When Jerry Grey, a British-Australian living in Guangdong, China, went on a cycling holiday to Xinjiang in the late summer of 2019, he was blown away by the regions spectacular scenery and architecture. A particular highlight of his trip was visiting Turpan, the ancient oasis city in the east of the region, where he admired an 18th-century mosque with the tallest minaret in China.

Grey, 62, who visited Xinjiang as a tourist, said he couldnt find any traces of the sprawling concentration camps he had read about in the press. I never saw one, he said. That doesnt mean they arent there. Its a huge place, but we did cycle down some very, very long stretches of open road.

Grey, who is a former London Metropolitan police officer, admitted that he found Xinjiangs surveillance network and continual police checks oppressive. It was a pain in the butt, he said. But at no stage were they ever abusive.

I asked him if he would willingly live under a draconian regime of surveillance and arbitrary detention like the one that operates in Xinjiang, controlling the regions Muslim population under the guise of combating terrorism.

Would I like it? Course not. I wouldnt like it at all, he said. But would I move? Probably not. If they said to me, You cant use a VPN and you cant use your Twitter account, and things like that, then I might consider it. Because my lifeline to the outside world is through the internet.

Despite Greys acknowledgement of heavy surveillance in Xinjiang, he has devoted the past five months denying the existence of detention camps in the region, citing his bike ride as evidence.

In March, he was in quarantine after returning home from a trip to Thailand. It was six months on from his visit to Xinijiang. I was bored silly, so I opened up my Twitter account and thought, I know what Ill do. One of the things I can do is I can start tweeting about the bike ride.

Grey began with two followers and now has more than 4,000. Many of them are Chinese users, living both within the country and abroad. His Twitter page is a relentless rehashing of his camp-free cycling tour. We didnt see any concentration camps, but the days and nights in Xinjiang require a lot of concentration to get through, he quipped in one July 15 post.

Grey has, inevitably, attracted the attention of Chinese media. On the day we spoke, he was scheduled to speak with the state TV channel CGTN directly after.

Their propaganda department absolutely sucks. And I think maybe Im being used, but Im being used to deliver a message that I believe in, he said. Theyre not telling me what to say.

Other Beijing-based news outlets have already featured interviews with Grey: Australian offers candid observation of Xinjiang distinct from Western characterizations, ran one headline on the website of the Global Times newspaper in June.

Though Greys individual reach is modest, he is part of a network of users that all share a similar message. He calls them his comrades in arms.

Carl Zha, a Chinese-American Twitter user with 43,000 followers, spends his mornings surfing in the turquoise waters of Bali, Indonesia, before returning to his fiancee, three puppies, and his job as an influencer posting and broadcasting about China. Zha, 43, was born in China a month after Mao Zedongs death and left for the U.S when he was 13. Over the past two years, he has become known for his content about Xinjiang. His posts are devoted to attacking Western reports of human rights abuses in the region and painting coverage of Uyghur oppression as an influence operation designed to incite tension between the U.S. and China.

The US government is pushing Cold War propaganda to get us involved in another war, he told me in a Skype interview. Despite the content of his Twitter account, he said he doesnt deny that China has inflicted human rights abuses on its Uyghur population.

I feel very conflicted about what the Chinese government is doing, because it is very heavy-handed, it is a massive social engineering project, he said. I asked him whether he had spoken to any Uyghurs about the issue. He said that he has been a member of a WeChat group of Uyghur and Han people from Xinjiang in 2015. Its pretty much defunct now, he said, explaining that it went quiet when Xinjiang authorities cracked down on communication two years later.

Since then, despite extensively posting about Xinjiang, Zha told me he had not had a conversation with any other Uyghurs, either living in Xinjiang or abroad. Nobody has reached out to me, he said. The Uyghurs living in exile there are actually plenty of outlets for them right now. I mean theres many all the news channels, all the mainstream news. Im a small shop. Im a one-person channel.

Zhas podcast about China, titled Silk and Steel, hosts mostly like-minded guests, including Jerry Grey. Zha said he wasnt opposed to speaking with Uyghurs and told me that he had featured a Hong Kong protester on the show.

Im not just a shitposter that posts a lot my podcast is my income stream. Thats whats supporting me to live in Bali, he said.

Zha and Grey are part of a group of bloggers, YouTubers and social media personalities backed by legions of automated accounts who seek to play down Uyghur oppression in Xinjiang. They see reports of Uyghur human rights abuses as attempts to attack Beijing, and believe that Western coverage of the Xinjiang crisis forms part of a state-funded offensive against China.

Though the accounts of Zha and Grey are run by real people, there are hundreds of accounts within their network which appear to be inauthentic. These coordinated accounts, seen by Coda Story, all spout Chinese propaganda content claiming Xinjiang is happy and thriving. Some claim to be run by Uyghurs. If they were authentic Xinjiang Twitter accounts, their users would require a VPN to access them a practice that can mean instant arrest in the region.

Over on TikTok, the top-ranking videos on the Xinjiang hashtag bring up beautiful images of the region, interlaced with videos claiming the camps in Xinjiang are a conspiracy theory. A top result comes from an American user called @vagdentata. I keep seeing people post about the Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, claiming there are concentration camps there that is not true, its fabricated by the CIA. On Friday, President Trump banned dealings with Chinese tech giants TikTok and WeChat and announced he would bar both apps from operating in the U.S, unless they were sold to a U.S. buyer within 45 days.

Mamutjan Abdurehim, 42, is a Uyghur father living alone in Sydney. He has spent a great deal of time on social media, trying to find out more about the situation in Xinjiang. He is troubled by the presence of the denialists he encounters on the internet.

Thats the most painful part of being online, he said. Seeing somebody denying openly denying whats going on there and trying to portray activists as agents of the West or agents of Western propaganda. Thats very, very painful.

Abdurehim believes his wife, Muherrem Ablet, is currently imprisoned in Xinjiang. She and their two children were separated from him after they had to return to China to replace her passport. In April 2017, Abdurehims wife was rounded up and sent to a camp. The family was told she would be entering a brief period of study. Except for a short message when she was allowed out on day release in late May 2017, Abdurehim has not heard from his wife since.

Abdurehim said he is often kept awake at night after reading conspiracy theories denying Uyghur oppression. I get tempted to respond to them and fight them over Twitter, he said. But I calm myself down. No, no, no, no need for that.

Alongside Abdurehim, there are thousands of Uyghurs around the world who have testified about their missing family members in Xinjiang. Since 2016, the region has been subjected to a brutal crackdown, corralling Uyghurs into a sprawling network of detention centers, camps and prisons.

Researchers and journalists have unearthed overwhelming evidence of Xinjiangs surveillance and detention programs. As a result, they are often targeted by bots, trolls, and pro-Beijing influencers. Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who published a report exposing Xinjiangs forced labor system in March, is one of them.

There have been a lot of attacks against me and my family on the internet, she said, explaining that her critics are not interested in seeing evidence of oppression in Xinjiang.

They have decided that if we publish material that appears to be criticizing the Chinese government, then we must have been paid by a foreign government; we must have secret agendas. But, no matter how strong the research is, no matter how much evidence we have, theyre not going to be persuaded otherwise.

One Twitter account that frequently targets Xu is run under the name Xi Fan. Its owner says she is a young Chinese woman living in Victoria, Australia, who grew up in Xinjiang. Her tweets are typical of pro-Beijing channels: TikTok videos showing Chinas tourist attractions, mixed with political content often justifying the Chinese governments crackdowns on Tibetans, Hong Kongers, the Falun Gong religious movement and Xinjiangs Muslim minorities.

On the day that the new Hong Kong security law was passed, giving Beijing sweeping powers to clamp down on dissent, she tweeted: Ive been looking forward to this day for a long time. I was in the street when I heard the good news, and jumped for joy. Hong Kong is finally stable.

When I contacted Xi for an interview, she would only answer my questions publicly on the platform. Our back and forth lasted a whole day. When I joined Twitter, I saw articles here about Xinjiang, I was shocked and angry, she said. These articles are complete distortions of reporting, which is why I am speaking out.

I asked her what her response was to the thousands of Uyghurs around the world who have spoken out about abuses in Xinjiang. They are liars. They are trying to subvert China, incite ethnic hatred and split China. Paid by CIA, to attack China. And u stupid idiot believe that, she said. She added: U believe what u want to believe. And Uyghur are still living a stable and happy life in China. Soon after, she stopped responding to my questions.

Illustration by Sofiya Voznaya

Excerpt from:

Pro-Beijing influencers and their rose-tinted view of life in Xinjiang - Coda Story

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that saving unarmed Kashmiris from the oppression of Indian forces is a challenge posed by the Modi government to the whole world.

"Modi has challenged the world, the way he has aggressively taken over control of Kashmir," Shehbaz said, while addressing the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

He said Pakistan will have to move past "empty rhetoric" and fight for Kashmir with practical steps.

"We will have to expose India before the world at the diplomatic level," he added.

The PML-N leader said that the abrogation of Article 370 by India on August 5, 2019, was a tragedy for the region.

Earlier in his speech, Shehbaz thanked the AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider for inviting the opposition to Muzaffarabad.

The visit comes two days after Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the region's capital to show solidarity with Kashmiris on Youm-e-Istehsal.

Youm-e-Istehsal was marked in Pakistan and all over the world on Wednesday to observe the one-year anniversary of August 5, 2019, when the Indian government illegally annexed occupied Kashmir into two union territories by revoking Article 370 of its constitution.

See the rest here:

Shehbaz says oppression of unarmed Kashmiris Modis challenge to the world - Geo News

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday took center stage at a ceremony laying the foundations for a temple at a flashpoint holy site exactly a year after imposing direct rule on Muslim-majority Kashmir twin triumphs for his Hindu nationalist government.

The site at Ayodhya, and Kashmir, have been two of the most divisive communal issues of the past 30 years in India, and Modi has attempted to draw a line under both.

For his fans, both steps confirm Modi elected to a second-straight term in a landslide victory last year as a decisive, visionary and heroic leader, and Indias most important in decades.

His critics see him as remolding the officially secular country of 1.3 billion as a Hindu nation at the expense of Indias 200 million Muslims.

Modi has certainly been Indias most transformative leader in recent memory, making him wildly popular, but also highly controversial and quite divisive, said Micheal Kugelman, deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center.

The holy city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh has long been a religious tinderbox, providing the spark for some of its worst sectarian violence.

In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed a centuries-old mosque there that they believed had been built on the birthplace of Ram, an important deity. This triggered religious riots that killed 2,000 people, most of them Muslims.

A lengthy legal battle ensued, but in November last year in a major victory for Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Indias top court awarded the site to Hindus, allowing a temple touching the sky to be built.

Yesterdays elaborate religious ceremony was shown live on television and was reportedly set to be beamed in Times Square in New York City. Small celebrations also took place across India.

A masked Modi, 69, shared the stage with the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a militaristic hardline Hindu group that is parent to the BJP and which Modi joined as a young man.

Not only mankind, but the entire universe, all the birds and animals, are enthralled by this golden moment, the main priest chanted.

Modi is going to make his position permanently in history purely on the strength of this temple, his biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said.

Further cementing Modis place in his countrys annals is Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan since 1947 and the spark for two wars and the source of much bloodshed.

The BJP had long seen the special status enjoyed by the part of Kashmir controlled by India as a historical wrong, and on Aug. 5 last year, Modi abolished it.

An accompanying security operation turned the region into a fortress for weeks, with telecommunications cut and thousands taken into custody.

Even now, India has maintained stifling restraints on Kashmiris in violation of their basic rights, Human Rights Watch has said.

Fearing protests ahead of the anniversary, thousands of Indian troops on Tuesday imposed a tight curfew in Kashmir.

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who on Tuesday released a new map showing all of Kashmir as part of Pakistan led a protest march in Muzaffarabad.

We will never accept, and neither will the Kashmiris, the illegal Indian actions and oppression of the Kashmiri people, Khan said in a statement.

Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

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Modi government enjoys twin triumphs -

Zarah Sultana, PoK-origin UK MP/ Official Twitter account  |  Photo Credit: Twitter

London: A Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK)-origin Labour MP has sought UK's intervention in the Kashmir matter. In a letter which brazenly refers to Kashmir as 'Indian occupied Kashmir', the MP, Zarah Sultana has said that 'Britain had laid the groundwork for the oppression that Kashmiris face today' by executing the partition of India. She also said that the UK has a moral obligation to 'right these wrongs'.

In a tweet on August 5, Sultana had said, "1 year ago today the Indian government unilaterally revoked the semi-autonomous status of Indian Occupied Kashmir.Human rights abuses, repression & brutal lockdown ensued. I've written to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to honour Britain's obligations to the Kashmiri people."

On the day coinciding the anniversary of Indian government's decision to revoke Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, Sultana, in her letter, claims that human rights organisations have reported 'human rights violations, including torture, rape, extrajudicial execution and illegal detention' in Kashmir.

"As you know, in 1947, acting as a colonial power the British government oversaw the partition of the Indian subcontinent. This laid the groundwork for the oppression that the Kashmiri people face to this day. Britain, therefore, has a special obligation to right the wrongs," the letter states.

The move may be viewed against the backdrop of several attempts by Pakistan to internationalise the Kashmir matter. Most recently, Turkey had claimed that India's decision to abrogate Article 370 did not contribute to peace in the region. India hit back at Turkey and urged that country to refrain from commenting on India's internal matters.

The rest is here:

Right these wrongs: PoK-origin Labour MP wants UK to intervene in Kashmir - Times Now

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After Ram Mandir bhoomi pujan, Article 370 and triple talaq, many Bharatiya Janata Party observers are asking, What next? The clue to the BJPs future agenda lies in two factors: one is in the past, in how the partys politics changed after the 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid; and two, in how Prime Minister Narendra Modi sees his own role.

After the demolition, the BJP faced what political scientist John McGuire described as a moment of crisis. It had reaped the political gains of the Ram temple movement, but now that the issue was over, it had to redefine itself.

The BJP would do so over the next four years, remaking itself from a hard Hindutva party to a party of governance a national alternative to the Congress. When the 1996 Lok Sabha election came, Lal Krishna Advani was on a surajya (good governance) yatra and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was emphasising the BJPs commitment to pluralism and tolerance.

There are some optimists who hope that the successful completion of the BJPs Right-wing projects under Modi Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Article 370, triple talaq and now Ram Mandir would similarly precipitate another move to the centre. Now that the BJP has reached the limits of the potential gains from cultural nationalism, it will finally focus on issues of governance.

This view is deeply mistaken. In an article last year, I had argued that while Modis first term was defined by the soft Hindutva mixed with social welfare of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, its second term would be defined by hard Hindutva of V.D. Savarkar and the remaking of the Indian nation. The first term was used by Modi to patiently redefine the centre and mainstream of Indian politics, while holding off on the implementation of core issues. From this redefined centre, Modi has finally unleashed his transformative cultural nationalism agenda and this would likely last for the remainder of his second term. The next big political issues are likely to be UCC (Uniform Civil Code) and NRC (National Register of Citizens).

The BJP under Modi is remaking both Hindu identity and national identity, a project that is still a long way away from completion.

Also read: In his second term, Modi govt has moved from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya to Veer Savarkar

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During the mid-1990s, the BJPs expansion was predicated on political moderation. In 1996, its coalition government led by Vajpayee fell in 13 days because no major party, except the Shiv Sena, Samta party and Shiromani Akali Dal, wanted to ally with it owing to its communal image. As political scientist Michael Gillan noted in his study Assessing the National Expansion of Hindu Nationalism: The BJP in Southern and Eastern India, 1996-2001, the BJP aggressively sought coalition allies in this phase on the basis of a common anti-Congress platform and reconfigured Hindutva to suit regional contexts, as opposed to big national Hindutva issues. In fact, the BJPs 1999 manifesto, astonishingly, had no mention of Ram Mandir.

The BJP is now in its phase of dominance, and is freed from the constraints of regional allies. The compromises have to be made by regional parties, recently seen with the AAP and BSP, in line with the BJPs ideological agenda, not the other way around.

Also read: Why the Modi government gets away with lies, and how the opposition could change that

Hindutva is now the pathway to the BJPs consolidation and expansion. In West Bengal, the political fight is between BJPs Hindutva and Mamata Banerjees Bengali pride resisting the suzerainty of Delhi. In Telangana, the BJP accuses the TRS of appeasing Asaduddin Owaisis AIMIM, celebrates the day of the states accession as liberation from Muslim oppression, and its state president promises the UCC. In Assam, the BJPs entire politics is based upon the fear of the Bangladeshi Muslim. These state-level communal agendas have to be necessarily packaged within a national narrative.

Hence, the BJP would likely push the UCC before the 2021 election in West Bengal, challenging Mamata Banerjees TMC to defend special protections for minorities, a charge on which she is politically vulnerable. This will be supplemented in Bengal (and other key states) by what political scientists Sudha Pai and Sajjan Kumar have described as the Uttar Pradesh model of riot. Rather than instigating major and violent state-wide riots as in the earlier phase, the BJP-RSS have attempted to create and sustain constant, low-key communal tension together with frequent, small, low-intensity incidents out of petty everyday issues that institutionalise communalism at the grass roots, to keep the pot boiling, the authors wrote in their book Everyday Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh.

In fact, we are already seeing this model at play in Bengal, the latest example being the Telinipara riots. In Uttar Pradesh, we might see the completion of the Ram Mandir just before the 2022 assembly election, rekindling Hindu consciousness.

Also read: Modi faces no political costs for suffering he causes. Hes just like Irans Ali Khamenei

The widespread Hindu consolidation under Narendra Modi is still in its infancy. Caste and regional identities are still potent under the surface. If the BJP relaxes on its cultural nationalist agenda of us versus them (Muslims), these regional and caste identities will regain political salience and hamper the party. Indeed, backward caste identities are being progressively integrated in the Hindutva project, a phenomenon known as subaltern Hindutva. The PMs reference to Raja Suheldev a backward caste icon who supposedly resisted Muslim aggression in his Ayodhya speech is just the most recent instance of this careful strategy.

Modi hardly ever names Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or Rajiv Gandhi because he is not competing with them. The competitor he sets up for himself is Jawaharlal Nehru, the pre-eminent architect of modern, secular India who defined the country for its first four decades of Independence.

Modi presents himself in similar historical terms, not as an economic reformer or a social welfare populist, but as a nation builder or rebuilder a saffron Nehru. The former politicians might be held accountable in one or two terms, but people understand that remaking the nation is a long drawn-out affair. Much like the country gave Nehru three terms to complete his project, Modi implicitly asks Indians to trust him with a similarly long time-frame.

Also read: Bhoomipujan 2020 is like Balakot 2019, the surgical strike that washes all sins

People seem to have bought into this framing of politics. In states they might punish the BJP for failure on economic issues such as farmer distress and unemployment, which we saw in Maharashtra and Haryana but national politics has been delinked from economic issues. As India slides into its worst economic recession since Independence, Modis popularity is at an all-time high.

This is helpful for the BJP since the economic recession means almost certainly that the Modi government will not go into 2024 with any major economic achievements. It takes many years for the economy to recover from such a deep recession. Since a lot of fiscal space will be taken in ameliorating the impact of the public health/economic crisis, theBJP wont have the space to launch any new big social sector schemes or expand the welfare state.

The fact that Modi now almost never talks about India by 2022 a set of ambitious targets in the sectors of housing, electricity, internet, and drinking water among others is an indicator that those targets wouldnt likely be achieved. Neither it is likely that Modi would spend much political capital on big economic reforms, lest economic issues come back to the centre of political debate.

If the opposition is waiting for the cultural nationalistic issues to subside of its own accord and material issues to become salient again, it will have to wait for a long time. It is almost predetermined that the BJP will go into 2024 on the plank of Hindu nationalism, because it is not just the most potent option but also, in many ways, its only option.

Mao had described his system of rule as permanent revolution. In making revolution, one must strike when the iron is hot one revolution must follow another, the revolution must continually advance. This was how the new Chinese nation would be created after centuries of feudalism and imperialism.

In the Hindutva ideology espoused by Modi, Indian is emerging after centuries of Muslim/British/secularist rule of Hindu oppression 1200 years of slave mentality, in Modis words. Article 370, CAA, and Ram Temple bhoomi pujan are just one cycle of the new permanent revolution many such cycles of revolution await to play their part in the building of New India.

The author is a research associate at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Views are personal.

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Art 370, CAA, triple talaq, Ram Mandir are just one cycle of Modis permanent revolution - ThePrint

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By Reneva Fourie

South Africa should not be struggling to overcome its current challenges of underdevelopment and corruption as there is an entire generation of remarkable women that is under-utilised.

The women that led anti-apartheid struggles inside the country during the 1980s are hardworking, selfless, highly knowledgeable and competent, with impeccable integrity. They possess a unique capacity to motivate and lead people because they acquired the skill by convincing many to risk their lives (and livelihoods) for a cause. Empowering others is inherent in this cohort of women; for having a second layer of leadership to replace them in the event of detention or death, was imperative.

As we celebrate the brave actions of women who on August 9, 1956, marched to the Union Buildings and demanded the abolishment of the Pass Laws, we honour too on this day, the women activists from the decades before, and from the decades thereafter.

I want to share some of the contributions made by women from my hometown, Grassy Park, to our fight against apartheid in the 1980s. I do so because younger women activists always challenge me about the lack of material on women activists from the 1980s.

Secondly, it is hoped that their rich experiences will motivate even more women of younger generations to become emboldened social activists.

And thirdly, but most importantly, I seek to highlight that South Africa does not have a shortage of women leaders. I focus only on my area, for if I were to focus on the Western Cape, or even just the Southern Suburbs Region, the stories would amount to volumes.

Grassy Park is a beautiful suburb in the Western Cape that is home to three scenic lakes - Princess Vlei, Zeekoe Vlei; and Rondevlei Nature Reserve. Now densely populated (and even viewed as mildly dangerous by some) the apartheid designated coloured area, had a mixed class composition - the largest portion of whom were professionals.

Grassy Park has a rich history of anti-apartheid activity. Sam Kahn still resides there. Many known leaders from the area like Dr Neville Alexander and Imam Gassan Solomon have now passed. Other contemporary leaders who hail from the area include the first Director-General of Trade and Industry, Dr Alistair Ruiters; former Sactwu General Secretary and current Minister of Trade and Industry, Ebrahim Patel; and former Cosatu Deputy President and Minister of Human Settlements, Connie September. The area has produced too many leaders for me to list.

What is less known is that the leaders in Grassy Park during the 1980s were mostly women. And here I am not just referring to members of the local branch of the United Womens Congress (UWCO). Women led in the branches of the student movement (Lotus River/ Grassy Park Students Action Committee-Logsac), the Cape Youth Congress (Cayco), the civic movement (Lotus River/ Grassy Park Residents Association-Logra), and the church youth movement (Inter-church Youth - ICY).

It was women who ran the Congress-aligned local Advice Office and it was a woman who led the local ANC underground cell.

In addition to political work, women activists ran soup kitchens, childrens groups, and adult literacy classes. Leadership extended beyond Grassy Park to include regional and provincial levels.

Experiences such as these enabled the development of extraordinary organisational, management and interpersonal skills among all activists from that era, which should be drawn upon, to get our country out of its current quagmire.

The powerful women activists from my hometown include Norma Gabriels; Lorna, Anthea and Beulah Houston; Aisha and Madeniyah Slamang; Cindy and Zenda Woodman, Fatima, Rabia and Suleila Ismail; Hilary Oostendorp; Blanche Paulse; Crystal and Dee Dicks; Carlette and Margo Johannissen; Marcella, Danielle and Celeste Naidoo and their mom, the late Willemina Naidoo; Farida Khan; Pamela Harris; Sherine Franz; Vanessa Calvert; Donna Miller; Carol-Anne Davids, Barenise Weeder, Chrissie Francis and the late Carmen Hefele. These women are all educated professionals who remain social activists, albeit in a far more subdued manner (or they apply their skills internationally).

Sure, the Peter Mokabas and Blade Nzimandes of this world have undoubtedly influenced me, but I cannot help but feel overwhelmingly blessed to have been surrounded by phenomenal women, all my life in my family, in my community, and throughout my career.

I profile only Julie Jaffer, Ghairo Daniels, Sara Ryklief, Natalie McAskill and Charlene Houston. I thank them for permitting me to publish some of their stories; for the enormity of their contributions can never be captured in one short article. Reading their stories gives insight into our hidden history, and highlights that there are capable, ethical leaders who continue to serve.

Julie Jaffer

There are few people who are as deeply loved in Grassy Park as the peoples doctor, Dr Zuleiga (or Julie as she is fondly known) Jaffer. In addition to serving the community as a health practitioner; she treated our bruises after run-ins with the police and special branch; and was a pillar of reason in meetings of UWCO and, post-unbanning, meetings of the African National Congress and its Womens League.

Her assertiveness emanated from her parents instilling a rejection of societal boundaries in her from an early age, emphasising that she should accept no label other than that of her being a human being. She became politically active as a 14-year old and underwent a gradual process of conscientisation until being recruited to do community work as a means to raise political awareness in the area.

Her determination to fight for a united, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa was deepened by the murder of Iman Haroon in detention, during her time as a university student and her experiences later, as an intern at Somerset Hospital during the 1976 uprisings. Organising in conditions of severe repression was dangerous, but she and her fellow intern, Sophie, started organising workers at Somerset Hospital and subsequently facilitated a successful march in solidarity with the students. She was also among the first who called for free healthcare for all and was one of the people who contributed to the formation of the UDF.

One of the earliest campaigns that Logra (led by Julie and others) mounted was the Lower rates and rents Campaign, which combined different class issues. She recalls being scared at the goals of the campaign, but they did it anyway. One of the achievements was taking the officials of the Divisional Council on a tour of the area to see the poor conditions of peoples homes and the environment. It was the first time the authorities saw the area that they made decisions about.

Julie also had a wonderful way of organising women around issues that interested them and then using the event to create awareness around racial, sexual and class inequalities. Once our democratic government was in place, she contributed to building the local ANC branch and the Womens League branch. More recently she was part of a small group of women deepening democracy through a loose network that brings decision-makers into closer connection with ordinary women, thereby contributing to the sharing of accurate information on service delivery.

Julie was also involved at St Lukes Hospice until she took up a post at UCT teaching palliative medicine. At the same time, she hosted book readings promoting local authors, especially women. Donations collected at the events were used to upgrade communal areas at public hospitals. Julie and her team wanted these spaces to look as beautiful as private hospitals and give patients a more dignified experience. Later the funds were used to support the Grassy Park branch of St Luke's. Currently, Julie is considering new ways to address the very basic and urgent need for food security in the community.

Sahra Ryklief

Sahra Ryklief does not view herself as an activist but rather as an empowerer of activists. Indeed, while she was never at the forefront of resistance, her compassion, diligence, wise guidance and constant presence in every activity of resistance in the area of Grassy Park in the 1980s, and thereafter her services in the labour movement, have contributed to the building of many strong activists and leaders.

She is an autodidact and has a lasting love, respect and allegiance for informal learning spaces, individual and group, specifically public libraries (and more recently, online resources) and the learning which occurs in social, cultural and workplace associations. She worked as a public librarian for the first decade and a half of her working life, which got many a young person, including myself, to visit the library daily. She developed an internal training programme for rural and urban librarians, ran a youth drama group and halfway through her tenure as a municipal librarian became the trade union representative for the amenities and cemeteries sector of the municipal union.

She began working at the Trade Union Library in 1990 and spent the next 20 years doing information provision, research and education for trade unions and developing programmes, projects and publications for what is now the Labour Research Service. In 1996, she joined the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Worker Education Associations (IFWEA) and was elected General Secretary of IFWEA at the 20th General Conference held in Ahmedabad, India in 2007. She stood again for election at the 2011, 2015 and 2019 General Conferences. This will be her last term before retiring.

Sahra holds a Master of Arts degree in political science from the University of Liverpool and is an adjunct instructor for the Labor Studies and Employment Relations department of the School of Management and Labour Relations at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. She has produced research for the department and teaches a course for their labour studies degree on Social Movements, Social Change and Work.

Ghairo Daniels

No single event motivated Ghairo Daniels to become politically active, though singular events were key factors. The consciousness into which she was born, predisposed her to participate in correcting social injustice. She was aware of the inequalities and injustices between her mother and father; within her extended family; and within the community of District Six, before she could speak.

Forced removal from District Six to the barren Hanover Park on the Cape Flats, based on colour, made an enormous impact on her young mind. This became the transition point from a sad, frustrated child-observer of wrongs to an ardent and hardworking activist. Being teargassed and baton-charged and finding solace in St. George's Cathedral during 1976, then her later detention and torture under Section Six of the Terrorism Act, added fuel to fire. The experience of solitary confinement and interrogation in prison cells gave her an opportunity to understand the minds of the oppressors better. This, in turn, led to her belief that the organisation of groups of people acting in a rational, disciplined and consensual way was crucial in confronting oppression.

As a student activist in the Congress of South African Students (Cosas), the Azanian African Students Organisation (Azaso the precursor to the current Sasco); in the Committee of 81, which spearheaded the 1980 student insurrection; and her continued community activism in Grassy Park/Lotus River, the area which she moved to in her later years, she gained awareness of her skills in coordination, administration and communication. She also possessed talent in seeing the macro-picture and translating this into feasible strategies, objectives and plans. Throughout her life as a political activist, as well as within her professional career, those were the skills most used, besides her inherent strong intuition.

As a young mother, it also saddened her that her young daughter was tagged along to all kinds of political meetings at all hours of the day and night. She was brought home from hospital into a house which harboured MK cadres and where they lived without electricity. Though, on the upside, her daughter could sing "The Internationale" at two years old.

Professionally, she worked in large national non-governmental organisations, notably SACHED Trust and Idasa, at the executive level, before joining Parliament post the 1994 elections to set up the Office of the Leader of Government Business, being instrumental in developing the legislative flow system and controlling the parliamentary programme. Serving the first Parliament under Madiba was both a privilege and a humbling experience. She left national Parliament both by default and divine design to commence an awesome journey of soul-searching. This included community work on farms in small towns, solitary meditation for a couple of months in the Knysna forest and her training as a healer, peace consultant and meditator.

Natalie McAskill

Natalie McAskill has been a life-long community activist. Her ambition has always just been to serve. She is committed to social justice and believed that apartheid was wrong. Accordingly, she sought to do her bit to get rid of it, using every platform that she could, focusing on media and campaigns to ensure that the voices of the marginalised were heard.

Preferring to remain in the background, she applied her astute mind and warm personality, to precisely assessing a situation and firmly guiding us on strategy, tactics and even self-correction during the most dangerous periods of our liberation struggle. Her quiet reserve was certainly not an indicator of weakness, for her courage in those times were immeasurable and her resolve as solid as steel.

Her principles unflinching and her course steadfast, she remains as committed to social development as she did in during the days of her fight against apartheid. Her interest remains communications and using the medium of film to empower young people, particularly those from low-income communities, to elevate their voices, tell their stories, and to let their needs be known. Environmental justice and food sovereignty are also among current her priorities.

Charlene Houston

Though not much older than us, Charlene Houston was the role model for every young militant activist who had the privilege of being in her presence. Having been taught to think critically, or as they said back then think for yourself from a young age; being exposed to the racism that emanated from a simple trip to Kalk Bay beach, labelled non-white, via St James beach, labelled whites-only, and inevitably being chased off; reading Anne Franks Diary; and accompanying her mom to meetings of the Garment Workers Union, formed the backdrop to the makings of a dynamic revolutionary.

Her boundless passion and energy to end injustice, inequality, racism and sexism, saw her initially becoming active in Cosas, raising awareness amongst students, arranging alternative education activities during the 1980s school boycotts, and organising solidarity campaigns around schools who had poor or no resources. She also facilitated the formation of a Cosatu local in support of workers fighting injustices and was active in the formation of the UDF.

Areas like Grassy Park were neglected by national and regional leaders who prioritised working-class areas with resources like pamphlets and the deployment of charismatic speakers. They mistakenly viewed the Grassy Park community as less likely to be mobilised because they were not as oppressed as those living in council flats or township hostels.

This led her to develop a range of community service programmes that filled the gap where local government was not delivering as a member of the Logra Advice office and the Logra civic association, an affiliate of the Cape Housing Action Committee (CAHAC). The programmes were designed to bring people together in groups to learn about rights and justice and to promote action in the form of projects or campaigns. Most of the activities were illegal even when they were not political.

In response to the state brutality that was unleashed with the State of Emergency, she joined uMkhonto weSizwe in 1985, at the age of 19. She operated in deep secrecy because she already had a public profile due to her political work in the community but coordinated a small group to continue mobilisation in schools, among youth and within the religious sector. She also led a womens group which was the forerunner to the unbanning of the Womens League and assisted in setting up ANC and Womens League branches when the organisation was unbanned.

As the political atmosphere post-1990 was shifting dramatically, she immersed herself in transitional politics. She facilitated the establishment of the Western Cape Youth Forum which brought youth from the right and left of the political spectrum together to explore the future. As part of the secretariat at the Consultative Business Movement, she supported dialogues towards building social compacts post-apartheid. In 1994 she set up the Western Cape chapter of the independent observer network for our first democratic elections.

She also worked in the Western Cape Government, where she led some transformation initiatives in the museum sector. Of note is the development of the first provincial policy on sacred human remains held in museums. She also led the very first reburial of remains to happen in the country where remains from 3 museums were returned to associated indigenous communities and reburied in 2018.

Since then, various projects related to good governance and poverty alleviation strategies dominated her time. She has also developed her passion for storytelling into a skill of film making and is currently developing a documentary about Coline Williams with a grant from the National Film Foundation. She is also currently on the Human Remains Working Group of Iziko Museums of South Africa. Having been expelled from high school due to her political work, she has since completed her studies and is now a PhD student.

Conclusion

The few women profiled are just a sample of the innumerable competent women that exist in South Africa. The collective possesses knowledge and skills in public and corporate management, accounting, legal affairs, technological and natural sciences, and many more.

It should not be difficult to locate these skilled women activists from the 1980s; to compile a database of their competencies; and to deploy them once again to serve our country, this time for reconstruction rather than resistance.

It can be assured that they will serve as diligently and honestly today as they did back then, without costing us an arm and a leg.

* Reneva Fourie is an analyst specialising in governance, development and security and currently lives in Damascus, Syria.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL.

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South Africa needs the skills of the women who led resistance in the 1980s - IOL

School will look a little different in the coming years for students across Ontario, due to some major curriculum changes in response to COVID-19 and international action addressing systemic racism within institutions and beyond.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, school boards have been trying to adapt to online teaching. Now, with the knowledge that the threat of coronavirus will still be present come September, the Ministry of Education said it has advised boards to plan for multiple scenarios.

Conventional delivery with enhanced safety protocols, adapted delivery that may include blended models of in-person and remote learning and full remote learning, the implementation of these scenarios are dependent on health advice at any point in the school year, wrote Ingrid Anderson, senior media relations coordinator for the Ministry of Education, in an email.

Kristen Clarke, dean of teaching and learning at Bishop Strachan School, says that BSS will be switching its high school students to a semestered schedule rather than full-year courses. Most courses will be semestered, with the exception of math in Grades 9 and 10, activity-based health and physical education courses, and a few others that are better suited for full-year learning.

Its about manageability. Usually students in our school have eight courses Thats a lot to carry as a full load throughout the course of the year, so this way we can make sure they have fewer topics to focus on, she says. Clarke notes that Grade 9 and 10 students carry eight courses a year, and most Grade 11 students also have eight courses, whereas most Grade 12 students have seven courses.

Clarke also says the school learned from student responses to online teaching in the spring of this year.

Were moving into a blended environment where kids will be learning online and face to face, and we noticed that prioritizing positive, descriptive feedback, versus a whole bunch of evaluative grades, was really helpful, she explains. It sustained many students when they were experiencing stressors and kept them above water in many cases.

For those with students in elementary school, be prepared for a revamped math curriculum that will now include coding and financial literacy.

Our government is modernizing our schools, our curriculum, and the delivery of learning, to ensure students are set up to succeed in an increasingly changing world, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce said according to a press release on July 23.

The curriculum changes also mean that students in Grade 3 and 6 will not be taking the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) assessment in the 20202021 school year, as the ministry works on adjusting the math component of the test to align with the new curriculum.

At TFS-Canadas International School, there will be a large focus on the use of technology as both a medium and a tool for effective teaching and learning, says Khalid El-Metaal, the deputy head of teaching and learning.

The educators will lever the use of Google Classroom as a teaching and learning platform in order to deliver curriculum content whether students are taking part in-person, online or through a hybrid class, he says.

Students at TFS will have the option to remain at home and learn through a distance learning model, and other students will take part in in-person sessions with teachers with small class sizes and hybrid classes that take place in online learning spaces on campus.

While the school is focused on delivering the curriculum effectively, we are also focusing on student wellness, and our first priority for the first few weeks will be forging strong teacher-student relationships, embedding routines and practices that are important in this new learning context, and helping students make sense of the changes, and what is happening around them, says El-Metaal.

There has also been a push for curriculum changes that better address issues of systemic racism within the school system and more broadly throughout the country.

Since international protests and discussions about racism were sparked after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police, advocates have been calling for better and earlier education around race and racism within the classroom.

In response, the Ontario government has looked at some common practices within the current school system that contribute to racism.

The government recently announced plans to end academic streaming [grouping students by ability] in Grade 9 in response to concerns that the practice has disproportionately affected educational outcomes for Black, Indigenous and low-income students. The government has also proposed a ban on suspending younger, elementary-school students, a practice that also disproportionately affects Black students, wrote Anderson.

Theyve also promised to strengthen sanctions for teachers who make racist remarks or perform racist actions.

Although that is a start, Karen Murray, the centrally assigned principal of equity, anti-racism and anti-oppression on the Toronto District School Board, says that the board is still working to do more in terms of the curriculum and the school environment for racialized students.

The intentional work has to happen within the classroom and not in just one specific subject, she says. If youre going to be culturally relevant and responsive, it embeds in all subjects.

She notes that, in her experience, students are more comfortable talking about racism than teachers, and thats something Murray says the board will have to work on.

What [kids] do is they bring their life into the classroom; they talk about what they see, what they lived through. So its the adults that have to push against our own hesitation.

Carl James, a York University professor whose research has focused on the experiences of racialized students in the education system, says bringing those lived experiences of students into the classroom is a necessary step to address some holes in the curriculum.

It [the education system] is very centered on the European experience, he says. Teachers must pay attention to the backgrounds of their students, whether thats race or gender or where the students come from, in order to prepare and effectively reach their students.

Murray says shes seen a positive response from many teachers so far.

More educators are willing to really begin to have those conversations in their classrooms. Before the year ended, you could see that, heightened requests to help support teaching and talking about race and racism as a result of the things kids are seeing in the news.

But the curriculum is provincially mandated, meaning Murray has to work within the wiggle room to incorporate more diverse content. The provincial government has yet to make any changes to the curriculum to directly add anti-racist requirements, though the Ministry of Education has said its proposing anti-racism and anti-discrimination training by the end of 2020.

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How the major events of 2020 are changing education in Ontario - Post City