Indian Press on Anti-Conversion Law, Munawar Faruqui, Imran Khan’s China Embrace, Capitol Hills: New Age Islam's Selection, 8 January 2021
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
8 January 2021
• Supreme Court to Study Anti-Conversion Laws Of
Uttarakhand and U.P.
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
• The Arrest of Stand-Up Comic Munawar Faruqui Should
Worry Us All
By Sanjay
Rajoura
• Hindus and Patriotism: Why RSS Chief Is Wrong
By Karan Thapar
• Do We Have A Grip On Disinformation in 2021?
By P.J George
• Reading Hannah Arendt in Joe Biden’s America
By Shelley Walia
• Imran Khan’s China Embrace
By G Parthasarathy
• Pakistan's Sophistry
By Bhopinder Singh
•Why Is Turkey Wooing Bangladesh?
By Dr Yatharth Kachiar
• A New Low for America: A Mob Incited By President
Trump Storms the Seat of US Power
By Saswato R Das
-----
Supreme Court To Study Anti-Conversion Laws Of
Uttarakhand And U.P.
By Krishnadas Rajagopal
JANUARY 06, 2021
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine the
constitutional validity of a spate of laws enacted by States such as Uttar
Pradesh and Uttarakhand that criminalise religious conversion via marriage and
mandate prior official clearance before marrying into another faith.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde,
however, did not stay the implementation of Prohibition Of Unlawful Conversion
of Religion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018,
despite fervent pleas by petitioners that “rampaging mobs are lifting off
people in the middle of wedding ceremonies,” buoyed by the enactment of the
laws.
“What we have here is multiple States like Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh enacting these laws which are absolutely horrifying. They
require the prior permission to marry,” senior advocate C.U. Singh submitted.
Mr. Singh argued that the burden of proof was on the people
who marry to show they were not doing so to get converted.
“Those who are found guilty under these laws stare at a
10-year prison sentence. The offences are non-bailable. We are getting reports
that people are being picked up in the middle of weddings on suspicion of
religious conversion,” he said.
However, the Bench, which had initially asked the
petitioners to go to the respective State High Courts with their challenge, did
not stay the implementation of the laws.
“This is the problem. We have already issued notice. You
have come here under Article 32 of the Constitution...” Chief Justice Bobde
said and resisted the plea for stay.
Mr. Singh pointed out that the laws concerned violation of
the fundamental rights of dignity and liberty enshrined under Article 21. He
pointed out that they had been enacted despite a series of judgments by the
Supreme Court, including in the Hadiya case, that right to marry a person of
one’s choice was part of an adult’s privacy.
“Under the laws, a person marrying into another faith should
give a month’s prior notice to the authorities. There will be an inquiry. The
provisions are oppressive,” Mr. Singh argued.
The court fixed a hearing in four weeks.
The petition filed by advocates Vishal Thakre and A.S. Yadav
and researcher Pranvesh, who were represented by advocates Sanjeev Malhotra and
Pradeep Kumar Yadav, said the laws were against public policy and society at
large.
“These laws will create fear in society and become a potent
tool in the hands of bad elements to falsely implicate anyone. A grave
injustice will be done by the ordinances... They will create a chaotic
situation,” the petition said.
The Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind has sought to be made a party in the
case, saying the Uttar Pradesh law violates the fundamental rights of the
Muslim youth, who are being targeted and demonised.
A series of Supreme Court verdicts underline that the choice
of a life partner, whether by marriage or outside it, was part of an
individual’s “personhood and identity”. “Matters of dress and of food, of ideas
and ideologies, of love and partnership are within the central aspects of
identity. Neither the State nor the law can dictate a choice of partners or
limit the free ability of every person to decide on these matters,” the court
had said in its Hadiya case judgment.
Autonomy of the individual was the ability to make decisions
in vital matters of concern to life, a Constitution Bench said in the K.S.
Puttuswamy case, or ‘privacy,’ judgment.
Any interference by the State in an adult’s right to love
and marry has a “chilling effect” on freedom.
Intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy,
which is inviolable, the court has said, “the absolute right of an individual
to choose a life partner is not in the least affected by matters of faith”.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sc-to-hear-plea-challenging-up-uttarakhand-laws-on-interfaith-marriages/article33508584.ece?utm_source=dailydigestTH&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter
----
The Arrest of Stand-Up Comic Munawar Faruqui Should Worry
Us All
By Sanjay
Rajoura
January 8, 2021
Munawar Faruqui
------
A coffin needs many nails. Call it macabre, but a coffin
appears to be an apt metaphor because in India today, only the dead don’t get
offended.
With the arrest of stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui by the
Indore police, have we driven the last nail in the coffin? We are told that his
“jokes” hurt the religious sentiments of some people who took objection to
Faruqui making fun of Hindu gods. In his defence, Faruqui states that he had
many jokes on Islam too. What a sad place to be for a stand-up comic, to be
answering to whatabouteries.
Every joke has a back story and a context, which are perhaps
more important than the punchline. A comic goes on stage, often exposing her
own life stories to transform an anecdote into a joke. She connects many
contemporary incidents, people, images, institutions or practices and maps a
social and cultural pattern. Religion is one of them, and an important one at
that, because it’s an integral and unquestioned part of the life of the
majority of people in the audience. Take a comic who uses a wheelchair, wants
to highlight the difficulties faced by her because most places are not
accessible, and she happens to mention how Hindu mythology portrayed disabled
figures negatively as the punchline to drive home the point and highlight
society’s apathy. Now, it would be ridiculous to think that she is making fun
of Hindu mythology. In this context, if anything should make people angry it’s
the lack of wheel-chair friendly neighbourhoods. The comic here is highlighting
a very real problem faced by many. To reduce it to hurting religious sentiments
is missing the point by light years.
Stand-up comedy is about human beings and their behaviour
and practices and never about gods and goddesses. India has had a rich
tradition of using mythology, religion and religious figures as part of
storytelling. There are numerous examples. One being from the cult classic
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) by iconic director Kundan Shah. The epic Mahabharata
sequence is etched into our memory as one of the funniest ever. It’s hard to
imagine that just 40 years ago, the legendary Om Puri said in that sequence,
“Oye tu kaise Draupadi ko akele le jayega, hum sab shareholder hain.” Is it
possible to say that today in comedy without consequences? I am afraid not.
Again, we all know that the sequence was not about religion, religious figures
or mythology. It was about human corruption and depravity. Like all good jokes,
it had a context and a larger point.
In 40 years, we have gone from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro to “Bolne
bhi mat do yaaro”. You are free to conclude, whether this is a slide or a
climb.
Section 295(A) is often invoked against someone who is
accused of hurting religious sentiments. It is an archaic law and was one of
the parting gifts of the British. Such an antiquated law has no place in a
free, modern society. It’s interesting to note that 295(A) of undivided India
is the precursor to Pakistan’s 295(C) — the blasphemy law which carries the
death penalty.
Unabashed state support to the blasphemy law in Pakistan has
resulted in unfair and unjust persecution, including mob lynchings of
minorities and even the murders of political figures, most notably Salman
Taseer, who opposed the law and was assassinated by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz
Qadri. There is also the horrific story of the lynching of Mashal Khan, a
student from Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He was lynched by a mob in his
university on a mere rumour of blasphemy. Such laws empower the mob and give it
a twisted moral legitimacy to commit murder. Once a mob is empowered, no one is
safe. It leads to collective social paranoia. A mob is bloodthirsty by nature,
and, after a point, becomes community-agnostic, even going after its own, as is
evident from the murders of Taseer and Khan. Even some of the lawyers defending
a blasphemy accused were murdered.
The writing on the wall is as clear as it gets. Act now,
India, before it’s too late.
The Indore incident where Munawar Faruqui was first
apprehended by a group of men and then handed over to the police should worry
us all. In a civilised society where rule of law is the order of the day, such
brazen acts have no place. If you don’t like it, don’t go for it. If your
religious sentiments are hurt, you have the right to file a complaint with
police. Any further action is for the police to decide on and take. Citizens
cannot be a self-proclaimed extension of the police, acting as vigilantes and
dragging people to the police station.
I don’t know Faruqui personally and was not exposed to his
craft until the Indore episode. After the incident though, my online feed is
full of his videos. After watching a few of them, I can safely say that here is
a bright young man, who is extremely comfortable laughing at himself and his
faith too. Some of his jokes on Muslims are remarkably intelligent. From the
videos, I could see that when he was on stage, he was in an extremely happy
space. The audience loved him. He spoke about my India, his India, our
collective shared India. Some of them funny, some not so. Do people have a
right to take him off stage and hand him over to the cops? Turns out they do,
in the name of god.
This surely must be one of god’s #NotInMyName moment.
Whether such acts are the final nail in the coffin of democracy, shall be known
soon enough. For now, though, the joke has been incarcerated in India.
----
Sanjay Rajourais a satirist.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/indore-munawar-faruqui-stand-up-comedy-comedy-sattire-7137462/
----
Hindus and Patriotism: Why RSS Chief Is Wrong
By Karan Thapar
Jan 8, 2021
RSS Chief, Mohan Bhagwat
-----
We are all prone to saying foolish things. I do so quite
often. In fact, it’s probably one of the qualities that make us human. On the
other hand, robots or creatures that work on artificial intelligence are never
foolish, although they could be wrong. However, there’s a significant
difference between the harmlessly foolish and the defiantly stupid. The latter,
particularly when its acted upon, can be dangerous.
I’m afraid that the comments made by the sarsanghchalak of
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh fall squarely into the latter category. I know
my saying so will infuriate RSS members and the sarsangchalak’s army of fans
but that can’t be helped. I would have to call a spade a fruit fork if I opted
for gentler terminology!
At a book launch last Friday Mohan Bhagwat said: “If someone
is Hindu, he has to be patriotic, that will be his or her basic character and
nature”. Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, he added: “A Hindu can never be
anti-Indian”. Much as he might want that to be the case, it simply isn’t true.
First of all, our history establishes that there is no
shortage of Hindus who have been traitors -- it’s another matter that the
country may not have been called India at the time. Amongst the earliest was
Raja Aambhi of Taxila. Apparently, he had helped build the bridge cross the
Indus river which enabled Alexander to invade the country. That was way back in
326 BC.
Jump a few centuries to Raja Jaichand. In 1192, he supported
Muhammad of Ghor against Prithviraj Chauhan. It didn’t matter to him that
Chauhan was his son-in-law. It’s said the desire for revenge because Chauhan
had eloped with his daughter outweighed any qualms about assisting the Afghan
invader.
However, don’t assume it’s only in ancient or medieval times
that Hindus were traitors. Modern Hindus are really no different. We have
several examples of Hindu treachery from the British Raj. One of the most
striking is Jayajirao Scindia, the Maharaja of Gwalior, who in 1857 supported
our conquerors. There are accounts that suggest his part in helping the British
capture the Rani of Jhansi was by no means inconsequential.
And so to our own time. I’m not sure how one should think of
the likes of Chhota Rajan, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi or, even, Lalit Modi. I
certainly wouldn’t accuse them of treason, but I would hardly call them
patriots. And remember, every one of them is a Hindu.
However, I suspect that Mr Bhagwat would simply brush aside
all the evidence of history that I have just marshalled. I believe his actual,
but unstated, point is that India’s minorities cannot be as patriotic as its
Hindu citizens. This, presumably, is what he means when he said a Hindu is
patriotic by “his or her basic character and nature”, and “a Hindu can never be
anti-Indian”.
Alas, even by this interpretation, the sarsanghchalak is
simply wrong. And since it is acts of valour against the Pakistanis that are
most likely to impress him, let me gently remind him of the honours won by
Muslim soldiers in battles against our western neighbour -- although he has no
business to have forgotten about them! Havildar Abdul Hamid won the Param Vir
Chakra, India’s highest award for gallantry, in 1965. Brig. Mohammad Usman
posthumously won the Maha Vir Chakra in 1947. Lt. Col. Salim Caleb in 1965.
If this fails to convince Mr Bhagwat, then let me add what
should be the clincher. The Army Chief who defeated Pakistan in 1971 -- a
victory that the RSS holds in high esteem -- was a Parsi. The general who by
common consensus has been accorded the greatest credit for India’s military performance
in 1965 was a Sikh. The chief of staff of the Eastern Command who left
Pakistan’s Lt. Gen. A.A.K. Niazi no option but to surrender in Dhaka in
December 1971 was a Jew. None of the three would have been offended to be
called a Hindu, but each of them would have considered the sarsanghchalak’s
statement ridiculous.
Unfortunately, it’s a lot more than that. It’s dangerous.
The sarsanghchalak’s statement divides us, the people of India, on the spurious
grounds that Hindus are automatically and naturally patriotic whilst the rest
of us are not. This is not just untrue, it’s also wicked. It seeks to sow the
seeds of doubt, suspicion, distrust and, eventually, difference between
Indians.
The undeniable truth is that patriotism is defined by the
love of one’s country, not by the character of one’s religion. And it’s
important to remember the opposite is also true. Hindus are as capable of
hating their country as an Indian of any another religion.
There is, however, a further, though tiny, question the
sarsanghchalak hasn’t asked himself. What would patriotism amount to for the
millions of Hindus who have left India to settle abroad and become citizens of
another country? They carry British, Canadian or United States passports. Often
their children don’t speak an Indian language. In fact, only in terms of origin
do they accept their connection with India. In every other way they consider
themselves British, Canadian or American. Does Mr Bhagwat realise and accept
that for them patriotism would be love of the country they were born in, whose
passport they hold and whose future will determine their own?
Let me make one last point. The sarsanghchalak has also said
that “if one loves his country, that doesn’t only mean the land, it means its
people, rivers, culture, traditions and everything”. Here I agree with him but
only because this is a statement of the obvious. More importantly, it’s not
something that applies only to Hindus who love India. It’s as true of the
French and the Germans, Nigerians and Burundians, Australians and Argentinians
and even, dare I say it, the good folk of Lapland.
I guess the point I’m making is simple. If we want our
country to survive and flourish, let’s stop trying to define patriotism as a
Hindu attribute and let’s discard the belief that Hindus are special or better.
Otherwise, we could end up like Yugoslavia.
https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/070121/karan-thapar-hindus-and-patriotism-why-rss-chief-is-wrong.html
-----
Do We Have A Grip On Disinformation In 2021?
By P.J George
8 Jan 2021
Disinformation, or “fake news”, is a malaise that has been
worsened by the infodemic of the social media age. In the last few years, it
has been used as an effective weapon to polarise communities and upset
democratic processes. As we begin 2021, what is the current state of the
malady? Pratik Sinha and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen discuss this question in a
conversation moderated by P. J. George. Edited excerpts:
The modes and means of disinformation have been perpetually
evolving. What is the state of disinformation as we have entered a new year?
Pratik Sinha: In the Indian context, disinformation is not
evolving in quality but in quantity. When Alt News started in 2017, we used to
debunk maybe five, six stories every week. But the nature of disinformation was
the same as it is today — primarily old videos and images used to represent
something in the present, especially if they have an element of violence or are
highly politicised. We saw massive spikes of disinformation on the
anti-Citizenship ( Amendment) Act protests, elections, the Delhi riots of 2020,
and the pandemic. In all of these issues, the kind of disinformation which was
perpetrated was pretty simple, and not that difficult to debunk. It’s just the
organised manner in which it was produced every single day — multiple false
claims using photos, images and text.
Going forward, I don’t think this is going to change much.
In fact, it is just going to keep increasing because political parties have
found out that if you put out organised disinformation, then any political
narrative can be controlled. At the same time, even though India has a federal
structure, the parties which have been targeted are not doing anything about
it. They are not introducing any educational reform so that people can be more
aware. So, what we are going to see is just a lot more disinformation that is
rudimentary, but with a lot of people consuming it day in and day out, and
forming their political opinion.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: Pratik has described very clearly the
basic dynamics of disinformation in many countries. It’s very visible in India,
but we also see similar patterns in the U.S. and Brazil and a number of other
countries. While the tactics, forms, and communities involved in creating and
disseminating disinformation evolve over time, by now we have a very clear
sense of what the basic dynamics are. I think of it as the four Ps: You have
disinformation that is spread and created in the pursuit of Power. It often
comes from the political establishment: sometimes from the governing party,
sometimes from the opposition. Then you have disinformation that is spread for
Profit. This is mostly sort of low-grade clickbait. Then you have
disinformation that’s driven by Profound public disagreement. This is bottom-up
disinformation, where people in good faith spread information that others think
of as disinformation. We see this around vaccines, climate change, community
relations in countries such as India. And the final P is that all of this is
enabled by Platform companies. Facebook and WhatsApp, Google and YouTube,
Twitter, and others enable the creation and spread of this information in ways
that set us apart from where we were before the advent of digital media. These
four Ps of power, profit, profound public disagreement and platforms will
continue to drive disinformation in 2021.
Then there are some things that are changing. Many
disinformation actors have embraced formats that are harder to fact-check and
harder to moderate, whether by humans or by automated forms. We’re also seeing
that platforms have been, on rare occasions, willing to go after disinformation
very aggressively. [Due to this], we are seeing a migration or a partial
migration of disinformation actors away from the large consumer-facing
platforms to smaller and more specialised platforms. These could be encrypted
messaging applications or chat functions in online gaming platforms, or
newsletters, or any number of other platforms where, at this stage, we don’t
have the same amount of effort or resource to try to combat disinformation.
Do you think the traditional media has improved its game or
is it going round in circles when it comes to disinformation?
RKN: The fact-checking community has evolved in really
impressive and important ways over time, in particular, when they fact-check
powerful and prominent individuals who seem keen that others’ disinformation
should be countered but not their own. In terms of journalism, we have seen
some recognition of two problems that have plagued news organisations while dealing
with disinformation historically. One of them is that a fundamental driver of
disinformation is powerful people who lie, and who have weaponised the
journalistic convention of quoting powerful people verbatim in headlines, even
if what they say is untrue. Any fact-checking and debunking happens much later
in articles that many readers never get to. We’ve seen some news organisations,
most prominently perhaps in the U.S., showing a greater willingness to have
headlines that run along the lines of ‘so-and-so have falsely claimed without
evidence that this is the case’.
The other area in which we see some progress is in
journalists making really important case-by-case decisions about when to cover
disinformation narratives that are potentially harmful. They are striving to
strike a balance between covering them because it’s important for the public to
know of the harmful claims, and risking bringing people’s attention to such
narratives by virtue of covering them.
PS: In India, there are two kinds of false news: the ones
that come directly from politicians, and the other that is organised
disinformation on social media. About politicians themselves, [statements by]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have hardly been
fact-checked by any news organisations. I think one television channel tried to
do a fact-check, and three of its anchors were asked to leave and some
advertisements were withdrawn.
When it comes to organised disinformation on social media,
again, the mainstream media in India has acknowledged the issue but not many
news organisations actually do fact-checking. Even if any mainstream media
organisations are doing so, they are not looking at the most dangerous claims
that are being put out. The main purpose of disinformation in India is to
target minorities, and there’s very little fact-checking that has been done to
reduce that harm.
India also has another problem. Not only is the mainstream
media not fact-checking people, but it is actually putting out disinformation.
If not disinformation, these are plugs by the government. The government
claimed that Arsenicum Album 30, a homeopathic drug, can prevent people from
having COVID-19 and so, many organisations carried that claim. Many mainstream
media organisations gave Baba Ramdev unlimited bandwidth to put out his claims
on Coronil.
Platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube have
amplified disinformation with algorithms that prioritise engagement and
revenue. Do you see 2021 being any different on this front?
PS: From the point of view of India, it is not going to be
very different. As I said, one of the most common forms of disinformation in
India are old images and old videos. Now, platforms claim that they don’t want
to be the arbiters of truth, but it takes very little technological work to
have something as basic as a database of images. We have developed a similar
technology for the Alt News app with a database of images with dates that the
users can look up. There is no question here of the platform deciding what is
the truth. This major vector of disinformation can be controlled if platforms
are willing to go that extra mile. When I’ve had an audience with some of these
platforms, I have suggested that that they bring us in, as we are the people
who are bridging journalism and technology and have ideas on how to deal with
these issues. But all our requests have fallen on deaf ears. Second, a lot of
their decisions are not wellthought-out. They are constantly reacting to
situations and do not seem to have any plan.
RKN: I agree that technology has the potential to deal with
these problems. But at a very fundamental level, there are key parts of these
problems that are political and social in nature. Several of these companies
took major initiatives around the 2020 U.S. elections. And if you are a user in
India, you would have every right to ask, ‘Am I not equally important?’ The
companies have some tough questions to answer in terms of how they treat us.
While questioning science and questionable science have both
been aspects of disinformation earlier, the pandemic period saw an
overabundance of this. Where’s the slip up happening due to which established
science such as vaccines is being called into question?
RKN: Science is arguably the single most powerful way we
have of arriving at the best obtainable version of the truth. There are clear
examples of misinformation and disinformation that is in direct conflict with
the best available scientific evidence. These are harmful as they can be around
vaccines or public health emergencies and, for that matter, climate change.
It’s a particularly problematic form of disinformation and one where we
actually have a ground truth that we can compare the claims against. However,
we need to recognise that in a rapidly developing situation, research in
science by its very nature deals with uncertainty rather than certainty. Large
and powerful institutions that make decisions based on scientific input have to
recognise that the scientific consensus will evolve as we get new data, and
different analyses sometimes overturn established findings. Think of a
situation like the early parts of the pandemic. Very important international
health organisations made a number of claims about the way in which the disease
is transmitted that we now know are wrong. I don’t think we should blame them
for that. There are some areas in which there is a clear scientific consensus
and an established ground truth, but there are other areas in which this is
less clear.
Powerful people have weaponised the journalistic convention
of quoting them verbatim in headlines, even if what they say is untrue. Any
fact-checking happens much later in articles that many readers never get to.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
PS: From the Indian perspective, I’ll give it a two part-answer.
One is how journalism deals with science. I know The Hindu has one, but most
news organisations don’t have a science team that is trained to cover science.
They treat science as press releases, dutifully putting them out without
examining the facts. Problem number two is that none of us expected a pandemic;
we were just not ready for the fact that during a pandemic, we will have
science that is constantly changing. Even recently, we debunked a video where
people were circulating an old mask protocol. The other thing that happened,
especially in India, was that alternative medicine thought of this as a very
good chance to gain prominence. A number of cures were put out claiming to be
COVID-19 cures. These claims are there on Amazon and Google and many people are
buying these drugs; again, no factchecking. So, in India, we are facing a much
bigger problem, not just because we have what the rest of the world has, but
because the journalism industry in India is not equipped to handle the science.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/do-we-have-a-grip-on-disinformation-in-2021/article33522715.ece
------
Reading Hannah Arendt in Joe Biden’s America
By Shelley Walia
8 Jan 2021
For the first time in the history of the United States, a
President has incited insurrection by his neo-Nazi brigade of rightwing
supporters, opposing the peaceful transfer of power. It is tantamount to
encouraging hostility when the world stood horrified as a witness to the
rioters storming the U.S. Capitol. The violence against democracy, a blotch on
the American constitutional democracy, interestingly, changed the minds of
senators like Kelly Loeffler (Republican) who had previously said that they
would object to the Electoral College results.
Healing a polarised nation
The unhinged and angry authoritarian at last stands crushed
and humiliated after trying his best to undercut one of the oldest democratic
systems in existence. With Joe Biden walking into the White House on January
20, there can be no overplaying the enormity of the tasks ahead of him, what
with the deeply polarised nation divided into two belligerent camps. Afflicted
with an escalating novel coronavirus pandemic, an ailing economy, racial
discrimination, and a climate crisis rebuffed by millions, Mr. Biden’s America
has four long years to undo the tragic consequences of intolerance and division
left behind by the incumbent.
Tragedy, for Joe Biden, is the very condition of life.
Having lost his wife and daughter in an accident and a son to cancer, Joe Biden
has always had the deep-seated desire to urge politics towards humanism in the
wake of the overwhelming systemic racism that has underpinned American culture
recently. The bitter assault on democracy is better understood in the recent
revelation of his letter written in 1975 to the famous German-American
philosopher, Hannah Arendt (https://bit.ly/38lEct6), requesting her to send him
a copy of her paper read at the Boston Bicentennial Forum. It reflects his
desire to find “deeper causes” underlying the economic and social collapse as
well as the scourge of racism.
A contrast to Trump’s politics
Arendt sent out a warning in her paper entitled “Coming Home
to Roost” which the present generation must heed: “All speculation about deeper
causes returns from the shock of reality... the stark, naked brutality of
facts, of things as they are.” Her focus is largely on her deep-seated interest
in political humanism and a free space in the world inhabited by people who are
inspired by public principles and an ethics that stands in stark contradiction
to the inherent ethno-nationalist populism and alternate-reality politics of
Donald Trump. Boastful and deluded like Mussolini, and with an overriding
penchant for self-glorification, he is overwhelmingly obsessed with not letting
go of his power. More frighteningly, his conception of reality is different and
facts have no significance for him.
Arendt returns repeatedly to this theme of the difference in
things as they are and things as they can be made to seem — the difference, for
example, in “our … outright humiliating defeat” in Vietnam and what Americans
had been led to believe would be “peace with honor”. The image projected by Mr.
Trump of an America for the whites, where there is no place for immigrant
“termites”, coheres with the public sentiment of the white noncollege going
population that relates fondly with the language of a President that is no
better than a junior school third rater. The invasion of Mr. Trump into the
political life of America has been more of a politics of lies projected through
the dominance of an image to convince the people that only he could save
America. And now when the shaky putsch has failed and the Trump loyalists have
departed for home, he has begun to exactly do what the American government is
an old hand at: “finding ways and means of how to avoid admitting defeat” and
keeping the image of a President as the ‘mightiest power on earth’ and the only
one who can keep it intact. A bully is no different.
In asking for the paper, Mr. Biden, to use Arendt’s words
with which she described President Ford’s attitude after the defeat in Vietnam,
has taken on the responsibility “to heal the wounds of a divided nation,”
urging the people to begin a new chapter. As a young man in his thirties, he
had already become aware of America’s “image-making as global policy”, a
fundamentally American version of “big lie” techniques devised in Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union. There, Arendt argues, “lying was guided by ideology and
backed by terror”; here, it has been directed at creating images and bolstered
by “hidden persuasion” through the manipulation of public opinion.
A parallel, then and now
Interestingly, Mr. Biden, in keeping with the intellectual
leanings of the 1960s and the 1970s, had begun to think at a young age of
Arendt as a contemporary philosopher speaking on the idea of “image and lies”,
on disinformation, on violence, on public and private freedom, and on political
action. It was the war on terror, on Afghanistan and Iraq that echo Arendt’s
report on the Holocaust organiser, Adolf Eichmann and his trial which derives
its significance from the complex notions of justice and responsibility, ethics
and duty. The war, for instance in Iraq or a few decades earlier in Vietnam was
not in support of defending democracy and human rights but to exhibit the power
and might of the American hegemon. The fabrication of the hypothesis of
“weapons of mass destruction” was exposed when no such lethal nuclear arsenal
was discovered. The sham left both the United States and Britain red in the
face.
Setting policy right
Mr. Biden had early on in life learnt from political
philosophy that the rise of a more workable political and public humanism
depends singularly on Arendt’s “free spectators of action” who determine the
meaning of action and its public relevance that saves humans from the abyss of
a miserable existence.
No wonder Mr. Biden has taken keen interest in pressing
humanitarian issues such as Sudan’s political crisis or the dark contemporary
history of Syria. He has already introduced a national security team designed
to repudiate Mr. Trump’s nationalistic isolationism in order to usher in
humility and confidence among America’s allies.
His choice to execute the nation’s immigration policy is a
Cuban-American (Alejandro Mayorkas). Avril Haines will be the first woman to
serve as director of national intelligence. And possibly Lloyd Austin would be
the first African-American in America’s history to head the Department of
Defense. As Mr. Biden’s choice for Interior Secretary, Deb Haaland will be the
first Native American Cabinet Secretary to ensure that the nation would make
right the wrongs in the long history of bloodshed and extermination of the
natives. This counters not only Mr. Trump’s misogynism but also his agenda of
withdrawing shamelessly from America’s role in the world as a defender of
democracy and human rights.
Arendt’s castigation of Zionism and the fascism of the
American supported Israeli leadership brings us to the question of how
authoritarian regimes fail to notice the lack of any sense of ethics or
humanitarian necessity. It is true that “biological racism” that is visible in
the history of apartheid, or in Germany under Nazism, or the resurgence of
racist politics under Mr. Trump subsists on the major ideology of enforcing
complete submission of the individual self to the state, the evil of
incorrigible megalomaniacs striking out at the very dignity of being human.
Schooled in Arendt’s writings on totalitarianism and the
nature of the human condition in times of crises, Mr. Biden is the right choice
for President who hopefully, has the vision for an exceptionally progressive
change. It is expected that he will constantly be on his toes with the same
readiness as Barack Obama, and alive to what George Santayana warned, “Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Writings that inspire
America must know that politics of terrorism will not work
any more at home or abroad. And it is hoped that many around the world would go
to Arendt if only to learn a lesson or two about the vulnerability of our
democracy that allows people like Mr. Trump to even stand for election when he
is guilty of allowing thousands to die of the pandemic. Her writings have
always been a powerful foundation of inspiration to the people’s movements
fighting against totalitarian lying and the infringement of basic human rights.
Her persistent warnings of failure of the American republican tradition for
self-government asks for an ideological position underpinned by a more
cognitive existence that is mindful of the facts ‘coming home to roost’. For
Arendt, if you remain an onlooker and express no reaction appropriate to the
circumstances, your inertia will amount to deliberately perpetrating violence
and accepting lies to prevail.
-----
Shelley Walia is Professor Emeritus, Department of
English, Panjab University, Chandigarh
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/reading-hannah-arendt-in-joe-bidens-america/article33523049.ece?homepage=true
-----
Imran Khan’s China Embrace
By G Parthasarathy
Jan 07, 2021
Pakistan’s leaders have invariably been more than solicitous
in responding to China’s demands and ambitions. PM Imran Khan, however, appears
determined to steer Pakistan into an even tighter Chinese embrace, with moves
which Pakistanis could regret later. The readiness of an ambitious China to
invest an estimated $62 billion in CPEC is understandable. CPEC links China’s
landlocked western regions to the Arabian Sea. It provides an energy corridor
for petroleum from the Persian Gulf to reach the heartland of China in the
event of the lines of communication across the Indian Ocean being disturbed. At
the same time, however, Chinese loans for infrastructure projects across Asia
and Africa are landing recipient countries with debts. This leads to Chinese
demands for the repayment of debts from the recipients, who have mortgaged
ownership of their ports and mineral resources to China. ‘Debt trap diplomacy’
is now a Chinese specialisation across Asia and Africa.
Pakistan has been more than ready to be a junior partner in
borrowing recklessly from China, while also fulfilling Beijing’s geopolitical
ambitions. Beijing has, after all, backed Pakistan in developing its nuclear
weapons and missile capabilities. Pakistan, in turn, has to now approach banks
in China to obtain credits to repay loans from Saudi Arabia, which is insisting
on timely repayment, even of relatively small amounts. The Saudis do not love
Imran Khan, who rather naively agreed to support an initiative by Turkey and
Malaysia, designed to restructure the Islamic world. Such restructuring would
have undermined Saudi primacy. There are also reports of increasing
military/nuclear dimensions in Imran Khan’s growing friendship with Turkey’s
President Erdogan. How will this scenario, arising amidst a growing
Pakistan-China nexus, play out in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf?
Imran Khan also earned the wrath of the UAE when Pakistan’s
loquacious Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, refused to attend an OIC
meeting of foreign ministers of 57 Islamic countries, hosted by his UAE
counterpart. Qureshi’s petulance arose from the invitation that the UAE issued
to India’s the then Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to attend and address the
meeting. To make matters worse, Qureshi made his petulance public. Pakistan
soon found that the visas of most of its nationals in the UAE were not being
renewed. With remittances from its workers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia
declining sharply, the only lenders Pakistan could find to repay Saudi loans
were banks in China.
Even as Imran Khan seeks to borrow more money to meet past
debts, Pakistan’s repayment liabilities are rising rapidly. The security
situation in Pakistan’s mineral-rich Balochistan province, which also has
significant resources of natural gas, is deteriorating. Moreover, private
foreign investments in Balochistan from prestigious international business
organisations have also been put on hold, because of legal cases filed by major
mining companies from Canada and Chile. Balochistan is known to have huge
reserves of gold and copper. The major beneficiary of these developments has
been the China Metallurgical Group Corporation. The Chinese have secured
lucrative tax breaks for their mining activities. People jokingly remark:
“Pakistan is China’s gold mine!”
Now increasingly dependent on China, Imran Khan is set to
provide off-shore bases for China’s submarines in the Islands of Buddhoo and
Bundal across its Sindh coastline, near Karachi. China has also reportedly
agreed to explore the possibilities of building more naval bases in the Arabian
Sea, within or near, Pakistan’s territorial waters. There are, however, clear
signs of discontent emerging in the coastal provinces of Sindh and Balochistan
at the exploitation of their territory and natural resources by China. It has
also led to the emergence of a militant organisation called the Sindhudesh
Revolutionary Army, which is reportedly making common cause with armed militant
groups in Balochistan to target Chinese personnel and projects.
Growing resentment in Balochistan has been triggered by the
arrogant behaviour of the Chinese residing in the province and by the
Punjabi-dominated Pakistan army. The entire port of Gwadar was recently sealed
by the Pakistan army at Chinese behest. Local Baloch residents were then being
arbitrarily denied entry into port. This order has been stayed by the
Balochistan High Court. It remains to be seen how long the recent stay order
remains in force.
There are also reports that apart from Gwadar, the Islands
of Bundal and Buddhoo in Sindh are being developed as bases for Chinese
submarines. It is feared that the growing Chinese presence in these provinces
would lead yet another senior Pakistani military officer being appointed to
head the projects. The apprehension appears to be that he would be tempted to
make his millions of dollars. This would be in line with how Lt Gen Asim Bajwa
allegedly made $54 million while heading CPEC projects. The charges against
Bajwa have not been investigated. He has, instead, got an extension to continue
heading CPEC.
Bajwa would now also have to focus attention on road routes
and hydel projects across Gilgit-Baltistan to China’s Xinjiang province,
through the Shaksgam valley. The valley was generously “gifted” by Pakistan to
China in the 1970s. India raised objections to this “gifting”, asserting its
claims to the entire PoK territory. It is likely that more and more Chinese
military personnel will move into Gilgit-Baltistan. The territory could well be
integrated with the Wakhan corridor and Xinjiang.
An already cash-strapped Pakistan will soon be saddled with
an even larger Chinese debt. As Quad prepares to meet this challenge posed by
China, there will be a need for a comprehensive study of the strategic
implications of Pakistan’s huge debt and dependence on China.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/imran-khans-china-embrace-194722
-----
Pakistan's Sophistry
By Bhopinder Singh
07 January 2021
Its terror-conducive justice system, backed by the
machinations of the politico-military-clergy triad, is a hoax. The country had
better be prudent
Pakistan’s overall criminal justice system on terrorism is a
creaking sham, not just owing to the complicity of the politico-military-clergy
triad but also due to the compromised nature of the two essentials of any
criminal justice system, i.e. prosecution and the judiciary. Despite various
Anti-Terrorism Acts (ATAs), Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) and even more
grandiloquent National Action Plan (NAP) — the conviction rates in terror cases
in Pakistan remain abysmally low, if at all the convictions take place. The
judiciary has historically been an integral part of the Pakistani
establishment’s machinations as exemplified in the mid-50s when Chief Justice
Muhammad Munir had propounded the “doctrine of necessity” to legalise General
Ayub Khan’s extra-legal takeover of the country by suggesting that “which is otherwise
not lawful is made lawful by necessity”. But the fickle nature of intrigues and
inter-institutional one-upmanship can result in the judiciary taking on the
politicians and Generals also — not necessarily to uphold the law but pursuant
to their own institutional turf wars. A special court trying the former
Pakistan Army chief and President, Pervez Musharraf, had stunningly announced
for him the death penalty by majority votes (which was later overturned); and,
more recently, the Pakistani Chief Justice had rejected a petitioner’s
last-minute withdrawal plea that had initially challenged the extension of the
Pakistan Army chief’s tenure. It was followed by a tense three-day drama which
kept the politicos and the Generals on the tenterhooks. The wheels-within-wheels
of manipulation and vested interests by all the competing arms of governance
have ensured the perpetuation of the rot that facilitates “terror nurseries”.
Pakistan is precariously poised to potentially get
“blacklisted” for supporting and financing terror and is under constant review
by the watchdog agency, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). But a few weeks
ago, the Sindh High Court had set aside the provincial Government’s detention
orders pertaining to the four terrorists held for the abduction and gruesome
murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. The horrifying case of the journalist’s
decapitation had shocked the conscience of the international community but the
provincial court declared it “null and void” and not warranting “any sort of detention”.
The acting Attorney-General of the US, Jeffrey Rosen, indignantly remarked that
the “separate judicial rulings reversing conviction and ordering release are an
affront to terrorism victims everywhere”, and the family of the journalist
called it a “travesty of justice”. For its part, India is well versed with the
Pakistani judicial system as a similar fate was bestowed upon the likes of
Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and the other masterminds of the Mumbai
26/11 carnage who are often “detained”, “kept under house arrest” and even
“sentenced” to appease the international community and keep the FATF
proceedings from reaching harsh and punitive action, but are able to indulge in
their nefarious activities nonetheless.
Intelligence sources had named the terror and
Sunni-supremacist organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as being one of the key
participants in the Daniel Pearl murder case. The dilly-dallying,
obsequiousness and the long rope afforded by the courts to such organisations
ensure that they continue to thrive irrespective of their crimes. The
complicated history of the Pakistani military and its intelligence agency, the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in nurturing and supporting such outfits
from time to time has always ensured that there are crucial “contacts” and
“sympathisers” within the military and the additional pusillanimity by other
levers like the judiciary, completely enfeebling the anti-terror commitments
that exist only in name. Unsurprisingly, last week, the same Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
and ISIL (ISIS) cadres were said to have killed 11 Hazara Shia coal miners
after abducting them, tying up their hands and shooting them in cold blood —
another statistic was added to Pakistan’s bloody societal violence that is
unmatched in its brutality, and apparent acquiescence and leniency from the
Government’s side, at the same time.
To add insult to injury in the lamentable circus that besets
Pakistan, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari inconceivably said:
“India-funded terrorists in Balochistan are getting more desperate as
development comes to the province!” The reality of the supposed “development”
in the region barely masks the fact that the persecuted Shia Hazara community,
from which these miners had come, is huddled in two heavily guarded ghettos in
Quetta and surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, after hundreds of them
were killed in sectarian violence over the past couple of decades. For the
religious minorities and the “deemed minorities” like Shias, Ahmediyas and
several others, justice is a far cry.
Even if the odd individual wishes to stand up for justice
and for upholding the constitutional provisions, the societal regression that
envelops the Pakistani judicial system is all-pervasive and powerful, as was
seen when the proud murderer Mumtaz Qadri (who had killed Punjab Governor
Salman Taseer in broad daylight) was showered with rose petals by the resident
lawyers when he attended court. The judge who finally gave Qadri the death
sentence had to face an impromptu strike by the District Bar Association, had
his office vandalised and was forced into exile out of the country, fearing for
his life. Further, the witness protection programmes in Pakistan are completely
ineffective as “influential” bodies routinely and brazenly ensure intimidation
and retractions, and people are simply too scared to testify.
The patent sophistry of ascribing the booming terror network
in Pakistan onto the so-called “non-State actors” is a bogey that has lost all
credibility. No such apparatus or ecosystem can survive for so long with such
impunity despite so many Acts, laws and military exercises aimed at “uprooting
terror” — unless the elements of the lawmakers (politicos), law enforcers
(police/paramilitary), military, religio-social leaders and the judiciary
themselves are hand in glove with the perpetrators. Indeed, many a time these
terror elements also turn onto their one-time benefactors to settle scores and,
therefore, the disentanglement of the murky terror wirings is not very obvious,
linear or simple, given the multiplicity of the individual and institutional
cross-support afforded to them from time to time. Therefore, Pakistan Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s unconvincing posturing as the “victim of terror” is akin
to crying wolf as the Frankensteinian reality convinces nobody. The quartet of
Pakistan’s military-politicians-clergy-judiciary can never come clean or abort
their inter-linkages with such elements. But they will do well to remember that
the slippery slope of terror spares absolutely no one.
----
Bhopinder Singh, a military veteran, is a former Lt
Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed
are personal.)
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2021/columnists/pakistan-s-sophistry.html
-----
Why Is Turkey Wooing Bangladesh?
By Dr Yatharth Kachiar
January 6, 2021
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s recent visit to
Dhaka involved inauguration of a new embassy compound and a pledge of enhanced
cooperation with the country. The visit has raised attention regarding Ankara’s
expanding interest in South Asia, particularly Bangladesh. Turkey has
historically been close to Pakistan to the extent of supporting Islamabad
diplomatically and militarily during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
Ankara officially recognized Bangladesh during the 1974 OIC summit held in
Lahore and opened its first embassy in Dhaka in 1976. The ties between the two
countries flourished after that. The relations took a nose-dive from 2012
onwards when the Islamist-oriented AKP, known for its support to Muslim
Brotherhood worldwide, started condemning Bangladesh’s International Crimes
Tribunal’s prosecution of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for their involvement in the
genocide committed by Pakistani army during 1971 war. The recent visit by
Turkish foreign minister to Dhaka infused a new drive in Turkey-Bangladesh
relations and renewed Turkey’s Asia pivot.
Turkey’s foreign policy dilemma
Since its inception in 1923, one of Turkish foreign policy’s
primary goal has been establishing itself as a part of ‘Western
civilization’.However, Turkey’s unique geostrategic position, developmental
profile, Islamic identity, and security threats have always been similar to
those in the ‘global South’. This inherent dilemma in Turkish identity was
projected on its foreign policy as well. Consequentially, Turkish policymakers
have always prioritized the relations with the West and the US over their Asian
and Middle Eastern counterparts. Nonetheless, Turkey is also known to play its
western vs Islamic identity in foreign policy and favouring a more
multi-dimensional approach depending upon its immediate strategic orientation
and the tensions with its principal ally- the European Union (EU).In none of
these scenarios, Turkey had historically shown deep interest in expanding influence
as far as South Asia and Asia-Pacific.
Initial pivot to Asia
Under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey
has vigorously started pursuing its strategic interests in ‘the global South’,
including Asia. Initially launched in the early 2000s, Turkey’s extensive
foreign policy outreach to traditionally neglected regions of Asia, Latin
America, and Africa was the strategic vision of former Prime Minister, Ahmet
Davutoglu. The impressive and sustained economic growth of the early 2000s gave
Turkey the necessary confidence to relinquish its previous hesitations and
embrace its strategic ambitions. Since then, Turkey has extended its global
footprints by opening new embassies to engage countries in the ‘global south’
including Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Cambodia, and Laos.
Renewed commitment
Turkey has invigorated this similar strategic vision under
the ‘Asia Anew’ initiative unveiled by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in
2019. Under this new initiative, Turkey has been focusing on strengthening its
relations with Asia’s countries to build synergies in education, defence,
investments, trade, technology, and culture.Turkey’s renewed activism in Asia
results from structural changes at the global level and the ideological drive
behind AKP’s foreign policy. The increasing rift in Turkey’s relations with the
West and the ongoing fight for primacy within the Muslim world has estranged
Turkey from its traditional ally, the West and the neighbouring Islamic
countries. In this scenario, Turkey is bidding to extend influence toregions
with less historical baggage such as Asia.
Bangladesh: the desirable candidate
With its growing economy based on a sustainable development
model, Bangladesh assumes a special place in Turkey’s outreach to Asia.
Turkey’s ongoing competition with Saudi-led block for primacy within the
Islamic world also makes Bangladesh a desirable candidate to sway within its
sphere of influence.In South Asia, Dhaka is Ankara’s second-highest trade
partner after India, with a total trade volume of USD 1 billion in 2019 before
the pandemic.
Further, President Erdogan intends to expand Turkey’s
defence industrial base by boosting arms sales to USD 25 billion by 2023.
Bangladesh could also become a critical market for the Turkish defence industry
in the future. Turkey has already delivered the Otokar Cobra light armoured
vehicle to the Bangladesh Army in 2013 and secured USD 1 billion contracts for
680 light armoured vehicles in 2017.In March 2019, Bangladesh signed a contract
with a Turkish company, ROKETSAN for procuring medium-range guided multiple
rocket launchers.Various training programs and military exercises further
strengthen the defence links between the two nations.
Turkey’s unconditional support to Bangladesh on the Rohingya
issue has significantly deepened the ties between the two countries. Turkey
rallied behind Bangladesh on the Rohingya issue at various multilateral fora
such as the UN, the G20, and the OIC. Further, Ankara through its state
institutions such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA),
the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), and other Turkish NGOs has
built various facilities such as camps, hospitals, schools, and orphanages for
refugees in Bangladesh.
Conclusion
In the initial phase of Turkey’s outreach to Asia in the
early 2000s, one of the most critical factors that worked in Ankara’s favour
was its impressive economic growth. Driven by a booming economy, Turkish
policymakers pursued trade, humanitarian, and cultural diplomacy with great vigour.
The ‘Asia Anew’ initiative is the continuation of the previous policies under
dramatically different circumstances. At present, Turkey’s strained relations
with the West, Middle Eastern countries and its dwindling economy will pose
significant constraints on Ankara’s renewed commitment towards Asia, and
specifically Bangladesh. President Erdogan’s deep commitment to Muslim
Brotherhood and Islamist values might also prove irksome to the leadership’s
sensitivities in Dhaka if Turkey supports any such organization in Bangladesh.
Undoubtedly, at present, Turkey-Bangladesh shares cordial and cooperative
relations with the possibility of more intensive engagement. However, the real
challenge would be to safeguard the relations from Turkey’s self-sabotaging policies.
https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/why-is-turkey-wooing-bangladesh/2165408/
------
A New Low For America: A Mob Incited By President Trump
Storms The Seat Of US Power
By Saswato R Das
January 8, 2021
When all is said and done, when the dust has long settled on
the 2020 election and the raw passions it unleashed, when Donald Trump and Joe
Biden have been consigned to the pages of history, it will be said that this
was the time when the great 200-plus-year experiment that is American democracy
came very close to floundering – and survived by the skin of its teeth.
It survived because of the strength of America’s
institutions; it survived because of the foresight of the Republic’s Founding
Fathers; and it survived because there were still men and women of principle in
the Republican Party who put America first. But it was close. Many would say
too close.
To most Americans, the sight of domestic terrorists (for
what else can you call them?) storming the US Capitol during the final vote
certification proceedings of the 2020 presidential election in favour of Joe
Biden was horrifying, unfathomable and unconscionable. The federal government
had lost control of the Capitol, the iconic seat of US power. American
democracy was literally under attack – and that, too, from Americans, egged on
by a sitting US president, who was unhappy that he had lost the election by
millions of votes.
It was a new low in the history of America. News reports
showed images of the mob streaming into the Capitol through broken windows and
doors, ransacking offices, and waving Confederate flags. Initial police action
seemed lacklustre (in comparison to scenes of muscular action against Black
Lives Matter protests last year), but picked up later in the day.
The Capitol was shut down for hours. Americans remained
glued to television watching the chaos unfold. It soon took on a farcical,
tamasha-like aspect: Many members of the mob, in costume, were taking selfies
in the Capitol and putting on MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats on plaster
busts of former legislative worthies.
For weeks, Trump had been railing against his loss, making
unproven accusations of fraud. Court case after court case had been thrown out
for lack of evidence; principled people like Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, who
oversaw elections there, had resisted pressure from Trump to overthrow a
legitimate election. Even Vice-President Mike Pence, who had been loyal to
Trump, broke with his boss on Wednesday and said he couldn’t overturn the will
of the electorate.
Trump’s refusal to concede cost the Republicans their Senate
majority. Tuesday’s run-off election in Georgia saw two Democrats win against
Republican opponents. Raphael Warnock, a former preacher, will be the first
African-American to represent Georgia as a senator. It is a historical moment.
As news reports pointed out, when Warnock was born, the two senators who
represented Georgia were segregationists.
Right wingers and pro-Trump fans had descended in droves
into Washington DC in the past few days, to hold a show of force to support
their president. But most Americans thought that the protests would be in the
halls of Congress, where a bunch of Republican legislators like Ted Cruz of
Texas, a Trump rival turned bootlicker, were making a cynical show of support
for President Trump. (Cruz is so disliked by his colleagues that a fellow
Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, had joked a couple of
years ago, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial
was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”) It would be procedural
opposition and grandstanding that didn’t really have a chance.
The Senate Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell,
forcefully argued that the voters, the courts and the states have all spoken in
favour of Joe Biden. He said that Congress should not overrule them, for “it
would damage our republic forever.” Overturning an election solely to unproven
allegations from the losing side, meant American “democracy would enter a death
spiral.”
Most Republican senators echoed this sentiment, especially
after the violence in the Capitol. Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said he
voted for Trump, he didn’t want Joe Biden to be president. “We witnessed today
the damage that can result when men in power and responsibility refuse to
acknowledge the truth. We saw bloodshed because a demagogue chose to spread
falsehoods and sow distrust of his own fellow Americans. Let’s not abet such
deception.”
As of this writing, according to news reports, President
Trump’s Cabinet is mulling invoking the 25thAmendment, which would remove him
from power. And Democratic legislators are considering impeaching him yet
again.
George Washington, the first American president, had
foreseen this: “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the
minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an
individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able
or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes
of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
Two weeks remain until the new president’s inauguration,
normally a stretch when a lame duck president ties up loose strings and
graciously hands over power. This time it has been different. Joe Biden, the
incoming president, called the attack on the Capitol “an insurrection” and “a
dark moment” in the nation’s history. Indeed, America stands much diminished in
the eyes of the world, and what happened in Washington DC will cast a long
shadow both domestically and overseas.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-new-low-for-america-a-mob-incited-by-president-trump-storms-the-seat-of-us-power/
----