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Artificial Intelligence Will Never Be as Smart as Elon Musk

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 17:13:25 GMT

No one doubts that Elon Musk is rich, which, according to a fundamental axiom of US culture, suggests that he is smart. Everyone knows the proverbial wisdom often directed at a category of humanity called losers: “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

Musk himself has absolutely no doubt that he is smart. Like any good American (even those born in South Africa), he seems to realize that his expanding wealth is the greatest proof of his intelligence. That may explain why he allows himself to say (or tweet) things that not everyone perceives as smart. For example, he wrote in a tweet last week, “Aliens built the pyramids obv.”

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In any case, the Egyptians didn’t perceive that as smart and invited Musk to come and have a look, following the proverbial wisdom that “seeing is believing,” at least for smart people.

It is of course possible to be rich without being smart. In a bold thought experiment, one might even imagine the case of a sitting president who inherited his wealth but seems devoid of intelligence. It might even be reasonable for a social scientist to posit the hypothesis that inheritance of wealth correlates negatively with intelligence. But, more fundamentally, Americans really do have difficulty understanding why anyone who is smart is not rich. What’s the point of intelligence if it doesn’t produce a steady income stream?

The word “smart” itself has always been ambiguous in English. For most Americans, smart simply means intelligent. To Brits, until recently, smart tended to mean well-dressed or what Americans would call “spiffy.” Thanks to their exposure to American movies, pop music and television, the British now have the intelligence to understand what smart really means.

So, while the status of the idea of smart is still in a slight state of flux, a new problem of ambiguity has emerged. It concerns the notion of intelligence, which now exists in two flavors: human and artificial. The battle between them has become the new match of the century. Who will win? Who deserves to win? As Musk and others have been telling us for several years, it is now time to take sides.

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Some see this opposition as an example of US culture’s obsession with turning everything into a contest between two radically opposed adversaries, each seeking to prove its superiority over the other. All distinctions, even intellectual ones, are subject to the law of competition, which — whether in sports or academic debate — offers the public the exciting spectacle of an existential struggle (that nevertheless tends to enrich both surviving opponents).

So, despite his lapse concerning the pyramids, we know Musk is smart. But he wants us to know that he is not just smart, but smarter than other smart people. To bring home the point, with reference to the contest between human and artificial intelligence (AI), he now blames “smart” people for failing to understand what only he knows to be the danger.

Here is how he frames it: “My assessment about why A.I. is overlooked by very smart people is that very smart people do not think a computer can ever be as smart as they are. And this is hubris and obviously false.” Musk, the future master of the solar system, cannot himself be accused of hubris. (Note his use of “obviously” that appeared in his comment on the pyramids).

Musk added this: “We’re headed toward a situation where A.I. is vastly smarter than humans and I think that time frame is less than five years from now. But that doesn’t mean that everything goes to hell in five years. It just means that things get unstable or weird.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Smart:

Intelligent and rich, and as a consequence — though this need not be mentioned — influential or permitted to exercise power over other people

Contextual Note

There is a sense in which the idea of smart clearly diverges from that of intelligence in US culture. To be intelligent denotes a person’s ability to understand complex phenomena. To be smart connotes the use of intelligence to get one’s way. In a culture that stresses self-reliance, smartness translates as assertiveness. It’s all about achieving success, fame and wealth. That essentially means that it is better to be smart than intelligent.

At the same time that he is promoting the products of a company he created to produce marketable AI products, Musk has sounded the alarm about the risk of domination by non-human intelligence. This may sound paradoxical, but it boils down to Musk’s finely-tuned ability in the art of scientific assertiveness some people call marketing.

When Musk says that “very smart people do not think a computer can ever be as smart as they are,” he wants the public to understand that he knows something “very smart people” don’t know. Musk warned about the dangers of AI back in 2016, predicting at that time that “humans risk being treated like house pets by artificial intelligence unless technology is developed that can connect brains to computers.” The Independent’s reporter, Anthony Cuthbertson, reminds us that shortly “after making the remarks, Mr Musk announced a new brain-computer interface startup that is attempting to implant a brain chip using a ‘sewing machine-like device.’”

That is a perfect example of what some people would call marketing smarts. Create fear and then offer a solution to the threat. It is worth reflecting on why AI could never be smart enough to accomplish anything similar. AI simply can never become as smart as Elon Musk.

The first reason is that AI, focused on accumulated knowledge and ensuring the efficient treatment of data, cannot decide to be provocative in the way Musk can. He can make statements that have nothing to do with objective reality or existing bodies of knowledge. They sound authoritative because Musk himself is known to be smart.

Making such statements — whether they concern the future behavior of AI or the construction of the pyramids — are smart things to do because they assertively advance Musk’s interests. Those interests simultaneously include the financial health of his companies and his ego. This highlights the problem AI will face in its future competition with human smartness. It will lack the drive associated with financial interest, the force that defines and models “smart” people’s behavior in today’s consumer society. More significantly, it will utterly lack the notion of ego.

In other words, AI may end up being more intelligent than the brightest scientist, the cleverest lawyer or the most qualified engineer. It may even write books more popular than Harry Potter. It will probably even understand that aliens could not have constructed the pyramids. But it won’t beat Musk in doing what smartness is all about: being assertive and getting one’s way.

Historical note

For the ancient Romans, the verb “intelligere” meant something like “to realize” or “to understand.” But it also includes the sense of noticing, perceiving, estimating and judging. It supposes something that AI by definition cannot possess: proprioception or kinesthesia, a concept that has been defined as “the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions.”

For the Romans, the notion of intelligence assumed proprioception as its starting point. The Romans even talked about their verbs starting with the idea of subjectivity, in the first person. For a Roman, the verb was “intelligo” (I understand) not “intelligere” (to understand). They assumed there was a subject looking at the world and interacting with it.

As the age of science blossomed in Europe in the 17th century, subjectivity began to take a back seat to a new obsession with objectivity. An entire civilization sought to understand the universe as essentially a sophisticated mechanism. That impelled the scientist and philosopher René Descartes to assert — against the objectivity-oriented trend that he himself was promoting — that the source of intelligence was the undefinable “I.” “Cogito ergo sum.”

Just as “cogito” didn’t require the subject “ego,” even today Latin languages such as Italian and Spanish do not require stating “io” or “yo” to precede a verb. The perceiving subject is understood to be the source. But in English and northern European languages, we simply aren’t allowed to say, for example, “think therefore am.” We need to hear about the ego.

And just as no one doubts Elon Musk’s wealth or intelligence, they don’t doubt that everything he says originates in his ego.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Click here to read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Does Money Buy Happiness and Meaning?

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 16:15:06 GMT

When you see multimillionaires, with their yachts and luxury houses, you probably assume that they are supremely happy. However, you might be surprised to hear that this is not necessarily the case. In 2006, Princeton University psychologist, economist and author Daniel Kahneman and a team of researchers conducted a study entitled “Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion.” Kahneman and his co-authors found that although people with high incomes are more likely than others to say they’re generally happy with their lives, this difference virtually disappears when they make a moment-to-moment assessment of how happy they really are.

The study was published in Science magazine. Their findings described a phenomenon known as the “focusing illusion,” which misleads people into believing that more money can — or does — make them happier. The more narrowly individuals focus on a particular aspect of their lives, the greater its apparent influence.

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“When people consider the impact of any single factor on their wellbeing — not only income — they are prone to exaggerate its importance,” the researchers explain. So, when survey respondents are asked, for example, whether wealthier people are happier than those less well off, they tend to focus on financial status as the root of happiness.

In reality, according to the study, higher income does little to improve life satisfaction and may even cause more anxiety and stress. When you compare things like cars, careers, holiday destinations, you tend to focus on one aspect particular closely, neglecting the hundred other factors in your life. You assign this one inordinate significance because of the focusing illusion.

In his book, “The Art of the Good Life: Clear Thinking for Business and a Better Life,” Rolf Dobelli shares details about another study that Kahneman carried out with psychologists Norbert Schwartz and Jing Xu. They asked motorists how much pleasure they got from their car? Their conclusion: When somebody sinks a load of money into a car, at least they get a good return on their investment in the form of joy. But here is the really interesting point. They then asked this question: How happy were you during your last car trip? They then compared the motorists’ answers with the values of their cars. The outcome — absolutely no correlation. Whether respondents were driving a top-end luxury car or a second-hand banger, there was no correlation between the car they were driving to how happy they were feeling. Question one showed a definite correlation between the perceived pleasure it gave its owner and the monetary value of the car. But the second question saw no correlation at all. A luxury car didn’t make the drivers any happier.

That is the effect of the focusing illusion: A car makes you happy when you are thinking about it but not when you are driving it. Thinking about your purchase of the car in a forced way makes you happy, but the more you use it, this fades to the back of your mind, and that minimizes the effect on your happiness. You can apply this to any other material purchases.

How can you spend your time doing things that would definitely enrich and benefit your life from these sources when your thoughts are consumed by purchasing material goods? You are conned into the illusion that these will make you happy, but, actually, all the evidence shows they do not.

Everyone overestimates the impact of material purchases on their well-being and underestimates the impact of meaning in your life through rewarding experiences. The evidence points to these experiences can increase your well-being significantly.

*[Neil Francis is the author of “Inspired Thinking” (LID Publishing, 2020).]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Is Europe More United Than the US?

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 12:40:31 GMT

During the Trump era, America increasingly seems like a motley collection of states brought together for reasons of territorial contiguity and little else. The conservative South is ravaged by a pandemic. The liberal Northeast waits patiently for elections in November to oust a tyrant. A rebellious Pacific Northwest faces off against federal troops sent to “restore order.” The Farm Belt, the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt are like three nations divided by a common language.

The European Union, on the other hand, really does consist of separate countries: 27 of them. The economic gap between Luxembourg and Latvia is huge, the difference in median household income even larger than that between America’s richest and poorest states (Maryland and West Virginia).

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European countries have gone to war with each other more recently than the American states (a mere 25 years ago in the case of former Yugoslavia). All EU members are democracies, but the practice of politics varies wildly from perpetually fragmented Italy to stolid Germany to ever-more illiberal Hungary.

Despite these economic and political differences, the EU recently managed to perform a miracle of consensus. After 90 hours of discussion, EU leaders hammered out a unified approach to rebuilding the region’s post-pandemic economy.

The EU is looking at an 8.7% economic contraction for 2020. But the coronavirus pandemic clearly hit some parts of the EU worse than others, with Italy and Spain suffering disproportionately. Greece remains heavily indebted from the 2008-09 financial crisis. Most of Eastern Europe has yet to catch up to the rest of the EU. If left to themselves, EU members would recover from the current pandemic at very different rates and several might not recover at all.

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That’s why the deal is so important. The EU could have helped out its struggling members by extending more loans, which was basically the approach after 2009. This time around, however, the EU is providing almost half of the money in the new recovery fund — $446 billion — in grants, not loans. The $1.3-trillion budget that European leaders negotiated for the next seven years will keep all critical EU programs afloat (like the European structural and investment funds that help bridge the gap between the wealthier and the less wealthy members).

Sure, there were plenty of disagreements. The “frugal four” of the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Sweden argued down the amount of money allocated to the grant program and the budget numbers overall. Germany has often sided with the frugal faction in the past, but this time Chancellor Angela Merkel played a key role in negotiating the compromise. She also managed to bribe Hungary and Poland to support the deal by taking “rule-of-law” conditionality off the table. Both countries have run afoul of the EU by violating various rule-of-law norms with respect to media, judiciary and immigration. Yet both countries will still be able to access billions of dollars from the recovery fund and the overall budget.

Until recently, the EU seemed to be on the brink of dissolution. The United Kingdom had bailed, Eastern Europe was increasingly authoritarian, the southern tier remained heavily in debt, and the pandemic was accelerating these centrifugal forces. But now it looks as the EU will spin together, not spin apart.

The United States, on the other hand, looks ever more in disarray. As Lucrezia Reichlin, professor of economics at the London Business School, put it, “Despite being one country, the U.S. is coming out much more fragmented than Europe.”

The Coming Storm

The Trump administration has been all about restarting the US economy. President Donald Trump was reluctant to encourage states to lock down in the first place. He supported governors and even armed protesters demanding that states reopen prematurely.

And now that the pandemic has returned even more dramatically than the first time around, the president is pretending as though the country isn’t registering over 60,000 new infections and over a thousand deaths every day. Trump was willing to cancel the Florida portion of the Republican Party convention for fear of infection, but he has no problem insisting that children hold the equivalent of thousands of mini-conventions when they return to school.

Europe, which was much more stringent about prioritizing health over the economy, is now pretty much open for business.

The challenge has been summer tourism. Vacationers hanging out on beaches and in bars are at heightened risk of catching the COVID-19 disease — which is caused by the novel coronavirus — and bringing it home with them. There have been some new outbreaks of the disease in Catalonia, an uptick in cases in Belgium and the Netherlands, and a significant increase in infections in Romania. Belgium is already re-instituting restrictions on social contacts. Sensibly, a number of European governments are setting up testing sites for returning tourists.

The EU is determined not to repeat what’s going on in Florida, Texas and California. It is responding in a more deliberate and unified way to outbreaks leading to an average of 81 deaths a day than the United States is responding as a whole to a very nearly out-of-control situation producing more than 900 deaths a day.

The US isn’t just facing a deadly resurgence of the pandemic. Various economic signals indicate that the so-called “V-shaped recovery” — much hyped by the Trump administration — is just not happening. More people are again filing for unemployment benefits. People are reluctant to go back to restaurants and hang out in hotels. The business sector in general is faring poorly.

“The sugar rush from re-openings has now faded and a resurgence of domestic coronavirus cases, alongside very weak demand, supply chain disruptions, historically low oil prices, and high levels of uncertainty will weigh heavily on business investment,” according to Oren Klachkin, lead US economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report in July that offered two potential scenarios for the US economy through the end of the year. Neither looks good. The “optimistic scenario” puts the unemployment rate at the end of 2020 at 11.3% (more or less what it is right now) and an overall economic contraction of 7.3%. According to the pessimistic scenario, the unemployment rate would be nearer to 13% and the economic contraction at 8.5%.

Much depends on what Congress does. The package that Senate Republicans unveiled last week is $2 trillion less than what the Democrats have proposed. It offers more individual stimulus checks, but nothing for states and municipalities and no hazard pay for essential workers.

Unemployment benefits expired a few weeks ago, and Republicans would only extend them at a much-decreased level. Although Congress will likely renew the eviction moratorium, some landlords are already trying to kick out renters during the gap. The student loan moratorium affecting 40 million Americans runs out at the end of September.

The only sign of economic resurgence is the stock market, which seems to be running entirely on hope (of a vaccine or a tech-led economic revival). At some point, this irrational exuberance will meet its evil twin, grim reality. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Europeans are preparing the foundation for precisely the V-shaped recovery that the United States, at the moment, can only dream about.

The Transatlantic Future

What does a world with a stronger Europe and a weaker America look like? A stronger Europe will no longer have to kowtow to America’s mercurial foreign policy. Take the example of the Iran nuclear deal, which the Obama administration took the lead in negotiating. Trump not only canceled US participation, but he also threatened to sanction any actors that continued to do business with Iran. Europe protested and even set up its own mechanisms to maintain economic ties with Tehran. But it wasn’t enough. Soon enough, however, the United States won’t have the economic muscle to blackmail its allies.

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The EU has certainly taken a tougher stance toward China over the last couple years, particularly on economic issues. But in its negotiations with Beijing, the EU has also put far greater emphasis on cooperation around common interests. As such, expect the European Union to take full advantage of the US decline to solidify its position in an East Asian regional economy that recovers far more quickly from the pandemic than pretty much anywhere in the world.

Europe is also well-positioned to take the lead on climate change issues, which the United States has forfeited in its four years of catastrophic backsliding under Trump. As part of its new climate pact, the EU has pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2050. The European Commission is also considering a radical new idea: a carbon tax on imports. In the future, if you want to be competitive in selling your products in the European market, you’ll have to consider the carbon footprint of your operation.

Of course, the EU could do better. But compared to the US, Russia or China, it’s way out in front. The European Union is not a demilitarized space. It has a very mixed record on human rights conditionality. And its attitudes toward immigration range from half-welcoming to downright xenophobic.

But let’s say that Europe emerges from this pandemic with greater global authority, much as the US did after World War II. A lot of Americans, and most American politicians, will bemoan this loss of status. But a world led by a unified Europe would be a significantly better place than one mismanaged by a fragmented United States.

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Was the First Gulf War the Last Triumph of Multilateralism?

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 10:15:41 GMT

This week marks the 30^th anniversary of Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Desperate to pay off his nation’s seemingly insurmountable debt, acquired as a result of his invasion of and the futile 8-year war with Iran that had just ended, Saddam Hussein saw oil-rich Kuwait as the solution. Iraq had never recognized Kuwait’s sovereignty, claiming it had been hived off by the British during its occupation of Iraq in the early 20^th century. Moreover, as he and many Iraqis asserted, it really was Iraq’s “19^th province.”

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Saddam deployed Iraqi troops to the border in July of 1990, prompting concern among neighboring Arab countries and the United States. In a much-reported meeting with then-US Ambassador April Glaspie late in July, he was asked about his intentions. Glaspie took pains to explain that the US had “no opinion” on Arab-Arab disputes, further expressing the US hope that the Iraqi-Kuwait border question might be resolved soon and without the use of force. (Egypt has been trying to mediate the dispute.) Saddam interpreted her response as an American green light to invade, as egregious a misinterpretation of a diplomatic communication as there ever was.

A Multilateral Approach

Within hours of the August 2 invasion, the UN Security Council convened and ordered Iraq’s immediate withdrawal. It was ignored by Saddam, as were multiple subsequent UNSC resolutions. Saddam did not believe that the US or any other nation would take action to defend the small patch of desert at the end of the Persian Gulf, despite its outsize oil wealth and massive reserves.

He was wrong. Under the leadership of President George H. W. Bush and his able secretary of state, James Baker, the US organized a 34-nation coalition, including many Arab states and NATO allies. Armed with a UNSC resolution authorizing “all necessary means” if Saddam did not withdraw his forces by the January 15 deadline, the US and other coalition forces began assembling in Saudi Arabia, which many feared would be the next target of Saddam’s ambitions. Facing more than 650,000 troops and a massive US, British and French air assault, Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait. The three-day campaign cost coalition forces some 300 deaths, including 146 Americans. Iraqi casualties were never officially ascertained, but estimates range from 20,000 to 26,000 killed and 75,000 injured. Over 1,000 Kuwaitis also died, mostly civilians.

The Kuwait incursion proved even more humiliating and costly than Iraq’s ill-fated invasion of Iran. Numerous and increasingly costly sanctions (including on critical oil exports), intrusive UN weapons inspectors and expansive no-fly zones in the country’s north and south decisively placed Iraq in pariah-nation status in the world. Ultimately, it set the stage for the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and Saddam’s removal in 2003.

Leadership When It Counted

The First Gulf War marked a significant achievement for American diplomacy, one that would be difficult to replicate today. Though Saddam remained unmoved by American warnings and UNSC resolutions and sanctions, the international community proceeded deliberately but measuredly before employing force. The UNSC’s approval of Resolution 678, which authorized the use of force, obtained 12 affirmative votes, including from four of the five permanent members (China abstained) and only two negatives (Cuba and Yemen).

Deft diplomacy on the part of Bush and Baker attracted 33 other nations to the coalition that expelled Saddam’s forces. Secretary of Baker met on several occasions with Saddam’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to resolve the crisis. This was a marked contrast to George W. Bush’s approach to, and eventual invasion of, Iraq in 2003, which failed to secure UNSC approval and incurred considerable worldwide condemnation.

Importantly, despite a virtually open road to Baghdad and against the urgings of some in the US at the time, in 1991 President Bush withdrew all US forces from Iraq and did not seek to remove Saddam. This proved to be critical in maintaining the unprecedented coalition he had organized to address a Middle East crisis. Bush Sr. was able to capitalize on that achievement by assembling world leaders in Spain later that fall for the Madrid Conference, which brought together many of the same Arab countries from the coalition, plus Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and co-sponsor the Soviet Union to address the Arab-Israeli conflict. The conference became a stepping stone for increased action on the part of many Arab countries, the Palestinians and Israel, and the progress that followed.

The Era of Great Power Rivalry

The First Gulf War itself and what followed demonstrated what principled, deft and concerted diplomacy on the part of the US can achieve. Clearly, the task remains significantly short of its ultimate goal. But the hope of that seems all the more distant as the US under President Donald Trump eschews the Bush/Baker approach to multilateral diplomacy in favor of narrow, one-sided bilateral diplomacy. The latter has proven to be a contributing factor in the region’s — and perhaps the world’s — decided move toward “great power” competition.

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Nations as diverse as Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others now vie for increased influence and even dominance in the Middle East and elsewhere. Never a partisan in great power competition, the US now stands strangely quiet on the sidelines as these nations attempt to carve out spheres of influence, from the Crimea and Ukraine, to South and Central Asia, the Far East and the Middle East. For some of the peoples of the Middle East — Syria, Yemen and Libya — this has meant misery and devastation, and for the rest of the region, instability, uncertainty and fear. US-led multilateralism at a time when it stood unparalleled in military, political and economic power in the world helped address a genuine Middle East crisis 30 years ago. In that sense, America’s and the world’s actions in Iraq may very well have been the mythical “good” war in the Middle East, as much an oxymoron as that may sound.

In an era of great-power maneuvering, it would be inconceivable to imagine now a similar response in the event of another crisis between nations of the region, say Iran and Saudi Arabia. With rival major powers choosing sides, one could more easily envision competing alliances being drawn up, culminating in the sort of conflict the world saw in Europe in World War I.

Great-power competition seldom, if ever, leads to stability or peace. World War I amply proved that. The example of the First Gulf War, however, proved that multilateralism, especially when led by a powerful but principled nation, can diffuse escalating tensions, avert greater disaster and provide at least the prospect and a framework for peace and stability.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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How K-Pop Has Evolved

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 17:50:34 GMT

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Can an Indian Family Save Humanity From COVID-19?

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 17:15:10 GMT

As the world continues to endure the uncertainty and anguish bought by the invisible threat both to individual lives and the global economy, many politicians cling to the idea that once a vaccine against the COVID-19 disease is found, the return to normalcy will at last become possible. Governments will be willing to pay fortunes for the vaccine that works. And those who create an effective vaccine will earn fortunes. From a pharmaceutical point of view, health has no price. For many people, it has a cost. This is especially true in the US, the nation the most affected by the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and a place where health care is ensured according to the logic of a lottery.

The US government set up Operation Warp Speed to fund research and development of a vaccine. On July 31, Reuters reported that the “US government will pay $2.1 billion to Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc for COVID-19 vaccines to cover 50 million people and to underwrite the drugmakers’ testing and manufacturing.” Presumably, the firms will be able to make a further profit from selling the resulting vaccines privately. This is a lucrative business.

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New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman cites a very different initiative taken privately by a prosperous Indian company. The Serum Institute “announced a plan to make hundreds of millions of doses of an unproven inoculation” without a government grant. The Times calls it “a gamble” because there is no guarantee the vaccine being developed will be effective.

Normally, in the field of public health, wealthy companies don’t gamble, but Gettleman highlights a difference with the Serum Institute. “Serum is distinct from all other major vaccine producers in an important way,” he writes. “Like many highly successful Indian businesses, it is family-run. It can make decisions quickly and take big risks, like the one it’s about to, which could cost the family hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Family-run:

In the mythical past of capitalism, the traditional model for startup businesses that heroically struggled to supply solutions to perceived needs and work on a human scale until it became the norm for them to be taken over by non-heroic investors driven only by the firm’s capacity to satisfy their own greed

Contextual Note

Today’s pharmaceutical companies in the West represent the true spirit of modern capitalism, as defined by fabled theoreticians Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, who modeled its ethics of justified greed. The basic strategic principle consists of securing a monopolistic position to propose unique products at the highest possible price to customers who can afford them. That means the wealthy will always be served first.

Because pharmaceutical companies promise to improve public health, their executives are skilled at getting grants from public bodies to fund their research. Why should the firms take the risk of investing their own cash? But when publicly-funded research results in a viable product, the law of maximum profit means that it’s the company’s economic health, not public health that will benefit. For pharma executives, the role of governments is to gamble while they rake in the rewards.

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Serum has decided to make an honest gamble by investing in its industrial capacity to serve the public, without government help. Its ultimate impact on public health will prove even more essential than creating a new product. It will supply the product to those who need it, basically at cost. The company is tooling up at its own expense to ensure the industrialization and rapid distribution of what many recognize as the most promising vaccine now being developed by an Oxford University laboratory in partnership with the pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca.

The young CEO of Serum, Adar Poonawalla, has dared to violate both sacred principles of today’s profit-spinning capitalism: get others to put up the money and focus on maximizing profits through sales. Instead of appealing only to those who can afford it, the company’s vision targets those who need it. Poonawalla promises to “split the hundreds of millions of vaccine doses he produces 50-50 between India and the rest of the world, with a focus on poorer countries,” The Times reports. Profits will come later because “during the pandemic they will charge an amount that is no more than its production costs.”

The Poonawallas are worth more than $5 billion. How could intelligent billionaires be so addle-brained as to make investments that “could cost the family hundreds of millions of dollars” only to sell the product at cost? Shouldn’t this be seen as an act of betrayal of the billionaire class and the ethical rules established by von Hayek and Friedman?

The Wire sums up its takeaway from Gettleman’s story: “[T]he New York Times also reported that India’s Serum Institute is uniquely positioned because it is rich and isn’t beholden to shareholders.” Can it be that, contrary to Senator Bernie Sanders’ bold and philosophically reasonable assertion that “billionaires should not exist,” the Poonawallas have provided proof that at least two billionaires — father and son — should exist?

Historical Note

The Poonawallas are exceptions, but only because they have managed to remain a family business. Despite its size, the Serum Institute is a relic of the history of capitalism as it emerged in the 19th century before being overtaken in the 20th century by convergent financial and market forces. By laying bare the working principles of capitalism, Karl Marx himself may have helped capitalists to understand that the key to maximum profit was maximum clout. To make sense today, any serious project must follow the logic and “science of venture capital” or private equity. If the family business provided the old mythical foundation of capitalist venture, the new and equally romanticized model supposes two geniuses who build their idea in a garage before inviting in the investors who sense the promise of a monopoly that will eventually be gobbled up by a very rich company or go public.

In some respects, the Poonawalla family has managed to conform to the modern model of capitalism. “Adar Poonawalla acknowledged that his family was better known for ‘being seen in some fancy car or a jet or whatever,’ than making lifesaving vaccines,” The Times reports. But that is more about how class is perceived than economic reality. It has special meaning in India with its persistent caste ideology. In every society, the super-rich must decide how to show off or hide their wealth. Westerners give more importance to vaunting their capacity to manage rather than flaunt it. That correlates with the fact that India has more family-run businesses than most other countries.

Only a family-run business could dare to announce this strategy: “After the pandemic passes, Mr. Poonawalla expects that he will be able to sell the vaccine at a profit — if it works — but his biggest concern is the near term and covering his cash flow,” Jeffrey Gettleman writes.

It is true that for two decades, American billionaire Jeff Bezos violated the logic of traditional investors by refusing to aim for profitability. He kept Amazon focused on market positioning, the hope of achieving monopoly status. It worked, as has now become obvious. His company can no longer avoid making a profit, even when he continues to try.

The Times article sums up the unorthodox capitalist logic of Serum in these terms: “Mr. Poonawalla said he felt an obligation to take this risk.” In his own words, “We just felt that this was our sort of moment.”

The risk is real. Family businesses are more fragile than investor-led companies. The ultimate tragedy of the story may still be in the offing. In the end, the family may have to compromise the liberty that has allowed it to step forward with this project. The company’s and the family’s finances alone will be strained beyond capacity even in the case of success. “For the first time, the Poonawallas say they are considering turning to sovereign wealth or private equity funds for help,” reports Gettleman.

Peering into the future, the article then evokes the possibility of seeking “financial help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation … or maybe the Indian government.” It is the iron law of global capitalism. Every dream of continued independence is doomed to end someday. It is downright Darwinian. That is the world even rich Indian family businesses interested in responding to humanity’s needs are condemned to live in and adapt to.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can an Indian Family Save Humanity From COVID-19? appeared first on Fair Observer.

How Will the UAE Cope With Growing Environmental Insecurity?

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 14:36:28 GMT

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is “living through an unrivalled drop in carbon output.” According to the International Energy Agency, global use of energy will drop 6% in 2020, an amount that equals India’s total energy demand. Worldwide demand for electricity has already fallen 5%, which is the largest amount since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The dramatic decline in pollution resulting from economic lockdowns was apparently visible and recorded by numerous satellites. However, it will take a decade of this kind of economic lockdown to make a significant impact on global warming and truly curb carbon emissions.

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Environmental pollutants are indifferent to national boundaries. Addressing climate change requires long-term international cooperation. All countries must make serious and collective efforts to stop irreversible damage caused by climate change.

The Environment-Security Nexus

The United Arab Emirates is among the world’s biggest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases. In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature has ranked the UAE as having the world’s highest per capita environmental footprint, which largely has to do with the unsustainable megaprojects that began in the Emirates amid the oil boom of the 1970s.

Other factors such as the desert country’s climatic conditions are in the picture too. There are also the popular modes of transportation within the Emirates: According to a survey conducted by the Department of Transport in 2014, “60 per cent of Abu Dhabi and Dubai residents who owned a car said they never used public transport. Only two to three percent use public transport frequently.” This is in part due to the long-standing car culture in the Emirates and relatively cheap fuel as well as car prices, but also because of connectivity problems to certain destinations.

As outlined by Jon Barnett in his 2013 essay “Environmental Security,” environmental problems pose threats to the national well-being as well as the quality of life of the inhabitants of any state. Analysts and scholars refer to environmental security when discussing the threats and dangers emanating from the environment. The principal source that threatens ecological security is human activity. The environment is one of the seven sectors outlined in the United Nations Development Program’s early definition of human security, and environmental change has long been identified as a human security issue.

The Emiratis have been struggling with a number of environmental threats for decades. Today, numerous environmental issues — including pollution, waste, land degradation, desertification, biodiversity loss, etc. — all impact the UAE. Waste and air pollution constitute major challenges, in particular outdoor air pollution. The UAE ranks in the bottom fourth globally in exposure to particulate matter — tiny particles of sand, dust or chemicals registered at elevated levels that are highly dangerous and associated with risks of numerous diseases such as cancer, as well as respiratory and heart diseases. In 2017, the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi considered poor air quality to be a “primary environmental threat to public health.”

In terms of water, the UAE continues to have highly unsustainable groundwater extraction rates. Being largely a desert country, the contamination of its fresh groundwater reserves and seawater endangers the UAE’s future. Some experts have warned of the imminent depletion of groundwater sources by 2030.

In the area of biodiversity conservation, the UAE boasts a number of protected areas both on land and in the sea. But its fish stocks are in a critical state. Overfishing and heavy commercial maritime shipping across the Persian Gulf have also contributed to a potentially irreversible decline in the health of fragile coral reefs off the coast. Silt from shoreline construction has had a negative impact on coral.

“Greening” the Emirati Economy

The UAE has long acknowledged climate change as a serious threat multiplier to the country and is ahead of the curve when compared to other countries that are still debating the seriousness of the issue or even outright denying its reality. Recognizing these environmental threats, the UAE has been in the process of “greening” its economy by developing a solar energy sector along with a nuclear energy sector and managing its scarce water resources with an emphasis on conservation and efficiency. It has been at the forefront of the renewables revolution with its solar farms while very slowly transforming its thermal desalination plants into reverse osmosis desalination facilities that produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

The UAE Vision 2021 document contains as one of its wide-reaching goals a “well-preserved natural environment” and seeks to address various environmental threats to the country. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi has put in place its Environment Vision 2030 strategy, which lists five priority areas, namely climate change impacts, air and noise pollution, water resources, biodiversity and waste. The UAE government has set up various institutions and initiatives to address environmental issues in the previous decades such as the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative and the Arab Water Academy, and has signed and ratified numerous international and regional environmental conventions. The government has launched a variety of awareness campaigns pertaining to environmental issues in order to educate different sectors of society.

According to Dr. Taoufik Ksiksi, a plant biologist and climate change researcher at the United Arab Emirates University at Al Ain, these awareness campaigns were not quite sufficient: “More needs to be done to raise the awareness levels, especially at the lower levels, in schools with young people, and there have to be substantial changes to the curriculum to incorporate courses on environmental sciences, native ecology and conservation in general,” he said in a phone interview. In addition, Ksiksi suggests that “more robust climate modeling approaches that focus primarily on the region need to be developed with increased processing power that take into account regional circumstances and are not geared towards climate conditions prevalent in Europe.”

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Dr. Ksiksi thinks that UAE’s advantage is that it enjoys “the benefit of resources than can fund technology and new initiatives.” Yet the lack of synergy in terms of regional cooperation in the area of green economy building in the Arabian Peninsula somewhat hampers such efforts.

The UAE has for some time now incorporated narratives of sustainable development into the country’s national policy aims. Masdar City, described as a city of the future, is perhaps the best known and most ambitious example of an avowedly green megaproject. Other projects such as Sustainable City and Desert Rose City are additional examples of green cities that emphasize technological innovation in Masdar City’s manner.

The greening of the Emirates takes on a central aspect of the modernization narrative. The main gist is that the existing ecological challenges can be measured, and existing institutions and policies find solutions to the problems. According to Dr. Gökçe Günel, the UAE is making a serious effort to maintain its status quo while offering up “technical adjustments” to environmental challenges. Sustainable development juxtaposes intense economic development along with high consumerism coexisting with an environmentally friendly and responsible society. This reveals a paradox in the greening process currently in place.

These projects are small in scale and only take on a tiny space in the overall urbanity of the country. They take place in a bounded environment and constitute living laboratories that pioneer green technology. But they cannot be replicated on a larger scale or implemented and applied across the whole territory.

Inevitably, rapid urban growth and transnational migration flows have massively enlarged the ecological footprints of countries such as the UAE. It will be very difficult to achieve sustainable development while Arab Gulf states subsidize massive energy consumption, continue to expand urban sprawl and expansion, and allow for traffic congestion while remaining careless about water and electricity consumption.

*[Gulf State Analytics is a partner organization of Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Will the UAE Cope With Growing Environmental Insecurity? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Beijing’s BRI Hubris Comes at a Price

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 11:42:18 GMT

Despite more than 3,000 years of Chinese history, many of the world’s countries had little to no direct experience with China or Chinese investment prior to the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). There was a presumption on the part of many governments that international best practices were well established and that China would be in compliance with those standards as it rolled out the initiative. As they now know, that often turned out not to be the case, but the fact that the Chinese business model is a mix of public and private sector participation, rules and regulations that are not necessarily logical or coherent and are often misunderstood has complicated matters.

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For all concerned, the BRI has in many ways been a leap in the dark, since such an ambitious undertaking had never before been attempted. The Chinese government, and many of the nation’s companies active in the initiative, were, and remain, on a learning curve. The enforceability of Chinese regulations on private sector Chinese companies operating overseas can be inconsistent, and Chinese-built infrastructure has, at times, been found to be substandard. Regulations governing the practices of Chinese firms are frequently revised, leaving many organizations scrambling to keep up in the public and private sectors. It then takes a while for new guidelines to translate into practice abroad.

BRI Financing

BRI financing is highly dependent on loans from the China Development Bank, China Export-Import Bank and other state-owned commercial banks. China’s foreign exchange reserves are important sources of capital for these institutions. Although Beijing maintains the world’s largest aggregation of foreign currency, its foreign reserves have declined in recent years, which, when combined with its dramatically slowing economy, raises questions about the sustainability of BRI financing in the medium term.

Under the presumption that foreign capital and support from multilateral financial institutions will be required to sustain BRI projects in the future, China’s Ministry of Finance established the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Financing with eight multilateral development banks and financial institutions. The center is expected to enhance the project financing process through a combination of better information sharing, improved project preparation and capacity building. The ministry has also developed the Debt Sustainability Framework for Participating Countries (DSF) of the BRI, collaborating with its counterparts from 28 partner countries. China’s DSF is virtually identical to the World Bank-International Monetary Fund DSF, which governs lending operations for the multilateral institutions and many bilateral lenders. That should increase its prospects for success.

China’s effort is a significant step forward in guarding against the debt challenges associated with the BRI. Debt sustainability can only grow in importance for Beijing. As the BRI progresses, China will have no choice but to take steps to improve reporting transparency vis-à-vis financing, transaction structures and debt repayment. As for host governments that have become saddled with tens of billions of dollars of debt as a result of debt-trap diplomacy, their concerns have been widely shared with Beijing. Many of these nations have already become more discriminating BRI consumers. Although the trail of debt-related issues will certainly not diminish going forward, they will hopefully become less severe in time.

The Chinese government has sought to integrate the BRI with its green growth agenda in an attempt to address criticism of its continued reliance on coal power and the lack of environmental oversight on Chinese infrastructure projects. Although Beijing has made great strides toward improving environmental and resource productivity, greater efficiency gains are vital to achieving a shift toward low-carbon, resource-efficient, competitive economies. Future progress will largely depend on the country’s capacity to integrate environmental aspects into the decision-making process for all its domestic and foreign policies to ensure that industrial and environmental policy objectives and measures are well aligned and mutually supportive.

Reputational Risk

At ongoing risk also is China’s reputation. The blowback it has experienced as a result of its rollout of the BRI from countries around the world has been unprecedented. The same may be said about its trade practices with the US and its response to COVID-19. Many of the world’s governments and people have simply lost confidence in Beijing, to the extent that they had confidence to begin with. The ball is squarely in Beijing’s court to raise the level of confidence the world may have in the future regarding what it says versus what it actually does. There is no better proving ground on that score than the BRI.

A combination of hubris, a bulldozer approach to getting things done and a complete lack of sensitivity had worked well for the Communist Party of China at home for 70 years, and Beijing apparently believed that doing the same would work well overseas. While some aspects of Beijing’s original approach ended up yielding some positive results, President Xi Jinping’s move toward “BRI lite” in 2018 had to be taken with a grain of salt. He deserves credit for acknowledging some of the initiative’s pitfalls, but the Chinese government’s pivot must ultimately be considered too little and too late.

If it wanted to more fully acknowledge the error of its ways, it would have offered to renegotiate every BRI contract that was clearly skewed in its favor rather than waiting to be asked to do so, award debt forgiveness on a broader basis and stop in its tracks any project under construction that is inconsistent with best environmental practices. That is clearly not going to happen.

*[Daniel Wagner is the author of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Beijing’s BRI Hubris Comes at a Price appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Bologna Attack of 1980: Italy’s Unhealed Wound

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 07:08:00 GMT

The clock struck 10:25 am on August 2, 1980, when a bomb exploded at Bologna’s Central Train Station. The attack plunged the city, known at the time for its left-wing politics and home to one of the oldest universities on the continent, into chaos. One of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Europe, the explosion had a devastating effect, killing 85 people and injuring over 200. After years of investigations, trials and false leads, Francesca Mambro and Giuseppe Fioravanti, members of the right-wing terrorist organization Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR), were sentenced to life imprisonment in November 1995. Both, however, have always maintained their innocence.

Many others were also put on trial, some of whom eventually received prison sentences for supporting the terrorists or for obstruction of justice. Among them were Licio Gelli, head of the infamous Propaganda Due lodge, and Pietro Musumeci, an officer in the Italian military secret service.

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Despite these convictions, the Strage di Bologna, or the Bologna massacre, as the attack is now known, continues to be a source of heated debate in Italy, and serious doubts remain as to whether the masterminds behind the attack have really been caught. Every now and then, for example, the Italian judiciary issues new sentences in connection with the attack. Moreover, as recently as January this year, nearly 40 years after the incident, Gilberto Cavalli was found guilty of aiding and abetting Mambro and Fioravanti.

The ongoing sentencing seems to confirm the widespread belief that we still do not know the whole story and that Italy has struggled to come to terms with this horrible act of terrorism. This state of seeming paralysis is symbolized by the fact that the main station’s clock has not been replaced and, as a reminder for future generations, still shows the exact time of the attack.

A New Lead? The Palestinian Theory

Former politicians, judges and magistrates, as well as investigative journalists and academics, have often added to the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the attack. Manifold theories about the true masterminds exist, alternately accusing left-wing terrorists, the Mafia or Gladio of having orchestrated the attack. In 2008, Francesco Cossiga, member of the former Christian Democratic Party (DC) who served as minister of interior between 1976-78 and held the title of prime minister between 1979-80 and president of Italy from 1985 to 1992, cast doubt on the culpability of the neo-fascists.

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, he argued that the Bologna attack was an act of retaliation by Palestinian terrorists because the government in Rome had violated the so-called Lodo Moro — a decades-old secret agreement between Rome and the Palestinian Liberation Organizations (PLO), in which the Palestinians offered to spare Italy from PLO orchestrated terrorist attacks in return for Rome’s diplomatic support and for allowing the PLO to roam freely in Italy. In July 2016, Rosario Priore, who has investigated right-wing terrorism in Italy for years, propagated Cossiga’s thesis in his book, “I segreti di Bologna: La verità sull’atto terroristico più grave della storia italiana” (“The Secrets of Bologna: The Truth About the Most Serious Attack in Italy’s History”).

According to Priore, everything started in November 1979 when the Carabinieri arrested three left-wing extremists — Daniele Pifano, Giuseppe Nieri and Giorgio Baumgartner — and a Palestinian man, Abu Anzeh Saleh, for arms smuggling. When the Italian government declined to release Saleh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) under George Habash contacted Libyan leaders Muammar Gaddafi, who in turn asked the Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramirez Sanchez — better known as Carlos the Jackal — to retaliate against the Italians. The German Thomas Kram, a member of Carlos’ group, was duly dispatched to Bologna to carry out the bombing. However, Kram and Carlos denied any involvement, arguing that Kram was under constant surveillance by the Italian police as soon as he entered Italy and therefore could not have carried out the attack undetected.

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Nevertheless, the question remains: Were the Palestinians really responsible, in one form or another, for the terrorist attack in Bologna? As time goes by and more and more archives declassify their documents and make them available for researchers, we may be able to get closer to the truth. In the meantime, however, as historians, we can try to sort myth from reality by contextualizing the events and critically examining the arguments presented. This approach reveals that the Palestinian theory is not as cut and dried as Priore and others claim.

We do not currently have any evidence that the PFLP and its main leaders, Habash and Bassam Abu Sharif, or any other Palestinian group actually demanded the release of Saleh. Furthermore, bombings were not typically the first weapon of choice for Palestinian terrorists, who preferred kidnappings and taking hostages at the time. In addition, the Palestinians usually claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks they committed. Even Carlos, who worked for the PFLP until 1975, usually claimed responsibility for his actions.

Moreover, neither the Palestinians nor the Italian government would have gained anything from a stand-off caused by the arrest of one person and the confiscation of weapons. Given the vulnerability of the Italian economy and its dependence on Arab oil, Rome continued to negotiate with rather than confront the PLO. In June 1980, for example, the European Council under Italian leadership issued a statement in favor of the PLO. In addition, in 1980, the various factions within the PLO — including Habash’s PFLP — supported Yasser Arafat’s more cautious and diplomatic approach toward the European countries.

Why would the PFLP, whose leadership had been weakened when Habash suffered a stroke in 1980, go through all this trouble when there was really nothing to gain? Only when Arafat’s leadership role was challenged in 1982 did Palestinian attacks in Europe resume, with the Achille Lauro affair of 1985 serving as a prime example.

Going back to Francesco Cossiga’s testimony, it seems that he used the 2008 interview primarily to present himself in a favorable light for the newspaper’s Israeli readership by rejecting any involvement in the pact between Rome and the PLO. He claimed that the secret service did not tell him any details about the agreement between Rome and the Palestinians, which, considering his positions at the highest level of government, is hardly convincing. In addition, by blaming foreign terrorists for the deadliest attack in Italy’s history, he avoided taking responsibility for neglecting and underestimating homegrown terrorism.

Moreover, we should not forget the tensions between the leadership of what was formerly known as the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian judiciary. Cossiga’s interview shows his distrust toward the judiciary and might have also been an attempt to undermine their authority, by implying that they were unable to find and prosecute the real perpetrators of the attack despite all these years that have passed since.

A Familiar Pattern: Right-Wing Terrorism

Considering these points, it seems unlikely that the Bologna attack was an act of retaliation against Italy orchestrated by the PFLP. The extent of Gaddafi’s involvement might tell a different story, but only further investigation and declassification of documents will clarify that case. As it stands, all the concrete evidence and indications we do have point to Italy’s extreme radical right.

The Bologna attack mirrored how right-wing terrorists have previously operated in Italy, particularly during the strategy of tension period between 1969 and 1974. Though skeptics may claim that the attack was designed to mimic the tactics of the extreme radical right and thus shift blame, it was not just the attack itself — the indiscriminate bombing without anyone claiming responsibility — but also the target that reminded many contemporaries of the chaos right-wing terrorists inflicted on Italy a decade earlier: placing bombs in or close to trains in the summertime, thus causing maximum civilian casualties.

On August 4, 1974, for instance, right-wing terrorists of the group Black Order carried out an attack on the Italicus express, killing 12 people and injuring 48. The Italian singer and songwriter Claudio Lolli commemorated the attack in his famous song “Agosto”— August — which experienced a revival after the Bologna attack.

One important aspect of the strategy of tension, however, was missing in 1980, thus implying that it was not just a copycat attack. In contrast to the early 1970s, the attempts to blame the Italian left for the attack were marginal and had not been picked up by Italy’s major newspapers. It shows that the perpetrators were able to adapt to a new socio-political situation. Blaming the Italian left, which had established itself as an integral part of the Italian political landscape in 1980, for the Bologna attack would have been a lost cause.

That does not mean, however, that the right-wing terrorists did not attempt to influence Italian politics. Bombings, bloodshed and chaos on the streets usually favor conservative groups who claim to be the protectors of law and order. Why right-wing terrorists thought 1980 would be a good year to launch another campaign to push Italy further to the right can only be fully understood when we contextualize Bologna within Italian and European history of the time.

Given the rising tensions between the West and the Eastern Bloc since 1979, anti-communism became a powerful recruitment tool for the radical right in Europe and again offered an opportunity to form alliances with the conservative milieu, including elements of the state secret services. Thus, it comes as no surprise that everywhere in Europe, extreme parts of the radical right started a new campaign of terror to influence the politics of their respective countries and push them further to the right. The campaign started in February 1980 and lasted, with pauses, at least until 1984-85, when the regime in Moscow began to noticeably decline.

France and Spain experienced a series of right-wing attacks, and after Bologna, a bomb exploded at the Oktoberfest in Munich on September 26, 1980, killing 13 people. Given the latter’s proximity to the Bologna attack, rumors quickly circulated that some kind of connection must have existed between the Italian terrorists and the German perpetrator, Gundolf Köhler. In 2014, the German federal prosecutor general decided to reopen the case due to inconsistencies and omissions in the original investigations. Until July 2020, when the case was closed again, over 300,000 pages of evidence were examined and over 1,000 witnesses interviewed. In the end, however, the prosecutor could not find additional co-conspirators or backers as possible evidence was carelessly — some would argue deliberately — destroyed early on.

He did, however, establish that Köhler indeed committed a right-wing terrorist attack to shape West Germany’s politics and was more than just a disgruntled youth. Köhler wanted to influence the political landscape in his country in favor of conservative change — after all, parliamentary elections in West Germany occurred only a couple of days after the bombing, and Franz-Josef Strauß, the candidate of the conservative CDU, was known for his anti-communist stance.

Fluid Politics

In Italy, the political situation in 1980 was also fluid, even though no general election was on the horizon. Francesco Cossiga formed a fragile coalition government in April 1980 between his Christian Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the Socialist Party under Bettino Craxi. In the regional election in June 1980, the Christian Democrats gained new seats, and right-wing terrorists might have thought that by destabilizing public order this trend could be pushed even further, maybe resulting in an end to the Socialist’s government involvement.

Also, the city of Bologna as a target can be taken as a clear sign that it was the extreme radical-right milieu that sought to benefit from public turmoil: Bologna was a, if not the symbol in Italy for a successful, leftist local government: Since 1970, Renato Zangheri, a member of the communist party, has served as the mayor of the city.

Last but not least, we should also consider the Italian extreme right-wing terrorist scene at the time. Internal rivalry between different factions within a terrorist milieu is often an important factor to explain a process of radicalization. While the strategy of tension of the early 1970s was dominated by a form of reactionary right-wing terrorism, the second half of the decade saw the emergence of a heterogenous right-wing “armed spontaneity” that showed similarities to the American idea of leaderless resistance of the 1970s and 1980s.

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During the second half of the 1970s, former heroes of the strategy of tension like Stefano Delle Chiaie were sidelined. When the security apparatus was able to arrest exponents of the armed spontaneity faction, and when the Cold War tensions once again increased, the old guard of Italian right-wing terrorism might have seen an opportunity to regain control over the country’s radical-right extremist milieu.

One last question remains, however: Why do the arrested right-wing terrorists deny all the charges? Should we believe them? Despite the fact that nearly everyone who was accused of having committed the terrorist bombing in Bologna has denied their involvement, the right-wing terrorists have another motif: Spreading terror and fear is a core aspect of every terrorist group. So, when they deny their involvement in the attack, which remained shrouded in mystery for decades, they increase a sense of unease, fear and terror — a feeling that something similar can happen anywhere and at any time because the true puppet masters are still out there, giving even those who have been accused of or arrested for a crime the opportunity to advance the group’s agenda.

On this 40^th anniversary of the Bologna attack, the citizens of Bologna will observe a minute of silence as they have done every year since 1980, commemorating the 85 victims whose names are enshrined on a plaque with the title “Victims of Fascist Terrorism.” Like each year before, the anniversary will be accompanied by newspaper articles and commentaries, continuing the controversial debates surrounding the attack. These discussions, however, should not distract from the fact that currently the judicial and the historical evidence point only to one group of perpetrators: right-wing terrorists.

However, as long as theories and rumors circulate and documents remain classified, the victims and their families still await closure. Even if the terrorists might have not succeeded in their ultimate goal, the fear and terror they unleashed on August 2, 1980, still haunts Italy’s public memory — and Bologna’s main station, with its stricken clock — to this day.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right is a partner institution of Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Bologna Attack of 1980: Italy’s Unhealed Wound appeared first on Fair Observer.

Continuing the Investigation of a School in Khartoum

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 18:14:23 GMT

The post Continuing the Investigation of a School in Khartoum appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Latest Version of Russiagate

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 17:37:35 GMT

The New York Times keeps slogging away at a four-year-old theme that it refuses to allow to die a natural death. Should we call it Russiagate 2.0 or 3.0 or 7.0? Whatever we call it, Russiagate has made its way back into The NYT’s headlines. Perhaps we should adopt the same convention as the health authorities who called the disease caused by the novel coronavirus COVID-19 because it first appeared in 2019. So, this could be Russiagate-20, although the number of minor versions that have appeared since the beginning of the year might make it Russiagate-20.3.

The latest article’s title is “Russian Intelligence Agencies Push Disinformation on Pandemic,” followed by the subtitle, “Declassified U.S. intelligence accuses Moscow of pushing propaganda through alternative websites as Russia refines techniques used in 2016.”

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The logic of the crime perpetrated by the recidivist known as Russia is well-known. The scenario is as familiar as any Hollywood remake. The authors of the article, Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger, want to make sure that the new variation on a story about Russian interference with American democracy does not suffer from the criticism leveled at anticlimactic events such as the Mueller report. Some will remember that in August 2019, The Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, embarrassingly admitted that the paper was “a little flat-footed” when it doggedly followed an editorial line that consisted of hyping Russiagate on the pretext that it looked “a certain way for two years.” It was the look that kept the story alive even though the narrative contained no substance.

To make their point about the seriousness of this story, Barnes and Sanger take the trouble to cite, though not to name, “outside experts” who can confirm its reality. “The fake social media accounts and bots used by the Internet Research Agency and other Russia-backed groups to amplify false articles have proved relatively easy to stamp out,” The Times reports. “But it is far more difficult to stop the dissemination of such articles that appear on websites that seem legitimate, according to outside experts.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Dissemination:

A synonym for publication that subtly suggests something underhanded, implying that the content of what is being broadcast consists of lies or disinformation

Contextual Note

What all these stories boil down to is a pair of simple facts with which readers should now be familiar. The first is the revelation that Russians and, more particularly, Russian intelligence agencies lie, just in case readers weren’t aware of that. The second is that the Russians are clever enough to get at least some of their lies published on the internet.

For these well-known and oft-repeated “truths” to become newsworthy, the reader must believe something exceptional has occurred, following the man-bites-dog principle. The exceptional fact The Times wants its readers to understand is that, unlike the stories that looked “a certain way” for two years with reference to the 2016 US presidential election, this one is no remake. It is undeniably news because it is about the COVID-19 pandemic, which only became an issue this year.

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To the discerning reader, the message is exactly the same as the idea behind the “flat-footed” campaign Baquet mentioned. But the content has changed. In both cases, processing the message requires that readers accept the implicit premise that Russians have a monopoly on lying or, alternatively, that that’s the only thing Russians know how to do. They are the only people on earth who invest in inventing contestable takes on the news and getting their lies published on the internet. There can be no legitimate reason to suspect any other nation, especially the United States, of telling lies about other nations and even managing to get them published on the web. How does The Times know that? Because its anonymous sources hailing from the very reliable US intelligence agencies have dutifully provided it with the data.

If the story had focused only on COVID-19, it probably would not have justified a full-length article. Understanding this, the journalists sought evidence of Russian interference on “a variety of topics,” including a major one: NATO. “The government’s accusations came as Mandiant Threat Intelligence, part of the FireEye cybersecurity firm, reported that it had detected a parallel influence campaign in Eastern Europe intended to discredit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” Barnes and Sanger write.

How extraordinary, Times readers must be thinking, that Russia might be trying to discredit NATO. That really is news, at least for anyone who has failed to pay attention to everything that has happened in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991. Do readers of The New York Times belong to that category of the deeply (or simply willfully) ignorant readers of the news? The Times has, after all, published a few articles at least since 1994 alluding to what historians now understand was a persistent act of betrayal by Western powers of the promises made to Russian leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin not to expand NATO… before aggressively doing the contrary over decades.

In an article in The Nation from 2018, the distinguished Russia expert Stephen Cohen highlighted the role of Western media — and The New York Times, in particular — in failing (or refusing) to cover that ongoing drama. It should surprise no one that even today, The Times not only neglects that vital bit of context, but it also uses its feigned ignorance to express its shock at the idea that the Russians might feel impelled to discredit NATO in Eastern Europe. This is not a case of Russian meddling in US elections. It’s an attempt to limit the damage the Russian government feels has resulted from Western perfidy.

The latest Times article doesn’t stop there. It offers us this insight: “While the Mandiant report did not specifically name Russia and its intelligence agencies, it noted that the campaign was ‘aligned with Russian security interests’ in an effort to undermine NATO activities.” In other words, the reporters admit there is no direct evidence of Russian involvement. They simply expect Times readers to conclude that because there appears to be an “alignment,” Russia is to blame. This is a perfect encapsulation of everything that took place around Russiagate. Alignment is proof of collusion.

Historical note

During the Cold War, Americans were thrilled to find their vocabulary enriched when the word “propaganda,” derived from Latin, was imported from their enemy, the Soviet Union. The term literally means “what is to be propagated.” The Soviets used it as the official term to describe their communications operations modeled on the same logic as the “voice of America.” In both cases, it was all about teaching third parties why their system was better than their opponent’s.

Americans sneered at the dastardly evil concept of propaganda. They clearly preferred the idea of PR (public relations). This was about the time that Vance Packard’s best-seller, “The Hidden Persuaders,” revealed how — as The New Yorker described it at the time — “manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command.”

The monumental effort of Madison Avenue stepping in to dominate a rapidly expanding economy conveniently distracted most people’s attention from the magnificent work the CIA was undertaking across the globe in the scientific (or pseudo-scientific) dissemination of misinformation. The more Americans suspected advertising was lying to them, the less concerned they were by the skullduggery of the military-industrial complex and its intelligence agencies. It clearly went well under their radar as they focused on consumer pleasures.

That gave the US a double advantage over the Soviet Union. It had two powerful industries working in parallel to feed a regular diet of lies to the American people, whereas the Soviet Union had only the government to supply them with glaringly obvious lies. The Russians were already beginning to receive its messages with growing skepticism. The US enjoyed another advantage to the extent that the fun of advertising and the pleasures of the consumer society took the sting out of their growing awareness that they too were being constantly lied to.

Can there be any doubt today that The New York Times is committed to propaganda? Like most of the media sympathetic to the Democratic Party, it not only accepts uncritically the “assessments” of the intelligence community, but it also amplifies its messages. It even extrapolates to draw conclusions they dare not affirm.

If the notion of dissemination has a negative connotation linked to the idea of propaganda, The New York Times is a master disseminator.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Latest Version of Russiagate appeared first on Fair Observer.

Is Animal Sacrifice on Eid al-Adha Still Relevant?

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:19:57 GMT

Every year during the festival of Eid al-Adha, Muslims around the world sacrifice an animal — a goat, sheep, cow or camel — to reflect Prophet Ibrahim’s (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son, Ismail (Ishmael), after Allah (God) instructed him to in a dream. Before he could do so, Allah stopped Ibrahim and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. Commemorating this act of obedience to Allah on Eid al-Adha is known as udhiya (or qurbani), the Arabic word for sacrifice.

Traditionally, a Muslim should donate at least one-third of the meat from the animal to poor or vulnerable people. The remainder of the meat is split into one-third for the family that offers the udhiya and the final third to their neighbors. Muslims who live in the West often donate money to charities that conduct the sacrifice on their behalf in places like Somalia, Bangladesh and Syria.

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The Quran explicitly mentions, “That they may witness benefits for themselves and mention the name of Allah on known days over what He has provided for them of [sacrificial] animals. So eat of them and feed the miserable and poor” (Al-Haj 22/28). Further, it says: “And the camels and cattle We have appointed for you as among the symbols of Allah ; for you therein is good. So mention the name of Allah upon them when lined up [for sacrifice]; and when they are [lifeless] on their sides, then eat from them and feed the needy and the beggar. Thus have We subjected them to you that you may be grateful” (Al-Haj 22/36).

Muslims believe the Quran is Allah’s final revelation that is still preserved to this day. According to Islamic teaching, while the udhiya should be of an animal, the flesh and blood do not reach Allah. In fact, nothing in its “form” is an offering to Allah. Rather, the act is a way of showing piety. It is the intent behind the udhiya that is important. Having said that, the act of sacrifice itself is a way to assess the intent behind it. Conversely, if we hold the view that mere intention is enough, then all acts of worship could be done away with. This is not the case in Islam.

How Does It Benefit Others?

According to the most recent UN estimates, more than 736 million people live below the international poverty line as of 2015. The United Nations mentions that around 10% of the “world population is living in extreme poverty and struggling to fulfil the most basic needs.” The World Bank adds that in “most parts of the world, growth rates are too slow, and investment is too subdued to increase median incomes. For many nations, poverty reduction has slowed or even reversed.”

Around the world, the income gap between citizens is steadily widening and food insecurity and malnutrition continue to be major problems plaguing our societies. A mere glance at the food and nutrition data from across the world is enough to understand the magnitude of this problem.

So, with this in mind, there will always be enough people in need of the meat from the sacrificed animal on Eid al-Adha. In fact, in all my years of performing this act in several developing countries, we have always run out of meat. Invariably, there are many needy people in places like Nigeria or India who look forward to this annual ritual so they can feast at home. Yet there is never enough meat to go around.

Freedom to Choose

Giving to charity is one of five pillars in Islam, the fundamentals on which the religion is built. Charitable actions — which can include non-monetary ones — are split between zakah (compulsory charity) and sadaqa (voluntary). These acts hinge all on the element of piety and intent, but to group them all together or replace one with the other does not appear to be a good idea.

It is true that udhiya is not fard (compulsory) in Islam. Some Muslims believe it is wajib — compulsory for those who have the means to do so — while others believe it is sunna muakkada (recommended). So, if one chooses not to sacrifice an animal on Eid al-Adha, it is purely an individual choice and they are free to act according to their qiyas — i.e., the interpretation of the scriptures — and there are many schools of thought in Islam.

For Muslims, the intention behind all acts of worship is of utmost importance. A person who performs an act of worship to show off does not really earn credit from Allah. It is the act of worship performed with the right intention that counts.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is Animal Sacrifice on Eid al-Adha Still Relevant? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Redesigning Science Education Is Essential for India

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:15:48 GMT

Every year, on Indian Science Day in February, India commemorates the discovery of the Raman Effect by Sir C.V. Raman. In 1930, Raman won the Nobel Prize in Physics and has been revered by Indians ever since.

Fast forward to 2019, and the US National Science Foundation placed India third when it came to publishing science and engineering articles. Despite this, the country came 52nd in the Global Innovation Index. Reaching such a low rank is an alarming sign for science education in the country.

Problems in Science Education

In India, there are two forms of schools: state-run and private. Despite separate school systems, the curriculum is decided by either the state or central governments. While science and mathematics have seen improvement over the years, they lack enough practical work.

This may be a common problem at schools worldwide — irrespective of public or private models — but it is particularly prominent at state-run schools in India. Most of these institutions are not equipped with well-managed practical science labs. There is also a shortage of science and mathematics teachers. Both state and central governments are trying hard to resolve this problem by implementing new measures. These have included the recruitment of additional teachers, guest faculty members and education fellows, but none of these have been sufficient.

The recruitment of temporary teachers often means they do not take much interest in developing teaching aids for subjects like physics or mathematics as they are only at a school for a short period of time. The appointment of dedicated employees such as education fellows for up to five years could help solve this problem.

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These fellows would essentially be employed as innovation experts who are responsible for developing innovative learning aids in local languages around India. These education fellows could go on to become permanent teachers if they do their job well. At the same time, making these developed teaching aids available to other partners, such as private schools or book publishers, would help distribute the resources to a wider market.

The science curriculum should be revised regularly and kept up to date with the demands of the modern-day market, but it should also be tailored for the individual learner. It is well-known that the majority of Indians live in small villages and, therefore, science education should be village-centric. Examples from daily village life illustrating scientific principles would enable far-more effective learning than those from urban or foreign settings. Yet most science textbooks are not catered to village students, which leaves many confused with the concepts and thus affects their education.

Science books should focus more on the practical application of science laws. While explaining the laws, students must know about the practical relevance of that scientific principle. On the one hand, students should be made aware of the necessity and relevance of differential equations for automobiles, steel and power industries. On the other hand, the pure scientific application in space science and technology should also be highlighted. Such an approach would make a student develop a deeper understanding of subjects. Yet the majority of the current curriculum is outdated and lacks innovation.

Government Initiatives

Some schemes by the central government have sought to address this. The Atal Innovation Mission was introduced in 2015-16 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship culture among Indians. Likewise, the Atal Tinkering Lab was launched to help students understand the importance of STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — subjects. This scheme provides significant monetary support of up to 1 million rupees ($13,300) to selected public and private schools.

Various forms of modern technology have been purchased by educational institutions, including drones and electronic sensors. Yet students are often only taught to assemble items that already exist by following a supplier’s instructions. Instead, they should be testing their skills by developing new, innovative models of the same concepts.

Teachers are expected to use equipment purchased under the scheme of Atal Tinkering Lab to bring out a student’s hidden ideas. For example, a drone can be used as an educational tool for such things as teaching engineering design by explaining aerodynamic models, materials selection with how to make drones lightweight, electronic circuit design and also battery selection.

Students have to be taught the importance of scientific collaboration. India needs to focus on scientific modeling in which students apply principles and learn to work together in teams. In sum, the real purpose of the Atal Lab program will only be achieved when schools adopt innovative teaching practices and make students think outside the box.

Other initiatives, such as the National Children Science Congress, the Inspire Awards and the National Science Seminar, are being organized by the central government with the support of each state. While India is taking steps in the right direction, it is high time to redevelop science education.

If India can find innovative ways in shaking up its science curriculum and the way it is taught, future generations of Indians are more likely to pursue higher education in science. In turn, India would flourish when it comes to scientific research.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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What Does Hamas Get From Russia?

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 18:51:00 GMT

Russia’s power in the Middle East is a reality that Arab actors cannot ignore, especially since Moscow’s military intervention in Syria intensified in 2015.

The post What Does Hamas Get From Russia? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Elon Musk Declares War on Pronouns

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 18:11:46 GMT

Elon Musk keeps getting richer by the day, a fact that clearly entitles him, when tweeting, to choose any target to provoke and to be as outrageous in his expression as his fancy dictates. One of Musk’s latest tweets has provoked Seth Cohen to pen an article in Forbes focused on what he calls an “apparently transphobic two-word Tweet from Friday evening.” The two words Musk chose were, “Pronouns suck.”

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As everyone should be aware, politically correct culture (PC) — sometimes referred to as “woke” culture, closely related to cancel culture — has become a dominant trend in the era of social media. It offers the permanent opportunity to anyone who feels victimized, or who takes pride in defending groups that are routinely victimized, to interpret the language they read or hear from others in a sense that feeds their sense of outrage.

The text that defines Cohen’s role at Forbes describes him as someone who writes “about leadership, politics, inclusion and social change.” As a defender of inclusion, he has stepped up to the plate to condemn Musk’s attack by agreeing with the collective judgment of the many people who found the billionaire’s cryptic message “to be an offensive and transphobic Tweet.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Pronouns:

Parts of speech that infuriate American proponents of critical theory who believe that language itself is a conscious conspiracy invented by one dominant class or gender to oppress another one.

Contextual Note

Musk has shown a talent for hiring effective lawyers to defend him whenever he crosses a PC line. When the CEO of Tesla recently attacked cave explorer Vernon Unsworth’s reputation by suggesting that the man who saved a group of youngsters from drowning in Thailand was a pedophile, Musk hired attorney Alex Spiro to argue in court that calling Unsworth “pedo guy” in a tweet “was simply heated rhetoric and not meant as a statement of fact.” If Musk needed him again, Spiro would most likely convincingly point out, concerning the transphobic tweet, that he was simply criticizing the confusing ambiguity of pronouns.

Rapper Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, is the mother of Musk’s most recent child, born only a few weeks ago. The parents named the child X Æ A-12, which some may feel “sucks” as a name for a kid. But Musk would probably argue that it’s his constitutional right to give whatever name he prefers to his baby. And in this hyper-competitive world, there should be no limit to a man’s creativity when he is the CEO or founder of multiple innovative corporations that are all focused on sculpting the landscape of humanity’s technological future.

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Grimes appears to have discussed these topics with Musk in the recent past. She agrees with Cohen that Musk’s tweet could be interpreted as a denial of the constitutional right of some members of the LGBTQ community to choose the pronoun they require other people to use when referring to them. (Some will claim that that amounts to the denial of other people’s constitutional right to freedom of speech, but the cycle of denial of rights could go on endlessly.)

The rapper was clear about this when she tweeted: “I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a dall [sic]. I cannot support this hate. Please stop this. I know this is not your heart.” The fact that Grimes didn’t hesitate to accuse her partner of spreading hate appears to validate Cohen’s interpretation.

Cohen sums up the case against Musk in these terms: “By seemingly mocking the issue of personal pronoun usage, the widely-followed entrepreneur isn’t just sharing the musings of an eccentric businessman, he is also stoking a cultural conflict and diminishing an issue that is an important aspect of the recognition and inclusion of transgender and non-conforming individuals.”

That’s a lot to accomplish in two words. It’s true that earlier this month, sports commentator Adrian Wojnarowski managed to cause a major stir resulting in his two-week suspension without pay from ESPN thanks to a two-word tweet he addressed to Senator Josh Hawley. But Musk played it safe. He avoided targeting an elected official.

Cohen admits that Musk may not have intended to express a form of hate. But he insists that his “comment nonetheless shows an incredible amount of ignorance by a man seen by many as one of the boldest and most insightful entrepreneurs of our lifetime.” He calls for Musk to apologize. Cohen seems troubled by the idea that an entrepreneur acknowledged to be bold and insightful should show such ignorance of social trends

Historical Note

Seth Cohen offers his own historical perspective on this event significant enough to justify an article in Forbes and now a column in The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer. He claims that it “comes at a time when America is already mired in a national debate about issues of identity and inclusion, and in particular, inclusion of transgender individuals.”

There may indeed be a raging debate about pronouns, but in terms of society becoming “mired” at this particular historical moment, shouldn’t other issues take priority, such as wearing a mask, opening schools, defunding the police, kidnapping protesters, tear-gassing mayors, extending or cutting off unemployment benefits and allowing millions of people to be evicted?

Earlier this week, The Daily Devil’s Dictionary cited linguist Krysten Syrett, who in the course of an NPR interview said in no uncertain terms, “We have to shake up our pronoun system.” That was perhaps her slightly more expansive way of saying that pronouns “suck.”

No one can predict what the result will look like once the reformers finish shaking up the system of pronouns. Perhaps “he, him” and “she and her” will be banished from the language in the name of equality or a totally new vocabulary invented. Books by writers from Shakespeare to Philip Roth may then need an asterisk after instances of “he” and an explanation of it as an archaic pronoun reserved for one of the two recognized genders in the past when the belief in precisely two genders was widely shared.

Until very recently, the debate was restricted to academics in humanities departments who adhered to the orthodoxy of “critical theory.” The war against the traditional pronoun system within academia has been raging for some time. But now it would seem that all Americans — or at least those who have Twitter accounts or who read Forbes — are called upon to take sides. The issue has even created a rift down the middle of the very unacademic Musk-Grimes couple. How that will affect the upbringing of X Æ A-12 we can only speculate.

Cohen cites evidence from recent history to prove his assertion that the nation is mired in this war. According to the Human Rights Campaign, “in 2019 at least 27 transgender or gender non-conforming people were fatally shot or killed by violence.” Though the figure is relatively small, statistics concerning violent deaths are always alarming and should be taken seriously when evaluating social issues.

But is this truly a problem of intolerance? It seems far more likely that the explanation for these deaths has less to do with hate toward a specific group and more to do with Americans’ predilection for violence, and particularly gun violence. Independently of their sexual orientation or their attitude toward the “non-conforming,” Americans disproportionately tend to resort to violence as the most direct way of solving a problem or simply venting their frustrations.

More than ever, the social fabric of the US appears “mired” to the point of collapsing into civil war. Language is one issue among many, though Americans tend to focus on it in ways that don’t trouble other cultures to the same degree. The strange thing is that a new civil war will be nothing like the original American Civil War under Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, which was conducted across geographical lines and focused essentially on the status of slavery.

The coming war may be about any number of oppositions and may even find ways of combining them. Whether the spark that sets it off is police brutality, income inequality, oligarchic control, racial status or pronouns remains to be seen.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Elon Musk Declares War on Pronouns appeared first on Fair Observer.

Content, Not Culture, Separates Americans

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 16:43:21 GMT

It has finally come to pass in America that armed bands of federal government thugs in camouflage gear are taking over parts of selected US cities to serve the interests of the country’s fearful “leader” and autocrat-in-chief. At the behest of Trump and his stooge attorney general, unidentified Department of Homeland Security troops have swooped in to bring “law and order” to citizens hoping for some measure of police reform and racial justice. So, while the coronavirus pandemic rages out of control in the face of a chaotic response by the same federal government, Trump has decided to augment his failure by doubling down on leftists, socialists, anarchists and communists. This is real, it is an old playbook and it should be very scary.

Armed and empowered federal government personnel with absolutely no training in dealing with citizen protests or protesters are being unleashed to confront largely peaceful demonstrators in America who are imploring their government to reduce police violence and address racial injustice. Local leaders and police commanders are confronted with an armed force that they have not asked for and that they do not want. This is American citizens being terrorized by American government personnel, ironically at the command of the federal Department of Homeland Security established to protect us from terrorists.

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To be sure, this is largely theater. But it is theater that should shock anyone in America who smugly thought that the “land of the free” would never look like “other” despotic lands. It has been a very long time since America has come this close to rock bottom. As a nation, America is an international laughingstock, mocked by all those despots we bribed over the years to transform their way into our way, the American way. But guess what? We didn’t see it coming, but their way has now become our way.

Turn on the news anywhere in the world, and it will feature some daily tale of woe from America. Turn on the news in America, and it is all a tale of American woe. Yet despite the perception that America has found new lows, amid pandemic and social strife, there is a palpable disconnect between the depth of the problems and a serious consensus about the solutions. As is often the case in America, this situation is a big problem in search of a label that will ensure that not much changes anytime soon.

Every politician and pundit in the land seems to have settled on something called the “culture wars.” It seems so easy in the facile world in which we live to provide cover for complex problems by finding a meaningless catchy phrase that everyone can define for themselves instead of facing reality, particularly the reality of others.

“Culture Wars”

Today, everywhere you turn in American politics, “culture wars” are trotted out to explain away all manner of dysfunction in government and society. I am not sure what that term means. “Culture war” has been defined as “a conflict or struggle for dominance between groups within a society or between societies, arising from their differing beliefs, practices, etc.” The “etc.” at the end of this definition should be a clue that “culture war” means essentially whatever you want it to mean. What kind of definition is that?

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Before there was the coronavirus pandemic, there was culture everywhere. Want to see a play, go for it. If art or anthropology is your interest, museums abound. Even a movie, particularly when called “cinema” or “film,” can qualify as a good solid cultural experience. Then there is the whole world of international and local cuisines, more cultural experience. Wines, beers, whiskeys, full of culture. When I think of culture, this is what I think of, along with the rich tapestry that defines some of who we are.

Somehow a war based on a film I like, what cuisine I choose to eat or the sports team I choose to root for seems trivial and even unlikely. So, a “culture war” must mean something deeper than that. It must mean, for example, that if you pay attention to public health experts in response to a pandemic, you are on one team and if not, you are on the other team. What a clever way to gloss over stupidity and ignorance.

“Culture war” also implies something ingrained that cannot be altered or influenced by new ideas, new knowledge or new experience. However, the paralyzing conflict that we are enduring in America is routinely influenced by new ideas and new experiences. It is a policy conflict, a conflict over how best to address real human problems with a policy response. And much of it is driven by an individual’s momentary perception of the role of government in meeting these human challenges.

I truly dislike Senator Mitch McConnell, but we are both old white men who drink quality bourbon and could share a cigar now and again. What we disagree about is not culture, but content.

As another example of what I am trying to convey, the urge to own a gun in America surely does not reflect the groupthink at the core of the “culture war” definition. The reasons for arming oneself or choosing not to cross every demographic and social line — that rich white couple in Missouri armed and ready in their front yard as protesters walked by would share little of cultural significance with a poor white subsistence hunter or a young, inner-city, Latino gangbanger. It is highly unlikely that these disparate gun owners ever cross each other’s paths except as casual observers inspecting the oddities of each other’s cultural foundation.

I am sorry to take a dump on everyone’s latest label, but I am really tired of labels being used as a substitute for responsibility. If you choose to be ignorant, you can meet others like you at your church, your country club, your gym or your city council meeting. Willful ignorance is found in all cultures. It is a shame that it is so common and so misunderstood as the root of much of what separates us.

That is not a cultural statement. We are not engaged in a “culture war.” We are engaged in a confrontation to define a better America and to find the policy solutions that will lead us there. This is America’s “war” for its future, not some wistful search for cultural reconciliation.

*[A version of this article was featured on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The West Must Help Myanmar Escape China’s Embrace

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:34:19 GMT

On July 2, Myanmar became the only country in India’s immediate neighborhood to accuse China of interference in its internal affairs. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw or the combined armed forces of Myanmar, accused China of arming terrorist groups like the Arakan Army (AA) and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in an interview with Russian state-run TV channel Zvezda. He also sought international help to suppress them.

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Min Aung Hlaing’s statement is telling. It reveals that China is putting unprecedented pressure on its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is important to note that Min Aung Hlaing praised China as an “eternal friend” during a visit to Beijing in 2019. He thanked China for its support and for countering international pressure on Myanmar over its treatment of Rohingya civilians, a Muslim minority in Rakhine State.

The senior general has turned on Beijing at a sensitive time. China is facing international criticism for the spread of the COVID-19 disease, its detainment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region and for its aggression toward its neighbors. Yet it could be seen as part of a longer pattern in Myanmar.

Turning Away from China Not Easy

More than 10 years ago, the then-ruling military junta decided to reduce Myanmar’s economic dependence on China. At the heart of this decision was the goal of reducing China’s excessive influence in Myanmar.

When retired General Thein Sein was president from 2010 to 2015, he ushered in initiatives to repair relations with India, the West and ASEAN. At first, these initiatives led to increased international aid, but it was short-lived due to the military crackdown on the Rohingya insurgency in the Rakhine state. Myanmar has faced international condemnation, isolation and sanctions since. By 2017, the brief “honeymoon” was over and China was back to its old games, with the West losing its window of opportunity in Myanmar.

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China has been known to support the United Wa State Army (UWSA). The UWSA is an armed force of an ethnic minority that runs an autonomous region with little interference from central authorities. As per the Asia Times, the “UWSA’s relationship with China is a pillar of its autonomy.” China uses the UWSA to exert leverage within Myanmar. It also benefits economically because minerals from the Wa area are exported across the border to China.

The UWSA is one of the many insurance policies Beijing uses to retain its eminence in Myanmar. Today, it has cultivated the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who was once the darling of the West. She wants to reverse Thein Sein’s decision in 2011 to suspend work on the Myitsone dam. Beijing’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) was supposed to build this $3.6-billion dam at the source of the Irrawaddy River.

The Myitsone area is said to be the birthplace of the Kachin people, after whom the state is named. They have fought the Tatmadaw since 1962, making itis one of the longest civil wars for a resource-rich region. The Kachin oppose the dam because it could put large parts of their region under water and threaten their livelihoods. As the BBC reports, Suu Kyi “needs to establish prosperity and peace if she is to convince the Burmese people of the benefits of democracy.” The dam might provide irrigation and electricity, boosting the ruling NLD.

Suu Kyi is turning to China because the West has abandoned her. The days when former US President Barack Obama visited Myanmar and kissed her cheek seem distant. The Rohingya crisis has been roundly criticized by Western media and brought allegations of genocide.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has stepped into the vacuum and visited Myanmar earlier this year. China has been planning the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (CEMC) as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. It includes infrastructure such as railways and a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal. This port will help China avoid the more vulnerable Straits of Malacca, where it fears being choked off.

The West Must Change Tack with Myanmar

Since 1990, Western powers have imposed sanctions on Myanmar for a variety of reasons ranging from human rights violations to lack of democracy. At the same time, they rushed to engage with China despite the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Myanmar became an outcast even as China won investments, joint ventures and a red carpet welcome to the World Trade Organization.

Unlike China, which has had no election for 75 years, Myanmar has held three major elections in 1990, 2010 and 2015. A fourth is due in October this year. Suu Kyi’s NLD has won the past three elections.

When it comes to the treatment of minorities, China has been worse than Myanmar. Its treatment of Tibetans has been terrible and its persecution of Uighurs makes daily headlines. Therefore, Min Aung Hlaing’s revelation that China is championing the Rohingya — a majority of whom are now sheltering in Bangladesh — is deeply ironic. China is supporting the Arakan Army and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army to destabilize Myanmar and win their support in the future. This policy of interference in Myanmar has implications for both India and Bangladesh. It is in keeping with the Chinese policy of destabilizing India’s northeast region.

China’s strategy of destabilizing Myanmar even as it makes it an economic vassal has lessons for others. Western powers must provide Myanmar with much-needed investment. The Tatmadaw, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, clearly wants to avoid Chinese domination. Suu Kyi is also no natural ally of China. They have both been pushed into Chinese arms by Western intransigence. Along with investments, a security arrangement involving many countries such as India, Bangladesh and Western powers would help.

Currently, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or the Quad) is the best vehicle to guarantee Myanmar’s security. It must thwart the development of CMEC. Otherwise, the Chinese navy will be sitting on India’s doorstep and the Quad would lose strategic advantage in the Indian Ocean. India has already been strengthening its relationship with Myanmar under its “Look East” or “Act East” policy. The relationship has been on the upswing since 2010 and is set to improve further.

Yangon is sensitive to India’s strategic and security concerns. India has shown the same degree of understanding. For India, Myanmar is the archway to ASEAN and the far east. With the Chinese causing mischief at its borders, Myanmar has increasing strategic importance for India.

The West must join India in its constructive engagement with Myanmar. In the October elections, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD is expected to win again. This victory could usher in an era of stability, economic progress and development. Myanmar’s civil and military leadership has no desire to embrace vassal status. It is up to the West to step up and give Myanmar a choice. With the Chinese menace rising by the day, failure to do so would be a historic blunder.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The West Must Help Myanmar Escape China’s Embrace appeared first on Fair Observer.

Investigating the History of a School in Khartoum

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:48:33 GMT

The post Investigating the History of a School in Khartoum appeared first on Fair Observer.

Slaves Picked Cotton, Senator Cotton Picks a Fight with History

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:35:42 GMT

History has always been one of the biggest sources of embarrassment for the United States. The liberated colonists left European history behind when they declared independence. Americans ever since have demonstrated an obsessive focus on the present and the future, believing the past is irrelevant. American culture treats history as a largely forgettable litany of loosely related events, the best of which serve to prove that the entire “course of human events” (Thomas Jefferson) has served a divinely ordained purpose: to elevate to dominance “the greatest country in the history of the world” (Senator Rick Scott), consolidating its power and affirming its global leadership.

In the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln resorted to some rhetorical trickery to get his audience in Gettysburg to think about the history of the nation’s founding. He caught the public’s attention by proposing an exercise in mental calculation, testing their skills at math while invoking historical facts. Challenged to make sense of the circumlocution “four score and seven years ago,” his listeners had to multiply 20 (one score) by four and add seven to arrive at the sum of 87, and then count backward to arrive at 1776, the year of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

The success of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address now stands as just one more isolated fact in the timeline of history. It should be remembered not only as a moment of inspired political thought and patriotic expression, but also for its clever rhetorical ploy to focus the audience’s attention on history.

Today’s creative teachers might do well to follow Lincoln’s example. With the right rhetoric they could encourage their students to think things out instead of simply subjecting them to boring lectures that present history as a sequence of anecdotes largely devoid of context and meaning. Of course, today’s teachers are no longer in a position to teach due to the coronavirus. And even if they could, they would be expected to focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) instead of history.

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This year’s lockdown caused by COVID-19 has given Americans more time to think. The ongoing protests against police brutality and racial inequality have forced a renewed discussion about the nation’s founding and its historical logic. In 2019, The New York Times promoted a project aimed at understanding the crucial role slavery played in building the colonial economy and structuring the nation that emerged from it in the late 18^th century. Called The 1619 Project, it focused on the annoying fact that the first permanent settlements in Virginia, a year before the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England, inaugurated the practice of importing African slaves.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas was sufficiently annoyed to propose a law that would ban the results of the project from being taught in schools. He explained: “We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the founding fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Necessary:

1. Required by the logic of events to attain a certain goal.

2. When applied to the history of the United States, ordained by Providence in its plan to elevate American capitalism to the status of paragon of both political and economic organization.

Contextual Note

Realizing that the idea of a “necessary evil” sounded like an excuse for racism, Cotton “claimed he was citing the views of America’s founding fathers, rather than his own.” Some might interpret that as aggravating the offense, since it calls into question the judgment of the founders, generally considered by Republicans to be secular saints called upon by the divinity to establish the most perfect nation on earth. If the founders thought slavery was both evil and necessary, this either brands them as hypocrites or flawed political thinkers.

The historians who have commented on Cotton’s assertion that slavery was a necessary evil have pointed out that there is no instance of any of the founders taking and defending this position. Pressed to reveal his own views, Cotton distanced himself from the cynical founders: “Of course slavery is an evil institution in all its forms, at all times in America’s past, or around the world today.”

When pressed further by Brian Kilmeade on Fox News, Cotton offered this explanation: “What I said is that many founders believed that only with the Union and the Constitution could we put slavery on the path to its ultimate extinction. That’s exactly what Lincoln said.” There is of course no evidence that “many founders” believed that the mission embodied in the Constitution was to phase out slavery. Furthermore, Lincoln never said “exactly” any such thing.

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Cotton believes history should not be thought of in terms of acts and deeds or the nature of institutions and their workings, but simply remembered for its stated ideals. Here is how he frames it: “But the fundamental moral principle of America is right there in the Declaration [of Independence.] ‘All men are created equal.’ And the history of America is the long and sometimes difficult struggle to live up to that principle. That’s a history we ought to be proud of.”

Does he really think that learning about the reality of slavery and its role in building the nation’s economy will prevent students from being proud of their country? Cotton seems to believe that studying the documented facts about the nation’s past rather than simply admiring the edifying text of a slaveholder who claimed to believe in equality is a form of perverse revisionism.

The question being asked today by vast swaths of the US population — and not only those protesting in the streets — concerns precisely the point Cotton mentions: the “difficult struggle to live up to that principle.” He seems to believe that the struggle ended long ago and merits no further consideration. Mission accomplished. But if he were sincere, he would highlight the fact that if we want to live up to the principle, we should examine the facts rather than simply parrot the principle.

Historical Note

Cotton was specific in his complaint about The 1619 Project. He called it “a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded. Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage.” Though it would be difficult to find any logical structure to this assertion, Cotton implies that denying “the noble principles of freedom and equality” is what makes the project “racially divisive.”

Acknowledging the fact that the principles of freedom and equality he vaunts cannot apply to slavery does not amount to denying the principles. On the contrary, it asserts their importance by signaling the historical contradictions that not only should have been taken into account in 1789 (when the Constitution was ratified), but also in 1865 (at the end of the Civil War), as well as in 1964 (when the Civil Rights Act was passed) and in 2020, when the whole question has emerged again after the brutal death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The real problem lies in the idea of a “necessary evil.” How does Cotton justify the concept? One might argue that Officer Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd was the evil that was necessary to provoke today’s protests. And the protests may have the effect of changing things to make the nation less racist than it was before. But an evil act by an individual cannot be compared with an institution, an economy and a way of life, which is what slavery was.

To call something necessary means it is required for some purpose. What is that purpose? Senator Cotton seems to suggest it was the abolition of slavery. And in purely logical terms, he’s right. Slavery couldn’t be abolished if it didn’t exist. Long live the great institutions of the past, especially the ones that foresaw their own abolition.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Click here to read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Slaves Picked Cotton, Senator Cotton Picks a Fight with History appeared first on Fair Observer.

Morocco Looks to a Future After COVID-19

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:11:25 GMT

Many countries are facing declining growth rates due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Morocco is no exception. Given lockdowns and flight restrictions implemented worldwide from March, the tourism and hospitality sectors — usually the third-largest component of GDP — have suffered enormous losses and almost collapsed during the first 90 days of the global response to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

In the latest World Bank report, “Morocco Economic Monitor,” it is projected that the Moroccan economy will contract in the next year, which would be the first severe recession since 1995. “Over the past two decades, Morocco has achieved significant social and economic progress due to the large public investments, structural reforms, along with measures to ensure macroeconomic stability,” the report notes.

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The World Bank’s forecast indicates that Morocco’s real GDP is projected to contract by 4% in 2020, which is a sharp swing from the 3.6% positive growth rate that was predicted before the pandemic. Consequently, the bank expects Morocco’s fiscal deficit to widen to 7.5% of GDP in 2020, around 4% more than expected before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Meanwhile, the country’s public and external debt is to set rise but still remains manageable. In assessing the government’s well-regarded response to the crisis, the World Bank puts an emphasis on moving from mitigation to adaptation, which is key “to ensuring a resilient, inclusive, and growing Moroccan economy.” It also points out that despite this year’s setbacks, Morocco can still “build a more sustainable and resilient economy by developing a strategy to adapt,” similar to what it has done to address issues of climate change and environmental challenges.

A Strong Position

When viewed in comparison to the rest of North Africa and the Middle East, let alone its sub-Saharan neighbors, Morocco is in a strong position to capitalize on global changes as companies rethink supply chains and vulnerabilities in logistics. Globally, and especially in Europe and the US, corporations are rethinking their reliance on China as a key supplier, and Morocco is poised to benefit, as I mentioned in a previous article on Fair Observer.

The European Union, in particular, is already calling for “strategic autonomy” in sectors such as pharmaceuticals by focusing on more reliable and diversified supply chains. The new strategy is expected to entail tighter rules on human rights and environmental protection on imported goods, a move that experts say would boost local manufacturers, and Morocco is near the top of the list.

Guillaume Van Der Loo, a researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, spoke to DW about the opportunities for Morocco. “If you look at Morocco, there are more favorable conditions there for specific areas in particular, in relation to renewable energy and environmental related sectors, [and] Morocco is quite a frontrunner and the EU tries to chip in on that,” he said. “The idea that the European Commission has already expressed about diversifying supply chains could be beneficial for Morocco and that could accelerate negotiations on the new trade agreement.”

Morocco is one of few countries that have free-trade deals with both the United States and the European Union, and it is seen as an entry point for Western investment in Africa. As Alessandro Nicita, an economist at UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), says, “Morocco is very well positioned because of its proximity [and] because it’s part of [the] EU’s regional trade agreements, its rules of origin are kind of integrated with those of the EU.”

The Challenges

Yet Morocco faces challenges in grabbing these economic opportunities, including restrictive capital controls and a paucity of high-skilled workers. Having been overhauled in the 1980s, the country’s education system “has failed to raise skill levels among the country’s youth, making them especially unsuitable for middle management roles,” DW reports.

Another concern has been raised by the National Competitive Council in Morocco, which said that if the country was to move forward efficiently, it had to end monopolies in key sectors. These include fuel distribution, telecoms, banks, insurance companies and cement producers, which have created an oligopolistic situation in the country.

The Oxford Business Group (OBG) has also released a study focusing on the success that Morocco is achieving in terms of combating the effects of COVID-19. “Morocco boasts a robust and diversified industrial base, developed through years of heavy investment, which enabled the country to take actions to control the pandemic and mitigate supply chain disruptions,” the OBG notes. The investment-friendly climate and robust infrastructure, with Africa’s fastest train network, will enhance the country’s attraction for manufacturers looking to relocate Asia-based production, as supply-chain disruptions due to distant and vulnerable suppliers have resulted in many companies pursuing a strategy of near-shoring, the report adds.

So, Morocco’s future in manufacturing, agro-business and technology may well determine the country’s capacity to recover its positive GDP growth rate as it overcomes the COVID-19-induced recession. To do so, it will need a robust marketing campaign as a country for reliable and relatively inexpensive supply chains and a skilled workforce.

*[An earlier version of this article was published by Morocco on the Move.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Morocco Looks to a Future After COVID-19 appeared first on Fair Observer.

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