By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
23 October
2020
• Pope Francis Backing Same Sex Unions Isn't A
Surprise But It's Still A Big Deal
By James Alison
• Intolerance of Dissent Is the Cause of Brutal
Treatment of Agitations
By Mahfuz Anam
• What Does Amy Coney Barrett Mean For The
Supreme Court?
By Linda Greenhouse
• A Perfect Storm Has Hit Iraq’s Economy
By Sanar Hasan
• The End Game of Trump Politicking
By Atiqur Rahman
• Peace in Sudan: Patience Is Required For the
Long Road Ahead
By David E Kiwuwa
-----
Pope Francis Backing Same Sex Unions Isn't A
Surprise But It's Still A Big Deal
By James Alison
22 Oct 2020
Francis
has previously spoken about same-sex unions, opposing gay marriage.
----
I had no
advance knowledge either of Evgeny Afineevsky’s documentary, Francesco, or the
interview in it that contains Pope Francis’ new formulation of his earlier
position on same-sex civil unions. However, it didn’t come as a surprise to me.
Anyone with any pastoral experience knows that in dealing with an individual’s
personhood, you start from where they are. Given a very gay and very closeted
episcopate in many countries, for whom serene and adult conversation about
these things has, until recently, been almost impossible, the question has
largely been: how long would it take for the basic good sense of the majority
of Catholic people and what they have learned about human sexuality to
percolate upwards so that senior clergy needn’t be frightened of it? And it is
here that Pope Francis has been so good. He clearly isn’t frightened of the
issue.
This was
apparent to me when he called me by phone to affirm me in my priesthood,
nullifying an attempt that had been made to remove my clerical status because
I’m an openly gay man. “Soy el Papa Francisco,” came the voice on the other end
of the line, out of the blue, on a July afternoon in 2017. And then this: “I
want you to walk with deep interior freedom, following the spirit of Jesus. And
I give you the power of the keys. Do you understand? I give you the power of
the keys.”
When
friends yesterday started to bombard me with news links to the story that Pope
Francis had stated his support for same-sex civil unions, I experienced both surprise
and surprise at the surprise. As I see it, what he said is both something not
especially new and yet genuinely “a big deal”. Not especially new in that it
was well known that, prior to becoming Pope, the then archbishop Bergoglio had
proposed same-sex civil unions during the debate about same-sex marriage in
Argentina in 2010. That was at the time a very brave position: the Vatican had
specifically and publicly forbidden Catholics from supporting any form of
recognition of same-sex relationships, even as a “lesser evil” to supporting
same-sex marriage. Since becoming Pope, Francis had referred to his Buenos
Aires position in interviews on a number of occasions, though not, as far as
I’m aware, on camera.
So why are
these latest comments “a big deal”? In part because the holy father is clearly
representing such civil unions as a good and desirable thing, to be actively
promoted, rather than a lesser evil. And second, because he affirms the
rightness of same-sex couples forming a family and being part of the family of
the church. This will evidently create waves in countries where homosexuality
is illegal, as well as causing heartache to conservative Americans who have
sought legal exemption from the employment of same-sex couples who have entered
into civil unions. While only apparently a tiny shift with regards to the
“lesser evil” view, Francis’s position is inconceivable for someone who
believes same-sex acts to be mortal sins, leading those involved to go to hell.
If you believed those things you would seek to break up such couples, not
stabilise them.
From which
we can deduce that Pope Francis does not believe those things. And here I want
to express my surprise at the surprise. I think the English-speaking world,
with its enlightened and Protestant assumptions about how religious teaching
works, doesn’t really grasp how the discussion of LGBT people in the Catholic
church has been panning out. There are no major points of doctrine at stake,
nothing in the creeds, putting at risk the shape of our salvation. And there
are no real scruples about the apparently hostile biblical texts, since
fundamentalist readings are, in any case, officially disapproved by church
authority.
The
presenting issue is one of anthropology, and is fairly simple: either it is true
that being gay or lesbian is a vicious or pathological form of a humanity which
is only authentically heterosexual; or it is true that being gay or lesbian is
simply something that is a non-pathological minority variant in the human
condition. If the former, then “giving in” to being gay or lesbian is to follow
the path of your objective disorder, and ultimately to exclude yourself from
grace. If the latter, then becoming who you are starts from who you find
yourself to be, including your sexual orientation, and the appropriate
humanisation of your sexual desire will be worked out in appropriate
relationships over time.
Some
commentators have been quick to point to the distinction between same-sex civil
unions and marriage, saying that the one is possible for Catholics while the
other never will be. I think that’s a bit of a canard. As a priest who has been
privileged to be a witness at several same-sex ceremonies, where on each
occasion the couple gave their own title to what they were doing, I would say
this: let the cake rise before you put on the icing. The cake in question is
our shared culture and knowledge concerning publicly lived and legal same-sex
couplings.
The
important thing has been the achievement of legal guarantees for stable living.
Soon the first generation of gay and lesbian kids for whom civil marriage was
never an impossibility will reach marriageable age. That we have the cake, and
the Pope’s affirmation that we should have it, is wonderful. The discussion
about the shape and colour of the icing will no doubt be all that and more.
----
James Alison is a Catholic priest and
theologian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/22/pope-francis-same-sex-unions-surprise-gay-people
-----
Intolerance Of Dissent Is The Cause Of Brutal
Treatment Of Agitations
By Mahfuz Anam
October 23,
2020
A
group of left-leaning students and civil society members organised a two-day
“Long March” from Dhaka to Noakhali to protest against the growing incidents of
violence against women. They came under attack on the second day, in Feni, on
October 17, 2020. Photo: Anisur Rahman
-----
Here we are
trying to tell the world, and justifiably so, that we are about to graduate
into the outer periphery of the club of developed countries. For a country that
was unfairly stigmatised as a "basket case" and thought of as a
permanent drag by the international community—and one that has had humungous
development challenges from its very inception—to come as far as we have is, by
all standards, a remarkable achievement. The latest IMF's World Economic
Outlook puts us ahead of India in terms of per capita GDP by the end of the
year. Obviously, this further strengthens our credentials as achievers.
But how is
our coming of age to be measured? Is it just by per capita income or GDP
figures or such indices? There are many other such numbers that show us in a
favourable light. They are all very important and we are proud of those
achievements. But what about some other signs of development—decent and safe
roads, clean air, a dependable public transport system, safe water supply,
reliable public healthcare, public education measured not by quantity but
quality, and most importantly, safety for women? What about freedom of speech,
right to dissent and right to assemble peacefully? What about the way we treat
the individual human being who has been reduced to a mere statistic? For
example, we lustily wait for money from our expatriate workers and yet
unjustly, and some would say illegally, imprison them when they return having
lost everything, not to mention the sufferings we put them through when things
go wrong. Have we advanced in these areas as we have done in others?
Permit me
to focus on something very specific. A sight that I find particularly offensive
and demeaning as a citizen of a free and independent country is that of the
police routinely attacking groups of demonstrators with batons as if they are
nothing more than an aggregate of flesh and bones to be beaten, injured, maimed
and brutalised in every possible way, without the slightest acknowledgement
that they are citizens of an independent country with specific legal rights and
entitled to minimum dignity and respect. The footage we see on television and
photographs that we regularly publish of these incidents in this newspaper and
others make me feel as if we are still in the colonial era when white Saheb-run
police would swoop down on the brown natives, breaking their bones, because
they had the temerity to "demand". How dare they! Twice freed—once
from the British and then from the Pakistanis—we still have not accepted the
fact that every citizen has the right to inquire, question, demand and, when
necessary, protest. We decry the colonial attitude in so many things but when
it comes to treating a demonstration, the old colonial way of police brutality
is still the norm—a police whose salary, uniform, every perk, and even the
baton they beat us with are paid for by our tax money.
This is
such an irony. The protest culture was almost a tradition for us, and it is
rooted in our anti-colonial, anti-Pakistan and anti-military dictatorship struggles.
Today's democracy—whatever is left of it—is the direct result of the
anti-autocracy movement against the Ershad regime. Yet this tradition now lies
in tatters, partly due to misuse but more so because of the present
anti-democratic attitude and the resultant suppressive measures adopted. I will
be the first one to admit that on some occasions these civic movements turned
violent and did result in destruction of properties and loss of lives. However,
by and large, our tradition of mass demonstration has been peaceful, and on the
occasions that it turned violent, it was more due to police action and the
presence of police agents and saboteurs within.
The saddest
aspect of our present protest culture is the near-destruction of our student
politics, which is among our most glorious heritage. What happened to it, and
why, is a subject for another day.
As long as
we are peaceful, we are within our constitutional rights to hold protests. Why
then is there so much brutality towards the demonstrators? Next year, we will
celebrate the 50 years of our independence. Are we going to enter it with this
medieval attitude towards dissent? We have been independent for nearly half a
century—no foreign ruler to extract our riches, no "superior race" to
make us feel inferior and distort our values, no external master to rob us of
our dignity, no hidden hands to divide and rule us. Why then have we not been
able to introduce a minimum level of civility and decency in handling
demonstrations where our people can be guaranteed a minimum level of respect?
Recently, a
group of left-leaning students and civil society members organised a "Long
March" from Dhaka to Noakhali to protest against the growing incidents of
violence against women. On their way, at Feni, they were attacked and the buses
that were carrying them were vandalised by AL activists with the police either
quickly following suit or watching the mayhem from a distance. The protesters
were subsequently able to reach Noakhali and complete their programme without
any further incident.
This attack
on protesters was not an isolated event. The agitation for workers' safety
rights following the infamous Rana Plaza incident was attacked by the police in
2013. In the following year, a protest against the coal mine in Barapukuria
ended in police violence. In 2015, a demonstration by private university
students against VAT on their tuition fees was set upon by the police, and many
homes were raided and a number of students arrested. Many are still entangled
in court cases even after several years have passed. In the same year, a
protest against the Rampal coal power plant titled "Road March to Save the
Sundarbans" came under police attack. In 2018, a student's demonstration
against the quota system in government jobs faced police brutality, this time
joined by the AL goons. Then school students, triggered into agitation by the
sudden death of two fellow students under the wheels of a recklessly driven
bus, spontaneously started the "Road Safety" movement. It was allowed
for the first few days, and when the government saw it gathering momentum, it
unleashed the police and party thugs against young students. Last year, a
simple demonstration by jute workers demanding their arrears was attacked by
the law enforcers. This year, state jute mill workers came under heavy police
attack while they were demonstrating for their separation payments.
It is clear
from the above instances—and there are numerous others that we did not cite due
to space constraints—that the spontaneous agitations of general students later
joined by the public at large all ended up under police baton, resulting in
serious injuries, court cases, and arrests. Generally, the demonstrators are
looked upon as enemies and, as such, have to be crushed and done so with brute
force. Today, people are not only NOT allowed to protest but they are also
treated with insult, humiliation and violence.
Intolerance
of dissent is the primary cause of such brutal treatment of agitations. It
could also come from fear… fear that if demonstrations are not nipped in the
bud, they may grow into serious threats to the regime. The history of such
fears is that they are often self-fulfilling.
----
Mahfuz Anam is Editor and Publisher, The Daily
Star.
https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/the-third-view/news/why-do-our-protesters-get-beaten-1982733
-----
What Does Amy Coney Barrett Mean for the
Supreme Court?
By Linda Greenhouse
Oct. 22,
2020
Amy
Coney Barrett
-----
We saw the
future of the Supreme Court this week, and its name is Amy Coney Barrett. The
court’s 4-4 deadlock Monday on whether Pennsylvania must count some
late-arriving ballots said it all.
The four
most conservative justices sided with the Republican Party, which has fought
tooth and nail against permitting states to make accommodations to the Covid-19
pandemic and the Trump-induced collapse of the United States Postal Service by
relaxing rules, including deadlines. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito,
Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to grant the party’s request for a stay
of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision providing that ballots will be counted
if postmarked by the night of Nov. 3 and received within the following three
days.
Chief
Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court’s three remaining liberal
justices, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, in voting to let the
decision stand. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would undoubtedly have voted with
them. With her or without her, the conservatives would still be one vote short
of the five needed to grant a stay.
Can I be
certain that soon-to-be Justice Barrett, President Trump’s choice to fill
Justice Ginsburg’s seat, would have been that fifth vote? Can I assume that she
would really have been so bold, so unabashed about carrying the Republican
Party’s water within days of her arrival following the strong-arm tactics the
party used to secure her confirmation?
No, of
course I can’t. All I know for sure is who her friends are — and what she said
and didn’t say during her two long days before the Senate Judiciary Committee
last week. I don’t know whether the four justices who voted to block the
Pennsylvania court’s decision have ever met Judge Barrett. But they seem to
consider her their ally-in-waiting.
I say that
because when the Supreme Court denies a stay without opinion, as it did on
Monday, there is no requirement or general practice for indicating the actual
vote or the identities of the justices who voted one way or another. When a tie
vote makes the court unable to decide a case it has actually heard on the merits,
a more consequential step than the mere denial of a stay, the court says
nothing more than “the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court.” We
are left to guess who was on which side.
Yet here,
the four justices who voted unsuccessfully for a stay chose to reveal
themselves by noting that they “would grant the application.” Why did they do
that? It’s not too cynical to suppose that they wanted to make it clear to the
base how much they needed Judge Barrett to join them, now, before other cases like
this one inevitably come along. Do Supreme Court justices have a base? These
do.
On the
subject of abortion, we don’t need to read tea leaves. We just need to know how
to read. And I don’t mean the statement Judge Barrett signed back in 2006
opposing “abortion on demand” and supporting the “right to life from
fertilization to a natural death.” I mean an opinion she joined in 2018 calling
for her court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, to
reconsider as a full court an opinion by a smaller panel of the court that had
invalidated an Indiana anti-abortion law.
Because the
opinion was a dissent, one that she joined but didn’t write, and because the
requested full-court rehearing never took place, the case, Planned Parenthood
of Indiana and Kentucky v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of
Health, has remained under the radar. It emerged only once during last week’s hearing,
in a question by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. Judge Barrett
deflected the question with an answer that struck me as close to disingenuous,
and the senator, either pressed for time or not fully understanding the
exchange, let the matter drop.
For that
reason, and because I see this procedurally obscure case as providing the
clearest indication of how Judge Barrett will approach abortion cases, it’s
worth unpacking in some detail.
In 2016,
the Indiana legislature passed and Gov. Mike Pence signed an abortion law with
two provisions. One required clinics to treat aborted fetuses as deceased
persons, by cremation or burial. The other prohibited doctors from performing
an abortion knowing that the woman’s decision was based on the sex or race of
the fetus or because of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome or “any other
disability.” A federal district judge barred enforcement of both provisions,
and a Seventh Circuit panel upheld that ruling in April 2018.
One of the
three judges on the panel, Daniel Manion, dissented from the fetal-remains
portion of the opinion. He then said he found it “regrettable” that Supreme
Court precedent required him to concur with his colleagues that the other
provision was unconstitutional, acknowledging that the Supreme Court has ruled
that before fetal viability, a woman has an absolute right to an abortion.
He then
proceeded to rail against the court’s abortion jurisprudence in a separate
20-page opinion that contained the blithe assertion that “children with Down
syndrome bring joy to everyone around them” — an observation that had no
bearing on the legal issue and that coming from a 78-year-old man might well
appear cavalier to a young family struggling to grasp the uncertain future that
such a diagnosis portends; most families faced with a Down syndrome diagnosis
choose abortion.
“Indiana
made a noble attempt to protect the most vulnerable members of an already
vulnerable group,” Judge Manion wrote, adding, “The Supreme Court’s abortion
jurisprudence proved an insurmountable obstacle.”
The state
sought rehearing before the full court on the fetal-remains provision. It did
not ask the court to reconsider the validity of the provision prohibiting
abortions sought for particular reasons. The court denied rehearing over the
dissent of five judges in an opinion by Judge Frank Easterbrook. His opinion is
a remarkable document. Even though the state had not put the prohibition
portion of the statute at issue, Judge Easterbrook proceeded to address it at
length, calling it “an anti-eugenics law.” Referring to the Supreme Court’s
1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Judge Easterbrook wrote:
Casey and
other decisions hold that, until a fetus is viable, a woman is entitled to
decide whether to bear a child. But there is a difference between ‘I don’t want
a child’ and ‘I want a child, but only a male’ or ‘I want only children whose
genes predict success in life.’ Using abortion to promote eugenic goals is
morally and prudentially debatable on grounds different from those that
underlay the statutes Casey considered. None of the court’s abortion decisions
holds that states are powerless to prevent abortions designed to choose the
sex, race, and other attributes of children.
He added,
“We ought not to impute to the justices decisions they have not made about
problems they have not faced.”
In other
words, Judge Easterbrook, and the judges who joined him in dissent, would have,
if they had the power, reinterpreted the Supreme Court’s precedents to uphold a
statute that those precedents clearly prohibit. One of those judges was Judge
Barrett.
Asked about
the case by Senator Leahy, Judge Barrett said this, referring to “the eugenics
portion of the bill”:
It is true
the state of Indiana did not seek ‘en banc’ rehearing on that, but we had many
other states enter the case urging us to take that claim up, and what Judge
Easterbrook’s dissent did was explain why he thought it was an open question,
but one that’s left to the Supreme Court, and we did not reach any conclusion
with respect to it.
No, Judge
Barrett. It’s not an “open question.” It’s a question with one answer and one
answer only. For now.
(In May
2019, the Supreme Court, over Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, overturned the
Seventh Circuit and upheld the fetal-remains portion of the statute. The court
denied Indiana’s appeal on the prohibition portion, letting stand the panel’s
decision on its unconstitutionality. A separate opinion by Justice Thomas
mirrored, fervently and at length, Judge Easterbrook’s complaint.)
Judge
Barrett had left the witness chair by Friday, the Judiciary Committee’s wrap-up
day. But outside the hearing room, far from Washington, the lock-step march of
the Trump administration’s anti-abortion judges continued. With two Trump
judges in the 2-1 majority, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit upheld a Kentucky law that will have the effect of closing
the two remaining abortion clinics in the state, a decision that the dissenting
judge, Eric Clay, called “terribly and tragically wrong.”
The law
requires abortion clinics, in order to maintain their license, to have a
“transfer agreement” with a nearby Kentucky-licensed hospital to accept any
patients needing care. This is a copycat law in imitation of the
admitting-privileges requirement that the Supreme Court has invalidated in two
successive decisions. Needless to say, the two Trump appointees in the
majority, Judges Joan Larsen and Chad Readler, had to jump through many hoops
to justify upholding this law.
But the
richest part of their opinion was their assertion that the two clinics, neither
of which has been able to reach a hospital agreement, hadn’t demonstrated with
sufficient persuasiveness that they would actually have to close. That’s
because the law offers the chance to apply for a 90-day waiver. To the clinics’
objection that they can’t remain in business if they can’t assure their staff
of employment after 90 days, Judge Larsen had this to say in her majority opinion:
“We must presume that the inspector general will consider waiver applications
in good faith and will not act simply to make it more difficult for women to
obtain an abortion.”
It was
somehow fitting for this decision to appear on the day the Judiciary Committee
finished its astonishingly rushed confirmation hearing for Judge Barrett. As I
read the majority opinion, this thought occurred to me: Here, with Roe v. Wade
still on the books, a state can force the closure of all abortion clinics
within its borders. So at this rate, when the Supreme Court gets around sooner
or later to overturning Roe, how will anyone be able to tell?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/opinion/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
----
A Perfect Storm has Hit Iraq’s Economy
By Sanar Hasan
23 October
2020
The drop in
oil prices, the continued COVID-19 pandemic and months of political turmoil
have left Iraq in a difficult financial situation.
As long as
Iraq’s economy was dependent on oil income, corruption rendered it even more
fragile. Infrastructure and human capital remained underdeveloped following the
2003 war, before deteriorating further following the ISIS invasion. A
substantial proportion of the state budget is spent on defence and security,
while other important areas such as health care, education and the environment
remain largely underfunded.
Lack of
government funding has hampered the hiring of thousands of medical college
graduates and other health workers in Iraq. In response, a group of medical
college graduates have started a campaign protesting the effective hiring
freeze, which has been followed by protests by the Faculties of Engineering and
Sciences demanding their inclusion in the 2020 budget amidst a financial crisis,
spiralling pandemic and a bloated public sector workforce.
‘I am a
young man and I cannot ask for money from my family. I studied to reap the
benefit of my efforts’, said Mustafa Muhammad, a 26-year-old graduate student
at the College of Science in Baghdad. ‘We have been here for 90 days, in high
temperatures and facing the risk of coronavirus. I graduated in 2018 and I have
not had an opportunity to get any work despite my need. With the pandemic, most
jobs have disappeared’, Mustafa said.
The country
remains heavily dependent on the oil sector, making it increasingly vulnerable
to volatility in international oil markets. The government’s main priority has
been to develop the petroleum sector, but in doing so they have neglected the
non-oil economy, impeding any sustainable economic development. Even with this,
the government has mismanaged the oil market, unable to take advantage of
increasing oil prices to develop a stronger and more diverse economy.
Iraq had
begun to recover after decades of sectarian wars and has witnessed
transformations that changed the course of the political process since late
2019, starting with the October demonstrations, when protesters in Baghdad and
central and southern Iraq called for the downfall of the government due to poor
services, health and education, and demanded the provision of jobs. The
movement evolved to push for a complete change in the political system and
demanded new elections under the supervision of the United Nations. These
demonstrations resulted in the overthrow of former Prime Minister Adel Abdul
Mahdi and the installation of Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.
After the
outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrations stopped in Baghdad and many
governorates of Iraq. However, the ongoing campaign of assassinations of activists
and journalists involved in the demonstrations fuelled violence in several
governorates, including Nasiriyah and Basra. Failure to form a new government
has delayed approval of the 2020 budget.
Ayat Sadiq
is a 27-year-old graduate of the Department of Pathological Analysis at the
University of Samarra. She graduated in 2015 and since then has been trying to
find a job to help her family, having recently lost her job in a laboratory
after she was infected with the coronavirus. Another graduate protester in
Baghdad, Zahra Ali (24) from Basra province, said: ‘They don’t hire us nor
issue our graduating certificates [so we are] able to leave the country. We
[cannot] receive it until after 7 years, or in return for the payment of 27
million Iraqi dinars as compensation for academic years wages’.
‘Medical
graduate students work 24 hours a day, even during holidays, for a very small
salary of about 800 thousand Iraqi dinars. Some doctors have bought personal protective
equipment to guard against the coronavirus with their own money, and these
doctors pay their own transportation costs between governorates if the work is
far from their residences’, Zahra said.
‘Article 13
of the Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 stipulates that if the General
Budget Law is not approved until December 31, the Minister of Finance is to
issue instructions for disbursement at a rate of 1/12 of the total
expenditures. As for the internal and external borrowing law for the year 2020,
it is only according to which internal and external borrowing is possible for
the year 2020 only’, Ali Al-Tamimi, a 40-year-old legal expert said.
The protest
was not limited to students, but also included resident doctors, demanding
improvements in hospitals’ health standards and their protection from repeated
attacks by patients’ families and various militias, in addition to facing
tribal persecution.
Abeer
Farouk (28) from the College of Science in Baghdad says that since she
graduated in 2014, ‘our main request has been to implement the third amendment
to the Medical Graduation Law of 2000, which guarantees employment in health
institutions as analysts’.
Facing a
liquidity crisis, Iraq urgently needs more emergency borrowing. If parliament
does not pass a new stop-gap financing law, the government has warned it will
be unable to fund basic expenses. ‘Iraqi governments have not completed
productive economic investment projects to diversify the sources of the annual
budget revenues and remove them from the circle of dependence on crude oil
export revenues. As long as global oil prices are falling, Iraq will be in a
difficult situation’, Malath al-Muein, a 37-year-old economist said.
‘The
government must continue its fight against corruption, and search for financial
sources other than oil for the budget, such as taxes, revenues from border
crossings, and fees for the use of Iraqi airspace by international airlines, to
[allow for the] hiring of college graduates’, al-Muein added. ‘The state does
not have funds in the 2020 budget for hiring these graduates, and any such
government commitment would be met through borrowing from the banks. Internal
revenues are not sufficient [to fund] the budget and the reason for its delays
is due to the change in governments during the recent period.’
‘Iraq has
all [necessary] human and economic resources, but there [has been] misuse of
these resources and the sole dependence on oil revenues is the reason for the
poor economic situation’, according to the Parliamentary Finance Committee
representative, Ahmed Al-Saffar.
Graduating
students are preparing to protest nationwide on 25 October, coinciding with the
anniversary of the October protests against the government and corruption.
----
Sanar Hasan is an Iraqi journalist covering the
unfolding events in Baghdad with a special focus on youth and women's
involvement in protests. She has also written on refugees and displaced women
in camps in Iraq.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/10/22/a-perfect-storm-has-hit-iraqs-economy/
------
The End Game Of Trump Politicking
By Atiqur Rahman
October 23,
2020
The
campaign for presidential election in the USA is turning out to be rather
bizarre. It is divisive, fraught with deception, lies and anger, the kinds of
which have never been seen before in US elections. Most Americans believe that
it is not focussed on major issues (59 against 39 percent) and that it is too
negative (51 against 31 percent).
The opinion
polls are hinting at a Democratic win, with persistent leads in polls in the
swing states too. In Pennsylvania, a key state taken by the Republicans in
2016, Donald Trump's numbers are reported to be sliding back further, giving
Joe Biden a 7-point lead.
With about
two weeks remaining before the election, these figures can change further, and
one should not be surprised if the end game turns out to be different and
nasty.
There have
been persistent claims by President Donald Trump (without any evidence) of past
rigging in postal ballots. This, some argue, is his way of preparing the ground
for such action by his own party. The recent appearance of "illegal"
and unofficial ballot boxes in churches and Republican offices in California to
collect ballot papers hints at vote rigging. But it is difficult to imagine
vote rigging and election-related violence in a country like the USA with its
strong institutions, democracy, and rule of law. But recent events and the
possibility of Trump using newly raised special forces to tame
"violence" do not exclude such possibilities.
The
demonstrations after the death of George Floyd and their suppression in the
hands of police can be an indication of how nasty things may turn out to be.
The stakes in the case of a presidential election are much higher, and in the
event of any anomaly with the voting process, the scale of protest can be high.
Trump's
survival in his roller coaster business career with reported failures and his
massive "outstanding loans", both to local and foreign financial
institutions, testify to his dark business instincts and skills. His navigation
through the maze of tax laws, having paid only USD 750 in 2016 and 2017 each,
and not disclosing the tax returns during the pre-2016 election process reflect
his "skills and smartness".
Trump has
indeed whipped up extreme emotions among the American people as well as among
many around the world. He is seen as an egoistic, self-serving person, a tax
dodger, five times draft evader, and a sexist with very low respect for women.
But he is also praised as smart and intelligent. Trump has "saved the
United States", says former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. He's one of the
"smartest, cleverest and most successful" presidents, says Fox's
Jeanine Pirro. But he was also labelled "dumb and racist" by comedian
Seth Meyers, and is guilty of "rampant corruption," according to
commentators on MSNBC.
Caroline
Giuliani, daughter of New York's ex-mayor Rudi Giuliani, wrote in an op-ed in
Vanity Fair that Trump's policies are breaking families apart and that if being
the daughter of a polarising mayor has taught her anything, "it is that
corruption starts with 'yes-men' and women, the cronies who create an echo
chamber of lies and subservience."
Trump
created a lots of chaos this year, starting with the handling of Covid-19 and
then peaceful protests of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. And in
the process, America started counting deaths, around 230,000 by now. The
Covid-19 death toll in the USA is expected to increase by another 160-170
thousand by February next year. Trump's show of force against the peaceful
protests of George Floyd's killing also instigated violence.
And the
last and the most damaging act he has engaged in is his nomination of a
conservative judge, Amy Barrett, a month before the presidential election. This
has never happened before. Abraham Lincoln, facing a similar situation, decided
against a nomination in the election year, and Barack Obama's choice was
blocked by the Republicans in the 2016 election year.
Donald
Trump seems to have a three-pronged strategy for his re-election campaign. His
first strategy has been to claim that Covid-19 is a hoax, and therefore there
is no need to impose lockdowns, and hence avoid lockdowns and further
unemployment. In so doing, he undermined his own health officials, but paid a
heavy price through counting many more avoidable deaths.
The second
strategy has been to reach the far right and white supremacist groups, and whip
up their sentiments against immigration, the Chinese for giving Covid-19 to the
USA and for taking their jobs (through unfair trade practices). He refused to
condemn the white supremacists, only managing to say "stand back and stand
by" when repeatedly pushed by the moderator Chris Wallace during the first
presidential debate. He expects his call to "Make America Great Again"
will again reverberate through American heartlands and the swing states. He
engaged in orchestrating misinformation. Mary McCord, a former federal
prosecutor and now a Georgetown law professor, noted that Donald Trump has
become "the greatest threat to our democracy".
The third
and most damaging strategy has been to systematically undermine the neutrality
of the judiciary through the nomination of Republican-favoured judges,
sponsored by the shadowy right-wing networks, and eventually the nomination of
Amy Barret to the Supreme Court. The composition of the nine-panel judge with a
6:3 ratio favourable to the conservatives can be of much comfort to the
Republicans.
The
Republican strategy to tinker with the judiciary also included the elimination
of the system of civil judiciary, which is protected by law against any
corruption. In the confirmation hearing, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic
senator, revealed how dark money was playing a role in putting people of
influence in right places in the judiciary of America.
Violence
can break out between armed right-wing groups and the moderates in case the
election results do not go in favour of Donald Trump. He has asked his
supporters to "protect" polling centres for him. And in case of
"contentious claims on results and election frauds", the Republicans
can expect to get a favourable hearing in the Supreme Court.
The end
game of Trump politicking may not succeed in putting him back in the
presidential seat, but he is not going to go out without a fight.
----
Dr Atiqur Rahman is an economist, ex-adjunct
professor at the John Cabot University, Rome, and ex-Lead Strategist of IFAD,
Rome, Italy.
https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/news/the-end-game-trump-politicking-1982721
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Peace In Sudan: Patience Is Required For The
Long Road Ahead
By David E Kiwuwa
October 23,
2020
“End the
wars” and “peace in our land” were the rallying cries for the protests that
ultimately ousted Sudan’s long-ruling strongman Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The
country had been afflicted by a 40-year war with South Sudan, which resulted in
South Sudan’s secession.
There is
still intermittent conflict in the western region, particularly in Darfur,
where the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, first clashed with the region’s black
population in 2003. The conflict is rooted in ethno-religious and tribal
divisions, economic disenfranchisement related to land, and profits from the
oil industry.
The United
Nations estimates that over 300,000 people died during the first Darfurian
conflict, with over 2.6 million displaced.
The end of
Bashir’s regime provided renewed optimism that these kinds of conflict would
end for good, setting Sudan on a path to peace. And now with the signing of a
peace agreement between the Sudan Transitional Authority and the Sudan
Revolutionary Front, a broad alliance of armed and other movements, Prime
Minister Abdalla Hamdok has heeded one of the protestors’ most visceral
demands.
While not
all armed factions signed up to the accord, it is hoped the two holdout groups
will not become a major stumbling block, and will eventually be persuaded to
come on board at a later date.
But signing
the agreement is the easy part. Implementing the finer details of the
laboriously negotiated peace pact will be the real test.
Peace has
eluded Sudan for a very long time. The signing of the peace agreements heralds an
epochal moment, but it is overshadowed by the enormity of the task at hand. The
legacy of the conflicts has created a complex set of circumstances that
directly inform the fate of this accord.
The most
crucial of all is the cost of peace. Simply put, Sudan is too broke to afford
peace. But with its imminent removal from the list of state sponsors of
terrorism, an economic reset could be in the offing.
This latest
development comes after the country agreed to pay $335 million to American
terror victims in compensation for its alleged role in the 1998 al-Qaida
bombing of two US embassies in East Africa. Sudan’s removal from the terror
list could result in the resumption of much-needed financial inflows to
Khartoum.
Terms of
peace
The peace
deal is anchored by eight protocols. Perhaps the most crucial is the autonomy
that has been granted to local governments in West Darfur, the Blue Nile, and
South Kordofan. The stipulation of self-government envisages real devolution of
power from the centre by empowering local political elites.
Also
significant was the agreement that warring rebel outfits (notably the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army-North) would be integrated into the national army
within a period of just over three years. This enables the demobilisation of thousands
of men under arms and brings them into formal institutions of the state.
Consequently, it turns them into security guardians of the nation.
A revenue
sharing agreement was also reached. Up to 40% of revenue generated in the Blue
Nile and South Kordofan will now be retained by the local authorities. This
assuages local grievances of resource flight, exploitation and uneven
development.
The return
of internally displaced persons and creation of a commission for protection of
religious minorities was also stipulated. Sudan’s protracted conflicts
displaced millions from their communal lands; this stipulation ensures a return
of lands to their rightful owners who can then engage in productive economic
activities.
It was also
agreed that there would be regional balance in the appointment of officials to
national institutions, especially within the legislature and executive. This
provides marginalised groups the opportunity to share power, influence policy,
and shape legislation.
A perilous
road ahead
Sudan has
been here before. Peace agreements have been known to fall apart quickly.
There are
many obstacles.
Firstly,
the previous Sudanese government worked strategically to prolong the wars
during the al-Bashir years. Some of these officials remain in the transitional
government.
Equally,
the conflicts were a profitable venture for war profiteers. Part of the
military hierarchy benefited directly. Not only did this culminate in a “war
economy” with up to 70% of revenue directed to the war effort, it also saw the
emergence of a cabal of officer-businessmen.
Secondly,
international and regional efforts to resolve Sudan’s conflicts were in the
past frustrated by lack of political goodwill. Historically, there has been a
tremendous trust deficit between the rebels and government. This meant that
carefully negotiated pacts came unstuck because of the distrust between
signatories and failure to implement what was agreed. The Koka Dam Declaration
is one of many.
Ultimately,
warring factions have gone back to what they know best: leveraging by armed
confrontation.
This has
been driven by pure self-interest on the part of the para-military
establishment and al-Bashir’s notorious proxies like the Janjaweed.
Thirdly,
the peace deal is expensive. In its current state Sudan can’t afford its peace
agreement commitments. The mobilisation of funds to rebuild areas devastated by
war, repatriation of displaced communities, reintegration of the armed
factions, and land and criminal justice reforms will require billions of dollars.
This is money Sudan doesn’t have, at least not yet.
US
sanctions stemming from Sudan’s links to terror starved the country of foreign
direct investment, debt relief, and international financial support. While
these sanctions are soon to be lifted, how soon Sudan rebounds from economic
collapse can only be speculated.
Real power
and money still lies with the men in uniform. Bankrolled by patron states like
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, Lieutenant General Abdel
Fattah al-Burhan, military chairman of the transitional council, and his deputy
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo are pivotal to the fate of this peace agreement.
They wield both military might and financial leverage.
Finally,
Sudan’s victims of conflict deserve justice. The pact promises to bring to book
those who committed crimes against humanity and other human rights violations.
Ironically, these judicial reforms are supposed to be undertaken by the same
military men who bear responsibility for some of the worst atrocities.
Next steps
The current
peace agreement has been precipitated by the sheer pressure of domestic change
forces. All parties appear to be grasping at this opportunity to co-write
Sudan’s new chapter of peace.
Political
goodwill and timing have coincided to beget compromise. But what remains to be
seen, as is so often the case, is whether the signatories to the accord will
have the patience to see the deal through.
Temporary
setbacks are part of implementation dynamics, but a peaceful new Sudan is worth
being patient for.
https://theconversation.com/peace-in-sudan-patience-is-required-for-the-long-road-ahead-148196?utm
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