PAKISTAN
POST SECONDARY EDUCATION

Reboot is needed

Why this urge to control and police dress, body, communication and interaction?

Faisal Bari
Published February 4, 2022

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

YOUNG people 18 and above are eligible to vote, drive and marry and have children. But when they start college and universities in this country, these educational institutes assume they need to tell the young adults what they should wear, how much distance they should maintain from each other, who they should or should not meet, and whether they can interact with individuals from the other gender.

We frequently read in the papers that this university or that college has issued a dress code or has started fining students for wearing tights, jeans or T-shirts or for not wearing a dupatta or for sitting with people from the opposite gender. When these adults can make other big decisions about their lives and for the country, why can they not be trusted to make good decisions about their conduct on campus? Why this urge to control and police dress, body, communication and interaction?

There is no doubt that public places need codes of conduct and behaviour: that is not the issue here. We regulate a variety of behaviour through laws and norms in society. The question is about campus life and why these codes of conduct have to be a) made by the administration, b) imposed by the administration, c) administered and monitored by the administration. Why do we not involve young adults themselves to work out the codes, to work out how they are going to be implemented and monitored and how code violations are to be dealt with? Do we not want these young adults to become leaders and citizens who are going to make the Pakistan of tomorrow? Almost all educational institutes that I know of across the country, including the one where I work, give little or no space to student self-regulation and self-governance.

Almost the same thing has happened in the discussion on plagiarism and cheating. Online education has brought this issue up in a much more urgent and immediate form. Most universities and examination systems dependent on online work have seen spikes in plagiarism and the use of unfair practices. Many systems have come down heavily on the students. But the same question should be asked again. Are we going to create citizens who will only behave themselves when there is a policeperson watching over their shoulder? Is that the only way we can get compliance? If that is true, we are making a poor nation and the future of the country cannot be too bright.

Read: Cheating on online exams

Why this urge to control and police dress, body, communication and interaction?

Harvey Mudd College in the US has a strong code of conduct for incoming students who are supposed to adhere to it at all times. Each student pledges to uphold the code of conduct. Students have a buy-in. Violations can be self-reported or reported by others, though self-reports are encouraged. The code is monitored by students. Violations are dealt with mostly through a student-run governance system. This is what the Harvey Mudd website says about implications of the code for the students: “The Honour Code means closed-book exams in your dorm room. It means having an expensive calculator returned to you by a classmate after you left it behind in the lab. And it also means 24-hour student access — via card swipes — to state-of-the-art computers, labs, studios and shops.”

Can we imagine this in Pakistan? Of course we can. Harvey Mudd students are human. As are we. Lahore was not built in a day. Harvey Mudd did not reach where it is in a day too. Many other universities in the US are not at that place either. But if Harvey Mudd can do it, so can others. Question is, do we want to make a start? If we do, the way we think about student engagement and roles has to undergo a deep and complete change. They have to come to the driving seat in a lot of issues pertaining to them.

This is not just about student unions and/or their rights of organisation, though that is a part of it; this is much broader and deeper than that. This is also not about making or not making Pakistan Studies, Islamiat, etc compulsory. Simply stipulating content, even making it compulsory, is not the right way to teach/learn behaviour, or make provisions for how values might be internalised or allow people to practise their values, leadership and citizenship.

This has to be done through the act of doing. Students have to be involved in, if not be driving the process of, making codes of conduct. They have to internalise these codes and ensure that other students do so too. They have to be involved with monitoring the adherence/violation dynamics and also managing the consequences. These codes would cover all aspects of campus life, academic and non-academic.

But this cannot happen in a day. The administrations of most Pakistani universities do not know how to do this. The students also do not know how to do this. What has to start is a dialogue that brings all partners to the table, starts establishing higher trust levels (as trust levels are low on all sides right now) and then starts moving forward slowly. We will make many mistakes in the process, but is there another way to learn new things?

Universities deal with young adults who are already making big decisions that will not only impact them but also their families and all of us as well, and in three to four years, they would be making even larger and more important decisions in their active, professional lives. What kind of adults/citizens do we want? Those who we do not trust in terms of how they dress and who they meet, and who, in turn, do not trust anyone who represents any institution? Or do we want to move towards creating an environment where we work with these young adults to ensure they have an environment where they can learn to make important decisions and to take responsibility for their decisions and their successes and mistakes? The stakes are high. But it is the older generation, the power holders, that has to make the choice.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2022

Rage against the machine: Do video games increase the propensity for violence among children?

Video games are a wonderful tool for entertainment and learning, but our children still need help to navigate their way safely.

Nazish Imran | Ali Madeeh Hashmi

Published about 23 hours ago

On March 24, 1998, in the small town of Jonesboro, Arkansas, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 11-year-old Andrew Johnson calmly and deliberately shot and killed four of their fellow students and a teacher at their school. Several other students and teachers were wounded in the killing spree in Westside Middle School.

This was just one of a string of school shootings in the USA that made headlines around the world and, at the time, was the second deadliest school shooting in the USA until it was followed, just a short time later, by the massacre at Columbine High school.

The shootings have continued unabated. Many of the perpetrators of these massacres were later characterised as ‘loners’. Some had mental health problems and media reports prominently reported that many or most of them were fond of video games — some of them to an unhealthy extent.
A decades-long debate

The debate about video games and violence has thus been raging for over two decades and is still undecided. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increased utilisation of digital entertainment, including online gaming and associated online activities for people of all ages including children and adolescents.

While some games have educational content and may promote learning, problem solving, development of motor skills and coordination, the popularity of video games has also raised concerns about their possible negative effects.

The recent case of a popular video game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and its possible connection to the tragic Lahore incident of familicide by a teenager as well as three earlier cases of suicide linked to the same game in Pakistan has brought this question back into the spotlight: do violent video games increase the likelihood of violent behaviour?

Violent video games depict intentional attempts by individuals to inflict harm on others. Many emphasise negative themes in addition to killing people and animals such as foul language, obscene gestures and disrespect for women, law and authority.

Research has shown that violence in media including television shows, movies and online games may be a risk factor for aggressive behaviour, with video games being particularly harmful since they are interactive and encourage role play.

A basic principle of social learning theory is that children learn by observing and adopting the behaviours of those around them. Children who are exposed to violent games repeatedly may become numb to violence, imitate the violence, become confrontational and show more aggressive and disruptive behaviours as well as less empathy and helping behaviours.

Video games can also be harmful in other ways, for example, by reducing sleep time and sleep quality, causing nightmares, impairing school performance, reducing socialisation with friends and family as well as physical activities and taking time away from other hobbies.

It is important to remember though that in proportion to the millions of children and young people who enjoy video games, only a very small fraction ever turn to violence in real life.

In general, research has shown that the children most at risk for exhibiting violent behaviours tend to have other risk factors that make such behaviour more likely: violence and aggression in the family, parenting styles, substance abuse (in a family member or the child) and many other factors.

Certain personality traits, which may be inborn and later conditioned by the home or school, like being highly emotional, prone to anger, hostility, depression, and acting without thinking are also likely to increase the risk of violent behaviour after playing a violent video game for long periods.

There have also been conflicting studies that have disputed the link between violent video games and actual violence. Children with depression, anxiety, shyness and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may be particularly vulnerable to the negative impact of video games since the games activate the reward system in the brain similar to gambling and some abusable drugs.
Warning signs

As with most aspects of parenting, when it comes to video games, the healthiest approach comes down to moderation and making informed decisions.

Parents should remember that with supervision, video games are thrilling, inspiring and can be lots of fun. But we need to be concerned if a child is exhibiting unhealthy gaming habits.

An obsession with gaming, inability to cut down gaming time for other activities, exhibiting withdrawal symptoms such as sadness, anxiety, irritability when not gaming, lying and deceiving about the time they spend gaming, getting tired due to staying up late and showing decline in grade, for instance, should be danger signals.

In 2019, the World Health Organisation officially recognised “Gaming disorder” as a mental health disorder where gaming becomes the only activity in a person's life and is done to the neglect of everything else. If this happens, parents need to step in and seek professional help for their children.
What can parents and families do?

Having a family media plan to map out your child’s “media diet” can help. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends no screen time for children less than 18 months of age and a maximum of two hours of screen time till five years of age.

For older children, anything more than a few hours a day is not a good idea.

Since the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has restricted many outdoor activities and online education is continuing, reducing screen time may be difficult but must be attempted.

Sleep times must be enforced as well as other hobbies and engagement in activities where young people can interact with peers in person rather than online.

For teenagers, experts recommend disallowing gaming in bedrooms and perhaps having a ‘gaming area’ in the home. Warning children about potential dangers of internet contacts while online gaming is also advisable.

Playing video games with children can be a way to share their experience, improve parent-child bonding and discuss the game content as well. There should be clear rules in the home about video game playing time and content.

Checking the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings to select appropriate games as per your child’s developmental level may get parents more involved in making sure that your child is not playing games unsuitable for his/ her age group. Parents also need to be role models for screen use and set a good example for their children.

Most children and youth, even avid video game players will never turn to violence in real life but this does not mean that parents and families should not be vigilant.

Video games, like all technology, are a wonderful tool for entertainment and learning. But our children, the offspring of a new, slightly scary ‘digital world’, still need our help and guidance to navigate their way safely through it.

Header illustration: Guillermo R. Vallejos/ Shutterstock.com


Dr Nazish Imran is a professor and head of the Department of Child & Family Psychiatry at King Edward Medical University, Lahore. She is a fellow and member of Royal College of Psychiatrists, a medical educationist and also recently completed her PhD in Psychiatry with work related to school mental health. Her main areas of interest are school mental health, adolescent suicide and autism spectrum disorder.

Dr Ali Madeeh Hashmi is a psychiatrist, writer and translator. He is Tenured Professor of Psychiatry at Lahore’s King Edward Medical University. Prior to this, he practiced and taught psychiatry in the United States for 12 years. In addition to his professional activities, Dr Hashmi is the author of five books on poetry and literature including the first (and only) biography of his grandfather, the celebrated poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, published in 2016. His essays about mental health, literature, poetry and history have been published in scientific journals, magazines, newspapers and literary journals in

 Pakistan, India and the United States.

Punjab police want ‘dangerous’ games banned after tragedy

GAMING: PLAYING TO KILL

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for EMOTIONAL PLAGUE 

Digital warfare tech at sea helping US foes evade sanctions

AP / Feb 3, 2022, 12:22 IST

MIAMI: Technology to hide a ship's location previously available only to the world's militaries is spreading fast through the global maritime industry as governments from Iran to Venezuela — and the rogue shipping companies they depend on to move their petroleum products — look for stealthier ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

Windward, a maritime intelligence company whose data is used by the U.S. government to investigate sanctions violations, said that since January 2020 it has detected more than 200 vessels involved in over 350 incidents in which they appear to have electronically manipulated their GPS location.

“This is out of hand right now,” Matan Peled, co-founder of Windward and a former Israeli naval officer, said in an interview. “It's not driven by countries or superpowers. It's ordinary companies using this technique. The scale is astonishing.”

Peled said U.S. authorities have been slow to catch on to the spread of technology that has been part of the electronic warfare arsenal for decades but is only now cropping up in commercial shipping, with serious national security, environmental and maritime safety implications.


Windward was able to identify suspect ships using technology that detects digital tracks that don't correspond to actual movements, such as hairpin turns at breakneck speed or drifting in the form of perfect crop circles.

William Fallon, a retired four-star admiral and former head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said U.S. authorities have been aware for some time of the threat from electronic manipulation, one of a growing number of so-called “gray zone” national security challenges that cut across traditional military, commercial and economic lines.

“Any time you can deceive somebody into believing you're somewhere where you're not is concerning," said Fallon, who is now a board member of the American Security Project, a Washington think tank. “It illustrates the extent to which people who don't have any scruples are willing to go to achieve their objectives and the ease with which they can do it.”

One of the more egregious examples found by Windward involves a 183-meter-long oil tanker that could be tracked sailing to Iraq even as it was in reality loading crude in Iran, which is banned from selling its oil by U.S. sanctions.

The tanker, whose name Windward asked to be withheld so as not to disrupt any potential U.S. government investigation, set sail on Feb. 11, 2021, from the United Arab Emirates, reporting its destination as Basra, Iraq. When it was 20 nautical miles away, its global navigation system began exhibiting strange drifting patterns. Twelve days later, its transmission stabilised and it could be tracked heading back through the Hormuz strait at normal sailing speed, this time fully laden with crude.

Satellite imagery shows that during the two-week voyage a ship of identical length and with the same red deck broken up by a white pole and bridge was spotted dozens of nautical miles away, in Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal. That vessel was then followed on satellite sailing back to the UAE, its course merging with the reported position of the original ship after it resumed its normal transmission.

Under a United Nations maritime treaty, ships of over 300 tons have been required since 2004 to use an automated identification system to avoid collisions and assist rescues in the event of a spill or accident at sea. Tampering with its use is a major breach that can lead to official sanctions for a vessel and its owners.

But what was intended as an at-sea safety mechanism has also driven a proliferation in ship-spotting platforms like MarineTraffic.com.

Experts say such websites can be easily tricked since they partly rely on data gathered from thousands of amateur base stations that function like police radio scanners picking up maritime movements. Last year, two journalists from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation managed to register online a fake base station near Somalia and insert the false coordinates of a real vessel. Seconds later, the falsified location popped up on MarineTraffic.com.

"To minimize errors and always ensure data integrity, MarineTraffic has introduced a series of key actions in the last few months as we strive to keep securing incoming data further," MarineTraffic's Anastassis Touros said in a statement. Steps include blocking specific stations and IP addressees that consistently transmit false data.

Despite such quality control efforts, the sheer volume of data has cut into the utility of such open-source platforms, two U.S. intelligence officers told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they described as the latest — and most extreme — tactic in the cat and mouse game between authorities and bad actors.

Another blind spot: China. The recent implementation of a harsh data privacy law has cut by nearly half the amount of terrestrial data on maritime activity in Chinese waters, making it harder to track everything from activity at busy ports key to global supply chains to the movements of the world's largest distant water fishing fleet.

Researchers from Global Fishing Watch, which uses satellite data and machine learning to monitor activity at sea, have made similar findings as Windward. It has identified 30 vessels whose locations, as reported on ship-tracking platforms, regularly fell outside the range of the satellite receiving the ship's position.

Among the vessels caught suspected of falsifying its digital tracks was the Tulip, a Panama-flagged oil tanker. For almost six months last year, it broadcast its position along the west coast of Africa. But the satellite that should have picked up the ship's movements was often thousands of miles away, suggesting the ship was likely in Venezuela.

The Associated Press obtained internal documents from Venezuela's state-owned oil company indicating the Tulip loaded 450,000 barrels of fuel oil during the first 15 days of September. Like several other of the suspicious vessels, the crude was purchased by a shell company, M and Y Trading Co., registered in Hong Kong in November 2020, according to the documents. The Tulip is owned by another Hong Kong-registered shell, Victory Marine Ltd. Neither company returned emails seeking comment.

Bjorn Bergman, a data analyst for Global Fishing Watch and Sky Truth, said attempts to hide a ship's position can be easily detected.

“While we need to remain vigilant, vessel operators choosing to manipulate their data are just going to end up shining a spotlight on their activities,” he said.

Of the 200 vessels identified by Windward with similar patterns of deception, the vast majority exhibited no other or just a few classic red flags such as disabling on-ship tracking systems, falsifying a vessel's flag state or constantly changing ownership from one shell company

Book Review: The Foundations of White Anglo-American World Power

Maribel Morey’s book ‘White Philanthropy’ lays bare how a global network of Anglo-American elites shored up White power and supremacy in the 1940s, when the latter were on the global defensive.


Representative image of Carnegie library. Photo: Sandra/Flickr CC BY NC 2.0

Inderjeet Parmar

In most circles today, beyond selected academics, Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944), remains a landmark achievement, a key moment of blinding clarity about White Americans’ obvious racial prejudices and injustice, starkly contrasting with an otherwise moral American creed of equality, causing moral angst and national guilt, and requiring ameliorative action. In contrasting Americans’ guilt over their racism with the Nazis’ proudly dogmatic ideological racism, Myrdal is seen to renew the notion of American moral virtue, founded on a culture that feels guilty about the gap between its ideals and behaviours. Such people, Myrdal argued, could be trusted to lead the White world after 1945 and maintain White world domination.

Maribel Morey
White Philanthropy
The University of North Carolina Press (November 2021)

Maribel Morey’s book White Philanthropy takes a scalpel to the body of beliefs and myths about the Myrdal thesis, clinically dissects them, and lays bare the starkest truth: that Myrdal’s book was part of an entire hegemonic programme led by a global network of Anglo-American elites that spanned decades whose principal aim was to shore up White power and supremacy in an era when the latter were on the global defensive against rising anti-colonial and freedom movements. The book was about White racial prejudice and practices, for White people with agency, who allegedly felt guilty about their behaviour, and who would rectify the matter at their own pace and in their own way. The victims of centuries-long racist-colonial exploitation and domination would just have to passively await the fruits of Whites’ introspection and reform.

I certainly have not read any book-length study that provides such compelling detail and in so persuasive a manner as to ensure that other scholars do not make the mistake of misunderstanding Myrdal’s study again. Yet, I am also aware that the gate-keepers of knowledge in the major foundations and their extensive scholarly and other networks remain powerful. And important landmark studies, which is what Morey’s book truly is, will make an impact but its full impact is unlikely to be of the proportions it ought to attain. The “free market of ideas” is rigged.

Anglo-Saxonism at the heart of the Myrdal project

Morey’s study critically and in great historical detail deconstructs the underlying racialised Anglo-Saxonist interests and motives behind the funding, researching and writing of An American Dilemma. It argues that the principal overtly stated aim of Myrdal’s study, in conjunction with previous studies (of South Africa, and in Africa more broadly) funded by the Carnegie Corporation under Frederick Keppel’s presidency, was to produce national and international policies to manage America’s national as well as the broader Anglo-Saxon-dominated global colour line – to maintain White supremacy and Black subordination, albeit with superficial reform or elimination of the most brutal aspects of racism and colonialism.

In that regard, the book backs the arguments of contemporary leftist and Black nationalist critics of An American Dilemma, whose voices had largely been censored, suppressed/marginalised until decades after the latter’s publication and rapturous reception by White elites (and, importantly, by the more conservative Black organisations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

Carnegie philanthropy and White supremacy

The ground-breaking character of Morey’s monograph – based on research in several countries’ archives – is especially valuable given the challenge of over-turning dominant understandings of Myrdal’s study as a major anti-racist document when in fact it was designed to shore up White power, even during the Second World War, which was significantly driven by Nazi theories of racial superiority, and its genocidal consequences. Any scholar entering this field of investigation will now have to take into account Morey’s study and sources. In fact, even more, the book brings into question the entire world-view of the Carnegie Corporation including whenever they may claim nowadays (and probably since the revolts against the African Studies Association that the Carnegie Corporation largely established, shaped and funded from the 1950s to the 1970s) to have repudiated such racism and elitism.

The book makes a major, original contribution to an understanding of the racialised basis of elite US institutions, networked into the American establishment; their huge impact on US life especially in this case on ‘race relations’ and understanding of racial power structures. Its greatest contribution is in imperialising and globalising Myrdal’s book as well as the thinking on racial power of US elites as organised on a national and international-imperial basis, with a mentality that was literally a ‘world-view’. In that regard, the material on Britain’s Chatham House and other pro-imperial bodies in the empire, and the roots of Andrew Carnegie’s own thinking, as well as in Myrdal’s European-oriented Mathusianism, is very interesting and impressive. The racialised world views of elite think tanks – the US Council on Foreign Relations, and Chatham House – to which Carnegie donated large sums over decades, help flesh out such elite networks.

Morey’s fascinating book also adds to our knowledge of the philosophy and political manoeuvring of Carnegie Corporation president Frederick Keppel, who is not normally viewed as a decisive figure in the broader (mainstream/conventional) literature on US philanthropy.

Frederick Keppel. Photo: By Unknown author/United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division, Public Domain

Morey’s book adds to and deepens and broadens in regard to the Carnegie Corporation and its racialised and colonial Anglo-American elite networks the picture sketched in Frank Furedi’s The Silent War (1998). Furedi shows how race was understood in Anglo-American polities from WWI onwards as the major problem of international politics. To cut a long story short, Furedi shows how a ‘race relations industry’ developed in Anglo-America viewed race relations in specific ways in a period of rising anti-colonialism. In their topsy-turvy world, anti-colonialism was seen as anti-White ‘reverse racism’ and, therefore, likely to cause a global race war.

Morey’s work is further buttressed by Robert Vitalis’s study White World Order, Black Power Politics (2015) which uncovered and exposed in great detail the origins of the academic field of International Relations (IR) as “race relations”, not to mention the field’s active marginalisation and exclusion of anti-colonial scholars at the historically-black Howard University in Washington, DC.

White philanthropy speaks to our current crisis

While there is no doubt that Morey’s study is at heart a work of brilliant historical scholarship, it screams with relevance to current discussions of race and inequality, and White supremacy. The book informs current discussions of the roots of White supremacy and the necessity of its eradication via direct action. It is clearly not the main point of the book but the current era with all its symptoms of crisis and legitimacy of elite institutions, the rise of Trumpism, of White nationalism and open White supremacy, and the fascistic coup attempt and insurrection of January 6, 2021, suggests that those historical forces that Morey uncovers remained just beneath the surface of establishment politics, police forces, and immigration law enforcers. The progressive and radical revolts and uprisings of the 1960s weakened but did not destroy racism nor its deep roots in American capitalism and its racialised class system. In such ways, Maribel Morey’s book rises above the specifically historical. The racist heartbeat of American capitalism is alive and well.

Maribel Morey. Photo: Twitter/@MaribelMorey1

My own study of Carnegie and other such major philanthropic foundations [Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (2012)] suggests that those forces continued in such racialised and elitist manner well after the 1960s and I would recommend scholars use Morey as a springboard to continue investigating Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations’ roles in the post-civil rights and women’s liberation eras. The power of the major foundations to incorporate and domesticate powerful radical dissent should not be underestimated.


Morey’s scholarship is impeccable, thorough, detailed, painstaking, and extensive. The use of multiple archives across several international collections is remarkable and impressive. This book is a labour of love, deeply-felt, inspired scholarship, but whose interpretation and conclusions are clinically-advanced and stated. It is a book that had to be written – and we should be thankful that Morey took up the task. A truly amazing study.

Inderjeet Parmar is professor of international politics at City, University of London, and visiting professor at LSE IDEAS (the LSE’s foreign policy think tank). He is a columnist at The Wire. His Twitter handle is @USEmpire.

White Philanthropy | Maribel Morey | University of North ...

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469664743/white-philanthropy

White Philanthropy. Since its publication in 1944, many Americans have described Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma as a defining text on U.S. race relations. Here, Maribel Morey confirms with historical evidence what many critics of the …

Maribel Morey

https://www.maribelmorey.com

a historian of u.s. philanthropy, the social sciences, and racial equality, maribel morey is founding executive director of the miami institute for the social sciences, a nonprofit organization centering the work of global majority scholars in the social sciences as means both for improving the integrity and rigor of these fields and for building …

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White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation's An American Dilemma and the Making of a White World Order Kindle Edition

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Since its publication in 1944, many Americans have described Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma as a defining text on U.S. race relations. Here, Maribel Morey confirms with historical evidence what many critics of the book have suspected: An American Dilemma was not commissioned, funded, or written with the goal of challenging white supremacy. Instead, Morey reveals it was commissioned by Carnegie Corporation president Frederick Keppel, and researched and written by Myrdal, with the intent of solidifying white rule over Black people in the United States.

Morey details the complex global origins of An American Dilemma, illustrating its links to Carnegie Corporation's funding of social science research meant to help white policymakers in the Anglo-American world address perceived problems in their governance of Black people. Morey also unpacks the text itself, arguing that Myrdal ultimately complemented his funder's intentions for the project by keeping white Americans as his principal audience and guiding them towards a national policy program on Black Americans that would keep intact white domination. Because for Myrdal and Carnegie Corporation alike, international order rested on white Anglo-Americans' continued ability to dominate effectively.

Investigation debunks defamation story on Chinese mining investment in Zimbabwe

A recent story published by The Guardian alleged that Chinese companies involved in granite mining in Zimbabwe have aroused fear and upset among local people

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— “People lied that I fainted. It’s not true. They didn’t tell the truth,” said Salison Ranjisi, an 82-year-old man, who was described by The Guardian as “collapsed when he heard the news” that he would be relocated.

— Commenting on the story by The Guardian, Rangarirai Shoko, editor-in-chief of New Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency, said Western media have lost their predominant positions that they held in the world with the publication of lies.

by Tafara Mugwara, Zhang Yuliang and Cao Kai

MUTOKO, Zimbabwe, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) — A recent story published by The Guardian alleged that Chinese companies involved in granite mining in Zimbabwe have aroused fear and upset among local people.

The article, titled “‘They want to remove us and take the rock,’ say Zimbabweans living near Chinese-owned mines,” claimed that Chinese mining companies in Mutoko District, Mashonaland East Province, are unjustly displacing villagers to pave the way for their mining operations.

However, a Xinhua investigation on the ground showed a different picture from the one painted by The Guardian.

 

UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS

The story alleged that 50 families in Nyamakope village in Mutoko District have been told by a Chinese mining company that they will have to leave their homes and land.

In contrast, only three families in Nyamakope have so far been moved by Jinding Mining Zimbabwe, a Chinese granite mining company based in the area, said Salison Ranjisi, an 82-year-old man, who is among the relocated families.

Ranjisi, who was described by The Guardian as “collapsed when he heard the news” that he would be relocated, said he never fainted, but suffered from high blood pressure after the relocation process while his new house was being built.

“People lied that I fainted. It’s not true. They didn’t tell the truth,” Ranjisi said.

Salison Ranjisi poses for a photo in a field in Mutoko, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua)

Furthermore, the Guardian story alleged that the families “were given 2,500 U.S. dollars to rebuild their homes.”

Ranjisi emphasized he moved after signing a contract and receiving a compensation worth 4,800 dollars, and that there was no one forcing him to leave.

According to the 2021 Zimbabwe Rural Livelihood Assessment Report by Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, the average monthly income for rural households in the country was 75 dollars in 2021, which means the compensation for Ranjisi’s family is far more than the average annual income for rural households in Zimbabwe.

Another Chinese mining company that was mentioned in the story, Shanghai Haoyun, was wrongfully written as “Shanghau Haoying” Mining Investments.

“They even spelled wrongly our company name. We are currently undertaking exploration works required before the commencement of mining operations, let alone the relocation of villagers,” according to a statement from Shanghai Haoyun.

Robert Mavhuta, a local councilor for Ward 10 in Zisengwe-Nemagunde village, Mutoko District, said no family in his ward has been relocated by Shanghai Haoyun, which has been granted mining rights in his area.

“In case there is any family which is to be displaced, we will sit down and talk, and they (the families) will be compensated accordingly and justly,” he told Xinhua, adding the procedures of relocating local people will be fair.

A boy on an ox-drawn cart passes a granite mountain in Mutoko, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua)

REAL BENEFITS

Citing mineworkers, the Guardian story also indicated labor malpractices by the Chinese companies, including long working shifts and low pay, which have been proven untrue.

Blessmore Karimazondo, a front-end loader operator, has been working in Jinding for the past two years.

Karimazondo said he works eight hours a day and the salary is good for him, given that the inflation rate is high in the country.

Before Chinese investments came to Mutoko, the black granite was an unexploited resource with no economic value, said Robert Machinga, a local villager and a junior rig operator at Shanghai Haoyun.

Known as the Zimbabwean marble, the stone is perfect for cladding buildings and decorating kitchens and bathrooms.

Robert Machinga (C) and his colleagues check samples of granite stones at Shanghai Haoyun mine in Mutoko, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua)

“We used to see these stones and we had no idea that these stones are wealth, but with the coming of Chinese investors who brought jobs, we can see that our lives are changing,” he said.

The Chinese mining companies have also benefitted local communities through their skills transfer initiatives, he said.

“I gained skills to operate machinery. Many people can now fend for their families, unlike previously when you would wake up and spend the day sitting at home. So many things have changed,” he added.

With more Chinese mining companies moving into the area, the livelihoods of the villagers will greatly improve, Machinga said.

In fact, Chinese companies in Zimbabwe have created numerous jobs and contributed a lot to the local economy. Across the country, they have built roads, bridges, borehole wells and schools.

In 2020, bilateral trade between China and Zimbabwe reached 1.399 billion dollars, up 4.2 percent year-on-year, according to figures from China’s Ministry of Commerce.

“Chinese companies welcome competition, but not malicious smear. Let’s compete for the title of top contributor to the Zimbabwean economy and the wellbeing of Zimbabwean people,” said Guo Shaochun, Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe.

ULTERIOR MOTIVE

The Western countries want China out of Zimbabwe and its lucrative natural resources sector in order to push Zimbabwe into a development trap, Zimbabwe’s largest daily newspaper The Herald pointed out in an editorial in response to the Guardian story, adding that the anti-China rhetoric in Western press aims to tarnish relations between Zimbabwe and China.

“Out of sheer jealousy, envy and pique, Western countries have begun a spirited campaign against Chinese investments in Zimbabwe using a phalanx of corrupt media, paid activists and civil society organizations,” it said.

According to an investigation conducted by The Herald last year, local journalists were allegedly paid to peddle lies and sensationalize issues by portraying Chinese businesses as unethical, reckless, criminal and causing harm to communities, the environment and workers.

The journalists were allegedly offered 1,000 dollars for each anti-Chinese enterprise story they wrote.

In response to a latest defamation report on Chinese investment by a number of civic society groups in Zimbabwe published on Jan. 20, Christopher Mutsvangwa, the ruling ZANU-PF’s Politburo member and secretary for information and publicity, said all investments are welcome in Zimbabwe regardless of their origins.

Zimbabwe continues to “welcome and receive investments from across the world and our all-weather friend China, at a time when others are investing sanctions and hostility” to a resilient but hospitable people of Zimbabwe, Mutsvangwa was quoted by State-run Sunday Mail Newspaper as saying.

In the wake of increasing rhetoric against Chinese investments, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said again and again that investments from the Asian country are most welcome.

Workers use a drilling machine to cut a granite rock at Jinding mine in Mutoko, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua)

Commenting on the story by The Guardian, Rangarirai Shoko, editor-in-chief of New Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency, said Western media have lost their predominant positions that they held in the world with the publication of lies.

“These guys are playing economic warfare against China. It is played out in places like Zimbabwe, in places like Namibia and Zambia,” said Shoko.

“I don’t worry much about the Western media anymore. They do a good job of discrediting themselves and killing themselves,” he said.

Post published in: Business

Half of US SMEs raised salaries in January amid tightening labour market

Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist


Reade Pickert
February 04 2022

A record 50pc of US small-business owners said they raised compensation in January amid still-elevated job openings, the National Federation of Independent Business said yesterday

With some 47pc of small businesses reporting job openings last month they weren’t able to fill, employers have been raising wages to attract skilled candidates – a trend that doesn’t appear to be reversing any time soon.

Over a quarter of small businesses are planning to raise compensation in the next three months, still historically high but lower than the record high seen in the previous three months, NFIB data show.

“Small-business owners are managing the reality that the number of job openings exceeds the number of unemployed workers, producing a tight labour market and adding pressure on wage levels,” Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist, said.

“Reports of owners raising compensation continues at record-high levels to attract applicants to their open positions.”

The share of firms that raised compensation was the largest in monthly data back to 1986 and up two points from December.

And despite the surge in Covid-19 infections in January, 59pc of small employers reported hiring or trying to hire.

A net 26pc of owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Beef giant JBS to pay $52.5M to settle price-fixing lawsuit



By: JOSH FUNK, Associated Press
Posted at 7:33 PM, Feb 03, 2022

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Meatpacking giant JBS has agreed to a $52.5 million settlement in a beef price-fixing lawsuit that some say supports their concerns about how the lack of competition in the industry affects prices.

Colorado-based JBS didn't admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement and a spokeswoman said the company will continue to defend itself.

The giant beef processors have argued that supply and demand factors, not anticompetitive behavior, drive the price of beef and the amount ranchers receive for cattle, but the industry's practices have been questioned by the White House and Congress. And the Justice Department has been investigating possible price fixing in the industry at least since 2020.