The Australian government’s exclusive direction of interventions aimed at countering violent extremism within its communities poses challenges for the effectiveness of these initiatives. Involving community organisations is essential.

By Cameron Sumpter*

A surprising number of Australians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight with Islamic State and other extremist groups. Proportionate to population size, Australian foreign fighter departures equal that of France and amount to one more per thousand citizens than the United Kingdom. Over 120 individuals are thought to have made the trip, 340 have been stopped at airports, and a further 116 passports have been cancelled. Three ‘lone wolf’ terrorist attacks have shocked the nation in the past 15 months, and the national intelligence agency is currently investigating at least 400 suspected extremists.

The Australian Federal Government has responded resolutely with new legislation expanding the powers of security services, while ‘softer’ initiatives aimed at countering violent extremism (CVE) have also been attempted. How has the government’s CVE project fared and what challenges does it face?

Experimental beginnings

The prevention of violent extremism in Australia falls under the auspices of the Attorney-General’s Department, which established a CVE Unit in 2010 to identify and divert at-risk individuals, challenge ideologies, and to strengthen community cohesion. The unit introduced a Building Community Resilience Grants Programme in 2011 to fund grassroots projects that support vulnerable youth and build capacity within communities to discourage extremism. Around A$5.3 million was awarded to 59 initiatives until the fund’s cessation in 2013.

In 2014, the Abbott Government rolled out an updated version of the CVE project, which addressed the problem of Australians seeking to travel abroad to fight with extremist groups and focused more on countering ideology with individually targeted interventions. A new outlet for funding was branded the Living Safe Together Grants Programme and one-time allotments of $10,000-50,000 have been provided to community organisations that met the government’s criteria.

Pathway to CVE intervention

The most significant variation from the previous government’s scheme was the addition of a Directory of CVE Intervention Services. The idea was to create a directory of relevant organisations that authorities could call upon to assist individuals who had been assessed by a panel and deemed vulnerable to involvement in extremist activities. In order to register with the directory (and therefore gain access to the people they seek to help) an organisation is required to “clearly demonstrate that [its] services will assist to divert and disengage individuals from ideologies of violence and hate”.

Individuals considered for CVE interventions are identified either by security agencies or members of the public who have called a designated national security hotline. Once identified, a specialised ‘diversion’ team within the Australian Federal Police ensures that the individual in question is not part of an active investigation which may conflict with a proposed CVE intervention. The individual is then assessed by a panel to determine his or her needs and relevant services from the directory are recommended. Participation then depends on the individual’s willingness to volunteer.

Challenges to state-led CVE

The panel tasked with assessing the risk and needs of each individual is comprised exclusively of law enforcement officials, which is deemed necessary due to the sensitive nature of the information required for assessment. Psychologists and community leaders are supposedly consulted but are not directly part of the evaluation process. This means that those most qualified to appraise the nature of an individual’s situation are excluded from making professional and/or culturally informed observations.

An all-police assessment panel will struggle to provide the kind of language and environment conducive to encouraging an individual to engage with CVE service providers. People tempted toward extremism are by definition anti-establishment in sentiment, and are therefore unlikely to pursue proposals made by state security agencies. Confronted with the suggestion of police-directed CVE interventions, individuals may perceive programmes offering mentoring or similar assistance as intelligence gathering exercises, aimed at gleaning information for future prosecution.

Community organisations that work on countering extremism have also been sceptical of the government’s intentions and have questioned the utility of the state maintaining control of CVE interventions. Relations have been further strained by recent anti-terrorism police raids, and in July 2015 the Australian Federal Police was forced to cancel a dinner to celebrate Eid al-Fitr following a petition circulated among Muslim communities to boycott such occasions.

This trust deficit has purportedly resulted in very few (if any) community organisations actually signing on to the directory of services, which does not disclose names to avoid discrediting them. There is currently no avenue for community groups to deal with an individual they feel may be at risk without involving law enforcement.

Product of the environment?

Another issue concerns funding: a maximum one-time grant of $50,000 for a community-based project is not a great deal of money when considering payment of staff and the rental of suitable spaces in which to operate. In August 2014, the Abbott Government announced it was setting aside $13.4 million (of a $630-million counterterrorism package) for community programmes, yet so far only $1.8 million has been provided to organisations that meet the government’s criteria.

Australia’s 2015 Counter-Terrorism Strategy states that protecting lives is the government’s “absolute priority”. This is reflected in the strengthening of legislation, such as lowering the threshold for obtaining control orders and broadening surveillance powers. Managing the risk of terrorism in Australia has been informed almost exclusively by a security framework, which is clearly appropriate for disrupting an impending attack, but not so expedient for addressing the long-term threat of violent extremism.

CVE initiatives in Australia are unlikely to succeed if law enforcement maintains its heavy hand in proceedings. Police have a role to play but are not a suitable institution to be taking the lead. A challenge within the current context will be to find ways of involving relevant professionals in the initial engagement and assessment of individuals without compromising confidential information. This has been achieved in European countries such as Denmark, where inter-disciplinary assessment panels are the norm for CVE interventions.

Building trust within communities is also essential. Instead of organising dinners and consultations, perhaps it would be better to place more faith in grass-roots organisations and open up less threatening channels than the national security hotline to connect vulnerable youth with those qualified to manage their direction.

*Cameron Sumpter is a Senior Analyst at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

The technology landscape is not about making predictions regarding certain uses or the degree to which they affect outcomes. It serves as a starting point for leaders to consider assessing the consequences and make intelligent decisions.

By Cung Vu*

Technology is moving so quickly, and transforms the way we live and work. In order to maintain the current economic and social status quo, leaders and policy makers must be able to recognise and consider the potential disruptive power of certain technologies. They need to think ahead to answer the “WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN, WHERE and HOW” questions.

In this commentary, I hope to integrate a host of recent science and technology (S&T) forecasts that were published by industry (Cisco), media (CNN), think tanks (RAND, McKinsey) and government (UK MOD, NIC), to provide a consolidated look at S&T domains that are most likely to generate revolutionary change in the future.

Science and technology forecasts

• Basic human needs

Food. Roughly 25% of current farmland is already degraded by over-farming, drought, and air/water pollution. In the future, genetic modified (GM) crop technology will expand to allow desired traits to be transferred to more crops. Automation of equipment for precision agricultures will be used to give higher yields per area.

Water. Micro-irrigation techniques have been able to deliver water to roots with 90% efficiency. In the future, cheaper subsurface drip-irrigation together with precision agriculture is likely. Many water technologies will be developed to purify, recycle, treatment, etc. New type of membrane will be developed to remove salt from sea water or brackish water.

Energy. The discovery of new methods for extracting fossil fuels, such as fracking to recover natural gas from shale, means that carbon-based fuels will remain part of the global energy equation for the next several decades. Solar, wind, and hydro-electric are all renewable energy sources that have the potential to provide unlimited power without draining resources or effecting climate change.

Health. Over the next 30 years, medicine will be completely transformed. Genomics will enable doctors to tailor treatments for diseases such as cancer to an individual’s genetic makeup. Artificial organs will be grown for transplantation using a patient’s own DNA. People will live longer and stay healthy and active well into what today we consider “old age”.

• Materials, manufacturing and systems

Materials. Materials science is an important cross-cutting trend for many future technologies. Nanomaterials can lead to new medicines, multi-functional coatings, and more durable composites, among other things. Graphene and carbon nanotubes have the potential to serve as building blocks in novel display types, solar cells and even super-efficient batteries. Nanoparticles could be used for targeted drug treatments for cancer.

Additive manufacturing. 3D printing or prototype printing or additive printing is a method of building physical objects one layer at a time. A 3D structure can be built by superimposing a 2D layer on top of other 2D layers, hence the term additive printing. This method allows a complex structure to be built otherwise impossible by conventional methods. Since the object or product is built precisely layer-by-layer, there is no waste materials and an idea can go directly from a designed file to final product essentially bypassing many traditional manufacturing steps.

Autonomous systems. Autonomous systems will likely be a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Self-driving road vehicles could revolutionize ground transportation, and inexpensive commercial drones and submersibles could have the potential for use in various tasks. Intelligent software agents will automate critical infrastructure such as power plants and perform knowledge work, including routine administrative and research tasks.

Robotics. Thanks to advancements in several areas including artificial intelligence, sensors, and machine communication, more complex robots are being created with improved intelligence, senses, and dexterity. These advances could result in it being more cost-effective, possibly even more efficient overall, to replace human labor with robots in manufacturing or service settings.

• Biotechnology and Human augmentation

Synthetic biology. It has become possible to engineer custom organisms by building new sequences of DNA from scratch, essentially programming life itself. Scientists can now methodically examine how variations in the genetic code generate and affect specific traits and diseases by using computers and rapid sequencing rather than having to resort to trial and error. Relatively cheap sequencing devices could play a potential role in routine tests, and in doing so improve treatments by matching proper ones to patients.

Human augmentation. Wearable devices could provide context-sensitive information to enhance memory and physical performance. Exoskeletons will provide superhuman strength and endurance. As power of computer keeps increasing and cost decreasing, we could see in the future hospitals can augment patient care with virtual machines.

• Computing and information technology

Computing. The cloud is allowing for rapid expansion of Internet-based services,- including media searching, streaming, and offline storing – as well as improvement in Internet-capable mobile devices’ background processing abilities that make things like responding to verbal directives and even getting directions possible. In the future, smartphones could monitor vital signs and communicate directly with diagnostic applications.

Big data. Over the next 30 years, our ability to make sense out of massive, dynamic data sets will improve. This will affect almost every sector of the economy, create new industries, and transform our capability to understand and influence the world.

Social networking. With always-on connectivity, social networking has the power to change cultures as dissemination and consumption of events are moving at almost real-time. More and more people are being connected through social networks and this trend continues to grow as people will find innovative ways to connect together.

Cyber – Internet of Things. Everyday objects such as home appliances, cars, and infrastructure will be embedded with sensors and connected to the Internet. Social and economic impacts will be felt through more efficient production, optimized logistics, flexible smart grids for utilities and transportation, and countless other applications. Sensors embedded in biological tissues and medical implants will open new opportunities for everything from medical monitoring to tracking biological threats.

Implications and possibilities

Science and technology present both challenges and opportunities. While it is impossible to accurately predict the future, the intent behind this analysis is to inform policy and decision makers about where the future might be heading and raise questions about how we might best prepare for a dynamic and uncertain future.

*Cung Vu is a Visiting Senior Fellow of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was an Associate Director of the Office of Naval Research Global and Chief Science and Technology Advisor of the National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office, US Department of the Navy.

By Stephen Zunes*

There has been a lot of consternation expressed in the media at a series of statements by Republican presidential candidates during their most recent debate and elsewhere in which a number of them appeared to be advocating the large-scale killing of civilians through aerial bombardment as a legitimate means of defeating the so-called “Islamic State.” (ISIS or IS)

These statements did not simply rationalize military operations that result in large numbers of civilian deaths, which politicians in both parties have supported for decades, but actually advocate the killing of civilians as a legitimate tactic in counter-terrorism warfare.

Let’s put aside for a moment the irony of killing innocent people as a means of fighting a terrorist group that kills innocent people and the fact that it would result in blowback that would almost certainly increase the threat of terrorist attacks against the United States. Such operations would constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other principles of international law to which the United States, like all governments and armed groups, is legally bound.

Yet the three leading Republican candidates for president are not bothered about that. Donald Trump has called on killing families of terrorist suspects. Ted Cruz has called on “carpet bombing” Syrian cities controlled by IS and see if “sand can glow in the dark.” When moderator Hugh Hewitt asked Ben Carson, “So you are OK with the deaths of thousands of innocent children and civilians?” he responded, “You got it. You got it.”

Governor Jeb Bush, a supposedly moderate voice in the debate, underscored Republican hostility to international humanitarian law in his criticism of the Obama administration’s failure to take more aggressive action in civilian-populated areas, saying they should “get the lawyers off the backs of the fighting forces.”

Although more liberal commentators have expressed appropriate outrage at such remarks, they have failed to note that, for a number of years now, prominent Democrats have also been advocating these very dangerous ideas as well, with Democratic leaders also defending the large-scale killing of civilians in the name of “fighting terrorism.”

Et Tu, Hillary?

Among the most outspoken Democrats who have defended the killing of civilians in areas controlled by terrorist groups, exonerated those responsible for specific war crimes, and advocated the effective rewriting of international humanitarian law to legitimize the killing of civilians has been former senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

For example, in response to concerns raised by Israeli and international human rights groups about the nearly 1,500 civilians killed by Israeli forces during the 2014 war on the Gaza Strip, Hillary Clinton insisted, “I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to Hamas rockets.” When pressed further about civilian casualties, she replied, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” implying that she believed that attacks on civilians somehow constituted legitimate self-defense.

When Israeli forces attacked a UN school housing refugees in the Gaza Strip in July 2014, killing dozens of civilians, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) condemned it and the U.S. State Department issued a statement saying that it was “appalled” by the “disgraceful” shelling. By contrast, Hillary Clinton—when asked about the attack during an interview with The Atlantic—refused to criticize the massacre, saying, “[I]t’s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war.” Though investigators found no evidence of Hamas equipment or military activity anywhere near the school, Clinton falsely alleged that Hamas was firing rockets from an annex to the school.

More tellingly, she appeared to argue that since Hamas had been firing rockets into civilian-populated areas of Israel, the Israeli government was not legally or morally culpable for their killing of Palestinian civilians, claiming that “the ultimate responsibility” for the deaths at the school “has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.”

In reality, however wrong Hamas has been in firing rockets into Israel, such actions simply do not absolve Israel of its responsibility under international humanitarian law for the far greater civilian deaths its armed forces have inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza. Indeed, it has long been a principle of Western jurisprudence that someone who is the proximate cause of a crime cannot claim innocence simply because of the influence of another party. For example, if someone starts a bar fight and a person ends up shooting him and a group of innocent bystanders, the shooter cannot claim innocence because the other guy initiated the conflict.

Yet the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination has repeatedly defended Israeli military campaigns that have resulted in the deaths of more 4000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians during the past fifteen years in the name of “self-defense” against “terrorism,” criticizing findings by human rights monitors, international jurists, and investigative journalists—as well as by Israeli veterans’ and human rights organizations–demonstrating otherwise as being “flawed” and “biased.”

Redefining International Humanitarian Law

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, there has been a bipartisan effort to redefine international humanitarian law to justify the large-scale killing of civilians. For example, recent years have seen a series of resolutions passed by lopsided bipartisan majorities defending Israel’s attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon that have attempted to exonerate the U.S.-backed Israeli armed forces for the thousands of civilian casualties—which have greatly outnumbered military casualties—by claiming that the Arab militia groups were using “human shields.”

International humanitarian law defines “human shields” as the deliberate use of civilians to deter attacks on one’s troops or military objects. Investigations by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the U.S. Army War College, and others have failed to find a single documented case of any civilian deaths caused by Hamas, Hezbollah, or other Arab militant groups using human shields while fighting Israeli forces. These investigations have documented other war crimes by these groups, including not taking all necessary steps it should to prevent civilian casualties when it positions fighters and armaments too close to concentrations of civilians. However, this is not the same thing as deliberately using civilians as shields.

As a result, a 2009 resolution drawn up by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi attempted to exonerate Israel for the hundreds of civilian deaths inflicted by its armed forces by redefining what constitutes human shields. The resolution called on the international community “to condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields.”

However, the fact that a Hamas leader lives in his own private home, attends a neighborhood mosque, and seeks admittance to a local hospital does not constitute “embedding” them for the purpose of “using Palestinians as human shields.” Indeed, the vast majority of leaders of most governments and political parties live in private homes in civilian neighborhoods, go to local houses of worship, and check into hospitals when sick or injured, along with ordinary civilians. Furthermore, given that the armed wing of Hamas is a militia rather than a standing army, virtually all of its fighters live in private homes and go to neighborhood mosques and local hospitals.

In short, this resolution—passed by an overwhelming 390-5 vote—puts both political parties on record advancing a radical and dangerous reinterpretation of international humanitarian law that would allow virtually any country with superior air power or long-range artillery to get away with war crimes. In the eyes of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the IS-controlled city of Raqqa, or other urban areas controlled by recognized terrorist organizations should be considered a free-fire zone.

What neither Republican nor Democratic leaders have acknowledged, however, is that even if a terrorist group was using human shields in the narrower legal definition of the term, it still does not absolve armed forces from their obligation to avoid civilian casualties. Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention makes clear that even if one side is shielding itself behind civilians, such a violation “shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians.”

For example, if a botched bank robbery resulted in the robbers holding bank personnel and customers hostage and firing at police from inside the building, it still would not be legitimate for a SWAT team to kill the hostages as well because they were being used as “human shields.”

These efforts by Hillary Clinton and congressional leaders to both broaden the definition of human shields and legitimize the killing of civilians as a response is quite troubling, especially at a time of the growing militarization of police here in the United States and the increasing concerns over their use of excessive force against unarmed civilians. It also serves as a troubling reminder that comments like those heard in the Republican debate and elsewhere are becoming more acceptable among political leaders of both parties.

Indeed, a House-passed resolution in July 2014 absolving Israel for responsibility for the large-scale civilian causalities inflicted by its armed forces in the Gaza Strip, due to the alleged use of human shields by Hamas, also declared (correctly in these cases) that “Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other foreign terrorist organizations typically use innocent civilians as human shields.” The inclusion of that clause in a resolution defending the killing of civilians under such circumstances appears to have been designed to pave the way for just the kind of military onslaught on civilian areas of Syria and Iraq that the Republican candidates have in mind.

*Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.

By Khalil Hanware

The Saudi stock market edged higher on Sunday as traders bought back shares ahead of Monday’s 2016 budget announcement.

“The Tadawul is very likely to track oil prices next year, and will therefore stay flat at best,” commented James Reeve, deputy chief economist and assistant general manager at Samba Financial Group.

The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) closed 0.1 percent higher on Sunday at 6,946 points, rebounding from a low of 6,874 points because of rises in stocks which investors hope will be largely unaffected by the Saudi budget.

The index, however, is down 16.65 percent so far this year.

“This year’s poor performance was due to low oil prices, which have impacted government spending and thereby corporate profits,” Reeve told Arab News.

“There is not really any other reason, though of course all emerging stock markets have performed poorly given China’s slowdown and the strong dollar,” he added.

According to Reuters, official sources said that senior official of Saudi Aramco and the ministers of Economy and Planning, Finance, and Water and Electricity will appear at a news conference on the budget on Monday. The Budget 2016 is expected to contain major changes in spending and possibly revenue policy and officials may want to explain these to the public, Reuters added.

The price of Brent crude oil recently crashed to an 11-year low of $36 a barrel from above $100, 18 months ago.

Tracking the oil market, the petrochemical Industries index dropped 0.75 percent on Sunday. It has declined 22.11 percent so far this year.

A regional analyst told Arab News: “One of the important things about the budget is that it will provide a sense of direction and clarity on the government’s policy priorities. One reason for the recent volatility is a lack of clarity at a time of significant global challenges.”

He added that the situation next year would depend to a large extent on the direction of oil prices.

“This clearly has been a major factor depressing valuations this year. While we can probably assume that the oil cycle is about to turn, the timing still remains unclear,” he said.

Diet Crystal Pepsi. Frito Lay Lemonade. Watermelon-flavored Oreos. Through the years, the shelves of stores have been filled with products that turned out to be flops, failures, duds, and losers.

But only briefly filled with them, of course, because products like these tend to get yanked from stores quickly, leaving most consumers to wonder: Who exactly buys these things, anyway?

Now a published study co-authored by two MIT professors answers that question. Amazingly, the same group of consumers has an outsized tendency to purchase all kinds of failed products, time after time, flop after flop, Diet Crystal Pepsi after Diet Crystal Pepsi. The study calls the people in this group “harbingers of failure” and suggests they provide a new window into consumer behavior.

“These harbingers of failure have the unusual property that they keep on buying products that are taken from the shelves,” said MIT marketing professor Catherine Tucker, co-author of a paper detailing the study’s results.

Significantly, Tucker added, these star-crossed consumers can sniff out flop-worthy products of all kinds.

“This is a cross-category effect,” Tucker explained. “If you’re the kind of person who bought something that really didn’t resonate with the market, say, coffee-flavored Coca-Cola, then that also means you’re more likely to buy a type of toothpaste or laundry detergent that fails to resonate with the market.”

And while strong initial sales of products normally seem like a good thing, the research reveals that is not always the case — not if it’s the harbingers of failure who are rushing out to purchase those products.

“It’s not just how many people are buying them, it’s how many of the right people are buying them and how many of the wrong people aren’t buying them,” said Duncan Simester, an MIT marketing professor and another co-author of the study.

“Usually when you’re doing market research, the common wisdom is that people liking your product is a good thing,” Tucker added. “But what we’ve done in this research is identify a group of people who you really want to [have] hate your product. And that changes the paradigm of market research.”

What were they thinking?

The paper detailing the study’s results is published in the Journal of Marketing Research. The co-authors are Simester, who is the Nanyang Technological University Professor of Marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Tucker, the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management at MIT Sloan; Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management; and Song Lin, an assistant professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s business school.

The study itself draws upon two large data sets from a large chain of convenience stores that reaches across the U.S. One data set consists of weekly aggregate transactions from 111 store branches, from January 2003 to October 2009. The other data set consists of individual-level transaction data from November 2003 to November 2005.

All told, the researchers ended up examining 77,744 customers who purchased 8,809 new products between 2003 and 2005, and then tracking the aggregate data longer to see how well those products fared. They defined a failed product as one pulled from stores less than three years after its introduction; only about 40 percent of the new products survived that long.

In a key part of the study, the researchers studied consumers whose purchases flop at least 50 percent of the time, and saw pronounced effects when these harbingers of failure buy products. When the percentage of total sales of a product accounted for by these consumers increases from 25 to 50 percent, the probability of success for that product decreases by 31 percent. And when the harbingers buy a product at least three times, it’s really bad news: The probability of success for that product drops 56 percent.

But what explains the consumer behavior of the harbingers of failure?

“You could think of it as preference for risk,” Simester said. “People who are more willing to take a risk on an unusual product are more willing to take a risk in multiple categories.”

The researchers also examined and ruled out other possible explanations of the phenomenon. For instance: The harbingers are not evidently any more tired or distracted than anyone else when choosing products.

“It’s not the case that these people are buying goods at 2 in the morning, or something like that,” Tucker said. “They’re not inattentive. Systematically, they are able to identify these really terrible products that fail to resonate with the mainstream.”

A result that “may end up changing management practice”

The researchers are continuing to pursue related research and are interested in looking at how widely the “harbingers of failure” pattern holds in a variety of areas, from everyday shopping to financial markets.

“We’re certainly thinking about whether this is a much more general result than people simply buying new products,” said Simester — who, when pressed about dubious products he himself has bought, admits to having once purchased a supposedly self-cleaning cat litter box that failed to function.

And Tucker, for her part, admited that yes, she used to drink Crystal Pepsi.

“This paper may be slightly autobiographical,” Tucker acknowledged.

When we met at the “local women gathering” in Giriloka Park, Serpong Banten, Indonesia on December 7, 2015, Pacha Wilmer — a Peruvian musician who has visited one third of the world bringing the art of traditional Peruvian music to many flamboyant audiences — was telling why he fell in love with Indonesia. Pacha, who slightly looks like Ariel Noah, a famous Indonesian musician, was born the second child of six siblings in Arequipa, a tiny city in the mountainous area of Peru about 1,400 km from Lima, the capital city.

Pacha was interested in Peruvian traditional music back in 1984. At that time, a younger Pacha was influenced by the ethnic music that was playing on the radio. This was Andean music, performed by a local music group, and it touched the feelings of a man who liked to play football. From that time forward, he started to learn various traditional musical instruments from a friend.

After just three months had passed, Pacha, a talented musician, could already play Zampona, Quena, Chile, Maltas, Bastos, Marimachas, Semi-Toyos, and Toyis, which would later bring him to Indonesia. But 1989 was the beginning of his formal venture into music, and he continued to explore his talents through performances in various places and occasions, and in 1991 Pacha, a melancholic man, began his career as a professional musician playing ethnic music in Portugal and Spain.

Despite Peru being far away from Indonesia, people from both countries feel very close. Peru is part of the Latin American countries with Spanish as an official language and is home to a variety of cultures that spread from the Norte Chico civilization, and the Inca Empire in Caral, which is also one of the oldest civilizations in the world. While some countries in South-Asia were still in the grip of colonialism, Peru gained its independence in 1821 from Spain and inherited the culture that melded in a positive way with the local flavor.

As a musician, Pacha is consistent with his own choice, playing traditional Peruvian music despite competing with modern musical performances. A man who loves the color blue, Pacha continued his journey with a Peruvian ethnic group that played in Brazil during 1997-2002.

Pacha is a man with only a simple dream and that is his desire to have more performances in as many places as possible, although he often performs in Indonesian national TV. Pacha, who has also spent three years in Japan, feels that Indonesia is a suitable and strategic place for him to introduce Peruvian music to foreign countries, at least to all parts of South-Asia and also because he considers that this is part of his responsibility.

And indeed, Pacha is adaptable with Indonesia and its friendly people. Asked about his favorite food, the 49-year-old answers vigorously that besides Ceviche (typical cuisine of Peru, a raw fish plate that is marinated with lemon juice) Pacha also says he likes “Rendang”, a stew spicy beef and chicken curry dishes from West Sumatra, and cold lychee tea as his favorite drink.

When playing the Andean instrumental repertoire, the music that comes from the Incas, his ancestors, Pacha plays very well. Music is a universal language; with only the time, direction, and the beautiful melody always delivered in a charming way that touches the feelings of those who listen.

Listening to his music one can almost feel the cold wind blowing from the Andes, carrying your mind and soul away to Peru.

One such instance, occurred recently when Pacha played, “Sunquyman” — a song that was written in Quechua, the Incas language that means “Hacia mi Corazon” in Spanish or Towards the Heart — to close out his performance on a hot sunny day, and yet the feeling was overwhelmed by mixed illusions, of between Peru and Indonesia, and the Andes and Bromo.

By Sabatho Nyamseda*

Tanzania’s general elections were held on 25 October 2015 after about two months of electioneering. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) emerged victorious in the Union elections with 58.49% of the presidential vote and a parliamentary majority. The opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA), whose candidate was supported by the coalition of four opposition parties known as UKAWA, got 39.97% of the presidential vote and an increased share of parliamentary seats.

Zanzibar election results were annulled by a unilateral decision of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission’s (ZEC) chairman over allegations of irregularities in Pemba, a stronghold of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF). It is said that CUF had won the Zanzibar presidential elections.

BIG PARTY POLITICS

To make sense of what has been taking place on the political arena of Tanzania, one has to understand the basic characteristics of the neoliberal economic system.

Neoliberalism was ‘invented’ to restore monopoly capitalism whose blood – that is, rising surplus – was being sucked, albeit in little quantities, by labour through welfare policies. The neoliberal project launched successful attacks on welfarism and enhanced the power of a handful of giant corporations to control and exploit the world’s resources (Harvey 2005). In the political sphere, it is giant political parties that have the monopoly over politics. Political parties in the periphery function as subsidiaries of the major parties in the centre. For peripheral political parties to remain in the political map, their agenda has to complement – not contradict –the main agenda set by central political parties. Just as oligopolies abolish price competition among themselves, so are the political parties (in the centre and their peripheral subsidiaries) which have abolished ideological competition.

Neoliberalism is also the most bankrupt shape of capitalism. Economically, the basis of accumulation is no longer (industrial) production which led to the improvement of productive forces. The neoliberal oligarchy accumulates through dispossession – either directly through outright plunder of resources (under the banner of FDI, privatisation, or even military invasions) or indirectly through speculative promotion of fictitious commodities, like the US subprime mortgages that caused the 2008 economic slump (Bello 2013; Harvey 2003 & 2011).

Bankruptcy is also dominant in the political sphere where progressive politics has been replaced with parochial politics. The progressive pan-African stance that guided Tanzania’s politics in the 1960s and 1970s is gone: its place has been taken by tribalism and chauvinistic nationalism. Emancipatory politics that united the class of the exploited against their common exploiters is seen as something poisonous. Instead, alliances are forged between local exploiters and the exploited on the basis of their common tribe or religion in order to fight against another tribe or religion. Even worse, new parochial ideologies that were not part of Tanzanian politics have been fabricated. These include ageism – which was dubbed “ukaburu wa kiumri” or “age apartheid”. It was meant to prevent those who were born before 1961 from contesting for leadership positions (Nyamsenda 2013).

In a situation where giant parties are politically bankrupt, ideological debate becomes anachronistic. No wonder that CCM’s Magufuli and CHADEMA’s Lowassa turned down the offer of participating in a presidential debate (Kayera 2015). What was there for Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who have been ministers in previous governments and loyal implementers of neoliberalism, to debate about?

During the campaigns candidates rarely referred to their election manifestos. A formality, manifestos contain promises which are not meant for implementation. On launching his campaign, Lowassa told his audience to go and read the manifesto from CHADEMA’s website knowing exactly that the majority of Tanzanians have no access to internet (Mwandishi Maalum 2015). A few members of the campaign teams of both parties that I interacted with were unaware of the contents of their manifestos.

The giant parties’ campaigns were dominated by slander, derision and insults which have now become the main vehicles of taking a person to parliament. The presidential campaign stage turned into a movie stage and the best movie actor would harvest more votes. The superrich Lowassa, with a degree in performing arts, was innovative enough to shift his campaigns to the commuter buses to ‘learn the suffering of the ordinary people’ (Michuzi Blog 2015). His chief rival, Magufuli, had to come up with something different: dancing and performing pushups on the campaign stage to soothe his voters (CCM Blog 2015; Saanane 2015).

The “movie actors” in the presidential race also had to show their talents in making promises. There is nothing that they didn’t promise: everything would be free in the ‘paradise’ the candidate would create on the Tanzanian portion of the earth surface. Echoing the bible, Edward Lowassa promised that under his presidency “a person who eats a single meal shall eat two, one who owns one motor cycle or car shall get two, and he who has one wife shall get two” (Ngunge 2015; translated by this author). The candidates had discovered that empty promises pay off from the outgoing president who won a landslide victory by promising “a better life for every Tanzanian”. This was an empty promise since Kikwete was a loyal servant of imperialism who did not have a programme to reform the internally disarticulated and vertically integrated economy of Tanzania. And the voters are aware that politicians’ promises are not to be fulfilled. According to a recent study by Twaweza and MIT, “many citizens report that politicians all make the same promises and cannot be trusted to keep these” (Rosenzweig and Tsai 2015).

GRASSROOTS STRUGGLES

We have so far analysed one aspect of Tanzanian politics – politics from above involving giant political parties. Political elections are therefore an intra-class race among the petty bourgeoisie for state power. The second aspect is politics from below. This involves struggles waged by popular classes for a decent life and against dispossession launched by giant corporations under the intermediary of the petty bourgeoisie. The giant parties always strive to hijack grassroots struggles by co-opting and deliberately distorting the agenda of the latter in order to keep lower classes in check. Once co-opted, lower class members lose ownership and control of their struggle and are reduced to followers of a political messiah, created and promoted by a giant party in collaboration with other ideological state apparatuses like the churches, universities, media houses, private companies, think-tanks and NGOs[1] .

If the petty bourgeoisie has managed to swallow the struggles of the masses, it has not completely succeeded to digest them. The masses have continued to struggle against both the local petty bourgeoisie and their international masters. It is in this regard that MVIWATA, a countrywide network of smallholder peasant groups, issued what they called a “Smallholder Peasants’ Manifesto Towards the 2015 General Elections” as an alternative to the manifestos issued by giant parties.

Part of the Peasant Manifesto’s preamble reads:

“Considering the painful truth that the current policies concerning agriculture and the economy in general have been formulated without full participation of smallholder peasants and other working people;

“And that those neoliberal policies have become the main source of poverty by simplifying the dispossession of jobs and land, and chemical spills on land and water sources, thus causing environmental pollution and endangering the lives of human beings and other species (MVIWATA 2015, 1 & 2)” .

Anchored on the language of class struggle, the Peasant Manifesto declares war against the local petty bourgeoisie: “Smallholder peasants will not accept being continually exploited and ruled by a group of a few while they constitute the country’s majority and are the chief producers of the country” (MVIWATA 2015, 5). It goes ahead and provides a set of economic, social and political demands which form a vision of the country that the peasants in alliance with other sectors of the working people (wavujajasho) want to build.

Economic demands are addressed mainly in section 4 of the Peasant Manifesto. Peasants propose among other things the reinstatement of “the leadership code as founded by Mwalimu Nyerere through the Arusha Declaration without diluting it[4] ” (MVIWATA 2015, 12). Government leaders and top and middle level bureaucrats, the Peasant Manifesto states, should be prohibited from engaging in any capitalist activities such as owning shares in capitalist companies or owning houses for rent. This means that leadership will become an avenue for serving the working people and not exploiting them.

To curb exploitation by an alliance of the international bourgeoisie (through their giant corporations) and local compradors (both in the government and private sectors), the Manifesto proposes the collective ownership and control of the means of production and exchange. The two modes of collective ownership are government as well as cooperatives (ibid, 13).

The Manifesto recognises that collectivisation/nationalisation without socialisation consolidates the power of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, as such it entrusts into lower-rank servants the role of guarding public entities on behalf of their fellow working poor (ibid). Furthermore, peasants “demand the establishment of industries, such as textile industries, etc so that the raw materials we produce are used locally, [thus] providing employment to our youth and building a self-sustaining economy” (ibid, 18).

The Peasant Manifesto’s social demands encompass social justice and equity. “Smallholder peasants,” the manifesto says, “want to see the proper use of their taxes, and therefore [demand that] their taxes be used to provide social services to the urban and rural poor. Social services are not commodities: there must be an end to the selling of education, healthcare, and potable water” (MVIWATA 2015).

In their campaigns, the candidates from giant parties promised free healthcare while their party manifestos do not make such a commitment. Both manifestos talk about mobilizing citizens to join health insurance schemes where they will pay for themselves (CHADEMA 2015, 25; CCM 2015, 9). Thus, while peasants advocate for decommodification the petty bourgeois think of recommodifying social services.

The political demands enshrined in the Peasant Manifesto offer an alternative to the bankrupt politics of giant parties and the 5-year elections. The manifesto envisions a grassroots system of democracy which gives the working people power to actively participate in the making and implementation of policies. The working people through their village and neighbourhood assemblies as well as their cooperatives and trade unions will be the centre-stage of politics[4] (MVIWATA 2015, 2–4).

As it has been discussed above, the demands of the working people range from working people’s collective ownership and control to social justice and self-sustenance. Only a few of these were incorporated in the manifestos of giant parties, and in a distorted manner. For example, industrialisation is mentioned in the manifestos of giant parties but only with the puny goal of reducing unemployment and not resolving the question of exploitation by both internal and external agents. The working people should not expect the petty bourgeoisie to advocate for collective ownership and control or popular democracy, since for the latter to do so is tantamount to committing class suicide. To have the Peasant Manifesto implemented will be an act of class struggle. The working people should therefore unite in pursuit of this struggle.

* Sabatho Nyamseda is a PhD student at Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Kampala, Uganda.

END NOTES
[1] For a discussion on Ideological State Apparatuses see Althusser (1970).
[2] All quotations from the Peasant Manifesto have been translated by this author from Kiswahili.
[3] By dilution, the authors of the manifesto might have been referring to the Tabora Declaration, issued by a newly registered pseudo-socialist party, ACT–Wazalendo, as the 21st century version of the Arusha Declaration. The Tabora Declaration has reduced the leadership code to an act of declaring one’s (conflict of) interest. A splinter of the capitalist–oriented CHADEMA, ACT–Wazalendo is a party that billionaires can join and become leaders so long as they declare their wealth. It was not by surprise that the party’s leader, Zitto Kabwe, welcomed Lowassa to join the party given that he makes his wealth public (Gamaina 2015). Lowassa’s hope for presidency was halted by Nyerere in 1995 because of his controversial opulence.
[4] The Peasant Manifesto provides a broader definition of politics, which empowers the working people to control what they produce. “We, the smallholder peasants, shall not allow the food we produce go to produce fuel for cars to enable the rich of the West drive with comfort or used to feed animals to enable the rich of the West enjoy fat meat. The value of the food we produce is to feed our fellow human beings, especially the urban and rural poor, the majority of whom suffer from malnutritional diseases or even die of lack of sufficient food” (MVIWATA 2015, 18).

REFERENCES
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Kwenye Mkutano wa Kampeni Karagwe”. September 23. Retrieved November 3, 2015 from http://ccmchama.blogspot.com/2015/09/magufuli-austua-ulimwengu-baada-ya.html
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Pugu Kajiungeni Leo”. August 24. Retrieved November 3, 2015 from http://issamichuzi.blogspot.com/2015/08/lowassa-apanda-daladala-kutoka-gongo-la.html
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Harufu ya Samaki”. Raia Mwema, September 2. Retrieved November 3, 2015 from http://raiamwema.co.tz/ya-chadema-lowassa-na-hadithi-ya-ugali-kwa-harufu-ya-samaki
Ngunge, J. 2015. “Lowassa, Sumaye Wauponda”. Nipashe, September 23. Retrieved
November 3, 2015 from http://www.ippmedia.com/?l=84577
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September 25.
Rosenzweig, L.R. and L.L. Tsai. 2015. “Learning Note 6: ‘Politicians All Make the
Same Promises’: Citizen Perspectives on Politics from a Qualitative Study (Part 2)”. Twaweza and MIT. Retrieved November 3, 2015 http://www.twaweza.org/go/learning-note-6-politics
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Raia Mwema September 30. http://www.raiamwema.co.tz/misingi-ya-urais-si-kusakata-rumba-au-pushups-jukwani

According to the Spanish interior ministry, the two Syrian nationals suspected of terrorism and arrested in Geneva on December 11 had passed through Spain before reaching Switzerland. A raid on the Barcelona apartment of one of the suspects is expected to provide more clues on their activities and intentions.

Based on information released by the Spanish interior ministry on Wednesday, Swiss Sunday papers Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung say that one of the Geneva terror suspects was in possession of a Spanish residence permit.

The Swiss have asked the Spanish authorities to authenticate the documents found on the two Syrians at the time of arrest as well as investigate their local network in Spain.

The Barcelona apartment raid was carried out with cooperation from the Swiss authorities and several items were seized for analysis. Footage of the raid was released by the Spanish authorities:

The two men, aged 19 and 24 years, had Syrian passports, and were stopped by Geneva police on the road between Thonon to Cologny.

The attorney general’s initial statement said the men were suspected of making, hiding and transporting explosives or toxic gas.

Criminal proceedings have been opened against the two under a law banning groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State. They both deny criminal intent but they have subsequently been handed over to Swiss federal police and are currently held in preventive detention.

Recently Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a stern statement urging the Great Powers to avoid adding to maritime political tensions. In comments that came less than two months after the US sailed a Navy warship into disputed waters claimed by China in the South China Sea, Wang said that “non-regional” actors are fanning the dispute. Wang mentioned that the situation is “relatively stable” and will remain so as China wants a “status quo” situation. This comes after the Australian Navy conducted a maritime “FON” naval flight with a P3 Orion aircraft. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was quoted by the BBC as saying: “Freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is not a problem. Countries outside of this area should respect other countries’ sovereignty and not deliberately make trouble.”

In response, Australia’s Defence Minister Marise Payne said that Australia will not bow to Chinese pressure to halt surveillance flights over the disputed islands in the South China Sea that are at the center of different rival claims by a number of countries of that region. Payne continued that Canberra is not deterred by warnings from Beijing, and would continue to navigate the region with its naval planes, adding that the navigations would be “constructive”. This charts an interesting new posture and makes one wonder, if there is a pattern in this behavior, and what does IR theory tell us about it? Is this a new stage of brinkmanship that we are seeing now, and if so, what are the reasons and the main actors behind it?

On the face of it all, these are isolated incidents, but if one goes deeper, one might observe a definitive pattern in this behavior. Let’s take a look at a few other causal incidents. Recently we saw the US offering weapons to Taiwan, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing. The offer of selling 1.8 billion dollars worth of arms to Taiwan has made China threaten to sanction the arms manufacturers. The US State Department formally notified Congress of its plan to sell two naval warships, TOWs, amphibious vehicles and SAMs, in the first arms package sale to Taiwan in four years. The massive contract also includes Perry class frigates and Javelin missiles.

All of this points to what we might call Buckpassing in alliance formations. To make it clear right at the outset, it is evident that neither the US as an established hegemon nor China as a rising hegemon is interested in a war in South China Sea. The US has made this clear by having back channel talks with China, and having, what is called an “innocent passage” in marine terms, rather than the much hyped FONOP in South China Sea.

To explain it clearly, a Freedom of Navigation Operation for a warship essentially means that it will conduct all the behavior that it might conduct in the high seas, including flying helicopters, and pointing guns without permission. The US Navy did no such thing when it recently passed in the South China Sea, which explains the muted reaction of both the US and China as both sides didn’t want to exaggerate the operation. In fac, the US and China were extra clear so that this didn’t escalate into a conflict.

Buckpassing is when a great power delegates its policing or balancing behavior to other regional powers and allies. It works well for two reasons. Firstly when both the superpowers are rational actors, and assuming the US and China here are both rational, it gives them room to maneuver. The chances of a rhetorical escalation is much higher for a US Navy plane being escorted by a Chinese fighter, as neither side can then appear to back down as it turns into a matter of pride. However, that consideration is much less for a Chinese fighter escorting an Australian Navy plane or Destroyer.

Secondly, in any case that it does escalate into a shooting contest, it can be limited to regional actors, and won’t involve a superpower. Again for example, if a Chinese fighter fires a warning shot over a Taiwanese or Australian plane, or a Chinese gunboat fires over the bow of a warship, which is not American, it is hard to imagine that that regional power would return with even more reinforced firepower, with orders to shoot back. They frankly cannot afford a war with China, without American support, and neither China nor America wants a war. To put it simply, a Turkey-Russia situation is hard to imagine in the South China Sea.

Yet, there are chances of miscalculation. Usually there are a lot of hints and implied communication in these situations, and sometimes perceptions become important. Allies can also be unreliable and might fail to catch the buck or fail to understand how far they can or should go and when they should back off. As a result they can act rashly, like Turkey with Russia, and that might then escalate into a regional conflict. And frankly, brinkmanship is unpredictable in the best of situations, even in the most stable form of binary balancing. And these are unpredictable times indeed. However, it is heartening to see, that no one power here is trying to act too unreasonable and keeping within their room of backing down. One can just hope the concerned powers with this regard, continue to have the common sense to keep their channels of communication open.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Lahore on Christmas Day for a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. He was received by Sharif with a warm hug on the tarmac of Allama Iqbal International Airport after his surprise stopover in Lahore on his way back home after a day-long trip to Afghanistan and a two-day visit to Russia. From the Lahore airport, Modi took a chopper to travel to Sharif’s palatial ‘Jati Umerah’ residence on the outskirts of Lahore where 11 members of Modi’s delegation accompanied him.

The occasion was Sharif’s 66th birthday, and the family home was decorated with lights for his granddaughter Mehrun Nisa’s wedding. Modi and Sharif talked for about 90 minutes and shared an early-evening meal before the Indian leader flew back home.

In a series of firsts, it was the first visit by Modi to Pakistan, an unscheduled one at that and a first to the personal residence of the Pakistani Prime Minister. The last visit to Pakistan by an Indian Prime Minister was in 2004 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose 91st birthday also coincided with the Lahore stopover and who is credited with bringing about a thaw in relations with Islamabad.

Given the nature of the occasion the political outcomes were modest, but encouraging. Among the decisions taken were that ties between the two countries would be strengthened, also people-to-people contact would be enhanced and the foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet on January 15, 2016.

“Welcome to Pakistan @narendramodi. Constant engagement is the only way to resolve all outstanding issues,” was what the opposition Pakistan People’s Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari tweeted. Of course it is assumed that the recent diplomatic parleys have been “green-lighted” by the Pakistani Army. In India, the opposition Congress party called Modi’s visit irresponsible and said that nothing had happened to warrant warming of relations between the rivals. “If the decision is not preposterous, then it is utterly ridiculous,” Congress leader Manish Tewari said.

The two heads of government also had an unscheduled meeting at the Paris climate change talks earlier this month. Successive unscheduled meetings between the two leaders may not be a coincidence but a pointer to the internal resistance from various quarters and complex factors at play against the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

If one were to step back and take in the various power equations at play in Pakistan and the fierce political opposition towards any “inconsistent” bilateral diplomatic initiative in India, it would indicate how constrained and contested the foreign policy headroom between the two countries has become. Hence we see the National Security Advisers of the two countries meet in a third country ( Thailand) and Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj choose the sidelines of a multilateral event ( Heart of Asia Conference in Islamabad) to recommence her engagement. Such an environment could have prompted the Indian Prime Minister also to make a “soft” opening to any process of bringing the ties between the two neighbours back on track.

Modi being what he is appears to have chosen to shape this “soft” start by firstly, making his first visit to Pakistan as an impromptu and spontaneous personal outreach to Nawaz Sharif; on his birthday and an auspicious family celebration, the wedding reception of the granddaughter.

Two, as he had done in the case of US, UK, Japan, he is attempting to add a personal plank to the diplomatic engagement with Pakistan. While diplomacy purists would argue that foreign affairs cannot be conducted on basis of personal chemistry and rapport between heads of states, Modi has demonstrated that while personal understanding and trust may not forge new relations they can safeguard and nurture fragile diplomatic gains. The one step forward and two steps back nature of India-Pakistan relations require some staying power, which a good understanding between the two leaders can provide.

The personal relations between the two leaders, despite what was on display during the SAARC summit at Kathmandu, have been very cordial and marked by personal goodwill and exchange of gifts (shawl for Sharif’s mother, mangoes for Modi’s mother). Their subsequent meetings and telephonic exchanges indicated that the strained body language and visible discomfiture during the SAARC summit was a one-off event.

Three, the outcome of his Lahore stopover maybe modest yet it is progressive. More importantly it is hedged against any political blowback in case the process of normalisation hits yet another roadblock.

For a local (state) satrap who lacked experience at the federal level Modi has stumped political observers in India and abroad in the manner in which he has taken to to the foreign affairs of the country, giving deft and innovative touches to conduct of diplomacy and using foreign policy to its fullest potential to serve national interest. Since captivating foreign policy analysts with invite to leaders from India’s neighborhood for his swearing-in, Modi’s diplomacy has had several achievements to its cap over the last year and a half. The Christmas day pit-stop at Lahore could be Modi diplomatic spontaneity at its best.

Notwithstanding the above India-Pakistan relations travel a potholed obstacle ridden road, which could make even an optimist to not bet against the next bad patch. It remains to be seen for how long Modi and Sharif will get a smooth ride.

*Monish Gulati is an Associate Director of the Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. He can be reached at: mgulati@spsindia.in This article was published at South Asia Monitor.

Downton Abbey is phenomenon. A dazzling remake of Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75), which was arguably better as a drama (well worth a second viewing), but which lacked Downton‘s docudrama cache and the breathtaking sets. Both series revisit the British empire at its peak, in the late 19th century, when the Union Jack covered half the globe, and the ruling elite lived a high life that can never be matched, no matter how many millions you may have. Genuine fairytale realities, heaven on earth — at least for the elite.

You can build replicas of manors and wear costumes all you like, but the social order where the lives of millions of servants, workers and tradesmen revolve around the whims of a tiny aristocracy, where everyone had their clearly defined role in the social order, is long gone. A journey into the world of Downton Abbey is a journey into an alternative reality.

With no electricity, no cars, no telephone, but gas lighting, railways and the new telegraph, you watch the advent of all of those inventions that make our world today, and experience how they transformed everyday life. You are touched by the spectre of revolution, both the Irish War of Independence in episode one (the driver Tom), and then by the odd socialist (not the servants) after the Russian Revolution.

One key plot device is the delicate treatment of the crucial role that Jewish banking money played in the 19th century elite’s fortunes. Lady Grantham (Cora Crawley) is revealed in passing as an American Jewess, whose money saved the Abbey from bankruptcy, but whose origins are (sort of) a family secret. The outcast, though still privileged, role of Jews in British society is implicitly highlighted by the will of the fourth Earl, the father of the Downton Abbey‘s Lord Grantham, Robert Crawley. He had put an “entail” on the estate, stipulating that unless Cora produced a male heir (which she didn’t), the estate would pass over to the closest male relative in the family, a third cousin.

A comparison with the historical Downton Abbey and its rulers (we will never know what the servant class was really up to) reveals a bit more grit, lots more grime and a big helping of sensation.

The real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle in county Hampshire, in the southwest, not in Grantham in county Lincolnshire, in the midlands.  It was the home of the third creation of Earls of Carnarvon, dating from the late 1700s, and miraculously, still is run by the Earl of Carnarvon (the eighth). The second Earl of the first creation, was a royalist who died in the Civil War in 1643. The second creation was from 1714 whose first Earl was Handel’s patron.

The third creation were mostly pretty run of the mill aristos. The especially interesting ones are featured in Downton Abbey. The most illustrious was the fourth Earl, the supposedly bigoted father of ‘Robert Crawley’, who dies before the serial gets started, and had put the entail on his will, creating the central drama of the series, a complicated love plot. The fourth Earl also renovated what was a modest Jacobean manor, attaching the towers and making it into a faux castle in Italianate style in 1849, a passion in 19th century Britain.

He, like all the Earls, was a Whig politician, the most capable of the lot, rising to Secretary of State for the Colonies and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He wrote Canada’s constitution, the British North America act in 1867. His will showed that he was very much against his son’s marriage to a Jew, whose children would be technically Jewish, which would undermine the ‘British’ character of Carnarvon. (Could this be legally appealed in our days of political correctness on the basis of antisemitism and sexual discrimination?)

The fifth Earl of Carnarvon (in Downton Abbey, Rober Crawley), George, is the most interesting. He indeed defied and disgraced the family by marrying a Jew. But his beautiful wife, Almina (Cora Crawley), was the daughter of Alfred de Rothschild’s mistress, not of an American Levinson. She presided over stunning balls, and financed his wild life as an adventurer till his sudden death. Carnarvon was on the skids, and de Rothschild filled the coffers with millions, making Almina Lady Carnarvon.

George was a rake, an owner of racehorses and a reckless driver of early cars, who ended up blind because of a motor accident (Robert’s son Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey drives wrecklessly and dies), allegedly a reluctant husband. Despite his virtual blindness, he went on to become a renowned explorer (and pilferer) of Egyptian tombs, and friend of TE Lawrence (of Arabia). He opened Tutenkhamun’s tomb in 1922 and died the next year of a mosquito bite, King Tut’s curse, at the age of 56.

Almina, left behind in England, dutifully produced a male heir, the sixth Earl, without the nail-biting drama depicted in Downton Abbey, though the sixth Earl writes in his memoirs that his upbringing was “unloving” and after his father died, his mother refused him an inheritance, and left him responsible for the upkeep of Highclere Castle.

She remarried only eight months after the death of her Earl in a public scandal involving lots of adultery, theft and money laundering on Almina’s part. So much for the entail and motherly love. Clearly Almina considered the Rothschild money hers alone. Ironically, she died alone and in poverty in Bristol at the age of 93. There are many more scandalous details to Almina’s life, explored in William Cross’s The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon (2011).

The series’ depiction of a cash strapped decaying aristocracy, selling their heritage through marriage to keep things going, is true. The still bankrupt sixth Earl found his American heiress, Anne Wendell, as did many other down-on-their-luck aristos in the 1920–30s. Hardly a love match — he dumped Anne in 1936 for the ballet dancer and choreographer, Tilly Losch. His obituary by Hugh Massingberd famously described him as a “most uncompromisingly direct ladies’ man”.

The series is a metaphor for what happened to Britain during the past century and a half. A fading empire, whose rulers were craven and decadent, where the enterprising British Jews, though only 0.5% of the population, are prominent in political life, presiding over a politically correct culture where the Downton Abbey bigots (the fourth Earl and the homophobes) are vanquished. Yawn.

Downton Abbey now provides a steady flow of rent/ royalties and visitors to Carnarvon, keeping it out of the doghouse without resorting to marriages of convenience. Future Earls have rosy but bland prospects in store, unlike during the zenith of Carnarvon Castle under the politically incorrect fourth Earl and the adventurous rake, the fifth Earl, who mysteriously succombed to the Mummy’s curse, made famous in dozens of horror movies ever since.

A survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center released December 15 found that a large majority of white evangelical Protestants, as well as smaller majorities of older Americans and those with less education, said Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers.

Overall, Americans split evenly on the question of whether Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions, with 46% saying it is more likely to do so and 45% saying it was not, the Pew poll found. That close division has been constant for most of the last decade in Pew polls. But the partisan divide on the issue has grown since George W. Bush was President, when those who identified with one of the two parties largely agreed on the issue.

Today, among Republicans, 68% call Islam more violent, Pew found, while among Democrats, only 30% did. Among people who identified themselves as conservative Republicans, 77% called Islam violent, while among self-identified liberal Democrats, 73% said it was no more violent than other religions. Even among Americans younger than 30, about one-third say Islam is more likely to encourage violence, while among Americans older than 65, more than half do, Pew found. That is bad news.

And another poll released a month prior to Pew shows that a majority of Americans (56%, including even larger majorities in all the major Christian denominations) say the values of Islam are at odds with American values according to the Public Religion Research Institute’s annual American Values Survey (of 2,695 U.S. adults).

Three large groups of Americans had a major increase in Islamophobia; and three smaller groups only had a small rise, or no raise at all.

The three groups of Americans having large numbers of people agreeing with the statement that the values of Islam are at odds with American values are:

• white evangelical Protestants (up 14 points to 73 percent from 59 percent in 2011);
• white mainline Protestants (up 16 points to 63 percent from 47 percent);
• and Catholics (up 20 points to 61 percent from 41 percent).

The three groups that did not show a significant rise in Islamophobia are all American minorities: only 55 percent of black Protestants said Islamic values were incompatible with American values (up only 4 points from 51 percent) ; and among Jews and “nones,” people who claim no religious label, there was no rise at all, because statistically speaking a one point difference (to 42 percent from 41 percent) is within the surveys margin of error.

Even the good news that a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News released a day prior (12/14/15) to the Pew report; which also asked whether Americans think Islam encourages violence, got very different results because the question was worded differently than the one in the Pew poll. This poll found that only 28% of Americans thought that “mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims” while 54% called it a “peaceful religion”.

It is hard to feel that a poll that finds that only 54% of Americans call mainstream Islam a peaceful religion is good news for Muslims. Partly this is due to the news media.

Why is nationalist terrorism by Chechens and Palestinians who are Muslims, called Islamic terrorism; when no one called decades of sectarian terrorism in Ireland: Christian terrorism?

Why blame Islam for the disgusting acts of those terrorists who simply invoke Islam to justify their dastardly acts of mass murder and mayhem?

Another reason is that Christians have long forgotten the 17th century, 30 year war of Catholics and Protestants, in the German lands; where almost one third of the population was massacred.

They do not realize that it was a call from the Pope to conquer the Holy Land that started more than a century of holy wars by the Crusaders nor do they remember that the America’s Salem witch hunt was led by Protestant ministers.

The lower percentage of Jews with Islamophobic fears is partly because all rabbis know that during the ten plus centuries of the Medieval Age, Jews were persecuted much less in Muslin countries than they were in Christian countries. Even today, Muslim extremist terrorists have slaughtered many more Muslim victims, than the number of Christian and Jewish victims combined.

In fact, in 2014 according to the Global Terrorism Index, the Islamic State slaughtered 6,073 people, the great majority of them Muslims; and Boko Haram murdered even more victims—6,644.

Islam is not more violent than medieval Christianity or Biblical Judaism. But in the last two centuries, western democracies have learned the importance of the principle of separation of Church and State to civil peace. Also the wide spread separation of Church and State that is now normal in Europe and North America has kept religion out of political and military conflicts between different nations.

Unfortunately, this important lesson has not yet become the norm in Muslim lands. Until Islam is fully depoliticized, and somewhat privatized, as it is in the U.S.A., political movements will use religion to motivate violent acts.

For it is sadly true as Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher once proclaimed, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

Everyone should be constantly reminded that religious extremism is ultimately self-destructive to its self, and its supporters. In the words of the poet W. B. Yeats: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

The time has come for all the best of religious conviction, to denounce and denigrate the activities and beliefs of those who are filled with the worst of religious conviction, before they desecrate and diminish us all.

By Chakravarthi Raghavan*

When the WTO’s Nairobi Ministerial Conference (MC10) ended on December 19, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo and Kenya Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed were beaming that they had pulled off a coup of sorts in a successful Conference, with a Declaration and decisions – with the U.S. and the EU, acclaiming both of them.

And the Trade Editor of the Financial Times gleefully proclaimed at the end of MC10 in a news report headlined, “Trade talks lead to ‘Death of Doha and birth of new WTO’”, while its edit said in the title: “The Doha round finally dies a merciful death” And dutifully even some columnists in Indian media have taken it as gospel and echoed it (column by Vivek Dahejia in Mint , New Delhi of December 21).

“The report of my death was an exaggeration,” Mark Twain famously said in a cable from Europe to the Associated Press (published in the New York Journal of June 2, 1897).

The FT and its reports and writers (including its Martin Wolf), who once promoted the Doha Work Programme (as the Doha Ministerial of November 2001 characterised the programme of multilateral trade negotiations launched at Doha in November 2001, and decided it would be a “Single Undertaking”), has for some time now declared it to be dead, and advocated its formal closure – since it no longer suited the U.S., the EU and U.S.-British financial interests behind the FT (and more recently, Japan’s, after ownership passed from the Pearson publishing to the Japanese Nikkei group).

Challenging the FT report and view, in a letter to the FT, published on December 22, Timothy Wise (of the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA) has said: “In fact, Kenyan chair Ms. Amina Mohamed, in her post-closure press conference, went out of her way to say quite the opposite. She was asked if this meant that the Doha round is over and new issues can be brought on to the agenda. She stated quite clearly that the language of the declaration specifically prioritised ‘outstanding Doha issues’ and that no new issues, such as investment and public procurement, could be taken up unless all WTO members agree. She presented that language as a firewall intended to keep new issues from supplanting the many outstanding Doha issues – domestic support, manufacturing and so on.”

The Indian Minister, Nirmla Sitaraman, on return from Nairobi, has sought to reassure her domestic constituencies, including the more nationalistic party faithfuls, via the social media, twitter and facebook, by posting therein the letter of the Indian Permanent Representative, Anjali Prasad to the Director-General on India’s disagreement with parts of the Declaration. Some of her own party supporters in twitter comments appeared to be questioning its utility, including on whether it was before or after the Declaration was declared adopted.

However, newspaper headlines, posts on social media like twitter and facebook aside, former trade negotiators and long-time trade observers, in comments to this writer suggest that when the trade delegations and ambassadors return to Geneva, and begin to consider the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, and engage in trying to reach consensus, they can still retrieve ground.

Beyond the gloom and doom

Behind all the hype (of the U.S. Trade Representative and EU) and gloom and doom elsewhere, a careful reading of paragraphs 30, 31 and 34 of the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration (NMD) as published on the WTO website [WT/MIN(15)/W/33/Rev.3], seem to bear out these views (see further below).

The three paras suggest that neither side has walked away from Nairobi with success, but that in the three paras of the NMD, they have merely acknowledged the stalemate and reflected the reality of their deep divides; and both sides return to Geneva to continue their fight – whether on the Single Undertaking’s negotiating agenda of the Doha Work Programme (DWP) or the “new issues”. Nor can ANY conditional (non-MFN) plurilaterals (as envisaged by the U.S. and EU) be incorporated into the WTO treaty framework, except when there is a consensus on it at a Ministerial Conference.

True, key developing countries, particularly the major ones of Asia and Africa, have returned from Nairobi empty-handed, insofar as their efforts at rectifying the inequities of the Marrakesh accords, in particular on agriculture, through decisions at Nairobi have not borne fruit.

While WTO Director-General Azevedo and, to some extent, Kenya Cabinet Secretary and MC10 Chair Mohammad, have flaunted the various “decisions” out of Nairobi on the so-called “deliverables”, these are not enforceable at the WTO, until and unless a protocol is adopted incorporating all the results into the WTO framework, and accepted by all Members.

And Brazil, which joined hands, or was a silent supporter of the U.S. and EU in the final days of the Nairobi negotiations, against its G-20 group, would soon realise the wisdom of Raul Prebisch, who, in 1963 and 1964, repeatedly advised Brazil and other members of the Latin American group of nations in 1963 and 1964 at the time of UNCTAD-I, not to view themselves as stronger or superior, and that they need Afro-Asian groups and their support, and not the other way around, since politically Africa and Asia had collectively more clout.

It was this wisdom of Prebisch that Brazil (under President Lula and Foreign Minister Amorim) remembered and understood in 2003, on the eve of WTO’s Cancun MC. At that time, the U.S. and EU joined hands to ditch the entire WTO agriculture reform agenda (a treaty commitment), accommodate each others farm subsidy programs, and join hands to attack developing countries and their agriculture sector from development or future competition.

Lula, Amorim, and Brazil’s then Ambassador to United Nations Office at Geneva and WTO, Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa, fell back on the Prebisch advice, and approached China, India and South Africa to form the G-20 alliance, and tabled alternative proposals (see Raghavan, ‘Agriculture: Key developing countries formulate modalities approach’ SUNS #5401 21 August 2003; and Martin Khor, ‘G-17′ get broad developing country support, attacked by EC, SUNS #5402 of 22 August 2003).

This alliance, and need to maintain it, prevailed in Brasilia and its Itamarty (Brazilian foreign office), during the tenure there of Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and his successor, Antonio Patriota. However, on the eve of Nairobi, Brazil unilaterally abandoned the G20 alliance to join U.S. and EU, in trying to act against China and India, and in time will find it “a costly error”.

Shorn of verbiage, and self-praise of the WTO’s achievements in its 20 years (virtually miniscular, if not nil, vis-à-vis the developing nations, and the billions of their poor and hungry), the core of the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration is in paras 30, 31 and 34. And the three paras merely reflect the existing deep divisions within the membership, including on the DWP and its Single Undertaking, where negotiations are at an impasse.

No agreed way out of the impasse

There is no roadmap or agreed way forward out of Nairobi on the impasse.

The status of the DWP (the formal name of the agenda of the Doha Ministerial Declaration and the agenda of MTNs that was launched there, though since then it has acquired other names DDA or Doha Development Agenda, and DDR or Doha Development Round), remain the same.

However, its status as a Single Undertaking or SU (legal concept) has been considerably diminished, though not altogether buried for good. There is still some scope to retrieve ground lost and uphold its single undertaking character. The text in para 31 of the NMD, notwithstanding the disagreement on that score in the text of para 30, gives scope to breath some life into the SU.

Undoubtedly, there is a bit of a contradiction between paras 30 and 31.

However, for the fight to uphold the SU of the DWP, it is not material that para 31 mentions ‘Doha issues’ rather than ‘Doha Development Agenda’ or ‘Doha Round issues’.

The real problem for developing countries is that they gave up the single most effective leverage they had in the negotiations by conceding at Bali 2013 the TFA (Trade Facilitation Agreement) as a separate accord, and agreed at Geneva in 2014 to a protocol for its incorporation into WTO Annex I-A, without resolving other issues of concern to them or tying it into the SU.

However, if developing countries don’t band together NOW to enforce the SU nature of the mandate of the Doha Declaration, the developed countries would have managed to change the basic character of the Multilateral Trade System as it has been known since 1948 (when GATT 1947 came into being as a provisional agreement, arising out of the Havana Charter).

It was rather strange, and difficult to explain, why in the 5-nation “green room” at Nairobi on November 18-19, India and China seemed unable to say, “NO” and refuse to make any concessions to the U.S.-EU, aided by Brazil, Kenya Chair and the WTO DG. If China-India-South Africa at least now do not stand together, and mobilise other developing countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, against the neo-mercantilist onslaughts of the U.S. and EU, they would have betrayed their people.

If the WTO and its MTS (multilateral trading system) are allowed to take on the new “shape” that the U.S. and EU, and their media shills are now pushing, the major players will only pick up issues of interest to them one by one from now onwards.

And if and when that happens the legitimacy of the WTO, which it sought to establish at MC2 Geneva in May 1998, by claiming lineage from Havana, will also be at an end (“The Birthday Party that hosts didn’t plan” in Chakravarthi Raghavan, 2014, The Third World in the Third Millennium CE, Vol 2, pp 183-187).

And one more nail would have been hammered into the coffin of the post-War Order, an order whose principal pillars in the UN Charter and System, the U.S. and EU have been so busy dismantling (in their regime change interventions around the world) in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Developing countries cannot afford to lower their guard

And the collapse of the MTS will hit the U.S. and EU too, notwithstanding the flamboyance of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. For, in this 21st century, no trade and investment rights can be enforced anywhere through exercise of military power or gunboat diplomacy, unlike in the 18th and 19th centuries, but only through international accords – negotiated, concluded and implemented in good faith. At the WTO, this last has been lacking on the part of the U.S., EU and the secretariat acting to promote their interests, rather than that of the membership as a whole.

Developing countries thus have to ensure that no consensus gets developed at WTO, in Geneva, on new issues, either taking them up for study or on the agenda at the General Council, or negotiations allowed to begin at the WTO (by not giving their “unanimous agreement”, as stipulated in the last sentence of para 34 of the NMD), until the successful conclusion of the DWP agenda. They also have to resist the temptation to get their issues addressed by paying a further price for them through new issues. Developing nations have paid enough since Marrakech to the US, EU and its coat-tail allies, whether in developed or developing nations.

They have to use their leverage in the various processes in Geneva, including budget processes, to call the secretariat to order, and ensure they do not continue with their partiality and advocacy role on behalf of the United States.

As stated earlier, the only conclusion from paras 30, 31 and 34 in the NMD is that the Single Undertaking is diminished, but not dead, though China, India and others have a strong fight on their hand in Geneva.

At Nairobi, Kenya Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Relations and Trade, Ms. Amina Mohamad, hyped up the benefits of the TFA and more trade, and repeatedly appealed to all those nations who have not yet done so, to ratify the TFA protocol and convey their acceptance to bring it into force.

However, Kenya’s leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, in its edit on the Nairobi outcome, said the trade facilitation agreement “… would allow Africa and other developing nations to access markets in Europe and the United States. On paper, this would be a boost to the developing world, but, in reality, it is not. Most exports from Africa are largely agricultural and raw. They hardly fetch good prices on the international market. At any rate, agricultural subsidies in the West mean products from Africa have little chance to compete in those markets. Not surprisingly, the West has resisted attempts to eliminate subsidies because they give their farmers a competitive advantage.”

Catching an elephant by its tail

As noted earlier, the developing nations have given away the leverage of TFA they had, and as China said before Nairobi at Geneva, enabled the U.S. and EU “to pocket the TFA” and walk away.

However, if enough of them withhold depositing instruments of ratification/acceptance of the TFA to prevent its coming into force, until they secure their own other demands and incorporate all the results (including the decisions on Nairobi “deliverables”) into a single protocol incorporating the results of the DWP, and ensure that the two protocols are accepted by a sufficient number of members to bring them both into force.

It is a difficult task, like trying to catch an elephant by its tail, but not impossible.

The NMD, operative paras 30-34 stipulate:

“30. We recognize that many Members reaffirm the Doha Development Agenda, and the Declarations and Decisions adopted at Doha and at the Ministerial Conferences held since then, and reaffirm their full commitment to conclude the DDA on that basis. Other Members do not reaffirm the Doha mandates, as they believe new approaches are necessary to achieve meaningful outcomes in multilateral negotiations. Members have different views on how to address the negotiations. We acknowledge the strong legal structure of this Organization.

“31. Nevertheless, there remains a strong commitment of all Members to advance negotiations on the remaining Doha issues. This includes advancing work in all three pillars of agriculture, namely domestic support, market access and export competition, as well as non-agriculture market access, services, development, TRIPS and rules. Work on all the Ministerial Decisions adopted in Part II of this Declaration will remain an important element of our future agenda.

“32. This work shall maintain development at its centre and we reaffirm that provisions for special and differential treatment shall remain integral. Members shall also continue to give priority to the concerns and interests of least developed countries. Many Members want to carry out the work on the basis of the Doha structure, while some want to explore new architectures.

“33. Mindful of this situation and given our common resolve to have this meeting in Nairobi, our first Ministerial Conference in Africa, play a pivotal role in efforts to preserve and further strengthen the negotiating function of the WTO, we therefore agree that officials should work to find ways to advance negotiations and request the Director-General to report regularly to the General Council on these efforts.

“34. While we concur that officials should prioritize work where results have not yet been achieved, some wish to identify and discuss other issues for negotiation; others do not. Any decision to launch negotiations multilaterally on such issues would need to be agreed by all Members.”

Paras 30 and 31 are in effect contradictory. Para 30 merely records the differences of positions and views on Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its reaffirmation. Para 31 notes despite the differences, Members are committed to “advance negotiations in remaining Doha issues”.

Whether the remaining issues are referred to as DWP (the Doha Work Programme), DDR (Doha Development Round), DDA (Doha Development Agenda), or only as “Doha issues”, remains irrelevant. The SU can end only if and when, the outcome of all the negotiations and decisions since 2001, are incorporated into a protocol for ratification and acceptance by members, the protocol is accepted by all, before any of the decisions become enforceable under the WTO and its DSU (dispute settlement undertaking).

In sum, as a result of the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, the Multilateral Trade Negotiating agenda of the Doha Work Programme as a Single Undertaking remains somewhat diminished, but not dead. However, China, India, South Africa and other developing nations can still retrieve it, and prevent any new issues being brought on the agenda for study or discussion by withholding consensus in the General Council, and block negotiations which under para 34 needs “agreement of all members.”

*Chakravarthi Raghavan is an expert on WTO and Editor-emeritus of the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS). This article originally appeared in TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Dec15/22) and was published in SUNS #8162 dated 23 December 2015. It is being reproduced by arrangement with the writer.

In 1904, the British Geo-strategist Halford Mackinder (one of the founding fathers of classical Geopolitical thinking) presented his phenomenal paper titled ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, an analysis of the Euro-Asian landmass. Due to the topography of this steppe region as a landlocked, fertile and undulating terrain along with its geographical connectivity with Europe, Russia, China and South Asia, he accorded it a status of the most coveted landmass on earth. The smooth plains of the steppes, marked by inland river irrigation but absence of sea resulted in sustenance of populations without any threat of a maritime invasion and hence, due to the absence of sea that this region escaped colonial conquests till late 19th Century. Moreover, these conditions also allowed the native populations to mount invasions on Europe, West Asia as well as South Asia, especially by the hyper ‘mobile’ Turkic and Mongol invaders who ravaged Europe and India on a repeated basis with their horse mounted armies.

He termed this region as the ‘Pivot’ region, making it a core element of his ‘Heartland’ theory later. It was this analysis of Mackinder which introduced the supremacy of and driven-mobility into global political discourse. Hence, there is a need to analyze the importance of the region’s geography, as well as the ‘mobility’ factor through a contemporary analysis, especially the Central Asia-Caucasus region and its fringes.

After the First World War, the Central Asia-Caucasus region went into a hibernation phase due to the Soviet control and the centralization of the affairs of all Soviet republics by Moscow. With the disintegration of Soviet Union in 1991, the region breathed a new life and the legacy of Mackinder found expression in the combination of economic potential and geopolitics of energy the region characterized. The herald of 21st century witnessed the nascent beginnings of the transformation of Central Asian regional integration through infrastructure corridors and pipelines. The designs to integrate this region have manifested in several ways, first by Europe, then by China and lately by India.

The first development was in 1992 when the idea of a pipeline connecting Central Asia to Europe was conceived. A pipeline project was proposed from the Caspian fields of Azerbaijan to Turkey which was completed by 2005. This pipeline, known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, runs from Azerbaijan via Georgian Capital and ends at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. From here, the oil is transported to other European countries. Another parallel gas pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi- Erzurum (BTE) or the South Caucasus pipeline has also been completed. The idea behind this project was to reduce Europe’s dependence on the monopoly of Soviet pipeline network. The fact that the project was majorly funded by World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also proves that the project was aimed at linking Central Asian region to Europe through the Geopolitics of energy. A further proposal to extend the pipeline westward is the Nabucco pipeline, which will extend the BTE gas pipeline to Austria.

Next, China the greatest driving force which has invested heavily in integrating the region. Beginning with the Trans Asian Pipeline which is a network of 1,800 Kilometers long oil and gas pipelines coming from Central Asia, China has begun construction of transnational highways and railroads to integrate the region aimed at securing its access to Europe. A recent example is the commencement of a rail freight corridor which connects China with Spain via Kazakhstan, Russia, Germany and France. This route, approximately 10,000 Kilometers long, is the world’s longest railway line.

China has already unveiled her $40 Billion Silk Road Economic Belt project, a transcontinental infrastructure corridor which will link China with Europe thereby unifying the entire Central Asian region. Besides this, several other multimodal transportation routes exist and new lines are proposed to link China to Europe via Central Asia through which China also eyes to link its economy with the distant ports of western and Southern Europe. Lately, the Chinese Silk Road has extended to South Asia in the form of China Pakistan Economic Corridor project(unveiled in 2015), which will link Pakistan’s Gwadar Port to China’s Xinjiang, which is China’s gateway province to Central Asia owing to its borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

After China, India has become the new (but nascent) player to alter the regional dynamics of Central Asia. In 2002, India and Russia unveiled the International North South Trade Corridor(INSTC), a multimodal transport network which aims at reducing the trade distance between India and Central Asian nations. The route links India’s Mumbai port to the Iranian ports, which further connect St. Petersburg (Russia) via Turkmen territory through railway lines. Many feeder networks are proposed to be linked to this main route, which is expected to make inroads into Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which lie to the east of this route. The INSTC aims to link Central Asia along the north-south axis. Another ambitious project, the 1800 Kilometers long Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India(TAPI) gas pipeline finally got thrust with a formal groundbreaking ceremony recently, although its idea was conceived in 1990s. Again, the idea is to link the energy starved South Asia with Central Asia via this mobility of energy.

These developments bring our focus back to the imaginations of Mackinder’s Heartland theory along with his prophecy of the power of transcontinental transportation systems which have given immense boost to the land power. He defined this new age of mobility as a Post-Columbian epoch which signaled a move away from the Columbian era superiority of maritime power based mobility to land based mobility. Along with the mobility of economic power through these transport corridors, the rapidly growing network of energy transportation via oil and gas pipelines also increases the salience of Central Asia’s stability and integration to provide a safe access of oil and gas through pipelines.

It is undoubted that Economy and Energy have been the driving factors behind the importance accorded to Central Asia, but in the background it is the positioning of this heartland region at the Crossroads of Europe and Asia which make it indispensible to them. Mackinder’s ideas, which were primarily meant to address the imperial interests of the British Empire, are being manifested as competing economic linkages being offered to the region, which will integrate the region economically. His emphasis on mobility also transcends the power of transportation as it also encompasses the mobility of energy. Finally, the latest proposal of laying Fibre optic network under the Silk Road Economic Belt is a signal towards the next revolution, that is, the ‘Digital’ Mobility.

*Prateek Joshi is pursuing post-graduation work at South Asian University, New Delhi.

A prominent Syrian journalist and filmmaker, who produced anti-Islamic State documentaries was gunned down by unknown assailants in broad daylight in Gaziantep, Turkey. This is the third assassination of a journalist in the country over the last three months.

Naji Jerf, editor-in-chief of the Hentah monthly, known for his documentaries describing violence and abuses on Islamic State-controlled territories (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) was shot and killed near a building housing Syrian independent media outlets in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. His death was originally reported by a group of citizen journalists he was working with.

Jerf recently completed a documentary investigating violence and crime in the IS-held parts of Aleppo for the RBSS group [“Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”]. The film won a Committee to Protect Journalists’(CPJ) International Press Freedom Award in November.

According to reports, he was hit by a bullet in the head as he was walking in the street. He was taken to hospital, where he died. The attack happened in front of security cameras nearby, according to Turkish news outlet T24 website.

A friend of Jerf’s has told AFP the journalist was “supposed to arrive in Paris this week after receiving, along with his family, a visa for asylum in France.”

CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator Sherif Mansour said “Syrian journalists who have fled to Turkey for their safety are not safe at all,” recalling several Syrian journalists as well as prominent Turkish opposition figures murdered in Turkey over the past months.

“We call on Turkish authorities to bring the killers of Naji Jerf to justice swiftly and transparently, and to step up measures to protect all Syrian journalists on Turkish soil,” he added.

Earlier in November, president of the bar association and a campaigner for Kurdish rights, Tahir Elci was shot dead by unknown gunmen on a street in Diyarbakir in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey.

Each year more than one trillion dollars goes up in smoke. More accurately, it is stolen from the middle and working classes and shipped off to the one percent. I am talking about the massive yearly bill to maintain the US empire. Washington’s warmongers have sold the lie that the military budget has been gutted under President Obama, but even when the “Sequester” was in effect military spending continued to increase. Only the pace of increase was reduced, not actual spending.

None of this trillion dollars taken from us is spent to keep us safe, despite what politicians say. In fact, this great rip-off actually makes us less safe and more vulnerable to a terrorist attack thanks to resentment overseas at our interventions and to the blowback it produces.

The money is spent to maintain existing conflicts and to create new areas of conflict overseas that in turn feeds the demands for more military spending. It is an endless cycle of theft and deceit.

Billions were spent not long ago overthrowing an elected government in Ukraine and provoking Russia. A new Cold War is a bonanza for the military industrial complex, the pro-war think tanks, and the politicians. NATO is on the move in eastern Europe, placing heavy weapons right on Russia’s border and then blaming the Russians when they complain about the rising militarism. NATO military exercises on Russia’s border have increased and become more confrontational.

In the Middle East, more billions have been spent attempting to overthrow the secular government of Syria over the past five years. The big winners in this grand scheme have been the Islamist extremists, who are funded directly and indirectly by the US and its allies. NATO is planning to go back into Libya, an admission that its 2011 “liberation” of that country has been a disaster.

In Asia, the US empire challenges and provokes China, sending military ships and aircraft into territory China claims in the South China Sea. How much will they continue to escalate before China gets fed up?

The more money sent to the Pentagon and other parts of the Washington war apparatus, the more danger we are in.

Meanwhile, almost all of the presidential candidates promise more military spending and more war if they are elected. Did no one tell them we are broke and making enemies fast with our interventions? Do they think Fed-created money will really continue to fuel the US empire indefinitely?

What are the prospects for a u-turn toward peace and prosperity in 2016? We must be realistic. Presently the numbers are not on our side. But the good news is we do not need a majority to succeed in our fight for peace and liberty. We need only a dedicated and uncompromising critical mass to make great headway.

What can we do to work for peace in 2016? First we must tune out the lying propaganda served up by the US mainstream media. We must educate ourselves so that we can help educate others. We can be sure to tune in and support alternative sources of news and analysis like the Ron Paul Liberty Report, LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and many others. We can tell others about the wealth of truth available to those who seek and question. We must not compromise and never accept the lesser of two evils.

If the people demand peace, the politicians will follow. Let’s demand peace in 2016!

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

By D. S. Rajan*

It would be justifiable for analysts to ask the following questions concerning two aspects of the governance in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – firstly, when it is normal for any nation in the world to empower the State to command the military, why in China , the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is adamant to ‘absolutely control’ the entire army apparatus and secondly, why the PRC is following a political system in which “the CCP governs the country on the basis of the constitution”. It is undeniable that the subjects coming under the questions are vital to the country’s future political and legal reforms. Also, deserving recognition are facts that the first question is a corollary to a fundamental second and that in both cases, the party faces obstacles from the still not so strong ‘liberals’ in the country. The study which follows makes an attempt to critically examine the situation which has come to prevail in this respect and trace the possible outlook for future.

Taking military situation first, being witnessed today are a heavy stress from the Chinese leaders on the need for the country’s armed forces to adhere to ‘Party Commands the Gun’, a principle laid down by the CCP from the very beginning (Herein after called ‘Principle’) and appearance of signs that the Principle is being challenged from ‘liberals’ within the CCP and the society. In such situation, one needs to understand the compulsions as being felt by the CCP to exercise control over the army; it may consider the principle as a key guarantee for maintenance of the party rule and be aware that in the event of delinking of the military from the CCP and its takeover instead by the State, there could be serious repercussions with respect to both in domestic politics in China. The outside world, on its part, may think for right reasons that any change in party-army equation can have implications for China’s foreign policy, which has become assertive in the wake of allotment in recent years of priority by the PRC to protection of ‘core national interests’, a task assigned to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In this background, focus has been given in the ensuing paragraphs on analyzing three points – the rationale being attached to the Principle by the leadership in China, sources of challenges to the Principle and the future outlook.

About the rationale for the Principle, the picture is clear, taking into view the statements coming from the country’s top leaders and opinions emanating from authoritative writers. The CCP General Secretary and the PRC President, Xi Jinping exhorted (November 2015) officers and personnel of the PLA to maintain “correct political direction, under a series of designs and arrangements to consolidate the basic principle that the CCP has absolute leadership of the armed forces”, along with a caution to the military that it should not get influenced by ideas of ‘political liberalism[1]. Xi’s reference to ‘political liberalism’ appears to suggest his concern over possible reservations within the PLA on the principle of party controlling the army. Earlier, the leader observed (December 2012) that “in the Soviet Union, the military was depoliticized, separated from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and nationalized. The party was disarmed. Finally, Gorbachev announced the disbandment of the CPSU. Nobody was man enough to stand up and resist the party’s losing command of the military which led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. There was not one person who was man enough to turn back the tide”[2]. Also, Xi’s speech (October 2014) echoed the relevance of the Principle, to tackle the “ serious problems existing in the army’s ideological and political development, like those concerning faith, Party ideology, revolutionary spirit, discipline, work styles, management of officials and the military’s supervision system”.[3]

Xi is not the only leader to explain why implementation of the Principle is necessary. Other top PLA leaders have also done so, saying that the principle is a remedy to the existing ‘mistaken backward things’ in the military like ‘De-politicisation’ of the Army (feizhengzhihua), Party-Army separation (feidanghua) and ‘Nationalisation’ of the Army (guojiahua)[4] . Authoritative views[5] expressed (November 2014) by scholars attached to party and government have contained a warning that unless the party is in charge of the army, there can be a military coup in China.

From the foregoing, it looks beyond doubt that the rationale for the principle of the CCP having ‘absolute control’ over the PLA, as being perceived by the leadership in China, is twofold- firstly, the Principle is a guarantee against any Soviet-type collapse in China and secondly, in the absence of that Principle, a military coup is possible in the PRC. Such thinking may be debatable, but it, being noticed at China’s top levels, is worth not ignoring.

On sources of challenges to the Principle, it can be said that they had operated in the ‘revolutionary’ period and continue to exist in some form or other ever since the ‘liberation’ of the country on October 1, 1949. Notable is the rift in late thirties, as noted by the party historians, between two top leaders – Mao Zedong and Zhang Guodao due to the latter’s alleged ideas in favour of separating army from party; it finally led to Zhang’s exit from the CCP. Coming to modern era, during the ‘anti-rightist’ campaign of late fifties, there were allegations that ‘monolithic military thoughts’ are prevailing in the party with some even preferring ‘liquidation of party committees in the military.[6]

In eighties and nineties, there were reports on support to a ‘nationalized’ army, coming from advisers to the then Premier Zhao Ziyang as well as some leading organs.[7] Evidence suggesting a test for the Party in enforcing its control over the army seen in this period included – lack of enthusiasm on the part of some PLA men in the matter of dealing with 1989 Tiananmen student protests,[8] closure of the PLA-led enterprises in 1998 following the then Premier Zhu Rongji’s dissatisfaction over the army’s smuggling activities and observations of Qiao Shi, the then Chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee (interview to Le Figaro, April 1997) that President and Central Military Commission (CMC) chief Jiang Zemin should be answerable to the parliament.

A trend towards identifying ‘foreign hostile forces’ as sources of challenge to the Principle began in 2005. It was alleged that these ‘hostile forces’ were trying to ‘Westernize’, ‘Divide’ and ‘Depoliticize’ the army. Their attempts were described as ‘important component’ of carrying out a ‘peaceful evolution’ in China.[9] It was followed by leveling of charges against ‘some factions’ in China for their support to bringing the army under the State control.[10] An authoritative argument[11] in 2007 gave a subtle warning against emergence of leaders like Zhang Guodao who were ‘right opportunists” and had supported army ‘nationalization’. It called for remembering such events in party history. It in addition cautioned the CCP against repeating the mistake committed by the CPSU leading to its collapse, by the way of delinking the Soviet Army from the party.

In 2014, the Liberation Army Daily named ‘foreign hostile forces’ for “preaching the nationalization and de-politicization of the military, attempting to muddle our minds and drag our military out from under the Party’s flag.” In a front-page editorial, the same daily alleged (June 7, 2015) that “enemy forces” were trying to infiltrate the ranks to push for the “de-politicization” of the military and remove the party’s leadership role. It added that ‘liberalism’ has always been the great enemy of strictly maintaining political discipline”, citing a 1937 warning by Mao. It charged that “still today, political liberalism floats up from the dregs from time to time.” As a latest tendency in China, the term ‘foreign hostile forces’ is now getting associated with US intelligence agencies. [12]

Xi’s reference to the idea of ‘political liberalism’ while alerting the military on challenges to the Principle (reference paragraph above), may indirectly point to his identification of that idea as a source operating within in the military challenging the Principle. This gives rise to the need for examining the ‘political liberalism’ phenomenon in a broader perspective, especially by looking beyond the military.

It can be seen that the ‘political liberalism’ idea has been inherent in the concept of “constitutionalism”, a debate on which took place during 2012-13. Such finding can be said as based only on inference, because there was no direct reference in the concept to the principle of ‘party commanding the gun’. Arguments put forward by a ‘liberal’ group in favor of “constitutionalism” was based on its thinking that a government’s power should be restrained by a higher system of laws which protect citizens’ rights. In other words, they pleaded that all institutions in China, should function under the State constitution and laws. This group [13] seemed to have consisted of influential academicians / institutions/ internet contributors. The Central Party School’s “Study Times” carried an article by the Party historian Li Haiqing calling for “the introduction of constitutional concepts of citizenship to replace the political notion of the masses”. It added that hopes for “democratic reform” were high after the 18th party congress and it was imperative for leaders to introduce political reform to promote citizens’ political rights and their participation in policymaking.

On the opposite side, there were strong criticisms[14] of the ‘liberal’ pro-constitutionalism ideas from within the CCP and its journals like the CCP-run Qiu Shi (Seeking Truth), “Red Flag Manuscripts” (Hongqi Wengao), the People’s Daily Overseas Edition and “Party construction”

How Xi Jinping himself perceives “constitutionalism” is an interesting question. He observed soon after assumption of power (December 4, 2012) that the ‘vitality of the constitution lies in its implementation”. Addressing the Second Plenum of the 18th Central Committee, the leader stated (February 2013) that “no organization or individual should be put above the Constitution or the law”. He followed that up by saying (April 22, 2013) on the occasion of 30th anniversary of promulgation of the country’s constitution that the “rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution. The party would act within the framework of the constitution and the law”. Subsequently, on the occasion of the Constitution Day (December 4, 2014), Xi said that the constitution is paramount, that it is the highest law of the country and that it embodies the will of the Party and the people. Overall, thus, Xi seems to be recognizing the status of nation’s constitution as the supreme instrument of governance. But disregard to the constitution and laws is becoming visible as Xi continues to take repressive measures like curtailment of freedom of expression including in the Internet, censorship of media, detention of lawyers and activists, sacking of liberal-minded academicians from posts, suppression of religious groups and targeting those believing in “western values”. In a nutshell, the gulf between Xi Jinping’s words and actions, seems to indicate the leader’s ambivalence on the question of which is supreme- the party or the constitution.

The foregoing suggests that differences within the party on the principle of ‘party commands the gun’ may still persist; there is of course no clear picture about the identity of those challenging the Principle. Xi Jinping however may surely not relent on this count. He may need the army support to thwart any threat to stability of his regime on the premise that it would be possible only when the CCP controls the military. He may remember that both Mao and Deng had to depend on the PLA to bring back normalcy in the country- Mao after Cultural Revolution and Deng after the 1989 Tiananmen student protests.

Regarding the likely picture on the party’s place under the state constitution, the leadership in China would certainly further improve the conditions with regard to the rule of law, but without diluting the degree of party’s overall supremacy. It looks uncertain in what way the present ‘liberal’ opposition will progress from now on; it is very weak, but seems to have established some roots; even within the CCP, there seems to be an ideological rift about how far the regime can go on the question of making the constitution supreme[15]. In the circumstances, political and legal reforms in China from now on will at the best be only incremental.

Suffice to conclude therefore is that there is not going to be any fundamental change soon in the CCP’s supreme status in the PRC’s political and military systems, which as on today stands written both in the party and state constitutions.[16]

*The writer, D. S. Rajan, is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India. Email: dsrajan@gmail.com

Notes:
[1] Xi’s ‘important’’ speech delivered at the Reform Work Conference of the Central Military Commission , Beijing, November 24-26, 2015).

[2] In this context, useful to recall are Xi’s observations (December 2012) that “in the Soviet Union, the military was depoliticized, separated from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and nationalized. The party was disarmed. A few people tried to save the Soviet Union; they seized Gorbachev, but within days it was turned around again, because they didn’t have the instruments to exert power. Yeltsin gave a speech standing on a tank, but the military made no response, keeping so-called neutrality. Finally, Gorbachev announced the disbandment of the CPSU. A big Party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the CPSU had more members than the CCP does, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist the party’s losing command of the military which led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. There was not one person who was man enough to turn back the tide”.

[3] Speech at the Political Work Conference of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army-PLA, held in Gutian township, Shanghang county, Fujian province, on October 30, 2014.
[4] Li Jinai, a CMC member and head of the General Political Department of the PLA , ‘Qiu Shi’, the theoretical organ of the CCP , April 1, 2009).

[5] Zhang Hui, “Party commands gun”, Global Times, November 3, 2014. (http://english.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/china-military-news/2014-11…). It quotes Wang Zhanyang, a professor with the Central Institute of Socialism as saying that “in today’s China, without the leadership of the CCP, the military could easily fall into an uncontrolled state. The absolute leadership of the Party prevents the military coups that frequently occur in some Latin American and Asian countries.” It adds that Wang’s opinion was echoed by Xu Yaotong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance, who explains that “unlike Western countries, China has only one ruling party. Thus the country faces different conditions regarding the relationship between the party and the military”.

[6] Liberation Army Daily, July 1, 1959 and August 17, 1959

[7] Civil-Military Relations: Domestic Power and Policies, by Michael D.Swaine, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, November 2, 2005

[8] China Daily News, Overseas edition, Taipei, November 26, 1989

[9] Dai Yuanpeng, Liberation Army Daily, July 15, 2005

[10] Xinhua, Jul 17, 2007

[11] Prof Shi Zhongquan, Deputy Chairman of the All China Party History Association, Liberation Army Daily, July 19, 2007

[12] People’s Daily (overseas edition) alleged ( August 5,2013) in a front-page commentary that the spread of “constitutional-rule” ideas – in China was fostered by foundations affiliated with US intelligence agencies that aimed to overturn socialism. It warned that “constitutionalism” under the disguise of “democratic socialism” was more dangerous than one under the name of capitalism as the former was designed to subvert socialism around the world.

[13] Examples are remarks of Qinhui, a professor at Tsinghua university in Beijing and author of the popular book “ Out of Imperialism”, central party school journal ‘Study Times’, many liberal periodicals like Yan Huang Chun Qiu and journals like ‘Caijing’, Southern Weekend and several portals like “Love Thinking” (ai sixiang), “Consensus Net” and “Gong Shi Wang”.

[14] Qiu Shi (October 2013) said that those “promoting constitutionalism idea are pressing us into conducting the political reform they aim for, and their basic objective is that they want to abolish the leader-ship of the CCP and change our country’s Socialist system”. The ‘Decision Concerning Several Major Issues In Comprehensively Advancing Governance According to Law,’ a document of the party’s Fourth Plenum (October 2014) while giving approval to the ‘socialist rule of law’ in the country, first time to happen in such sessions, did not fail to reiterate the overall party’s supremacy in the Chinese political system. It described party’s official position in clearest terms– “governance according to law requires that the CCP governs the country on the basis of the constitution and laws and that the party leadership and socialist rule of law are identical. Not to be missed is the fact that in the Decision, though the term “constitution” appeared 38 times, there has been no mention of “constitutionalism.” It did not say anything about strengthening the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the power of the NPC standing committee for interpreting or applying the constitution. Qiu Shi’s 2014 New Year edition contained an article by Chen Jiping, the Party Secretary of the Law Society of China, on constructing the rule of law with Chinese characteristics. In his view, there is no difference between Party leadership, the popular will, and the public interest, as “safeguarding the authority of the Constitution and the law means safeguarding the authority of the Party and the common will of the people. Guaranteeing the implementation of the Constitution and the law means the guaranteeing the realization of the people’s fun-damental interests”.

[15] Suggesting existence of intra-party differences on the issue of ‘’constitutionalism’’, all party periodicals (except ‘Caijing’) did not publish Xi’s remarks that the Party must “use the constitution to rule the country”. Such differences are also visible in the contrast seen between the “Study Times” article and the write-ups in other journals of the CCP like ‘Qiu Shi’ (seeking truth).

[16] China’s constitution promulgated in 1982 says that “the people of all nationalities, all state organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and institutions in the country must take the constitution as the basic standard of conduct, and they have the duty to uphold the dignity of the constitution and ensure its implementation”. The CCP Constitution (Amended and adopted at the 16th party Congress held on November 14, 2002) mentions that the party “persists in its leadership over the PLA and other people’s armed forces, builds up the strength of the PLA and gives full play to its role in consolidating national defence, defending the motherland and participating in the socialist modernisation drive”. On constitution and laws, at the CCP plenum (October 2014), it has officially been declared that “governance according to law requires that the CCP governs the country on the basis of the constitution and laws and that the party leadership and socialist rule of law are identical”.

By Deepak Kumar Nayak*

On December 22, 2015, a 55-year-old Assamese man, identified as Dinbashis Boro, was shot dead by unidentified assailants inside his rented house at Thangmeiband Thingel Maru under the Imphal Police Station in Imphal West District. An unnamed Police official associated with the investigation disclosed, “We are looking into the possibility of some militant group being responsible for killing the businessman for not paying as demanded by them. We learnt that the victim had paid some militant groups once or twice in the past. We are looking into all angles.”

On August 22, 2015, a civilian identified as S. Walunglua Aimol aka Manglun (45), was shot dead by suspected armed cadres of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) at Aimol Ngairong village under the Tengnoupal Police Station in Chandel District. He was allegedly opposing attempts to co-opt the Aimol tribe within the Naga identity.

On May 12, 2015, two labourers identified as Abung and Premanand, were killed during ‘interrogation’ by an unidentified militant group at Maipou Khullen in Senapati District.

According to partial data collated by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), civilian fatalities, at 17 in 2015, declined by 15 per cent from the 20 registered during the corresponding period of the preceding year (all data till December 27, 2015). This the lowest number of civilian fatalities recorded in the first 361 days of a year in the state since 1992 [the year since which SATP data is available]. Civilian fatalities have been declining since 2008, when they stood at 131. Civilian fatalities peaked in 1993, when 266 were recorded. The decline is indicative of improvements in the general security environment of the state.

The visible improvement is largely due to the more active role played by the Security Forces (SFs). Thus, SFs eliminated 23 militants in 2015, as against nine in 2014, an increase of 155.55 per cent. Some of the militants killed in 2015, included, ‘sergeant’ Phakuiring Khongyo aka Akhui of Manipur Naga Revolutionary Front (MNRF), on May 23; ‘sergeant’ Prem of Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) on March 31; ‘home secretary’ of the Lanheiba faction of the United Revolutionary Front (URF-Lanheiba) Puyam Ruhinikumar aka Mongyamba (50), and its ‘finance secretary’ Keithelakpam Tiken (45) on January 7. Overall fatalities among militants in 2015 stood at 53, as against 24 in 2014, an increase of 120.83 per cent. Other than those killed by the SFs, the remaining fatalities in both these years resulted from factional clashes.

SFs also arrested 478 militants through 2015, adding to 536 in 2014. The highest number of arrested militants belonged to the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), at 65; followed by the KCP, 62; Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), 59; People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), 55; People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 40; the Progressive faction of PREPAK (PREPAK-Pro), 35; the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K), 21; the Nehlun faction of the Kuki National Front (KNF-N), 13; different factions of the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), 10; nine each of the Kuki Revolutionary Front (KRF) and the Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF); eight of NSCN-IM; seven of the Vice-Chairman faction of PREPAK (PREPAK-VC); six each of the Kuki National Liberation Front (KNLF), United Liberation Front (URF) and Re-unification Kuki Army (RUKA/KNA-I); five each of the Kuki National Army (KNA) and URF-Lanheiba; four each of the Coordination Committee (CorCom), Kuki Liberation Army (KLA), Liberation of Achik Elite Force (LAEF), RPF, Maoist Communist Party-Manipur (MCP-M), Naga National Council (NNC) and National Revolutionary Front of Manipur (NRFM); three each of Hmar National Army (HNA), the Reformation faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-R) and People’s United Liberation Front (PULF); two of MNRF; one each of United Tribal Liberation Army (UTLA), Kuki Unification Frontal Organisation (KUFO), National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Unification (NSCN-U), Kuki People’s Liberation Front/Army (KPLF/A) and United Naga People’s Council (UNPC); and 13 others, whose affiliation was unconfirmed.

Unsurprisingly, with aggressive counter-insurgency operations across the State, SF losses have also mounted. In 2015, fatalities among the SFs stood at 24 as against 10 in 2014, an increase of 140 per cent. This is the highest number of fatalities among SFs since 2007, when the number stood at 40.

With multiple factions operating, factional clashes among militant formations in Manipur have always been a significant aspect of violence. While the SFs killed 23 militants in 2015, 30 were killed in factional clashes (in 20 incidents). In 2014, out of 24 militants killed, 15 were reported killed in 14 such fratricidal incidents. Manipur Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam, speaking at the 124th Raising Day of the Manipur Police in Imphal on October 19, 2015, observed that there were more than 40 insurgent groups operating in the State. Gaikhangam noted that, apart from the violence of underground outfits and their numerous frontal organizations, small groups of armed mercenaries were also resorting to abduction for ransom, extortion and other unlawful activities.

Not surprisingly, total insurgency-related fatalities, at 94 in 2015 increased by 74 per cent over the 54 recorded during the corresponding period of 2014. 46 incidents of killing were recorded in 2015, as compared to 40 in 2014. The number of major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) in 2015 also increased two-fold, with eight such incidents resulting in 45 killed and 33 injured, as against four incidents in 2014, with 11 fatalities and four injured.

There was a downturn in incidents of explosion, of which 54 were recorded in 2015, resulting in eight killed and 40 injured, as compared to 66 in 2014, with 15 fatalities and 76 injured. Incidents of violence were reported from eight out of the nine Districts in the State, both in 2015 and 2014. On December 1, 2015, the Manipur Government extended the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958, in the State by another year. Manipur Government spokesperson M. Okendro Singh stated that the decision to extend the Disturbed Area status of Manipur for another year was taken after collecting data from Police and Central Forces. AFSPA is enforced in areas designated as Disturbed Areas.

The State also recorded an increase in the number of extortion and abduction incidents registered during the current year. 46 extortion cases were reported during 2015; as compared to 31 in 2014 [actual incidence is likely to be much higher as a large proportion of cases go unreported]. An October 29, 2015, media report indicated that NSCN-IM was allegedly charging INR 2,000 every month from each Government employee working in the Chandel District Headquarters. There were at least 29 incidents of abduction registered in 2015, with 51 persons abducted; in 2014, 34 incidents resulting in 50 abductions are on record.

The United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFWSEA), a newly formed platform of four militant outfits of the Northeast region, is trying to rope in at least another nine outfits of the region into the platform, to launch a united struggle against the Government of India (GoI). So far, four outfits – NSCN-K, United Liberation Front of Asom–Independent (ULFA-I), IK Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO) – are the constituents of UNLFWSEA.

On October 15, 2015, Paresh Baruah, ‘commander-in-chief’ of ULFA-I, pointed out that seven militant outfits of Manipur have already formed a common platform called CorCom and were likely to join UNLFWSEA, of which six were ready to join ‘immediately’: “But we want the entire CorCom to join us. They have some problem with one of the constituents and we are hoping that they can settle their problems soon so that the entire CorCom can join us. We are expecting that the seven outfits of Manipur will be joining hands with us within this year.” Baruah also claimed that one Tripura group would also be joining the front ‘soon’.

In another adverse development, the current year saw a slowdown in the surrender process. Only two militants surrendered in 2015, as against 93 such surrenders in 2014. A ‘sergeant major’ of KYKL, Ningthoujam Chinglen aka Budha, surrendered before the State Police at Moreh in Chandel District on February 19, 2015; and KYKL militant Takhelchangbam Madhumangol Sharma aka Eiga Khumbongmayum surrendered before SFs in Imphal West District on September 11, 2015.

The surrender of the militants has taken a hit due to the Government’s poor rehabilitation record. A December 19, 2015, report revealed that surrendered militants of PULF had threatened to return to militancy if the Manipur Government failed to extend the benefits of the surrender and rehabilitation policy to them by January 10, 2016. Fourteen PULF militants had surrendered with weapons to the State Government in 2012, along with 100 other militants of various groups. Claiming that PULF cadres were yet to get any benefit of the Centre’s surrender and rehabilitation scheme even three years after their surrender, Md. Kaji Umar, former ‘chairman’ of PULF, warned, “We are setting the deadline for extending all the benefits to my cadres by January 10 next year (2016). If there is no response from the Government, we may launch an agitation or go back to the jungles.”

Interestingly, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) on February 26, 2015, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had stated that the Government of India (GoI) had been implementing a scheme for surrender-cum-rehabilitation of militants of the Northeast region since 1998. The scheme provided for a one time grant of INR 150,000, a monthly stipend/remuneration of INR 3,500 per cadre, and incentives for weapons, etc., to be given to the surrenderees. In Manipur, he added, the one-time grant was INR 250,000 and the monthly stipend/remuneration was INR 4,000 per cadre, under a special surrender-cum-rehabilitation scheme formulated in 2012. During the financial year 2013-14, INR 155.5 million was released to the northeastern States towards payment of stipend/remuneration to cadres under the Suspension of Operations (SoO) and surrender schemes.

In a related development, in September 2014, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) had announced the raising of one battalion each of the Border Security Force (BSF) and Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB), comprising surrendered militants from Manipur and Assam. The UMHA plans to recruit 750 former militants each for the two battalions in BSF and SSB. Earlier, on February 13, 2015, Union Home Minister (UHM) Rajnath Singh, during his two-day visit to the State, had disclosed, “We will soon be recruiting surrendered militants. However, I cannot give you a time frame.”

Meanwhile, a series of developments in the northeast, especially in Manipur, since the August 3, 2015, Peace Accord between the Centre and the NSCN-IM, raised serious concerns that the security situation in the region could dramatically worsen in the coming months. Reports estimate that 400 Nagas may have been recruited by NSCN-IM since then. There were also reports of the group recruiting more cadres from parts of eastern Nagaland. NSCN-IM is believed to have had about 2,500 cadres before the Accord, and is believed to be targeting recruitment of another 1,000 cadres, mostly from Manipur. Sources in the security agencies are also reported to have indicated that NSCN-IM has probably set up training camps in the Manipur Hills to accommodate fresh cadres and is contributing to possible new flare-ups in inter-tribe tensions in this fragile State. Media reports further suggest that, since the Accord, reports of extortion, arms and drugs smuggling have registered a rising trend in Manipur, with an unnamed official quoted as asserting, “Most of it is being done by I-M (NSCN-IM) cadres.”

The issue of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) continued to trouble the State through 2015. In June, the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS), a pro-ILP movement which has been agitating for long to implement the system in Manipur, restarted its agitation demanding withdrawal of “The Manipur Regulation of Visitors, Tenants & Migrant Workers Bill 2015”. The stir intensified with the killing of a youth in Police firing on July 8, 2015. The State faced a complete blockade on numerous occasions. Buckling under pressure, the Government of Manipur was forced to sign an agreement with the JCILPS on August 25, 2015. Subsequently, on August 28, 2015, the Manipur Legislative Assembly passed the Protection of Manipur Peoples’ Bill, 2015, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015. These Bills place restrictions on the entry into and exit from Manipur for Non Manipur persons and tenants; prohibit the sale of land belonging to a Scheduled Tribe person in the valley areas to a non Scheduled Tribe person without the prior consent of the Deputy Commissioner concerned; and make it mandatory for all shop owners to register their employees, respectively. As expected, the move was protested, with the Joint Action Committee against Inner Line Permit (JACILP) leading the stir. The agitation intensified as nine tribal youths were killed on August 31, 2015, in Police firing at Churachandpur District. According to reports, the bodies of the victims are still being kept at a morgue as a mark of protest. H. Mangchinkhup, the convener of the JACILP, declared, on December 9, 2015, “We will not bury the bodies till the three Bills are repealed. They will be kept in the morgue in Churachandpur till our demands are met.” Meanwhile, JCILPS has threatened to re-start its agitation from January 3, 2016, claiming the State Government has done nothing over the three Bills once they were referred to the President. A serious confrontation is building up.

The security profile in Manipur has improved enormously over the past years, but potentially destabilizing issues and trends persist. A multiplicity of militant formations continue to exert efforts to restore their dominance across ethnically polarized populations, even as a move for unification of many of these groups with the violent armed formations in other Northeastern States appears to be consolidating. SFs have done extraordinary work to bring back an approximation of normalcy to the State, but it will take enormous (and as yet unlikely) political sagacity to ensure that the gains they have secured through untold sacrifices are not frittered away, as they have repeatedly been in the past.

* Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

When talking about the year just ahead of us, 2016, we cannot do so without focusing on a good old story of “unfinished” business. Namely, the beauty of ignorance within the area of South-East Europe is so obvious that is inspirable to talk about – especially when talking about History as magistra vitae. Here, however, History is just the opposite – a magistra of death. And yet, about the past it is best to talk about it. It’s almost as if, because my past, and our past was so devastated, that we must to continue to devastate the past of others and those who are different from us, as they continuously are saying, while not thinking at all that here the “other and different” is so close (culturally, historically, socially, genetically…) to me and us. But this will not stop me and us to hate him or her because to avoid doing so only reminds me of who I really am.

Europe is sinking because of a rise of chauvinism and nationalism. The world is on the edge of thoughts and exclusion, through the mouthes of creatures such as Donald Trump, who are full of hatred towards the “others and different ones,” starting with immigrants from Latin America and continuing towards Muslims. Who knows, maybe within Trump’s blood (which is red, by the way, the same color as the blood of “others and different ones”) there are some blood cells of his (there is confirmed info that war criminal Adolf Hitler had some Jewish blood as well, as was written within the Telegraph back in 2010) that are the same as from the people he is now attacking, from Latin America to Middle East.

Why, is this happening now in this era of the new media revolution and a radical shift — changing everything we are supposed to think to help people, in general, to shift towards a better understanding of each other — and where there is no lack of information about “other and different ones”?  That’s because there is a Catch 22 within the digital world of new reality: Absurdum is anarchy within Internet and, of course, that the more suitable and sophisticated approach to propaganda is a reflection on the human mind is more radical than “ordinary” people like us. Why is this? Because global world controllers, regardless of whether we think that they exist or not (my quote: “Theory of conspiracy does not exists, but it works!”) does not need a world of peace. Again, why? If we had peace, then what would happen with enormous production of weapons and ammunition? What would happen with all the humanitarian aid organizations? What would happen with all the so-called NGO’s, fighters for human rights and survival of human kind all around the world? After all, what would happen to each and every state in the World if peace become GOOD FOR ALL AND NOW.

It is a utopia for the now and for good. Why? The answer is simple: Real believers in world peace are not going to churches, mosques and parliamentary assembles around the world. Real believers act not through any kind of world aid of NGO organizations. Real believers act through their personal stands, opinion and behavior reflected within the strong attitude that whoever kills one person, kill the entire world.

But, again, is the answer a continuum of the never admitted anarchy that is reflected in the never-ending story of World wars, which started in the beginning of last century and continue into the beginning of this one as well? Is there an answer in depopulation through the planned activities of local wars and airplanes for spraying?

Nevertheless, recent developments in the area of South-East Europe show that something is again (sic!) happening behind the screen and developing into  a new disaster:

1. In Croatia, there was the inauguration of a new president on 15.2.2015 (Ms. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović from the nationalist right center party HDZ) and after recent Parliamentary elections (8.11.2015) where the mentioned party is back in power together with another so called THE BRIDGE of independent lists (nobody knows who are they, but if they have coalition with HDZ, it stinks of being a “right” one).

2. In Serbia, there was the inauguration of new president since 31.5.2012 (Mr. Tomislav Nikolić) from the nationalist right-center party SNS and after recent Parliamentary elections back in May 2012.

3. In Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Republic of Srpska and Milorad Dodik (Serb), who as the president who does not respect at all, as president of one entity, the state of BiH as the whole country up to Dragan Čović (Croat) who, together with Bosniak-Muslim member of presidency of BiH creates fairy tale of one and joint opinion on everything, but…all of them are nationalists (two out of three of them even former communists).

Why I have stated the situation within three former Yugoslavian republics? Because the mouth of the leaders are full of European integration (Croatia is even member of EU) and mutual understandings, but in real-time all of them are heavily loaded with hatred against the “other and different ones” under the table. So, what we can expect within the next 3-4 years for the Balkans? Just to remind you, after the so-called democratic elections in former Yugoslavian republics back in 1990 and end of Yugoslavia, it took only – not almost two years – to have bloodiest war ever in Europe after World War II which lasted, with few interruptions until 1999. Somebody said it never stopped. Leaders of the people just took a break/intermezzo.

Again, why? The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a ruling just a month ago, which was rejected even by Parliament of Republic of Srpska and in the same time Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić will come on 09.1.2016 and jointly celebrate the Day of Republic of Srpska in Banja Luka, with Milorad Dodik, president of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity – Republic of Srpska. It will happen regardless of the ruling of Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that mentioned “Republic Day” does not reflect the wishes all constitutional citizens of that BH entity and that day is not in accordance with Constitution of BiH. The Constitutional Court of BiH gave to the Assembly of Republic of Srpska period of 180 days to agree upon the ruling of Constitutional court of BiH.

At the same time, with the growing up of the nationalistic parties in Federation part of BiH (recent coalition of Muslim SDA party and Muslim SBB party on Federal level) some chauvinistic and terroristic acts have happened recently, from the killing of two soldiers in the Sarajevo suburban area on 19.11.2015 and more recently, on 22.12.2015, the arrest of 11 suspected Islamist terrorists in Sarajevo again, who were, apparently planning to kill at least 100 hundred people in a bomb blast during New Year Eve 2016 in Sarajevo. Amazing, how those terrorists start to expose rapidly themselves during the returning back in power of right wing parties. Is it a coincidence or not, we can only guess, until this country becomes to respect the Rule of Law, instead as it is nowadays which is the Law of Rule.

In Croatia, with entering to European Union, all different right wing parties became popular again (as it was in nineties of the last century) within the last couple of years and even some of them had fascistic sayings like what has been said recently by Ladislav Ilčić (established as “Croatian Donald Trump”), on 13.12.2015 and related to Muslims.…quote: “He stated that the refugees coming from Africa and Asia are “biologically stronger” than the Europeans and have many children. Ilčić himself admitted later in another interview that he has five children and shares many of the cultural views of Muslims. He said, however, that although children are equally valuable, they are different”..end of quote. Amazing, isn’t it.

Finally, what we can expect within the new media revolution and radical shift with the radicals on power – or, as they would like to be called, “right center”? Nothing good and nothing special we can expect within the area of South-East Europe.

Why, again? Because, they are all ready to re-start the bloody war against the “other and different ones” just and only to stay in power within the area where more than 50 % of people are unemployed. Is that enough? Want more? OK, they are willing even to agree to kill some of their own and blame others. Want more? They will make coalition with even angry enemies, like late Muslim leader of BiH, Alija Izetbegović which has made with right wing Serbian party SDS after the war just to avoid to have “communists” as SDP (it is surprising that they: SDP – have connection with communists as I do with nationalists) back on power in 1996, after the war in BiH.

So, Very Happy New 2016 Year to the area of South East Europe quoting my 29 year old son who answered my question on 26.12.2015: “Where do you see Bosnia and Herzegovina ten years from now? (it is the same for Croatia and Serbia as well)…the following: “Behind my back.”

Painfully, but truthfully, really. That is why the rock’n’roll… of stupidity…will never die. Especially within Balkans.

Saudi Arabia’s Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman on Monday announced a national budget plan of SR840 billion for 2016, with a view to reducing the deficit and a drive to raise revenues from sources other than oil.

In a Cabinet session, King Salman said the budget is “based on solid foundations with multiple sources of income.”

“Our economy has all that it needs to face the current economic challenges, the priority will be for the completion of projects in previous budgets,” he said.

Next year’s budget projects is down from SR975 billion spent this year. The original budget plan for 2015 projected spending of SR860 billion.

The 2016 budget plan aims to cut deficit to SR326 billion, lower than the deficit of SR367 billion ($97.9 billion) in 2015, the Council of Economic and Development Affairs said.

Cutting the deficit is meant to reduce pressure on the government to pay its bills by liquidating assets held abroad.

Revenues next year are forecast at SR514 billion, down from revenues of SR608 billion in 2015.

This year’s original budget plan envisaged SR715 billion of revenues.

The budget comes in the wake of the decline in the growth of the global economy, and in the absence of the stability of some neighboring countries.