Power is a Privilege & a Responsibility: Q&A with Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

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Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

In a special conversation, Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver speaks with Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, about Canada’s role in taking action for gender equality at home and abroad and our collective and individual responsibility to share power to build a gender equal world.

NEW YORK, Jul 29 2019 (IPS) – It’s on all of us to make gender equality a reality – which means harnessing our collective power to build a gender equal world.

By empowering girls and women, realizing sexual and reproductive health and rights, tackling gender-based violence, and confronting the combinations of sexism, misogyny, racism, and colonialism, we can take steps towards true gender equality.

Coming off the heels of the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver, we both explore the need to use – and share – power to deliver transformative change for girls and women.

Katja Iversen: At the Women Deliver 2019 Conference we focused on power, and how it can drive – or hinder – progress and change for girls and women, and therefore for all. How will you use your power?

Justin Trudeau: Power is a privilege and a responsibility. Ultimately, the best thing you can do with power is share it. As we saw at Women Deliver, grassroots advocates and activists are creating change on the ground. Young people, like Natasha Wang Mwansa, are not just the leaders of tomorrow, but the leaders of today.

We need to amplify the work they’re doing, pass them the microphone, and make sure there’s a seat at the table for people of diverse identities and perspectives.

Katja Iversen: In the lead up to and during the Women Deliver 2019 Conference, we have seen unprecedented energy and enthusiasm for advancing gender equality. How do we take that energy and commitment and turn it into action? From world leaders and business leaders to advocates and influencers, what is your call to action to keep up the momentum?

Justin Trudeau: At Women Deliver, we announced new steps forward on everything from funding for women’s health and women’s organizations, to support for women entrepreneurs and housing commitments that will benefit women.

We announced that Canada will increase our investment to $1.4 billion to support women and girls’ health globally, positioning us as a leading donor worldwide on comprehensive sexual and reproductive health rights. $700 million of this annual investment is dedicated to sexual and reproductive health rights.

We’re focusing on the most neglected areas of this field. This is a game changer. We welcome other leaders to join us.

Globally, and here at home, we are seeing attacks on women’s rights, whether it’s undermining a woman’s fundamental right to choose, or violence against Indigenous women and girls. We can’t take our foot off the pedal, not even for a moment.

There’s simply too much at stake. We all need to work together to move forward, and to build more sustainable, more inclusive movements. It’s on all of us to make gender equality a reality.

Katja Iversen: Over the last several years we have heard more world leaders and private sector executives make public statements about the importance of gender equality. This is certainly critical, commendable, and encouraging! But we also need to see these leaders “walk the talk” and move toward action.

This is something you have emphasized throughout your administration from appointing a gender equal cabinet to developing gender-responsive federal budgets – both of which are crucial for moving policies and programs to actual impact. What impact have these actions had in Canada and around the world and what will you do next to move the needle for girls and women?

Justin Trudeau: Our government has put gender equality at the heart of everything we do. This means grappling with interlocking issues like sexism and misogyny, racism and colonialism. These challenges are complex and layered.

We won’t always get it right, but we will always keep trying. We know that it’s time to put an end to violence against all women and transgender, non-binary, and two spirit people, which is why we launched the first ever national strategy on gender-based violence.

We know that advancing gender equality hinges on economic equality, too. We will continue to demand that women and men receive equal pay for work of equal value, that everyone has a safe place to live, and that parents can share equally in both the joys and the responsibilities of raising children.

That’s why we introduced historic proactive pay equity legislation, and created more flexible parental leave options. And it’s why we launched a housing strategy where a minimum of 25% specifically supports women, girls, and their families.

There is much more work to do, and Canada is in it for the long haul. We will keep fighting for gender equality and concrete change – not just when it is popular, but always.

Katja Iversen: From driving Canada’s first Feminist International Assistance Policy to establishing the first Gender Equality Advisory Council to a G7 Presidency, you have led the way for political leadership toward gender equality – with an emphasis on improving girls’ and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Why should world leaders like you prioritize gender equality and women’s right to decide on their own bodies on international agendas and what more do you plan to do? Please provide 1-2 specific examples.

Justin Trudeau: Women don’t have to imagine not being able to access healthcare when they need it. They don’t have to imagine being denied the right to choose what’s best for their health and their future. For far too many people, that’s their reality. And that’s unacceptable.

Governments need to stand with those on the frontlines as partners and as allies. Leaders should prioritize gender equality and women’s right over their own bodies because it makes our countries, our communities, our workplaces, our governments, and our families stronger.

When women are healthy, free to make decisions about their lives, and can equally participate in our economies, we all benefit.

Katja Iversen: From the hallways of power to the main stage of global convenings, what argument have you found to be most effective in converting more people – especially decision makers – to join you as gender equality champions?
Justin Trudeau: Gender equality is not only the right thing to do, but it is also the smart thing to do. It powers our economies, and changes our communities for the better. Everyone should be able to get behind that.

Katja Iversen: You have spoken about raising your sons with an awareness of power dynamics and to act as allies of girls and women. Part of this involves a shift in mindset, from the idea that boys and men are losing power to the idea that power is shared with girls and women, to the benefit of all.

Why is it so important to you and your wife – Mme Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, a Deliver for Good Influencer – to raise your sons as young feminists, and how have you encouraged them to be effective and supportive allies for gender equality?

Justin Trudeau: Sophie and I want to help our kids grow up to be strong allies and empathetic adults, who walk through the world with openness, compassion, and a commitment to justice. That’s why raising our kids as feminists is such a priority for us.

We want our daughter, Ella-Grace, to have the same opportunities as her brothers, Hadrien and Xavier. And we want our sons to escape the pressure to be ‘a particular kind of masculine’ that can be damaging to men and to the people around them.

We want all three of them to be confident in being themselves, to stand up for what is right, and to do so with pride. We try to instill in our children the notion that everyone should be treated equally, and that there’s work left to do so that everyone shares the same rights and freedoms. We hope our children learn that they have a responsibility – and the power – to shape our world for the better.

 

Is Civil Society Arguing Itself out of Political Space?

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Active Citizens, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Global, Headlines, Regional Categories

Opinion

Felix Dodds is Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina and Associate fellow at the Tellus Institute

NEW YORK, Jul 29 2019 (IPS) – As some of you will know I have a new book out Stakeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in a Time of Fear.  (other contributors to the book were:  Jan-Gustav Strandenaes, Carolina Duque Chopitea, Minu Hemmati, Susanne Salz, Bernd Lakemeier, Laura Schmitz, and Jana Borkenhagen). 

The book’s theory of change is very simple involving stakeholders in the decision making makes better-informed decisions and that those decisions are more likely to be implemented with those stakeholder’s support either singularly or in partnership.

The book places Stakeholder Democracy within the spectrum of Representative to Participatory Democracy.

It argues that we need to strengthen represented democracy in a time of fear through engaging stakeholders. It recognizes that in many places politicians are no longer believed but they need to make difficult decisions. To help them do this engaging with the support of stakeholders can help them to have the political courage to address climate change or the wave of new technologies coming or migration or the many other difficult issues we will be facing in the next ten years up to 2030.

Two discourses

Since around 1992 we have had two different political discourses in play that of stakeholders and that of civil society.

Under the leadership of Maurice Strong, Chip Lindner, and Nitin Desai the Earth Summit moved away from the old NGO discourse. This was that in the UN everyone who wasn’t a government or an intergovernmental organization was an NGO as far as the UN was concerned.

The Earth Summit changed that. Agenda 21 recognized 9 stakeholder groups in society who should be involved in policy development and in helping to deliver Agenda 21 and the Rio Conventions. These were:

  1. Women
  2. Children and Youth
  3. Indigenous Peoples
  4. Non-Governmental Organizations
  5. Local Authorities
  6. Workers and Trade Unions
  7. Business and Industry
  8. Scientific and Technological Community
  9. Farmers

By the way, these were enlarged in the development of the 2030 Agenda to include others such as older people and the disabled.

At the same time in the  World Social Summit (1995), the Financing for Development space (2002) and those around the Bretton Woods Institutions a different political discourse evolved that of civil society.

This discourse recognized only two different groups than government and intergovernmental bodies these two were industry and civil society. What did this mean?

Civil Society concept increases space for industry

We often hear in the civil society discourse of the increased space that industry has.

Well, the conceptual framework for civil society by its nature increases the space of industry from one of nine to one to two.

So let’s be clear the advocates for this by their own actions are giving up massive space for industry and reducing space for other stakeholders.

It also allows governments and intergovernmental organizations to just group anyone who isn’t industry into a catch-all group.

Who is Civil Society?

Well, there are many definitions out there and the book looks at some of them. But what it tends to be is a space dominated by NGOs…it does subjugate women, youth, community groups etc into this one space no longer having their individual and unique voices.

By doing this it dilutes the gender perspective – it reduces the voice of the next generation.

Civil Society also excludes a number of key stakeholders that includes academics and scientists, Indigenous Peoples – they are a “Peoples” and should, of course, have not to be subjugated to other views.

It excludes local and subnational government who is seen as a level of government but whose voices freedom found with their national government.

The book goes into examples where this course has resulted in the wrong people being at the table.

The Stakeholder discourse, on the other hand, requires an ongoing stakeholder mapping process to ensure the right people are at the table.

It gives them individual space to articulate for a gender perspective or youth a next-generation perspective. It enables new relevant stakeholders that have emerged over the last 25 years to be recognized and given space such as older people or people with disabilities.

Civil Society discourse is a lazy discourse

What amazes me is how groups that do not benefit from the civil society discourse seem to accept it without question.

I can only think it is because its easier than to argue for the individual voice of relevant stakeholders.

For governments and intergovernmental organizations, it makes their life much easier.

They don’t have to show what they are doing for engaging each of the stakeholders they leave it to a broad engagement with this catch-all group of civil society.

What it has done in many UN bodies that have adopted this reduces the staff support for stakeholders and increase it for industry – a good example of this is UNEP.

After all, now intergovernmental bodies would only be servicing two groups… resulting in the need for only a form of parity between civil society support and industry. Previously there needed to be evidence of support for women, youth, Indigenous Peoples etc.

You can hear from some of those lazy people the comments like…

“ahh how do you decide which stakeholder group you should be a member of”
”
They go on to say “what if you are a woman and a young person and work for an NGO.

Well, the engagement isn’t and shouldn’t be based on the individual it’s based on the organization in all cases. To be clear it should be based on what the organization’s policy priorities are. If the organization is focused on youth policies then it should engage with the youth caucus, if its work is gender then it should engage with the women’s stakeholder group and if it’s a mixture well work in a number of different stakeholder groups.

Who benefits from the Civil Society discourse?

I always like to look at who benefits to see if that has a bearing.

It’s clear that there is a number that benefit.

Governments and Intergovernmental organizations benefit as they don’t have to address the different voices and leave that coordination to whoever is organizing the civil society group.

Industry benefits as they gain a huge additional space vacated by key stakeholders one of 2 is so much better than one of 9 or more for them.

Also, large well organized northern-based NGOs benefit as they can assert a larger influence on one space than many.

So if you are happy with giving more space to industry, reducing space for women and youth and other key stakeholders, not recognizing Indigenous Peoples right for their own space, do not want academics and scientists to be able to represent their research then do continue to use the civil society concept but understand what you are doing.

You are actively taking part in reducing space for all other stakeholders.

 

 

Trump’s Vision for Africa: the 1960s

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Since Trump's
Since Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ trope has become a racist mantra so too have merchandise bearing mottos like ‘Make Zimbabwe Rhodesia Again’ ‘Make Afrikaners Great Again’ and ‘Make Namibia German Again’
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Although Donald Trump can barely place a single country in Africa, his few utterances on the continent have yielded what can only be described as a nostalgia for the 1960s. It was a decade that saw three white minority-ruled governments ruling in South Africa, Rhodesia, and the South African territory of South-West Africa. All three white-ruled entities practiced varying degrees of apartheid. This was accomplished through economic, social, and political means.

In January 2018, when Trump referred to African nations as “shithole countries,” he was relishing the time when apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, and South-West Africa were considered a pro-US bloc in southern Africa. The links between southern Africa’s exiled black African liberation political parties and movements to Communist- and Marxist-ruled nations, in the minds of Trump and his equally right-wing father, Fred Trump, Sr., made South Africa, Rhodesia, and South-West Africa model nations in the eyes of the Trumps.

Trump’s sympathies for the apartheid countries were crystal clear when, on August 22, 2018, Trump tweeted: “I have asked Secretary of State Pompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. ‘South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.'”

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The South African government was keenly aware that Trump was using a trope from the apartheid era. White South African prime ministers, including John Vorster and P. W. Botha were fond of warning their own constituencies, as well as the West, that if blacks achieved majority rule in South Africa, white farmers would be massacred and their land expropriated. These were fear tactics, pure and simple. Mr. Trump, caught in some sort of time warp, continues to believe the apartheid propaganda.

In response to Trump’s tweet, the government of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa hit back at Trump: “South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.” It turns out that Trump got his idea that the South African government was seizing land from white farmers from the disreputable Fox News. As for the claim that white farmers were being killed, that bit of bogus information came from a far-right group called AfriForum, consisting of mainly Afrikaners in South Africa and abroad.

The AfriForum disinformation about white-owned farms and farmers in South Africa was picked up by Trump through Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. Carlson’s father, Dick Carlson, was President Ronald Reagan’s chief propagandist as the director of the US Information Agency (USIA), since closed down. During 1985 and 1986, Dick Carlson ensured that a steady stream of right-wing propaganda emanated from the Voice of America, the anti-Cuban Radio Marti, and other platforms. This included support for apartheid South Africa. Other top Republicans involved in pro-South African propaganda included disgraced Republican Party lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Republican activist Lewis Lehrman. In 1985, USIA and the Voice of America, at Carlson’s direction, highlighted an anti-Communist summit meeting held in Jamba, Angola. The summit, called the “Jamboree in Jamba,” was attended by Abramoff, the Angolan UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, Nicaraguan Contra leader Adolfo Calero, Laotian Hmong leader Pa Kao Her, and Afghan Mujaheddin leader Abdul Rahim Wardak. Also present was Reagan National Security Council official Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, as well as South African and Israeli representatives. The South African Defense Force provided the security for the summit. Based on the success of the Jamba summit, the Republican right-wing even had hopes of restoring a proto-colonialist administration in Mozambique, the former Portuguese colony. By attempting to create a RENAMO-led government in Mozambique, the right hoped many Portuguese exiles could return to Mozambique to hold key positions in government and commerce. This, of course, was the same thinking behind the right’s support for Savimbi’s UNITA forces in Angola, also a former Portuguese colony.

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One of the US groups backing the apartheid South African government was the Committee on the Present Danger, a fervently anti-Communist group. Extinct since the end of the Cold War, the Committee recently enjoyed a resurgence in Washington under the auspices of Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, and former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In the 1980s, it was clear that far-right elements in the Reagan administration were trying to shore up white-rule in South Africa, prevent total black rule in South-West Africa, and roll back rule by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe the former Rhodesia. The racist right-wing in the United States had hoped to prevent Mugabe from coming to power in June 1979 by backing the creation of a post-minority rule country called Zimbabwe Rhodesia. The use of the name Rhodesia was a concession to the white minority in the country, which, upon unilateral independence in 1965, was headed by Prime Minister Ian Smith. Smith was a hero to the far-right elements in the United States, including the Ku Klux Klan. Smith and his allies in South Africa decided the best way to maintain the status quo was to form an alliance with Rhodesian tribes opposed to Mugabe, including Ndebele leaders like Joshua Nkomo.

The first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia was Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who, like Mugabe, was a member of the northern Shona tribe. Muzorewa was an opponent of Mugabe as were other officials in the short-lived Zimbabwe Rhodesia, sometimes called “Rhobabwe.” Smith continued in the government as a minister without portfolio. White Rhodesians continued to serve as ministers of finance, justice, agriculture, and finance. When Britain re-established control over Zimbabwe Rhodesia and changed its name to Southern Rhodesia in December 1979 the writing was on the wall for the white-black coalition government. In 1980, Mugabe became prime minister of Zimbabwe. In the subsequent years, many white Rhodesians fled to South Africa, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

In 2015, Dylan Roof, the US white supremacist who massacred African Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina church, appeared on a website called “The Last Rhodesian” wearing a jacket emblazoned with the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. Rhodesian expats have also been involved with several racist groups around the world, including Australia, Canada, Britain, and New Zealand. Donald Trump has rekindled hope among these stubborn nostalgists for white rule in southern Africa that what once seemed impossible is now quite thinkable: white-dominated governments in Harare, Pretoria, and Windhoek.

A similar situation was attempted by promoters of white rule in South-West Africa. In 1977, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance formed a de facto government in Windhoek led by Dirk Mudge. Mudge, an Afrikaner, governed with the support of South Africa and representatives from various ethnic groups, including the Ovaherero, Coloureds (mixed race), Tswana, Damara, a few Ovambo, Caprivians, Nama, Kavango, San, and White Afrikaners and Germans, the latter concentrated on the coast around Swakopmund. The United Nations refused to recognize the Turnhalle government, opting for the exiled South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) of Sam Nujoma, which was heavily supported by a majority of the Ovambo people. The attempt by whites and their allies to prevent Nujoma from becoming president of independent Namibia ultimately failed.

Thanks to social media, a de facto alliance of exiled white Rhodesians, South Africans, Nyasalanders (now Malawi), and Namibians, along with racists in Europe, North America, and Australia, see with Trump as president of the United States and the equally racist Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil an opportunity for them to set the calendar back to the 1960s. Just as minority white leaders like Smith, Vorster, Botha, and Mudge attempted to seek alliances of convenience with various African ethnic groups to maintain ascendancy the Ndebele, Zulu, Venda, Tswana, Damara, and Ndau, among others Trump, Steve Bannon, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, and about a dozen hard right Republican members of the US Congress are hoping to restore de facto white rule in southern Africa.

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Since Trump’s “Make America Great Again” trope has become a racist mantra, so, too, have merchandise bearing mottos like “Make Zimbabwe Rhodesia Again,” “Make Afrikaners Great Again,” and “Make Namibia German Again.” Some whites with roots in Malawi, where the second largest city is Blantyre named after the town of Blantyre in South Lanarkshire, Scotland would not mind it if they again enjoyed high positions of influence in the country formerly known as Nyasaland. Some of the descendants of the 75,000 whites who formerly lived in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, also pine for the days when whites ruled the country. Afrikaner nationalists also recall with fondness the desire of apartheid South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd wanting to turn Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Basutoland (now Lesotho), and Swaziland (now eSwatini) into South African ruled dominions.

Creation of a South Atlantic Treaty Organization (SATO) has long been a goal of neo-conservatives like John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Adviser, and Elliott Abrams, Trump’s “special envoy” for Venezuela. In March 2019, Trump, restarting this goal of the Reagan and Richard Nixon administrations, said during the visit of Bolsonaro to the White House, “I also intend to designate Brazil as a major non-NATO ally, or even possiblyif you start thinking about itmaybe a NATO ally.”

Pleased with the 1970s success of Operation Condor, an intelligence alliance of Latin American military dictatorships that targeted for assassination and arrest leftists in South America and beyond, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger foresaw a military alliance of the Condor partners of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, along with apartheid South Africa and the United States, as firmly extending US military control over the south Atlantic region. Kissinger’s plan for a SATO continued under Reagan. One Reagan administration policy paper was titled “The Security of the South Atlantic: Is It a Case for ‘SATO’South Atlantic Treaty Organization?” Just as with Trump and Bolsonaro today, in 1984, Reagan and Brazilian President João Figueiredo, Brazil’s last military dictator, had talks on the formation of SATO.

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Trump Orders Sweden to Release their US Rapper A$AP Rocky

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US President Donald Trump has demanded that Sweden “give ASAP Rocky his freedom” in a series of tweets.

The musician, real name Rakim Myers, has been charged with assault causing actual bodily harm in Stockholm. He will remain in custody until a trial takes place.

Trump


Mr Trump said on Twitter that Sweden had “let our African American community down”.

ASAP was arrested on 3 July following a fight that was captured on video.

Two other men who were with them at the time have also been charged with assault. The musician says that his group was being followed by a group of men and he acted in self-defence.

A$AP Rocky

Donald Trump said last week that he had spoken to Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven about ASAP’s case.

However on Thursday the president wrote that he was “very disappointed” in Mr Lofven for being “unable to act” and urged him to “treat Americans fairly”.

Trump’s intervention in the case comes after rapper Kanye West approached him to convince Sweden release the rapper.

Human Rights Watch Disappoints on Human Rights

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Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Credit: Jean-Marc Ferré/UN Photo.

GENEVA, Jul 25 2019 (IPS) – On 22 July 2019, Kenneth Roth published an article in Publico, Lisbon, entitled: “UN Chief Guterres has disappointed on Human Rights”.

This essay lampooning Antonio Guterres is not a voice “against the tide” but very much mainstream – and demonstrably skewed. Major NGOs headquartered in rich advanced countries and enjoying generous funding from the Establishment may not always think “out of the box” and are as likely, as are the interest groups which support them, to politicize human rights and therefore to disappoint rights holders in smaller or weaker countries.

While they do contribute to exposing situations of human rights violations worldwide , they are not exempt from biases which reflect the structure of their central governing bodies or the cultural environment within which they operate. They cannot arrogate to themselves the sole legitimacy to speak in the name of the civil society of many countries , and when they claim to do so, they may disappoint rightsholders, particularly in the developing countries, whose priorities are frequently different from theirs.

Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries

Sober analysis and stocktaking are necessary to determine whether and to what extent the priorities and agendas of NGOs’s like HRW are set by the overall interests of the established power-structures and multiple elites in many countries. Kenneth Roth’s article expressing disappointment at the human rights performance of Secretary General Antonio Guterres fails to identify the root causes of human rights violations.

His admonitions have little or no preventative value, and do not formulate constructive recommendations such as, for instance, the provision of advisory services and technical assistance to many countries that need it and have asked for it.

HRW’s “naming and shaming” strategy has been inconclusive at best because “naming and shaming” depends on the authority of the “namer” and the impartiality of the methodology. Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries.

For instance, Mr. Roth does not mention the denial of the right of self-determination to millions of people, the retrogression in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights (prohibited by the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the looting of natural resources and degradation of the environment by transnational corporations and their neocolonial schemes, the impunity enjoyed by politicians who engage in aggressive wars and by paramilitaries and private security companies, the devastating human rights impact of blockades by source countries and economic sanctions on the populations of Gaza, Syria, Iran and Venezuela, which have caused and continue to cause tens of thousands of deaths.

The politicization or as we now witness with concern, the“weaponization” of human rights is taking the world on a slippery slope. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)was adopted in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, René Cassin and others spoke of human dignity and the inalienable rights of human beings, but article 29 of UDHR also reminded us that “everyone has duties to the community”.

Indeed, what is most necessary is global education in human rights, including the human right to peace, education in empathy and solidarity with others – compassion, not predatory competition in “the human rights industry” on a “holier than thou” ticket.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should not be expected to act as a Human Rights NGO. This high office is not that of an unaccountable activist. It is neither that of a general that can blast any state at will nor is it a secretary that has to be subservient to the prevailing powers that be.

That high official must recognize the reality of the power balance that he cannot fundamentally alter but must strive with obduracy and at times courage to stretch the international community towards more compliance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Most importantly this means the promotion of peace through conflict-prevention, good offices, impartial mediation, disarmament and yes, human rights. When all diplomacy fails and only then may “naming and shaming” become an option. But it is a default option and a sign of diplomatic failure.

In the experience of both of us as Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, we have delivered on our mandates, not by openly challenging the authority of states or claiming to teach them lessons in human rights but by giving quiet diplomacy a chance .

This is how one of us together with another Independent Expert facilitated a lifting of the sanctions on Sudan and this is how we are again currently engaging with protagonists of other conflicts. We have succeeded in confidence-building and contributed to the release of detainees. Persevering and discrete advocacy bears fruit.

We want a SG that puts values above politics in human rights matters and this is, in our opinion, what Guterres is doing. We have a Secretary General that can speak for truth and can at least listen to the narratives of the smaller and weaker states who have no access to the world media and whose action is distorted by biased reporting.

Of course the murder of Khashoggi is a tragedy because beyond the tragic loss of a human life, it is the freedom of expression that is targeted. But Kenneth Roth does not mention the thousands of migrants whose lives end in the liquid graves of the oceans because saving them at sea is becoming a criminal offence in some « enlightened » nations.

Are there different values attached to life according to the « exploitability » of its loss for political aims? We do not think that the Secretary General should go down along this road, even if this may cause disappointment in some quarters.

We would be really concerned if the Secretary general were to follow the path of selective indignation advocated implicitly by Mr Roth, because he would lose the moral leadership that we all, people of good will, can identify with across the world. THAT would be a major disappointment.

We welcome in Antonio Guterres a Secretary General who does not hesitate to call a spade a spade, a SG who promotes peace and does not stoke conflict, who challenges unilateral economic sanctions, who supports the Right to Development1 and places the Secretariat of the United Nations in its service. We welcome a SG who, together with the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, are engaging all of humanity in the noble task – day by day – of implementing civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights in larger freedom – and in good faith.

Idriss Jazairy Special Rapporteur, UN Human Rights Council
Alfred de Zayas Former Independent Expert, UN Human Rights Council

 

The Precipitous Barbarisation of Our Times

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Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Education, Featured, Global, Globalisation, Headlines, Human Rights, Inequity, Migration & Refugees, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

ROME, Jul 23 2019 (IPS) – When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong.

From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn beauty with 86,000 followers on social media has put bottles of the water she bathes in on sale at 30 pounds a bottle and has sold several thousand bottles.

Roberto Savio

A survey in Brazil found out that 7% of citizens believe that the earth is flat (40 percent of American schools teach that the world was created in a week, according to the Bible, so there cannot be ancient civilisations) Another survey, this time of members of the British Tory party, who seem likely to elect Boris Johnson as prime minister (not exactly a triumph of reason) are so in favour of a “hard” Brexit that they do not care if this means the exit of Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom. Finally, in order to win election, US president Donald Trump has made racism one of his banners and, in a country of immigrants, this has given him an increase of 5 points in opinion polls.

There are so many signs of barbarisation that they would fill a book… and, as Euripides famously wrote: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

It is not a popular task, but we have to look at the reality and observe that, in the most scientifically and technologically developed period of history, we are living in times of precipitous barbarisation.

Social inequality has become the basis for the new economy. People have now lowered their expectations and are prepared to work part-time in a precarious job, where young people (according to the International Labour Organisation) can hope for a retirement pension of 600 euro a month. This has been accepted by the political system. We even have a study from Spain according to which, in the present housing market, nearly 87% of people need 90% of their salary just to rent a house.

Today, for many, a salary means survival, not a dignified life. The new economy has developed the so-called gig economy: you work to distribute food, but you are a co-entrepreneur without any of the rights of an employee, for an amount that will never allow you to marry. Children have grown accustomed to look at phenomena such as poverty or war as natural. And now politics are not based on ideas but on how you can successfully exploit the guts of the people, waving banners against immigrants (when we are witnessing a rapid fall in the birth rate) and splintering countries between ”We” who represent the people and “You” enemy of the country. The United States is the best example, where Republicans consider Democrats enemies of the United States. And this brings us to a central question: have Trump, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and company not been elected democratically? And they are the symptom or the cause of the “populocracy” which is replacing democracy?

It is not possible to offer a sociological or historical study here. Let us just use a bite: we have gone from the Gutenberg era into a new era – the Zuckerberg era.

Those who greeted the arrival of the Internet with enthusiasm also did so because it would democratise communication and therefore bring about greater participation. The hope was to see a world where horizontal communication would replace the vertical system of information which Gutenberg made possible. Information was, in fact, a support for states and business that used it to reach citizens, who had no recourse to feedback. With Internet, people could now speak directly throughout the world and the propaganda which accompanied its arrival was not considered relevant: it is not important to know, it is important to know where to find It. Well, we have all the statistics on how Internet has affected the general level of culture and dialogue.

The attention span of people has declined dramatically. The majority of Internet users do not stay on an item more than 15 seconds. In the last five years, book volumes have been shortened by 29 pages. Today, articles longer than 650 words are not accepted by columnists’ services. The last meeting of editors of international news agencies decided to lower the level of news from the level of 22 years to that of 17 years. In Europe, the percentage of people who buy at least one book a year now stands at 22% (in the United States it is now 10.5%). According to a recent study in Italy, only 40% of the population is able to read and understand a book. In the same country, 13% of libraries have closed in the last ten years. A very popular transmission in Spain was ”59 seconds” which saw a number of people debate round a table; at the 59th seconds their microphones would disappear. Today, the dream of a TV interviewer is that the person interviewed will give a shorter answer than the question. Newspapers are for people over forty. And there is a unanimous complaint about the level of students entering the university: not all are free from mistakes of orthography and syntax. And the list could continue practically ad infinitum.

The problem of barbarisation has major relevance for political participation. The Gutenberg generations were accustomed to dialogue and discussion. Today, 83% of Internet users (80% under the age of 21), do so only in the virtual world they carved out for themselves. People of Group A gather only with people of Group A. If they come across somebody from Group B, they insult each other. Politicians have been able to adjust rapidly to the system. The best example is Trump. All US newspapers together have a circulation of 60 million copies (ten million those of quality, both conservative and progressive). Trump has 60 million followers who take Trump’s tweets as information. The do not buy newspapers, and if they watch TV it is Fox, which is Trump’s amplifier. No wonder that over 80% of Trump’s voters would vote for him again. And the media, which have lost the ability to offer analysis and cover processes, not just events, take the easy path. Let us follow famous people and make the famous more famous. Analytical journalism is disappearing. In the United States it exists thanks to grants … in every European country, there are few quality papers left, and the largest circulation goes to tabloids which spare their readers the effort of thinking. The Daily Mirror in Britain and Bild in Germany are the best examples.

Internet has made everybody a communicator. This is a fantastic achievement. But in this increasing barbarisation, people also use the Internet for transmitting false information, stories based on fantasy, without any of the quality controls that the media world used to have. And artificial intelligence has been taking over, creating many false accounts, which now interfere in the electoral process, as was proven in the last US elections. We have to add to this that the algorithms used by the owners of the Internet aim to trap the attention of users in order to keep them as much as possible. This month, El Pais published a long study entitled “The toxic effects of YouTube”, where it shows how its algorithms push the viewer to items that are of fantasy, pseudoscientific and of great attraction.

This is due to the fact that the owners have become fabulously rich by transforming citizens into consumers. They find out our identity, and they sell it to companies for their marketing, and also for elections. Those owners have unprecedented wealth, never achieved in the real world: not only in that of production, but even in the world of finance, which has become a casino with no control. The entire world of production of services and goods, man-made, is now close to a trillion dollars a day; that same day, financial flows reach 40 trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos ‘s divorce gave his wife 38 billion dollars. That is equal to the annual average income of 20,000 dollars of 19 million people. No wonder that 80 individuals now possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people (in 2008, they were 1,200 individuals).

According to historians, greed and fear are great engines of change in history. That was also true in the Gutenberg era. But now, they have triggered a combination of both in a short period of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doctrine of liberal globalisation arrived with such strength that Margaret Thatcher (who with Ronald Reagan ushered in the new vision of individual profits and elimination of social goods) famously talked of TINA: There Is No Alternative.

The entire political system, including Social Democrats, accepted riding a system of values based on greed and unfettered competition at individual level, at state level and at international level. It took twenty years to understand that the poor have become poorer, and the rich richer, and that states have lost much of their sovereignty to multinational corporations and the world of finance. It is worth noting that, in 2009, in order to save a corrupt and inefficient financial system, the world spent 12 trillion dollars (the United States alone, 4 trillion). Since that rescue, banks have paid the impressive amount of 800 billion dollars in penalties for illicit activities.

The financial crisis of 2009 has triggered a wave of fear. Let us not forget that until 2009, there were no sovereignist, populist, xenophobic parties anywhere, except for Le Pen in France. Soon old traps such as “in name of the nation” and “the defence of religion” were resurrected by politicians able to ride fear. A new scapegoat – immigrants – was found and populocrats are now undermining democracy everywhere.

Populocracy is the new wave. Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new language, and that language has now been updated by Salvini, Trump and so on. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the new medium and now the medium is the message. The old elite had not found a new language.

The Zuckerberg era is an era of greed and fear. Zuckerberg is now attempting to create a global currency, the Libra, to be used by his 2.3 billion users. Until now, states were the only entities able to emit money, a symbol of the nation. Zuckerberg’s currency is based entirely on the Internet and will have no control or regulations. In case of a default, we will have a world crisis without precedent. In the Gutenberg era, this was not possible.

But who has made able Jeff Bezos to give 38 billion dollars to a former wife? Who has elected Trump and Salvini and company, who speak on behalf of the nation and the people, and turn those who do not agree into enemies of the nation and the people, creating an unprecedented polarisation, accompanied by an orgy of revolt against science and knowledge, which have supported the elite, and must now be put aside for the good of people.

This process of barbarisation should not obscure an old proverb: every country has the government it deserves. It is called democracy. However, the traditional elite has no code of communication with the new era. The answer will come from citizen mobilization.

A young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, has done more with her stubbornness to raise awareness about impending climate change than the entire political system. Even Trump (albeit for electoral reasons) has now declared that climate change is important.

Today, there many “points of light“ appearing in the world. The elections in Istanbul are a good example, as are the mobilisation in Hong Kong, Sudan and Nicaragua, among many others. Let us hope we will reach a point where people will take the reins of the process and awake the world from the precipitous course of barbarisation. Even Thomas Hobbes concluded that humankind will always, soon or later, find the right path, and give itself good governance. He thought that an elite would always be able to lead the masses.

Well, elites are now the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.