Daily Archives: July 22, 2017

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Myanmar still using 'same tactics' of oppression as junta: UN envoy Mizzima News Myanmar is still using the same "tactics" to silence its people as the former junta, the UN's rights envoy said Friday, urging the government to allow the UN to probe allegations of ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. More than 70,000 Rohingya have ... and more »

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Myanmar still using 'same tactics' of oppression as junta: UN envoy - Mizzima News

The legacy of colonialism in Africa has largely affected the idea and nature of the post-colonial State. It is in the wake of decolonisation (with all its attendant meanings) that discourses of Negritude, Pan-Africanism, Afropolitanism, Marxist Socialism, Neo-colonialism, among others, took root. In the efforts to re-imagine and reinvent an Africa which did not privilege European ideals at its centre, new ideologies and policies were crafted and promulgated.

Guest Column: PATSON DZAMARA

Patson Dzamara

Colonialism in all its forms and with all its multi-dimensional ills was to be done away with and replaced with Afrocentricism. However, the experience soon turned sour; military coups, failed economies and failed social experiments like Ujamaa led to criticisms of the failed States.

Chief among the explanations of failed States was the legacy of colonialism. It was argued that developing countries were in a perpetual neocolonial exploitative core-periphery relationship with the metropoles of the developed world, hence their underdevelopment.

Notwithstanding the exploitative and extractive relations, African political philosophers began to engage with a different legacy of colonialism. Scholars like Mbembe in his seminal work, On the Postcolony argues that post-colonial state heavily borrowed from the colonial state especially in the way that violence has come to undergird rule.

What is statehood?

A State has eight attributes: territory, population, sovereignty (indivisible and autonomous), power (and accumulation of power through legitimacy, custom and/or fear), law, nation/nationalism (image of civil society as natural), State as international actor, and State as an idea (can be hero or villain).

However, the colonial State lacked the attributes of sovereignty, sense of nation and was not an actor on the international scene, but was rather an appendage of the metropolis. Some African countries although considered States, have to some extent failed to make a nation out of the different ethnic groups within their borders. Many have also existed as client States to outside interests; this pseudo-sovereignty also hampering their development into true nationhood and bringing a host of issues with it.

Zimbabwe

Onto the stage of this historical debate, enter Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, like other former settler colonies, occupies a unique position in that the country was administered by both direct and indirect rule. The sheer power of the relatively small number of settlers and their economic interests made for exploitation and control which was in general a notch above peasant or labour exporting economies, and it can be argued, something close to an economy based on slave labour.

That coupled with the cold war context of the liberation struggle meant that on the eve of independence, the Rhodesian government, like South Africa was heavily-armed and merciless towards its enemies.

The present history of Zimbabwe is best situated in the nature of the colonial State, the transition from the colonial to the post colonial State and how the post-colonial State chose to continue the institutions and practices which buttressed the colonial State. It is safe to conclude that what transpired on April 18, 1980 was merely a transition in terms of colour rather than systems or modus operandi.

Oppressive similarities between the two dispensations

The colonial State did not permit the politico-economic space or social foundation for civil society politics; this derives from a colonial regimes exclusive ideologies and practices they employed to secure and maintain control. The cutthroat nature of administration employed by and during the colonial State ensured that anything deemed a threat to their oppressive agenda was ruthlessly annihilated.

Accountability was not a part of the colonial States modus operandi. They superimposed their whims and fancies on everything and everyone. Borrowing from the colonial state, the President Robert Mugabe government has stifled free speech and dissenting voices at every turn.

Under the Zanu PF government, a weak civil society is generally preferred and once civil society seeks to make the government accountable, it is labelled an enemy of the State. It is only those organisations whose mandate is apolitical or those who sing praises to the ruling party that are welcome.

The clamping down on civil society was not so apparent when the economy was on firm ground, not many people worried about political liberties. Marxs analysis turned out to be true (not Lenins), the economy is the superstructure once livelihoods were disrupted, it became difficult to hide an oppressive political agenda. The existence of a strong civil society is anathema to the ideals of Zanu PF.

This explains why some organisations under the civic society banner have been infiltrated by Zanu PF elements.

White rule in Southern Rhodesia was characterised by violence. Charles Van Onselen succinctly captures the violent nature of white rule in Chibaro. The colony was founded on violence. Africans were beaten up in their places of work, small tort infractions were often punished with the sjambok and claims like breaches of contract were made criminal.

Violence and the threat thereof was the life blood of the colonial state it was the only way in which a small minority could control the majority.

Though ubiquitous, the State needed to maintain a faade of legitimacy, therefore, violent acts were often softened by the threat of force rather than use of it, something which became increasingly useful as the possible repercussions for violence escalated with the rise of black nationalism.

Fast forward to the post-colony: the Zanu PF government has a monopoly on violence. Election violence, human rights violations and everyday abuses in everyday situations characterise the lives of many ordinary Zimbabweans.

Morbid and atrocious acts such as Gukurandi and Murambatsvina are an apt accentuation of the Zanu PF governments violent nature.

Those who never tasted violence, live in fear of it. The present leaders who lived through colonialism understand the potency of violence and the threats thereof as a means of rule and control. They have borrowed the same colonial tactics of intimidation to rule.

Oppressive institutions were not disbanded after independence in some ways, they were actually buttressed. At the end of the Federation in 1963, Rhodesia inherited its heavy artillery, state-of-the-art aircrafts and military airbases. These were used to perpetrate mass terror.

It was not only the military that could mete out violence; the police were equally empowered to deal ruthlessly with African subjects. The anti-riot squadron were actually created for that specific purpose.

After independence, freedom fighters (mainly the Shona ones) were absorbed into the national army and like the Rhodesians before them who answered to Smith, they too answered only to Mugabe. The army which is meant to protect citizens is usually let loose to punish dissenters which in the past have included opposition party supporters and even college students.

The budget for defence is the least affected by economic austerity even though Zimbabwe faces no outside threats. It is not a coincidence. The huge army exists largely for the suppression of any internal dissent and thus to keep the Mugabe regime in power.

Not only does the Zanu PF government rely on the uniformed forces to silence the masses and to mete out violence, it also relies on a well regimented and basterdised social system. Almost all the chiefs and village heads are an appandage of Zanu PF. They campaign and work for Zanu PF. If any of their subjects choose not to conform, they find themselves on the receiving end of violence and alienation.

In order for any form of oppression to thrive, it must be institutionalised. The people were oppressed under colonialism through the use of uniformed forces and pseudo social systems; the people are still oppressed in the post colony by means of the uniformed forces and pseudo social systems.

The law is yet another instrument that was used for political and economic control by the colonial State. The post-colonial state also similarly relies on the law for political and economic control. Acts like the Land Apportionment Act, Masters and Servants Act, Pass Laws etc were used to disenfranchise and control Africans.

The colonial State crafted draconian laws earmarked at furthering their oppressive agenda. The law was meant to bring about the idea of statehood semblance and yet it was merely a medium of oppression.

In the same despicable manner, the law has been used as an instrument of furthering Zanu PFs agenda. From lobbying for a One Party State in the 1980s to Land Reform and the various Acts that proscribe freedom of speech and movement, such as Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and Public Order and Security Act (Posa). In fact, many of these acts are recycled versions of earlier Rhodesian laws earmarked at oppressing the masses.

Despite socialist leanings inherited from the liberation struggle, the Zimbabwean government did not challenge the ownership of critical and strategic resources by foreigners and whites at and after Independence until their own power was threatened. Until 2000, Zanu PF sought an accommodation with white capital and in the process, became a rentier state of sorts thus continuing the legacy of white ownership of resources despite empty political promises of nationalisation.

While the government pursuing a hard-line anti-Western and populist rhetoric in public they remained beholden to, and profited from foreign industrial interests.

After 2000, white capital was replaced by a coterie of nouveaux-riches connected to or actually in Zanu PF, who then took up land and equipment which they never intended to farm, but pillage. For the ordinary Zimbabweans, the benefits of independence in terms of ownership of resources is yet to be realised as Zanu PF bigwigs continue to plunder the country.

White capitalism was by nature extractive and most of the proceeds were repatriated to foreign countries. In spite of that, at the very minimum, jobs, however, menial were created and infrastructures set up to support that extraction. In the era of Zanu PF landlords, those slim benefits have collapsed, formal jobs belong to a bygone era and despite the immature and bogus celebrations of indigenisation, the country is more than ever dependent on foreigners to the point of many reduced to surviving on handouts from aid organisations.

The gross domestic product continues to shrink and corruption is ubiquitous. The post-colonial State has by far outdone the colonial State in terms oppression, maladministration, malevolence, and pretty much every vice they share.

While ethnicity was not created by white rule like in other places, it was further entrenched by white practice and colonial conceptualisations. The Ndebele were identified as war-like, while the Shona were said to be docile. Even the delimitation of provinces was along tribal lines: Manicaland, Mashonaland, Matabeleland.

National identity cards cemented and classified ones ethnicity which in some places had been fluid. The division of peoples into different tribes was instrumental to divide and rule. The Mugabe government made no efforts to foster nation building in terms of identity, an otherwise doable process. Rather, they rode on the foundations of white tribal misclassifications and radically divided the country by slaughtering Ndebele-speakers, largely ordinary citizens, under the pretext of combating dissidents in the early 80s.

A Zimbabwe unified along national lines rather than divided by tribe was a threat to Zanu PF hegemony: the person of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo being the centre of such a threat. Nkomo was a better man than Mugabe, had been a freedom fighter longer than Mugabe and commanded the respect of more people within and out of the Zimbabwean borders. Ethnicity became the trump card by which the younger, lesser known teacher could elbow out the veteran Father Zimbabwe.

The Mugabe government has deliberately done little presently to channel development funds and projects to Matabeleland, further disenfranchising citizens economically along ethnic lines. All that is deliberate and meant to protect their control of power.

The colonial State created distinct classes out of whites and blacks. One of the aspirations of the Africans pre-independence was to become part of the citizenry and cast off the yoke of subjecthood. This was done in name only. We have become citizens with no attendant rights, just like we were in the colonial era.

In fact, classism has replaced racism and Zanu PF elites are the only real citizens like white Rhodesians were. As such, subjecthood in the post-colonial State still exists, although it wears a different face.

Under the Zanu PF-led government, anyone who is not connected to the oligarch is treated as a second class citizen. The privileges and rights of those who are connected to the oligarch and those who are not are not on the par.

We still live in a country which prioritises propaganda above truth. Propaganda was a weapon of choice of the Smith regime during the liberation struggle and of other white governments before Smith. Freedom fighters were turned into communist terrorists and claims of independence were rubbished. Mugabe has used similar tactics.

Threats, opponents and nonconformists, like Nkomo, became the subject of propaganda which was disseminated by institutions like ZBC, just as Mugabes predecessors had targeted enemies using national institutions. In the 2000s a Ministry of Information, that is, a propaganda ministry was created for the very purpose of dispensing lies, like the colonial state before it.

Anyone who dares to take a stand against the failure of the government to administer its duties automatically becomes a target for character assassination and propaganda. They are portrayed as cousins of the devil and traitors of the diluted nationalist project.

Mugabe the black Smith

I, therefore, argue that the Mugabe regime did not seek to disband the instruments of oppression when it came into power. It fully understood the risk of losing power in a truly democratic setting and so avoided truly democratic institutions and systems.

Joshua Nkomo, a nationalist par excellence was considered a threat at independence. With time, other opposing voices joined the choir of the disgruntled, Tekere with ZUM and later Morgan Tsvangirai at the helm of the MDC.

As such, the institutions and systems of oppression were needed in order to deal with any threat to Zanu PF hegemony. It may seem at first glance that it was unintended that colonial institutions and systems were left intact, for simple convenience, but, in fact, it was calculated machination and scheming that led to the retaining of the practices and institutions of oppression.

Ours is a case of inherited oppression under an indigenised faade. And just as Zimbabweans had to liberate themselves from the colonial regime, today we must liberate ourselves from its successor, the black Smith, Robert Mugabe.

The black Smith, Robert Mugabe and his minions, must fall.

Patson Dzamara is a leadership coach, author, human rights activist and political analyst based in Zimbabwe.

Link:

From white to black Rhodesia: A case of inherited oppression - NewsDay

BENGALURU: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were rewriting history to silence the voice of Indians, and in specific, that of the oppressed classes.

At the inauguration of the three-day global seminar on 'Reclaiming Social Justice, Revisiting Ambedkar' hosted by the Karnataka government to mark the 126th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, Rahul recalled Adolf Hitler: "There is a new global epidemic wherein leaders are trying to strangle reality, inspired by Hitler's way of thinking. Modi wants to create a perfect history of India and thereby silence the oppression against sections of people who have suffered due to age-old practices and discrimination."

From plastic surgery to nuclear weapons, which Modi had invoked as being ancient Indian practices of mythological gods, Rahul said the present dispensation is trying to gloss over the realities of the nation. "There have been good and bad sides to India, and we need to accept it and change it. The Modi government is trying to wipe out history and create a perfect India, thereby strangling the reality of Vemulas and Akhlaqs," he added.

He said the BJP and RSS want to destroy Ambedkar's Constitution with such silencing of voices and not care about the people it protects.

Earlier, chief minister Siddaramaiah said the idea of India as a plural society is at the crossroads. "Values that our civilization and culture held in high esteem are facing a critical test in view of the onslaught of divisive and exclusivist ideas," he said.

Siddaramaiah said the recent spate of communal and caste-based attacks has shown that people cannot afford to rest. Endorsing Rahul's views, the CM said: "Today, we are told that being a good Indian means we have to ignore the inequality and exploitation in our midst; that we need to adhere to rigid norms regarding food, clothing, language and free speech; that we have to privilege the majoritarian view of India. I reject such a view as it is totally opposed to the letter and spirit of our Constitution."

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Modi, RSS rewriting history to muffle the oppressed: Rahul Gandhi - Times of India

In reference to Mark Weisbrot's July 21 viewpoint "Venezuela needs negotiation, not American intervention," I am troubled by the half-truths and disregard of events included in the piece.

The opposition in Venezuela has been mostly very pacific, as opposed to the actions of the government; violent repression, jailing of opposition leaders, and disregard of national and international law all with the only purpose of staying in power to implant obsolete ideas under a dictatorship.

During 2015 and 2016 a dialogue was established by some ex-presidents (chosen by the government), and at the end with the participation of the Vatican. The result was some agreements with which the government did not comply. Its response was more jailing of dissidents and persecution and oppression of the opposition. The government has refused to accept the elected national assembly by disregarding its laws, with the protection of a Supreme Court elected with disregard of the Venezuelan constitution and at the service of the president.

The present situation is best described by the words of President Maduro: "What we will not gain with votes we will gain with weapons." The armed forces (with the help of the Cubans) is the only support of the government. The people are overwhelmingly opposed to it, as demonstrated by the recent civic voting act.

The only possible dialogue is the negotiation of the exit of the present government, which the government has refused to accept.

As demonstrated, the government is disregarding the Venezuelan people; if it kills one or 100, if it jails thousands and tries them under military courts, the opposition is powerless to stem it.

The only alternative is international community pressures with strong measures against the government and its corrupt elite by the U.S., the European Union and Latin American countries.

Carlo Ermoli, Plantation

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International community pressure only way to aid Venezuela | Letters - Sun Sentinel

In March, government banned veils and growing of long beards traditional Muslim customs

Jingwang app is expected to automatically detect terrorist and illegal material stored on the phone. PHOTO: AFP

Chinese officials have sent out a notice instructing Muslim citizens to install a surveillance app on their phones, and are conducting spot checks in the region to ensure that residents have it, Mashable reported.

According to Radio Free Asia reports, the notice was issued over a week ago after China ramped up surveillance measures in Xinjiang, home to much of the minority population. WeChat sent the notice, written in Uyghur and Chinese, to residents in Urumqi, Xinjiangs capital.

Android users were asked to scan the QR code to install the Jingwang app that would, as Chinese officials claimed, automatically detect terrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books and electronic documents stored on the phone. If illegal content was detected, users would be ordered to delete it, said the notice. Users who deleted, or did not install the app, would be detained for up to 10 days, according to social media users.

The Jingwang app reportedly scans for the MD5 digital signatures of media files on the phone and matches them to a stored database of offending files classified by the government as illegal terrorist-related media. It also keeps a copy of Weibo and WeChat records, as well as a record of IMEI numbers, SIM card data and Wifi login data. The records are then sent to a server.

The move is the latest in digital surveillance in Urumqi. In March, government workers were asked to sign an agreement have terrorist-related media content, while the police sprung a surprise spot check on a group of nursing students.

Chinese police are so powerful, particularly in Xinjiang, [that] anyone being stopped is unlikely to be able to refuse the polices requests, said Maya Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The authorities have a lot of explaining to do about this software, including what it does, she added. While the authorities have the responsibility to protect public safety, including by fighting terrorism, such mass collection of data from ordinary people is a form of mass surveillance, and an intrusion to privacy.

Xinjiang has a population of eight million Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group. Its people have complained of longstanding oppression under the countrys Communist government.

In March, the government banned veils and the growing of long beards traditional Muslim customs. Last year, Xinjiang residents who used foreign messaging apps such as Whatsapp found they had their phone services cut.

This story originally appeared on Mashable.

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China forces Muslim minority to install 'surveillance app' on their phones - The Express Tribune

SRINAGAR: Angry reactions are coming in to cabinet minister and Peoples Democratic Party leader Imran Reza Ansaris tweet that human life is more important than a masjid, which he said in reference to the prolonged closure of the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. If we can save precious lives by not letting people go out in volatile times, it is as good as a prayer, the tweet added. Several Kashmiris have responded to the tweet. By this logic Amaranth Yatra should be banned till situation favourable, wrote Tariq Ahmad Sofi. Is this the logic to justify closure of Jamia Masjid for the past one month. Nothing can substitute a prayer. Iqbal Mir, referring to the PDP-BJP led government, wrote, You have brought the state to such a position that people are not safe even in Masjids, by your accountHave some shame. Imran Reza Ansari could not be reached for his comments as he is currently travelling to Syria. He is not in the country. He is in Syria to visit shrines, told his public relations officer. Ansari did not reply to WhatsApp messages as well. The government has locked down the Jamia Masjid for the past consecutive five Fridays, fearing pro-freedom protests. Reacting to Ansaris tweet, a Hurriyat (M) spokesman said that the governments position on the closure of Jamia Masjid was misleading and senseless. This remark is clearly an attempt to justify and cover up the oppression let loose on people of Kashmir by a shameless group of people who are solely driven by the lust of power, the spokesman said. It is not about saving life but it about saving Kursi (chair). The spokesman said the government was taking political vendetta against Kashmiris by closing Jamia Masjid. There was no killing on Fridays in Jamia Masjid even in 2016. Not 3ven this year, the spokesman said. Since the pulpit of Jamia Masjid loudly speaks about the freedom movement and state oppression in Kashmir, the government is unnerved. They are now resorting to lies to obfuscate the political realities of Kashmir.

Imran Raza Ansari, Jamia Masjid, Peoples Democratic Party, Restrictions

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Ansari's tweet on Jamia Masjid draws flak - Kashmir Reader