19 years after the ghastly tragedy of 9/11, civil rights remains the major problem for the seven-million-strong American Muslim Community.
The Covid-19 Pandemic shut down the US economy and disturbed the social life however even in this challenging times American Muslims were victims of hate crimes, discrimination and Islamophobia. Almost two decades after 9/11, American Muslims still dealing with the fall out of this tragic event.
Following Trump’s 2016 election, American Muslims experienced a spike in hate crimes, according to data from the FBI. American Muslim leaders attributed the spike to anti-Muslim rhetoric espoused by Trump and some of his close associates.
Here are few examples from recent months:
President Trump re-tweeted a post by an anti-Muslim bigot critical of former vice president Joe Biden for engaging in outreach to American Muslim voters and pledging to end the Muslim Ban. Trump retweeted a July 21st post by Paul Sperry, who wrote, “BREAKING: Biden wishes public schools taught more about Islam; promises Muslims he will end terrorism-related ban on immigration from high-risk Islamic nations “on Day One.”” According to Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, Sperry has blamed Islam for the spread of the Ebola virus, called former President Barack Obama the “defender-in-chief of Islam,” warned of an “Islamic fifth column” growing inside America, accused tax reform activist Grover Norquist of “ties to militant Muslim activists,” and written multiple debunked books attacking Islam and Muslims.
In June, President Trump appointed former Breitbart writer, white supremacist sympathizer and anti-Muslim bigot Sebastian Gorka to the National Security Education Board. The 14-member National Security Education Board provides strategic consultation and oversight for the National Security Education Program. This program develops expertise for the U.S. federal government workforce and also provides grants to universities and scholarships for students to study languages and regions critical to national security.
In an apparent Islamophobia remark, MSNBC host Joy Reid, in her August 31 night program, said:
When leaders, let’s say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy, we in the U.S. media describe that as, ‘They are radicalizing those people,’ particularly when they’re radicalizing young people. That’s how we talk about the way Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people? Trump condemned Reid’s remarks, though somewhat inaccurately, tweeting, “The very untalented Joy Reid should be fired for this horrible use of the words ‘Muslim Terrorists.’
On September 8, American Muslim groups expressed deep concerns over a slew of Islamophobic and Anti-Semitic social media posts by Dallas area physician, Michael Robles. Dr. Robles is a physician who works at American Pathology Partners (AP2) and Alliance Diagnostics. He posts regularly on Jihad Watch, a hate website run by notorious anti-Muslim bigot, Robert Spencer. His posts include: (1) “The hard hearted and stiff-necked Jews do not believe in the Holy Trinity. They believe in a different god. Their rejection begins from the beginning they will suffer, see Amos. They are antichrist. They follow the evil one.” (2) “Islam false god false prophet false Quran false Christ – Islam is the anti-Christ, born from deception and follows Satan. Pure death and lies in Islam.” (3) “Never trust a Muslim who actively practices and follows the Quran.”
Politicians have added fuel to the fire of anti-Islam sentiments in the United States. Islamophobia has become a campaign tool used to galvanize voters. The heightened rhetoric has exposed an alarming trend that has developed after 9/11. Muslims are constantly and consistently cast as somehow un-American because of their faith.
Muslim Americans have expressed concern and alarm after Republican candidate Laura Loomer—who has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and called Islam a “cancer”— won her primary in Florida, earning praise from President Donald Trump, the Newsweek reported on August 19. Loomer, 27, won the GOP primary for Florida’s 21st District, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The far-right activist has previously been banned from multiple social media platforms because of her extreme rhetoric. She will now face Democratic Representative Lois Frankel, who is widely expected to win, on November 3. But even if Loomer’s chances of beating Frankel appear remote, Muslim Americans are worried about a Republican Party that appears to be increasingly open to overtly Islamophobic candidates and viewpoints.
On August 29, Republican Mitch Swoboda, who is running to represent the 37th district of Michigan, shared an Islamophobic meme on Facebook equating the wearing of face masks to protect persons from COVID-19 infection with the false trope that women lack rights of personal choice within Islam. The meme states, “That’s why they [Arabs] imposed on every woman the mandatory use of a fabric over her face. Then Islam turned it into the woman’s symbol of submission to Allah, the man owner of the Harem, and the King.”
Hate Crimes against American Muslims
An Arab-American teenager in New York was assaulted on August 13 with a baseball bat. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called this “an anti-immigrant, anti-Arab, and racially charged attack.” The victim was identified as Tarek Elsayed, an 18-year-old Egyptian-American.
Somaia Harrati, a 17-year-old American Moroccan Muslim woman wearing hijab, was assaulted with a bottle of urine and Islamophobic slurs on August 10 in Bronx, New York. The NYPD was urged to initiate a hate crimes probe in the Islamophobic incident.
On July 2, 2020, in New York, Rashid Hassan, a Pakistani taxi driver, was assaulted and yelled “Go back to your country.” The police and an ambulance were called to the scene. Mr. Hassan was taken to the hospital and may need surgery on his eye to prevent blindness due to a blood clot resulting from the assault. Another driver nearby recorded the incident and provided the footage to the responding officers.
A 50-year-old Muslim man was assaulted outside the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn., on August 6-night. The victim was walking to Dar Al-Farooq when two people described as being in their late teens or early twenties approached and assaulted him, according to police. The victim suffered a non-life-threatening injury and was transported to Fairview Southdale Hospital.
On September 9, Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported a Muslim man in that state by an alleged attacker who is shown shouting “Go back to your country” during the incident. The assault was captured on video.
Even kids were blamed. The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Dallas Fort-Worth (CAIR-DFW), a chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, on February 26 released a new report, “Singled Out: Islamophobia in the Classroom and the Impact of Discrimination on Muslim Students” indicating that 48 percent of respondents say they experienced some type of bullying — nearly double the national average. CAIR-DFW’s report examines how Muslim students feel about their school environment, about identifying as Muslim and the extent of anti-Muslim bullying and harassment students experience.
In short, years after 9/11 terrorist attacks, American Muslims remain on the receiving end.
On the positive note
It was perhaps a historic moment for American Muslims when in July the House voted to repeal the Trump administration’s travel ban and further restrict the president’s power to limit entry to the U.S. This was a symbolic victory for Muslim American and civil rights groups as the measure is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has no GOP support. The bill, which passed the Democrat-controlled House 233-183, had initially been slated for action in March, before the coronavirus forced scheduling changes on Capitol Hill.
Since taking office in 2017, The Trump administration has continuously targeted immigrants and communities of color. Despite the recognition that white supremacist violence is a serious issue, the administration continues to focus on suppressing the rights of minority and immigrant communities. The xenophobic immigration agenda of the administration was furthered earlier this year when additional countries, mainly in Africa, were added to the Muslim Ban.
In June 2020, a bill was introduced in the Assembly of the State of California, saying that the Assembly joins communities throughout the State of California in recognizing the month of August 2020 as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month. The resolution pointed out that approximately one million American Muslims currently reside in California, the highest number of any state in the United States and the American Muslim community is recognized as having made innumerable contributions to the cultural, political, and economic fabric and well-being of California and the United States.
As a positive outcome of constant pressure, the American Muslims became active politically and created alliances with other ethnic and faith groups.
National Muslim Voter Registration Day: On August 28, 2020, American Muslim activists across the country rallied their communities to participate in National Muslim Voter Registration Day to impact the 2020 presidential election.MPower Change, in collaboration with grassroots organizations, launched the #MyMuslimVote campaign to promote a nationwide virtual registration drive. Participating organizations have already reached out to nearly half a million registered Muslim voters, and are sending email and text message reminders to encourage American Muslims to vote in person or by mail. American Muslims, along with other minority communities, could help vote President Donald Trump out of the White House and usher in Democratic contender Joe Biden, MPower Change Executive Director Linda Sarsour told CNN.
The Trump campaign in mid-August launched Muslim Voices for Trump. Also introduced at that time were similar coalitions for voters who identify as Indian, Hindu and Sikh. A Trump campaign site targeted to Muslim supporters includes a sign-up form, but no policy initiatives are listed. “Muslim Voices for Trump will energize and mobilize the Muslim community in re-electing President Donald J. Trump by sharing the many successes of the Trump Administration,” the site states. “Re-electing President Trump will ensure the protection of religious liberties, economic prosperity, and educational opportunities for Muslims in America.”
Joe Biden’s agenda for Muslim Americans: In a bid to attract the American Muslim vote, Joe Biden, Democratic Presidential nominee Joe appointed a Senior Advisor for Muslim Engagement on his presidential campaign and issued a special paper saying “Muslim-Americans are essential to the American fabric, and working with Muslim-American communities is critical to ensuring that Muslim-Americans are uplifted and empowered, and that their issues of concern are addressed within our democracy.” Muslim-Americans are a diverse, vibrant part of the United States, making invaluable cultural and economic contributions to communities all across the nation. But they also face real challenges and threats in our society, including racially-motivated violence and Islamophobia. Joe Biden pledged to work closely with Muslim-Americans to address the needs and legitimate concerns of the Muslim-American community. As President, he will: protect Muslim-American constitutional and civil rights; honor the diversity of Muslim-American communities; ensure adequate healthcare; create a safe learning environment; rebuild our economy with a more resilient, more inclusive middle class; and make communities safer.
Meanwhile, a coalition of Muslim Democratic delegates has rejected the Democratic National Convention’s proposed party platform, in particular for not pushing for the U.S. to end military aid to Israel and sanctions on Iran, the Religious News Service (RNS) reported on August 4. The Muslim Delegates and Allies Coalition is urging all delegates to vote against approving the platform during this week’s vote. The coalition was recently formed in hopes of pushing the party to “take more decisive action to improve U.S.-Muslim relations.” The coalition is made up of 100 DNC national delegates, including some from Virginia, New Mexico and Texas, among other states.
Muslim voters concerned about civil rights: A coalition of national Muslim organizations on August 25 released the results of a pre-election “Muslims in America Policy Poll” – an online survey of 1,500 Muslims in America that highlights issue and policy priorities of the Muslim community just months before the 2020 General Election. The poll was created and distributed through a partnership of Muslim organizations, including America Indivisible, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Emgage USA, Jetpac, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), MPower Change and Poligon Education Fund — consolidating efforts to educate and mobilize a Muslim constituency.
Mosques across America dedicate Friday sermons to confronting racism, police brutality: On Friday, June 5, a wave of mosques dedicated their Jummah sermons to preaching against anti-black racism and police brutality, following urgent calls from black Muslim leaders to publicly speak up with a “Day of Outrage.” Led by Imam Jihad Saafir of inner-city community center Islah LA, a coalition of black Muslim leaders in California has suggested that, in Friday sermons and talks, Islamic organizations address racism and that they also address it in letters of solidarity with black Americans.
George Floyd’s killing was a final straw for thousands of Americans protesting against police brutality and systemic police racism. Muslim leaders say it may also, at long last, prove to be a tipping point for non-black Muslim communities, according to Aysha Khan of Religious News Service. “This has been a rough week, a rough two months for Black Muslims who have been deeply impacted by police brutality and mass incarceration,” said Margari Aziza Hill, co-founder of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. “We are in mourning, we are tired, we are angry, we are mobilizing.”
Display of Religious Bigotry by Hindutva in NY’s Times Square denounced: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, on August 5 joined the “Stop Genocide in India” coalition in condemning the use of New York’s Times Square to promote the far-right Indian government’s embrace of militant Hindutva ideology, which has resulted in the destructive and deadly rise of anti-Muslim bigotry across India. On August 5, 2020–exactly one year to the day that India revoked article 370, removing Kashmir’s autonomy–Indian PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the building of a Hindu Temple at the site of the 16th century Babri Mosque Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state. The mosque was destroyed by militant Hindu extremists in 1992 and ushered in nationwide pogroms, resulting in the murder more than 2,000 Muslims. Special interest groups sympathetic with Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) policies purchased ads in Times Square to celebrate the laying of the foundation stone.
American Muslims join the nation in commemorating the 19th anniversary of this ghastly tragedy with an optimism that the state of present anti-Muslim campaign will subside in due course of time as happened during the Second World War with the Japanese Americans who also endured similar national intolerance, social prejudice and legal injustice.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council of Foreign Ministers in Moscow, Russia, on September 10, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)
India and China have agreed to ratchet down tensions that have been building along the disputed Chinese-Indian border, leading to skirmishes, as they announced a five-point de-escalation plan at a meeting in Moscow.
Tensions have been flying high along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh at the Chinese-Indian Himalayan border since May, and have repeatedly led to clashes between Indian and Chinese troops stationed in the sparsely populated mountainous area.
The plan – agreed by India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Moscow on Thursday – envisages that troops on both sides of the border will “quickly disengage, maintain proper distance and ease tension.”
Announced in a joint statement, the agreement also states that both New Delhi and Beijing pledged to abide by “all the existing agreements … maintain peace and tranquility,” as well as not allowing “any action that could escalate matters” in the area.
The joint statement and five-point consensus reached by the Chinese and Indian foreign ministers on Thursday evening marked a substantial step in cooling down the current border situation, exceeding the expectations of most international observers and creating favorable conditions for a possible future meeting between the leaders of the two countries, Chinese experts told on Friday.
The successful implementation of the joint statement depends on whether the Indian side can truly keep its word. Given the country’s history, it is possible that the joint statement will end up as merely “paper talk,” they warned.
The China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s meeting lasted nearly three hours.
The highly anticipated meeting was viewed by experts from both sides as a last resort to peacefully resolve the recent border clashes, after previous meetings at the commander levels and last week’s defense ministers’ meeting in Moscow failed to garner true results.
In the five-point consensus, Wang and Jaishankar agreed that China and India should follow the guidance of the consensus reached between leaders of the two countries, including that divergence should not be escalated into conflicts. The current conflicts in border areas do not serve the interests of either side. The border troops of the two countries should continue their current dialogue, disengage as soon as possible, maintain necessary distances and ease the current tensions.
The consensus involves maintaining communication through meetings by the Special Representatives of India and China and expediting the completion of new measures to build mutual trust, marking an important step since the conflicts first took place, he added.
The reduction in hostilities between the two countries – which have sparked fears of a full-fledged armed conflict, with frequent and sometimes deadly border showdowns – will be based on “the series of consensus” between Indian PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, “including not allowing differences to become disputes,” the statement said.
In a bid to avert border face-offs in the future, the officials agreed to keep in touch through specially designed communication mechanisms, as well as speed up work on new “confidence building measures” to ensure the long-standing border row won’t spiral into a shooting war.
The apparent thaw in Sino-Indian relations comes after the worst flare-up between the neighbors in four decades. In mid-June, a serious brawl between rival troops in the Galwan Valley left 20 Indian soldiers dead. Since then, several minor alterŅations have taken place, deepening the rift between the world’s two most populous nations. The latest such incident came on Monday south of the glacial Pangong Tso Lake, with both countries pointing fingers at each other as the instigator behind the confrontation.
However, given India’s past history of breaking consensuses reached at such meetings, some Chinese experts stressed that it’s still too early to pin high hopes on its implementation.
While the joint press release looks fine on paper, the actual addressing of future border tensions remains unclear as India has a long history of breaking its promises, Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told on Friday.
“We should not only observe what India says, but also what it does. For a country like India, the most important thing is how it acts,” Hu said.
In 2005, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held important talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before signing a joint statement by the two governments, in which both sides declared the establishment of a strategic partnership to promote peace and prosperity. The two governments also signed the Agreement on the Political Guiding Principles for Resolving the Boundary Issue between China and India, in which they pledged to reduce armed forces and maintain peace.
“However, since Modi assumed power, the Indian government has totally neglected this joint statement. China has kept its word, but the Indian side has provoked the recent border clashes,” Hu told, stressing that this time China remains on high alert.
Given the country’s sluggish economy and poor epidemic control, the Modi government will continue to try and stir up border tensions in an attempt to deflect the public’s attention. Sadly, these border tensions are used as chips to fool the public, he noted.
Analysts said that the agreement reached this time is also largely due to strong support from the Chinese military.
In a video recently released by China Central Television, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army logistics soldiers were seen transporting hot food with ground vehicles, but also using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) packed with food, water and medicine in areas where the roads were blocked, automatically delivering the “care packages” to frontline soldiers.
The logistics support could guarantee PLA soldiers an advantage in potential military conflicts when the winter comes, and analysts said that the advanced equipment shown by the Chinese military overshadows that held by its Indian counterparts.
“Only a strong military can wake up a sleepy India, words are not enough,” Hu said.
Qian said that peacefully resolving the border conflicts is important for India, as it would mean the government can then focus on addressing the country’s other problems, which would bring real benefits for the people.
He noted that as nationalism prevails in India, it becomes a true test of Indian top politicians’ wisdom to not be misdirected. The Indian government should have the ability to restrain and prevent radical military action.
The discussions between Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Wang Yi were “frank” and “constructive” according to the Indian external affairs ministry.
“The two Foreign Ministers agreed that the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side. They agreed therefore that the border troops of both sides should continue their dialogue, quickly disengage, maintain proper distance and ease tensions,” the statement said.
It added that the countries agreed to abide by existing agreements and protocols on China-India boundary affairs and avoid actions that could escalate tensions.
“The two sides also agreed to continue to have dialogue and communication through the Special Representative mechanism on the India-China boundary question,” the statement said.
Neither side willing to back down
Political risk consultancy Eurasia Group predicts a 60% probability of a scenario where the standoff continues with periodic flare-ups and skirmishes, causing limited casualties.
“So far, there have been multiple rounds of talks, meetings between the Special Representatives for the Boundary Question, a meeting of the defense ministers, and a meeting of the foreign ministers, and none of these negotiations have been successful in stemming new skirmishes,” Akhil Bery, South Asia analyst, and Kelsey Broderick, Asia analyst, at Eurasia Group, said in a Thursday note.
They explained that neither side is likely to give an inch of perceived territory given the current state of bilateral ties.
Politically, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot retreat as he had been under criticism for failing to acknowledge Chinese incursions into Indian territory, according to the analysts.
They added that any further loss of territory for India would hurt Modi’s “image as a strongman who will protect India.”
China’s President Xi Jinping will not back down either and “the signs are pointing towards this border remaining hot and standoffs continuing as both sides are preparing for a long, entrenched conflict.”
“This is not to say diplomacy will not continue. Commander-level talks are likely to continue, as will diplomatic meetings,” they added.
Eurasia Group also predicts a 25% chance of successful diplomatic negotiations leading to a de-escalation and a 15% probability for a deeper military conflict at the border.
Top of Form
Joint Press Statement – Meeting of External Affairs Minister and the Foreign Minister of China (September 10, 2020)
H.E. Dr. S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India met H.E. Wang Yi, State Councillor and Foreign Minister of China on 10th September in Moscow on the side-lines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting. Both Ministers had a frank and constructive discussion on the developments in the India-China border areas as well as on India-China relations and agreed as follows:
1. The two Ministers agreed that both sides should take guidance from the series of consensus of the leaders on developing India-China relations, including not allowing differences to become disputes.
- The two Foreign Ministers agreed that the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side. They agreed therefore that the border troops of both sides should continue their dialogue, quickly disengage, maintain proper distance and ease tensions.
- The two Ministers agreed that both sides shall abide by all the existing agreements and protocol on China-India boundary affairs, maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas and avoid any action that could escalate matters.
- The two sides also agreed to continue to have dialogue and communication through the Special Representative mechanism on the India-China boundary question. They also agreed in this context that the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China border affairs (WMCC), should also continue its meetings.
- The Ministers agreed that as the situation eases, the two sides should expedite work to conclude new Confidence Building Measures to maintain and enhance peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
Moscow
September 10, 2020
Adverse Effects among participants of Oxford-Zeneca Vaccin Trials in the UK
In 1922-23, about two years after the end of Spanish Flu which infected over 500 million people, the United Kingdom experienced a very small epidemic of a very rare disorder called transverse myelitis (TM). No virus or any micro-organism behind this. These were adverse effects from vaccinations against small pox and rabis. After this initial disaster, during the past century, the vaccine scientists have learned their lessons; and today’s vaccines are much safer. National agencies that approve the vaccine have laid down stringent rules, procedures and protocols to prevent vaccine related disasters. However, it appears that during Covid-19 days, nothing is impossible. Today, TM is revisiting us and threatening the chances of getting a vaccine, which is now thought to be as the only way out of the current existential crisis.
A vaccine that nobody wants to take is not very useful – AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot
It was painful to read that the phase-3 trials of the Oxford-Zeneca vaccine, the most promising among the nine Covid-19 vaccines under trial now, have been paused in the US, Brazil and the UK on 08 Sep 2020. A day later, Adam Feuerstein reported on the medical news website Statnews, that a participant in the AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine experienced neurological symptoms consistent with a rare but serious spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis. This was revealed by vaccine maker’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot during a private conference call with investors set up by the investment bank J.P. Morgan. Soriot confirmed that the participant was injected with the company’s Covid-19 vaccine and not placebo. Soriot also informed that the clinical trial was halted earlier also in July 2020, after a participant experienced neurological symptoms, which was diagnosed as multiple sclerosis, “deemed to be unrelated to the Covid-19 vaccine treatment”.[1]
The first sick volunteer also had Transverse Myelitis – Company document
However, according to an Oxford-Zeneca document – the Participant Information Sheet (PIS) dated 12th July 2020 given to the volunteers of Phase-3 trial of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 in the UK-, the first volunteer who experienced the adverse reaction was also diagnosed as transverse myelitis and not as multiple sclerosis. This 16 page document is part of the contract between the vaccine developers and the “10,560 adults and children across the UK”, who would volunteer for a humanitarian cause by participating in a dangerous experiment (see quote below) with their own body. The Oxford-Zeneca reassurance about the safety of the vaccine: (Page 10)[2]:
Reactions in the nervous system are also extremely rare, but can include an illness called Guillain-BarrÃĐ syndrome, a condition in which people can develop severe weakness and can be fatal. These adverse events have not previously been seen following administration of similar vaccines using ChAdOx1 as a viral vector, but one volunteer in the trials of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 developed symptoms of transverse myelitis (inflammation in the spinal cord), which has not required medical treatment and is being investigated, though the cause is uncertain.
So, even before ascertaining the cause of the adverse effect, Astra Zeneca was allowed to go ahead with the final phase!
The CEO of Astra Zeneca confirmed that there were two adverse effects in the vaccine trial – the first one during the Phase -1 and the second one during the Phase-3 trial. And on both these occasions, the trial was paused as part of abundant precaution. Though the CEO is a respectable and responsible person, the document which is part of the contract between the vaccine developers and the volunteers is more authentic. Therefore, I presume that both the survivors were diagnosed as TM.
The Excess Risk among the Study Population
In all here are 10,560 participants in the UK Phase-3 trial. The study group consisting of three-fourth of the participants, would be given the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Covid-19 candidate vaccine) and the remaining one-third which is the control group would be administered a licensed meningitis vaccine (MenACWY) as placebo.
TM is a rare disease which is diagnosed in 300 persons a year in the UK and 1400 persons in the US. If all the study group participants in the UK Phase-3 trial have been injected with the vaccine, about 7000 healthy children and adults would have received the experimental vaccine. The company claims that 2,000 persons were given the same vaccine during the Phase-1/2 trials. This means, 9,000 persons in the UK have received the vaccine. The incidence and the relative risk is estimated in table 1 below:
| Cohort | Subjects | Cases | Per 1000 | Excess Risk |
| Oxford Zeneca Expt | 9000 | 2 | 0.2 | 41 |
| Background incidence | 56000000 | 300 | 0.005 |
In the Oxford Zeneca experiment involving 9,000 healthy volunteers, there are two cases of TM, which is 0.2 per 1000 subjects. The background annual incidence of TM in the UK is 0.005 per 1000. The risk among the participants in 41 times higher the background. Oxford-Zeneca has since stated that diagnosis of the patient in the Phase-3 trial is not confirmed. If her disease is not TM, the excess relative risk is 20 times. Even that is not very reassuring as TM and MS are not independent, unrelated diseases. The website of the US National Organisation for Rare Diseases says:[3]
“TM can be the presenting feature of MS. In individuals with acute partial TM and normal brain MRI, about 10-33 percent develop MS over a five to ten-year period. If the brain MRI shows lesions, the transition rate to clinically definite MS is known to be quite high, in the range of 80 to 90 percent within a few years. Those who are ultimately diagnosed with MS are more likely to have asymmetric clinical findings, predominant sensory symptoms with relative sparing of motor systems, MR lesions extending over fewer than 2 spinal segments, abnormal brain MRI, and oligoclonal bands in the CSF.
History of Vaccine induced TM
There are reasons for vaccination makers to be concerned about the two cases of TM among the vaccine trial participants in UK. The US National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD) gives a historial perspective of TM:
In England between 1922 and 1923 more than 200 post-vaccinal cases (of TM)were noted as complications of the smallpox and rabies vaccines.[4]
Review Article in Pubmed
S. Kivity, M. Szyper-Kravitz and colleagues conducted a systematic review of PubMed, EMBASE and DynaMed journals published between 1970 and 2009 and found 37 reported cases of transverse myelitis associated with different vaccines including those against hepatitis B virus, measles—mumps—rubella, diphtheria—tetanus—pertussis and others, given to infants, children and adults. In most of these reported cases the temporal association was between several days and 3 months, although a longer time frame of up to several years was also suggested. The authors conclude that “although vaccines harbor a major contribution to public health in the modern era, in rare cases they may be associated with autoimmune phenomena such as transverse myelitis”[5].
What is traverse myelitis (TM)?
Transverse myelitis is a serious condition involving inflammation of the spinal cord that can cause muscle weakness, paralysis, pain and bladder problems. In rare instances, vaccines have triggered cases of transverse myelitis; although it can also be caused by viral infections. The description of the diseases given by myelitis.org.uk , a patient support group is given below:[6]
The main symptoms of TM are muscle weakness in the legs (and, less commonly, in the arms), change in sensation (unusual feelings) in the lower half of the body, pain, and problems with the bowel and bladder. People might also experience fever, headache, tiredness, muscle spasms (spasticity), and a general feeling of being unwell. But symptoms vary depending on what section of the spinal cord is affected. 5. Recovery is difficult to predict. Around one third of people with TM will make a good or full recovery. Another third will experience some recovery and may have a moderate degree of disability. The remainder will make little or no recovery and have a permanent disability.
The Issues of transparency and Credibility
In a report dated 09 Sep 2020, the science journal Nature says that vaccine studies have protocols that specify what type of events trigger a pause, after which there is a process for investigating whether the event is related to the vaccine, AstraZeneca study protocols have not been made public. The reporters Phillip, Cryanosky and Mallapaty then quote Paul Komesaroff, a physician and bioethicist at Monash University in Melbo ourne, Australia:
“Details of the adverse event, including how serious it is and when it happened, have not been reported by Oxford or AstraZeneca. Given the stakes involved in the development of a safe, effective vaccine, all of the study’s details should be made public. The trials are all publicly supported, the disease is posing the greatest threat to humanity in a hundred years, the drug-development processes are highly politicized, and the outcome will only be a successful one if public trust can be secured and maintained.” [7]
Vaccine authorizations in Banana Republics?
In July 2020, the vaccine authorizers found a disease which has been associated with vaccines for nearly a century. Even without ascertaining the cause of that disease, the vaccine makers claimed that it is unrelated to the molecule they injected into the body of the volunteer. And the team was allowed to proceed with the Phase-3 trial. In the phase-3 trial, the same disease surfaces in another volunteer. One wonders why these tests? They could have done what Russia has done!
VT Padmanabhan is a researcher in health effects of radiation. He has led epidemiological investigations among people exposed to high radiation in Kerala. He has also studied the occupational radiation hazards among workers of Indian Rare Earths, genetic effects of children exposed to MIC gases in Bhopal, health hazards to workers in a viscose rayon unit in Madhyapradesh and reduction of birth weight of babies near a beverage bottling plant in Kerala. He has visited several contaminated sites in Belarus and Japan and had extensive interactions with the survivors.His papers have been published in International Journal of Health Services, Journal of American Medical Association, International Perspectives in Public Health, the Lancet and Economic and Political Weekly.
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[1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/09/astrazeneca-covid19-vaccine-trial-hold-patient-report/
[2] Participant Information Sheet dated 12th July 2020 given to the volunteers in UK (Page 10) COV002 Investigating a Vaccine Against COVID-19 “A phase 2/3 study to assess the efficacy and safety of a recombinant adenovirus-based vaccine against Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)” http://www.isrctn.com/editorial/retrieveFile/d5d41992-c90f-4c8b-97ec-cd85ddfe12fa/38245
[3] https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/transverse-myelitis/
[4] https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/transverse-myelitis/
[5] S. Kivity, M. Szyper-Kravitz, 2009, Transverse myelitis and vaccines: a multi-analysis October 30, 2009 https://doi.org/10.1177/0961203309345730
[6] https://www.myelitis.org.uk/uploads/1/5/8/2/15824690/10_facts_about_tm_-_tm_awareness_day_-_finalv2.pdf
[7] Scientists urge caution in global vaccine race as AstraZeneca reports ‘adverse event’ in a person who received the Oxford vaccine. Nicky Phillips, David Cyranoski & Smriti Mallapaty doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02594-w
I believe that for us Arabs to survive and progress we must have in common more than religion, language and rhetoric. We need unity, transparency and honesty.
We Palestinians are teetering on the edge of a precipice. Until very recently, every Arab leader, politician, cleric and pundit, given half a chance, would mount the platform and raise the Palestinian flag promising to do what is necessary to liberate the land and restore what is rightfully ours. Not any more.
The language has changed totally from support of the Palestinian cause to condemnation of us Palestinians, accusing us of being ungrateful architects of our own demise. The schism between some Arab regimes, especially in the Gulf and the Palestinians has been widening ever since the two Mohammads – Bin Zayid in the UAE and Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia took control. Both, may I add, are pretenders to their respective thrones yet they are taking vital, life changing decisions as if they were the actual rulers.
The dialogue and cooperation with Israel has been continuous, in all spheres of political, diplomatic, security and economic life. It culminated, in the full media glare of publicity, four weeks ago when Sheik Mohammad Bin Zayid of the UAE signed a peace agreement with Israel and then invited a delegation of Israeli officials to visit Abu Dhabi. Which they did, headed by none other than Mr. Jarad Kushner, Godfather to the destruction of Palestine, who boasted that the flight between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, which would, under normal circumstances, take seven hours took only three. Why? Because Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, allowed the Israeli carrier, El Al to use Saudi air space. And so the gap becomes wider and wider.
Meanwhile, more meaningless proclamations were thrown into the ring during the recent get-together between the various Palestinian factions in Beirut. Some came in person, notably Ismail Haniya, the Hamas political chief, while Mr Abbas, head of The Palestinian Authority and others took part through a virtual meeting from Ramallah. As usual, the same words of togetherness and unity were regurgitated and the same empty promises were made. They gave themselves five weeks to come up with answers that will combat and confront the sneaking annexation of Palestinian lands and the creeping normalisation between Israel and the Arab regimes, especially those in the Gulf. Judging by the record of these factions and the myriad of meetings in various capitals of the Arab world and the dismal results they achieved I, for one, am not holding my breath.
This schism became even more apparent during yet another meeting, this time in Cairo two days ago. The Foreign Ministers of the Arab League opposed a proposal put forward by the Palestinian side to condemn the UAE/Israel peace treaty. So, where is the unity? Where is the transparency? Where is the honesty.?
There is none.
You might think that this recent betrayal and open rejection should serve to bring the Palestinian leaders of all persuasions to a realisation that Palestine is not the core subject of most of the Arab regimes. Instead, the fate of the Palestinian people has been left for Israel, the international Zionist Movement and the United States of America to deal with as they see fit.
I don’t know what to say to those Arab leaders to convince them that any form of treaty with the Israelis is a folly. Israel is in it for whatever it can distort or squeeze from any Arab country for the betterment and expansion of Israel. If they need any evidence of this they should just look at what happened to Palestine at the hands of Israel, the United States of America and their acolytes after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993. Israeli illegal settlements mushroomed and the number of settlers on the West Bank quadrupled. Home demolitions increased dramatically, as did the incarceration of men, women and children without charge. The nightly raids on Palestinian families, the humiliation of fathers in front of their family and the dragging of their children into the unknown all continue without an end in sight. Gaza is besieged and suffocated within a breath of its miserable life. Israeli theft of Palestinian land has continued apace and now, since the advent of Mr Trump, a further 30% of the West Bank land is ear-marked for yet more major theft.
Do those Arab leaders think for one moment that when Israel establishes a firm foothold in their countries it will play fair?
If my words are not enough to convince those leaders to retract from this disastrous course that they are embarking upon, I entreat them to listen to what President Carter had to say.
“Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law. The United States is squandering international prestige and good-will and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”
Is there any sign of Israel complying with any law? Or UN resolutions? Or of the mighty United States of America complying with any agreements it might have mentioned with these Gulf states?
This is how President Trump, in a speech to his supporters two days ago, bluntly put it.
Trump: “We Don’t Have To Be In The Middle East, Other To Protect Israel”
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in London. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
As James Lewis QC for the prosecution, representing the US government, revealed, “I’m just saying about my charger. It’s in court and I’m going to run out of battery.” It was one of those moments that said much about the fourth day of proceedings at the Old Bailey regarding one Julian Assange, publisher, Australian national and wanted by the US Department of Justice for incongruous charges of espionage.
It all had the appropriate Orwellian shades and show trial trimmings. The US prosecution team had gone remote; Assange’s legal team was physically present and masked. Technology again did its bedevilling magic at the Central Criminal Court. At one point, Joel Smith for the prosecution was attempting to get the attention of Judge Vanessa Baraitser to inform her that nothing could be heard in the court room. The screen of chief prosecutor Lewis had also frozen.
Unlike the previous three days of these extradition proceedings, the central contentions were not Assange the public interest journalist, the discloser of informant names, or President Donald J. Trump’s war on the Fourth Estate. It was the revelation that COVID-19 had found its way into the Old Bailey. On Wednesday night, Judge Baraitser was told that a member of one of the legal teams may have been exposed to the coronavirus. As was announced on Court News, “Julian Assange’s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey today will not be going ahead because the husband of one of the US lawyers has come down with COVID-like symptoms. Once he gets the result of a test the judge will determine how best to proceed.”
Assange would have had reason to reflect upon this moment with bitter mockery. His conditions in Her Majesty’s Belmarsh Prison have been a picture of shoddy treatment, both physically and symbolically. Access to his legal team has been scandalously scant, exacerbated by pandemic lockdown conditions. The entire institutional treatment of the Australian has been considered nothing less than that of a tortured figure, “shocking and excessive”, to use the words of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. His supporters, fearful, see him at risk of contracting coronavirus and suffering, in his frail state, the gruelling effects of COVID-19.
His efforts to seek bail in order to escape the dangers of viral transmission have been foiled by the pitiless Baraitser. In March, Edward Fitzgerald QC attempted to convince the judge that medical “experts consider that [Assange] is particularly at risk of developing coronavirus and, if he does, that it develops into very severe complications for him.” Should he contract it, “it would be very doubtful that Belmarsh would be able to cope with his condition.”
Swatting such concerns away, Baraitser saw little reason for concern: there were no instances of COVID-19 at Belmarsh, a reckless conclusion to draw given the self-isolation measures imposed upon a hundred personnel at the time. The group Doctors for Assange were shaken by the ruling. In their March 27 statement, they vented. “Despite our prior unequivocal statement that Mr Assange is at increased risk of serious illness and death were he to contract coronavirus and the evidence of medical experts, Baraitser dismissed the risk, citing UK guidelines for prisons in responding to the global pandemic.” The editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson was furious. “To expose another human being to serious illness, and to the threat of losing their life, is grotesque and quite unnecessary.”
In June, Doctors for Assange reiterated the call that Assange be granted bail, having met “internationally recommended criteria for prisoner release during COVID-19.” Globally, prisons were being emptied of inmates to prevent the march of COVID-19. Assange remained the exception.
On September 10, 2020, history grimaced with irony. It was the prosecutors for the United States, Assange’s incessant harassers, who had been potentially infected. Notwithstanding this, Judge Baraitser was not averse to pushing onto a fifth day of proceedings, a point that agitated the legal teams and seemed to be as quixotic as it was indifferent.
Fitzgerald, representing Assange, urged the court to accept the logical assumption that “COVID will be in the courtroom.” The staff of the court would themselves be “at risk, and you yourself may well be at risk.” It was a good ploy on Fitzgerald’s part to mention the court as the primary consideration, reserving the concerns of his client for last. “Finally, our client Mr Assange, who is vulnerable you are aware, would be at risk in court.” His request for adjournment struck a common chord with Lewis. Proceedings will be postponed until September 14, awaiting the test results. In the meantime, the defence and prosecution will make interest of justice submissions on how they wish to proceed in the event the test is positive for coronavirus.
In the meantime, the rest of the Old Bailey will continue to grind. A spokesperson for the City of London Corporation was businesslike in moving forward. “The Central Criminal Court is deep cleaned every day in accordance with government guidelines and will remain open.”
It was left to Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof to sum up the day’s sentiment in wry fashion: “Looking forward to the courtroom sketch of Assange in a glass box with only the judge in the room as we proceed virtually. That’ll be [sic] quite appropriate image for this case.” Lewis, in the meantime, might be able to obtain his charger.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Human calamities abound. The unrelenting coronavirus pandemic has already claimed more than 900,000 lives worldwide. The images of exploding wildfires from the American Southwest—California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington—look apocalyptic. Racial injustice and inequity in the United States marches on. And, the economic suffering?—painful.
In this moment of so much death and suffering—do we even have the capacity to extend our care, our love for nonhuman kin—bears, bees, bugs, butterflies, and all the other nonhuman animals and plants with whom we share this Earth? Perhaps, for most, not, or not that much. And yet, there are committed people all over the world who have long fought for, and will continue to fight for, the natural world, which is really a fight for our survival too.
But let us peek into the nonhuman world for a moment, which is also our world.
The Living Planet Report 2020 is out now. Two years ago, in an article, “Biological Annihilation: A Planet in Loss Mode,” I had summarized the findings in the Living Planet Report 2018 with the following words:
As a comprehensive survey of the health of our planet and the impact of human activity on other species, its key message was grim indeed: between 1970 and 2014, it found, monitored populations of vertebrates had declined in abundance by an average of 60% globally, with particularly pronounced losses in the tropics and in freshwater systems. South and Central America suffered a dramatic loss of 89% of such vertebrates, while freshwater populations of vertebrates declined by a lesser but still staggering 83% worldwide.
The Living Planet Report 2020 updates those numbers with two additional years of data. Between 1970 and 2016, monitored populations of vertebrates—or amphibians, birds, fishes, mammals, and reptiles—have declined in abundance by an average of 68% globally, up from 60%; in South and Central America, the loss is still most pronounced: at 94%, up from 89%; and for freshwater species globally: 84% decline, up from 83%.
In other words, our nonhuman relatives are vanishing at an extraordinary scale and pace. But that tragedy is not yet registering in our collective imagination.
Have you witnessed, or organized a collective mourning to honor our dead nonhuman relatives? Have you seen any flowers, real or plastic, placed by the roadside, or at a city square to honor the dead bears, bugs and bees?
While the Living Planet Report serves up, every two years, a health assessment of our living Earth—the present compared to the recent past—another report, the landmark May 2019 UN biodiversity assessment offered a glimpse of where we are headed: one million animal and plant species face extinction, many within decades, due to human activity.
Are we even awake to the fact that we are doing our damnedest to ensure that our nonhuman relatives don’t have a snowball chance in hell to survive on this planet?
That is only half of the story, however.
Many committed people around the world—Indigenous land, water and species protectors; biologists and ecologists; the species conservationists; policy makers; artists; writers; educators; and community organizers—are all working hard to chart more-just and livable multispecies futures.
The crisis of biological annihilation, which includes human-caused species extinctions, mass die-offs and massacres, is as much a scientific issue as it is cultural and political.
War on Biological Nurseries and Conservation Laws
How has the United States’ White House responded to the intensifying biodiversity crisis since President Trump took office in January 2017?
The answer: By waging an all-out war on nonhuman lives.
Shortly after assuming office, President Trump announced his intention to make America “energy dominant” and, then Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke suggested that that dominance would come from drilling for oil and gas in Alaska, including in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge is a biological nursery of global significance, and a place the Indigenous Gwich’in people call Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit (“the sacred place where life begins”). The Trump administration also proceeded to expand oil and gas development around Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, a place considered sacred by the Indigenous peoples of the Southwest. In response, I convened a national conference, the last oil: a multispecies justice symposium in February 2018.
Things are heating up on the Arctic Refuge issue. Last month, the Trump administration “finalized its plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development, a move that overturns six decades of protections for the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States,” the New York Times reported on August 17. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is hopeful that “there could be a lease sale by the end of the year.”
But licking your chops doesn’t always lead to eating.
On Wednesday, September 9, Gwich’in Tribal governments continued their decades-long fight to protect the Coastal Plain from fossil fuel development by filing suit against the Interior Department.
Additionally, fifteen state governments, led by the State of Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson, stood alongside the Tribes and filed a separate lawsuit in the federal district court in Alaska.
Two years ago, when I was in Washington, DC, for a two-day Arctic Refuge campaign strategy workshop—the morning started with New Mexico’s Senator Tom Udall addressing us. Sen. Udall has long been our champion in Congress to protect the Arctic Refuge, and a true friend to the Gwich’in Nation. After all, it was his uncle, Arizona Congressman Morris “Mo” Udall who was one of the principal architects of the most expansive environmental protection laws in U.S. history—the 1980 Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (ANILCA), which doubled the size of the original Arctic National Wildlife Range, renamed it a Refuge, and granted subsistence rights to the Indigenous peoples, including inside designated wilderness.
Back to Trump’s war on conservation.
On July 15, 2020, President Trump “unilaterally weakened one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public review of federal infrastructure projects to speed up the permitting of freeways, power plants and pipelines,“ the New York Times reported.
Earlier this year, when the Trump administration was moving to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, Sen. Udall called “move to gut NEPA is one of the worst decisions made by the worst environmental administration in history. … At a time when we are staring down the serious threat of climate change to our way of life—especially in states like New Mexico—and are in peril of another mass species extinction, NEPA is one of the few tools we have to limit further damage to our environment.”
After all, NEPA was established during the tenure of the Senator’s father, Stewart Udall, a passionate conservationist who served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior during the 1960s.
And, how did the Trump administration respond last year to the landmark May 2019 UN biodiversity assessment which warned that one million animals and plant species face extinction due to human activity?
Three months later, on August 12, 2019, the Trump administration announced its intention to gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the hallowed legal framework to protect imperiled species.
The community members in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands had offered a different kind of response last Fall to the UN biodiversity assessment. Artists and academics across the Rio Grande watershed, from southern Colorado to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, responded creatively by organizing more than a dozen exhibitions and programs that expressed both sorrow and hope, our connection to the living earth and need for action.
“This may be the first time that communities across a large region spanning two nations have engaged the biological crisis in such an expansive and distributed manner with a shared concern and generosity,” I wrote in the exhibition catalog essay.
During the same time, responding to a call from scientists, in October 2019, Sen. Udall co-sponsored the Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature, which calls on the federal government to establish a national goal of conserving at least 30 percent of the land and the oceans within the territory of the United States by 2030. The following month, in November, Sen. Udall sponsored the Tribal Wildlife Corridors Act which would support wildlife management efforts by tribal governments.
And, on February 7, 2020, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland with support from her colleagues, introduced a companion Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature in the House.
Building on the foundations of these community-engaged and culturally inclusive creative and federal policy initiatives, Sen. Udall and I will be co-hosting UNM Biodiversity Webinar Series—Fall 2020, which will launch on Monday, September 14, and will conclude on Thursday, December 3. The webinar series will foster conversations on the escalating biodiversity crisis and inspire public participation to mitigate the tragedy. This online symposium is FREE and open to the public, but registration is required. I hope to see you at the inaugural webinar on Monday.
These times can seem bleak, but we take inspiration in the endurance of people like the Gwich’in and members of the Udall family, who resolutely maintain the struggle to better protect the natural world. Our nonhuman relatives need us and, we need them.
Subhankar Banerjee works closely with Indigenous Gwich’in and IÃąupiat community members and environmental organizations to protect significant biological nurseries in Arctic Alaska. Author of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land (Mountaineers Books, 2003), and editor of Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point (Seven Stories Press, 2013), Subhankar is currently completing two books: coeditor (with T.J. Demos and Emily Eliza Scott) of Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture and Climate Change (Routledge, Spring 2021), and coauthor (with Ananda Banerjee) of Biological Annihilation (Seven Stories Press, Spring 2022). Subhankar serves as the founding Director of the Species in Peril project at UNM.
“The party is always right, even when it’s wrong”
– Democratic Workers Party slogan
ORIENTATION
Everybody knows what cults are
People who join cults are mentally unstable before they join and less educated than the general population. True or false? Cult members also define themselves as lonely. True or false? Most people who join cults are from the poor and working class. True or false? People are physically intimidated into joining a cult against their will. True or false? No matter how much your vocabulary changes once inside a cult, you can still control what and how you think. True or false? Cults draw certain kinds of criminal elements, who in a sense get what they deserve. Good people would not be drawn into such extreme circumstances. True or false? This last statement is a version of the “just world hypothesis”. The implication being that you, a good person, could never fall into a cult.
If you answered “true” to any of these questions, you might have fallen for the social media propaganda against cults. In fact, the overwhelming number of members of cults come from middle and upper middle-class backgrounds, are well-educated and have no serious psychological problems previous to joining the cult. Furthermore, people join cults voluntarily and they are lured into them by various social and psychological techniques which offer immediate gratification. In her book Cults in Our Midst, Margaret Singer says people have an initial resistance to thinking they could be “taken in,” without force.
Lastly, many people mistakenly think that thoughts and language can be neatly separated. This is mistaken. No one can think independently of language. If you force people to not use certain words, and insist on people substituting new words, you can control their thinking process. As Orwell pointed out, when the state controls the vocabulary and strikes words from its dictionary, it narrows the thinking range that is possible. If you use the word “freedom” to express autonomous thinking, but the word “freedom” has now been labelled by a leftist political movement as “bourgeois individualism” you have a problem in using it. You cannot coin new words by yourself. There has to be a movement of people who agree to create a new word and circulate it among themselves. Cult members are slowly socialized by their leaders and lieutenants to change their vocabulary as they coin and circulate new words through forums, meetings and media events. Slowly the members find their own vocabulary changes accordingly.
How many kinds of cult are there?
There are at least three kinds of cults: spiritual, psychological and political.
All three have left-wing and right-wing variants. Jim Jones’ People’s Temple; Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate; Rajneesh’s Tantric yoga, as well Charles Manson’s “the Family” are all examples of left-wing spiritual cults. Right-wing cults are Reverend Moon’s Unification Church, Kurt Saxon’s Christian Identity, James Wickstrom’s Posse Comitatus and James Butler’s Aryan Nation.
Examples of left-wing psychological cults Harvey Jackins’ Re-Evaluation Counseling along with Saul B. Newton’s Sullivan Institute. Right-wing psychology cults include L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology and Charles Dederich’s Synanon. Political cults on the left include Gerry Healy in Britain and the Democratic Workers Party in San Francisco. A great example of a right-wing political cult was Lyndon LaRouche’s National Caucus of Labor Committees.
For most of this article I will be speaking of cults in general. But when I get more specific about mechanisms of control, I will sometimes refer to the left-wing Democratic Workers Party. I refer to them not only because they are especially monstrous compared to other cults. I do so more because my readers are most likely to be interested in political cults rather than spiritual or psychological cults. Secondly, my readers are more likely to identify as left-wing rather than right-wing political people. I think this article will “hit home”, especially among Leninists. I am not suggesting or implying that all Leninist parties are cults.
What is a totalistic institution?
Defining a cult has more to do with how the organization is run, not the political, psychological or spiritual beliefs of the organization. Cults can be characterized as a type of “total institution” (Goffman). Others include mental hospitals, jails, army barracks, orphanages and religious institutions such as monasteries, convents or abbeys. In modern capitalist societies, people enter and leave many social institutions during the course of a day. Examples include a son or daughter of a family at home, a student at school, an employee at work, a member of the choir at church, a fan for a sports team and a member of the national guard on the weekends. While all these groups have a broad similarity in economic ideology (being pro-capitalism), within each group the power dynamics between the authority and the members differ. Different institutions are organized tightly or loosely with high, medium or low expectations. Most importantly the individual in a pluralistic society, with membership in all these groups can compare and contrast social expectations of each group, develop their own ideas and synthesize the results using critical thinking.
In totalistic institutions, sleeping, eating, working and playing all happen within a single organization, enacted within the same place, at the same time in the same way. In pluralistic societies members enter into and leave a group of their own volition. In totalistic institutions members do not come and go as they please. Boundaries are strictly controlled. Unlike in pluralistic societies, in totalistic institutions the authorities are a single centralized body, with very little feedback coming from the periphery to the core. In pluralistic societies, surveillance may be in place in certain settings, like in the military or in church, but there is no central setting from which family life, school life or work life is all watched from afar at the same time. In total institutions, besides centralized surveillance systems, there is a network of spying that goes on between members, breeding insecurity and paranoia. In totalistic institutions, everyone is treated bureaucratically in the same way, where sensitivity to the uniqueness of a person and situation is lost.
What is a cult?
Cults usually grow in a climate of political, economic or ecological instabilities in which the existing social order has been compromised. A cult is a spiritual, psychological or political institution which is hyper-critical of the existing spiritual, psychological and political institutions and wishes to overthrow them while often aspiring to create “heaven on earth”. Because cults are usually new and have not had years to socialize people the way organized religions have, they have to work quickly and use extreme measures to draw and hold people. Because a religious leader of a particular denomination is part of a large bureaucracy, that leader can be relatively dull while maintaining the following of his parishioners. But a cult cannot afford that.
Cults usually have at their head a charismatic leader with a grand philosophy who gives dramatic right and wrong answers to complex but deteriorating social situations. The leaders usually have lieutenants, ideologically committed members who have very good social psychological skills to keep the membership in line. Cults lack a democratic structure and the membership is kept passive and happy during the initial stages while being slowly terrified as membership continues into the later stages of the cult.
Characteristics of cults include:
- Emerging out of a political, economic or ecological crisis;
- Recruitment of young adults between 17 and 24 of middle-class and upper middle-class origins who are likely to be undergoing some developmental crisis in their personal lives;
- An authoritarian, charismatic leader;
- A revolutionary, dualistic ideology;
- Possessing a social-psychological array of tools for luring in new members and sustaining their commitment;
- A lack of mechanisms for critical feedback from the membership;
- A small group of lieutenants to isolate and keep atomized the membership through spying so that no coherent opposition can form;
- The development of rituals, myths and celebrations that allow the group to mark time;
- Demonization of outside groups that are competition with the cult;
- Rigid, terrorized boundaries that make it extremely difficult to leave.
STAGES OF CULTS
In their book, The Guru Papers, Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad identify two stages of cults: the proselytizing stage and the apocalyptic paranoia stage.
In the proselytizing ascendant stage, the guru sees the possibility of realizing his ambitions. The group is touted as being at the cutting edge of new knowledge. Outsiders are welcomed although they are treated with a kind of benign superiority. In the ascendant phase, the guru rewards the enthusiasm of his followers and grants them positions which have opened up within the hierarchy. The tone of the community is celebratory. The guru is accessible to the public and is charming and playful. In terms of the recruitment this is the “honeymoon phase”. The focus is to expand the organization and the emphasis is on the present.
The apocalyptic, paranoiac, decadent phase is when the numbers of recruits have leveled off and explanations need to be found. The public is now seen as too stupid and blind to acknowledge the merits of the cult. In the declining stage the message becomes pessimistic, with a doomsday “I told you so” tone. Outsiders cease to be welcomed in a spirit of satisfying curiosity. Rather they are seen as enemies out to destroy the organization. Part of the descendent phase also involves the guru making more grandiose claims while promising to invoke occult power. The membership begins to have doubts.
Some find the courage to leave despite threats of violence, law suits, character destruction and loss of employment. Others hang on for fear of the costs of leaving. In the descendent phase recruits are expected to give far more than they receive in the way of time, energy and money. They are expected to work long hours recruiting, selling products and fundraising. Because the organization is not growing, like most organizations this leads to squabbling for a diminishing set of resources. All too often the cult ends in scandal or tragedy.
PRE-CULT SOCIALIZATION
As we all know, when individuals are socialized within the first seventeen years of life, they are socialized by their families, their schools (including teachers and students), the various forms of media (tv, internet media), their religion, the state (propaganda to join the military) and their friends as well as by sports and music celebrities. All these forces are unified in presenting capitalism in a favorable light, but in other ways these socializing forces don’t agree. Broadly speaking, families, religion and the state appeal to the conservative forces of order and patriotism. Schools, mass media and entertainment celebrities are more liberal. As I said earlier, the diversity between these socializing influences allows the individual to develop thinking skills of comparing and contrasting which develops critical thinking.
But beginning in the teenage years, (and maybe even sooner) the individual begins to question these sources of influence. As early as ten or eleven, children are very aware that their parents are full of contradictions and are hardly infallible. By high school, some have developed Piaget’s formal operational thinking which helps them to critically evaluate religious claims about God and the afterlife. While in high school they may resent military recruiters in their schools. The problem with sports and music celebrities is that while they while they are held up as models, there is no feedback or dialogue which allows the individual to grow. By high school, one’s face-to-face friends may more likely to be the most solid socializing influence they have.
By the time the adolescent reaches seventeen, they have arrived at a developmental crisis. Do they continue on to college? Do they try to find full-time work? Do they join the military? Do they get married? It is here that cults might make their first appeal. Why now? Because developmentally, teenagers and young adults are in a fork in the roads of their lives. Additionally, the old forms of socialization have lost their stability and the teenager may be ripe for a new socialization process or a new group membership. If the individual decides to go to college, throughout the college years including graduation, they are suspectable to cult propaganda.
SOCIALIZATION INTO CULTS
The UC campus in Berkeley California stretches from south to north going from Bancroft Way at the south side to Hearst Ave. on the north side. There is a major walkway that begins at College and Bancroft and goes all the way to Hearst, cutting through the center of the campus. On both sides of the walkway there are tables with people stationed at them, inviting students to join clubs. Some of those clubs are front groups for cults. In addition, there are public bulletin boards advertising everything from movies, to offers for housing roommates, to free meditation classes.
The members of cults that are stationed at these tables are attractive, neatly dressed and extroverted. They are good social psychologists who can pick out a student that might be mildly depressed, lost or disorganized. These “hawkers” will call out to them, ask how they are doing and ask them if they’d like to hear a free talk and eat pizza afterwards. Once the person has come to the table, the hawkers will seize on anything the person says and respond in a very sympathetic way. They listen very carefully and keep the focus on the recruit. They are so engaging that they make an impression. Before the person leaves the table, they will be handed a flyer which appeals to nebulous conflicts like these:
- Is it hard to make friends here at school?
- Is college life harder than you thought it would be?
- Is your romantic relationship lacking the things that you want?
- If you have a job does it lack meaning?
- Are you troubled about the state of the world, but feel powerless to do anything about it?
Then comes the pitch. “Come hear a talk by a celebrated expert in the field of psychology, religion or sociology on how to deal with all these problems in a meaningful way. Small group discussion afterward and free pizza. All are welcome.”
If the person attends the talk, there might be 50 people in the room, all of whom the recruit doesn’t know. What the recruit also doesn’t know is that 40 of those people are already in the cult. When any new people come into the room, the recruiters make sure they surround each new recruit and sit on either side of them and in back of them if possible. They engage the newbie, ask them questions about themselves before the talk even starts, and they make sure they compliment the newbie on their intelligence and insight. The leader giving the speech is usually an attractive, articulate, charming man with a sense of humor and a flair for the dramatic.
Once the leader makes their speech, the recruiters turn, and ask the newbie what they thought of the speech. They guide the newbie over to the table where there is pizza. The recruiters may hand them over to a new batch of recruiters who continue the discussion over pizza. Before the evening ends the recruits are told the time and place of the next meeting. Very causally they are asked for their email address “so we can keep you posted on up-and-coming events”.
At this point the recruit might feel like they just had an extraordinary date. They feel charged up and eroticized by some of the recruiters and might feel that they want to return to see one or more of the recruiters again. By comparison, these evenings are much more powerful than the times spent with family, friends and certainly religious services. After a couple of weeks the newbie returns again and the same thing happens. Now, the newbie is going to these talks three out of every four Sunday evenings. Their roommates, family and friends might inquire about where they have been. The newbie is not sure how to describe it. They might say this a “psychology group”. Both friends and family are not impressed and ask more probing questions. The newbie starts to feel defensive and stops talking about it, but continues to attend. This experience dovetails with a talk the leader gives the following Sunday on the nature of crisis.
The leader discusses how crisis involves the prospect of transformation and in that transformation, you meet new people while you have to let go of people that might be holding you back. This gently suggests that the newbie’s friends and family might not understand the nature of social change that the cult is part of and they are not among the enlightened ones (unlike the people in the cult). They also make a prediction that in the future they can expect their friends, families, church or state might not appreciate this cult and that is the price to pay for group enlightenment. But in the long-run, they may come to understand.
MECHANISMS OF CONTROL
Ascendant phase
The first, ascendant proselytizing phase of the cult is characterized by the following rewards. First – in terms of beliefs, a promise of the transformation of the world along with simplistic answers to complex questions. The cult then gives a sense of mission and purpose along with a sense of superiority over the ignorant and unenlightened masses. In terms of behavior, there is massive positive reinforcement which includes “love-bombing”: a great deal of attention to the recruit and their problems, along with an immediate, intense connection with many people. There is a promise (and deliverance in some cases) of erotic adventures. A regular dose of altered states of consciousness is achieved through chanting, hypnotic techniques of dissociation, group dancing, vertigo and hyperventilation. Along with this, a new identity is given which is often accomplished through changes in clothing or hair. At the climax in her recruitment just before she joined the DWP, author and sociologist Janja Lalich says: “Eleanor, leaned over, her face almost touching mine, she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for?’ That’s all it took. I asked for the application”.
Descendent phase
Geographical isolation and physical deterioration
For the most part cults begin in cities, but in some cases, for various reasons (cheap land, control of members) they move to more rural areas as in the case of Jim Jones and Rajneesh. Especially if they are isolated in a rural area, they may be cut off from alternative forms of media. At this point with or without the move, in the descendent phase, the honeymoon is over for cult members. They are expected to work long hours in various phases of organization and as a result, become sleep deprived. In the DWP militants signed into a log book for keeping track of time, as if they were punching in their time cards in a factory. The organization does not provide for medical or dental insurance and their body begins to feel the wear-and-tear. Cult members who are older and have established incomes are pressured to contribute financially on a regular basis.
Atomizing the individual
Within the organization, the lieutenants work especially hard to keep people atomized so members cannot compare notes or consider their problems in any kind of collective way. In fact, the Democratic Workers party had a rule called “no gossiping”. But what they really meant was no comparing notes between members. Notice how comparing notes, a natural thing that is done in groups, was demonized by associating it with something bad.
Controlling vocabulary
The cult member’s vocabulary is controlled by the leadership and any kind of criticism is pathologized with certain labels. For example, in the DWP, “bourgeois individualism,” “careerism”, “grandstanding”, “factionalism” and “liberal” were used as “curse words” to shut down articulation of problems. In spiritual circles “unenlightened” or “materialism” might serve similar purposes.
Attacking the self:
True confessions
There are a number of ways one’s identity can be broken down. One of the ways the DWP used that was a requirement to write one’s personal history from a class point of view. Then they would write all the privileges they gained as a result of their class location. Finally the recruit would have to present this in front of the whole group, exposing weaknesses to all.
Criticism and self-criticism
Once the true confessions are in place the cult member is treated to endless rounds of criticism and self-criticism. Once individual vocabulary is controlled and they have confessed their past privileges it is relatively easy for members to monitor each other by pointing out how current mistakes might be connected to their “middle-class” past.
Internalization of the party voice
When neither the leader or their fellow members were available the individual was controlled by their internalized “party voice”. When by themselves and in need of making a decision, they were to ask themselves “what would your older member say?”
At this point, they are in so deeply that they have burned their bridges with their families, friends, workers and no longer have a perspective of what’s happening to them. At the same time, it begins to dawn on them that maybe they should consider getting out.
WHY DO PEOPLE STAY AND REMAIN COMPLICIT IN THEIR OWN OPPRESSION?
At this point, the reader might say what is wrong with these cult members? These were once hypercritical people who questioned everything? Where is that spirit now? Why don’t they just run away? There are at least nine very good reasons why people stay.
Attachment to the new belief
Cult members have worked very hard to desocialize themselves from previous beliefs. They have worked hard to acquire and internalize new beliefs and the prospect of having to give them up with no belief system to call their own is extremely painful.
Cognitive dissonance
Research has shown that once people commit to something publicly, through actions, speaking or writing about it, they are much more likely to stay with their commitment. Without understanding this, to an outsider, cult members’ behavior seems crazy. What cult members are doing is unconsciously changing their beliefs to justify the increasingly irrational behavior of the leader during the cult’s descendent phase. They don’t see their beliefs as having changed because there is no one in the community to point that out, including many people who don’t want to see it because they are in the same boat.
Entrapment
Just as in personal romances, once you put time, effort and resources into a relationship, you acquire a stake in it and are reluctant to give it up. Buying furniture together, a house, pooling finances, having children all become obstacles to throwing in the towel even if you are unhappy. So too in cults, the members have put in long hours of work, they have seen some success, they probably contributed financially, and they just don’t want to come up empty-handed. In addition, cult members then face the start-up costs of investing in a whole other institution and life. The thinking goes – “maybe it is better to wait it out. After all, things may change for the better.”
Peer pressure
Contrary to what most people think, peer pressure is far more powerful than even the commands of authority figures. Soldiers have reported having endured horrible times, not because they were obedient to the authorities, but out of loyalty to their comrades. Members of cults have gone through ordeals that might not be as intense as the ordeals soldiers go through in eight weeks of boot-camp, but the ordeal lasts much longer. In both cases feelings of extreme loyalty are produced in soldiers and cult members. They don’t want to let their comrades down.
In addition, because cults count doctors, lawyers, social workers with advanced degrees among their numbers their presence makes it more difficult to leave for the less professional cult member to leave. In order to do that those on the lower rungs of the hierarchy would have to consider that these highly trained professionals have been duped themselves. How could they all be wrong?
Exhaustion from overwork allows little time for self-reflection or objectivity
In the descendent phase of cults, rank-and-file members are working fourteen-hour days, sometimes more. After several weeks and months of sleep deprivation, medical and dental negligence, internal group meetings and public displays of solidarity for public consumption, cult members are exhausted. There no vacations, no hobbies, no musical concerts nor ball games. Who has the time to reflect on where you have been and where you are going?
Burned bridges separate the members from their past
When you join the military, you come back to a civilian life that is intact when your four years are up. If you join a convent and then realize after a few years later it is not for you, your family and friends are still there. Because cults are extremist groups, it became necessary to cut off family, friends, workmates and church in order to become a member. For a departing cult member, there is anger, confusion, hurt, revenge and shunning waiting for them on the outside. The prospect of making amends is daunting. In addition, you cannot so easily recover who you once were. You may always be a stranger to your former groups. Even so basic a thing as changing your name back or growing your hair out takes a great deal of courage. The prospect of having no friends on the outside is enough to keep you in.
Being ridiculed and called names by cult members is very painful
If you consider wanting to leave and state your reasons to others, you may receive a vicious reaction because you might be bringing up the self-doubts of other members they would rather not face. You can expect to be called a spy, traitor, materialist, bourgeois or less evolved. These are the very words used to denounce those outside the cult. Now you are one of the enemies, an infiltrator. You’ve watched this happen to others who tried to leave and now it is happening to you.
Fear for your life
The wealthier cults such as scientology or the Moonies play hardball. They will threaten you with lawsuits, loss of employment, character assassination and death. Members of the DWP “goon squads” would break into the homes of former members, beat them up put them on a plane with a one-way ticket and no money. Margaret Sanger, in her book Cults in Our Midst depicts some of the things done to her. They stuffed her mailbox with a dead rat every week while she was testifying in court against a cult. Rats were put in the ducts of her house, so she was treated to a house full of screaming rats upon returning home. She needed an armed guard to be taken to and from the courthouse. She was kept on the witness stand for 12 ½ days by cult lawyers cross-examining her. Her office was broken into and files stolen. Her school lectures were disrupted regularly.
Guilt and embarrassment over having participated in the group to begin with
A cult member begins to have inklings that some of the things their cult did were pretty horrible and that they were complicit in it. it takes time to understand and be compassionate with yourself as to how you could be so naÃŊve as to have joined and why you stayed. If you stay in the cult your complicity in what was enacted can be put off or rationalized.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL LEADERS
There is a reason why I have held off describing to you the pathological characteristics of the leaders of cults. The reason is because of what I alluded to in my article Revolutionary Group Dynamics. In evaluating negative experiences in groups, people have a tendency to a) blame the leaders, or b) pathologize the intelligence or mental health of the followers. What I wanted to do here is draw attention to why the majority of cult members put up with the abuse, stayed in the cult and were complicit in what the cults did without thinking their intelligence or sanity has been insulted. My point is that these members would have been complicit regardless of the psychological health of the leaders. Now that we have gone through the reason why most members were complicit, we can turn to the leaders.
In their book Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias claim that most cult leaders can be diagnosed as sociopaths, narcissists or borderline personalities. Here are fifteen of their characteristics:
Glibness and superficial charm
Cult leaders are captivating storytellers and exude self-confidence.
Conning and maneuvering
Cult leaders are good at psychological maneuvering and do this almost as second nature, and maybe even unconsciously. The leader divides the world into suckers, sinners and himself. He is very perceptive and good at sizing people up. Cult leaders have an innate ability to attract followers who have the skills and contacts that the leaders lack.
Grandiose sense of self
He enjoys tremendous feelings of entitlement. He must always be the center of attention and cannot tolerate yielding the spotlight.
Pathological lying
Sociopaths lie coolly and easily. It is almost impossible for them to be consistently truthful. Leaders tend to create a complex belief system often about their own powers and abilities which they themselves get caught up in believing. They are rarely original thinkers and are more likely to be plagiarists and seldom credit the true originators of their ideas. They are talented at passing lie detector tests.
Lack of remorse, shame or guilt
They do not have friends. They have accomplices and victims and accomplices frequently end up as victims. For sociopaths, the ends always justify the means. In fact, they might not even separate ends and means in their own minds.
Shallow emotions
While sociopaths may display outbursts of emotions, these are more often than not responses calculated to obtain a certain advantage. They rarely reveal a range of emotions or a depth of emotions over time. The cult leader can witness or order acts of utter brutality without experiencing a shred of emotion. They are callous and lack empathy.
Incapacity for love
Love requires revealing strengths and weaknesses and it means trusting another person over time. The sociopath does not have the attention span, the depth or the capacity to self-reflect on any of this.
Sensation seeking
Temperamentally, the sociopath is drawn to dangerous, thrill seeking behavior. He takes foolish risks and expects others to do the same. Robberies and shoot-outs with the authorities are par for the course (Jim Jones, David Koresh).
Impulsivity and lack of behavioral control
The cult leader has temper tantrums and fits of rage which the lieutenants are in charge of stage-managing. This behavior is a well-kept secret. If leaked, the behavior of the leader is collectively rationalized away by the followers as the work of his enemies.
Early behavior problems with juvenile delinquency
As teenagers, sociopaths frequently have a history of behavioral problems and run-ins with juvenile authorities. They often get by academically, taking advantage of other students or even teachers. They often have a history or theft, arson, and cruelty to others.
Scapegoating
They rarely accept blame for their failures or mistakes. Scapegoating is common. The blaming may follow a ritualized procedure such as a trial, gestalt “hot seat denunciations”, or in the case of leftist cults, criticism and self-criticism.
Promiscuous sexual behavior and infidelity
Multiple relationships and marriages, rape and sexual acting out are common. At the same time, they are stringent about the sexual behavior of followers, insisting on celibacy.
Erratic work history of fits and starts
The sociopathic cult leader tends to move around a lot, making countless efforts at starting over as they seek out fertile new ground to exploit. One day they may be a rock musician, the next a messiah; one day a door-to-door salesman the next the founder of a self-rejuvenation program.
A materialistic lifestyle
The leaders of cults often present their movement as opposed to the decadence, shallowness and preoccupation with commodities of the dominant order. But in practice, these leaders often justify having these same luxuries for themselves. The leaders of cults often have many cars, houses, boats, planes, properties while they thunder against their followers who have the least in the way of material comforts.
Criminal or entrepreneurial versatility
Cult leaders change their image and that of the group as needed to avoid prosecution and litigation. They resurface later with a new name and a new front group, as Werner Erhard has done.
AFTERMATH FOR CULT MEMBERS
People who manage to make their way out of cults are a mess and are badly in need of social support. Deprograming, exit counseling and strategic interaction approach are three ways to help ex-cult members get on their feet. According to Lalich and Tobias, there are five areas that are badly in need of attention.
- Practical, everyday living
- Emotional volatility
- Cognitive inefficiencies
- Lack of social networks and being socio-culturally out of touch
- Theoretical instability
Practical, everyday living
Shell-shocked ex-cult members have lost their sense of how to manage everyday life. For example, people have to find work, while having to explain large gaps in their employment history which could span five to ten years or more. The work they did under the banner of the cult cannot be used as a reference. This would involve making up fake organizations to cover up their involvement, while claiming the skills they learned in the cult. Emotionally, the last thing ex-cult members need is more deception. If they are lucky enough to find a job, they have to learn to manage their money and set up a budget. If the ex-cult member is older this may mean relearning old skills. In the case of a young cult member this may involve learning new skills from scratch.
Something as simple as finding an apartment to live in can be overwhelming for someone who hasn’t done this in years. The rise in the cost of monthly rents over the last 15-20 years will come as a great shock. As mentioned earlier, cults typically do not provide medical and dental care. Since cult leaders rarely pay attention to such mundane things, the ex-cult member may badly need a physical check-up, blood tests and dental work at the same time they are trying to investigate a medical and dental plan while probably knowing nothing about how to proceed. While cults often fetishize eating particular kinds of food (being vegetarian), the diet of cult members is often not well-balanced, especially during the later stages of cult work when the cult member is asked to work long hours. In addition, the times members eat is likely to be erratic because of the flurry of activity that is always going on. Lastly, matters of daily routines may be hard to set up as cults have their members constantly on the run and doing new things. DWP members were often asked to stop a project on a dime, and then throw themselves into a new one. Having a regular time and place to take walks, visit friends, and listen to music after dinner have to be established.
Emotional volatility
Ex-cult members may suffer from PTSD, insomnia, and frequent bouts of dissociation, including an inability to concentrate because of triggers or flashbacks. They are likely to feel depressed after a loss of group support and may feel a loss of self-confidence because their support systems are suddenly gone. There is real fear of cult retribution whether they have reason to be concerned or not. They also may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of taking legal action over child custody or conservatorship. It is no accident that members of cults lose their sense of humor. Humor tends to reveal the relativity of situations. It adds a comparative perspective that is dangerous in cults that want everyone to think in an absolute rather than a relative manor. Cults tend to be dead serious, and humor relieves that and gives members a break which is not to be encouraged.
Cognitive inefficiencies
While a great deal of critical thinking in relation to society is common among cult members when they first join, critical thinking is not rewarded or is tightly structured once inside the cult. Weighing the pros and cons of occupations, schools, choice of partner is not something that is practiced in cults. This results in ex-cult members being either indecisive when they get out or making rash decisions. Because they may have difficulty concentrating, they may not be able to think analytically about the causes or consequences of things. They may suffer from memory loss or they may have to overcome false memories they may have been propagandized to believe when inside the cult.
Often times, cults disrupt education and cult members are not likely to continue their education once inside the cult. Spiritual cults may tell the member they have a “natural way of knowing” which will not do much for them in searching for work or in being an active political person. A major challenge they must undertake is detoxifying their vocabulary from cult either-or thinking. As Orwell pointed out, if you control a person’s vocabulary you control their thinking. So, the ex-cult member needs to expand their vocabulary to re-introduce neutral language, use ambiguous terminology and to use metaphors. One of the major problems in cult thinking is taking everything literally.
Lack of social networks and being socio-culturally out of touch
One of the best things exit counseling or the strategic interaction approach can do is give ex-cult members an immediate support system, no questions asked. It is rare that an ex-cult member who has burned bridges with their families is going to have the welcome mat rolled out when they come knocking. It takes time to process hurt feelings, anger and confusion. These connections could take months to restore or even years, depending how long they have been away. The ex-cult member’s friends may have moved away, gotten married become sick and may be in no position to resume a relationship even if they wanted to.
Making new friends is extremely difficult. How do you account for being in a cult for eight years? Why would someone want to be friends with someone with such an intense background? Are ex-cult members dangerous people? In addition, ex-cult members have a mistrust of others as a result of being in a cult. They may be paranoid and afraid they are being watched by others, the “fishbowl effect”. Since cults usually blur boundaries between work and free time, friendship and sex, the ex-cult members are likely to have enmeshed boundaries when they try to make new friends.
Theoretical instability
Lastly, cults inspire people by claiming they are building a new world, and cult members have roles in that transformation. Compared to that, ex-cult members are likely to feel they have chosen an unenlightened, boring life. It is easy to understand why ex-cult members who have not had exit counseling might jump into a new cult.
Whether the ex-cult member has been involved in a spiritual, psychological or political cult, the ex-member needs to find a new grounding within that field. If a member has been in a spiritual cult of transcendental meditation does this mean they must give up Hindu or Buddhist religion completely? Can you practice these religions in a non-cult like way? If you have been in a psychological cult based on the work of social psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan, does that mean you no longer can study his work? Lastly if you have been in Leninist political cult, does that mean you have to renounce Lenin completely? Probably the answer to these questions depends on how badly you’ve been burned. The worse you’ve been burned the more extreme your reaction will be. If you haven’t been burned too badly, you might be able to be more dialectical and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
CONCLUSION
Cults arose in Yankeedom beginning in the 1970s and I’ve covered their continuance into the late 1990s under conditions of ecological, economic and political decline. Cults find their audience among educated, idealistic middle-class and upper-middle class people who are rightfully hypercritical of the existing order and who are attracted to a vision of a radical transformation based on greater equality, justice, peace and love. They do not know they are members of a cult until they are at least partially integrated into the organization and then they are caught between the world they once knew and the world they hope to create. They are initially lured into the organization through the implementation of sophisticated social-psychological techniques and they then become complicit in the cult’s reproduction of these techniques over time if they remain. If members leave, they face a great number of the psychological problems as I’ve described in the last section. Fortunately, there are now well-organized institutions that are specifically designed to help ex-cult members reintegrate back into the existing order.
Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his four books: From Earth-Spirits to Sky-Gods: the Socio-ecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World Co-Authored with Christopher Chase-Dunn Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present and Lucifer’s Labyrinth: Individualism, Hyper-Abstract Thinking and the Process of Becoming Civilized He is also a representational artist specializing in pen-and-ink drawings. Bruce is a libertarian communist and lives in Olympia WA.
Originally published in Planning Beyond Capitalism
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