is no longer a virgin. Women are sometimes forced to marry their rapist to save their family from scandal. In other cases, families choose revenge rape as a “solution.”

In a conference organized by the Women’s Action Forum on rape, Nazish Brohi, a social sector consultant said that, “There is the expense of the lawyer, going to court, the cost of living in a big city, and then there is the impact on the family, so, the cost of reporting rape is high. But the cost of not reporting rape is also high.”

The system usually works against survivors. In the case of the woman who was gang raped on the highway, Capital City Police Officer Umar Sheikh blamed the victim, asking reporters rhetorically why she was traveling with her children late at night.

Mehnaz Akber Aziz, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and a children’s rights advocate said: “You are signalling to these people, the rapists, that ‘It’s OK, you can continue doing what you’re doing and there will be a way out, even if you’re arrested.” Pakistan’s police and judiciary generally fail to apply the law robustly in rape cases where there are no witnesses.

But there are organizations and activists working to force law enforcement officers and the judiciary into implementing the laws that are supposed to protect women.

Sahil provides free legal aid for children and women who have been victims of abuse. War Against Rape (WAR) provides rehabilitation for survivors of sexual assault and works with them to deal with their medical, legal and social issues. Earlier this year, The Lahore High Court declared the “two finger test”—used to determine whether a sexual assault survivor was a virgin—as illegal.

The Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Act, 2020 was passed under the Children's Protection Bill to criminalize abduction and kidnapping. Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020 was approved to ensure that sexual assault trials are completed within four months and that victims’ identities will be protected.

Each of these organizations is committed to tackling Pakistan’s rape problem. And yet, Prime Minister Khan did not mention any of them. Instead, he left Pakistan’s women in a more vulnerable and precarious state than ever before. The country does have laws that, if enforced, would help combat sexual violence. What it does not have, however, is a leader who sets an example by working with existing organizations to change the entrenched patriarchal attitudes that prevent women from feeling safe in public. Nor does it have a leader who is committed to public education.  If the prime minister of a country where the literacy rate has fallen below 60 percent says that men aren’t able to control their instincts and that women must be covered from head to toe if they want to remain safe, the masses will believe it.

Sheraz Ahmed, the program officer at WAR, noted that Khan’s remarks demonstrated “a clear pattern that reveals his regressive views of rape and sexual violence.” Asked why rape cases in Pakistan are so high, and what measures need to be taken to make women safer, Ahmed said, “Rapists know they will get off the hook and that’s why cases are rising.” The lack of medical and psychological care available for rape survivors places even more stress on the woman, which often factors into a decision to refrain from pressing charges.

Several organizations—including Women’s Action Forums of Pakistan, War Against Rape, Aurat March Lahore, The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and The Women’s Lawyer Association—have demanded an apology from Imran Khan. In a statement of condemnation that has, as of this writing, been signed by 438 people, they describe the prime minister’s comments as “factually incorrect, insensitive and dangerous,” adding that they “actively fostered and promoted rape culture.”

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in a statement that they were “appalled” by the prime minister’s remarks, describing them as “unacceptable behavior on the part of a public leader” and demanding that he apologize.



Jemima Khan, the prime minister's former wife (and mother of his two children), tweeted: “The Imran I knew used to say, "Put a veil on the man's eyes not on the woman."”

The response on Pakistani Twitter, meanwhile, has been scathing.

This time, the anger does not seem likely to abate; it will continue to fester until there is systemic change and a decisive shift in the conservative narrative regarding rape in Pakistan. Over the past two years Pakistan has seen a rising feminist movement; now, with the growing Aurat Marches and the opening up of the #MeinBhi (MeToo) movement, something has shifted. The women of Pakistan will no longer be dismissed when it comes to sharing their truths.

In many South Asian countries there is widespread scepticism about the #MeToo movement. Why, people ask, does it even exist? Why don’t women who are molested immediately speak out and share their stories? The answer, or part of it, can be found in Khan’s remarks. Whether he believes them or not is irrelevant; he has exacerbated the dangers women face by reinforcing the primitive idea that men are driven by animalistic instincts and are physically incapable of controlling themselves in the presence of a woman.

Imran Khan has a bit of a nefarious past, with his playboy reputation and his hypocrisy towards women. But it is his actions and words today that demonstrate yet again how men in power use their privilege to reinforce only one truth—their own.
    [post_title] => 'Vulgarity has consequences': Pakistan's prime minister blames rising number of rape cases on women's dress choices
    [post_excerpt] => Before he became a politician, Imran Khan was an international cricket champion and a national hero. Oxford educated, handsome, fair skinned and an eloquent speaker, he campaigned for prime minister as a reformer who believed in meritocracy. But he had a well-documented history of misogyny.
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‘Vulgarity has consequences’: Pakistan’s prime minister blames rising number of rape cases on women’s dress choices

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    [post_content] => 'Incredibly vague' wording of a parliamentary bill would 'effectively put the U.K. on par with some of the more repressive countries in the world.'

In April 2019, activists chained themselves to a pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus, one of London’s most famous intersections. A lime green Extinction Rebellion flag flew from the top of the boat, and on one side was the slogan “Tell the truth.” Traffic at one of the city’s busiest intersections came to a grinding halt, as protesters occupied the road.

All across the city, Extinction Rebellion caused disruption. They occupied Waterloo Bridge, obstructed trains, and glued themselves across the entrance of the London Stock Exchange. More actions followed throughout the year. The purpose was to push the government into taking serious action on the climate crisis. Approve of their methods or not, these bold actions forced the world to pay attention.

Now, the U.K. government is debating a new bill that would give police more powers at protests in England and Wales. In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, people breaching police rules at demonstrations will face increased penalties, and the police would have new powers to control static and single person protests. They could impose start and finish times, and enforce maximum noise levels if a protest could cause “significant impact” for people nearby or “serious disruption” to a business.

The bill stipulates that the rules would also apply to a protest of just one person. Theoretically, someone standing with a sign and being disruptive could be fined up to £2,500. The bill would also stop vehicular access to Parliament being blocked by demonstrations, and anyone refusing to move when asked by the police would be causing an offence.

In summer 2020, London came to a standstill for another reason. Following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Black Lives Matter movement marched through the city, forcing the country to pay attention to racial injustice.

The Home Office fact sheet refers to the Extinction Rebellion protests before outlining any measures. Following their actions, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that Extinction Rebellion was an emerging threat, and called the Black Lives Matter protests “dreadful”.

The bill, which covers a whole range of issues beyond just protests, passed its second reading in the House of Commons on March 15, just two days after police were criticized for their handling of the peaceful vigil for Sarah Everard,  the 33 year-old London woman who was murdered while walking home through a park on the evening of March 3. Police used physical force to break up the Clapham Common vigil, which became a call for changes that would keep women safer (a later report stated that the police “acted appropriately”, but the report has also been criticized). Since then, ‘Kill the Bill’ protests have erupted across the country. The date for the next step, committee stage, is yet to be announced.

The right to cause disruption

Organizations and prominent individuals from across England and Wales have signed a letter to the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Justice, sharing their concerns. One of those organizations is Netpol, the Network for Police Monitoring. In a phone interview, Netpol’s Campaigns Coordinator Kevin Blowe told The Conversationalist that the bill cracks down on protests which are non-violent, but disruptive. “What we've always said is that all protests are disruptive to some degree. If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't be a protest,” he said. The sections of the bill aimed at stopping people causing serious disruption would place “subjective, wholly disproportionate power in the hands of the police,” he said.  Beyond this, Home Secretary Priti Patel would have the power to define what exactly constitutes serious disruption. There would be no parliamentary debate. “The police already have extensive powers. The idea that somehow things are swung too far in favour of the protesters is simply not true,” Blowe said. With a strong Conservative majority, he believes this bill is likely to pass a parliamentary vote in some form. The U.K., like many other countries, has a history of change-making through disruptive protest. In the early 1900s, when peaceful protest had done nothing to gain women the right to vote, Emmeline Pankhurst led the Suffragettes in a campaign of civil disobedience. They smashed windows, started riots, and snuck into parliament. Perhaps most famously, Emily Davison threw herself under the King’s horse. The campaign led to a parliamentary commission to study the issue of women’s suffrage; and in 1918, British women finally won the right to vote.  With such a strong history of protest, will this bill, if it becomes law, stop people from being disruptive? “It's not going to stop people from going out in the streets and campaigning around climate change. It's not going to stop people coming out, because they're outraged about racial injustice, or indeed protesting around the expansion of police powers,” Blowe said. Protest, he added, “is the only way that people see as having any chance of getting the Government to listen.” More likely, said Blowe, more people will end up being arrested, while certain social and political movements will be criminalized. In an email statement, a Home Office spokesperson said: “It is wrong to claim these measures will stop people from carrying out their civic right to protest. People will still be able to protest, but they cannot be permitted to trample on the rights of local businesses and communities.” Members of Parliament who represent other parties have been vocal about the damage the bill could do. The Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Home Affairs, MP Alistair Carmichael tweeted: “This crackdown on protests is dangerous and draconian and must be opposed.” Meanwhile Labour MP Zarah Sultana called the bill a “recipe for repression” on Twitter, and Jenny Jones, Green Party member of the House of Lords (who’s also an activist) tweeted: “We need to understand that our rights and freedoms are under threat from our Govt.” Netpol, along with other organizations, said that the whole 307 page bill needs to be opposed. In fact, ahead of this bill, Netpol put forward their own Charter for Freedom of Assembly Rights, asking for transparency of policing at protests.

A global issue

Article 19, an organization defending freedom of expression and information, also signed the joint letter speaking out against the bill.  “The incredibly vague and broad language that's in the U.K. policing bill will effectively put the United Kingdom on par with some of the more repressive countries in the world,” says Executive Director Quinn McCew in a Zoom interview. She said that what’s happening in the U.K. is part of a broader global issue, with governments trying to control civil society and people's ability to hold them to account. She pointed at Hong Kong, which saw sustained street demonstrations to protest the Chinese government’s repressive restrictions on freedom of expression, as one of the worst examples of government suppression: “Incredibly draconian laws put in place there have effectively cut off the legs of the protest movement.” She also speaks about Kenya, where Covid-19 emergency powers have been used to silence protests against police brutality. “The justification for clamping down on and using violence against those protesters was exactly the same as the justification that the U.K. Government and the police ultimately gave for the violence they used against the protesters at the vigil in Clapham Common,” McCew said. Aside from the impact on freedom to protest in England and Wales, she believes the bill could send ripples around the world, with other nations following the U.K.’s lead. The right to freedom of peaceful assembly, or the right to protest, is enshrined in laws across the world. It’s included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And it’s not just the U.K. battling with new protest laws. In November 2020, the French government put forward a law that would criminalize the act of sharing images or videos of police. This ban on filming police, activists warn, could allow police brutality to go unchecked. The tragic final moments of George Floyd’s life were caught on camera and have provided vital evidence in the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who has been charged with his murder, but this is not true for other police killings—like that of Adama Traoré, who died in the custody of French police in 2016. While the law goes through various stages and rewrites, protesters are opposing it across the country.  Even without this new law, demonstrators face rubber bullets, tear gas, and weapons used by police. There’s not just a risk of criminalization and fines, but of serious injury.

Defending protest with protest

In June 2020, Black Lives Matter demonstrators pulled down a statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston from its plinth in Bristol, as crowds cheered. Its next destination—Bristol Harbour. If the new bill goes through, anyone defacing a monument could face a 10 year prison sentence, and the events of summer 2020 are cited in the bill’s explanatory notes as the reason for this change in law. Following the Clapham Common vigil and the bill’s second reading, protests continue across the country, with the issue of women’s safety high on the agenda. Both protesters and MPs have drawn comparisons between the protections proposed for monuments and statues, and the protections that women are so desperately demanding. Interviewed by Sky News,  Labour MP David Lammy said: “It is the case here in the U.K., that the starting tariff in prison is five years for rape [...] Why are we saying that pulling down a statue is more important than a woman’s body?” It’s a point that McCew has made, too. “Looking at what happened during the policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard, and looking at the language that's in the policing bill, it's quite clear that there's a higher level of support for protecting a slaveholding monument than there is for women's rights and women's ability to speak,” she said. If this bill goes through, McCew says the bill could lead to even greater civil unrest. The two biggest global issues—the climate crisis and the call for racial justice—are the very two issues that the police and government are trying to restrict. Rather than fewer disruptive protests, there could be more. [post_title] => The right to protest is under threat in Britain [post_excerpt] => 'If it didn't disrupt, it wouldn't be a protest': free speech activists push back against a legislative bill that would give British police sweeping powers to limit the right to public protest. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-right-to-protest-is-under-threat-in-the-u-k [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=2466 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

The right to protest is under threat in Britain

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    [post_content] => Once hailed as the great democratizers, social media platforms are now under fire for failing to moderate hate speech.

On June 6, 2020 I participated in Berlin’s Black Lives Matter demonstration. Thousands of people turned out, despite the pandemic, in solidarity with those who were demonstrating across the United States to protest the police killing of George Floyd—and to protest police killings of people of color in Germany. The mass gathering in the middle of the city’s historic Alexanderplatz was a powerful sight; standing there, wearing my mask and face shield, I felt for a moment as though things might change.

Exactly 10 years earlier and halfway around the world, another act of horrific police brutality occurred and changed the course of history. Khaled Saeed, a 28-year-old Egyptian man who lived in Alexandria, was sitting in a cybercafé when plainclothes police officers barged in and demanded to see everyone’s identification. Saeed refused. In response the officers, who almost never encountered defiance from the cowed citizens of the authoritarian state, began to beat him. They dragged him outside, continuing to batter him in full view of numerous witnesses. At one point, Saeed cried out, “I’m dying!” to which an officer responded: “I’m not leaving you until you are dead.” They drove off with Saeed’s lifeless body and returned 10 minutes later to dump it at the same place they had attacked him.

I was finishing my book, Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism on the day a teenage shop clerk in Minneapolis called 911 to report a customer he suspected of having passed him a counterfeit $20 bill. Derek Chauvin was one of the responding police officers who arrested George Floyd soon after. A bystander used her phone to record the shocking spectacle of Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes as he gasped for breath, begged for mercy, and ultimately died. The video of the incident sparked a global movement.

While writing my book I thought about the ties that bind us, across borders; our commonalities, our differences, and the ways in which powerful actors place limits on how we communicate, how we organize, and how we express ourselves.

The chapters covering the role that social media platforms had played in the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011 and in the Movement for Black Lives were done by the time the protests of 2020 erupted and I was working on the book’s conclusion, in which I wrote:

“Police brutality and repression in Egypt and the United States are inextricably linked, through global networks of power and capitalism and more directly through military aid and training, but also through the similar ways in which the powerful seek to quash dissent—which includes platform censorship.”

In Egypt, Saeed’s death inspired activists to create a Facebook page called “We are all Khaled Saeed,” which became a place where thousands of Egyptians participated in conversations and polls about the oppressive state, police violence and repression. Later, it was the place where activists called for the protests that led to the January 25 revolution—an uprising that inspired numerous movements throughout the region and the world and shaped the ensuing decade. But the Egyptian revolution might never have begun as it did if events had evolved differently. During the decade prior to the 2011 uprising, Egypt saw a blogging boom, with people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds writing outspoken commentary about social and political issues, even though they ran the risk of arrest and imprisonment for criticizing the state. The internet provided space for discussions that had previously been restricted to private gatherings; it also enabled cross-national dialogue throughout the region, between bloggers who shared a common language. Public protests weren’t unheard of—in fact, as those I interviewed for the book argued, they had been building up slowly over time—but they were sporadic and lacked mass support. While some bloggers and social media users chose to publish under their own names, others were justifiably concerned for their safety. And so, the creators of “We Are All Khaled Saeed” chose to manage the Facebook page using pseudonyms. Facebook, however, has always had a policy that forbids the use of “fake names,” predicated on the misguided belief that people behave with more civility when using their “real” identity. Mark Zuckerberg famously claimed that having more than one identity represents a lack of integrity, thus demonstrating a profound lack of imagination and considerable ignorance. Not only had Zuckerberg never considered why a person of integrity who lived in an oppressive authoritarian state might fear revealing their identity, but he had clearly never explored the rich history of anonymous and pseudonymous publishing. In November 2010, just before Egypt’s parliamentary elections and a planned anti-regime demonstration, Facebook, acting on a tip that its owners were using fake names, removed the “We are all Khaled Saeed” page. At this point I had been writing and communicating for some time with Facebook staff about the problematic nature of the policy banning anonymous users. It was Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S., where I lived at the time, but a group of activists scrambled to contact Facebook to see if there was anything they could do. To their credit, the company offered a creative solution: If the Egyptian activists could find an administrator who was willing to use their real name, the page would be restored. They did so, and the page went on to call for what became the January 25 revolution. A few months later, I joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and began to work full-time in advocacy, which gave my criticisms more weight and enabled me to communicate more directly with policymakers at various tech companies. Three years later, while driving across the United States with my mother and writing a piece about social media and the Egyptian revolution, I turned on the hotel television one night and saw on the news that police in Ferguson, Missouri had shot an 18-year-old Black man, Michael Brown, sparking protests that drew a disproportionate militarized response. The parallels between Egypt and the United States struck me even then, but only in 2016 did I become fully aware. That summer, a police officer in Minnesota pulled over 32-year-old Philando Castile—a Black man—at a traffic stop and, as he reached for his license and registration, fatally shot him five times at close range. Castile’s partner, Diamond Reynolds, was in the passenger’s seat and had the presence of mind to whip out her phone in the immediate aftermath, streaming her exchange with the police officer on Facebook Live. Almost immediately, Facebook removed the video. The company later restored it, citing a “technical glitch,” but the incident demonstrated the power that technology companies—accountable to no one but their shareholders and driven by profit motives—have over our expression. The internet brought about a fundamental shift in the way we communicate and relate to one another, but its commercialization has laid bare the limits of existing systems of governance. In the years following these incidents, content moderation and the systems surrounding it became almost a singular obsession. I worked to document the experiences of social media users, collaborated with numerous individuals, and learned about the structural limitations to changing the system. Over the years, my views on the relationship between free speech and tech have evolved. Once I believed that companies should play no role in governing our speech, but later I shifted to pragmatism, seeking ways to mitigate the harm of their decisions and enforce limits on their power. But while the parameters of the problem and its potential solutions grew clearer, so did my thesis: Content moderation— specifically, the uneven enforcement of already-inconsistent policies—disproportionately impacts marginalized communities and exacerbates existing structural power balances. Offline repression is, as it turns out, replicated online. The 2016 election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency brought the issue of content moderation to the fore; suddenly, the terms of the debate shifted. Conservatives in the United States claimed they were unjustly singled out by Big Tech and the media amplified those claims—much to my chagrin, since they were not borne out by data. At the same time, the rise of right-wing extremism, disinformation, and harassment—such as the spread of the QAnon conspiracy and wildly inaccurate information about vaccines—on social media led me to doubt some of my earlier conclusions about the role Big Tech should play in governing speech. That’s when I knew that it was time to write about content moderation’s less-debated harms and to document them in a book. Setting out to write about a subject I know so intimately (and have even experienced firsthand), I thought I knew what I would say. But the process turned out to be a learning experience that caused me to rethink some of my own assumptions about the right way forward. One of the final interviews I conducted for the book was with Dave Willner, one of the early policy architects at Facebook. Sitting at a café in San Francisco just a few months before the pandemic hit, he told me: “Social media empowers previously marginal people, and some of those previously marginal people are trans teenagers and some are neo-Nazis. The empowerment sense is the same, and some of it we think is good and some of it we think is not good. The coming together of people with rare problems or views is agnostic.” That framing guided me in the final months of writing. My instinct, based on those early experiences with social media as a democratizing force, has always been to think about the unintended consequences of any policy for the world’s most vulnerable users, and it is that lens that guides my passion for protecting free expression. But I also see now that it is imperative never to forget a crucial fact—that the very same tools which have empowered historically marginalized communities can also enable their oppressors. [post_title] => Between Nazis and democracy activists: social media and the free speech dilemma [post_excerpt] => The content moderation policies employed by social media platforms disproportionately affect marginalized communities and exacerbate power imbalances. Offline repression is replicated online. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => between-nazis-and-democracy-activists-social-media-and-the-free-speech-dilemma [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:15:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:15:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=2452 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Between Nazis and democracy activists: social media and the free speech dilemma

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    [post_content] => Thousands of U.S. residents who were undocumented or on non-permanent visas fled to Canada during the Trump years.

Rodney* (not his real name) works as a machine operator at Canada Bread’s assembly line. To get to work each day he travels an hour by public transportation from his home in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood to a production plant on the other side of town. He alternates day and night shifts, bagging bread products for the city’s major supermarkets; barring a three-week mandatory furlough, he’s worked through the pandemic without a break. Rodney is both an essential frontline worker and an asylum seeker.

The 36-year-old former police officer left his hometown of Kingston, Jamaica in February of 2015 when he learned that someone had put out a hit on him and his family due to his work in a special anti-corruption unit. Someone shot his younger sister, who lives with their elderly parents.

She survived, but Rodney knew he had to leave the country in order to protect his family. He fled to Florida, and then moved to New York City, where an aunt lived. But refugee claimants faced an uncertain future in the United States; he wanted something better and more permanent. So, in March of 2018, he crossed the border to Canada.

“My aunt lives in Queens, so I took a Greyhound bus to upstate New York and then a taxi to Roxham Road,” he told me.

Roxham Road: the trickle that became a tsunami

Before 2017, Roxham Road was just a quiet street in the small town of Plattsburgh, N.Y., which is right on the Canadian border. In February of that year the Trump administration began implementing its cruel immigration policies and people who had been in the U.S. for years, either as undocumented immigrants or on non-permanent visas, began to flee—many of them to Canada. It was then that the Roxham Road border crossing gained international attention. This is the spot where many asylum seekers have crossed from the U.S. to Canada on foot, because a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement, signed by both countries, exempts asylum claimants who cross at unofficial entry points from being turned back. People who enter Canada from the U.S. at an official port of entry are ineligible to make a refugee claim and will be returned to the U.S.; the bilateral agreement presupposes the U.S. is a safe country for asylum seekers. In 2017, the Canadian Council for Refugees joined in a legal challenge against the Canadian government, asserting that the U.S. was no longer a safe haven for asylum seekers. Canada’s Federal Court agreed, ruling that the agreement breaches constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security. Prior to February 2017, says the Refugee Board of Canada, the number of asylum seekers coming from the States was in the hundreds. By September 2020, it skyrocketed to 58,625. As of this writing, roughly 16,000 claims have been accepted, 13,000 rejected, and slightly more than 27,000 cases are still pending. Research conducted by the Migration Policy Institute suggests around 40 percent of people who crossed that border left the U.S. “for reasons directly tied to U.S. immigration policies.” The Trump administration implemented policies that made thousands of desperate people feel they faced the kind of harm Amnesty International qualified as “catastrophic.” Illegal family separations; massive pushbacks of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border; cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees; and indefinite detention in deliberately cruel conditions, often bordering on torture, of people who were treated like criminals only because they sought a better life. But while Canada’s immigration system looks better than its southern neighbor’s, it is still deeply flawed. For asylum seekers, the policies can seem capricious and even cruel. Rodney feels that the treatment he received at the hands of Canadian officials has been unjust. “When I crossed, they arrested me, searched me, looked at my documentation, and put me in a room where I waited,” he said. Hours passed until a bus transported him to a holding area, where he waited until 1 a.m. to be interviewed. The Canadian Border Services agent who interviewed him, he said, adopted a confrontational tone and made him feel that she was not assessing his request fairly. Rodney told the agent about documentation that included sworn affidavits from his family and newspaper articles about his undercover work with the police, but the agent didn’t seem to believe him. “She kept inferring that my sister being shot was an accident and not a deliberate attempt on her life,” he said.

Non-recorded interviews pose a problem

That interview is now being used to undermine Rodney’s claim for asylum. In the crucial Basis of Claim (BOC) document, upon which the Refugee Board decides whether or not to grant the applicant asylum, the agent wrote that Rodney had been instructed to destroy evidence during the course of his work as a police officer. Rodney denies having told the agent anything of the kind. But because the interview was not recorded, he is locked in a "he said/she said" situation. He did not even learn what the agent had written on the form until his hearing in September of 2020. “When the judge started asking me why I hadn’t disclosed this so-called information, I explained that I couldn’t omit something that I had never said.” He added that the judge also asked why the newspaper articles didn’t report his name, “when it should have been obvious that it had been omitted to protect me and my family.” Rodney does not understand why he was not allowed to see the original document at the time the agent took his statement. “It’s a statement that is essentially attributed to me, so why didn’t I get the opportunity to see what’s disclosed? I never saw it, I never signed it, and yet the contradiction between the Canada Border Services agent’s statement and my testimonial at the hearing is why my asylum request was basically denied, according to the judge.” Jacqueline Callin, a spokesperson for the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), confirmed that it was not the agency’s practice to record refugee claimants’ statements at ports of entry. But she did maintain that, while she could not comment on Rodney’s case specifically, CBSA rules stipulated that refugee claimants and their representatives should, in general, receive copies of the statement in advance of the hearing. But Rodney insists the CBSA never gave him a copy of his file. “I was only given certified copies of my birth certificate and my passport from the same CBSA officer who interviewed me at the port of entry,” he said. His original birth certificate and passport are still with the border agency.

Long-standing issues persist

Rodney’s lawyer, Perla Abou-Jaoude, said that the CBSA often ignores routine requests for access to applicants’ files. This “puts the applicant at a disadvantage,” she said “and could be rectified so easily”— if the government agency would simply make a routine practice of providing a copy of the applicant’s file simultaneously to their lawyer and the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Recording the interviews, she said, would also be an effective way of ensuring transparency and accountability. Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), a national non-profit umbrella organization, said that the absence of recorded interviews was a “long-standing issue” and one that the council has been trying to rectify for a long time. “You call a simple help line these days and you’re immediately informed that you’re being recorded,” she said. “Yet we’re not recording these important interviews when people’s lives are on the line, when [doing so] would allow the government to monitor the conduct of their agents? I don’t understand why they’re so resistant to it.”

Responding to complex questions under duress

Dench said the CCR’s position is that the task of asking these important questions and filling out the BOC should not be carried out by CBSA agents. “Asking such complex questions when people are tired, confused, and scared is questionable. We have repeatedly asked the IRB not to put too much weight on these initial testimonials, and for the most part, they don’t, but every case is different. Bottom line, the CBSA should not be conducting these assessments, and if they are, they should be recorded.” Abou-Jaoude also questioned a practice that has refugee claimants filling out complicated forms when they’re exhausted, frightened, confused, and sometimes unaware of what they’re signing because of language barriers. Mistakes during the initial declaration can potentially affect their credibility and chances. Rodney and his lawyer have filed an appeal and he’s now waiting to hear back. The process could take up to a year.

Working as a frontline worker in a foreign country

In the meantime, Rodney works. He has no family in Canada, and he tells me that he leads a rather solitary life. When I tell him that it sounds lonely, there’s a long pause on the other end of the line. His older sister, who was severely handicapped, passed away this past October. Rodney was not able to attend her funeral or be with his family in mourning. He worries about his parents who have health problems, and he sends what money he can afford back home. “I don’t make much, but I make sacrifices so I can help them.” When I ask him if he likes what he does, I can “hear” the shrug through the telephone. “I’m indifferent,” he said. “I work hard, and I always try to be professional. But I’m working to survive, so I can help my family.” When the pandemic hit Rodney was working the night shift at Canada Bread. Workers have been equipped with surgical masks and face shields, so he feels safe at the plant. And his company has provided him with a letter explaining his presence outside during Quebec’s 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. “The very first night the curfew was implemented I was stopped,” he said. “I was waiting for the bus early in the morning and a police car going in the opposite direction immediately made a U-turn and came straight at me. I showed them the letter.” I ask him what his first impression of Montreal was. “It’s a lot more French than I expected before coming here,” he said, laughing. “I’m slowly learning the language and I wish I could take classes and improve it, but work exhausts me. I often finish my shift at 1 a.m. and at that hour the bus doesn’t pass by too often, so I routinely wait an additional 45 minutes just to board it. Then, another hour to get home,” he trails off. With the hearing coming up, Rodney wants to share what happened to him. He wants people to understand that the system needs improving.

Canadian border agents under investigation

He’s not the only one who thinks so. In 2019, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians launched a review into the actions of the CBSA, following multiple reports of flaws within the agency, as well as multiple harassment allegations. CBC News reported that the agency had investigated 1,200 allegations against its own staff over a two-and-a-half-year period. “CBSA agents have a lot of discretionary power, but there’s no outside oversight of staff conduct, which can occasionally be problematic,” said Abou-Jaoude.  Dench confirmed that the CCR was very aware of the lack of accountability and transparency. Considering the power and scope border policing agents have, combined with allegations of serious misconduct that include unnecessary force, conflict of interest, and sexual harassment, one would think the government would welcome recorded interview sessions, since they would protect both the applicants and the agency’s reputation. “So much is at stake here— for me and my family,” Rodney says. “I have no recourse now. There’s a contradiction between [the CBSA agent’s] statement and my story and naturally the judge will take her word as being neutral and accurate. But what she wrote was inaccurate and there’s no way for me to prove it.” [post_title] => For asylum seekers, Canada's immigration policies can seem capricious and even cruel [post_excerpt] => Canada’s immigration system is better than the United States', but is still deeply flawed. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => for-asylum-seekers-canadas-immigration-policies-can-seem-capricious-and-even-cruel [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=2383 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

For asylum seekers, Canada’s immigration policies can seem capricious and even cruel

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    [post_date] => 2021-03-12 03:41:06
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    [post_content] => The Minister of Higher Education branded academics "Islamo-leftists," claiming they bear responsibility for terror attacks.

When France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frederique Vidal, announced last month that free, environmentally friendly period products would be made available on French campuses, the news generated ample national and international media coverage. This measure must be recognized as a victory for French student unions, which have long campaigned against  period poverty. Yet, a good news story about the country’s campuses is also what the center-right ruling party, La République en Marche, needs right now to distract us from the reality of what the government is doing to French universities—which is far more sinister.

In recent years, Paris has engaged in frontal attacks on academic freedom. Austerity measures have eroded universities, with students and staff struggling with deteriorating working and learning conditions. A controversial new higher education law is set to damage academic autonomy and quality by consolidating short-term employment and funding, and the role of private companies.

Most recently, the French government has decided to turn public universities into a battleground on which to wage a culture war ahead of the April 2022 presidential elections—where they will likely try and appeal to the far right. Feeding into public antagonism toward Muslims, Vidal has attacked so-called “Islamo-leftists” in universities, claiming that academics engaged in race, postcolonial, and gender studies, bear responsibility for terrorist attacks against France. Last month, Vidal called for an investigation into academic research that feeds “Islamo-leftist’’ tendencies that “corrupt society.’’ This caused a general outcry in academia and it remains unclear whether this ludicrous exercise will happen.

But in a context of socio-economic distress and social anxiety due to the pandemic, the government’s inflationary use of the term  helps build an imagined “enemy of the interior,” a treacherous intellectual elite responsible of the country’s ills. The scholars under attack are actually doing critical work in helping us understand the complex mechanisms that perpetuate sexism, racism and class and how they intersect. The official call for a purge of French academia can only raise deep concerns among those who consider academic freedom and intellectual inquiry to be core pillars of a democratic society.

At the same time, the impoverishment of French public universities has continued, carrying with it a deleterious impact on academic autonomy and students’ life. The free period products campaign will cost €15 million ($18 million) a year—a cheap price to buy a progressive reputation and social peace on campus. By comparison, the Union des Etudiants de France (UNEF), one of France’s student unions, has been calling for a €1.5 billion emergency plan to address student poverty.

Compared to the astronomical cost of higher education in the United States, French universities are inexpensive; annual tuition ranges between between €170 to €600 ( $204-$720), depending on the degree. But the principle of free education has been enshrined in the French constitution since 1946, recognized by the state as a duty to its citizens and an integral aspect of the post-WWII social contract. Anyone who completes a Baccalaureate (high school matriculation) is entitled to attend university. While the most prestigious universities remain selective and elite, low tuition fees have had the effect of narrowing socio-economic gaps. This is why French society remains strongly attached to the “free university” principle and has resisted the government’s decades-long ambition to shift to a high tuition system like the one in the United States. And yet, even with low or free tuition, student poverty is today a stark reality in France: about 20 percent of students live below the poverty line, while 46 percent are seeing their academic work suffer because they have been forced to take jobs to compensate for the severe cuts to once-adequate state financial aid.

In face of the deterioration of their learning and living conditions, student anger is brewing. Last year, a student in Lyon set himself on fire in Lyon to protest academic poverty. Over the past two decades of budget austerity, academics’ working conditions have also steadily worsened. The recruitment of permanent academic staff has been minimal while student numbers have increased very fast. Rather than ramp up university support, though, some €6 billion of public funding are annually paid to private companies to support their R&D efforts through the Research Tax Credit, with very limited impact on France’s research achievements.

Vidal’s new Higher Education and Research Law, adopted in December despite the academic community’s quasi-unanimous rejection, will deepen the inequalities between a few well-resourced institutions and the majority of cash-strapped universities.

The law increases the number of early-career academic staff who are forced to work as adjuncts rather than staff with benefits; it also reinforces the funding of public research through short-term projects and commercial companies. This will have a damaging impact on academic autonomy and quality.

All of this, meanwhile, is playing out while France grapples with a series of sexual harassment and rape cases that have damaged the reputation of prestigious higher education institutions.,

Academics and students have been calling on the government and university leadership to challenge the power structures that allow for the systemic entrenchment of sexism within French universities. So far, their demands have been met with little response.

Anti-intellectualism, scapegoating of the academic community, and chipping away at university freedom are hardly new or unique to France. These are, indeed, a cornerstone of authoritarian governments, who deploy discursive and legal tactics in order to stifle dissent and free inquiry on campus. Now, as these wars increasingly reach democratic fronts, we must oppose them.

Of course, I am in favor of free period products in universities and schools, but why did France’s universities have to wait for 2021 to receive this benefit? French public universities are an essential public service dedicated to fostering human understanding through open-ended enquiry. They are an instrument of social mobility for many working class youth. They also add to France’s influence on the world stage. As the government dismantles these crucial institutions, we should not allow opportunist politicians to use free tampons as a fig leaf for their actions.
    [post_title] => French gov't diverts attention from its war on academic freedom with free period products
    [post_excerpt] => Over the past two decades of budget austerity, academics’ working conditions have also steadily worsened. Last year, a student set himself on fire to protest academic poverty.
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French gov’t diverts attention from its war on academic freedom with free period products

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    [post_date] => 2021-01-22 16:48:56
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    [post_content] => Can a single activist bring down Vladimir Putin?

In December of 2011, the name Alexey Navalny was everywhere in Moscow. Then a 35 year-old lawyer turned popular anti-corruption blogger, he inspired unprecedented street protests after Vladimir Putin’s party won 50 percent of the parliamentary vote in an election that was widely viewed as fraudulent

Even the most cynical members of the Moscow Hack Pack, as foreign correspondents called themselves, were stunned and impressed by the protests. By December 24 the crowds swelled to 120,000, according to organizers. For the first time in about a decade, Vladimir Putin’s so-called “managed democracy” faced an opposition that captured the attention of mainstream Russians. 

Russian police cracked down harshly on the protest organizers. Many were arrested and imprisoned—including Navalny, who was sentenced to 15 days in jail for “blocking traffic.” 

Over the next decade Navalny became the best known and most popular leader of the opposition to Vladimir Putin’s anti-democratic rule. He established the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK); under its auspices, he published documentary evidence of the dirty, corrupt dealings between oligarchs, state corporations and Putin. Within two years of the 2011 protests, he was widely regarded as the most potent opposition to Putin and his United Russia Party, which Navalny called “the party of thieves and crooks.”

In 2013 he ran for mayor of Moscow, winning a remarkable 27 percent of the vote in a four-way contest, but ultimately losing a run-off to incumbent Sergei Sobyanin—a Putin appointee—in a result that Navalny and his supporters said was tainted by vote falsifications and violations. 

The police and FSB continued to persecute Navalny with detention, house arrests, and a criminal investigation on trumped up corruption charges. But he remained undeterred, and his popularity continued to grow. Navalny was the international face of Russia’s opposition, widely regarded as the only viable threat to Putin’s power. Tellingly, Putin has never spoken Navalny’s name, which Kremlin observers say is a sign of weakness

Imprisonment, house arrest and threats failed to deter the activist, so perhaps it was inevitable that Putin would try something more lethal to bring down his rival.

In August 2020, while on a domestic flight, Navalny collapsed in excruciating pain. He was taken to a local hospital, then evacuated to Germany for treatment. French and Swedish lab tests confirmed that he had been poisoned by Novichok, the Soviet-era nerve agent. Russian authorities, of course, denied having poisoned the activist. But in a widely publicized audio recording, Navalny himself managed to elicit a confession from an agent of the FSB; the man not only confirmed that Russia’s Intelligence agency had poisoned Navalny, but explained that they had done so by putting the toxic substance on his underpants. There is something very personal and humiliating about trying to kill a person that way. 

This past Sunday Navalny returned to Russia for the first time since the Novichok incident, in a move that many supporters thought was foolhardy but all agreed was very brave. 

Police detained him as soon as he landed, taking him from the airport to Moscow’s notorious Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where he awaits trial for failing to check in with his parole authorities over a suspended prison sentence in a politically motivated fraud case.  Sergei Magnitsky, the anti-corruption crusader for whom the Magnitsky Act is named, was infamously tortured to death in the same prison.

In order to defeat a political foe in Russia, you must also emasculate him (I’m using this pronoun deliberately, as power in Russia is fundamentally male-centric). I think this is why videos of a poisoned Navalny moaning in pain were such a hit with Kremlin trolls and various lackeys. It seemed like the ultimate defeat at the time. 

It’s also why Navalny’s brave and defiant return to Russia, in spite of the state making it obvious that he should not go back, is all the more powerful. 

Navalny, who was a lawyer and a businessman before he became a prominent member of the opposition, was a well-known Russian nationalist. Some of his nationalist activity, such as using ethnic slurs against Georgians, he has disavowed. At the same time, Navalny’s specific and frequent criticism of the Chechen dictator, Ramzan Kadyrov, and the violent misogyny espoused by Kadyrov and his officials, is clearly not something Navalny regrets. 

Those of us who observed the rampages of wealthy Chechens in Moscow thought Navalny had a point there. The Kremlin’s completely hands-off approach toward Chechen officials had resulted in lawlessness that’s monstrous even for a country like Russia, and that kind of sickness was never going to stay contained in Chechnya. 

In channeling Russian resentment against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov & Co., Navalny certainly increased his relevance early on — but it was his investigative work into the corruption of mainstream Russian officials that really hit the mark in recent years. 

That’s because Navalny understands the helpless frustration that Russian corruption engenders. Even among Russian citizens who still support Putin, there is anger at the wealthy clans that surround his throne. Putin himself knows this, which is why he clearly considers Navalny dangerous. 

In July 2013 I reported on a downtown Moscow protest that erupted after Navalny first registered for the mayoral election and was swiftly given a prison term, before the votes could be cast. The weather was hot and stifling that day. An older woman in the crowd next to me made an odd remark—something about still believing that Putin was OK, because “surely he doesn’t realize that they’re putting Navalny in prison,” but that what was happening to Navalny was just beyond belief at this point.

I couldn’t get the woman to give me her name and go on the record, but I’ll never forget the duality of her thinking. It’s the kind of duality that has enabled Putin to stay in power for as long as he has, but yet has also contributed to Navalny’s stardom — all because it allows Russian citizens to pick and choose what facts to believe. They can, for example, admit that corruption in Russia is terrible, but, at the same time, will argue that Putin is a good guy who’s actively trying to fight it. They can disapprove of random repressions but wholeheartedly insist that Putin’s government is not to blame for them.

Navalny did not go to prison on that occasion. Instead, he went on to do more high profile anti-corruption work. The politically motivated court cases against him stacked up. He was attacked from all sides, including by Russian oppositioners jealous of his charisma and success. Together with his wife Yulia, his resolute companion and the mother of his two children, he has persevered. Now his fate is again uncertain.

It is especially uncertain, because less than 48 hours after Navalny was put behind bars, his team released a major investigation into Russian corruption that the Washington Post describes as a “bombshell” that “crossed all Putin’s red lines.” In video posted to YouTube and to his Instagram account, which has 3.5 million followers, Navalny narrates footage of a stupendously lavish residence that he calls “Putin’s palace” and “the world’s biggest bribe.” Built on the Black Sea, the “palace” includes an ice skating rink, casino, theater, and helicopter landing pad; it cost, according to Navalny, about $1 billion in taxpayer funds. Putin has not disclosed the residence on any official forms. As of this writing, the video has been viewed more than 50 million times. 



According to Bloomberg News, the Kremlin now plans to seek a 13.5 year jail sentence for Navalny, in an attempt to derail his anti-corruption movement. Navalny's supporters are calling for nationwide protests on Saturday; Russian police already harassing well-known activists and trying to force social media platforms to delete posts calling upon people to join the protests, as this young woman does in a TikTok video.

It would be impossible to document every tragedy, indignity, and controversy of Alexey Navalny’s political life here. To do so would take a book, if not several books. Meanwhile, perhaps the most important lesson about his trajectory has to do with his dedication.

For years, my fellow journalists and I argued about every twist and turn in his story. People have said, “Now he will surely give up.” “He will consider the safety of his family.” “He will go into exile.” None of those predictions came to pass. 

Since returning to the States from Moscow, I have used Navalny as a cautionary tale for people seduced by the administration of Donald Trump. I have told them that what Putin did to Navalny is something that Trump would love to do to all of his critics, if he had the opportunity and means. I have pointed out that Putin’s authoritarianism is something that Trump always admired. “Is this what you want for your own country?” I’ve said. “To be hounded by the police, and the courts, and every other government attack dog just because you care about official accountability?” 

Many of my fellow Americans have argued to me that such lawlessness could never take root here. But the January 6th attempted insurrection did give a lot of them pause. 

The thing about democracy is that it can be fragile. After all, institutions are only as good as the people who occupy powerful positions within them. 

Russia has plenty of institutions. Russia even used to have a decent constitution — until recent, sweeping changes. None of that matters on the ground, where repression and corruption remain the norm. As we move on from Trump, it’s something for Americans to consider, to humble ourselves just a little, and to think long and hard about what transparency and rule of law mean for us. 

What Navalny is fighting to create is something that we must be willing to preserve.
    [post_title] => Alexei Navalny: the Russian anti-corruption activist who refuses to back down
    [post_excerpt] => Five months after he was airlifted to a German hospital to recover from Novichok poisoning, allegedly by the FSB, Alexei Navalny returned to Russia. Police arrested him at the airport, but even from jail he continues to challenge Putin with revelations about the Russian leader's alleged corruption.
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Alexei Navalny: the Russian anti-corruption activist who refuses to back down

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    [post_content] => Refugees trying to enter Europe are encountering border patrols that turn them back with brutal violence, which rights workers say is systemic.  

It’s around midnight in the Croatian forest, and trees block out most of the moonlight. Five days ago, four men—one Palestinian and three Algerian—crossed the Bosnian border into Croatia, and they have been walking ever since. A few moments ago, they met an Iranian woman with two young children.

Suddenly four police officers appear, shouting: “On your knees, sit down, sit down!” 

The police search the men for their phones, and tell them to hand over their money. They force the men to strip, while the woman and children are separated from the near-naked men. One man, who tells this story to an NGO in November 2020, describes the police making a fire and burning the group’s jackets and backpacks, while one officer drinks whisky and throws out insults.

“He said weird words. I don’t want to repeat them. But I can tell you it was without any respect. He insulted my mother, my sister, everyone. Weird words,” he said.

This is what he claims happens next.

The officers found long branches in the woods, and used them to beat the men.

The group was eventually taken to a small lake near the Croatian-Bosnian border. Waiting for them are 13 or 14 men in balaclavas, and the man telling this story believes they are police.

“And then the fight started. The first one had to go there. ‘Get naked!’ and then they hit him. After. The second one: ‘get naked’ and then bam, bam, bam. Next one: bam, bam, bam. It was like war,” he said.

The masked men used branches, metal batons, and their fists. The mother and two children watched from a distance.

“Then they say to us: ‘now swim’. Just imagine. It was night. So dark and so cold. Then they started throwing big rocks in our direction into the water. Imagine. It was dark, the men had been drinking. What if a rock would hit my head?”

As the men get out of the water, they are forced to walk across the border, back into Bosnia. Behind them, the masked men fire their guns.

This story was recorded by the Border Violence Monitoring Network, a group monitoring human rights violations at the EU’s external borders. While this is the account of one person, it is not an isolated incident. Right across Europe, the evidence shows that refugees and migrants are being forced back across country borders. These pushbacks are not only illegal, they are often violent. 

The evidence is mounting

A new report from the End Pushbacks Partnership and non-profit project Refugee Rights Europe shows the extent of these pushbacks at both land and sea borders. There is evidence of violence on almost every border covered in the report. In Greece, video evidence shows the coast guard shooting into the water next to boats, in Slovenia far-right militias patrol the razor-wire fence borders, and in Turkey people have been shot as they try to cross into Greece. Violence aside, pushbacks go against everything the EU stands for. Under the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, mass expulsions are prohibited. It’s also unlawful for anyone to be pushed back to a country where there’s a serious risk that they’ll face the death penalty, torture, or any other inhuman or degrading treatment. Beyond this, EU Member States must guarantee the right to claim asylum—a right that is rooted in international refugee law. Selma Mesic is the Greece and Balkans coordinator at Refugee Rights Europe, and she’s also part of the team behind the End Pushbacks Partnership, which has put together this report. She said it’s clear that these violent pushbacks aren’t the result of rogue officers. “This is systematic,” she said. “It’s really hard to imagine all of this being done on a random basis.” “Both by the number of people, but also the geographical reach of this trend, it seems entirely implausible that there are such common methodologies and tendencies happening across this many borders,” she said. Pushbacks are happening in the thousands. The vast number, Mesic said, means it’s impossible for this to be the work of a few rogue individuals.

Violence at sea

The land and sea borders between Turkey and Greece are common routes for people making their way into the Schengen Area, where there is officially no passport control between the 26 European countries, although some countries are exercising temporary border controls. On the Greece-Turkey sea border, like so many others in the report, evidence has been found of violence and illegal pushbacks. Much of this violence, according to the report, comes at the hands of the Hellenic (or Greek) Coast Guard. A video published by the BBC shows this playing out in real time. As people try to enter Greek waters on a small dinghy, people on the large coast guard boat shoot into the water, push at the dinghy with a pole, and create waves, rocking the overcrowded vessel. When asked for comment, a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Hellenic Coast Guard sent an official response. 

“The officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard who are responsible for guarding the Greek and European sea and land borders have for months maximized their efforts, operating around the clock with efficiency, a high sense of responsibility, perfect professionalism, patriotism, and also with respect for everyone’s life and human rights. Their actions are carried out in full compliance with the country's international obligations.

As for the tendentious allegations of supposed illegal actions, we must emphasize that the  operation practices of the Greek authorities have never included such actions.”

When directed to the specific BBC video evidence, the Press Officer of the Ministry for Maritime Affairs, Mr Kokkalas, responded:

"This video was reproduced in March 2020, a period during which our country received a sudden, massive, organized and coordinated pressure from population movements to its eastern land and sea borders. This situation was an active, serious, exceptional and asymmetric threat to the country's national security."

In March 2020, pushbacks from Greece escalated. The global Coronavirus pandemic was sending the continent into lockdown, and Turkey had just opened its border with Greece in order to put pressure on Europe. Turkey is currently host to around 3.6 million refugees; in 2016 the EU and Turkey made a deal to put an end to dangerous sea crossings —a one in, one out policy with a financial incentive for Turkey to the tune of €3 billion. They agreed that for every Syrian refugee that Turkey took back from the Greek islands, the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from within Turkey. But since then, there have been a number of disputes, including Turkey’s view that the EU has not kept their side of the bargain, and has not helped to manage the crisis in Syria. Opening the border meant more pressure on a struggling Greece, and more fuel for the fire of right-wing political groups in Europe. The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced: “Our national security council has taken the decision to increase the level of deterrence at our borders to the maximum. As of now we will not be accepting any new asylum applications for one month.” “Do not attempt to enter Greece illegally,” he said. “You will be turned back.” A new trend also emerged, according to Mesic, where people are apprehended after they've landed on the Aegean islands, and are then pushed back. She explains that people are put into detention, and then taken back out to sea, abandoned near Turkish waters on small life rafts designed for emergency sea rescues. The rafts have no motors, and the people are left drifting in the ocean. All this has been detailed in multiple testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch. The people interviewed also said that Greek officers stole their belongings, including ID and money. The coast guard said they have rescued thousands of migrants. Among the Human Rights Watch testimonies, Hassan (not his real name), a Palestinian refugee from Gaza, said this:

“The Greek Coast Guard put us in a big boat. We drove for three hours but then they put us in a small boat. It was like a raft. It was inflatable and had no motor. Like a rescue boat they keep on big boats in case there is an emergency. They left us in the sea alone. There was no food or water. They left us for two nights. We had children with us.”

Alongside reports of pushbacks, there are also heroic stories of rescue, both from the coast guard and civil society groups. Refugee Rescue, the last search and rescue boat working from the island of Lesvos, worked for five years to save the lives of people crossing the Aegean sea. But the organization said it has had to suspend its operations because a deteriorating situation means their work is no longer safe.

The perpetrators of pushbacks

At the land border, a similar story is unfolding. Mounting evidence shows that people are not only being pushed back by authorities, but that unidentified masked men are playing a role in the process. “There's no clear understanding of exactly who they are,” Mesic said. “A lot of the testimonies given by victims of pushbacks, say they're apprehended close to the river, then they're driven on little motorboats across the river on towards the Turkish side. They tend not to speak, because, I would presume, they don't want to betray an accent or a specific language that they're speaking which could identify them.” Mesic said the men wear masks and black clothing. She believes it’s a deliberate attempt to make sure they can’t be identified. Countless claims of violence by Greek authorities have been collected by The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN). In one report, they speak to a Moroccan man, who said he has been pushed back to Turkey seven times.  “If you come back to Greece, we will kill you.” These are the words he claims were levelled at him by a Greek officer, after he and his fellow travellers were picked up in Orestiada, a village near the Turkish border in July 2020. BVMN said the group was taken to a nearby police station, where their phones were confiscated, and they were given no food or water. The next day, they were taken to another police station, where officers threw water on them, stripped them, and, according to the man’s statement, beat them with metal batons. He added that they were not given any opportunity to claim asylum. When BVMN interviewed him a month later, the man still had bruises on his back. Police eventually took the men to the border and forced them to look at the ground while threatening them with guns. Masked men beat anyone who dared look up. “If you look at them, they can hit you until you die. They don’t care about this. We were so scared,” he told BVMN. They were forced across the river, back into Turkey. Greek police did not respond to requests for a comment.

A Europe-wide problem

The situation on the border between Greece and Turkey is just one example, and similar stories are playing out on borders between Schengen countries too.  In France, people have been pushed back to Italy for a number of years. The 515km (320 mile) border has essentially been closed since 2015, following terror attacks in the country when a State of Emergency was declared. However, some groups such as Anafé (National Association of Border Assistance for Foreigners) say these border controls are being used as a way to fight immigration. “It’s not something you’d expect. They’re both EU countries. You think they’d be more aligned with their human rights and fundamental rights provisions. But clearly not, because these pushbacks are happening at a high rate,” said Selma Mesic. The pushbacks typically happen after people are searched and arrested on trains or at train stations, and there are also claims of racial profiling. According to the End Pushbacks report, people are locked up in inhumane conditions; their personal documents are stolen and they are denied the right to claim asylum. Unaccompanied minors are also being pushed back. Several civil society groups report that authorities often change dates of birth on forms so that children (who are entitled to specific provisions and protections) are classed as adults. In fact, in 2018, Anafé brought a major class action involving 20 cases of minors being pushed back to Italy. They won the case. Beyond the violent pushbacks happening on European borders, is the problem of chain refoulement, where people are forced back across multiple borders. Through this practice, their lives are put in even greater danger. On the Italian border, people are being pushed back into Slovenia, and then further along the Balkan route. They are forced into Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Serbia, where they often face inhumane conditions. People face police violence, homelessness, and destitution. Their right to seek asylum is often violated. Mesic explains that along the Balkan route, people are apprehended, driven to the border, and handed over to the equivalent officials on the other side. Many countries, she said, are leaning on their readmissions agreements to claim that everything is being done within the law. “It’s really easy to poke holes in that, because there are a lot of fundamental rights that are not being respected—the right to seek asylum, the right to have an interpreter or to receive information about your rights. Some of these rights are actually covered by readmissions agreements, but they're not really practised,” she said.

Raising the alarm

The groups behind this report are calling for urgent action. Together, they’ve set out a list of EU advocacy demands. “We need effective access to asylum registration on both the EU external and internal borders, and to make sure that the safeguards and the right to asylum are upheld, because with the pushbacks happening, the right to asylum is gravely undermined,” Mesic said. The group also wants to see an end to illegal detention practices, to end racial profiling, and to see a respect for the Schengen border code. They also want assurances that agencies, particularly European border and coast guard agency FRONTEX, are being held to account. They want to know that this work is carried out in line with the EU’s human rights obligations. “The European Commission must hold member states to account,” Mesic said. She said that all the rules and guidelines are already in place, but that there don’t seem to be any consequences when they are broken. The Schengen border code and the EU charter should provide the right protections, but the rules, based on the evidence, are not being respected. [post_title] => A call to end border violence in Europe [post_excerpt] => There is evidence of violence on almost every border covered in the report. In Greece, video evidence shows the coast guard shooting into the water next to boats, in Slovenia far-right militias patrol the razor-wire fence borders, and in Turkey people have been shot as they try to cross into Greece. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => a-call-to-end-border-violence-in-europe [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://conversationalist.org/?p=2255 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

A call to end border violence in Europe

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    [post_content] => Under Trump, the presidency revealed itself, perhaps like no time before, to be a veritable monarchy. 

The January 6 sack of the U.S. Capitol by far-right extremists, egged on by President Trump and his refusal to acknowledge defeat at the November presidential elections, is among the darkest days in modern American history. For scholars of authoritarianism, however, and especially those of us with lived experiences with such regimes, there is little surprise at what transpired. Instead, it is a kind of informed terror.

In my case, it is the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the rise of the genocidaire Slobodan Milosevic that has informed my perspective on Trump’s rise and the chaos of his fall. I was a young child when my family was forced to flee Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, in April 1992. But the onset of nationalist aggression against Bosnia, orchestrated by Milosevic’s then regime in Belgrade, was not sudden. It had been carefully prepared, organized, and regimented. So, too, the ensuing genocide in Bosnia: it involved bureaucrats, paperwork, pay stubs, and complex logistics.

My parents and their peers watched much of the Yugoslav dissolution crisis play out on their TV screens—mostly in disbelief. Yugoslavia was a one-party, authoritarian regime, but it was widely considered the most “liberal” communist polity in Europe. It had a large, relatively prosperous middle class; Western commodities were widely available, as were Western media and entertainment. Yugoslavs traveled freely to both the First and Second World. And in cosmopolitan Sarajevo, the center of multiethnic Bosnia, a litany of punk and rock bands, literary circles, and youth groups agitated for social and democratic change.

Understandably, then, when Milosevic first appeared on the radar of Yugoslavia’s educated middle class, he was seen as a deeply ridiculous figure. A dour communist apparatchik, his affect was transparently false. He spoke in an overwrought, airy way, his head perennially tilted upwards, capped by a crown-line pompadour.

But my parents and their peers were wrong. Milosevic’s appeal to the supposedly beleaguered ethnic Serbs of Kosovo, Yugoslavia’s poorest region, struck a note with many, especially in Serbia. He and his tight-knit circle of political operatives promptly outmaneuvered the sclerotic communist party apparatus in Belgrade. They quickly seized control of the country’s state media, while simultaneously ingratiating themselves with the hardline authoritarian leadership of the Yugoslav military.

And on the streets, Milosevic whipped up mobs of Serb nationalists with sinister speeches that alluded—with no evidence—to a brewing conspiracy to exterminate the Serb nation. Directing the crowds against other members of the communist regime, Milosevic toppled the governments of Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro, to seize the Yugoslav collective presidency and install himself as the country’s supreme leader. He called this ploy the “anti-bureaucratic revolution”; it lacked mass support as such, but it was ferociously supported by a hardcore base of Serb nationalist radicals and extremists.

Within the span of three years, between 1987 and 1990, Milosevic emerged as the most influential and powerful figure in Yugoslavia, a complex, multiethnic federation. His adept use of Serb nationalist grievance politics was successful but only for a moment. By 1990, the leadership in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia realized that Milosevic was on the cusp of a total takeover, and that he would impose his sectarian-authoritarian rule with an iron fist.

When a last-ditch effort at curtailing his rise failed at the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the country began to fragment. There were no more institutional avenues left to check him and so, one by one, the remaining republics held multiparty elections, and then promptly sought to exit the federal state.

Milosevic’s pursuit of one-man rule failed but it also killed the Yugoslav federation. With the union dissolving, Milosevic used the massive Yugoslav military, and an assortment of ultra-nationalist and criminal paramilitaries, to attempt to carve out of Croatia and Bosnia chunks of territory to append to a new “Greater Serbia”. This necessarily involved the systematic killing, torture, rape, and expulsion of tens of thousands. Bosnia became the site of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II. The Bosnian War and genocide resulted in the deaths of nearly 100,000 people in less than four years.

As a result of these experiences, former Yugoslav and Bosnian scholars and writers were among the first  to warn, from the earliest days of Trump’s candidacy, that his political program was a threat to American constitutional government; that American institutions and politicians would struggle to contain his sustained assault on the rule of law; that his administration was a mortal threat to black, brown, and immigrant communities; and that he would help unleash a din of sectarian violence that would tear at the fabric of the republic.

Every subsequent week confirmed the accuracy of our predications. Privately, many of us spoke about what our “red lines” were: when was it time to try to leave the country? What was the point of no return? Flashes of Yugoslavia’s dissolution, the early days of the war in Bosnia, filled our sleepless nights.

The imposition of Executive Order 13769—the Muslim ban—in January 2017 immediately set off alarm bells for all of us. The sustained civil society push-back gave us hope, but the failure of the courts to roll back a transparently discriminatory policy gutted those prospects. Then came a flurry of scandals and horrors: family separation, the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, impeachment.

Trump kept pushing, and America’s famed system of “checks and balances” kept buckling. The presidency revealed itself, perhaps like no time before, to be a veritable monarchy. Seemingly no outrage, no violation was severe enough to warrant a meaningful sanction from the Republican Party, or Trump’s electoral base.

During last summer’s Black Lives Matters protests, when federal forces were called in by the President and used to violently clear Washington, D.C.’s streets of peaceful protesters, and military helicopters ominously hung over the few remaining crowds, I drove to a nearby ATM. I took out several thousand dollars in cash, went home, and took out all my family’s passports. I told my wife that we should seriously talk about leaving. She did not disagree, but we wondered where to go. Perhaps to Vancouver, Canada to stay with my folks, I said—or perhaps back to Sarajevo.

We did not leave. But we began recording videos for our young daughters about this moment in American history. About how we rationalized our decision to stay, and to use whatever resources we had, whatever platforms we could tap into to protect and shore up the American republic, and those most vulnerable in it.

The United States is not Yugoslavia. But it also not an unassailable bastion of good governance. It has its own long, dark histories of sectarian violence and authoritarianism. The collapse of the Jim Crow South is a recent historical event, and the struggle between white supremacy and racial equality still, indelibly, shapes contemporary American politics. America is not uniquely resistant to the threat of illiberalism or civil strife, and despite Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ electoral triumph, Donald Trump remains a significant danger to the republic.

It is imperative that once he is removed from office, all levels of American government and civil society initiate a sustained campaign to restore the American republic. Major social and financial investments must be made in renewing civic trust, rolling back disinformation and spreading media literacy, promoting the study of civics and governance, and aggressively dismantling and prosecuting domestic far right and white supremacist cells.

Above all, this moment cannot be forgotten. The page cannot be turned on this period before there is a genuine national reckoning, a true commitment to truth and reconciliation, and an accounting for how Donald Trump, a vulgar, semi-literate demagogue, was able to bring the American constitutional regime to its breaking point in four years—and why so many were, and continue to be, willing to aid him in this pursuit. America’s future depends on confronting, rather than forgetting his tenure.
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    [post_excerpt] => The United States is not Yugoslavia. But it also not an unassailable bastion of good governance. It has its own long, dark histories of sectarian violence and authoritarianism.
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The predictable terror of Trump’s rise and fall