Philippa Kaur

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    in World Politics

    The British Far Right Has a New Voice of Unity

    In 45 years, by 2066, native white British people are set to become a minority in the UK. This is the claim, accompanied by census data dating back to 1801, made by the Patriotic Alternative, an organization launched in September 2019 that celebrates anti-Semitism and white nationalism in Britain. The Patriotic Alternative is run by …
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    in World Politics

    Welcome to The Economist’s Technological Idealism

    Every publication has a worldview. Each cultivates a style of thought, ideology or philosophy designed to comfort the expectations of its readers and to confirm a shared way of perceiving the world around them. Even Fair Observer has a worldview, in which, thanks to the diversity of its contributors, every topic deserves to be made visible from multiple angles. Rather than emphasizing ideology, such a worldview places a quintessential value on human perception and experience.

    Traditional media companies profile their readership and pitch their offering to their target market’s preferences. This often becomes its central activity. Reporting the news and informing the public becomes secondary to using news reporting to validate a worldview that may not be explicitly declared. Some media outlets reveal their bias, while others masquerade it and claim to be objective. The Daily Devil’s Dictionary has frequently highlighted the bias of newspapers like The New York Times that claim to be objective but consistently impose their worldview. In contrast, The Economist, founded in 1843, has, throughout its history, prominently put its liberal — and now neoliberal — worldview on public display. 

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    Many of The Economist’s articles are designed to influence both public opinion and public policy. One that appeared at the end of last week exemplifies the practice, advertising its worldview. It could be labeled “liberal technological optimism.” The title of the article sets the tone: “The new era of innovation — Why a dawn of technological optimism is breaking.” The byline indicates the author: Admin. In other words, this is a direct expression of the journal’s worldview.

    The article begins by citing what it assesses as the trend of pessimism that has dominated the economy over the past decade. The text quickly focuses on the optimism announced in the title. And this isn’t just any optimism, but an extreme form of joyous optimism that reflects a Whiggish neoliberal worldview. The “dawn” cliché makes it clear that it is all about the hope of emerging from a dark, ominous night into the cheer of a bright morning with the promise of technological bliss. Central to the rhetoric is the idea of a break with the past, which takes form in sentences such as this one: “Eventually, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and robotics could upend how almost everything is done.”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Upend:

    As used by most people: knock over, impede progress, halt a person’s or an object’s stability.

    As used by The Economist: to move forward, to embody progress.

    Contextual Note

    In recent decades, the notion of “disruptive innovation” has been elevated to the status of the highest ideal of modern capitalism. Formerly, disruption had a purely negative connotation as a factor of risk. Now it has become the obligatory goal of dynamic entrepreneurs. Upending was something to be avoided. Now it is actively pursued as the key to success. Let “synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and robotics” do their worst as they disrupt the habits and lifestyles of human beings, The Economist seems to be saying the more upending they entrepreneurs manage to do, the more their profits will grow.

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    In the neoliberal scheme of things, high profit margins resulting from the automatic monopoly of disruptive innovation will put more money in the hands of those who know how to use it — the entrepreneurs. Once they have settled the conditions for mooring their yachts in Monte Carlo, they may have time to think about creating new jobs, the one thing non-entrepreneurial humans continue to need and crave.

    For ordinary people, the new jobs may mean working alongside armies of artificially intelligent robots, though in what capacity nobody seems to know. In all likelihood, disruptive thinkers will eventually have to imagine a whole new set of “bullshit jobs” to replace the ones that have been upended. The language throughout the article radiates an astonishingly buoyant worldview at a moment of history in which humanity is struggling to survive the effects of an aggressive pandemic, to say nothing of the collapse of the planet’s biosphere, itself attributable to the unbridled assault of disruptive technology over the past 200 years.

    What The Economist wants us to believe is that the next round of disruption will be a positive one, mitigating the effects of the previous round that produced, alongside fabulous financial prosperity, a series of increasingly dire negative consequences.

    The article’s onslaught of rhetoric begins with the development of the cliché present in the title telling us that “a dawn of technological optimism is breaking.” The authors scatter an impressive series of positively resonating ideas through the body of the text: “speed,” “prominent breakthroughs,” “investment boom,” “new era of progress,” “optimists,” “giddily predict,” “advances,” “new era of innovation,” “lift living standards,” “new technologies to flourish,” “transformative potential,” “science continues to empower medicine,” “bend biology to their will,” “impressive progress,” “green investments,” “investors’ enthusiasm,” “easing the constraints,” “boost long-term growth,” “a fresh wave of innovation” and “economic dynamism.”

    The optimism sometimes takes a surprising twist. The authors forecast that in the race for technological disruption, “competition between America and China could spur further bold steps.” Political commentators in the US increasingly see conflict with China. Politicians are pressured to get tough on China. John Mearsheimer notably insists on the necessity of hegemonic domination by the US. Why? Because liberal capitalism must conquer, not cooperate. But in the rosy world foreseen by The Economist, friendship will take the day.

    Historical Note

    We at the Daily Devil’s Dictionary believe the world would be a better place if schools offered courses on how to decipher the media. That is unlikely to happen any time soon because today’s schools are institutions that function along the same lines as the media. They have been saddled with the task of disseminating an official worldview designed to support the political and economic system that supports them. 

    Official worldviews always begin with a particular reading of history. Some well-known examples show how nations design their history, the shared narrative of the past, to mold an attitude about the future. In the US, the narrative of the war that led to the founding of the nation established the cultural idea of the moral validity associated with declaring independence, establishing individual rights and justifying rebellion against unjust authority. Recent events in Washington, DC, demonstrate how that instilled belief, when assimilated uncritically, can lead to acts aiming at upending both society and government.

    In France, the ideas associated with the French Revolution, a traumatically upending event, spawned a different type of belief in individual rights. For the French, it must be expressed collectively through organized actions of protest on any issue. US individualism, founded on the frontier ideal of self-reliance, easily turns protestation into vigilante justice by the mob. In France, protests take the form of strikes and citizen movements.

    Embed from Getty Images

    The British retain the memory of multiple historical invasions of their island by Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and more recent attempts by Napoleon and Hitler. The British people have always found ways of resisting. This habit led enough of them to see the European Union as an invader to vote for Brexit.

    The Italian Renaissance blossomed in the brilliant courts and local governments of its multiple city-states. Although Italy was unified in 1870, its citizens have never fully felt they belonged to a modern nation-state. The one serious but ultimately futile attempt was Mussolini’s fascism, which represented the opposite extreme of autonomous city-states.

    The article in The Economist contains some examples of its reading of economic history. At the core of its argument is this reminder: “In the history of capitalism rapid technological advance has been the norm.” While asserting neoliberal “truths,” like that “Governments need to make sure that regulation and lobbying do not slow down disruption,” it grudgingly acknowledges that government plays a role in technological innovation. Still, the focus remains on what private companies do, even though it is common knowledge that most consumer technology originated in taxpayer-funded military research. 

    Here is how The Economist defines the relationship: “Although the private sector will ultimately determine which innovations succeed or fail, governments also have an important role to play. They should shoulder the risks in more ‘moonshot’ projects.” The people assume the risks and the corporations skim off the profit. This is neoliberal ideology in a nutshell.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    in US Politics

    America divided: never has the pursuit of happiness seemed so far off

    As Washington hosts a presidential inauguration under strict security lockdown, the US has rarely been more divided and unhappy. The shocking mob invasion of Capitol Hill is the most obvious manifestation of this – but in the background lurks the the COVID-19 pandemic. This has taken a horrific toll on human life and wellbeing – the US currently leads the world in confirmed cases and fatalities.
    According to the Johns Hopkins University database, by January 14 2021 more than 23 million Americans had contracted the disease and nearly 400,000 had died from it. The disease itself and government efforts to combat it have precipitated a major economic crash and huge social dislocations culminating in a riot in the nation’s capital. While this was sparked by Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the validity of the election, the pandemic has created an atmosphere of misery and discontent for many Americans.
    There have been serious negative psychological effects of the pandemic in the form of a significant erosion of feelings of life satisfaction. Our Cometrends pre-election survey of 2,500 people aged 18 and older across the US, which we conducted immediately before the November 3 presidential election, provides a grim snapshot of life in American as it chose new leadership.
    Using data gathered before the pandemic began, the 2020 World Happiness Report documented that the average level of life satisfaction in the US was 6.9 points on a scale of zero to ten, where zero means the respondent has the “worst life imaginable” and ten means the “best life imaginable”. But our new survey shows Americans’ average happiness score just before the election had dropped to 6.4 points.
    Life satisfaction before the election
    Average levels of life satisfaction among racial groups in the US before November 3 2020 election. 2019 Cometrends Pre-Election Survey., Author provided
    The new survey data also show levels of life satisfaction differ significantly in between ethnic and racial groups. While differences in life satisfaction between these groups in the US population are not new, our survey evidence testifies that the economic and psychological effects of the pandemic and efforts to mitigate it also vary significantly across ethnic and racial lines.
    As the graph below shows, significantly more people from ethnic minority groups said that they had encountered economic difficulties because of the pandemic. The story of psychological difficulties is similar. White people are much less likely to say they have experienced mental health problems than ethnic minorities.
    Economic and psychological problems due to COVID-19
    Percentages in racial/ethnic groups reporting economic and psychological problems caused by COVID-19. 2019 Cometrends Pre-Election Survey, Author provided
    When we looked at the effect of COVID on life satisfaction, taking into account other relevant factors such as income, age, confidence in political authorities, we found the virus has exerted significant negative effects on life satisfaction independently of these other factors.
    Political fallout
    Penned nearly 250 years ago, the Declaration of Independence identifies “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” as “inalienable rights” for all. COVID-19 put these rights at serious risk. Although the massively negative economic impact of the pandemic and government attempts to contain it became apparent almost immediately, deleterious psychological effects were recognised more slowly.
    New survey evidence shows that the latter effects are widespread and have precipitated large decreases in life satisfaction. In the same way that COVID cases and fatalities have been concentrated in vulnerable groups, the less-well educated, individuals on lower incomes, and ethnic minorities have borne the brunt of the psychological harm, too.
    Life satisfaction has many important consequences, some of which are political. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our Cometrends post-election survey, consisting of 1,959 participants from the pre-election study, showed supporters of Joe Biden judged the electoral process very favourably, while most Trump voters were highly critical. But we also found that people who reported low levels of life satisfaction were more likely to think the election was rigged.
    Partisan views of the election
    How Biden and Trump voters judge the presidential election. 2020 Cometrends Post-Election Survey, Author provided
    In part these contrasting judgements are products of the deep partisan and ideological animosities that have animated American voters throughout the Trump years. But statistical controls for these factors reveal that life satisfaction had a sizeable independent impact on judgements about the fairness of the election.
    Views of the election affected by people’s feelings of wellbeing
    Judgements about the 2020 presidential election (by levels of life satisfaction). 2020 Cometrends Post-Election Survey, Author provided
    The storming of Washington’s Capitol Building is only the latest in a series of violent protests and destructive riots that have occurred over the past year. The shocking event symbolises the profound political and psychological malaise that gripped America in the Trump era. One important consequence is that levels of life satisfaction have declined, especially in less privileged segments of the population.
    The incoming president faces many daunting tasks. Restoring political civility and helping to increase wellbeing in a fragmented and fractious electorate will be among the most important. More

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    in World Politics

    Why Is Joe Biden’s Presidency Anathema to So Many US Catholics?

    When I was growing up in Germany in the 1960s, during the holiday seasons, both Christmas and Easter, one of the highlights on television was the reruns of “Don Camillo and Peppone.” These are movies that involve the adventures of a Catholic priest and a communist mayor, taking place in a small village in the Po valley in northern Italy. The protagonists are constantly at loggerheads, yet in the end they always find a compromise, based on mutual understanding and appreciation. The time is the immediate postwar period, when both the Italian Catholic Church and Italy’s Communist Party were at the height of their influence and power. For the Catholic Church, this meant substantial interference in Italian politics.

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    One of the most drastic attempts to wield such influence was the Vatican’s decision in mid-1949 to excommunicate all members of the Communist Party. Given the fact that communism was “materialist and anti-Christian,” anyone who came out in support of the ideology automatically expressed their hostility “to God, religion and the Church” and, therefore, had no place among the community of believers. In a country where faith in the Catholic Church and its teachings were deeply ingrained, this was a formidable weapon. It is to the credit of the creator of Don Camillo and Peppone, Giovannino Guareschi, that he showed in many of his stories that this had little to do with reality on the ground — that somebody could be a communist and a good Catholic.

    Bygone Era

    In contemporary Italy, these are stories of a bygone era, one where the Christian Democrats still were the predominant party and where Italians still flocked to the churches. By now, the Christian Democrats are politically dead, and Italian churches have become museums rather than places of worship. In my own country, Germany, the Catholic Church has long abandoned its anti-socialist rhetoric aimed at the Social Democrats, perhaps, but not only, because the SPD has largely abandoned any pretense to be a socialist party.

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    Even in Ireland and in Poland, the Catholic Church is increasingly in a defensive position. Take, for instance, recent shocking official revelations about decades of neglect and abuse in Ireland’s mother and baby homes. Most of them run by religious orders affiliated with the Catholic Church, they reflected a “brutally misogynistic culture” promoted by the church. This culture resulted not only in unmarried women and girls being held “virtual prisoners” in these “homes” but also in the death of thousands of babies, oftentimes buried anonymously in mass graves. Under the circumstances, the Catholic Church’s adamant pro-life stance rings somewhat hollow.

    The church’s taking the moral high ground has also started to undermine the position of the Polish Catholics. It was recent scandals about the sexual abuse of children involving, most infamously, an icon of Polish Catholicism, Henryk Jankowski, a legend of the Solidarność movement that was instrumental in putting an end to Poland’s communist regime. His statue was toppled by protesters in 2019 in the city of Gdansk, before being officially dismantled and removed. The fact that until today, the Polish Catholic Church has refused to accept responsibility has led to a dramatic loss of trust in its authority. The church, in turn, has sought to divert attention from the crimes committed in its name by targeting the country’s LGTBQ community as the new “plague that seeks to dominate our souls, hearts and our mind.”

    I doubt that the American Catholic Church is tuned in to developments in contemporary Poland or that it has any awareness of the far-reaching influence of the Italian Catholic Church in the immediate postwar period. Yet the parallels are striking, particularly in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. This time, President Donald Trump garnered roughly 50% of the Catholic vote and about 57% among white Catholics. To be sure, Catholics voted for Trump for a range of different reasons. “Pro-life” considerations probably rank very high, if not highest, particularly among white Catholics. So do anti-immigrant sentiments. Among Hispanics, economic considerations appear to have had a significant influence on electoral choice, plus the open hostility a number of Catholic spiritual leaders have expressed toward Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in general.

    Take, for instance, Jesse Romero, a former cop turned into a well-known Catholic evangelist, who appears to have personally “witnessed diabolical satanic activity,” recounted in his 2019 book, “The Devil in the City of Angels: My Encounters With the Diabolical.” A cop staring down the devil — what other qualifications does one need to be a major authority on spiritual guidance? In early 2020, Romero published a book that proclaimed that a vote for Trump was the only choice for Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike. Those interested in the rationale behind Romero’s plea should consult his response to a Never Trump Catholic, which provides a long list of Trump’s “accomplishments” starting with his “pro-life” measures. What about him being a liar and philanderer? Who cares?

    To be sure, Romero is nothing more than another one of these evangelical snake oil salesmen that clutter America’s airwaves. Usually, they are of the Protestant persuasion; but then, the US is an equal opportunity country, and Romero is certainly not the worst of the lot, at least on the Catholic side.

    Party of Death

    A recent post on the Jesuit America magazine website provides a sobering account of the extent to which Catholic officials have gone to incite hatred toward Joe Biden and the Democrats. The author quotes one priest who posted a clip to YouTube that charged that the Democratic platform was “against everything the Catholic Church teaches.” Therefore, American Catholics who voted for the Democrats should “just quit pretending” to be Catholics. Those contemplating voting for Biden should repent of “their support of that party and its platform or face the fires of hell.” Christianity in action.

    And who cares that Biden is, in fact, a practicing Catholic, while Donald Trump, as his Presbyterian Protestant congregation puts it, is not an “active member.” As Rick Stika, the bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, put it in a tweet in August, Biden should not claim to be a good Catholic “as he denies so much of Church teaching especially on the absolute child abuse and human rights violations of the most innocent, the not yet born.” As a member of an institution infamous for widespread abuse of the most innocent, Stika should have known better than to use this kind of language. And yet, as an article in the National Catholic Reporter has documented, he was hardly the only top Catholic dignitary to question Biden’s Catholic faith and credentials.

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    Lower ranks followed suit. One priest posted a clip that called the Democrats the “party of death.” This is a trope that has been around for years, first introduced by the former St. Louise Archbishop Raymond Burke. Burke was appointed to the Vatican’s highest court in 2008 from where he attacked both Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who, he charged, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way.”

    Given the relatively long tradition of labeling the Democratic Party as the party of death by the gotha of American Catholicism, it is hardly surprising that the recent video clip received enthusiastic support from Joseph Strickland, a bishop from Tyler, Texas. Strickland not only endorsed the message but exhorted his flock to listen to this “wise and faithful priest.” It might also come as no surprise that according to one witness in Pennsylvania, some priests were “openly suggesting that politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion.”

    This is akin to what the Italian Catholic Church told its flock in the postwar period. This is what the Polish Church has been telling its flock since the collapse of the communist regime. The result: In 2019, a mere 20% of the Polish population expressed trust in the country’s Catholic Church.

    Blood on Their Hands

    Things are likely to move in the same direction in the United States. The headline of a recent article in National Catholic Reporter minced no words: Catholics, the article charged, “need to confess their complicity in the failed coup.” The author claims that, given the five casualties caused by the assault on the Capitol, “Catholic apologists for Trump have blood on their hands.” The tacit or open support of parts of the American Catholic Church’s clergy and affiliated lay organizations, such as Catholics for Trump, CatholicVote.org and LifeSiteNews, for a president who represents the very antithesis of Gospel teaching is bound to have a significant fallout, given the assault on the nation’s cradle of democracy.  

    This comes at a time when the Catholic Church is under tremendous pressure given the growing number of revelations of widespread sexual abuse, more often than not hushed up by the Church hierarchy. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the Catholic Church spent more than $5 million on lobbying to prevent victims of sexual abuse from getting meaningful compensation.

    Ever since the creation of the United States, Catholics have been under a cloud of suspicion. It took more than a century to alleviate these suspicions and allow Catholics to be accepted as equal members of the nation. By openly supporting a president who represents the very antithesis of Christ’s teaching, parts of the American Catholic Church have managed to erase much of the progress the American Catholic Church has managed to accomplish over the past several decades. Consumed by one issue, the question of abortion, they condoned Trump’s behavior by looking the other way on questions of racism, white supremacy, refugees and Black Lives Matter.  

    Embed from Getty Images

    On the contrary, radical right-wing influencers, such as Michelle Malkin (who once said that what was at the heart of her “outspokenness” was her Catholic faith), characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as “vigilante terrorists.” A few weeks before the assault on the Capitol, Malkin ridiculed the idea that Trump supporters might be “the real threat to civil order” or that the “populist movement to ‘stop the steal’ of election 2020 is rooted in hate.”   

    In the wake of the assault on the Capitol, it has become clear that the American Catholic Church’s narrow focus on the question of abortion is a dead end with serious consequences. It is time to shift the focus to pressing issues like social justice, affordable health care for all, human dignity independent of skin color, gender and sexual orientation, and, last but not least, a fundamental break with the Trump administration’s approach to the global climate crisis. In other words, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ rather than kowtowing to the likes of Donald Trump and many within the Republican Party who care only about themselves. 

    A recent article in the Chicago Tribune suggests that this is going to be an uphill battle. When a Catholic priest in Chicago raised uncomfortable questions about the church’s complicity with the Trump administration and the assault on Congress, a significant number of his congregation walked out, clearly unprepared to confront reality. This suggests that the rift in American society extends deep into the country’s Catholic community. This is hardly surprising, giving the polarizing figure of Pope Francis.  What many of his detractors in the Catholic Church have objected to is that his “theology stems from reality: from the reality of injustice, poverty and the destruction of nature.”

    As it happens, the American Catholic Church is a hotspot of opposition to Pope Francis. This might, in part at least, explain the support of many American Catholics for Donald Trump and the vitriol parts of the Catholic community have directed at Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Hence the irony that the country’s second Catholic taking over the Oval Office since John F. Kennedy is anathema to so many American Catholics.  

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    in World Politics

    Is GCC-Qatar Rapprochement Good or Bad News for Turkey?

    Turkey deepened its cooperation with Qatar during the blockade imposed by the Arab quartet in 2017, when the tiny emirate was most vulnerable and highly reliant on outside assistance for food supplies and security against perceived threats from its neighbors as well as the threat of an internal coup. Given that restoring diplomatic ties announced earlier this month with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the opening of borders and airspace will make Qatar less dependent on Turkey, it might appear surprising that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the agreement and expects benefits for Turkey and the Gulf states.

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    The current “solidarity and stability” deal between Qatar and the GCC plus Egypt makes no mention of the 13 demands of 2017, which included closing the Turkish military base and halting military cooperation with Ankara. While full clarification of the deal’s terms and impact will have to wait, it clearly does not resolve all the problems between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors. There are challenges ahead, with three plausible consequences for Turkey.

    Three Scenarios

    First is the continuation of the status quo, where relations between Qatar and Turkey carry on largely unchanged. Although Doha’s relations with Riyadh improve, the rivalry between the United Arab Emirates and Egypt remains, and Qatar will not necessarily change its foreign policy. Saudi Arabia and its Arab quartet allies — the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt — cannot achieve with carrots what they failed to accomplish with sticks.

    Embed from Getty Images

    Continuation of the status quo would not, however, make Qatar Turkey’s unconditional ally; Ankara never had absolute influence over Doha. While Qatar did refuse to endorse an Arab League condemnation of Turkish military operations in Syria and Iraq in 2016, it chose not to block a later communique reflecting the same sentiment. Qatar Petroleum also joined ExxonMobil in signing exploration and production-sharing contracts with Cyprus in 2017, which contradicts Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean policy. In this scenario, Turkey’s proactive, militaristic foreign policy will continue unchanged, from Syria to Libya. But Ankara will need to spend more effort on maintaining its relationship with a more independent Qatar.

    The second scenario is regional isolation. If Turkey loses its influence over Qatar as the latter’s relations with its neighbors revive, this will leave Ankara further isolated in the region. The Arab quartet had hoped that blockading Qatar would draw Doha away from Turkish and Iranian influence and squash its independent foreign policy. The plan failed and brought about the opposite effect: Qatar increased its cooperation with Turkey and deepened its ties with Iran.

    Following reconciliation, Saudi Arabia and its allies might pursue a more realistic, limited set of goals such as curbing rather than eradicating Turkish presence and influence in Qatar. This approach has a better chance of achieving results and would be a challenge to Turkey. Following the GCC summit, UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said that some issues would take longer to fix than others: “One of the big things will be the geostrategic dimensions, how do we see regional threats, how do we see the Turkish presence? Is Turkey’s presence in the Gulf going to be permanent?”

    Finally, there is the option of reconciliation with the Gulf region. Turkey’s disputes with Saudi Arabia and the UAE did not start with the Qatar blockade and will not end with its lifting. However, by agreeing to end the blockade without asking Qatar to concede any of their original main demands, Saudi Arabia and its allies have acknowledged a new power balance in the Gulf. That might give Qatar the leverage to mediate between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Turkey would then benefit from the thaw.

    Separate reconciliation processes are already underway between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt. According to Mithat Rende, former Turkish ambassador to Qatar, at the same time as communication was reestablished between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, another channel was opened between Istanbul and Riyadh. Ankara has also engaged in backdoor diplomacy and intelligence cooperation with Israel and Egypt.

    A Truce

    There can be no reconciliation without an agreement to seek common ground regarding geostrategic approaches in the region. The price for Ankara could be to moderate its approaches across the Arab world and exercising restraint in Libya, Syria and Iraq. The fact that the Saudis are currently more focused on potential threats from Iran rather than on Turkish intervention in the Middle East provides a promising context for negotiations. Reconciliation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia would also constrain the Emiratis and the Egyptians, for whom stopping Turkey’s activities is more urgent than Qatar downgrading its ties with Iran.

    Turkish-Saudi efforts to find a compromise may receive a boost from Qatar. In Doha, Turkey now has a well-connected ally in the Gulf that could serve Ankara’s ends, which are also in its own interests. Although it is unlikely that Ankara will change its geostrategic direction in order to gain friendlier relations with the Gulf states, it will still benefit from Doha restoring relations with Riyadh and its allies.

    To use an analogy from war, the GCC deal is a truce rather than a peace agreement. And it is still work in progress. If rapprochement within the GCC facilitates reconciliation with Turkey, this could lead to a broader process potentially including Israel, which is itself in a parallel process of normalizing relations with Arab countries such as Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan and Morocco. If, on the other hand, the GCC and Egypt manage to gradually detach Qatar from Turkey, this will have negative repercussions for Turkey’s militaristic policies in Syria and Libya, at least financially — as Qatar funds Turkey’s partners and proxies — and politically.

    Greater regional isolation and reconciliation with the Gulf would both constrain Turkey’s activities in conflicts such as Syria and Libya. European engagement, in the form of pressure on all sides to achieve resolution, would be useful. By contributing to stability in the region such efforts could ameliorate the associated security and migration challenges.

    *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Forecasting the US-China Relationship

    With a new US administration about to be inaugurated, it is prudent to look at the dynamics and variables shaping the future of one of the world’s most important relationships, that between Washington and Beijing. President Donald Trump came into office looking to take a more aggressive approach toward China. Trump’s reliance on figures like Peter Navarro and Mike Pompeo put American foreign policy on a forceful path. While Navarro, as Trump’s trade adviser, was focused on conducting trade wars, Secretary of State Pompeo was centered on military balancing. In the final year of the Trump presidency, relations with China were rapidly disintegrating, with little room left for cooperation.

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    If President Trump presided over a rapid deterioration of the US-China relationship, under President Joe Biden, the relationship is likely experience a stable deterioration. A stable deterioration is typified by two features: the continuance of deviating trajectories and the transactional nature of future cooperation. These two features interact to create a new status quo in the US-China relationship.

    Deviating Trajectories

    The era of engagement between Beijing and Washington was sustained through a shared interest in China’s economic and political integration in the international community. Today, China under President Xi Jinping has sought to both blunt international political institutions and create international financial bodies, thereby challenging US spuremacy and allowing for more Chinese dexterity. Xi’s international revisionism struggles against American national interests, creating a split between the two global giants.

    As President-elect Joe Biden is in the final stages of forming his national security team, he sends a strong, clear signal: This will not be a third Barack Obama term. Biden has declared that he plans on nominating Antony Blinken as secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser. While both are veterans of the Obama administration, their tone and language signal a break from the Obama years. Both Blinken and Sullivan have acknowledged the need to develop a new strategy for China that goes beyond traditional engagement into managing competition.

    Embed from Getty Images

    At a Hudson Institute event last summer, Blinken stated, “We are in a competition with China — and there’s nothing wrong with competition, if it’s fair.” Continuing the theme of managing competition with China, a piece for Foreign Affairs co-authored by Sullivan with Kurt Campbell, the CEO of the Asia Group, suggests that “the signs that China is gearing up to contest America’s global leadership are unmistakable, and they are ubiquitous.”

    These statements follow a larger trend within the Democratic Party of getting tougher on China. For example, in the 2016 Democratic Party Platform, China is only mentioned seven times. In the 2020 document, mentions were up to 22 and included language like “push back against” and “stand up to.” A Biden administration is going to bring strategic clarity to US-China competition. Key advisers like Sullivan and Blinken are not pollyannish about the relationship and recognize the dramatic change that has been occurring for nearly a decade. As Biden leaves America’s engagement strategy behind, he will advance a more confident and more energetic foreign policy in defense of US interests and values.

    Meanwhile, on the Chinese side of the relationship, President Xi Jinping has pursued an aggressive posture that has shaken the regional order. His ambitious “national rejuvenation” strategy has created consternation. Xi has abandoned institutional integration and instead established his own multilateral financial institutions to blunt the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The People’s Liberation Army has also been more assertive in promoting Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The complete political absorption of Hong Kong has alarmed neighboring Taiwan. Lastly, Xi’s extraordinary Belt and Road Initiative has expanded China’s political influence across the region.

    President Xi’s national rejuvenation campaign is in direct conflict with the interests of the United States and its allies. The US stands atop of an international order that promotes political and economic liberty. Through this alliance system, the United States promotes and secures a free and open Indo-Pacific. Under Xi’s helmsmanship, China wants to displace, if not replace, the US and develop a new, Sinocentric order. These trajectories will only continue to deviate until a new status quo can develop.

    Areas of Cooperation

    While the chasm in the US-China relationship widens and deepens, there are several areas where American and Chinese interests align. The United States and China must develop procedures for collaboration in these areas. If the relationship is only limited to competition, problems will arise that could otherwise be solved. Additionally, neither country gains from complete destruction of bilateral relations.

    The stabilization of the Korean Peninsula will require significant coordination between Washington and Beijing. Neither the Chinese nor the Americans want to see conventional or nuclear conflict on the peninsula. The two countries do not need to feign friendship to achieve stabilization, but it does require communication.

    Climate change is an issue that is not only an opportunity for cooperation but a problem that demands collaboration. As the world’s two largest economies, the US and China have a lot of influence in affecting the trajectory of global warming and climate change. Both countries stand only to gain from working together on this issue. Collaboration on the environment does not require a new proclamation of camaraderie between the two nations. Each government can recognize that cooperation on climate change is important without declaring a new era of relations. The business-like, transactional nature of US-China cooperation creates an environment where the two countries can work together without upsetting the aggressive factions within their respective countries.

    When accounting for these dynamics, the most likely scenario to play out under the Biden administration is stable deterioration. Stable deterioration recognizes the continued decline in bilateral relations brought about by the deviating trajectories of the two countries but understands that there is a limit to that decline. Both countries accept collaboration when interests align, but the nature of cooperation is transactional. Through managing competition and transactional cooperation, a new status quo in the US-China relationship will develop.

    This scenario assumes that neither President Biden nor President Xi perceives any value in the destruction of bilateral relations, but both recognize that competition is unavoidable. Both countries will continue to pursue their interests in the region, and neither will apologize for it. But both the United States and China will work together to develop a new relationship that allows them to compete without the total abandonment of the relationship.   

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Corporations Step Up to Punish Republicans

    Perhaps the most surprising outcome of the Capitol riots has been the reaction of corporate donors to the funding of political campaigns. These locomotives of democracy are suddenly unhappy. The shame that now stains the doubly impeached Donald Trump has shaken and apparently cracked what had become the main pillar of electoral politics in the US: corporate money.

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    One commentator states it in these terms: “Big corporations are deciding they don’t want their campaign contributions being linked to violent insurrections.” This has turned out to be particularly problematic for Republican lawmakers after the scandalous raid on Capitol Hill on January 6. The Washington Post reports that “Several major companies on Monday said they planned to cut off political donations to the 147 members of Congress who last week voted against certifying the results of the presidential election.” Yahoo Finance notes what may become a long-term trend as “companies are just beginning to recognize that ‘political spending today poses a really broad risk and a deep risk that they need to manage.’”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Broad risk:

    Risk related to the level of awareness of an entire population, as opposed to deep risk that concerns the legal and commercial status of a monopoly or privileged economic position.

    Contextual Note

    The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, a provider of health insurance to over 100 million people, has now pledged to stop its contributions “to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy.” Critics might point out that health insurance providers have been undermining democracy for decades. They literally control Congress thanks not only to their lobbying efforts but also to the direct campaign contributions needed to obtain the legislation their lobbyists push through Congress.

    Will pulling back weaken their chances of getting privileged treatment in the future? The risk is real. But health insurance providers are experts in evaluating risk. They realize that the public’s growing preference for a national single-payer system means they desperately need to improve their moral profile. What better way than to express their indignation at the immorality of politicians?

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    Yahoo Finance interviewed Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability. Freed asks the fundamental question about what Donald Trump, in his original presidential campaign, referred to as the DC “swamp” that needed draining. “Does this really lead to a fundamental change in the way companies approach their political spending?” Freed calls the recent announcements a “reaction of the moment.” He nevertheless thinks this could be the beginning of a trend. It all depends on how long the public’s indignation lasts as well as how consistently the media give it play.

    Wall Street banks have taken the most radical position. Rather than punishing Republicans for their lack of civism, some “have announced steps to back away from giving money to all lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — at least for now.” This is undoubtedly an act of pure PR calculation. They must at all costs avoid singling out Republicans for punishment, who have always been the first to do their bidding. Yahoo judges that this “appears to be temporary and could expire before fundraising for the 2022 midterm elections begins in earnest.” In other words, this clearly is PR. It sounds more like a vacation than a strike. Basically, these companies will save some money in the short term, take the time to observe the drift of opinion and think out their strategy just in time for the next midterms.

    This entire episode demonstrates how radical Trump’s impact on US institutions has been. The Republican Party has become the principal victim. When Republican elected officials in their majority made the choice of remaining loyal to Trump, they painted themselves into a corner. They accepted Trump’s strategy of polarizing the electorate beyond possible reconciliation. For the past four years, public debate has consistently turned around the extreme positions Trump tweeted on a daily basis. The media lost all interest in rational debate about real political issues. It doesn’t attract eyeballs.

    It wasn’t always like this. In the lead-up to the 2016 Republican National Convention, the GOP establishment massively opposed Trump. At the time, commentators speculated about a possible revolt within the party against Trump’s nomination. Party stalwarts even seemed to count on his defeat in the November election to rid the party of its troublemaker. In vain.

    When, to Trump’s own surprise, he won against Hillary Clinton, the designated dynastic heiress to the imperial throne as defined by the Democrats, establishment Republicans employed a strategy that consisted of accommodating Trump’s idiosyncrasies while pursuing their traditional goals: tax cuts, militarism and transforming the judiciary. The strategy worked well, indeed too well for the taste of many Republicans. They realized that Trump had become the key to the party’s winning of elections, and they knew for a fact that politics today is about nothing other than winning elections.

    Historical Note

    This story highlights not just the importance of corporate financing in political campaigns but also the emergence of a culture focused exclusively on electoral success. If the US is still a democracy, it has become literally a democracy of beggars. The needs of the citizens and the methods of good government have taken a back seat to the perennial quest for campaign funding. Members of Congress now spend 67% of their time on fundraising. Not only does that mean that they have limited time to do their job as legislators — it also means that their fundraising needs redefine and inevitably pervert their official role in government: representing their constituents.

    At best, in their interactions with lobbyists, lawmakers can resist specific demands of their donors on the grounds that what they are requesting would be unacceptable to their voters. What happens then is that, instead of refusing, they will more likely work on the window-dressing that makes policies inimical to their constituents’ interests seem logical, acceptable or simply inevitable. 

    This type of beggars’ democracy becomes palatable to many because society itself has become a civilization of beggars fighting for survival in an economy of beggars. Lobbyists themselves are professional beggars, but with clout. The rest of the population has increasingly adapted to the gig economy, which sums up what democratic politics has become. 

    Embed from Getty Images

    Traditional economies owed their stability to a somewhat sclerotic continuity of gainful economic activity. Successive generations in the same family exercised identical vocations. With the advent of the industrial revolution, capitalism worked on the basis of creating a pool of largely uprooted workers begging for a job that had nothing to do with inherited skills. This brought the advantage of flexibility and the capacity of manufacturing to produce more efficiently what generations of artisans could only create on a limited scale. The enclosure system in England forced peasants to towns where manufacturing, exploiting the resources made available through colonial conquest, offered the possibility of employment. The poor of the countryside became the beggars of the town.

    The Industrial Revolution created a society that depended on the notion of mass anonymity. It required pools of potential workers who could be available for employment to meet the growing needs of industry. The anonymous masses then had the choice of selecting to invest personally in skill sets that promised possible employment. This relationship has defined the economic system that has prevailed for the past two centuries in the West and now in most of the global economy.

    Because anonymity and fluctuations in every marketplace lead to instability, the latest permutation of this model has been the evolution toward the gig economy. Paradoxically, it represents a return to the logic of early capitalism and the policy of subsistence wages. Employers needed simply to ensure that the pool of workers could be physically maintained to continue to meet the needs of production. The policy of subsistence gradually evolved to include cultural factors that contributed to a notion of prosperous and stable subsistence. This permitted the creation of the modern welfare state. But the aggravation of competition and the financialization of the economy ultimately led to the gig society where people sell their time on a piecemeal basis.

    Millions of people make their living online. Increasingly, they do it as beggars, offering their services in the hope someone will need them enough to pay. A beggar’s democracy requires a beggar’s economy.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    America: Motherhood, Apple Pie and the Mob

    The United States began as a glint in the eyes of an English mob of oddballs, dissenters and criminals let loose on what they considered virgin territory. Once secure in their new digs, they administered rough justice to the original Americans and any colonist who fell afoul of community rules. Eventually, casting aside their imperial British overlords, the rabble achieved a measure of respectability by creating an independent state.

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    Even as the United States fashioned an army, a constabulary and an evolving rule of law, the mob continued to define what it meant to be an American. It policed the slave economy. It helped push the borders westward. It formed the shock troops that rolled back Reconstruction. A 20th-century version of this mob rampaged during the long Red Summer of violence that stretched from 1917 to 1923. It mobilized against the civil rights movement. And during the Trump era, it has reared its ugly head in Charlottesville, Portland and, last week, on Capitol Hill. America is motherhood, apple pie … and the mob.

    Un-American

    Last week, many a politician decried the mob violence at the US Capitol as “un-American.” Consider, for instance, the words of Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader: “This is so un-American. I condemn any of this violence. I could not be sadder or more disappointed with the way our country looks right now. People are getting hurt. Anyone involved in this, if you’re hearing me, hear me loud and clear: This is not the American way.”

    McCarthy was not on the same podium with Donald Trump earlier in the day urging on the mob. But he and the president were on the same page between November 3 and January 6. Two days after the election, the California Republican announced that Trump had won. Later, he supported the outlandish Texas lawsuit to overturn the election results, refused to acknowledge Biden’s win well into 2021, and stood up in the House last week even after the mob retreated to challenge the Electoral College results.

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    After January 6, McCarthy has tried to put some distance between himself and the rabble. He has been willing to consider an official censure of the president and has also indicated that he won’t try to enforce party unity against an impeachment vote. No doubt McCarthy has shifted his stance because he feared for his own life when the insurrectionists stormed the barricades and invaded his sanctum. Trump, enjoying the images on TV, refused McCarthy’s plea to issue a statement calling off his attack dogs. It’s enough to make even the most loyal lapdog bark a different tune.

    None of this detracts from the fact that McCarthy, since the election, was the elected representative not of his California district but of the mob. He was their cheerleader, their mouthpiece on the Hill, one of the many suits over the ages who have translated the “will of the people” into official-sounding acts and bills that attempt to preserve the privileges of white people at the expense of everyone else. For that is the beating heart of Trumpism: the Confederate flag, the noose, the closed polling booth, the knee on the neck of non-white America.

    The word “mob” makes it sounds as though the violence was perpetrated by a group of mindless rowdies. But there has always been a method to the madness of this particular crowd. Let’s take a closer look at what the latest incarnation of the American mob wants, how it connects to like-minded groups overseas, and what to expect over the next weeks, months and years.

    Against the Globalists

    At first glance, the people who descended upon Washington to disrupt Congress on January 6 are almost obsessively focused on domestic issues. They’re not so much America First as Trump First. They have turned against anyone in the Republican Party who has abandoned the soon-to-be-ex-president, and that includes the vice president. They are nationalist and parochial. They are also anti-globalist, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t global in their strategizing, their connections and their aspirations.

    One of the core components of the Stop the Steal coalition is QAnon, an amorphous global network that believes that another amorphous global network — of Satanic child molesters — somehow controls the levers of international power. What started out as a conspiracy theory centered on Donald Trump as a St. George figure battling a devilish dragon went global in 2020, attracting adherents in 71 countries by August. One German QAnon group counts 120,000 members in its Telegram account.

    Another key member of the coalition is a bloc of white nationalists and militia members that encompasses accelerationists like the Boogaloo Bois, who want to spur a race war to bring down the liberal status quo, and organizations like the Proud Boys that emphasize male supremacy. These groups have forged global links over the last decade in Canada, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.

    Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, these chauvinists united around a “great replacement” narrative according to which immigrants and people of color are determined to “replace” white people through migration, higher birthrates or sheer pushiness. When the border closures around the pandemic reduced the salience of the immigration issue, the great replacement became a less useful organizing tool.

    Embed from Getty Images

    It was into this vacuum that QAnon became the conspiracy theory de jour. Meanwhile, the far right shifted its discourse on “globalists” to challenge their approach to COVID-19, their deference to the Chinese and their proposed “reset” of the global economy — anything to deflect attention from the obvious failures of the nationalist populists who headed up the countries with the highest number of infections and deaths: the United States, Brazil, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.

    Although they often disagree about particulars, this array of groups is united by an animus against government. They supported Trump not as the head of government but as someone opposed to government. And they adored him because he didn’t just hate the US government and the elites that staff it, but global governance as well. The “deep state” was always a canard. The far right despised the liberal state, full stop. Trump attracted an even wider following by squaring off against the expert class: the uppity journalists and fact-bound scientists and Hollywood liberals and hand-wringing academics. Burn it all down, Trump’s followers demanded.

    Inside-Outside Game

    Trump in government, however, represented a certain check on the most ambitious impulses of the far right. True, during his reign, extremists have come out into the streets to protest economic shutdowns, masking ordinances and Black Lives Matter mobilizations. Some extremists planned more violent interventions, like kidnapping the governor of Michigan. But with the administration on its side, with the Senate in Republican hands and with Republicans controlling the vast majority of state legislatures, the far right focused its wrath selectively. It played the ultimate inside-outside game.

    After the November election, with Trump on his way out of power, the far right no longer has to place any caveats on its anti-government impulses. First came an attack on Congress, not coincidentally on the very day that the Republicans lost their Senate majority. Next, the far right is planning an armed march on Washington and all 50 state capitols on January 17. To cap it off, a Million Militia March is planned for Inauguration Day.

    What happened on January 6 was, despite some prior planning, a disorganized coup attempt. What comes next may well be more precisely planned, which may result in a focus on the weakest links rather than the most potent symbols, just as the Oregon extremists chose the easily occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016 rather than the heavily guarded state capitol building.

    The storming of the US Capitol, meanwhile, has proven to be a great winnower. The fainthearted, like Kevin McCarthy, have proven to be chaff, as has a number of previously ardent Trump supporters. According to polling conducted after the attack, “a quarter of Trump voters agree that actions should be taken to immediately remove him from office. Further, 41% of Trump voters believe he has ‘betrayed the values and interests of the Republican Party.’” This is an extraordinarily rapid fissure in what had hitherto been an impregnable base of support for Trump.

    What remains is a revolutionary core. They won’t muster enough force to make a difference over the next two weeks, not against the 15,000 National Guards likely to be deployed to Washington, DC, for Joe Biden’s inauguration. After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, the far right couldn’t handle the avalanche of criticism and could barely muster a couple of dozen extremists for a rally one year later in DC. But it has since altered its messaging and its strategy. Expect even more adaptation over the next months and years.

    What Comes Next

    The idea that the Civil War was a “war of Northern aggression” has survived 150 years of civic, political and media education to the contrary. A large section of white Southerners, and even a few folks outside the region, cling to their “lost cause” much as Serbian nationalists mourn their defeat on the plain of Kosovo in 1389, Hungarians rail against the loss of territory after the Trianon Treaty of 1920, and the Japanese and German far right has bridled at the “outside interference” that robbed their nations of a measure of sovereignty after World War II.

    Prepare for the “stolen election” narrative to serve a similar function for the Forever Trumpers. This narrative of an unfair political system ties together many of the far right’s themes: liberal institutions are fundamentally broken and corrupted, the mainstream media is compliant in tilting the playing field, and the globalists will do anything to regain power from “the people.” Note, too, how these messages can appeal to a left also angry at the status quo, and you can understand why so many people who voted for Bernie Sanders switched to Trump and why the European far right have harvested votes from previous bastions of the communist parties.

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    Such appeals to fairness — a stolen election is above all unfair — conceal the racist, sexist and otherwise exclusionary content of the far right’s agenda. An explicitly fascist platform has considerably less broad-based appeal than a cry to right a wrong. Over the next four years, the far right will beat this drum of political illegitimacy. It will claim that nothing the Biden administration does will be legal or constitutional because of its original sin of ascension via a stolen election.

    The fallout from January 6 will continue to divide the Republican Party. But the opportunity to brand the Democrats as illegitimate will prove just too addictive to be ignored. Consider the attacks on Obamacare or the successful effort to block Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Even in the face of overwhelming counterevidence, the Republicans hammered on the illegitimacy of the Democratic initiatives. A “stolen election” caucus, composed of the congressional members who survive a corporate and fundraiser boycott, will attempt to pull the Republican Party further to the right, just as the Tea Party did during the Obama era.

    The international ramifications of this strategy are equally worrisome. The far right attacks governments not only because they are liberal in the sense of providing government “handouts,” but because they follow liberal principles of governance — checks and balances, free press, rights to gather and express dissent. Trump’s attacks on January 6 were not just seditious. They were designed to transform his position and that of the GOP into something resembling the United Russia party and Vladimir Putin’s leadership for life. Trump has always wanted to build a Moscow or a Budapest or an Ankara or a Managua on the Potomac: iron-fisted leadership, no serious political opposition, a cowering press, a cult of personality. He thought he saw his opportunity on January 6.

    This is also the ultimate goal of the mob. It doesn’t want anarchy, except as an interim strategy. It wants a strong hand on the tiller, as if Trump were the Great Helmsman guiding the country in a Great Leap Forward (or backward, given that a mob’s sense of direction is never very precise). Trump’s hands, however, are being wrenched from the tiller. Even better, he is being abandoned by leading members of his party, his social media enablers, his financial backers and his corporate sponsors. His ambition having overleapt itself, Trump has stumbled, irrevocably. The mob is taking note, even as it falls back to protect its wounded leader.

    For the next four years, prepare for the mob and its political representatives to rely on street power to identify, campaign for and put into office their next Great White Hope. What’s more quintessentially American than that?

    *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More