Predatory corporatisation of the media and why strengthening the institution of the editor is vital

We need to seriously think about the restoration, protection and preservation of the institution of "the editor".

Mahfuz Anam Published 31 Aug, 2021 

We journalists have some experience of fighting governmental repression of the media. But how do we, or better still, how should we, handle owners' oppression of their own media, meaning owners dictating what is to be published and what not, to forcing the editor to oblige, or ignoring the editor altogether if he refuses? The stories that circulate are horrendous of editors being made mere rubber stamps and the whole newsroom remaining silent as people from the owner's office force journalists to publish false, motivated and scandalous stories against their business rivals or perceived antagonists.

While discussing why a certain business house was bringing out a new newspaper, a fellow editor said that because they were going for a new several thousand crore investment and they needed a media, especially a newspaper, to protect them. This was especially so because the existing leader in that sector, who owned several media outlets, was preventing the former's entry by publishing false and derogatory reports about them.

One can easily imagine what role the new newspaper will play. The underlying meaning of the story is that, as our business houses increase in number, they are investing resource and power, into newspapers (read media in general) that can serve as a part of their arsenal for business growth, fighting rivals and frightening others from exposing their malpractices.

So professional journalism be damned, and along with it, the ideals of freedom, democracy, truth, people's rights, public interest, collective good, unearthing corruption, fighting for justice, equality, fairness, building a just society, etc. The vital role of the media in holding power to account vanishes as does the notion of accountability and transparency.

The threat to a free press comes from many quarters — the government, the advertisers, the owners and even the failure of journalists to maintain their own ethical standards.

The threat from the government emanates both from the regulatory framework that it creates through enactment of various repressive laws and also in the manner in which such laws are put into practice, which reflects the government's overall attitude towards the free press. The Digital Security Act (DSA) in Bangladesh is just the latest and the most virulent example of it.

Most laws in Bangladesh relating directly or indirectly to the media are mostly directed either to repressing or controlling the media. There are no laws in our statute books (and I would love to be proved wrong), except for the Right to Information Act (RTI), that either protects the journalist, the newspapers, or the media in general, or proactively help its cause by protecting sources, and whistle-blowers, and preventing police harassment or arbitrary arrests or questioning of media professionals.

The threat from advertising has always been there. A corporation may be looting the country dry but any hint of an exposé would automatically delist a newspaper from receiving their advertisement. This practice is not new, however; its intensity has risen to an unbearable level. One can ask how we can expect a business house to give ads if we are writing against them, forgetting that we are, in fact, not writing against them but against their unethical and unlawful practice, which must be exposed for the betterment of the society and for the environment.

The relationship between the media and its advertisers must in no way be allowed to impinge on the freedom of journalists to report freely and ethically. It is a complex issue and has become more so due to Covid-19 which has drastically affected the media's, especially the newspapers' business model.

However, our main focus today is on the issue of corporate control of the media, not in general, but the ones they own. We want to confine our discussion only to newspapers about which I happen to know a little. At first it may appear to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in itself. If someone owns something it is only natural that they will control it. Yes, in many cases, but not in all. A person may own a hospital but can he run it on his whims just because he has invested in it? It must be the doctors who run the hospital. Businessmen may own airlines, but are their planes run as they wish without professionals? This is also true in case of the media. Many people may invest in the newspaper industry, but it must be the professional journalists who run it.

This brings us to the bigger question on what is the role of a newspaper in general. Is it only to serve the interests of the owners? As someone said, "Freedom of the press is the freedom of the owners of the press". Is that really true? Then what happens to the interests of the society in general, of the people, of principles, of ideals, of a nation's interests? What happens to the fundamental principle of freedom of speech, people's right to know, of holding power accountable?

If the media's role is far bigger than the corporate interest of the owners — and by definition it must be bigger, encompassing the interest of the nation as a whole — then, it must be allowed to function with full freedom with professional journalists at its helm. Some experiences from the rest of the world may help to prove this point.

As the need for higher investment in newspapers grew over time, especially due to technological sophistication of the printing press requiring more capital, individual ownership became difficult and investment from the financial and corporate world began to enter this sector. If we look at the newspapers of any industrialised country, they atrract investment from banks, insurance companies, corporations, mutual and investment funds, services industry, etc. Why do these diverse groups invest in newspapers? Simply because newspapers were good investments and investors saw it as a sector with a good ROI (return on investment).

Here is the interesting twist. Investment came to newspapers because of its good ROI, and it was so because newspapers continued to serve public interest — not the interest of the diverse interest groups that owned the sector— and thereby grew their business and thus gave attractive dividends to the investors.

The rising corporate investment in the media in Bangladesh is nothing new or unprecedented. It was, to some extent, inevitable. What is, however, unprecedented and not inevitable, is the predatory nature of the corporate control and the total destruction of the ethical foundation of the newspapers. This is destroying media credibility — the life blood of a media's acceptability.

If an investor wants to make profit out of his investment in the newspaper, which is not an unnatural or unjustified expectation, then the only way to do so is to allow the media to function in the way that media is supposed to — serve public interest. Through ethical journalism and upholding the common good and promoting freedom of speech and accountability, a newspaper gains credibility, which leads to greater readership, which attracts advertisers, which brings in increased revenue, and which then leads to attractive remuneration and good working conditions for the journalists as well as dividends for the investors. This is the business model of a free and independent media, and there is none other.

However, when investors break the above cycle and use their newspapers to protect and serve their own vested interest — as against that of the public — then serious problems arise which we are now facing in Bangladesh.

We repeat, corporate interest in newspapers is neither new nor unique to Bangladesh. However, there is a big difference. What exists in countries with matured newspapers is the institution of the editor. It is well-established, highly-regarded and enjoys huge public credibility. (Both the western newspapers and their editors had suffered a huge loss of credibility in supporting the Iraq invasion. However, many of them realised their mistake and have done impressive exposés on the whole sordid affair, helping to restore some of their lost credibility).

We need to seriously think about the restoration, protection and preservation of the institution of "the editor". We have great examples in Tofazzal Hossain Manik Mia, Zahur Hossain Chowdhury and Abdus Salam from the Pakistan period, and Maulana Akram Khan, Abul Kalam Shamsuddin and Abul Mansur Ahmad from the pre-1947 period to inspire us to rebuild the institution of the "editor" in Bangladeshi media today.

The editor is that pivotal person who protects the freedom of the media from attacks from all sides — government, agencies, large corporations, powerful political leaders and from the interference of the owner — and through his courageous, ethical and honest leadership and non-partisan stance, inspires his fellow journalists to reach the highest standards of objective journalism. This is pivotal for the survival of the free and independent media in Bangladesh.

Admittedly, many of us have failed in this task. We have ourselves destroyed this institution by becoming a PR person for the owner. Many of us have used our position to curry favour with the rich and the powerful, peddled influence for personal gains, misused our positions to harm others and twisted facts to be on the right political side, even while knowing that the truth lay elsewhere.

On a different level, many of us did not pay enough attention to our own newspapers as to what were being published, how well-researched they were, what was the quality and reliability of the sources used and whether sufficient due diligence was done before a corporate or personal reputation was questioned.

All this brought down both the prestige of the institution of the editor and the credibility of the newspaper that he led.

This must change for the good of journalism and for the good of the country, which is on the verge of attaining lower-middle-income country status on the global stage.

The emergence of the social media, the tsunami of news portals with an endless flow of unedited, unverified, unsourced news and the deliberate promotion of "alternative facts" by governments and powerful business lobbies have perhaps made the role of the editor the most crucial for the restoration of public faith in journalism. As someone said, "if you do not read the news, you are uninformed, but if you read the news you are misinformed". This is something that must worry us journalists if we want to save our profession.

As of today, a total of 1,200 dailies are published from Dhaka city. (We should be holding the world record in this). Country-wide, the figure is 3,222. On the face of it, newspapers should be among the most flourishing of industries in the country. What is their business model? Who are their readers and advertisers? Those of us who have been in this field for a while and know well how the market has shrunk wonder as to the sustainability of all these publications. Unless, of course, they will all sing the praise of their corporate owners, fight for their business interest, publish fake news about their rivals and ride on the subsidy of the owners—and all the while professional journalism will fall by the way side.

In one sense, we can rejoice in the words of Mao Zedong: "Let a thousand flowers bloom". But on the other, we are fully aware how media credibility can be destroyed in the wrong hands and how harmful the media can be in the age of unedited, badly edited and totally fake news.

---

This article originally appeared on The Daily Star and has been reproduced with permission.

MIRANDA 50 YEARS BEFORE QANON

 

 

1971

ANATOMY OF A RESISTANCE
Eos presents an essay from the recently published book 'Womansplaining'

Farida Shaheed

Updated 12 Sep, 2021

DAWN.COM 

LONG READ

With the Taliban take-over of Afghanistan leading to concern about the status of women’s freedoms in that country, as well as the birth of a vocal women’s resistance there, it is perhaps instructive to look back at Pakistan’s trajectory in terms of its own women’s movement and where it stands today. Eos presents one of 21 essays by women activists from the recently published book Womansplaining, excerpted with permission



Movements, meaning an organised group of people pursuing a shared agenda for change through collective action with some continuity over time, arise at particular historical junctures. The specific circumstances and configurations of power confronted, particularly the character of the state, but also market forces and the dynamics of national and international politics in which movements emerge and play out, are as important in shaping a movement as the ideals, volition, actions, identity and resources of its activists.

The confluence of these factors determines the issues a movement takes up, its goals and modalities and the outcome. To survive, movements must be sufficiently agile to respond and adjust to changing circumstances and opportunities, sometimes taking on new incarnations. The celebrated era of the Pakistani women’s movement of the 1980s, therefore, can only be properly understood from the perspective of its context; the brutal and brutalising martial law and quasi-military rule of General Ziaul Haq from 1977 to 1988.

Many of the women who helped steer the activism of the 1980s, and those who joined the movement in the 1990s, are still actively struggling for gender equality today. But whether women’s contemporary activism is a continuation of that movement is a moot question, given the emergence of new activists as well as new forms and priorities of activism.

In many ways, it is also a less important question than whether a women’s movement exists today and how vibrant the movement is.

DEFYING THE MILITARY TO SAFEGUARD WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Illustration by Radia Durra

The contemporary women’s rights movement burst on to the scene in 1981, several years into the country’s most oppressive military dictatorship. Political parties were banned; politicians, trade unions and anyone who dared to oppose the regime ferociously suppressed; fundamental rights suspended; public hangings and floggings commonplace. For women, the challenge was the military’s “arrogat[ing] to itself the task of ‘Islamising’ the country’s institutions in their entirety” (Omar Asghar Khan, 1985).

As the least powerful group, women were easy targets and a way for the regime to demonstrate its ‘Islamic’ credentials. In a rigidly patriarchal society, there was no popular resistance to the almost casual rescinding of women’s rights. Women themselves did not respond in an organised manner until September 1981.

Igniting action was a small news item tucked away on an inside page, noticed by a Karachi-based women’s collective, the Shirkat Gah-Women’s Resource Centre. The news item reported that a woman (Fehmida) and a man (Allah Bux) had been sentenced respectively to 100 lashes and stoning to death under the soon-to-be-infamous Hudood Ordinances.

The promulgation of these ordinances in February 1979 had gone largely unnoticed during the trial of the ousted Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in April 1979. Shocked and bewildered by how such sentences could be legal, the collective decided it was time to act.

Given their limited numbers and the adverse circumstances, the single-most remarkable achievement of this entirely indigenous and unfunded movement was that it placed women and their rights squarely and permanently on the national agenda.

With only nine members, Shirkat Gah reached out to both women and men, urging collective action to prevent the sentences from being carried out. It was the diametrically opposed responses of women and men that galvanised the women’s movement. Men were either dismissive, believing such punishments would never be carried out in Pakistan, or defeatist, saying that individual citizens were helpless under martial law.

For women, these sentences represented the last straw. They were already angered by the regime’s numerous initiatives to curtail women’s rights, by the spiralling misogyny unleashed under the pretext of being more Islamic by people encouraged by state rhetoric, by the unprecedented harassment of women in public spaces, including women previously shielded by class privilege. Palpable anger and outrage at the meetings called by Shirkat Gah led to the formation of the Khawateen Mahaz-i-Amal, better known by its English name, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF). WAF chapters opened in quick succession in Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar and, for a short while, in Abbottabad.

Led by WAF, the women’s movement mounted the most vociferous opposition to ‘Islamisation’ until Zia’s death in 1988. The relentless onslaught of legal and policy measures and proposals to curtail women’s rights demanded ceaseless activism. These included written and unwritten directives imposing ‘Islamic’ dress codes for a widening circle of women, barring female athletes from competitions, preventing women in the foreign ministry from serving abroad, imposing a moratorium on the recruitment and promotion of women in banks, an ‘anti-obscenity’ campaign seeking to eliminate women’s images from advertisements and in all media, and the Ansari Commission’s recommendations to seriously curtail women’s political participation.

Reducing the legal status of all women and non-Muslim men to half that of Muslim men started with the Hudood Ordinances, continued with the proposed ‘Law of Evidence’ and culminated in the proposed qisas and diyat law stipulating this ‘half-human’ status in black and white.

In the 1980s, women’s activism was reactive, state-focused and adversarial. The movement was led largely by middle- and upper-class working women who, having gained the most in their personal lives, stood to lose the most. But they were also better placed to face the risks of activism under martial law. Few of the new legal measures were likely to directly impact the personal lives of these activists. The fear was of a tsunami-like impact that the reducing of women’s legal rights, their further marginalisation and their exclusion from all decision-making positions would bring.

Numerous women’s organisations were involved but WAF provided the underlying coordination and strategic direction, becoming the face of the movement, a role facilitated by its policy of not accepting any funding other than personal donations and its principle of collective leadership that refused to acknowledge individual leaders, especially in the press.

With only a few hundred activists, the movement relied heavily on disrupting public spaces with street protests despite martial law prohibitions on public gatherings, to leverage attention, and on a supportive print media made more responsive given the ban on reporting political news, to amplify its message.

As a platform for individual women and women’s organisations, WAF initially adopted a minimal agenda for maximum buy-in, mobilising many women with no prior experience of, or inclination for, activism. Given the ban on politics, WAF deliberately called itself non-political. It reclassified itself as non-aligned and secular in 1991 and dropped the strategic use of Islam to counter laws proposed in the name of religion. A significant number of its activists were associated with progressive movements and participated in pro-democracy events, carefully explaining that this was in their individual capacity, not as WAF members — a distinction often lost on the press and on others.

With only a few hundred activists, the movement relied heavily on disrupting public spaces with street protests despite martial law prohibitions on public gatherings, to leverage attention, and on a supportive print media made more responsive given the ban on reporting political news, to amplify its message. Women’s defiance under martial law ensured public attention and media appreciation and earned the respect of politicians and other politically engaged actors.

Activists consciously engaged trade unions and political parties. Individual activists knew feminists and women’s groups abroad, but these links were irrelevant during this period, as the movement ignored international events and processes, including the 1985 UN World Conference on Women.

Given their limited numbers and the adverse circumstances, the single-most remarkable achievement of this entirely indigenous and unfunded movement was that it placed women and their rights squarely and permanently on the national agenda so that, for example, all political parties, including the conservative politico-religious Jamaat-i-Islami, started addressing women in their agendas. Other achievements included several discriminatory proposals curtailing women’s rights being abandoned, such as the Ansari Commission recommendations and a misogynist preacher’s programme on state-controlled television being discontinued.

The new discriminatory laws of evidence, and the qisas and diyat provisions in the law, could not be stopped but were delayed for years and enacted minus some of the most blatantly discriminatory aspects. Yet the Hudood Ordinances, having overturned the principle of presumed innocence, continued to fill the jails with women accused by former husbands, vindictive neighbours and random strangers, until the Women’s Protection Act of 2006; and the deep-seated changes wrought by Zia to the state and society continue to plague the country to this day. The current status of women’s activism has to be understood in the light of changes that occurred in the following two decades.

THE TRANSFORMATIVE DECADES

Zia’s death and the return of democracy in 1988 brought a major shift in the context and content of activism. The sense of urgency dissipated, political differences submerged in the struggle against a military dictator surfaced and activists returned to careers put on hold for almost a decade, reducing the number of proactive women.

Modalities changed: the skills of adversarial politics developed under martial law gave way to critically engaging authorities in less confrontational ways. Street protests became less frequent. New avenues for influencing were explored, facilitated by the links forged with politicians, and the fact that a significant number of women activists joined mainstream politics.

Several notable developments impacted the movement. Freed from incessantly countering anti-women moves, activists started defining their own agenda, demanding more rights and improved policies across a broad range of issues in addition to the rescinding of the zina laws and other regressive measures introduced by Zia.

The movement’s identity became more diffused. WAF ceased to be the movement’s singular face, although it still spearheaded some initiatives, for example, preventing the privatisation of the First Women Bank through a writ petition in court. Movement-linked women’s organisations took up issues for which they had no time under Zia, having understood how easily de jure rights can be overturned when so few women know about, much less enjoy, their rights.

Movement-linked women’s organisations took up issues for which they had no time under Zia, having understood how easily de jure rights can be overturned when so few women know about, much less enjoy, their rights.

Individual women’s organisations led initiatives on diverse issues such as political rights, education, health, workers’ rights, development policies and the need for a permanent commission on women to serve as a watchdog body. Media visibility waned as politics reclaimed centre stage. The movement reached fewer people as coverage was consigned to city pages, if carried at all.

During the unstable democracy of the 1990s, activists’ relationship with the state “vacillated between co-operation and collaboration with Benazir Bhutto [1988–90, 1993–96], and confrontation and contestation during the time of Nawaz Sharif [1990–93, 1997–99]” (Rubina Saigol, 2016). Threats to women’s rights became embedded in wider governance issues, such as the proposed Shariat Bill.

WAF mobilised a broader coalition with other human rights groups and religious minorities, subsequently formalised as the Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights, which started to articulate positions on many issues. An unintended consequence was the reduced visibility of women’s distinct voices.

A decade of extensive networking both within and outside the country replaced the inward-looking isolation under Zia, spurred in particular by the United Nations conferences on human rights (1993), population and development (1994) and, especially, the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW).

WAF engaged in the 1990s conferences, preparing position papers that were circulated to and by organisations and individuals from Pakistan and elsewhere, although WAF’s no-funding policy precluded its presence as WAF. The FWCW also marked a high point of cooperation with the government; many activists collaborated with the government to prepare the national report and half the official delegation comprised non-government women.

Donor-supported events leading up to the FWCW facilitated unprecedented interactions among activists. But a surge in funding opportunities accompanying the conferences led to a mushrooming of civil society organisations (CSOs), including women’s organisations, very few of which were movement-linked. Women’s organisations ceased to be principally places of affiliation and identity; like other CSOs, they also became places of employment, if at far below market rates.

The new millennium marks a new era. Even as self-proclaimed gender equality advocates multiplied, the women’s rights movement was less visible qua movement. The malaise was not limited to Pakistan. It was highlighted as a “mobilisational lull” in the context of Latin America by Sonia Alvarez, who also coined the term “NGO-isation” as early as 1999.

A young Asma Jahangir listens to a group of women | White Star ArchivesWhile the institutional wherewithal of organisations enables them to carry out certain initiatives better than individual activists, such as running women’s shelters, providing legal aid, systematic capacity building and rigorous research, worries that this NGO-isation was stultifying the movement started to be voiced. Underlying the malaise and lull were factors both internal and external to the movement.Internally, following the considerable energies invested in shaping the Beijing Platform as a governmental blueprint, many organisation-based activists focused their energies on concretising the promises secured. Some substantial gains were achieved, but this engagement shifted the agenda from a political to a more technical one.Because organisations concentrated on specific areas (for example, gender-based violence, education, political participation, workers’ rights), struggles took place in silos, dissipating the more cohesive dynamics of a united movement. Externally, the more technocratic Millennium Development Goals replaced the movement-informed Beijing Platform for Action.

Funding opportunities dwindled and were increasingly tied to “accounts-ability” (Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, 2015) and pre-set agendas, with donors pushing CSOs to adopt ever-more corporate business models. Bridging the two, the drive to secure funding led to competitiveness and a tendency to project organisational names rather than a collective movement identity.

In Pakistan, by this time, WAF was more of an organisation than a platform. Activists had become recognised names and the hidden hierarchies and power dynamics of decision-making had surfaced. Older activists failed to mobilise younger women to resist the Zia-reminiscent misogynist machinations of the Muttaheda Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), a coalition of politico-religious parties cobbled together by the new military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf (1999–2008).

The younger, urban, relatively well-off women they contacted favoured an all-embracing human rights and peace agenda over a separate women’s rights movement. Class privilege probably played a role, as less-privileged grassroots women engaged by women’s organisations were eager to learn about and resist patriarchy, albeit within the more immediate circles of family and community, shying away from addressing the state.

The net result, to use Amrita Basu’s terms, was a shift away from an organised gender equality movement to a more dispersed ‘feminism’. While both share similar goals and ideas, the distinction is that gender equality movements have specified entities enacting the ideas of equality using particular forms of engagement, whereas ‘feminism’ describes struggles for gender equality, connoting both ideas and their enactments, that are more dispersed.

This brings us to the contemporary period and the question of whether or not there is a movement today.

TODAY’S ACTIVISM: MOVEMENT OR NO MOVEMENT?

Since 2015, far more women than ever before self-identify as feminists and Pakistan has an articulate third generation of feminists. Some millennial activists have joined WAF but, although a new WAF chapter opened in Hyderabad in 2008 — quickly becoming the most active — and a WAF chapter has recently been launched in Quetta as well, these are led by women from the ‘in-between generation’ and WAF no longer provides the cohesive identity of a national movement as it once did.

Feeling marginalised in existing structures dominated by older women, young feminists have formed their own groups, often as collectives, including Girls at Dhabas, the Feminist Collective, Feminist Fridays, the Women’s Collective and the Women’s Democratic Front — some affiliated with left groups. The volition, modalities and priorities of young feminists differ significantly.

The concepts and praxis of activism are dissimilar. Older feminists, including many from the ‘in-between generation’, tend to conceive of activism in classical political terms and therefore focus collective action on state laws and policies, leaving the reshaping of the daily praxis of gender relations to personal initiatives.

In contrast, while some young feminists have engaged in important legislative processes, the majority concentrate on bringing about societal changes with a focus on personal lives.

Modalities differ. Aiming to change the contours and gender dynamics of the immediate communities they inhabit, younger feminists engage in the politics of presence, occupying physical and online spaces to do so. Today, social media, rather than mainstream news media, is the primary location of discursive battles in which younger women are more prominent.

Young feminists enjoin a more forceful expressive dimension of the movement through social media initiatives and novel approaches, such as stand-up comedy, an engagement that provides a crucial counterpoint to the aggressively waged discursive battle of far better resourced religious right forces. In the 1980s, activists did deploy humour, but fell short of fully developing an expressive dimension of the movement. Finally, today’s feminists prioritise sexuality, an issue that older activists always acknowledged but failed to address publicly.

The different priorities of the new generation are attributable, at least in part, to changed circumstances. The catalyst for activists of the 1980s movement, a state bent upon overturning women’s rights, is absent. Instead, the new generation confronts policing and harassment by social actors on a daily basis. The immediacy of these encounters and the ensuing frustrations make such issues seem more relevant than distant laws, propelling a greater interest in reshaping gender dynamics and power relations in everyday practices than in struggling to ensure rights by engaging with the state.

The failure of decades of activism to significantly change the daily reality of misogyny is likely to have prompted a loss of confidence in the state’s ability to achieve the desired change, deepening the reluctance to engage with the state in terms of challenging laws and policies or proposing new ones.

Without dispelling this mistrust and building bridges, activists will find it difficult to create the interconnected support system and coalescing force that lends activism a more definite movement identity, such as WAF provided earlier.

One advantage of society-focused activism is that it lends itself more easily to spontaneous actions of individuals or small groups of women — the dispersed feminism Basu refers to. In comparison, far greater organisational management is required to deploy and sustain concerted collective action typical of movements, especially those aiming to influence state policies. Over time, this management tends to become centralised and thus more hierarchical. It also often requires greater resources to maintain.

Engaging in society-oriented activism may be better placed to avoid binding structures and the need to secure finances. But transcending the confines of small actions entails its own dynamics and challenges, as evident when young feminists brought their politics, including of sexuality, on to the streets and into public view in 2018 and 2019.

On March 8, 2018, young feminists in Karachi organised the first Aurat March (Women’s March) under a new banner, Hum Aurtein (We Women). They were assisted by some older feminists. Thousands participated from all generations and classes, along with trans and rainbow activists. A smaller march was held in Lahore as well.

Unlike earlier demonstrations organised to protest against or demand something specific, Aurat March was an occasion for everyone to express themselves. The homemade placards were more imaginative and humorous than those seen at previous movement events. One stating ‘Heat your own food’ should have been unobjectionable but provoked a social media backlash.

The success of the Karachi march fired people’s imaginations and rallies multiplied the following year. In several major cities across the country, the 2019 Aurat March attracted thousands of people. In more remote areas such as Bannu, women held smaller rallies. A handful of placards (‘Warm your own bed’, ‘Keep dick pics to yourself’, an image of a woman sitting with her legs apart, stating ‘Now I am seated appropriately’) unleashed a furious misogynist reaction, including condemnation by lawmakers, family backlash and at least one attempt to file a police case against the organisers in Lahore.

These reactions conveniently ignored all the other posters demanding better working conditions, stronger laws, rights for workers and rural women and addressing many other ‘serious’ issues. They also ignored the presence of veiled women, including a burqa-clad woman whose placard read ‘My dress, my decision’.

Surprisingly, while many older activists were delighted that these crucial issues had finally been catapulted into the public arena, some felt the posters were inappropriate and risked alienating women. Forgetting the crucial role that notions of respectability play in maintaining patriarchy, these activists contributed, perhaps inadvertently, to the politics of respectability.

Other internal critics, who felt the posters detracted attention from the issues of rural and grassroots women, overlooked the fact that grassroots women themselves did not object. A positive and encouraging development is that a number of women legislators joined the Aurat March and reactions were not unidirectional: politicians, journalists and people on social media extended support as well.

TOWARDS THE FUTURE

Aurat March in Islamabad | Tanveer Shahzad/White Star


It is unclear whether this new activism will take the shape of an organised social movement or remain a period of more dispersed feminism. Generational differences among gender-equality activists are not unique to Pakistan. Across the globe, younger women are prioritising the politics of sexuality and, in Latin America for example, thousands of large rallies have been organised by women disenchanted with institutional activism, both with respect to more formal women’s organisations and direct engagement with the state.

Change is essential for movement continuity. The focus on sexuality of Pakistan’s younger generation fills an important gap in earlier activism, and their society-oriented activism complements the state-focused and policy-oriented struggle of older activists. However, state laws, policies and narratives always impact women’s lives in multifarious ways, and past experience makes it abundantly clear that the state can never be ignored. The experience of the 2019 Aurat March may propel younger feminists to greater engagement with the state. If not, this will leave a significant vacuum in the movement.

Keeping an eye on the state is all the more important as Pakistan pursues “the art of making dictatorship look like democracy” (Tom Hussain, 2018). New strategies are needed in the face of new challenges; the steady erosion of space for civil society, debate and dissent; increasing surveillance of CSOs and interference from intelligence agencies; and the use of terrorism threats to clamp down on human rights groups in Pakistan, as in other countries.

While women’s organisations that remain true to the ideals of feminism and linked to the movement can advance the movement by engaging with state institutions and providing institutional support, this may become increasingly difficult. Less formalised structures to achieve societal change may offer important advantages — one reason WAF never registered was to avoid such controls.

Internally, activists must overcome generational mistrust and bridge the approaches of differently located activists. Older activists believe that younger women tend to ignore the broader political dynamics, are less interested in structural change than in changing personal lives, and more interested in engaging with international movements than in building a national movement. The online activism of younger feminists is seen to exclude grassroots women, their actions are viewed as highly individualistic and some of their concerns are considered to be elitist.

Younger feminists believe that older activists operate in exclusionary hierarchies of power, have a know-it-all attitude that devalues younger women’s experience and perspective, and are resistant to listening to and learning from others.

Without dispelling this mistrust and building bridges, activists will find it difficult to create the interconnected support system and coalescing force that lends activism a more definite movement identity, such as WAF provided earlier. An important show of solidarity and strength, until very recently, the Aurat March was only an annual event and it is unclear whether Hum Aurtein is designed to operate as a movement in the future.

Without interconnectedness and identity, the different strands of activism and organisational bases risk remaining disparate initiatives, leaving Pakistani women’s rights activism in the ‘feminism’ state described by Basu, rather than as a recognisable movement.

Most recently, in September 2020, the immediate country-wide response to the gang-rape of a woman on the Lahore-Islamabad motorway, coupled with the outrageous misogynist statement of the Lahore Chief of Police (CCPO Umar Sheikh) on the incident, indicates that the women’s movement is very much alive — and also has numerous male supporters. Several demonstrations were co-organised by Aurat March, WAF and numerous other organisations.

With Aurat March stepping out of its role of being a once-a-year rallying point, it could become the leading face of the movement with others, including WAF, supporting it. This would certainly help to develop a more cohesive women’s and gender-equality movement.

The writer is a sociologist and human rights activist. She is the executive director of Shirkat Gah — Women’s Resource Centre in Pakistan and the co-author of the book Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?

This essay originally appeared in Womansplaining: Navigating Activism, Politics and Modernity in Pakistan, published by Folio Books, 2021. The editor of Womansplaining, Sherry Rehman, is a fourth-term parliamentarian, the President of the Jinnah Institute and the Vice President of the Pakistan Peoples Party

A detailed bibliography of works cited and additional notes relevant to the essay can be found in the volume

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 12th, 2021

PAKISTAN
LAW: PROTECTING WOMEN FROM VIOLENCE
Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Published September 12, 2021 - 

Despite hundreds of existing laws protecting children, women and transgender people, the justice system of Pakistan is unable to adjudicate cases of gender-based violence

Confronted with newer, more brutal and humiliating forms of inflicting pain, hurt and torture on women, the country’s response in proportion to it is dismal, and seemingly almost of nonchalance.

As psychiatrist Dr Ayesha Mian explains, gender-based violence (GBV) — ranging from verbal abuse, pushing and slapping to severe beating, burning, throwing acid, sexual harassment and rape — has increased globally (by 25 percent) since the pandemic began. The pandemic resulted in a “loss of employment, pay-cuts, being confined to small home spaces and an increase in stress, anxiety and depression.” In addition, an increase in substance abuse can also be attributed to the rise in GBV crimes, she says.

Moreover, perpetrators of these crimes often go scot-free. In Pakistan, for example, available data suggests the conviction for these crimes is not more than three percent.

“Until we send perpetrators to jail in large numbers and make examples of them, we will not make a dent in bringing the horrific GBV statistics down in our country,” says Oscar-winning documentarian and activist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, known for her work that highlights gender inequality.

But the problem is that not all women lodge a complaint. Even globally, less than 10 percent of women victims seek help from the justice system.

“They [women survivors] have little confidence in the system,” says Chinoy, referring to Pakistani women. “They tell me point blank there’s no point, saying the process is long and painful.” And because the women give up, the aggressor is never convicted, she adds.

In 2019, the Chief Justice of Pakistan announced the setting up of 1,000 specialised courts throughout Pakistan to deal with gender-based violence. Whatever became of them?

Back in 2019, just a few months before his retirement, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Asif Saeed Khosa, had announced the setting up of more than 1,000 GBV courts across Pakistan, “at least one such court apiece in every district” to help “speed up prosecutions”, where the victims could “speak their heart without any fear.”

This proclamation was not made on a whim by a retiring judge.

Work on the establishment of these specialised courts had started back in 2016 when Irum Ahsan, a lawyer working with the Asian Development Bank, wanted to find out the “the root cause” of the extremely low rate of conviction. For example, in Punjab — “a hotbed for gender-based violence”, says Ahsan — only two percent of the accused were convicted. According to Dr Mian, “entrenched feudal systems, a tradition of honour killings, watta satta [exchange marriages between households],” could be some of the reasons behind it.

Another probable reason why Punjab recorded increased incidences of violence is “better access of the media” to the victims/survivors, which allows for more such crimes to get reported, says Zohra Yusuf, a human-rights activist and a council member of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

What confounded Ahsan during her research was that despite “hundreds of existing laws” protecting children, women and transgender people, the judges were unable to adjudicate using them.

Misogyny, mental health linked to violence

In her quest to find answers, Ahsan reached out to district-level judges. She found that “both men and women judges had unconscious blind spots when they were hearing GBV cases.”

“Many of them stated in survey responses that rape occurred because men were unable to control their sexual urges when provoked by a woman — such as by wearing provocative clothing or make-up, engaging in flirtatious behaviour or staying out late,” says Ahsan. Moreover, if the survivor resiled or compromised, the case was closed and the crime forgotten.

Many judges interviewed by Ahsan did not believe that marital rape was a reality and the judges proffered that women lied or concocted these cases for revenge.

At the same time, Ahsan and her team started studying the cases. “We found economic imbalance to be among the major reasons for reaching a compromise by male relatives of the victim. “It was not deemed necessary to seek the woman’s permission or free consent,” she says.

“The misogynistic attitude of the media, the clerics, as well as, to some extent, of state functionaries has played a role [in fanning GBV]”, according to Yusuf.

The recent murder of Noor Mukaddam in Islamabad, in June, highlighted the rise in gender-based violence in our society | AFP

Only recently, Prime Minister Imran Khan was quoted as saying in an interview that “if a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on men unless they are robots”.

Until we send perpetrators to jail in large numbers and make examples of them, we will not make a dent in bringing the horrific GBV statistics down in our country,” says Oscar-winning documentarian and activist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, known for her work that highlights gender inequality.

Referring to the recent wave of GBV crimes across the country, Dr Mian says the country’s youth suffers from significant risk factors to healthy emotional functioning. These may include, “toxic masculinity, entitlement, having poor role models, not being able to engage in sports and other co-curricular activities and lack of civic engagement.”

Sadly, due to a lack of health literacy, much of the patterns of pathological functioning go unrecognised. “The lack of awareness, poor understanding of mental health symptoms and stigma are further compounded by a general acceptance of the early signs of possible mental health disorders in boys as [we tend to accept that] they will be aggressive, loud, angry and given to temper outbursts,” she explains.

For her part, Ahsan decided she needed to work with judges and developed a detailed course with the help from a team of five women — experts in the field of gender, law, justice, human rights, anthropology and Islamic scholarship. They then went on to carry out several intensive week-long sessions of gender sensitisation training for lower-courts judges and prosecutors across Punjab and extended it nationwide.

“In the end we must have trained more than 600 judges and prosecutors nationwide,” she says.

For Ahsan, these workshops were a huge success. “We did not intend to bring a sea change, but even converting a few dozen judges was monumental for us,” says Ahsan. The evaluations were shared with the then Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who mandated them to set up a model GBV courtroom within eight days.

Ahsan and her team immediately got to work and found a room in the Lahore district court building. It was a slightly larger room to accommodate more distance between the judge, victim and the lawyers.

They also put in a chair in the witness stand for comfort, along with a screen — so that the complainant did not have to face the accused directly. There was a side room for recording evidence electronically, in case the survivor did not want to face the court, or if she were accompanied by a child. The team also worked meticulously on a training manual to help the judge, which provided “court procedures based on national and international best practices and human rights norms; formal procedures in case the victim or the witnesses resile, and practice notes on evidence and other court matters.”

“Our courts are not easy for a woman who has been violated,” says Ahsan. “The way she is judged, the language used and the way she is questioned, it’s like she is being raped over and over.”

Back in 2019, just a few months before his retirement, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Asif Saeed Khosa, had announced the setting up of more than 1,000 GBV courts across Pakistan, “at least one such court apiece in every district” to help “speed up prosecutions”, where the victims could “speak their heart without any fear.”

“If we want women to pursue these cases and if we want to show real commitment towards eliminating violence against women, then our legal system will need GBV courts,” says Chinoy, adding that there is a need to sensitise the police as well.

PATRIARCHY

Asma Rani (above) was shot dead near her home in Kohat in 2018 for refusing a marriage proposal; earlier this month, her killer was pardoned by her father

In October 2017, the new GBV court in Lahore began its work.

Ahsan and her team also got permission to review the cases for a full year. They analysed that, by the end of the year, the two percent conviction rate of 2016 had jumped to 16 percent by 2019.

This evidence led to the National Judicial Policy Making Committee, under the leadership of the then CJP Asif Saeed Khosa, approving in November 2019, the establishment of specialized GBV courts in each of Pakistan’s then 116 districts.

“The course material we developed on gender sensitization can be used to train the entire judicial machinery,” says Ahsan, who feels gender studies should be institutionalised by making it mandatory. “All it needs is an order signed by the chairman of the National Judicial Policymaking Committee,” she says.

Today few know what became of the administrative order and how many more such courts have actually been set up.

However, Nida Usman Chaudhary, founder of the Women in Law Initiative Pakistan, which works for equality of opportunity and connectivity of female lawyers in Pakistan, has been following up on news on GBV courts. According to her, the 2019 judicial policy around setting up a GBV court in every district of Pakistan never got implemented.

“Under the new anti-rape bill, special courts are to be designated as GBV courts, but those shall be notified once the anti-rape bill 2021 is passed and becomes an act,” says Chaudhry.

Presently the GBV court in Lahore, set up in November 2017 by then LHC Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, is the only GBV court in practice in the city. “The special court in Faisalabad that was designated under the anti-rape ordinance 2020 now appears to have no legal cover after the lapse of the anti-rape ordinance 2020,” says the lawyer. In addition, there is one GBV court in Islamabad and one in Quetta.

However, Sindh has done much better. Last year, the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society (LAS) and the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women (SCSW) found 27 dedicated GBV courts in Sindh alone.

While not all the specialised courts were found to be working efficiently or having the basic infrastructure required for a GBV court — 74 percent did not have a separate waiting room for the complainant, another 74 percent were without screens and 64 percent were without the separate room to record the victim’s testimony using video-link facilities — Sindh still stands out as the only province that has these specialised courts in all its districts. “I think that’s a huge positive,” says Maliha Lari, associate director at LAS.

Chaudhary agrees. “Sindh is the most progressive in terms of the number of functional operative GBV courts,” she says.

While it was largely left to the discretion of the provincial courts what all a GBV court should entail, one important provision was special protection measures for both the victim(s) and witnesses. The LAS found this missing in the GBV courts in Sindh. Their assessment revealed this could be an important factor in the higher rates of victims and witnesses resiling.

In addition, the review and study of 50 disposed-off cases in six GBV courts in Sindh pointed to innumerable other factors for why the conviction rate was as low as 3.1 percent, as per the LAS survey.

For example, the delay was happening at the magisterial level. “It is important to sensitise and strengthen the noting [down] of reporting at that level,” says Lari. Similarly, despite the emphasis laid on using medical evidence, there was limited understanding of it among the police, the prosecution and even the judiciary.

The LAS carried out a user-satisfaction survey about GBV courts in Karachi East and Hyderabad, in September 2020 and repeated it in February 2021. The surveys found that the satisfaction of people using these courts had risen by 14 percent. While this is a substantial improvement, Lari adds there is room for further improvement. “Minimising waiting times in case of combined waiting areas, sensitisation of courtroom staff on interaction between the victim and the accused, availability of interpreters/translators inside the courtroom” can all help in betterment of the user-satisfaction score, according to Lari.

It may have taken the highest judiciary 65 years to notice that the Supreme Court of Pakistan never had a female judge and make amends; it must not take this long to set up the promised 1,000 courts. It is time to build the eroding trust of society so that the clamour for swifter, extrajudicial justice does not get stronger.

The writer is an independent journalist based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 12th, 2021

Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he twice secretly called his Chinese counterpart, new book says

Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, promised that the Trump administration wouldn't strike

Author of the article:

Washington Post
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Publishing date:Sep 14, 2021 • 

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in a 2017 photo, told his chiefs of staff in 2020: "I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK." 

PHOTO BY ANDREW HARNIK /AP


Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict.

In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.

One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Donald Trump, and the other on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege carried out by his supporters in a quest to cancel the vote.

The first call was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the U.S. was preparing to attack. That belief, the authors write, was based on tensions over military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China.

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

In the book’s telling, Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

If we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time
MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

Li took the chairman at his word, the authors write in the book, Peril, which is set to be released next week.

In the second call, placed to address Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6, Li wasn’t as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him, “We are 100 per cent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Li remained rattled, and Milley, who, according to the book, did not relay the conversation to Trump, understood why. The chairman, 62 at the time and chosen by Trump in 2018, believed the president had suffered a mental decline after the election, the authors write, a view he communicated to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call on Jan. 8. He agreed with her evaluation that Trump was unstable, according to a call transcript obtained by the authors.

Believing that China could lash out if it felt at risk from an unpredictable and vengeful American president, Milley took action. The same day, he called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied.

Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath.”

The chairman knew that he was “pulling a Schlesinger,” the authors write, resorting to measures resembling the ones taken in August 1974 by James Schlesinger, the secretary of defence at the time. Schlesinger told military officials to check with him and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs before carrying out orders from President Richard Nixon, who was facing impeachment at the time.

Though Milley went furthest in seeking to stave off a national security crisis, his alarm was shared throughout the highest ranks of the administration, the authors reveal. CIA Director Gina Haspel, for instance, reportedly told Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”

The book also provides fresh reporting on President Joe Biden’s campaign — waged to unseat a man he told a top adviser “isn’t really an American president” — and his early struggle to govern. During a March 5 phone call to discuss Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, his first major legislative undertaking, the president reportedly told Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., “if you don’t come along, you’re really f—ing me.” The measure ultimately cleared the Senate through an elaborate sequencing of amendments designed to satisfy the centrist Democrat.

The president’s frustration with Manchin is matched only by his debt to House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement before that state’s primary propelled Biden to the nomination and gave rise to promises about how he would govern.

When Clyburn offered his endorsement in February 2020, it came with conditions, according to the book. One was that Biden would commit to naming a Black woman to the Supreme Court, if given the opportunity. During a debate two days later, Clyburn went backstage during a break to urge Biden to reveal his intentions for the Supreme Court that night. Biden issued the pledge in his final answer, and the congressman endorsed him the next day.

Peril, the authors say, is based on interviews with more than 200 people

Peril, the authors say, is based on interviews with more than 200 people, conducted on the condition they not be named as sources. Exact quotations or conclusions are drawn from the participant in the described event, a colleague with direct knowledge or relevant documents, according to an author’s note. Trump and Biden declined to be interviewed.

On Afghanistan, the book examines how Biden’s experience as vice-president shaped his approach to the withdrawal. Convinced that President Barack Obama had been manipulated by his own commanders, Biden vowed privately in 2009, “The military doesn’t f— around with me.”

It also documents how Biden’s top advisers spent the spring weighing, but ultimately rejecting, alternatives to a full withdrawal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin returned from a NATO meeting in March envisioning ways to extend the mission, including through a “gated” withdrawal seeking diplomatic leverage. But they came to see that meaningful leverage would require a more expansive commitment, and instead came back around to a full exit.

Milley took a deferential approach to Biden on Afghanistan, in contrast to his earlier efforts to constrain Trump

Milley, for his part, took what the authors describe as a deferential approach to Biden on Afghanistan, in contrast to his earlier efforts to constrain Trump. The book reveals recent remarks the chairman delivered to the Joint Chiefs in which he said, “Here’s a couple of rules of the road here that we’re going to follow. One is you never, ever, ever box in a president of the United States. You always give him decision space.” Referring to Biden, he said, “You’re dealing with a seasoned politician here who has been in Washington, D.C., 50 years, whatever it is.”

His decision just months earlier to place himself between Trump and potential war was triggered by several important events — a phone call, a photo op and a refusal to rule out war with another adversary, Iran.

The immediate motivation, according to the book, was the Jan. 8 call from Pelosi, who demanded to know, “What precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike?” Milley assured her that there were “a lot of checks in the system.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she spoke with Milley about ensuring Donald Trump would not launch a nuclear attack in his final days in office. 

PHOTO BY NICHOLAS KAMM,BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP

The call transcript obtained by the authors shows Pelosi telling Milley, referring to Trump, “He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. … He’s crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness.” Milley replied, “I agree with you on everything.”

Milley’s resolve was deepened by the events of June 1, 2020 when he felt Trump had used him as part of a photo op in his walk across Lafayette Square during protests that began after the killing of George Floyd. The chairman came to see his role as ensuring that, “We’re not going to turn our guns on the American people and we’re not going to have a ‘Wag the Dog’ scenario overseas,” the authors quote him saying privately.

Trump’s posture, not just to China but also to Iran, tested that promise. In discussions about Iran’s nuclear program, Trump declined to rule out striking the country, at times even displaying curiosity about the prospect, according to the book. Haspel was so alarmed after a meeting in November that she called Milley to say, “This is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?”

Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away
DAN QUAYLE TO THEN VICE-PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE ABOUT NOT CERTIFYING THE ELECTION RESULT

Trump’s fragile ego drove many decisions by the nation’s leaders, from lawmakers to the vice-president, according to the book. Sen. Mitch McConnell was so worried that a call from President-elect Biden would send Trump into a fury that the then-Majority Leader used a backchannel to fend off Biden. He asked Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, formerly the No. 2 Senate Republican, to ask Sen. Christopher Coons, the Democrat of Delaware and close Biden ally, to tell Biden not to call him.

So intent was Pence on being Trump’s loyal second-in-command — and potential successor — that he asked confidants if there were ways he could accede to Trump’s demands and avoid certifying the results of the election on Jan. 6. In late December, the authors reveal, Pence called Dan Quayle, a former vice-president and fellow Indiana Republican, for advice.

Quayle was adamant, according to the authors. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” he said.

But Pence pressed him, the authors write, asking if there were any grounds to pause the certification because of ongoing legal challenges. Quayle was unmoved, and Pence ultimately agreed, according to the book.

I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this

THEN-PRESIDENT TRUMP TO MIKE PENCE

When Pence said he planned to certify the results, the president lashed out. In the Oval Office on Jan. 5, the authors write, Pence told Trump he could not thwart the process, that his role was simply to “open the envelopes.”

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this,” Trump replied, according to the book, later telling his vice-president, “You’ve betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing.”

Within days, Trump was out of office, his governing power reduced to nothing. But if stability had returned to Washington, Milley feared it would be short-lived, the authors write.

The general saw parallels between Jan. 6 and the 1905 Russian Revolution, which set off unrest throughout the Russian Empire and, though it failed, helped create the conditions for the October Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolsheviks executed a successful coup that set up the world’s first communist state. Vladimir Lenin, who led the revolution, called 1905 a “dress rehearsal.”

A similar logic could apply with Jan. 6, Milley thought as he wrestled with the meaning of that day, telling senior staff: “What you might have seen was a precursor to something far worse down the road.

Top general so fearful Donald Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to Chinese counterpart, new book says

QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG
US President Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping, China's president, shaking hands during a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.

Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the US’ top military officer was so fearful that the president's actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict.

In a pair of secret phone calls, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng of the People's Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.

One call took place on October 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Donald Trump, and the other on January 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege carried out by his supporters in a quest to cancel the vote.

The first call was prompted by Milley's review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack. That belief, the authors write, was based on tensions over military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump's belligerent rhetoric toward China.

General Mark Milley said accompanying the president for a photo op preceded by a violent crackdown on protesters created the perception "of the military involved in domestic politics". (Published June 2020)

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

In the book's telling, Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a US attack, stressing the rapport they'd established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time. It's not going to be a surprise.”

Li took the chairman at his word, the authors write in the book, Peril, which is set to be released next week.

In the second call, placed to address Chinese fears about the events of January 6, Li wasn't as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him, “We are 100 per cent steady. Everything's fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Li remained rattled, and Milley, who did not relay the conversation to Trump, according to the book, understood why.

The chairman, 62 at the time and chosen by Trump in 2018, believed the president had suffered a mental decline after the election, the authors write, a view he communicated to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call on January 8. He agreed with her evaluation that Trump was unstable, according to a call transcript obtained by the authors.

SUSAN WALSH/AP
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.

Believing that China could lash out if it felt at risk from an unpredictable and vengeful American president, Milley took action. The same day, he called the admiral overseeing the US Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied.

Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order – but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath”.

The chairman knew that he was “pulling a Schlesinger,” the authors write, resorting to measures resembling the ones taken in August 1974 by James Schlesinger, the secretary of defence at the time. Schlesinger told military officials to check with him and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs before carrying out orders from President Richard Nixon, who was facing impeachment at the time.

Though Milley went furthest in seeking to stave off a national security crisis, his alarm was shared throughout the highest ranks of the administration, the authors reveal. CIA Director Gina Haspel, for instance, reportedly told Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”

The book also provides fresh reporting on President Joe Biden's campaign – waged to unseat a man he told a top adviser “isn't really an American president” – and his early struggle to govern.



EVAN VUCCI/AP
The book also provides fresh reporting on President Joe Biden's campaign and his early struggle to govern. (File photo)

During a March 5 phone call to discuss Biden's US$1.9 trillion stimulus plan, his first major legislative undertaking, the president reportedly told Senator Joe Manchin III, “if you don't come along, you're really f...ing me”. The measure ultimately cleared the Senate through an elaborate sequencing of amendments designed to satisfy the centrist Democrat.

The president's frustration with Manchin is matched only by his debt to House Majority Whip Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement before that state's primary propelled Biden to the nomination and gave rise to promises about how he would govern.

When Clyburn offered his endorsement in February 2020, it came with conditions, according to the book. One was that Biden would commit to naming a Black woman to the Supreme Court, if given the opportunity. During a debate two days later, Clyburn went backstage during a break to urge Biden to reveal his intentions for the Supreme Court that night. Biden issued the pledge in his final answer, and the congressman endorsed him the next day.

Peril, the authors say, is based on interviews with more than 200 people, conducted on the condition they not be named as sources. Exact quotations or conclusions are drawn from the participant in the described event, a colleague with direct knowledge or relevant documents, according to an author's note. Trump and Biden declined to be interviewed.

On Afghanistan, the book examines how Biden's experience as vice president shaped his approach to the withdrawal. Convinced that President Barack Obama had been manipulated by his own commanders, Biden vowed privately in 2009, “The military doesn't f... around with me.”

ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
The book examines how Joe Biden's experience as vice president during the Obama administration shaped his approach to the Afghanistan withdrawal. (File photo)

It also documents how Biden's top advisers spent the spring weighing, but ultimately rejecting, alternatives to a full withdrawal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin returned from a NATO meeting in March envisioning ways to extend the mission, including through a “gated” withdrawal seeking diplomatic leverage. But they came to see that meaningful leverage would require a more expansive commitment, and instead came back around to a full exit.

Milley, for his part, took what the authors describe as a deferential approach to Biden on Afghanistan, in contrast to his earlier efforts to constrain Trump. The book reveals recent remarks the chairman delivered to the Joint Chiefs in which he said, “Here's a couple of rules of the road here that we're going to follow. One is you never, ever ever box in a president of the United States. You always give him decision space.” Referring to Biden, he said, “You're dealing with a seasoned politician here who has been in Washington, DC, 50 years, whatever it is.”

His decision just months earlier to place himself between Trump and potential war was triggered by several important events – a phone call, a photo op and a refusal to rule out war with another adversary, Iran.

The immediate motivation, according to the book, was the January 8 call from Pelosi, who demanded to know, “What precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike?” Milley assured her that there were “a lot of checks in the system”.

The call transcript obtained by the authors shows Pelosi telling Milley, referring to Trump, “He's crazy. You know he's crazy. ... He's crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness.” Milley replied, “I agree with you on everything.”

New Woodward/Costa book:

Trump secret memo ordering withdrawal from Afghanistan blindsided national security team


By Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart, 

CNN
Tue September 14, 2021

The story below contains explicit language.

Washington (CNN)Just eight days after the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump was so determined to end the war in Afghanistan during his presidency that he secretly signed a memo to withdraw all troops by January 15, 2021, according to a new book, "Peril," from journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The November 11 memo, according to the authors, had been secretly drafted by two Trump loyalists and never went through the normal process for a military directive -- the secretary of defense, national security adviser and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs had all never seen it. Unpredictable, impulsive, Trump had done an end run around his whole national security team.

In a remarkable scene, the authors write, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, newly appointed acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and his new chief of staff Kash Patel were all blindsided when the memo arrived at the Pentagon.

Woodward and Costa reproduced the memo in "Peril." The directive was titled, "Memorandum for the Acting Secretary of Defense: Withdrawal from Somalia and Afghanistan," and the memo read: "I hereby direct you to withdraw all US forces from the Federal Republic of Somalia no later than 31 December 2020 and from the Islamic Republican of Afghanistan no later than 15 January 2021. Inform all allied and partner forces of the directives. Please confirm receipt of this order."

Milley studied the memo and announced he was heading to the White House to confront Trump.

Woodward book: Worried Trump could 'go rogue,' Milley took top-secret action to protect nuclear weapons

"This is really fucked up and I'm going to see the President. I'm heading over. You guys can come or not," Milley told Miller and Patel, who joined him on the trip across the Potomac, according to the book.
Enter your email to sign up for CNN's "Meanwhile in China" Newsletter.
close dialog

At the White House, the three men paid a surprise visit to national security adviser Robert O'Brien and showed him the signed memo.

"How did this happen?" Milley asked O'Brien, according to the book. "Was there any process here at all? How does a president do this?"

O'Brien looked at the memo and said, "I have no idea," according to the authors.
"What do you mean you have no idea? You're the national security adviser to the President?" Milley responded. "And the secretary of defense didn't know about this? And the chief of staff to the secretary of defense didn't know about this? The chairman didn't know. How the hell does this happen?"

O'Brien took the memo and left. While the officials had briefly debated whether the memo could be a forgery, Trump confirmed to O'Brien that he had signed it.

"Mr. President, you've got to have a meeting with the principals," O'Brien told Trump, according to the book, which Trump agreed to do and the directive was withdrawn.



President Donald J. Trump talks with others in the Oval Office at the White House on Friday, November 13, 2020.

It was "effectively a rogue memo and had no standing," Woodward and Costa write. "All right," O'Brien said when he returned to his office. "We've already taken care of this. It was a mistake. The memo was nullified."

But the signed rogue memo undercuts the argument that Trump and some of his allies, including Miller, have recently made that Trump never really planned to get out or would have planned the withdrawal better than President Joe Biden.

"If I were now President, the world would find that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a conditions-based withdrawal," Trump said in a statement last month as the Taliban closed in on Kabul. "I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable."

Exclusive: Title, cover and details of new Trump book from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa revealed

Axios' Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu reported in May that the memo had been drafted by two Trump loyalists who should not have been involved in the process -- Johnny McEntee, the former body man who Trump had named head of White House personnel, and controversial retired Lt. Col. Douglas Macgregor, who had just been appointed as an adviser to Miller.

Woodward and Costa write in "Peril" that the memo was also one of the reasons Milley was concerned Trump could go rogue after the November election, and prompted Milley after the January 6 insurrection to take steps to try to limit Trump from launching military strikes or nuclear weapons unless he was consulted.

Eventually, Milley, Miller and Patel left the White House. They never saw the President that day, but after the January 6 assault on the Capitol, Woodward and Costa write that Milley "felt no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump." Milley "believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable, take any and all necessary precautions."

Top U.S. general feared potential ‘Reichstag moment’ aimed at keeping Trump in power

Washington: Grenades and tear-gas clear protesters for Trump’s photo-op at a church

* US Joint Chiefs chairman feared potential 'Reichstag moment' aimed at keeping Trump in power

* Extraordinary warning to Trump against use of military over election by former Pentagon chiefs

* US President Donald Trump inquires about attacking Iran's growing nuclear stockpile

* Trump rejects general's coup fears, insists he wouldn't have illegally seized power

Poverty got worse in 2020 as many low-wage workers took the brunt of the economic blows

About 1 in 9 Americans live below the poverty level. 

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

September 14, 2021 

Poverty in the U.S. increased in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the economy and unemployment soared. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder were hit hardest, new figures confirm, suggesting that the recession may have widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

The share of Americans living below the poverty line – pegged at US$26,695 for a family of four – increased by about 1 percentage point to 11.4% from 10.5% a year earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau announced on Sept. 14, 2021.

This metric includes wages and other sources of income, such as Social Security payments and, quite significantly in 2020, unemployment benefits. Without the massive boost in unemployment benefits that flowed to millions of jobless Americans for more than a year, the poverty rate would surely have climbed much higher.

As a social scientist who researches poverty, I’m concerned about the severe income loss some Americans experienced and signs that the nation’s extreme income inequality only got worse in 2020.

Low-income workers hit hardest

Those at the bottom of the economic scale, hit much harder by the coronavirus recession, are finding it harder to bounce back, according to additional data the Census Bureau released. It’s what has been termed a K-shaped recovery.

Consider what happened with typical household income, which decreased by 2.9% in inflation-adjusted terms to $67,521 in 2020, from $69,560 in 2019.

At the same time, full-time year-round workers saw their real median earnings increase 6.9% from 2019 levels – indicating that losses were borne primarily by part-time workers and people who aren’t employed throughout the whole year.

What’s more, the share of aggregate income – the sum of all incomes generated in the whole country – for the lowest-income households declined by 3.4%, while it increased by 0.7% among the highest-income households.

In another sign that low-income workers were hit the hardest in 2020, 53% of all jobs lost were held by workers earning less than $34,000 per year.

It’s unclear whether these inequality-exacerbating trends are continuing in 2021 or will be sustained in the years to come. But in June 2021, employment for low-wage workers had fallen by 21% from January 2020 levels, while employment for high-income workers had gained 9.6%.

Some success for stimulus and relief measures

The impact of the stimulus and supports is much more apparent in the Supplemental Poverty Measure rate, which takes into account additional sources of income, such as tax credits and other government benefits.

Without the series of relief and stimulus packages implemented between March 2020 and the end of the year, the supplemental poverty rate would have reached 12.7%, the Census said. Instead it stood at only 9.1%, 2.6 percentile points lower than what it otherwise would have been.

Author

Elena Delavega
Associate Professor of Social Work, University of Memphis


University of Memphis provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.