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Saturday, January 01, 2022
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS
A bank accidentally paid thousands of people more than $175 million on Christmas Day due to a technical glitch
A bank accidentally paid thousands of people more than $175 million on Christmas Day due to a technical glitch
Stephen Jones
Fri, December 31, 2021
Santander UK is trying to recoup $175.9 million that it paid to customers by mistake.
A technical error meant that 75,000 scheduled payments were accidentally duplicated.
One person affected told Insider that she thought she'd been paid twice on Christmas Day.
Santander UK is trying to recoup about $175 million (130 million pounds) that it accidentally transferred to customers on Christmas Day.
Fri, December 31, 2021
Santander UK is trying to recoup $175.9 million that it paid to customers by mistake.
A technical error meant that 75,000 scheduled payments were accidentally duplicated.
One person affected told Insider that she thought she'd been paid twice on Christmas Day.
Santander UK is trying to recoup about $175 million (130 million pounds) that it accidentally transferred to customers on Christmas Day.
A Santander branch.SOPA Images / Contributor
A technical error led 75,000 scheduled and one-off payments to be paid twice by the bank's system, The Times of London first reported.
A spokesperson for the bank said that the error had been identified and rectified. The bank will work to recover the duplicated transactions over the coming days, the spokesperson added.
The error affected 2,000 commercial and corporate accounts, which means many of those receiving money are employees or suppliers, who are customers of different banks, The Times reported.
Jenny, a UK resident who did not want to provide her surname, was among those affected. She told Insider that she thought she'd been paid twice.
She received her scheduled wage of 1,764.50 pounds on December 24. She then received a second payment for the same amount the next day. Both were listed as being from her employer, but when she contacted them they said they hadn't paid the money.
After investigating, her employer said the bank would be resolving the issue and that she didn't need to do anything.
The payments came from Santander's own funds, so individuals were unaffected. Nevertheless, Jenny described it as "frustrating."
She added: "It was confusing, I just wanted it out of my account because it's hard to tell how much money you have."
The Santander spokesperson told Insider that the problem affected only UK customers and that the process for recovering the funds is "underway and working effectively."
The industry's bank-error recovery process enables banks to retrieve transactions from third-party banks. In some cases, Santander could also contact those affected directly.
According to Jenny's bank statement, seen by Insider, the second payment of 1,764.50 pounds was retracted on December 30. Jenny is a customer of a different bank, NatWest. This suggests that at least some of the challenges Santander was facing have been resolved.
The spokesperson did not give a time frame for when the issue will be fully resolved.
Spanish-owned Santander has 14 million active customers and about 20,000 employees.
Banks' digital-payment systems can be prone to errors. It's not the first glitch to affect Santander's payments this year. In May, some customers were unable to pay for goods after a technical issue temporarily affected card payments
A spokesperson for the bank said that the error had been identified and rectified. The bank will work to recover the duplicated transactions over the coming days, the spokesperson added.
The error affected 2,000 commercial and corporate accounts, which means many of those receiving money are employees or suppliers, who are customers of different banks, The Times reported.
Jenny, a UK resident who did not want to provide her surname, was among those affected. She told Insider that she thought she'd been paid twice.
She received her scheduled wage of 1,764.50 pounds on December 24. She then received a second payment for the same amount the next day. Both were listed as being from her employer, but when she contacted them they said they hadn't paid the money.
After investigating, her employer said the bank would be resolving the issue and that she didn't need to do anything.
The payments came from Santander's own funds, so individuals were unaffected. Nevertheless, Jenny described it as "frustrating."
She added: "It was confusing, I just wanted it out of my account because it's hard to tell how much money you have."
The Santander spokesperson told Insider that the problem affected only UK customers and that the process for recovering the funds is "underway and working effectively."
The industry's bank-error recovery process enables banks to retrieve transactions from third-party banks. In some cases, Santander could also contact those affected directly.
According to Jenny's bank statement, seen by Insider, the second payment of 1,764.50 pounds was retracted on December 30. Jenny is a customer of a different bank, NatWest. This suggests that at least some of the challenges Santander was facing have been resolved.
The spokesperson did not give a time frame for when the issue will be fully resolved.
Spanish-owned Santander has 14 million active customers and about 20,000 employees.
Banks' digital-payment systems can be prone to errors. It's not the first glitch to affect Santander's payments this year. In May, some customers were unable to pay for goods after a technical issue temporarily affected card payments
U.S. blocking tomato shipments from Mexican farms accused of abusing workers
Richard Marosi
Fri, December 31, 2021
A cargo truck is filled to the brim with Roma tomatoes from Mexico. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
An export powerhouse that provides much of America's vegetables, the Mexican produce industry in recent years has followed up on some promised reforms aimed at preventing the abuse of farmworkers. But a recent move by the Biden administration accusing two large Mexican agribusinesses of forced labor abuses has brought fresh scrutiny of the industry.
The administration is blocking all tomato shipments from the agribusinesses based in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, under a "withhold release order" handed down in late October by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
According to a Times investigation, the businesses — Agropecuarios Tom and Horticola Tom — have shipped in the last year millions of pounds of tomatoes to U.S.-based distributors that supply supermarkets across the country, including Walmart and Albertsons.
The two targeted agribusinesses have withheld wages and subjected workers to abusive working and living conditions, among other violations, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“The hope is that this brings greater awareness of horrible conditions that these workers are subjected to,” Ana Hinojosa, executive director of the agency’s forced labor division, said in an interview.
The unprecedented move by the administration blocks only a small portion of Mexican tomato exports in an industry with hundreds of producers but signals a more aggressive approach toward labor rights enforcement against U.S. trading partners. This summer the administration also slapped trade restrictions on a Chinese manufacturer of silica-based products accused of forced labor abuses against ethnic Uyghur workers.
Conditions for Mexican farmworkers appear to have improved substantially in recent years, according to agribusiness executives, labor organizers, industry trade groups and supply chain oversight groups, in part due to a 2014 Los Angeles Times investigation that led to a dramatic increase in the use of independent organizations that enforce labor standards, such as Fair Trade USA.
But the U.S. action suggests that labor abuses persist. The fast-growing industry, powered by dozens of giant agro-industrial complexes along with hundreds of smaller operators across northern and central Mexico, supplies more than half of all tomatoes consumed in the U.S.
The Mexican agribusinesses, which U.S. authorities said share an ownership structure, did not respond to several requests for comment.
Supply chains from Mexican farms to American dinner tables, often consisting of opaque networks of constantly shifting players, are difficult to unravel. Tomatoes plucked off vines by laborers at Mexican farms may change hands five or six times as they are trucked to U.S. distributors and passed on to restaurants, food service companies and retailers.
Most retailers and distributors say their supplier farms are free of forced labor, but enforcement of basic standards, through on-site visits and audits, varies, and critics question some companies' commitment to social responsibility.
The targeted agribusinesses, which have shipped about 20 million pounds of tomatoes to the U.S. since October 2020, were the first link of a supply chain with a relatively straightforward path to U.S. store shelves.
Del Campo Supreme, an Arizona distributor whose motto is “People First,” received the vast majority of the produce, according to import data obtained by The Times. The other customer, the data showed, was Mastronardi Produce, North America’s largest distributor of greenhouse tomatoes, which sells tomatoes under its Sunset label.
The exact destination of the tomatoes across the distributors' vast supply chains is unknown. Both companies have customers across the U.S., according to industry sources and the company websites.
The supply chain of Del Campo Supreme in the last year included Walmart and Albertsons, according to industry sources. Del Campo Supreme’s general manager, Diego Ley, declined to comment on whether the retailers were customers in the last year. Albertsons, he said, is not a current customer.
He said Horticola Tom has provided only a small portion of the tomatoes it distributes and has been dropped as a supplier.
The remaining inventory of Horticola Tom tomatoes has been destroyed, Ley said. “We take this matter extremely seriously.... Going forward, if Del Campo uses any third-party suppliers, we will require independent monitoring and auditing."
Mastronardi supplies most major U.S. retailers — including Walmart; Target; Kroger, which includes Ralphs Grocery and Food 4 Less; and Albertsons, the parent company of Safeway and Vons.
Farmworkers ride back to camp in an open-bed truck after a day picking tomatoes in Sinaloa, Mexico. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The company declined to address questions about its supply chain, and it remains unclear whether the retailers received any of the tomatoes from the Mexican farms. In a statement, the company said it holds its suppliers to a code of conduct. “We are steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that workers are treated with respect and dignity and that working conditions across our supply chain are safe," said the statement from the Ontario, Canada, company.
U.S. officials said the labor issues were first uncovered in October 2020 by Mexican authorities. They did not detail the nature of the exploitation. But Hinojosa, the Customs and Border Protection official, said the abuses were similar to the ones revealed in The Times' 2014 “Product of Mexico" series.
The series showed that Mexico’s produce industry has become an economic powerhouse in part through a system that exploits some of the country’s poorest citizens, transporting them hundreds of miles from their homes to live in squalid labor camps with meager rations and overpriced provisions.
The most serious abuse, and the one most closely resembling forced labor, is the practice of withholding wages from workers who, left penniless and far from home, are essentially trapped inside camps. High fences, barbed wire and guards further discourage workers from leaving the compounds for the length of their contracts, typically three months.
The customs action in October caught some industry leaders by surprise. After The Times' 2014 investigation, the North American produce industry groups established labor guidelines, called the Ethical Charter, which were designed to raise worker standards. The charter has been endorsed by more than 350 retailers, growers and distributors.
But the recent accusations show that some companies are still not doing enough, industry leaders said.
"It’s another wake-up call for everybody to be more diligent," said Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Produce Assn., a trade group representing the North American produce industry. "When something like this happens, it reverberates. People start looking hard … and they need to."
In recent years some industry players have followed up on pledges to improve the lives of Mexican laborers, according to produce distributors, labor organizers, agribusiness executives, watchdog groups and industry analysts.
The most substantive reforms are reflected in the dramatic growth of third-party companies that oversee labor standards. One company that partners with Costco, the Equitable Food Initiative, has grown its certification program from one to 26 farms since The Times’ series ran.
Another certification company, Fair Trade USA, which has among the strictest standards, has grown eightfold since 2014, from 10 to 84 farms, according to organization officials.
There are hundreds of export farms, but the certification groups focus on the dozens of large agro-industrial complexes that supply the majority of tomatoes to the U.S. Many holdouts remain, most notably farms that continue to rely on shady labor contractors who operate with impunity in the remote regions of Mexico where workers are recruited.
Tomato growers in Florida, who have long criticized Mexican agribusinesses, say they continue to struggle to compete against Mexican farms whose labor costs are much lower, sometimes because of forced labor tactics.
Florida farmers have improved labor conditions through the groundbreaking Fair Food Program, which raised wages and established strict guidelines against forced labor. Mexican farms, by contrast, continue to skirt oversight and accountability from some U.S. distributors and partners, some farmers say.
A woman carries Roma tomatoes through a field in Sinaloa, Mexico.
Richard Marosi
Fri, December 31, 2021
A cargo truck is filled to the brim with Roma tomatoes from Mexico. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
An export powerhouse that provides much of America's vegetables, the Mexican produce industry in recent years has followed up on some promised reforms aimed at preventing the abuse of farmworkers. But a recent move by the Biden administration accusing two large Mexican agribusinesses of forced labor abuses has brought fresh scrutiny of the industry.
The administration is blocking all tomato shipments from the agribusinesses based in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, under a "withhold release order" handed down in late October by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
According to a Times investigation, the businesses — Agropecuarios Tom and Horticola Tom — have shipped in the last year millions of pounds of tomatoes to U.S.-based distributors that supply supermarkets across the country, including Walmart and Albertsons.
The two targeted agribusinesses have withheld wages and subjected workers to abusive working and living conditions, among other violations, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“The hope is that this brings greater awareness of horrible conditions that these workers are subjected to,” Ana Hinojosa, executive director of the agency’s forced labor division, said in an interview.
The unprecedented move by the administration blocks only a small portion of Mexican tomato exports in an industry with hundreds of producers but signals a more aggressive approach toward labor rights enforcement against U.S. trading partners. This summer the administration also slapped trade restrictions on a Chinese manufacturer of silica-based products accused of forced labor abuses against ethnic Uyghur workers.
Conditions for Mexican farmworkers appear to have improved substantially in recent years, according to agribusiness executives, labor organizers, industry trade groups and supply chain oversight groups, in part due to a 2014 Los Angeles Times investigation that led to a dramatic increase in the use of independent organizations that enforce labor standards, such as Fair Trade USA.
But the U.S. action suggests that labor abuses persist. The fast-growing industry, powered by dozens of giant agro-industrial complexes along with hundreds of smaller operators across northern and central Mexico, supplies more than half of all tomatoes consumed in the U.S.
The Mexican agribusinesses, which U.S. authorities said share an ownership structure, did not respond to several requests for comment.
Supply chains from Mexican farms to American dinner tables, often consisting of opaque networks of constantly shifting players, are difficult to unravel. Tomatoes plucked off vines by laborers at Mexican farms may change hands five or six times as they are trucked to U.S. distributors and passed on to restaurants, food service companies and retailers.
Most retailers and distributors say their supplier farms are free of forced labor, but enforcement of basic standards, through on-site visits and audits, varies, and critics question some companies' commitment to social responsibility.
The targeted agribusinesses, which have shipped about 20 million pounds of tomatoes to the U.S. since October 2020, were the first link of a supply chain with a relatively straightforward path to U.S. store shelves.
Del Campo Supreme, an Arizona distributor whose motto is “People First,” received the vast majority of the produce, according to import data obtained by The Times. The other customer, the data showed, was Mastronardi Produce, North America’s largest distributor of greenhouse tomatoes, which sells tomatoes under its Sunset label.
The exact destination of the tomatoes across the distributors' vast supply chains is unknown. Both companies have customers across the U.S., according to industry sources and the company websites.
The supply chain of Del Campo Supreme in the last year included Walmart and Albertsons, according to industry sources. Del Campo Supreme’s general manager, Diego Ley, declined to comment on whether the retailers were customers in the last year. Albertsons, he said, is not a current customer.
He said Horticola Tom has provided only a small portion of the tomatoes it distributes and has been dropped as a supplier.
The remaining inventory of Horticola Tom tomatoes has been destroyed, Ley said. “We take this matter extremely seriously.... Going forward, if Del Campo uses any third-party suppliers, we will require independent monitoring and auditing."
Mastronardi supplies most major U.S. retailers — including Walmart; Target; Kroger, which includes Ralphs Grocery and Food 4 Less; and Albertsons, the parent company of Safeway and Vons.
Farmworkers ride back to camp in an open-bed truck after a day picking tomatoes in Sinaloa, Mexico. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The company declined to address questions about its supply chain, and it remains unclear whether the retailers received any of the tomatoes from the Mexican farms. In a statement, the company said it holds its suppliers to a code of conduct. “We are steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that workers are treated with respect and dignity and that working conditions across our supply chain are safe," said the statement from the Ontario, Canada, company.
U.S. officials said the labor issues were first uncovered in October 2020 by Mexican authorities. They did not detail the nature of the exploitation. But Hinojosa, the Customs and Border Protection official, said the abuses were similar to the ones revealed in The Times' 2014 “Product of Mexico" series.
The series showed that Mexico’s produce industry has become an economic powerhouse in part through a system that exploits some of the country’s poorest citizens, transporting them hundreds of miles from their homes to live in squalid labor camps with meager rations and overpriced provisions.
The most serious abuse, and the one most closely resembling forced labor, is the practice of withholding wages from workers who, left penniless and far from home, are essentially trapped inside camps. High fences, barbed wire and guards further discourage workers from leaving the compounds for the length of their contracts, typically three months.
The customs action in October caught some industry leaders by surprise. After The Times' 2014 investigation, the North American produce industry groups established labor guidelines, called the Ethical Charter, which were designed to raise worker standards. The charter has been endorsed by more than 350 retailers, growers and distributors.
But the recent accusations show that some companies are still not doing enough, industry leaders said.
"It’s another wake-up call for everybody to be more diligent," said Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Produce Assn., a trade group representing the North American produce industry. "When something like this happens, it reverberates. People start looking hard … and they need to."
In recent years some industry players have followed up on pledges to improve the lives of Mexican laborers, according to produce distributors, labor organizers, agribusiness executives, watchdog groups and industry analysts.
The most substantive reforms are reflected in the dramatic growth of third-party companies that oversee labor standards. One company that partners with Costco, the Equitable Food Initiative, has grown its certification program from one to 26 farms since The Times’ series ran.
Another certification company, Fair Trade USA, which has among the strictest standards, has grown eightfold since 2014, from 10 to 84 farms, according to organization officials.
There are hundreds of export farms, but the certification groups focus on the dozens of large agro-industrial complexes that supply the majority of tomatoes to the U.S. Many holdouts remain, most notably farms that continue to rely on shady labor contractors who operate with impunity in the remote regions of Mexico where workers are recruited.
Tomato growers in Florida, who have long criticized Mexican agribusinesses, say they continue to struggle to compete against Mexican farms whose labor costs are much lower, sometimes because of forced labor tactics.
Florida farmers have improved labor conditions through the groundbreaking Fair Food Program, which raised wages and established strict guidelines against forced labor. Mexican farms, by contrast, continue to skirt oversight and accountability from some U.S. distributors and partners, some farmers say.
A woman carries Roma tomatoes through a field in Sinaloa, Mexico.
(Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)
"It’s unacceptable that occurrences like this are still happening in a country that supplies the U.S. with a significant portion of the fruits and vegetables that Americans consume," said Michael Schadler, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, an association of Florida farmers. "While some reforms have taken place in Mexico, this latest incident makes it clear that more action is needed."
Walmart, which pledged reforms in 2015 but did not provide details of the measures, declined to respond to specific questions about how it holds accountable suppliers accused of forced labor abuses. The company said in a statement that it is "grateful to those in our supply chain who help us bring quality, affordable products to our customers."
"We hold our suppliers to high standards as set out in our Standards for Suppliers to operate their facilities responsibly, safeguarding the well-being of their workers and workers from the facilities and farms they source from," said the statement provided by Blair Cromwell, the director of global responsibility communications for Walmart.
Albertsons, which was the parent company of Del Campo Supreme until January 2018, when it sold the company, declined to comment. Under the company's sustainability guidelines, its suppliers are encouraged to "implement effective protocols to eliminate child and forced labor."
A Kroger spokesperson, when asked whether Kroger had received tomatoes from the companies in question in the last year, said: "Not to our knowledge."
At the border, U.S. authorities say Horticola Tom has tried to skirt the withhold order. In late October, customs officers at the Pharr International Bridge in Texas stopped a suspicious tomato shipment after noting a discrepancy, authorities said. The paperwork listed a shipper as a company not subject to any withhold release order, but the packaging listed Horticola Tom.
"Something didn't add up," Carlos Rodriguez, the port director at the Anzalduas Port of Entry, said in a news release. The shipment was stopped and sent back to Mexico.
Cecilia Sanchez, special correspondent in The Times' Mexico City bureau, contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
"It’s unacceptable that occurrences like this are still happening in a country that supplies the U.S. with a significant portion of the fruits and vegetables that Americans consume," said Michael Schadler, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, an association of Florida farmers. "While some reforms have taken place in Mexico, this latest incident makes it clear that more action is needed."
Walmart, which pledged reforms in 2015 but did not provide details of the measures, declined to respond to specific questions about how it holds accountable suppliers accused of forced labor abuses. The company said in a statement that it is "grateful to those in our supply chain who help us bring quality, affordable products to our customers."
"We hold our suppliers to high standards as set out in our Standards for Suppliers to operate their facilities responsibly, safeguarding the well-being of their workers and workers from the facilities and farms they source from," said the statement provided by Blair Cromwell, the director of global responsibility communications for Walmart.
Albertsons, which was the parent company of Del Campo Supreme until January 2018, when it sold the company, declined to comment. Under the company's sustainability guidelines, its suppliers are encouraged to "implement effective protocols to eliminate child and forced labor."
A Kroger spokesperson, when asked whether Kroger had received tomatoes from the companies in question in the last year, said: "Not to our knowledge."
At the border, U.S. authorities say Horticola Tom has tried to skirt the withhold order. In late October, customs officers at the Pharr International Bridge in Texas stopped a suspicious tomato shipment after noting a discrepancy, authorities said. The paperwork listed a shipper as a company not subject to any withhold release order, but the packaging listed Horticola Tom.
"Something didn't add up," Carlos Rodriguez, the port director at the Anzalduas Port of Entry, said in a news release. The shipment was stopped and sent back to Mexico.
Cecilia Sanchez, special correspondent in The Times' Mexico City bureau, contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Why it's important to see women as capable ... of terrible atrocities
Jessica Trisko Darden, Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Judith tentatively slices off Holofernes' head.
But in Artemisia’s rendering of “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” Artemisia paints a determined Judith slaughtering the Assyrian general. The brutal and bloody act takes place with the assistance of Judith’s female accomplice, who pins Holofernes down.
In our new book, “Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice,” we chose Artemisia’s depiction of Judith for the cover because the painting shows that women, just like men, are capable of perpetrating violence and inciting genocidal acts.
Yet four centuries after Artemisia painted Judith, gender stereotypes and outdated assumptions about women as peaceful and innocent prevent women from being seen as blameworthy.
This matters, because if women are treated as less capable in one regard – even one that involves horrible atrocities – it can extend to other realms, too.
Women war criminals go free
International courts, military trials and domestic criminal justice systems often ignore or downplay women’s acts of violence.
Take the Nuremberg trials, the series of international military tribunals that prosecuted Nazi war criminals. Many Nazi women escaped trial and punishment for their roles in the Holocaust because prosecutors focused on high-level Nazi leaders, exempting those in roles commonly held by women, such as secretaries and clerks.
Decades later, the United Nations international tribunals that investigated atrocities committed in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990s brought, in each instance, only one woman to justice.
Women were overlooked by international tribunals despite their involvement in perpetrating violence because they were rarely in positions to command others. Nonetheless, Rwandan women participated in murders of adults and children, revealed hiding spots to killing squads and refused to feed refugees. Some of the thousands of women who served in military units across the former Yugoslavia participated in ethnic cleansing by committing extrajudicial killings and acts of torture.
The same double standard prevails in the 21st century. The only woman indicted in the 20-year history of the International Criminal Court is Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady of Cote d’Ivoire.
Gbagbo was indicted in 2012 on four counts of crimes against humanity, sexual violence and persecution for her role in the violence that followed her husband’s loss in the 2011 elections. In 2015, she was convicted of undermining the security of the state and sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Ivorian court. She was later acquitted of crimes against humanity and in 2018 received a presidential pardon. She was ultimately never brought before the International Criminal Court.
Simone Gbagbo never faced the International Criminal Court. Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images
Strategies to skirt blame
When women are taken to court, some will use gender strategically in an effort to secure favorable treatment.
Some, for example, claim that men made them do it. Despite her political rank, Biljana Plavšić, former co-president of Republika Srpska in Bosnia, argued during her trial that she was manipulated by men in similar leadership positions.
Lesser-known women have used similar arguments.
Samantha Elhassani, an American sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison for aiding and abetting the Islamic State, had her sentence reduced by arguing that her husband, who was killed fighting for the group, had misled and abused her.
Similarly, the defense team for Lynndie England, who was court-martialed and sentenced to three years in prison by the U.S. Army after she posed in the infamous photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, argued that she was just following the lead of her manipulative boyfriend.
Studies have also shown that when women choose to plead guilty or show remorse, they are more likely to see reduced charges and sentences, especially if their behavior contrasts with defiant male defendants.
For example, after Plavšić pleaded guilty to one count of persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, the prosecution dropped the remaining eight charges, which included genocide. In contrast, Radovan Karadžić, who served as co-president alongside Plavšić, pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He received a 40-year sentence that was increased to life in prison on appeal.
After Biljana Plavšić pleaded guilty – while claiming she had been manipulated – she received a light sentence. Michel Porro/Getty Images
Closing the gap
Advocates of criminal justice reform argue that societies around the world – and the United States in particular – would benefit from lighter sentences and less punitive criminal justice systems.
Justice, then, would imply not harsher sentences for women, but rather fewer disparities in the treatment of men and women.
The fact that women can occupy the dual role of oppressor and oppressed is a reality that is still not fully understood. Yet 400 years ago, Artemisia skillfully portrayed women as victims and as victimizers. Adamant about her own capabilities, she once told one of her patrons, “I’ll show you what a woman can do.”
Centuries later, her words are just as resonant. Though Artemisia was popular in her era, art historians tended to overlook her contributions to the canon. No longer. This winter the National Gallery in London finally devoted a full-scale exhibition to this Baroque master.
Her works reflect that women’s agency is a double-edged sword. Women are capable of not just of achievement but also of depravity.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Jessica Trisko Darden, American University School of International Service and Izabela Steflja, Tulane University.
Jessica Trisko Darden, Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Izabela Steflja, Professor of Practice in Political Science, Tulane University
Fri, December 31, 2021
Artemisia Gentileschi's 'Judith Beheading Holofernes.' Google Art Project
Born in 1593, Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman to establish herself as a successful artist in a profession long dominated by men.
One of the most striking aspects of her work is the way she paints women. Her male contemporaries tended to portray women as passive victims or tentative actors. Artemisia’s women, on the other hand, defend themselves, scheme and relish in perpetrating violence.
When Italian painter Caravaggio painted the biblical scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, he depicted Judith as uneasy – even squeamish – as she decapitates him.
Fri, December 31, 2021
Artemisia Gentileschi's 'Judith Beheading Holofernes.' Google Art Project
Born in 1593, Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman to establish herself as a successful artist in a profession long dominated by men.
One of the most striking aspects of her work is the way she paints women. Her male contemporaries tended to portray women as passive victims or tentative actors. Artemisia’s women, on the other hand, defend themselves, scheme and relish in perpetrating violence.
When Italian painter Caravaggio painted the biblical scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, he depicted Judith as uneasy – even squeamish – as she decapitates him.
Judith tentatively slices off Holofernes' head.
But in Artemisia’s rendering of “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” Artemisia paints a determined Judith slaughtering the Assyrian general. The brutal and bloody act takes place with the assistance of Judith’s female accomplice, who pins Holofernes down.
In our new book, “Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice,” we chose Artemisia’s depiction of Judith for the cover because the painting shows that women, just like men, are capable of perpetrating violence and inciting genocidal acts.
Yet four centuries after Artemisia painted Judith, gender stereotypes and outdated assumptions about women as peaceful and innocent prevent women from being seen as blameworthy.
This matters, because if women are treated as less capable in one regard – even one that involves horrible atrocities – it can extend to other realms, too.
Women war criminals go free
International courts, military trials and domestic criminal justice systems often ignore or downplay women’s acts of violence.
Take the Nuremberg trials, the series of international military tribunals that prosecuted Nazi war criminals. Many Nazi women escaped trial and punishment for their roles in the Holocaust because prosecutors focused on high-level Nazi leaders, exempting those in roles commonly held by women, such as secretaries and clerks.
Decades later, the United Nations international tribunals that investigated atrocities committed in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990s brought, in each instance, only one woman to justice.
Women were overlooked by international tribunals despite their involvement in perpetrating violence because they were rarely in positions to command others. Nonetheless, Rwandan women participated in murders of adults and children, revealed hiding spots to killing squads and refused to feed refugees. Some of the thousands of women who served in military units across the former Yugoslavia participated in ethnic cleansing by committing extrajudicial killings and acts of torture.
The same double standard prevails in the 21st century. The only woman indicted in the 20-year history of the International Criminal Court is Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady of Cote d’Ivoire.
Gbagbo was indicted in 2012 on four counts of crimes against humanity, sexual violence and persecution for her role in the violence that followed her husband’s loss in the 2011 elections. In 2015, she was convicted of undermining the security of the state and sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Ivorian court. She was later acquitted of crimes against humanity and in 2018 received a presidential pardon. She was ultimately never brought before the International Criminal Court.
Simone Gbagbo never faced the International Criminal Court. Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images
Strategies to skirt blame
When women are taken to court, some will use gender strategically in an effort to secure favorable treatment.
Some, for example, claim that men made them do it. Despite her political rank, Biljana Plavšić, former co-president of Republika Srpska in Bosnia, argued during her trial that she was manipulated by men in similar leadership positions.
Lesser-known women have used similar arguments.
Samantha Elhassani, an American sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison for aiding and abetting the Islamic State, had her sentence reduced by arguing that her husband, who was killed fighting for the group, had misled and abused her.
Similarly, the defense team for Lynndie England, who was court-martialed and sentenced to three years in prison by the U.S. Army after she posed in the infamous photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, argued that she was just following the lead of her manipulative boyfriend.
Studies have also shown that when women choose to plead guilty or show remorse, they are more likely to see reduced charges and sentences, especially if their behavior contrasts with defiant male defendants.
For example, after Plavšić pleaded guilty to one count of persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, the prosecution dropped the remaining eight charges, which included genocide. In contrast, Radovan Karadžić, who served as co-president alongside Plavšić, pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He received a 40-year sentence that was increased to life in prison on appeal.
After Biljana Plavšić pleaded guilty – while claiming she had been manipulated – she received a light sentence. Michel Porro/Getty Images
Closing the gap
Advocates of criminal justice reform argue that societies around the world – and the United States in particular – would benefit from lighter sentences and less punitive criminal justice systems.
Justice, then, would imply not harsher sentences for women, but rather fewer disparities in the treatment of men and women.
The fact that women can occupy the dual role of oppressor and oppressed is a reality that is still not fully understood. Yet 400 years ago, Artemisia skillfully portrayed women as victims and as victimizers. Adamant about her own capabilities, she once told one of her patrons, “I’ll show you what a woman can do.”
Centuries later, her words are just as resonant. Though Artemisia was popular in her era, art historians tended to overlook her contributions to the canon. No longer. This winter the National Gallery in London finally devoted a full-scale exhibition to this Baroque master.
Her works reflect that women’s agency is a double-edged sword. Women are capable of not just of achievement but also of depravity.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Jessica Trisko Darden, American University School of International Service and Izabela Steflja, Tulane University.
 |
| SALOME WITH THE HEAD OF JOHN THE BAPTIST |
The invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was initially met with skepticism
Michael D. Bailey, Professor of History, Iowa State University
Sat, January 1, 2022
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman. Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images
On a midsummer day in 1438, a young man from the north shore of Lake Geneva presented himself to the local church inquisitor. He had a confession to make. Five years earlier, his father had forced him to join a satanic cult of witches. They had flown at night on a small black horse to join more than a hundred people gathered in a meadow. The devil was there too, in the form of a black cat. The witches knelt before him, worshiped him and kissed his posterior.
The young man’s father had already been executed as a witch. It’s likely he was trying to secure a lighter punishment by voluntarily telling inquisitors what they wanted to hear.
The Middle Ages, A.D. 500-1500, have a reputation for both heartless cruelty and hopeless credulity. People commonly believed in all kinds of magic, monsters and fairies. But it wasn’t until the 15th century that the idea of organized satanic witchcraft took hold. As a historian who studies medieval magic, I’m fascinated by how a coterie of church and state authorities conspired to develop and promote this new concept of witchcraft for their own purposes.
Early medieval attitudes about witchcraft
Belief in witches, in the sense of wicked people performing harmful magic, had existed in Europe since before the Greeks and Romans. In the early part of the Middle Ages, authorities were largely unconcerned about it.
A church document from the early 10th century proclaimed that “sorcery and witchcraft” might be real, but the idea that groups of witches flew together with demons through the night was a delusion.
Things began to change in the 12th and 13th centuries, ironically because educated elites in Europe were becoming more sophisticated.
Universities were being founded, and scholars in Western Europe began to pore over ancient texts as well as learned writings from the Muslim world. Some of these presented complex systems of magic that claimed to draw on astral forces or conjure powerful spirits. Gradually, these ideas began to gain intellectual clout.
Ordinary people – the kind who eventually got accused of being witches – didn’t perform elaborate rites from books. They gathered herbs, brewed potions, maybe said a short spell, as they had for generations. And they did so for all sorts of reasons – perhaps to harm someone they disliked, but more often to heal or protect others. Such practices were important in a world with only rudimentary forms of medical care.
Christian authorities had previously dismissed this kind of magic as empty superstition. Now they took all magic much more seriously. They began to believe simple spells worked by summoning demons, which meant anyone who performed them secretly worshiped demons.
Inventing satanic witchcraft
In the 1430s, a small group of writers in Central Europe – church inquisitors, theologians, lay magistrates and even one historian – began to describe horrific assemblies where witches gathered and worshiped demons, had orgies, ate murdered babies and performed other abominable acts. Whether any of these authors ever met each other is unclear, but they all described groups of witches supposedly active in a zone around the western Alps.
The reason for this development may have been purely practical. Church inquisitors, active against religious heretics since the 13th century, and some secular courts were looking to expand their jurisdictions. Having a new and particularly horrible crime to prosecute might have struck them as useful.
I just translated a number of these early texts for a forthcoming book and was struck by how worried the authors were about readers not believing them. One fretted that his accounts would be “disparaged” by those who “think themselves learned.” Another feared that “simple folk” would refuse to believe the “fragile sex” would engage in such terrible practices.
Trial records show it was a hard sell. Most people remained concerned with harmful magic – witches causing illness or withering crops. They didn’t much care about secret satanic gatherings.
In 1486, clergyman Heinrich Kramer published the most widely circulated medieval text about organized witchcraft, Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). But many people didn’t believe him. When he tried to start a witch hunt in Innsbruck, Austria, he was kicked out by the local bishop, who accused him of being senile.
Witch hunts
Unfortunately, the fear of satanic witchcraft grew. The 15th century seems to have provided ideal soil for this new idea to take root.
Europe was recovering from several crises: plague, wars and a split in the church between two, and then three, competing popes. Beginning in the 1450s, the printing press made it easier for new ideas to spread. Even prior to the Protestant Reformation, religious reform was in the air. As I explored in an earlier book, reformers used the idea of a diabolical conspiracy bent on corrupting Christianity as a boogeyman in their call for spiritual renewal.
Over time, more people came to accept this new idea. Church and state authorities kept telling them it was real. Still, many also kept relying on local “witches” for magical healing and protection.
The history of witchcraft can be quite grim. From the 1400s through the 1700s, authorities in Western Europe executed around 50,000 people, mostly women, for witchcraft. The worst witch hunts could claim hundreds of victims at a time. With 20 dead, colonial America’s largest hunt at Salem was moderate by comparison.
Salem, in 1692, marked the end of witch hunts in New England. In Europe, too, skepticism would eventually prevail. It’s worth remembering, though, that at the beginning, authorities had to work hard to convince others such malevolence was real.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Michael D. Bailey, Iowa State University.
Michael D. Bailey, Professor of History, Iowa State University
Sat, January 1, 2022
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman. Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images
On a midsummer day in 1438, a young man from the north shore of Lake Geneva presented himself to the local church inquisitor. He had a confession to make. Five years earlier, his father had forced him to join a satanic cult of witches. They had flown at night on a small black horse to join more than a hundred people gathered in a meadow. The devil was there too, in the form of a black cat. The witches knelt before him, worshiped him and kissed his posterior.
The young man’s father had already been executed as a witch. It’s likely he was trying to secure a lighter punishment by voluntarily telling inquisitors what they wanted to hear.
The Middle Ages, A.D. 500-1500, have a reputation for both heartless cruelty and hopeless credulity. People commonly believed in all kinds of magic, monsters and fairies. But it wasn’t until the 15th century that the idea of organized satanic witchcraft took hold. As a historian who studies medieval magic, I’m fascinated by how a coterie of church and state authorities conspired to develop and promote this new concept of witchcraft for their own purposes.
Early medieval attitudes about witchcraft
Belief in witches, in the sense of wicked people performing harmful magic, had existed in Europe since before the Greeks and Romans. In the early part of the Middle Ages, authorities were largely unconcerned about it.
A church document from the early 10th century proclaimed that “sorcery and witchcraft” might be real, but the idea that groups of witches flew together with demons through the night was a delusion.
Things began to change in the 12th and 13th centuries, ironically because educated elites in Europe were becoming more sophisticated.
Universities were being founded, and scholars in Western Europe began to pore over ancient texts as well as learned writings from the Muslim world. Some of these presented complex systems of magic that claimed to draw on astral forces or conjure powerful spirits. Gradually, these ideas began to gain intellectual clout.
Ordinary people – the kind who eventually got accused of being witches – didn’t perform elaborate rites from books. They gathered herbs, brewed potions, maybe said a short spell, as they had for generations. And they did so for all sorts of reasons – perhaps to harm someone they disliked, but more often to heal or protect others. Such practices were important in a world with only rudimentary forms of medical care.
Christian authorities had previously dismissed this kind of magic as empty superstition. Now they took all magic much more seriously. They began to believe simple spells worked by summoning demons, which meant anyone who performed them secretly worshiped demons.
Inventing satanic witchcraft
In the 1430s, a small group of writers in Central Europe – church inquisitors, theologians, lay magistrates and even one historian – began to describe horrific assemblies where witches gathered and worshiped demons, had orgies, ate murdered babies and performed other abominable acts. Whether any of these authors ever met each other is unclear, but they all described groups of witches supposedly active in a zone around the western Alps.
The reason for this development may have been purely practical. Church inquisitors, active against religious heretics since the 13th century, and some secular courts were looking to expand their jurisdictions. Having a new and particularly horrible crime to prosecute might have struck them as useful.
I just translated a number of these early texts for a forthcoming book and was struck by how worried the authors were about readers not believing them. One fretted that his accounts would be “disparaged” by those who “think themselves learned.” Another feared that “simple folk” would refuse to believe the “fragile sex” would engage in such terrible practices.
Trial records show it was a hard sell. Most people remained concerned with harmful magic – witches causing illness or withering crops. They didn’t much care about secret satanic gatherings.
In 1486, clergyman Heinrich Kramer published the most widely circulated medieval text about organized witchcraft, Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). But many people didn’t believe him. When he tried to start a witch hunt in Innsbruck, Austria, he was kicked out by the local bishop, who accused him of being senile.
Witch hunts
Unfortunately, the fear of satanic witchcraft grew. The 15th century seems to have provided ideal soil for this new idea to take root.
Europe was recovering from several crises: plague, wars and a split in the church between two, and then three, competing popes. Beginning in the 1450s, the printing press made it easier for new ideas to spread. Even prior to the Protestant Reformation, religious reform was in the air. As I explored in an earlier book, reformers used the idea of a diabolical conspiracy bent on corrupting Christianity as a boogeyman in their call for spiritual renewal.
Over time, more people came to accept this new idea. Church and state authorities kept telling them it was real. Still, many also kept relying on local “witches” for magical healing and protection.
The history of witchcraft can be quite grim. From the 1400s through the 1700s, authorities in Western Europe executed around 50,000 people, mostly women, for witchcraft. The worst witch hunts could claim hundreds of victims at a time. With 20 dead, colonial America’s largest hunt at Salem was moderate by comparison.
Salem, in 1692, marked the end of witch hunts in New England. In Europe, too, skepticism would eventually prevail. It’s worth remembering, though, that at the beginning, authorities had to work hard to convince others such malevolence was real.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Michael D. Bailey, Iowa State University.
FBI Informant Who Reportedly Helped Stop the Murder of a Black Man by the KKK Says the Klan Is More ‘Prevalent and Consequential’ Than the Agencies Would Like to Admit
Nyam Daniel
Fri, December 31, 2021
A U.S. Army veteran, who spent 10 years undercover in the Ku Klux Klan, said officials need to root out members of the domestic terrorism organization from law enforcement agencies.
Joseph Moore told the Associated Press he infiltrated two Klan organizations in North Florida, where he helped foil two murder plots and unveiled efforts to recruit members for law enforcement positions. Moore was able to help the FBI identify Klansmen that were law enforcement officers in Florida and Georgia.
Joseph Moore – Video Screengrab Associated Press
“If you want to know why people don’t trust the police, it’s because they have a relative or friend that they witness being targeted by an extremist who happens to have a badge and a gun. And I know as a fact that this has occurred. I stopped a murder plot of law enforcement officers,” Moore told AP News.
Among his efforts, Moore stopped a plot by three members of the Florida chapter of Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from killing a Black man. The three men were current and former corrections officers among a group of other officer-Klan members at the Reception and Medical Center in Lake Butler, Florida.
When Moore attended Klan meetings, he wore a wire, sometimes captured video, and would often keep a record of license plate numbers registered to law enforcement officers who attended.
Moore said he discovered dozens of police officers, corrections officers, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the Klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs. While undercover in the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in North Florida, Moore identified a detention officer with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Wayne Kerschner.
Kerschner, who worked four years at the jail in Gainesville, confirmed his membership in the Klan when he was probed by investigators. He admitted to writing on a KKK blog and defended it as a faith-based organization, FOX News reported. Moore also stopped a ploy by members of that chapter to kill a Hispanic man.
“From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit,” Moore said.
According to the FBI, domestic terrorism is “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
The FBI has a page that chronicles some of its work in combatting violent activity by the KKK that dates back to 1915.
“White supremacist groups have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement,” the FBI wrote. The agency said some in law enforcement were volunteering “professional resources to white supremacist causes with which they sympathize.”
Moore said while undercover, he never adopted the Klan’s racist ideology. He said he refrained from using racial slurs. The AP confirmed they never heard Moore use the derogatory language while reviewing the FBI recordings.
The Florida Department of Corrections has denied claims of wider connections to white supremacist groups or a systemic problem. Department spokeswoman Michelle Glady said every allegation of wrongdoing is investigated by the agency’s inspector general.
“Every day more than 18,000 correctional officers throughout the state work as public servants, committed to the safety of Florida’s communities. They should not be defamed by the isolated actions of three individuals who committed abhorrent and illegal acts several years prior,” the department said in an emailed statement to AP News.
Moore said the department’s statement was inaccurate based on the number of active Klan members he has identified and those applying to the agency.
The FBI has warned about white supremacist groups’ efforts to saturate law enforcement agencies for more than a decade. In a 2006 bulletin, the federal agency warned about “ghost skins,” or hate group members who don’t overtly display their beliefs in order to “blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.”
Moore said he feared for his life on numerous occasions while undercover. Since ending the operation for the FBI, he and his family have adopted new names and live secretive lives for their protection.
He fears the Klan may retaliate against him someday. He told the AP that people connected to the Klan have appeared at his house in recent months. He has beefed up security at his home and carries a gun with him wherever he goes.
Moore, who has pre-existing mental health issues, said he also has to deal with the psychological toll of his encounters during the Klan operation.
“We have had to change our names. We have tried to move, we have had our address placed in confidentiality. However, there are people that have investigative capacities that have tracked us, they’ve uncovered our names,” Moore said.
Nyam Daniel
Fri, December 31, 2021
A U.S. Army veteran, who spent 10 years undercover in the Ku Klux Klan, said officials need to root out members of the domestic terrorism organization from law enforcement agencies.
Joseph Moore told the Associated Press he infiltrated two Klan organizations in North Florida, where he helped foil two murder plots and unveiled efforts to recruit members for law enforcement positions. Moore was able to help the FBI identify Klansmen that were law enforcement officers in Florida and Georgia.
Joseph Moore – Video Screengrab Associated Press
“If you want to know why people don’t trust the police, it’s because they have a relative or friend that they witness being targeted by an extremist who happens to have a badge and a gun. And I know as a fact that this has occurred. I stopped a murder plot of law enforcement officers,” Moore told AP News.
Among his efforts, Moore stopped a plot by three members of the Florida chapter of Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from killing a Black man. The three men were current and former corrections officers among a group of other officer-Klan members at the Reception and Medical Center in Lake Butler, Florida.
When Moore attended Klan meetings, he wore a wire, sometimes captured video, and would often keep a record of license plate numbers registered to law enforcement officers who attended.
Moore said he discovered dozens of police officers, corrections officers, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the Klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs. While undercover in the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in North Florida, Moore identified a detention officer with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Wayne Kerschner.
Kerschner, who worked four years at the jail in Gainesville, confirmed his membership in the Klan when he was probed by investigators. He admitted to writing on a KKK blog and defended it as a faith-based organization, FOX News reported. Moore also stopped a ploy by members of that chapter to kill a Hispanic man.
“From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit,” Moore said.
According to the FBI, domestic terrorism is “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
The FBI has a page that chronicles some of its work in combatting violent activity by the KKK that dates back to 1915.
“White supremacist groups have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement,” the FBI wrote. The agency said some in law enforcement were volunteering “professional resources to white supremacist causes with which they sympathize.”
Moore said while undercover, he never adopted the Klan’s racist ideology. He said he refrained from using racial slurs. The AP confirmed they never heard Moore use the derogatory language while reviewing the FBI recordings.
The Florida Department of Corrections has denied claims of wider connections to white supremacist groups or a systemic problem. Department spokeswoman Michelle Glady said every allegation of wrongdoing is investigated by the agency’s inspector general.
“Every day more than 18,000 correctional officers throughout the state work as public servants, committed to the safety of Florida’s communities. They should not be defamed by the isolated actions of three individuals who committed abhorrent and illegal acts several years prior,” the department said in an emailed statement to AP News.
Moore said the department’s statement was inaccurate based on the number of active Klan members he has identified and those applying to the agency.
The FBI has warned about white supremacist groups’ efforts to saturate law enforcement agencies for more than a decade. In a 2006 bulletin, the federal agency warned about “ghost skins,” or hate group members who don’t overtly display their beliefs in order to “blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.”
Moore said he feared for his life on numerous occasions while undercover. Since ending the operation for the FBI, he and his family have adopted new names and live secretive lives for their protection.
He fears the Klan may retaliate against him someday. He told the AP that people connected to the Klan have appeared at his house in recent months. He has beefed up security at his home and carries a gun with him wherever he goes.
Moore, who has pre-existing mental health issues, said he also has to deal with the psychological toll of his encounters during the Klan operation.
“We have had to change our names. We have tried to move, we have had our address placed in confidentiality. However, there are people that have investigative capacities that have tracked us, they’ve uncovered our names,” Moore said.
What socialist style can teach us in an age of fast fashion
Modern shoppers have a growing addiction to fast fashion. As a society, we’re buying more clothes and wearing individual garments less: a trend which has a devastating impact both on the environment, and on the vulnerable and underpaid workers who make the latest must-wear items. But as more of us strive to become conscious consumers, could the socialist past provide some unexpected inspiration?
8 September 2021
8 September 2021
CALVERT 22
Fashion Slovakia Essay Style & Design
Text: Alex Bikard
Images: Writer Alex Bikard's grandmother in socialist Czechoslovakia. Images courtesy of the author
To say my grandmother loved fashion would be an understatement. She spent her free time scouring the streets of Bratislava in search of the perfect boot, the softest silk, or the most delicate lace. In socialist Slovakia, where consumer goods were scarce, such endeavours required the patience to spend hours standing in line, or the connections to know which shopkeepers could get their hands on the most sought-after items. Then there was individual craftmanship. Not only did my grandmother have a talent with the needle, but she would commission a personal seamstress to create the pieces she envisioned. She curated a personal closet filled with one-of-a-kind and made-to-measure outfits that she loved and treasured. Strutting around in the latest Western-inspired fashion was a point of pride, and a way to escape the reality of the day-to-day.
Then, capitalism arrived. Slovakia, much like the rest of the world, transitioned to a life of fast fashion: where quality, longevity, and individuality were trampled by the mass-production of cheap clothes designed to last only a season or two. We may have the same deep desire to express ourselves that carried my grandmother through the streets of Bratislava, but our clothes say otherwise: we have become adhering sheep of a deeply unsustainable system. We have learned that clothes are meant to be cheap and fleeting. Most UK shoppers wear each of their clothes just seven times on average, according to the British charity Barnado’s. The quality of what we wear has plummeted, but more importantly, factory-made clothes have become synonymous with poor working conditions and heavy pollution. Countless human lives and our planet have fallen victim to a world that can’t seem to stop consuming. The current system needs to change. But when I look for answers, I increasingly turn to my grandmother’s wardrobe.
Communism is not exactly a political exemplar. However, when I reminisce about my grandmother’s own passion for clothes, I think about how some aspects of socialist society could put our consumerist choices into perspective. During that era, women would invest in simpler and more traditional pieces that would last them a lifetime. Ultimately, my grandmother’s clothes will eventually outlive her.
Fashion Slovakia Essay Style & Design
Text: Alex Bikard
Images: Writer Alex Bikard's grandmother in socialist Czechoslovakia. Images courtesy of the author
To say my grandmother loved fashion would be an understatement. She spent her free time scouring the streets of Bratislava in search of the perfect boot, the softest silk, or the most delicate lace. In socialist Slovakia, where consumer goods were scarce, such endeavours required the patience to spend hours standing in line, or the connections to know which shopkeepers could get their hands on the most sought-after items. Then there was individual craftmanship. Not only did my grandmother have a talent with the needle, but she would commission a personal seamstress to create the pieces she envisioned. She curated a personal closet filled with one-of-a-kind and made-to-measure outfits that she loved and treasured. Strutting around in the latest Western-inspired fashion was a point of pride, and a way to escape the reality of the day-to-day.
Then, capitalism arrived. Slovakia, much like the rest of the world, transitioned to a life of fast fashion: where quality, longevity, and individuality were trampled by the mass-production of cheap clothes designed to last only a season or two. We may have the same deep desire to express ourselves that carried my grandmother through the streets of Bratislava, but our clothes say otherwise: we have become adhering sheep of a deeply unsustainable system. We have learned that clothes are meant to be cheap and fleeting. Most UK shoppers wear each of their clothes just seven times on average, according to the British charity Barnado’s. The quality of what we wear has plummeted, but more importantly, factory-made clothes have become synonymous with poor working conditions and heavy pollution. Countless human lives and our planet have fallen victim to a world that can’t seem to stop consuming. The current system needs to change. But when I look for answers, I increasingly turn to my grandmother’s wardrobe.
Communism is not exactly a political exemplar. However, when I reminisce about my grandmother’s own passion for clothes, I think about how some aspects of socialist society could put our consumerist choices into perspective. During that era, women would invest in simpler and more traditional pieces that would last them a lifetime. Ultimately, my grandmother’s clothes will eventually outlive her.
Letter from Zlín: the Czech town where capitalism and constructivism co-exist
Many of her choices were made for very practical reasons. Money was scarce, as were consumer goods such as materials. Garments, therefore, were often made from recycled fabrics, or re-tailored from pre-existing pieces. Women were able to wear made-to-measure items from patterns they had chosen, created from materials they had wanted. Most Slovak women knew how to sew, knit, crochet, and embroider. And if they weren’t making their own clothes, then it would be turned over to a seamstress who was part of the community: someone’s cousin, a neighbour, the mother of a child’s classmate.
Thanks to these personal connections, people valued the time and work that went into their wardrobe. Clothes were personal, and therefore loved and cherished by their owners. It makes a stark contrast to today’s global supply chains, where we often forget the real people behind our clothes. This disconnect allows us to overlook the lives of the underpaid women and children who are often exploited under atrocious working conditions. So far, it has taken large-scale tragedies, such as the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, for companies to be held accountable for their social and environmental impact.
It also means that even though clothes were better made, women would make do with a smaller wardrobe because what they owned were quality clothes made to truly last. The clothes also fit them well, simply because they had been tailored specifically for their bodies.
So why haven’t we already gone back to this slower, more personal forms as fashion? Simply put, as long as people are expected to follow unsustainable trend cycles, these problems will perdure. Real societal change needs to happen in order to see the end micro-trends and throw-away, Instagram-only pieces. My grandmother’s generation wore and re-wore their garments without the modern guilt of “outfit repeating”. On the contrary, they wore their clothes with great pride.
We need to stop fixating on what we will lose when it comes to shedding fast fashion — the price, the convenience — and instead concentrate on what we have to gain. Small independent designers, Depop sellers, and thrift shops are the bread and butter of Gen Z, who yearn for brands that match their environmental and ethical considerations but still provide a unique look. A new generation of designers, such as Marine Serre or Bundgaard Nielson, are choosing to create new pieces from pre-loved clothes and materials.
But while thoughtfully-minded eco-projects are slowly filling up the pages of fashion magazines, this is about more than being on-trend. We have to gain back the sense of pride, community, and tradition that was associated with fashion for former generations. During socialism, it was scarcity that fuelled innovation. Now, we can learn from their creativity. While “slow fashion” is nothing but a return to the past, it is ultimately the way forward.
Many of her choices were made for very practical reasons. Money was scarce, as were consumer goods such as materials. Garments, therefore, were often made from recycled fabrics, or re-tailored from pre-existing pieces. Women were able to wear made-to-measure items from patterns they had chosen, created from materials they had wanted. Most Slovak women knew how to sew, knit, crochet, and embroider. And if they weren’t making their own clothes, then it would be turned over to a seamstress who was part of the community: someone’s cousin, a neighbour, the mother of a child’s classmate.
Thanks to these personal connections, people valued the time and work that went into their wardrobe. Clothes were personal, and therefore loved and cherished by their owners. It makes a stark contrast to today’s global supply chains, where we often forget the real people behind our clothes. This disconnect allows us to overlook the lives of the underpaid women and children who are often exploited under atrocious working conditions. So far, it has taken large-scale tragedies, such as the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, for companies to be held accountable for their social and environmental impact.
It also means that even though clothes were better made, women would make do with a smaller wardrobe because what they owned were quality clothes made to truly last. The clothes also fit them well, simply because they had been tailored specifically for their bodies.
So why haven’t we already gone back to this slower, more personal forms as fashion? Simply put, as long as people are expected to follow unsustainable trend cycles, these problems will perdure. Real societal change needs to happen in order to see the end micro-trends and throw-away, Instagram-only pieces. My grandmother’s generation wore and re-wore their garments without the modern guilt of “outfit repeating”. On the contrary, they wore their clothes with great pride.
We need to stop fixating on what we will lose when it comes to shedding fast fashion — the price, the convenience — and instead concentrate on what we have to gain. Small independent designers, Depop sellers, and thrift shops are the bread and butter of Gen Z, who yearn for brands that match their environmental and ethical considerations but still provide a unique look. A new generation of designers, such as Marine Serre or Bundgaard Nielson, are choosing to create new pieces from pre-loved clothes and materials.
But while thoughtfully-minded eco-projects are slowly filling up the pages of fashion magazines, this is about more than being on-trend. We have to gain back the sense of pride, community, and tradition that was associated with fashion for former generations. During socialism, it was scarcity that fuelled innovation. Now, we can learn from their creativity. While “slow fashion” is nothing but a return to the past, it is ultimately the way forward.
P3 PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATE PROFIT
CPP Investments Establishes Joint Venture with Mitsubishi Estate to Strengthen Real Estate Presence in Japan
TOKYO AND TORONTO, Dec. 23, 2021 /CNW/ - Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) today announced a commitment of JPY 19 billion (C$205.6 million) to a joint venture with Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd (Mitsubishi Estate), a leading Japanese real estate developer, to pursue investments in commercial and residential assets in Japan. The joint venture will be managed by Mitsubishi Jisho Investment Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Estate and one of the largest real estate fund managers in Japan with assets under management worth JPY 920.1 billion (C$10 billion).
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board logo (CNW Group/Canada Pension Plan Investment Board)
Established in 1937, Mitsubishi Estate specializes in development, leasing, and management of office buildings, retail, logistics, hotel and residential properties.
"As one of the most established real estate markets in Asia, Japan offers a broad range of investment opportunities across the sector with attractive risk-adjusted returns," said Gilles Chow, Managing Director, Head of Real Estate North Asia, CPP Investments. "Mitsubishi Estate is a highly respected partner with deep local real estate development and management experience and will help us to further diversify our real estate portfolio in Japan. The new venture is positioned to deliver long-term value for the Fund's contributors and beneficiaries."
About CPP Investments
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments™) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Fund in the best interest of the more than 20 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, investments are made around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, San Francisco, São Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments.
Cision
View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2021/23/c0798.html
Gilles Chow of CPPIB
On Wednesday, Allianz Real Estate and CPPIB’s compatriots at Ivanhoe Cambridge announced a $2 billion strategy to invest in Japan’s multi-family sector, with the European insurer having already built a portfolio of 6,000 rental residential units in the country.
In recent months, Prudential affiliate PGIM Real Estate has been buying up new multi-family projects in Tokyo to add to a series of Japan residential acquisitions, with Blackstone also adding to its Tokyo apartment portfolio in recent months with an acquisition in the city’s Toshima-ku.
Beyond Industrial
The partnership with Mitsubishi involves Toronto-based CPPIB branching out from the industrial deals that have characterised the board’s Japan investments to date.
CPPIB has been among the major backers of GLP’s Japan strategies
In October the fund manager disclosed that it had committed JPY 110 billion to Singaporean industrial specialist GLP’s Japan Development Partners IV vehicle, which seeks to build modern warehouses in the country with a focus on the Tokyo and Osaka areas.
With its first closing of JPY 311 billion ($2.72 billion), GLP JDP IV attracted over 24 percent more capital than its predecessor vehicle, which closed on JPY 250 billion in equity in 2018 with CPPIB having provided $700 million of that total.
GLP and CPPIB established the original Japan Development Venture in 2011, with the partners having teamed up for subsequent editions as the series produced 2.7 million square metres (29 million square feet) of space over the past 10 years.
In September of last year, CPPIB confirmed its JPY 25 billion ($235 million) commitment to the $2.6 billion GLP Japan Income Fund, an open-ended core vehicle that GLP and its partners seeded with a portfolio of 11 logistics properties in Greater Tokyo and Osaka.
More recently, CPPIB formed the Japanese Data Centre Development Fund with finance group Mitsui, committing C$400 million ($319 million) in capital to the joint venture. The fund teamed up in a 50:50 joint venture with US-based Fidelity Investments to develop and operate data centres through Fidelity unit Colt, including a 45-megawatt facility east of Osaka that was announced in late August.
Cross-Border Conglomerate
Founded in 1937 as the property wing of one of Japan’s largest conglomerates, Mitsubishi Estate specialises in development, leasing and management of office, retail, logistics, hotel and residential properties. One of Japan’s busiest investors in overseas properties, the division of the Mitsubishi conglomerate has partnered with some of the region’s largest developers and investors, both in its home market and overseas.
In November, the developer announced its entry into a joint venture with Canada’s Oxford Properties and Australian operating partner Investa to develop the 39-storey office building and retail precinct known as Parkline Place in downtown Sydney.
In mid-2021, Mitsubishi Estate set up a joint venture with Australia’s Lendlease to develop Residences Two, a second residential tower at the One Sydney Harbour project, with the Japanese firm acquiring a 25 percent interest in the tower to match its existing 25 percent interest in Residences One.
In July, Mitsubishi Estate was revealed to be taking “a substantial stake” alongside ACR Asset Management in Beijing Diamond Plaza, an R&D building in the Chinese capital’s Zhongguancun area.
Back home, the property giant agreed to buy a section of the British Embassy compound in central Tokyo for an undisclosed amount in a deal announced in October. Mitsubishi Estate is likely to develop the site into high-end condos, Nikkei Asia speculated.
CPP Investments Establishes Joint Venture with Mitsubishi Estate to Strengthen Real Estate Presence in Japan
TOKYO AND TORONTO, Dec. 23, 2021 /CNW/ - Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) today announced a commitment of JPY 19 billion (C$205.6 million) to a joint venture with Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd (Mitsubishi Estate), a leading Japanese real estate developer, to pursue investments in commercial and residential assets in Japan. The joint venture will be managed by Mitsubishi Jisho Investment Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Estate and one of the largest real estate fund managers in Japan with assets under management worth JPY 920.1 billion (C$10 billion).
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board logo (CNW Group/Canada Pension Plan Investment Board)
Established in 1937, Mitsubishi Estate specializes in development, leasing, and management of office buildings, retail, logistics, hotel and residential properties.
"As one of the most established real estate markets in Asia, Japan offers a broad range of investment opportunities across the sector with attractive risk-adjusted returns," said Gilles Chow, Managing Director, Head of Real Estate North Asia, CPP Investments. "Mitsubishi Estate is a highly respected partner with deep local real estate development and management experience and will help us to further diversify our real estate portfolio in Japan. The new venture is positioned to deliver long-term value for the Fund's contributors and beneficiaries."
About CPP Investments
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments™) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Fund in the best interest of the more than 20 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, investments are made around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, San Francisco, São Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments.
At September 30, 2021, the Fund totalled C$541.5 billion.
For more information, please visit www.cppinvestments.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
SOURCE Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
SOURCE Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
CisionView original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2021/23/c0798.html
CPPIB, MITSUBISHI ESTATE INK $170M JAPAN COMMERCIAL, RESIDENTIAL JV
2021/12/23 BY CHRISTOPHER CAILLAVET LEAVE A COMMENT
Mitsubishi Estate’s Marunouchi Park project in Tokyo is home to the group’s headquarters
Canada’s biggest pension fund manager is broadening its Japan real estate strategy with a JPY 19 billion ($170 million) capital commitment to a joint venture with property giant Mitsubishi Estate to invest in commercial and residential assets in Asia’s second-largest economy.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which in recent years has backed industrial and data centre vehicles in Japan, said Thursday that the JV would be managed by Mitsubishi Jisho Investment Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Estate with assets under management worth JPY 920.1 billion ($8 billion).
Japan offers a broad range of property investment opportunities with attractive risk-adjusted returns, said Gilles Chow, managing director and head of real estate for North Asia at CPPIB, which has C$541.5 billion ($422.4 billion) in assets under management.
“Mitsubishi Estate is a highly respected partner with deep local real estate development and management experience and will help us to further diversify our real estate portfolio in Japan,” Chow said. “The new venture is positioned to deliver long-term value for the fund’s contributors and beneficiaries.”
Apartment Designs
Mitsubishi Estates is Japan’s fifth-largest player in the multi-family residential market with 335,980 rental homes under management as of 31 December last year, with Japanese apartments having become one of the top targets for real estate fund managers globally.
2021/12/23 BY CHRISTOPHER CAILLAVET LEAVE A COMMENT
Mitsubishi Estate’s Marunouchi Park project in Tokyo is home to the group’s headquarters
Canada’s biggest pension fund manager is broadening its Japan real estate strategy with a JPY 19 billion ($170 million) capital commitment to a joint venture with property giant Mitsubishi Estate to invest in commercial and residential assets in Asia’s second-largest economy.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which in recent years has backed industrial and data centre vehicles in Japan, said Thursday that the JV would be managed by Mitsubishi Jisho Investment Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Estate with assets under management worth JPY 920.1 billion ($8 billion).
Japan offers a broad range of property investment opportunities with attractive risk-adjusted returns, said Gilles Chow, managing director and head of real estate for North Asia at CPPIB, which has C$541.5 billion ($422.4 billion) in assets under management.
“Mitsubishi Estate is a highly respected partner with deep local real estate development and management experience and will help us to further diversify our real estate portfolio in Japan,” Chow said. “The new venture is positioned to deliver long-term value for the fund’s contributors and beneficiaries.”
Apartment Designs
Mitsubishi Estates is Japan’s fifth-largest player in the multi-family residential market with 335,980 rental homes under management as of 31 December last year, with Japanese apartments having become one of the top targets for real estate fund managers globally.
Gilles Chow of CPPIB
On Wednesday, Allianz Real Estate and CPPIB’s compatriots at Ivanhoe Cambridge announced a $2 billion strategy to invest in Japan’s multi-family sector, with the European insurer having already built a portfolio of 6,000 rental residential units in the country.
In recent months, Prudential affiliate PGIM Real Estate has been buying up new multi-family projects in Tokyo to add to a series of Japan residential acquisitions, with Blackstone also adding to its Tokyo apartment portfolio in recent months with an acquisition in the city’s Toshima-ku.
Beyond Industrial
The partnership with Mitsubishi involves Toronto-based CPPIB branching out from the industrial deals that have characterised the board’s Japan investments to date.
CPPIB has been among the major backers of GLP’s Japan strategies
In October the fund manager disclosed that it had committed JPY 110 billion to Singaporean industrial specialist GLP’s Japan Development Partners IV vehicle, which seeks to build modern warehouses in the country with a focus on the Tokyo and Osaka areas.
With its first closing of JPY 311 billion ($2.72 billion), GLP JDP IV attracted over 24 percent more capital than its predecessor vehicle, which closed on JPY 250 billion in equity in 2018 with CPPIB having provided $700 million of that total.
GLP and CPPIB established the original Japan Development Venture in 2011, with the partners having teamed up for subsequent editions as the series produced 2.7 million square metres (29 million square feet) of space over the past 10 years.
In September of last year, CPPIB confirmed its JPY 25 billion ($235 million) commitment to the $2.6 billion GLP Japan Income Fund, an open-ended core vehicle that GLP and its partners seeded with a portfolio of 11 logistics properties in Greater Tokyo and Osaka.
More recently, CPPIB formed the Japanese Data Centre Development Fund with finance group Mitsui, committing C$400 million ($319 million) in capital to the joint venture. The fund teamed up in a 50:50 joint venture with US-based Fidelity Investments to develop and operate data centres through Fidelity unit Colt, including a 45-megawatt facility east of Osaka that was announced in late August.
Cross-Border Conglomerate
Founded in 1937 as the property wing of one of Japan’s largest conglomerates, Mitsubishi Estate specialises in development, leasing and management of office, retail, logistics, hotel and residential properties. One of Japan’s busiest investors in overseas properties, the division of the Mitsubishi conglomerate has partnered with some of the region’s largest developers and investors, both in its home market and overseas.
In November, the developer announced its entry into a joint venture with Canada’s Oxford Properties and Australian operating partner Investa to develop the 39-storey office building and retail precinct known as Parkline Place in downtown Sydney.
In mid-2021, Mitsubishi Estate set up a joint venture with Australia’s Lendlease to develop Residences Two, a second residential tower at the One Sydney Harbour project, with the Japanese firm acquiring a 25 percent interest in the tower to match its existing 25 percent interest in Residences One.
In July, Mitsubishi Estate was revealed to be taking “a substantial stake” alongside ACR Asset Management in Beijing Diamond Plaza, an R&D building in the Chinese capital’s Zhongguancun area.
Back home, the property giant agreed to buy a section of the British Embassy compound in central Tokyo for an undisclosed amount in a deal announced in October. Mitsubishi Estate is likely to develop the site into high-end condos, Nikkei Asia speculated.
Korea Investment Corp and CPP Investments Dumped GE Stock Before Planned Company Split
Posted on 11/29/2021
According to SWFI open market transaction data, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) sold off 85.58% of its position in U.S. industrial giant General Electric Company (GE), or an estimated US$ 761.75 million worth of stock. The Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) sold off 88.46% of its position in General Electric, or an estimated US$ 160.5 million worth of stock. These transactions were recorded from a period date ended September 30, 2021. For KIC and CPP Investments, these investments were major U.S. equity sell-offs than typical rebalancing procedures.
The major public fund seller was APG Asset Management. APG sold off around 88.35% of its position in GE for the period date ended September 30, 2021. The amount is estimated to be worth US$ 1,035,171,690. APG oversees the Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP.
These trades occurred before GE’s announcement to divide the company into three distinct units in November 2021. After a decade of having its stock underperform, GE will be divided into separate units focused on aviation, healthcare, and energy. GE plans to spin off the health-care unit by early 2023 and the energy unit by early 2024. GE stock was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2018.
Posted on 11/29/2021
According to SWFI open market transaction data, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) sold off 85.58% of its position in U.S. industrial giant General Electric Company (GE), or an estimated US$ 761.75 million worth of stock. The Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) sold off 88.46% of its position in General Electric, or an estimated US$ 160.5 million worth of stock. These transactions were recorded from a period date ended September 30, 2021. For KIC and CPP Investments, these investments were major U.S. equity sell-offs than typical rebalancing procedures.
The major public fund seller was APG Asset Management. APG sold off around 88.35% of its position in GE for the period date ended September 30, 2021. The amount is estimated to be worth US$ 1,035,171,690. APG oversees the Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP.
These trades occurred before GE’s announcement to divide the company into three distinct units in November 2021. After a decade of having its stock underperform, GE will be divided into separate units focused on aviation, healthcare, and energy. GE plans to spin off the health-care unit by early 2023 and the energy unit by early 2024. GE stock was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2018.
‘Rehana’ Review: Bangladesh’s Oscar Submission Tells the Gripping Tale of a Female Doctor Involved in a Sexual Assault Case
Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s second feature brings moral and ethical complexity to a portrait of a woman seeking justice at any cost.
By Richard Kuipers
Reviewed online, Dec. 8, 2021. Running time: 107 MIN. (Original title: “Rehana Maryam Noor”)
Production: (Bangladesh-Singapore) A Grasshopper Film, Gratitude Films release of a Potocol presentation of a Metro Video production, in association with Sensemakers, Films Boutique, supported by Busan International Film Festival Asian Cinema Fund, Busan Int'l Film Festival Asian Content Market, Doha Film Institute. (World sales: Films Boutique, Berlin.)
Crew: Director, writer: Abdullah Mohammad Saad. Camera: Tuhin Tamijul. Editor: Abdullah Mohammad Saad.
With: Azmeri Haque Badhon, Afia Jahin Jaima, Kazi Sami Hassan, Afia Tabassum Borno, Zopari Lue, Yasir Al Haq, Saberi Alam, Farjana Bithi, Zahed Chowdury Mithu, Khushiara Khushbu Oni, Avroadit Chowdhury (Bengali dialogue)
Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s second feature brings moral and ethical complexity to a portrait of a woman seeking justice at any cost.
By Richard Kuipers
Courtesy of Films Boutique
Female rage is powerfully distilled and expertly distributed in “Rehana Maryam Noor,” a riveting social drama about a female doctor who demands justice in a case of sexual assault at a Dhaka medical school. The second feature by Abdullah Mohammad Saad (“Live From Dhaka”) features a superb lead performance by Azmeri Haque Badhon as the medico whose relentless determination drives her toward reckless obsession. Still going strong in local cinemas four weeks after its Nov. 12 release, this provocative portrait of a complex and increasingly unstable woman is Bangladesh’s Oscar submission, with an early 2022 U.S. theatrical release planned under the abbreviated title of “Rehana.”
The first Bangladeshi feature selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes, “Rehana” has since notched significant festival mileage and picked up Best Actress and Grand Jury prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Playing more and more like a thriller as events unfold, “Rehana” packs a seething “enough is enough” message into every twist of a snowballing tale that asks viewers to consider whether some of the heroine’s choices can justify her goal of bringing a sexual predator to account. Neither condemning nor approving the actions of Dr. Rehana Maryam Noor (Badhon), Saad’s finely tuned screenplay does an exemplary job in allowing viewers to understand how her decisions are shaped and influenced by the enormous and destabilizing pressure she faces as a daughter, sister, widowed mother and professional woman in a patriarchal society.
It’s clear from the outset that Rehana is not someone who can turn a blind eye to wrongdoing. An assistant professor at a medical school attached to a busy hospital, Rehana expels student Mimi (Zopari Lue) for cheating in an exam and threatens to also disqualify Annie (Afia Tabassum Borno) when she pleads for Mimi to be shown leniency. That’s mild compared to what happens when Rehana later witnesses Annie being sexually assaulted by a senior teacher, Prof. Arefin (Kazi Sami Hassan), an otherwise friendly and apparently nice guy who’s liked by his students for not applying the same strict disciplinary and ethical standards as Rehana.
Though clearly shattered by what’s just happened, Annie wants Rehana to forget what she’s seen. “They will blame me, I am a girl,” she says, knowing that any investigation will likely destroy her medical career before it’s begun. Overwhelmed by the fear that is so common in such circumstances, Annie threatens to “jump from the college roof” if Rehana breathes a word to anyone. But this only strengthens Rehana’s resolve. When Annie refuses to lodge a complaint with the school’s female principal (Saberi Alam), Rehana crosses moral and ethical lines by claiming she was in fact raped by Arefin.
It would have been easy for this story to stick with the comfortable option of portraying Rehana as a shining feminist crusader engaged in a clear-cut battle for the rights of vulnerable young women. But from this point onward his screenplay steers unflinchingly into much more difficult and murky territory, all the while putting up a strong case for viewers to remain engaged and invested in Rehana’s story and the wider issues it raises.
Much of what we understand about Rehana and her quest for justice is channelled through her relationships with her infirm parents, unemployed and financially dependent brother Rony (Yasir Al Haq), and daughter Emu (Afia Jahin Jaima). Wonderfully played by this amazingly talented child performer, Emu is a lively first-grader who’s inherited her mother’s feisty streak and is in trouble for biting a boy at school. When the matter comes before administrators and the boy’s (heard but not seen) parents it is of no importance or concern that Emu’s actions were in retaliation for being constantly and painfully pinched by her classmate. “You don’t give a damn about your daughter” and “women should not have such a big ego” are comments directed at Rehana as expulsion is threatened.
Audiences can easily draw a connection between how this boy has been able to hurt a girl without being punished and why predators like Arefin think they can get away with sexually abusing women. As with the best films exploring gender relations “Rehana” sees things through the lenses of power, control and entrenched systems that make life far too easy for badly behaved males.
Rehana’s emotional and financial strain is emphasized by the film’s setting and visual strategy. The action never leaves the corridors, classrooms and offices of the hospital, which seems more like a prison than a workplace as events spiral out of control. The oppressive atmosphere is heightened by the use of a color-flattening blue filter and narrow depth-of-field photography that isolates Rehana in sharp focus while background detail often melts away into a blurry mass. The decision to film almost everything hand-held is generally successful but on some occasions it is overdone and brings attention to itself.
No music is used or needed to complement the tale of Dr. Rehana Maryam Noor. Whether withstanding comments like “only women like you get raped” from Arefin, or refusing to be bought off and silenced by the Principal who is more concerned about the reputation of the school than the welfare of its female students, Badhon’s immensely powerful performance strikes emotional notes that are all the stronger and more memorable for being surrounded by silence.
Read More About:
Abdullah Mohammad Saad,
Azmeri Haque Badhon,
Best International Feature Film,
Rehana Maryam Noor
‘Rehana’ Review: Bangladesh’s Oscar Submission Tells the Gripping Tale of a Female Doctor Involved in a Sexual Assault Case
Female rage is powerfully distilled and expertly distributed in “Rehana Maryam Noor,” a riveting social drama about a female doctor who demands justice in a case of sexual assault at a Dhaka medical school. The second feature by Abdullah Mohammad Saad (“Live From Dhaka”) features a superb lead performance by Azmeri Haque Badhon as the medico whose relentless determination drives her toward reckless obsession. Still going strong in local cinemas four weeks after its Nov. 12 release, this provocative portrait of a complex and increasingly unstable woman is Bangladesh’s Oscar submission, with an early 2022 U.S. theatrical release planned under the abbreviated title of “Rehana.”
The first Bangladeshi feature selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes, “Rehana” has since notched significant festival mileage and picked up Best Actress and Grand Jury prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Playing more and more like a thriller as events unfold, “Rehana” packs a seething “enough is enough” message into every twist of a snowballing tale that asks viewers to consider whether some of the heroine’s choices can justify her goal of bringing a sexual predator to account. Neither condemning nor approving the actions of Dr. Rehana Maryam Noor (Badhon), Saad’s finely tuned screenplay does an exemplary job in allowing viewers to understand how her decisions are shaped and influenced by the enormous and destabilizing pressure she faces as a daughter, sister, widowed mother and professional woman in a patriarchal society.
It’s clear from the outset that Rehana is not someone who can turn a blind eye to wrongdoing. An assistant professor at a medical school attached to a busy hospital, Rehana expels student Mimi (Zopari Lue) for cheating in an exam and threatens to also disqualify Annie (Afia Tabassum Borno) when she pleads for Mimi to be shown leniency. That’s mild compared to what happens when Rehana later witnesses Annie being sexually assaulted by a senior teacher, Prof. Arefin (Kazi Sami Hassan), an otherwise friendly and apparently nice guy who’s liked by his students for not applying the same strict disciplinary and ethical standards as Rehana.
Though clearly shattered by what’s just happened, Annie wants Rehana to forget what she’s seen. “They will blame me, I am a girl,” she says, knowing that any investigation will likely destroy her medical career before it’s begun. Overwhelmed by the fear that is so common in such circumstances, Annie threatens to “jump from the college roof” if Rehana breathes a word to anyone. But this only strengthens Rehana’s resolve. When Annie refuses to lodge a complaint with the school’s female principal (Saberi Alam), Rehana crosses moral and ethical lines by claiming she was in fact raped by Arefin.
It would have been easy for this story to stick with the comfortable option of portraying Rehana as a shining feminist crusader engaged in a clear-cut battle for the rights of vulnerable young women. But from this point onward his screenplay steers unflinchingly into much more difficult and murky territory, all the while putting up a strong case for viewers to remain engaged and invested in Rehana’s story and the wider issues it raises.
Much of what we understand about Rehana and her quest for justice is channelled through her relationships with her infirm parents, unemployed and financially dependent brother Rony (Yasir Al Haq), and daughter Emu (Afia Jahin Jaima). Wonderfully played by this amazingly talented child performer, Emu is a lively first-grader who’s inherited her mother’s feisty streak and is in trouble for biting a boy at school. When the matter comes before administrators and the boy’s (heard but not seen) parents it is of no importance or concern that Emu’s actions were in retaliation for being constantly and painfully pinched by her classmate. “You don’t give a damn about your daughter” and “women should not have such a big ego” are comments directed at Rehana as expulsion is threatened.
Audiences can easily draw a connection between how this boy has been able to hurt a girl without being punished and why predators like Arefin think they can get away with sexually abusing women. As with the best films exploring gender relations “Rehana” sees things through the lenses of power, control and entrenched systems that make life far too easy for badly behaved males.
Rehana’s emotional and financial strain is emphasized by the film’s setting and visual strategy. The action never leaves the corridors, classrooms and offices of the hospital, which seems more like a prison than a workplace as events spiral out of control. The oppressive atmosphere is heightened by the use of a color-flattening blue filter and narrow depth-of-field photography that isolates Rehana in sharp focus while background detail often melts away into a blurry mass. The decision to film almost everything hand-held is generally successful but on some occasions it is overdone and brings attention to itself.
No music is used or needed to complement the tale of Dr. Rehana Maryam Noor. Whether withstanding comments like “only women like you get raped” from Arefin, or refusing to be bought off and silenced by the Principal who is more concerned about the reputation of the school than the welfare of its female students, Badhon’s immensely powerful performance strikes emotional notes that are all the stronger and more memorable for being surrounded by silence.
Read More About:
Abdullah Mohammad Saad,
Azmeri Haque Badhon,
Best International Feature Film,
Rehana Maryam Noor
‘Rehana’ Review: Bangladesh’s Oscar Submission Tells the Gripping Tale of a Female Doctor Involved in a Sexual Assault Case
Reviewed online, Dec. 8, 2021. Running time: 107 MIN. (Original title: “Rehana Maryam Noor”)
Production: (Bangladesh-Singapore) A Grasshopper Film, Gratitude Films release of a Potocol presentation of a Metro Video production, in association with Sensemakers, Films Boutique, supported by Busan International Film Festival Asian Cinema Fund, Busan Int'l Film Festival Asian Content Market, Doha Film Institute. (World sales: Films Boutique, Berlin.)
Producer: Jeremy Chua.
Executive producers: Ehsanul Haque Babu. Co-producers: Adnan Habib, Rajib Mohajan, Sydul Haque Khandaker.
Crew: Director, writer: Abdullah Mohammad Saad. Camera: Tuhin Tamijul. Editor: Abdullah Mohammad Saad.
With: Azmeri Haque Badhon, Afia Jahin Jaima, Kazi Sami Hassan, Afia Tabassum Borno, Zopari Lue, Yasir Al Haq, Saberi Alam, Farjana Bithi, Zahed Chowdury Mithu, Khushiara Khushbu Oni, Avroadit Chowdhury (Bengali dialogue)
The true story behind Algeria Oscar entry ‘Heliopolis’: “The reality was much more violent”
SPONSORED BY JOSHUA JASON PUBLIC RELATIONS
9 DECEMBER 2021
In an interview with Screen for our FYC Screening Series, Djaâfar Gacem, the Algerian director of Helipolis, talks how he negotiated the leap from making TV soap operas to directing a coruscating account of France’s involvement in ethnic cleansing in Algeria at the end of World War 2.
In an interview with Screen for our FYC Screening Series, Djaâfar Gacem, the Algerian director of Helipolis, talks how he negotiated the leap from making TV soap operas to directing a coruscating account of France’s involvement in ethnic cleansing in Algeria at the end of World War 2.
Heliopolis is now the country’s entry to the best international film Oscar.
Watch the interview , which was hosted by Stuart Kemp.
Gacem acknowledges that making a film that deals with French-led genocide of Muslims in the years following the end of WW2 – actions that would fuel Algeria’s push for independence from its colonial mistress – is a big change from his burgeoning career as an established director and producer of popular drama series in Algeria.
But it was a story Gacem was determined to tell. Heliopolis is set in the Algerian village of the same name and centres around a family living between Muslim and Western values, colonial rule and the dream of seeing them play an important part in the “French Algeria”. When WW2 breaks out, this delicate balance gives way to a new vision of a more complicated Algeria.
SOURCE: HEWES PICTURES
‘HELIOPOLIS’
“For me Heliopolis was like being in school,” the filmmaker explains. “I learned a lot while making it. The plan was to make sure each scene in the film tells a story.”
He faced a series of challenges and obstacles during the production process. The budget of was tight and stretching it was a constant challenge. “There aren’t many sets in Algeria. We had to build reconstructions of colonial architecture. When it came to finding the military aspects of the film, I had access to two jeeps and planes but they were from the 60s so I needed to cheat a little,” he smiles.
Gacem initially thought casting the French characters would be hard. “I was afraid French actors would not want to be part of the film knowing what it is about,” Gacem says. “But when I was doing the casting there were many who wanted to participate and were enthusiastic. It’s a part of history that they didn’t know about and once they did they were sensitive to the topic and willing to play a part.”
The title Heliopolis comes from the name of a small village where thousands of Algerians were massacred then incinerated in lime kilns. “During the film I wanted to be neutral, I didn’t want the film to be a judgement. The reality was much more violent than the fiction I showed in this film. I wanted the western audiences to know this and accept it without twisting the knife.”
Gacem’s feature has been selected for a second time to represent Algeria, after it was submitted but then withdrawn by the Algerian Oscar committee last year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic preventing it from screening.
The title was part of Screen’s 2021-22 FYC Awards Screening programme.
Watch the interview , which was hosted by Stuart Kemp.
Gacem acknowledges that making a film that deals with French-led genocide of Muslims in the years following the end of WW2 – actions that would fuel Algeria’s push for independence from its colonial mistress – is a big change from his burgeoning career as an established director and producer of popular drama series in Algeria.
But it was a story Gacem was determined to tell. Heliopolis is set in the Algerian village of the same name and centres around a family living between Muslim and Western values, colonial rule and the dream of seeing them play an important part in the “French Algeria”. When WW2 breaks out, this delicate balance gives way to a new vision of a more complicated Algeria.
SOURCE: HEWES PICTURES
‘HELIOPOLIS’
“For me Heliopolis was like being in school,” the filmmaker explains. “I learned a lot while making it. The plan was to make sure each scene in the film tells a story.”
He faced a series of challenges and obstacles during the production process. The budget of was tight and stretching it was a constant challenge. “There aren’t many sets in Algeria. We had to build reconstructions of colonial architecture. When it came to finding the military aspects of the film, I had access to two jeeps and planes but they were from the 60s so I needed to cheat a little,” he smiles.
Gacem initially thought casting the French characters would be hard. “I was afraid French actors would not want to be part of the film knowing what it is about,” Gacem says. “But when I was doing the casting there were many who wanted to participate and were enthusiastic. It’s a part of history that they didn’t know about and once they did they were sensitive to the topic and willing to play a part.”
The title Heliopolis comes from the name of a small village where thousands of Algerians were massacred then incinerated in lime kilns. “During the film I wanted to be neutral, I didn’t want the film to be a judgement. The reality was much more violent than the fiction I showed in this film. I wanted the western audiences to know this and accept it without twisting the knife.”
Gacem’s feature has been selected for a second time to represent Algeria, after it was submitted but then withdrawn by the Algerian Oscar committee last year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic preventing it from screening.
The title was part of Screen’s 2021-22 FYC Awards Screening programme.
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