It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Electronic tracking bracelet on a passenger at Hong Kong International Airport. Photo file: Rachel Wong / HKFP.
This article was written by Shui-yin Sharon Yam, an assistant professor of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky, and was originally published in Hong Kong Free Press on March 24, 2020 . It is reproduced on Global Voices under a content association agreement.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a rapidly spreading pandemic, governments around the world have implemented new policies to help mitigate the spread of the virus.
In addition to closing borders for non-citizens, several governments have also mobilized digital surveillance technologies to track and contain visitors and citizens.
On Wednesday, March 18, the Hong Kong Government announced that all newcomers to the city must undergo two weeks of self-imposed quarantine and wear an electronic wristband that connects to a location tracking application on their cell phones.
If the application detects changes in the person's location, it will alert the Health Department and the Police. Prior to this policy, only people who had recently visited the Hubei province in China were required to wear a monitoring bracelet during their quarantine period.
While technologies and surveillance measures can provide the public with a sense of security to control the spread of the virus, we must be vigilant about its continued use after the pandemic disappears.
European and North American countries such as Italy, Spain and the United States are severely affected by the coronavirus. Meanwhile, international media praised Asian countries for their swift responses and the use of surveillance technologies to control the outbreak.
The Singapore Government, for example, implemented policies that can rigorously and effectively track a complex chain of contacts . Starting in February, anyone entering a government or corporate building in Singapore must provide their contact information.
In addition, the Government has been collecting a significant amount of data detailing every known case of infection and also where the person lives and works, as well as the network of contacts to which he is linked.
Although these measures seem to have produced positive results for now, they have highlighted the Government's capacity and technological potential to monitor the movements and lives of each person.
In China, where COVID-19 was first detected, the Government has been employing drastic containment policies and also various surveillance technologies to ensure public compliance with quarantine and isolation.
In addition to using drones to monitor people's movements and ensure that they remain in their homes, in five Chinese cities, the Police patrol the streets with smart helmets equipped with thermo-examination technologies that sound an alarm if a person's temperature exceeds the threshold.
By connecting to a temperature sensor and the existing Chinese Government database and state-level information, this technology allows authorities to immediately identify the name of each person whose body temperature is above 38 ° C.
According to Hanwang Technology, this sophisticated facial recognition technology can identify up to 30 people "in a second."
While the use of surveillance technologies such as these have been effective in reducing the number of confirmed cases in China, they also carry risks.
Beyond the pandemic, both the Chinese government and the company have substantial interests in the development and use of this technology: the government can use it to track and suppress political opponents, while society has much to gain from the point of view. financially.
This technology can also be captured by China's counterterrorism forces to more tightly monitor and regulate the movement of the Uighurs, which the Chinese government lists as terrorists, and who are currently forced to enter mass detention camps and are subjected to forced labor.
Outside Asia, countries in the Middle East such as Israel and Iran have also employed similar surveillance technologies , out of the need to control the spread of the coronavirus.
The Israeli Government uses technologies developed for the anti-terrorist fight to collect data from cell phones, so that it can trace people's contact networks, as well as identify those who must quarantine.
Geolocation data collected through cell phones will be used to alert the public to where they should not go based on infection patterns.
Not only is there no precedent for Israel using anti-terrorism data to combat a health crisis, but the existence of this treasure trove of data, according to The New York Times , has also not been previously reported.
On March 6, researcher Nariman Gharib revealed that the Iranian government has been tracking its citizens' cell phone data through an application disguised as a diagnostic tool for the coronavirus.
Security expert Nikolaos Chrysaidos confirmed that the app collected sensitive personal information that is not related to the outbreak. For example, the app recorded the user's body movements like a physical test tracker would.
Google removed the app from Google Play, but this case demonstrates the need for constant public surveillance of the Government's use of surveillance technologies in the name of public health.
Preserving public health has historically been used by prevailing government institutions and authorities as a justification to stigmatize, monitor, and regulate the lives of marginalized people, such as immigrants, racial minorities, the LGBTQ + community, and those living in poverty.
If we do not hold our government accountable for the use of surveillance technologies during the current pandemic and in the future, we will expose those who are already marginalized to even greater risks of regulation, repression and persecution.
“Mick and tecutli”. Woodcut 2017, photo used with artist's permission.
Manuel Ruelas is an artist and painter from Jalisco, western Mexico, better known as Fases, whose work lies at the intersection between consumerism, migration, and territoriality. His art, which displays satire and reflection, is also a mixture of pre-Hispanic art and everyday pop culture. Ruelas attended national and international events, such as the 6th International Szeklerland Engraving Biennial 2020 and the Second Edition of “Lumen Art Biennial” in Mexico.
His work is influenced by the TGP “Taller de Gráfica Popular” (“People's Graphic Workshop”), which is a landmark in Mexican contemporary art. This workshop has been a school for many engraving artists such as Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O'Higgins, and Luis Arenal Bastar, and denounced class struggle through the use of Mexican symbols and popular elements.
Ruelas also alludes to the aesthetics of Chicano art, which is characterized by the use of religious, political, and indigenous symbols, and reflects social and identity issues in a Mexican-American context. Ruelas also acknowledges the stylistic influence of German Expressionism in his work.
Currently, he paints and makes prints within his Barranca Gráfica Workshop-Gallery, which currently has two offices and an art gallery. The office in Mexico is located in the Condesa neighborhood, one of the most relevant cultural places in Mexico City; the office in the USA is in Oakland, California, where he currently lives. He manages both spaces.
About a year ago, I had the opportunity to work in this Barranca Gráfica workshop in Mexico and to meet him. The following interview unfolds my recent talk with Manuel Ruelas about what influences his work and artistic vision.
“Misfortunes of faith.” Engraving on relief, 50 x 70 cm, 2019, photo used with artist's permission.
Alejandro Barreto: Your work is full of satire. What is Manuel Ruelas’ criticism directed against?
The sense of humor and satire is something inherent in Mexican culture, we grow, we live, and we die with it; humor has served as a vehicle to fight and cope with the hardships and ailments of this country. In my case, this happened in a natural and casual way, it gave me the possibility of maintaining a critical and political position regarding historical events. The social context, the mixture of poverty, violence, and corruption has become a reality in Mexico, [it is] a constant defense in a city that ends up making its citizens rough. In Mexico there is a cult of fighting and rivalry of all kinds, in the sports industry, politics, religion, and television. I try to capture a phenomenon of which we are a part: the misfortune in society, which ranges from getting sick, or becoming poorer, violent, or corrupt. And the ultimate misfortune is death, that is why this is a recurring concept in my work.
“Codex”. Woodcut 2019, photo used with artist's permission.
AB: In your opinion, what place does street art occupy in today's world society?
MR: [Street art] made the showcases more democratic, any artist or person who wants to say something or paint can do it, and in this way they took their message to audiences that perhaps had never been to a museum or to a gallery. The main issue for me today is that the big capital cities realized this and have turned it into a commercial and elitist product, a resource for gentrification, which makes it sterile and merely decorative, an ideal background for ‘selfies’, and large-scale advertising. There are still great artists who stand firm and consistent in their conception of art.
AB: Currently you live in the United States. Has this changed your perception of Mexican-American culture compared to when you lived in Mexico?
MR: For me, the starting point and the connection with the Mexican-American culture was the concept of Nepantla, a very important Nahuatl indigenous word for us Mexicans, that means “in the middle”, “in between”. The experience of living in the United States has taken me to investigate the paths of longing, my own and the collective “in the middle”, so this concept is very present in my work. At the same time, I am collecting stories about segregation, xenophobia, and racism, but also about overcoming, organization, community and struggle.
“Smoking Black Mirror”. Linoengraving, 15 x 20cm, photo used with artist's permission.
AB: There are many references to pop culture and territorial discourse in your works. How do these two concepts work for you as an artist?
MR: They are based on the ancient myth of the Mexicas or Aztecas migrating from Aztlán [to where Mexico City is today], and the construction of identity-territory. The people of Aztlán, the Aztecs, had to leave their homes in search of the land promised by the gods. By orders of the god of war and sun, Huitzilopochtli, they began a pilgrimage until they encountered an eagle devouring a snake, perched on a prickly pear cactus, and they founded México-Tenochtitlán [present-day Mexico City]. This story for me has a cultural, cross-border, and migration value, with which I wanted to build bridges between the self and the “other,” the mixture of the iconography of Aztec signs, but idealized by local or popular culture, and reinterpreted in light of the new culture of mass consumption. The popular consumerist elements and those that the Aztec empired worshipped. Names, common characters, and brands present in our collective culture. These exercises of appropriation and hybridization have made me search for new meanings of the icons, reformulating their narratives and giving them new ways of representation.
“Duality”. Linoengraving, 15 x 10cm, photo used with artist’ permission.
You can see more of the artist's work on his Instagram account.
IT REALLY HELPED WITH STOPPING THAT DISASTOROUS EARTHQUAKE THEY HAD Posted 29 April 2020 Screenshot from Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice, a video documentary by Saprina Panday. Used with permission.
Note: The author of this story directed and produced the mini-documentary, “Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice”. She is also a member of the Upamanya Gotra (Pandey) clan.
In different regions of Nepal, animal sacrifice is still a thriving part of some religious festivals. While global attention is on the famous Gadhimai festival, many small-scale religious ceremonies also include what activists see as cruel sacrificial practices. Despite continued protests from rights groups and legislation aimed at banning the practice, animal sacrifice is still a deeply entrenched part of the cultural norms of many communities. A ‘ban’ on animal sacrifice
The Gadhimai festival, often called the largest mass animal-slaughter on earth, caught the world's attention after international animal rights activists, like Brigitte Bardot, began campaigning against the event in 2009. It is held every 5 years at the Gadhimai Temple of Bariyarpur near the Indian border.
After mounting pressure from both national and international animal rights groups, India's Supreme Court outlawed the transportation of animals across the border to Gadhimai without a license in 2014. Nepal's Supreme Court followed suit by directing the government to come up with a strategic action plan for the phasing out of the practice of animal sacrifice. In 2015, even the Temple Trust of Gadhimai had agreed to ban animal sacrifice.
However, despite the ‘ban’, the Gadhimai festival took place in 2019.
#Nepal temple ban animal sacrifices #Gadhimai festival? We object to th cruelty with which animals r treated There is random hacking of animals in open space. Not all animals have their heads chopped off. The festival management committee cannot stop the animal sacrifices. pic.twitter.com/eNbKhPlrBw
— Nepali Times (@NepaliTimes) December 4, 2019 Clan tradition and the Kul Devata Puja
The fact that the largest, and the most infamous animal sacrificial ceremony did not lead to an all-out ban suggests that it will be even harder to put an end to the practice at small-scale regularly held events like the Kul Devata Pujas.
Kuladevata refers to a diety that is worshiped by specific clans who follow the Hindu faith. During Kul Devata Pujas, different clans meet up – albeit at different intervals – to rekindle their sense of community and worship their deity. Animal sacrifice often forms an integral part of that worship and the building of kinship.
“Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice” is an original mini-documentary made in March 2020 which focuses on animal sacrifice in the Upamanyu Gotra (Pandey) clan, a clan that meets once every 12 years in the eastern part of Nepal.
Attended by thousands of people, this year's event led to the killing of over a thousand goats in the belief that doing so would be honoring the wish of the deity and lead to the fulfillment of future wishes. Many members of the community also saw it as a way of uniting ties of kinship.
An interview with festival attendee Surya Bahadur Pandey shows that, despite growing ethical awareness about animal sacrifice, many are still attached to the tradition of bringing goats to slaughter, because of how it provides continuity with the past:
We know this is not right. But this is our upbringing and ancestral tradition. We cannot change this right away, but it will get amended gradually. Everybody wishes for that but you cannot suddenly change your upbringing. And for that reason, this sacrifice is ongoing.
[Warning:] This video contains graphic imagery.
While events in this video are distinct to this particular clan, the beliefs that surround the practice of animal sacrifice are similar to other rituals around the country wherever animal sacrifice is practiced whether that be at another clan's Kul Devata Puja or at the Gadhimai Festival.
Growing awareness, growing anger
But more than ever, many have expressed anger at the cruelty with which animals are treated in sacrificial festivals across the country. Nepali animal activist group, Bloodless Gadhimai, carried out numerous campaigns to try and change public opinion
There are so many animals, and many are not even beheaded cleanly because the knives are blunted by the mass slaughter. Sometimes they have to hack the animal many times, and the animals take hours to die,” says media personality Saroj Nyaupane.
This same outrage has also led to calls for an end to animal sacrifice during the Dashain festival which is celebrated with prayers and offerings to Durga.
#Dasain animal sacrifices need to end in #Nepal. In #Kullu#India it is happening switched 2 coconuts In #Mysore white pumpkins are smashed
It is promising that this new mindset is changing social norms, and many locals have opted to ‘sacrifice’ coconuts and squash instead of animals.
But clearly animal sacrifice is part of something bigger than simply a practice. It is part of a deeply embedded cultural and traditional norm and holds meaning for many of those who practice it. Trying to ignore that aspect of it, will only serve to perpetuate the status quo and so it is imperative that it be taken in to account when implementing ways to end animal suffering.
Classified as a critically endangered (CR) species in the Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list since 2009, the Iguana delicatissima is threatened with extinction, despite initiatives being taken by regional governments and organisations — but is it already too late? History of the species
The first iguanas appeared in the Antilles more than 7,000 years ago, when the region was still uninhabited. These reptiles were so common in the archipelago — especially in Saint Lucia — that the indigenous Kalinagonamed the island Iouanalao, meaning “There where the Iguana is found”.
During the colonial era, these reptiles were chased and eaten by both the Kalinago and the French, who considered them a good source of protein.
Buffering Dominica are the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, two French overseas departments that are also home to a significant population of Lesser Antillean iguanas.
In Anguilla, this number rose to 300 in 1998, whereas in Sint Eustatius, the iguana population was somewhere between 275 and 650 in 2004. Last but not least, 300 to 500 adults may live in Saint Barthélemy.
The decline of this species, whose life expectancy can at least reach 15 years, could be linked to two interconnected phenomena: competition and hybridisation. The first occurs when individuals (of the same or different species) are competing over a resource in order to survive and reproduce. The second happens when two similar species give birth to a hybrid offspring.
The incidence of the latter is increased by the resulting environmental impacts of intensive farming and urban inrush. Confronted with the deterioration of the vegetation and reduction of their natural habitats, the iguanas are compelled to live together in smaller spaces.
As a consequence, they tend to mate regardless of their species. The common green iguana, therefore, threatens the existence of the Lesser Antillean iguana because of this crossbreeding, as their hybrid offspring contribute to a reduction in the “pure” Lesser Antillean iguana population.
Since the 1970s, governments around the world began to take measures to protect biodiversity. On March 3, 1973, 80 countries adopted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This binding agreement, signed in Washington, DC, regulates the trade of 30,000 species of plants and 5,800 species of animals, including iguanas.
Some countries went further and added the conservation of the species into their own legislation. In 1989, for instance, a French ministerial order made it illegal to hunt, import or trade the Lesser Antillean iguana in Guadeloupe and Martinique. In Guadeloupe, the order initially protected the common green iguana as well, until it was withdrawn from the list of the protected species by an order published on February 10, 2014.
On October 21 and 22, 2009, Dominica hosted a workshop on the conservation of the Lesser Antillean iguana. It served as a basis for the IUCN’s Conservation Action Plan, a document created to ensure the long-term survival of the species in the region.
Similarly, the French Ministry of Ecology launched two national action plans, covering the periods 2011-2015 and 2018-2022. The current plan aims to protect the Lesser Antillean iguana by countering the proliferation of the green iguana. An uncertain future
In Dominica and the French Caribbean, citizens are committed to conserving the Lesser Antillean iguana by halting the spread of the common green iguana.
The nonprofit organisation WildDominique, for instance, surveys and captures green iguanas, while educating Dominicans about the importance of conserving the Lesser Antillean iguana. Likewise, the volunteers of the Guadeloupe-based environmental organisation TITÈ (Organisation for the Management of the Natural Areas of La Désirade) carry out catching operations, especially on the island of La Désirade and on the Petite-Terre islets. The success of these exercises is partly dependent on citizen engagement, as people are encouraged to call in whenever they sight a green iguana.
Only time will tell if the Lesser Antillean iguana will survive or disappear. Yet, the announcement of the discovery of a new species of black endemic iguana (Iguana melanoderma) on the islands of Montserrat and Saba on April 14, 2020, shows the unpredictability of nature.
Nevertheless, many feel that these hopeful signs must not relax conservation efforts.
Mubarak Bala, a self-identified atheist, was arrested in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria, on March 29, 2020, for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammed, reports the Punch, a Nigerian daily.
Bala was arrested following a petition to the police commissioner of Kano, northwest Nigeria, on April 27, by a group of lawyers who accused him of “provocative and annoying” Facebook posts against Muslims, according to Zikoko online portal in reports here, here and here. They said Bala was:
…calling the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (PBUH), [Praise Be Upon Him] all sorts of denigrating names like pedophile, terrorist among other statement that will definitely incite Muslims to take laws into their hands, which will ultimately result in public disturbance and breach of the peace.
Bala is expected to be prosecuted for blasphemy under the Penal Code of Kano State. If convicted, he is liable to a two-year imprisonment with fine or both.
Bala, 35, chemical engineer and leader of the Nigerian Humanist Association, is not new to controversy.
In June 2014, Bala’s family forcefully confined him to a psychiatric hospital in Kano for renouncing Islam, according to reports by the BBC. He was released 18 days later from the Kano Psychiatric Hospital.
Recounting his ordeal in the hospital to Humanist Voices in 2018, Bala said that he was “drugged by force” with medicines meant for “psychotic and schizophrenic patients.” The drugs “induced a lot of weird feelings that almost drove me crazy,” he said.
Therefore, his recent Facebook comments are not surprising, based on his past. On April 26, Bala shared this on his Facebook wall in the Hausa language, which translates: “There is no difference between the Prophet TB Joshua (S.A.W.) of Lagos and Muhammadu (A.S.) of Saudi Arabia, it is better for our Nigeria to be terrorism.”
TB Joshua refers to an evangelical pastor of The Synagogue Church of all Nations, Lagos.
Apparently as a result of the backlash his post generated, Bala shared another Facebook post stating: “if you cant take blasphemy against Islam, criticism of its doctrines, this page is not for you…”
Sahara Reporters, an online newspaper, reported that Bala has been receiving death threats “from extremists” including a “serving policeman identified as Abdulsamad Adamu.” Adamu is a sergeant in the Bauchi State Police Command, northeast Nigeria.
Bala’s lawyers have asked for a transfer of his case from Kano to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, over threats made “directly” on the life of their client before his arrest “via phone calls” and “on social media.” Blasphemy or freedom of speech
Blasphemy is an offense punishable in both the customary (secular) and Sharia (Islamic) court systems in Nigeria.
The customary system, under Section 204 of Nigeria's criminal code entitled “Insult to Religion,” states:
Any person who does an act which any class of persons consider as a public insult on their religion, with the intention that they should consider the act such an insult, and any person who does an unlawful act with the knowledge that any class of persons will consider it such an insult, is guilty of a misdemeanour, and is liable to imprisonment for two years.
Kano State operates under both legal systems.
However, Section 38 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria guarantees the rights of every Nigerian to exercise freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Similarly, Section 39 also grants every Nigerian the right to freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, #FreeMubarakBala has been trending on Twitter, with divided opinions about the arrest of Bala and the impending blasphemy charge.
Writer Gimba Kakanda described Bala’s arrest as “an overkill”:
The arrest of @MubarakBala on charges of blasphemy is uncalled-for. I don’t subscribe to provoking the sensibility of any religious group and I’ve told him it’s unfair that he does that, but arresting him is an overkill. He’s not a threat to Islam. He should’ve just been ignored. pic.twitter.com/jANzGIs6Ns
This netizen wrote an extreme comment on Twitter that insults to the Prophet Muhammad warrant execution:
Screenshot of a tweet by Sarki @Waspapping_ [2:42 PM · Apr 29, 2020]And this netizen called human rights activists hypocrites when it comes to religion:
When someone insults our Prophet you'll say its freedom of speech
But when we insult gays/lesbians you'll say its discrimination
You right activists are hypocrites, have always been and will always be#FreeBalaMubarak
— Umar Al Asad (@alpha_keyboard) April 29, 2020 Atheism in Nigeria
Nigeria, with an estimated population of 200 million people, has two major religions: Christianity and Islam. Muslims and Christians make up 50 percent and 48 percent of the Nigerian population respectively.
The north is predominantly Muslim while the south of Nigeria is chiefly Christian. There are few traditional religious adherents in both parts of the country.
Atheism is not popular, although there have been some popular Nigerians who openly profess their non-belief in any religion.
Some young Nigerian atheists have been ostracized by their families for denouncing religion. It is particularly grim in northern Nigeria. A 2010 Pew Research study shows that a majority of male Muslims in northern Nigeria (58 percent) support the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion.
Nonetheless, these seem to be extreme cases.
A member of the Atheist Society of Nigeria in a 2018 interview with Business Insider by Pulse online magazine admitted that some “still feel” shocked at meeting Nigerian atheists. However, most “Nigerians are tolerant and love to speak their minds when they disagree with you.” Consequently, their lack of belief has ignited “plenty of discussions” and “very few instances of being threatened or bullied.”
COVID-19, desert locusts or torrential rains and floods — where should East Africa focus its attention among this “triple threat”?
As the rains coincide with planting season across the region amid various coronavirus restrictions, this question — albeit, somewhat rhetorical — is on a lot of people's minds.
On April 22, journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo posited this particular polemic on Twitter:
#covid19africa, torrential rains & killer #floods/Climate change; and #locusts in East Africa. If we had to fight only one, which should it be? Which one will kill us less? #EastAfricanDilemma
Out of 779 respondents, 45 percent said that if they had to pick one crisis to fight, it would be the coronavirus. Cases have soared across the continent over the month of April, upending lives due to various preventive measures — like lockdowns and travel bans — that have essentially halted economies and markets.
But the locust plague across the Horn and East Africa posed a threat to food security long before the coronavirus shifted the world's focus — 33 percent of respondents said that locusts were potentially more deadly than the virus or floods. And 22 percent said that torrential rains and flooding, largely attributed to rapid climate change across the continent, is a threat to East African lives. Severe flooding has wiped out crops, driven food price hikes and sent residents “scrambling for survival,” from Somalia to South Sudan to Democratic Republic of Congo.
The truth is that this crisis trifecta — the virus, locusts, and floods — is not mutually exclusive. In fact, each is inextricably linked. Second-wave locusts
“Coronavirus could kill, but hunger kills many more people,” said Akinwumi A. Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank. Adesina wrote that desert locusts can “consume crops in one day that can feed approximately 35,000 people,” and in East Africa, where approximately 20 million people are already food insecure, the effects could be devastating.
Taming the locusts has required copious amount of pesticide — and political will. But with the second wave of “LOCUST-19″ looming, East African nations have turned their attention to confronting COVID-19, implementing travel restrictions that directly impede the ability to mitigate the locust swarms that can travel up to 150 kilometers in 24 hours, munching through food meant for humans. Analysts say this means that many farmers will likely not see a harvest in June.
The maddening buzz of locusts is the song of climate change.
“This particular outbreak began with heavy rains from two cyclones in May and October of 2018 that hit the southern Arabian Peninsula. This allowed two generations of desert locusts to form into swarms. Each generation can be 20 times bigger than the previous one,” wrote Matt Simon with Wired.
And just like the coronavirus, “the terrifying reality is that if you don't stop a locust swarm early, there's very little you can do to stop its spread,” Simon said.
Netizens like Namaiyana on Twitter rightfully point out that the poorest people will feel the brunt of these crises:
Floods, locusts, covid19, foods and locusts again – these are the climate catastrophes that East Africa is currently facing, and yes it’s the people who live on less than a dollar a day that feel the full brunt of these crisis. #FridaysForFuture Pic: Alfy Alfredoh pic.twitter.com/Sk0phYKiQm
When the town of Uvira in South Kivu, DR Congo, experienced torrential floods in late April, it affected the lives of at least 80,000 people — sweeping away homes and claiming the lives of at least 25 people in a single day, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Most people in South Kivu had already been displaced by violence. Now homeless, it's nearly impossible for many to “shelter-in-place,” as DR Congo also attempts to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
On the island of Unguja, part of the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, heavy rains brought the most extreme flooding some villages have seen since 1978, as reported by politician Simai M. Said:
Sadly, these disasters have largely fallen under the radar due to the world's laser focus on the coronavirus pandemic:
— Bukeni Waruzi (@bukeniwaruzi) April 19, 2020 ‘Reconfiguring the world’
This “crucible season” of the coronavirus plague exposes all kinds of contradictions, according to Kenyan writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who wrote an eloquent letter titled “The Pestilence, the Populists and Us” in The Elephant, an online portal.
The “favored self-delusions and mythologies we hold about ourselves and the place of the ‘other’, has frayed and in some cases, fallen apart in a very public way,” she wrote. “I expect a massive re-orientation, reshaping, reconfiguring of the world.”
Indeed, tackling East Africa's current dilemma — three overlapping crises at once — requires creativity, resilience, leadership and substantial investments in “reconfiguring the world.”
Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, recommends several life-saving policies to enact now across Africa to stem the collective blow of the coronavirus, locusts and floods: One, establish a tax-free “green channel” in Africa to expedite the free flow of food and pesticides; two, put measures in place to prevent food price hikes and anti-hoarding policies and release food from government-held grain reserves; and three, invest in food production technology that is both safe and innovative.
Focusing just on the coronavirus in East Africa — and not also on the desert locusts or massive flooding due to climate change — is not an option. The future depends on it.
Quarantined Brazilians protest from their houses during President Jair Bolsonaro's televised address on March 24. Photo: Screencap from video by Deutsche Welle/YouTube.
There is a very good chance that you're in lockdown as you read this. One in every three people on earth is under some sort of social distancing order as governments scramble to slow the spread of COVID-19, which has claimed more than 100,000 lives since the novel coronavirus was first detected in China in December 2019.
Lockdowns have been watched vigilantly by rights groups, who are urging governments to tread carefully when restricting civil liberties in these exceptional circumstances. But lockdowns do present a paradox for accountability on that very matter: How can citizens ensure officials don't misuse their new emergency powers when public protests present an immediate danger to one other?
Fortunately, people have found alternatives. From Kosovo to Spain, from Brazil to the Philippines, pot-banging from balconies and windows emerges as a COVID-safe way to capture the attention of politicians.
Of course, such demonstrations are nothing new. As documented by historian Emmanuel Fureix, this type of protest was first seen in France in 1830. Back then, when the Republicans opposing the Louise-Philippe monarchy used kitchenware to make noise as a sign of protest, it was called charivari.
This method of resistance later reached other parts of the world. In 1961, during the Algerian war of independence one protest became known as “the night of the pots.” Other popular protests of this kind took place in Chile in 1971, during the Allende administration, in Quebec during the 2012 student protests, and in Turkey, during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Today it is particularly popular in Latin America, where it's known as cacelorazo, and panelaço in Brazil. From their windows in Kosovo, citizens begged authorities to put lives before politics
In Kosovo, citizens banged pots and pans from the balconies and windows every night for a week to show discontent with the current political situation — a power struggle in the ruling coalition over the emergency measures.
The protests did not prevent the prime minister from losing a no-confidence motion on March 25, making Kosovo's government the first in the world to fall in relation to the coronavirus crisis.
NEWS – #Kosovo television broadcast live protest of people from balconies, as the voting starts to bring the government down. pic.twitter.com/8tnAuDtJry
With the Kosovo government ousted, the decision to either form a new government or dissolve the country's parliament and call for early elections falls to President Hashim Thaçi, the main beneficiary of the prime minister's sacking. However, holding elections in the midst of a pandemic seems impossible, leaving various important issues up in the air:
Motion passed, government collapsed, exposed to extreme uncertainty, quarantined, battling covid19, bracing for an agreement between Kosovo & Serbia. A long list of issues tormenting an average citizen of #Kosovo.
— Donika Emini (@donikaemini) March 25, 2020 In Spain, a cazerolada against the king
On March 19, 2020, as the King of Spain, Felipe I, gave a nationally broadcasted speech asking for unity in confronting COVID-19, people went to their windows and balconies to demand that his father, Juan Carlos I, donate to the public health system the 100 million euros he allegedly has in a Swiss bank account, courtesy the King of Saudi Arabia.
Spain: massive banging of pots and pans protest as the King starts a TV address to the nation. People in lockdown come out to their balconies to reject the Crown's corruption Solo puedo decir #NiVirusNiCorona.#Caceroladapic.twitter.com/f4hTbz8a2Z#CoronaCiao
Just a few days later, a similar protest was held against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his government, as a criticism of their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic:
Banging pots and pans for a while. Pedro Sanchez RESIGNATION, in Capitán Haya, Madrid.
On April 1, right-wing and far-right again called on social media under the hashtag #cacerolada21h for a protest from the balconies against the government's handling of the COVID crisis. However, this call ended up having little or no success in some parts of Spain. One month of nightly protests against Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro
Since March 17, pots and pans have been echoing from Brazilian households at around 8:30 p.m. every night, in protest over how President Jair Bolsonaro is handling policies to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in a country with 200 million people:
The first night of protests actually took place a day before the original date that had been planned via social media channels. In cities spanning from the north to the south of the expansive country — even in neighborhoods that used to bang those same kitchen utensils asking for the impeachment of left-leaning president Dilma Rousseff four years prior — people shouted, “Get out, Bolsonaro!”
The following evening, March 18, only half an hour after the protests began, Bolsonaro tried to turn this act of resistance on its head by calling for people to bang pots and pans in support of his government:
- O jornal Hoje (TV Globo) e Veja on line, divulgam, de forma ostensiva, PANELAÇO hoje às 20h30 contra o Presidente Jair Bolsonaro. – Mas a mesma imprensa, que se diz imparcial, NÃO DIVULGA outro PANELAÇO, às 21h A FAVOR DO GOVERNO JAIR BOLSONARO.
- The Today News (TV Globo) and Veja [magazine] ostensively publicize POTS AND PANS PROTEST tonight at 20h30 against President Jair Bolsonaro. – But the same press, who claim to be impartial, DOT NOT PUBLICIZE another POTS AND PANS PROTEST, at 21h IN SUPPORT OF JAIR BOLSONARO’S GOVERNMENT.
The Brazilian president has been downplaying the effects of the pandemic, calling COVID-19 “a little flu” and labeling media coverage and social isolation measures adopted by state governors as “hysteric”. In several states, roads have been blocked, interstate buses have been suspended, events canceled and schools closed.
Bolsonaro has given three televised addresses to the nation since World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. His messages have been described as confusing and erratic, at times directly criticizing state governors and at others calling for “union.”
Over the past two weeks, the Brazilian president has shifted from calling for schools and commerce to be reopened, to defending “vertical isolation” — the kind imposed only to people in high-risk groups — and, like US President Donald Trump, advocating for ample use of chloroquine against COVID-19, despite the lack of enough scientific evidence of its efficacy.
Surrounded by aides and cameras, Bolsonaro has also gone several times on walkabouts around the capital Brasília, speaking to and shaking hands with supporters. On his latest excursion on April 10, he declared: “No one will curb my right to come and go.”
Allies and leaders of the National Congress have criticized him for going against the recommendations of the WHO. #ProtestFromHome in the Philippines
Kadamay, an urban poor group in the Philippines, organized noise barrage protest actions to highlight the slow delivery of food assistance from the government. The lockdown order it was under, though aimed at containing the COVID-19 outbreak, also disrupted the livelihood of street vendors and other workers from the informal sector:
The lack of a clear plan on how to extend assistance to poor households prompted Kadamay to organize the protest, which involved the banging of empty kaldero (pots) in houses. The Twitter hashtag #ProtestFromHome trended on March 22, after the campaign gained online support in the country. The police responded by accusing Kadamay of being anti-Filipino.
The protest also asked that the government conduct mass testing for COVID-19 and prioritize the sending of relief to affected communities. Argentine women pot-bang against domestic violence
Este lunes por la noche, se escuchó un cacerolazo en diferentes barrios de Buenos Aires. Bajo la consigna #Ruidazo, se pidió la reducción de los salarios del sector político en medio de la pandemia del coronavirus pic.twitter.com/RpQQ24oyYp
This Monday night, a cacerolazo was heard in different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. Under the hashtag #Ruidazo, calls were made to reduce wages in the political sector amid the coronavirus pandemic. Protect the vulnerable in Uruguay
Just as global citizens are bound together in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that at present, when street protests are impossible, they are also united by banging pots and pans.
Posted 16 May 2020 Backdrop of Hong Kong government's press conference on the IPCC's report. Image from RTHK reporter Yvonne Tong's Twitter.
Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), a government-appointed organization with no investigative power to summon witnesses, released on May 15 its report on public complaints against the police during the city-wide protests that began last June. The 999-page report concludes that police officers generally acted within guidelines, but there was “room for improvement”.
Clifford Stott, a British expert on riot research who quit the IPCC's foreign expert panel last December, suggested that the backdrop of the press conference at which the report was shared, formed part of a broader thrust aimed at delivering a particular message:
Large-scale protests erupted in June 2019 demanding that the Hong Kong government withdraw an extradition bill allowing for the transfer of fugitives to mainland China. The government refused to trash the bill, even after a million demonstrators took to the streets on June 9. Three days later, thousands of protesters blocked the roads surrounding the Legislative Council and riot police fired rounds of tear gas on peaceful protesters.
The police crackdown led to massive protests on June 16, with two million people demanding that Chief Executive Carrie Lam step down. They also wanted the “riot” label that had been attributed to the June 12 protests removed.
The deferral to withdraw the bill led to multiple rounds of clashes between police and protesters. Amid calls for democracy, independent investigation into the use of force by the police emerged as a major demand. ‘A shocking whitewash’
However, the government refused to set up an independent investigative body, instead insisting that the toothless IPCC examine the police’s behavior. All information that the IPCC receives is provided by the police authority. Eventually, Carrie Lam agreed to appoint a team of foreign experts to assist with the IPCC’s review.
In their progress report last December, these experts concluded that “a crucial shortfall was evident in the powers, capacity and independent investigative capability of IPCC”. The team was thereafter dissolved.
The current report has not addressed any individual cases of police violence. Rather, it reviews the police response in six major protest incidents, including the Yuen Long mob attack on July 21, in which protesters and subway passengers were beaten by a pro-Beijing mob. There was no police presence at the spots where the mob, sticks in hand, gathered outside the subway station, causing the general public to believe there was collusion.
The IPCC report admits there were “deficiencies in police deployment and other police action in response to the events,” but stressed that there was no evidence of collusion with criminals “despite our best efforts in searching publicly available sources”. It added that public perception about the police was based on “misunderstanding”.
The Hong Kong Police Force has been accusing the media of creating misconceptions about the police authority. In March, Commissioner of Police Chris Tang filed a complaint to the Communications Authority against Radio Television Hong Kong’s satirical program “Headliner”, claiming that it was undermining police work and eroding law and order.
The public broadcaster has faced huge pressure after its news investigation on the Yuen Long Mob attack established evidence that the Yuen Long police were well aware of the violent incident, but did not intervene. In the report, the IPCC gave 52 incident-by-incident recommendations, the majority of which were related to improving the police force's public relations, facilities, and staffing.
Benedict Rogers, from London-based Hong Kong Watch, criticized the report as “whitewashing” and called for more international intervention:
The Independent Police Complaints Council’s report is a shocking whitewash which shows that there is no viable mechanism in Hong Kong to ensure accountability either for police brutality or police complicity with violence by criminal thugs. With rights groups reporting incidents of torture in detention and routine excessive use of force, it is now time for the international community to establish an independent inquiry, to hold the perpetrators of violations of human rights in Hong Kong to account. The introduction of targeted Magnitsky sanctions on those responsible for such violations should then be considered.
Magnitsky laws allow for sanctions to be imposed on human rights violators.
Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo also slammed the report:
The report is not just superficial. It’s hollow. It has recollected some government information services handout. It’s all part of the establishment speak. It’s [the] Ministry of Truth à la George Orwell’s 1984.
Indeed, the issue of “truth” is politically significant: the report blames online information for destroying the image of the police, paving the way for the crackdown on free speech:
[Many complaints are] blatant propaganda with little or no factual basis, aimed at smearing the Police Force and impeding police officers from performing their duty to maintain law and order. ‘The truth about Hong Kong’
Ahead of the release of the IPCC report, pro-Beijing political groups launched two advocacy campaigns to restrict the city’s freedom of the press and freedom of information.
On May 13, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the biggest political party in Hong Kong, put out research stating that 70.9 percent and 61.6 percent of interviewees, respectively, believed that youth was invited by “fake news” and opinion leaders into committing crimes including violent protests and hence urged that there should be legislation against the spread of online disinformation.
Both the online rumor law and the journalist license system are in place in mainland China. The new “truth” in Hong Kong is becoming aligned with the “one country”.
