Dear Friend,
Parliament Square is the site, muddied by rain, trodden by hundreds who have made it their celebratory space. The Leave Means Leave official website had been busy for weeks, thrilled about January 31 and the fact that that Britain would finally be leaving that beastly collective they know as the European Union. Those who promised to be in attendance were the usual suspects of the Little England brigade who had been so successful in convincing citizens that leaving the European Union was tantamount to gaining one’s freedom from a stifling oppressor. Over time, the EU had become a figure no less savoury and vicious than Hitler, an achievement of branding if ever there was one.
Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/
If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for
humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
Brexit Day
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
Parliament Square is the site, muddied by rain, trodden by hundreds who have made it their celebratory space. The Leave Means Leave official website had been busy for weeks, thrilled about January 31 and the fact that that Britain would finally be leaving that beastly collective they know as the European Union. Those who promised to be in attendance were the usual suspects of the Little England brigade who had been so successful in convincing citizens that leaving the European Union was tantamount to gaining one’s freedom from a stifling oppressor. Over time, the EU had become a figure no less savoury and vicious than Hitler, an achievement of branding if ever there was one.
Brexit, History & Ballot Choice
by
Thomas Kilkauer
In a mistaken version of Trump’s catch-cry “Make America Great Again” Make America Great Again, some British voters might have been led to believe that Brexit will Make Britain Great Again. They were convinced that the – never really – good old days of the British Empire would return by voting for Brexit. This is not to be. Capitalism and history have moved on. You can’t go home again.
In a mistaken version of Trump’s catch-cry “Make America Great Again” Make America Great Again, some British voters might have been led to believe that Brexit will Make Britain Great Again. They were convinced that the – never really – good old days of the British Empire would return by voting for Brexit. This is not to be. Capitalism and history have moved on. You can’t go home again. The world has seen three hegemonies of global capitalism emerging during the last three hundred years and then disappear. During the 17th century, the world saw Dutch trading and colonizing capitalism. Holland’s capitalism was taken over by British gunboats and slave-trading capitalism. This is not to say that the Dutch did not trade slaves. They did with a vengeance, but that is another story.
In the 18th and 19th century capitalism belonged to Britain. During those two centuries, Britain established an empire in which the sun never set, so the jingoist myth went. In continental Europe, meanwhile, during the 19th century imperialism meant three rather different things. For German capitalism, it meant unifying the country by customs unions, railways and military conquest,. Only in the year 1871, following the defeat of France by Prussia, the cluster of German-speaking states started to come close to what we call Germany today. Wilhelm of Prussia became the new Kaiser of the German Empire, crowned in (of all places) the Great Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Capitalism demanded a unified economic space. Germany’s unified nation (the Reich), however,only coalesced towards the end of the 19th Century. Later German nationalism led to the most horrific excesses the world has ever seen, symbolized by one word: Auschwitz.
But the 19th Century meant something different for France. For the French, following the monarchy and the emergence of a revolutionary empire it meant, in Hegel’s dialectical terms, manifest in Napoleon’s Grand Army conquering “world spirit on horseback”reaching all the way from Paris to Moscow. If only for a brief time, until the emperor’s defeat at Waterloo, Europe was politically united, and could thereafter be conceived as a virtual common market, even when the new states became independent. In sum, three significant things happened in the 19th Century, so far as Capitalism was concerned. Germany was busy with itself, France was busy with Europe, and Britain was busy with colonizing the rest of the world. In the end, of course, each of those empires imitated its rivals, and smaller states jockeyed for position within the new international order.
This came about contrary to the common belief that British people are reserved, the French talkative and abstract, and the Germans cold, insecure and obedient. But British imperialism was never reserved. The French were as grubby and grasping as anyone. The Germans pushed into Eastern Europe, built railways and fought among themselves. It is said that Britain conquered every country it laid eyes on; the French taught everyone to speak French, love French food, and think French feelings; the Germans became idealists, swilled beer, and lusted after power.After more than a century of British colonialism and imperialism,the British and French Empires were in terminal decline by the end of the 19th Century. Germany, despite small colonies in Africa and the South Seas, expanded into a European-centred Reich—swallowing up half of Denmark, impinging on the Austro-Hungarians and establishing economic dominance in the Balkans.
Some say, the sinking of one of the world’s most advanced ships, the Titanic in the year 1912, marked the decay of European civilization. Others say, it was World War I(1914-18) that, despite Britain and allies winning, marked Britain’s decline, France’s weakening, and Germany’s inner turmoil in the wake of the Second Reich’s collapse. America grew stronger. By the conclusion of the Great War, it was no longer possible to say that British manufacturing ruled the roost, but instead that thanks to the systematic business principles of Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford’s conveyor-belt assembly factories introduced the so-called American Century American consumerism.
Sadly for British imperialists, then as now, many romantic illusions held about Britain are what they always were, that is, hallucinations. Meanwhile, back in the real world, with India’s independence after World War Two, Britain’s empire was well and truly gone; and the glory days crown jewellery of British colonialism a mere memory of a phantasm. In terms of Realpolitik, the industrial and military power of Uncle Sam (the USA) dominateda new era in world history.The 20th century saw the great struggle between three ideologies: Fascism, Communism and Capitalism in the guise of Democracy Fascism, Stalinism, and capitalism. By the end of the last century, it was clear who the winner was: capitalism, but not necessarily democracy.
At the beginning of the year 2020, it might be safe to predict that the United States of America will carry on being a(and not the) dominant player. Still, it is even more safe to assume that Great Britain (and only precariously as the United Kingdom) without the European Union, thanks to Brexit, will not return to the glorious days of the hegemonic empire.England on its own will never again be a dominant player. John Bull (symbol of the nation of merchants and manufacturers) will not shape the remaining 21st century. For most people in the UK, the British Empire meant no more more than the fourteen-hour working day and child labour in William Blake’s Dark Satanic Mills. In other words, the rural workers and the urban proletariat did not go horseback riding with Jane Austin’s country gentry lovely Mr Darcy.Brexit is unlikely to bring those happy days back, not even for Boris Johnson’s upper class mates at Eaton.
Instead of fox hunts and village fetes, British men and women, then as now,had to fight for a living. They struggled for living wages and campaigned for workplace rights. In 1998, a British case went to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning an English woman who had been dismissed from her job while pregnant. The EJC decided in favour of the plaintiff.Shortly thereafter Britain’s Sex Discrimination Act was re-interpreted and eventually amended. With Brexit essentially a done deal (more or less, hard or soft), the EU is gone as a backstop for British Law Lords, and Boris Johnson, furnished with a sufficient electoral win, can proceed tom reform (that is, deform) England unwritten constitution.Some traditional work-place rights, we predict,will be turned back. After Brexit, British women, once again, can be fired for being pregnant, and shoppers can pick up delicious chlorinated chicken on the way home freshly imported from the USA, as EU food safety rules will no longer apply.
Having lost the security and strength of the EU through Get Brexit Done, Britain will find herself rather alone, if not isolated, in dealing with the coming of the five great challenges for the 21st century, challenges defined by people, technology, money, the media, and ideas, to wit:
- People: There will be a continuous flow of people within the British Isles (from north to south, west to east, etc.), to the UK, and out of the UK.Brexitas the done deal (or non-deal) will only marginally alter this process already speeded up during the dreadfully-long and sluggish debates. Despite Brexit, or perhaps even because of, the flow of legal migrants, asylum seekers, desperate exiles, and pushy tourists will not stop. Migration has been a feature of Europe for a very long time. Brexit will not stop this. In fact, it might enhance the flow of people.
- Technology:There will be a flow of technology. Since the days of the steam engine, capitalism has been driven by technology. The movement of technology will be in terms of hardware, manufacturing components, technical know-how, and IT. But this movement is unlikely to be outward. Instead it will be inward. Britain will become a major importer of technology, not exporter.Even before the bills were passed in the House of Commons allowing Brexit to proceed, manufacturing had already begun to relocate into continental Europe leave the UKand this trend will continue and increase. Tesla’s new factory is shifting close to Brussels Berlin – not to Birmingham. This also means that post-Brexit Britain is unlikely to remain a technical, engineering, and information technology center. Continental Europe is a more likely candidate. And why not? It has the size, the infrastructure, and the money.
- Money:There will be a flow of money (national stock exchanges and commodity speculations). London will still be Europe’s finance centre. But several banks and financial institutions have already started to look for alternatives sites inside the EU. Some look at popular destinations the front-runners being Dublin because of the English language and Frankfurt because of its centrality, the European Central Bank, and its established banking system. Still, Frankfurt is considered to be boring. Finally, as said in the movie Casablanca,“we will always have Paris”with the greatest European culture but also a few language problems might be expected.
- Media:There will be flow of information (newspapers, magazines, satellite television channels, websites, the Internet). The English language provides a clear advantage for the city of London, rather than the rest of the UK. Nevertheless IT’s global techno-leader is the USA with GAFMA – Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
- Ideas:There is also a flow of ideas (human rights, environmentalism, free trade movements, fear of terrorism). Traditionally, Britain has been seen as a strong centre for such intellectual enterprises as human rights. However, on a global scale environmentalism, the UK remains a follower, lagging behind the EU, and particularly Denmark. Brexit is set to make this situation worse. Most European countries have understood that Britain’s much beloved free market cannot fix global warming. A government capable and willing to operate at an effective level remains to be found. Facing global warming means a big, powerful, and financial strong state, and the UK has just withdrawn from such an entity. Worse, Brexiteers, the British conservative party, its ideology of neoliberalism, and Boris Johnson all point in the exact opposite direction. Like Trump they are climate change deniers, or at least trivializers.
All this raises the really big question: with the British empire gone and virtually no chance of returning to it and the five challenges outlined above unsolved, why did the pro-Brexit groups and the Tory Party win on the 12th December 2019 happen at all? Perhaps Boris Johnson’s slogan Get Brexit Done!provided a convincing frame for enough people to understand the world of politics. In addition, Boris Johnson is a master of the blame-game. For years his job was to lash out at everything and anything on the EU. In the case of Brexit, he blamed the holdup on Labour even though opposition arose strongly from within his own party. The results of the recent election show that blaming (or scapegoating) others still works.
In analysing the defeat, US-democrats, Australia’s Labor Party, and Britain’s progressives are making the same mistakes over and over again – perhaps a traditional sign of insanity. They still believe in the Enlightenment myth that the truth will set us free. If we only tell the people the truth, they will vote for us. The mass of voters are rational human beings. This is wrong for two reasons: firstly, people do not get the truth. They get what the Murdoch media (Fox, the Sun, etc.) tells them is the truth; secondly, at least since Kahneman and Tversky (1970s and early 1980s), we know that voters make non-rational decisions. In the case of Brexit and Boris Johnson, they voted against their class interest and for nationalism, if not for outright racism. In the case of Trump, theyhis American base votes against its own best interests own interest.
Despite so much evidence to the contrary, many self-appointed election analysts hang on to the l’idée fixe that it is irrational to vote against your self-interest. True or not, people do that and they do it rather often. Otherwise, conservatives would not win elections in most countries as they are at the beginning of 2020. Consequently, progressives and their election analysts are once again shocked and surprised when voters do not cast their ballots as the pundits predict. These experts start infamous soul-searching, change their leaders, and beat their collective breasts, all without ever understanding what really happened. They fail to realize that whenever conservatives use Orwellian language, for example, they not only tell outright lies to the people and engage in elaborate and covert propaganda. They show their vulnerability. Despite the overwhelming media presence of conservative voices casting aspersions in almost every direction but the right one, this is the strategic flank to attack that is allowed to pass unnoticed.
Another issue progressive fail to realize is the fact that conservatives enforce message discipline. In other words, despite Abraham Lincoln’s warning that “You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time,” they stay on message: “Get Brexit Done!” Everyone knows the chant by heart now. “Make America Great Again!” – Everyone knows that too. And what do we hear from the other side? From Britain’s Labor Party and the US Democrats side: Zilch. A blank space.
Unlike Democrats (US) and Labour (UK), the Tories and the Republicans hammer away relentlessly the same simple message over and over again until they win. Winning elections isn’t a mind game for intellectuals. You win by finding the lowest common denominator: a message everyone understands, everyone knows, and everyone can vote for. It is not a sophisticated eight-course French menu. Instead, it is a bit like driving through McDonalds and being asked “Do you want that with fries?” Find the food everyone (except us intellectuals) likes and sell it. Don’t explain the good medical or moral reasons why they should become vegans. The Big Mac is a winning ticket. Conservatives have figured this one out long ago. And so they win elections: in the USA, in Brazil, in the UK, in Australia, in the Philippines, in Israel, in Hungary, in Poland, in the Czech Republic, in India. The list goes on.
With the backing of the Murdoch press, Trump, Boris Johnson, and their Australian counterpart Scott Morrison ScoMo were able to dish up politics in a way everybody could understand everyone understood. Trump, Johnson, and ScoMo presented cultural stereotypes and framed their single message accordingly. They were also convincing in presenting themselves as father figures who can protect the American/British/Australian people from invading foreigners, including lesbians, queers, transvestites and post-modernist non-binomials.
This does not mean that progressives everywhere should be like ScoMo, Trump and Boris Johnson. The opposite is the case. Progressives do not win elections by betraying their identity – by shifting to the right of the political spectrum. This is not what the electorate expects. Instead, progressives need to invent a believable message and stick to it. It needs to be an easily consumable message that has relevant values. For example, taxes are not bad. Taxes means that the fire brigade comes when you need it, that your roads are safe, that the rubbish is collected, the air is clean, and schools and hospitals are working.
In doing this, progressives face two opposing groups. Progressives face corporate and conservative media. Elections are a 2 against 1 (2:1) game. Progressives need to challenge conservative ideologies, such as that a hierarchical society is eternal and that a leader should always be obeyed. These are deeply anti-democratic concepts. Liberals and moderates need to challenge the old-fashioned right-wing idea that to be moral is to be obedient to authority. What makes progressive ideas moral is thoughtful and controlled disobedience. Challenging the immorality of authority makes one a good person. Progressives also need to destroy right-wing hallucinations, like the rich are good. The wealthy and the influential are not a natural elite. They will n ever fit through the eye of a needle. The poor are not poor because they lack discipline or are lazy. The poor do not deserve to be impoverished and disenfranchised and they should not serve the whims of the rich.
Today, right-wing thinking is applied to schools and universities. Conservatives know that without a culture war, they cannot win elections. Next to winning significant battles in the culture war, conservatives also have established a significant number of think tanks that hammer right-wing messages on TV day in and day out. In some cases, they write press releases that go straight into understaffed and underfunded newspapers, radio, and TV stations. They also had Cambridge Analytica, they still have Russian troll farms, and most importantly, they also have a polarizing propaganda-machine called Facebook, as well as Twitter (Trump’s preferred propaganda tool), WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.
Intellectuals from Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking have never been on the side of closed-mind conservatives This is the point where progressives make one of their most crucial mistakes. They think the general population is like them. Most people are not intellectuals. They are not training the develop and understand complex and sophisticated arguments. They are not trained to spot contradictions. The mistake they make is a bit like what happens in Group think group thinking. They assume that everyone thinks like an intellectual. The vast majority does not think like that. Perhaps none other than Karl Marx understood this. He wrote a book for intellectualsDas Kapital (Capital) – Das Kapital – and he wrote (with his comrade-in-arms Friedrich Engels) a little pamphlet for everyone else – Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei – Communist Manifesto. Progressives are not going to win elections by producing Das Kapital-like programs. The tax program of the Australian Labor party is a great example. It was well thought-out and made a lot of sense but it was too complicated for the ordinary voter to figure out. Meanwhile, ScoMo’s falsehood “Labor is a high-tax party” registered with the punters. He won and Labor lost bitterly. Now we are stuck with him, as Australian burns.
Unlike nineteenth-century Karl Marx, many present-day left-leaning Liberals, Democrats and moderates appear to be trapped inside their own vicious circle, those who read the same newspapers and, hear the same long-winded speeches and analyse the same books, and hence are (at least to themselves) “smart”. Hence, too, we get the aforementioned just-tell-the-truth misconceptions. This fallacy is derived from a nun recognized delusion of the partly and party-based educated to think that everyone is an intellectual. As a consequence, many progressives end up talking about political party programs, not values like the right does. They insist on the correct program and policy instead of talking about hard-headed principles and moral values. They hammer these programs even when clear directions are called for.
It used to be said that intelligent people invented the alphabet and intellectuals have been abusing it ever since. Progressives (not only self-identified but vilified as such by their opponents) can become rather regressive—they keep going back to what they once were taught was correct and praiseworthy. They neither listen to what ordinary people are complaining about, hear what their opposition says, and mock what they don’t understand. Ordinary people who work, feeland think (when they do) in the hard-nosed, nitty-gritty of their own lives, hear not what their educated leaders and would-be governors think they are saying, but what is done and proposed on their behalf, and they can smell out the rat, the stench of irrelevance and pious nothings. Thus we end up with a topsy-turvy political world where everyone seems to be talking past everyone else. When this happens, the sly and malicious take up their positions and set that world afire with mean-spirited, mendacious and exploitative policies.
Conservatives (both upper case and lower case), know that they want to change an open and democratic culture into an authoritarian regime. They try to frame all intellectuals as a despicable elite. On the other hand, they have been successful in attracting the poor (rural and urban, out-of-work and under-employed) and poorly-educated males. In America, without such a base, you can hardly win elections. In the UK, Boris Johnson attracted the same kind of disaffected and frustrated voters in the North of England, to the (again!) great surprise of Labor.Trump was quite explicit, shouting to his audience when shouting,“I love the poorly educated.” “I love the poorly educated”.
Johnson exploited the new reality, that most of the old working –class and rural Labour members felt (perceived the image, felt the vibes, although they didn’t listen closely and understand the heart of the message) the party had betrayed their interests for those of the urban, highly-educated elite. Given the right(right-sounding, right-wing) message, the“base”will vote against their own best interests. And they not only will promise to do so when interviewed or polled, they actualdoit at the ballot. And they do so regularly. Yet when they do it, progressives are puzzled about the question, How could they win?How could they vote for Brexit?Unless progressives get their message right and frame it in a way that everyone can understand, they will continue to wonder why the right wins election after election.
Thomas Klikauer is author of a forthcoming book on Germany’s new Nazi party, the AfD – Alternative for Germany to be published by Sussex Academic Press.
SARS, Wars And The Farce
by Satya Sagar
The global hype and scare around the coronavirus outbreak is reminiscent of similar panic over SARS, avian flu and swine flu in the last decade and half. Driven by half-truths, poor quality data, sensational media coverage these are pandemics of idiocy at best and geopolitical conspiracies at their worst. In this context we are reproducing an article on SARS, first published in 2003, written in the
context of the US war on Iraq at that time. It tells a tale that has become generic to all global health scares of our times.
Note: The global hype and scare around the coronavirus outbreak is reminiscent of similar panic over SARS, avian flu and swine flu in the last decade and half. Driven by half-truths, poor quality data, sensational media coverage these are pandemics of idiocy at best and geopolitical conspiracies at their worst. In this context we are reproducing an article on SARS, first published in 2003, written in the context of the US war on Iraq at that time. It tells a tale that has become generic to all global health scares of our times.
The depression hits me on a warm and humid Bangkok evening. I am just through with dinner in the city’s crowded Sukhumvit business district, my head full of the War on Iraq and I spot these people- with masks on their faces.
A couple of weeks ago anybody with a cloth covering his face in this city would have been branded a
jihadi’ a possible Arab/Muslim/dark skinned/dark intentionedterrorist’. The city has been on alert well before the war on Iraq started to prevent `Arab looking’ people from doing bad things- for eg., looking Arab.
Just around the time of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq, if there were to be an `Arab’ behind a mask in Bangkok — the entire city would have been evacuated.
Apparently, not anymore. Respectable people wear masks now in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. In fact mandatory they say to save yourself from SARS- the flu-like virus that has much of south-east Asia in deep panic. Tourists are canceling their trips in droves, schools are closing down, economies plunging, governments in crisis and the Chinese- oh those `super-contaminating Chinese’- are being spurned everywhere.
Suddenly, an irrational panic grips me. God- there is no escape.
If the Apostles of Armageddon running the White House do not get you some mysterious malevolent microbes will. For a fleeting moment, a deep frozen moment, I lose hope. We are finished. They will get us one way or the other.
This is what the new/OLD colonial world order is going to be all about- complete helplessness for us common citizens. Caught between SARS and THEIR Wars the only safe place is soon going to be- you guessed right- on planet Mars.
Yes, the people I saw wearing those masks have a right to protect themselves. I will not mock them in any way. To paraphrase Voltaire I do not believe these masks medically help them in any way but I will defend to death their right to wear them. And then there are so many of THEM out there who deserve to have a mask fixed on their faces permanently anyway (so we won’t have to `read their bloody lips’).
Yes, there are these microbes and many of them are dangerous. Yes, people have died and still continue to do so. And it is indeed true we really do not know which way this pandemic is going to turn out. There are constant references to the great Influenza outbreak after World War One which killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people. Is SARS going to be that big ?
I am no kin to any Indian sage and I cannot predict such things. But I am betting neither can the
medical experts’ or themedia’ give us a real idea of what is going to happen. At this stage, given the sparse information on hand about SARS, it is all idle speculation- an activity that SOME people usually make lots of money out of.
Even assuming the deeply depressing thought that much of humanity is going to be wiped out by SARS over the next year (that is what the media is making it sound like) let us take a step back from this approaching abyss, take a deep breath (go ahead, do it while it is still safe) and reflect on a few questions about other aspects of this PANDEMONIUM of a pandemic.
First the CONTEXT: Why are we so full of fear only of THESE microbes and not those dozen other ways in which people die completely avoidable deaths ?
To anyone who is not already aware of these facts let me spell them out:
250,000 to 500,000 people die every year around the world due to ordinary influenza, the common `garden variety’ flu. In the United States alone, with a vaccine and medical care available, flu kills 36,000 people die every year.
Anywhere between 1 to 2.7 million die every year due to Malaria- a vast majority of them in Africa, particularly children
Tuberculosis kills 2 million people every year and 98 per cent of these in developing countries
HIV/AIDS claimed 3 million lives in 2002, including an estimated 610,000 children.
Traffic accidents kill 300,000 people every year in Asia alone.
The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq killed at least 10 to 15,000 Iraqi soldiers and over 2,300 Iraqi civilians in just the initial two weeks and maybe several hundred British and American troops.
And I am not even counting those millions who die of poverty and malnutrition around the globe annually. Every year the Indian media attributes hundreds of deaths to the
cold wave’,the heat wave’, too much rain’ andtoo little rain’. The fact is these deaths have nothing to do with the weather- in my country there people die every hour, wantonly, in PERFECTLY good weather. We all know WHY.
I would say this. If we choose to cover our faces let it be in anger and in shame- not just due to some microbes alone.
The RECORD so far: Here is the latest status of the number of SARS cases worldwide and deaths so far since 1 November 2002 when the disease is supposed to have broken out in southern China. In almost six months since the outbreak a total of 4439 cases of SARS and `suspected’ SARS have been recorded in 26 countries and 263 people have died. The mortality rate due to SARS is estimated between 3 to 4 percent- but even this is not confirmed because the total number of real SARS cases is not yet known[i]. Nor is its exact method of transmission clearly understood- which is why wearing masks may not be a useful precaution at all.
The MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT: The alarm bells about SARS started ringing only when the WHO issued a global alert in mid-March . A war of words broke out soon between the WHO and the Chinese health authorities- the latter being accused of
hiding information’ about SARS in its first few months. The Chinese said something back, which nobody understood (they are never going to be asuperpower’ this way).
One of the big critiques of bodies like the WHO from health activists has been the way they have adopted a purely
vertical’ approach to global health problems at the cost of a sustained, holistic and long-term approach. So whenever there is an outbreak or more usually anoutcry’ about a particular disease WHO and other global health officials organize a posse’, mobilize some resources, and ride into the wilderness ready tolasso’ the villain.
Once the `critter’ is temporarily caught or suppressed the issue is then mostly forgotten.
There is no attempt to even address underlying causes of new virus and diseases emerging for eg., due to super-intensive techniques of animal husbandry, recycling of animal offals in animal feed, the use of a variety of artificial hormones and growth-enhancers and of course from biological warfare experiments. Nor is there any attempt to mitigate the conditions, such as overcrowding, poverty and lack of housing infrastructure, under which infectious diseases such as SARS spread so rapidly. The WHO has failed to push policies that tackle other basic social and economic determinants of public health also — such as conflict, environmental pollution and privatization of health care.
The MEDIA: Has anybody really asked how much of the SARS scare is due to the media’s penchant for simplistic, alarmist reporting ? One of the first
big’ SARS cases to make the headlines was that of Johnny Cheng, a Chinese-American businessman who died at a hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam after flying in from Hong Kong. Just a month ago Hanoi was one of theepicentres’ of the SARS pandemic going by media reports. No more. The country seems to have slipped down the hit list of `no go’ places with just 63 reported SARS cases and 5 deaths.
How did this
super-contagious’,killer’ disease get contained in a crowded country like Vietnam with a very average public health system ? Nobody in the media is following the Vietnam story anymore because that is not on the map of the usual globe-trotting elites. Hong Kong, Singapore and Toronto are on that MAP and hence the panic about viruses traveling on the business class seat next to THEM. (If nothing else, maybe there is a great `success story’ out there in Vietnam, with details of how a poor, third world country has successfully contained this deadly new infectious disease.)
And what happened to the media follow up to the various other health scares we have had in the past decade all around the globe ? Bubonic plague in India, Ebola in Africa, the Mad Cow Disease in the UK ? And why was there virtually no coverage in the `international media’ of the influenza outbreak in Madagascar in mid-2002, where more than 27 000 cases were reported within three months and 800 deaths occurred despite rapid intervention ?
There is an apocryphal story going around this part of the world which shows how much of a media
thing’ this SARS scare probably is. The question asked is why is this new form of flu being called the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ?Severe’ and Acute’- two synonymous terms together — WHY ? Apparently- the termSevere’ was added (only in early March this year) to avoid an awkward acronym resulting from what was originally dubbed the Acute Respiratory Syndrome ? What’s the secret here- cover your face and save your — — ?
That story is most probably a bad joke-but let me tell you- I think so is the way the entire SARS scare is being reported and played out.
I AM NOT SAYING that the deaths due to SARS are not a real, serious tragedy or that it could not turn into a dangerous pandemic. Far from it. There is no moral mathematics involved here, please. Every human life is precious- Iraqi or American, Chinese or Singaporean. A very unique, irreplaceable Universe of its own- disappears forever with each physical death. All I am pleading for is some more PERSPECTIVE.
WHY are those dying of malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and poverty in most developing countries every day not making the headlines ? Is it not because those who die unseen, unheard, untreated are not in the same league as the Gold Card holding frequent flyers of our world ? Is it not because there is such a `low probability’ of a TB infected African child coughing in the same air-conditioned corridors as our elites frequent ?
A couple of years ago a senior editor of one of India’s major newspapers, when asked by a women’s rights activist to publish a story about high rates of malnutrition among girl children, is reported to have refused and said ` The readers of our newspaper do not suffer from malnutrition’. Sure, Mr Let Them Eat Cake- but aren’t YOU and YOUR readers who are the CAUSE of malnutrition in India. ( Ahem, what I wanted to say was -’ Will someone pass me that cutting edge of the French Revolution !’)
When one hears stories such as these a question arises in my mind. This is just a nasty, nasty question that I just can’t get out of my head. COULD IT BE that those who die unseen, unheard, untreated are themselves MICROBES in the worldview of our Masters ? Has the microbe become a metaphor for the unwashed, unwanted millions who don’t fit into the corporate globalisation of our Empire builders ?
Good riddance, THEY suppose, of those teeming, troublesome microbes- of so little value to the Empire. Microbes, who cannot afford to BUY and have nothing to SELL.
And from this high point of MORAL CLARITY it is just a little leap away to identifying those other microbes that need to be dealt with. The bearded, turbaned, different, DISSIDENT, multi-tongued microbes. To be screened and searched at every airline check-point, discouraged, disinfected, disposed off like a dirty secret. Microbes, whose very EXISTENCE, is a form of biological warfare to SOME.
No, I really want to bring this subject up. However depressing the subject is to me and many of you reading this. It is important to see where our dear world is headed towards. A world in which there are perishable, pestilent MICROBES and there are those HUMAN BEINGS- moulded in the image of GOD.
OK, OK not all of us are microbes of course. Many of us are a slightly higher caste- tolerated, employed, paid, domesticated, sheep, cattle. And there is also that special category — well-fed, trained dogs. God bless the creatures- I really have nothing against their species. ( In fact, some of them are my best friends) But I can’t help objecting to the worst of canine qualities that many of these four-legged ones in our midst display. Whining and Dining with the Masters, Biting and Barking at the Poor.
I know all this is getting a bit too depressing and I don’t like it one bit. I have been reading too much Orwell these days, and that too, on the front pages of daily newspapers.
So how does one get out of this Animal Farm we all seem to be trapped in ? I would say- let’s go back to our roots and our traditions- the great traditions of the ancient microbes.
Think of it- the microbes- the first form of LIFE on Planet Earth.
Microbes- mating, multiplying, mutating into higher, more virulent forms of cognitive, COMBATIVE life. Weathering all storms, RESISTING all predators and surviving every sterile environment. Microbes evolving, exploring, EXPLODING till every form of LIFE finds its place under the sun.
I have got it figured now. What this globe really needs now is a Movement of All Microbes and the Mother of All Movements. A million MOAMS to match all THEIR murderous, misanthropic MOABs.
Satya Sagar is a journalist who can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com
[i]When the SARS pandemic was finally declared over in 2005 the total official SARS-related deaths, worldwide, stood at just 774.
Breaking News: Rama Denied Citizenship Based On NRC + CAA!
by Siddhartha Mitra
A short story
Centenary of Mook Nayak: Young Ambedkarites Should Take Charge of New Media
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Today, in the one hundred years of Mook Nayak, important is to continue with autonomous publications. Let more flowers bloom and young Ambedkarites take charge of new media, use social media and engage in constructive debate.
Death Penalty And The Anti-Thesis Of It
by Sutputra Radheye
There is always a debate on whether capital punishment, to be specific death penalty, should be
abolished or retained for ordinary crimes. In my opinion, it should be abolished. In this view of mine, I don’t stand alone. As of 2018, 142 countries have abolished death penalty either in law or practice. Whereas, 56 have retained the power, in which category India falls.
There is always a debate on whether capital punishment, to be specific death penalty, should be abolished or retained for ordinary crimes. In my opinion, it should be abolished. In this view of mine, I don’t stand alone. As of 2018, 142 countries have abolished death penalty either in law or practice. Whereas, 56 have retained the power, in which category India falls.
So, why should it be abolished in India? Let’s try to answer the arguments the opposite motion often raises with facts, and set some alternative arguments that support the motion of abolishment.
First, it is irreversible. What if the judicial system committed a mistake, and someone is hanged based on it. Later, when the system realizes of its mistake, how will justice be served to a dead prisoner? When I claim the system can make mistakes, I would like to have the Supreme Court as my advocate, when it said, to cite an NDTV report, “To err is human and not one of us, who has held judicial office, can claim that we have never passed a wrong order,” a bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said in their order passed last week.”So, if mistakes are made, who will be responsible for an innocent hanged? Or will he be just a collateral damage of the entire ‘good’ system?
Second, even if the judiciary system was spot on to order death penalty to a criminal, who can assure that the same legal judgment can’t be used as a precedent for other similar cases in other legal institutions? No-one, as it will be. Just like no one can guarantee that some of the other cases will not be fake, and meticulously well-planned to frame someone. In that scenario, if the same death penalty is ordered to an innocent, will it be justice? Now, consider the first point and second point together, how dangerous does it sound? Just think once. And, for the idealists, let me tell you, false cases are a reality.
When we say precedent here, it means stare decisis, which is to stand by the decision, and is based on the principle that similar cases should be judged similarly, if I am not wrong.
Third, it is futile, and alienates a person from the first right of a human being- the right to life. Why is it futile? Because there is no scientific or empirical evidence of it acting as a catalyst in reducing the crime rate. On the other hand, a study carried out by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado showed how 88% of the leading criminologists believed death penalty to be futile. Also, the 2000 New York Times report ‘ABSENCE OF EXECUTIONS: A special report.; States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates’ agrees with abolishment motion when it writes, “…Indeed, 10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average, Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average. In a state-by-state analysis, The Times found that during the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48 percent to 101 percent higher than in states without the death penalty.”So, these facts are enough to prove the futility of the experiment.
Fourth, to my crude opposition to inhumanity, the supporters might argue of the criminal’s heinous crime, and the inhumanity of the act. I agree to the part that considers it a heinous, brutal and inhumane act, but what we must understand is that law isn’t a medium of revenge, but of justice. Justice needs to be fair. Killing a person who killed someone is revenge with no practical, long term merit, but a fair amount of demerit. Also to point out, which crime is more heinous and which isn’t, how do we measure that? Even most alike crimes have differences, so how do we bring fairness while ordering justice? Another point that the supporters often claim to be the judgment in this case is the popular support. But, is the crowd voting in favor of it truly aware of the reality? To answer the same question- US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall suggested that support for capital punishment among citizens would decline if Americans were aware of the facts of its application (Mathew Robinson).
Fifth, the death penalty is sometimes discriminatory in nature and has its own set of prejudices as even the judicial personnel aren’t free from societal stereotypes. In the words of Marshall, “I believe the following facts would serve to convince even the most hesitant of citizens to condemn death as a sanction: capital punishment is imposed discriminatorily against certain identifiable classes of people; there is evidence that innocent people have been executed before their innocence can be proved; and the death penalty wreaks havoc with our entire criminal justice system”. Thus, something which has such a high probability of discriminatory and wrong judgments, why should India as a country endorse that experiment?
So, with these five arguments, I rest my case in support of abolishment of death penalty in favor of human rights of global citizens.
Sutputra Radheye is a poet and commentator who delve into the themes affecting the socio-eco-political scenario. His works have been published in prestigious platforms like ‘Frontier’, ‘Countercurrents’, ‘Janata Weekly’, ‘Culture Matters’ (UK), and many more throughout the years.
The deity of a destroyer!!
by Sonali Chanda
I’ve been locked for thousand days,
threatened by your guns,and you think you banished me in front of my children..
I born with an oath,not to be defeated ,you don’t know,
In a dark corner of tge green hills,I write your Last Supper..
If there is peace
by Sutputra Radheye
If there is peace-
where does it live?
how does it look?
when to look for it?
What Jan 30 says aloud to Jan 26
by Niranjan TG
The three bullets that reddened my day
at 5:12 in the evening
definitely belonged to that hunter.
When your day is again decorated
with weapons,
when you stand with your chest
thrust out in pride greeting them,
it is good to remember all this.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.