Politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Europe’s Far Right Fails to Capitalize on COVID-19

      by

      Europe’s radical-right parties have quickly understood the benefit they can derive from criticizing their respective governments in managing the COVID-19 health crisis. Their communication focuses on three main areas. First, they question the animal origin of the epidemic through the use of several conspiracy theories. Second comes the criticism of globalization presented as the root cause of the pandemic. And, finally, they criticize the threats that lockdowns and other measures, such as the wearing of face masks, impose on the individual freedoms of European citizens.

      Did a French Far-Right Thinker Predict 2020?

      READ MORE

      The conspiratorial mindset of the European radical right is evident in the current COVID-19 moment. Like other extremist milieus, the idea of a ​​hidden cause according to which any historical event occurs is prevalent. The search for mysterious reasons that the powerful media and political elites would like to hide from the people is never far away in the far-right diagnosis of the origins of the pandemic. In particular, as the origin of the virus is still disputed in public discourse, the pandemic is the ideal issue for those who are prone to such conspiratorial thinking.

      Orwellian Society

      We shouldn’t get too carried away with ourselves here, however. Not all radical-right actors have reacted to the pandemic with conspiracy theories. One of the most interesting issues is that some of them have reactivated the theme of the West having to fight communism, embodied no longer by the USSR but by China as a new bête noire. Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers, for example, accused China of using opacity and lies to downplay the scale of the epidemic, an attitude which he says stems from the command-and-control nature of communism itself.

      Other parties or figures on the European radical right have raised questions not only about the responsibility of the Chinese government for a late and inappropriate response to the pandemic, but also put forward the idea that the virus escaped from a virology laboratory in Wuhan. This theory, propagated in mid-April by Professor Luc Montagnier, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine, was relayed in France by the elected representatives of the National Rally (RN), Julien Odoul and Gilbert Collard. The RN, however, did not fully follow in the footsteps of Professor Montagnier and calls for the creation of an international commission of inquiry into the origins of the epidemic.

      Added to this, the pandemic has allowed the European radical right to develop the notion that “elites” are using the health crisis to hasten in an authoritarian form of government. For example, Spain’s Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé accused President Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing government of authoritarianism when it withdrew from parliamentary control lockdown measures limiting freedom of movement. The RN, which published “The Black Book of the Coronavirus: From the fiasco to the abyss,” a brochure criticizing the French government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, accused the authorities of using “guilt, infantilization and threats” against the French people in order to enforce a lockdown.

      Other more marginal movements, which do not have to worry about achieving political credibility, have protested against outright “dictatorship,” such as the Italian fundamentalist neo-fascist and Catholic New Force party. In Hungary, the nationalist Jobbik party, which now seeks to defeat Viktor Orban by allying itself, if necessary, with the center-left opposition, decided to denounce government attacks on media freedom during the pandemic.

      The European radical right everywhere has fired bullets at incumbent governments, accusing them of failing to meet the challenges of dealing with the epidemic. In March, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, accused President Emmanuel Macron of ordering the state to lie and cover up the extent of the pandemic by giving the French people incomplete or false information in order to hide his incompetence. It was the only French political party to absolutely refuse any policy of national unity in response to the pandemic and to support the hydroxychloroquine-based treatment recommended by Professor Didier Raoult.

      The Spanish Vox party also issued very strong words against the government, using such phrases as “criminal management,” “obscurantism,” “loss of all credibility” and “insulting” (in respect to the people of Spain). The situation in Italy also prompted the far-right League party to attack the coalition formed by the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the center-left Democratic Party. On the night of April 29, for example, the League’s leader Matteo Salvini showed his contempt of parliament by occupying the senate hemicycle with a dozen other elected officials to denounce economic restrictions, delayed aid to Italian citizens and small businesses, the limitations on freedom of movement and the side-lining of parliamentary powers by the Conte government.

      But a poll carried out on May 8 shows that even if the League remains in the lead, with 26.7%, when it comes to voting intentions, its popularity has been declining since the start of the health crisis while another nationalist party, the Brothers of Italy, is credited with 14.1% — more than double of the 6.2% it won in the 2019 European elections.

      No Coherent Response

      Despite all this, the European radical right seems to have failed to develop coherent responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The speed with which the pandemic spread was unrelated to the limited migratory flows observed on the Greek island of Lesbos at the end of February, thus depriving the radical right of the possibility of singling out immigration as the cause of the pandemic. Instead, in all European countries, the radical right put the blame on globalization.

      Their idea, therefore, is that the pandemic was caused by globalization itself, which generates continuous flows of travel and international exchange, immigration notwithstanding. Globalization, they say, allows multinationals to make financial profits in times of crisis, while the poorest are hit hardest by unemployment and the overwhelmed national health systems. Thus, as a way of example, the Hungarian Mi Hazànk party writes: “We are happy to note that the government accepted our idea of ​​a special solidarity tax on multinationals and banks” and calls for a moratorium on debts and evictions.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      For the European radical right, the health crisis was an opportunity to denounce the European Union, which leaves the competence over health policy to individual member states, and to underline the absolute necessity of returning control of the borders back to member states. As Thierry Baudet, the leader of the Dutch far-right Forum for Democracy, says, “the Nation-State is the future.” During the COVID-19 crisis, European radical-right parties, including the National Rally, have continued to reiterate that they were the first to have warned of the dangers of bringing “back home” potentially strategic industries such as pharma away from China and India.

      The European radical right has failed for several other reasons as well. In Hungary and Poland, the conservative, illiberal right who are in power very quickly closed their borders, which led to the pandemic being contained. In addition, the governments of the most affected countries, Spain and Italy, have (belatedly) managed the crisis well, as had Germany, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has dropped to its lowest levels in voting intentions since 2017.

      To add insult to injury, the AfD is even faced with the birth of a single-issue party, Resistance 2020, that is even more conspiratorial than the AfD and lobbies for the complete rejection of all government-sponsored measures to fight the pandemic. At this point, Marine Le Pen’s popularity rating only rose by 3%, to 26% in May. Were presidential elections set for 2022 held today, she would lose to the incumbent Emmanuel Macron by 45% against 55% — a sobering thought for theorists who suggest that extremism inevitably grows in a crisis.

      *[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

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in World Politics

      No Place for Naivety in Afghan Peace Talks

      by

      In recent years, there has been widespread talk in the media about how much the Taliban has changed. First, it has been argued that the Taliban’s ideological view has been adjusted, which created the impression that the armed group no longer has a problem with human rights or gender equality. Second, it has been suggested that the Taliban has become more in tune with the transformation taking place in Afghanistan over the past two decades. However, from all available evidence, we see that the Taliban’s vision remains inflexible and exclusionary. This approach to equality in political rights will undermine the peace process.

      On September 12, the intra-Afghan talks between the Afghan government delegation and the Taliban officially started in Qatar’s capital, Doha. After two weeks of bargaining, negotiations are yet to finalize the procedural rules for these talks. There is disagreement over two issues. First, the Taliban insists that the basis for the intra-Afghan talks should be the group’s deal with the United States, signed in Doha on February 29. Second, the Taliban insist that the framework for the resolution of disagreements should be based only on Hanafi jurisprudence of Islam.

      Can the Taliban and the Afghan Government Make Peace?

      READ MORE

      Given the Taliban’s sectarian past vis-à-vis the Shia community, widespread concerns have been raised that the group may pursue exclusionary policies. This issue became serious when the Taliban delegation opposed mentioning the name of the Shia branch of Islam. Abdul Salam Hanafi, a member of the Taliban team in Qatar, explained that the choice was made in favor of the Hanafi religion in order to resolve differences in the interpretation of Islamic texts and that “this does not mean that we should discriminate against our Shia brothers.” Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, a member of the Taliban’s negotiating team, said that they would discuss the “personal status, ritual and rites” of the Shia during talks regarding the Afghan Constitution.

      Regime of Discrimination

      The question arises as to why only one branch of Islam is used as a source of interpretation or as a framework for resolving disagreements when Afghanistan is a diverse country, home to various branches of the Islamic faith as well as non-Muslim communities. Do they only have rights to their religious tradition and practices, or do they also have political rights?

      Given the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic texts and sharia law, their approach became a source of concern for Sunnis as well, including the Hanafi, whose own interpretation differs from that of the Taliban, which leaves no place for moderate Sunnis. Their interpretation of Islam is fundamentally in opposition to human rights, freedom of speech and civil liberties.

      Studies have shown that religious intolerance leads to political, cultural and economic discrimination when religion is considered as the basis for political legitimacy in government. Equating religion with political doctrine or using it as a guide for social and cultural activities jeopardizes civil liberties and citizenship, leading to discriminatory practices. Mohammad Reza Nikfar, a philosopher who has written extensively about religious discrimination, used the term “regime-e tabeez” to describe Iran, which in Persian means “regime of discrimination.” A regime of discrimination not only legalizes inequality in society, but the government sees its own discriminating practices as a divine mission.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Such a regime creates discriminatory distinctions. While implementing such discrepancies, the regime formulates specific principles of behavior, speech acts and institutions. This procedure is based on a regime of truth that defines what is right and wrong or who deserves punishment and deprivation. According to Nikfar’s theory, a regime of discrimination based on religion resembles an Orwellian political system.

      The history of the Taliban regime falls squarely in this category. Taliban ideology is rooted in violent Salafism, and the group wants to establish a “puritanical Islamic state.” The Taliban’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has repeatedly called for a “pure Islamic government” — the Islamic Emirate. In principle, the Taliban, like most other extremist groups, do not believe in religious pluralism. Afghanistan is a country of Islamic mysticism, but the Taliban have no respect for either mysticism or philosophy. This makes it difficult for Sunnis, and impossible for the Shia, to have a different interpretation of Islam and Islamic law.

      During Taliban rule, between 1996 and 2001, Afghanistan’s Hindus and Sikhs were ordered to wear yellow armbands to be identifiable from other citizens. At the time, no one was considered a citizen with political rights; instead, the Taliban treated people as subjects and followers. Girls and women were barred from going to school and working. During the regime, women were executed in public spaces such as sports stadiums and are still being shot after being found guilty by the Taliban’s religious tribunals.

      Despite many challenges, the situation for women has significantly improved in the past two decades. Today, millions more girls are in school, and women hold high positions within the government and play a significant role in the country’s political process. Thus, the Taliban’s strict religious approach toward women’s rights is a significant concern in the negotiations, with the group’s ambiguity and evasion on the question of women’s rights and political rights of minorities suggesting they may continue to pursue an exclusionary approach.

      Sociologically, the Taliban’s perception of Afghanistan is based on a tribal mindset, with views on Afghan society and culture rooted in the social ecosystem of a village setting. This lack of cultural capital based on a narrow local perspective cannot bring peace and stability because it fails to acknowledge the cultural plurality of Afghan society. A political philosophy based on tribal village structures cannot successfully govern over a diverse country. The Taliban emphasizes “Afghan values,” but in reality, these are indefinable. A book by Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former senior Taliban official, is a prime example of the Taliban’s perspective, which sees Afghanistan as a homogeneous and tribal society — as he has experienced it.

      The Taliban’s lack of a broad and inclusive view of Afghan society is not just a sign of their ignorance, but it describes a political outlook that could lead to a strategy of cultural violence and, subsequently, physical elimination. To control the diverse voices of Afghan society, the Taliban apply a highly centralized political system presided over by an unelected leader whose legitimacy stems from religion. In this case, the leader has absolute power. However, as the 19th-century historian, John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, warned, it is clear that absolute power brings absolute evil and corruption. The Taliban’s worldview, by default, would lead to locking the society in an old, rusty box of religious extremism, which would render a durable peace a near-impossibility.

      Challenging Circumstances

      Focusing on civilian causality is peace talks is an urgent issue. Naeem Wardak, a spokesman for the Taliban’s office in Qatar, said that the Taliban had killed “no civilians.” However, a UN report attributed 43% of the 1,282 civilians killed and 2,176 injured between January 1 and June 30 this year to the Taliban, 23% to the Afghan national security forces, with the rest of attributed to other actors such as the Islamic State. Some Taliban commanders publicly threaten civilians with mass killings. One of them, Mullah Niazi, speaks with pride and joy about killing civilians. He explains how he will kill Hazaras, a predominantly Shia ethnic minority, and burn down their houses one by one.

      Afghanistan is on the verge of a monumental shift. So far, the Taliban failed to show their commitment to end the violence and support equality and political rights of each Afghan, regardless of their religious and ethnic background. Any naive or negligent decision during the peace negotiations can lead the country into darkness and violence. But at the same time, the inter-Afghan dialogue is a significant opportunity to end the war and secure lasting peace. Both sides have to take an inclusive approach, respect human rights and accept equal political rights for all Afghan citizens regardless of their gender and ethnic background.  

      The current intra-Afghan negotiations are taking place in challenging circumstances. The government negotiating team is working under pressure from foreign powers and domestic circles as the Taliban continue to attack Afghan security forces. This is dangerous for the peace process.

      The international community and regional countries can play a significant role in encouraging both sides to reduce violence and recognize socio-cultural diversity, respect human rights and gender equality, and avoid creating a discriminatory political regime. Any exclusionary approach will increase distrust and will delegitimize the current peace talks. Violence should never be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations as it will severely undermine the peace process.

      *[The author is one of the investigators on the Carnegie Corporation of New York-funded project “Assessing the impact of external actors in the Syria and Afghan proxy wars” (Grant number: G-18-55949) at Deakin University, Australia.]

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

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      The Trump-Biden debate revealed the dangers of Britain's 'special relationship' | Martin Kettle

      by

      Ever since the pioneering Kennedy-Nixon encounter in 1960, the questions that political journalists pose after US presidential debates have been the same. Who performed best? Who had the better of this or that part of the argument? Who exceeded expectations or fell short? Who had the best lines and delivered the best zinger? And has any of it changed the election odds?They are still being asked after the first televised match-up between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. With five weeks to go before the US votes, the questions still matter. But after Tuesday’s verbal roughhouse they also feel crowded out by other uncertainties that seem more epochal, more dystopian and more pressing, not least when seen from this side of the Atlantic.It can seem overblown, but it now makes sense to ask if America is on the edge of becoming ungovernable, or if the rule of impartial law enforcement still commands respect. It is also possible, in ways that were not true in the past, to consider whether the US can be relied on internationally, and whether it is realistic to continue to regard it as an ally. But if it is not an ally, what follows from that? The answers are increasingly uncomfortable.Perhaps most potently, it has to be asked whether America, with all its fabulous energy, wealth, liberty and ambition, still offers the inspirational model to the world that it did to so many, for so long. Or instead is today’s America, defined increasingly by its inequalities, violence, fundamentalism and racism, becoming a model to be rejected, to be guarded against and even, in some cases, to be resisted?Sober answers to these questions matter to the whole planet, above all because of climate change and amid the coronavirus pandemic. But they matter to Britain in very particular ways too. The UK’s claim to a special relationship with the United States has been the cornerstone of its view of itself in the world ever since 1945. A deference to, and infatuation with, America also runs deep in our culture. But if the US is changing in an increasingly dangerous fashion, where does that leave that foreign policy or that infatuation?Britain has a lot riding on getting the answer right. Coming at precisely the time when the UK is casting off its alliance with its own continent, the issue has special urgency. Back in 2016, when Britain voted to leave the European Union, the allure of the exit for many leavers rested partly on the apparent dependability of the transatlantic alliance. But that was pre-Trump. America is a different place and becoming more so. Even leavers should sometimes ask what exactly this wheel of fire is on to which they are binding themselves.Fundamentally, the credibility of any alliance, whether with Europe, the US or anyone else, rests on material self-interest over things such as trade and security. But these material issues are also oiled by common values and trust, without which the relationship remains brittle and pragmatic. The bigger ally will always call the shots. And Britain is not the bigger ally.Few of these values matter as much as respect for the rule of law. It is not difficult to list ways in which this has been undermined by Trump’s America. The list would include everything from the president’s tax returns to breaches of international treaties. The danger for Britain is that, in defence of its unequal alliance, it is beginning to follow the US down the same route of playing fast and loose with the law for political reasons.Take one hugely significant example. Trump and the Republican senate leadership are trying to install the conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett in place of the liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the US supreme court before the presidential election on 3 November. This is a wholly political act. But it is not new. It is merely a particularly shameless step in a long history of politically shaped justice in the US.In the long term, the Barrett nomination is aimed at creating a conservative 6-3 majority in the court, which may then start to undo abortion and other civil rights. But the overriding and immediate purpose is to construct a court that may rule on the result of the November election itself. If that were to happen, and if the court awarded the disputed election to Trump, the politicisation of American justice would be complete.In Britain, judges are still selected on the basis of their legal qualifications, not their politics. Even if you know the identity of the current UK supreme court president, which most people will not, it is a fair bet that you don’t know whether Lord Reed can be classified as a liberal jurist or a conservative one. We are better off as a country for that. Judges should neither be cult figures, as Ginsburg became for some American liberals; or hate figures, as she was for conservatives.Seen against the backdrop of a divided America facing the Barrett nomination, Britain’s institutions may still seem gratifyingly independent and resilient. But for how long? The Johnson government’s purge of senior civil servants, and its plan to install conservative ideologues to govern the BBC and the independent regulators, are a declaration of war on pluralism and independence. If the United States continues its slide into culture wars and worse, the task of stopping this from dragging Britain down too will become increasingly urgent.•Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in World Politics

      The Science of Voter Suppression

      by

      Great traditions persist for centuries even as they change their style. New York’s Tammany Hall and its colorful leader “Boss Tweed” in the late 19th century perfected the art of “manufacturing votes” to elect the people they preferred and run the show in their manner. It set the standard followed by many other local political bosses across the nation.

      In his film “Kansas City,” Robert Altman presented a special world of corrupt 1930s politicians, black and white gangsters and late-night jam sessions in KC clubs. The film demonstrates the well-documented fact that “the Kansas City area has a rich legacy of election fraud, stretching from before the Civil War to after World War II.” More recently, former Kansas secretary of state and failed gubernatorial candidate, Kris Kobach, perfected a system he shared with Republican governors that arbitrarily suppressed voters in different states based on the principle that any two people who happened to have the same name must be fraudulently voting in two different states.

      Ever since Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Democrats have focused on Russian interference to explain Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Greg Palast, who exposed Kris Kobach and Georgia’s Brian Kemp, among others, has found evidence that points to Trump’s 2016 victory being a result of voter suppression. According to Palast, if all the ballots had been counted, Hillary Clinton most likely would have won the state of Michigan. Some 75,355 ballots, mostly from majority-black precincts, were discarded. For some mysterious reason, Democrats have never raised that issue, presumably because there was no way of placing the blame on Russia.

      With a new election approaching, some Democrats may have realized that their party establishment having over-exploited the theme of Russian meddling has to look for a culprit elsewhere. Motivated by the fear of another close election that might favor Trump in the Electoral College, they have found another theme related to meddling to explain their Clinton’s defeat in 2016.

      Mark Zuckerberg Is More Dangerous than Donald Trump

      READ MORE

      Jamie Ross, a journalist at The Daily Beast, cites an “enormous data leak” obtained by the UK’s Channel 4 News that exposes an operation mounted by the 2016 Trump campaign that consisted of using Facebook ads to persuade black voters to stay home rather than vote for Hillary Clinton. The article’s subtitle sums up the scandal: “A huge data leak shows that three million Black Americans were unknowingly added to a list of people that Team Trump wanted to keep away from polling places.” Jamal Watkins, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is cited as saying that “It’s not ‘may the best candidate win’ at that point, it’s ‘may the best well-funded machine suppress voters and keep them at home thereby rigging the election so that someone can win.’”

      Like the kerfuffle surrounding the Russians, the vehicle for meddling was Facebook. Because Facebook was willing to release private data to Cambridge Analytica — a British political consulting firm at the heart of this still-ongoing data breach scandal — who then made that data available to its clients, the Trump campaign could target black voters with ads or articles critical of Hillary Clinton. Though there is no direct evidence of this practice and even less of its effect, Ross asserts that “it’s likely that it was used to help the campaign micro-target people on Facebook in the months leading up to Election Day in 2016.”

      Anything that is “likely” must qualify not just as “rigging” but as a form of voter suppression. Ross reminds readers that Facebook has recently “cited its new rules prohibiting voter suppression,” presumably justifying his characterization of an act designed to demotivate voters as voter suppression.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Voter suppression:

      A traditional practice that has been refined into an obligatory scientific tool of the two major political parties in the United States, though used more extensively and with far more skill by Republicans than Democrats.  

      Contextual Note

      The Daily Devil’s Dictionary sees three problems with calling this operation “voter suppression.” The first is that the supposed crime has only been qualified as “likely.” This is unconfirmed news. It may deserve a mention in passing, but not as the basis of a news story.

      The second is that whatever it is and whatever its ultimate effects, it cannot be called voter suppression. Discouraging people from voting by exposing them to a negative message about a candidate is standard practice in political campaigning. It may be disingenuous and, when channeled through Facebook, passably devious, but it is little more than an original form of political advertising.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Finally, it implies that virtuous Democrats would never attempt to “micro-target people on Facebook.” Given the professionalism of modern political campaigns conducted by both major parties, that seems very “unlikely.” No one would doubt that the Republicans are always ready to go the extra mile — as they did by engaging Cambridge Analytica and profiting from Facebook’s complicity — but Democrats have always tried their best to hone their own skills. They may simply be more discreet in doing so.

      Evidence of Democrats practicing voter suppression can be found throughout the recent history of political campaigns. The hallowed practice of gerrymandering by both parties has more similarities with voter suppression than negative ads on Facebook. Former Democratic Party Chairwoman Donna Brazile admitted that the party deployed various means to rig the 2016 primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton. There have been documented cases of voter suppression by the Democratic Party establishment, though it was directed not at Republicans but at the Democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders.

      Can it be that the Republicans are specialized in voter suppression for general elections and Democrats for primaries? In any case, recent events — from the hanging chads and butterfly ballots in Florida in the 2000 election to Donald Trump’s outcry against mail-in ballot fraud as a pretext for canceling the result of this year’s election — have shown that American democracy, to the extent that democracy is defined by the act of voting, is seriously broken. The damage goes well beyond simple cases of Facebook advertising.

      In March, The Atlantic published an article by Ibram X. Kendi describing how the political establishment has systematically discouraged young voters from voting. Kendi writes: “Both Republicans and moderate Democrats share a joint interest in not increasing the voting rates of young people. Republicans lose general elections to Democrats when young people vote in high numbers. Moderate Democrats lose primary elections to progressive Democrats when young people vote in high numbers.”

      A sclerotic system designed principally to protect those who settled into a position of power within government and their parties has effectively disenfranchised entire generations, often sanctimoniously referred to as “the future of the nation” but clearly felt by those in power to be a threat to the sovereignty of the elite they identify with.

      Historical Note

      The Republicans have an advantage over the Democrats when it comes to voter suppression to the extent that large swaths of Democratic voters are easier to identify and target. Most minorities, especially blacks and Latino voters, have over the years consistently supported Democratic candidates in preference to Republicans. Since at least the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrats have directed their appeal to the working class in contrast with the Republicans, whose ideology aligned with business interests.

      The effective rule of the WASP elite (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) permitted the creation of a class system in which racial and ethnic minorities were left to fester in the bottom rungs of society. The lowly economic and social status of blacks and Mexicans led them to line up behind a Democratic Party that seemed more sensitive to their needs. This turned out to be very convenient for the Republican specialists in voter suppression. Thanks to the statistical distribution of family names, especially for the Hispanics, and even first names, since African Americans have always been more creative and less conformist in naming their children, targeting “duplicate” voters could be done with a simple computer program.

      Some youngsters who study “political science” in college — with its focus on political systems, laws, ideology and economic theory — and manage to drift into politics, end up discovering that their job will really be about “electoral science” rather than political science. They will learn that politics nothing to do with the art of governing but focuses on the science of winning. In other words, it is mostly about intellectual suppression.

      *[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

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Mauritania’s Fading Promise and Uncertain Future

      by

      Mauritania is rarely in the news. A member of the Arab League, it shares with its southern neighbor Senegal a large offshore gas field that promises to bring a potentially huge windfall to the impoverished northwest African nation. The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field sits in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the two countries at a depth of 2,850 meters. According to BP, which is invested heavily in the field, it has an estimated 15 trillion cubic feet of gas and a 30-year life span.

      The company signed a partnership deal in late 2016 with Kosmos Energy to acquire what it described as “a significant working interest, including operatorship, of Kosmos’ exploration blocks in Mauritania and Senegal.” BP’s working interest in Mauritania amounts to 62%, with Kosmos holding 28% and the Mauritanian Society of Hydrocarbons and Mining Heritage the remaining 10%.

      Guyana’s Bright Future Is Under Threat

      READ MORE

      BP says it is committed to sustainable development and promised a variety of programs to train Mauritanians, create jobs, contract local companies and build third-party spending with those companies. It has made further commitments to health and education projects, social development, capability building and livelihood and economic development.

      Basket of Worries

      But with the gas market depressed by a combination of COVID-19 and unusually warm winters in Europe, the bright hopes for Tortue Ahmeyim are already starting to fade. The initial goal of a staggered launch in three phases in 2020 to bring the field to full capacity by 2025 has been shelved. Phase one is now pushed back to the first half of 2023, with the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) quoting Kosmos CEO Andy Inglis in May as saying that a final investment decision on phases two and three will not now be considered “until post-2023 when we’ve got Phase 1 onstream.” The goal of reaching full capacity is pushed back toward the end of the decade.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What may be more unsettling for the government of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was BP’s announcement in the summer that it will slash oil and gas output by 40% over the next decade. That was followed by the 14 September release of the company’s Energy Outlook 2020 that presented scenarios where peak oil demand had already passed or would pass by the middle of the decade. It is important to note that, presenting the Outlook, BP’s chief economist, Spencer Dale, underlined that “The role of the Energy Outlook is not to predict or forecast how the ‎energy system is likely to change over time. We can’t predict the future; all the scenarios ‎discussed in this year’s Outlook will be wrong.” That may be cold comfort to President Ould Ghazouani.

      The hard fact is that early ebullience about the potential of the Tortue Ahmeyim project by its consortium backers has now been replaced with an abundance of caution and with brakes strongly applied. So much so that James Cockayne, of MEES, opined: “The likelihood of these developments ever seeing the light of day, at least under BP’s stewardship, needs to be considered anew in the light of the latest far-reaching strategy shift from the UK major.” His gloomy conclusion was that “Mauritania’s hopes of gas riches appear to be hanging by a thread.”

      The president has another issue weighing heavy in his basket of worries, and that is the question of normalization with Israel. Commentators have anticipated that Mauritania would join the UAE and Bahrain in recognizing Israel, especially as Tel Aviv and Nouakchott had diplomatic relations from 1999 to 2009. In 2009, Mauritania froze relations in protest at Israeli attacks on Gaza.

      The UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed, the Abu Dhabi crown prince and de facto ruler, has been the driving force in Arab normalization with Israel. With Ould Ghazouani in attendance in Abu Dhabi, in February bin Zayed announced $2 billion in aid. For a country with a GDP that the World Bank estimated in 2018 stood at just over $5 billion, that sort of largesse buys a lot of influence.

      Normalization Bandwagon

      But the president is well aware of the strong sentiment within the country for the Palestinian cause. Tewassoul, the opposition Islamist party, was instrumental in 2009 in bringing protesters onto the streets of the capital demanding an end to diplomatic links with the Israelis. The party also backed the candidacy of Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar in last year’s presidential election. Ould Boubacar took 18 % of the vote, while another candidate and leader of the anti-slavery movement, Biran Dah Abeid, scored a similar percentage. Ould Ghazouani won with 52%, with the opposition denouncing the election as rigged.

      Although Mauritania officially outlawed slavery in 1981, the practice continues, with approximately 90,000 out of a population of 4.6 million enslaved. That situation caused US President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke Mauritania’s preferred trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Justifying his decision, Trump cited the fact that “Mauritania has made insufficient progress toward combating forced labor, specifically, the scourge of hereditary slavery.”

      It may be that if he wins reelection, Trump will revisit that decision and offer to drop the revocation as a carrot to bring Mauritania onto the normalization bandwagon. That would, of course, do nothing to hasten the end of slavery. As Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes in its World Report 2020, the Mauritanian government is doing precious little itself: “According to the 2019 US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, Mauritania investigated four cases, prosecuted one alleged trafficker, but did not convict any.” HRW also detailed numerous human rights abuses, the stifling of free speech and the harassment and arrest of opposition politicians and activists, including the anti-slavery movement leader and presidential candidate Biran Dah Abeid.

      There is no doubt that the promise of economic gain that Tortue Ahmeyim represents could go some way toward steering Mauritania onto a modernizing path. Though the 2019 presidential election was challenged by the opposition, it did represent the first peaceful transition in the country’s long history of military coups after gaining independence from France in 1960. That, coupled with the windfall the gas field could bring, is a step in the right direction. But if the Tortue Ahmeyim project falters, so too will Mauritania’s chances for a better future.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

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

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in World Politics

      Angela Merkel’s CDU Is Still Not Sure How It Feels About Muslims

      by

      In a 2018 government declaration, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted to growing voices within her party who questioned her policies during the refugee crisis by stating that “There is no question that the historical character of our country is Christian and Jewish. But … with 4.5 million Muslims living with us, their religion, Islam, has become part of Germany.” Back in 2015, her government decided to suspend the EU’s Dublin Regulation and process asylum applications from refugees fleeing war-torn Muslim-majority countries. This challenged society as the potential problems of the (cultural) integration of Muslims dawned on many Germans.

      Divisions within society, with some welcoming Germany’s worldly alignment and others fearing super-alienation, mirrored themselves within Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The refugee crisis heated up a dilemma the CDU has grappled with for years: Can Muslims belong to Germany and a conservative Christian democratic party?

      The Downward Spiral of Angela Merkel’s CDU

      READ MORE

      Party colleagues instantly rebuked Merkel’s comments. Most prominently, Horst Seehofer, the home secretary in her cabinet who had previously insisted on speeding up deportations of rejected asylum seekers, corrected Merkel by saying that “Muslims who live with us obviously belong to Germany,” but this “does not mean we give up our country-specific traditions and customs out of a misplaced consideration for others.” The CDU/CSU’s struggles to find consensus in assessing the status of Muslims in Germany have been long-running. But why is it a subject of debate at all?

      Valuable Voters

      Whether the CDU/CSU likes it or not, between 4.4 and 4.7 million Muslims currently live in Germany, making up 5.4% to 5.7% of the population. Therefore, Muslims are an inevitable subject of debate for the CDU/CSU for both interest-based and ideological reasons. The growing number of Muslims in Germany is of interest-based significance for the CDU and a chance to secure future electoral success. Some 1.5 million Muslims, or 2,4% of all voters, are eligible to vote, making them a sizeable electoral group.

      Traditionally, Muslims harbor affiliations with center-left parties. Nevertheless, the CDU/CSU has discovered a vital interest in appealing to Muslim voters, as Andreas Wüst, a political scientist at Stuttgart University, indicates: “Merkel brought in a different wind by emphasizing the importance of the immigration society. In the meantime, efforts are also being made in the CDU to support Muslims.” Already in 2004, Bülent Arslan, former chairman of the CDU’s German-Turkish Forum, stressed that “around 50 to 60 percent of the Turks living in Germany are conservative. That is also a potential for the CDU.”

      The second reason for intra-party discussions is the ideological orientation of the CDU/CSU. As a self-proclaimed catch-all party of the center-right, its core voters wish to preserve the ethnic makeup of society as well as the social values and religious beliefs associated with the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. Thus, Muslims challenge two pillars of conservative thinking: the traditional ethnic constitution and religious imprint of German society.

      With its roots in political Catholicism of the 18th and 19th centuries, the CDU was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War as a non-denominational party, incorporating Catholic and Protestant Christians into its structures. Preserving these roots while remaining an urbane party is a balancing act the CDU/CSU has struggled with over the last two decades. The party manifesto and policy still reveal anti-Islamic tendencies. In the latest party manifesto, the terms “Islam,” “Islamism” and “Islamist” appear only nine times. Moreover, they show up exclusively in the context of dangers such as Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism.

      Further evidence for the CDU/CSU’s skeptical attitude toward Islam is the long-raging debate in Germany about Muslim women wearing headscarves. Between 2004 and 2006, eight of Germany’s 16 federal states introduced a headscarf ban for female teachers in public schools and for public servants. The CDU/CSU governed six of them at the time. In 2019, the CDU leadership proposed that Muslim girls shouldn’t wear headscarves in nurseries and primary schools because “Wearing a headscarf makes little children recognizable as outsiders. We want to prevent this from happening in any case.”

      A Party Split

      Another debate in 2019 revealed further divisions within the CDU regarding its attitude toward Islam. It was triggered by the party whip in the German parliament, the Bundestag, Ralph Brinkhaus. When asked the question if a Muslim chancellor from the CDU/CSU in 2030 would be conceivable, he replied, “Why not?” — as long as he is “a good politician” who “represents the values ​​and political views of the CDU.”

      Adverse responses came in thick and fast. According to Christoph de Vries, a CDU spokesman for internal affairs, “Whoever stands for the CDU/CSU as chancellor does not have to be Christian, but must represent Christian Democratic values ​​and feel a part of Germany. Unfortunately, this does not apply to a larger proportion of Muslims who emulate religious fundamentalism and feel attached to foreign heads of state.”

      Still, party colleagues, like the undersecretary for integration in North Rhine-Westphalia Serap Güler, leaped to Brinkhaus’ defense: “Ralph Brinkhaus’s answer simply made clear that in the CDU no one is placed at a disadvantage because of his beliefs as long as he represents our values ​​and political views.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Angela Merkel couldn’t take her party along in her progressive outlook on the status of Islam in Germany. The CDU/CSU remains torn between two attitudes: first of all, recognizing that Germany is an immigration society and, secondly, attempting to preserve its Christian roots and win back conservative voters. Many of them have switched allegiance to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) — a party that has thrived on anti-Muslim populism.

      This predicament continues amid the current debate over the succession of party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. She stood for the liberal course set by Merkel but failed to stamp her authority on the party. Conservative circles within the CDU are now pinning their hopes on Friedrich Merz, the former party whip who was driven out by Merkel in 2002 and is now pledging to win back voters from the AfD. Any outcome of the leadership race would only paper over the cracks of the debate over whether or not Muslims can truly belong to Germany and its conservative ruling party.

      Perhaps the wavering attitudes and mixed messages were the results of equally ambiguous leadership. While recognizing Islam as a part of Germany, Merkel simultaneously sowed mistrust in a multicultural society in 2010 by declaring that “The approach of multiculturalism has failed, absolutely failed!” The seems that the CDU is neither willing nor capable of providing a coherent answer to its internal dilemma concerning Islam. It welcomes Muslim immigrants while mistrusting their culture, appealing to Muslim voters while being outraged by the prospects of a Muslim head of state. The reality of Germany as an immigration society and 4.5 million Muslim citizens is clear-cut and stark. The CDU/CSU’s attitude toward this reality isn’t.

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