America’s Spies Are Losing Their Edge

New technologies and a lack patriotism in Silicon Valley are leveling the playing field for Russia and China.

Technologically challenged.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

By Max Hastings
April 29, 2023

What a month this has been for secrets! Or rather, for no-longer-secrets. Ukraine is not winning its war, thinks the US military. Egypt planned to send rockets to Russia. Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries tried to buy arms from Turkey through Mali. The US has penetrated Russian intelligence services.

These are just a few of the delicious tidbits allegedly exposed by 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, apparently from a Pentagon treasure trove.

If we sit down and think about these revelations, almost none comes as a surprise to those of us who study defense and foreign affairs. Everybody knows that almost all nations spy on their friends as well as on their enemies. For many moons there has been informed speculation about the stuff showcased in the leaks. The real damage derives from their authoritative sourcing to Washington — to America’s 18 intelligence agencies, nine of them within the Department of Defense.

“Scandals” of this kind make headlines with monotonous regularity. The successes of intelligence agencies remain hidden from our gaze for years if not decades. The failures, however, fill whole books within months. As a student of warfare, I long ago concluded that while intelligence is a vital tool of national security, the activities of all secret services vacillate between deadly gravity and farce.


Quite a few senior spymasters go mad, as did James Jesus Angleton, the Central Intelligence Agency’s counterintelligence chief who convinced himself in the 1960s and 1970s that Western agencies were riddled with traitors. Meanwhile, the CIA’s operations against Cuban leader Fidel Castro were unfailingly foolish and unsuccessful.

The agency has always attracted more than its rightful share of cowboys. One day in 1972, I found myself stuck with a BBC camera crew at Pakse in Laos, when a communist offensive was launched. Out on the town’s airfield, I spotted three obvious Americans in jeans and sweatshirts, carrying rucksacks and M16 rifles.

I asked them when the rumored “round-eye” evacuation flight would be coming in. They ignored me, looking studiously at the horizon until, at my third time of begging for information intended to save our frightened British necks, one man muttered between clenched teeth: “We don’t exist. We’re not here.”

They were spooks, of course, behaving with a childishness that was pretty common in Indochina in those days, matched by ruthless carelessness with local people’s lives.

Amy Zegart of Stanford’s Hoover Institution is an expert on US intelligence and author of the excellent recent book, “Spies, Lies and Algorithms.” (She recently did a Q&A with my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tobin Harshaw.) She argues that the nature of spycraft is changing dramatically. The days of the cowboys, which started with the World War II Office of Strategic Services created by “Wild Bill” Donovan, are numbered. If Western intelligence, and above all counterintelligence, is to perform its critical role in Western defense, it must keep pace with the revolution, match new threats.

We in the Western democracies enjoy the huge privilege of living in open societies, as Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Iranian people do not. But part of the price of our freedom is that we are more vulnerable to attack, especially by foreign intelligence services.

Before, during and after World War II, Soviet agents operating freely in the US were able to recruit some 200 American informants, some of them deep inside government and the scientific community. Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover built a legend around the alleged prowess of his bureau (and himself), but in truth the Feds were slow to catch communist traitors. Many went unidentified for years.

In more recent times, cash has inspired treason more often than ideology. The FBI handed $7 million to an ex-KGB man who provided the information that, in 2001, belatedly unmasked the long-serving Moscow informant Robert Hanssen. The Russians paid $4.6 million to Aldrich Ames, a CIA case officer finally exposed in 1994, who provided them with information that enabled them to arrest and execute at least 10 American sources inside Russia.

As late as 2007, the US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment did not even mention cyberwarfare. Today, of course, it is recognized as central to security, and both the Chinese and Russians are good at it. The transfer, and thus theft, of secrets has been made far easier by the migration of information from paper to computers.

Most corporations and some elements of national defense are appallingly vulnerable, because of lax electronic data security, highlighted by the Russians’ 2020 SolarWinds hack of Washington systems. Zegart asserts that almost every Chinese weapons system has been created from stolen American technology, which former US cyberwarfare chief Keith Alexander branded bitterly as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

It is ironic that the Chinese secured vital technical data on the F-35 and F-22 jets at a time when allies including Britain were struggling to secure Washington’s approval for access to the codes necessary to operate the aircraft, which they were then purchasing from the US.

Zegart raises the specter that before long, quantum computing may make possible the unravelling of all encrypted data. Sure, the West will be able to exploit this. Our enemies are likely to do even better, however, because we have many more high-tech secrets worth stealing.

It was once the case that intelligence gathering, and especially aerial surveillance, were monopolies of governments. Today, almost anybody can play. Small commercial satellites provide information that allows civilian intelligence geeks to unravel extraordinary secrets. A satellite image of an earth landscape that a few years back sold for $4,000 is now available for $10.

Meanwhile, a college student exploited publicly accessible facial recognition technology to identify most of the “Faces of the Riot” — the people who sought to storm the Capitol on behalf of President Donald Trump in January 2021.

Only around a quarter of all material in intelligence reports derives from secret sources. The intelligence community — or IC — needs to exploit open sources and integrate civilian talent into its processes much more energetically. The risk must be recognized that some civilian whistle-blowers and wannabe investigators will pursue conspiracy theories and peddle false information. But others bring to the party real assets, especially their own brains and insights.

Where once spies were obliged to enter a foreign country to steal its secrets, today not only states but nonstate actors can wreak untold harm through hacking and cyberattacks without venturing beyond their own front doors.


No American or Israeli hacker set foot in Iran in 2010 in order to insert the deadly Stuxnet worm in Tehran’s nuclear program’s computers, wrecking centrifuges and setting back Iranian weaponization by a year. Selfies taken by Russian soldiers in Ukraine have proved invaluable in creating order-of-battle intelligence about President Vladimir Putin’s invading army.

As globally available information doubles every two years, technology shows itself increasingly more potent than human analysts, even before artificial intelligence kicks in. Machines can identify Chinese missile sites on satellite images more quickly than human analysts.

A small army of Russian hackers, often authorized and funded by the Kremlin but mostly outside the government intelligence organizations, makes constant attacks on Western interests. Former CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said of the Russian online disinformation campaign in the 2016 US presidential election: “They wanted Donald Trump to win, they wanted Hillary to lose, but most of all they just wanted to f*** with us.”

Zegart believes that American dominance of the information and technology universe is under severe threat, which can only grow greater: “The intelligence playing field is leveling, and not in a good way.”

Among her sensible prescriptions, perhaps the most important is for greater integration between the IC and American business, especially technology companies. Yet the tech giants often recoil from cooperation with government, and especially with its intelligence agencies. In times gone by, in the world wars and the Cold War, government officials routinely sought the aid of big corporations, and got it. Today, patriotism has atrophied.

Facebook professes to regret its past failures, and expresses a commitment to serve the public interest. But behind closed doors, says Zegart, it seeks “to deny, delay and deflect regulation and stifle critics.” Google canceled an artificial intelligence partnership with the Pentagon in 2018 after a protest by more than 3,000 employees.

Susan Gordon, an intelligence veteran, observes that Google, Apple and Facebook are huge players in the cyber universe, but seem accountable to no one. She, like Zegart, argues that all the tech companies must accept their share of responsibility for US national security.

Now that cyberattacks have become a routine part of the 21st century, the West is obliged to defend itself daily. The National Security Agency reportedly employs more mathematicians than any other organization in the US. Spies, or rather intelligence organizations, have unwillingly gotten dragged into warfighting, especially the electronic kind.

I wish that I could share Zegart’s expressed belief that CIA analysts are people of “exceptional intellectual skills.” Intelligence organizations, like the rest of us, are lousy at predicting the future, rather than merely describing the present and past. She quotes Phil Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the track records of modern prophets, and who observes acidly that “the average expert was about as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.”

Some of the chimpanzees serve at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Several of their failures have been catastrophic, most spectacularly the 2002 claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which triggered President George W. Bush’s Iraq war.

It has always seemed to me an intractable problem that whereas in World War II, intelligence could recruit some of the most brilliant civilians in American and British society, in modern peacetime it is much tougher to get the best and brightest to accept relatively ill-rewarded government jobs.

Public service is unfashionable, on both sides of the Atlantic. Some spooks are indeed smart, but others are not. It should be a source of concern that the vast Chinese and Russian intelligence and especially cyberwarfare communities may have access to some cleverer people than their Western counterparts.

Zegart highlights another grave challenge facing intelligence services — a decline in public trust, partly fed by the West’s enemies through deepfakes, social media and disinformation, but also fueled by some prominent Americans. It was an extraordinary moment when Trump, as president, declared that he trusted Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 election more than he trusted his own nation’s intelligence services.

Trump appeared dismissive of the activities of, for instance, the Heart of Texas and United Muslims of America Facebook accounts, created by the Russian Internet Research Agency, the former peddling the slogan “Time To Secede.”

In a new Foreign Affairs piece, Lawrence Norden and Derek Tisler of the Brennan Center for Justice highlight the critical role in defending American democracy of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Rumor vs. Reality” resource, colloquially known as “rumor control.” This provides factual information to dispel some of the commonest election conspiracy theories.

Several states, including Connecticut, Kentucky and Ohio, have established rumor control notice boards, providing factual information to voters and explaining the multiple safeguards against election fraud. In the new world, measures such as this provide reinforcement for the defenses manned by the intelligence agencies. They are needed not merely to validate US domestic processes, but also wild foreign- and home-generated fake news reports.

Zegart expresses concern about the image of intelligence projected by Hollywood’s movie and TV output, which emphasizes torture, treachery and assassination. Those play only the most marginal roles in the IC’s real-life activities. Yet I was troubled to receive a letter a few months ago from a former British spymaster commenting on a newspaper article I had written, in which I asserted that information secured by torture is seldom reliable.

On the contrary, claimed my acquaintance laconically: torture works; often produces valuable results. Well, maybe. But it alarmed me that he had no compunction about expressing this view in writing, above his own signature.

I am also bothered, as Zegart seems not to be, by the dilemmas posed by drone assassinations in far-flung places. Sure, most of those whom the CIA-directed drone crews kill are enemies of freedom, murderous fanatics. But what happens when our enemies start playing this game with our people, perhaps our prime ministers and presidents?

Drones are frighteningly available, for relatively tiny sums of money. They are likely to become terrorist tools of choice.

Amy Zegart’s book performs an important service by highlighting the need for the intelligence services to update their outlook, personnel and operations to face the new world, and especially the cyberworld.

Meanwhile, Jack Texeira’s alleged superleak reminds us that intelligence and covert activities — “edgy things,” as former CIA director Michael Hayden calls them — are huge business both for the good guys and the bad ones. The other side is getting better at them all the time. We need to do the same, even if some of the nasty bits make us feel queasy.

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Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former editor in chief of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard, he is author, most recently, of "The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962."

OPINION
Jerry Springer, carnival barker of a modern freak show, cleared way for Trump


Nick Bryant

Journalist and author

WESTERN AUSTRALIA TODAY
April 30, 2023 — 

When did the penny drop that America was careering off the rails? Doubtless for many it was watching those early returns on election night in 2016, as it became shockingly clear that the politically impossible was about to be made real and Donald Trump would soon be reciting the presidential oath of office.

Perhaps it came earlier in the Obama years, after reading all those polls which suggested three-quarters of Republicans doubted whether the president was even a US citizen. Or maybe, like me, you turned on cable television sometime in the ’90s and found yourself transfixed by The Jerry Springer Show.

Donald Trump “stole my show and took it to the White House”, Jerry Springer once complained.

The presenter of what TV Guide once famously labelled the worst television program of all time died last week, although clips from his shows will continue to enjoy an afterlife on YouTube for years to come.

Springer, of course, was the carnival barker of a modern freak show, which featured, among other things, the “man who married his horse”, a porn actress who claimed to have slept with 251 men in the space of 10 hours, and a steady stream of white supremacists, including a self-styled “breeder for the Klan”. In a tabloid decade that brought us the OJ Simpson trial, John Wayne Bobbitt and his penis-severing wife, Lorena, the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tapes, and what we erroneously called the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Springer plumbed new lows.

His show was vulgar, foul-mouthed, gratuitously combative, unashamedly populist, defiantly anti-elitist and a massive ratings winner. Little wonder that Springer complained years later that Donald Trump “stole my show and took it to the White House”.

There was also something about the emotional connection that the host enjoyed with his audience that foreshadowed the rise of Trump. Certainly, it was easy to imagine the people in his studio audience who chanted “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” joining in the Trumpian chorus that bellowed “Lock her up, Lock her up”. When Hillary Clinton spoke of “the basket of deplorables” she could almost have been describing some of Springer’s most devoted fans.

Most bizarre and unhinged moments on the Jerry Springer Show


The Jerry Springer Show was notorious for fights, bizarre relationships and shocking reveals.

Unlike Trump, however, Springer realised the ridiculousness of it all, and was laughing up his sleeve at his followers. A former liberal-minded mayor of Cincinnati, who had once worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, he wanted to see America elect its first female president. “Hillary belongs in the White House,” he tweeted after watching a presidential debate in 2016: “Donald Trump belongs on my show.”

But those Clinton/Trump debates sometimes felt like Jerry Springer had produced them; and never more so than when, in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood scandal, Trump arranged for some of Bill Clinton’s female accusers, including Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, to sit in the studio audience. It was a Springer-esque stunt.

Certainly, Springer is a seminal figure in the trashification of US popular culture. The reality TV shows that became so prominent at the turn of the century tried in many ways to do in primetime what Springer was doing so profitably in daytime: to tantalise, to shock, to thrive off orchestrated confrontation. Maybe the cable news channels that arose in the ’90s, like Fox News, borrowed from that same confrontational playbook, as they sought out guests with the most outlandish views and tried to set up polarising on-air battles (although the founding CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, honed those tricks working for the Nixon campaign in 1968).

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Crucially, all this came about at the very moment when politics, entertainment and even journalism were becoming so synergetic, a symbiosis illustrated by Bill Clinton playing his saxophone on late-night TV and telling MTV that he preferred briefs rather than boxers. In those years, the famed Overton window of political acceptability moved towards becoming floor-to-ceiling.

In the 30 years since, US political culture has unfortunately absorbed the worst traits of American popular culture. The freakish dramatic personae, faux combat and pantomime-style chanting of trashy daytime television. The venality and amorality of reality shows, such as Survivor, which are based on the belief that winning isn’t everything, when it is the only thing. The tropes of professional wrestling. The narcissism of social media influencers. All this helps explain how a reality TV star reached the White House, and why the GOP has become so crazed.

Unquestionably, the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is pure Jerry Springer. You could build an entire show around her pet theory that a “Jewish space laser” was to blame for the 2018 California wildfires. Other Republican lawmakers could tell us how they bought 251 assault rifles in 10 hours. The Proud Boys could take the seats once occupied by the KKK. And all the time the studio audience could chant: “Donald, Donald, Donald.” The Trumpification of US politics might not have happened had its Springerisation not come about first.

Spain’s furry traffic

How sheep can fight the climate crisis

STEPHEN PHELAN

On an autumn Sunday morning in Madrid, the bells on the Chapel of Our Lady of the Harbour rang at the unseemly hour of 10:48am. Someone shouted, “They’re coming!” The gathered crowd then heard the discordant dinging of many smaller bells, and looked up the street to see the advancing herd of sheep and goats who wore them around their necks. 

More than 1,400 of the former, and 200-plus of the latter, flowed along the thoroughfare like woolly traffic. Police vans provided an escort from the front, and sweeper vehicles followed behind to clean up after them. Professional shepherds, some in traditional costume, turned their animals from a unruly forward march into a bleating centrifugal swirl as they rounded the corner between the Segovia Bridge and the paseo leading uphill to the Cathedral. 

Onward they went, across the historic centre to City Hall, where mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida would receive a token payment from chief herdsman Jesús Garzón for the right to move livestock through the capital. And Garzón is the man most directly responsible for this symbolic reenactment of a deal first struck in the early 15th century, which is now the ritual centrepiece of the annual Fiesta de la Transhumancia that he inaugurated in 1994. 

He has made it his life’s mission to promote the ancient practice of moving ruminants in seasonal cycles between high mountain pastures in summer and lower grasslands in winter, or from the hot, dry interior to cooler, wetter coastal ranges. The name for this, transhumance, derives from humo, or smoke, which rose from hillside fires lit by stone age shepherds as they cleared primeval foliage for grazing space circa 5,000 BC. 

“These migrations have shaped our landscape and culture for 7,000 years,” Garzón told me when we met the day before the festival in Casa de Campo, a former royal hunting ground turned over to the public as Europe’s biggest urban park. “Spanish is really the language of shepherds who needed to understand each other from the Basque Country to Rioja, Castilla, Galicia, the Pyrennes … now it’s spoken by 500 million people around the world.”  

Driving his sheep and goats between Mediterranean pines in the backwoods of the park, Garzón said that he esteemed shepherds in general as stewards of the Earth.By his count, he said, “There are two billion of us. One quarter of the global population, conserving 100% of the territory that our animals graze across. Reindeer in Siberia, llamas and alpacas in the Andes, camels in the deserts. There would be no life without shepherds.” 

He looked the part with his flatcap and crook; a very tall, thin man with a deeply weathered bearing; an ancient giant striding over the landscape at a pace that suggested endless, tireless purpose. But Garzón was originally a city boy, born right here in Madrid some 77 years ago. His father was a career soldier, an artilleryman who fought on the Ebro in the Spanish Civil War and the Russian-Finnish front in World War II. They used to ride horses and listen for bird calls together in this very park, where medieval drovers’ roads, older than the capital itself, had long since been abandoned. Garzón grew up to be a conservationist, and removed himself to the northern mountains of Cantabria, where he still lives. 

Even there, he said, some of the oldest shepherd paths were neglected through the Franco years and later transition to democracy, as rural Spain was modernised by way of new motorways, supermarkets, and industrial farming. Across the country, 125,000 kilometres of trails were traditionally reserved for transhumance, and still technically classed as “national assets” within the public domain. Around 1992, Garzón resolved to take them back, mobilising shepherds to use those overgrown ravines so that they wouldn’t lose them. 

“It seemed impossible at first. Everyone said no. But at the same time, older people had a strong memory of livestock migration, and such enthusiasm for it.” He first conceived the festival of transhumance to support the drafting of a new law to protect those trails (which passed in 1995). All those animals on the streets of Madrid, where “some little children had never even seen a sheep”, ignited an atavistic spark in city-dwellers. 

I felt this myself at the 2022 edition – an obscure pastoral delight, as I ran my hand through the fleece of a passing ram. But also a sinister little shiver of displacement, as I watched these prehistoric beasts with livid amber eyes bash their way through traffic lights and mount the curb to get at the takeout window of a Burger King. For a second I imagined them retaking the cities too, like vines growing over skyscrapers, long after we’re gone. 

To Garzón, the revival of transhumance is not a matter of rustic nostalgia (a form of old-world conservatism that Spain is especially prone to) but a pragmatic means of ensuring the survival of civilization. “It’s the only way,” he assured me, unpacking the agri-mathematics of the equation: Say a head of 1,000 sheep travels 500 kilometres, there and back, on their vernal and autumnal migrations. Over those 1,000km they will fertilize the soil en route with three tonnes of manure per day, spreading about five million seeds across valleys that can grow more than 40 species of grasses per square metre of land. Garzón waved his hand over the ground where we stood, a light breeze rippling the stalks. 

“Our situation is very serious,” he said. “There is no remedy now, to all the carbon that is already in the atmosphere. It will take us centuries to recover. But the more grass we have, the more carbon we can reduce. Grasslands are better carbon sinks than forests, and the animals conserve them for free. What they eat turns to natural fertilizer, instead of going into the air. To guarantee a future for our country, and our planet, we must encourage grazing.”

When I contacted Celsa Peiteado Morales, Food Programme Manager of the World Wildlife Fund in Spain, she agreed that grazing is strategically essential to the “agroecological transition toward sustainable food systems”. “Our network of livestock trails is a great treasure of Spain,” she continued. “It was built over centuries, it is still coherent, and much of it remains in use today.” The Spanish government has recognised as much, and in 2015 transhumance was officially declared “the intangible heritage of the Kingdom of Spain”. 

This obliges regional authorities to provide tax relief to all involved, and to promote the practice with education programmes. Some have been more compliant, and committed, than others, and Peiteado had also detected a lack of ambition among lawmakers to redevelop “extenstive livestock farming”, as a preferable alternative to the intensive, industrial kind. 

The former sector “produces sustainable, quality food, in turn generating essential public goods and services.” But the latter, she suggested, “tends to have more political influence.”

These very different systems have never been properly delineated so as to help the average consumer know which their meat is coming from. It’s assumed that, given the choice, most would prefer to eat free-range beef or lamb fed on those wild grasses, and the WWF, among others, has been pushing for formalised criteria that would inform buyers accordingly. Sellers, meanwhile, face what Peiteado calls “a complex reality” that can still make the shepherding life almost untenable these days. 

In the mountains of Cantabria, now the home turf of Jesús Garzón, I spent an autumn Saturday night at a village bar and grill called El Redondal, around 1,200 metres above sea level. The place was packed with farmers after a long day of veterinary inspections on their animals – most of which are now cows, despite the fact that bovines are not especially well suited to the surrounding terrain. 

Bar owner Abel Fernández showed me an iPhone photo of a dead cow that had fallen from a high ridge, and told me this is also an occupational hazard for the shepherds of the region. 

“I have lost a few friends this way,” he said. Fernández and his wife Kaelia are among the few to still practice traditional transhumance, moving sheep and goats (also some cows) from nearby high-altitude pastures to lower meadows before the first snows, then back again in spring. “It’s a vertical movement,” said Kaelia, as opposed to the “lateral” migrations of central Spain. “You walk the animals two kilometres in a straight line, up and down. 

“You’re very exposed, and you might die.” Exposed also to market forces, which have made beef much more valuable than lamb, or kid. The couple can still just about self-sustain with a small herd up here. Serving meat from their livestock through this restaurant also lets them cut out the kind of middleman who forces lowland farmers with much more cattle to sell for too little. Abel, Kaelia, and their clientele were unanimous in blaming the European Union for this, and the system that allows Brussels to set the prices while also granting full environmental protection to the wolves who can now kill their sheep and goats with impunity. 

“Within 20 years,” said Abel, “the EU has almost destroyed this way of life.” The Fernándezes also conceded that EU grants and subsidies may yet restore the old drover roads in much of the country. Whole networks of lagoons are being planned as waterholes along ancient routes like the Cuenca, where huge herds are again crossing the Spanish interior from Jaén to Teruel. They agreed that large-scale transhumance might yet restore rural populations and small farms and grazing lands in the way that advocates hope.

“But it wouldn’t work that way at this altitude,” said Kaelia. “We couldn’t have thousands of goats eating all the pasture.” Abel said he hoped, but doubted, that their young son would be a shepherd, as his own father, and grandfather, and ancestors were. 

“Anyone who still has sheep and goats up here, they’re doing it for love, not profit. And that’s not enough. I think it’s probably over, and that we are the last ones.” 

Boredom, exposure to domestic violence among reasons people abuse animals: Experts

SPCA said 2023 has seen a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases. 

PHOTO: ST FILE

Chin Hui Shan

SINGAPORE - From amusement to displacement of anger, psychologists said that people abuse animals for a wide variety of reasons.

Promises Healthcare senior forensic psychologist June Fong told The Straits Times that some people abuse animals to relieve negative feelings like loneliness and frustration. Others do it as a form of retaliation, against the animal or its owner.

In December 2022, a cat died after a boy allegedly threw it off the 22nd storey of an Housing Board flat in Boon Lay.


Meanwhile, a teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.

The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) told The Straits Times that 2023 has seen a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases. It investigated 11 such cases from January to March. In comparison, it probed 16 cases in the whole of 2022 and 11 cases in 2021.

These instances of youth abusing animals could be due to boredom or a desire to seek thrills, but Ms Fong said that a history of domestic violence and childhood abuse could also play a part.

“If a child has witnessed someone else torturing an animal or hurting someone without consequence, they learn that it is not wrong to hurt another person or animal,” she said.

And while both a youth and an adult may experience similar urges of hurting an animal, Ms Fong said the youth tend to be more impulsive, being less capable of exerting the necessary self-control or mental reasoning to rein those urges in.

“Youths may also lack the ability to think about long-term consequences. They may see animals as an ‘easier’ target, especially so for stray animals, as the youth might think that nobody will notice if something happens to it,” she said.

Dr Annabelle Chow, clinical psychologist at Annabelle Psychology, said some young people may engage in sexual intercourse or sexual behaviour with animals out of curiosity or to seek affection, but there are other factors, such as intellectual impairment.

She also noted that there are links between being a victim or witness of sexual abuse in childhood and engaging in animal sexual abuse.

“Childhood victims who experience such adverse traumatic events are at higher risk of committing animal and sexual abuse in later life,” said Dr Chow.

Ms Lynn Tan, clinical psychologist at The Psychology Practice, said that among many reasons, individuals may also hurt animals to impress their friends or for entertainment.

She noted that while there are no local numbers that indicate that cats are more susceptible to abuse as compared with dogs, cats may remain targets of abuse owing to their smaller sizes, accessibility, and some of their behaviour traits, such as responses when being attacked.

The history and associations Singapore has towards cats, including their perceived “invulnerability” derived from the saying that cats have nine lives, beliefs about black cats and luck, or attitudes towards strays, may have contributed to them being targets, she added.

The correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence has been termed “The Link”. The website of the Animal Legal Defence Fund, an American animal advocacy organisation, cites several studies that have found a direct link between acts of cruelty to animals and violence toward people.

Among the studies cited are a landmark 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Northeastern University, which found that animal abusers are five times as likely to also harm other humans.

Another study, published 10 years ago, found that 43 per cent of those who commit school massacres also committed acts of cruelty to animals – generally against cats and dogs.

However, psychologists say that while animal abusers are likely to commit other violent behaviour, they may not necessarily grow up to be criminals.

Ms Fong said it is likely that animal cruelty is symptomatic of anti-social behaviour, which stems from underlying causes, including being exposed to familial or peer violence. This in turn makes abusers more prone to potentially engaging in violent or aggressive acts, she said.

Ms Tan said it does not mean animal abusers will grow up perpetuating violence, although such past behaviour is a risk factor.

“It goes back to understanding the motivators and the underlying reasons of why this person abused animals in the first place,” she said.

“With that, we probably have a more nuanced understanding of the level of risk a person might carry in adulthood.

At the same time, intervention is necessary, said Dr Chow. “To help correct such behaviour, it is important that we first understand the motivations (behind) such cruelty.”

While she is not aware of any direct evidence that animal abusers will go on to commit more serious crimes, there is a strong link between the severity of animal abuse and violence or aggression.

“Animal abusers who do not receive intervention are likely to continue engaging in these behaviours, with the severity and frequency possibly increasing over time,” she said, noting that the approach with youths to correct such behaviour is different.

“As parents and adults, we must approach our children’s acts of cruelty with kindness and compassion. Studies of animal abuse by children find that most mistreatment is unintentional, motivated by curiosity, and infrequent,” Dr Chow said.

Consistent public education on animal abuse is also a way to help prevent such behaviour, Ms Fong said, adding that mere punishment and shaming the abuser without giving them the tools to rehabilitate is futile.

Ms Fong said given how animal abuse is linked to human violence and criminality in general, animal abuse is not only an animal welfare problem but also a social problem.

“If left unaddressed, such acts might perpetuate the notion that animals are lesser beings and therefore, justified targets of aggression or even neglect,” she said.

In the same vein, Ms Tan said the prevalence of animal abuse is a threat to societal values.

“We need to speak about animal cruelty and have wider conversations on how our current systems affect prevailing attitudes towards groups that may be different from us. Are we doing justice in building an inclusive society that respects life equally?”

Call for more to be done to protect cats after ‘disproportionately high number’ of abuse cases in 2023

The Animal and Veterinary Service said it received about 60 cases related to animal cruelty each year from 2019 to 2022. 

PHOTOS: SIAU LI CHAO/FACEBOOK, SCREENGRAB FROM FELINE/FACEBOOK

Isabelle Liew and Chin Hui Shan

SINGAPORE - After Ms Umi Solikati found the mangled carcass of a black cat at the void deck of her Housing Board block in Boon Lay, she started patrolling the area for fear that more felines would be abused.

She had been feeding the cat named Panther every day for about 11 years, until it met its fate when a boy allegedly threw it off the 22nd storey of the block in December 2022.

On March 30, another cat was found dead – seemingly beaten to death – about 350m away from her block.

“I’m very afraid that more cats will be abused. Sometimes I walk around till past midnight looking out for the cats,” Ms Umi, 39, told The Straits Times.

“When I’m at home, if I hear something, such as a cat yowling like it’s in danger, I’ll quickly run outside to see what’s going on.”

These two instances of suspected animal cruelty are among several cases that have made headlines in recent months.

On April 11, a teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.

In February, the court heard the case of a 31-year-old man charged with abusing five cats in Ang Mo Kio, including throwing two down from HDB blocks and stomping on a cat’s neck.
‘Disproportionately high number’ of cat abuse cases in 2023

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) executive director Aarthi Sankar said the organisation has observed a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases in 2023.

It investigated 11 such cases from January to March. In comparison, SPCA probed 16 cases for the whole of 2022 and 11 cases in 2021, she said.


Cat Welfare Society (CWS) president Thenuga Vijakumar said there has been a rise in numbers due to increased vigilance and caution, as well as reporting.

But she added: “I would rather there be over-reporting than under-reporting, because at least we have a fuller picture.”

She pointed out that CWS also consistently advocates for felines.

She said: “CWS has taken on the role of gathering information, educating and pushing for vigilance for such cases. We also do the grunt work, such as appealing for information and pursuing the matter with AVS (Animal and Veterinary Service) on a fortnightly basis.”




Cat rescuer Jenny Lim, 49, said social media has allowed people to shed light on abuse cases, and rescuers like herself are able to gather more accounts from witnesses.

One of the worst abuse cases she handled in 2022 involved a cat which had lacerations and open wounds, and parts of its skin had fallen off.

“The cat was in very poor condition, and we suspect it was starved by its fosterer. It weighed only about 1kg when we finally put it to sleep,” said Ms Lim, the founder of 2nd Chance Shelter.

“Some people hate cats and don’t care about them. But why vent their frustrations on innocent cats?”

Ms Jessica Kwok, group director of AVS, said it received an average of 1,250 reports of alleged animal cruelty and abuse each year from 2019 to 2022.

Of these, about 60 cases each year were related to animal cruelty.

Offenders were issued warning letters or composition fines, or prosecuted in court in egregious cases, she added.

CWS’ Ms Thenuga noted that some of the cases involved multiple cats, such as the high-profile case of a man who slashed 11 cats in Ang Mo Kio in 2021.

Frustration on the ground

A seasoned cat rescuer, who wanted to be known only as Ms Wati, expressed frustration that more has not been done to protect the animals.

The 50-year-old education consultant, who has been rescuing animals for 10 years, added: “We’ve come to a point where there has to be real action – enough has been done to educate the public. These cases show that enforcement and deterrence are not effective enough.

“These perpetrators, they know what they are doing.”

Ms Thenuga echoed the sentiment, saying that while there might be more reporting of abuse, “what we’re not seeing is what happens after a report is made”.

This has led to frustration because there is “no clarity on what investigative steps (the authorities) are taking, and it is unclear if they are acting fast enough”, she said.

She said AVS should at least inform organisations like the SPCA and CWS about the progress of investigations, so they can provide assurance to the caregivers of the cats.

But Ms Kwok said AVS, which is part of the National Parks Board, takes all cases related to animal welfare seriously, and investigates all feedback.

“We will take appropriate enforcement action against anyone who does not provide adequate care for their pet or commits an act of animal cruelty,” she said.

Ms Kwok explained that investigations into cases of animal cruelty and poor animal welfare are often complex.

Among the challenges are a lack of eyewitnesses and direct evidence, and cases being reported late or not being reported at all.

Sometimes, carcasses had already been disposed of or were found to be in bad condition, “making post-mortem analyses impossible”, she added.

ST ILLUSTRATION: MIEL

What can be done?

Those on the ground are calling for more to be done to educate the public.

Ms Thenuga said AVS could play a part in educating students in schools on caring for community animals and responsible pet ownership, or fund an animal welfare group to do so.

CWS is planning to launch a curriculum for schools in the second half of 2023 to fill this gap, but it will be up to individual schools to bring this to their students, she added.

“If we had funding, we could hire a full-time education executive to go to every school and run a programme, give assembly talks, or even mentor tertiary students for their projects.”

AVS said it has various platforms to raise awareness about animal welfare and responsible pet ownership.

These include Pets’ Day Out events, a webinar series, talks, roving exhibition panels and school plays.

Students can also go on a learning journey at AVS’ animal classroom with rescued animals at Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden to learn about keeping pets.

Meanwhile, SPCA has appealed to parents to do more.

“We urge parents and educators to underscore to their children the importance of treating all animals as sentient beings,” said Ms Sankar.

In October 2022, SPCA launched an ambassador programme for youth, which empowers them to raise awareness about animal abuse and cruelty.

Some cat caregivers are taking matters into their own hands.

A caregiver in her 50s, who wanted to be known only as Ms Joan, said she saw a group of children throwing stones at community cats in Tiong Bahru some years back.

At the time, her team of three caregivers stopped the children from doing so and explained that they should not mistreat community cats.

“We took pains to resolve the issue before it escalated. One of our caregivers even alerted the principal of their school,” she said.

“It seemed excessive then, but in hindsight, it was effective to nip the problem in the bud, especially with the recent incident of a minor throwing a cat over the parapet.”

On deterrence, Ms Sankar said that SPCA works closely with other animal welfare groups and the authorities to lobby for stiffer penalties that match the gravity of the abuse.

“These penalties will help deter potential abuse... Every instance of abuse and cruelty is a grave cause for concern,” she said.

“We share this world with other sentient beings, and it is our collective responsibility to treat them with dignity, compassion and respect.”

5 high-profile cat abuse cases

April 11, 2023

A teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.
In the 56-second video, a boy is seen trying to perform obscene acts on the feline outside a HDB flat in Senja Road.
Despite the cat moving away, the boy is seen going after the animal, carrying it and continuing to carry out such acts against it. He also appears to grab the cat’s tail for at least six seconds afterwards.

March 30, 2023

A ginger cat was found dead near the letterbox of Block 191 Boon Lay Drive.
The cat seemed to be beaten to death as there were bloodstains in the vicinity, said Cat Welfare Society’s senior community engagement manager Michelle Siau.
Blood had been smeared on the wall, letterbox and floor surrounding the cat, said the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ executive director Aarthi Sankar.
The Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) is investigating the case.

Feb 1, 2023

Barrie Lin Pengli, 31, who faces charges of abusing five cats at HDB blocks in Ang Mo Kio between April 2020 and December 2021, was undergoing psychiatric treatment, the court heard.
He is accused of throwing two cats down from HDB blocks and stomping on the neck of one of them. Both cats died.
He is also accused of confining two cats in a small waterproof bag and slamming another cat twice against a wall.
He is out on bail of $5,000 and will return to court in May.

Dec 21, 2022

A black community cat named Panther was found dead near a bicycle parking space at Block 186 Boon Lay Avenue.
A day later, a video showing a boy allegedly throwing the cat off the 22nd storey of the block surfaced on social media.
The one-minute video showed a black cat walking out of a lift, followed by a young boy. Seconds later, he picks up the animal and, after looking around, throws the cat over the railing.
The Straits Times understands that the boy was not arrested or taken into custody.
AVS is investigating the case.

July 2021

Leow Wei Liang, 37, was sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail after pleading guilty to three counts of animal cruelty. Another four charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Leow slashed 11 cats – some with a penknife – in Ang Mo Kio in April and May 2021. He was arrested in June 2021.
A psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health told the court that Leow’s acts of cruelty “were not borne from any difficulty in comprehending the consequences of his actions”.

Gold mining in Ethiopia ‘breeds rights violations’

SUNDAY APRIL 30 2023

A woman washes mine dust in search of gold. Ethiopia’s nascent gold mining sector may be breeding rights violations after a lobby found workers were unprotected from potential health hazards.

 PHOTO | FILE | NMG

By TESFA-ALEM TEKLE
More by this Author

Ethiopia’s nascent gold mining sector may be breeding rights violations after a lobby found workers were unprotected from potential health hazards.

Midroc Investment Group, the Ethiopian company operating the mine, and the Swiss refinery Argor-Heraeus that sourced its gold, are accused of taking no action over public reports about pollution from the mine for years, Human Rights Watch said.

According to the report published last week, residents living near the mine, located close to the town of Shakiso in Guji Zone, in the most populous region of Oromia have for years complained of ill-health and disabilities, particularly in newborn children.

Although the mine was closed years ago following public protests, Human Rights Watch's research shows that the companies are inexplicably, been allowed to resume operations by the government without the firms taking any remedial action to address the pollution issues.

Health complications

This is disregard to the mining operations causing long-term health complications, with children being born with disabilities.

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The Ethiopian government's re-authorisation of Midrok's Lege Dembi mining site violates the basic rights of the people living in the area, said Juliane Kippenberg, Associate Child Rights Director at Human Rights Watch.

“The Ethiopian government, by allowing the Lega Dembi mine to reopen without pollution reduction steps in place, is violating the right to health of children and adults living nearby.

“The government should suspend operations until measures have been taken to ensure that harmful chemicals in the water and soil do not exceed international standards and that people harmed by the pollution obtain compensation and care,” Juliane added.

After the report, neither the Ethiopian government nor the companies have responded to our inquiries on the allegations. However, Argor-Heraeus' sourcing practices had been endorsed by two relevant certification schemes, raising question marks on the validity of background checks.

Arsenic in water

A study conducted by Addis Ababa University in 2018, confirmed that there is a large amount of arsenic in the water samples taken downstream from the mine site. Samples taken from soil outside the mine area have also been found to contain high levels of arsenic, nickel and chromium; all harmful to human health especially the nervous system.

The study conducted by the University’s Ethiopian Institute of Public Health showed that the residents living in Lege Dembi area are vulnerable to dangerous toxic substances coming out of the mining area.

According to findings of the study, "communities living in the mining area were at risk of exposure to pollutants like toxic metals released from the mining plant and other mining activities."

Human Rights Watch said the outcomes of the study have never been made public. Midroc Investment Group, one of Ethiopia's largest private business entities, took over the mine from the Ethiopian government in 1997. Based on information provided by Argor-Heraeus, Midroc appears to have taken little action to address complaints over environmental harm and ill-health. Human Rights Watch said. Midroc did not respond to a Human Rights Watch request for information. Argor-Heraeus, one of the largest gold refineries globally, sourced gold from Lega Dembi from at least 2007 until March 2018, and was the only company named as Midroc's business partner in a 2007 Midroc annual report.

Environmental pollution

According to information shared by Argor-Heraeus with Human Rights Watch, the refinery did not identify the harm to the environment and to human rights at Lega Dembi until 2018, despite media reports and public protests about environmental pollution and ill-health at the mine in 2009-10, 2015-2016, and 2017.

Argor-Heraeus did not use its leverage with Midroc to address that harm.

The accusations raise debate on the growing need to have firms or investors sign on a commitment to abide by environmental conservation laws, according to standards set by the United Nations, and the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD).

Companies are supposed to take steps to identify, prevent, and mitigate their human rights and environmental impacts: a process called due diligence.

“The mine owner Midroc does not appear to have seriously addressed the human rights and environmental harms at Lega Dembi, despite years of public protests by residents," said Felix Horne, senior environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"It is a source of great concern that the gold refinery Argor-Heraeus sourced gold from the mine for years without publicly identifying the human rights risks."

Wildfires in Anchorage? Climate change sparks disaster fears

By MARK THIESSEN

yesterday

1 of 12

Flames are visible from the Beluga Point parking area near Anchorage, Alaska, on July 19, 2016, as a wildfire near McHugh Creek burns. A recent series of wildfires near Anchorage and the hottest day on record have sparked fears that a warming climate could soon mean serious, untenable blazes in urban areas — just like in the rest of the drought-plagued American West.

 (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Research on a flat spot for air evacuations. Talk of old-style civil defense sirens to warn of fast-moving wildfires. Hundreds of urban firefighters training in wildland firefighting techniques while snow still blankets the ground.

This is the new reality in Alaska’s largest city, where a recent series of wildfires near Anchorage and the hottest day on record have sparked fears that a warming climate could soon mean serious, untenable blazes in urban areas — just like in the rest of the drought-plagued American West.

The risk is particularly high in the city’s burgeoning Anchorage Hillside neighborhood, where multi-million dollar homes have pushed further and further up steep slopes and to the forest’s edge. Making the challenge even greater is that many of these areas on the Hillside — home to about 35,000 people — have but one road in and out, meaning that fleeing residents could clog a roadway or be cut off from reaching Anchorage at all.

The prospect of a major wildfire there keeps Anchorage Fire Chief Doug Schrage awake at night when conditions are hot and dry.

“I’ve characterized this as probably the single largest threat to the municipality of Anchorage,” he said.

Schrage’s city fire department is adept at fighting blazes in buildings. But as Anchorage has grown, the available land is higher up, where wild and urban areas intersect, and those fires are very different from what his firefighters are trained to combat.

The city also has limited wildfire equipment, and it’s nearly impossible to get a fire engine up some switchback roads to homes nestled high up mountains.

“Our strategy is basically to put as many resources as we have on duty on a small fire so that we can keep it contained” while waiting for assistance from the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, Schrage said.

This spring, 360 city firefighters are training on wildland firefighting tactics like using water hoses to create a line around the perimeter of a fire and the city is encouraging homeowners to participate in a program to identify hazards like brush and old trees that would feed a fire before it’s too late. In one hilly neighborhood, a community council is researching locations for a makeshift helipad that could be used for air evacuations.

That same small neighborhood with but one road in and out has also discussed installing sirens to warn residents on the city’s wooded fringes of fire danger and hopes to build a database of all residents for emergency communications.

“As much as you wouldn’t want to do it ... it’s like rolling the dice on being alive or dead,” said Matt Moore, who fled his home in 2019 lest he be trapped on the wrong side of the flames on the single road.

Such precautions — common in parched and fire-prone states like California and Colorado — are relatively new in Anchorage in the face of increased fire risk fueled by global warming. The city reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) four years ago, the city’s hottest temperature on record, and it’s had five significant wildfires over the past seven years that were all extinguished before causing much damage.

Still, the U.S. is headed into an El Nino year this season, which traditionally means a bigger fire year and further raises concerns, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with National Weather Service, Alaska Region.

More than 4,844 square miles (12,546 square kilometers) burned statewide last year — an area just under the size of Connecticut.

Since 1950, there have been 14 years in which more than 4,687 square miles (12,139 square kilometers) — the equivalent of 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) — have burned during Alaska’s short but intense fire season. Half of those fire seasons have occurred since 2002, including the worst year on record — 2004 — when over 10,156 square miles (26,304 square kilometers) burned.

From his home high above Anchorage in 2019, Moore saw the black smoke billowing from a fire miles away in a heavily wooded area of the city. He gathered his pets and important papers in his vehicle — his wife was already safe in Anchorage — and drove 5 miles (8 kilometers) down the only road serving the roughly 600 neighborhood residents to safety.

“Thankfully, they started getting it under control,” he said.

For now, both the city and Schrage’s fire department are focused on keeping things under control — implementing as many preventative measures as possible.

The city department has removed evergreen trees and reduced brush in strips of 100 feet (30 meters) next to neighborhoods to help contain any future fires and Anchorage has cleared trees and other hazards in parks and along greenbelts.

Firefighters have also conducted inspections at people’s homes to identify fire hazards such as firewood kept too close to their homes or too much vegetation on their property — all in hopes of preserving homes, livelihoods and the community in a time of growing climate uncertainty.

Freya, the playful walrus who had to be put down, returns to Oslo as a statue

The 600kg mammal was euthanised last year after endangering boats while sunbathing in the fjords

TO PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY 

STATUE IS PREFERED TO REAL WALRUS






Walrus Freya loved to sunbathe on small boats - but risked sinking them while trying to climb aboard. This is her statue. EPA

The National
Apr 30, 2023

A bronze sculpture of Freya the walrus, who gained global attention last summer after playfully basking in the Oslo Fjord until officials euthanised her, was unveiled in Norway's capital on Saturday.

The life-size sculpture depicts Freya lying on her side on the rocky shore of Oslo's Kongen Marina, not far from where the 600kg walrus last summer drew large crowds as she chased ducks and swans and sunbathed on boats that struggled to support her bulk.

Norway gets sculpture of euthanised walrus Freya

Officials decided to put her down in August, saying she was suffering from stress and posed a risk to people who did not keep their distance as requested.

The decision caused anger among some, and an online campaign raised more than $25,000 to pay for the sculpture of Freya by Norwegian artist Astri Tonoian.

"I started this because I'm furious about the way the Fisheries Directorate and the state handled this situation," campaign organiser Erik Holm told AFP before the unveiling.

"Beyond the issue of Freya, we need to ask ourselves how we treat animals and nature. We need to think about our relationship to wildlife."

READ MORE
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Freya, estimated to be around five years old, had been sighted in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden before choosing to spend part of the summer in Norway.

The walrus is a protected species that normally lives in the more northerly latitudes of the Arctic.

Despite repeated appeals to stay away, curious onlookers approached the mammal, sometimes with children in tow, to take photographs.

Walruses do not normally behave aggressively towards humans, but they can feel threatened by intruders and attack.

Critics said the decision to put the animal down was rushed and did not take her well-being into account.

Officials said sedating Freya and moving her to a less populated area would be too complex an operation.

The Origins and Traditions of May Day

Monday, May 01, 2006

I wrote the Origins and Traditions of Mayday in 1997. Yes way back then, it was one of my first web postings. It was used to launch MayDay on the Web and the Edmonton May Week celebrations that have continued since.

Here it is again and the original web page is here.

An Australian labour historian used it as the basis for his article on May Day which expands on my points.

THE ORIGINS AND TRADITIONS OF MAYDAY

By Eugene W. Plawiuk

The international working class holiday; Mayday,
originated in pagan Europe. It was a festive holy day
celebrating the first spring planting. The ancient
Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the
day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the sun.

The Saxons began their May day celebrations on the eve
of May, April 30. It was an evening of games and
feasting celebrating the end of winter and the return
of the sun and fertility of the soil. Torch bearing
peasants and villager would wind their way up paths to
the top of tall hills or mountain crags and then
ignite wooden wheels which they would roll down into
the fields

The May eve celebrations were eventually outlawed by
the Catholic church, but were still celebrated by
peasants until the late 1700's. While good church
going folk would shy away from joining in the
celebrations, those less afraid of papal authority
would don animal masks and various costumes, not
unlike our modern Halloween. The revelers, lead by the
Goddess of the Hunt; Diana (sometimes played by a
pagan-priest in women's clothing) and the Horned God;
Herne, would travel up the hill shouting, chanting and
singing, while blowing hunting horns. This night
became known in Europe as Walpurgisnacht, or night of
the witches

The Celtic tradition of Mayday in the British isles
continued to be celebrated through-out the middle ages
by rural and village folk. Here the traditions were
similar with a goddess and god of the hunt.

As European peasants moved away from hunting gathering
societies their gods and goddesses changed to reflect
a more agrarian society. Thus Diana and Herne came to
be seen by medieval villagers as fertility deities of
the crops and fields. Diana became the Queen of the
May and Herne became Robin Goodfellow (a predecessor
of Robin Hood) or the Green Man.

The Queen of the May reflected the life of the fields
and Robin reflected the hunting traditions of the
woods. The rites of mayday were part and parcel of
pagan celebrations of the seasons. Many of these pagan
rites were later absorbed by the Christian church in
order to win over converts from the 'Old Religion'.

Mayday celebrations in Europe varied according to
locality, however they were immensely popular with
artisans and villagers until the 19th Century. The
Christian church could not eliminate many of the
traditional feast and holy days of the Old Religion so
they were transformed into Saint days.

During the middle ages the various trade guilds
celebrated feast days for the patron saints of their
craft. The shoemakers guild honored St. Crispin, the
tailors guild celebrated Adam and Eve. As late as the
18th century various trade societies and early
craft-unions would enter floats in local parades still
depicting Adam and Eve being clothed by the Tailors
and St. Crispin blessing the shoemaker.

The two most popular feast days for Medieval craft
guilds were the Feast of St. John, or the Summer
Solstice and Mayday. Mayday was a raucous and fun
time, electing a queen of the May from the eligible
young women of the village, to rule the crops until
harbest. Our tradition of beauty pagents may have
evolved , albeit in a very bastardized form, from the
May Queen.

Besides the selection of the May Queen was the raising
of the phallic Maypole, around which the young single
men and women of the village would dance holding on to
the ribbons until they became entwined, with their (
hoped for) new love.

And of course there was Robin Goodfellow, or the Green
Man who was the Lord of Misrule for this day. Mayday
was a celebration of the common people, and Robin
would be the King/Priest/Fool for a day. Priests and
Lords were the butt of many jokes, and the Green Man
and his supporters; mummers would make jokes and poke
fun of the local authorities. This tradition of satire
is still conducted today in Newfoundland, with the
Christmas Mummery.

The church and state did not take kindly to these
celebrations, especially during times of popular
rebellion. Mayday and the Maypole were outlawed in the
1600's. Yet the tradition still carried on in many
rural areas of England. The trade societies still
celebrated Mayday until the 18th Century.

As trade societies evolved from guilds, to friendly
societies and eventually into unions, the craft
traditions remained strong into the early 19th
century. In North America Dominion Day celebrations in
Canada and July 4th celebrations in the United States
would be celebrated by tradesmen still decorating
floats depicting their ancient saints such as St.
Crispin.

Our modern celebration of Mayday as a working class
holiday evolved from the struggle for the eight hour
day in 1886. May 1, 1886 saw national strikes in the
United States and Canada for an eight hour day called
by the Knights of Labour. In Chicago police attacked
striking workers killing six.
The next day at a demonstration in Haymarket Square to
protest the police brutality a bomb exploded in the
middle of a crowd of police killing eight of them. The
police arrested eight anarchist trade unionists
claiming they threw the bombs. To this day the subject
is still one of controversy. The question remains
whether the bomb was thrown by the workers at the
police or whether one of the police's own agent
provocateurs dropped it in their haste to retreat from
charging workers.

In what was to become one of the most infamous show
trials in America in the 19th century, but certainly
not to be the last of such trials against radical
workers, the State of Illinois tried the anarchist
workingmen for fighting for their rights as much as
being the actual bomb throwers. Whether the anarchist
workers were guilty or innocent was irrelevant. They
were agitators, fomenting revolution and stirring up
the working class, and they had to be taught a lesson.

Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engle and Adolph
Fischer were found guilty and executed by the State of
Illinois.

In Paris in 1889 the International Working Men's
Association (the First International) declared May 1st
an international working class holiday in
commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs. The red flag
became the symbol of the blood of working class
martyrs in their battle for workers rights.

Mayday, which had been banned for being a holiday of
the common people, had been reclaimed once again for
the common people.

Hungry student finds Maurizio Cattelan’s $160,000 banana ripe for the taking at Korea museum

Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian – a banana duct-taped to a wall – will be on display at South Korea's Leeum museum till July 16. 

PHOTO: LEEUM MUSEUM OF ART


SEOUL – Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s iconic art piece Comedian – a ripe banana duct-taped to a wall and on display at an art museum in Seoul – was eaten by a college student in an act he described as “artwork”.

The student ate the fruit on Thursday. The work is part of Cattelan’s solo exhibition WE currently running at the Leeum Museum of Art.

At the event showing some 38 works from the 1990s, the student took the banana, peeled it and ate it. He reattached the peel back to the wall using the existing tape.


When the museum staff asked why he ate it, the student, who is an art major at Seoul National University, replied that he skipped breakfast and was hungry.

In a phone interview later with a local broadcaster, he confessed that he thought “damaging a work of modern art could also be (interpreted as a kind of) artwork”. He added that he came up with the idea to reattach the banana peel, thinking it was a fun way of looking at it.

Cattelan’s banana is being replaced every two to three days, according to the artist’s instructions provided before the exhibition. The museum has decided not to claim damages against the student.

This was not the first time the banana was swiped off the wall and eaten.

In 2019, a performance artist named David Datuna took the banana on display at the Perrotin gallery at Art Basel in Miami minutes after it was sold for US$120,000 (S$160,000) and ate it.

A video of Datuna eating the banana with great relish went viral on social media.

The artist’s first solo exhibition in South Korea at the Leeum runs through July 16. 

THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK