The bias that social media platforms such as Facebook display reflect their own world-view as much as it does the regimes they support.
A few gave the appearance of being truly psychopathic individuals. The mass of others were ragged and illiterate peasants easily roused to hatred of the Tutsi. Perhaps the most sinister people I met were the educated political elite, men and women of charm and sophistication who spoke flawless French and who could engage in long philosophical debates about the nature of war and democracy. But they shared one thing in common with the soldiers and the peasants: they were drowning in the blood of their fellow countrymen.
Fergal Kane, a journalist with the BBC, wrote these chilling lines in his book, Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey, winner of the Orwell prize in 1995. The organised and planned killing in Rwanda, one of the darkest episodes of the 20th century, resulted in the death of eight lakh Tutsi.
It is a strange coincidence that a year and a half before these unfortunate developments, the biggest democracy in the world went through its own cataclysmic moment, when Hindutva supremacist forces demolished a 500-year-old mosque after a long and bloody campaign. Even after the demolition large-scale communal riots broke out all over India, in which thousands died and whose scars are still difficult to heal.
There is at least one thing in common between what Rwanda went through and what India witnessed in 1992: both tragedies demonstrated how the media can prepare and provoke ordinary people into unleashing untold miseries on their neighbours.
Chroniclers of history have noted how the popular press, especially the radio channels, played a divisive, polarising role before the genocide in Rwanda. The infamous RTLM radio broadcasts called for weeding out “cockroaches” as they inflamed Hutu militants to target the Tutsi minority. “Aag musalsal zehan mein lagi hogi, yunhi koi aag me jala nahi hoga—there must have been a fire in the mind already, or else nobody would have been consumed by flames,” as a poet has said.
A large section of the print media, in the vernacular in particular, played a polarising, provocative role and pushed the majoritarian agenda with impunity in the late eighties and early nineties in India as well. The metamorphosis of a significant section of Hindi newspapers into Hindu newspapers is well known. This period was the first occasion of its kind in Independent India, when the news was weaponised on a mass scale. Perhaps the saving grace was that TV was largely under government control at the time, and there few private channels.
Times have changed, however. Today there is the internet, social media and it is clear that digital technology if used unethically can easily further dubious political agendas. It can be manipulated to promote autocracies and anti-people regimes. This is not just in India. For example, media analyst Alan MacLeod wrote about the use of new media technologies to “hijack democracy” during the 2017 elections in Kenya, whose result remains controversial. In Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, published in 2019 by Routledge, which MacLeod edited, the media is said to have manufactured consent for the presidential election through fake news, spreading disinformation and government propaganda on online media platforms.
Advances in technology and easy access to the internet has made it possible even for every individual to bring a city or a region to a halt by making any mischievous piece of news “go viral”. This can result in arson, mayhem and violence… The possibility of exploiting media and digital tools to do harm requires that big data corporations be more diligent, especially when it comes to filtering hate speech.
It is a different matter that they have failed miserably.
Recall the Christchurch attack in New Zealand last year, in which some 50 died and another 50 were wounded. The alleged perpetrator, a White supremacist who spewed hatred of Muslim immigrants in an online manifesto streamed his killing spree live on Facebook. Facebook could do nothing about this toxic video going live.
Facebook was roasted after this incident but it is their profit-centric model and eagerness to be in the good books of establishments that has attracted more ire recently. They are accused of having no qualms in removing or blocking accounts of dissidents or deleting posts critical of the establishment, but turning a blind eye to right-wing posts, even if they are violent in nature and “controversial” enough to demand penal action.
Facebook’s latest India story corroborates the criticism it has received all over the world. Now accused of shielding right-wing leaders and their ideas in India, thanks to a recent expose by The Wall Street Journal, has rekindled the debate about weaponising news. New media might have arrived with a bang, but it is increasingly evident that they are conduits for vast amounts of fake news, violent speech and of spreading hate. And there are far too many instances of mega-corporations in the social media space prioritising their profit over democratic principles and free speech. Of course, the bias they are accused of also reflects their own world-view.
For instance, when the Black Lives Matter movement was at its peak, Facebook was widely condemned for carrying United States President Donald Trump’s statement: “When Looting Starts, Shooting Starts”, which was a provocation to violence. Twitter had, at the time, emphasised that his statement glorifies violence. Facebook’s compromise on race relations prompted more than 1,000 companies to boycott it in July.
Facebook’s world-view can also be gleaned from its position during the last German elections. A media company had aligned with Facebook to get extensive details of German voters and micro-target advertisements to specific voters to try and influence them to vote a certain way. Facebook had provided its own office in Berlin to this company. This project, which was run under guidance and advice from the United States, had supported Alternative für Deutschland, a neo-Fascist party. Details of this campaign are also to be found in the same book, edited by Alan MacLeod.
Facebook has around 300 million Indian subscribers, but finds itself on the defensive for violating its own hate speech rules and for promoting and supporting majoritarianism for pecuniary gain. Yet, broadly, the Wall Street Journal story has resulted in three important reactions: One, there has definitely been a churning within the Facebook organisation. Some employees of Facebook have questioned the company’s actions in India. Additionally, while Facebook India’s senior executive Ankhi Das had disallowed action against right-wing posts, employees in the India office had urged her to stick to company rules and take action. Second, the Congress party has written to Mark Zukerberg, the owner of Facebook, asking him to take action against those who violated company policy in India. And three, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), with the Congress, has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. The Delhi government, it is reported, also plans to summon the Facebook India chief to seek explanation.
It is possible that Facebook will be forced to rein in some right-wing elements in future, but would that be the end of this story? Definitely not. The right-wing elements are politically dominant at the moment and have acquired a wide social base, through which they are trying to acquire legitimacy for their world-view. It would seek other avenues to inject poison and toxicity in the social life from, even if Facebook closes the doors, even a little. It is doubtful that the right-wing propaganda can be contained by reining in one or two social media platforms—even if Facebook is extremely influential in India and has a wide user-base.
What this means is that nothing can beat firm and constant public awareness that helps citizens identify the real from the spurious. A degree of inertia seems to have overwhelmed a large section of even the politically literate fraternity in the country. The seductive charms of digital technology are hurting their person-to-person interactions, which are essential at the moment to build a counter-narrative to the right-wing propaganda. Was not it the Independence movement that taught us to take the road less travelled, even if we are alone on it.
The author is an independent journalist.
Originally published in NewsClick
A joint American-Israeli program [1], involving a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes, aimed at taking out the most prominent generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and targeting Iran’s power stations, industrial infrastructure, and missile and nuclear facilities has been going on since early this year when commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3.
As the US presidential race is heating up, the pace and sophistication of subversive attacks in Iran is picking up simultaneously. Since June, “mysterious explosions” were reported at a missile and explosives storage facility at Parchin military base on June 26, at power stations in the cities of Shiraz and Ahvaz, a “mysterious fire” at Bushehr port on July 15 destroying seven ships, and a massive explosion at the Natanz nuclear site on July 2 that has reportedly set back Iran’s nuclear program by at least two years.
Besides whipping up nationalist sentiment among America’s conservative electorate on the eve of US presidential election slated for November, another purpose of the subversive attacks appears to be to avenge a string of audacious attacks mounted by Iran-backed forces against the US strategic interests in the Persian Gulf that brought the US and Iran to the brink of full-scale war in September last year.
In addition to planting limpet mines on oil tankers off the coast of the UAE in May last year and the subsequent downing of the US surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf by Iran, the brazen attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on September 14 was the third major attack in the Persian Gulf against the assets of Washington and its regional clients. That the UAE had forewarning about imminent attacks is proved by the fact that weeks before the attacks, it recalled forces from Yemen battling the Houthi rebels and redeployed them to man the UAE’s territorial borders.
Nevertheless, a puerile prank like planting limpet mines on oil tankers can be overlooked but major provocations like downing a $200-million Global Hawk surveillance aircraft and mounting a drone and missile attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility that crippled its oil-processing functions for weeks could have had serious repercussions.
The September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility in eastern Saudi Arabia was an apocalypse for the global oil industry because it processes five million barrels crude oil per day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s total oil production. The subversive attack sent jitters across the global markets and the oil price surged 15%, the biggest spike witnessed in three decades since the First Gulf War when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, though the oil price was eased within days after industrialized nations released their strategic oil reserves.
In order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf’s oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production is 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq each has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day each; while UAE and Kuwait each has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion barrels, more than half of world’s 1477 billion barrels proven oil reserves.
Not surprisingly, more than 35,000 American troops have currently been deployed in the military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states: “Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
It bears mentioning that alongside deploying several thousand American troops, additional aircraft squadrons and Patriot missile batteries in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Abqaiq attack, several interventionist hawks in Washington invoked the Carter Doctrine as a ground for mounting retaliatory strikes against Iran.
The last year’s acts of subversion in the Persian Gulf should be viewed in the broader backdrop of the New Cold War that has begun after the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 when Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula and Washington imposed sanctions against Russia.
The Kremlin’s immediate response to the escalation by Washington was that it jumped into the fray in Syria in September 2015, after a clandestine visit to Moscow by General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. When Russia deployed its forces and military hardware to Syria in September 2015, the militant proxies of Washington and its regional clients were on the verge of drawing a wedge between Damascus and the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia, which could have led to the imminent downfall of the Assad government.
With the help of the Russian air power, the Syrian government has since reclaimed most of Syria’s territory from the insurgents, excluding Idlib in the northwest occupied by the Turkish-backed militants and Deir al-Zor and the Kurdish-held areas in the east, thus inflicting a humiliating defeat on Washington and its regional clients.
Notwithstanding, following the brazen attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on September 14, orchestrated protests erupted in Iran-allied countries Lebanon and Iraq from October to December last year.
Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek has documented for The Gray Zone [2] the US-backed political forces spearheaded the “color revolution” in Lebanon, where Iran-backed resistance group Hezbollah was part of the coalition government. Following the massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killing 180 people and wounding nearly 6,000, the shaky, six-month-long coalition government of Hassan al-Diab resigned on August 10.
Similarly, Iraq has been through the US occupation from 2003 to 2011 and is known to have US sympathizers in the Kurdish-held north and the Shia-majority south of the country, where the Western oil majors operate and dispense largesse among local chieftains of myriad clans and tribes.
Using the patronage network, the US successfully ousted former Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi and appointed American stooge Mustafa al-Kadhimi in his stead in May. The purpose of destabilizing governments in Iran-allied countries obviously was to deter Iran from mounting subversive attacks in strategically important Persian Gulf.
Unlike Lebanon and Iraq, though, Iran itself is immune to foreign-backed political demonstrations as it does not have any imperialist collaborators on the ground, besides a fringe militant group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) funded by the US, France and Israel, though it did witness large-scale protests in November last year.
The proximate cause of the November 15 protests in Iran was steep rise in petrol prices by the Rouhani government, dubbed as “sabotage” by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The worst-hit region was Khuzestan province in southwest Iran which is home to large Arab minority known to have grievances against Tehran and susceptible to infiltration by imperialist stooges.
Finally, a word about the venerated commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani who was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3. Soleimani was the trusted lieutenant of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the main liaison with Russia. Not only did he instigate Russia to strike at Washington’s Achilles heel in Syria’s proxy war but he was also the main architect of the audacious September 14 attacks at Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
Alongside deploying several thousand American troops and additional aircraft squadrons and Patriot missile batteries in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Abqaiq attack, Washington also took out its most fearsome nemesis General Soleimani in January, and now it can freely stage subversive attacks in Iran and allied countries without the fear of reprisals.
It’s pertinent to note that Trump initially rejected [3] the Pentagon’s option to assassinate General Soleimani on December 28 due to the fear of full-scale confrontation with Iran, and authorized airstrikes on an Iran-backed militia group in Iraq instead. But after the rocket attack at the US embassy in Baghdad by Iran-backed forces, Trump succumbed to pressure from the American deep state, led by the powerful national security bureaucracies of Pentagon and the State Department, which had a score to settle with General Soleimani for giving the global power a bloody nose in Syria’s proxy war.
Footnotes:
[1] Long-Planned and Bigger Than Thought: Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Program:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-trump.html
[2] US-backed parties have infiltrated Lebanon’s protests:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/11/us-parties-lebanon-protests-pushing-country-war-roadblocks/
[3] Trump initially rejected the Pentagon’s option to assassinate General Soleimani:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/politics/trump-suleimani.html
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
Constant attacks by some US elites on China will, according to some observers, diminish and disappear once the US presidential election is over in November 2020. This is unlikely to happen for at least two reasons. One, the issues that underscore the targeting of China are fundamental in nature and go beyond elections and personalities. Two, at the root of some of these issues are questions of power— of dominance and control— whose resolution will span decades if not centuries.
In examining the interface between the US and China, I shall begin with those areas of conflict where the latter has surpassed the former. This will be followed by reflections on manifestations of US power which are not as formidable as they are made out to be. Conclusions will be drawn from these two categories on the emerging pattern of global power.
Within specific sub-fields of science and technology, China appears to have moved ahead of the US. Maritime surveillance and lunar geography would be two such sub-fields. Chinese advances in electronics and telecommunications have also been breathtaking. It is because China is at the forefront of cutting edge technology that there is so much anxiety in the US and the West today about China’s ascendancy. Those who have dominated the world for so long know that it is mastery over science and technology that endows a nation or civilization with power and strength.
Its mastery over science and technology is one of the reasons why in a few decades China has become the factory of the world manufacturing a whole range of affordable, quality goods for people everywhere. China’s success in penetrating markets has made the nation indispensable to the global economy. Even in the entertainment industry, a video-sharing platform like Tiktok has become a sensation among the young prompting US authorities to impose curbs upon it .
More than its production of goods and services, it is China’s massive global infrastructure transformation through its Belt Road Initiative (BRI) that is destined to have a lasting impact upon humankind. An endeavor that spans 138 countries, the BRI connects Asia with Africa and Europe through land and maritime routes. It not only seeks to build highways and ports but also attempts to initiate agrarian projects and accelerate industrial ventures which will raise incomes and increase productivity of many poor countries
Compared to the BRI there are other spheres where US power appears to be overwhelming. But if we probed each of these spheres carefully, we would discover that US power is only a veneer. Its so-called military prowess is a case in point. Though the US has a huge arsenal and some 800 military bases girding the globe, we forget that it has not won a single major war since the end of the Second World War. Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan testify to this. In fact, its involvement in wars in the last 50 or 60 years have been unmitigated disasters.
Another pillar of US power is the US dollar— the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is no longer as dominant as it once was. In 2015 for instance, approximately 90 % of bilateral transactions between China and Russia were conducted in dollars. By 2019 “the figure had dropped to 51%”
US imposed sanctions against Russia since 2014 following Crimea’s restoration to Russia contributed to this. The US also imposed “tariffs on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Chinese goods “ which forced China to de-dollarise.” Moscow and Beijing reinforced their financial relationship in June 2019 through a deal “ to replace the dollar with national currencies for international settlements between them.” Russia has also been accumulating yuan reserves at the expense of the dollar.
The US also perpetuates its global dominance through an extensive propaganda network which projects the US as the greatest nation on earth. It is a portrayal which has lost its lustre in the last couple of decades. The US led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 which was unjust as it was immoral tarnished the US’s image in the eyes of the world. Increasingly, it has come to be perceived as a rapacious nation which has no scruples about slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people in pursuit of its hegemonic agenda.
More than its role in wars and all the sufferings they cause, the US elite’s failure to govern effectively has shattered and battered its image The coronavirus pandemic and the economic miseries generated by it, have revealed that compared to some countries in Asia the US elite is incapable of protecting the well-being of its own citizenry. With 176 thousand fatalities and 5.68 million infections as of the 22ndt of August 2020,the elite stands condemned for betraying and sacrificing the people. If good governance is the hallmark of a ‘developed nation’ then the US can no longer lay claim to that status.
The coronavirus pandemic with all its dire consequences has also exposed how deeply flawed notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘the rights of the individual’ are in the US When freedom of the individual relegates the collective good of society to the margins, it breeds a self-centred obsession with freedom which in the ultimate analysis undermines freedom itself. If freedom and the celebration of the individual are the glorious attributes of societies like the US, the pandemic has shown us all how ugly their misconception and misapplication can be.
In a nutshell, it is not just the rise of China which is responsible for the decline of the US. Its own distorted perspective on power , its perverted sense of individual freedom and most of all its lust for global hegemony have all contributed to its fall. This is why as the American people approach yet another presidential election, they should for their own good reflect upon their own flaws and foibles as a nation. It is humility and honesty of this sort that is the need of the hour.
Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
Malaysia.
An unwarranted attack on a 72-year-old Christian man influenced by a hate speech made on Facebook was reported to Persecution Relief by a source who wishes to stay anonymous. The following is the information we received.
*Anand is a faithful leader at our church and conducts weekly cell group meetings at different homes. He is 72 years old and also drives a rickshaw. Anand stacks up bibles in a custom-made rack which is fitted near the passenger seat.
Passengers are free to not just read the Bibles but also take one for themselves if they choose to. Whenever his rickshaw wasn’t hired, he would stop and hand out Bibles to interested passers-by.
On the 28th of July 2020, he was attacked by two other rickshaw drivers while he was distributing Bibles near the Nimhans Hospital in Bangalore, a city in the Indian state of Karnataka.
The whole incident was video graphed and uploaded on the Facebook page of a Hindu leader named Puneet. In his post accompanying the video, he has urged the masses to oppose Christians who are found distributing Christian literature.
This is what Puneet had to say concerning the attack:
“I received a call from an auto driver named Srinivas who had said that he saw a person propagating their faith by saying God can heal your sickness and distributing bibles in front of Nimans hospital. I am proud of this Srinivas who stopped him along with another auto driver. Wherever you see such people do not fear, question them! You are a Hindu; you have every right to question them. We have given you the video of his auto and the auto number. Where ever you see him, question him. Do not show any mercy. I am not able to come to you immediately Srinivas, as I am on Corona duty. I salute you Srinivas. Please see the video.”
Two days after the post was shared, Anand set out as usual in his auto rickshaw. Auto drivers who recognized him, began to rebuke and harass the 72-year-old. Being at the receiving end, Anand quietly left the spot but to his disbelief, the other drivers followed him in their auto rickshaws.
The group of drivers followed after Anand, shouting slogans and hounded him for about a kilometre. Shocked by what had happened, the elderly Anand drove straight home. His family have advised him not to venture out until the matter settles.
Anand comes from a very poor family. He is a hardworking man and earns his livelihood by driving his auto rickshaw. He is the only bread winner of the family. After this ordeal, his income has stopped and the family is facing a very tough time.
Anand not only ministers in his Auto rickshaw but is also a part of an ‘Auto Rickshaw ministry’. About fifty auto drivers gather and pray together every week. All their rickshaws have a custom-made Bible rack installed, free for any passenger to read or take away.
Anand is based in Bangalore. Once a month he visits his home town near Trichy. He stays there for a couple of days with his children and also goes from house to house, distributing New Testament Bibles, after which he gathers people from the community to pray together during the evening.
Social Media has now become the latest and most dangerous stage for the propagation of religious bigotry in India. With its effortless ability to reach the masses both educated and ignorant, urban and rural, platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp have the Nation at their fingertips, instead of vice versa.
‘Wannabe fanatics’ desperately longing to be hailed by the ‘Saffron-Brigade’ as true patriots or vying for ‘A-minute-of viral glory’ are often behind the hate-visuals and posts that are regularly uploaded on the internet.
At present, no single authority seems to be taking any responsibility concerning this disastrous and viral boom. There’s no telling when this mud-slinging will end. It is only making matters worse for the religious minorities in the country.
This is the 25th case of Christian persecution in Karnataka recorded by Persecution Relief since January 2020.
In the first 7 months of 2020, Persecution Relief has documented 9 religiously motivated hate crimes that have led to death, of which 2 involve rape. From January 2016 to June 2020, Persecution Relief has recorded 2067 cases of Hate crimes against Christians in India of which 293 cases were recorded in the first half of 2020 alone.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has downgraded India to the lowest ranking, ‘Countries of Particular Concern’(CPC) in its 2020 report. The US State Department ranked India’s persecution severity at “Tier 2” along with Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past seven years, India has risen from No. 31 to No. 10 on Open Doors’ World Watch List, ranking just behind Iran in persecution severity.
Shibu Thomas is founder of Persecution Relief
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