Authorities in China’s Xinjiang region are thought to be detaining ethnic minority Kazakhs for wearing “Islamic” clothing and praying, a practice forbidden by the Communist Party on university campuses.

Kazakh sources estimated that “more than 20” ethnic Kazakhs have gone missing, believed detained, and that details were only available for a few of them, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

Two were named as Saltanati Murat, 21, a student at the Traditional Chinese Medicine University in Jilin province, and Aliteng, 20, a student at Changchun Normal University, the sources said.

“They were doing Muslim prayers while at university, and they were reported by their classmates to a teacher.”

“The teacher reported them to the police in Xinjiang, and the Xinjiang police went over there and detained them,” RFA quoted the source as saying.

“They didn’t wear ordinary clothing, but rather loose clothing that is in keeping with Islam, like long skirts and headscarves,” he said. “But they didn’t wear anything that covered their faces.”

“They were detained more than three months ago, and there has been no news of them since,” he said.

Another detainee was named as Alvay, 35, an ethnic Kazakh man from Jeminay County in Xinjiang.

When police took him away, they said it was for “frequent attendance at mosque and prayers,” sources said.

Senior government officials from across Asia and the Pacific will meet in Bangkok this week for the first-ever Asia-Pacific Ministerial Summit on the Environment. The high-level meeting is co-convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) and UN Environment and is a unique opportunity for the region’s environment leaders to discuss how they can work together towards a resource efficient and pollution-free Asia-Pacific.

At the core of the meeting is the question: how can we use our resources more efficiently to continue to grow our economies in a manner that does not tax our natural environment or generate pollution affecting public health and ecosystem health. There is certainly much room for improvement to make in this area.

Resources such as fossil fuels, biomass, metals and minerals are essential to build economies. However, the region’s resource efficiency has regressed in recent years. Asia is unfortunately the least resource efficient region in the world. In 2015, we used one third more materials to produce each unit of GDP than in 1990. Developing countries use five times as many resources per dollar of GDP in comparison to rest of the world and10 times more than industrialized countries in the region. This inefficiency of resource use results into wastage and pollution further affecting the natural resources and public health which are the basic elements for ensuring sustainable economic growth.

As the speed and scale of economic growth continues to accelerate across the region, pollution has become a critical area for action. While the challenge of pollution is a global one, the impacts are overwhelmingly felt in developing countries. About 95 per cent of adults and children who are impacted by pollution-related illnesses live in low and middle-income countries. Asia and the Pacific produces more chemicals and waste than any other region in the world and accounts for the bulk – 25 out of 30 – of cities with highest levels of PM 2.5, the tiny atmospheric particulate matter that can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and cancer. More than 80 per cent of our rivers are heavily polluted while five of the top land-based ocean plastic sources are from countries in our region. Estimates put the cost of marine pollution to regional economies at a staggering US$1.3 billion.

If left unattended, these trends threaten to up end hard-won economic gains and hamper human development. But while these challenges appear intractable, the region has tremendous strengths and opportunities to draw from. Many countries hold solid track records of successful economic transformation. The capacity for promoting environmental sustainability as an integral pillar of sustainable development must now be developed across all countries in the region

There are some profound changes underway in Asia and the Pacific. The region is experiencing the largest rural to urban migration in history. Developing these new urban areas with resource-efficient buildings, waste water and solid waste management systems can do much to advance this agenda. Advancing the “sharing economy” might mean we have better utilization of assets such as vehicles, houses or other assets, greatly reducing material inputs and pollution. The widespread move to renewable energy should rein in fossil fuel use. And advances in recycling, materials technology, 3D printing and manufacturing could also support greater resource circularity.

Moving to green technologies and eco innovation offer economic and employment opportunities. Renewable energy provided jobs for 9.8 million people worldwide in 2016. Waste can be converted into economic opportunities, including jobs. In Cebu City– the second-largest city in the Philippines, concerted Solid Waste Management has borne fruit: waste has been reduced by 30 per cent in 2012; treatment of organic waste in neigbourhoods has led to lower transportation costs and longer use period in landfills. The poor have largely benefited from hundreds of jobs that have been created.

At the policy level, it is vital that resource efficiency and pollution prevention targets are integrated into national development agendas, and targeted legal and regulatory measures to enforce resource efficiency standards should be established. For example, the Government of China has instituted a national system of legislation, rules and regulations that led to the adoption of a compulsory national cleaner production audit system that has been in place for more than 10 years. The direct economic benefits from this system is estimated to be more than $3 billion annually.

Further, we need an urgent reform of financial instruments. Too little capital is supporting the transition to green and resource efficient economy – major portion of current investments is still in high-carbon and resource-intensive, polluting economies.

Polluter pay principle and environmental externalities are not yet fully integrated into pricing mechanisms and investment models. The availability of innovative financing mechanisms and integrated evaluation methods are important for upscaling and replicating resource-efficient practices. For example, the large-scale promotion of biogas plants in Viet Nam was made possible by harnessing global climate finance funds. Several countries in the region area are already emerging as leaders in the development of comprehensive, systemic approaches that embed sustainable finance at the heart of financial market development, such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and we should draw from the positive lessons learned from these experiences.

Resource efficiency and pollution prevention must be recognized as an important target for action by science, technological and innovation systems. This is important for the ongoing development of technology, and for scaling up technologies. Research shows that developing countries could cut their annual energy demand by more than half, from 3.4 percent to 1.4 percent, over the next 12 years. This would leave energy consumption some 22 percent lower than it would otherwise have been – an abatement equivalent to the entire energy consumption in China today.

We need to move to a more resource efficient and pollution free growth path that supports and promotes healthy environments. The cost of inaction for managing resources efficiently and preventing pollution is too high and a threat to economies, livelihoods and health across the region.

*About the authors:
Shamshad Akhtar, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Erik Solheim, Executive Director, United Nations Environment

The Catholic Benefits Association (CBA), which provides health coverage to many Catholic entities, is asking President Trump to repeal and replace the HHS mandate that was sponsored by President Obama. We second that call: Trump’s Justice Department continues to inexplicably honor an appeal to the Tenth Circuit that seeks to undo the CBA’s injunctive relief from the HHS mandate.

“No government action in American history has ever resulted in more lawsuits by religious organizations,” says the CBA. Moreover, the reasons brokered are wholly indefensible.

The HHS mandate fundamentally guts the right of Catholic non-profits to provide healthcare that is consistent with Catholic teachings. Worse, it grants the government the right to decide whether a Catholic institution is sufficiently Catholic, thus obliterating church and state lines.

Make no mistake about it, granting the right of the federal government to decide whether a Catholic association is truly Catholic is a pernicious power grab, one that flies in the face of the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty. This is clearly the most draconian element of the HHS mandate.

What makes this all the more disturbing is the ruling by the Trump administration’s HHS declaring the ObamaCare HHS mandate illegal. Why, then, the foot dragging on the part of the Justice Department?

The Trump administration does not have to wait for a repeal of ObamaCare to do what is morally and constitutionally right—it can repeal the HHS mandate at any time.

We all understand the frustration that accompanies the slow rate of presidential appointees, but this issue does not turn on new personnel: Attorney General Jeff Sessions can withdraw the Tenth Circuit appeal without delay.

One way or the other, Catholics need to know whether the president is going to fulfill his pledge to protect the religious liberty of the Little Sisters of the Poor, as well as all the other Catholic groups that are party to these lawsuits.

Pakistan, already furious and reeling from US President Donald J. Trump’s threat to sanction it for supporting militants, has been dealt a potential body blow out of left field. Five major emerging powers, including China and Russia, have for the first time identified Pakistan-backed militant groups as a regional security threat in a statement at the end of a summit in Xiamen.

The statement by the BRICS countries, which also include India, Brazil and South Africa, called into question the degree to which Pakistan will be able to resist US pressure by aligning itself closer with China and Russia. It also strengthened India’s position that had already been boosted by Mr. Trump urging Delhi to step up its engagement in Afghanistan.

The statement could trap Pakistan in a pincer movement in which the very fundament of its national security policy would be challenged. Pakistan has long seen various militant groups, many of which have been designated as terrorists by the United Nations and/or the United States, as useful proxies in its zero-sum-game-approach towards India.

Pakistan has also supported the Taliban in part to counter India, which it says uses Afghanistan as a launching pad for covert operations inside Pakistan. A former senior Indian military commander recently acknowledged that Afghanistan was important to India because its security services had over the years moved away from gathering human intelligence in Pakistan.

Defense Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan rejected the statement within hours of its publication. “We reject this thing categorically, no terrorist organization has any complete safe havens,” Mr. Khan told a Pakistani tv station.

In an Afghanistan-focused speech on US policy in South Asia, Mr. Trump last month insisted that Pakistan’s partnership with the United States would not survive if it continued to harbour and support groups that target the United States.

In response, Pakistan asked US Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells to indefinitely postpone a planned visit to Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistani foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif cancelled a visit to Washington and said he would be visiting China, Russia and Turkey instead.

The BRICS statement threatens however to pull the rug from under what Mr. Asif hoped to achieve on his travels. The statement was in stark contrast to China and Russia’s response to Mr. Trump’s threat. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at the time insisted that Pakistan was on the front line in the struggle against terrorism and had made “great sacrifices” and “important contributions” in the fight. Russia responded similarly to Mr. Trump.

The BRICS statement, however, sang a very different tone even if it did not identify Pakistan by name. It noted that Chinese President Xi Jingping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Michel Temer and South African President Jacob Zuma “express concern on the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, ISIL/DAISH, Al-Qaida and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

Pakistan stands accused of supporting several of these groups, including the Taliban, the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Pakistan put Muhammed Hafez Saeed, one of the world’s most wanted men and the UN and US-designated leader of Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely viewed as a LeT front, under house arrest earlier this year. LeT itself has been designated by both the UN and Pakistan. JuD recently announced that it was forming a political party that would compete in elections.

Mr. Saeed is believed to be among others responsible for the 2008 attacks on 12 targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal Hotel, a train station, a café and a Jewish centre. Some 164 people were killed and more than 300 wounded. The US government has a bounty of $10 million on Mr. Saeed who was once a LeT leader. He has since disassociated himself from the group and denied any link between JuD and LeT.

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a group proscribed by both the UN and Pakistan, poses a more difficult challenge and its naming in the BRICS statement puts not only Pakistan but also China on the spot. China, at the behest of Pakistan, twice this year prevented the United Nations from listing the group’s leader, Masood Azhar, as a globally designated terrorist.

Mr. Azhar, a fighter in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and an Islamic scholar who graduated from a Deobandi madrassah, Darul Uloom Islamia Binori Town in Karachi, the alma mater of numerous Pakistani militants, is believed to have been responsible for an attack last year on India’s Pathankot Air Force Station. The militants, dressed in Indian military uniforms fought a 14-hour battle against Indian security forces that only ended when the last attacker was killed.

Mr. Azhar, a portly bespectacled son of a Bahawalpur religious studies teacher and author of a four-volume treatise on jihad as well as books with titles like Forty Diseases of the Jews, was briefly detained after the attack and has since gone underground.

Freed from Indian prison in 1999 in exchange for the release of passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines flight, Mr. Azhar is also believed to be responsible for an attack in 2001 on the Indian parliament in New Delhi that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. JeM despite being banned continues to publicly raise funds and recruit fighters in Pakistani mosques.

“You cannot have good and bad terrorists, and it is a collective action. Members of the BRICS countries have themselves been victims of terrorism, and I would say that what has come of today acknowledges the fact that we must work collectively in handling this,” Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman Preeti Saran told reporters immediately after BRICS issued its statement.

The Xiamen statement is certain to have caught Pakistan off balance. Mr. Asif is likely to find out what the statement means when he visits Beijing and Moscow. Ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding when the UN Security Council in early 2018 again looks at designating Mr. Azhar and China will have to take a stand.

Already, China’s more than $50 billion investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy has been threatened by attacks by militant groups that are the target of Pakistani crackdowns. The BRICS statement suggests that Chinese patience with Pakistan’s selective support of militancy may be wearing thin.

That could be good news for Mr. Trump. To turn it to his advantage, Mr. Trump would have to find common ground with China and Russia in forging a negotiated exit from America’s Afghan quagmire. Sixteen years into the war, Mr. Trump is increasing the US military presence in Afghanistan. The silver lining is that he hopes that will force the Taliban to come to the negotiating table.

By Nick Cunningham

The EIA has once again undercut its previous estimates for U.S. oil production, offering further evidence that the U.S. shale industry is not producing as much as everyone thinks.

The monthly EIA oil production figures tend to be more accurate than the weekly estimates, although they are published on several months after the fact. The EIA just released the latest monthly oil production figures for June, for example. Meanwhile, the agency releases production figures on a weekly basis that are only a week old – the latest figures run up right through August.

The weekly figures are more like guestimates though, less solid, but the best we can do in nearly real-time. It is not surprising that they are subsequently revised as time passes and the agency gets more accurate data.

But the problem is that for several months now, the monthly and the weekly data have diverged by non-trivial amounts. The weekly figures have been much higher than what the monthly data reveal only later. And remember, it is the monthly data that tends to be more accurate.

Let’s take a look. A month ago, I wrote about how the EIA’s monthly data for May put U.S. oil production at 9.169 million barrels per day (mb/d). But back in May, the EIA’s weekly figures told a different story. The agency thought at the time that the U.S. was producing nearly 200,000 bpd more than turned out to be the case. Here were the weekly estimates at the time:

• May 5: 9.314 mb/d
• May 12: 9.305 mb/d
• May 19: 9.320 mb/d
• May 26: 9.342 mb/d

But two months later, the EIA published its final estimate for May, and put the figure at 9.169 mb/d. So, as it turns out, the U.S. was producing much less in May than we thought at the time.

Now, the EIA has once again skewered its own weekly estimates. On August 31, it released monthly figures for June, and the discrepancy is even larger than the month before. The EIA says oil production in the U.S. actually declined in June, falling by 73,000 bpd to just 9.097 mb/d. Compare that to what the agency thought at the time with its weekly estimates:

• June 2: 9.318 mb/d
• June 9: 9.330 mb/d
• June 16: 9.350 mb/d
• June 23: 9.250 mb/d
• June 30: 9.338 mb/d

If those figures were correct, the U.S. would have averaged something like 9.317 mb/d for June. But the EIA now says that data was wrong, and in reality the figure should have been 9.097. In other words, in June, the U.S. produced 220,000 bpd less than we thought at the time.

This may seem like nitpicking, but it’s not exactly a tiny number. If that gap were to persist for the full-year, it’s nearly equivalent to half of what Saudi Arabia promised to cut as part of the OPEC deal, or substantially more than what the IEA expects Canada to add in new supplies this year.

More importantly, if the U.S. is actually producing much less than the market thinks, there is a much stronger bullish case for oil than conventional wisdom dictates. After all, there are massive shale production gains from the U.S. baked into oil price forecasts. For example, the EIA sees U.S. oil production surging from 9.3 mb/d this year to 9.9 mb/d in 2018, a gain of 600,000 bpd.

But the problem is that not only will it be difficult to reach that 9.9 mb/d, but it now looks like an uphill battle for the U.S. to reach that 9.3 mb/d figure in 2017. For the first six months of this year, the U.S. only averaged 9.071 mb/d. It will have to seriously ramp up production in order to reach that 9.3 mb/d estimate for the full-year. In reality, that looks very unlikely.

That means that ramping up to 9.9 mb/d next year would also appear out of reach, particularly since the shale industry seemed to stall out this summer. Production actually fell from May to June; the rig count has plateaued; some shale companies are already reporting some problems; the lingering effects of Hurricane Harvey will likely impact shale growth rates for months to come (although refinery outages are bearish in the near-term); and sub-$50 WTI prices will keep shale companies from recklessly spending more than they already are.

In short, the U.S. shale industry is on track to disappoint, which would mean there is a lot of upside risk to oil prices.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/How-EIA-Guestimates-Keep-Oil-Prices-Subdued.html

The temporary joint venture comprised of Indra, the Italian companies Almaviva (main contractor of the JV) and Almawave, and PwC has been awarded lot 4 of the public tender for the Public Connectivity System (PCS), the major digital transformation and connection project across different public administrations in Italy.

Indra is one of the world’s top consulting and technology companies, the absolute leader in IT in Spain, and a technology partner for the key operations of its customers’ businesses worldwide.

It’s estimated that the awarded lot will reap €109 million in revenues for Indra in five years, if the different public administrations deploy the total projects planned within the framework agreements. To this figure we must also add €77 million corresponding to Indra’s participation in lot 3, which raise revenues for the company to a total of €186 million.

Lot 4 contemplates the development of web portals and online services, including access from mobile devices using Enterprise Content Management (ECM) to offer citizens digital services in line with the specifications defined by the Agency for the Digitalization of Italy (AgID). This new contract is added to lot 3 awarded last April to develop solutions for systems integration between applications of the Italian public administrations.

Both projects have been awarded by Consip, the public procurement central of the Italian public administrations, which has evaluated the offers presented by the joint venture, in accordance with the guidelines established by AgID. These are framework contract tenders, which entails their materialization into different contracts with each public administration at central, local and regional levels.

These initiatives will enable the Italian administration to speed up citizens’ access to public services through new digital channels and offer more transparent, standardized information. Likewise, they will contribute to savings of costs and time, and will allow for providing user-focused end services while avoiding duplicated information.

Indra will implement both projects with the support of Minsait, its digital transformation unit, supplying experts to provide support from the company offices in Rome, Milan, Naples and Matera. These are two of the largest contracts won in recent years in Europe by the consulting and technology company.

The Public Connectivity System is the main digital development and connection project of Italian public administrations. The system’s objective is to guarantee the coordination of digital data and information between central, local and regional administrations, promote the standardization of data processing and transmission for information exchange and dissemination across public administrations, and implement integrated services.

The PCS tenders are comprised of four lots: lots 1 and 2, awarded in 2016; and lots 3 (for a total amount of €400 million in five years) and 4 (valued at €450 million in five years), awarded to the joint venture composed of Indra, Almaviva, Almawave and PwC. Lot 1 includes the provision of Cloud services (Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service), with the goal of centralizing and optimizing costs associated with the datacenters of Italy’s public administrations. Lot 2 includes the digital identity systems that grant citizens secure access to all of the services of Italy’s public administrations through a single portal.

The former US President Barack Obama’s South Asia strategy was clearly reflected in his visit twice to India and never to Pakistan. While Pakistan was not treated like an ally during his two terms in White House, Obama gave India the attention and support that the US generally gives an ally.

The current US President Donald Trump’s South Asia strategy seems to be no different from his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump – in his recent address to a group of US troops on the 21st of August where he laid down his administration’s South Asia strategy – largely denounced Pakistan for harboring militants and called on India to step up its efforts in the region, including Afghanistan.

Obama’s overtures towards India, gradual abandonment of Pakistan

Obama was the first US president in history to visit India twice. Twice it is. This is the same Obama who did not visit Pakistan in his two terms. Never it is. Indeed, ‘twice against never’ gives a clear understanding of the US foreign policy during Obama’s terms with regard to these two neighboring rivals. While Pakistan was no more treated like an ally, India got the favors that the US generally gives an ally.

Furthermore, despite the US’s good relations with India’s arch rival Pakistan from the cold war era, Obama administration’s move to order the killing of Osama Bin Laden in a hideout in Pakistan had caused serious rift between Obama administration and the Pakistani establishment during the time. While Pakistan interpreted the killing as an attack on its sovereignty, Barack Obama became suspicious of Pakistani commitment to US’ interest after discovering Bin Laden in Pakistan.

From Obama’s time in the White House, Pakistan has been facing criticisms from different influential corners in the US on various grounds, including its inability in doing what is required to be done in combating militancy in the region. Although the previous US administration, under Obama, used less cold words against Pakistan, the administration was slowly moving towards creating a stage for its successors to gradually cast off Pakistan in the US’s attempt to embrace Pakistan’s arch rival India and put indirect pressure on China, which is Pakistan’s strategic partner against India.

US further embraces India under Trump, denigrates Pakistan

From his recent address, it appears that Trump’s policy is not different from that of Obama when it comes to South Asia, particularly with regard to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Instead, Trump seems to be heading towards intensifying those courses of actions undertaken by Obama.

In his address, Trump appreciated India’s contributions so far in Afghanistan and referred India as a key security and economic partner of the US. He invited India to play a greater role in Afghanistan in the area of economic assistance and development. Thus, what came out implicitly in Trump’s address was his administration’s urge for a greater Indian role in South Asia.

The Trump administration’s desire for a greater Indian role in South Asia, particularly Afghanistan, has certain implications for the US’ relations with Pakistan, which has a profoundly hostile relationship with India centering Kashmir and has long been suspicious of Indian involvement in Afghan affairs, with the fear of India using its tie with Afghanistan national government to encircle Pakistan.

Trump’s address further reflected his administration’s intention to take a hard-line approach towards Pakistan, which Trump said provides safe havens for terrorists. “No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target US service members and officials,” said Trump as a blunt message to Pakistan. It seems Trump is not backing off from Obama’s strategy of gradually distancing from Pakistan for the sake of a wholehearted relation with Pakistan’s arch rival India.

Like Obama, Trump too has negative outlook towards Pakistan due to the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and previously translated the Bin Laden incident as Pakistan’s indirect shelter for someone who was waging a war against the US.

Further to the US’ suspicion on Pakistan over harboring various armed groups, Pakistan’s ever growing intimacy with China, a country which the US perceives as the major threat to its interest in the greater Asia Pacific and the Indian Oceanic region, had been earning Pakistan a bad name in the US policy making structure during Obama’s tenure in White House and the US’s displeasure towards this relationship is now clearly reflected in Trump’s policy.

Wrapping Up

All in all, thee Trump administration’s South Asia strategy does not seem to alter the strategy that its predecessor Obama administration had formulated for the region. Instead, it seems the overtures Obama was making towards India and the silent retreat his administration was making from supporting its old ally Pakistan have only got an advanced outlook through Trump administration’s South Asia policy.

Modern fascism emerged in Italy during the first world war. Waging war had required the establishment of an all-powerful state able to mobilize the whole nation. After the war fear of left-wing agitation, fostered in part by the Russian Revolution of 1917, led to widespread approval of the authoritarian rule that had arisen in Italy. As a result a fascist party under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini eventually took control of the nation.

Italian fascists believed, among a host of other things, that liberal democracy had become obsolete, that individual rights should be subordinated to the needs of the state, and that society should be purged of supposedly inferior elements.

These ideas, prevalent also in the thuggish Nazi party then fighting to establish itself in Germany, found their echo in the United Kingdom. Oswald Mosley, a scion of a minor aristocratic family, became a member of parliament when only 22. Having joined and then left both main political parties one after another, he founded his own party which veered increasingly towards the extreme right. Then a visit to Mussolini in 1931 led him to create the British Union of Fascists.

Faced with violent anti-fascist disruptions to his meetings, Mosley established a corps of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, nicknamed Blackshirts. With his use of the Nazi salute, a flag highly reminiscent of the swastika, and a misplaced nationalism backed by rabid anti-Semitic propaganda, Mosley clearly saw himself on a par with Hitler, as the potential dictator of a fascist Britain.

“I openly and publicly challenge the Jewish interests of this country,” he declared in April 1935, “commanding commerce, commanding the Press, commanding the cinema. dominating the City of London.”

Mosley and his blackshirts were about to provoke the iconic anti-fascist protest of the modern age – a protest that historian Mark Bray describes in his just-published “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” as a potent symbol of how to stop fascism, an incident central to the anti-fascist mythology, a kind of North Star in the fight against fascism and white supremacy.

In late September 1936, posters appeared across London declaring: “Mosley speaks in East London. Four great meetings. Four marching columns.”

He was threatening to march thousands of blackshirts right through the streets of East London’s large Jewish district, known as Whitechapel. This was interpreted by Jews and workers alike as a challenge to battle. The British communist party equipped its cohorts with banners and placards reading “Mosley Shall Not Pass!”

On Sunday, October 4, when the police tried to clear a route for the blackshirts through Cable Street, they met determined resistance. Vast numbers of East Enders, including Irish dockers and railway workers, came to help Jews build barricades. In the ensuing encounter the anti-fascists completely outnumbered blackshirts and police combined. The police retreated and ordered Mosley to leave. Resolute defiance had won a famous victory. The Battle of Cable Street went down in history as a prime example of how the forces of intolerance could be overcome by ordinary people acting together in a good cause.

Exactly, it has been claimed, what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11 and 12, 2017.

Nominally the rally on Saturday, August 12 was organized in opposition to a plan by local officials to remove a statue of Robert E Lee, the Confederacy’s top general, from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. This seemed to be one in a series of such protests mounted in other Southern cities against taking down Confederate monuments, but the forces behind this rally ran much deeper. Right-wing extremism, including white nationalism and white supremacy, had been on the rise for some time. The Robert E Lee statue was to prove a flashpoint.

Tensions had begun increasing on the evening of Friday, August 11, when a group of white nationalists marched through the University of Virginia’s campus chanting Nazi and white supremacist slogans, including “White lives matter”; “you will not replace us”; and “Jews will not replace us.” The phrase “you will not replace us” has been reported by the Anti-Defamation League to “reflect the white supremacist world view that… the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged ‘rising tide of color’ purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews.”

So, just as in Cable Street, we have a group of extreme right-wing fascists shouting anti-Semitic slogans amid a flood of other hate-filled messages, bent on fomenting a violent encounter with those opposed to them. Where the comparison falls down is when we examine the motives of many of those – by no means all – who came to confront them.

The protest was orchestrated by the establishment that calls itself “Antifa”. Not really a structured organization, Antifa consists of loosely affiliated groups that are, by and large, socially leftist, anti-capitalist, even anarchist, but decidedly anti-racist. Many are also violently anti-Semitic.  Using anti-Zionism as a convenient cloak, Antifa demands that American Jews who support Israel are banned from public life, and it prohibits Israel-supporting Jews from participating in their events.  It advocates the elimination of Israel as a sovereign state, and promotes the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.

As one commentator recently wrote: “from the American Jewish community’s perspective, there ought to be no distinction between its abhorrence and concern over the white supremacists, and its concerns and abhorrence of the radical left.”

Why is Charlottesville different from Cable Street? Because anti-fascists in 2017 America have become enslaved to the fashionable “intersectionality”, which perceives a link between all manifestations of oppression, however diverse. Equal pay for women is related to Black Lives Matter. Left-wing opinion has decreed that Palestinians are quintessential victims. Their villainous oppressors are Israel, which it ridiculously accuses of every sort of monstrous criminality from harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians to apartheid to genocide. The logical outcome? If you oppose racism, homophobia, sexism, then you must oppose Israel, and by extension all those who support Israel, and by a further extension all Israelis, most of whom, by a curious chance, happen to be Jews. You must deny them a voice, ban them from public life, cut them off from academic interchange, boycott or disrupt their artistic performances.

The Cable Street anti-fascists were Jews supported by non-Jewish friends, neighbours and fellow workers, who hated the anti-Semitism of Oswald Mosley and his Nazi-aping bully-boys, and determined to make a stand against them. Antifa, on the other hand, contains within itself an anti-Semitism as prejudiced and as hateful as that mouthed by the fascists it opposes. Therein lies the essential difference.

Russia and China – allies of North Korea- have strongly defended  North Korea. The latest hydrogen bomb test has sent tremors across the western world represented by  NATO. The US, Japan and South Korea have condemned the missile firing in the strongest possible ways.

China has once again urged diplomatic talks to address the crisis with an emerging nuclear power North Korea and warned at the UN Security Council that it will not allow chaos and war on the Korean peninsula.

Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi said that the situation on the peninsula is deteriorating constantly as we speak, falling into a vicious circle. “The peninsula issue must be resolved peacefully. China will never allow chaos and war on the peninsula.” His appeal was echoed by Russia, which said that diplomatic negotiations were the only way to settle the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said there was, “an urgent need to maintain a cool head and refrain from any action that could further escalate tensions.” Russia backs China’s proposal for a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in exchange for a suspension of US-South Korea military drills.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley however rejected the proposal as “insulting” and said it was time to ratchet up the pressure on North Korea by enacting the “strongest possible measures.” “When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. No one would do that. We certainly won’t,” she declared.

Russia and China did not specify whether they would support additional sanctions on North Korea. The communist state has test-fired dozens of missiles and conducted three underground nuclear tests over the past year and a half in defiance of punishing UN Security Council sanctions and diplomatic pressure. It also has tens of thousands of soldiers and artillery positioned near the heavily fortified border that divides the peninsula.

The US, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea requested the urgent meeting after North Korea detonated what it described as a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile.

South Korea’s defense ministry warned Monday that Pyongyang may be preparing another missile launch after two tests in July of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that apparently brought the US mainland into range.

Meanwhile, North Korea has been observed moving what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) towards its west coast, South Korea’s Asia Business Daily reported, citing an unidentified intelligence source. The rocket started moving a day after North Korea’s sixth nuclear (Hydrogen) test, and was spotted moving at night to avoid surveillance, the report said. North Korea has launch facilities for its missile program on its west coast. South Korea’s defence ministry said they were unable to confirm the contents of the report. The ministry said in parliament that North Korea was considered ready to launch more missiles, including ICBMs, at any time.

South Korea is seen taking retaliatory steps to stop north from moving further with its nuclear blasts. Its defense minister said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict.

And even as concern over Korea deepened following North Korea’s huge nuclear test Sunday, South Korea’s defense ministry said that Pyongyang might be preparing to launch another missile into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps an intercontinental ballistic missile theoretically capable of reaching the mainland USA.

The US also feels the heat. In New York, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “begging for war.” President Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, spoke on the phone for 40 minutes, some 34 hours after the nuclear test and more than 24 hours after Trump took to twitter to criticize Moon’s “talk of appeasement.” The two agreed to remove the limit on allowed payloads for South Korean missiles — something Seoul had been pushing for – as a way to increase deterrence against North Korea, according to a read-out of the phone call from South Korea’s Blue House. They also agreed to work together to punish North Korea for Sunday’s nuclear test, including by pushing for tougher sanctions through the United Nations. In a later phone call, Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to the same conclusion.

At a Security Council meeting, Haley pressed for the “strongest possible” sanctions against the North for openly challenging American power.  She did not spell out US proposals or how she would overcome the objections of veto-wielding permanent members China and Russia. But she cautioned, war is never something her country wants. “We don’t want it now. But our country’s patience is not unlimited. We will defend our allies and our territory.”

Haley ruled out the “freeze for freeze” proposal backed by China and Russia, which would suspend US joint military exercises with South Korea in return for suspension of North Korean nuclear and missile tests. “When a ‘rogue’ regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. No one would do that. We certainly won’t,” she said. Instead, she reiterated a White House threat to cut off trade with any countries that also trade with North Korea. That would presumably include China, with which the US had nearly $650 billion worth of trade in goods and services last year. She said the US will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is giving aid to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions.

Haley’s remarks appeared to be unpersuasive. Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said. China will never allow chaos and war” in Korea, said Liu Jieyi, the Chinese ambassador to the UN Sanctions alone will not solve the crisis.

Meanwhile, South Korea, under pressure from Washington masters, is ready to install four more launchers to complete the deployment of a controversial US missile-defense system to counter the growing threat from the North, the defense ministry said. The ministry made the announcement as tensions spiked following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, which raised fears of military confrontation as the United States warned all options are on the table in dealing with the communist state. It didn’t give a date but suggested the remaining launchers would be installed soon.

US Forces Korea began deploying the anti-missile battery known as THAAD with two launchers and the radar in late April in an overnight operation that many saw as an effort to rush it into place before May 9 elections to replace ousted President Park Geun-hye. It made the THAAD agreement with Washington despite local protests and objections from China, which fears the system’s powerful radar could be used against it as well.

New SK President Moon Jae-in suspended the THAAD deployment shortly after taking office but reversed that decision as the North conducted increasingly advanced missile tests and rebuffed his efforts to pursue dialogue. Moon said the installment could be completed at least on a temporary basis pending a full environmental assessment of the site. The final administrative hurdle was cleared when the environmental ministry said that it has given conditional consent after finding the adverse impact on the area from THAAD was limited. The Ministry of National Defense then said it “is planning to deploy the four additional launchers temporarily sooner or later in order to cope with North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats.”

One thing is very clear. The US does not dare attack North Korea chiefly because Russia and China, hold veto powers, and oppose any such American misadventures. The Pentagon would not switch on its terror machinery towards Pyongyang chiefly because North Korea is not Afghanistan. True, North Korea is seen in Washington challenging the US military power, knowing full well it attacked Japan with its newly invented atomic bombs several decades ago and destabilized a powerful Iraq under Saddam Hussein and assassinating him in the crudest manner.

Can Assam, a northeast Indian province, be placed on a red-hot pan anytime by few motivated leaders even though for a wrong reason? If most of the Assamese speaking people often listen to a section of biased intellectuals, who make statements time to time with little or without any facts only to make confusion in the society, could they succeed in their evil mission?

Many such pertinent questions are being raised after a simple incident that was used for manufacturing a series of protests against the outsiders (if not foreigners) in the State. A group of traders, primarily from the Bengali speaking community, physically assaulted few former-rebels belonged to the banned United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) recently in Nagaon locality of central Assam.

Initial media reporting on local news channels narrated that the ex-Ulfa youths, who once wanted to make Assam independent out of India, went there asking money and then both the group ended up quarrelling and finally physical assaults. The traders were seen slapping some of the youths in CCTV footages. Few of the group also fled from the location. Finally the police arrived in the location to reduce the tension successfully.

By next day, the Ulfa leaders in Guwahati claimed that those youths went there to generate funds for flood reliefs. But the traders (read Bengalis) misbehaved them and thus they hurt the sentiment of locals (read indigenous people). Their voices were multiplied by a section of Assamese intellectuals inclusive of academician, writer, journalist, civil society activists etc through various media outlets.

The Ulfa (Independent) leader Paresh Barua, who has been hiding somewhere in China-Myanmar border areas waging the war against the Union government in New Delhi for years, immediately reacted to the incident and warned the traders of dire consequences.

Even the Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, who is engaged in peace talks with New Delhi also came out with the threatening statement against the outsiders.

Then came a group of distinguished Assamese individuals led by literary critic Dr Hiren Gohain, who asked the Bengali community of the State to come clean on the Nagaon incident. They alleged that the larger Bengali-speaking community had not condemned the incident with loud & clear voices. Indirectly they leveled the incident as a matter of Swabhiman (self-pride) for the local Assamese nationals.

By then, various Bengali organizations came out with their resentments against the Nagaon incident. They unanimously demanded stringent punishment for the culprits. Claiming that they are a part of greater Assamese culture, the organizations appealed to the people of the region to maintain long standing peace and harmony.

Assam Indigenous Forum, a newly floated organisation comprising of various indigenous groups in the State, alleged that the Nagaon incident was simply invited by the provocative statements of a section of Assam BJP leaders. The forum asserted that State influential minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was leading those leaders in making irresponsible comments time and again.

Claimed to have supports from AJYCP, KMSS, All Tai Ahom Students’ Union etc, the forum recently staged a protest program in front of Guwahati Raj Bhjavan and sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through Assam Governor Banowarilal Purohit. The chief convener of the forum and also Ulfa’s general secretary Anup Chetia commented that attacks on indigenous communities by non-Assamese people cannot be tolerated.

Many others joined in the chorus terming the Nagaon incident as an assault to indigenous people of the State, which was followed by a series of demonstrations primarily in eastern Assam localities. The police also arrested over ten individuals involved with the incident. However the arrested individuals reflected that the traders’ group included few Assamese individuals as well.

By now a forum of nationalist people of the region strongly reacted to the development condemning the communal outbursts and demanded a judicial probe into the Nagaon affair to identify the real culprits. Expressing utter dismay over the tendency of glorifying the Ulfa rebels as saviors of Assamese nationalism, the Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA) urged the authority to take distinctive measures to address the crisis.

The PPFA in a statement denounced the attempt of a section of anti-national Assamese academician, writer, journalist, civil society activists etc to colour the Nagaon incident with communal flavors. The forum argued that the tendency to instigate a communal disturbance by hiding the information that the trader’s group included both the Bengali and Assamese communities should (must) be condemned by all right thinking people of the region.

“The irresponsible campaigners even made early resolutions that Hindu Bengali would never mingle with Assamese locals in the State. This is unfortunate to say the least that a group of people, who do not even have a modicum of shame, tried to mislead the common people by misrepresenting facts,” said the PPFA statement.

Appreciating the common people of the State for not listening to how these groups of instigators’ tried to indulge in misadventures to communalize the society and even glamorize the Ulfa, the forum however expressed shock that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) led government at Dispur did not show any urgency to respond to the crisis.
The chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, also in charge of State home portfolio, even took three days to comment on the incident. In his statement, the State’s first tribal chief minister termed the Nagaon incident as unfortunate. Expressing deep dissatisfaction over the attempt of a section of people to add communal color to the incident, Sonowal called on all communities of the State to maintain peace and harmony.

“What is very much concerning that CM Sonowal avoided using strong words against those who publicly threatened to take up arms and the few people who openly demonstrated their inclination to separatist militant leader Paresh Barua. The BJP leader must not forget that as a legislator he took the pledge for safeguarding the territorial integrity of India,” asserted the forum.

Extending its wholehearted support to the terror-victim families for their long-standing demand for justice, the PPFA reminded the groups of handful of Assamese intellectuals not to forget the criminal activities once engineered by various armed rebels belonged to the Ulfa. It strongly urged the government to initiate delivering justice to the victims of insurgencies and also compensate them adequately.

Under the framework of mission and vision of the International University Travnik, and the leadership of its Chancellor Academician, Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Jusufranić, globalization events and regional conferences have been at the forefront of this premier university in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to numerous lectures organized in the fields of Intercultural communication under the auspices of the Erasmus + academic mobility program, Dr. Sci. Sabahudin Hadžialić, IUT professor of communications delivered on June 3, 2017, a keynote lecture at the main conference hall of Kazimieras Simonavičius University in Vilnius, Lithuania, focused on the role of media in the democratic society and established a permanent intercultural communication with faculty and students of this institution, as the only way possible to establish projects of cooperation as well as solve conflicts and disagreements that the world is facing today.

Moreover, Dr. Sci. Sabahudin Hadžialić held individual meetings with students and faculty of KSU, as well as students from Italy Annalisa Sanfilippo and Lorenzo Ligas, who are studying in Lithuania supported by the Erasmus + Program.

Dr. Sci. Sabahudin Hadžialić, held a meeting with Prof. Dr. Javed Imran from Pakistan, Vaive Poškaite Tomaševič, International Coordinator of KSU; the focus of conversations was on strengthening knowledge on the educational systems, policies of the three countries, Pakistan, Lithuania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On his meeting with Prof. Vaive Poškaite Tomasevic, Dr. Sci. Hadžialić set the course of close cooperation between the International University Travnik (IUT) and Kazimieras Simonavičius University in Vilnius. Thanks to this partnership, next March 2018, there will be a series of lectures delivered by legal experts of IUT:

Alisa Salkic, MA, will address current challenges of International Law, Constitutional law through the lens of Comparative Law and Public Policies; Selma Otuzbir, MA, will share a series of lectures on the Roman Law.

Furthermore, Ms. Lejla Skopljak, PR of IUT, will be visiting Vilnius, to acquire new professional experiences and training in public relations within the international context and be exposed to new visions of Public Relations.

In April 2018, Ms. Adela Mujinović, IUT Officer for Student Affairs, will also be conducting a series of visits and meetings with KSU colleagues to get acquainted with aspects of student support services at KSU.

On June 5, 2017, the International University Travnik established its Open Doors Day, focuses on stretching community relations and contributes towards strengthening education policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This event enabled all High School students of Middle Bosnia Canton and international students to become familiar with the university education in the region. In this event, Chancellor of IUT, Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Jusufranić provided all the necessary information about Colleges and Departments of IUT, to all prospective students.

In this context, on May 4, 2017, IUT signed a cooperation agreement with the Network of SBK students’ councils, an organization that represents all secondary schools in the Central Bosnia Canton. In this event Ms. Ajla Mušik (President of IUT Student’s parliament and an undergraduate student in the Economics College), delivered a speech stating that: “The International University of Travnik is constantly investing in both – its academic staff and the classroom space, while always improving its infrastructure that highly benefits its students. There are new classrooms for teaching and laboratories in a newly opened building equipped with state-of-the-art equipment.

After Ms. Ajla Mušik’s presentation all participants, including local and international students were given a tour of the Campus buildings and met with other faculty members and university administrators.

As the UN Security Council debates fresh US-proposed sanctions on North Korea over its relentless ‘rogue’ nuclear behavior, and Washington’s pressure on Beijing to adopt a more robust position against Pyongyang, the rules of ‘smart diplomacy’ dictate an urgent visit to alternative, non-coercive, counter-measures that may have more desired influence with the unruly Kim Jong-un, such as giving South Korea a great leeway in seeking a meaningful de-escalation of tensions.

Indeed, the South Korean President, Moon Je-in, is repeatedly on record favoring constructive engagement with the North, yet is so far sidelined by the White House unwilling or uninterested in letting its regional ally intrude in shaping its North Korea policy. But, this makes no sense at all, for the sake of all parties involved, above all the Koreans on both side, whose fates are nowadays imperiled by an escalating crisis edging toward a military solution.

Lest we forget, unlike his predecessors, President Moon since his May 2017 victory has made several rather significant overtures toward the North by, for example, offering to meet Kim “any time, anywhere” and to let North Korea join in the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Moon’s engagement approach is based on a fundamental recognition of the limits of coercive pressure on Pyongyang, and the distinct possibility that more such pressures will yield an unwanted war with calamitous results rather than a North capitulation to Washington’s demands.

In this, Moon is backed by a whole array of US politicians and (former) diplomats, some of whom recently penned a letter to President Trump counseling US’ diplomatic engagement of North Korea. Even the US Defense Secretary James Mattis has admitted on record that should it come to war with North Korea, the result “is going to be tragic on an unbelievable scale.”

Millions of civilians in Seoul and elsewhere in South Korea, easily within reach of North’s conventional weapons, will be instantly jeopardized in a war scenario — that will likely trigger the use of nuclear weapons as well. Avoiding this nightmare scenario, that might engulf Japan as well since North Korea’s missiles are easily capable of hitting targets in Japan, at all costs is therefore a top South Korean priority, requiring direct North-South engagement, as a viable alternative to the present recourse to coercive and punitive measures against the North.

Certainly, depriving the North of oil and fuel through a UN-led sanctions is destined to fuel the fire of North’s aggression beyond its borders and is a recipe for disaster. Before the US succeeds in bringing the North Korean economy down through a comprehensive oil sanctions, Pyongyang will likely strike to, at a minimum, play brinksmanship, thus closing off the option for Moon’s plans for engagement.

Crafting a new, and increasingly harmonious relationship, between Seoul and Pyongyang, is an inescapable necessity, presently overshadowed by the US’ coercive approach that will directly impact the lives of millions of Koreans on both side without much of a meaningful input by the South. There is an urgent need, logically speaking, to reconsider this unwise approach in Washington that has been the standard approach save minor exceptions. For the US itself, overstretched and far from ready to be “locked and loaded” vis-a-vis the North at Trump recently stated, avoiding the monumental financial burden of yet another external crisis forms a top priority that, inevitably, raises the role of diplomacy.

Yet, as stated above, the major lacunae of US’ North Korean policy is the absence of adequate attention to the solutions sui generis in the Korean Peninsula, involving greater bilateral interactions and relations, between the North and the South, which is hitherto frustrated in part by US’ unwillingness to let Seoul become a principal architect of its North Korean policy, a policy that is now drifting toward the dangerous and unpredictable directions of conflict with North Korea and, connectedly, greater tensions with North’s regional patron state, China.

The digital revolution that is taking place nowadays all over the world is undoubtedly changing the face of the planet at an outstanding pace in every aspect. The world is truly becoming a global village as the visionary thinker McLuhan once predicted back in the sixties of the last century. By surfing the Net today you can go almost anywhere you wish and you can communicate, at ease, with anyone you want. Basically, almost everything is at the click of a button.

The prospects of this unprecedented revolution are great, but so are the dangers and the pitfalls on family and society.

In fact, nobody questions the fact that globalization, which is one of the concrete results of the digital revolution, is beneficial to humanity, provided it is wisely managed.

Unfortunately, that is not the case today. Globalization is here among us to stay with its positive and negative sides. And unfortunately its negative aspects, if left unchecked, can destroy the unity and the coherence of the family, and by so doing badly affect society.

The globalization today is insidiously affecting children and adolescents in their identity, behavior and morality and it is also affecting adults. The Internet is certainly a great outcome of the digital age, but in many cases it is sapping society at is foundations because of the moral permissiveness it allows with no checks or balances.

Aware of the dangers of globalization on the Muslim family, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization –ISESCO- embarked few years ago on an ambitious programme entitled: “Parental Education”, geared towards educating parents on how to educate their children at home to avoid having them become victims of the dark side of globalization.

Going Global

Back in the fifties of the last century a visionary thinker by the name of Marshall McLuhan(1) predicted, rightly so, that the world will become a global village(2) as a result of the technological advance achieved by humanity. Today this prediction has come true, and as a result, the world has shrunk dramatically to the extent that all faraway places and distant people are now next door. This new development in the lives of humans is seen by some as good news and by others as a catastrophe and a calamity, depending obviously on how the half glass of water is seen: half empty or half full.

All in all, this new state of being is here to stay for good and it is gradually becoming a new way of life for all humans whether they like it or not. The fact is that when you live next door to the rest of the world, you dress, eat, think and behave like the rest of the world, and you do not ask questions. And this is what “going global” is all about.(3)
From the concept of the global village, to going global, humanity is unwillingly undergoing tremendous changes without having enough time to digest them and that is globalization.

Globalization, A New Way Of Life

Like every human concept, globalization is not fail-safe, it has its advantages and disadvantages, it helps circulate the benefits of technological advance among men but it also imposes the way of life and the thinking modes of the lucky few on the majority, thereby impeding and destroying cultural diversity.

Many people believe that globalization is the political end result of the fall of the Soviet Empire and the confirmation of the United States of America as the only superpower. Actually, that well may be one of the reasons but certainly not the only one. The New World Order that was put forward by America was a political attempt that failed miserably and died in its infancy after the dramatic events of the 11th of September, which showed that America cannot dictate a political order to the world no matter how powerful it might be.

However, while the New World Order failed to take off the ground, globalization thrived because it was driven by many important factors, chief among them we find: (4)

1. The digital revolution; and
2. World trade.

After the agricultural and industrial revolutions, that changed the face of the world, humanity was subjected to a more powerful and far-reaching revolution that rewrote the rules of modern civilization. The digital revolution turned science fiction into reality in various fields, too many to name: Internet, digital television, teleconferencing, mobile phones, etc. and brought people of different cultures and creeds close to each other, and more is on the way.

The digital revolution was and is instrumental in tearing down barriers erected by ignorance, misconceptions, fallacies, stereotyping and lack of contact. Maybe, to date, the most important achievement of the digital revolution is the obliteration of ideologies that were, for centuries, responsible for so much misery for human kind.

Today, thanks to the digital revolution people can chat on the Internet at will, display their identities and true selves without shame or fear of retribution. Professors can lecture students thousands of miles away and doctors can operate on patients without moving from their offices or leaving their countries. It is a new form of freedom never experienced by humans before.

Many countries, especially in the developing world, suffered greatly from bureaucracy and red tape, today people can request whatever administrative paper they need without having to move from their homes or offices. They can also vote and undertake as many actions as they desire thanks to e-government. The Internet is making, somewhat, governments redundant, and I presume in the foreseeable future governments would either have to cut the red tape, be transparent and respond to the needs of the citizens or face extinction by oblivion, because their theoretical power will be totally snubbed by people. At this point the question is: would the digital revolution make totalitarian governments embark on incremental democracy? The answer is most probably yes because undemocratic governments live off usurped power and if their power is eroded or diminished they dwindle and die.

Aware of this hard reality, China, back in the eighties, cleverly opened up its regime and relinquished some of its power to the people. And no matter how powerful China might be, militarily speaking, yet its political system is in jeopardy, real jeopardy today.

The second element that made globalization a possible venture is world trade in the last few decades. As a matter of fact, world trade achieved incredible output and results and looks forward to achieving more positive results in the near future. The demand for world trade is reaching incredible levels and the more this increasing demand is satisfied, the more the economy would go global and imposes new codes of conduct on governments.

World trade, in its present format, is concretely helping start up consumer habits even in most impoverished societies, wherever they may be, and this is made possible by the media that is subliminally creating consumer habits and consumer needs and craving that never existed before within society.

All in all, most countries of the world are willing to go global in spite of the dangers this undertaking might represent, with the hope to benefit economically from its windfall.

The Dark Side Of Globalization

In spite of the numerous benefits that globalization might, theoretically, offer to individual countries at the economic level, yet it has several side effects.

Globalization actively promotes the way of life of rich and strong countries at the expense of poor and small countries. This may not be a planned action, but it has destabilizing effect on the countries of the South. Thanks to digital satellite television, these people are bombarded daily by television programmes that celebrate and enthuse over wealth and beauty but also sex, fast cars and luxurious homes, in addition to such negative values as deceit and infidelity; and young children and ordinary non-educated young adults fall prey to this false publicity and crave to act likewise, believing that is the model. Unable to fulfil these wild dreams of theirs, they feel frustrated and as such either become candidate for illegal migration to the “Eldorado” of their dreams: the West, or drown their sorrow in drugs and alcohol, believing that this is the best way out.

The Western countries, swamped by thousands of illegal immigrants, hit back at the poor countries asking them to check the flow of these undesirable and bothersome individuals, not realizing or wanting to recognize that they are the ones who triggered this population movement in the first place.

This television phenomenon actually existed before the advent of globalization but it did not have a subliminal effect on people because it was promoted by one or two media not thousands that use special effects (5). In fact, today music channels promote wildly:

• Bad language;
• Questionable behavior (gestures, kissing, sexual references; etc…);
• Particular dress code: scanty clothing;
• Particular hair styles;
• Piercings; etc…

And these channels target a vulnerable population: the adolescents and youngsters who, are trying to assert themselves within their societies and can be easily influenced to take up any cultural identity that is proposed to them in their own language.

The digital television onslaught of the countries of the North on those of the South does not stop at this level but it manifests itself, also, by offering erotic pink television channels free of charge and accessible by all. These television channels encourage debauchery and unacceptable sexual practices that the young try to imitate and, as a result, end up in trouble and facing responsibilities they are not prepared to shoulder.
As if digital television was not enough, then came the Internet, a more dangerous and destructive media for the youngsters because of its interactivity and immediate and instant possibilities of exchange of written material and images.

The Internet, when it is not under the control of the parents, has undesirable effects on children because unlike television it offers a wide array of sites and possibilities that can damage, beyond belief, the education of the adolescents. The material available in the Internet, in many cases, is “wild” and “raw” and because it has not been controlled by any responsible authority, encourages perversity and shameful practices. The subliminal effect of the Internet on children is ten times more harmful than that of television.

Also, the material offered on the Internet, for lucrative reasons and motives, is often packaged in a very sleek professional manner to sell well, and it sells like hot cake. It is supposedly directed to an adult readership or clientele, but it is obviously used, also, by young people on a large scale to satisfy some of their urgent juvenile needs.

This powerful media (6) is credited to have lasting psychological harm on the young because of its strong suggestive material and harmful information.

These disorders can range from:

• Identity crisis;
• Lack of self – confidence and self – esteem;
• Rejection of parental authority;
• Recurrent state of moodiness and unsociability;
• Suicidal inclinations;
• Lack of respect for seniority; and
• School dislike.

These disorders are the result of the total rejection of one’s society, seen as a diminished and an insignificant cultural institution, the rejection of one’s self and one’s surroundings because they do not conform to the Western model dignified by the Internet, a model boasting unlimited wealth and beauty, and the rejection of one’s culture and religion and, ultimately, the adoption of a life of outrageous consumerism.

Globalization And The Family

Many families in the Muslim World today are undergoing a real turmoil because of the bad influence modern media has on the behavior of their children. In Islam, the family is a sacred institution based on values of respect, dignity and consideration; and the role of the parents is dignified within Islamic culture: the father is seen as the protector, the provider and the counselor and the mother is the symbol of peace, tranquillity and tenderness. She occupies a pivotal position within the family. For Muslims, paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers and as such mothers are sanctified within religious literature and popular culture.

Parental Education

Respect of the parents in Islam is a religious duty emphasized in no doubtful terms in the Holy Qur’ãn:

“ووصينا الإنسان بوالديه حملته أُمُهُ وهناً على وَهنٍ وفصله في عامين أن أشكر لي ولوالديك إلى المصير”
(سورة لقمان 14،31)

“And We have enjoined on man (to be dutiful and good) to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship, and his weaning is in two years-give thanks to Me and to your parents. Unto Me is the final destination.” (7)
(Surah 31, Luqman, 14)

And the Qur’an has further highlighted the importance of the parents in the social fabric and enjoined Muslims to obey them and show them much respect and love:

” وقضى ربك ألا تعبدوا إلا إياه وبالوالدين إحسانا إما يَبلُغَنَّ عندك الكبر أحدُهُمَا أو كِلاهُما فلا تَقُل لهما أَفٍّ ولا تنهَرهُما وقل لهما قَولاً كريماً. واخفض لهما جَناحَ الذلِ من الرحمة وقل ربِّ ارحمهما كما ربّياني صغيراً”.
(سورة الإسراء 17، 23-24)

“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour. And lower unto them the wing of submission, and humility through mercy, and say: “My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was young.” (8)
(Surah 17, Al – Isra’, 23-24)

Any breach of any of these concepts is an outright rejection of religion because the family is the basic unit of the social system. Likewise, any threat to the existence of the family is a threat to the Umma at large, and, as such, to the Islamic faith.

As a result of the strong influence of the media on children and the brainwashing effect it has on them, their social behavior is badly affected because they feel alienated from their family and culture, alienated from their environment, and maybe even alienated from their own person. They view the family as a restriction of their freedom, social etiquette as outdated traditions, and the local culture as a set of values, ethics and customs that are not in tune with the global culture on offer.

One of the criticisms leveled by some countries and governments against globalization is that no matter how interesting and invigorating this way of life maybe, yet it has many negative side effects. This movement was initiated by the French Government a decade ago. Threatened by the Anglo-Saxon driven globalization, the French reacted by promoting the concept of spécificité culturelle (cultural specificity) and setting up international organizations for the defence of French language and culture in the world.

One of the French ministers of Culture named Toubon; went as far as to call for “cleansing” the French dictionary from foreign loan-words, meaning English lexical items like: cool, weekend, clean, black, walkman, etc… and replacing them by words that are truly French, and in the case they do not exist invent them or coin them altogether. Irritated by this campaign, the British press criticized the whole approach put forward by the Minister of Culture Toubon by calling him Mr. Allgood (a translation of his name in English).

If governments can and do have to defend their interests in the face of the onslaught of globalization by enacting laws, setting up defensive means and inciting the population to promote their national language in everyday life, on the other hand, families are at real loss. The only authority that the family can make use of in this is parental authority, and, in case of difficulty, appeal to religious teachings and Islamic morality. But if neither of these work, then the situation can be of a very serious nature and calls for urgent attention.

Globalization threatens the family in its important aspects and features, chief among them: authority, solidarity, cohesion and integrity.

Traditionally, families, in their extended and nuclear forms, kept their cohesion intact in the face of dangers and changes thanks to the strong sentiment of solidarity that is proverbial in Arabic popular culture:

” انصر أخاك ظالماً أم مظلوماً”

This proverb can be semantically interpreted in a multitude of manners, and maybe the most important and the most central of them all is active solidarity in the face of danger, threats, needs, and all dire situations.

Islam has made out of the family, a social institution of paramount importance for society and the Umma, the individual is brought up and reared within this institution that is supposed to make out of him a good Muslim: God-fearing and responsible; an individual who can later care and provide for his family and his society and defend his faith against denigration and attack.

The role of the family in Islam is to rear the child, provide for all his needs, and educate him in the best practices possible: sincerity, righteousness, faithfulness, integrity and independence, and to make out of him a good person إنسان صالح (insane sãlih). And educate him, also, and this is of outmost importance, into Islamic teachings التعاليم الإسلامية, so that the religion of Islam can be his guidance in everyday life and a protection for him against temptation, vice and wrongdoing.

Parental Education: What Is It All About?

The problematic of education, along with its function as a factor of development, is considered as one of the major challenges that confront different human societies in general and the Muslim ones in particular. This is an undeniable truth, for the consensus, which was reached many centuries ago on the necessity of education as an instrument of any expected progress, has been reinforced since the 1980s by another consensus on the idea that in the twenty first century-the age of globalization and technology-the future of societies will somehow depend on the way they will educate younger generations.

Parental Educational Responsibility In The Era Of Globalization

Education, which constitutes in its cultural sense the mirror of the life of people and the state of their society and in its deeper sense the fundamental instrument of development and progress, has become one of the major social problems in the recent years. If the majority of developed countries have given enough attention to this problem, the majority of Muslim societies are still unaware of it and its various bad affects. (9)

But what kind of education are we talking about here?

Education is usually thought of as a combination of interactions, practices and influences meant for teaching a child values and behaviours and accustom him to the manners and traditions of his society. Education consists of the various social traditions and values, the life patterns and ways of thinking that are not transmitted to the child in a hereditary manner, but through cultural influence. This means that, from his birth, a child is in need of the instruction which helps him acquire the cultural instruments necessary for his social integration. Since it is a space where warmth care and living conditions are provided, the family naturally constitutes the environment which strongly influences a child’s growth and the development of his personality. It is in this sense that we can talk about family education. But where does parental education stand within this framework? And how does it relate to family education?

Parental education is often reduced to family education in such a manner that the two terms are used interchangeably. This is wrong, however, because parental education is no more than a fundamental component or variable that is part of the numerous variables which go into the making of family education, whose role in bringing up a child is of paramount importance. The family, whose components may increase and vary to include its different members, its residential spaces, the mediums of its thinking and distraction, along with its arrays of values and cultural elements, may also cover not only the educational practices it resorts to in bringing up its children but also the intervention of the parents in the education of their offspring, hence its inclusion of parental education.(10)

Parental education is usually summed up as the parents direct dealing with the child, precisely the practices which determine their educational activity vis-à-vis the latter. It consists in the daily practices of the parents, behavioral attitude toward the child so as to train him, guide him supply him with all kinds of information, skills, models, conducts, values and tendencies necessary for the confrontation of life problems in all its aspects and in different domains.

Therefore, it is not a synonym of family education or social upbringing or parental tendencies, as it is corroborated by the inaccuracy of some Arab studies. (11) Though it partakes of social upbringing as a fundamental variable and covers parental tendencies as a wider framework, it cannot, however, be reduced to either terms. It essentially amounts to the existence of an educational relationship between a child and his parents reflected in well-defined practices that take the form of a series of methods and treatments the latter resort to in the various situations that the child faces whether inside or outside home.

Parental Education In The Era Of Globalization

The Islamic religion has always instructed the faithful to take upon themselves the education of their children and to think of this undertaking as a religions duty: a preparation for school education and a preparation for the duties of life.

Parental education is the act of instilling in one’s child the values القيم of Islamic morality الأخلاق الإسلامية to avoid having him go astray and to make out of him a responsible and hard-working member of the society.

Aware of the importance of parental education in this era of globalization, fraught with various dangers such as violence, terrorism, drugs, and crime, the Islamic organization –ISESCO– prepared a study entitled “Parental Education in the Islamic world” (12) and published it in Arabic, English and French in the year 2000 and distributed it to Member States.

The Islamic Organization has, also, organized in 2004 a meeting of experts (13) on the same subject with the intention of identifying the best possible ways for encouraging parental education within Islamic families and identifying ways for disseminating its message within the Muslim society at large.

Parental education allows families to have long-life influence on their offspring, an influence that can be beneficial to them in their life and dealings and in the lives of the generations to come.

Unlike school education, parental education is more interactive and more specific and deals with situations as they occur, because it is not governed by a structured curriculum that requires that topics be treated in a given feeding order.

Parental education can take place when needed, as a given situation arises, it does not require a syllabus, nor schools, nor exams, nor diplomas, nor teachers and nor principals. It is, somehow, one aspect of moral education. There is no specific time or age for parental education, but it must be said that it is more effective between the age of 5 to the age of 17, because it is the period of time when children are the most vulnerable, most open to outside influence due to lack of experience, lack of insight and maybe lack of wisdom. During this period of time, parental education can play a decisive role in directing children, advising and helping them surmount difficulties and obstacles that the modern world, in its global format, puts in their way.

In this era of globalization, when the freedom on offer is too unreasonable and too irresponsible, and children are inexperienced, the dangers of perversity are too numerous and parental education has a major role to play in regulating the development of society, in general, and the life of the offspring, in particular.

Regulating Globalization

Globalization in its actual format and shape is the outcome of human progress and sophistication. No one and no society in the world can stop progress or alter its chartered course, simply because it is the natural maturation of human knowledge and the culmination of the aspiration of humanity for a better future and a better life.

However, globalization, no matter how beneficial it is, is too wide a phenomenon that has positive impact on too many sectors of life, as well as negative implications.

What is needed today are ways and methods to humanize globalization, i.e. make out of it a phenomenon in the full service of humanity, and this is where parental education can play a vital and pivotal role.

Parental education can humanize globalization by guiding children through their difficult years of growth in age and knowledge and experience. This much-needed guidance can be made possible by providing counsel to children at home on what is good and what can, ultimately, have a negative impact.

Parental education in the world, in general, and in the Islamic world, in particular, can regulate globalization and humanize its effects by implementing a number of actions through education and counselling. These actions are as follows:

1- Preserve cultural integrity

Globalization in its actual format, no matter how universal it might be, promotes the dominating culture of the Western world at the expense of the cultures of the rest of the world, through the globalization of McDonalds, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, MTV, CNN and American music and film industry. These labels are not only brand names but they are the unique cultural reference names.

As such, the gastronomy of the rest of the world is “ethnic food”, its wear is “traditional costume”, and its film is “foreign film” and music “world music”. So globalization in this, indirectly calls the rest of the world to adopt the American way of life as the universal way of life. The mission of parental education in this particular case is to highlight Islamic culture and its importance in the life of the Muslim individual and show the dangers that unchecked globalization can effect on Muslim society by causing cultural alienation especially among young people. Parental education ought to show that national culture is identity and without identity the individual has no value, because he is only known through his culture and nothing else.

2- Enhance morality

Globalization, whether by design or not, encourages through some of its many means, immorality and perversity. Parental education must identify these means and these instances and come up with acceptable and justifiable defence against them. Also, morality can be enhanced by setting the example and by opening the issues at hand to discussion and scrutiny. Actually, today, even in the Western world many voices are calling for the moralization of globalization and the regulation of its output to avoid leading the youth astray and alienating them from their social values.

3- Redesign religious education

Globalization, in many of its manifestations, promotes material cultural at the expense of many salient human principals. Life is not only about money, profit and creature comforts; it is, also, about faith and moral values. A globalization without faith might be a successful material undertaking, but in the end it is a phenomenon that is doomed to failure, because man does not live by bread alone he needs faith to direct his life and give him confidence in himself and his future. Thus, parents have a major role to play in inculcating faith to their children by considering the way they can teach them religion so that they internalize its precepts in the best way possible. The parents ought, also, to present religion to their children in a modern package by advocating discussion, transparency, openness and reasoning.

Globalization Yes, But…

There is no doubt whatsoever that globalization is the ineluctable outcome of human aspiration for progress and development. But if globalization is here to stay, it ought, then, to serve humanity in its cultural and spiritual dimensions. Unchecked freedom, irresponsible permissiveness and wild materialism, the current flaws of globalization do not serve its human objectives, therefore it is urgent to rethink globalization in order to give it a human face acceptable to man.

Globalization has to take into consideration the needs and the aspirations of its focal subjects and targets. It has, also, to allow urgently readjustments in its mission and contents to serve best the human being in his person and his society. It is true that progress cannot be stopped, but it can be redirected in its course, and redesigned in its content.

Family has to be allowed to play an important role within globalization, because a globalization without a soul is doomed to lead humanity to discredit and failure.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on Twitter: @Ayurinu

Notes:
1. Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born on July 25, 1911 in Edmonton, Alberta, and then his family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba a few years after his birth and remained there until he attained an M.A in English literature from the University of Manitoba in 1934. After leaving Manitoba, he later went to Cambridge University and afterwards taught at the University of Wisconsin. In 1964 he published his first book Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man that brought him to fame, and made out of him a reputed visionary of the 21st century. He says in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man convincingly:

“After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding. During the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space. Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man –the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, such as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media”.

2. McLuhan philosophy, though voluminous and far-reaching, is often reduced to snappy quotations and pop-culture catch phases. Concerning the new status of man in technological and media-dominated society, he said:

“If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness? ”

In statements like this, McLuhan both announces the existence of the global village, another word he is credited for coining, and predicts the intensification of the world community to its present expression. All of this was in the early 1960s at a time when television was still in its infancy, and the personal computer was almost twenty years in the future.

3. a) Globalize (transitive verb): to make global or worldwide in scope or application;
b) Globalization (noun): growth to a global or worldwide scale;
c) Globalization (as an economic process): any process affecting the production and development and management of material width. (cf. www.thefreedictionary.com)

4. The Global Elite march in three essential columns: Corporate, Political and Academic….

In general, the goals for globalism are created by Corporate. Academic then provides studies and white papers that justify Corporate’s goals. Political sells Academic’s arguments to the public and if necessary, changes laws to accommodate and facilitate Corporate in getting what it wants.

An important ancillary player in globalism is the media, which we will call press… Press is necessary to filter Corporate, Academic and Political’s communications to the public. Press is not a fourth column, however, because its purpose is merely reflective. However, we will see that Press is dominated by members of Corporate, Political and Academic who sit on the various boards of directors of major press organizations.
cf. “the Global Elite: Who are they?” in the August Review, Volume 5, Issue 12.
(Cf.www.augustreview/index.php?m)

5. A form of subliminal messaging commonly believed to exit involves the insertion of “hidden” messages into movies and TV programmes. The concept of “moving pictures” relies on persistence of vision to create the illusion of movement in a series of images; the popular theory of subliminal messages usually suggests that subliminal commands can be inserted into this sequence at the rate of perhaps 1 frame in 25 (or roughly one frame per second, with a duration of about 1/25 of 1 second). The hidden command in a single frame will flash across the screen so quickly that it is not consciously perceived, but the command will supposedly appeal to the subconscious mind of the viewer, and this have some measurable effect in terms of behaviour. This effect is occasionally referred to as the 25th frame effect.

6. ChildCareAware (Cf.www.childcareaware.org/en), an American child care resource organization specialized in providing help to parents in what concerns the education and the up-bringing of their children. In its newsletter for working parents: the Daily Parent (Winter 1999) states the following troubling information about the impact of the media on children:

“Children today are immersed in the media culture through television, video, computer games and the Internet. Screen time is a daily part of family life for most Americans.
The degree to which the children are exposed and affected by exposure to the media varies, but few children are untouched by it. Children average 35 hours per week in front of a screen either watching TV and videos or playing video games. This exposure can create special needs which teachers, caregivers and parents need to understand in order to help.”

This specialized organization investigates further the impact of powerful media on children as well as classroom concerns that result from it:

“Across the country teachers and caregivers express concern about how the media, related toys and other products affect children in their classrooms. Teachers report increased level of aggression and more injuries. The quality of play is less imaginative and often imitative rather creative. Many children confuse fantasy with reality. Some children appear obsessed with specific action figures such as Star Wars or Power Rangers and are unable to focus on other activities.

Young children struggle to understand what they see and incorporate it into their ideas and behaviour. Many of the messages in the media can undermine their sense of safety and trust or create the impression that fighting or using weapons is normal and necessary.”

7. Cf. Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, M and M. Muhsin Khan. 1996. Translation of the meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English language. King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an: Medina. P. 551.

8. Ibid, p. 371

9. Cf. Ahrchaou, A. 1998. “Some Aspects of the Modern Arab Treatise on Education”, Majalat ’Ulūm At-Tarbiya 2: 11-12 (Title translated from Arabic).

10. Cf. During, P. 1995. Education familiale: acteur, processus, et enjeux. De Boeck  Ed. : Bruxelles; cf., also, Portois, J.P. 1989. “ L’éducation familiale: Note de synthèse”, in Revue française de Pédagogie 86 :69-105.

11. Cf. Muhammad Ali; Hassan. 1970. The Parents’ Relationship with the Child and its Effect on Delinquency. Cairo: Maktabat AL-Anglo Miisriya. (Title translated from Arabic).

Kafani, ‘Alaa Addine. 1989. “Self-esteem in its Relationship with Parental Education and Psychological Security”, in Majalat Al’Ulūm Al-Insaniya 35, vol.7: 101-128. (Title translated form Arabic)

Al-Korchi, Abdelfattah. 1986. The Relationship of the Tendencies of Kuwaiti Fathers and Mothers in the Upbringing of their Children with some Variables, in the Yearbook of the Faculty of Letters 7, University of Kuwait. (Title translated from Arabic).

12.  Cf. ISESCO. 2000. Parental Education in the Islamic World. ISESCO Publications: Rabat. (Published in Arabic, English and French, the working languages of ISESCO).

13. This meeting entitled “Meeting of Experts on the Development of the Curricula of Parental Education from an Islamic Point of View” was held in Rabat, Morocco on 4-7 May 2004.

By Benjamin Raynor

Late on the evening of August 16, three female suicide bombers set off a series of explosions that left at least 27 people dead in Nigeria’s Borno state, a stronghold of Boko Haram. The first attacker blew herself up near a refugee camp, triggering a panic. In the ensuing chaos, the second and third attackers detonated their own devices, claiming most of the casualties. Two days prior, on August 14, gunmen attacked a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Timbuktu, in northern Mali, killing seven. On the same day, in neighboring Burkina Faso, gunmen killed 18 people eating dinner on the terrace of a local cafe, several of whom were foreign nationals.

This sobering burst of violence in West Africa and the Sahel is a vivid reminder of a threat that’s often forgotten.

Indeed, terrorism across sub-Saharan Africa is not a small or diminishing problem. Quite the opposite: the terror threat on the continent has metastasized. There now exist multiple epicenters, spanning the vast, ungovernable territories of West Africa and the Sahel, each harboring its own distinct groups with their own distinct agendas. But while some groups may differ in their motivations, they each share an important common denominator: they are the beneficiaries of poor state capacity, i.e. they exist where the state’s remit is weakest.

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, state power and authority tends to diminish as the distance from capital cities and large urban centers increases. It is in these hinterlands where sparse government authority has sown destabilization for decades. This poses a distinct problem for African governments and Western states alike. For as destabilization spreads, so too do the number of potential havens for extremist groups to hide, scheme, and launch attacks unhindered, resulting in further destabilization. This cycle threatens to transform localized crises into regional ones in a positive feedback loop that few can afford.

Here are some of the various groups contributing to the problem in West Africa and the Sahel.

The Sahel

The Sahel is an expansive region, encompassing the territories of Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Chad. Islamic extremist groups operating in this region have included the likes of Ansar al-Dine, al-Murabitun, and AQIM-Sahel, all of whom shared the common goal of widespread institutionalization of Islamic law. In March 2017, these groups merged, spawning a new group, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen. This new terrorist outfit is now suspected of carrying out the aforementioned cafe attack in Burkina Faso. Additionally, there is a growing ISIS presence in the region, though their expansion is tempered by Al Qaeda’s near-total dominance of the Sahel’s jihadi scene.

But of these Sahel states, Mali has been the most instrumental staging ground for attacks on Western targets in neighboring states. Here, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and their affiliates remain dominant, their presence solidified in the wake of a military coup d’état in 2012 that drastically weakened the Malian army’s capacity to combat the growing Islamic extremist presence in the country’s northern provinces, an area that sits conveniently at the axis of a porous borderland straddling Niger, Algeria, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. Such positioning provides these groups with bountiful points of egress and entry through which they can strike targets in any number of states at any given time.

But while the threat posed by these Sahel-based groups is certainly a violent one, there is also a significant threat of kidnapping in the region, most of which are retaliatory acts for the post-coup, French and African military intervention in Mali. Targets often included individuals related to the UN peacekeeping initiative in Mali, MINUSMA, or those who represent Western interests, such as humanitarian aid workers, diplomats, and tourists.

West Africa

The terror threat to West Africa is no less potent. Here, well-equipped groups such as AQIM and Boko Haram represent major challenges to a growing number of governments. In March 2016, AQIM launched attacks in the Ivory Coast in which gunmen opened fire on swimmers and diners on a popular beachfront in Bassam, killing 19. Further east, in Nigeria, Boko Haram has carried out consistent assaults on soft and state targets in the country’s northern states. There are also growing concerns of radicalization in Senegal, a comparatively stable and democratic state, where terror threatens to derail a budding tourism industry.

These groups differ significantly in their scope and operations. AQIM, as noted above, is more violently oriented toward Western targets, and shares the international scope and vision of its parent organization, Al-Qaeda. Boko Haram, for its part, is more focused on the destruction of the Nigerian state and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. The group is therefore less inclined to declare a violent campaign against the wider West, making Boko Haram more synonymous with groups like the Afghan Taliban rather than Al-Qaeda.

Responding to the Threat

For the past four years, regional efforts have been led by France, whose goal is to fill the power vacuums left by major geopolitical events such as the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and the military coup in Mali. The United States has typically supported these efforts, providing diplomatic, financial, and intelligence support to French counterterrorism forces. However, in recent months the Trump administration has cast doubt on the future of a French Security Council resolution aimed at creating an African counterterrorism force in the Sahel. This initiative would, as the French argue, enable local forces to combat terrorism while minimizing the footprint of the United States and United Nations. However, doubts over the proposed resolution are great. The most significant stumbling block is how the force of 5,000 African soldiers and police will be funded.

The United States and Britain support, in principle, the commitment to raise African military capacity in the region. However, the five nation African anti-terrorism force – compiled of troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger – would require American and UN funding at a time when President Trump is working to scale back US involvement with multilateral security operations in the region. The United States in now weighing the possibility of vetoing the motion at the UN Security Council.

Such a move would be a mistake given the regional security context. Since the onset of the Arab Spring, the eyes of Western policymakers have been increasingly fixed on efforts to counter extremism and destabilization in Syria and the wider Middle East. Such tunnel vision has distracted from efforts to counter extremism is sub-Saharan Africa, where efforts are at risk of being fatally undermined. Indeed, Western policymakers would be negligent to beat back extremism in one part of the world, only to allow extremism to foment elsewhere.

The overarching objective must be to restrict the spread of regional destabilization and build African military capacity. Approval of the French Security Council resolution to fund Sahel security forces is a vital first step in improving the latter’s capacity to secure urban populations and extend their remit to increasingly remote areas where extremist groups are most concentrated. In doing so, Western powers must increase their intelligence-sharing capabilities with, and tactical support to, African security forces.

All of these are pressing issues for Western policymakers, and while ‘destabilization’ is indeed a nebulous threat, the fallout stemming from government failure to control its territories and populations is very real. Improving state capacity to address such failures will prove vital in disrupting the positive feedback loop that extremism threatens to exacerbate.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

By Kalinga Seneviratne

The information war on Myanmar’s Bengali/Rohingya problem has intensified as Myanmar’s de-facto leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung Sung Suu Kyi finally broke her silence on the issue on September 6 and slammed the international media and human rights organisations for spreading “misinformation” on the conflict.

One day earlier, the London-based Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) launched a report in Bangkok bashing Myanmar’s Buddhist majority. The following day India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi making his first official bilateral visit to neighbouring Myanmar pledged Indian support to fight cross-border Islamic terrorism.

The Myanmar government information committee said that gunmen affiliated with the Islamic terrorist group of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) invaded villages in Maungtaw Township in the Rankin state over the weekend and set fire to hundreds of houses. After clashes they have discovered a number of explosive devices and another 80 houses burned in neighbouring townships. The government has put the blame on this carnage on the ARSA a terrorist group of Rohingya refugees believed to be trained in Pakistan and funded by Wahabbi sources in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, BHRN in launching their report on September 5 at a media conference in Bangkok claimed that there is a “systematic persecution of Burma’s Muslim minority” with ID cards denied to them, constant monitoring of their mosques and young people across the country, spread of “Muslim Free” villages and of course military attacks on Rohingyas in Rankin state leading to the exodus of thousands of refugees across the borders mainly to Bangladesh.

The so-called “discrimination” against Muslims listed in the report was almost identical to what Muslim minorities are having to cope with in western countries, but, the report constantly referred to “Buddhists” as perpetuators whereas when such discrimination is reported in the West it will be addressed as a national security issue rather than “Christians” as perpetuators.

What the Myanmar government is complaining about is this double standard. That they are facing a terrorist threat from IS-linked ARSA. But, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Deputy Director for Asia, Phil Robertson argued during the media conference that they have monitored the “carnage” via satellite images from Bangkok and showed such images where the red dots shown he claimed were Rohingya houses burned by the army. When pointed out by a journalist that the Myanmar government claims that Rohingyas themselves are setting fire to houses, all he could say is “oh, this is Burmese government propaganda”.

After the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned of ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization and in a rare letter to the Myanmar government has talked of a spiral of a “humanitarian catastrophe”, Aung Sung Suu Kyi finally broke her silence on the issue on September 6 and blamed “terrorists” for “a huge iceberg of misinformation” on the violence in Rakhine state, but did not address the issue of fleeing refugees.

In a statement issued by her office on Facebook, Suu Kyi said the government had “already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible” and warned against misinformation that could mar relations with other countries. She referred to images on Twitter of killings posted by Turkey’s deputy prime minister that he later deleted because they were not from Myanmar. Earlier Suu Kyi had spoken by telephone with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

She said in the statement that “(such) kind of fake information which was inflicted on the deputy prime minister was simply the tip of a huge iceberg of misinformation calculated to create a lot of problems between different countries and with the aim of promoting the interests of the terrorists.”

The UN estimates that over 125,000 – most of them women and children – have fled across the border to Bangladesh. There are about 1.1 million Rohingyas in Myanmar whom the locals call Bengali because they believe most of them are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. But, human rights campaigners point out most have lived there for a number of generations. BHRN said in their report that Muslims have to provide documentation that proves a family lineage dating back to before 1824 to gain Myanmar ID cards.

While reports in the Myanmar media said that attacks by ARSA terrorists on “Bengali villages” continue. Mizzima news – which won a ‘free media pioneer” award from the International Press Institute in 2007 – reported on 5 September 5 that Indian and Bangladesh intelligence officials have disclosed they have intercepted three long duration calls between Hafiz Tohar, military wing chief of ARSA on August 23 and 24 that hold the key to why the militant group unleashed the pre-dawn offensive against Myanmar security forces.

The report said that Tohar has been trained in Pakistan by Lashkar e Tayyaba and while Bnagladesh government is also worried about these terror links, a lack of intelligence sharing network between India, Bangladesh and Myanmar may have prevented the latter from getting prior warning on the threat.

During his visit to Myanmar concluded on September 7, Modi told Suu Kyi that he wants to see a peaceful border between India and Myanmar and offered Indian cooperation in the area of security. “We are partners in your concerns over the loss of lives of security forces and innocent people due to the extremist violence in Rakhine State. Our interests in the area of security are common as neighbours. It’s essential that we work together to ensure the stability of our long territorial and coastal borders,” Modi said during the joint media briefing with Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw on September 6.

While there have been public demonstrations by extremist Islamic groups in Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh, the governments have been playing a behind the scenes quiet diplomatic role to defuse the situation knowing very well how religious passions could have a negative impact on ASEAN (Southeast Asian Nations) community building process. All three Muslim neighbours of Myanmar practice a very moderate form of Islam compared to its Middle Eastern counterparts, and this issue has the potential to empower the smaller extremist groups in their countries.

The same applies to the Buddhists in Myanmar, where the Myanmar government has been closely monitoring the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion — usually referred to by its Myanmar-language acronym, Ma Ba Tha, which is viewed by many of its supporters as a broad-based social and religious movement dedicated to protecting Myanmar’s Buddhist identity and heritage, as well as empowering poor Buddhist communities at a time of unparalleled change and uncertainty in the country.

Millions of Buddhists across the country also face same economic hardships the Rohingyas are supposed to be facing. Statistics released from 2014 census indicate that the number of homeless across the country have reached almost 1 million and tremendous housing deprivations exists across the country.

The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said in a report on “Buddhism and Politics in Myanmar” that the crisis triggered by Rohingya insurgent attacks and massive retaliation by the army has boosted anti- Muslim sentiment nationwide.

“While dynamics at play in Rakhine are mostly driven by local fears and grievances, the current crisis has led to a broader spike in anti-Muslim sentiment, raising anew the specter of communal violence across the country that could imperil the country’s transition,” warned the ICG report. It added that a failure by the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi to come to grips with economic inequality and provide adequate public services such as education, access to justice and disaster relief would allow Ma Ba Tha to gain legitimacy.

An acute lack of space has forced Christian cemeteries in New Delhi to reuse graves after five years, with a Catholic priest advocating that Christians opt for cremation.

The Indian Christian Cemetery Committee that manages two cemeteries for various Christian denominations in New Delhi, announced that from Sept. 1 burial plots to families of the deceased will be given only for five years.

Reverend Samson R. Nath, the committee chairman said this was because “very soon we will have no space to bury our dead.”

He said requests to the Delhi government for more land for use as cemeteries have not been successful.

“Asking people to opt for cremation will be the last resort when we will have no other choice. It is a very sensitive issue,” said Reverend Nath, a Methodist.

The lack of space for Christian and Muslim graveyards has been a growing concern in Delhi and other Indian cities, the Delhi high court in July observed.

As the population increased, the death rate also increased but cemetery land remained the same.

Father Savarimuthu Shankar, spokesman of Delhi Archdiocese, said the archdiocese is aware of the situation and has “been advocating for people to go for cremation as alternative.”

“But we cannot force anyone because it is a very emotional and sensitive subject that needs to be handled very carefully,” he said.

Father Shankar said that “it will take some time for the people to naturally opt for cremation.”

Father Thomas D’Cunha, secretary of Indian Christian Cemetery Committee, said Catholics should be “ready to face the challenges as other metro cities too have the same problem.” Father D’Cunha represents the Delhi Archdiocese in the committee.

Delhi has some 17 million people and Christians from all denominations together count for some 140,000 people, according to the 2011 Census report.

In Geneva, Mohammad Ali Alnsour, the Chief of the UN Human Rights Office for the Middle East and North Africa not only called the conflict in Yemen a man-made catastrophe, but called it “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world as a result of combination of conflict, cholera, and food insecurity.”i

Between March 2015 and the end of last month’s airstrikes, the Saudi-led coalition has been the leading cause of civilian casualties including countless children. Since the start of the conflict, over 10,000 people have been killed with millions being driven out of their homes. However, there has been some talk of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman wanting out of Yemen.

Mohammad Bin Salman was the mastermind of the war against the Houthis in Yemen. Now after more than two years of Saudi Arabia’s continuous military engagement, last month’s e-mail leaks from the new Crown Prince and Defense Minister show that the Saudis want out of the war. The war has spread epidemics like famine and cholera throughout Yemen and it appears that the Houthis seem far from being defeated.

The war in Yemen has cost the Saudi government billions of dollars and with a global drop in oil prices, they have been forced to take austerity measures for the first time in many years, but getting out of Yemen will not be easy. The new heir must somehow reach an agreement with the Houthis to guarantee that the internationally recognized President Abdullah Mansour Hadi will not be overthrown. The e-mail between Mohammad bin Salman and former U.S senior officials suggest that diplomacy must be the only solution to the crisis.

What Would a Saudi Pullback Look Like?

The war in Yemen has not only taken a toll on Saudi Arabia, but it has also taken a toll on Yemen itself. There should now be an understanding in Riyadh that this war in Yemen has been a massive failure, some people even call this catastrophe Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam.

There have been tragedies on both sides of the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but one should not shy away from the fact that Yemen is facing a famine and cholera crisis because of Saudi Arabia’s inhumane blockade, and constant carpet bombings of the world’s poorest countries.

In addition, you cannot really compare the resistance movements to Saudi aggression because the Saudis are not the victims of this war, and how can they broker peace if they have a coalition that intentionally targets innocent civilians with calls from the United Nations and other international organizations calling for an end to the violence? Communities are dying, people are dying on the ground, and it is time for the Saudis and all sides of the conflict to face reality.

Quite frankly, there are no good sides within the conflict in Yemen, not even the Houthis themselves. The Houthis did not really understand what it really meant to take control of the capital Sana’a, and once you spoil a political process, the ultimate result is conflict. There are clearly civilian casualties that have been victims of Saudi coalition in the north of the country, but the Yemenis have also been the victims of the Houthis as well in the central and southern parts of the country. All sides of the conflict are starting to realize that after more than two years of violence, the military solution is no longer an option and they need more alternatives like a political solution because we cannot afford to see this conflict continue.

If the Saudis do not find a way out of its war in Yemen, then they would be derelict in their responsibilities as a major player that enhances stability in the region. In addition, Riyadh also needs to move away from a military solution and work towards a political settlement. This will need to require a lot of international assistance and collaboration with all the actors in the country to seek an investment in restoring security and stability to Yemen as well as to Saudi Arabia, which is ostensibly the reason why this war began when the Saudis and the Emiratis intervened in March 2015.

Civilian Diplomacy

One of the roadblocks in resolving the Yemen crisis is the fact that we portray the conflict as a Sunni-Shia or Saudi-Yemen conflict. One of the key things to remember in the Yemen crisis is that the Yemenis are missing from the discussion.

The core of the conflict in Yemen is that this is a Yemeni civil conflict where more attention has been drawn towards regional powers and religious divisions rather than the Yemenis themselves. This is the main problem that has not been addressed by many international agencies like the United Nations and many think tanks around Washington. Another important aspect of the conflict that is missing is how the Yemenis are feeling absent and even more frustrated that they would be excluded from any negotiations or political dialogue.

Ultimately, the Yemeni people must be the main party that can decide the future for their country and free and fair elections would be a way forward for the war-torn country. In addition, the humanitarian situation keeps deteriorating and this is a huge problem for the Yemeni people. Most of the Yemeni people do not want hostile relations with Saudi Arabia, except for the Houthis, and they want to have a normal, stable relationship with Riyadh like the other neighboring countries in the gulf. What can be in the interests of both the Saudis and the Yemenis is a de-escalation of tensions and a normal relationship for both sides.

The war in Yemen is much more complex than just a Saudi-Yemeni conflict, but it is a civil war which has yet to be acknowledged or resolved. The main important issue that the Yemenis want is political self-determination which can allow them to decide their own affairs such as becoming more independent and choosing their own leaders, as well as an end to the violence that we are seeing right now.

The global community must accept political self-determination as a principle that offers Yemenis the opportunities to decide their own future. If there is any path for a political solution, the Yemeni people must be heard and given a voice to represent what direction their country wants to take in the future. The humanitarian crisis will also be one of the biggest impediments to peace because instability has been thriving on famine and poverty which can lead towards power vacuums for radical groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Houthis must understand that you cannot enforce your solutions on the rest of the Yemeni people. Yes, the Houthis represent a part of the Yemeni community, but there needs to be a political solution which allows all sides to come to the negotiating table, and a military push from either side will not result in a sustainable long-term solution.

Congressional Democrats have pulled a fast one on Republicans by striking a deal with Trump to raise the federal debt ceiling only until the end of the year. This will give them bargaining leverage in December to strike a bigger bargain with Republicans: Democrats will agree to raise the debt ceiling then in return for Republican cooperation on legalizing Dreamers (unauthorized immigrants brought into the U.S. as children), making small but necessary fixes in the Affordable Care act, and other things Democrats seek.

Raising the debt ceiling is always a political football, used by whichever party is in the minority to extract concessions from the majority party or from the majority party’s president.

The debt ceiling is how much the government is allowed to borrow. It shouldn’t be a political football. It should be abolished. It serves absolutely no purpose.

When the debt ceiling was first adopted in 1917, it might have been a useful way to prevent a president from spending however much he wanted. But since 1974, Congress has had a formal budget process to control spending and the taxes needed to finance it.

There’s no reason for Congress to authorize borrowing for spending that Congress has already approved, especially when a failure to lift the debt ceiling would be so horrific.

Having a debt ceiling doesn’t discipline government, anyway. The national debt is obligations government has already made to those who lent it money. Discipline has to do with setting spending limits and legislating tax increases, not penalizing the lenders.

Which is why most modern democracies don’t have debt ceilings. Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia – they do just fine without explicit borrowing limits.

Even more basically, the nation’s debt is a meaningless figure without reference to the size of the overall economy and the pace of economic growth.

After World War II, America’s debt was larger than our entire Gross Domestic Product, but we grew so much so fast in the 1950s and 1960s that the debt kept shrinking in proportion.

Today’s debt is about 77 percent of our total national product. The reason it’s a problem is it’s growing faster than the economy is growing, so it’s on the way to becoming larger and larger in proportion.

This is what we ought to be focusing on. Fighting over whether or not to raise the debt ceiling is a meaningless and dangerous distraction. So abolish it.

Vladimir Putin is already planning to reduce the number of federal subjects after the elections next year in a process that will go far beyond his actions in 2007-2008 when the number fell from 89 to 83 through the amalgamation of the so-called “matryoshka” subjects and likely will take place over the six years of his new term.

That prediction is contained in a post on the Telegram site Metodichka by an anonymous commentator who appears to have good access given the level of detail he offers. (For a screenshot of the original article which has not yet been posted elsewhere, see Metodicka20170907.JPG).

According to the report, the reforms are to begin in the Volga Federal District under the direction of Mikhail Babich who is close to Kremlin aide Sergey Kiriyenko and will involve the future of republics and territories into new units based “not on a national-territorial division” but on economic questions alone.

In the Middle Volga, that will touch off a serious struggle “among the three main aspirants” to head the new entity there: Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Samara. And “everyone understands [already] that the new status of the region, equal among equals” will have serious consequences for resources and for “the growing political ambitions of local elites.”

According to the Metodichka report, “a struggle behind the scenes has already begun” with emissaries from existing entities visiting Babich and Kiriyenko to lobby for their interests. Some hope that Tatarstan will come out the winner and that this possibility will serve as “a worthy compensation to the region for the failure to extend the bilateral treaty” with Moscow.

But if that is the case, the report continues, Kazan will have to pay a high price: it will have to give up its “expressed national ideology” and the policies that flow from it. Tatarstan would be the most natural nucleus for such a new entity, but the issue is whether it can take the ideological steps Moscow would require to allow it to remain such.

This report is intriguing for many reasons. Three stand out. First of all, it may be nothing more than a way to keep Kazan in line now that Moscow has failed to extend the power-sharing accord. After all, any dramatic action to try to get such an agreement would mean that the Tatar leadership would be excluded from that of any new entity.

Second, it may be an effort to keep other Russian regions and Russian nationalists happy for the duration of the election campaign. After all, Putin has been promising for a decade to reduce the number of federal subjects by combining non-Russian with Russian ones and has not delivered. This could be a signal that he at least plans to do so in his next term.

And third, given the difficulties of combining regions and the growing resistance even in places where it has already happened, this suggestion may be designed to kill of the possibility by forcing someone near the center of power to disown the Metodichka report and to say that nothing of the kind is really on the table.

That third possibility may seem unlikely, but it should not be written off. If the leaders of the regions and especially the non-Russian republics believe they are threatened with losing their jobs and their fiefdoms in the future, they may be far less willing to deliver for Putin than many now are.

Indeed, if many of them conclude that Putin really does want to redraw the borders of the federal subjects in a radical way, that could change the political dynamic of the campaign, transforming what has been a minor issue in recent years into a central one for the campaign – and making it something where Putin has more to lose than he may now imagine.

By Matt Hadro

The U.S. bishops’ conference on Thursday sharply rejected claims by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon that the bishops support undocumented immigrants in order to fill churches and make money.

“It is preposterous to claim that justice for immigrants isn’t central to Catholic teaching. It comes directly from Jesus Himself in Matthew 25, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food…a stranger and you welcomed me,’” said James Rogers, chief communications officer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Immigrants and refugees are precisely the strangers we must welcome,” he said in a statement Thursday.

Bannon, who was the White House chief strategist before leaving the Trump administration on Aug. 18, told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” host Charlie Rose, in an interview set to air on Sunday evening, that he thought the U.S. bishops support illegal immigration because of a cynical “economic interest.”

When asked by Rose about the Trump administration’s announcement that they would be phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA), Bannon defended the decision. Rose pressed Bannon on it, noting that he is a Catholic and that Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York – among other Church leaders – opposed the administration’s ending of the program.

“The Catholic Church has been terrible about this,” Bannon said, in comments reported on CBSNews.com on Thursday morning.

The bishops, he said, “need illegal aliens to fill the churches” and “have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”

He added that, on immigration, “this is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation.”

Rogers, speaking for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said on Thursday afternoon that Bannon’s claim of the bishops having an “economic interest” in “unlimited illegal immigration” was “outrageous and insulting.”

“The Bible is clear: welcoming immigrants is indispensable to our faith,” Rogers said.

And the bishops advocating on behalf of those who will be affected by the end of DACA, he said, “is nothing more than trying to carry out that seemingly simple, but ultimately incredibly demanding, commandment.”

DACA was a program begun by the Obama administration in 2012. Eligible immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, by their parents, and who did not have a criminal record, could participate in the program.

Beneficiaries of DACA could receive a stay of deportation for two years. In that time, they could apply for benefits like a work authorization or eligibility for Social Security, and could work to extend their stay in the U.S. Among other requirements, beneficiaries, or “Dreamers,” had to have lived in the U.S. for five years and been brought by their parents to the U.S. before the age of 16.

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would be ending the program in six months, and phasing it out in the meantime. An estimated 800,000 persons were benefitting from DACA.

In a statement on Tuesday, leading U.S. bishops called the planned termination of DACA “reprehensible.”

“These youth entered the U.S. as minors and often know America as their only home,” the bishops’ statement read. “Now, after months of anxiety and fear about their futures, these brave young people face deportation. This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect who we are as Americans.”

In comments reported on Thursday, Bannon said that rhetoric manifested a desire by the bishops to promote illegal immigration to deal “with the problems in the church.”

However, the bishops’ advocacy for immigrants is at the heart of the faith, and is connected to other vital issues, Rogers said.

“The witness of the Catholic bishops on issues from pro-life to pro-marriage to pro-health care to pro-immigration reforms is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ rather than the convenient political trends of the day,” he said.

“We are called not to politics or partisanship, but to love our neighbor.”