Tom Arms’ World Review: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Justice at home and abroad, Sri Lanka

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th January 2022 - 

Ukraine

After a week of Ukrainian talks the question is whether Vladimir Putin is using negotiations to avoid war or create a pretext to start one. The communiques emerging from Geneva, Brussels and Vienna shed little light on the subject. They are peppered with insubstantial diplomatese phrases such as “frank,” “friendly” and “constructive.” Off the record, journalists are being told that chief US negotiator Wendy Sherman is offering to widen the talks with suggested discussions on missile deployments and other issues. The US is clearly trying to drag out talks in the hopes that protracted jaw, jaw will lead to reduced tensions. But on one issue the Americans and their NATO allies appear to be standing firm: They will not agree to a legally binding commitment to block Ukraine (and Georgia) from NATO membership. Putin has made it clear that Ukrainian enrolment in NATO is unacceptable. In fact, Putin has compared it to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Russian leader has also denounced America’s strategic arms policies, blaming them from withdrawing from the ABM Treaty (true), INF (not true) and the Open Skies Agreement (not true). However, Putin is also adamant that he will not be bogged down in the “swamp” of protracted negotiations. His concern over lengthy talks is at least partly related to the fact that if he doesn’t move soon Russian tanks will become mired in the mud of a Ukrainian spring. If Putin does invade, Biden has threatened sanctions “like none he has ever seen.” These are likely to include locking Russia out of the international banking system and blocking the Nordstream2 gas pipeline.

Kazakhstan

It now appears that the uprising in Kazakhstan was more of an internal power struggle than a popular uprising. In the wake of the violence the head of, Kazakhstan’s security services, Karim Masimov, has been sacked and charged with treason. In addition, 81-year-old former president Nursultan Nazarbayev has been removed from the chairmanship of the nation’s powerful Security Council and his family has dropped from public view. Nazabaryev, who was an autocratic president for 25 years, hand-picked Kassim-Zhomart Tokayev as his successor. It had been assumed that the ex-president was still pulling the puppet strings and grooming his daughter for the presidency. Now it seems that the puppet has cut the strings and turned on his master. He also appears to have the blessing of Russia’s Vladimir Putin who still holds considerable sway in the former Soviet republic. Twenty-five percent of Kazakhstan’s 18 million citizens are ethnic Russian. Its gas pipelines all run to Russia, and 2,000 Russian troops were called in by Tokayev to protect Russian assets when the revolt started. After killing 164 protesters, arresting 10,000 and possibly neutering the Nazarbayev family and their supporters, Tokayev appears to be firmly back in control and the Russian troops are back in their barracks.

War criminals face justice

It is reassuring to note that the blindfold over the eyes of Lady Justice (aka Justitia) appears to remain in place in at least some countries. Britain, Germany, Australia and America (acting with the UK) have this week shown that the greatest in the land are subject to the same laws as everyone else no matter how high they climb the greasy pole of ambition. In the case of the Germans it was a matter of “you can run but you can’t hide.” This week a Koblenz court sentenced former Syrian Colonel Anwar Raslan to life imprisonment for supervising the torture of more than 4,000 prisoners in war-torn Syria. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity under the UN’s Universal Jurisdiction rules. This coming week a Syrian doctor also appears before a German court. Austria, Norway, Sweden and France have also taken legal steps against former members of the Syrian regime who have sought refuge in their countries.

Djokovic, Downing Street Parties and Prince Andrew

Australia has proven that rules apply to tennis players off the court as well as on. The country’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, has overturned a court decision and ordered the deportation of the world’s number one tennis player—Novak Djokovic—who doubles as a prominent anti-vaxxer. Unfortunately for Djokovic, Australia has some of the world’s toughest rules on covid vaccinations and entry into the country. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to be heading for the exit door at 10 Downing Street as journalists line up to reveal a succession of Downing Street parties held during covid lockdowns that he ordered. The latest was the day before the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh when the country was in national mourning. Boris has made what he calls a “heartfelt” apology but the press and many of his colleagues think it was half-hearted. Finally the highest in the land (almost) has also been subjected to the rules. Prince Andrew, ninth in succession to the British throne, has been stripped of his titles and military ranks. He will now appear as a private citizen in a US civil court where he will be accused of sexually abusing Ms Victoria Giuffre in 2001. A delighted Ms Giuffre said: “My goal has always been to show that the rich and famous are not above the law.”

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is in deep financial trouble. This creates problems for China, India, Japan, Russia, the US and several other countries. Sri Lanka’s problems started with the refusal of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to accept IMF conditions for a restructuring of the island nation’s debts. In desperate need of cash, the Sri Lankan president turned to China for replacement help. Since then a combination of the pandemic, poor investment decisions and a drop in tourism has worsened Sri Lanka’s economic situation. Its foreign currency reserves have dwindled to almost nil. Inflation is 12 percent. A $500m debt repayment is due on Tuesday (18 Jan). Another $5.4 billion has to be repaid by the end of the year. Enter China which is Sri Lanka’s fourth biggest creditor after Japan, the IMF and Asian Development Bank. Sri Lanka has asked Beijing to restructure its loans. It is not the first time that the Sri Lankans have gone cap in hand to the Chinese. In 2017 they swapped a proportion of their equity in the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota in a debt restructuring deal. The Chinese now own 70 percent of the equity in the port on the south eastern tip of Sri Lanka. The move set alarm bells ringing in Tokyo, Washington, Canberra and Delhi where it was feared that the Chinese might use their equity position to place naval forces in the Indian Ocean. The “Quad” started eyeing the facilities at Trincomalee, the region’s largest deep-water facility. So far, however, the Chinese have kept their presence in Sri Lanka on a strict commercial footing. But they will want something in return for helping the Sri Lankans out of their current financial mess. What that may be is what is causing sleepless nights elsewhere.

* Tom Arms is the Foreign Editor of Liberal Democratic Voice. His book “America Made in Britain” has recently been published by Amberley Books. He is also the author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War.”

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Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack

Robert Reich

Kyrsten Sinema receives millions from business and opposes progressive priorities. Republicans who voted to overturn an election still bag big bucks. Whose side are CEOs on?

Senator Kyrsten Sinema boards an elevator at the US Capitol.

 Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Sun 16 Jan 2022 06.00 GMT

Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.

That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.ey were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.

A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees (Pacs).

But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a much larger problem.
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The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.

The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.

Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide. Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform – policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.

Over the last four decades, corporate Pac spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.

Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union Pacs contributed about as much as corporate Pacs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.

According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.

It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.

The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.

Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.

They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.

The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.

Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.

But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.

In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.

Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.

Campaigners target senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, near the US Capitol. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/REX/Shutterstock

A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.

As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.



Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.

My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.

It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.

The true meaning of 6 January: we must answer Trump’s neofascism with hope
Robert Reich

The US supreme court to Americans: tough luck if you get Covid at work
Robert Reich

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Book Review: Cities in the Anthropocene: New Ecology and Urban Politics by Ihnji Jon


Bouchra Tafrata
January 16th, 2022

In Cities in the Anthropocene: New Ecology and Urban Politics, Ihnji Jon explores how researchers, city planners and the public can develop a bottom-up approach to environmentalism in urban areas, focusing on the cities of Cape Town, Cleveland, Darwin and Tulsa. This book contributes to establishing a new approach to urban research that understands cities as complex environments and stresses the importance of collaboration with communities, finds Bouchra Tafrata.

Cities in the Anthropocene: New Ecology and Urban Politics. Ihnji Jon. Pluto Press. 2021.

Find this book (affiliate link):

In her article ‘The City We Want: Against the Banality of Urban Planning Research’, Ihnji Jon reflects on the current state of academia and how a space of intellectual exercise is being threatened by marketisation, the fear of remaining invisible without publications, h-indexes and an obsession with producing ‘objective’ knowledge. As a young scholar trying to carve a pathway in urban studies, I ruminate on how the current knowledge produced within universities is affecting approached communities. Whose voices are we listening to? Why are institutions and academics trying to maintain the barrier they have constructed between research and activism? If cities are complex, why is academia generating ‘banal’ research? In this regard, Jon evokes Robert W. Lake’s words, calling for a shift ‘from a stance of distanced objectivity to an engaged attitude of solidarity and empathy’ (72).

The current climate situation and the continuous debate between governments and policymakers about the deteriorating state of the planet, in addition to the differences in public opinion, push us to question governments’ approaches to climate issues and to ask why many have failed at implementing climate-related policies. Jon’s book Cities in the Anthropocene is a call for researchers, city planners and the public to reflect on the benefits of a bottom-up approach in environmentalism and to incentivise the public to evaluate its local position within an interdependent global system.

Jon’s scholarship focuses on analysing a ‘new ecology’ that advocates for anti-essentialist environmentalism theory and speaks against political discourse that commands the public to foster a coercive relationship between humans and nature. In her words, ‘‘‘new ecology’’ tried to go beyond the kinds of environmentalism that rely on the fetishised understanding of ‘‘nature’’ or ‘‘the environment’’ that unnecessarily creates the boundaries between our everyday living (human needs) and ecosystem functions (ecological needs)’ (3).

The book starts by addressing the politics of scale and how cities can act as frontiers for climate change mitigation. The notion of ‘scale’ remains contested, especially in environmental governance. The interconnected planetary ecosystem continues to shed light on the limits of tackling climate issues on a national scale, as these issues expand beyond political delimitations.

In addition, turning environmental issues into ‘leftist debates’ impedes climate change mitigation and conceals the sources of these issues. The ideological turn of the climate debate must be dismantled, as it is a global issue that incessantly deteriorates our daily lives that rely on the state of the environment. As Jon articulates, ‘proposing a positive reconfiguration of scale is needed more than ever, especially for the environmental issues that are intrinsically both local and global’ (32).

Jon illustrates the implications of embedding nature and climate change mitigation in planning without making it a case of leftist political engagement through two cities: Darwin, Australia, and Tulsa, USA. The urban policies and strategies deployed in these cities are intended to attract different communities whose political positions do not align. This is a phenomenon that Jon refers to as ‘pragmatic environmentalism’ (34).

Climate-related disasters, notably hazardous weather, have been affecting urban citizens’ lives in Tulsa. The city’s history of flooding has contributed to centring nature in design, which has led to the creation of ‘pragmatic environmentalism’ strategies: for instance, stormwater management systems as well as embedding greenery, walkability and the ‘Instagram-able’ in urban space to attract Millenials, professionals and families.

In the case of Darwin, its tropical climate and weather hazards have encouraged the implementation of different projects that foster what the author refers to as ‘secularising nature’ (38). This pragmatic approach to nature strengthens proximity between urban citizens and the weather hazards that affect their cities. It asks us to reflect on how we can implement pro-nature practices without idealising ‘nature’.

Through contrasting Bruno Latour’s attention to ‘negative feelings that are generated by the individuals’ (40) with Spinozian ethics on how doing good makes us feel good (41), Jon highlights the importance of practices that foster care, instead of feelings of obligation and authority. In fact, pro-environment city-scale projects – such as embedding greenery in the streets, minimising parking areas, low-impact development (LID) initiatives (namely on-site stormwater treatment centres), green energy transition and establishing attractive amenities in different neighbourhoods – can shift the narrative on climate issues. They also invite different communities to participate in the pro-nature ethos, as our quality of life relies on the state of the ecosystem. Jon linked these initiatives to Deweyan philosophy which shows how valuing the public’s experiences can serve to build bridges with the ordinary, instead of only relying on theories and ideologies (71). This approach centres the everyday experiences of people and establishes engagement with different communities.

Another timely topic the author tackles is how we can address climate change, environmental sustainability and urban inequalities through the same prism, without marginalising communities who endure socio-spatial disparities. Jon studies this issue in two different cities: Cleveland, USA, and Cape Town, South Africa. These two cities endure poverty and socio-spatial segregation. Cleveland is one of the rust belt cities that bore the aftermaths of the 2008 financial crash and industrial decline, which engendered housing inequalities and socio-economic instability (77, 86). Cape Town’s apartheid history and policies created a spatial divide between white settlers and non-white citizens and pushed the latter to dwell in informal settlements, without access to clean water, sanitation, energy or socio-economic opportunities (94, 97,102).

Jon highlights the role of environmental justice theory, which studies how a green policy agenda can reinforce socio-economic inequalities (81). Environmentalist institutions and climate change social movements, particularly in the West, demonstrate how whiteness continues to dominate these spaces and how environmentalists and activists should question whose climate justice they are advocating for. Socio-economic precarity and urban segregation are colonial and the history of white supremacy is still visible in post-colonies. Recognising this offers a chance to re-imagine inclusive and equitable development policies.

The last chapter of the book explores how social complexity theory can inspire environmental action. Referring to the work of Manuel DeLanda on the materiality of cities and connecting this to Deleuzian assemblage theory, Jon explains the role of interaction between different individuals, how this generates a group identity and how this affects the members of the group. In Jon’s words: ‘placing interaction effects at the heart of understanding social entities may relieve us from the ontological contradiction between “having a group identity (which is the soul of the whole)” versus “respecting/acknowledging individual agency and heterogeneity”’ (114). Additional elements vital to recognising the complexity of social entities are understanding the history of the interactions that have occurred between individuals and establishing practices that accommodate heterogeneity (116, 117, 119). Planning with/within complexity can push decision-makers to consider the varieties of social entities and to practise inclusion.

Jon asks how cities can ‘inject their pro-environmentalist ideas via an abstract machine, using the powers of imagination, narratives, expressions, or poetic devices that can inspire people rather than forcing them to pursue environmentalism’ (135). Jon draws on various examples that illustrate how creative projects are working to shift dominant narratives, including the New York Times’s ‘Modern Love’ series that depicts the multiple forms of ‘love’. Through these, Jon calls for a shift in planning and narrative in urban studies (143) through the embrace of the ‘habit of tolerance’ (158) and the complexity of narratives in cities.

While I continue to reflect on practices of inclusion and exclusion inside and outside of institutional walls, Jon’s book helps in setting the mood for establishing a new approach to urban research. It connects the philosophy of pragmatism, climate change mitigation and city planning. It defines cities as complex environments where inequalities are reinforced through systemic marginalisation, and where local/global governments can advocate for pro-environmentalism through a bottom-up approach. It encourages us, researchers and practitioners, to examine the utility of theories produced in the academy, collaborate with communities and be attentive to their narratives and needs.

Note: This article first appeared at our sister site, LSE Review of Books. It gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Lucas Alexander on Unsplash


About the author

Bouchra Tafrata is a Researcher and host of In Praise of the Margin Podcast. She completed a Master’s in Public Policy at the Willy Brandt School at the University of Erfurt. Her research dissects international political economy, socio-spatial inequalities and urban governance.

US legislators demand probe into Israel's beating to death of 80-year-old man

WASHINGTON, Sunday, January 16, 2022 (WAFA) – US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell have called for a thorough investigation into the death of 80-year-old Omar Abdelmajid As'ad, a Palestinian-American man who was beaten to death by Israeli occupation forces during a raid into the village of Jiljilya in the occupied West Bank last week.

"Two days ago, Israeli troops stopped a car driven by 80-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Abdulmajeed Asaad. They dragged him from the car, beat him, and left him on the ground to die. This is outrageous! I call on Secretary Blinken to investigate," said Tlaib in a tweet.

Dingell also tweeted, "My heart is with Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad’s family as they grieve this awful loss with real uncertainty. The circumstances surrounding his death are gravely concerning, and we need a full and thorough investigation to get answers now."

Yesterday, US Congresswoman Marie Newman said she was "deeply disturbed by reports of Israeli troops dragging, beating and leaving an 80-year-old Palestinian-American on the ground, where he later died of a heart attack… I echo the State Department in demanding a full investigation into this incident."

M.N

John Parker: Police Means of Repressing Real Democracy in America

TEHRAN (FNA)- John Parker, political activist, says the US ruling system uses police to maintain the hold of the industrial and financial monopolies on the society.
Speaking in an interview with FNA, Parker shed light on the under-reported US police’s brutality against people of color, and said, “The ruling class cannot afford any criticism of the police. Any recognition of racist police murder fuels the building of a movement amongst working and poor people here, as the protests against the killings of Black people did and continue to do in the US, it challenges the ruling class, or the oligarch’s hold on society by threatening the institution of policing in the US.”

John Parker is a lifelong human rights and ant-war activist based in Los Angeles, California. He is the West Coast coordinator of the International Action Center. John Parker was the Workers World Party presidential candidate in 2004. He also ran for the US Senate from California in 2016.

Below is the full text of the interview:

Q: A recent study shows US police killing of Black people is under-reported by more than half. Why do you think this is the case?

A: The police are indeed afraid to reveal the true numbers and probably do not know what those numbers are because, as the current study shows like many others have in the past, the law enforcement institutions do not allow for the accurate reporting for political reasons. After all, the police function as a military arm of the US government, especially in Black and Brown communities. They are real job in this imperialist country, like the job of the politicians and government institutions here, is to protect the interests of the industrial and financial monopolies that actually run the US, using their capital to determine the laws, select winning politicians to represent their interests, and either directly or indirectly use the police and military for repression to maintain their hold and prevent any real democracy in the US.

The ruling class cannot afford any criticism of the police. Any recognition of racist police murder fuels the building of a movement amongst working and poor people here, as the protests against the killings of Black people did and continue to do in the US, it challenges the ruling class, or the oligarch’s hold on society by threatening the institution of policing in the US.

Q: The report indicates police are more likely to shoot Black civilians than White civilians, even when the victim is unarmed. What does it tell us about the US police in terms of race and ethnicity?

A: It is important to understand that the institution of policing in the US has its origins in the catching of slaves or former slaves. It was established to maintain the murder, rape and forced unpaid labor of Black peoples. And, like today, that was also to ensure the political structure and protect the “property” of the richest in society. When slavery was ended their work expanded and became more integrated with state institutions to more effectively keep down the labor movement and the demand for unions and any other protests or movements of the people fighting for social and economic justice.

However, the racist nature of their repression remained and, while also including other non-white peoples and immigrants in their brutality to suppress social movements, their greatest repression targeted and continues today to target Black people. This is why the reports state that Black people are over 3 times more likely to be killed by police while being 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed when killed by police than white people.

This report by the University of Washington that was published in the Lancet corroborates the earlier studies published in the Guardian and Washington Post on the under counting of police killings by government sources. Another report, Mapping Police Violence, reported that in 1,147 deaths, only 13 officers were charged with a crime.

The Lancet report states, “Police forces should exist to enforce laws that protect public safety, but throughout the USA’s history, police have been used to enforce racist and exploitative social orders that endanger the safety of the most marginalized groups in society.”

Q: What do we learn about the American society in which police violence and racism in policing are undeniable facts?

A: Those who control the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government already know the true nature of this racist and repressive society and the institutions that maintain that reality.

One indication of that is the fact that this report is not reporting anything new. The problem of racist policing and murder has been identified for decades but the situation has gotten even worse. Even recent reform efforts to cut down fatal police violence, like banning chokeholds, mandating body cameras, training in de-escalation, diversifying police forces, and civilian police review and advisory boards have all failed. We know these efforts have failed because fatal police violence has remained the same or increased since 1990. And we know these efforts failed because they were not meant to succeed.

The New York Times spoke to Roger Mitchell Jr., a former chief medical examiner of Washington, DC, and an expert on investigating deaths in custody, about this latest study. He said that long ago he proposed that death certificates should include a checkbox indicating whether a death occurred in custody, including arrest-related deaths as well as those in jails and prisons. Easy enough, but this is still yet to be implemented. And, back in 2014 federal legislation was passed mandating law enforcement agencies to report deaths in custody. However, no public data on this has been produced.

So, we see that this lack of data is intentional and that the only way to cure police murder and racism is to abolish the police and replace them with organizations for public safety that are made up of communities independent of current police and corporate influence – one that represents and reflects the real needs of the communities of the US, especially the Black and Brown communities most targeted by police.

US Vaccine Drive Falls To 'One Of Its Lowest Points' As Cases Soar

Bloomberg / Updated: Jan 16, 2022

The number of new people getting the Covid vaccine is at one of the lowest points since the rollout began, according to a review of the US government data, even as average daily cases approach 800,000. While millions of doses are being administered each week, the majority of those are now booster shots.

Officials at the state and federal levels have tried everything from free beer and cash to get people onboard. In many places, they've succeeded. In New York City, 74% of the population is fully vaccinated. But in other places, no amount of prizes or the fear of getting sick, seems able to move the rates.

In West Virginia, 44% of the population hasn't been fully vaccinated. In Mississippi and Alabama, over half of people haven't been fully vaccinated. Most doses now going into arms are boosters, according to a seven-day average of CDC data. On January 13, about 387,000 boosters were given in the US, compared with 289,000 first or second doses. The divide is even sharper in less-vaccinated places.

In Louisiana and West Virginia, about 60% of doses are booster shots and first shots are near their low point. And the Biden administration's most potent tool to push vaccines has been wiped out: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled out a mandate requiring staff at large employers to either be vaccinated or face regular testing. 

Bloomberg

Trumpworld Assembles in Arizona to Spew Garbage About Psy-Ops and Clones

‘JACKED UP ON THE HOLY SPIRIT’

The twice-impeached ex-president bragged about all his fans. His fans, meanwhile, ranted about psy-ops, clones, and the apocalypse.


Zachary Petrizzo
Media Reporter
Updated Jan. 16, 2022 

Twice impeached ex-president Donald Trump took to a stage in Florence, Arizona on Saturday night, after a long lineup of 2020 election deniers fired up the crowd with unhinged election conspiracy theories and talk about “psychological operations.”

“The Big Lie, The Big Lie is a lot of bullshit,” Trump exclaimed shortly after taking center stage in a red “Make America Great Again” hat and a crisp open-collar white button-down. “We have had more destruction, I think, than five presidents put together in the last year,” Trump continued while claiming his fervent supporters were being “persecuted” for practicing their freedom of speech.

“There’s nobody that can see the end of this crowd,” Trump added, boasting about his rally crowd size. “And has cars that stretch out for 25 miles. That’s not somebody that lost an election.”

During the lengthy address, Trump praised One America News (OAN) following the Friday evening news of DirectTV not re-upping their contract with the far-right network. “This is a great network… I watch it all the time.” “It’s a disgrace what’s going on!”

During the evening affair, 2020 dead-ender Mike Lindell got time at the microphone too, where the MyPillow executive let out an endless stream of election-related theories with equal parts grievance and gusto.

“The biggest problem we face, it’s not the media, the fake news media, we’re all onto them, it’s the conservative media, the ones that don’t talk,” he stated, taking aim at conservative media. “One of them rhymes with Fox [News]. Okay? Disgusting. They’re disgusting.”

Asked by The Daily Beast how the rally went, the MyPillow man responded, “Great!”

“Arizona is a red state,” Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff), a close ally of white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, told the crowd. “And President Trump won. Let me tell you, I have proposed over 50 bills, so far this session… and many will fix the problems from the election,” she stated. “We must decertify, the presidential election of 2020!”

Ahead of the pre-rally speeches by the Trumpwold election result denying luminaries, festivities outside of the venue included signature red Trump hats being sold along with other Trump trinkets and collectibles. (At least two Trump rally-goers could be seen walking around with Trumpy Bear plushies.)



Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), the ardently pro-Trump YouTube channel, sent correspondent Brian Glenn to roam around the venue.

Describing the atmosphere, Glenn described the atmosphere as like the 1969 music festival “Woodstock,” except he noted that “everyone is not completely liberal and jacked up on drugs.” Instead, the RSNB host claimed, attendees were “just jacked up on the holy spirit.”

Speaking with rally-goers, the RSBN host spoke with eccentric Trump supporters, including one who espoused the far-right QAnon adjacent conspiracy theory that Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom, in his current capacity, is a “clone.”

“The real Governor [Gavin] Newsom has had his military tribunal at GITMO, and he’s been executed,” the Trump supporter stated.

The RSBN host then attempted to downplay the supporters’ unhinged remarks: “There you go. Thank you for your time.”

Khayree Billingslea, a Trump supporter and self-identified “flat earth boxer,” told RSBN that the world is experiencing an “apocalypse.”

“It’s my persuasion that it’s clearly the apocalypse and that the vaccine is made of aborted children,” he said, which was broadcast onto YouTube. “So it’s literally the mark of the beast, and a lot of people aren’t talking about it.”

The bonkers remarks spewed by Trump supporters on YouTube also centered on baseless and false claims that the election was “stolen” and foreign powers control Dominion Voting Systems. (YouTube didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment Saturday evening.)

Among other attendees at the rally included Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander.

“It’s exciting,” Alexander told The Daily Beast while at the rally. “2022 wave of Trump Republicans coming!”

With a Jan. 6 organizer in attendance, Trump bragged about the dark winter Washington, D.C. day during his speech.

“They talk about the people that walked down to the Capitol,” he said. “They don’t talk about the size of that crowd. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken [to] before and they were there to protest the election!”

One rally-goer wearing a black “Biden 2020” T-shirt was arrested at the political event, as Trump supporters heckled her as she was placed in handcuffs by officers. (Florence’s Police Department did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Saturday night.)

“Get out of here,” a bystander could be heard yelling. “See ya commie.”

During his pre-rally speech, Arizona State Senator Sonny Borrelli said that he believes a “psychological operation” is underway in the country.

“I was in the Marines for 20 years,” he told the crowd, before claiming there was “a psy operation, psychological operations” which included an unknown entity utilizing “black op operations” to “blackout information.”

Trump dolled out heavy praise of Borrelli, saying he is “tough and smart” during his speech. “He is a great guy,” the ex-president added.

 IRONIC

Sci-fi action film 'The Matrix Resurrections' tops Chinese box office

Xinhua | Updated: 2022-01-16 

BEIJING - US sci-fi action film "The Matrix Resurrections" topped the Chinese mainland box office Saturday, the second day of its screening, figures from the China Movie Data Information Network showed Sunday.

Directed by Lana Wachowski, the sequel to 2003's "The Matrix Revolutions" and the fourth installment in The Matrix film series raked in nearly 18.8 million yuan (about $2.95 million) on Saturday.

Domestic drama "Embrace Again" came in second, finishing the day with a box office revenue of more than 16.77 million yuan.

It was followed by crime thriller "G Storm," which pocketed about 10.25 million yuan on Saturday.

US' Huawei hunt for hegemony at any cost: China Daily editorial

chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-01-16

A logo of Huawei. [Photo/Huawei]

In 2008, the United States prevented the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei from purchasing the network solutions provider 3Com. That marked the start of its 13-year-long campaign against the company. It has even drummed up and marshaled the cooperation of its allies in its "clean networks" initiative aimed at excluding Huawei and other Chinese companies from global 5G networks.

According to EurActiv, a Brussels-based media outlet, former United Kingdom business and industry minister Vince Cable said on Jan 10 that the UK government took moves against Huawei "because the Americans told us we should do it".

In July 2020, the Boris Johnson administration announced that all Huawei products were to be stripped from their country's 5G networks by the end of 2027 due to "security concerns". Yet in his remarks, Cable, who served in David Cameron's administration from 2010 to 2015, said that during his term the intelligence and security services repeatedly assured him that using Huawei equipment posed no risks.

Cable's remarks show that the US' justification for its witch hunt against Huawei on the grounds of "national security" is a shameless lie. Its sole purpose is to contain one of China's leading enterprises.

For Huawei, that might be considered an honor. That means the enterprise that started with six employees in 1987 has grown into a company influential enough to arouse the full force of the US' fear and loathing.

The campaign against Huawei is nothing new. The US has launched campaigns to bring down the high-flying tech companies of other countries before — Toshiba, Alston, and others. These companies share one thing in common, namely the ability to challenge the US' technological hegemony, which is why the US so ruthlessly guns for them.

But Huawei has not caved in. And the US' attacks on it are hurting its own companies too. By prohibiting its enterprises from selling chips to Huawei, the US has employed a double-edged sword. As early as 2019, the US chip giant Qualcomm worried that cutting chip supplies to Huawei might impact its sales in China. In September 2020, VLSI Research CEO, Dan Hutcheson, said that the ban on China's Huawei had triggered a large inventory backlog throughout the entire chip industry.

The UK is not the only country missing technological development opportunities because of their ally's hegemony-at-any-cost antics.

If its allies continue working with the US in its efforts to hobble tech competitors globally, they will only find themselves lagging behind in more emerging sectors.

"If Britain had kept with 5G, we would now be at the forefront of countries using the most advanced technologies," Cable is quoted as saying. "And we're not."

If more people tell the truth like Cable, the US' economic bullying will meet more resistance. That would be good for development and application of new technology.

PAKISTAN

Non-starter of a national security  policy

Abbas Nasir Published January 16, 2022 -

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The writer is a former editor of Dawn.


HAVING raced through the document that was released on Friday with considerable fanfare and self-congratulatory messages, it was a sad conclusion to reach that it is a no more than a plethora of platitudes and will be a non-starter of a national security policy (NSP).

It is not clear whether most of the mainstream media fell prey to the PR skills of the National Security Division or was also blinded by the presence of the glitterati at the NSP launch — what was evident was no critical appraisal anywhere.

A document filled with worthy objectives and not a single concrete step on how to attain any of them is surprising, to say the least. And if the current state of play is any guide, even more surprising.

Read: National Security Policy can be tabled before parliament, says Moeed Yusuf

Addressing the launch, Prime Minister Imran Kh­an said the National Security Policy 2022-2026 centres on the government’s vision, which believes that the security of Pakistan rests in the security of its citizens.

Bizarrely, this ‘citizen-centric’ document was not presented in parliament, a forum representing the people’s collective will.

“Any national security approach must prioritise national cohesion and the prosperity of people, while guaranteeing fundamental rights and social justice without discrimination,” The News quoted him as saying. “To achieve the vast potential of our citizens, it is necessary to promote delivery-based good governance.”

Some of the key words/concepts in the prime minister’s address were ‘national cohesion; prosperity of (the) people; guaranteeing fundamental rights and social justice without discrimination; and delivery-based good governance’.

It has taken seven years for the document to be written (it only covers the next four years from 2022-2026); it also mentions ‘reconcilable and irreconcilable’ elements presumably among the Baloch nationalists. Let’s see how long it takes to identify and reach out to those it deems reconcilable and draw them into the mainstream so the cause of national cohesion can be furthered.

The ‘South Balochistan package’ it mentions will promote nothing until political alienation ends. A start would be an immediate end to enforced disappearances that may be fewer than in the past but continue nonetheless.

Neither will the ‘financial package’ for the merged KP districts remove the grievances of the people who have suffered more than anyone at the hands of the TTP terror and often found themselves sandwiched between the terrorists and the security forces.

The document puts the economy at the centre of the policy and suggests that ‘traditional security’ (a euphemism for the military) can’t alone serve the cause of protecting the country. There can be no truer statement.

A more honest acknowledgement would have been that the post-Cold War and ‘war on terror’ generous western funds pipeline has now run bone dry and unless the size of the economy and its rate of growth (alongside trade) increases considerably, the dema­nds of ‘traditional security’ would be impossible to meet.

Guaranteeing fundamental rights is said to be another cornerstone of the ‘citizen-centric’ policy so the people’s ‘dignity and prosperity’ is ensured. Predictably, however, the document is silent on the state of basic rights.

Thus, when even elected parliamentarians are kept incarcerated on spurious charges, individual liberty and free speech remain elusive ideals amid both domestic and international concerns.

Moreover, one very definitely can’t restore even a modicum of dignity and prosperity to the shirtless through the ‘Ehsaas, Panagah’ programmes (which the NSP mentions by name), for they do no more than enable the poorest to partially fend off hunger.

To be honest, though high-profile and noticeable because they are mostly urban-based, the Panagah shelters impact a miniscule, statistically insignificant number of people and hence are no more than window dressing.

Of course, cash subsidies do make a difference as shown by studies on the Benazir Income Support Programme. The BISP was renamed/expanded as Ehsaas. Even then, while this delivers some respite, poverty persists and issues of dignity remain unaddressed as well.

The NSP informs us that two million Pakistanis are being added to the workforce every year and mentions the country’s ‘youth bulge’ with more than half its population being under 30 (and 29 per cent between 15 and 29, as per the UNDP).

It warns that global changes mean that fewer and fewer people will be doing their current jobs over the coming years and decades, and the workforce will need to be retrained to remain employable.

While the document mentions advances such as development of artificial intelligence, it does not address the question many eminent educators are asking: how does the rollout of the Single National Curriculum with its emphasis on faith, and other such initiatives, prepare the youth for stepping into the 21st century global village?

That the prime minister uses the term ‘delivery-based good governance’ but the document does not ass­ess where delivery and the state of governance stand today, is a glaring omission. But I guess the aut­h­ors did not wish to be rude or unkind to their bosses.

Bizarrely, this ‘citizen-centric’ document was not presented in parliament, a forum that, theoretically at least, represents the collective will of the people or citizens of Pakistan. The big brass could have sat in their gallery seats in parliament if that was the interpretation of its ‘unity in diversity’ slogan.

Journalists are often slammed for nitpicking and not offering a solution themselves. So, here in a couple of sentences is my national security policy. A clean break from the past through a truth and national reconciliation process.

A pledge to uphold the Constitution, rule of law, and democratic dispensation and norms. This is imperative as citizen buy-in can only be achieved thr­o­ugh a policy that is representative of their collective will.

Only such a system can deliver social, political and economic justice to the shirtless majority and cement us into one Pakistan that would be more secure than a nuclear bunker.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2022

PAKISTAN
Drip, drip

Amber Rahim Shamsi

Published January 16, 2022

The writer is a political and social commentator.

AUDIO leaks clearly runneth into the new year, a splash here and there, so that the spillage becomes harder to clean up.

The latest audio leak from PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz is a conversation between her and former information minister Pervaiz Rashid about which commentator on Geo TV’s analyst-based shows is biased against the party and what to do about it. An add-on to the leak is Ms Nawaz instructing someone on which journalists to send a basket of gifts to, although the contents are unclear.

Mr Rashid’s condemnable descriptors for commentators who use a certain kind of tone and language about his party aside, the leaks are a rich study in terms of content, timing and political context. They are also an indictment of political and investigative journalism in Pakistan.

All political parties, in power or otherwise, seek some measure of control over narratives in the media through the classic carrot-and-stick approach. Carrots include financial inc­e­n­tives (such as government ads), under the table money (bribes), free foreign trips, gifts of various value, placement on channels and access to powerful people and information.

Not all journalists drink the access Rooh Afza.

More telling is how often the stick is used. Call it aggressive or punitive, it can range from withdrawal of government ads, instructions to ad agencies, ‘managing’ distribution and circulation, or making phone calls to censor. At the coercive end of the spectrum are threats, and physical violence. Ultimately, the stick is what tends to lead to a more pliant, self-censoring media unable to challenge the powerful. Tellingly, political parties tend to use the carrot more than the stick.

The three leaks featuring Ms Nawaz are all related to her media management, ostensibly proving the popular Islamabad axiom that if the PML-N were to come back to power, she would control the media even more fiercely than while her father was prime minister. But consider the context in which these audio clips became public: press freedoms have been severely eroded during the Imran Khan or hybrid regime — journalists have been disappeared or attacked, dissenting anchors taken off air, stories and interviews killed through phone calls, etc.

The leaks then offer a kind of choice: which leader would be a bigger media predator? The question then is: who benefits from these leaks and why are they just about the media? Further, who or what entity is their source?

Moreover, the haste with which these leaks were broadcast on certain news channels illustrates how WhatsApp journalism and access journalism continue to trump thoughtful and investigative journalism in Pakistan. An audio leak without forensic analysis, always broadcast first on specific news channels, without the affected party’s response, or without legal advice, is nothing more than an allegation.

These allegations are one form of access journalism. Without any added journalistic value, they serve the agenda of the party leaking them. There is no pressure on the media platform to confirm or disprove the allegations because it’s cheaper, easier, and therefore a hard habit to break.

Plus, the leaks come with the promise of more ‘exclusives’. Ease, impact and the bait of more keep the flow going. In the absence of effective application of the right to information, for instance, journalists benefit from the bait of more exclusives.

In his memoir Reporter, American journalist Seymour Hersh described an invitation for a chat at the CIA headquarters. Then president Bill Clinton was believed to be ready to pardon an Israeli spy, on whom Mr Hersh had done an investigative piece. The intelligence community was against the pardon, and showed Mr Hersh material that would’ve built a ‘narrative’ against it. Getting exclusives is hard, and being handed one made Mr Hersh queasy. “I was very ambivalent about being in the unfamiliar position of carrying water for the American intelligence community,” he wrote in his memoir. Well known for big investigations against the intelligence community after 9/11, his work demonstrates the cardinal rule of journalism — uncover stories that the powerful do not want known.

Incidentally, the debate on which journalist receives what gifts from which political party — a lifafa (cash) or a tokri (kind) — has been more gotcha than nuanced. The social practice of sending cakes or fruit baskets is quite widespread. Ideal? No. A crime? Also no. What’s more important is the value of the gift — which rises with the degree of attempted control.

News audiences tend to simplify journalistic bias as a direct result of these tokris or lifafas. In reality, partialities are more often driven by a complex combination of the carrot and stick. Accusing journalists of taking lifafas has also become a lazy way to discredit or disagree. It’s worth remembering, however, that not all journalists drink the access Rooh Afza. Indeed, audiences that accuse journalists of taking lifafas also tend to reward access journalism over investigative journalism because it confirms their own biases.

The writer is a political and social commentator.

Twitter: @AmberRShamsi

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2022

SMOKERS’ CORNER: COSMIC WARRIORS
Nadeem F. Paracha

Published January 16, 2022 -

Illustration by Abro


In 1969, a book authored by Carlos Marighella became hugely popular among young leftist activists. The book, Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, was written after a series of attempts to trigger revolutions had failed in South America and Africa.

The successful 1959 revolution in Cuba was supposed to inspire similar uprisings in ‘Third World’ countries. But when one of the architects of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara, tried to employ his Cuban guerrilla tactics in Congo and Bolivia, they crashed. His insurgencies failed to gain enough support from the locals.

Gaining the support of locals, especially in the rural areas, was a vital ingredient in Guevara’s scheme of things. It was mainly because of the debacle that Guevara’s tactics suffered in Bolivia, that Marighella wrote his book. Arguing that revolutionary activity should shift its focus from rural to urban areas, Marighella put forth various ways to cause disruption through violence, specifically against state and government institutions. He theorised that the escalation of violence would force the state to become even more repressive. Eventually, the masses would join the revolutionaries in reaction to the repression.

Across the 1970s, leftist urban guerrilla groups in South America and Europe tried to do just that. The ‘masses’, however, were repulsed by the violence. Most people actually began to support the state’s retaliatory actions. Marighella’s tactics clearly failed but, ironically, they were adopted by far-right white supremacist groups in the US.

In 1978, a novel called The Turner Diaries appeared. Written by William L. Pierce, the plot revolves around one Earl Turner, and the discovery of his diaries, years after his demise. In a future US, where the white race had defeated the state, the entries in Turner’s diaries lay out how this was achieved: Acts of terrorism were designed to instigate intense state crackdowns on basic freedoms, thus turning the tide in favour of Turner’s group. It began to gain converts from the (white) masses. The novel describes in detail how the group drew the state into a series of battles, until the Caucasian population comes together to ‘save the white race.’

White and Hindu supremacists and militant Islamists are only fighting for earthly territory and power, much as they would wish to cast their fight as a spiritual one of good versus evil

The novel was not taken seriously. However, years later, it jumped into prominence when, in 1995, a white supremacist Timothy McVeigh, planted a powerful bomb in a government building in Oklahoma. The bomb killed 168 people. Pages from the novel were found in McVeigh’s car. He said he was influenced by the book and believed that his actions would trigger a civil war in the US. He was expecting sympathy from the masses but he was executed.

The American journalist AC Thompson’s recent investigations, of the activities of white supremacist groups in the US, posit that almost all of them still believe that, if they escalate their violent tactics, they will attract more repression from the federal government. It would gain them sympathy from white Americans, thus triggering a civil war in the US, and a (white) revolution.

This mindset is also present in various Islamist terror groups. The literature which is believed to be instrumental in influencing their actions include writings of men such as Hassan Al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abul Ala Maududi, and Bilal Philips.

Most of these authors suggest a gradualist approach towards enacting an Islamic state. Al-Banna, Qutb and Maududi emphasise the building of an ‘Islamic society’ through propaganda, infiltration and social work. Once such a society is ready, it will become conscious of the evilness of the rulers, removing them and paving the way for an Islamic state.


But to men such as Osama bin Laden, Muslim societies had already reached this point of readiness. To gain their sympathy, Islamist groups began launching vicious terror attacks. The attacks soon spiralled out of control. Frustrated by being unable to attract the kind of widespread support they expected, they began to target civilians. This not only led to more effective retaliation measures by military and police, but the terror groups largely ended up repulsing a large majority of the people they were attempting to get on their side.

White supremacists and militant Islamists took more than a page from Marighella’s ideas of using violence to make the state more repressive, and thus push the masses into the laps of the insurgents. But one element separates Marighella from the first two. Marighella’s ideas were firmly grounded in an entirely materialistic understanding of social, political and economic conditions.

Militant Islamists and white supremacists too, view the conditions in a similar manner, but they package them as a war between good and evil. This approach is rooted in what is known as ‘Manicheism’, a 3rd century Persian system of doctrines which was later adopted by various religions.

It constitutes a ‘dualist cosmology’, based on the idea of a primordial conflict between light and darkness, good and evil. Class, ethnicity, nationality or material economic conditions do not play a role in this conflict. Race and faith do. It is also called a ‘cosmic war.’

When white (or for that matter, Hindu) supremacists talk of battling enemies, they explain the resultant conflict as one which has been going on for centuries outside the material realm, and within a spiritual one that the Bible and/or Hinduism’s sacred texts speak of. Same is the case with Islamists. States and governments that try to use similar symbology and imagery to neutralise the supremacists or Islamists, actually fall into a trap.

Presidents and prime ministers often quote verses and words from sacred scriptures to prove that they were the good, and the supremacists and Islamists were the bad, or misguided. But all this does is it convinces the cosmic warriors that, indeed, they are fighting a cosmic war in which evil is now trying to usurp and mutate the sacred texts.

The cosmic imagery that the supremacists and Islamists use, actually needs to be demystified and disenchanted. They need to be displayed as men and women who are fighting for territory and power, and for very earthly and materialistic purposes. There is nothing ‘cosmic’ about them.

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 16th, 2022

Khorana is ours too
Unless Pakistanis learn to value the works of non-Muslims, science in Pakistan shall remain dead

Pervez Hoodbhoy 

 Published January 15, 2022 -

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.


A DAWN article on Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011) threw me back 50 years when I, along with 600 other students had packed 26-100 (MIT’s largest lecture hall) to hear him speak. Being clueless of the basics of molecular biology, I understood little and left halfway through. Curiosity had driven me there because this famous MIT professor had won the 1968 Nobel Prize and started a brand new field — protein synthesis via nucleotides. More interestingly, he was a Lahori with bachelor and master’s degrees from Punjab University.

Alas! Lahore, to its misfortune, does not know — nor cares to know — who this man was. The same holds true for another of its sons, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), who became a Nobel Laureate in recognition of his definitive work on the death of stars. Today a Nasa satellite named Chandra scours the skies for neutron stars, black holes and other unusual astronomical objects.

The story of Abdus Salam (1926-1996) is too well known to repeat here. Winner of the 1979 physics Nobel, he studied at Government College (GC) Lahore and later taught at Punjab University. However, no road or landmark in Lahore bears Salam’s name — or that of Khorana and Chandrasekhar. While a GC affiliated institution called the Abdus Salam School for Mathematical Studies nominally exists, to display his name on its signboard could be dangerous in a city often gripped by religious fervour.

Less well known is the story of Chowla and Chawla. At GC there have been two mathematicians in number theory. One was Sarvadaman Chowla, an accomplished mathematician who headed the mathematics department from 1937 to 1947. Being Hindu, he left Lahore after the rioting began and went to Princeton University, then the University of Colorado at Boulder, and eventually became professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 1995 and was celebrated as a famous number theorist by the American Mathematical Society with several important theorems to his name.

Unless Pakistanis learn to value the works of non-Muslims, science in Pakistan shall remain dead.

The other was Lal Muhammad Chawla who graduated from Oxford in 1955 and then taught at GC for many years. With rather modest professional achievements, he had only one well cited paper. As a Google search of his publications reveals, Chawla was more interested in writing religious books than advancing mathematics. However, the GC math society is named after Lal Muhammad Chawla and not the more famous and much more accomplished Sarvadaman Chowla. No Hindu scientist is celebrated in Pakistan.

Rejecting non-Muslims of high professional merit has come at devastating cost to Pakistan. For one, it lost those who could have helped the newborn country establish a scientific base. For another, it became difficult to create institutional meritocracies. After Partition, many clever ones played the religious or ethnic card and undeservedly rose to positions of high authority. In time they became institutional gatekeepers with catastrophic consequences.

The weakness of science education in Pakistan is too evident to belabour here. Unsurprisingly, our best and brightest young people usually go for soft stuff like medicine, law, and business. Unlike in China or India, hardly any opt for tough, demanding, scientifically oriented careers. So, how can we persuade our children towards them? What stories to tell them about science and scientists? Most importantly, who should be their role models?

This brings up a civilisational problem. Over the last 300 years — which is how old modern science is — there are no Muslim subcontinental names associated with first tier (Nobel calibre) scientific accomplishments (after 1974 Salam must be excluded). Notwithstanding the valiant efforts of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), Indian Muslims shunned science and the English language. Thus, even at the distant second or third tier level, one finds barely a dozen names.

Since one cannot find Muslim science heroes who belong to the soil, books for Pakistani children inevitably valorise Arabs from the Golden Age such as Al-Battani, Ibn-e-Shatir, Ibn-e-Haytham, etc. While these luminaries of Muslim science were genuine path-breakers, they do not serve well as role models. For one, persons from centuries ago cannot inspire today’s children. For another, excitement is inspired by those ‘of your own kind’. Arabs, however, are visibly different from people around here.

Ancient Hindu scientists could have found some place in Pakistani books. However, they are excluded on ideological grounds because ‘woh hum main say nahin hain’ (they are not us). Instead, many Pakistanis anxiously seek ancestral roots in Arabia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. But modern laboratory tools are ripping apart dearly held myths of racial origins. Now several genetic marker studies are suggesting that the subcontinent’s Muslims have descended primarily from local Hindu converts with only a few per cent admixture of Arab or Central Asian genes. Excluding Hindu scientists from our books is absurd.

Ideology and science are like oil and water — they refuse to mix. Science cares only about facts and logic, not personal likes and dislikes. History is replete with examples of failed attempts to fuse science with cherished beliefs. When Stalin sought to impose his Marxist views upon Soviet biology through his chosen tout, Trofim Lysenko, he nearly destroyed agriculture and forestry.

Soviet Russia’s good fortune was that it had a scientific community robust enough to counter Lysenko’s meddling. Pakistan has not been so lucky. It has an abundance of charlatans pretending to be scientists but just a few who deserve to be called such. While there is a science ministry, several scientific bodies, and hundreds of institutions that purport to teach or do research in science, no community of genuine scientists exists. High-sounding scientific bodies — such as the Pakistan Academy of Sciences — are a joke. They command no respect internationally and should be dissolved.

Every kind of intellectual endeavour, science included, needs an enabling cultural and social environment to flourish. Science suffocates when scientists are judged by their religion, race, ethnicity or any criterion other than scientific achievement. Before Pakistan can produce any science worth the name, it will need to overcome its deeply held prejudices. It must learn to value all who share the common heritage of humankind. The day we count Khorana, Salam, and Chandrasekhar as our very own, Pakistan will have begun breaking the shackles of scientific under-development.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2022