In 1883, the Macdonald government established a residential school system for Indigenous children. The effect of this was the infliction of terrible cultural, social and physical harm. This school policy tore families apart, destroyed their capacities for nurturing and giving emotional support, led to the loss of intergenerational transfer of culture and knowledge, ravaged social health and badly impaired social practices for building mutually empowering relationships.

When a political society like Canada comes to recognize the extent of the harms that, through its attitudes and political aims, it has inflicted, it becomes morally bound to express repentance in every literal and symbolic way that is possible and then to institute policies that will redress harms.

When harms are inflicted on distinct minority peoples and government policies lead to a history of suffering, the passage of time neither expunges the harm nor removes the responsibility for redress.

It is exactly the wrong thing to do to re-impose on the consciousness and the daily experience of those victims, and those who still carry the burden of egregious policies, the harms of those policies through the continuing celebration and honouring of those that brought about such injury. Their entitlement is simple and basic; it is not to have to endure public and physical symbols of admiration for historical figures who represent the oppression against which their communities have struggled for so long.

John Whyte is professor emeritus, politics and international studies, University of Regina

See more here:

Opinion: Public symbols of admiration for those who represent oppression should be eliminated - Regina Leader-Post

By NOAH KAMINSKY

I wrote an opinion piece a few weeks ago about the White Houses missteps to uphold certain universal human rights since the pandemic arrived in the United States. I want to revisit that claim. Initially, I was interested in showing how we broke a hollow promise, but now, I want to know what laws were broken and who broke them.

A faithful commitment to uphold the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is meaningless to a warmongering superpower if its leadership is not held accountable. When the United States refused to ratify and then revoked its signature from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), we plunged deeper into our disdain for peer oversight. We turned away from the law of all lands and the human rights they protect elsewherenot here, at home.

If our leaders are not subject to any higher authority, then our UDHR commitment remains nothing more than a signature. Where rights are the improbable aspirations within which exists hope for a more just society, laws are a governments credence to achieve such aspirations. When upheld, laws prevent governments from their willful neglect and active oppression.

Ive never heard of a president being held accountable to our First Amendment, but this presidents mislabeling of SARS-CoV-2 has incited violence and xenophobia toward Asian Americans. Is it going too far to recommend civil action against the highest office in the land for our most fundamental law?

On June 1, the President interfered with a peaceful protest in Lafayette Park so he could take a photo in front of St. Johns Church. The U.S. Parks Service protected the President with riot gear, flash-bang grenades and tear gas, which were used on the protesters. There have been countless examples of law enforcements improper response to peaceful protesting, but I cant remember a time when a president actively allowed for and was present during an assault on his own citizens. Can you?

Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California ordered the removal of immigrant children from family detention centers on June 26. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is still out of compliance with that order. ICE is a federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseen by Acting Secretary Chad Wolfa White House cabinet member. Is he responsible for ICEs non-compliance?

Voting rights carry a darker, more sinister history of discrimination and subversion. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these transgressions fully apparent with an unprecedented need for absentee ballots. States like Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin innovated questionable strategies for blocking citizens from casting their votes. Did these election boards find unconstitutional ways to sidestep the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the 24th Amendment?

Prior to COVID-19, many lingering inequities, still in disrepair from past generations, never would have penetrated our collective American conscience, but today, those inequities have moved into the forefront of our national conversation. Voting, policing, health care, redlining, incarceration, subprime mortgage lending, taxation and school segregation are just some of the many broken promises written into law to create all men equal. Even that statement is problematic. Are our laws written poorly, or do we enforce them poorly?

But governments are people! Or, at least, their lawmaking should represent and be driven by people. At home, on a local scale, our judicial system honors the decision made by a jury of peers for criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, no such accountability exists on the international scale for the United States government. Our leadership is not subject to crimes against humanity, or a jury of its peers. So when does excessive, preventable death qualify as a crime against humanity like genocide?

The UDHR is an important document, but it does not enforce itself. Our modern history reveals the moral path our leadership chose for us. McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, the War on Terror, the 1980s crack epidemic, the opioid epidemic, mass incarceration, Guantanamo Bay, Saudi Arabian armament, immigrant concentration camps, impoverished indigenous peoples, reprehensible income inequalitythe list goes on to remind us how weve honored our faithful commitment.

I changed my mind. We dont need the UDHR if we enforce and improve the legal framework that already exists. We can do right by Rights if we hold our leadership accountable to our laws.

Noah Kaminsky is a middle school science teacher and a youth sports coach. Legalese is not his squeeze.

Link:

The unlawful response to COVID-19 - The River Reporter

On June 18, 1940, Gen. Charles de Gaulle made his famous radio appeal from London after the French Army was defeated at the start of the Second World War. It was the beginning of the French Resistance against Nazi occupation. He stood against the French Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis and became a client state. Today, any government in Lebanon is a Vichy government and the politicians have all become collaborators with the Iranian regime and its high commissioner in Lebanon: Hezbollah.As the country is being ravaged by the current occupation by Hezbollah and Iran following decades of Syrian occupation, I cannot help but wonder that shouldnt it be time for a Lebanese leader to call for true resistance as De Gaulle did? Isnt it time, as on the ground nothing can change, for a government in exile to be formed and an appeal made for all Lebanese to resist this occupation and its destruction of their country?It is now clear, with the disappointing failure of the latest French initiative, that Hezbollah will not allow the formation of any government that has the capacity to question its actions or, more precisely, that it does not completely control. Lebanon will continue to disintegrate into chaos while Iran gambles on a Joe Biden administration to formalize and legitimize its occupation. On the ground, no influential political voice will be left standing if it acts against Hezbollahs plan.Yet, as we always wonder in election years, how will the next US president impact the Middle East? It is also time to understand that the US looks for strong allies. It cannot save Lebanon unless there are voices ready to fight and to resist. It is also important for the Lebanese not to be a tool or an accessory to any foreign influence. As a small country, it cannot be taken hostage as global powers and Middle Eastern powers fight. Our interests are in our citizens and the prosperity of the country nothing more and nothing less. In this sense, former French President Jacques Chirac, who loved Lebanon and had pure intentions for the country, misguided Saad Hariri on Frances capacity to impose regional changes and this miscalculation accelerated Hezbollahs control of the country in 2008. The Lebanese should not make the same mistake twice.Nevertheless, the Lebanese need to be attached to the strong values of freedom and fraternity that can make the country prosper. People from all minorities need to feel free, protected and with the capacity to achieve whatever they set their mind to not through emigration, but in their own country.Today, it is quite amusing and like a tragedy seeing leading politicians discuss the distribution of government ministries while the entire country is on fire and disintegrating before our eyes. It seems like a passenger on the Titanic complaining about the frosting on his cake as the boat sinks, but in fact it is only an act.In a televised speech on Tuesday, Hassan Nasrallah first got sidetracked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus declaration at the UN that Hezbollah hides its weapons next to a gas company and close to residential areas. This shows that he knows that most Lebanese are at odds with his actions. His justification on this point will not change their minds, even if they cannot all say it out loud: They all know he is responsible for where Lebanon is today. This is not a real resistance to Israel but a calculated hegemony and invasion of the Middle East.When the Hezbollah secretary-general went on to discuss the French initiative, it was also amusing and like a tragedy to see him purposely complicate the formation of the government and pretend he has limited influence on it, while at the same time modestly insisting on unmovable conditions. It is the same game all the politicians play to work out formulas and complicate the process as a sign of their general unwillingness to allow change and reform.These endless and pointless discussions are designed to make everyone believe that these are complicated and difficult negotiations, misleading the Lebanese into debating useless details and making them forget the main and important truth: Lebanon is under occupation. Lebanon is no longer a free country. The Lebanese state is a client state to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the mullahs regime. Instead of questioning this, people in the streets are asking: Will they be able to form a government? Who will get more ministries? Well the answer is: All the ministries, the government and the president are Irans.The Iranian support is not the only reason for Hezbollahs pre-eminence and the chaos we see today. The Lebanese Sunni communitys weakness and lack of consistency is also to blame. Even when they try to make their voices heard, it comes in the form of an elitist vision emanating from former prime ministers and not from the people. This Sunni weakness in a country where the balance of power between all minorities is what keeps it going has allowed for more greed among the other minorities. This is the fate of any sectarian structure. This means that any change in the balance of power directly impacts the countrys stability.In the 1970s, the Christian minority was weakening in the face of rising demands from the Muslim, mainly Sunni, voices under the flag of the Palestinian and Arab resistance against Israel. Today, we are witnessing a similar situation, with a weakening Sunni political force and rising demands from the Shiite community under the flag of Iran and Hezbollahs so-called resistance against Israel. In the 1970s, this was the start of a decade-long civil war, whose lessons seems to have been forgotten; while for the millennials that have never known this, we see the gamification of violence. The current regime is like a tightrope walker: As soon as the balance of power changes, it falls into violence and chaos. It cannot accept proper reform.

It is now clear that Hezbollah will not allow the formation of any government that it does not completely control.

Khaled Abou Zahr

I therefore believe that decentralization can be a unique solution to stop the country building on shifting sands and the rule of clans. Each minority needs to have the same rights and protections. This is the duty of a federal government, without stepping into the details. As for now, one may ask what is next for Lebanon? Will we see a new Lebanon born out of this chaos and rise from this occupation? Will the country be changed forever?One thing is sure: A new Lebanon cannot come to life under the oppression of Hezbollah. Therefore, we need a new voice to rise from anywhere in the world that gives hope back to the Lebanese. It is maybe even time for a government in exile to be formed and to start paving the road for a better future for all.The Lebanese need an appeal that says: Even if the battle is lost, the war is not, and that Lebanon has friends in all the capitals of the world that will help them take back control of their country. Oppression, no matter how ruthless and mighty it may seem, cannot last forever. Today, as President Emmanuel Macron understands very well, it is not only about the fate of Lebanon, but the entire world because this is what a symbol does: It indicates ahead of time how the world will change.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

Continued here:

A government in exile could give hope to the Lebanese - Arab News

On Tuesday evening, it was announced that White House aide Stephen Miller had become yet another administration* employee to test positive in the COVID-19 hot spot. I guess karma was all out of bubonic plague.

I decline, in this case, to be kind. My reasons can be found in the latest revelations in The New York Times regarding the legion of monsters, led philosophically and every other way, by Stephen Miller, that set American immigration policy rolling down the road toward sadism and outright depravity.

(Any doubt that Rosenstein was a pure careerist who would've sold the Constitution for a window seat on Air Force One is laid to rest forever with his involvement in this sadistic exercise.)

And, to paraphrase Mark Felt in the parking garage, this was a Miller operation.

Pitching a fit because your government is not ripping children from their parents fast enough or thoroughly enough. Just as the Founders intended.

I also was struck by the strange synchronicity in the news on Tuesday. Just as we were learning what monsters there are in our government today, our attention also was drawn to the fact that former CIA director Michael Hayden had cut an ad for some anti-Trump Republican political shop announcing his support for Joe Biden and darkly warning that re-electing this president* might mean the end of America as we know it. Hayden, of course, is something of an expert at what happens to a democratic republic when monsters are allowed to set national policy. After all, during the last failed Republican presidency, Michael Hayden was one of them.

Tom WilliamsGetty Images

Cruelty comes in many forms. Where this presidency* has family separation, the Avignon Presidency of George W. Bush had torture. Where this administration* trashed this country's image as a refuge for those fleeing poverty and political oppression, that administration undermined this country's image as a defender of due process and the rule of law. Where this administration* has Stephen Miller, that administration had John Yoo. Where this administration* had Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, that administration had the likes of Michael Hayden.

We were torturing people before Hayden took over at the CIAHis direct contribution to that administration's lawlessness was setting up the illegal warrantless surveillance while he was running the National Security Agencybut the torture program had no more enthusiastic ex post facto defender than he was. The now-semi-famous Senate report on the torture program mentions Hayden 200 times; there even is a special appendix detailing Hayden's fast-and-loose relationship with the truth regarding the program. On the Senate floor, Senator Dianne Feinstein blistered the CIA for torturing people and read Hayden out for barbering his testimony on the topic.

(Another prominent former CIA director who is now a prominent voice against this administration*, John Brennan, who's currently pushing a memoir all over television, was involved during the Obama Administration in the latter stages of the brutal bureaucratic and political war over the Senate torture report that included surveillance of the Senate staffers who were working on the report.)

I am happy that Michael Hayden, who suffers from aphasia as a result of a stroke, could muster the strength to cut the ad that he did. There has been no more compelling political imperative in my lifetime than ending this carnival of fools. I am more than willing to accept John Brennan's help, too. But, as Milan Kundera wrote, the struggle of man against power is the power of memory against forgetting. It's important never to forget that, if you get this country frightened enough or angry enough, it is more than happy to invite monsters to sit in the councils of government, and then to forget that it ever happened. A country that would torture would rip children from their mother's arms. Put not your trust in princes, the psalmist warns us, for all their plans come to nothing.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

See the original post:

Stephen Miller Leads the Legion of Monsters - Esquire

People often assume what is best for Black girls without directly asking us for our own input on the topic.Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks. (Wikimedia Commons)

Rosa Parks is a name known round the worldoften dubbed the mother of the modern-day civil rights movement, and the inspiration for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But far fewer know the story of 15-year-old Claudette Colvin who, nine months before Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat, was arrested and jailed for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery bus.

Colvin was inspired by Negro History Week (the precursor to Black History Month) lessons about Harriet Tubman, abolition and womens rights. The day she refused to give up her seat, she told reporter Phillip Hoose:

My head was just too full of Black history, you knowthe oppression that we went through.

Colvin became one of four plaintiffs in Gayle v. Browder (1956), the ruling that concluded Montgomerys segregated bus system was unconstitutional (the case was decided in favor of the girls). It has been reported that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) considered using Colvins case to challenge segregation laws, but they decided against it because of her age.

The decision not to use Colvins case due to her age did not surprise many of the teen girls who participated in We REIGN Incs five-week advocacy, activism and organizing (AAO) internship this summerparticularly how Colvins age became a hindrance to her freedom of expression and advocacy.

Throughout the summer, the Philadelphia based non-profit led attendees in exploring the personal characteristics that impact their political views. Together, the teens concluded that gender, race and age are the most salient factors impacting not just their politics, but how they are perceived by the world.

People often assume what is best for Black girls without directly asking us for our own input on the topic, said one participant.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF2ctwvl_UU/

Like Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), a New York-based organization that launched the National Agenda for Black Girls, We REIGN Inc is on a mission to support Black girls advocacy and freedom of expression. So, they created a space where their voices and policy priorities matter.

During the five-week AAO internship, the group asked Black girls what they need to become advocates, and they said they need political education that is relatable, understandable, with opportunities to be a part of the worknot just for themselves now, but so they can support future generations of Black girls. Their work created the foundation for Black Girl Politics.

Participants described Black Girl Politics as discourse about social issues and solutions that directly impact the lives of Black girls.

Black Girl Politics is extremely essential because we are often overlooked, but we have issues that affect us daily in health care, education, our communities and neighborhoodsissues that deeply impact us, another explained.

There are so many standards about how I should act, what I should wear, how I should look, how I should talk and so much more, but I believe thats wrong, a rising 10th grade student shared. Black Girl Politics is important because it helps me to define me. It teaches me that I am important, and so is what I stand up for.

For starters, Black girls want to be represented in government. Pennsylvania, a state poised to play a pivotal role in the 2020 presidential election, has no Black women in the state Senate, nor among the state cabinet and executive officials.

This lack of representation is also noted in state and local executive offices across the nation: Black women have yet to attain governorship in any state and just seven of the nations 100 largest cities have Black women mayors.

Limited representation means issues and experiences that impact the lives of Black girls and women may not be considered, because they are not represented.

As one of our interns explained, Black Girl Politics is the opportunity to fight for representation and advocate for ourselves.

Here atMs., our team is continuing to report throughthis global health crisisdoing what we can to keep you informed andup-to-date on some of the most underreported issues of thispandemic.Weask that you consider supporting our work to bring you substantive, uniquereportingwe cant do it without you. Support our independent reporting and truth-telling for as little as $5 per month.

Together, the group moved beyond what some described as the boring theory of politics to create the Black Girl Agendaa space for interns to practice advocacy and activism in their community.

When asked why they signed up for the second session, several girls described the internship as relatable and interesting.

These workshops [are] teaching me the stuff I need to know not in an easy way, but a more understandable way. For me, politics isnt really interestingit doesnt grab my attention, but doing this helps me get into politics a little bit morewithout it being straight boring.

During the internship, participants were invited to use the National Agenda for Black Girls ten-point plan to identify political issues that impact them and their community, then develop a message and campaign to raise awareness and organize.

While many issues were identified as critical, the top three were:

Thr program was designed to develop public engagement and policy analysis skills. Girls formed community groups to discuss their areas of concern, and developed political planks and one-page policy briefs to be shared with legislators. Their policy recommendations included increasing funding for comprehensive sexual health education including consent, continuing the fight for the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act until it is national law, and funding for counseling not criminalization of domestic violence survivors.

All of the girls engaged in healthy debates about defunding the police and reproductive justice. They practiced listening to the perspectives of others and using research and facts to justify recommended actions.

For one participant, these conversations were the highlight of the program: The most useful aspect of the Black Girl Agenda internship was sharing my ideas and opinions with other Black girls.

Another told us that having the opportunity to discuss issues with girls who all wanted to make a change made her want to try harder to understand the issues.

A 2018 report by the Center for American Progress reported that civic knowledge and public engagement are at an all-time low.

While schools would be the most likely place for students to gain knowledge of politics, government and civic engagement, few states require more than a half-year of instruction in these areas.

This creates a major barrier for Black girls and women who are already underrepresented at all levels of government and have limited opportunities to learn about their rights as citizens, who represents them, and the policies that impact their daily lives.

Black girls are regularly excluded from decision-making tables and rarely engaged by legislators and policy makers. We REIGNs goal, then, is to fill an educational gap and support the development of a coalition of Black girls in Philadelphia who are politically astute and prepared to advocate and organize around issues that are important in their lives and communities. So far, the group are succeeding.

Combating apathy requires representation, access and knowledgethe right to vote alone does not create civic engagement. If we want Black girls to be involved and invested in shaping the future of this country, starting at 18 is simply too late. Political education and civic engagement must begin early and be, as one participant explained, relatable, and personal to us.Black girls want to know about their herstory, Black women activists and the concept of people power.

All youth will benefit from early access and multiple opportunities to learn about the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. But, like Claudette Colvin, Black girls want to participate, not just observe the work of what they labeled the fourth branch of government: the people.

Black girls are poised to lead the change the United States is waiting for, and they are no longer bringing folding chairs; they are taking their seat at the table.

The coronavirus pandemic and the response by federal, state and local authorities is fast-moving.During this time,Ms. is keeping a focus on aspects of the crisisespecially as it impacts women and their familiesoften not reported by mainstream media.If you found this article helpful,please consider supporting our independent reporting and truth-telling for as little as $5 per month.

Here is the original post:

Black Girl Politics: Creating Space Where Black Girls' Voices and Policy Priorities Matter - Ms. Magazine

By Manal Nahhas

A number of countries in the Arab region harnessed modern technology in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Local production in the face of the pandemic was not limited to sewing cloth masks and manufacturing sterile medical materials, but extended to developing technologies and mobile phone applications, and modifying and developing drones to impose health control.

For example, Farasha Systems in Morocco developed "health" drones, as they came to be called, for temperature assessment and to spray sterilizers. The same applies to the Saudi company, Voxel, and the Tunisian company, Talent.

Even in a country suffering from economic and political crises such as Sudan, modifications were made to drones to equip them to combat COVID-19. According to Arab media, including Sky News Arabia, this task was entrusted to the Defense Industries System.

Drones have been used across the Arab world in different ways, includingmonitoring people during curfews and measure the temperatures of drivers in their vehicles, all in an effort to combat the virus. China, where the virus originated, was the first to use this technology, but after its spread, Arab countries were quick to adopt it. At a time when Washingtons concerns about the widespread use of Chinese-made drones in a number of US states and in a number of European cities revolved around the possibility of China getting its hands on data threatening US and Western national security, the fate of the data collected by drones in the Arab countries did not receive much attention among citizens or in parliaments.

Although several European cities, including Nice and Brussels, have resorted to Chinese-made drones during COVID-19, their use was limited to dispersing gatherings when detected by broadcasting an audio message or spraying pesticides. However, even this deployment was controversial.

In Paris, the French National Consultative Commission suspended invoking the use of drones to monitor gatherings and impose quarantine. It viewed their use as means to collect data of people without resorting to a regulatory framework, according to reports by FranceTVInfo.com.

In a number of Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, the Chinese model was adopted on a larger scale, and drones were used to measure the temperature of the general population to scan for COVID-19 cases.

Such a model prompted Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence agent who exposed large-scale spying programs, to express his fear that a long life would be written for the "watchdog state,"as he called it, until after the end of the COVID-19 crisis. He said, They already know what youre looking at on the internet. They already know where your phone is moving. Now they know what your heart rate is, what your pulse is. He asked, as if sounding an alarm, "What happens when they start to mix these and apply artificial intelligence to it?" according to reports by The NextWeb.com. Tracing the source of the drones being used in the Arab world was not possible, except in a limited number of countries.

In Morocco, for example, the start-up Farasha Systems modified the work of environmental Chinese-made drones in order to combat COVID-19. In Saudi Arabia on the other hand, it was Voxell who announced the development of drones.

In Jordan, drones are being used to monitor compliance with the general quarantine "to capture all those who violate the quarantine and transfer them to the public prosecution to take legal measures and to seize the vehicles used, according to the Jordanian Public Security Directorate.

As for Tunisia, the use of drones equipped with a thermal camera and loudspeakers is the result of cooperation between Talent Holding and the Tunisian Ministry of Health, according to the ministry. In Sudan, the Sudanese Defense Industries System introduced modifications to drones to combat COVID-19. The modifications aimed to introduce these drones into surveillance service, voice awareness, and body temperature assessment. The health authorities in these countries announced the deployment of drones.

It is likely that China is the most prominent source for commercial drones in the Middle East, considering that it is the largest producer of drones in the world. The sale of the non-military Chinese DJI drones in the Middle East increased this year by 70% compared to last year, according to Nikkei.com, which added that more than two-thirds of all global sales of non-military drones are by this company.

According to a report entitled "Chinese drone market 2019-2025, issued by Drone Industry Insights website, China accounts for 70% of these non-commercial drone sales. The report also expects the Chinese drone market to reach $43 billion in 2024. As for commercial (non-military) drone revenues, Statista website expects them to reach $2,367 million this year.

DragonFly, which has major offices in Canada and the United States, did not disclose the volume of its drone sales in the Middle East, despite press releases and reports published by the British House of Commons library indicating its role in the Gulf region.

There is close cooperation between China and a number of Arab countries. For example, in 2017, following the visit of Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman to China, the establishment of a factory for manufacturing Chinese armed drones in Saudi Arabia was announced.

However, Arab countries went a long way in invoking digital and cellular technology for censorship before the COVID-19 crisis.

A study titled "Colonial Cables: The Politics of Surveillance in the Middle East and North Africa," issued in Vienna earlier this year by the Austrian AIES Institute, shows that since the Arab Spring in 2010, Arab governments have intensified censorship and spying on data and have used European and Israeli companies to spy on opponents and access their data even if they left their countries to Canada or Britain.

The most prominent of these companies are the British company Gamma, the Italian Hacking Team and the Israeli NSO.

Thus, the technology used to combat COVID-19 did not constitute an unprecedented turning point in monitoring individuals in a number of Arab countries, but rather firmly rooted what was present through more advanced technology, with the knowledge of, and often even welcoming from citizens.

Smart Apps

Some human rights organizations such as Amnesty International argue that the most dangerous applications to civil liberties are those used in Kuwait and Bahrain. These applications, in addition to being mandatory, collect information and data on the movements of citizens and track the details of their daily lives, going beyond health measures taken for the pandemic.

Amnesty International analysed 11 applications in the world (Algeria, Bahrain, France, Iceland, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates), and found that the Kuwaiti and Bahraini applications adopt an "excessive" or even "hostile" approach to collecting data and tracing their owners.

Unlike applications based on Bluetooth technology such as "Ehmi - Protect" in Tunisia, which is used to track people, GPS technology used in the Kuwaiti "Shlonak" and the Bahraini "Conscious Society" application reveals the person's location and the identities of those surrounding them through phone numbers or ID cards.

Data Helps Track the Virus Spread

While most countries in the region adhered to a decentralized approach, keeping data on phones and using Bluetooth technology to monitor contact with patients, applications in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar transferred user data to central servers. This is a source of security risk to individual freedom, and a source of fear of sharing data with other parties, which may be security, commercial or entertainment parties, as seen in Bahrain.

In Kuwait, for example, and after cooperation between government agencies, the Public Authority for Communications and Information Technology hosted and stored the Shlonak application data through its operational activities," according to what was stated on the website of the Public Authority for Communications and Information Technology.

But the most prominent question is about the fate of applications and data after the pandemic, and the fate of data even if it is not transferred to central government servers. Can the two most prominent internet giants Google and Apple keep this data? Will its exploitation be confined to its commercial potential, to market certain commodities based on data collected? Or will it be exploited in security work? It did not take long for Apple and Google to announce an update of the Bluetooth feature in their operating systems starting mid-May, that would function in the background without the need to unlock the device and expose it to spying by others or exhausting its battery, according to maharat.

Are Applications Mandatory?

With the exception of the Qatari application Ehtiraz,Kuwaiti "Shlonak" and Bahraini "conscious society,"applications for combating COVID-19 are purely optional and not mandatory, according to the Tunisian Ministry of Health, although they are published by the ministries of health in the concerned countries.

In the United Arab Emirates, for example, "al-Hisn" application is optional and free. It enables users to obtain medical examination results directly on the phone and to track contacts of patients. The application relies on the use of Bluetooth short-range signals in the event that the same application is available on other people's mobile phones, as the phones exchange the metadata that is then stored on the al-Hisn application in an encrypted form only on the user's phone. Through this data, the competent health authorities can quickly identify people at risk of infection, to be contacted and tested.

The same applies in Saudi Arabia with the application "Tataman." Likewise, the Jordanian Aman application facilitates identifying contact with COVID-infected people by using technology to serve the health of society, according to the Jordanian Minister of State for Media Affairs, Amjad Al-Adayleh.

On the official government website, Bahrain appears to be out of step with Arab governments in announcing the fate of the data it collects in its fight against COVID-19. The government announced that it is committed to protecting the privacy of data according to the Personal Data Protection Law, and it also confirmed that using the data collected through this application is limited to health authorities in tracing contacts in order to limit the spread of COVID-19, and that the identities of users will not be disclosed to a third party. It indicated that it uses "Information encryption feature to protect sensitive data." But it soon became evident that this data was being used by a TV program that distributes prizes to people committed to their quarantine.

The most prominent question today is, at a time when data sanctity is perhaps most important, how can personal data be protected?

In Oman, the application "Tarassad Plus" by the Health Ministry warns the users that there is a person in their vicinity wearing a smart bracelet, which means the wearer is infected and is supposed to be in home isolation. This requires users to activate GPS and Bluetooth services.

The UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Bahrain have resorted to providing patients with smart electronic bracelets in cases of home quarantine, whether symptomatic or not, if they were not suffering from chronic diseases and were not over the age of 60. Among the conditions required for home isolation are a well-ventilated room, a separate bathroom and a smartphone. These bracelets were imported from South Korea and China and were also used to trace breaches of isolation.

In Qatar, the application "Ehtiraz,"mentioned above, is mandatory.

As for Egypt, new modifications were introduced to "Egypt Health" mobile application to provide information about COVID-19. The most prominent features of the application is reporting suspected cases of COVID-19, where one can report his or another person's condition by pressing on the application's "Report" screen, entering the name and the national number of the case and answering some questions to determine the likelihood of infection.

The security-orientation is striking in the Report screen, as reporting other people requires entering their names and national numbers issued by the Ministry of Interior. This is another kind of violation, because it does not collect the data of those who download the application, but rather calls on people to report infected or suspected cases and provide their national numbers. This is also the case with the Lebanese application MOPH APP., which calls for "reporting any case of COVID-19," as if the patient has committed a misdemeanor or crime.

There are two kinds of these applications, the first transfers users' data to central servers, and the second relies on Bluetooth instead of relying on tracking contacts. However, in some cases, such as Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Jordan, it requests a number of permissions, such as access to camera and microphone recordings and the geographical location, which allows collecting many personal information about users stored in smartphones, making them easy to be hacked. In contrast to the Arab Gulf countries, where the centralized role of government health agencies in preparing anti-COVID-19 applications is clearly evident; in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, community bodies took the initiative to provide such applications, some of which cooperated with official bodies and ministries.

In Algeria, the application Cov-19 is free and was developed by an Oran-based organization specializing in geolocation. Another application to consult a doctor through video call, Tabib.zad, was launched by a government agency, in cooperation with the Chinese company Huawei, the promotion agency Algrie Telecom and the Algerian company FORTINET, which handles technical insurance and the flow of medical data.

In addition to these two non-governmental applications, there is an official application called "Coronavirus Algerie," which is the result of cooperation between the Ministry of Health and "IncubMe". Algeria asked Google to enable it to access all information related to the epidemic. In Tunisia, "Ehmi - Protect" was developed by Whizlabs company for free, and the Tunisian Ministry of Health invited its citizens to download it. In Morocco, the Ministry of Health called on Moroccans to download the optional "Weqayatona" application on their mobile phones.

Individual Initiatives

In areas where the role of the central authority has weakened as a result of war, the role of community initiatives is rising. In a post-ISIS Mosul, Mosul Space,an organization funded by the German Foundation for International Cooperation and the American Field Ready Organization, seeks to develop drones for use in the sterilization process and to provide food and medicine to patients and those in quarantine. In Syria, an unofficial application called COVID-19 was developed by young web and mobile application developer and translator Mohammad Diob. The application was not adopted by any official body and is still in the experimental stage. In the Palestinian territories, an Israeli application was imposed on Palestinian workers working in Israel, and its goal is security-oriented, more than health-oriented.

A Supervisory Role

In Arab countries, some international and local human rights organisations have responded to what they called "disguised governmental violations" on health grounds, as described by Amnesty International. These organisations, such as Amnesty International and SMEX, which is a Lebanese organization that seeks to "support self-regulating information societies in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as work to promote digital rights, have sought to defend the right to privacy and data protection at a time when governments invoke the pandemic to collect huge amounts of data, either through COVID-19 applications or drones.

Supervisory Authority Outside the Judiciary

These organizations, or some of them, played a supervisory role on government applications that did not provide adequate protection for their users' data. For example, Amnesty International's discovery of a vulnerability in the Qatari application Ehtiraz to combat COVID-19 has shed light on what threatens the private life.

Its security lab detected a vulnerability in the central server to protect personal data and was able to access sensitive information, including names of users, their health status, and the coordinates of their locations using a GPS system.

SMEX also detected a vulnerability in the Lebanese governments protection of user data while fighting COVID-19. The organization said that the updated Ministry of Health application used to provide information about COVID-19 and its spread in different regions

"requires a lot of unnecessary permissions, such as permissions to view camera, microphone and geographic data, and some necessary permissions to operate application services. Activating all of these permissions allows applications to collect personal information about the users and opens the door for attackers to easily obtain the data or exploit permissions to access users' devices."

In the Arab world, medical authorities did not ask the developers of COVID-19 applications to delete personal data after the end of the pandemic, and we have not seen this issue discussed in the representative political circles, such as the House of Commons or Parliament. However, since the entry into force of the European Law for the Protection of Personal Data in 2018, this region has witnessed government efforts to formulate laws aimed at protecting personal data, as monitored by SMEX.org. This protection, however, was limited to that of digital markets and online shopping, as is the case with Egypts ratification of the Personal Data Protection Law on February 24, 2020.

In Saudi Arabia, the e-commerce law was ratified in 2019 in a bid to foster a trustworthy online transaction environment. Lebanon, in turn, began implementing the Law on Electronic Transactions and Personal Data in January 2019. In the same year, the Law on Health Data Protection entered into force in the United Arab Emirates, which is also a data protection law that simulates European law. Reem Al-Masry, a journalist specializing in the intersections of technology and politics for the Jordanian magazine 7iber, indicated to Maharat magazine that

"there is a shortage in the legislative system for protecting personal data and protecting privacy in most Arab countries, and if this system is found, there are no standards or oversight bodies that protect the rights of individuals to privacy and protection of their personal data."

It appears that the centralized approach to fighting COVID-19 has been more effective in Arab Gulf states. Whoever takes a careful look at this fight will notice that COVID-19 has appeared in the form of a multi-armed octopus in a number of Arab countries, where cooperation arose between a number of government and civil agencies. For example, in the cooperation between health authorities and public security, as seen with the Saudi application "Tawakalna,"which grants exit permits during quarantine, and the Egyptian application, Egypt Health,which calls for reporting suspected cases of COVID-19 and providing their national numbers. In addition, universities cooperated with one another such as the Saudi King Abdulaziz University for Science and Technology, the United Arab Emirates University and Sultan Qaboos University, as did artificial intelligence agencies, as seen in Oman and Saudi Arabia, and the emerging companies sector, such as the Saudi start-up, Bader, the Internet giants (Google and Apple), mobile phone companies, the Ministry of Housing in Saudi Arabia, all the way to the Defense Industries System, as seen in Sudan.

This investigation was carried out with the support of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ).

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Al Bawaba News.

Read more here:

How COVID-19 Facilitates Oppression in the Arab World: Drones, Emergency Laws, and Smart Applications - Al-Bawaba

REUTERS/Leah Millis

President Donald Trump

Trumps attempt to censor histories of race hearkens back to early 20th century attempts by the federal government to stifle public criticism of racist laws and practices.

Between 1917 and 1945, federal agencies, most prominently the FBI and Office of War Information, investigated Black newspapers and magazines like the Chicago Defender and The Messenger for sedition. The charge was that editorials they ran in opposition to lynching, poll taxes, and other aspects of Jim Crow reality were unpatriotic, especially in a time of war.

The FBI viewed white local officials in the South as experts on their Negroes. And so, the FBI relied on local sheriffs, postmasters, and others to report on suspicious activity, including reading habits. Several local governments took advantage of the federal governments assault on the First Amendment during World War I to try to stem the tide of the Great Black Migration. Southern cities were losing Black workers, many of whom read about jobs in the Defender and other northern papers. Some counties passed laws outlawing the sale of Black newspapers; others turned a blind eye to mob violence against Black newspaper sellers and readers.

Article continues after advertisement

Under the guise of patriotism, Black people were beaten, even shot for daring to read or distribute the news. Through this mix of brutality and warping of the First Amendment, white officials hoped to stop the in-flow of information, the out-flow of cheap labor, and stifle any hint of dissent against racial apartheid.

But Jim Crow officials and local thugs didnt take into account the stealth activism of Pullman porters. Most whites who traveled the rails viewed the Pullman porters as happy and subservient, with no purpose in life other than to serve white travelers. In reality, many porters were college educated; they were forced to take jobs in the service industry only because Jim Crow laws and hiring practices made it impossible for them to get hired in professions reflective of their education and ability.

Catherine Squires

Like many of his other outrageous acts this year, Trumps call to create a patriotic history curriculum that erases critical analysis of the ways racism and slavery shaped this countrys laws, wealth, and cultural practices chillingly echoes early 20th-century racist practices. The OMB directive and Trumps proclamation that anti-racist curriculum is unpatriotic mirror the charge that anti-Jim Crow editorials were sedition.

Past attempts to stifle the Black press and present efforts to block anti-racist curricula is not cancel culture: This is the executive branch of the U.S. government using its weight to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

We must amplify and highlight the work of historians who are willing to unearth and analyze the ugly parts of our past, lest we be doomed to repeat the horrific excesses of violence and oppression. We must never forget how easy it is for one group to control all the levers of government, and use that power to crush dissent, to stymie progress, and to warp core elements of the Constitution until they are unrecognizable. And we must protest as long and loud as we can when we see it happening in our own time.

Catherine Squires, Ph.D., is associate dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of several books and articles on media, race, gender, and politics.

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If youre interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below or consider writinga letteror a longer-formCommunity Voicescommentary. (For more information about Community Voices, see ourSubmission Guidelines.)

Read the original post:

Trump's attacks on anti-racist training and curriculum carry echoes of the past - MinnPost

Please find fully formatted PDF version here.

In recent months, Covid-19 has brought into sharp focus the enduring economic, health and social inequalities experienced by descendants of former colonised and enslaved populations. Within a context of disproportionate poverty experienced by Black and other colonised, subjugated people all over the world, the recent killing of George Floyd propelled a heightened awareness of racism, making it a global headline for much of June 2020. This roused a moment of global solidarity, including commentary and condemnation of racism from both the World Bank and IMF.

Whilst commitments to look at internal anti-racism policies are important, these initial reflections have ignored the role that both institutions have played in the perpetuation of colonialism. Today, the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) seem to frame racism in terms of its current and most obvious manifestations, rather than through a recognition of the wider historical context. In doing so, they ignore the link between colonialism and the development trajectory in the Global South, where the IMF and the World Bank have contributed to a structural economic dependency through the extraction of resources alongside the manufacture of debt, which has impeded the industrialisation, diversification, and ultimately, the political independence of many countries.

The dominant economic orthodoxy of the IMF and the World Bank posits that debt and economic development, as well as growth and poverty, can be held together in a nexus that just needs the right calibration to achieve progress for all. Thinking of this kind ignores the damage these institutions have done and the racism they have perpetuated that needs to be tackled and addressed. It is also incognisant of the fact that inclusive growth, a kind of growth that benefits the most marginalised groups in low and middle-income countries, whilst a useful utopia, fails to address the structural racism that itself stems from a colonial ideology that is hardwired into the operating models of both institutions and the economic models they support. It is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own responsibility and decolonise their approach.

As colonial independence movements gained momentum, the IMF was set up to preserve economic stability, in particular the centres of capital, while the World Bank was set up to drive the post-war recovery, initially focused only on the reconstruction of Europe. Both institutions were key in embedding and ensuring a hegemony that had racial demarcations in the aftermath of World War II. Unequal power relations that were explicitly racist shaped the mindset behind the earliest development policies. In the 1900s, the British Colonial Office formulated a theory of development rooted in the interpretation of colonial populations, who at the time were deemed biologically and culturally ill-equipped to stimulate their own viable economic trajectories. From early colonialism in the 15th century to neocolonialism from the 1950s onwards (when many African colonies began to gain formal independence from European control), to neoliberalism from the 1980s onwards, enshrined in Structural Adjustment Programmes centred around policies of debt, each phase has further compounded these power dynamics.

The IMF and the World Banks policies have in fact ossified the structures of power rooted in colonialism and expropriation by use of political, mental, economic, social, military and technical forms of domination, often enabled through the manipulation and co-optation of local elite forces.

In response to the debt crises of the1980s, which was itself a reflection of these forms of control, they introduced neoliberal reform packages conditioned on borrowing countries implementing economic stabilisation, liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation policies, with the idea that free markets could be a panacea for all.

This included the establishment of the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency in the 1970s, with US debt acting as a vector of its power, while the debts of low and middle-income countries made them subject to creditors and conditionality imposed by the BWIs and compounded unequal power dynamics. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a clear and current example of the consequences of the perpetuation of this power. Many countries are struggling to respond to the health and economic consequences of the pandemic with limited resources to support health systems decimated by earlier neoliberal policies in many cases. If a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) had been made in April 2020, accompanied by a mechanism that allowed for their fair redistribution or by policies allowing lending quota limits to be exceeded, many low-income countries in particular would have had a better chance at tackling the current crisis. Instead, just one country the US was able to stop this from happening, while also unilaterally quashing broader reforms to IMF quota shares last year.

Much of the work of the IMF and World Bank fails to address the fact that the poorest income deciles and the most vulnerable are left behind which includes formerly colonised communities. Stop the maangamizi [a Kiswahili term meaning holocaust of forms of enslavement]: We charge genocide and ecocide is a current international campaign (initiated by PARCOE the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe) representing a coalition of movements. The justification for this campaign is evident. In social protection debates, despite much work that points to exclusion errors in the range of 40 to 90 per cent for targeted social protection, the IMF continues its dogmatic allegiance to economic efficiency over equity in arguing that such schemes are more effective than universal coverage. In the case of Tanzania, a former German colony where thepresent value of external debtstands at $6.8 billion to the World Bank alone, when the BWIs were negotiating debt relief for the country in 2007, they made it conditional onthe privatisation of Dar es Salaams water system. City Water, the British and German-led consortium who won the contract, then severely reduced water access to some of the worlds poorest people. Data show that countries that were colonial subjects are more exposed to climate change and correspondingly, those countries that were former colonisers are the least vulnerable to ecological catastrophe. These dynamics are relevant in considering that the World Banks climate work has obscured continued support for business-as-usual extractive economies in many contexts. For example, in 2008, the US, UK, Japan and other industrialised countries asked the World Bank to administer the largest part of $6.7 billion in several Climate Investment Funds to developing nations for clean-energy investments and other programmes to address climate change. The World Bank Group simultaneously went on a coal lending spree, approving $6.75 billion for coal plants in the Philippines, Chile, Botswana, India, and South Africa (see Briefing, The World Bank and the environment: A legacy of negligence, reform, and dysfunction).

The case for debt repudiation, which questions the legality of debts owed by the Global South to the Global North, and Truth and Reconciliation processes, are part of the reparations tradition a pan-African derived momentum for Global Solidarity for liberation and the realisation of the rights of the oppressed all across the world, of which decolonisation is one approach. For so long we have been told that the system is not broken, but that the problem is that we are not all part of it. Reparations is a completely different lens the system is the problem. Steps towards acknowledging, dismantling and in some situations, reshaping the structures of our world are needed. Reparations movements base their vision for the future in hopefulness and restoration, and they continue a long line of political resistance to neocolonialism as we saw in the 1950s and 1960s, when many African national leaders challenged a Western-led approach to development and tried to take control of their own agenda from Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana to Govan Mbeki in South Africa. Alongside African socialism, the New International Economic Order comprising Non-Aligned Nations was another key alternative perspective critiquing rising inequality and calling for a replacement of the Bretton Woods system.

Going forward, achieving racial justice requires that people across the world who are enduring oppression have their power restored along with meaningful self-determination as aspects of the restitution dimension of reparations under international law. International financial institutions (IFIs) implication in the history of a number of countries provides the justification for such reparations. From 1908 onward, Belgiums occupation of Congo was a horrific regime and included massive expropriation of assets. In July this year, after campaigning, the Belgian parliament announced the establishment of a commission to examine the countrys colonial past. The detrimental role of the World Bank is important here. In the 1950s, King Leopold II of Belgium ran up debt that financed projects in Belgian Congo, some of which was spent in Belgium. In 1960, this debt was unfairly transferred to the Congolese people at independence.

According to the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, this was clearly illegal under international law and unthinkable for Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of the new states first government, to pay back. Congos current unsustainable debt load, which exists in part due to the unwillingness of the World Bank and IMF to write off odious debts, continues to this day.

Tunisias truth and reconciliation process offers another example of the case for reparations in relation to IFI culpability. On 16 July 2019, Tunisias Truth and Dignity Commission published memoranda to the World Bank and the IMF, as well as to France, seeking reparations for Tunisian victims of human rights violations.

The commission, established in 2013 following the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, found that the IMF and World Bank bear a share of responsibility for social unrest linked to historic structural adjustment policies. It claimed that both institutions pushed the Tunisian government to freeze wages and recruitment in the civil service, and reduce subsidies on basic consumer goods, which led to social crises and conflicts. The commission called for three acts of reparation: Apology, financial compensation to victims, and cancellation of Tunisias multilateral debt to these institutions. The IMF and the World Bank failed to respond to the commissions calls, while Tunisia once again had to resort to borrowing from the IMF to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in April. Alongside the case of Belgium and Tunisia, there are several other cases for reparative justice with leaders of countries that were once subjugated sending powerful messages at this years UN General Assembly in September.

Economic frameworks are only as effective as the values that underpin them. Breaking the historical continuum means re-envisioning the structures of economic governance and asserting our own democracy in forming them. The BWIs rely on evolved forms of influence, for example via conditionality and technical assistance programming, which still affords a heavy-handed role that is arguably similar to the direct control over government policy that colonial administrations had. The objective is also largely the same: To create the right conditions for continued economic growth and accumulation of capital in already powerful countries. Ultimately, there is a growing case to reject all institutions that came out of colonialism, step out of their processes and create alternative governance and regulatory spaces. Alongside building the policy and advocacy for bigger re-structuring of this kind, there are other immediate steps that are also important. The following recommendations are levelled at the IMF and the World Bank, and would enable both to begin to embrace an active decolonial approach.

An assessment of the historical impact of slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism must be established. This would then be the basis for a re-envisioned financial assessment, using emerging methodologies. For example, compensation can be and has been calculated by other organisations determined to understand the detriment of their legacy. Such calculations can take place by identifying original assets seized under colonialism, establishing their value and using inflation multipliers to understand the current value of such wealth and the implications of this for country-level IFI evaluations.

An examination of existing policies would begin with understanding repudiated debt where communities continue to endure injustice and marginalisation because of their post-colonial trajectory and unsustainable debt that solidifies other dimensions of inequality and a lack of power. This would require the IMF and the World Bank to examine all impacts of their activities and lending, meaning both backward-looking for historic harm caused, and forward-looking for designing new programmes where potential harm can be identified and avoided, for project as well as policy lending. The assessments should be informed by the crucial accounts of affected and marginalised communities, especially in light of the increased need for finance following the effects of Covid-19. It is also important to note that the language of the BWIs policies has framed our approaches and influences how we think about people whose universal basic rights are denied. Going forward, to be anti-racist must involve being anti-colonial. The BWIs should also adopt language that is anti-oppressive in each context that it works.

The quota formula by which the BWIs vote shares are determined should be re-designed to proactively enhance representation of those countries subject to colonialism and others that have been politically dominated and subjugated. Establishing a UN sovereign debt workout mechanismwould be another much-needed reform. A decolonial approach would mean dethroning the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency, and instead maintaining a fairer global payment clearing structure, housed in the United Nations, where each country is afforded an equal vote.

Priya Lukka is an economist who works in international development and is a visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths University in London. She is interested in structural approaches to poverty and inequality, particularly from the perspective of historically marginalised communities.

Read this article:

Repairing harm caused: What could a reparations approach mean for the IMF and World Bank? - Bretton Woods Observer