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      Is China the New Champion of Globalization?

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      On January 25, addressing a virtual World Economic Forum, China’s President Xi Jinping not only strongly advocated for a multilateral approach to the COVID-19 pandemic but insisted on the virtues and systemic benefits of free trade and globalization. Jeopardizing those elements may introduce conflict into the international system, Xi warned, clearly referring to, although not mentioning, the United States. This is not the first time Xi has credited himself as the “champion of globalization,” in particular when attending meetings in Davos. In 2017, in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, with the long shadow of barriers to trade and isolationist policies just starting to appear on the horizon, China’s president made important remarks encouraging free trade and opening up the markets.

      However, with Trump out and Joe Biden now in the Oval Office, there seems little to suggest any substantial change in US policy, at least in the foreseeable future. If the US isn’t particularly eager to work with China toward free trade and multilateral cooperation, the European Union, and Germany in particular, quickly opted for a completely different approach, signing a key investment deal with Beijing at the end of last year. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) will grant a greater level of market access for investors than ever before, including new important market openings.

      Forecasting the US-China Relationship

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      Washington did not miss the opportunity to express its concerns about a deal that suddenly and unexpectedly sidelined the United States at a moment when, after four years of relative anarchy and opportunism, restarting transatlantic relations should be a priority. Writing in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman recently pointed out how little sense it makes to rely on a US security guarantee in Europe while undermining its security policy in the Pacific, considering how much Europe has benefitted from the fact that for the past 70 years, the world’s most powerful nation has been a liberal democracy. Germany, in fact, was able over the last decades to exercise a sui generis role of Zivilmacht (civilian power) by framing its national interest in geoeconomic terms, encouraging German exports worldwide while outsourcing its defense to the reassuring presence of US troops.

      To better understand Xi’s quasi-imperial stance at the World Economic Forum, it has to be placed not only against the backdrop of the recent investment deals with the European Union or with the 15 countries of the Asia-Pacific region, but on the big news that China is on course to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy by 2028, five years ahead of earlier predictions, mainly due to the asymmetric impact of COVID-19. While it is clear that China has successfully contained the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak and the Chinese economy is now recovering at a higher speed than other countries, it is also true that a lack of transparency and delays in sharing information with the international community about the virus have contributed to an acceleration of the pandemic at a global level.

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      Nonetheless, in the current debate over shaping more efficient emergency policies, China is still emerging as the model to follow and imitate, despite being unpopular. There is little doubt that in the “social imaginary” of liberal societies, as reports from Europe and the US suggest, authoritarian regimes are seen by many as more efficient and better prepared to deal with crises than democracies. Yet we must not forget that this efficiency comes at the inevitable cost of political and civil rights.

      Xi Jinping is well aware that the Biden administration can finally change course for the US and its allies, forging a united and progressive front after years of populist, nativist and authoritarian politics. Perhaps this element can help understand Xi’s assertiveness at the World Economic Forum better than the recent economic successes. After all, political and civil rights are China’s Achilles’ heel. Criticism of the Communist Party, let alone advocating for basic human rights such as freedom of speech or the rule of law, inexorably leads to repression that falls with equal severity on the rich metropolis of Hong Kong and the poor areas of Xinjiang, sweeping up ordinary citizens and billionaires alike, from Joshua Wong to Jack Ma.

      Can China credibly profess the virtues of globalization to achieve harmony and balance in an international system if it doesn’t adhere to international law? Can Beijing speak of cooperation to solve global problems when it has withheld vital information about the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic? As Xi Jinping continues to steer the Middle Kingdom out of its historical isolation, avoiding challenging the United States for the position of world leader will be difficult, given China’s demographics and economic status. Will these two Weltanschauungen, two comprehensively different conceptions of the world, sooner or later present the international community with a choice?

      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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      The Iran Deal vs. the Logic of History

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      The Associated Press offers an update on the standoff between the US and Iran over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran deal, from which Donald Trump as president spectacularly withdrew the US in 2018.

      Trump committed an act of pure will, with no serious legal argument related to the terms of the agreement. In the culture of international diplomacy, that usually signifies a betrayal of trust or an act of bad faith. In the democratic and free market tradition, the idea of a contract depends on the recognition of theoretical equality of status between the contracting partners. In real geopolitics, however, the hegemonic position of the United States means that acts of bad faith will always be permitted. It is a privilege of hegemonic power. Such acts will also be resented. 

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      Just as Trump made a point of undoing anything associated with the Obama administration, many people have expected that US President Joe Biden would follow suit, seeking to overturn everything Trump so deliberately sabotaged. The AP article reminds us of Biden’s campaign promise to “seek to revive the deal,” while noting that the new administration insists “that Iran must first reverse its nuclear steps, creating a contest of wills between the nations.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Contest of wills:

      A competition between two parties of approximately equal strength based on their refusal to agree on anything until one subdues the other by imposing a solution designed to narrowly avoid a catastrophe with uncontrollable consequences

      Contextual Note

      Many cultures feature the proverb, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” A logical corollary of the proverb would be: Where there are two wills there is no obvious way. But as Gary Grappo, in an article on Fair Observer, explained this week, this contest of wills is not limited to Iran and the US. There are a number of other wills involved. And where there are several wills, the way will be extremely obscure. Or, just as likely, there will be no way at all.

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      Grappo, a former US ambassador and the current chairman of Fair Observer, reminds us that there is the will of the other signatories of the original agreement, essentially the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union. In normal circumstances, faced with the prospect evoked by the Iranians of returning to the agreement they signed in 2015, the signatories would simply reaffirm their good faith, which has never wavered. But even if they were to express that intention, for the multiple reasons Grappo lays out in his article, the Biden administration is itself caught in the trap Trump knowingly laid out for future administrations. Because of its status as hegemon — aka the international bully who imposes the rules of the road in the name of democracy and civilized values — the US cannot allow itself to meekly admit that Trump’s obviously failed “maximum pressure” policy on Iran was an irresponsible mistake and a violation of the very idea of the rule of law. It’s a question of pride, but also of pressure from both rational and irrational voices.

      The situation contains two major absurdities, which everyone is aware of but no one dares to speak about. Grappo correctly reports that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan “have promised that the US will consult with … regional allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia before making decisions or taking any action.” This could make sense if “consult with” amounts to nothing more than informing those nations of the state of negotiations. If it implies involving them in the discussion or seeking to accommodate their positions, there are two reasons to see this as wishful thinking, if not dangerous folly.

      The first is that if the debate is truly about Iran’s military nuclear capacity, the insistence that the Israelis have a role in the debate is patently absurd. Israel has accomplished — totally illegally and with the benediction of the Western powers — exactly what the JCPOA is designed to prevent Iran from achieving. Israel is a nuclear power that, at the same time, denies its status as a nuclear power. In a rational world, a renegotiated treaty in which Israel has its say would require the dismantling of Israel’s nuclear capacity. No intelligent and informed diplomat on earth could imagine Israel accepting that condition.

      The second absurdity concerns Saudi Arabia. Grappo evokes the need to address the question of “terrorism, terrorism financing, human rights, religious persecution, etc.” If Saudi Arabia’s interests were taken into account, the logical consequence of this would be to examine and eliminate the kingdom’s obvious practice of all those evils. The Saudis remain the heavyweight champions of Middle East terrorism. It was Saudis, after all (possibly with the complicity of members of the royal family), who engineered and executed 9/11, the only direct attack on the US since Pearl Harbor. For decades, the Saudis have been spreading Wahhabi jihadism globally, contributing to the rise of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. And who — other than Trump — can forget that it is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who kills journalists working for The Washington Post and is not averse to imprisoning or killing anyone else who too publicly opposes his regime?

      And yet, on the subject of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Grappo tells us that “President Biden and his team will have to find a way to ensure that these governments’ concerns, fears and interests are taken into account.” If this has any meaning, that certainly means that there will be at least two wills too many in the contest

      Historical Note

      A former diplomat, Gary Grappo understands the thinking, positioning and maneuvering that must be going on within the Biden administration. He has presented a true and realistic account of the dilemma it is faced with. But the picture he paints is one of such a confusion of wills that imagining any solution with a reasonable chance of success requires believing in a world of diplomatic hyperreality — the equivalent of a stage play, where wills simply exist as the speeches characters express and never translate into concrete acts with consequences.

      The representation of geopolitics as a spectacle of hyperreality may please the media, who thrive by presenting it in living color. It keeps the pundits who depend on it for their livelihood talking and writing. It may even distract the public’s attention for short periods, as it once did for Roman emperors. But history has its own laws that will consistently undermine even the most solidly constructed examples of hyperreality.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Wills are not the only forces at play here. Underlying the quandary of how the US might return to the JCPOA is the evolution of global power and hegemony over the past three decades. It began with an earthquake: the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

      During the Cold War, the US could do pretty much anything it wanted in the so-called “free world,” knowing it was admired (for its dynamic economy), respected (for its power) and feared (for its might). Recent events have seriously reduced the level of admiration of the US across the globe. The actions of two presidents, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, have seriously diminished respect for American power globally. Waging war on the basis of an obvious lie (Bush) and conducting foreign policy on the basis of whims and threats alone (Trump) have significantly reduced the credibility of any “reasoned position” the US takes to justify any action. Finally, the long series of military fiascos since the Vietnam War, along with two economic fiascos in the past 12 years, have transferred the fear people used to have of US might to a fear of the inadvertent catastrophes its policies provoke.

      Barack Obama’s strategy with the JCPOA made some sense. It consisted of betting on the idea that a loosening of constraints would naturally provoke an evolution within Iranian society toward a less paranoid vision of the West and of America in particular. It would encourage what optimists like to think of as “the better angels” of the Iranian people. It also meant leaving the Middle East quagmire behind, a feature of Obama’s Asia Pivot. The process worked in a unified Vietnam once the US abandoned its mission to save the country from communism. The problem with such a strategy today for some people, including members of Congress, is that it scores no hegemonic points. And that is intolerable.

      *[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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      Trumpism After Trump: The Wrong Person at the Right Time?

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      A few days before the Senate was due to vote on whether to proceed with the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump on charges of inciting insurrection, an article in The Washington Post’s opinion pages boldly proclaimed that “Trumpism is American fascism.” Equating the Trump phenomenon with fascism is nothing new. The comparison started with his election in 2016, feeding a cottage industry over the next four years. At the time, most academic experts on fascism vehemently disagreed. In August 2020, for instance, a prominent Georgetown University historian raised the rhetorical question, “How fascist is President Trump?” The response followed, stante pede: “Not that much.”

      The arguably most important reason for dismissing the fascist charge was that scholars of fascism did not want to contribute to what Gavriel D. Rosenfeld has called “symbolic inflation” — the fact that invoking Adolf Hitler has led to a process where the “value of ‘Hitler’ as an admonitory signifier has become progressively devalued over time.” Examples abound. Jörg Haider, for instance, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) who propelled it to international prominence in the 1990s, was routinely associated with Hitler.

      How Do You Tell an Authoritarian From a Fascist These Days?

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      It was only in the aftermath of the assault on the US Capitol that one of the most eminent contemporary scholars of fascism, Columbia University historian Robert Paxton, came out to state that “Trump’s incitement of the invasion of the Capitol … removes my objection to the fascist label. His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.”

      A Diagnosis of Decline

      Behind this reassessment of Trump(ism) is the fact that those who invaded the Capitol on January 6 had no qualms about engaging in violent actions. In fact, by now, it has become obvious that many of the insurgents considered violence a perfectly acceptable means to advance their agenda. The Proud Boys — recently labeled a neo-fascist terrorist group by the Canadian government — add a whiff of squadrismo to the mix. The squadristi (this picture is taken at the Foro Italico, a piazza in front of the Olympic stadium in Rome, depicting an armed squad heading out for a punitive expedition) were Benito Mussolini’s armed goons routinely swarming out to the countryside where they terrorized socialists and trade union leaders.

      Squadrismo was informed by a “palingenetic vision of politics” that was also at the heart of Mussolini’s version of totalitarianism. The term was originally coined and developed by Roger Griffin, another leading expert on fascism. Griffin defines fascism as a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism, where “palingenetic” refers to the myth of rebirth, revival and regeneration provoked by a profound sense of decline, decay and decadence. It follows that fascism is revolutionary and, thus, by definition, the opposite of conservatism. The last thing fascists are interested in is defending and preserving the status quo.

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      From this perspective, there can be no doubt that Trumpism has certain affinities to fascism, to put it cautiously. The very slogan that informed Trump’s 2016 campaign, “Make America Great Again,” reflects the palingenetic spirit of fascism. It serves both as a diagnosis and a promise. A year ago, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat gave a sense of how the diagnosis might go. In his view, the United States, if not the whole Western world, suffers from decadence, manifested by “forms of economic stagnation, institutional sclerosis, and cultural repetition at a high stage of wealth and technological proficiency and civilizational development.”

      There undoubtedly is much truth to this diagnosis. In fact, a Pew survey from early 2019 revealed that a significant majority of the American public shared this view. When asked about their expectations 30 years into the future, a majority thought that the United States would lose importance on the world stage; that the country would be saddled with a huge national debt; and that socioeconomic inequality would be even higher than at the moment. At the same time, the vast majority of respondents had little confidence in the capability of the country’s elected officials to meet these challenges. In fact, more than half of respondents thought that “Washington” had a “negative impact” on finding solutions to the country’s major problems.

      Various studies from 2020 provide further confirmation of the perception of decline. A Brookings Institution preview of the results of the 2020 Census, for instance, painted a picture of stagnation, both in terms of population growth and mobility. A U.S.News analysis of the most recent findings of its annual country rankings found widespread skepticism that more than three years of Trump had made the country “great again.” In fact, compared to the previous year, more Americans thought the US was corrupt: at 31%, a 5% increase on 2019. At the same time, the number of Americans who thought their country was “trustworthy” declined from 61% in 2019 to 55% in 2020.

      Finally, according to a Pew study from early 2020, most American Christians have come to believe that their religion has lost, and continues to lose, influence in American life. Worse still, most also believe that there is a fundamental “tension between their beliefs and the mainstream culture.” This is particularly galling given the fact that at one time in the not-so-distant past, Christian culture was mainstream culture. Not for nothing, in 2016 and 2020, (white) evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

      Something Like Fascism

      Diagnosis, however, is relatively easy. Coming up with a genuine remedy is a fundamentally different issue, provided it goes beyond trite platitudes couched in catchy sloganeering epitomized by Trump’s MAGA campaign. “Make America Great Again” is one of these slogans that sound good but are fundamentally meaningless in the true sense of the word. As such, it is part of the new type of “simulative politics” characteristic of contemporary Western-style democracy, a politics staged as an organized spectacle, the “embodiment of a reality style of politics,” as Douthat puts it, by a president who was “performing a drama that doesn’t necessarily have strong correlates in the real world.” All of this makes Trump a “cartoonish imitation of something like fascism,” a “weird, internet-enabled simulacrum of fascism.”

      The carnivalesque mise en scène of the storming of the Capitol — a pastiche of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, itself a symbolic act given there were only seven prisoners held in the fortress — lends some credence to Douthat’s interpretation. Exemplary here is the “almost-farcical” case of “Elizabeth from Knoxville” who thought she would take part in a revolution only to get Maced (and complain bitterly about it). The farce, of course, goes only so far, given the very real violence resulting in material destruction and the loss of life. It is at this point that the simulacrum turns into reality, exposing the potential of genuine fascism hiding behind the ludicrousness and absurdity of the last days of Trump.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Trumps’ departure has not diminished the potential. Quite the contrary: His ignominious exit has added new fuel to the anger and resentment among many Americans that propelled Trump to the presidency in the first place and has done nothing to assuage diffuse political disenchantment or weaken latent authoritarian inclinations. In fact, an authoritative empirical study from June 2020 found a “substantial minority” of Americans being open to “authoritarian alternatives.” In late 2019, around a quarter of US survey respondents expressed support for a strong leader “who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections.” Overall, it concluded that between a “quarter and a third of the American public flirt with the idea that an alternative to democracy would be a good thing.”

      The study does not disaggregate the results along color lines. It stands to reason, however, that a majority of those yearning for a strong leader are white voters, the very same voters who constituted the bulk of Trump’s loyal supporters. White Americans have always considered themselves the only true embodiment of the nation, rooted in a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, which was only gradually extended to Europeans of other Christian faiths. In fact, for much of the 19th century, Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Italy were considered less white than Americans of Anglo-Saxon stock and, as a result, subject to discrimination.

      Over the past several years, the universe of white American identity and pride has come crashing down. For one, as numerous projections have pointed out, by 2045, white Americans will have become a minority in what they see as “their own country.” The result has been both growing white “racial anxiety” and the beginnings of a sociocultural and sociopolitical backlash against the rise of visible minorities, reflected in the support and vote for Trump. Secondly, there is the seemingly inexorable decline of Christianity’s influence in American society. Over the past few decades, American Christians, and particularly white American Christians, have progressively lost their “cultural dominance” and, with it, the assumption, as the editor of a prominent Christian news outlet put it, “that people are like us and people understand us, and people accept us.”

      Finally, there is the notion that the United States is the greatest country in the world and, therefore, predestined and entitled to assume the leadership of the Western world. This was certainly true in the postwar period, given the essential threat posed by the Soviet Union. Today, it is a rather iffy proposition, as the skepticism of a majority of the American public about the country’s position in the world clearly shows.

      The Trump years have severely tarnished the American image among the country’s key allies. The trade war with China exposed American weaknesses in the face of a new challenge to its supremacy. The pandemic, and particularly the way it was handled, only made things worse. In late 2020, a mere quarter of the German population and around a third of the French had a favorable view of the United States. In the UK, traditionally America’s closest ally in Europe, only around 40% saw the US in a favorable light.

      Fertile Ground

      If there has ever been fertile ground in the United States for the kind of palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism Griffin has identified as the core of fascism, it is now. Fertile ground, however, is not enough. It takes the right enabler to translate the mixture of anxiety, resentment, political disenchantment, the flirting with authoritarian alternatives and the yearning for revival and the reestablishment of the “natural order” into political action. Trump might have appealed to some of these sentiments. However, in the end, the combination of egocentric narcissism and mental slothfulness assured that he would never amount to more than a cheap pastiche of the likes of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is not to say that Trump was nothing but a fleeting moment in contemporary American politics. Quite the opposite. Trump might have been the wrong person at the right time. His impact, however, is enduring. It is reflected most prominently in the direction large parts of the Republican Party have taken. Whereas in the not-so-distant past Republicans championed various culture-war causes, from opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage to the promotion of school prayers, today, a large number of Republican officials on the federal, state and local levels have adopted positions that lean in the direction of Trump-style subversion of the American democratic system. As Chris Hayes has recently put it in the pages of The Atlantic, the fight these days between Democrats and Republicans is less about policy, where under the impact of COVID-19 “the gaps are narrowing. It’s about whether the United States will live up to the promise of democracy — and on that crucial question, we’ve rarely been so divided.”

      Even after the shock of January 6, Republican officials continue to feed into the politics of anger and resentment that was at the heart of the assault on Congress. Yesterday, as the Senate voted to proceed with Trump’s impeachment 56-44, just six Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in the move to condemn the president’s role in inciting an unprecedented domestic assault on American democracy. With 17 Republican votes needed to impeach Donald Trump, a reckoning is unlikely.

      The temptation to harvest white resentment for individual gain is too strong and, with it, the temptation to follow the lure of some form of post-fascist fascism, American-style. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a novel with the provocative title, “It Can’t Happen Here.” Lewis, of course, thought fascism was a possibility, even in the United States. It might be a good idea to give his book a second look.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      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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      Myanmar: What Comes Next for Minority Groups?

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      The military coup in Myanmar has been widely denounced as a lethal blow to a fledgling democracy. But it also increases the likelihood of further atrocities and mass displacement. The world cannot forget that the Myanmar military is the same institution that led the campaign of genocide against the Rohingya people.

      The coup will negatively affect much of the population in Myanmar, rolling back tentative democratic reforms and freedoms and leading to further mass arrests. But ethnic minority groups, which have long been a target of military abuses, have particular reason to be concerned.

      Is There New Hope for Human Rights in Bahrain?

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      Even with the veil of a quasi-civilian government in recent years, the military has continued to commit atrocities against the Kachin, Karen, Rakhine and other states inside Myanmar. For the 600,000 Rohingya still living in Myanmar, the threat is even clearer. They survived the military’s genocidal campaign in August 2017. Indeed, the head of the military and now of the country, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has referred to the Rohingya as a long-standing problem and an “unfinished job.”

      The coup will also affect refugees outside of the country. The more than 1 million Rohingya living in Bangladesh now face even greater odds against a safe return to their homeland in Myanmar. In a way, the coup only underscores the reality that conditions for return have been far from safe and sustainable all along.

      Rohingya in Bangladesh have told Refugees International that they are alarmed by the coup and worried about the fate of loved ones still in Myanmar. At least with the quasi-civilian government, there was some hope that international pressure could eventually inspire a change. But as long as the military — the entity responsible for the genocide — remains in charge, the idea of a safe return seems inconceivable.

      International Pressure on Myanmar

      If there is a silver lining, it is that the newly galvanized international outrage about the coup might break the inertia in addressing the military’s abuses. In a report released in January 2021, Refugees International laid out critical policy advice for the Biden administration to address the Rohingya crisis. The report recommendations also provide a playbook for responding to the coup.

      As a first move, the Biden administration must recognize the crimes committed by Myanmar’s military for what they are: crimes against humanity and genocide. Given the ample evidence available, it is perplexing that the United States and many other countries have not yet made this determination. A genocide declaration would not only speak truth to power about what the Myanmar military has done to the Rohingya, but it would also galvanize more urgent global action. It would signal how serious the US and other allies take the threat of the Myanmar military.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Second, the Biden administration should use the urgency of the coup and a genocide determination to engage allies and lead a global response marked by diplomatic pressure and coordinated targeted sanctions. The Biden administration has already said it is considering new sanctions and is reaching out to other countries to coordinate. Those sanctions should be placed both on Myanmar’s military leaders and military-owned enterprises, including, but not limited to, the two large conglomerates, the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL). Future lifting of sanctions should be phased and tied not only to a return to the quasi-civilian government elected in 2020, but also progress on creating conditions conducive to the return of Rohingya refugees.

      Third, the US and other allies must push for a multilateral arms embargo. Ideally, this would be done through the action of the UN Security Council. But as long as China and Russia are likely to block such actions, countries like the United States and European Union members that have already ended arms sales to Myanmar should use diplomatic pressure to urge others — including India, Israel and Ukraine — to do the same.

      Fourth, countries must revitalize support for international accountability efforts, including at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court. The Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar at the ICJ has the support of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Canada and the Netherlands have expressed their intent to intervene in the case. The US and other allies should add their support.

      Finally, the United States and other allies must push for coordinated high-level diplomatic pressure at the UN Security Council, even with Chinese and Russian reluctance to allow stronger measures. As an important first step, the Security Council did issue a statement that expressed concern about the coup and called for the release of detainees; however, it fell short of outright condemnation of the coup and did not commit to any concrete action. Nonetheless, a discussion at this highest level still adds pressure on Myanmar’s military by keeping the possibility of stronger action alive. The fact that there had been no UN Security Council session on the Rohingya for the past two years is ludicrous and only fueled the Myanmar military’s impunity.

      Ethnic minority groups in Myanmar know all too well that the military is capable of — and willing to execute — mass atrocities. The US and all states that stand for democracy, and against mass atrocities, must act now while the eyes of the world are on Myanmar.

      *[Daniel Sullivan is the senior advocate for human rights at Refugees International.]

      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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      Super Bowl Fans Tackle Poetry

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      On January 20, a star was born in Washington, DC, during the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States — a 78-year-old white man taking over from a 74-year-old sore loser. Before the swearing-in, an unknown 22-year-old black female strode up to the podium. She embodied the Democratic Party’s commitment to identity politics. With her expressive voice, she recited a rap-influenced poem celebrating the new dawn that would emerge after the nation’s weathering of hurricane Donald. (“Dawn” and “weathered” followed by “belly of the beast” and the metaphor of wading a sea were among the stale images that appeared in the early lines of the poem).

      What Has Amazon Been Withholding?

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      The art of poetry, long neglected in US culture, has now emerged from the shadows of cultural neglect. On February 7, it reached a pinnacle as the same young poet was invited to occupy the nation’s most prestigious stage and bask in the bright, intense spotlight of the Super Bowl. After starring in President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Amanda Gorman has become the new face and the fluid voice of a newly hopeful America, a nation run by aging white men who demonstrate their youthful spirit by promoting diverse young talents charged with renewing the veneer of political hyperreality.

      The Super Bowl halftime show featured a video clip of Gorman performing her poem, “Chorus of the Captains.” Her recital was accompanied by the kind of dramatic orchestral score typical of patriotic political ads. Its emotional crescendo rose to a climax as Gorman spoke these lines:

      “Let us walk with these warriors,
      Charge on with these champions,
      And carry forth the call of our captains!
      We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion,
      By doing what is right and just.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Charge on:

      Move forward with speed and physical force, even if it means crushing anything that stands in the way, one of the primary virtues taught to all Americans, encouraged to act quickly and never worry about the consequences

      Contextual Note

      What could be more appropriate than the verb “charge on” for a poem celebrating a sport with a reputation for addling the brains of its players? Americans have largely positive associations with the idea of charging, whether the object charged is the enemy lines or a commodity being purchased. Americans are happy when their iPhones are fully charged and their cars supercharged. On the other hand, being charged with a crime evokes negative associations, unless it’s spectacular enough a crime to propel the subject from obscurity to fame. For many Americans, anything that makes people famous must be good.                                                                                                                                   

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      The heroes Gorman names are warriors, champions and captains. They have the perfect American profile: assertive and aggressive but kind. They radiate the authority that incites their followers to “carry forth” their “call.” Gorman may have been thinking of former President Donald Trump, whose troops carried forth his call as far as the Senate chambers in January. Gorman recognizes what makes Americans resonate, especially those convinced that what they are doing “is right and just.”

      The acts ascribed to Gorman’s heroes convey a spirit of charity, generosity and solidarity. The first is a former Marine who, in all probability, unthinkingly followed the dictates of his government to engage in mortal combat with people he knew nothing about, but, having survived, responded to the needs of his community by “livestreaming football for family and fans.” Super Bowl spectators will be sensitive to the value of this gesture. Like any good entertainer, Gorman clearly understands the profile of her audience.

      The second hero is a teacher who does things that help students “succeed in life and in schools.” Nothing is more American than success. It’s a competitive world and everyone is called upon by their captains to pursue success, even though only a few will attain it, and fewer still by the age of 22. Fortunately, it’s a humiliation most Americans courageously learn to live with.

      Then Gorman introduces the nurse, whose self-abnegation proves that “even in tragedy, hope is possible.” Actually, speaking as a literary critic, it isn’t. In tragedy, hopes are introduced only to be dashed. Characters in great tragedies who express the conviction that “hope is possible” will be disappointed, unless, as in Macbeth, their hope is that the guilty king will die in the final act. Aristotle taught us that the poignant poetry we associate with tragedy inspires pity and fear, not hope. 

      Perhaps Gorman thinks the American tragedy is different, as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Last Action Hero,” where the film’s hero, a child, hopes that Hamlet will kill his cruel uncle, inherit the throne, remove everything that’s rotten in the state of Denmark (“drain the swamp” as Trump would put it), and stabilize the country for decades to come. That is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” far better than Hamlet’s submission to the “special providence” he sees “in the fall of a sparrow.” And it avoids having to accept the idea that “the rest is silence.”

      Historical Note

      Apart from rare examples of epic poetry, from Homer and Virgil to Milton, in which mature poets with powerful voices and incredible stamina produced monumental literary productions for the glory of their nations, poetry has always been a poor man’s art. Even great poets never sought to make a living from poetry. The immensely influential Arthur Rimbaud wrote all his poetry before the age of 20 and then went off to traffic arms in the desert.

      For most great poets, writing and eventually publishing poetry required a serious loyalty to the tradition and a radical sense of self-effacement. Poetry is the one literary discipline whose only expected reward was a handful of motivated and respectful readers, one or two of which might be suitably rich, patrons inclined to encourage the poet’s production. “Professional poets, who write beautiful and rhythmic words for a living, almost always have day jobs that pay the bills,” according to Bangladeshi poet Zubair Ahmed. Successful poets, he tells us, “are writing in defiance of market forces, driven by the love of their craft.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      American culture has rarely honored its poets. Walt Whitman was a journalist who made a splash with his poetry by creating verse recognizable as coming from the national voice, distinguishing American poetry from the British tradition. Robert Frost, the closest thing to a professional poet, made his mark as a New England voice. Carl Sandberg was a Chicago poet and Langston Hughes a black Harlem bard. These examples highlight the importance of branding for success or celebrity in the US. T.S. Eliot, arguably the most influential and respected of American poets, chose a more purely aesthetic path and ended up as a British poet, having changed his nationality and found his place in a more broadly European tradition.

      Most recognized poets earned their reputations slowly and most often painfully. Amanda Gorman is the product of contemporary celebrity culture, where the talented have no time to waste in their quest to impose their brand. This is the world of “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent” in which budding young talents, strong on well-honed technique, a sense of personal image and the ability to duplicate stylistic features associated with commercially successful standards of quality, compete to be applauded by seasoned professionals. With the right amount of luck, some become immediate cultural commodities.

      Gorman may be the first to do it with poetry. Frost was an old man when John F. Kennedy invited him to his presidential inauguration in 1961. Maya Angelou was nearly 65 when Bill Clinton followed Kennedy’s example and invited a poet to his inauguration. Democrats now feel impelled to invite a poet to boost their image as aesthetes, something no Republican president has bothered to do. 

      Gorman demonstrated her personal self-belief and her commercial acumen by getting a spot at the Super Bowl. She did it in the way any celebrity would do. Jack Coyle, in an article for Associated Press, explains: “Shortly after the inauguration, she signed with IMG Models, an agency that represents supermodels, tennis star Naomi Osaka and playwright Jeremy O. Harris. This week, she covers Time Magazine, in an interview conducted by Michelle Obama.” As a young practitioner of letters, Gorman may have noticed that the initials of “poetry reading” are PR. 

      *[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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      Russia Joins the Red Sea Scramble

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      Russia has come back to the crowded Red Sea. On November 11, 2020, the Russian government announced its agreement with Sudan to establish a naval base at the city of Port Sudan. While the Russian navy already enjoys access rights to the port, the concession with Khartoum envisages the creation of a Russian logistics center that will host up to 300 personnel and four naval units, including nuclear-powered vessels, for a renewable period of 25 years. In exchange for the concession, the Kremlin will send military advisers to train Sudanese forces and will be allowed to use Sudanese airports and airspace to support its base in Port Sudan.

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      On top of that, Moscow will be in charge of security at the base, giving it the chance to install advanced radar and air defense systems. Although it will be much smaller in size compared to the naval base of Tartus in Syria, the facility in Port Sudan will become a pivot of Moscow’s maritime projection spanning from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

      Red Stars Align

      Russia’s landing in Port Sudan represents the convergence of several strategic goals. Traditionally a land power, Russia is vying to bolster its maritime prowess. The comprehensive program to modernize its fleet brought in 23 new vessels in 2019 and 40 in 2020. Most of them are more modest in size than the Soviet-era battle cruisers being decommissioned as Moscow leans toward a small-ship fleet — one that can hardly keep pace with the US or the Chinese navies, according to analysts.

      Nevertheless, Russia is arming new units with high-tech systems, like the Poseidon marine drones and the new 885M Kazan nuclear-powered submarine, which will reinforce the navy’s capability to operate at regional level in support of ground and air forces. This element suits the Kremlin’s strategy of intervention in crises, from Syria to Venezuela, and might be particularly useful in the Red Sea region.

      But the fleet itself is only half of the picture. Maritime power equally requires a network of naval bases where vessels can safely dock and be supplied. To date, Moscow not only set a firm foothold in the Mediterranean — a longstanding goal of Russia’s foreign policy — but also rose up as the preeminent maritime power in the region thanks to its naval base in Tartus and its military presence in eastern Libya in particular.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Now, as the Mediterranean regains centrality and the Indian Ocean witnesses growing power competition, the Red Sea has become a strategic pivot for countries with global ambitions like Russia. This is the rationale behind the long-sought naval base in Sudan, which will allow Moscow to span its military capabilities — and hence its influence — from the Black Sea, down through the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

      Finally, the base in Port Sudan is a major achievement of Russia’s Africa policy. During the first Russia-Africa Summit in 2017, President Vladimir Putin pledged $20 billion in investments, skillfully attaching no conditionality to them. More importantly, he harnessed military cooperation as a crucial asset of Russia’s diplomacy in Africa. Building upon its successes in Syria and Libya, the Kremlin began to offer weapons and military services through the semi-private military company, Wagner, replicating a strategy adopted by South Africa and its Executive Outcomes PMC to expand its influence across the continent in the 1980s and 1990s. In exchange, Russia secured access rights to strategic natural resources, mainly uranium, gold and rare earth elements in the Central African Republic and Sudan, 80% of whose arsenals are filled with Russian weapons.

      In Sudan, Moscow struck a deal with former President Omar al-Bashir to provide training to the Sudanese army and support military operations in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan; a Russian base on the Red Sea was allegedly part of the accord. Despite the fall of Bashir’s regime following widespread protests in 2019, Moscow navigated Sudanese politics and maintained strong ties with the president of the Sovereign Council, General Burhan, eventually obtaining the base in Port Sudan.

      Regional Power Play

      The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have been an arena of intense geopolitical competition among global and regional powers in recent years. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey have all scrambled to establish military outposts in the Horn of Africa. Russia makes no difference. Its quest for a military presence along the Red Sea led Moscow to enter into negotiations with Eritrea, Djibouti and even Somaliland over the past few years, but without success. Now, the base in Port Sudan has some notable implications for regional security and power competition.

      Russia has managed to stay outside regional disputes. Before Omar al-Bashir was ousted, Turkey and Qatar were about to finalize a concession in Suakin, just 50 kilometers south of Port Sudan. Under Saudi and Emirati pressure, the transitional government put the agreement with Ankara and Doha on hold. With a Russian presence in Port Sudan, Turkey’s chances of obtaining an outpost along the Sudanese coast become even slimmer. Consequently, the competition between Turkey and Russia will likely increase in the Horn of Africa, at least until the two powers will find an understanding as they did in Syria and Libya.

      The UAE and Saudi Arabia have a more nuanced position. The two countries have invested heavily, both economically and militarily, in the Red Sea. The Russian attempt to build a base in Eritrea reportedly went awry after Riyadh and Abu Dhabi stepped in to drag Eritrea from the field of Iranian influence. This suggests that a solid Russian presence in the Red Sea might be seen as an element of disturbance. Yet the UAE has already cooperated with Moscow in eastern Libya, backing General Khalifa Haftar, and has signed a strategic partnership in 2018, which also paved the way for the sale of Russian weapons to Abu Dhabi.

      Saudi Arabia might see Russia’s military engagement in the Red Sea as an opportunity. As the Houthi rebels in Yemen have proved capable of targeting ships and the Saudi oil infrastructure as far as Jeddah, Russia might become a useful ally in enforcing maritime security in the southern Red Sea region.

      Implications for the US

      Despite strong ties with Washington, the Gulf monarchies do not see Russia as a threat. Russia’s policy of non-interference, combined with its political stability, are generally perceived by autocratic regimes in the Middle East and beyond as less intrusive and dangerous. Conversely, the United States and the European powers often attach conditionalities to economic and military cooperation. Such tensions might be on the rise as the Biden administration pledges to keep a keen eye on human rights and democracy when it comes to foreign relations, with Saudi Arabia being already under the spotlight.

      Therefore, the Gulf monarchies and other actors in the region are more likely to cooperate with rather than confront Russia and possibly leverage these ties to water down requests from Washington and the like. This seems to be the case for Sudan as well, which has recently conducted deeply transactional negotiations with Washington around being delisted as a state sponsor of terrorism. The announcement of the Russian base probably accelerated the implementation of the accord too.

      Besides political considerations, the Red Sea is already particularly crowded — the US and China both maintain military bases in Djibouti. Now the US will have to deal with Russia’s accrued military presence in a pivotal region. The main reason of concern is Russia’s increased capability to operate militarily in the proximity of two of the most relevant chokepoints of the world, Suez and Bab el-Mandab. Since 10% of the world’s trade and 9% of oil shipments cross these points every day, controlling them is of crucial importance for global economic stability and security. In the long term, Russia’s footholds in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea will affect the US control over Suez and Bab el-Mandab, bringing an intensification of global power competition and potentially turning these chokepoints into flashpoints.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      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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      Is There New Hope for Human Rights in Bahrain?

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      Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a Bahraini human rights activist, was arrested on the night of April 9, 2011. During the arrest at his family home in Bahrain, he was brutally assaulted and his jaw broken in four places. On June 22, barely two months after his arrest, he was sentenced to life in prison after a show trial in a military court that violated any principles of judicial fairness.

      He has now spent more than 10 years in Jau Prison, notorious for its ill-treatment of inmates. Khawaja was granted political asylum in Denmark in 1991, later receiving citizenship, but he returned to Bahrain in 1999 during a period of political relaxation and reform. On January 22 this year, more than 100 organizations wrote to the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, calling for her government to “renew and strengthen efforts to ensure his immediate and unconditional release so he can be reunited with his family and receive much needed medical treatment and torture rehabilitation in Denmark.”

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      The letter provides graphic details of the treatment meted out to Khawaja from the moment of his arrest. While blindfolded and chained to his hospital bed, he was tortured by security officers immediately after major surgery to his broken jaw, which “forced the doctor to ask the security officers to stop as it would undo the surgical work.”

      Throughout his imprisonment, he has conducted hunger strikes to protest prison conditions, the curtailment of his family’s visiting rights and phone calls, and the removal from his cell of all his reading material. He has declined medical treatment when he can in protest at being strip-searched, blindfolded, and hand and leg cuffed before being seen by medical staff. 

      The letter to Frederiksen notes that in a recent call, Khawaja stated that “prison authorities are arbitrarily denying him proper medical treatment and refusing to refer him to specialists for surgeries he requires.” The letter adds: “[D]enying a prisoner adequate medical care violates the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Nelson Mandela Rules.”

      A Reset in Bahrain?

      With US President Joe Biden now in the White House — and multiple signals emanating from his new administration that human rights, utterly disregarded by his disgraced predecessor, are now on the front foot — the Bahraini government may want to have a reset on its own awful human rights record and its treatment of political prisoners.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Among those pressing for the reset is the New Jersey Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski. He was unceremoniously ordered out of Bahrain in 2014 when he was the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor under the Obama administration. Malinowski had had the temerity to meet with the head of the opposition Al Wefaq political society, Sheikh Ali Salman, a move the Bahraini regime deemed was “counter to conventional diplomatic norms.”

      Sheikh Salman was subsequently arrested and, in 2018, sentenced to life in prison on charges related to the Gulf feud with Qatar that were transparently bogus. Al Wefaq was outlawed in 2017.

      Malinowski may well find a bipartisan ally in Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The senator is on record calling for an end to repression in Bahrain. As he argued in a letter to then-President Donald Trump in September 2019 (co-signed by the Democratic senators Chris Murphy and Ron Widen): “Bahrain is a strategic ally in an important region and, critically, Bahrain hosts the United States Fifth Fleet. It is precisely for these reasons that we are so concerned by the government of Bahrain’s concerted efforts to silence peaceful opposition and quash free expression.”

      Rubio specifically mentioned Khawaja by name, noting that he and others have been jailed for peaceful protest: “These prisoners are merely representative of the thousands of others who remain locked away for exercising their right to free expression.”

      As Biden settles into office, Middle East dictators are nervous. The US president has sent a clear message that the pass Donald Trump gave them to crush dissent with impunity is well and truly canceled. As they strategize on how best to deal with the new norm, sending positive messages will not go amiss.

      One such message would be to set Abdulhadi al-Khawaja free. He and the many other political prisoners are being held in Jau simply for calling for the right to speak freely and openly without fear of consequence.

      *[This article was originally published by Gulf House.]

      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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      What Has Amazon Been Withholding?

      by

      Everyone knows that Amazon is a successful, profitable, world-conquering and, therefore, obscenely rich company. It has made Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. He keeps getting richer by the day. With his fortune, Bezos doesn’t need to be as careful with his cash, in contrast with normal human beings, who know how important is to save up for a rainy day. That may help to explain why Bezos has just stepped away from his post as CEO. Still, the culture Bezos created at Amazon during his reign insists on being extremely careful with its money. We now learn that this is true even when it’s cash that belongs to other people.

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      The New York Times features an article with this headline: “Amazon to Pay Fine for Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers.” The first sentence gives the gist of the story: “Amazon agreed on Tuesday to pay $62 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that it withheld tips to delivery drivers over a two-and-a-half year period, in a case that highlights the federal government’s increased interest in gig-economy workers.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Withhold:

      1. When practiced by a government’s tax authorities: to retain the amount of money that is calculated as taxes that must be paid.
      2. When practiced by Amazon: to steal money owed to workers who have no idea what is going on.

      Contextual Note

      With any New York Times article, it is important to pay attention to the verbs. In this sentence, “withhold” appears alongside “agree,” “pay” and “highlight,” a word typically used to introduce the broad theme the article will develop. At no point in the article does the article use the verb that most people would use to describe Amazon’s deed — “steal.” Instead, it describes how the stealing took place: “Amazon had promised its Flex delivery drivers that they would receive 100 percent of all customers’ tips. But starting in 2016, the F.T.C. said, Amazon secretly lowered the hourly delivery wages, which were advertised at $18 to $25, and tried to mask the smaller wages by using customer tips to cover for the smaller hourly pay.” This time, the key verbs are “promised,” “receive,” “lowered,” “mask” and “cover.” Taken together, those verbs may suggest prolonged criminal acts.

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      Once Amazon realized the theft had been noticed, it did what any common thief would be inclined to do when hauled before a court. The company promised to reform and proposed a friendly settlement to compensate the victims and avoid scandal. As The New York Times tell us, “Amazon stopped the practice in 2019, after it became aware of the F.T.C.’s investigation.” Just like any burglar or pickpocket would then gladly do, Amazon “settled without admitting wrongdoing.” Why admit wrongdoing when the crime only took place over a period of two and a half years?

      The settlement demonstrated Amazon’s generosity. It amounted to “tens of millions of dollars,” which of course is small change for a company with a market cap of around $1.7 trillion. Such a small amount hardly deserves the qualification of theft. The misdemeanor merits the label The Times seems content with: “inadvertent withholding.”

      By the end of the article, the only reference to unlawful activity appears in a quote from Rohit Chopra, at the Federal Trade Commission: “Amazon is one of the largest and most feared corporate empires on the planet, and it is critical that global regulators carefully scrutinize whether the company is amassing and abusing its market power through unlawful practices.” Even this mention of “unlawful practices” falls far short of suggesting that Amazon may be guilty of an actual crime. It is now accepted wisdom, as determined by the Supreme Court and reaffirmed by Senator Mitt Romney, that “corporations are people.” But corporations are never punished in the way people are punished. Just ask Jean Valjean.

       Historical Note

      In 18th-century England, capitalism began to take form. Part of its job was to, write a new set of rules for human management. At about the same time, reformers began to call into question slavery, a standard feature of the brutal colonialism that had been fueling European prosperity for at least 200 years. The reason capitalists themselves began to find slavery and serfdom intolerable was the fact that those who controlled the means of production felt some vague sense of responsibility for the well-being of the slaves, who were a form of property that required maintenance. 

      At the beginning of the 19th century, economist David Ricardo described the new industrial approach to employment: the subsistence theory of wages. Market forces became the deciding factor, replacing the relationship of human dependency between employers and labor: “Ricardo wrote that the ‘natural price’ of labour was simply the price necessary to enable the labourers to subsist and to perpetuate the race.” This vision of economic production led to the abolition of slavery. But its real purpose was to liberate employers from any sense of vestigial responsibility for the livelihood of workers, who were merely anonymous, interchangeable suppliers of a new notion of “manpower” rather than humans who might, at odd moments, require the attention of the employer, if only because they tend to be more productive when healthy.

      An approach based exclusively on criteria of subsistence proved untenable for a simple reason: Humans are cultural beings rather than pure economic actors. Both individually and collectively, they can exercise intelligence. They may even succeed in analyzing power relationships and put pressure on the marketplace itself. 

      When capitalists found themselves confronted by the complexity of human psychology and cultural reality, they had to imagine sophisticated strategies to defend the law of subsistence wages. That could have led to the kind of theorizing that is now promoted as “social responsibility,” which many leaders like to praise while avoiding the practice. In most managers’ minds, the subsistence theory remains a foundational idea. Employers do what is necessary to keep wages as close to subsistence level as possible. Amazon is the perfect example.

      One solution is robotization. The subsistence requirements of robots are not only minimal, but devoid of psychology. Robots don’t complain of any form of abuse and they don’t talk to each other — two of the factors that led to the kind of pressure that led to reforms concerning employment itself and working conditions. Amazon has been robotizing as much as it can and will continue to do so in the future. Future generations of artificial intelligence will accelerate the trend.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The New York Times tends to admire rich people and successful companies, though it also allows itself to criticize them, especially when they give to Republican causes or promote Republican talking points. As the owner of The Washington Post, Bezos appears to be on the same side of the fence as The Times, squarely in the establishment Democrat camp. The Times tends to see Bezos as a hero to be admired for his skill and his wealth.

      In its role as an objective reporter of the facts in the news, The Times nevertheless makes a point of acknowledging the real world. In 2015, the paper of record did a thorough piece on Bezos’s management approach at Amazon. The article provided multiple examples of the deeply inhuman management culture Bezos created: “Amazon is in the vanguard of where technology wants to take the modern office: more nimble and more productive, but harsher and less forgiving.” It mentions Bezos’ “eagerness to tell others how to behave; an instinct for bluntness bordering on confrontation; and an overarching confidence in the power of metrics.” It quotes an employee saying that “If you’re a good Amazonian, you become an Amabot … a term that means you have become at one with the system” — an Amazon robot.

      The overall tone of the 2015 article is one of rapt admiration of the originality and assertiveness of a modern, pitiless meritocratic management style that seeks global conquest. The kind of management that can “withhold” tips from anonymous drivers to boost its own highly positive bank balance. This week’s article on the settlement with the FTC offers Amazon the final word, quoting Amazon’s statement that its pay for contract workers was among the “best in the industry,” and that, after the settlement with the drivers, the company is “pleased to put this matter behind us.” The wealthy are always pleased to put embarrassing matters behind them.

      *[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