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      Should PR Agencies Not Represent Fossil Fuel Clients?

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      The most basic objectives of public relations (PR) agencies are rather straightforward. They make an impact on the public perception of their clients and increase profits for shareholders. PR agencies work for companies in many sectors and represent these companies on several issues. Some issues resonate well with international norms and expectations, others less so. When PR agencies are perceived to be working against a global good, they are often castigated by  pressure groups and concerned citizens.

      These days, environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria have become important for most businesses and PR agencies are no exception. If businesses use child labor, burn forests or bribe politicians, many suppliers, buyers, investors and other stakeholders stop engaging with them. This focus on ESG has profound implications for PR agencies. Many expect them  to stop taking on clients with poor ESG records. For instance, some demand that PR agencies should stop taking on fossil fuel companies such as Chevron or Shell as clients.

      Such an argument raises key questions. As businesses, should PR agencies shut off a key source of revenue? What if they go bust? Are PR job losses desirable? Many businesses cause environmental damage. Should PR agencies also not accept mining companies and automobile manufacturers as clients? Should the burden of responsibility of accepting or not accepting clients rest on individual PR agencies?

      Public Pressure on Public Relations

      The outcry against PR agencies acting for fossil fuel companies has a context. Many believe that these agencies have downplayed scientific data revealing the scale of climate change to help the cause of their clients. Recently, a global coalition of over 450 climate scientists signed a letter calling on PR agencies and advertising firms to end relations with fossil fuel companies. These scientists want them to get behind legislation for climate change mitigation.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      In 2021, a study highlighted hundreds of elaborate campaigns purportedly designed by PR agencies to hinder climate action. Their clients include Shell, Chevron and other fossil fuel entities. Around the same time, the Clean Creatives collective published an open letter calling on Edelman, the world’s largest PR agency,  to end the ‘greenwashing’ of fossil fuel clients. 

      Edelman’s response to the climate emergency emphasized working with partners to accelerate climate action, develop best practices, and hold clients as well as itself accountable for mitigating climate change. The agency also promised many other changes but stopped short of dropping its energy clients.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The Pickle Over Climate Change

      To casual observers, these actions by Edelman might be indicative of an industry that uncompromisingly prioritizes profit above ethical standards. Despite the unquestionably sales-driven nature of the business, such a conclusion is too simplistic and a bit unfair. Like other sectors, PR has professional bodies that set ethical standards for the industry. Ethical competence is a prerequisite for membership. Of these, the International Public Relations Association’s (IPRA) code of conduct is one of the most comprehensive. Among its many provisions, the code states that practitioners must not intentionally disseminate false or misleading information.

      Last November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) inspired IPRA to form a chapter to heighten professional knowledge of climate-related issues. In doing so, the organization seeks to enable members “to play a valuable part in furthering communications aspects of climate change.” Neither IPRA nor this specific chapter urge PR professionals to cease business with fossil fuel clients, making it unlikely that Clean Creatives and climate change scientists will stop criticizing them.

      PR agencies are in a bind. When they work with fossil fuel producers, they have to abide by a code of conduct that might limit what they can do for their clients. The other option for PR agencies is to drop these clients altogether.

      Dropping fossil fuel companies might not be an entirely good idea though. If Shell sets its target of becoming a net-zero energy business by 2050, PR agencies could help. From developing communications strategies to running press offices, these agencies can help achieve this goal. They can also help in a crisis. Crisis communications helped citizens after  an oil spill off the coast of Peru.

      Ethics Matter and Might Be Good Business

      Any PR professional worth their salt knows that emphasizing the industry’s ethical charters and practices alone is unlikely to cut it with climate activists. For them, such is the severity of the climate emergency that PR agencies should just cease working with fossil fuel companies. Finding a way forward that will satisfy all sides, and suitably addresses climate change communication, remains challenging.

      For starters, some consultants may need to get better at managing some of their clients’ expectations. PR agencies might consider the value of emphasizing how they don’t support harmful aspects of oil and gas production. It goes without saying that PR agencies do promote oil and gas producers in Nigeria. However, they do not represent illegal oil refineries on the continent, which cause much pollution and drain state coffers. The risk of expulsion from trade associations and the fall of a leading firm like Bell Pottinger are very real for PR agencies. These businesses might upset their critics but they play by their own rules and do not cross thin lines in the sand.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Many PR agencies might also find inspiration from ESG business successes. In the 1990s, the UK’s Co-Operative Bank ran a powerful advertisement, promising not to invest their “customers’ money in countries with oppressive regimes.” This advertisement was part of a series that highlighted the bank’s commitment to ethical finance. The bank’s compelling ads had hard hitting and often harrowing content about landmines, fossil fuels and more. In 2021, the Co-Operative Bank was  named the best high street bank for ESG. Such sort of clients might represent the future of PR agencies.

      Fossil Fuels Are Legal and Essential, So Are Their PR Needs

      It is unlikely that PR agencies could run advertisements like the Co-Operative Bank for all their clients. Such campaigns would certainly not work for oil and gas producers. Giving them up as clients might not be the right business move. In fact, if PR agencies did  what the likes of Clean Creatives say and jettisoned these clients, climate change would still go on.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      The Russia-Ukraine conflict provides a timely reminder that fossil fuels still power the global economy. As essential players in the global economy, oil and gas producers need strategic communications support. They are not Colombian cartels operating in the shadow economy. If nothing else, these companies have to maintain crisis communications preparedness for public interest reasons. What happens if there is an oil spill? How does an oil company communicate about such a spill to the public? As long as we depend on oil for cars and on gas for power, PR agencies have a role to play for bona fide legal businesses.

      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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      Virtual Reality is Impossible, Like Perpetual Motion

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      Over a hundred years ago, most scientific evidence pointed toward an impending invention which would change the world, encapsulated in the paradoxical expression “perpetual motion.”  Ultimately that invention proved to be impossible because of the brand-new scientific discovery that energy cannot be created nor destroyed.

      Nowadays, a similarly profitable fantasy builds on a similarly paradoxical expression: “virtual reality” (VR).  Turns out Nature says VR won’t succeed either, because VR will inevitablyinduce “simulator sickness,” as it always has.

      The Industrial Revolution started with steam, allowing fuel (coal) to do the work of many men.  As the technology improved, more and more power became available. Part of that power came from burning more coal. Another part came from improved mechanical efficiency, that is by recovering and reusing waste heat, force and momentum.  Many tinkerers were convinced that by using clever mechanical trickery, such as lifting weights over here in order to drop them on lever-arms over there, engines could in fact “recover” more energy than went in.  Evidence made this hypothesis reasonable, because the trend of recovered energy had been rising upward steadily for decades. Hopefully it could pass 100%.

      The idea behind perpetual motion was that if the trick worked — that if a machine could essentially harvest its own momentum to keep itself running forever — then even a tiny excess of power could be amplified and scaled, and no one would need to burn actual fuel any more.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Back then physics and physicists didn’t really exist, but thoughtful people ever since da Vinci have known perpetual motion was a fantasy. A hundred years ago, they proved it scientifically by finding a deeper principle at work, one which absolutely limited the amount of energy in play. The new science said that energy is not created, not destroyed, and certainly not free.  The total energy must be “conserved” (kept fixed).  No free lunch from Nature.  But optimistic tinkerers kept trying anyway, until the US Patent office stopped allowing applications altogether, killing the “technology” for good.

      Virtual Reality or Unreal Virtuality?

      That fantasy repeats itself with so-called “virtual reality.” According to the evidence, VR gets better every year.  An extrapolation of that trend would let VR replace the boring physical world we’re usually stuck in, literally creating whole new universes (or metaverses) and whole new streams of revenue, almost out of nothing. Free reality.

      I know VR cannot work because I happen to know how nervous systems work. New technology won’t fix that mismatch, but at least new research explains it.  That research explains both human and machine learning in the same terms; neuroscience and data science account for both as signal bandwidth. So formerly fuzzy questions about how brains work now have mathematically absoluteanswers.  In the case of VR, as with creating energy, it turns out there are absolute limits on what brains can and can’t do, limits not provable before.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      There are many ways to prove that VR makes people sick; two will do for now.  One involves how different senses mix together in the brain.  The other involves how much time a brain takes to mix and make sense of them.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Vertebrate brains evolved 500 million years ago to do exactly one thing, a task which even now is far more difficult than memory or speech: making 3D pictures out of tiny input pulses (a computational process called “tomography”).  Our everyday experience bears this out. The sensory inputs into our bodies (and outputs from nerves into the brain) come from eyeballs, eardrums, taste and smell receptors, and especially from millions of vibration-sensors spread throughout the body. Airborne sound hits ears and skin together, and our brains combine them into a single unified experience so solid and believable that we know for sure the world exists, even behind us, even when we can’t see it. Lived sensory experience is unified by the hardware of our brain: that’s how brains work and what they do. Neuroscientists call the process “sensory fusion.”

      Obviously, a brain fabricating a single unified experience is the opposite of fabricating two inconsistent, competing experiences, which is what VR forces on our brains.  For example, a gamer’s eyes may be convinced that he is flying high-G rolls inside a fighter plane aloft, because VR is so good at creating visual illusions, making every visible cue consistent with all the rest….looming, moving, twisting, occluding, dropping, all synchronized so the visual world makes 3D sense.

      But vision isn’t everything to brains, not even half. In the gamer’s case, all the other senses agree that the body is not moving or flying, but sitting in a chair. Neural signals from the inner ear, the legs, the gut, the spine all confirm no barrel-rolls, no upside-down, no special forces pulling or pushing.  No jet engine sounds rattling the body, just injected in the ears.  In this configuration roughly half the brain is convinced the body is quite still, the other half convinced it’s flying hard and fast.  A brain can’t hold such a deep contradiction for very long, so “simulator sickness” makes the gamer nauseous. That problem hasn’t changed in 40 years, and won’t, ever, because brains can only feel one reality at a time, and the real reality is always centered in your gut, regardless of what the eyeballs say.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Vision and motion

      Another insoluble problem with VR is how fast it responds to self-motion. In the regular real world (no VR yet), every time you move your body, neck, head, or eyeballs, the image into your eyeballs (and onto your retina) changes with that motion.  To make its picture of the world, the brain anticipates the physical shift before it moves its muscles, and uses that anticipation to predict what it will see. The brain uses an interactiveprocess of continual exploration and zooming (neuroscience buzzword: “sensory contingencies”). Because the brain makes plans, then sends pulses., And then the head and eyes begin to move., The brain therefore creates internal expectations long before any motion could be visible from outside.

      But at best VR can measure your self-motion from the outside, after the fact.  It can’t measure things which haven’t happened yet. (Even access to your brainwaves would not solve this problem, since even brain waves are merely delayed traces of yet smaller and more subtle processes). So even an ideal VR response would be fatally delayed, relative to how your eyes and brain normally work.  What VR shows your eyeballs is not exactly what would come from a real world, but milliseconds slower, and only approximate. The faster you move your head and eyes, the more weirdly a fake world slips under them.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      The core problem is not with VR, but with brains themselves because their task is nearly impossible already. It’s clear most humans see the world in high-resolution (HDMI or better in space, seamless motion in real time). But synthesizing high-resolution 3-D moving images is hard even for supercomputers and MRI machines. It’s even harder for the brain to synthesize so much data (teravoxels) if it gets a million pulses per second of input from two jiggling spheres of jelly (the eyeballs). That’s about a million data points synthesized for each single input pulse.  It’s a miracle that Nature can leverage such internal fakery, then erase the artifacts so perfectly the result seems not merely realistic, but absolutely real. Unfortunately for VR, that miracle is utterly dependent on the 3-D world actually being there. There is no mathematical way to make a consistent world-image from partial, delayed, corrupted data injected into only part of a brain’s input stream, while ignoring all the rest. Our brains need real-live 3D data like our lungs need air, and no amount of hype will change that fact.

      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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      Making Sense of the Tigray War in Ethiopia

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      FO° Insights is a new feature where our contributors make sense of issues in the news.

      Even as the focus has been on Ukraine, a bloody and brutal conflict has raged in Tigray for 17 months but hardly attracted global attention. On March 25, rebel Tigrayan forces declared that they would respect a ceasefire proposed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as long as sufficient aid was delivered to their war-scarred northern region “within reasonable time.”

      Martin Plaut on the Tigray War, Ethiopia and More

      In this episode, we have the former BBC World Service Africa Editor explain what is going on in the Tigray War in Ethiopia and you can read what he has to say below.

      Embed from Getty Images

      How significant is the humanitarian ceasefire in Ethiopia’s Tigray region?

      This is the first real breakthrough in the negotiating process that we’ve had since the war began in November 2020. There have been terrible bitter months in which there has been a huge loss of life. As per estimates, up to 500,000 people have died either from the conflict or from starvation in Tigray. The whole of Tigray is surrounded by enemies with the Eritreans to the north and the Ethiopians to the south, the east and the west.

      To avoid starvation, it is vital that supplies get through. The Tigrayans need something like a hundred (100) trucks a day. They’ve had 100 trucks in the last, I don’t know, six weeks. There’s starvation in Tigray and humanitarian assistance is desperately needed.

      Why has the ceasefire taken so long?

      Essentially the Ethiopians and the Eritreans who are prosecuting this war have used starvation as a weapon of war. They are trying to crush the Tigrayan population whom they loathe by any means possible. They attempted to invade the country in November 2020 but that didn’t work. The Tigrayans had to flee their capital but, after a few months, they reorganized and they pushed the Eritreans and the Ethiopians right out of most of Tigray.

      There are only some areas on the west and in the far north of Tigray which are still occupied. So the Ethiopians and the Eritreans have basically used starvation as a weapon of war. They’ve cut all communications links, they’ve prevented medical supplies from coming in and they prevented the trucks from rolling in either through the east or through the south. The people are starving.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      How serious is the humanitarian situation?

      The situation is terrible. As always, it is always the very young and the very old who die first. The problem is that we have no absolute certainty about what is going on because the government of Ethiopia and of Eritrea have refused to allow any journalists to the frontlines even on the Ethiopian and Eritrean sides, let alone into Tigray itself. All communications are cut to Tigray, banking services are cut, there’s no way of paying for anything, all fuel supplies going in have been prevented. So Tigray is almost like a sealed-off area and nobody knows really what is going on but we do get to know some things from whispers, and the whispers are terrible.

      Why has this war attracted less attention than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

      If you prevent all international journalists from going in, there’s a news vacuum. How do you cover a story when nobody is allowed to be on the ground? Then, you can’t actually get the shots, film the mother with the dying baby or the grandparents unable to feed themselves or look after themselves. You do not get this information we’re getting now, day in, day out, from Ukraine.

      You’re getting nothing from Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, let alone the rest of the area, some of which is very remote. Most monasteries have been looted, women have been routinely raped, I mean literally routinely raped. Some of the testimony was so brutal it is truly some of the worst I have ever seen in my life.

      What is at the stake for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa?

      Essentially, there are two views of Ethiopia. As per one view, Ethiopia is an imperial country, a single unitary country that was developed in the 19th century and should really essentially return to that. The Tigrayan have another view. They say that we are all ethnic groups, we must all have a federated system in which real power reverts to all of the ethnic areas. That is what the Tigrayans tried to do until 2018 when they lost power. They tried to create this federation sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.

      Essentially, those are the two views of how Ethiopia should be run and it’s equally the way in which the whole Horn of Africa should be governed.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      How can Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed resolve this war?

      My view is if he doesn’t really allow an alternative view of the way Ethiopia is run then it is unlikely that we will have a resolution of this conflict. That will mean that we’ll go back to war. We’ve already seen somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 people killed and that’s before you take in the deaths of the Somalis who fought in this war, of the Eritreans, tens of thousands of whom have been thrown into the frontline, so I mean the death toll could be immense.

      And we don’t want to see any more of this suffering so we really do need some kind of resolution that addresses the political as well as the humanitarian issues.

      This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

      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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      Will the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Campaign Slogan Be “Yes, We Khan”?

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      Nikkei Asiadescribes Prime Minister Imran Khan’s initiative that will send voters to the polls as “paving the way for [the] South Asian nation’s first ‘foreign policy election.’” As everything having to do with politics in Pakistan is complex, though perhaps never as complex as it has become today, untangling the threads of this constitutional crisis will not be easy. Nikkei’s characterization of what is likely to follow as a “foreign policy election” is accurate, though whether there will be an election depends on a decision of the Supreme Court.

      Pakistan has perhaps the most complex history of any Asian nation. At this moment of global repositioning accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, things have become more complicated than ever. This is due to the fact that Pakistan has been part of a geopolitical game involving India, China and Russia while sharing a traditionally porous border with Afghanistan. At the same, this young Muslim nation has the reputation of being consistently aligned with the United States since its creation in 1947. The US was persistently and largely embarrassingly involved in Afghanistan for four decades until President Joe Biden decided to pull out of a two-decade military occupation last summer.

      When the political crisis reached its peak on Sunday and Khan succeeded in avoiding a non-confidence vote, perhaps the most astonishing comment came from Major General Babar Iftikhar, the head of the military’s public relations wing, whodeclared that the “Army has nothing to do with the political process.” This might surprise attentive observers of Pakistani politics who have long understood that the military has always been the force controlling all the nation’s political processes.

      Khan has succeeded thanks to what some call a ruse. He has defined the crux of the current crisis to be Pakistan’s relationship with the United States. It has never been a secret that the nation’s military, as Chief of the Army Staff General Kamar Bajwaexplained last week, shares “a long and excellent strategic relationship with the US which remains our largest export market.”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Strategic relationship:

      A term to describe the level of cooperation, collaboration and respect that exists between two nations, the quality of which can range from a bond of mutually acknowledged equality to the exploitation of a lord over a vassal.

      Contextual note

      Before the actual move to dissolve parliament on Sunday, the BBCprovided its description of the state of political play. “Imran Khan, elected in July 2018 vowing to tackle corruption and fix the economy, remains popular with some voters, even though a lot of his public support has been lost as a result of rocketing inflation and ballooning foreign debt.” Khan was clearly aware of the public’s dissatisfaction with economic trends and may have reasons to fear the results of a general election. But, to his credit, Khan has been more active than previous prime ministers in reining in corruption.

      However, Pakistanis are so inured to corruption, they don’t necessarily see it as a disqualifying criterion. In an earlier article, the BBCquoted a disappointed citizen encountered in a barber shop who had voted for Khan in 2018 but appears ready to favor Khan’s opponents. They are allied with the Bhuttos and Sharifs, two families that have previously dominated Pakistani politics and are reputed to be notoriously corrupt. The BBC interlocutor did not seem to care much about that and said, “They might be corrupt but at least they help poor people.”

      Still, the political stakes may not be just “the economy, stupid.” The BBC cites another customer of the same barber shop. “We have to endure this hard time,” he stoically proclaims. “Imran Khan has taken a stance and we should stand with him.” What may not have been quite as clear at the time of the BBC’s survey of barber shop opinion is that Khan was ready turn the debate into exactly what Nikkei Asia described: “the nation’s first ‘foreign policy election.’”

      If that is the case, it will be interesting to see how Pakistan’s military seeks to influence the outcome of the crisis. The new formulation of the army’s neutrality concerning political processes seems even more surprising when taking into account a defiant remark General Bajwa made in March, when he attempted to push Khan to resign. He justified his activism with these words: “Allah didn’t allow us to be neutral as only animals are neutral.”

      Although Bajwa insisted on the longstanding alliance with the US — highlighting the American market’s importance for the economy as a destination for Pakistani exports —  anotherremark he made helps to explain how Pakistan’s geopolitical positioning may be shifting. “I believe,” he declared, that “the world today is built by those who believe in cooperation, respect and equality, instead of division, war-mongering and dominance.” This raises the interesting question of whom the Pakistanis see as nations focused on “cooperation, respect and equality” and whom they identify as warmongers. Bajwa squarely identified Russia’s incursion into Ukraine as putting it on the evil side of the balance, which contrasts with Khan’s insistence on not taking sides on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

      Khan has focused on the perception of the US, which he sees as promoting the very “division, war-mongering and dominance” General Bajwa vilifies. The prime minister has made two claims: that he has evidence of a US plot to overthrow his regime and that the Pakistani military has sent him “written threats to step down.”

      Historical note

      Stepping back to situate these events in a broader historical context can help to clarify the issues. Recently talk of a “new world order” has made its way into the headlines. This idea has come from two opposite directions: Xi Jinping’s China and Joe Biden’s America. Xi’s version of a new world order is explicitly multipolar. “The rules set by one or several countries,” Xiproclaimed last year, “should not be imposed on others, and the unilateralism of individual countries should not give the whole world a rhythm.”

      Biden’sversion sounds not only different from Xi’s, as we might expect, but is paradoxically identical with what most people recognize as the old world order. “Now is a time when things are shifting,” Biden declared a week ago. “We’re going to – there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.” Anyone with a sense of historical reality may find it difficult to see any deep semantic difference between Xi’s evocation of imposing rules on others and Biden’s idea that “we’ve got to lead it.” The “unilateralism” Xi disparages appears to be precisely what Biden’s champions by insisting that “we’ve got to lead it.”

      In January, The Financial Times summed up theconclusion reached by Xi and Putin in the definition of their newly solidified partnership, noting that “the Russian and Chinese leaders are united by a belief that the US is plotting to undermine and overthrow their governments.” That is the message Khan has put forward and which will likely dominate the eventual election campaign that will follow the dissolution of parliament. More significantly, the increasingly obvious US strategy that consists of avoiding or undermining peace talks between Ukraine and Russia makes it look as if the US is focused on two basic objectives: undermining every government in the world that doesn’t fall into line and turning NATO into the superstructure of a unilateral empire controlled financially and militarily from Washington.

      Instead of a new world order, if that is the strategy of the US, it is little more than a reinforced version of the old world order, more military than ever. The major obstacle, however, is that a traditional ally such as Pakistan or a more recent one like India, who though opposed amongst themselves, can no longer be counted on to toe the line.

      Khan is probably right about a US-led effort at regime change. That seems to be the first reflex of any US president’s foreign policy. It has rarely, if ever worked, but at the core of US culture is the resolution to always “try again.” A lot of ordinary people around the world have become aware of the futility of that pattern. The political elites are only just beginning to feel the pressure to change this worn out pattern.

      What that means is that we are witnessing essentially a new world disorder. What follows is anyone’s guess.

      *[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 Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      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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      Punjab Elections Mark a Watershed for Indian Democracy

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      India, the world’s largest democracy has held elections since 1951 and largely changed both the national and state governments peacefully. Recently, five of India’s 28 states went to the polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won reelection in four out of the five states. The opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won in the northwest border state of Punjab, beating the historic Congress Party.

      What Is Remarkable About AAP’s Victory?

      The AAP is a relatively new party. Founded in 2012, it is led by Arvind Kejriwal who is the chief minister of Delhi, India’s national capital. Unlike Punjab, Delhi is not a state. It is one India’s eight union territories, some of which are administered directly while others have their own legislatures. A 1991 act of parliament gave the national capital its own legislature and the first election to the Delhi Legislative Assembly was held in 1993.

      The Delhi government does not have the same powers as that of states such as Punjab, West Bengal or Tamil Nadu. The union cabinet that operates out of the British-built New Delhi, a part of Delhi, retains control over law, public order and the police. Both the AAP and the BJP operate out of Delhi and are political rivals with a history of troubled relations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The AAP’s victory in Punjab is a historic moment in Indian democracy. It has defeated the Congress Party, the grand old party of the nation that ruled Punjab for the last five years, as well as the Akali Dal, the regional powerhouse. The AAP has expanded from the national capital to a nearby state. In the eyes of many, the AAP is the new face of the opposition that could replace the sclerotic Congress Party and mount a challenge to the BJP.

      The AAP’s victory in Punjab is significant. Punjab may be one of India’s smaller states but it is a strategic one for the country. With a population estimated to be over 30 million people, it borders Pakistan. Punjab is the home of Sikhs, a five-century old religious and philosophical tradition started by Guru Nanak with followers around the world. During the bloody partition of British India into India and Pakistan, Punjab was partitioned too. Ishtiaq Ahmed has chronicled the tragedy of Punjab in consummate detail and that trauma lives on to this day.

      Pakistan worries about Punjab as a springboard for a tank-led offensive to Lahore that lies 24 kilometers from the border. India worries about a threat to Amritsar, home to the Golden Temple — the holiest Sikh shrine. In the 1980s, Pakistan supported a Sikh insurgency against India and the army had to storm the Golden Temple itself in 1984. Some diehard Sikh extremists still want an independent Sikh state of Khalistan. A new untested party in the strategic state of Punjab is a dramatic new development for Indian democracy.

      Can the AAP Replicate Its Delhi Model in Punjab?

      Many argue that the AAP has done a good job in Delhi. Newspapers like The Hindu and The Print have published editorials about the success of the AAP’s education reforms in Delhi. It has also won kudos for its welfare measures such as distributing free electricity and water as well as improving healthcare. While many contest the extent of change, it is clear that voters in Punjab have bought into the Delhi model. As a strategic state of the union, Punjab presents both new opportunities and challenges for the AAP.

      Embed from Getty Images

      For a start, the AAP will now control law, public order and the police. This is a big responsibility in a border state with a history of insurgency. In recent years, drug abuse has haunted Punjab as have allegations of political and bureaucratic corruption. The AAP will have to provide funding for the police in Punjab, something it has not had to do in Delhi, where the law gives the union government control over the police as well the responsibility for its funding.

      To put the matter in perspective, it is instructive to take a look at the numbers. In India’s financial year, beginning April 1 and ending March 31, of 2020-21, the budget for the Delhi Police exceeded $1 billion (over 80 billion rupees). In the 2021-22 financial year, this expenditure is estimated to rise to over $1.4 billion (over 110 billion rupees). Police funding from the union government has given the AAP leeway to fund welfare measures for its voters.

      Besides, Delhi has a much larger economy than Punjab. The 2019-20 gross state domestic product (GSDP) of Delhi was estimated to be over $110 billion (over 8.5 trillion rupees) while that of Punjab was about $75 billion (nearly 5.8 trillion rupees). Delhi’s population is only marginally higher than Punjab and is nearing 31 million people. This makes the GDP per capita differential higher, making Punjab a much poorer place to run for the AAP.

      Punjab once led the nation in prosperity. Till the pre-insurgency years, Punjab had the highest per capita GDP in the country thanks to India’s green revolution that high-yielding seeds, fertilizers and irrigation enabled. This revolution led to other problems that Atul Singh and Manu Sharma chronicled in their 2021 analysis of farm reforms. Yet despite these problems, Punjab ranked third in per capita GDP in the country till 2000-01. Today it has slipped to the 16th position in the country. Furthermore, statistics from the Reserve Bank of India reveal that Punjab’s growth rate has been one of the slowest in the country.

      Punjab’s smaller GSDP and lower growth rates present a big challenge to the state’s public finances. While Delhi’s goods and sales tax (GST) revenue for December 2021 was a little over $493 million (37.54 billion rupees), Punjab’s GST revenue was nearly $207 million (15.73 billion rupees). Punjab has lower revenue and higher expenditure than Delhi. Its fiscal liabilities have risen from nearly $14.8  billion (more than 1.12 trillion rupees) on March 31, 2015 to more than $27.8 billion (nearly 2.12 trillion rupees) on March 31, 2019. While Delhi is nearly debt-free, Punjab runs large deficits and is highly indebted.

      Furthermore, Punjab’s budget is burdened by many rigid spending items like interest payments, salaries, pensions and power subsidies. It has benefited from farm subsidies that India’s XV Finance Commission has declared unsustainable. Punjab’s agriculture has sucked its groundwater, consumed electricity inefficiently, increased pollution dramatically, caused health problems and run out of steam. Neither industry nor services have stepped in to fill the void.

      The AAP has won 92 out of 117 seats in Punjab. It has promised “employment, education, health, free electricity, freedom from drug menace and agricultural reforms.” Given Punjab’s perilous fiscal condition, the AAP will find it much harder to fulfill its promises in this border state than in Delhi, making it very difficult to mount a national challenge to the BJP. More

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      Philosophers Weigh in on the Use and Abuse of Power

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      Wars are nasty affairs that destroy people, property and, so long as they last, any hope of perceiving even minimal truth in the news. That is why, after an urgent appeal initiated by the United Nations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a group of philosophers from the world’s most prestigious universities came together last week to pool their thoughts on how political power might be redesigned to carry out policies aimed at improving rather than degrading the world. They also addressed the essential question of whom the people should entrust with political power in democracies where they have the right to do so.

      One participant referred to the conference as the “Davos of Metaphysicians.” More than 40 philosophers hailing from top universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Columbia, Sciences Po, Australian National University, Delhi University, Peking University,  the Universities of Bologna, Salamanca and Mexico City, agreed to meet after receiving strict instructions not to let the media even suspect the existence of the event before the publication of the final report. Moreover, to ensure a minimum of contamination, the organizers excluded from the debate any philosopher who had even dabbled in political thought or geopolitical matters in any publication at any point in their career. It was feared that anyone with such a profile might be compromised and be tempted to avert the press.

      Philosophers Refute Plato

      After four days of deliberations, which some privately called excruciatingly frustrating and unproductive, the council of philosophers emerged from a state of secrecy worthy of a papal conclave to issue a statement that began by countering Plato’s ancient recommendation that a good republic should be governed by philosophers. The council had the humility to cite its own chaotic deliberations as an illustration of why philosophers could not be trusted to govern effectively or even run any significant political entity.

      The council then began by listing other profiles that should equally be excluded from any role in governing. Inspired by the ancient Athenian example, a significant majority agreed that it would always be dangerous to attribute power to any professional politician, a status they defined as anyone who has served in an office of public service for more than a fixed number of months or years. The council failed to agree on a specific number but settled on an outside limit of not more than three years.

      The most radical philosophers proposed a term of three months for any political office. Their proposal is worth citing because it stipulated that after three months of service, the outgoing political representatives would assist and advise their incoming counterparts with full decision making authority to ensure continuity in government. This innovative idea was rejected by the majority of philosophers.

      Philosophers found it hard to reach agreement on numerous other issues. In their defense, they had only four days of deliberations. One of them complained afterwards that they failed to agree upon the mode of selection of public officials. Some wanted a lottery à la ancient Athens. Others wanted a good old fashioned election. Yet others such as the Indians and the Chinese suggested tough entrance examinations. A few wanted a combination of all three models. This matter could not be resolved for lack of time.

      The Smoke Signal

      On the afternoon of the fourth day, the council of philosophers broke its seal of secrecy and notified what they considered the most reputable media organization in the Western world to unveil the outcome of their deliberations. Fair Observer has seen the final report and finds the council’s work insightful. Other media organizations do not share this sentiment. They complained that the philosophers had failed to notify the media in advance. Besides, with Ukraine going on, who had time to pay attention to egg-headed philosophers?

      With few exceptions, the media appeared to refuse to publish the results of the conference or even acknowledge its existence. The philosophers took umbrage and declared that philosophers should not be the only group not allowed to govern. Anyone who had ever worked with the media in any capacity should be excluded from governing. They also made a unanimous recommendation that anyone trusted with governing should be prohibited from accepting any remunerated activity with the media after stepping down from office.

      The council of philosophers also excluded several  other professions from governing, including lawyers, financial professionals, C-level executives, military officers, entertainment and sports professionals. The council could come to no definitive agreement about shopkeepers and published an inconclusive statement about them. The council nearly degenerated into a riot when the question of teachers came up. The debate was so acrimonious that at one point the chairman of the session, a distinguished female philosopher at Cambridge, barely escaped injury from a cell phone tossed at her head. Numerous chairs and tables were damaged, some beyond repair.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Because of deep disagreement on the question of trusting teachers to govern, the philosophers decided that a new conference would be required in 2023 just to deal with that issue. One anonymous philosopher remarked that this was largely because nearly every philosopher is either currently teaching or has done so in the past. Several participants mentioned that the one thing the majority of philosophers could agree on is that self-interest is a significant variable capable of perverting any governance decision, whatever the form of government. The full report of the council is available at this link, which we urge all readers to consult.

      Most commentators in the media deny that such a conference of philosophers even took place. Assuming that no such conference assembled, a reasonable case can still be made that, given the flagrant failure of our political institutions to avoid not just war, but also the destruction of the environment, pandemics, imminent famine in many parts of the world and ever-growing economic injustice, the insight of a council of philosophers sincerely attempting to answer the question of how political power is structured and what it accomplishes could be deemed desirable.

      But the philosophers cited above, whether or not they actually exist, were probably right. The philosophers themselves cannot be counted on to lead, and those who hold power cannot be counted on to follow whatever authentic wisdom philosophers might produce.

      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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      Radicalization and the Role of Video Games

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      The audience for video games is massive. According to Nielsen, 82% of global consumers either played video games or watched content related to them in 2020 — a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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      In 2019, the anti-hate organization ADL published survey data of US gamers, revealing that 23% of respondents had been exposed to white supremacist ideology in online games. Given recent surges in right-wing extremism and violence, including concerning trends in youth radicalization, understanding the extent to which this hugely popular medium offers a potential vector for radicalization is important.

      Gaming and Right-Wing Extremism

      There is a growing corpus of literature exploring the intersection between gaming and right-wing extremism. This includes work that focuses on the cultural overlap between online extremism and gaming communities; potential vulnerabilities that might mean gamers are more susceptible to radicalization; the gamification of extremist activity; and discussion of the “gamergate” controversy that saw a number of gamers involved in coordinated online trolling help drive online extremism.

      However, there is a limited body of work exploring the use of gaming platforms for recruitment by extremists, with much of the content exploring this phenomenon being largely anecdotal, such as a report in November 2020 by Sky News on the radicalization of a 14-year-old boy in the United Kingdom which suggested that the boy had been shown “extreme neo-Nazi video games” by his older brother.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Understanding whether there are concerted radicalization efforts that seek to leverage online gaming to reach new audiences has implications for regulatory discussions, interventions and prevention efforts.

      Our Findings

      To help fill this dearth in knowledge, the digital analysis unit at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) engaged in a piece of scoping research across four platforms associated with online gaming. This included two live-streaming services — Twitch and DLive, which both host individuals who broadcast online gaming to digital audiences, and which have both been used to stream extremist activity.

      Additionally, we explored Steam, the PC game digital distribution service that also provides a platform for gamers to build community groups, and Discord, a chat application originally designed for gamers that has been notably used by right-wing extremists.

      To better understand the potential for overlap between extremism and gaming, we used digital ethnography to scope these platforms, searching for users and communities promoting extremist content. In total, we identified 45 public groups associated with the extreme right on Steam, 24 extreme right chat servers on Discord, 100 extreme right channels on DLive and 91 channels on Twitch.

      These communities and individuals commonly promoted racist, exclusionary and supremacist material associated with the extreme right, including the sharing of material from proscribed terrorist organizations on Discord.

      We then qualitatively analyzed the content shared by these extremist channels and publicly accessible discussion threads to explore the extent that gaming was being used to radicalize or recruit individuals.

      Here we identified several ways in which extremists use gaming. In some instances, extremists would use politically aligned games, such as “Feminazi: The Triggering” as a means to signify their ideology to their peers. Additionally, we found evidence that extremists used historical strategy games to role-play extremist fantasies, such as winning the Second World War for Nazi Germany or killing Muslims in the Crusades. However, although we found ample evidence that extremists are using gaming platforms, we found limited evidence to suggest they are using them to radicalize or recruit new members.

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      Instead, extremists primarily seemed to use gaming as a means of building bonds and community with their peers, as well as more broadly to blow off steam. Whilst there has been a focus in preexisting literature on extremist-created games, we found that a majority of extremist gamers preferred popular mainstream titles such as “Call of Duty” or “Counter-Strike.” Additionally, although anecdotal evidence suggests that young people are being groomed over online games, we didn’t find content that corroborated this.

      Future Research

      Although there were gaps in our methodology — in particular, we didn’t seek to play online games with extremists — these preliminary findings suggest that gamers seem to primarily use gaming in the same way that non-extremists do: as a hobby and past time. These findings have implications for policy responses to online radicalization as well as for future research. In particular, they highlight how extremist users have been able to find a home on gaming platforms online.

      Our project was designed as scoping research to pick up on key trends and didn’t attempt to gauge the scale and reach of these communities, but it is important that future digital research tracks the size of extremist communities so that proportional policy responses can be proposed.

      *[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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      What Is Vladimir Putin’s Endgame?

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      After a series of horrific events, I am sat wearing four layers of clothing while penning this piece. Other than at the time I was writing the article, “Is Moscow Turning Off the Gas Tap?” — when the heating was coincidently not working at my office — I decided to turn off my radiator on purpose.

      Ending the War in Ukraine

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      Ridiculous as it might sound, it is my tiny attempt to act against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to somehow fight this sense of helplessness, being forced to watch the events unfold, without being able to do much.

      Building Up to War in Ukraine

      It all started a couple of days before February 24, which is when Russia invaded Ukraine. I was preparing for a trip to Kyiv to check on my friends in the Ukrainian capital. Following the latest developments, I tried to find any information that would confirm what the Russian ambassador to the EU had stated on February 16. Vladimir Chizhov said there would “be no escalation in the coming week, or in the week after that, or in the coming month.” Saying one thing and doing another has long been part of the Russian political playbook. Yet the cynicism in saying that wars in Europe “rarely start on a Wednesday” — in reference to US intelligence reports — just to actually invade eight days later is unacceptable.

      On Sunday, February 20 at around 10 pm, I ultimately decided not to set the alarm for later that night in order to arrive at the airport on time. I went to bed with a heavy heart and a sense of cowardice: I decided not to travel to Kyiv. I felt as if I had betrayed the Ukrainian people, especially my friend, who assured me that everything was fine and everyone was calm. Over the next few days, I tried to drown out the voice in the back of my head saying, “You should have gone” by repeating this mantra to myself: If you bring an umbrella, it will not rain.

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      And then we all heard the news. I can only imagine how it must have felt to be actually woken up by air raid sirens — it’s unfathomable. I saw a map of Ukraine showing where the Russian bombs hit. I reached out to friends and colleagues in these places. So far, they are fortunately all fine. I admire their strength and bravery for remaining in Ukraine.

      Back in the office in Vienna, I sat with my colleagues. While we tried to at least grasp what this meant for all of us, we began to realize that this was not just another crisis; this was a decisive development in history. This is war in Europe. It is not the first conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. It is not even the first in Ukraine; the country has been at war since 2014. Back then, during the Revolution of Dignity, the Euromaidan, Ukrainians gave their lives for democracy, our democracy.

      That is precisely why it is only logical for Ukraine to apply for membership in the European Union. Although there is no shortcut to joining the EU, under certain circumstances, it can become possible. Membership in the union should not only remain symbolic. I have written more about this here. In fact, I have been arguing with colleagues about granting such rights to all eastern partnership target countries since 2009. This would, of course, not have prevented anything today. Other actions might have, such as reducing the import dependency on natural resources after the Russia–Ukraine gas crisis of the same year.

      But there is no use in dwelling on the past. Instead, I want to think about the future. Therefore, I have compiled five different scenarios about how the situation in Ukraine could develop. None of them must become a reality, and some of them, hopefully, will not.

      1: All-out (Nuclear) War

      Nuclear war is certainly the worst-case scenario for all sides. An increasingly frustrated and isolated Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, decides to use tactical nuclear weapons to submerge the Ukrainian resistance. Even if it will “only” involve non-nuclear attacks continuing the obliteration of whole cities and committing war crimes, the democratic international community seriously asks themselves if they can allow this to happen.

      Even if they do, the probability that Putin will stop at the border with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltics or Finland is delusional. Consequently, NATO, sooner or later, has to get involved, resulting in World War III.

      I believe that we are actually already at war since February 24 but haven’t realized it yet. It might also continue as a war of attrition and continue indefinitely.

      2: Novorossiya

      This second scenario refers to what Putin himself mentioned in one of his infamous television Q&As in 2014. It has been used in various contexts, with reference to Alexander Dugin, but also as an idea raised by the so-called People’s Republics in Donetsk and Luhansk of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The planned confederation was ultimately not implemented.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      The reference dates back to a more or less geographically same area referred to as “New Russia” during the Soviet era until the turn of the century. In any case, Putin mentioned the cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa — essentially the whole Black Sea coast of Ukraine, linking up the Russian Federation with Transnistria. Since the Transnistria War in 1992, Russian troops have been stationed in the breakaway territory, which is officially part of Moldova.

      This scenario involves the creation of many more “people’s republics,” which are under the influence — politically and economically — of the Kremlin and dependent on it. Recognition of such republics by Moscow or even integration into the Russian Federation is also a possibility.

      Further separatist regions beyond Ukraine are also declared, expanding Russian influence even more. This takes place mostly in the Caucasus, but also in the direction of the former spheres of influence of the Soviet Union.

      3: Fragmentation

      In a more hopeful scenario, Putin’s aggression leads to destabilization within the Russian Federation. While having to devote a majority of the country’s military capacities but also attention and political capital toward Ukraine, old separatist attempts resurface.

      The control over Chechnya is substantially weakened due to the de-facto defeat of Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces. But also further disintegration occurs. Not necessarily violently, but more economic-based toward dependence of Siberia on China or Vladivostok on Japan. The resulting fragmentation and volatility have major consequences for the whole neighborhood but also geopolitically.

      4: Coup d’état

      There have been (too optimistic) rumors about a possible coup being planned by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia. Leaks from the “Wind of Change” lead to an ousting of Putin and his closest circle.

      While it cannot be ruled out, there should not be any false hope. If the security forces and/or the military carry out a coup d’état, we will not see any democratic regime change.

      Most likely, the people belonging to the closest circle of power are replaced, but the mafia system continues with a new godfather who ends the war but distributes the spoils. It is also possible that we will see a military hard-liner taking charge, which could then end in scenario one.

      5: Democratic Revolution

      The most optimistic, but unfortunately most unlikely, scenario would foresee the sanctions against Russia and the isolation of the federation as leading to the people bringing regime change and possibly democratization.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In a Maidan-style occupation of the Red Square, Putin is unable to suppress the opposition any longer. It takes a lot of time to account for past actions, reconciliation and anti-corruption measures, but the missed opportunity of the 1990s is finally taken up. Coupled with the enlarged EU economic and security cooperation, there is now a counterpart to the geopolitical volatility caused by China’s ambitions and the political instability of the United States.

      The Outlook

      Regardless of which direction the situation takes (although I most certainly have a preference), it is necessary to be prepared for all eventualities. It is a good sign that there has been enough awareness for Ukraine as well as the necessity to think about the economic requirements to rebuild after the war.

      Nevertheless, it is possible to achieve peace, especially with regard to the importing of oil and gas from Russia. Far too often, we are focused on the immediate costs and do not look at the possibilities. A transition to renewable energy is more necessary than ever, but the hesitancy has kept us dependent on Moscow. Just imagine what the situation would have looked like if a transition had been sped up in 2009.

      Hopefully, we have finally learned the lesson. After all, the price we pay is just money. Ukraine is paying with its life, its infrastructure and, ultimately, its future.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.]

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